Alaskan Pack Fodder

I'm not that guy anymore. Too much time off the bike, too much sitting around, too much extra weight. Too little aerobic capacity and lean muscle mass. I've been tooling around the Biloxi area in the small ring, trying to train away my natural tendency to grind, which uses muscles I no longer possess. My average speed for these jaunts was pitiful, but it was more about getting out and building some sort of a base of cycling fitness. From pretty much nothing. So obviously it was a great idea to tag along on a weekly hammer ride. In the dark. On twisty roads I didn't know. With riders I didn't know. Having flashbacks of my last crit crash, the one that effectively ended my racing days. I was a ball of tension, redlined and closing gaps I should have never let open. Yeah, I was dropped. Once we re-grouped, I hung on. Once on familiar roads, I did ok. I wasn't at the front, but I wasn't dropped, either. The saddle sores I have been cultivating were screaming every t...

  The last time I was in Biloxi was in November of 2016. I was recovering from a broken collar bone, but otherwise was relatively fit, lean, and getting fitter and leaner. Because I had nothing else to do and energy to burn, I rode a lot. It was wasted effort that translated into burnout during the trainer season, but I really didn't care. I hadn't been riding at all. A handful of road rides before the season ended. A couple fat bike rides when the trails near my house were packed well. Mostly I've hiked, cross-country skied, and sat on my fat ass. Primarily the latter. I knew I was going to be spending the month of February in Biloxi. I swore I was going to get back on the trainer in preparation, but I never did. I came in cold. I packed all sorts of warmers and raingear and stuff that I have yet to use.I forgot all sorts of tools. My tires were excessively worn and my tubes weren't in great shape either. I ended up buying new ones after a horrible first ride led to 4 ...

Today I opened this blog for the first time since April 19, 2021. 827 days ago. Two years, three months, and six days ago. What happened? Anyone who was reading (like, all five of them) the last couple years could have seen it coming. Any number of things combined in a malevolent way to blow it all up. I kept riding on the trainer (but not on the road) for almost another year, because I didn't know what else to do. One day at Point Barrow during a class for a new position with my company, my left ear started ringing and my eustachian tube closed off. A week later I started running into stuff and falling over. A couple weeks later I started to experience extreme vertigo with nausea and often violent vomiting- sometimes while seated in front of a desk. I would be out for a couple days until I felt the episode had sufficiently passed. I went to ENT specialists, had a CAT scan, had my blood tested for everything under the sun... I have Meniere's disease , which usually starts aroun...

As my time at Cape Lisburne drew to a close, I rode less and less on the trainer. After three days of skipped workouts, I finally got on my last day before packing everything up. A casualty of too many days out in sub-zero temperatures, hanging in a harness off a roof catwalk reinforcing and  aligning a wind-battered satellite dish that is a difficult one even in more favorable conditions. It took its toll on my body, but I was determined to at least make it work better. I did, but there was a bill to pay afterwards. I came home and so far have been successful at avoiding the bike. It's not hard if you don't make the effort. Actually, I wake up every morning and pet my dogs, telling them they are the bestest puppies in the whole wide world. Then I get the kids ready for school, drive them across town to drop them off, and run errands on my way home. Projects and other time killers eat up the hours I have before I pick the kids up. Then it's dinner and well... the day is sho...

I tracked down my best friend from high school. Took awhile, but we've been catching up on what's happened over the almost 30 years since we last saw each other. We used to be the center of a whole string of bands, but I guess our friendship was always based primarily on music. Once I stopped playing and we both moved away, well, we just lost touch. Since I started playing again, I just figured I'd reach out. He played in a cover band that serviced the Northern Virginia yacht and golf set. Think Uptown Girl at the Catalina Wine Mixer. If you don't get that reference, we can't be friends. COVID kinda killed that, to a far greater degree than we experienced in Alaska. Sill, he never stopped playing, and I gotta give him credit for that. I've lost touch with a lot of people over the years. I've never been one to have a wide social circle. My friends were always compartmentalized to specific activities or situations. Very rarely did the groups intermingle. Part ...

After over a decade, I picked up my guitar and enjoyed playing. To be honest, it's been longer than that. After my mostly negative experiences as a young music major robbed me of any enthusiasm, I stopped playing altogether except for short-lived spurts. Over the last few weeks I've rediscovered the sensation of learning and playing. All of my old aptitude and misplaced confidence in my abilities was gone. I started again, this time with old hands and a mind made feeble by the years. Still, I can sit for hours and contently noodle away if I allow myself. Sometimes I do. I bought a new guitar. I didn't mean to. It just happened. A Gretsch with a Bigsby. There it was in the Guitar store, resplendent in its Cadillac Green glory. It didn't have a price tag, and I knew if I had to ask I couldn't afford it. I asked, and I found it irresistibly in reach. I took it home.  I started frequenting music shops again, picking up odds and ends. I justified the new Gretsch by sayin...