I Wanted To, But I Didn't.
This weekend I had a couple long rides planned out.
They didn't happen.
Saturday dawned and I was up bright and early, sitting at the computer, hammering out a 1200+ word magnum opus on what I wanted to be when I grow up. Literally. The final project for my upper-level organizational behavior class is a grotesquely large version of something I scrawled out on lined paper with a fat #2 pencil in elementary school. I was tempted to write that I wanted to be a fire truck, but found meeting the requirements for justifying my career choice, indicating which characteristics make me suitable for the field, and defining my action plan to achieve this goal to be a bit problematic. I just want to be a fire truck. Woo-woo. Stop trying to crush my dreams.
Instead, I wrote a semi-serious paper on my goals which did not use the specified materials/websites/online quizzes to justify my master plan. Instead, I took every opportunity to show their inadequacies as a basis for any career planning. In as sarcastic a tone as possible. I don't really care too much about this course, as long as I get a passing score. My highest aspiration is not to be mired firmly in the bosom of bureaucracy for the rest of my life, contributing little except reports and Power Point presentations on the meaningful work of others.
I got an A. My opinion of higher education reached a new low.
When I was finished, I looked at the clock and realized I didn't have time to ride. The list of chores kept me busy until dark, and that's saying something during May in Alaska. The amount of heavy lifting I did would have made the ride pointless, because the thought of turning pedals sent spasms through my back. I just wanted to sleep.
Sunday dawned to the sound of rain hitting the tarp that covers the junk pile on my back deck. I dragged myself out of bed and started adding to it, this time from the garage. The vast majority of it was frame boxes and wheel boxes, which I kept for no good reason. Why would anyone need ten wheel boxes? Amazing how much floor space that cleared up.
Then I had to move the wife's extremely heavy, gym-quality elliptical trainer from the garage back upstairs, to a recently cleared spot whose prior occupants were sitting under the aforementioned tarp. She wanted to sell it on Craigslist, until I demonstrated to her that nothing (with the exception of Land Rovers) depreciates faster or more completely than extremely heavy, gym-quality elliptical trainers. Might as well use it. I was glad to have it out of the garage, although I was not glad to be moving it again. Still, I now have space to build bikes again, and that makes it worth the ache.
When I finished my chores for the day, the rain was falling again. Already sore and tired, I decided not to add insult to injury.
I'm probably closer to my goal of being a fire truck than to being in any kind of shape for racing.
They didn't happen.
Saturday dawned and I was up bright and early, sitting at the computer, hammering out a 1200+ word magnum opus on what I wanted to be when I grow up. Literally. The final project for my upper-level organizational behavior class is a grotesquely large version of something I scrawled out on lined paper with a fat #2 pencil in elementary school. I was tempted to write that I wanted to be a fire truck, but found meeting the requirements for justifying my career choice, indicating which characteristics make me suitable for the field, and defining my action plan to achieve this goal to be a bit problematic. I just want to be a fire truck. Woo-woo. Stop trying to crush my dreams.
Instead, I wrote a semi-serious paper on my goals which did not use the specified materials/websites/online quizzes to justify my master plan. Instead, I took every opportunity to show their inadequacies as a basis for any career planning. In as sarcastic a tone as possible. I don't really care too much about this course, as long as I get a passing score. My highest aspiration is not to be mired firmly in the bosom of bureaucracy for the rest of my life, contributing little except reports and Power Point presentations on the meaningful work of others.
I got an A. My opinion of higher education reached a new low.
When I was finished, I looked at the clock and realized I didn't have time to ride. The list of chores kept me busy until dark, and that's saying something during May in Alaska. The amount of heavy lifting I did would have made the ride pointless, because the thought of turning pedals sent spasms through my back. I just wanted to sleep.
Sunday dawned to the sound of rain hitting the tarp that covers the junk pile on my back deck. I dragged myself out of bed and started adding to it, this time from the garage. The vast majority of it was frame boxes and wheel boxes, which I kept for no good reason. Why would anyone need ten wheel boxes? Amazing how much floor space that cleared up.
Then I had to move the wife's extremely heavy, gym-quality elliptical trainer from the garage back upstairs, to a recently cleared spot whose prior occupants were sitting under the aforementioned tarp. She wanted to sell it on Craigslist, until I demonstrated to her that nothing (with the exception of Land Rovers) depreciates faster or more completely than extremely heavy, gym-quality elliptical trainers. Might as well use it. I was glad to have it out of the garage, although I was not glad to be moving it again. Still, I now have space to build bikes again, and that makes it worth the ache.
When I finished my chores for the day, the rain was falling again. Already sore and tired, I decided not to add insult to injury.
I'm probably closer to my goal of being a fire truck than to being in any kind of shape for racing.
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