10 September 1997: Developing Muscles

Wednesday, 10 September 1997:

Developing Muscles

I think I've mentioned that Tuesday and Thursday are the best days of the week for me to bike to work, because my R&D team has an 8:30 meeting the other three days, and I'm skeptical of my ability to wake up in time to bike there for the meeting. But, with UGM this week, it looked questionable whether I'd be able to bike in either Tuesday or Thursday, and the prospect of going a whole week without biking in didn't sit well with me. So I roused myself at 7 am this morning and struggled out the door.

Well, I was rewarded with probably my easiest ride in yet. I needed to take substantially shorter breaks after scaling each of the two worst hills, and I got there in a shade under 35 minutes' time. It also helped that it was in the mid-50s this morning, which kept me fairly cool. My legs have been complaining about all the work lately, but I think they just need to get over a hump of developing muscles, and then they'll be fine.

I'm having trouble with the lower gears on my bike, though; I think I need a new chain.

I'm making really good progress on my latest project at work; I think people are surprised how much I've gotten done. Basically, I think it's somewhat easier than was originally estimated (not that I'm complaining about that!). Still a long way to go, though.

I guess my presentation at UGM yesterday was well-received; always good to be appreciated.

A light comic book week: A somewhat lame (though beautifully painted) graphic novel entitled A Wizard's Tale, which is about an "evil" wizard who can't quite get his job right. And the concluding chapter of Elseworlds Finest, a version of Superman and Batman in the 1920s, which is pretty good.

I went downtown tonight and bought the new album by The Freddy Jones Band entitled Lucid; I really love their first two albums. I also bought tickets for my friend Karen and I to see them in concert next month. And I picked up an early album by Jackson Browne, Late For The Sky.

Then I went to the weekly social gathering of the SF3 folks, which I haven't been to in several months. It was nice to see some of the folks I don't see regularly elsewhere (I see the book discussion and WisCon folks at least once a month), but I doubt I'll go back to going down every week, like I did last winter. (Besides, a certain person I mentioned last month shows up there regularly, which makes it a bit uncomfortable for me.)

I did get to talk lots of baseball with a couple of folks, though, and we talked books briefly, too - mostly reminiscences of the first time we each read The Lord of the Rings. I didn't read LOTR until I was an adult, despite several attempts. I think I just wasn't ready to read it, but once I finally got through it, I loved it. Took me a bloody month-and-a-half to get through, though!

Michael Rawdon (Contact)