Dreaming of a Life Less Ordinary

  Several times I have sat in the Weight Watchers meeting and just listened to other peoples stories.  So many of these stories I can relate to.  So many are mirrors reflections of your own self.  The ones that always hit closest to home and sent me off into deep thought are the fast food incidents.  I hear most people refer to these are lapses or failures, but that is not how I look at them, I look at them more as bad programing.  Eating fast food isn't a failure.  Sometimes it is just what is a available and what you have to have.  What is a failure is beating yourself up over a lapse or a  misstep .  I think it happens because we’re conditioned by a billion-dollar industry to see things in black and white, even though most things actually live in the gray.   Then there is the judgement.  How many times have we been told fast food bad, such and such good.  How much time do we spend in judgement of what is a goo...

  Synchronicity or the meaningful coincidences that we tend see in our existence of everyday things that seem to have no connection but feel like they really do.     Well, that is what some people might call it anyway, but I call it “Ka”.     Of course, I do after all I am a disciple of The Dark Tower, and the Tower is held together by Ka.   The pattern of the number 50 kept showing up in my life this week.  At the age of 50, I am progressing on losing 50+ pounds.  This has been achieved by good eating, cycling, and workouts.  The workouts with weights have gotten more intense, which lead me to ordering two 25-pound plates, which of course adds up to 50.  I also ordered extenders from power blocks of 40 pounds but with all the packing on that box it weighed 50 lbs.  Then, I did the math this week and I am 50 pounds from my goal weight.  That is what we call KA, or the Synchronicity of 50.  So,...

  The Drawing of 3     (Spoilers ahead)   Back again and what a title! You probably don’t know but “The Drawing of Three” is one of the most important Stephen King Novels to me. I bought it in 1997, I held onto it for years, I picked it up and tried to read it, but the protagonist, or one of them, was a junky, and I found him irredeemable. I put the book down. Then at some point in Sunnyvale, California, I made the decision that I had to press on, I had to find out more about the Gunslinger, his Ka-get, and the Dark Tower that had haunted me since I was 14 years old.    Funny how the world works, now at 50, I’ll read anything King I can get my hands on, and it’s all because of that heroin junky, that made me out the Drawing down. To me Eddie Dean’s redemption arc became so important to me. His comical balance to the Gunslingers unapologetic sternness and lack of imagination. I cried when Eddie died years later in Campbell when I read about his passing. Howe...

  New Mexico was beautiful!  The views were amazing! Taken from outside of our VRBO.  Looking into downtown Red River.  Such a lovely site.   Friday we headed up the mountain to the top of Red River via the chairlift.  OMG it had been twenty years since I had gone up a chair lift.  I white knuckled it on the way up.  My anxiety was through the roof.  However, I made it to the top without a complete melt down and again lovely sites to be had.   Red River, New Mexico loves Willy's, Bill's, and Billy's.   The biking in the mountains was hard.  The first little hill I road up had me bent over my handle bars gasping for breath and coughing.  The altitude was definitely a factor.  However, after acclimating to it over the next 48 hours the altitude was not the issue on race day.  My tummy however was.  I certainly didn't have my best day in the mountains.  I mean technically I road the fastest 10 miles in my ...

It is all over but the Dying… oops I mean Crying… crying…. August 2, 2025 I have consistently joked about my demise in New Mexico.  Mainly, because 85 miles and 6,000 feet of climbing sounds like a lot.  I double that mileage on the weekends and matched that climbing in the month of July.  Physically, I think I am as ready as I can before The Enchanted Circle.  Mentally, I am working on it.   I tried to lie down last night and imagine myself successfully climbing the Circle.  Leaving Taos and pushing my way back to Red River.  All I thought about was all the times I had stopped and had to walk or rest going up hills.  That wasn’t exactly what I was looking for.  I need to stop saying I am going to die in New Mexico and start to think about how much fun I am going to have.  No work.  No drama.  Just me and my bike and a big challenge in front of me.  I got this....

  Tarwheel and wind, wind, wind… Tarwheel and it strong winds and flat roads are three weeks in the rear-view mirror.  Time flies when you are having fun.  Tarwheel was so much harder than I expected it to be.  It was not the distance.  The distance I can do.  It was the wind.  14/15 mph head winds.  I guess that is what happens on the East Coast.  The winds come off the Atlantic and swirl.   I talked to a co-worker about this after the event.  I said it didn’t matter which way I went I got hit in the face with a 15-mph wind.  He was like yes, that is how the coast is.  I sort of wish I would have known that.  It is something I will remember as I look for rides along the rest of the original 13.  I will be looking for lots of tree cover, and or some ups and downs.   Look the weekend itself was great! I can’t complain.  ...