Addendum

Humblest apologies for this addendum to what I thought was my temporary farewell post last night. I always forget something, however, and last night I forgot to give you the address of my Flickr photos. You have all seen my spring flower photos and most likely never want to see them again, but, just in case you are a glutton for punishment, they are all posted collectively here on Flickr. If you click, you can either view the slideshow (top right in the box) or click the first thumbnail and keep advancing bit hitting NEXT (to the right of the main photo).

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We did go on our final bike ride (for the time being) today and managed to pedal our furthest distance yet — 82 klicks (51 miles) this time. It was a great day. After another decent sleep, I felt quite strong today, even pedalling into the wind.

We had lunch at our usual (as of late) spot — Clifflane. The lake was remarkably blue today. That's why this area is nicknamed Bluewater Land. The photos have not been enhanced. This is the way that it looked today and how it frequently appears.

Since we were there just a few days ago, the phlox have emerged in full splendour. They're everywhere we pedal: in ditches, along the trail, and here along the lake bank at Clifflane (first photo).

The next photo is also from Clifflane, but I don't think that I've posted this view of the point previously. It depicts the water colour as well.

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Just over a week ago, I went to the doctor after suffering from a three-week headache. The sinus X-rays are in, and I have an infection. In addition to the headache, perhaps the infection, at least partly, explains some of my recent lack of energy. I will pick up the script tomorrow.

Here's the question. The doctor doubts that I need to take the medicine (the headache is in remission), but he is giving me the script because I am going away for three weeks and might need it. Do you think that I should just go ahead and start taking it, or should I wait for a few more days to see how I'm faring?

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Finally, I am proud to say that my eldest, Butterfly, has come up with a very neat idea: sending each other postcards. Read about it here, and then check Dale's entry. He is so keen that he has posted his address. I am reluctant to do that, but you can all grab my email address from the sidebar and write to let me know if you want me to send you a postcard from Ottawa. I will try to send all Americans postcards of Mounties unless otherwise instructed. It goes without saying that you'll need to give me your mailing address in order for this to happen. I have just recently said in a blog that you can tell a lot about people through their written words; so, if you feel trust for me coming on, drop me a line with your address, and I will send you a postcard. Then, you'll have my address, and you can send me one from your corner of the world. How's that for a plan?

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Phew! I think I'm done, but I thought that last night, and look at the length of this post.

Be well.

 

Not Sharp, but in the Drawer

After some trial and error and a curse or two, I managed to burn (as in copy/pirate) my first DVD tonight. As far as bootlegs go, it's pretty innocuous, just a little documentary that I borrowed from the library that I want to share with someone, but it has to go back before I can do that.

The first problem I encountered was that there wasn't enough space on my C drive to hold the temporary files from the copied DVD: the files that the program later burns onto the new DVD. I have lots of space on my hard drive, but I have partitioned the drive. I keep the programs on one, smallish partition (drive C) and the files on a bigger partition (drive E). After a little perplexity, I figured out how to tell the copy program where to store its temporary files.

Mission accomplished: the DVD burned perfectly.

Mission not accomplished: I had no self-sticking CD labels on hand. For personal data CDs, I don't mind writing on the CD — it doesn't have to look good in that event, just be functional. However, people will see this, so I wanted to make a half decent looking label. And I did.

BUT ... with no proper labels on which to print, I opted to print on plain paper and to glue the paper onto the DVD. That was not the best idea that I've ever had. In fact, it was a pretty lousy idea. Actually, I have done this before and made it work, but I only had liquid glue available tonight. Got it everywhere folks, including the back side of the DVD (not the original one, thank heaven for small mercies), the side that the laser has to read through. This is what caused me to revert to strong language, and this is what caused me to trash my newly and proudly burned DVD. Sigh.

Then, do you think it would copy the DVD again? Not after three tries and one reboot. Finally, I popped the DVD out, wiggled it about, reinserted it, and it copied fine. It must have been a fraction of a millimetre off centre or whatever.

I even have a label ready to print. I said ready. I will purchase some proper labels tomorrow. This clueless shall hitherto remain glueless. After all, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I am a knife, and I am in the drawer, and I do learn &mdash eventually!

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Thanks so much for the various thoughtful and helpful suggestions regarding my sleep problems. The past two nights have gone reasonably well: no heat attacks and at least a semi-restful sleep. As I sit and type this at almost midnight, however, I am anything but cool and anything but sleepy and rather dreading what may in store for me tonight. I suppose that three decent sleeps would be too much to ask for: especially for a dull knife who becomes unglued when he pirates documentaries. Who in the world pirates documentaries anyway? On second thought, a documentary on toenails would probably beat the heck out of some of the movies that I have seen recently, so why not?

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In other news, expect this blog to be pretty quiet for the next week or longer (please stop that raucous cheering). We're heading to Ottawa to visit Butterfly and The Boy. Joining us there will be email friends from New Hampshire. Lady and I emailed regularly for a number of years before Cuppa and I drove to NH to visit with her and Mr Lady several summers past.

Our rendezvous went swimmingly well. You can meet nice people on the internet, and you can get along well with them in person. You can tell a lot about people through their words, and your instincts can be pretty darn reliable. This will be our third get-together, the second on Canadian soil, and the first in Ottawa. There's a lot to see and do in the capital, so unless the weather throws a conniption, we should have a fine time. Actually, I suppose that we will enjoy ourselves even if the weather doesn't prove overly cooperative.

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So, tomorrow is set aside for our last bicycle outing here. On Wednesday we pack and get ready to travel on Thursday. On Friday and the weekend, we do Ottawa, and then we settle in for a longish visit with Butterfly and The Boy. That pretty well explains why I might me petty scarce in Blogdumb for a while.

We'll be taking our bikes and hope to find some nice trails once Lady and Mr Lady head back stateside next Monday.

I don't know when I'll be back at the keyboard. It might be sooner than I think, even if it's just to post a few photos. It's hard to predict.

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Meanwhile, I'd like to go to bed now, and I'd like to sleep well while I'm there if you don't mind too very much. Thank you

 

Carrying On

For those who can abide the suspense no longer, I present myself here and now to put your minds at ease by informing you that I went to sleep without pills last night, and I did not suffer from night heat and/or night sweats. Contrary to recent experiences, however, my first few hours were not fitful but relatively peaceful. The second half of the night was more restless, however. Counting the initial going-to-bed, I only made four bed-switches last night. Actually, I seldom make more, but there is often more wakefulness involved than there was last night.

I was a little less cranky today but still not on top of my game. However, we still managed to enjoy a 50k ride. I took the photo of the yellow field (below) today after having noticed it for several days but being reluctant to interrupt my incredible Lance-esque pedalling rhythm. I speculate that this is a canola field although it seems awfully early in the season.

The top photo was taken on a recent trip within the past few days, but I forget exactly when. If I were Swamp or Rurality, I would tell you the name of those roadside wildflowers (or escaped cultivars) at the top, but, alas, I am a urban twit and not a rural wit.

 

Oh Bafooey

I have a problem. In point of fact, I, no doubt, have many problems, but the problem which is my recurring bête noire (almost literally) is sleep. It has been so for some time now.

Recently, when I have summoned to courage to trundle off to bedland at a reasonable hour, I have frequently been forced to endure a most vexing first few hours. I toss and turn, steam and boil, frequently change my soaked shirt, wander from bed to bed in vain search for the magic combination. For the most part, this vexation occurs in the hours before two a.m. That's one reason that I am not entirely loathe to endure my own solitary company until the wee hours while my better half slumbers, for, frequently, I find that if I force myself to remain awake until two o'clock or so, the demons of restless and sweltering heat torment me not.

I don't know what's behind all of this, and it doesn't seem to concern my doctor. I forgive the poor man because when I approached him with this complaint not long ago, he was much more concerned about trying to find to cause of my three-week headache. I mean that could have been a serious indicator of some sort. Who knows what caused my rather prolonged mal de tête, but it seems to be dissipating without benefit of medical interference?

For the most part, I cope well with my nightly forays into night sweats and the like. I don't terribly mind staying up and putting at the puter or whatever else springs to mind. On most mornings I have the luxury of lying in long enough that I am able to get sufficient sleep to remain blithe and sprightly. Oh, I never sleep until noon; in fact, I'm often up by 8:00, but I sometimes fall prey to the temptation of grabbing an extra hour, or possibly two.

But I can't always do that. Sometimes I have to be on the ball in the morning. This is most problematic for someone who suffers the above symptoms and who is also not in any way, shape, or form inclined to be a morning person. There are larks and owls, and I am an owl who prefers to eat larks rather than chirp with them. But I do find that if I can muster more than six hours of sleep and get up by eight in the morning, that I can occasionally be semi-convivial by about ten o'clock, which coincidentally, happens to be a most appropriate time to head out on the bikes when we've planned a major excursion.

But here's my dirty little secret. I take sleeping pills! Not often, not every night, sometimes not for weeks at a time, but I take them when I feel the need to blend myself into a more normal (for the rest of the world) schedule. They aren't particularly strong, addictive pills — in the flurazepam/dalmane family. I can take one or two for a day or two or even longer without experiencing too many miserable side-effects.

However, in my recent desperation to get on a normal cycle, last night I took two pills and that was the third night in a row that I had done that. Today, I paid the price, and so did Cuppa, I'm afraid. I was down, and I was dreary. I was enervated, and I was moody. I was not having fun, and I was not being fun. Usually, a bike ride shakes that sort of mood, but it didn't today. However, by late afternoon, my usual bonhomie seemed to be struggling to reassert itself. About bloody time, mate!

Sometimes, I'm even not sure whether it's the pills. Perhaps, it is just coincidence. Whatever the cause, I don't like myself when I get like that, and I can assure you that Cuppa doesn't exactly revel in these moods either. To her credit, however, she never wavers, never rises to the bait, lets my misery run its course with little admonition because she knows that this too shall pass.

I'll tell you one thing though. You won't find me ingesting a sleeping pill tonight. If I miss a few hours sleep, even for a few days in a row, I can usually manage well enough. I just don't look forward to those blazingly hellish hours that so often lurk in the late nights and early mornings. So, I am torn. Do I turn in now, at just after 11:00 p.m., or do I force myself to stay up until the fiendish hours have passed? I'm rather tired, so I guess I'll try the first option tonight. Who knows whose blog I might be checking three hours from now, however?

 

Heather's Bouquet

In addition to the photo on Cuppa's blog, these photos are dedicated to Heather for whom dandelions have special meaning. I took these photos on our Wednesday trek.

 

 

My Summer Job

Although I am retired, I hold down several different jobs, depending on the season. Sometimes, it's learning: generally to do with either internet development and/or photography. In this season, cycling is becoming a rather full-time job. We were out for the best part of six hours today, covering 71 kilometres (44 miles), enjoying lunch at Windcliff (see yesterday's photo), and coffee (also by the lake) in the grove.

Unlike yesterday's chill and the trifling 60k that we rode then, today's longer ride occurred in splendidly glorious weather: shorts and no jackets. It was absolutely wonderful. We pedalled for over 30k on the road that you see to the left, that and almost identical other roads. What a fabulous treat!

At times I even found myself praying, or something that must pass for it in my experience. It went something like this: "Thank you God that I can still pump my legs, for I know that I will soon be able to pump them no more. Thank you God for letting me feel the warm breezes on my face, for I know that I shall not feel them much longer. Thanks you God for letting me see the green trees, ploughed fields, and blue sky, for I know that I shall not see them much longer."

Tis enough that I pumped, felt, and saw today. My cup is full. If you don't believe me, look to your right, my friend, at one of the many flowering trees that we cycled by. And look on Cuppa's blog for lilacs which adorned the pathways and fragranced the air. How does life get better? Would a million dollars make it better? How about living in a castle? I think not. Today's treasures were beyond price, and, behold, I dwelt in the castle of the almighty today.

If I can break out of my euphoric hyperbole for a moment, let me tell you about my brush with the wall. We were just over 35k out, had been riding for several hours, and had just turned around to ride into the wind. Cuppa asked me if I was feeling alright because we hadn't ridden so slowly for a long time. Macho me replied in the affirmative, but as I contemplated this later after lunch, I realized that I had not been fine. In point of fact, after several hours of exertion, I was running on empty and hitting the wall. I needed to refuel my body. After I did so, my speed picked up, even though we had put even more miles behind us by that time.

There is another reality that I am having to face now that we are extending our distance. That's the reality of living with an arthritic hip. After several hours of pedalling, I found that I had to begin getting off the bike fairly regularly to stretch my hip. Then, I would be good for about another ten kilometers or so. Small price to pay for such joy, however.

Tomorrow must be a day off. I have appointments, and our bodies need to rest regardless. I trust that we'll get out on one or two more excursions before we leave for Butterfly's next week, where I hope that pleasurable adventures await, for I am told that there are good trails thataway. I must attend diligently to my summer job after all.

 

Picnic Panorama

We got out for another ride today after several days of inactivity. After going a little further still, we stopped at our usual (as of late) spot for a picnic lunch. Today, I decided to try a panorama. The above is a total of nine photos stitched together. I can see too many stitch borders for my liking, but it I enjoyed the process if not the result. While I don't think the result is that bad, the anal-perfectionist side of me wants to do better. The real version of this stitch is about 30" wide by 5" high. That's the problem with panoramas, and then when you reduce it to screen and blog width, it all looks rather miniscule, and one wonders why one bothers.

Although it was a cool, breezy day, we bettered our previous best by 10k and managed to do 60k in all. We tried a new route along country, but paved, roads and enjoyed ourselves a lot. The trouble with continually extending our mileage is that it eats more and more time. I resemble a chirpy morning person not in the least, but I managed to hit the road by ten o'clock today, and I am toying with an even earlier start tomorrow.

This cycling addiction, along with the spring need for attention to gardens, and our recent round of decorating has taken the keen edge off blogging it seems. I feel as though my posts have been much less than meaningful lately, but something has to give. And even though it often becomes a quick scan, I am still reading your posts &mdash not commenting as I should but reading nonetheless.

Bless.