Good news is that you're smaller, bad news is you could get smaller than that
Yesterday afternoon I rode my bike for 27 miles without stopping, save for what the traffic conditions demanded. I wasn’t exhausted by it, nor am I sore this morning. This is a good sign - that in spite of my current outward appearance I remain relatively fit. I am determined, this summer, to get my body into better condition.
Over the past few months I’ve become obsessed with disk golf. (Well obsessed is probably too strong a word, lets say enamored). There are three courses in the area, you basically throw frisbees at a target and count how many throws it takes to hit it. There’s a boyish appeal in it, the same thing that makes you want to skip stones on water or try to hit a stop sign with a snowball. Boyish indeed, as the number of girls I’ve ever seen playing (including Katie) could fit in a Mini-Cooper. My two boys play as well, it gets them off of Warcraft and is something we do together, so it’s all good.
Mid-life crisis? Attempts to recapture lost youth? Whatever. I’m going with it.
It’s six months A.M (After Moog) and I’ve fallen into what looks like another long term work arrangement. This time for General Electric, their transportation division in Erie PA. Modern trains, apparently, are electric - you just need a big engine to generate the 1.21 jigawatts of electricity required to drive them. My work involves what is basically a black box that sits on the train and gathers video and other data for the data miners who crave it. It’s pretty interesting stuff, and (big plus) is not intended to kill people. Also working with what seems to be a decent bunch of people. Most of them are kind of quirky, but hey we’re programmers, what would one expect?
I make day trip to Erie once or twice a week. The rest of the time I get to work from home. It’s nice - allows me to keep my own hours and work in things like bike rides and disc golf.
Still doing the woodworking thing, though during the summer months the time available for that dwindles to a few hours a week. I’m putting the last touches on a tapered cabinet that started on a whim but is quickly becoming a piece I’m rather excited about. I’ll post pictures as soon as it’s done.
And my mother’s in the hospital. She was standing on a bench, and stepped into thin air where she thought more bench would be, fell awkwardly and shattered her foot. It had to be surgically repaired, a successful but difficult procedure. The doctor compared it to trying to repair a broken Cadbury crème egg. The prognosis is 5-6 months immobilized, another six months of recovery. My mom, being fiercely independent, is most unhappy at the prospect. She’ll be home in a day or two, and in need of much assistance and care throughout the summer. It will be interesting to see how my various siblings respond to this - kind of a practice run for when she gets too old to be self sufficient.
So that’s me in a few snapshots. I’d love to know what everyone else is up to, or at least where you are geographically. Apart from Koba, Mel, and Marie (with a nod to occasional posters Tom, Steffi, and Rachel) I have no idea what has happened to most of you (Ami, Klein, Ashley, Cory, Keith, etc). I should probably visit the Moose sometime, eh?