Autumn Again

It’s been a full summer.

Maria’s had some great time off and done some fun geocaching adventures.

She also wrote a work-book for one of her class-sequences at King’s, which is now being applied to her entry level students. Sure to  have some revisions as she goes but there is hope to be able to publish it for real in a year or so.

Work for me at USPS continues at what would be a “nominal” pace for me – it’s just too held back by paperwork compared to my previous development career in computer gaming to consider it a hard level of effort, even though I’ve basically wholesale refactored major portions of one of our two big data feeds (both inbound and outbound). The coming year proves to be “curious” as the replacement system for the one I work with is being designed and I’ll likely be involved in development to some degree – at least that what I’ve been told.

My cycling this summer was different than last, I did get MORE cross-country than last, which is good, but still not enough epic rides. It’s tough as I don’t have a regular / reliable epic riding partner, much less group. I think next year I’m going to lobby for a SPOT tracker and just go off into the back country by myself and to heck with it.

I have had a really great year with the downhilling. Dave and Amy Temerantz are such fun people to spend time with, and great “DH buddies” – I wish they had the “long XC ride” bug bite them though. It’s just not going to happen. The three of us raced in the Diablo Gravity Series at Diablo Freeride MTB Park in Vernon NJ  this year and I think Amy is going to be pretty high if not 1st in standings in her class come the last race. I’m going to race both events at the next one and see if I can’t come in with a higher overall than Dave. Not sure, but it may be possible, we’ll see.

Next year I may want to race some XC/marathon things IN ADDITION to the DH stuff. Kind-of depends upon what Dave & Amy want to do. I sort-of hope they decide they want to do the Gravity East Series as that would get us to different venues. I would not likely be able to afford to go to every race, but I’d probably try!

But now, it’s autumn. The world is wet – it’s been a time of “epic rain” here in NE PA. The leaves are changing. Time to think about a fender for my MTB. And a second pair of tights maybe – should have thought of that last weekend at the swap-meet!

Also maybe time to get the skiis prepared for winter, so they’re ready. Kick-n-glide time is coming sooner than not, maybe.

Welcome back, Spring!

In a mere two days Spring season will officially be here.

Today though, starts Bear’s real cycling season for 2011. Daylight is being Saved, bikes are *mostly* ready, and the Plan is Engaged to go longer, bigger, and further than any previous year.

Honey will even be drug along for some of the ride, I hope she survives!

So cheers, have fun, get some fresh air, see you outside!

7 Months Later

It hasn’t been a static 7 months, but we just don’t seem to diver time to maintaining the blog a whole lot. Too bad.

Highlights…

Maria coached her first group of students to a successful ACM Programming competition, a regional level competition held locally here at Wilkes University. The King’s group managed to do better than any other group from the Wyoming-Valley – which was awesome! Next year, I expect even better results for them.

Maria has started getting priority back into recovering her physical health, going to the gym fairly regularly and such, join me in wishing her luck continuing that into 2011, mm-kay?

Maria has also managed to survive not only her first year at King’s, with glowing reviews, but her hardest semester yet. With luck she’s “over the hump” and it will start to ease up a bit now and she will able to work less than 100 hrs a week (or something like that).

Maria’s had a blast geocaching here though, she’s managed to keep that hobby going well ’nuff on the various days off. She just hit milestone 3500 when she and a some friends went out for the Christmas Cache up in mid-state New York. It was a huge long day trip, but she had a blast and that is what was important.

We took our first vacation together in quite some time, in the summer we hooked up our little camping trailer and wheeled our way up to Vermont and Maine. We spent a couple days near East Burke VT – originally so I could get some cycling in at the Kingdom Trails – alas that didn’t work out since my bike broke on the first ride. We spent the bulk of the time geocaching around the area, and into Quebec, and had a great stay. We then cruised over to the coast of Maine (just outside Southport) and had a great couple days there too. We even managed to connect with a VERY old girl-friend of Maria’s and her family one day. On the way back we stayed at an “inland cruise ship” as we called it – a Yogi Bear campground. Never again. Not a BAD place, but not “us” – too busy and too organized. It was in a nice area, not too far from La Palz NY, which we need to find our way back to.

For me, it was a year of stabilizing myself at work, changing from being a contractor- to becoming a US Postal Service employee. It was also a year of expanding my cycling horizons, I spent a lot of time doing downhill with my new friends Dave and Amy T at various chair-lift based cycling venues and learned new skills of catching air and dropping big and basically hauling butt. I’m not sure Maria is very happy with it, but I am. I look forward to doing more in 2011.

My cross-country cycling has taken a hit from all this I think, so I need to bring that back up. I’m not happy with that and I need to find a way to make both of these things work out.

It was also a sad cycling year, as both my mountain bikes broke. The one that broke in VT wasn’t a big deal, but when my 7 year old Quasi-Moto broke in September that was a saddening thing. That bike and I had been through a lot of craziness together, and it had seen me go from a cycling-hooked individual to a completely cycling-obsessed individual, had been on a number of road trips with me, and through a number of races. I’ve been able to find used stuff to ride since then, and make mine, but nothing feels yet like I have found the replacement- or worthy-successor for the Quasi-Moto. It was truly a unique machine for a special time in my life.

The best family news I had all year was when at Thanksgiving we found out that my little sister is engaged! I’m looking forward to that party next year, it ought to be fun. And it will happen merely a month after Maria and I go to Switzerland to celebrate the same thing for Maria’s dear friend Jean-Philippe when he and his gal celebrate nuptuals at his family home in June.

And that about sums up 2010, dear reader.

May Again

It seems to me that life is always going to be bittersweet. Good with Bad. Yin with Yang.

This month, along with celebrating another great year with Wife I get to remember and have the feelings surrounding the deaths of Dad, Aunt Betsy, Aunt Millie, and friend Anthony all together.

I suppose that each year will allow the remembrances to become more distant and a little easier. I hope so, because I find myself strangely drained – ambivalent – unmotivated of my goals – and there is no real good reason.

I am thankful hat Dad and Betsy and Aunt Millie don’t have to Fight their Fights. But they are missed.

I am also thankful for the people I do have. Old and new. That keep me engaged in life and positive motion.

Tempes Fugit
Carpe Diem

Friends

We finally managed to visit some of our East Coast friends this weekend.

Sad, but it took the threat of them moving to our previous home town of Austin TX in the immediate future to galvanize a very targeted weekend – going to see one family and one only.

You know, it was great. No big deal, no stress, easy to get going, we had a fabulous time. We’re super happy with the weekend and we’ve decided that is how we need to go about reconnecting with the rest of our friends.

So, K&D, M&M, L&E, Sister, Sister, etc., you’ve been warned. ;^)

We’re also sad to learn that a dear friend’s daughter had an appendix problem Saturday and was hospitalized. It SOUNDS like she’s going to be fine, but she’s not home yet, so our thoughts and prayers are with Family G this weekend.

Time Is Fleeting

Somebody once said that time flies, and boy are they right. It feels like only yesterday we were dealing with Family Christmas Drama and here it is the Ides of March. Maybe things will go better this year, it sure could not be that difficult if only important people can try to not die off like they did last spring.

A New Year

We made it. 2010 now spreads out before us like a blank painter’s canvas, awaiting color and stroke to provide it feature and meaning. The questions posed … Which colors to use? What strokes to apply? How deeply to tread? Who to journey with? Please think kindly of us as we go hand in hand into our new future.

Merry December

Well, we are nearing the point where I get to experiece my first real winter in over ten years. Wish me luck. To kick the month off nicely though, my offiice has ugraded me to my very own private cube. I feel so Office Space now.

Introducing Lila …

We can officially claim to be settled into NEPA now.  Both Ted and I are hard at work at our new jobs aand things at home become more like home every day.  As a result of feeling this way, we went and adopted a little itty bitty kitty on Saturday.

Introducing Lila …

Lila is a small, 2-year old cat that we found at the SPCA.  She’s had a rough life.  Recently she gave birth to 3 kittens and then played nursemaid to 4 others.  At the time of her adoption, she still has milk in her teats!  And all this she’d done at a mere 5.5 lbs!  She is the smallest cat I have ever seen.  Like most cats that come from the SPCA she’s has a bit of an upper respiratory infection but this too will pass.  She’s the sweetest cat you’ve ever met too … and very easy going.

Burrnadette is not taking it as well.  She’s still adjusting to all the changes so this has thrown her for a loop.  The good news is that there was no blood at initial meeting so it’s doubtful that there will be trouble.  The first day she would not come out from under the bed.  Today she’s coming out to smell the smells and explore a bit more.  This good.

More pictures can be found on smugmug.

Settling into PA

Well here we are. Who knew that we would find a place in so short a time, all of three days after arriving in Wilkes-Barre!

We’ve been very busy these first days, now all of 1.5 weeks into our relocation, we have in a very short span managed to do a lot of things…

Drove 1760 miles from Austin to Wilkes-Barre in 3 days.

Found and setup camp at Moon Lake County Park.

Found a mail drop to make our new mailing address.

Found a new bank to make our home bank and setup accounts.

Lightly scoured the countryside, and in the end found a cute apartment to rent, less than 3 miles from work. Sweet. Minimum commute time last week was 10 minutes, max 17. We’ll see how it goes.

Started working at both our respective jobs.

We have met over half the occupants of our apartment building and they’re all cool people so far, 3 out of four apartments have one or more cats so how bad CAN they be?

Painted the bathroom in the apartment.

Started cycling, both road and dirt, both of us (each to our own levels).

We both seem to be making good connections with people at our respective workplaces.

I’ve even started to make connections in the local cycling scene – I hesitate to say friends yet, it’s too early, but signs are good.

So, things are looking pretty dang good if you ask me.

Now if only paychecks would start moving, that’d de-stress us both quite a bit.

We are terribly missing our Austin friends, make no mistake. We are NOT missing the Austin weather, temperatures from 50-80 with a vibrant and healthy landscape are MUCH more to both our likings. I’m still working on finding “those” trails, as the public samplings I’ve had so far are good, but I hope to be only the tip of the iceberg.