Thursday, September 04, 2008

Long Day

I took the bus in again this morning. Gustav's been kickin' our butts here in the midwest. Yeah, yeah... we ain't got nothing on the coastal communities that get pummeled mercilessly by the full force of these obdurate, sadistic storms... but it truly rained non-stop for more than 24 hours here, all with a crazy cold front.  Any more of that and I'd be looking for gopherwood, start sourcing two of each animal and brush up on my cubits...

Tonight was an important meeting of a new Not-For-Profit I'm trying to help get off the ground.  They just became incorporated as a 501(c)(3) this week, and we're hashing out some of the finer details.  I rode through some mist to get to midtown where the meeting was being held, and then got to ride down Rainbow Blvd on the way home... WHAT A BLAST!

I didn't shove off for home until the sun was setting, though.  As Gustav leaves town, it's making for some magnificent sunsets, though...


Oh yeah. Be seen.  For real.  This might look dorky (hey, it fits my personality, right?) but there's really no such thing as too much lighting or an excess of reflective and brightly-colored material after dark.  I suppose there is, if you're being a real distraction, but when it gets like this, I use at least one flashing rear light to grab peoples' attention, one solid rear light to give motorists something to judge distance by (believe me, it makes a difference) and my reflective vest.  The rain covers for my panniers are bright with reflective piping as well.  I'm starting to see people that seem to be ignoring the fact that it's getting dark earlier. The bike ninjas are out in full force.


This is a long exposure I took of some deer grazing.  In reality, this field was pretty dark and the sky was just as dark as the above photo of me.  It shows up as washed-out white because of the duration of the exposure.


Got home with about 19 miles on the clock for the day. I'm hoping it stays dry for another full round-trip on the bike.

10 comments:

Noah said...

Hmm... I'm taking entirely too many photos of my bike lately. Sorry about that, guys. More scenery coming soon.

Michael said...

Noah, I've been following your blog via FJ for awhile and I just wanted to mention that I appreciate the effort you take to stop and photograph your daily surroundings. I always look forward to reading your blog, thanks! Wilshire

Noah said...

Thanks, buddy! You'd be surprised how many people who bike commute treat it as a time trial.

In a hurried culture, stopping on occasion to snap a few photos is a way to snap your mind back to the present, regardless of what you're thinking about. It's hard to really enjoy what's going on around you right now when your mind is always on what's coming next. Being out in the open on a bike, it's a shame to have your mind wandering when you can be appreciating life as it's happening right there before your eyes.

Sirrus Rider said...

Man Noah Your making me feel pretty good. I feel rail thin after seeing your last self portait.. :)

Noah said...

uhh... thanks? o_0

Noah said...

By the way, I thought that whole "once a Clydesdale, always a Clydesdale" figure of speech on BikeForums was kind of a mentality thing. Well, I'm technically not a Clyde anymore, but only barely, and the smallest slip-up threatens to throw me right back up to 200 at any given moment. HAHA!

Scott Redd said...

Nice point about slowing down and enjoying the ride. I'm a commuter (and shopper/errand runner, with a small amount of pleasure/fitness rides with my family/wife) and have never done any road or MTB races. However, coming from the car commuting mentality, I was overly interested in timing my rides, often trying to ride as quickly to and from work as I could and comparing it with my drive time.

Then one morning as I was huffing, out of breath, up a hill, I thought to myself, "What are you doing? You're going to WORK!" I love my job, but that thought help to put things in perspective. Sometimes I need to slow down and enjoy the ride.

To transliterate an often seen bumper sticker: A bad day on the bike is better than a good day at work.

Apertome said...

Great photos -- that's some sunset! I like the long exposure with the deer, too. What I usually do when I end up with something like that where it was taken at night but the camera (or I) overcompensate and it ends up looking like a daytime shot is, I manually just make it look darker by adjusting the levels. It's not perfect, but you can get it closer to what you saw.

Aaron Plank said...

Thanks for the use of 'obdurate' I don't usually come across people using words I don't know. I just had to look it up.

Very refreshing!

Noah said...

You're welcome. Obdurate's a fun one that I've used on occasion often with other fun adjectives. I love wordplay, and the use of somewhat obscure words ranks right up there with alliteration, iambic pentameter and some other language tricks that are sometimes hard to spot... but I know they're there, and that's all that matters.

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