James Pearl Thinks Blogging is Dead
- Thread starter Norm
- Start date
rlb
Well-Known Member
I would second the sound machine, particularly white noise. When my daughter was a newborn and still sleeping in our bedroom we use one and it was awesome. Except the part where you're a sleep deprived new parent and you begin hearing things in the white noise. In the past I've used mature nature sounds (that was a weird typo), particularly ocean waves. It's helped me sleep on planes (which I cannot do otherwise, I'd just too on-edge, the whole tube in the sky thing just lurks in the back of my brain) and in hotels on a few other trips.
@BCurry - generally I agree but this was a hyper-focused trip. I am doing too many of these right now and need to pick & choose when to go hog-wild.
@2Julianas - the 3 alarms idea is a good one. I think that's half my problem, which explains why I sleep well at my boss's place.
@stb222 - yeah that's kind of the point. It really should not be my job to tell you what to do. Here is an example, an actual thing that happened with our PM. 100% true story:
1. We make these 2 project plans for 2 implementations with these 2 new resources
2. I am given 80 hours a week of their time, for these 2 implementations
3. This represents 100% of their time, just to make sure we're on the same page
4. Last week they tell me they are pulling one entirely to work on some other project
5. I tell them to throw out the 2 project plans and let the clients know we'll be starting over
6. They kinda freak out a little bit and say we need to hold on before we do anything so crazy
This is what happens to me on an almost weekly basis. You can only imagine the bullshit that happens daily.
Friday - My fan broke. This is nothing short of tragic. I sweat a lot.
Saturday - After the boys set sail for Canada for the next 3 weeks, we went north to hit up Jungle. Our original plan on the day was the NYC Tour. Then it was Mohunk. Then we decided to stay local and go to Jungle. We never really put it out there but @2Julianas then @MissJR & @Santapez then @seanrunnette picked up on it and joined in. Then @graveyardman67 signed up too. @UtahJoe went to the pump track with the boy. He pumped while we crawled around the Jungle.
Have to say I was feeling pretty good and I more or less cleared the whole park where we rode. I clipped a few trees which knocked me out a few times but for the most part I had my A game. We did not hammer which helps, plus I had the big bike which now has a working fork thanks to @jmanic putting a new valve stem in it. The Minions were great and it was a lot of fun to be out there. Great crew, great trails, and it did not rain as predicted.
After the ride a bunch of us went to lunch at some place on Greenwood Lake in New York. Food was ok but the view was great. However, I admit I was wrong on the tater-tots.
Later in the day we went to visit @jmanic and his wife for dinner at the lake house for dinner and drinks and conversation - all of which were great. We left our house at 10am and got home after 11:30pm. Long, excellent day. I also learned Danny Hurley is the new HC at UConn. As it turns out, I used to have Danny's phone number back when I was writing for a Rutgers BB fan site and he was an assistant coach under Bannon.
Sunday - Decided to hit up Port Jervis. Here is @Dominique at the flag lookout. You can see the HP Monument in the background:
I am not going to pretend this park is amazing. It's kinda like what would happen if you crossed CR with KVSP. If this park were in my back yard, I would ride it all the time. But as it is 90+ minutes from the house, this will likely be our only trip there. The trails are fine, with some fun rock rollers and jumps. You can tell a lot of effort was put into building these trails in the last 2 years and a lot of the place has to wear in a bit. The one exception to this is Cosmic Charlie, which is an awesome trail and is the gem of the park by far.
I needed 2:30 to get 14 hours on the week so I told D if we hit that, we could have sushi for dinner. We rode 3+ hours:
I will say that a lot of these sushi places are putting more and more sauces on the sushi. Neither of us really likes that so much. I think it throws the whole thing out of balance and covers a good thing with mediocre goo. That was pretty much the case here. I found it fine, but nothing amazing. D's stomach did not agree with this, which is the first time in history that she had an issue eating sushi.
Left the house at 10am today, got home at 7:30pm. Not as long as yesterday, but another long one for sure.
All told, 14.5 on the week, 4.5 on the weekend, and 45.15 on the month. Sitting 2.85 short of my 2/day pie-in-the-sky target.
Blogging has been lighter for me lately. But this is a function of work plus life plus trying to ride and something has to give.
This week is work-travel-free. Looking at Chimney Rock, Nassau, a Podcast, NYC trip this Saturday, 14.85 hours on the bike in 6 days (ok maybe not), and waking up in my own bed every day for the next 7 days.
I thought I had more to say. Turns out I do not.
@2Julianas - the 3 alarms idea is a good one. I think that's half my problem, which explains why I sleep well at my boss's place.
@stb222 - yeah that's kind of the point. It really should not be my job to tell you what to do. Here is an example, an actual thing that happened with our PM. 100% true story:
1. We make these 2 project plans for 2 implementations with these 2 new resources
2. I am given 80 hours a week of their time, for these 2 implementations
3. This represents 100% of their time, just to make sure we're on the same page
4. Last week they tell me they are pulling one entirely to work on some other project
5. I tell them to throw out the 2 project plans and let the clients know we'll be starting over
6. They kinda freak out a little bit and say we need to hold on before we do anything so crazy
This is what happens to me on an almost weekly basis. You can only imagine the bullshit that happens daily.
Friday - My fan broke. This is nothing short of tragic. I sweat a lot.
Saturday - After the boys set sail for Canada for the next 3 weeks, we went north to hit up Jungle. Our original plan on the day was the NYC Tour. Then it was Mohunk. Then we decided to stay local and go to Jungle. We never really put it out there but @2Julianas then @MissJR & @Santapez then @seanrunnette picked up on it and joined in. Then @graveyardman67 signed up too. @UtahJoe went to the pump track with the boy. He pumped while we crawled around the Jungle.
Have to say I was feeling pretty good and I more or less cleared the whole park where we rode. I clipped a few trees which knocked me out a few times but for the most part I had my A game. We did not hammer which helps, plus I had the big bike which now has a working fork thanks to @jmanic putting a new valve stem in it. The Minions were great and it was a lot of fun to be out there. Great crew, great trails, and it did not rain as predicted.
After the ride a bunch of us went to lunch at some place on Greenwood Lake in New York. Food was ok but the view was great. However, I admit I was wrong on the tater-tots.
Later in the day we went to visit @jmanic and his wife for dinner at the lake house for dinner and drinks and conversation - all of which were great. We left our house at 10am and got home after 11:30pm. Long, excellent day. I also learned Danny Hurley is the new HC at UConn. As it turns out, I used to have Danny's phone number back when I was writing for a Rutgers BB fan site and he was an assistant coach under Bannon.
Sunday - Decided to hit up Port Jervis. Here is @Dominique at the flag lookout. You can see the HP Monument in the background:
I am not going to pretend this park is amazing. It's kinda like what would happen if you crossed CR with KVSP. If this park were in my back yard, I would ride it all the time. But as it is 90+ minutes from the house, this will likely be our only trip there. The trails are fine, with some fun rock rollers and jumps. You can tell a lot of effort was put into building these trails in the last 2 years and a lot of the place has to wear in a bit. The one exception to this is Cosmic Charlie, which is an awesome trail and is the gem of the park by far.
I needed 2:30 to get 14 hours on the week so I told D if we hit that, we could have sushi for dinner. We rode 3+ hours:
I will say that a lot of these sushi places are putting more and more sauces on the sushi. Neither of us really likes that so much. I think it throws the whole thing out of balance and covers a good thing with mediocre goo. That was pretty much the case here. I found it fine, but nothing amazing. D's stomach did not agree with this, which is the first time in history that she had an issue eating sushi.
Left the house at 10am today, got home at 7:30pm. Not as long as yesterday, but another long one for sure.
All told, 14.5 on the week, 4.5 on the weekend, and 45.15 on the month. Sitting 2.85 short of my 2/day pie-in-the-sky target.
Blogging has been lighter for me lately. But this is a function of work plus life plus trying to ride and something has to give.
This week is work-travel-free. Looking at Chimney Rock, Nassau, a Podcast, NYC trip this Saturday, 14.85 hours on the bike in 6 days (ok maybe not), and waking up in my own bed every day for the next 7 days.
I thought I had more to say. Turns out I do not.
isnt there something in the geneva convention against that? (4 hours on that loop i mean)
Was it Port Jervis sushi? Because, I mean, it's Port Jervis.
I love eel sauce and spicy mayo, but it is a bit much if all your rolls are super saucy. I usually don't use much, if any, soy sauce, so I usually throw a special roll in the mix. Spicy mayo is the shit!
I love eel sauce and spicy mayo, but it is a bit much if all your rolls are super saucy. I usually don't use much, if any, soy sauce, so I usually throw a special roll in the mix. Spicy mayo is the shit!
@jShort - at this point in my riding career I am content with a single lap at LewMo. 6-7 would be insane.
@1sh0t1b33r - Morristown for the Sushi. We made a mistake not just going to Monster. We like it there. But we also know that if you don't try new things, you'll never try new things.
Spun up a podcast today with @seanrunnette and we were like half the time we usually are. It's amazing to me how fast the time goes when we talk. I really enjoy our friendship and maybe when we retire we can make a second career of talking on tape then riding bikes. We also agreed that we are going to try to do at least one podcast from Vermont. Maybe we can find a guest among the crew of monkeys that goes up with us.
I am so incredibly stoked to go to Vermont. I was talking to my boss today and he told me to leave my electronics at home when I go away. I am sure I won't, but it's a great idea to drop out entirely. Having said that, I am not so much excited to drop out of the work scene as I am to drop into the Vermont riding scene. So-so-so looking forward to it. Another bonus is that I found a way around the mountain the those mystery trails on the back side of the DH park. Then you can continue around and this dumps you at the top of Moose Alley. This is insanely awesome:
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/27893348
So looking forward to this. Also, I looked at the Strava heat map. These trails are not barely ridden. Lots of brightness around there:
https://www.strava.com/heatmap#12.13/-71.91107/44.58448/hot/all
So even if those access trails to/from are junk, we are looking at something like 5-10 miles of new KT trails to try next week. Stoke meter is off the charts. 11/10.
Ok back to today's reality. Great ride with @Dominique @Glenn Rides After 4 PM CST @Carson @Ryan.P @MadisonDan @seanrunnette @fidodie and @scotth at Chimney Rock. I am still dragging Mongo the Barbarian up the hills because I am too lazy to go get Ted2 which @Kirt took home for me after the Stewart race. It's fine. Since the fork has been fixed it's not been so lethargic. It still doesn't corner as well as the Scalpel but it's decent, and it goes downhill well, particularly when the trail is straight. Anyway, great crew and great ride tonight:
Tomorrow is Nassau. Feel free to gate crash if you are so inclined.
@1sh0t1b33r - Morristown for the Sushi. We made a mistake not just going to Monster. We like it there. But we also know that if you don't try new things, you'll never try new things.
Spun up a podcast today with @seanrunnette and we were like half the time we usually are. It's amazing to me how fast the time goes when we talk. I really enjoy our friendship and maybe when we retire we can make a second career of talking on tape then riding bikes. We also agreed that we are going to try to do at least one podcast from Vermont. Maybe we can find a guest among the crew of monkeys that goes up with us.
I am so incredibly stoked to go to Vermont. I was talking to my boss today and he told me to leave my electronics at home when I go away. I am sure I won't, but it's a great idea to drop out entirely. Having said that, I am not so much excited to drop out of the work scene as I am to drop into the Vermont riding scene. So-so-so looking forward to it. Another bonus is that I found a way around the mountain the those mystery trails on the back side of the DH park. Then you can continue around and this dumps you at the top of Moose Alley. This is insanely awesome:
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/27893348
So looking forward to this. Also, I looked at the Strava heat map. These trails are not barely ridden. Lots of brightness around there:
https://www.strava.com/heatmap#12.13/-71.91107/44.58448/hot/all
So even if those access trails to/from are junk, we are looking at something like 5-10 miles of new KT trails to try next week. Stoke meter is off the charts. 11/10.
Ok back to today's reality. Great ride with @Dominique @Glenn Rides After 4 PM CST @Carson @Ryan.P @MadisonDan @seanrunnette @fidodie and @scotth at Chimney Rock. I am still dragging Mongo the Barbarian up the hills because I am too lazy to go get Ted2 which @Kirt took home for me after the Stewart race. It's fine. Since the fork has been fixed it's not been so lethargic. It still doesn't corner as well as the Scalpel but it's decent, and it goes downhill well, particularly when the trail is straight. Anyway, great crew and great ride tonight:
Tomorrow is Nassau. Feel free to gate crash if you are so inclined.
You ride horses??
Bareback?
Based on the recommendation from @UtahJoe, we are watching Evil Genius tonight. So far this is oddly fascinating, in a totally tragic and Coen Brothers kind of way. I'll come back up to update this paragraph at the end of the night. Update: Ok we watched the whole 4-part series tonight. OMFG, what a mess. So bizarre.
I have to go back to Austin, wedged in between the Vermont trip and the family San Francisco trip. I need to book that tonight or tomorrow. July is going to be a hell of a scattered month. Need to figure out what I am going to do for biking down there. I'm not sure what to do with that. 9 of the next 10 days are 97 or above down there and I can only imagine it's going to get worse. Having said that I am not sure I am ok with riding inside when it's 90+ degrees out. I wonder if maybe I can ride in the river.
Doing a bunch of Kingdom Trails planning with the team. Just to make you all jealous, this is the view from where we are staying:
Tonight we went to Nassau and finally rode that new trail. Good stuff, keep on going with the trail building & crafting here. The park is getting better and the trails are in great shape right now. Just put in 1:20 because this was the 4th day in a row on the MTB - Jungle, Port Jervis, Chimney Rock, and Nassau. I think between this and the trails at the Columbia Trail parking lot, you can get 2 hours total. Add in Vorhees and I'm thinking you can get almost 3. One day I'll try this.
Tomorrow @Dominique may be hitting LewMo. Hit her up if you want to crash her party. I'll be riding during the day or indoors after I pick up Julia. She's got cooking camp at the YMCA this week so maybe I'll make her cook dinner.
I have to go back to Austin, wedged in between the Vermont trip and the family San Francisco trip. I need to book that tonight or tomorrow. July is going to be a hell of a scattered month. Need to figure out what I am going to do for biking down there. I'm not sure what to do with that. 9 of the next 10 days are 97 or above down there and I can only imagine it's going to get worse. Having said that I am not sure I am ok with riding inside when it's 90+ degrees out. I wonder if maybe I can ride in the river.
Doing a bunch of Kingdom Trails planning with the team. Just to make you all jealous, this is the view from where we are staying:
Tonight we went to Nassau and finally rode that new trail. Good stuff, keep on going with the trail building & crafting here. The park is getting better and the trails are in great shape right now. Just put in 1:20 because this was the 4th day in a row on the MTB - Jungle, Port Jervis, Chimney Rock, and Nassau. I think between this and the trails at the Columbia Trail parking lot, you can get 2 hours total. Add in Vorhees and I'm thinking you can get almost 3. One day I'll try this.
Tomorrow @Dominique may be hitting LewMo. Hit her up if you want to crash her party. I'll be riding during the day or indoors after I pick up Julia. She's got cooking camp at the YMCA this week so maybe I'll make her cook dinner.
Today was a bouncy day. I woke up and now here we are and the day is almost over.
Wednesday Mornings This Summer are now Julia Wednesdays. Her mother works in the city and has her Tuesday night. So I agree to pick her up every Wednesday and bring her to camp for the 5 Wednesdays she has camp. I'd to set an alarm this morning to make sure I did not oversleep. I decided to try the @2Julianas method of 3 alarms, which actually worked as I slept really well last night. I do have a question about this though. Do you set 3 different alarms on 3 different devices? Anyway, we were up and out the door by 7:45 to get Julia at 8:00. I told her we could stop at O'Bagel for breakfast and I indulged in a sesame with lox spread. Like @Mitch, I love me some lox as well as whitefish. Does anyone sell whitefish anymore? Dropped her at the YMCA, then @Dominique at work because I had picked her up after work to ride Nassau last night, then went home to start my day at the box factory.
Mid Morning Work is limited to a short call, some Duke details, and some admin crap. I also take the time to book this Austin trip between Vermont & California. It also strikes me that between July 3 and July 22 I will spend exactly one full day in New Jersey - July 15th. I will be waking up & going to bed in NJ on both the 14th and 15th, but I am slated to race Granogue on the 14th. So I'll spend a bunch of time that day in Delaware, which is going to be by far the best state I see next month. Or something. Wait. Granogue is in Delaware, right?
First Ride of the Day was a bagel burn ride on Zwift. With the day being what it is, I knew I wouldn't get a single, 2 hour slot to work with today. After I setup some things for the day, I hopped on and did a single hill climb up the original Watopia climb. This is the first one you really ever do in this world, and the one I have not really been doing much lately. Set my new PR on this by almost 2 minutes and on the Strava ride got 20 total PRs, though that is somewhat silly as I imagine they are all up that same climb. I also found a new fan which is stronger than the previous one so in the end, that was a win. Watched Eureka on the ride. Decent episode with Kim coming back as an organic computer.
Mid Day Work is More Meetings which is boring game. Nothing to see here. I am going to skip the rant about work right now. I will add this. Randomly throughout the day, I almost get giddy with excitement about KT next week.
Second Ride of the Day is the road bike, which I have not ridden since @jimvreeland fixed my rear wheel. I'm actually not sure what he did to it but it is F*ng dialed now. This bike now feels perfect, like it's supposed to. I also bought my first pair of road shoes in ~10 years and OMFG what a difference this makes. Dennis set me up with something and I just love them. It's almost like you can feel these shoes transferring more power to the pedals immediately. I imagine my old shoes once did this but after 2000 rides I guess they were a little dead. At the end of the ride after almost 2 hours of total saddle time between the rides I tried for 2 KOMS. One I missed by 6 seconds and another by 2. They will both fall by the end of the year and I will retake everything in the hood that I have lost in the last year. Mark it Donny.
Late Afternoon I Pick Up Julia and she is so immersed in Brain Games that she opts to stay there and play more while I go shopping at Shop Rite. As I alluded to earlier, I am not going to rant about work but let me say this. It was damn fine to just unplug for a little bit and just buy some fruit. I also bought some stuff so J and I could make some dinner & ice cream later. Eventually I picked her up and we went home. I had a bunch of work to do but these summer days are few & far between so I chose to spend the afternoon with Julia just having her help me around the house. She's quickly becoming a teenager in some regards but every time I ask her to help me, she is more than happy to spend some time together. She helped put away the groceries, unload the dishwasher, make some dinner, then make some homemade ice cream. In all we spent over 2 hours just doing stuff and it was far more rewarding than work.
Late Night and I will do some work until I'm tired. Then I'll sleep.
Wednesday Mornings This Summer are now Julia Wednesdays. Her mother works in the city and has her Tuesday night. So I agree to pick her up every Wednesday and bring her to camp for the 5 Wednesdays she has camp. I'd to set an alarm this morning to make sure I did not oversleep. I decided to try the @2Julianas method of 3 alarms, which actually worked as I slept really well last night. I do have a question about this though. Do you set 3 different alarms on 3 different devices? Anyway, we were up and out the door by 7:45 to get Julia at 8:00. I told her we could stop at O'Bagel for breakfast and I indulged in a sesame with lox spread. Like @Mitch, I love me some lox as well as whitefish. Does anyone sell whitefish anymore? Dropped her at the YMCA, then @Dominique at work because I had picked her up after work to ride Nassau last night, then went home to start my day at the box factory.
Mid Morning Work is limited to a short call, some Duke details, and some admin crap. I also take the time to book this Austin trip between Vermont & California. It also strikes me that between July 3 and July 22 I will spend exactly one full day in New Jersey - July 15th. I will be waking up & going to bed in NJ on both the 14th and 15th, but I am slated to race Granogue on the 14th. So I'll spend a bunch of time that day in Delaware, which is going to be by far the best state I see next month. Or something. Wait. Granogue is in Delaware, right?
First Ride of the Day was a bagel burn ride on Zwift. With the day being what it is, I knew I wouldn't get a single, 2 hour slot to work with today. After I setup some things for the day, I hopped on and did a single hill climb up the original Watopia climb. This is the first one you really ever do in this world, and the one I have not really been doing much lately. Set my new PR on this by almost 2 minutes and on the Strava ride got 20 total PRs, though that is somewhat silly as I imagine they are all up that same climb. I also found a new fan which is stronger than the previous one so in the end, that was a win. Watched Eureka on the ride. Decent episode with Kim coming back as an organic computer.
Mid Day Work is More Meetings which is boring game. Nothing to see here. I am going to skip the rant about work right now. I will add this. Randomly throughout the day, I almost get giddy with excitement about KT next week.
Second Ride of the Day is the road bike, which I have not ridden since @jimvreeland fixed my rear wheel. I'm actually not sure what he did to it but it is F*ng dialed now. This bike now feels perfect, like it's supposed to. I also bought my first pair of road shoes in ~10 years and OMFG what a difference this makes. Dennis set me up with something and I just love them. It's almost like you can feel these shoes transferring more power to the pedals immediately. I imagine my old shoes once did this but after 2000 rides I guess they were a little dead. At the end of the ride after almost 2 hours of total saddle time between the rides I tried for 2 KOMS. One I missed by 6 seconds and another by 2. They will both fall by the end of the year and I will retake everything in the hood that I have lost in the last year. Mark it Donny.
Late Afternoon I Pick Up Julia and she is so immersed in Brain Games that she opts to stay there and play more while I go shopping at Shop Rite. As I alluded to earlier, I am not going to rant about work but let me say this. It was damn fine to just unplug for a little bit and just buy some fruit. I also bought some stuff so J and I could make some dinner & ice cream later. Eventually I picked her up and we went home. I had a bunch of work to do but these summer days are few & far between so I chose to spend the afternoon with Julia just having her help me around the house. She's quickly becoming a teenager in some regards but every time I ask her to help me, she is more than happy to spend some time together. She helped put away the groceries, unload the dishwasher, make some dinner, then make some homemade ice cream. In all we spent over 2 hours just doing stuff and it was far more rewarding than work.
Late Night and I will do some work until I'm tired. Then I'll sleep.
Very stereotypical, I do not eat either one and the smell of Whitefish on the stove makes me nausas. Oy Vay
moose35
Well-Known Member
This 100%