Grumps can suck it, it's Friday!

[Matthew Strongin]

While filled with anxiety and uncertainty, I'm focusing on the good...

My son is 5 months old and doing great. And I'm actually ok at this father thing. And my wife is doing awesome as a mom.

Our weather is finally turning and this week has been great.

I'm riding more than ever, training less than in years, and enjoying a great group of riding partners. Tomorrow I'll do my 34th century of the year and pass the 13K mile mark with my biggest riding month yet to come. Yay, bikes.

[ron l edmiston]

-- blessed that i made it home with taps in my heart for those my comand brought darkness..
thank you Tammy for being my best friend today & everyday..

ronnie

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a grumpy cell phone "command"

[rwsaunders]

Youngest kid (HS junior) came home from school on Friday and told me that he earned some brownie points from his physics teacher. They were discussing velocity and the teacher used a TDF time trial as an example. When the teacher asked if anybody knew what a TT was, my son raised his hand and responded "the race of truth".

[Dave Thompson]

You certainly raised him right!

[rwsaunders]

You certainly raised him right!

No question Dave. He said that 16 years of having to listen to Sir Phil every July paid off.

[Chad]

My apologies to the cyclists that have been enjoying the unseasonably warm weather, but this weekend should be incredible for waterfowling!!

Take care all.

Chad

[znfdl]

I am getting excited about tomorrow's ride up the C&O Canal Towpath. I had such a great time last weekend, I decided to go a little longer, hopefully 200K+. If anyone wants to join, the temps should peak out in the low 60s, I also plan to be off the Towpath prior to the late afternoon rain.

[davids]

A better week this week. A little clarity about how to move forward in ways I believe will be positive.

Closer to home, the final inspection is complete so we're officially done. Still a short list of small things to do over the next month or so, but they're details (shades & curtains, framing some more art, re-upholstering some chairs...) And we're moving on to the next project - we'll sit down with our landscaper tomorrow to discuss our overall plan and what we'll plant come the spring.

[dgaddis]

IT'S FRIDAY! Yesterday was my last day working full time in Augusta. We're (supposed) to close on the sale of our old house on Tuesday next week, and then I'm all-in sink or swim with Southern Wheelworks. I really liked Augusta and I'm going to miss it. I moved to Augusta after college, showed up a dumbass kid who didn't even know what he didn't even know. I'm still pretty much an idiot but I'm a smarter idiot than I've ever been before For cycling it's a GREAT little unknown hotspot. 150 miles of singletrack, two separate metric century MTB routes (that are only ~8 miles apart!), tons of good gravel roads just outside town. Made a ton of really awesome friends there, and I'm going to sincerely miss riding with those boys and girls every week.



My first job in town I worked at the Enterprise Mill, a historic textile mill that has been renovated, just a super cool building, built in 1907 if my memory is correct. All original floors (complete with cuts, scrapes from carts, indentions from machine feet, etc), two hydro electric generators use the water from the canal to power the building. I ended up leaving that company when the recession hit, but eventually found my way back. Then that company closed the office right before Christmas, and after the first of the year we re-opened as the engineering arm of another company in the same location. What an awesome way to get laid off! Got two weeks off over the holidays, a ~6week severance package, then went back to work in the same office with most of the same people doing the same work but with more freedom to do things that way that make sense for us and our clients, not the way the Corporate Overloads in Denver said we had to do them. We started with 10 people, two years later we're well over 30 now. I kinda hate to leave.


Livin' the dream.

But, I'm stoked about the future and opportunities here in Macon. So now I'm off to the shop to do some painting, gotta get it looking decent since I'm gonna be there five days a week now. I'm also really excited about being with my wife every night again! This entire year I've spent 3 nights a week in Augusta at my old day job and staying at our old house, which is empty, sleeping on a couch that's too short to stretch all the way out on. We moved out on Dec 2nd - exactly one year ago today.

Unrelated: tonight we're making pizza. Tomorrow night we're doing beef short ribs, after searching for a while I finally found some!! Here's to the next chapter!

[hidayanra]

tons of feelings -

had my annual review, and got my first raise in 10 years as a professional (and my 10th "very-good to excellent" performance review) - I've never even gotten cost of living, and my raise today was 11%.
Personally, the best, most exciting year of my career - I did a TON this year, and did a damn good job at it. Massive personal and professional growth, and not over-working myself either.
The boss agreed w/ my assessment and hired the candidate I recommended after an 8 month hiring process - we waited a long time, but this kid is going to be dynamite, and he'll make my life a ton easier.
Boss talked with me about what it'd take for me to hit "Associate", I'm the 2nd person he's talked about promoting from within in 25 years of owning the business...
The company christmas party is tonight, and we do this thing RIGHT - Dinner at one of the best places in town, it's open bar, anything you want until they close it down at 2a, and the cab ride home is on the company.
early-morning curling with the sunrise is RAD.
riding bikes again, and this handbuilt-bikes-thing is GREAT.

balance to all that, I'm pretty sure the wife and I are going to be done in the very near future - and I'm really messed up about that.
There are times where you do what you can, and then there's not more that you can do.

c'est compliqué

[rmplum]

Tough day at the office (well, it was pretty windy today in SoCal)
IMG_5360.jpg

[guido]

Nice skirt steak on the grill, Django Reinhardt stream playing on the music machine...

[SpeedyChix]

Have to post this early. It's been a day of highs and lows.

Been waiting for what seems like weeks on pathology reports and got the good news. Yes! No cancer cells among things.

[rwsaunders]

I'm not letting the grumps steal my week even though it's only Monday morning and I've already had three flight delays/cancellations since yesterday afternoon. Keep the faith as there are some people out there in the world struggling pretty hard. There's food on the table in our home and all are healthy, so the airport Christmas tree served to remind me to keep my head on straight and be thankful.

[Nierman]

Nice tree, RW!

That reminded me for my last Friday's gratitude: My 7th grader earned her first solo at her jr high Christmas concert, and next day as part of the traveling strings group got the honor of playing to the lunch patrons down at KC Union Station. Only one of the group who doesn't take private lessons - I'm dropping the ball on her reaching full potential.

[rwsaunders]

^ Congratulations for sure! I can't read a stitch of music and all of our kids play instruments and can read music very proficiently. It's certainly a good feeling watching your kid in concert and you start to question how they're related to you!

I credit music with helping to hone their math, language and problem solving skills. I guess all of those miles in the van rocking The Beatles, Great Big Sea and our local indie public radio station (WYEP.org) paid off in our case.

[defspace]

I credit music with...

Amen.
There's plenty of research that shows the the brains of musicians are different from non-musicians. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that neural adaptations developed in response to musical stimuli are co-opted for other purposes.

I am so incredibly grateful that my parents encouraged me to play musical instruments. It's given me years of enjoyment. It's given me friends. It's given me an appreciation of music and sound that I don't think I would have otherwise.

Perhaps most importantly, I think playing musical instruments gave me an understanding that improvement requires practice and hard work.

Good job, all you parents who encourage musical development!

[Saab2000]

It's Tuesday and I don't care. They LUV me! Got the nod from one of the best employers in my business. It's been a long and circuitous route to get that call, but yesterday it came. I couldn't be more excited and full of hope. My gamble of leaving my long-time job about a year ago is paying off.

[rwsaunders]

^ SAAB, you don't have to say if it's Delta, but if it is, please let me ride in the jump seat on your PIT-MSP-SEA flights. I wont tell anybody, I promise.

[robin3mj]

It's Tuesday and I don't care. They LUV me! Got the nod from one of the best employers in my business. It's been a long and circuitous route to get that call, but yesterday it came. I couldn't be more excited and full of hope. My gamble of leaving my long-time job about a year ago is paying off.

^ SAAB, you don't have to say if it's Delta, but if it is, please let me ride in the jump seat on your PIT-MSP-SEA flights. I wont tell anybody, I promise.

I think he gave it away in his post, and I don't think it's Delta.
Jim, now you get to learn how to get to the secondary airports in most cities, no?
Midway is way easier than ORD in that regard.