July 2024

Weather: 75° and mostly sunny. Light to moderate wind blowing on a low humidity day.

Exercise: 4.0 mile walk with Teddi on the Causeway path. Took an early walk for Teddi. She still drags ass. I might have to cut her down to three miles from four and boost my five miler to a six miler, like I used to do. Out to the bridge and back, out onto the Causeway itself. . . at least until the cool weather comes back.

Did my biweekly vegetable garden weeding. Looking pretty good. Had our first cucumber today. Peeled it, cut it into spears and put a little sea salt on it, then drizzled some olive oil over it. Ate it with a piece of left over chicken sausage from last night. Yum.

Musing

I just need to get my head around it, this is July 4th week and the walk to the Causeway will be a bit less enjoyable. Our Causeway is one of the most visited features in the state. During holiday weeks languages from all over the globe can be heard, spoken in conversations by groups of people riding bicycles, some traveling really fast and some quite leisurely cruising by. It is kind of cool. Teddi loves being admired in French and German and the odd Slavic languages. She just flat out loves being admired.

Hard to get into one's head on the walk though, to lose oneself in thought or reverie, when one is constantly aware of the bicycles zooming by. If you plot human behavior on a bell curve, negative to positive, observable behavior, then the tail on the curve represents 2.5% of the population. That is the bat-shit crazy portion. They get progressively better behaved as one moves left to right, filling up the first quartile. This implies that the opposite tail on the bell curve is where the saints reside. I think they are bat-shit crazy, too. Just a different kind of crazy.

So... back to my walk.

I’m figuring that for every hundred bicycles that zoom by me on the path, at least 2.5 people on a bicycle want to run me down on principle. Definitely a buzzkill.

News Flash

The supreme court ruled on Presidential immunity today. It doesn't look good. I need a few days to make up my mind to determine how I feel about the decision. My gut tells me, based on first blush, if a President acts on “official business” he cannot be held liable for that which he does in office - that is separate from committing “personal acts” for which he can be held accountable. Whatever the fuck that means. If this proves to be the case, assuming the worst, we are an elected monarchy, defacto. I did not swear allegiance to an elected monarchy.

I need to let the dust settle and hear some good analysis from qualified observers of constitutional law before I get too worked up. But I don't feel good about it.

Weather: 80° and mostly sunny with a mild breeze. Slightly humid.

Exercise: 5.0 mile walk on the Causeway path sans Teddi.

Weather: 80° and mostly sunny. Fairly humid and windy. Still able to leave the umbrellas up, though.

Exercise: 3.0 miles on the causeway path with Teddi. Even though we left around 7:30 AM, she was still ready to turn around and come home.

Musing

Road fourteen miles on my Ebike after breakfast, peddled down to the Ski Rack on Main Street, downtown Burlington to buy some accessories. Got a new rearview mirror for Jill and a new phone mount for me.

This is my first Ebike ride since August 2022. That winter we took both Ebikes down to Georgia, but I never rode mine, preferring to walk with Teddi instead. I just kept at it, walking through the summer of 2023. Jill rode her ebike frequently, but this past winter I did not bother to take mine with us. We just took Jill’s. Which is OK, because racking two Ebikes is a pain for long distance travel.

The only reason I purchased it when I did was because Jill already had her ebike and we had some liquid cash. Partially, though, it was due to my beautiful Teddi girl slowing down. I think we are there. Her slowing down, that is. So, it's time to introduce the Ebike into the mix. I'm thinking - walk 5.0 miles one day; walk 3.0 miles with Teddi the next day and ride the Ebike in the afternoon to cap off the day.

During the summer of 2021, I would ride down to Burlington from Colchester, fly down the hill at North Beach, and glide by the Coast Guard station into the waterfront recreation area. It hugs the shore pretty much to Flynn Avenue. It's about eight miles to the park by Flynn Avenue, I would turn around and ride back through the heart of the waterfront, back towards home, and stop at the north end of the waterfront to smoke a cigar in peace. There is an abandoned skateboard park, which I had a hand in raising money to build back in the day. Abandoned for a better park. A really nice park that I am sure the cost to build dwarfs what was spent twenty-five years ago by the group that did the hard work of getting the city to agree to allow the first skateboard park to be built in Burlington.

So, nobody goes there anymore. That means I can go there to smoke a cigar without pissing somebody off. Packed in my pannier, attached off the rear bike rack, is stuffed a
nice collapsible chair, a little triangular topped table with three removable legs and, of course, my ashtray. I would set up camp and listen to the Tigers on my Sonos Roam speaker, smoke a cigar and contemplate my lucky life. That is, until Detroit fell way below .500 and I could not listen anymore; too painful.

Here we are in 2024 and the Tigers are 38-47 for the season. They have not finished above
.500 since 2016. Not looking good this season, after a great start to the year. But I love 'em. Still wear the hat with pride. I will need to find a different pullover spot, though. The old skateboard park is being used by the city to park some equipment. It is what it is.

Time to throw some Frisbee with Teddi.

Weather: 87° and sunny. Very humid. Not much wind to move the air around.

Exercise: 5.0 mile walk on the Causeway path sans Teddi. Mowed the yard when I got back, then smoked a cigar. Made sure to fly the flag. My patriotism needs a shot in the arm.

Weather: 82° and sunny. Very humid. Never got below 70° last night. Thank goodness for the A/C.

Exercise: 3.0 mile walk with Teddi this morning. Showered, ate breakfast and had a pot of coffee; then did an eighteen-mile ride on my ebike.

Musing

There are three levels of "assist" available to the rider on my ebike and seven gears, maybe eight gears, I forget. I keep it in the lowest gear and at the lowest level of assist in order to make myself work harder. There is one hill, though, if I choose to climb it, that is pretty steep - it is a straight climb from the Greenway up to the central shopping district, to the first streets that run crosswise to main street. Along the top of the hill the view is awesome; it overlooks the lake-front and the harbor beyond. When I climb this hill I give the bike permission to make it easy for me. Once at the top, I return the bike from level three assist and the highest gear back to level one assist and the lowest gear.

Today on the way to Burlington I passed three young women coming toward me on the path riding their bikes, probably in their early twenties, just singing the chorus from Build Me Up Butter Cup. A song released by the Foundations in 1968. None of those women, belting it out, were born before 2000. They were wonderful, vivacious, and they were having fun; they knew all the words, too.

Observation

They are nobodies. . .

Weather: 75° and overcast in the morning. Sunny for most of the afternoon. Seriously humid. Calm.

Exercise: 5.0 mile walk on the Causeway path sans Teddi. Boogied, for an old man.

Weather: 85° and sunny with light to calm winds. Humid.

Exercise: 3.0 mile walk with Teddi on the Causeway. Walked early. Rode my ebike 16.0 miles on the Burlington Greenway.

Musing

Stopped at three different locations to scout out a new place to hang out and smoke a cigar and listen to the Tiger baseball. I think I found one. Beyond downtown, the path follows the railroad tracks and takes a ninety degree right turn into an older Burlington neighborhood, then the residential street hooks up with the Greenway again and spits riders out onto a little point by the waterfront. There is a wonderful faux megalithic sun dial on the left with a few benches and a couple of picnic tables nearby.

I selected a shaded spot under some pine trees on a gentle slope that levels out at the top, right before a chain link fence that runs for thirty yards, separating the Greenway and the waterfront from a large business.

All went well, and it is eight miles from home, a perfect spot for a siesta. The Tigers beat the Reds 5-1. Great inaugural smoke, and a nice lazy ride back home.

Weather: 90° and sunny. Light wind and sultry.

Exercise: 5.0 mile walk on the Causeway path sans Teddi.

Weather: 90° and sunny. Light wind and sultry

Exercise: none. I feel under the weather, so to speak.

Weather: 80° and overcast. Severe thunderstorms for this afternoon.
Forecasting over two inches of rain.

Exercise: 3.0 mile walk with Teddi on the Causeway path before the rain.

Musing

Tried to start my ebike this morning. It would not fire up. Tried a couple of things that did not work. Loaded it up on the bike rack and took it to the Ski Rack, unusual name for a store that mostly sells and services bicycles. Get it back in a couple of weeks.

Weather: I do not remember the weather for the day July 13, 2024 as I am making this entry on December 6, 2024.

Exercise: I have managed to keep up on my walking and it has paid off handsomely. In October I received the best sugar and cholesterol numbers I have had in years. Keep on, keeping on. 🙂

Reflection

Chin Up