I was at home for Easter and Dad wanted to go for a bike ride.
"don't we have two red ones?" he asked, not knowing how much I didn't want to talk about it. "what do you mean it got swiped too?"
Of course he knew exactly what I meant, he was just venting slowly, just as I did here, so that there wasn't a crater left in his spot when our conversation ended. He wasn't mad at me, it was the city that had eaten three of his bikes.
Well two, but I wasn't about to slow his roll. It didn't want there to be a crater named after me either.
I had came out on top with the first one going missing, the second one put us a bit behind. Especially since I had spent all of the cash we got for the first one on my new one. The second one going missing hadn't been planned for and thus I had let it disappear into the night without more than a wisp of ones and zeros on a blog buried deep in the blogger-verse.
A part of the blogger-verse that I was confident he rarely read when I was in the same province he was.
So now, at his suggestion, I'll be spending the last little bit of insurance money he thinks remains replacing a bike that I want to forget ever existed.
I am excited that he wants to get into biking, even if it is to the barn and back. I think eventually he'll get up to an around the block trip1.
Something for him and you to work up to.
In a related story, he has a spot in the garage cleared for his big bike. I had gone out of a ride around the block, I had intended to go farther and see more people but as luck would have it I left the little bit I need to put more air in the tires at home and had to get back early. When I did, I found a nice, big bike sized spot open in the garage when I could put my little bike.
"You parked your bike where I park mine" he said when he returned.
I simply nodded. The playoffs were on and, mostly, I didn't want to make eye contact with him.
"It struck me as funny, that's all." Slight pause and small snicker. "You have a bike and I have a bike."
I smirked back.
"Don't scratch mine when you get yours out from under it" He would have thundered had he been anyone else. Since he wasn't anyone else other than who he was he said it in a gentle, loving way that let me know he meant absolute business and I'd better not mess around.
I didn't dare scratch it, just as he didn't dare park on top of mine.
1 around the block means five miles, not two minutes
Saturday, April 30
Friday, April 29
searching for the organic
[note: I wrote this a while back, saved it to draft and I'm posting it now. I share these sentiments, however I don't remember what interview it was for. enjoy]
damn it.
why can't I have a good answer for what leadership means to me? i was asked in an interview last night and I totally froze. It was as if I had never heard the word before or that I didn't know they were going to ask me a leadership associated question.
my resume, as resume's should be, is riddled with evidence of a past of leadership. I have a past of leadership, a lot of it ... but I couldn't tell them what leadership meant to me.
what does leadership mean to anyone?
this post isn't going to solve that for me, I really just have to sit down and write an answer for myself that I can talk about in my next interview. If I delve into it now it will sound too mushy and forced.
That's it - I didn't know how to answer it because I didn't want to sound mushy and forced, I wanted to sound organic and honest.
instead I sounded like a bumbling baboon.
and how do you motivate people, birdley?
.. i uh .. i talk to .. find .. uh .. them tick ..
I have a smashing resume and I'm bountifully articulate, but I can't talk about it for the life of me.
damn it.
damn it.
why can't I have a good answer for what leadership means to me? i was asked in an interview last night and I totally froze. It was as if I had never heard the word before or that I didn't know they were going to ask me a leadership associated question.
my resume, as resume's should be, is riddled with evidence of a past of leadership. I have a past of leadership, a lot of it ... but I couldn't tell them what leadership meant to me.
what does leadership mean to anyone?
this post isn't going to solve that for me, I really just have to sit down and write an answer for myself that I can talk about in my next interview. If I delve into it now it will sound too mushy and forced.
That's it - I didn't know how to answer it because I didn't want to sound mushy and forced, I wanted to sound organic and honest.
instead I sounded like a bumbling baboon.
and how do you motivate people, birdley?
.. i uh .. i talk to .. find .. uh .. them tick ..
I have a smashing resume and I'm bountifully articulate, but I can't talk about it for the life of me.
damn it.
Wednesday, April 27
at a coffee shop, avec pants.
pants. check
bike, helmet, gloves. check.
weather. ... che-hit.
It's nice to have a bike in a city because I can get nearly anywhere I want on my own schedule, most often quicker than transit can, sometimes even quicker than a car can.
However, the other two will make sure I'm dry when I there.
I'm not prepared to bike through this weather. I bring clothes with me when I take my bike to work - I don't like walking around in swassy clothes for an entire day - but I don't have the wet pants or the rubber shoes or the fenders or the [insert other items].
Like I said, I bike because I like keeping my own schedule. With that said, I was texting a new friend just now, explaining the liking of biking and the complaining of raining when I thought to myself ...
It'll be nice when I decide to leave here because I'm not going to have to be on the move immediately. I won't be rushing around through traffic and arrive home in a huff and a puff and an exasperated sigh. I can take my time and get there when the people in charge of getting me there feel like getting me there. I have no where to be and thus no reason to be rushed.
Then I laughed at the irony of how my version of rushing around is someone else's Sunday afternoon bike ride. The most stressful thing in my life is how I get to the next coffee shop1.
I felt defeated when I climbed my stairs, after helmeting up, only to find that it was raining quite a bit more than I had thought which was not at all. I had been trapped in my basement room for the duration of the day where my only access to the outside a six inch window that I use as a book shelf for my dictionaries. It took me a good three minutes of standing on the little stoop inside the door that lead to the rain to decide that going out was still an option, even without my bike.
If it wasn't for leaving the house despite not taking my bike I never would have heard the guy seated behind me say to the girl seated with him "do you understand how much I cherish you?" I've experienced a few tid-bits of relationship blossoms while at this brand of coffee place. I'll share another with you in a few days.
My coffee has gone cold, but I'm pretty sure my jacket has dried off. Perhaps it's time to go get it damp again. There's a crowd gathering just outside the window where buses have been stopping all afternoon.
Cheers!
1 this, of course, is not true. the most stressful part of my life is that I have two degrees, I'm trained in something I like doing and it's unlikely that I'll find work in this province any time soon. Of course, this isn't really that stressful because I got into this knowing it. Perhaps I didn't understand the degree of difficulty, or how much I would want to work in Ontario. Worst case scenario, I go somewhere and apprendre une neuveau langue.
bike, helmet, gloves. check.
weather. ... che-hit.
It's nice to have a bike in a city because I can get nearly anywhere I want on my own schedule, most often quicker than transit can, sometimes even quicker than a car can.
However, the other two will make sure I'm dry when I there.
I'm not prepared to bike through this weather. I bring clothes with me when I take my bike to work - I don't like walking around in swassy clothes for an entire day - but I don't have the wet pants or the rubber shoes or the fenders or the [insert other items].
Like I said, I bike because I like keeping my own schedule. With that said, I was texting a new friend just now, explaining the liking of biking and the complaining of raining when I thought to myself ...
It'll be nice when I decide to leave here because I'm not going to have to be on the move immediately. I won't be rushing around through traffic and arrive home in a huff and a puff and an exasperated sigh. I can take my time and get there when the people in charge of getting me there feel like getting me there. I have no where to be and thus no reason to be rushed.
Then I laughed at the irony of how my version of rushing around is someone else's Sunday afternoon bike ride. The most stressful thing in my life is how I get to the next coffee shop1.
I felt defeated when I climbed my stairs, after helmeting up, only to find that it was raining quite a bit more than I had thought which was not at all. I had been trapped in my basement room for the duration of the day where my only access to the outside a six inch window that I use as a book shelf for my dictionaries. It took me a good three minutes of standing on the little stoop inside the door that lead to the rain to decide that going out was still an option, even without my bike.
If it wasn't for leaving the house despite not taking my bike I never would have heard the guy seated behind me say to the girl seated with him "do you understand how much I cherish you?" I've experienced a few tid-bits of relationship blossoms while at this brand of coffee place. I'll share another with you in a few days.
My coffee has gone cold, but I'm pretty sure my jacket has dried off. Perhaps it's time to go get it damp again. There's a crowd gathering just outside the window where buses have been stopping all afternoon.
Cheers!
1 this, of course, is not true. the most stressful part of my life is that I have two degrees, I'm trained in something I like doing and it's unlikely that I'll find work in this province any time soon. Of course, this isn't really that stressful because I got into this knowing it. Perhaps I didn't understand the degree of difficulty, or how much I would want to work in Ontario. Worst case scenario, I go somewhere and apprendre une neuveau langue.
Tuesday, April 26
Guilt
It was supposed to rain today, so I didn't bike. Usually I take about 20 mins in the morning to bike to my placement, this Koenig I'm taking the bus.
Usually I have my headphones in for the commute, this morning it's just me and the birds and the tires on tarmac.
It was supposed to thunderstorm this morning. I'm sure it will. I hope it does. If it doesn't I'll feel pretty guilty today. Well, a little guilty. For a few weeks one summer, between undergrad years, I took to biking a trail every morning before work. It wasn't a commute. It was for the exercise; for the birds, the fawns and the foxes; mostly for the smoothy at the end of it all. I went everyday for three weeks. One morning it was raining a bit and I took the morning off.
"you deserve it" said the part of me that likely knowing full well I'd never get back on that trail.
Other parts of me either didn't know, didn't care or agreed and didn't want to say why.
Thats twice that I know of where I've used "usually" to describe something that clearly wasn't, or isn't. At least not yet.
Ils vas faire du pluie a demain, aussi. Je n'aime pas du pluie, At least not while I'm on my bike.
(I was going to touch on the irony of <i>music while I ride and nature while I bus</I>, but the story moved away from it.)
Monday, April 25
today...
Today is the day i sit around in my underwear and write and write and write. (I apologize for the visual, but that is what today is about.)
Today is also about haircuts, cleaning and making lists of lists on giant whiteboards. Today I wish my whiteboard was a giant tablet that allowed me to write as clearly as I do on a whiteboard but also let me save my scribbles as a jpeg.
(wouldn't that be cool!)
today is a day for deciding my three day old beard needs to be shaved off because the transitional period of itch isn't worth it. i don't know how I ever convince myself that it is. I look forty and I have to keep it trimmed. If I don't, I look forty and homeless.
Today it will dawn on me that in a week I'll be homeless.
Today might be the day I learn to use the SHIFT key instead of powering over letters that need capitalized. When I write I get lazy and never touch it. THen I go back over my post and have to highlight and delete and change and I am just as bored correcting it as you are with this sentence.
Today I might go to a coffee place and write and write and write. But first, the pants.
Thanks for reading.
Today is also about haircuts, cleaning and making lists of lists on giant whiteboards. Today I wish my whiteboard was a giant tablet that allowed me to write as clearly as I do on a whiteboard but also let me save my scribbles as a jpeg.
(wouldn't that be cool!)
today is a day for deciding my three day old beard needs to be shaved off because the transitional period of itch isn't worth it. i don't know how I ever convince myself that it is. I look forty and I have to keep it trimmed. If I don't, I look forty and homeless.
Today it will dawn on me that in a week I'll be homeless.
Today might be the day I learn to use the SHIFT key instead of powering over letters that need capitalized. When I write I get lazy and never touch it. THen I go back over my post and have to highlight and delete and change and I am just as bored correcting it as you are with this sentence.
Today I might go to a coffee place and write and write and write. But first, the pants.
Thanks for reading.
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