Trolling

Tags

fun, trolls

Ever have a hankering to pay money to go look at trees and plants?  If you are like me, well, it’s great to have a nice place of peace available, but I am satisfied with what God has already provided for free.  There is an arboretum close by, about 10-15 minutes drive from my house, but until now I really could not justify the cost of going there.  I know that the Morton Arboretum is committed to excellent, so what is found there is the best.  If I though I would use a membership, I would pay the price for one.

When I saw that the Morton Arboretum had commissioned a danish artist, Thomas Danbo to make six larger than life wood trolls for display, I was intrigued.  The arboretum is bordered on one side by I-88 in Lisle, Illinois and one of his first creations was a large troll that overlooks the interstate.  Once I saw that troll, I knew that I had to pay the fee to see the trolls.  Saturday evening, D and I chose to go troll hunting at the Morton Arboretum as our date night activity.  As we found out, the troll that overlooks the interstate tollway is Joe the Guardian, an appropriate title.  Quickly, our curiosity turned to delight.  The troll hunt is a unusual delight, an addition to an already uniquely exceptional outdoor museum.

As the booklet/map explained to us, the trolls love the woods and trees there as much or more than the humans that visit there.  They decided to visit the Arboretum, concerned and even upset when the humans don’t treat the plants and trees there with respect.  Some are friendly, some are not.  Some don’t mind being found, some hide.  The map gave us the locations of each troll in the museum.  Each location had a parking area, with a trail that lead us to each troll.

We were greeted at the visitors center parking lot by a troll who obviously did not appreciate the cars.

He was our first troll encounter.  A little girl was not thrilled by her first troll encounter, shrieking and crying with fear at the scary monster.  I gave him a bit of room myself.  He was not huggable, so D and I said our hello to him and rushed away.

Our next troll encounter was with a gruff sort who preferred to hide in the woods, his big club ready to use on anyone who demonstrated bad behavior.  Like the boulder tossing brute we first encountered, the gruff troll inspired fear in a little visitor who would not get within 100 yards of him.

We found this happy go lazy troll lounging in a meadow.  I could relate a bit, my three hour bike ride that morning (the third in as many days) beginning to make me want to lounge for a while.  D discouraged my desire to take a nap with this gentle giant.  We had more trolls to find!

Some trolls were smiling, but maybe not exactly for a good reason.  This guy was definitely friendly, but his little snare gave away his true intentions.  He definitely appreciated pretty D’s hug and my offer to pick his nose.

Our last troll was a little more difficult to find and took a bit of a hike to reach.  D loved him so much that she blew him a kiss.  Trolls blush.

We drove through a peaceful woods on our way out of the Arboretum, the sun casting its last rays on Joe the Guardian troll.  D and I found a table for the little picnic I had brought along, a nice end to the perfect troll hunt.

 

Overdue

Tags

mountain biking

I am cheap.  Very, very, very, very cheap.  I will not spend money unless it’s absolutely necessary.  Everything in my possession gets used until it can no longer be used.  That is something that is very evident in the equipment I use for cycling.

Last night, I reached the point of no return with my mountain bike shoes.  After four years, they finally blew out and gave up the ghost.  I spent a whole whopping $60 on those Shimano shoes four years ago.  The right shoe completely blew out the side.  Interestingly enough, the blowout did not prevent me from finishing my ride.

That means I had to spend money today.  For the past few months, I have known that my shoes were far past their life expectancy.  My hope was that I could make them last until there was a gap in my budget and I could afford the really cool shoes.  I have had my eyes on a pair of Five Ten Hellcat shoes, fairly expensive but not over the top expensive.  Because my shoes blew out before I was ready to spend the money, I had to settle.  I bought a pair of Shimano ME3 shoes today, a very comfortable shoe, but not cool.  Shimano is good for guys who need wide toe boxes, like me.  I will be very happy.

 

The new cleats are on.  I will be breaking the new shoes in with newcomers to the sport tomorrow morning.  Apparently, the guy who is in charge of the trail system I ride thinks that I am a good ambassador for the sport.  I am leading two noobs on their first ride in the morning.  Last night was a noob ride, although that kid was very very good!

Steve is old

Tags

lessons learned, middle age, mountain biking, personal

Why in the world do I do this?

My body hurts.  My body hates me right now.  Seriously, my body is screaming “HEY, YOU CRAZY OLD MAN, DO YOU REALIZE THAT YOU ARE OLD, OLD, OLD, OLD?”

Listen, body, I know that.  Do you realize that stuff like this is the responsibility of old people who ride mountain bikes?

Alcohol was necessary tonight.  It really was.  I punished my body.  It needs to be numbed.  I apologize to those who struggle with alcohol addiction.  But tonight, my body begged me to please allow it to have a brief respite from pain.

My friend Greg asked me a few days ago if I was available to ride tonight, to ride some trails that are freakishly difficult.  I laughed, but I said yes.  Why did I laugh?  I am a pretty decent rider when I am riding trails that I know will not beat the snot out of me.  I am pretty decent rider, but I am not one of the most skilled riders.  Greg did not care.  He invited me to ride.  Sometimes it’s not about how well a person rides, it’s about what they add to the quality of the ride.  I add quality.  I am the type of person who encourages.

It’s true.

Greg wanted me to ride with him and a young, upcoming 18 year old rider who is thinking about racing, who needed exposure to some really difficult trails to ride.  The trails we rode tonight are so difficult that they have been declared off limits.  They are no longer sanctioned by the local trail advocate.  They freaking beat the snot out of me.  Early on, I realized that all I needed to do was try, to pick a line on the freakishly steep drops and finish them.  I needed to watch this 18 year old boy finish and rock the impossible rock gardens, tell him what a rock star he really is.  I needed to finish the trails with them, no matter how slow I finished them, because it’s cool for a guy my age to take those type of chances.

Tonight was an absolute blast.  I rode some of the really tough stuff, walked when I just plain couldn’t.  It didn’t matter.  Riding like a rock star wasn’t my purpose tonight.  tongith, I just needed to enjoy myself.  I watched an 18 year old clear what seemed impossible — oh my, that kid rode some gnarly stuff.  I was a cheerleader.  I listened to him exclaim the joy of how freaking impossible some of the stuff we rode was.  He fell to the ground at the end of our ride, totally wasted but satisfied.

OK, body, are you happy now?

Let’s see how we feel in the morning.

 

Sometimes You’re The Toast

Tags

mountain biking, personal

Tonight’s ride was supposed to be just me and the woods, casual, close to dusk and one of those do-it-because-you-will-hate-yourself-tomorrow-if-you-don’t rides.  3 PM hit me like a ton of sleeping pills at the office today, normally a time when I can sneak a little nap in on the floor of my office.  My other two office mates are usually gone by then.  Instead, I left at my normal 4:30, no nap accomplished because our office manager stayed late.  Lunch was also light, creamy peanut butter on a leftover hamburger bun, so I was moaning for some food.  Life was as tough as it gets for this guy.

I rushed home, popped a leftover grilled hamburger patty and two corn on the cobs into the microwave.  As I greedily consumed the luscious leftovers, I anticipated the call of the couch, a nap on the horizon.  My couch has five stuffed pillows on it, so I knew that the hamburger (mayo with ketchup and huge huge huge hamburger dill pickles) would send me into snooze heaven.  I was not disappointed.  Furious 7 was on cable, one of the worst movies everrrrrrrrrrr, so I was off to the sheep counting races.

10 minutes later, my semi conscious mind reminded me that it was a perfect evening to ride.  The woods would be pristine, as would be the single track.  It was freaking 82 degrees with a tiny breeze.  GET OFF OF THE COUCH, YOU SLUG.

So, I listened to my guilty conscience, changed into my mountain biking attire (much more socially acceptable than the laughable road attire… no affable humors for me).  The bike fit into it’s normal space behind my car, quickly, and I was off to the trails.  ETA was close to 7 PM.  Surely (I won’t call you Shirley) no one would be there.

Wrong.

Five of the fastest young men on the planet arrived at the trail parking lot about the same time I pulled in.  They know me.  I am a regular.  I could not escape.

Are you going to ride with us, they inquired.

Oh no, I wouldn’t want to hold you back, I replied.

You know we don’t care, they retorted.

Poop.  Fiddlesticks.  Why in the world would these 20 something guys who ride like the wind want to ride with this old couch loving man?  They did, however.  Crap, what in the world was I getting into.  I knew.  I have been out on the trails with them before.  I can hang, but it’s balls out.  Poop poop poop.  POOP!

I rode with them, hung with them on most of the trails, gritted my teeth and rode the way I know that I am supposed to.  By the end, I was toast, but happy that I finished with them.

I will sleep well tonight.

Faith

Tags

biking, lessons learned

During the time I have been cycling it has been necessary to step out of my comfort zone.  Cycling has taught me quite a bit about life, forced me at times to suck it up, whether that means simply to keep pushing along or whether that means to ignore that little voice that tells me I am not good enough or intelligent enough.  In cycling, as it is in life, I have had to remind myself that it is not necessary to have the best to be satisfied — it’s more important to be content and do the best with what God has provided.  That doesn’t always refer to the quality of the bike I am riding or the components on that bike.  More often than not, it means that my satisfaction comes from what I put into it.

Sounds a lot like life, doesn’t it?

People who ride love to talk about their bike(s) and the different components, whether said cyclist is a roadie or a mountain biker.  Naturally, we are proud of the machine that we ride.  The machine does make a difference.  When I started mountain biking a few years ago, I rode a 20 year old beast of a bike, a heavy Trek that had seen it’s better days.  It did the job and I enjoyed the trails, not thinking as much about the bike as I did about the fun I was having.  I replaced that Trek out of necessity as it fell apart underneath me, my “new” ride a one year old Specialized Hardrock for around $200, a bike intended more for riding in a civilized environment than it was for riding dirt single track.  It was the best I could afford at the time, my responsibilities as a family man took most of my financial resources.  That bike beat the snot out of me (literally, at times) and, since it really was a bike that wasn’t meant for hard riding, I wore that bike out in one season.

It took a lot of sweat to keep that bike and any other bike I have had in working order.  My passion is to ride, not to tinker with bicycles, but I just did not have the money to have a professional bike mechanic perform maintenance and repairs for me.  As a result, I did what I had to do to keep riding, stepped out of my comfort zone and fixed my bicycles.  Sometimes I had to invest in a tool or find a friend who had the tool that I needed.  Once in a while, I have had to ask for help, even have a professional correct my screw up.  I used old parts, often parts or components that friends were going to throw away.  There has never been a time when I couldn’t ride due to lack of a working bike to ride.

Three years ago, I was blessed to be able to buy my first new bicycle in over 20 years, a bike still modest by some standards, impressive by others — a 2014 Specialized Camber FSR mountain bike.  It had been the shop test bike, a loaner for a year, so the bike shop sold it to me for about a $1000 less than it had retailed for a year before.  Had it not been for the discounted price and the bonus my boss gave to me, a bonus he had promised to me when he hired me, I would not have been able to afford such a nice bike.  The bike was and is a sweet ride, 29″ wheels with full suspension and hydraulic disc brakes, subtle gray with black wheels and decals.  Three years later, even with the plethora of plus bikes and impressively technical bikes available, I still get compliments on the bike.  It’s possible that bike is the reason mountain biking has grown to become my favorite thing to do.

Up until now, the majority of maintenance and repairs have been done by the bike shop.  It’s too much of my baby, too much of an investment for me to risk messing up by doing my own repairs.  But my enthusiasm for riding that bike has meant that I have worn it out.  It has new wheels now, new grips, new shifting components.  I ride it enough that the rear air shock has to be maintenanced at least once a year — until now.  Last week, I started getting pedal strikes during a ride, looked down to see very little piston showing on the shock.  It was time to replace the seals, definitely a repair that I fear.  A new shock costs nearly $300, so doing the repair myself is a decently huge risk.

One problem — the shop always closes one day a week, plus it would take a few days for them to do it.  I steeled myself, looked up the seal kit and oil needed for the maintenance, ordered them.  They arrived the next day.  With much trepidation, I watched online videos and printed the maintenance instructions, step by step to disassemble and assemble the air can and piston.  Friday evening, I carefully removed the shock from my bike, took it inside and took it apart.  An hour later, I put it back together, pumped it up, reassembled it on my Specialized, took it for a quick spin around the block.  Amazed that it held charge for the test ride, I put it in the garage with hope I could ride it in the morning.

I awoke to a thunderstorm Saturday morning.  I was not able to test the shock on the trails, so I went out to the garage to check it.  Still holding charge.  No pop when I put full weight on it.  It auto sagged properly.

Last night, I rode for two hours.  Impressed, but still crossing my fingers!

How do you handle a problem like Terese?

Tags

neighbors

If you are a Sound of Music fan, you can thank me for putting that song in your head.

Any time Terese complains, whether verbally or in writing, my procedure has become to contact property management immediately.  If the received complaint is in writing, I simply scan the document and include a short note with it.  Last night’s incident was verbal, so I called property management first.  The woman assigned to the condominiums I live in knows me on a first name basis now, knows my voice.  When I called this morning, she greeted me by first name before I let her know who was calling.

“I knew you were going to call, Steve.  You must be calling about her latest complaint.”

Her latest complaint?  No.  I was not aware of a complaint.  I told the property manager that I was calling about an incident that happened last night.

“Oh, well we received an email from Terese last night to complain about your clock chime.  She says that it chimes on the hour all night.”

I told her that I was not aware of the issue at all.  She seemed surprised that I wasn’t.  Apparently my neighbor made it seem like she had asked me to do something about it, but I had not.  My neighbor hasn’t been home for the past few months, I informed the property manager.  That she complained about the clock last night is proof that she has been gone.  I have had the clock for a few months.

The rest of the conversation involved a discussion about my neighbor, probably a bit too much of a negative opinion came from the property manager, who is tired of my neighbor’s complaining.  She assured me, as she always does, that everyone is aware of my neighbor’s poor attitude.  There is nothing for me to be concerned about.

I followed up with an email to property management, CC to the condo association board email address.

As reported to you via telephone this morning, my downstairs neighbor chose to confront me in a dramatic fashion last evening, when rainwater from a table on my patio deck dripped on the plastic awning she has installed underneath my decking.  I bumped the table and the water spilled on my decking.  It was soaked up with a towel that I keep outside, immediately.  For the record, all flower pots on my patio deck have the required tray or rubber mat underneath them.

This communication is not intended as a complaint, only to create a record of the incident.

It is my understanding that my neighbor has complained via email, received by you last night, regarding a clock in my unit that chimes on the hour.  I did not realize that it was loud enough to be a nuisance to my downstairs neighbor.  The chime will be turned off this evening when I arrive home from work.  Let it be known that there was no intention to create an inconvenience to my neighbor with the chiming clock.

I am thinking of an Elton John song title…

Tags

drama, neighbors

…anyone care to guess what it is?

I will give you a very strong hint.  A certain un-nice person who lives in the condo unit below me is back.

To say I am ecstatic should be totally unnecessary.  Uncanny, maybe.  Uncool is more like it.  This morning, I could hear the noise of existence underneath my feet, the first evidence of Terese in months.  There have been a few false alarms, just her husband popping in to check on things, but she is there now.

How do I know she has returned?  It’s obvious.  I came outside a few minutes ago to enjoy the peace on my deck, maybe do a little reading or write a blog while listening to a baseball game.  There was a strong thunderstorm this afternoon, so it was still damp.  I have a little deck table, a puddle on top from the rain.  Before I put my book and laptop on the table, I dumped the water into a close by flower pot, a towel close by to catch the drips and dry the table.  As I moved the table a little bit of water sloshed off and dripped on the plastic tarp that Terese has mounted underneath my patio deck.  Instantly, she came screaming outside and started yelling at me, screaming that she would not tolerate my water.

Seriously?  Methinks someone missed the drama.  I know I didn’t.

I looked at her.  It was difficult to keep from responding.

“Welcome back”

 

Roasting in July

Strange days indeed.  Most peculiar (mama).  (John Lennon?)

I just finished eating dinner, a casual comfort food type of meal — roast beef slow cooked for four hours with carrots and potatoes.  The meal became a constant prayer of praise, as I thanked God for the blessing that was so obvious with each delicious bite.  The carrots had soaked up the juices from the roast, as had the potatoes, the meat tender and juicy, falling apart as my fork plunged in.  I swear that I moaned with pleasure as each fork full entered my ginormous gob.

TMI, I know, but I WANT YOU TO BE JEALOUS!!!!

Comfort food on July 1st seems odd to be talking about, but it’s true.  As I planned my meals for this week, I looked at the weather forecast for today and knew that the late afternoon and evening would be filled with thunderstorms.  Why not fill my house with the smell of the roast cooking in the oven while I performed tasks that should be reserved for rainy days?  My biking friends would say that rainy days are when bike maintenance should be performed, a practice that I tend to follow.  However, in late June and July, the weather is so stinking hot and humid here that it makes even light tasks a challenge, including bike maintenance.  Today, I opted for church, then a short nap (I was out until 3 AM, a product of my new found single status), then a thorough steam shampoo of my carpets.  The roast was sent to the oven around mid afternoon.

The last few days have been beastly hot and humid here in Chicagoland.  I am not surprised.  What that means for me is that each ride requires an accessory called a “head sweat” cap, a necessity for me as my hairline recedes and the sweat becomes more of a nuisance while I exercise.  The hydration pack, nerdy as it is, is also a necessary option.  I skipped the pack last Thursday night since the extra weight hampers my riding, something I paid for after the ride.  Dehydration cramps suck.  It takes a lot of dedication to get a full ride in as the heat takes over after 30 minutes or so, my body telling me that it’s getting a bit too hot.  Yesterday, I listened to my body, called it quits after 45 minutes.  Not only is it hot here, but the trails I ride are in the woods, with swamps in between the berms the trails are built on.  It’s extra humid.

So, this time of year means playing it by ear.  There are always a few days where it rains, making it impossible to ride the dirt, then followed by hot humid days where the trails are great but I lose ten pound just by sweat alone.  Odd, but it’s the midwest.  We have to roll with the punches.

I think I will have a few more bites of roast…..