Thoughts from the saddle

Bicycle riding can be many things. It can be very social where you ride for hours laughing and talking with your friends. It can also be very solitary and an opportunity to spend a lot of time with yourself and your thoughts. Maybe that is why partly I love it so much, I get a lot out of both these activities. Cycling has been something I have been thinking so much about since the death of Bill Bliss and with the death last August 4th of ACTC club member James Mills on a club ride. Is it worth it? Yes, I think despite the lurking danger, the threat of sudden death around the next bend, I think it is. But never forget to be careful out there.

Picture of Bill Bliss

Bill Bliss Remembered

The end of the ride

Susie met me in San Francisco at the end of my bicycle ride. She was visibly happy to see me and proud of my ride. I can't think of anything more wonderful to see than her smiling face.


Sadly we just learned yesterday of the death of Bill Bliss, another member of our bicycle club, while riding his bike. That is the second death of a member of our club while riding a bike in the last year. Bicycle riding in traffic is a clearly dangerous activity.

Back from the journey

I have returned from my bike tour!
Sierra to the Sea 2005 was a great bike tour. It was a bit cooler than past years and that was to the better. I had some great ride and saw many old friends and made new ones. I just returned yesterday so I have not yet processed a lot of the memories. On the last day many of the riders talked about their journeys. It impressed me that the experiences everybody shared were so different that at times they could have been talking about different trips. I guess life, and bicycle tours, is like that.

Kenneth has moved to his new home
Today I helped youngest son Ken move his bed and some of his belongings to his new place. Tonight is his first night in his own place. For me, for the first time since 1976, the nest is empty.

I am going off the grids

I am a one week drop out
For the next nine days I will be off the Internet grid and off the power grid. I will be on a bicycle touring the middle of California. If you want more information I will be on a bicycle tour called the Sierra to the Sea. I am really looking forward to the adventure and will blog about it after I return. There will be other big adventures starting next week too. My son Kenneth is getting his own place. He is moving into a rental trailer owned by one of my other son's, Jeff and his wife Nicole. Ken will be their tenant.

Blog full disclosure statement
Every now and then I like to post a link to each of my six blogs. This link gives a more honest view of my Internet identity than does reading one or two of the blogs alone.

Rare clouds and longest ride

Today I took a vacation day and was preparing for the Sierra to the Sea. When I was driving around I saw some rare, for our area, lenticular clouds. These clouds have long been associated with UFO's. If you remember the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," it was this type of cloud that the UFO's emerged from. Thankfully I had my camera phone with me.



Yesterday was the longest after work Whine and Dine ride for me this year. Next week I will be gone, then the days start getting shorter. It was a great ride!

We celebrated Di's big 40

Last Friday night we celebrated Diane Chauncy's birthday. It was a lot of fun and great to be able to share the evening with them. Owen is very mobile and he kept the cats on their toes. It was a good evening.

KRON4 Blogger Meet-Up Great Event

On Saturday I attended the first blogger meet-up [see their write-up] at KRON4 TV in San Francisco. SJSU was well represented. My co-worker Harish Chakravarthy also was there as was SJSU Alum Scott Mace. This was a great event and it was exciting to hear how KRON4 is contemplating embracing the blogosphere. It was also great running into some of the folks whom I have met in Emerging Technology there. This was a fun event.

Shadow Boxing

The boys love to play! The top of the stereo cabinent is one of their favorite places to romp. We have been learning to put things that do not break in places like this. They are training us well.

A fellow did a podcast about Susie's dress

Jim Wenzloff Podcasts about my wife's dress [MP3]
This is way cool. Jim Wenzloff gets it! I posted this post, on a couple of blogs, about my wife's dress. Really it is about the information exchange where I was able to stop in the middle of a bicycle ride and, using my mobile phone, take a picture of my wife's new dress and, using my blog, tell the world about it. It is about the power of using portable devices and weblogs as tools of global mass communications. It is about how easy this all is and about how it empowers people and changes education.
Thanks to PubSub, I was able to stay on top of these conversations. The world is an amazing place!

Thursday bits

Family members on whine and dine ride

Yesterday evening my son Jeff rode with his wife Nicole and her mother Kathy. I believe this was their first ACTC bicycle club ride. They did a flatter version of the whine and dine ride. Then, they went out to eat with the group after the ride. It was great having them on the ride and introducing them to friends.

Somebody stole my battery!
Day before last I went to my motor scooter after work to ride it home. It wouldn't start. I checked out the bike and found its cowlings loose. I opened them up and found the battery missing. Thank God for kick starting. I was able to start the bike and ride it home.

Clean teeth, new glasses
This week I went to the dentist and the eye doctor. I am smiling better and soon will be seeing better as well.

Sunday at Farmer's Market

Every Sunday morning, when I'm not off doing something else, I go to the farmer's market, located in Princeton Plaza at Meridian and Kooser in San Jose.



The produce is really good and I have my regular booths I stop at. I miss the corn guy who used to be there. He had corn like I used to get when I lived in the valley. From about May thru September, the farmer's market is where it is at.

Susie buys a new dress

When I am riding my bicycle I keep my cell phone in my back pocket. I was riding my bicycle through Los Gatos yesterday when my cell phone rang. It was my wife Sue who asked where I was. I told her I was in downtown Los Gatos. She said good, she was there too and was trying on a new dress and she wanted me to see it. I said, okay, I will be there in five minutes. I arrived, we looked at the dress and liked it. I said, wait a minute and I took her picture. Then I blogged her picture so the whole world can potentially see her new dress.

Remembering our great time with Jeff

Last weekend, at the bike rally, we made some great memories with Jeff. We did a lot of fun things together. Besides the bike riding, we went to some nice restaurants, we shared good times with friends in the bike club, we went wine tasting and we just hung out a lot and talked. It really was a great weekend. Jeff is a fine young man!

It's whine and dine time and the riding is easy!

We had fantastic riding weather today. It was about as good as it gets! It was a warm evening too. It was perfect for sitting outside and enjoying good friends, good food and good wine! This is indeed as good as it gets.