This year I got TWO pint glasses

at Charm City Cross, my sentimental favorite race of the fall season.  This is the one I cut my teeth on a few years back, and now we witness the growth of the sport, with the numbers of BPVC participants doubled since last year.  Six of us made the trek to Druid Hill Park; 4 of us raced among other geezers in the Masters B pack, one (newbie) in the Cat 4 race, and the other (newbie) in the Women's Master's Race.  Mix in some acquaintances, friends, family, fans, and other supporters and you've got a guaranteed good time on a Sunday morning in Baltimore.  Since my family had other things to do, K asked that I bring home 2 pint glasses, as last year's is a favorite in the glassware collection, such as it is.

Unfortunately, I had to buy them.  No winnings here.  Happy to say I finished in the top 100.  76th, to be exact, and some 85 people finished out of 104 starters, so I was in McCain grad class territory.

Even though I've only managed to get in weekend rides this past month, the time spent working on technique has definitely paid off, as I had my best start ever and felt great during the first lap.  The downside is that those weekend rides don't do much for my endurance, so my performance essentially followed the same downward arc as my 15 year old Makita drill--the one with the big heavy battery that holds a solid charge for about one lap of a cyclocross race and then just whirs down steadily until the last bits of energy in the last lap are spent among the dudes warming up for the next race.  'Scuse me fellas--I'm still racing here.  As I was fading, KrossmasterK was ragin', until he rolled his tire and ended his race.  And as I was fading some more, Coppi Jim passed me with authority but I kept him in my sights to maintain a respectable finish.  So strong start, + weak finish = I've got a lot of work to do.

The bike was solid, too, as I paid some attention to it these past two weeks instead of neglecting the  machine, as has been my MO of late.  Handling on the course was definitely spot on, with no biffs or mechanicals, as sometimes unfamiliarity with the venue and lack of time on the ride breeds sketchiness. Neither was an issue today.  Only the engine was lacking.

Which will come with time.  Or not.  In any case, the sheer fun of riding a fast bike on undulating (not treacherous) terrain yields a sweet spot that has few experiences in sport that equal it.  More to come this fall, with Ed Sander next week and a three week break before DCCX.  Out of town travel will prevent the gem from last year to be repeated (Rockburn - great course), then finish up with Tacchino and Reston in late November and early December.

Icing on the cake is the buena gente that I see at all of these races--teammates, the group I train with at Takoma Park MS, the other acquaintances that I only know through bikin' and bloggin'.  Not the usual group of preening aggros that tend to define the racing culture, and that's a good thing.  I know.  I was one of them once.

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.

Blank slate

I haven't written in a while.  Five minutes ago I had a flowing essay composed, ready to spill out onto the screen in a style so fluid...but now it's a blank slate.

It's been quite a busy time at work the last few months, and we have several deadlines looming as well as an office relocation, a confluence of events that seem impossible to accomplish as they approach.  Somehow we get through it all.  My job, with as much pressure as I think it presents, is really a series of puzzles to be solved with a healthy sprinkling of challenging personalities, all of which need to be managed differently (delicately, brusquely, and all manners in between).  It's not life or death.  It's not that hard.  It's just, at times, a lot of noise.

I just realized that I said pretty much the same thing in a previous post.  Goes to show that it's weighing on my mind and that the stark perspective of measuring daily activities as they relate to life altering decisions is my way of seeking refuge.

Anyway, the ebbing of these deadlines as we complete them, as well as the prospect of a fresh start in a new space next month is having a salubrious effect on my 'tude.  Life is good, and it's Friday.

Charm City is two days away.

Abrasiveness

I am preparing for a day in which I will sit in two lengthy meetings, each of which have the potential of going south quickly as the current culture of blame in today's workplace changes the nature of how we interact with each other.  The past few months have been fraught with unease, as money for professional services rendered has been quite scarce, despite the fact that people sign contracts and tend to blame the economy for reasons why they can't seem to come up with the cash, all the while expecting the same level of service that they have grown accustomed to in a robust atmosphere.  Not to mention the dysfunctional personalities (and I'm sure I'm the object of this derision among other parallel conversations).

Waaah waaah.  At least my daily decisions don't have to do with actual life and death decisions.  Now THERE'S some real stress.  The rest of what we're dealing with really boils down to nuisance.  What's the worst that could happen?  Go out of business, get sued, snivel about not getting the proper respect.  At least I'm working.

What's really irritating is that I just paid my third speeding ticket (camera violation) in a month AT THE SAME LOCATION.  Just north of Chevy Chase Circle on Connecticut Avenue exists a silent sentry that photographically rakes in $40 a pop for every Tom, Dick, and Jane that guns it over 35 MPH (posted speed 30MPH).  It's quite easy to move that fast on this arterial road.

So now, with a lighter wallet, when I head into that part of the Burgh of Affluenza I will travel the side streets.  Take the cars off of the main thoroughfares and we can clog up the neighborhoods.  Traffic control and revenue enhancement with unintended consequences.  That'll show 'em.

Indian Head Highway

Between jobsites today I saw the picture of pure happiness.  Freedom with nary a care in the world, a countenance so pleased with itself that every vantage point offered a new perspective on life, even though it was repeated in a cycle for as long as I can imagine.

He was a standard issue hound dog of some sort, big and clumsy.  This dog bounded about the flat bed, ears flowing with the wind as he (?) perched himself precariously on the edges of the pickup.  He went from starboard, to stern, to portside.  Over and over again.  He looked at everything going by with great interest, as if it were the first time he had ever seen these objects, vehicles, and people.  He wasn't in a cage or a 5 point harness.  He looked happy.  His drool painted the sides of the pickup as he lived in the moment.  What a life.

Non sequitur:  While I watched this, I heard someone say this on the radio:

"Describing your life in seventeen syllables is very diffi"

Snapshots in my mind

That vacation was fabulous, but unfortunately now just a distant memory.  During that time I was, in my head, quite prolific, as I composed blog posts like a banshee, chortling at my incredible wittiness and ease at which I communicated the mundane banalities of life in such a way that the reader would say "Despite his tendency to use run-on sentences, he is quite brilliant".

Let's try that again.

Those posts are clanging around an empty room right now, as the immediacy of thinking I needed to write down all the events of my life is not so urgent anymore.  In fact it was what I needed, to just check out and enjoy relaxation for a week.  Next year we're planning on two weeks.  That will be a first.

Anywayzzz, work is work, and the summer is now over, and we enjoy the fall, with the routine of school, soccer games, Redskins, cyclocross, and maybe even a home renovation.  Mix in more time to hang with friends and family, and it's a certain recipe for good times.  Just think, we're not in New Orleans right now, nor are we trying to save our own hides in Georgia (not the Peach State, the other place halfway around the world).  Life is good, and we are lucky people.

Maybe I'm feeling this way now because I went to my first Bar Mitzvah ever today.  The emphasis on community, family, tradition, gathering, and all of that decent stuff just about cinches the thoughts that our collective lot in life right now is pretty damn good.  

Every time I go to a momentous family event I am glad that photographers are around to record these times for posterity, but I've found that there is a moment in the festivities that jars me into thinking (and it's a conscious thought) that I need to remember this image, burn it into my mind, and keep it my grey matter hard drive forever.  I've got a compendium of these snapshots in my mind, touchstones that don't relate to one another but compose the web of events in my head that become memories.  Kind of like the composite photo that is made up of hundreds of tiny photos that are pixels of the bigger picture--it's all there.

Vaaaaaacaaaaaaation

We're outta here.

Vacation finally starts tomorrow.  Another touchstone in the annual cycle, this one has a well established routine that invokes the simple pleasures of just doing a whole lot of nothing, a whole lot of eating and drinking, and a whole lot of enjoying those around us.  I read blogs written by people I don't know whose sole connection with me is the bicycle, and I'm thankful for what I've got and what I get to look forward to.  Like riding, writing becomes an outlet of a different sort, one that lets me filter some thoughts through the noggin, especially after a busy week laden with the pre-vacation noise that we need to get through to get to take our week or so off, kind of like the electric fences that some dogs run through, suffering the pain of that jolt of current before they break free.

Some random thoughts...

It's late, and we're leaving at 6AM so that we can have breakfast in Williamsburg VA at 9.

A friend of ours has cancer.  It doesn't look good.

The mom of a friend of ours has cancer.  It doesn't look good.

This guy (don't know him, but I know of him, due to the bikin' and the bloggin') had a heart scare.  Looks like he'll be OK. 

This guy (very faint acquaintance, due to the bikin' and the bloggin') has a great post on the sham that is this year's Olympics.

Spent an awesome weekend with some friends at Lake Holiday (northern tip of VA) last weekend.  Great riding up there.

Spent the week fretting about where our company is going to be in the short and long term, given the bleak house of cards that is our economy.

Spent the last two days managing expectations and realizing just how screwy communications and perceptions can be, even when you think you're getting a message across.  Time to spell things out.  While you're at it, put away the Blackberries.  We're in a meeting, fercryinoutloud.

Get to Frankenbike a friend's frame to create a cross bike in order to introduce her to the wonderful world of Hup Hup. Charm City is only 6 weeks away.

And I get to spend a week riding my bike around the flatlands of the Outer Banks.  Riding more than two days in a row...

The good things and the bad things.  What's not to like?