Say What?

I've come to appreciate more than ever the beautiful red barns and stately trees I pass on my gravel rides—and I'm not alone, at least when it comes to admiring trees. A friend recently began a challenge in a Facebook cycling group—the challenge being to post photos of lone trees (preferably with a bike in the photo —thank you, Bruce!) to see if others can identify the location of the tree. How one marks the location of the tree is quite unique. It's done using the  what3words  app. Check it out. I'll have to wait until springtime when I'm back on the gravel roads near Northfield before I can play along. But until then, my current location is: economies.music.plot. What 3 words mark your location? And speaking of mapping: Google Street View made its rounds of our neighborhood again this past year— May 23rd to be exact while our roof was being reshingled. I can't publish this blog post without making mention of Trump* being impeached along party li...

It's been more than 6 weeks since we cut the cable and we couldn't be happier that we did. We're left wondering why we didn't do it sooner. It was sorta like when we divested from Wells Fargo two years ago after getting caught up in having them make changes to our accounts which resulted in service fees that were no small hassle to reverse. We had better things to do but we were glad to have taken the time to break free from them. The only glitch in our move away from cable TV was our TV in the kitchen—it has a built-in Roku but it was continually freezing as it buffered the signal. I added an external Roku stick to it and that solved the problem. One of our local news stations did a report on a pack of coyotes that attacked and killed a family's two dogs that they had let outside for a few minutes. This all happened about a mile from our home. I've seen coyotes outside the window on the side of our house but it's been a few years. Last week I saw a fox w...

I was discharged from the Navy 40 years ago today . How did that much time get away so quickly? I need to make an extended trip to San Diego (where I was stationed for most of my enlistment) and retrace some of my steps from all those years ago—preferably on two wheels. I have so many fond memories of my time spent on my bike in the greater San Diego area. I'm curious what sort of memories and emotions I would experience riding on those same roads again—roads that for the most part have changed little since I last rode them. I need to get more serious about making it happen before another 40 years get away from me. I've already got at least one route  mapped out to ride. Tammy and I spent Thursday celebrating her birthday. We drove up to Excelsior to check out the many shops that line the streets while on the lookout for a few gifts for people on our Christmas list. We found the best cafe tucked away inside a small complex of shops. It alone was worth the 35 minute drive u...