Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Mulpus Loop x 2, all unbroken, and on the second lap I made sure my steps were out of phase with the first set of tracks to get it packed down nicely. I used the medium snowshoes. Chilly (high teens?), but the wind wasn't bad down in the woods.

Snow dealings, round 2e: a little cleanup on Nancy's driveway, scraping it down to asphalt, chopping the snowbanks by the road to improve visibility, and sanding.

Snow dealings, round 2c: Clayton's place. I struck a deal with a guy at work who owns a pickup truck but still had a lot shoveling to do. We went to my house, loaded the snowblower into his truck, then went over and made short work of what he had estimated as a 2-3 hour backbreaking job.

Snow dealings, round 2d: Nancy's driveway. What I got out the deal with Clayton was that we stopped by Nancy's place and used power tools instead of my spending all evening shoveling. He used a shovel to knock snow down from the sides to a reasonable depth, and I made passes with the snowblower to get it out of there. I had asked Stephen to make sure there was enough room that we'd be able to get in with the truck, and he actually did a lot more than was strictly needed, especially since we were able to park across the street. Clayton says that he's pretty much a shovel guy, but he was impressed enough that he thinks he'll get himself a snowblower pretty soon. We both may have spent longer on this project than we would have otherwise, but most of that time was riding in the pickup, which really beats working.

Snow dealings, round 2b: Mom's house. Shoveled the car out, cleared the turnaround, and faced up the snowbank to make a little more room for the next storm.

Snow dealings, round 2a: snowblowing this fluff out of my driveway was a piece of cake, despite my having dislodged the shift linkage so that it's tough to get the drive to engage properly. The radio says Lunenburg was one of the places that got 30+", the actual depth after settling is about 20" in my driveway (that's not counting the 6" or so that fell on Saturday). Not a big deal, everything will be back to normal tomorrow.

The view from my garage, with the bike for scale:

C • So how do they actually mea... 4

Hah! I pulled out the mountain bike, pumped up the tires like a couple of Patriots footballs, and went for a ride. My intent was to go around the block, but Holman Street hadn't been plowed for a few hours, so I had to continue on Highland and go a little further. It was actually quite pleasant out there, other than a little stretch on Northfield that was exposed enough that there was some drifting and the wind was a little biting. I was wearing a neoprene face mask, so even that wasn't too bad (it's about 20 F out there). I did get some disparaging remarks from a guy driving a plow when I was standing at the and of the driveway preparing to start.

C • Crap... you're going make m... 4

A loop-de-doop at Pearl Hill. Snowmobiles had packed down the snow, though not as much as I thought they might. I was using relic skis from the dawn of skating, and if they had any wax, it was some liquid shoe polish that I put on probably five or more years ago. Between the equipment and my lame skillz, I wasn't really able to go uphill, so there was a bunch of herringboning, and I did some narrow trails that required double-poling. I wore a headlamp, but turned it on only for the last descent. Just one fall; an advantage of slow skis is that you don't get out of control going downhill.

After I took off the skis, the boots felt funny. It was pretty obvious why: the sole had almost completely separated on the right boot, and with a little tug it came off all the way to the toe. I didn't take much to get the left boot do do the same thing. That explains about 5% of my klutziness. I could glue them back together, but it kind of looks like maybe somebody already did that at some point (maybe me). Into the poubelle they went.

My brother informs me that those skis were never skate skis in any regard, and it would be impressive if anybody could manage to skate with them. Hah!

Well, I had aspirations of getting in an additional skate this morning, but the timing didn't quite work: when it got light enough to see at about 6:30, there was about a half-inch of snow on the ground, just enough to obscure the ice surface, so I skipped it.

Snow dealings, round 1a: my driveway. I could have sworn I had some earlier snow dealings this season, but I can't find any reference to it in my log. In any case, I'm now feeling a little dumb, because I've had this snowblower for over a year, and it never worked properly until today. I hadn't realized until recently that it has two shear pins, and one of them was broken. Now that they're both intact, it works great, and made short work of the driveway and the mailbox, probably only about 10 minutes to do everything. It wasn't a tremendous amount of snow, but still.

Snow dealings, round 1b: cleared off Mom's car and did the steps and driveway corners, not enough to be worth logging.

Snow dealings, round 1c: Nancy's driveway and walk. The snow in Westford is a little wetter and heavier than what fell at my house, and it kept sticking to the shovel, which was annoying.

Hickory Hills. This was a little HTFU training, because the only time I was going to have enough light to see the ice was if I went at sunup before heading off to work, and even then it was tough when heading east because of the glare. It was 15F, minus my own self-generated wind chill. The ice was quite nice, with bumps in a few spots from snowmobile tracks and some frozen bubbles here and there, but I found some areas that were virtually zambonied. Hands got cold, my lower back got a little tired (it usually does), and I think my skates could really use a good sharpening -- I've got Dad's old sharpening jig, which I ought to look at and see if it's at all obvious how to use it, or call up an old friend of his for instruction if it isn't. This is the only "winter sports" outing I've done this season, I'm always pleased if I can get at least one good skate on outdoor ice.

For the first time, I got into these woods via a publicly-owned route. I looks like I got the access just about right; if you look at the route in Map mode, uncheck terrain, and zoom in, you can see the property boundaries. They're clearly shifted (they show my house as being in the road!), but taking that into account, I think my track lines up quite well with the finger of property extending out to the road that is now owned by the town. This will be my way in from now on, and I'll be blazing and clearing a trail through there. The loop does still include some private land, some owned by Hickory Hill (no problem), and a little bit on a couple of people's property, but I don't expect to ever et any complaints. The snowmobile guys want to be able to get through here, so it might be that there are more improvements yet to come.

Some days you feel lethargic and useless, and you just know that getting out and doing something is what's needed to feel better. This was one of those days, although I didn't feel all that great when I was out running, kind of weak and wheezy, but it's certainly better than not doing it.

I got an email yesterday saying that the real estate closing had occurred, and the Lane property east of Holman St. (excluding the area around the house bounded by the streams, and a couple of house lots on Holman) is now the property of the Town of Lunenburg. Yahoo! I'll no longer be trespassing, it's now my own personal public park!

Meanwhile, when Max Yasgur was my age, he had already been deceased for a day. I'm too old to be stingy with anything.

I think this daily blither has served its purpose, and may now either conclude or drop in frequency. Either way, if it were compiled, the title should probably be "Driftwood". I'm impressed by the toddler epaulet recollection, and smile at the potential destination, though the inadvertent symbolism be not what it could seem, and I'm serious about my reply to the cosmic scheduling imp.

Abridged loop in the southern part of Willard Brook, in a couple of inches of snow. Abridged in the sense that it was a shorter loop than usual, and also because I hadn't charged my watch since Florida and I ran out of juice (time and distance roughly adjusted.

Not everything is as farfetched as you might think. 873, 830, unbelievable.

There are some similarities between starting a car with a clutch on a hill, and landing a hang glider. Kind of a baby bear deal. I wonder if I should try and keep track of the Rumsfeld categories. I had forgotten about Stephen on my shoulders, but I'm pleased that it made an impression. Coming attractions: trail running?

Some writers use no punctuation, but these days, the punctuation can contain more information than the actual text. I remember a meal being an exclamation with (at least feigned) outrage. The specific supposed implication is absent here, but the significance could still be... well, significant. Do you like iPhones? How about them iPhones!

Chocolate? Chocolate? Surely more a matter of coincidence than perceptiveness, but it's also not, well, you know.

The youth of today are amazed that in the past, a child's birthday was commemorated with a ceremonial flogging. I believe that when volleying for the serve in volleyball, it has to go over the net three times to count, but they may have changed all that. Pull this change needs serious rethinking, too pink as it stood; sweet and twenty had two paths, but maybe they can be unified, and reckless dust seems straightforward enough, but it has to actually happen.

Funny how when the primary object looms too closely to really focus on, and there are distracting glints around, the strange parallel brings up the wild card. Weather forecasting starts to come into play. And it doesn't look that great, but what can you expect for January? Mysterious belt buckles, though, remember?

There are various reasons why someone might leave their car unlocked with the keys in it. One might live on an island and know that a thief would have no hope of getting away. Another might feel that the car is a liability and hope that it will get stolen. Or one could live in a quiet place where the chances of someone coming into the yard are very low. I suppose it's even possible that a distinctive enough car would be impossible to fence, or as in the case of a car I used to own, that it was simply too complicated to operate. I don't know how all of these various people would react if the car were actually missing.

C • As a representative 1

A very bad dream about a piano? Would I have learned to play Paul Simon songs on it? "Goin' Home" would definitely have been an inferior title. But it's all SD cards now, Paul. In any case, I'm definitely not looking for that sort of pseudosymmetry.

Around the western Quest block. I hadn't anticipated that the residential roads (up to the split) would be sand. I had anticipated that I'm deep in yahoo territory, and that does seem to be the case. Visiting is reasonable, but I fervently hope I never have to live in a place like this. Warm muggy late afternoon.

Guillermo and Michael did not actually die on the same day, but you have to admire the complexity they achieved in an era when it is fully acknowledged (even by them) that most were illiterate. I'm pleased that I correctly guessed that an impertinent curiosity was the source of an etymology. I felt that it contained a potentially interesting lesson, but I've forgotten what it was.

Two laps of the airfield. Gotta love midwinter full moons, this was well after dark, but when there was a cloud in front of the moon it was fine, and when there wasn't I could read my watch. Brought a little headlamp, but never turned it on. T-shirt and shorts.

Three trips from the Quest parking lot to SR33 and back, with one of those going back to the end of the pavement. (I did one of these, and the other two later.) I can turn around at the west end, but the pavement is too narrow for me at the east end.

I received jocular advice tonight while eating barbecued pork for the second night in a row, in response to a quip about a vitreous Rorschach triangle. My answer to the followup question seemed surprisingly satisfactory. 1967? I'm not sure that round three is the best idea.

Walked from Quest to Groveland to look for some dinner and find a place to buy groceries. This is the kind of town that has three auto parts stores but only one lame place that's sort of a grocery store with no perishables. There is a supermarket about 13 miles away, too far to walk.

Back with the groceries slung over my shoulder.

Gorka's wisdom, or I should say attitude, varies in his other works. Full of life indeed. Some things are better anticipated than experienced, and reflection can also be superior. But it's difficult to take that to heart and forgo the reality. Maybe the people who send their lives just watching movies have the right idea. That's a green grass notion, for sure.