A Pretty Good Year

Someone said that to me the other day. "Jay, you've had a pretty good year". My first reaction was to disagree. It's been a year, some good, some bad. If I really think about it though it has been a pretty good year.

At the start of the year my weight was better but not good enough. And my blood tests reflected that. In just 6 months or so I'd drop another 15+ pounds and put my blood tests back into the normal range.

It's been a great year for my bicycling. Very early on with only a couple rides under my belt I pedalled up a long steep hill (6 miles long with 800 foot rise) that I'd hoped I'd be able to conquer "eventually". Instead it was done at the very start. I've cycled either to or from work (about 21 miles) several times this summer and one day biked both to AND from the office. So that means I've been the whole way around the lake twice this summer, another personal best. I've even improved my time going to work over the course of the summer. Lance Armstrong has nothing to fear from me but suddenly a 20 mile ride is no longer some huge challenge. And less than that almost doesn't seem worth doing some days! Too easy. Bizarre.

I checked something off my "Bucket List" (the things you want to do before you "kick the bucket") by getting the chance to act with the kid, my daughter. It was great. And she out performed me! Now I want to do it again and give her a challenge. It felt good to act again and it was just SO cool to be on stage with this amazing young woman.

I got the chance to spend some quality time with my daughter in Pittsburgh, a city we both love. We spent some great time with some of my dad's side of the family and just explored. In fact there were several times this summer that we had some fun as a family. Some of it was just dinner time on the back deck, laughing and teasing. There was the wine festival where the kid got a bit tipsy. Yeah, that part was good.

Any year that has a CREDO week in it has to be a good year. I made some amazing friends and they helped me discover some important things about myself. The path that is still ahead of me has a lot of challenges still but it feels great to be walking that way.

There was the great mini-vacation that my lady wife and I took to explore the wineries of the Niagara Escarpment. The time together was wonderful, we found a number of wines we liked and a couple we like a lot. I'll remember that trip for a long time.

And then I remind myself.....

There's still a quarter of the year to go! So this year can still get better. And better. And who knows, maybe even better still.

Peace

Oh the things that I do

Wow, haven't posted much here other than "bizness" so a catch up post:

Did the Loop the Lake ride on my bike. Takes you the whole way around Lake Chautauqua which is about 42 miles. I did it in a new personal best of 3 hours 24 minutes and 50 seconds (riding time, total elapsed time was 3:50). The ride was fine except for about five miles of steady light rain that just drenched me. If I'd ridden slower I'd have missed it completely. Felt very good to get it done in such good shape. No major physical problems on the ride or the day after. My new water back pack has been a real boon to avoiding cramping.

Haven't been watching many movies but I am going back through the episodes of "WKRP in Cincinnati". I remember most of them but I'd really overlooked what great performances were turned in by some of the cast. Naturally I've fallen completely in love with Bailey Quarters (again). And yes add me to the list of folks who worked in the industry who will tell you that yes, it really was like that. Great stuff.

Been thinking about what a really solid year it's been for me personally. The weight loss, the improved blood test results, the major step up in bike riding and overall fitness(including a 40+ mile ride, a 50 mile ride and taking on the longest hill in the area 800+ foot rise in 6 miles), working on my guitar playing. I performed with my daughter for the first time in our lives doing a short drama for church (that was very well received (and looking at the video she out performed me too!) Still ahead is the challenge of NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month. The kid believes her father might just have some small talent for writing (she's the family expert so I shan't argue). But her papi is a lazy butt so she has cornered me into agreeing to taking on the challenge of writing 50,000 words of a novel length story in 30 days. She's actually done the challenge several times and met the goal just this past year. So this is a kind of put up or shut up time for yours truly. I need to start doing some prep work here soon (but no writing yet! That has to be done in November. But I can do character sketches, outline the story, etc in advance) A few years ago I never would have tried, it was just "something I'll never be able to pull off". This year has proven that what I CAN do and what I THINK I CAN DO can be two very different things.

My lady wife and I are doing something radical as well. We're having friends over for dinner. In fact the plan is have a whole bunch of folks over for dinner over the next year. We've always wanted to and never done it. So we've decided it's time to stop being such social hermits. It should be fun. We have some great friends.

Otherwise it's just been life, one day at a time. Time to start wrapping up summer, finishing the chores around the yard, make sure the snow blower is ready to go (SIGH!).

And hope that next year is this good.

Peace

Facebook is ticking me off

Is it just me or has FB been doing a lot of "site maintenance" of late? Seems about every third day I have trouble getting on the site for at least a while because of it. Today I've been locked out for several hours.

The level of annoyance this causes in me probably shows that I spend too much time on FB!

So far a pretty good day. Biked into the office and I'll bike home again. About 42 miles round trip. Final training runs for the Labor Day Loop the Lake ride for Episcopal Community Services. Basically the same ride I'm doing today but all in one shot. My personal record is currently 4 hours for the entire ride. Given that I currently clock the first half of the ride in only 90 minutes I'm thinking I'm about to take a big chunk out of that time. Even with a rest stop and the fact that I'll slow down in the final quarter of the run I'm figuring that I should do this easily in 3 hours 30 minutes to 3:45. We'll see.

In the meantime can FB get their maintenance done? Yeesh.

Peace

Bicyles, Theater and Golf

(Imagine my surprise when I checked in at MadPriest's blog this morning and discovered a link to me with the announcement of my "new project" starting tomorrow. Gulp! I thank His Madness for the prayers. Guess I better go double check my spelling)

In other news:

It was a great weekend for theater at Maison DaYouthGuy. We saw an adaptation of Edgar Lee Masters "Spoon River Anthology" done at our local cemetery. The venue was appropriate since SPR is really a series of epitaphs for the fictional people of his town. Many of the stories overlap and the local group who did it brought those stories together(review). It was very well done, at night lit by torches and lanterns (and a few carefully spotted electric lights). Nice to see something unusual and rather inventive being done around here. The next day we saw Tennessee William's "The Glass Menagerie", a very special play in my family. It was one of my best roles as a college actor and during the time of the show my wife and I (both in the cast - I as Tom and she as Laura) began to date. Really liked the show (although I had a few quibbles with the Tom portrayal, probably unavoidable, lol!) The cast was great as was the set. Don't know why I don't see more theater at Chautauqua it's just down the road and they have a great company and building. (Review - by a fellow Episcopalian no less!)

Finally got out onto the golf course for the first time. Golf is a wonderful, awful, magnificent, evil game. If you've ever played you understand that statement. Otherwise, just take my word. Given that I hadn't even picked up a club in about a year I wasn't too unhappy with the round. Hit a good many shots exceptionally well. But just one or two really bad ones will destroy your score. Curious moments. I lost four balls during nine holes. Yet I finished with the same ball I had teed up at number one. Thought I'd lost it several times only to find it again. After a fairly awful second half I played the final hole (a par 5) absolutely perfectly, gave myself a shot at an honest birdie and settled for a par when my putt came up just a few inches short. Weird game. I love it.

Rode the bike into work today. That's about 21 miles. Took slightly longer this time but I had to stop and get my sunglasses and bike lock from the kid and that slowed me down by about 10 minutes. Otherwise it was about 1:35 for the ride. Not too bad I think. I'm really hoping to get a lot more riding in but the schedule and the weather are not cooperating.

Peace

Something of a drought

I realized that I haven't posted a great deal recently other than routine things - resource reviews make up the majority of my posts over the last couple months. Take of the CREDO related ones and there's not much there. If you're still checking this blog you have my heart felt thanks.

So what's up? Not my mood at the moment. I'm feeling dis-spirited at the moment. It's mostly a convergence of little things. Post camp let down after Senior High. Always get that. The sadness that comes with the growing certainty that I'm going to cancel a camp this year. Junior High just has a handful of applications at the moment. We continue to struggle with the "why" question. Lower demographic numbers, bad economy, poor "marketing", combination of all of the above? Don't know. Add in having to do the financial report for senior high camp. Looks like we're close but OK there but it makes me crazy every year. I hate having to scrape and stint to make the budget work. I want to focus on the program and doing it right. SIGH. We're still hassling with a small problem with the mortgage on the house where I live (I don't hold the mortgage but I'm the executor to the estate that does). I wish I were getting clearer simpler answers than I am. And I wish this problem would go the hell away. I'm assured that the house will not be foreclosed upon (which is good since I'm living in it) but it wears on me.

Adding in is something that should be elevating my mood, our upcoming mission trip to New Orleans. I've never done a mission trip, ever. I'm always nervous before the first time I do something so that doesn't help. As a strong Myers-Briggs introvert these "everybody-all-together" events just wear on me. Add in the high heat and humidity down in NOLA this time of year and I have the potential for being miserable. I know, way to keep a good thought in my head, right? :)

In other news my bicycling is going well. A 20+ mile ride on Tuesday in less than 90 minutes was very encouraging. I rode into work without any trouble. Then I did another hour long ride of almost 13 miles two days later. One hill defeated me but otherwise it went well too. Between the weather and the mission trip I'm going to lose two weeks of cycling however.

My weight remains good. Steady at 175, then down to 173 this week with the riding. I'm hoping the work on the mission trip will make up for the lack of workouts. The next doctor's appointment is in 6 weeks. That's nagging at the back of my brain too.

I'm doing a little more creative stuff. Actually practicing my guitar every day for a least a little while. Need to do more of that stuff to balance the financial stuff.

The kid is doing her last weekend at her second summer job. It's a restaurant that is run strangely. They never seem to get around to posting a schedule for kitchen and wait staff (at another restaurant owned and operated by the same folks the staff simply started doing their own schedule and posting it. Management/ownership doesn't seem to care.) Plus strange attitudes on how things get done, decor, food etc. The whole situation was just making her crazy so she decided on her own to drop it. Tonight and tomorrow and she's free. And will be much happier.

I have lots of things to get done. At the moment I can't seem to put my hands on things however. I know I got an e-mail about something left at camp. I have the item, can't find the e-mail. Weird but typical for what's going on.

So hopefully I'll find the on switch again and get moving a little faster. I AM getting things done but slower than usual. I'm thinking about some things to write here but I'm not sure about them. I'll probably post about that process soon.

Pray for the youth of the diocese and the future of their programs.

Pray for me.

Peace

Milestones

Two events of some level of importance happened this week.

First - for the last several years (hmm, like 6-7?) reaching the minimum number needed to put on some of our camp programs has been a stomach churning and occasionally heart breaking process. So it was great earlier this week to realize that we would pass that milestone for our Senior High Conference with almost a month to go. There have been several years where we took it right down to the wire and then some. Begging, pleading, arm twisting and more. At the moment we are past the minimum number with at least a handful more still to come that I'm confident of seeing. There maybe another handful out there as well. So very good. We may still have to go through the agony for our next two camps but it's great to have breathing room for a change at the start of the summer.

Second - I'm only going to give a tease here because I want to do a little bit of fancy stuff about this later today. I've been looking for challenges for my bike riding this summer beyond my annual ride around the lake (about 42 miles). I'd been eyeing one particular hill coming up from the flatlands along Lake Erie up to the village where I live. The hill is about 6 miles long with no real breaks in the climb. If I remember correctly you rise some 800 feet over the course of the ride. I had really put that down as a train all summer and take it on at the end kind of challenge. Well today I rode the "back way" into the village where the climb starts with a couple friends and they said "Let's do it today!". On my third ride of the year. With only 20 miles under my belt and 10 of those had come that very morning.

Sure. Why not?

And I whupped that hill. The ride took 45 minutes which is well below what I had expected. We stopped once about half way up to make sure everyone was OK. The break was about 2 minutes. I'm fairly certain I could have made it without stopping, I really felt pretty strong at that point. That climb would have been flat out impossible a year ago. Just amazing. (OK that turned out to be more than a tease)

It's been a good week.

Peace

I fall down now

Well the big day came today and I survived. The first of what I hope is several "loops" of the lake near where I live. The whole thing is about 41 miles with lots of hills of varying difficulty. Turns out only two of us were planning on doing the whole loop (wimps) but the other guy was obviously in a lot better shape than me. The good news (?) was he was recovering from knee surgery and needed to "take it easy". Excellent.


I'm quite happy to report that there were no major difficulties along the way. We made very good time (setting a personal best at 4 hours). The biggest problem came at the end when I had a small equipment problem. It seems this little monster, known as the front derailleur, was slightly out of alignment. It seems a small thing right? Well the function of a front derailleur is to move the chain on the front gears. because of the misalignment I couldn't get into my 5 lowest gears. Which are extremely valuable when climbing hills. And the steepest hills are on the last leg of the loop. I managed to negotiate the hills without too much difficulty but by the end my legs had had it. I wasn't quite sure I was going to make it up the last incline to the parking lot. But I did. All because the derailleur couldn't move another quarter inch. It's an easy fix that I wish I'd caught earlier. Sigh.

Today marked the debut of our visiting clergy from Wales. Fr. Noel Carter and his wife Wendy joined us for the first of four Sundays while our regular rectors, Fr. Eric and Mother Susan, are in Wales, then England then France. A long distance pulpit swap. Fr. Noel's sermon was quite good and they seem very nice. So we're working hard to make them feel at home. We hope Eric and Susan (and the girls) are having fun. But not too much fun.

One week to Senior High Conference. Am I ready?

I'll assume that's a rhetorical question.

Must sleep now.

Peace

Just a quick note

Haven't had the time to add anything too profound. These short weeks always mess me up.

I'm back doing some cycling. I got started back in high school when a couple of my friends were pretty serious cyclists. I enjoyed it and it was a great advantage when I went off to college without wheels. For the warm weather months I could zip around pretty quickly.

I got back into it a couple years ago when some of the guys at church started cycling. Fr. Eric has become a pretty serious cyclist and a group of three or four of us try to bike together once a week. I've added some more biking to try and save on gas. If I can bike in we can save one round trip a week and that's not bad these days.

Haven't put a lot of mileage up yet but it's been pretty easy getting back into it. This morning I had a little excitement when some clown in a hurry passed me with less than a foot between me and his sheet metal. There was really no need for it but cyclists like motorcycles get very short shrift on the road. A fair percentage of four wheel vehicle drivers are ACTIVELY hostile to two wheelies out there. Don't ask me why but every biker of any description will swear it's true.

So I got startled but nothing else which is cool. Put another 15 miles or so on the chart for the summer. Hopefully I can:
1: Get in better shape,
2: Save some money
3: Do a little for the environment
4: Have some safe fun.

So be nice to that poor slob you see struggling along on the road. He might be me.

Peace