Personal Brand | On Message

19. October 2011 · 4 comments · Categories: frustration, internet, irritants, rants, struggles, technology, twitter

So many people who I follow on twitter seem to be constantly on message.  What I mean by that is that they constantly post about a singular subject.  It may be IP Networking.  It may be cycling.  It may be the environment.  They are on message.  They have a lot of followers. 

If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time (which only a very few have) you’ll know that I kind of wander from topic to topic.  I’m almost never on message.  I don’t have a lot to say about the industry that I work in.  I don’t have a lot to say about the apocalyptic nature of our relationship to the climate.  I don’t have a lot to say about cycling.

I’ve got a little to say about each of these topics, and many more.

Recently, I noticed a number of my “followers” on twitter abandoned me.  I’m sure it’s because I wasn’t tweeting enough about what they originally followed me for.  Perhaps I pissed someone off with a few to many tweets about politics, the climate, or occupy wall street.

I don’t know.

But I do know this, I’m way more than one-dimensional.  And so are most of the people out there in the Internets.  I wish more people would take the risk of being “off message” once in a while.  They’d been more interesting.

A Good Plan, Interrupted

09. October 2011 · Write a comment · Categories: cycling, fitness, frustration, struggles

I woke around 5:30 yesterday morning with a bad feeling. It was in my gut and accompanied by some wicked heartburn. And I felt sore in my back. This happens on occasion, both the heartburn and the stiffness in the back, so I didn’t really think much of it, but tried to go back to sleep. Around 7:30 I got up and made some pancakes for Mr. Grey, Mrs. TKD and her mom who was visiting. Three pancakes for me and I knew that this was going to be a rough day. I was sick. Really sick. And I needed to lie down.

I am not one to spend a lot of time in bed when the sun is shining.  We had beautiful weather, as far as I could tell from my bed, yesterday.  I stayed in bed all day.  All i could drink was seltzer water and a bit of ginger-ale.   Forget about eating.

So, as you might expect, I didn’t get out on the bike yesterday.  So much for 30 days of cycling.  Here’s the thing though, as cool as it sounds to take on a challenge, there are limits.  Life throws curve balls, and “the rules” of a challenge need to bend.  So, while I won’t technically get 30 straight days in, I’m still looking forward to getting back on the bike, maybe not today as I’m still not near my peak, but perhaps tomorrow.

And when I am back on the bike, I’ll ride as often as I can, striving for a ride every day, and I’ll be better for it.

Dad would have celebrated

02. May 2011 · 1 comment · Categories: america, dad, death, disgust, family, fatherhood, fear, frustration, gratitude, hope, incongruities, marriage, media, mortality, rants, struggles, television, thoughts, time, tragedy · Tags: ,

Papa Don's Little GirlDad would be celebrating today.

He was horrified to see his brethren die on that tragic day when the towers collapsed.  We talked in the days after the events of 9/11 about the job that the men of FDNY were doing.  I could hear the pain in his voice.

As a nation, we rallied around each other.  Many of us reacted in ways that we didn’t fully understand.  In retrospect everything seems different.  Ten years of war and a recession have changed my views.  Becoming a father has changed my views.  Meeting my wife changed my views.

I honestly don’t know how I feel about the death of Osama Bin Laden.  It’s almost meaningless to me.  There is an entire army of new recruits that has been formed over the past ten years.  And now to find out that he’s been “hiding” in a populated area?

I cannot celebrate.   The chest thumping is ugly.

I long for a day when the “threat level” is not orange.  What will a day that is “green” be like?  Will we ever see one?

When will it be safe to move on?

First Cold Ride

06. January 2011 · 2 comments · Categories: cycling, daily life, exercise, frustration, maryland, struggles, winter · Tags:

“This may not have been the best plan.”

The thought first occurred to me as I rounded the corner on the turn from the Naval Academy to MD450 and slipped my peddles twice as I was trying to clip in.  (Mental note:  Ditch these Look peddles in favor of a pair of speedplays.)  I hadn’t been on my bike in weeks — scratch that MONTHS.  Here I was on my first ride in months going for a 25 mile ride on a cold January afternoon.

When I left around 2:00 PM it was 38F but not windy.  I was fully bundled up, layered with all the right gear from head to toe.  At first, in the sun by my shed, I worried that I had too much on.  Now, it was after 3:00, the wind had picked up considerably and the sun was sinking fast.  I’d forgotten how fast the sun sinks in January here in Maryland.

The ride into Annapolis had been uneventful.  There was almost no one out and I felt really good as I peddled down the B&A trail and over the Naval Academy Bridge.  In fact, I crushed the bridge.  ”Ha, two months off the bike and I’m still strong,” I thought to myself.  As I pulled into the city dock area, I decided that a short break was a good idea and sat down on a bench looking out over Spa Creek.  That’s when the cold started to bite at my toes.

Leaving town, I had the sense that it was going to be a long ride home.  As I peddled up the bridge — after slipping my peddles — I noticed I was struggling.  I shifted into easier gears.  I shifted into the small ring up front.  And then, I clicked my rear gear lever and nothing happened.

“Out of gears!  I don’t run out of gears on this bridge!”

Yes, it would be a long cold ride home.  ”I just need to get through these last two hills, then spin home.”  Normally, I’d consider the hills ahead as moderate, but considering I’d run out of gears on the bridge, I was mentally preparing for the worst.  ”Swig some liquid and keep peddling.”

I made it up the last two hills and sat on a bench for a minute.  My right calf was tight — like softball tight — and I stretched it out a bit before the spin home.  As I got on the bike, I slipped the peddles again!  This time I landed my left elbow smack on the frame.   After a few choice words, I re-engaged the peddles and started to spin easily. I wasn’t in a race.  When I got home, I was sure the blood in my toes was frozen.

Everyone has bad days.  Some days your legs just fail you.  Some days, the heat or the cold gets to you.  Some days, you take on more than you should.  That’s what happened to me on Monday.  Too much time off the bike, grand expectations for myself, cold weather equaled a miserable ride.

Still, a miserable ride is better than an afternoon at the desk, so I suppose I’ll mark Monday down as a win.

Writer’s Block

15. September 2010 · Write a comment · Categories: daily life, frustration, writing

A Story in there SomewhereI spent a few hours with pen and paper last night, scrawling the same basic lines over and over down on the sheets of the moleskine.  I’ve got something to say, and it has something to do with my experience of high school, but it won’t come out.  A few versions of the poem were forced.  A few were free-flowing, but read like prose structured in stanzas.

Very frustrating.  But, at least I was writing.

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