After a long rest, a new purpose awakens

Obviously it’s been a minute since I have posted here, letting this blog languish without a dedicated purpose. Varied interests from bicycles to travel to rural exploration to vintage furniture could be argued to suit, but I think I will go ahead and throw them all at the wall.

I will in short order be taking on a bicycling challenge that will push my limits and ability beyond where they’ve been heretofore. I will endeavor to ride 300+ gravel miles in one go as part of the Gravel Worlds Long Voyage on August 19th. Venturing out from Lincoln Nebraska and moving in a clockwise pattern, I will ride all the way down to my Marysville homelands and return back across the Nebraska hills and dales to Lincoln. Wish me luck, I shall surely need it.

Look for more action, activity, and commentary here in the future. I will post as time allows and activities warrant!

Fireworks & terrible things happening…

Come out and enjoy the Haddam Hound Hundred.

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http://www.gravelcyclist.com/event/haddam-hound-hundred-metric-century-fun-ride-haddam-kansas/

GO HOUNDS

The Haddam, Kansas Alumni Banquet ahead on 5.26.12, I believe I’d like to do some ruminating on the realities of being the product of a rural school. More to come…

Haddam website: http://www.ci.haddam.ks.us/

Youth, Beauty, Positivity

 

“When you’re a child you just assume that people are rewarded for their talents; that those who contribute beautiful, poignant things to the world are valued in such a way that allows them to, say, get their teeth fixed. But man, if the ruthlessness of becoming an adult doesn’t knock that naivete straight out of you.”   ~Libby Copeland

Driven Too Late

I wonder how many get their act together, only to find they have done so too languidly. They have lost weight they needlessly carried; they’ve learned information they could have demanded prior; they have knuckled down where before they were slack. All of this, only to discover they were driven too late…

This is what you shall do

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

– Walt Whitman from the preface of Leaves of Grass

The places…you know…

Along the roads,
through the town,
we’ve been down thrice
and always found,

A certain place
not distinct,
so known to us
lest we e’r think

Businesses live
run the race,
they too end swiftly
its sunny place,

Miss them we will,
no more go,
hold fond mem’ries
places you know.

Be Not So Fearful

“Be not so nervous, be not so frail
Someone watches you, you will not fail
Be not so nervous, be not so frail
Be not so nervous, be not so frail

Be not so sorry for what you’ve done
You must forget them now, it’s done
And when you wake up you will find you can run
Be not so sorry for what you’ve done

Be not so fearful, be not so pale
Someone watches you, you will not leave the rails
Be not so fearful, be not so pale
Be not so fearful, be not so pale

Be not so sorry for what you’ve done
You must forget them now, it’s done
And when you wake up you will find you can run
Be not so sorry for what you’ve done ”

-Bill Fay

Forethought

Attainable goals
require a plan of attack
…lost, if not for thought.

Homegrown Businesses

We all need to spend a little more effort to support our local and homegrown businesses. Even businesses that are not in our backyard but have sprung forth in the next state or across the country need our dollar-backing if they are to continue being the backbone of the American dream. What small business can you patronize today?