Going forward I’ll be posting daily post on days that are mildly interesting for one reason or another, such as a bike ride. There as much for me as for you, and I won’t be blasting these out to subscribers. Today I got up a little early and took a ride over to Piermont, NY, one of mt favorite cycling destinations when I only have an hour or so to ride.

I could hear the birds outside while I was meditating this morning. That means Spring is here. I want to go for a bicycle ride instead of working out in the basement and enjoy the sunrise on the road. But I can’t. I need to cut the workout short, get showered, grab my mask and gloves, and go wait on line in front of the supermarket. This is life during the pandemic.

Two weeks ago I took my wife to the emergency room. She’s better now, but that led to two and a half days in the hospital and five days (three working from home) to take care of her. I went to the office for a single day of work, and haven’t been back since. (She's fine now.) This, combined with the background of potential war with Iran (remember that?) and impeachment (wait, wasn’t that the 90’s?

“Were you an athlete?” That’s not a question I ever wanted to hear, but I did. I went to the DEXA Scan today knowing that I’m in bad shape. The idea was to get an idea of how much. I also wanted to know, once and for all, if there was a reason why I’ve never been able to get what the averages say is a “healthy” weight. The scan itself is pretty easy.

This shadowy pot holds today’s lunch. It may also make it to tomorrow’s lunch, depending on whether or not the rest of the family finishes it tonight. My last concoction, which was similar to this one, only lasted through one serving for lunch and then dinner. Any soup with sausage in it goes quickly. I’m not usually a TGIF kinda guy, but TGIF. Bis morgen!

Back to work today! Yesterday was a nice break. Even though it was fast on the heels of a long weekend, a day off in the middle of the week always feels special. I managed to get some writing done. Looking forward to sharing some stories about Martians and more importantly, how people react when they arrive. Isn’t this delightfully creepy? It’s from the classic illustrations by Henrique Alvim Corrêa.

Back to work after a long weekend. My new folding bike arrived yesterday (which is sad, because UPS drivers had to work on a holiday that too many companies don’t take seriously.) I unpacked it and put it together (which consisted of putting in the seat post and filling the tires) and tried it out. It felt great! I made the plunge and ordered this bike after getting tired of not being able to find a spot to park a Citibike at one end of my commute or the other.

It’s a lazy Sunday that’s perched right in the middle of a lazy three-day weekend. We got a little bit of snow yesterday, but even that only provided about a half-hour of entertainment when it came to shovelling. Today I’ll need to make up for a week being the on-call engineer. When that happens I often see an assortment of nighttime interruptions that made it difficult to write and keep me up late enough that I want to go to bed early if are no calls.

It’s 5:30AM as I’m start this post. The wind sounds like a freight train passing the house and my cell phone tells me it’s 25 degrees outside. Has Old Man Winter finally returned? There’s even word of snow this weekend! The return of cold weather is oddly comforting given what’s happening around the world, even if it means freezing my delicate tuchis off riding the bike from the ferry to the office.

It’s another dreary morning, part of what seems like an endless series of dreary mornings. There’s allegedly some sun coming. Allegedly. If we’re going to do this Winter thing, let’s do it. Bring on the cold temperatures and the snow! Got a little bit of work done on Great War of thew Worlds last night! Have a less dreary day. Bis morgen!      

Good morning! I bought this poster from the multi-talented Yale Stewart. It sold out in a few hours, but I bet you can find something else you like over there. I’ve been working on the Great War of the Worlds in earnest since the holidays. I’ll be sharing an excerpt here real soon. One of the things that’s helped me make a lot of progress is the excellent Ambient music Warren Ellis shares from his blog.