Some good news...

This year has presented an unfortunate uptick in bad news from family, friends, and acquaintances in the form of sickness and deaths (some timely, some not).  A condition of ageing, I suppose.  

Good news, this week, though.  My friend and colleague became a father for the first time.  Congratulations all around.  A healthy baby boy.

Which leads me to another introspection.  A few years ago my wife told me that I needed to get some friends.  Years of grad school, being a dad, hanging with my extended family, and working at a vocation that I love winnowed away the robust group of individuals that helped shape who I am today.  I keep in touch with many of them, but in a lot of cases it's perfunctory and annual, in the form of the seasonal greeting that is either a terse card with a family picture or a long-winded (anywhere between being very well written and entertaining to mind-numbingly self indulgent to the point of being comedic) form letter.  I lost my closer circle of buddies to time and life.

Enter this guy (who doesn't keep his blog current), who I befriended in the early '90's when I worked at College Park Bicycles.  After marriage he moved to Virginia, never to be seen again, until 5 years later.  Moving back to Maryland where he grew up, he somehow convinced his wife and daughters to move into a smaller house so that he could ride his bike on more friendly terrain (at least that's what he told me).

The house needed to get bigger, so he called the only architect he knew and struck a deal.  Design and permit/construction drawings for a bike, since this architect had gotten way fat as he was losing his circle of friends over the years, and wanted to get back into the training/racing scene again after a 15 year hiatus.  From a monetary standpoint the client brokered an almost criminal bargain, but on my end I was able to funnel myself back into the scene that I left in disgust years ago, with the following benefits:

The Bicycle Place Sunday ride

A solid local shop to patronize, with all of its characters

A standing Saturday ride (the N2) that we started

An instant network of aficcionados (not always like-minded, but always interesting) 

Sharing their highs and lows (and tragedies)

A healthy network of business contacts 

A valued colleague and perhaps more down the road

Some new friends to fill the void (including the 2 K's)

Cyclocross

Lost some weight.  Now I don't look so puffy, though Ray may beg to differ.

Not too shabby.