Thursday, January 31, 2008

A Thought for the Day

I'd generally consider being decisive, and knowing what one wants to be a good thing, but it can be taken too far. For example, I know a man who will only eat "Boar's Head" brand cold cuts. He has repeatedly expressed his preference for this brand, even though I can't recall anyone ever asking. This preference seems to go beyond just a preference and really seems to be a source of pride. In this case, he just seems finicky because of it. Maybe his very vocal loathing for vegetables in general doesn't help his case. Or maybe he's normal and I'm just jealous of his iPhone.

Friday, January 25, 2008

A Busy Year

Well, what can I say? It's been quite a year, and as I just noticed, I still have a blog after a full year of letting it gather edust. So, here's what happened, in a nutshell.

Changed jobs: Early this year, I changed jobs. In fact, I went back to the job I'd left only about a year and a half earlier. I had left on good terms and when they heard I was back on the market they immediately called me up, as they were adding a position to the engineering department. It felt like going home. The updates and upgrades in the factory were a nice assurance that business was good, too. It's been a busy time, but knowing what I know now, I never would have left. Perhaps even as exciting is the fact that I'm back in a place where I feel safe biking to work again, a benefit which I've been trying to take advantage of as much as possible.

The Garden: I still enjoy gardening when the weather is nice, although my dreams and schemes for building a temporary dome greenhouse for winters have succumbed to real-world reality, a did add a terraced garden area to the sloped back yard. Ever seen a cubic yard of dirt bags in a Subaru? This year I'll look into actually pruning back the tomato plants.

Biking: As I said before, my current job allows me a fairly nice route for riding my bicycle to work. I have once again become a fair-weather bike commuter. However, I have purchased a nice old 12 speed road bike which I am rebuilding as a commuter bike. I still haven't decided whether I'll keep the derailleurs, convert it to singlespeed or add a nice internally geared hub. Whatever I do, the current rear hub, which has a bit of a wobbly gear cluster needs to go, if I'm going to trust this bike to get me to work on a daily basis. A nice lighting system would also add a lot of time to my riding season, which currently is shortened, not by weather, but by lack of daylight. My problem is in finding/funding a good lighting system. More of the latter. Whatever happens, though, I really miss riding on a daily basis, and recent events, which I won't go into, have really been a reminder that I really need to get out of the car and off of my ass more often. Sure, it's fun to ride, but it's become a lot more than that.