It's Been a Long Time

I haven't posted in a really long time. In fact, it has been so long that I went to Italy with a class of 19 students, came back, started cleaning out my office, and still hadn't posted anything.

At this point, I am not even going to attempt an online version of my Padua journal. Maybe when we go to Istanbul in December I will keep an online journal. We did have a good time, even when things weren't going smoothly.

Finally, I have returned to cycling in a big way (for me). The bike had been sitting in the garage since March and I really wanted to go riding. But, being afraid of traffic and riding alone, figuring out how to get to organized rides, etc. I didn't do much about it. Finally this month I bought a bike rack for the car and I have actually used it. On Tuesday night, July 25, I went out with the PCC level one riders. Being naive, I thought we would ride about 5 miles or so. No, it was 15 miles and we had to go up the overpass on Kirby to get out of town. That was scary. I also discovered that my seat was too low, by over 5 inches. Starting and stopping are still an ongoing learning experience. I forget to take my feet out of the cages, then I forget to use my brakes. The joys of going from a coaster bike as a kid to a real bike as a 54-year-old.

Saturday I took my bike to Meadowbrook and did the Saturday Saunter with the PCC. We went out to Tolono, which was about 20 miles. I fell off once, stopping, but I did get better about taking my feet out of the cages after that. Everyone was very friendly and helpful on both rides, so I plan to do the same thing this week, although the heat will be even worse than last week.

Now I am just hoping that Peter will get a bike too so that we can ride together. Fortunately the bike rack will hold two bikes. I think he would be happy with a hybrid like mine (of course the male version).

Yesterday, rather than cycling, Peter and I went to the movies and saw "Scoop." We hadn't seen a Woody Allen movie for a while and this one was fun. I ran into a couple of people that I knew, something that doesn't usually happen to me at the movies. I was disappointed that OLN decided not to run the Tour de France post-race show. Maybe they are waiting until the Landis thing is clarified. Then again, maybe not. But I was frustrated when I discovered that I had recorded an hour of billiards.

Oh well, time to do some reading. I have a book to review and a class to start preparing. If I'm lucky, Peter will find some more boxes for me and I can get even more stuff out of my office and in our basement. I am ready to count the days to retirement. Tomorrow I started crossing them off on my calendar. Roll on Nov. 15.