Choice Club

Midwest, smack dab in the middle of it.

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Put winter shoes on the hobo-commutard.

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So we made a wrong turn, entered a conservation area as an attempted shortcut, swam, chose a random trail "out", dead ended, took the route we decided not to take before trying shortcut, walked a hill #rando style, ended up riding 15 miles extra, pizza time plz. 🍕🍕 Btw why is the sun/world/horizon covered in haze?? (at t00 tired 2 stretch 😶👤)

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Went to Waffle House this morning after floating.  Took a photo of this rockin’ couple.

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The Benj.

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Antiquing in the City of Jefferson

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Rode the 950 around town for errands today.  I was out for about three hours.  Got some cedar sachets to protect my wool clothing stash, a Mall-Mart run, the library.  The entire set up has maybe five-hundo into it, max, and I'm stoked on everything about it.  Friction shifters, saddle bag, old rat-trap Pletscher rack, gum-wall semi-slicks, saddle & basket bag.  Mm-mm, a hearty dayum all around.   Sexy-flexy old MTB turned utility-bike goodness.  Getting some errant spray from under the fender so I swung by the bike shop and added a kevlar-treadmill belt mudflap utilitizing some choice brass hardware I had saved back.  

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Hot polished business.

A customer's mint NOS Pinarello.  Stay tuned for more.

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Don't knock it 'til you try it.

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Camping above L.A.  — Mt. Lowe

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It's winter in L.A.

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Looking through some old photos, my first reaction tends toward, “Gosh I take too many pictures of bikes”.   Taking photos is a welcome creative escape—a medium that allows me to create in a way that is spontaneous and a (in its spontaneity) surprisingly satisfying.   My urge to analyze and critique my own work is undeniable and, while a studied look at one’s own photos is immensely valuable, I am driven to shoot what I want to shoot (and isn’t the truest art that which is driven by something almost instinctual?).

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He remembered Alejandra and the sadness he’d first seen in the slope of her shoulders which he’d presumed to understand and of which he knew nothing and he felt a loneliness he’d not known since he was a child and he felt wholly alien to the world although he loved it still.

"All the Pretty Horses" - Cormac McCarthy, page 282, Vintage International Edition, 1993

How does he do it?

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The news has everyone fussing and rents around here are sky high and a web curmudgeon somewhere prophesies the Armageddon of the stockmarket, peak oil, common decency, bikes, you name it, every day. Those squeaky wheels might be getting the most views/clicks/grease by bored folks reading internet articles but remember that the lasting legacies of progress always go to the optimists. Optimists are happier, that's easy to figure out. But more successful all around. Ever known a pessimist to take risks or try new things? I'm a glass-half-full kinda guy who occasionally finds myself optimistically frustrated by naysayers and haters and wish that all people would take the long-view that even when something is not perfect, it's all good, it's getting better, and you're incredibly lucky. - Dave

Really appreciate this part of rivbike's latest newsletter.  Keep lookin' up, there's a sun beyond our grey Midwestern clouds.

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Here comes the sun. (at megamile monday)

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It's cold today, and I've been sitting, working on graduate school applications for four hours.  My back hurts and my head has a lot of pressure.  I think I give up on the applications for today—I'll slave away Saturday.   Last week I went to the library to check out a book they had about Alec Soth's photography.  It was pretty cool, and made me want to take pictures. I broke my lens about a week and half ago.  I'm yearning to shoot, so here I am, posting two month old pictures of Ikea.

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Missing my camera so hard right now.

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Day Two, Color Fotos