Category Archives: reflections

less about the trip. More about thinking.

Bad Mechanic

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After three weeks of living alone, the kids are back.  I had to go shopping and ended up with a car full of groceries.  The house doesn’t feel the same; it’s filled with the noises of bodies moving around.  As I settle back in, I have to pick and choose which parts of the solitude I can keep.  Can I really cook for three (and soon four and six as my wife returns and guests descend) without packing back on the six pounds I’ve let go? Will I still ride in the mornings and then spend the afternoons at the gym?  (Of course not — work and family matter more).

In search of balance, I pulled my simplest ride out of the garage but it didn’t feel right.  Wiggly in a subtle way.  Front brake and wheel:  check.  Rear setup:  no good.  Loose bearings.  The relaxing ride turned into an equally relaxing maintenance session that stretched long.  Clouds rolled in, turning the blazing sun into soothing low-contrast ambient light.  I refilled my coffee mug and came back out to try to finesse the delicate balance between the bearings in which they start out too tight.  As each bearing is tightened against the nut, the space opens up slightly into buttery smoothness.  Cone wrenches in hand, eyes in the middle distance, I enjoyed the feel of feathery touches of mist as the lightest of drizzles washed across my skin.

I’m sure the mechanic in town, Bob Flint, could finish this task in seconds (perfectly), while chatting with me in the shop.  I was on the third try when the skies opened up with a crash and rain poured like a torrent across my little mechanical meditation.  It rain into my eyes and down inside mouth.  It turned the grease in my hands to slime and pulled down my socks.  I staggered away from the table, abandoning the wheel and my coffee.  I saved the cone wrenches, but probably only because my hands forgot to put them down.  Bad mechanic.

This is the photo of my transcendental buttery bearing space post apocalypse.  I took it standing under the sun umbrella on the porch (irony intended).  There’s good news.  The rain stopped.  There’s also bad news.  Buttery smoothness was not achieved.  We all know there’s water mixed in there somewhere and the transcendental state is waiting in another place for another day.  On the other hand, I’m not really a perfectionist and I think I should take bike out for a “test” ride now that the clouds have moved away. . . .

If I had a tv . . .

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If I had a tv, I would watch it all the time.  I’m watching the US women try to hold on to a victory against Japan, a reprise of the world cup game I watched, alone, on Spanish tv one year ago. I was alone because I’d turned down a family movie outing.  Today, I’ve turned down hours of racquetball so that I can watch a tiny live stream on a sixth of my screen.  That’s why I simply can’t have a tv.  I would drop everything and turn into a couch potato.  We can think of my anti-tv policy as step one of my weight loss plan.  Plus, watching on the computer let’s me have fun with photos.

This photo is of the Beesley’s Point Bridge, in Great Egg Harbor (near Atlantic city).  I took a break from cycling for a few days to go kayaking in and around the salt marshes.  I love the way that kayaking forces me to think of a three-dimensional environment, full of conflicting vectors of movement.  On the other hand, I also find it intimidating.  Structures like this illustrate this best.  The bridge is falling to pieces, with hazard signs between every set of supports.  The current is racing along perpendicular to the bridge, but the wind is pushing at an angle.  This is the only spot boats can pass and I’m awfully slow.  I was much more comfortable once I got through to the other side!

Beesley’s Point Bridge from the water

This is a complicated photo.  I used RAWtherapee to create two different exposure levels and then enfused them with enfuseGUI.  The result was modified slightly in photoshop and then blended with bright and blurred levels aka orton.  The frame is from OnOne

50 miles. No camera.

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I managed a 50-mile ride yesterday sandwiched between storms.  I’d planned on something shorter, but I forget to put the flash card back in my camera.  Yup, pretty silly.  I have spare cards in my camera back, but I’d grabbed the body and lenses and tucked them in to my backpack. Nothing to do but shake my head and get back on the bike.

I was riding my favorite – a cannondale mountain bike (M500) from a decade or so ago.  As stuff broke, I took it off, so there’s only one speed.  I cycled south along the South Putnam trail until the New York City line, followed the dirt track to Van Cortland, then Broadway south until the George Washington bridge, at which point I cut over to the bike trail along the river.  I was going to take pictures near the Fairway at 125th, but continued south to Battery Park instead.

Storms rolled in on the way back but I made it home in a drizzle.  Within 15 minutes it was raining to drown the dead.  I carefully put the flash card back in the camera, but I think the better plan might to keep the cycling separate from the photos.  Maybe I’ll take the train in with my camera bag and hike over to the bike path and down to the village.  There’s a project for Monday.