Large Fella on a Bike

Rivendell & Their New Bike...

The A. Homer Hilsen by Rivendell just got its very own website...

Check it Here.

That is all... carry on.

Bars & Butts

Lately I've been feeling the need for a change.  Thinking on changing my current [2 years now] configuration of Nitto riser bars w/bar ends for something along the lines of Scott AT-2 , Nitto Noodles , or hacking off the tips of Amy's Nitto Albatross bars and inserting them backwards, thus creating a new, hybrid, bizarro Bullhorn-style bar.

And then...

the saddle thing.

I use [and have used] the Brooks B.67 and have zero complaints with it [so Scott, why the fuck are you even talking about a different saddle?] but [butt?], again... the feeling of something new, something different has arisen in me.

I'm thinking a nice Brooks B.17 CS in black w/copper to help get my groove on.  I wonder if there are any physiological principles that preclude the larger among us [me] from a more narrow saddle [at least more narrow than my B.67] that also happens to be unsprung?  Hmmmmm...

Anyone out there in the Blogosphere have any answers?

And then the whole bar tape thing kicks in... black saddle, darkish metallic blue frame w/creme head & seat tubes:

what goes with that?

Maybe natural cork?  Black cork?  Black, maybe brown cloth?  Perhaps some Brooks honey leather tape??

So many questions... so few damn answers.

.Perception.

So much of Life is Perception... or so it seems.  As I get older [and maybe a small bit more wise/maybe not?] I am starting to see/believe that it may all come down to just our [the Race of Humanity] or my [that is, Me] ability to perceive things differently, less generalized, more broadly, less dependent, more independent:

Perception.

When I find myself not wanting to do something I start thinking about why I don't, but more importantly, perhaps, I begin thinking about the "why" in me that makes me perceive not wanting to do that thing.

The other day my daughter wanted to play a new game she bought at Target, Battleship.  I loved playing this game when I was younger and while I was interested in watching Chloe's experience of playing it I wasn't so interested in being the one that would play the game with her.  It was a general feeling.  A scent of not wanting to play it but wanting her to play it with someone [of course, that someone then would be Amy-Mommy].  As it turned out Amy had to split for work which left me alone with Chloe and a brand spankin' new game of Battleship.

Groan.

She begged, pleaded, became snippy... all of it when I kept stalling.  Finally I buckled.  It took a long time to explain the rules to her.  She wanted to keep making guesses about the locations of my 'fleet' of ships based on a very linear thinking: "A1/A2/A3/etc" or "A1/B1/C1/D1/etc".  That took some time to get her away from that strategy.  She had a ball, even won the game eventually...

but why had I resisted so?  The thought stayed with me after she was tucked into bed later that night.  Why?

Could it be as simple as I was tired, or didn't want to embark on what I knew was inevitable-that she would need time to grasp the basic ideal of the game?  Was it because I was a shitty dad?  I always struggle with the two feelings of:
1.  How I am as a person, husband and dad

versus...

2.  How I want to be as a person, husband and dad.

They seldom sync up.

Moving forward, I once [and for a very long time] thought that losing weight was as easy [or as difficult] as not eating as much food as I did for a period of time and then all would be well and I could start right back up again.  That morphed into: this is going to be very difficult and I cannot do it.
So I didn't.

And it not only added weight [much weight] to my physical body but also to my brain [nearly more than I could bear, truth be told].  And things stayed that way for a very, very long time.  And then one day it hit me:

My perception of it was all wrong.  Food is not something you stop doing [regardless of what a billion dollar diet industry tries to bullshit across to folks daily], and it's not something to be stopped like drinking alcohol or fixing up heroin either.  Yes you can change the kinds/types of food you consume [and that's part of it, make no mistake] but much more importantly... because one cannot go without food [like one could heroin, crack, blow or booze] I just needed to see that what needed changing was... well,

everything.  A Lifestyle Change.

It was all a matter of Perception.

An example:

This wasn't scary nor upsetting in the least before September 11th, 2001, and in fact was not uncommon to see around here at all... but we all know what began 2 seconds later.

This was taken by me of the new Goldman Sachs building right up our street the other day and while I never even saw the plane through the viewfinder of my camera, when I uploaded it to my computer, it scared the shit out of me [goosebumps] and nothing happened at all.  It was just the angle that I happened to shoot the photo at with an unseen [by me] plane on approach to Newark Airport.

I intend to always keep refining and rethinking my Perception.

BBC, Weight & The Tooth Fairy

Been a busy while since my last entry...

1.  Another Weigh-In.  Amy dropped 1.5 additional pounds [she's starting to level off now that she is closing in on her target weight].  I'm down another 9.4.  Total for me so far is, 121.2 pounds.  Getting there... where, not sure, but somewhere ;-] 

Everything is getting easier: energy, movement, cycling, drumming... all of it.

Cool Beans.

2.  Two days ago, while Amy was at work, Chloe's bottom tooth finally was ready to exit her mouth.  Big moment for our little girl!  She was VERY nervous and somehow entrusted the task of final removal to me.  Yeesh.  All went smoothly.  The Tooth Fairy visited and Chloe scored:
2 one dollar bills
4 Matchbox cars
and 1 super duper xtra-large Hershey's chocolate bar [I suppose that one was a not-so-subtle message from the Tooth Fairy for additional, and upcoming, business].

She was very, very proud of herself, and happy.  She's currently at Target with Mommy spending aforementioned 2 one dollar bills.  Ahhhh, the Age of The Consumer.

3.  Bob Brown visited the other night as well.  Had a great time [as usual] and he even brought his own BBC S&S coupled single speed mountain bike so we could all go for a ride here in the Urban Jungle.  Tremendous fun, and I even think Bob had fun too [no easy feat between Chloe's nonstop questions for him and playground tours].  I did feel bad for Bob though... between Amy, Chloe and my super-human pace while riding and our ultra-long loop, he looked pretty winded and tired.  I had to check up and watch my pace so he didn't bonk too badly.  HA!
That dude takes off from a standing start and with 1 revolution of his pedals, ass out of the saddle... he'd be 150 yards ahead of us.  GAWD.  After we did a 13 mile loop with him, we had some dinner and off he went for his hotel and some rest before starting work for the next couple days at his company's east coast plant.  Later that evening, Amy said to me, "The backs of his calves are nothing but thin skin tightly stretched over rocks!".

I still think I coulda taken him [if I'd wanted to].

;-)

3 BBC's in the Big City: