Free-Dumb

I'm not entirely sure why, but lately I've been seeing a lot of houses with miscellaneous stuff piled in the yard and a sign next to it with some iteration of, "Free For The Taking." While this isn't entirely unusual, I am always surprised at the number of people that are sifting through the mounds of unwanted items looking for who knows what. I appreciate the fact that before a potential treasure is carted off the the landfill it gets a second lease on life, but let's be honest, what's really going to be in this heap of trinkets that's worth value.

The way I figure, if someone is willing to just give away a treasured piece of bric-a-brac then it probably doesn't have much value. Sure, I personally have given away a stove that I could have actually sold, but it was an old and unsafe fire hazard that I didn't want to hassle with. That's kind of how I feel about these heaps of "Free Stuff."

The most intriguing part to me, however, is the people that stop and wade through the freebies. It doesn't seem to matter what the situation, as soon as someone sees a sign advertising something free, a Pavlovian response is triggered and the person stops. Going to a wedding? Don't forget to check out the give-a-ways of the college kids moving out of their rental. Big job interview? Maybe you can forget about working when you find that priceless artifact in the mountain of free rubbish on the way. Hot date tonight? Your sweetie will be overly impressed by the secondhand crap you found on the way to the fancy dinner.

In the end however, I guess it doesn't mater what the particulars are of the trash. It really does seem that one person's junk might be another person's treasure. And the fact that it's free apparently makes it just too good to pass up.

Welcome to Hades

It will come as no surprise to anyone that it’s been a shade hotter than normal here in the SC. Now when I say a shade, I really mean exponentially. It’s been so hot that I actually wanted to go to work just to be in the air conditioning. I’m not saying it’s the hottest place on earth, but sometimes I feel like the inside of my house is, in fact, the fiery molten center of the earth. I may be wrong, but I think it reached one million degrees here.

When it gets hot like this I’m reminded of a saying that goes something like, “cool as the underside of the pillow.” Well, just for fun I took a thermometer to see just how cool the underside of my pillow was. I was hoping it would be icy cold and could somehow devise a contraption that could use this chilled pillow technology to make the rest of my house bearable. To my surprise it wasn’t cool at all. In fact, it was almost 90 degrees. That’s right, 90. Keep in mind; it was just past seven o’clock in the evening when I took this reading. It was at that very moment I realized I was going to sleep at someone else’s house and leave my pillow at home.

I’m fairly confident the heat will let up and, before long, it will start getting cold. Then, I’ll have a whole new list of things to complain about. It’s really just one big cycle of being too hot and too cold with a few days of just right thrown in for fun.

All By Myself

Over the past few years I’ve noticed a trend in my bicycle riding. No, it’s not the fact that I’m getting weaker and slower (although I’ve clearly realized that). Lately, I find myself riding alone. More specifically, I find that most of the time I prefer to ride alone.

I first started seriously riding when I lived in South Georgia. I was riding road bikes exclusively because it was flat and there were no mountains to be found. Since it was the south, being a cyclist made you different; therefore we had a serious club that rode regularly. Consequently, my first few years of riding were always with at least a half dozen people.

After moving back to Pennsylvania I was able to ride both road and mountain bikes. While there are a greater number of people that ride I the SC, the organization pretty well sucks and people are very specific about whom they ride (or train) with. Fortunately I had a few people that I could count on to ride with me on a regular basis. It was nice because I didn’t really know my way around the roads or the trails so having local guides was very beneficial to my overall survival on the bike.

As the years past I became more comfortable in the woods and on the country roads. Also, I found myself working more and having less time to participate in any semblance of an organized ride. When the opportunity arose, I would head off by myself to get in any miles I could. More and more, this became comfortable and easy. I would go at my own pace, when I had time, and on whatever route I wanted. I would throw in my iPod to keep me distracted which helped immensely.

Riding solo seems to be the norm for me now. Sure I still like to ride with people when I can but that’s not always easy with an irregular schedule. Often when I set out sans people I feel like I’m channeling my inner Jimbo. For those of you who know Jimbo, you might agree that he would probably be appalled by this notion since he doesn’t tend to like people or aspire to be anyone’s role model but is awesome at riding alone.

Uninvited Guests

For the regular readers of this little blog of mine, you may have noticed that the last several posts have been a departure from my usual banter of rides and other awesome outdoor activities. Instead, I have been talking about boring domestic type stuff. I changed all of that this past weekend with many hours of mountain bike riding. It was nice to be back in the woods on the trails enjoying some ride-time with friends.

On Sunday, Jeremy, Nikki, Josh (Jeremy’s brother), and I made the ridiculously long drive to ride the Allegrippis Trails at Raystown Lake. I didn’t realize however, that Nikki was going to sit out our ride and hand her bike over to someone else. That person was none other than our new friend Nixtreeme.

In a dizzying display of awesomeness, Nixtreeme raged onto the scene and put on a clinic of trail-crushing abilities. It was all we could do to keep up as she doubled the whoops and carved out the singletrack like a Thanksgiving turkey. In fact, Nixtreeme’s abilities were so mind-blowing we had to let extra air out of her front shock to make sure she got maximum travel in order to limit the impact on the trails.

While it might seem like I’m making this up, you’d be wrong. The only reprieve we got from this expo of trail slaying and chest bumps was to pick some fresh raspberries along the way. I just hope for Jeremy’s sake that Nixtreeme limits her new found coolness to the forest.

Welcome

After much internal debate and deliberation, I finally decided it was time for me to become an adult and join the rest of the world. This was no small decision mind you and it was a long time in the making. Last week I went out and got me an iPhone.

There was no philosophical reasoning for me waiting so long to get a pocket computer that makes phone calls. It was more that my life isn’t complex enough to require such a powerful device. Of course, my previous phone was getting old and it was time to upgrade so I decided to go big.

I haven’t had the phone long enough to really know what it does or can do. I’ve made a few phone calls with it so I know it still does that much. People have told me that in a few months I’ll be using the phone for everything. I’m not entirely sure that will be the case but you never know, this miniature black rectangle may just change my life.