O Rex Gentium, et desideratus earum,
lapisque angularis, qui facis utraque unum:
veni, et salva hominem,
quem de limo formasti.
O King of the nations, and their desire,
the cornerstone making both one:
Come and save the human race,
which you fashioned from clay.
(ref. Isaiah 9:6, Isaiah 2:4; Isaiah 28:16, Ephesians 2:14)
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
O Morning Star
Oriens,
splendor lucis aeternae, et sol justitiae:
veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris, et umbra mortis.
O Morning Star,
splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness:
Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.
(ref. Isaiah 9:2; Isaiah 60:1-2, Malachi 4:2)
splendor lucis aeternae, et sol justitiae:
veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris, et umbra mortis.
O Morning Star,
splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness:
Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.
(ref. Isaiah 9:2; Isaiah 60:1-2, Malachi 4:2)
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
O Key of David
Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel;
qui aperis, et nemo claudit;
claudis, et nemo aperit:
veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris,
sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.
O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel;
you open and no one can shut;
you shut and no one can open:
Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house,
those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.
(ref. Isaiah 22:22, Isaiah 9:7, Isaiah 42:7)
qui aperis, et nemo claudit;
claudis, et nemo aperit:
veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris,
sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.
O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel;
you open and no one can shut;
you shut and no one can open:
Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house,
those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.
(ref. Isaiah 22:22, Isaiah 9:7, Isaiah 42:7)
Monday, December 19, 2011
O Root of Jesse
O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum,
super quem continebunt reges os suum,
quem Gentes deprecabuntur:
veni ad liberandum nos, jam noli tardare.
O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples;
before you kings will shut their mouths,
to you the nations will make their prayer:
Come and deliver us, and delay no longer.
(ref. Isaiah 11:1,10; Micah 5:2, Isaiah 45:14, Isaiah 52:15, Romans 15:12)
super quem continebunt reges os suum,
quem Gentes deprecabuntur:
veni ad liberandum nos, jam noli tardare.
O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples;
before you kings will shut their mouths,
to you the nations will make their prayer:
Come and deliver us, and delay no longer.
(ref. Isaiah 11:1,10; Micah 5:2, Isaiah 45:14, Isaiah 52:15, Romans 15:12)
Sunday, December 18, 2011
O Adonai
O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel,
qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti,
et ei in Sina legem dedisti:
veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.
O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel,
who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush
and gave him the law on Sinai:
Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.
(ref. Isaiah 11:4-5, Isaiah 33:22; Exodus 3:2, Exodus 24:12)
qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti,
et ei in Sina legem dedisti:
veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.
O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel,
who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush
and gave him the law on Sinai:
Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.
(ref. Isaiah 11:4-5, Isaiah 33:22; Exodus 3:2, Exodus 24:12)
Saturday, December 17, 2011
O Wisdom
For the last week of Advent, I am posting the O Antiphons, verses to an ancient Advent hymn (dating back at least to the 5th century), sung at Vespers, one verse each day from December 17-23. These may seem somewhat familiar to some of you; the familiar Advent hymn/carol O Come, O Come Emmanuel is based on them (rendered into consistently-metered rhyming English). . .
I am here giving both the ancient Latin text, and the English translation, as well as the Biblical references provided in the excellent Wikipedia article. . .
-------------------------
O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodiisti,
attingens a fine usque ad finem,
fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia:
veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae
O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching from one end to the other mightily,
and sweetly ordering all things:
Come and teach us the way of prudence.
(ref. Isaiah 11:2-3, Isaiah 28:29)
I am here giving both the ancient Latin text, and the English translation, as well as the Biblical references provided in the excellent Wikipedia article. . .
-------------------------
O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodiisti,
attingens a fine usque ad finem,
fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia:
veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae
O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching from one end to the other mightily,
and sweetly ordering all things:
Come and teach us the way of prudence.
(ref. Isaiah 11:2-3, Isaiah 28:29)
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Godspeed, My Children
In the general busy-ness of the season, I find that I have neglected to mention to you all that two of our progeny - 2F and 4M - will be flying off tomorrow morning to spend Christmas with friends in the UK - London, Glasgow and Belfast. This is the second time in the last three Christmases that they'll have been off-continent. And, more to the point (at least where Jen and I, and the rest of the family are concerned), apart from us.
Of course, we wish them Godspeed, and joyous times with their friends. Their friends are our friends, too. One is a young woman who has shared many a meal with us around our table (and with whom we saw Paul McCartney last summer), who is spending a year in London doing missionary work. Another is a young man from Glasgow who spent a year-and-a-half in Our Town (and who dearly wanted to see Sir Paul with us, but he got terribly sick the day of the concert; so 4M ended up using his ticket) doing the same thing, and became a close family friend while he was here (at his 'going-home party', one of the kids pasted his face onto a Harry Potter life-size 'cutout', and it has stayed in our dining room for the entire four months since he left). 2F and 4M will carry our greetings, and our love, with them.
2F is actually looking into returning to Europe as a 'missionary' in her own right, and part of the purpose of her trip is to make connections in that regard. Which thought makes us immensely proud of her, and a little bit sad, to think that she could be so far away from us, for an extended (and possibly indefinite) period of time. But those things will happen, when one undertakes to live radically for something (Someone) bigger than one's own preferences and comfort. So you could pray for 2F, that God will give her clear discernment, and open or close the appropriate doors in her path. And for both of them, that He will 'guard their going-out and their coming-in', and return them safely to the bosom of their family. . .
-------------------------
Could I also solicit your prayers for an immensely perplexing situation in which Jen and I find ourselves? Without going into detail, I'll just say that two friends of ours are caught in a massive, emotional breach of their relationship. We are trying hard, 'insofar as it depends on us', to be at peace with both of them, but it's not easy. Pray that we can maintain friendship with both of them, and that the breach between them can be healed.
(*sigh*)
Come quickly, Lord Jesus. . .
Of course, we wish them Godspeed, and joyous times with their friends. Their friends are our friends, too. One is a young woman who has shared many a meal with us around our table (and with whom we saw Paul McCartney last summer), who is spending a year in London doing missionary work. Another is a young man from Glasgow who spent a year-and-a-half in Our Town (and who dearly wanted to see Sir Paul with us, but he got terribly sick the day of the concert; so 4M ended up using his ticket) doing the same thing, and became a close family friend while he was here (at his 'going-home party', one of the kids pasted his face onto a Harry Potter life-size 'cutout', and it has stayed in our dining room for the entire four months since he left). 2F and 4M will carry our greetings, and our love, with them.
2F is actually looking into returning to Europe as a 'missionary' in her own right, and part of the purpose of her trip is to make connections in that regard. Which thought makes us immensely proud of her, and a little bit sad, to think that she could be so far away from us, for an extended (and possibly indefinite) period of time. But those things will happen, when one undertakes to live radically for something (Someone) bigger than one's own preferences and comfort. So you could pray for 2F, that God will give her clear discernment, and open or close the appropriate doors in her path. And for both of them, that He will 'guard their going-out and their coming-in', and return them safely to the bosom of their family. . .
-------------------------
Could I also solicit your prayers for an immensely perplexing situation in which Jen and I find ourselves? Without going into detail, I'll just say that two friends of ours are caught in a massive, emotional breach of their relationship. We are trying hard, 'insofar as it depends on us', to be at peace with both of them, but it's not easy. Pray that we can maintain friendship with both of them, and that the breach between them can be healed.
(*sigh*)
Come quickly, Lord Jesus. . .
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Perspectives
The Optimist says the glass is half-full. . .
The Pessimist says the glass is half-empty. . .
The Engineer says the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. . .
-------------------------
Among Roman Catholics, today is popularly called Gaudete Sunday (because Catholics like to be all high-falutin' and throw Latin words around all the time, an' stuff; 'gaudete' just means 'rejoice'), the Third Sunday of Advent; the 'rejoicing' being because Advent is (at least) half-over, and it's all downhill to Christmas (so to speak).
Our family traditionally procures our Christmas tree on Gaudete weekend, although we might not set it up for a few days (if it's cold enough outside, we'll just stash it behind the garage), and we won't decorate it until it's at least less than a week 'til Christmas.
But - it's gettin' close. . .
The Pessimist says the glass is half-empty. . .
The Engineer says the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. . .
-------------------------
Among Roman Catholics, today is popularly called Gaudete Sunday (because Catholics like to be all high-falutin' and throw Latin words around all the time, an' stuff; 'gaudete' just means 'rejoice'), the Third Sunday of Advent; the 'rejoicing' being because Advent is (at least) half-over, and it's all downhill to Christmas (so to speak).
Our family traditionally procures our Christmas tree on Gaudete weekend, although we might not set it up for a few days (if it's cold enough outside, we'll just stash it behind the garage), and we won't decorate it until it's at least less than a week 'til Christmas.
But - it's gettin' close. . .
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Good Day, Sunshine; or, A Day In the Life
As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been considering burning my last day of vacation for 2011 on the first sunny, 40-degree day that came along, so as to sneak in one more ride on my bike before pulling down the curtain on the riding season. In checking the online weather forecasts, I came to the easy conclusion that yesterday was that day. . .
Besides which, I've piled up a few of those 'getting-ready-for-winter' projects that needed to get done, and the weekends have seemed to fill up with other things (what with Christmas approaching, and all that). And last week's snowfall was a major warning shot across my bow. The fact that it melted off so quickly can only be counted to God's mercy. . .
First, I needed a pair of new front tires on my car (in order to hold down the magnitude of single expenditures, I usually buy tires in pairs - fronts and rears, staggered by a few months so as not to hit the budget all at once). I've known that for a while, and last week's snow served to accentuate the urgency of it. But it's always a bit of a hassle to pull off. Weekends, as I said, tend to fill up with other stuff, and it's hard to set aside the 1-2 hours just sitting in the waiting room. Sometimes, Jen and I will trade cars for the day, so she can cover that detail for me, but her schedule is fuller than it used to be, and it's not such a simple matter for her, either. So, having the day off, I showed up at the tire store at the opening bell, to get in at the front of the line. And then, Jen had an errand for me to run, at a store walking distance up the street from the tire place, so I was gainfully engaged while the car was being worked on. An hour after dropping the car off, I had my new tires, and Jen had some staples restocked in the pantry.
Next was the roof. Our back roof has always had a pretty significant ice-damming problem, and a key component of our strategy for dealing with that has been a heat tape which we run in a zigzag pattern over the bottom three feet or so of the roof. But this past spring, we had our back roof re-shingled, and the roofers had to remove the heat tape in order to put the new shingles down (heck, just to get the old shingles off). So, once the new roof was in place, I needed to re-install the heat tape. It would have been smart of me to do it in the summertime, or at least the early fall, when the asphalt of the shingles was still reasonably soft and pliable; but I wasn't that smart. And again, last week's snowfall highlighted the urgency of getting the heat tape done; that the snow melted so quickly was pure grace from God.
So, after I returned from the tire store, I grabbed 5M, and the two of us went to work - he worked on the roof, installing the clips for the tops of the zigzags, while I worked from a ladder along the edge of the roof. We borrowed 6F's blow-dryer to soften the asphalt in the localized areas where we needed to mount the clips. The process is a little bit tedious, involving mounting the clips, running the tape through the clips, and then going back and readjusting everything to get the tape where it needs to be, while more-or-less matching the length of the tape to the required coverage area. It was a bit chilly out - high 30s (F), but the blow-dryer kept our hands warmer than they'd otherwise have been, and the sun was shining. We finished in a little over an hour, and now our new back roof is ready for winter's onslaught.
Having finished both of those, it was still before 1PM, so there was plenty of time for me to go out on another 17-mile bike ride, which, with the sun shining brightly, was a very happy one, even if it was a few degrees colder than last Saturday's ride had been (and the wind wasn't blowing quite so hard, either, so that was nice, too). I even had time to ride over to the bike shop when I'd finished my ride, because the ride had exposed my need for a new rear tire on the bike, as well.
I went home, showered, and was preparing to take a short nap, when 7M reminded me that he had a basketball game on the other end of town last night. With my long commute, I hardly ever get to his week-night games, so I had a rare opportunity, which I was only too happy to take (his team played their worst game of the season, so far, but he seemed reasonably philosophical about it afterward; perhaps my presence helped him reach such equanimity) (or, you know, perhaps my presence had nothing to do with it; who knows?)
So - one solitary vacation day, in the middle of the week, in December. And what a day it turned out to be. . .
Besides which, I've piled up a few of those 'getting-ready-for-winter' projects that needed to get done, and the weekends have seemed to fill up with other things (what with Christmas approaching, and all that). And last week's snowfall was a major warning shot across my bow. The fact that it melted off so quickly can only be counted to God's mercy. . .
First, I needed a pair of new front tires on my car (in order to hold down the magnitude of single expenditures, I usually buy tires in pairs - fronts and rears, staggered by a few months so as not to hit the budget all at once). I've known that for a while, and last week's snow served to accentuate the urgency of it. But it's always a bit of a hassle to pull off. Weekends, as I said, tend to fill up with other stuff, and it's hard to set aside the 1-2 hours just sitting in the waiting room. Sometimes, Jen and I will trade cars for the day, so she can cover that detail for me, but her schedule is fuller than it used to be, and it's not such a simple matter for her, either. So, having the day off, I showed up at the tire store at the opening bell, to get in at the front of the line. And then, Jen had an errand for me to run, at a store walking distance up the street from the tire place, so I was gainfully engaged while the car was being worked on. An hour after dropping the car off, I had my new tires, and Jen had some staples restocked in the pantry.
Next was the roof. Our back roof has always had a pretty significant ice-damming problem, and a key component of our strategy for dealing with that has been a heat tape which we run in a zigzag pattern over the bottom three feet or so of the roof. But this past spring, we had our back roof re-shingled, and the roofers had to remove the heat tape in order to put the new shingles down (heck, just to get the old shingles off). So, once the new roof was in place, I needed to re-install the heat tape. It would have been smart of me to do it in the summertime, or at least the early fall, when the asphalt of the shingles was still reasonably soft and pliable; but I wasn't that smart. And again, last week's snowfall highlighted the urgency of getting the heat tape done; that the snow melted so quickly was pure grace from God.
So, after I returned from the tire store, I grabbed 5M, and the two of us went to work - he worked on the roof, installing the clips for the tops of the zigzags, while I worked from a ladder along the edge of the roof. We borrowed 6F's blow-dryer to soften the asphalt in the localized areas where we needed to mount the clips. The process is a little bit tedious, involving mounting the clips, running the tape through the clips, and then going back and readjusting everything to get the tape where it needs to be, while more-or-less matching the length of the tape to the required coverage area. It was a bit chilly out - high 30s (F), but the blow-dryer kept our hands warmer than they'd otherwise have been, and the sun was shining. We finished in a little over an hour, and now our new back roof is ready for winter's onslaught.
Having finished both of those, it was still before 1PM, so there was plenty of time for me to go out on another 17-mile bike ride, which, with the sun shining brightly, was a very happy one, even if it was a few degrees colder than last Saturday's ride had been (and the wind wasn't blowing quite so hard, either, so that was nice, too). I even had time to ride over to the bike shop when I'd finished my ride, because the ride had exposed my need for a new rear tire on the bike, as well.
I went home, showered, and was preparing to take a short nap, when 7M reminded me that he had a basketball game on the other end of town last night. With my long commute, I hardly ever get to his week-night games, so I had a rare opportunity, which I was only too happy to take (his team played their worst game of the season, so far, but he seemed reasonably philosophical about it afterward; perhaps my presence helped him reach such equanimity) (or, you know, perhaps my presence had nothing to do with it; who knows?)
So - one solitary vacation day, in the middle of the week, in December. And what a day it turned out to be. . .
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Miles and Miles to Go. . .
For the last five years (roughly coinciding with my renewed commitment to seriously riding my bike), the weather around the turn from November to December has just been uncanny - within a day either side of the First of December, we've gotten the first significant snowfall of the year, which stays on the ground, and marks the change in temperatures from generally above freezing to generally below. Meaning that, once the snow comes to stay, it really stays, and my riding season is effectively ended. Five years in a row. You'd think that, one of those years, the Sender of Snow would slack off just long enough for me to sneak in a quick 15 or 20 miles on the 3rd, or the 5th maybe, but no dice.
So when we had a run of warm weekends this November, I was hopeful that maybe this year, winter would hold off a few days, and I'd be able to get a few December miles in. And all the moreso, since, as of Thanksgiving weekend, I was at 1388 miles for the year, and it would only take a dozen miles for me to pass 1400.
But, when I checked the weather forecast Tuesday afternoon, Our Town was predicted to get 6-10 inches of snow. Which is a lot of snow, especially for the first real snow of the season. I took my laptop home from work, and made arrangements to work from home on Wednesday if the forecast proved accurate. Which it did. The snow started falling Tuesday evening, as I was maybe 20 miles from home at the end of my commute, and it snowed hard all night and into Wednesday morning. When we went out to shovel the sidewalk and driveway, by golly, there was anywhere from six to ten inches of wet, heavy snow on the ground.
So I called my boss, and told him I'd be staying home. He seemed surprised, since where he lived, they'd only gotten a bit more than an inch. So I checked the weather map online, and it turned out that the 'snow belt' ran right up the middle of Michigan's mitten, virtually centered on Our Town. Fifty miles to the east, or fifty miles to the west of us, barely an inch of snow fell, but from the Ohio/Indiana border, running right up the middle of Michigan, it was 6-10.
So I just laughed, and noted ruefully that Wednesday was the Last Day of November. Right on schedule. But Wednesday itself was a pretty warm day, with high temperatures going into the 40s (Fahrenheit), so even by the time we went to bed on Wednesday, there was quite a bit less snow on the ground than there had been that morning. Our street, which is only two blocks long, and a dead end, never did get plowed, but by the end of Wednesday, we had no problem getting in and out with our cars. So, for a 6-10-inch snowfall, it was pretty benign, as such things go.
But of course, there's a big difference between what you can reasonably drive a car through, and what you can reasonably ride a bike in. Patches of ice aren't that big a deal in a car, but on a bike they can be treacherous. And, riding as we do along the edge of the pavement, if the snow significantly impinges on the available pavement, it quickly becomes a pretty dicey situation, sharing even less pavement than usual with the motorized vehicles, which are ten times heavier, and at least three times faster, than I am. So I was not particularly hopeful that I would be able to get a real, outdoors-on-the-pavement ride in.
Thursday and Friday were warm-ish (for December), with high temperatures in the upper 30s (F), which is above freezing, but won't turn snow into water at a very rapid rate. Plus, we got maybe another half-inch or so over Thurday night.
Yesterday morning, it was overcast, but again in the low 40s. I wasn't optimistic, but I really wanted to ride. So, after my usual round of morning errands, I decided to reconnoiter the route I would take if I did ride. And I found that the pavement, for the most part, was clear and dry, especially on the country back roads that I'd mainly be riding on. The busier country roads all have paved shoulders, and even those were clear. The biggest problems were all in the city, and they were manageable, if I just exercised some common-sensical caution.
So I scurried home, got into my 40-degree riding gear (regular riding gear, with an extra pair of wool socks, sweat pants, and a blaze-orange hoodie, and real gloves with fingers and everything) and got out on the road. I had a great ride (especially once I got out of town) - 17 miles, brisk fresh air, and no significant issues with the motor-vehicles. My heart, lungs, and legs hummed happily along, and I even got home in time to get to 7M's basketball game (and before the rain started).
So it's 1405 and counting. I've got one more vacation day left for this year, and I'm thinking of burning it on a 40+-degree day, should one pop up in the middle of the week, and get one more ride in, before I pack it in for the winter, and take my bike for its annual winter tune-up.
Man, this is just more fun than a human being ought to be allowed to have. . .
-------------------------
And alas, my Spartans went down to defeat in the Inaugural Big Ten Championship game last night. Great game, if you didn't care who won; we've had a few of those with the Badgers, in recent years.
(*sigh*)
Honestly, though, in August, I'd never have expected us to be this good again. I figured we'd be good, but our graduation losses from last year's co-championship team, along with a really gruelling schedule, seemed to portend a small regression, at least in the wins and losses. But here we were, playing for another conference championship. Whaddya know. . . maybe, just maybe, we're becoming pretty good.
Wouldn't that be fun?
So when we had a run of warm weekends this November, I was hopeful that maybe this year, winter would hold off a few days, and I'd be able to get a few December miles in. And all the moreso, since, as of Thanksgiving weekend, I was at 1388 miles for the year, and it would only take a dozen miles for me to pass 1400.
But, when I checked the weather forecast Tuesday afternoon, Our Town was predicted to get 6-10 inches of snow. Which is a lot of snow, especially for the first real snow of the season. I took my laptop home from work, and made arrangements to work from home on Wednesday if the forecast proved accurate. Which it did. The snow started falling Tuesday evening, as I was maybe 20 miles from home at the end of my commute, and it snowed hard all night and into Wednesday morning. When we went out to shovel the sidewalk and driveway, by golly, there was anywhere from six to ten inches of wet, heavy snow on the ground.
So I called my boss, and told him I'd be staying home. He seemed surprised, since where he lived, they'd only gotten a bit more than an inch. So I checked the weather map online, and it turned out that the 'snow belt' ran right up the middle of Michigan's mitten, virtually centered on Our Town. Fifty miles to the east, or fifty miles to the west of us, barely an inch of snow fell, but from the Ohio/Indiana border, running right up the middle of Michigan, it was 6-10.
So I just laughed, and noted ruefully that Wednesday was the Last Day of November. Right on schedule. But Wednesday itself was a pretty warm day, with high temperatures going into the 40s (Fahrenheit), so even by the time we went to bed on Wednesday, there was quite a bit less snow on the ground than there had been that morning. Our street, which is only two blocks long, and a dead end, never did get plowed, but by the end of Wednesday, we had no problem getting in and out with our cars. So, for a 6-10-inch snowfall, it was pretty benign, as such things go.
But of course, there's a big difference between what you can reasonably drive a car through, and what you can reasonably ride a bike in. Patches of ice aren't that big a deal in a car, but on a bike they can be treacherous. And, riding as we do along the edge of the pavement, if the snow significantly impinges on the available pavement, it quickly becomes a pretty dicey situation, sharing even less pavement than usual with the motorized vehicles, which are ten times heavier, and at least three times faster, than I am. So I was not particularly hopeful that I would be able to get a real, outdoors-on-the-pavement ride in.
Thursday and Friday were warm-ish (for December), with high temperatures in the upper 30s (F), which is above freezing, but won't turn snow into water at a very rapid rate. Plus, we got maybe another half-inch or so over Thurday night.
Yesterday morning, it was overcast, but again in the low 40s. I wasn't optimistic, but I really wanted to ride. So, after my usual round of morning errands, I decided to reconnoiter the route I would take if I did ride. And I found that the pavement, for the most part, was clear and dry, especially on the country back roads that I'd mainly be riding on. The busier country roads all have paved shoulders, and even those were clear. The biggest problems were all in the city, and they were manageable, if I just exercised some common-sensical caution.
So I scurried home, got into my 40-degree riding gear (regular riding gear, with an extra pair of wool socks, sweat pants, and a blaze-orange hoodie, and real gloves with fingers and everything) and got out on the road. I had a great ride (especially once I got out of town) - 17 miles, brisk fresh air, and no significant issues with the motor-vehicles. My heart, lungs, and legs hummed happily along, and I even got home in time to get to 7M's basketball game (and before the rain started).
So it's 1405 and counting. I've got one more vacation day left for this year, and I'm thinking of burning it on a 40+-degree day, should one pop up in the middle of the week, and get one more ride in, before I pack it in for the winter, and take my bike for its annual winter tune-up.
Man, this is just more fun than a human being ought to be allowed to have. . .
-------------------------
And alas, my Spartans went down to defeat in the Inaugural Big Ten Championship game last night. Great game, if you didn't care who won; we've had a few of those with the Badgers, in recent years.
(*sigh*)
Honestly, though, in August, I'd never have expected us to be this good again. I figured we'd be good, but our graduation losses from last year's co-championship team, along with a really gruelling schedule, seemed to portend a small regression, at least in the wins and losses. But here we were, playing for another conference championship. Whaddya know. . . maybe, just maybe, we're becoming pretty good.
Wouldn't that be fun?
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