Generation X

They told us we were special, but not as special as they were.

This was after our parents told us we could have the world, but forgot to mention we'd have to first delouse it from the 60's.

This time of year brings a fresh crop of interns in at work.  Along with these gogetters, some major work reorganization means there is some evaluation of what new work spaces will look like.  In their infinite wisdom, the people leading this effort took it on themselves to ask younger Gen Y how they thought they would work and what their careers would be like.  If someone had done that to me in the 80's, I would have been very wrong, and thankfully.
What the generation that gave us Justin Bieber thinks is not only self-serving, but simple-minded and contains a lack of awareness of what 10 years of a less-than-ideal economy has created; a generation that has not had a real job.  I say that with full acknowledgement of the horrors of Tiffany and New Kids on the Block and yes, we can always blame Bieber on the Canadians.

I don't really believe that generations exist.  Since children are born every year, there is a broad continuum, not discrete groups.  But, I'm smack dab in the middle of Generation X and fit more of the stereotype than I care to admit.  The Lost Generation.

My parents were divorced and I came home with my siblings to an empty house.  We were the latch-key kids.  Actually, I rarely came home as I was usually working; a fat kid washing dishes at a bakery.  The jokes are too easy.

Our parents gave us Ronald Reagan.  We liked him if our parents did.  He broke communism.  He bankrupt communism first, and almost ourselves in the process.  The terrible side effects to the end of Gorbachev was the loss of a common enemy.  No longer was the Soviet Union the acceptable enemy in every movie.  We had to search for new enemies, but none worked as well.  While the actual end of the Soviet Union didn't happen until I was in College, prescient people saw that walloping an aging dog with a piece of an iron curtain wasn't going to work for much longer.  Red Dawn tried to use the Cubans and Nicaraguans as the enemy - it didn't matter that it didn't work.  We were raised on the threat of nuclear annihilation and we needed an enemy.  If education didn't save us, our desks would as we drilled on the art of Duck and Cover.
In 1986 Rutger Hauer went head to head against Gene Simmons using Arabs as the enemy.  An enemy without a state isn't quite as easy to rally behind - or without a state that political sensitivities will allow.
Thankfully Indiana Jones continued to chase the Nazis.

Our parents gave us the internet, but only after they couldn't figure out what to do with it.  We weren't sure either, but were not saddled with the thought of the internet only being a different form of print.  Smart people thought to create web pages devoted to scientific experiments with Twinkies.  Our parents tried to take that away.
We all started mass emailing jokes and sometimes pornography - the first social network.  This was while Mark Zuckerberg was still just another dorky middle school kid.
We used Usenet to do inappropriate things (and sometimes learn stuff too).  Even long after Usenet has been supplanted by more advanced web-based features, school and corporate filters never stopped it since they didn't understand it.  Like holding on to a cherished childhood memento, I still have the .exe file to install Forte Free Agent.

We were the last generation to have real winners or losers.  All trophies were not almost the same.  Even the person who was judged to have played best at the piano recital got a larger cheap metal head of Beethoven; the rest of us got cheap plastic heads of some guy named Brahms.  The winners of the soccer tournament got a trophy, the rest of us got soggy orange slices from reused plastic bags out of a cooler.

We were the first kids who were taught that cigarettes would kill us from day one, but lots of us tried them.  We second-hand smoked packs of cigarettes anyway, before anybody knew what that was.  Our teachers obviously didn't think that much of our intelligence as they snuck down to the boiler room to smoke during recess.

We were all moved behind the barricades for the fireworks.  What our parents refused to believe was that it was boring back there and the Crystal Flash gas station sold fireworks to anyone.  Even better fireworks could be bought from the older son of the junior high art teacher.  Never, has the rare tip from delivering newspapers been so important as when roman candles or enormous strings of lady finger fire crackers can be purchased singly.

We went to arcades because they were so much better than the Intellivision or Atari that some of our friends had.  For a few quarters, we could entertain ourselves on Spy Hunter or a vector-based Star Wars.  If anybody was there with money to burn, we could watch them play Dragon's Lair; but the two dollars in quarters was too much for most of us to pay for three quick deaths.  "Drink Me" was the only level that was passable to a neophyte.

Riding bikes without a helmet is now taboo.  Kids in a car without car seats (not to mention seat belts) is illegal; very few kids born today will know the joy or riding cross-country in the back of a station wagon or sleeping on the floor of a blue VW microbus (yeah - that was us).  On second thought, that would only have been joy if the people in charge could have been a little more civil.  Sun-tan oil probably still exists, but SPF5 is seen as risky now as opposed to being 80's overcautious.

Parachute pants are long gone (are they?) and the last Space Shuttle flight is grounded long after Challenger killed Christa McAuliffe.  Crockett and Tubbs are vague memories while Sonny (the Congressman) is dead.

The hangover form the 80s is about over now, although I'm not sure I'll ever be able to smell peach schnapps again without shuddering a little.  The Brat Pack are nearing the half-century mark.  The black white guy that gave us Thriller turned into a nut-job, a drug addict, and is now dead.

I guess the crowd that grew up not knowing a world without email addresses, and not knowing a "portable" phone that weighed several pounds and costs dollars per minute to use might have something important to say.  Maybe.  But for a while, Generation X, raised independent to a fault will continue to do what needs to be done.

You talk like a Rosicrucian, who will love nothing but a sylph, who does not believe in the existence of a sylph, and who yet quarrels with the whole universe for not containing a sylph. - Peacock, Nightmare Abbey

Short Stories

I just finished reading a book of short stories.  Merriam Webster's word of the day a few weeks ago was "Walter Mitty" defined as: a commonplace unadventurous person who seeks escape from reality through daydreaming
Reading the origin of the term was from a short story by James Thurber, I felt the need to read the origin.  My local library had a book which included The Secret Life of Walter Mitty among other titles.

Short story books are good to read when there can be lapses between starting a finishing a book.  Every story is an end to itself and if any of them aren't very good, it won't last long.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was very short, and not terribly interesting. But a few other short stories from the book made the time spent worthwhile.  I'm surprised a movie was made out of this, I may have to look for it as well?

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is a story I knew about, but had not read.  I think we were shown a movie short on it in junior high school.  I'm familiar with the writing of Ambrose Bierce mostly through short quips and musings, reading something slightly more substantive was interesting.  The story is morose, but inventive.

The Pearl by John Steinbeck was also a good read, if not particularly fun.  The story is inventive, with many parts that tie together only tangentially.  I have not read The Grapes of Wrath as it is sort of over my usual length limit.  I may have to revisit this the next time I know I'll have time and energy to read it in entirety.

While not contained in the recent book, a few other short stories have made an impression on me.

T.C. Doyle's After the Plague is a little disturbing, bringing together love, hate and death all in one story which is both uplifting and a let-down at the same time.

Barn Burning by William Faulkner is like a shortened version of A Walk on the Wild Side by Nelson Algren.  One short story and one book that tell a similar tale, but altogether different.

No discussion of short stories is complete without talking about A Boy and His Dog by Harlan Ellison.  This was made into a movie starring Don Johnson.  The movie is good (a true guy's movie if there ever was one), but it defaced the story.  The end of the written short story brings a different feeling to the final scene in the book.  As is almost always the case, the book (or story in this case) ends up being much better than the movie.

True to the genre, this posting is short.  I'd say I can follow this up with a fictional short story of my own, but given that no one would ever likely read it I would then be acting in the way of a true Walter Mitty.

2014 Triumph Trophy Part II

There is no better way to wring out the good, bad, great and ugly of a motorcycle than to take a multi-day trip on it.  Even better if the weather is a spectrum of perfect to heinous.  Mission accomplished.  I recently got back from a few days away on my (relatively) new Triumph Trophy SE.

I'm a member in a couple motorcycle online forums and a lurker in many more.  It is easy to sit back and read post after post about how terrible any given bike/marque/brand/model is.  There are slightly less posts how a given bike is the last word; the best never to be bettered.  The two most polarizing bikes, Harley Davidsons and BMWs seem to represent the best and worst of this - castigating every flaw with a motorcycle while remaining fiercely brand loyal.  There is a dearth of honest reviews from real people.  While most motorcycle magazines will point out issues encountered, the overall honesty is often in question since manufacturers also advertise in said magazines - although sometimes reading between the lines can point to bikes that may have less-than-desirable features.

The reality is, vehicle manufacturers go to great lengths to build, refine, test, and market motorcycles while balancing what a very broad array of people will want as well as balancing cost, manufacturability and repairability.  The result is almost always a sound bike built for a target.  The balancing act means that nothing will ever be perfect for everyone.  But, being content in the middle ground is a good place to be.  The big watch out for people is to not buy something if it isn't really what is wanted.  If someone wants to tour, a CBR250 probably isn't the best choice.  If someone wants to go crazy fast, a Sportster probably shouldn't be high on the list.

So a few days ago I found myself several hundred miles away from home parked in front of Hotel Room 6.

The trip away from home was threatened to be hurt by inclimate weather, but it remained dry the entire time.  Thinking back, what I noticed most about the trip away was what I didn't notice.  Compared to my ST1300, there was very little fatigue in my back or wrists.  While not as comfortable as my Goldwing, the bike was wonderful for the several hundred miles.  This is especially important given my mode of travel is to go-go-go with stops only for fuel or the relieving of biological function and every effort is made to have them infrequent and occur simultaneously.
The trip north did have a significant east wind.  This resulted in amazing fuel economy when going west, but was a constant battle when going north.  Fighting the wind as it ebbed around terrain changes made the last few hours tiring and I was happy to be done for the night in Room 6.

I spent a couple days away from home before heading back on only a slightly different route.  Half the trip home was spent in rain which ranged from light to torrential.  Again, the Trophy did a marvelous job, keeping the adjustable windscreeen in the sweet spot to allow good protection from the weather and still being able to see over it was easy - I've always been a proponent of never looking through a motorcycle windscreen.  Since I also own a Goldwing, I cringe every time I see some dude on a GL1800 with a picture window size aftermarket windshield - ugh...

The second half of the trip home was dry, bordering on hot.  So the overall trip gave a little of everything.

There are probably only two small issues encountered that were real for this wring-out.

Cruise Control
The cruise control on the Trophy worked wonderfully and I'm sure having it helped with the lack of fatigue after many hours on the bike.  The cruise control on the Trophy can be deactivated by hitting either brake, the clutch or rolling the throttle off.  This last feature is a really nice way to turn it off when coming up on a situation which requires it, but it was a bit sensitive.  On a few occasions, the combination of wind gust and hitting a road bump in just the right (wrong?) way turned the cruise control off by my bumping the throttle forward.  In theory, this isn't a big deal as a slight movement of my right thumb resumed speed control.  In practice, it was frustrating.
Given that I've used the cruise control in many other situations without experiencing this, I'll attribute most of this annoyance to the high wind and gustiness.  I haven't seen it on my trips to work or other instances when I have been using cruise control.  A slight adjustment of my hand position did help as well.

Antenna
The stock antenna on the Trophy is troublesome.  At the right combination of windscreen and antenna position, it is fine.  And, both do adjust - the windscreen electrically for wind protection and the antenna angle moves mechanically.  In the wrong combination, the wind deflected by the windscreen hits the antenna resulting in violent movement of it (that might be a bit of an overstatement), at times resulting in a Galloping Gerdie oscillation (definitely an overstatement).

Luckily, the fix for this is pretty easy.  The stock antenna unscrews with a male m5 thread on the antenna base.  This is a fairly standard antenna fixing, so a trip to Autozone resulted in a shorty replacement.

With this replacement, I am nearly certain that regardless of windscreen position, there is almost no chance that the antenna will wag around, even remotely.  So far, I haven't noticed any significant difference in radio reception either.

And, I actually like the looks of the shorty antenna a little better!

2014 Triumph Trophy SE

We were introduced on April 1, 2006, but the story starts a year before that.

On an early spring day in 2005, I suddenly realized I had no choice.  I needed to buy a sport bike.  I already had a Harley Davidson Electraglide, so the sport bike was a significant departure.  I can't explain the logic, but I had no choice in the matter.
A bit of searching showed a lot of sport bikes quickly get beat up pretty bad.  Recalling an in-passing conversation with a coworker the previous fall, I contacted Matt who confirmed he was selling his 2001 Honda VFR.  A few conversations and a test ride later and I bought the low mileage bike for a fair price.
I doubled the mileage on it that summer and loved it.  There were two real problems with it though.  First, I couldn't carry anything outside of my pockets on it.  The lines on the bike were gorgeous and the thought of destroying it with beetle bags or scratching the snot out of the rear end with textile bags was horrifying.
The second problem?  I was always getting into the triple digits on the bike.
Of all the motorcycles I have owned, that VFR had the best voice.  The growl from the exhaust under a heavy throttle at speed combined with just the right amount of whine from the gear-driven cams combined to an intoxicating sound.

The next spring the VFR had to go.  On a glorious April 1, after contacting many Honda dealerships the plan was to start close to home and ride until I found the right combination of price and trade-in.  I sealed the deal at the second dealership I went to and rode home on my new 2006 Honda ST1300.  This was the beginning of a strong friendship.

That ST1300 grew to become my best friend.  I commuted on it most days during three seasons.  I had impromptu trips to see friends or nowhere in particular.  With a humongous gas tank and reasonable mileage, I could leave home and arrive at Terry's house in Northern Michigan without even stopping.  Helibars was about the only modification that the bike needed.
I went through a lot during that friendship, even killing my second deer while on two wheels.  On the good days, we had a constant conversation through throttle, brakes, seat...  On the best days, the bike was an extension of me.
It was not an easy decision, but at some point I knew the friendship needed to come to an end.  I would often find myself far from home with a desperate need to get home fast which would mean long hours on the interstate.  Not having cruise control could make this painful even with the Helibars (I had grown fond of cruise since I also owned a GL1800 which replaced the Electraglide).  A few other reasons helped my eyes move toward new bikes; while an amazing bike, the ST is a bit long in the tooth, and Honda's recent direction of new bikes can generously be described as odd.

There were really two bikes I considered to replace the ST1300, bikes that had the minimum of what I was looking for:  The Triumph Trophy SE and the BMW R1200RT.
The nearest BMW dealerships are almost two hours a way.  Even my born-in-Germany die-hard biker acquaintance described both of them as sub-par (he surprisingly chose Buell until they were folded by Harley Davidson).  And, I'm just not ready to feel that proud of myself and say, "Yeah, I'm a BMW guy."
I had cut my teeth on British cars, working as a line mechanic on aging sports cars descended from the crown.  I paid for college on Lucas electrics, bad gearboxes and questionable front suspensions.  I love British vehicles, quirks and all.  There was no choice.

A few visits to nearby dealerships and a down payment later brought a new 2014 Triumph Trophy SE.
I picked up the new bike on a warm very-early spring day.  The 'wet' in the picture below is melting ice in the shadow of the garage I had to survive.  Interesting friendships almost always start out with a story.

True to British form, there are a few quirks compared to the refined ST1300.  Everything is computer controlled and it takes rolling a few tenths of a mile for the computer to fully sync up.  The most interesting manifestation of this is that after refueling, the bike needs to think and decide if more petrol was put into the tank before displaying the new fuel level.
But, the bike is lighter, faster and more agile than the ST.  Compared to the ST, cornering on the Trophy feels more like the vehicle is right on the balls of its feet, ready to spring where I will it.  The computer is filled with a wealth of information and a quick flick of my left thumb can ease my paranoia toward low tire pressure.  The various combinations of suspension make more difference than I would have expected, and much more difference than the rear preload on the ST1300.  Wind deflection is more pronounced with the windshield up and still free flowing down; I just wish the antenna was stiffer so it didn't violently bounce around when the windshield is set to push air toward it.

It was hard to sell my best friend.  But, I'm starting a new friendship and that is always exciting.  I am on the cusp of creating many new memories with the 2014 Triumph Trophy SE.

More Stuff Tends To Clutter Life, Not Improve It

Wednesday is garbage day.  The catharsis of being about to put just about anything I can carry out by the road and have it disappear by the time I get home from work is wonderful.  The cost model seems crazy though.  It costs the same amount for me to throw away my one average plastic bag as some of my neighbor's enormous weekly piles.

I've lived in this house now for about 3 years.  When I started thinking about moving (well before it was even close to reality), I started looking around at all the stuff I had accumulated.  Much of it was fairly well organized, but much of it was also rarely used.  In the house I had stuff stored in the basement, a storage room in the attic area and closets, drawers, etc. with more rarely used stuff.
In the garages, I had even more.  The smaller garage was a 2-story and the second story was a sorry state of equipment, building materials and general mayhem that I kept "in case I ever needed it."
Before moving, I threw a lot of it away - for many weeks I had mountains of garbage to rival my neighbor's.
It was hard to throw away some of my treasures, but as moving became more real getting rid of stuff that had sat for so long felt pretty good.
After moving, I was determined to not let it get to that state again.

Over the last few weeks, I've been reorganizing some rooms; making better use of the space in the basement and allowing for a "guest" bedroom - which really means a bedroom for me most of the time.  This prompted some second looks at what has not been touched in the last three years.  In place of much of the borderline garbage at my old house, this time it was mostly usable.  I frankly didn't have the energy to sell much of it, and didn't want to landfill it...yet.  There are many people who have not yet learned the third rule of life.  I thought about putting stuff like complete fishtanks including wooden stands on Craig's List, but I really don't relish the idea of people who want free fishtanks coming to my house.  I put them on the bulletin board at work and the response was frightening.  I can only hope the stuff brings them more pleasure than it did me, sitting in storage for years.

Since I rarely dress in anything but casual attire, a recent wedding prompted me to look at some clothes, my nice clothes that rarely get worn.  I realized that after sitting for so long, many of them had smaller stains and a general very dingy appearance.  I was keeping them only because they were expensive when I bought them, but in their present condition, I would never be able to wear them at the times one might need sunday-go-to-meetin' clothes.  They are in purgatory until a wash determines whether they should be kept or meet the big truck on a Wednesday.

At the same time this is happening, I also find myself unable to throw away stuff.  Furniture from the room to become the guest bedroom is now in the basement and the pole barn.  If I was truly able to live what I believe, I'd have a bonfire.  The end of Windows XP means the perfectly functional computer I am typing this on will eventually become a security risk, albeit slight.  It isn't powerful enough to run Windows 8; can I justify the cost of Windows 7 for the remainder of its support life?
Microsoft is encouraging the increasing of piles of stuff.

More stuff tends to clutter life, not improve it.  I often find more enjoyment out of getting rid of something that hasn't been used in a long time, over buying something new.

Often...

The Experts Tell Us We're Wrong. But, We Are Not.

I don't pay for TV.  I can afford it, but I can't justify it.  It often feels like I'm one of the last eight people in the US who doesn't pay (outright) for TV in any way.
From what I was able to find online, about 20% of the US does not pay for TV in the form of cable or satellite.  However, a majority of that subpopulation watches online.  Since I live in a rural area, my choices for internet access are limited and I'm currently connected via cellular.  This makes online TV viewing realistically a non-option.  My 10GB data allowance would allow between 10 and 20 hours of streaming viewing if I did nothing else with my data.  I often don't use all my data, but I don't want to shell out extra money for data overages and so my streaming viewing is capacity constrained.
This puts me in the category of around 5% of the US who doesn't pay for satellite or cable and also doesn't stream content online.  I'll trust I'm in good company.  Michael Powell pushed for all-digital broadcast TV.  The over-the-air HD TV is great, but I'm convinced the real reason for this was to push more people into pay TV since OTA coverage is more limited, making OTA TV such a fringe that it can be eliminated.  This would free that electromagnetic spectrum for other uses, but probably not a better internet option for me.  The tyranny of the majority if one believes that TV is a necessity (I do).

This posting isn't about the evil ploy of Michael Powell though.  But, since I don't pay for TV, I end up watching a lot of PBS.  I'm convinced I'm not the target audience for PBS though.  Every time they do their "Pledge Week" they change programming to material I have no interest in.  This is fine since after contributing once to NPR, I'll never contribute again.  That one contribution to NPR has resulted in a solicitation-mail deluge that is hard to comprehend.
PBS and NPR claim to be "commercial-free" which is untrue.  Their commercials are compacted in the week(s)-long money drubbing in the form of pledges and "underwriters."  The difference between an underwriter and a company buying air time in the form of a commercial is unclear to the average viewer or listener.

This posting isn't about National Broadcasting either.

A few Weeks ago, Chris Kimball on did a "Tasting Challenge" on America's Test Kitchen for coffee.  This was likely an older rerun.  His choice and the choice of the "Experts" was Peet's Cafe Domingo.  This coffee was on sale so I recently bought some.  It was good, and tasted...like coffee.

The coffees I buy most often are Kroger's Private Selection Sumatran Mandheling, Caribou Blend and Peet's House Blend in that order.  Perhaps for the same reason I don't pay for TV, store brands end up taking a lot of room in my shopping cart.  Peet's and Caribou typically only leave the store with me when on sale for a good price and/or with a coupon.  They aren't necessarily better, only different.
Growing up in the late 70s/early 80s, "generic" where products of unknown origin and quality in white packaging with black writing.  These were often sold in their own aisle (remember that?).  Now, they are usually called "Store Brands" - or sometimes "Private Label" and are right alongside the Oreos, Tide and Kellogg's boxes in the store.  The products have often improved and sometimes to the point where quality is similar to their branded shelf-mates.  Packaging has also improved, but is somewhat irrelevant.  I can't decide if I miss the black and white packages or not.

Taking a page from branded producers, store brands often have a tiered approach.  Alongside Kroger's Brand are Private Selection and Simple Truth.

If the quality of all products we buy lies on a bell curve, below some quality isn't worth it at any price.  Above some quality is all good enough.  Enter the "Experts" to tell us what we should buy.  Cafe Domingo was fine, but not worth a price premium over Private Selection.  Kicking Horse, Paradise Roasters, Peet's, Caribou, Private Selection - I guess I'd rather wade through the odd bad bag of whole bean coffee than rely on Chris Kimball to decide what is good for me.  Anything but Starbucks, lest we all end up wearing the same Mao Pajamas.
I actually like America's Test Kitchen and Chris Kimball.  I once made their recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies and they tasted like chocolate chip cookies.

Ingredients
1 ¾ cups unbleached all-purpose flour (8 ¾ ounces)
½ tsp. baking soda
14 Tbsp. unsalted butter (1 ¾ sticks)
½ cup granulated sugar (3 ½ ounces)
¾ cups packed dark brown sugar (5 ¼ ounces)
1 tsp. table salt
2 tsps. vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 ¼ cups semisweet chocolate chips or chunks
¾ cup chopped pecans or walnuts, toasted (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and place the oven rack in the middle position.  Line 2 large (18×12 inch) baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Whisk flour and baking soda together in medium bowl and set aside.
3. Heat 10 tablespoons of the butter in 10-inch skillet (if possible, do not use nonstick) over medium-high heat until melted, about 2 minutes.  Continue cooking, swirling pan constantly until butter is dark golden brown and has nutty aroma, 1 to 3 minutes.
4. Remove skillet from heat and, using heatproof spatula, transfer browned butter to large heatproof bowl.  Stir remaining 4 tablespoons butter into hot butter until completely melted.
5. Add both sugars, salt, and vanilla to bowl with butter and whisk until fully incorporated.  Add egg and yolk and whisk until mixture is smooth with no sugar lumps remaining, about 30 seconds.  Let mixture stand 3 minutes, then whisk for 30 seconds.  Repeat process of resting and whisking 2 more times until mixture is thick, smooth, and shiny. 
6. Using rubber spatula or wooden spoon, stir in flour mixture until just combined, about 1 minute.  Stir in chocolate chips and nuts (if using), giving dough final stir to ensure no flour pockets remain.
7. Divide dough into 16 portions, each about 3 tablespoons.  Arrange 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets, 8 dough balls per sheet.  Smaller baking sheets can be used, but will require 3 batches.
8. Bake cookies 1 tray at a time until cookies are golden brown and still puffy, and edges have begun to set but centers are still soft, 10 to 14 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through baking.  
9. Transfer baking sheet to wire rack; cool cookies completely before serving.

The Experts will gladly tell us what to buy, but not benevolently.  That is done by the average reviewer.  If Winston Churchill said that the best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter, then the best argument against ever buying anything again is a read-through of online reviews.
People are much more likely to complain than express satisfaction - especially in the anonymous and vociferous world of online reviews.  Read through reviews of anything on Amazon (or heaven forbid online reviews of vehicles or electronics) and it is a wonder that anybody buys anything; everything is fatally flawed.
At least we know this, since that is what the Experts tell us.

Enjoy the coffee, Cafe Domingo or not.

Please don't feed the animals - they enjoy being miserable

This can be a brutal time of year.  The enjoyable activities of fall and winter are long over.  Spring seems like it is just about to happen, but there is a lot of winter left to endure.  We do begin to get those initial warm days which are nice for a time, but they enhance the pain during winter's relapse.

As 2013/14 has been a particularly heinous winter, the malaise can be as bad as ever.
For whatever reason, this also tends to be an evil time at work, with more unreasonable demands, irritable coworkers and a general working environment that spirals down to the lowest common denominator.

Last weekend saw one of the brief warm and sunny days.  Heavy rains the few days before washed away most of the salt and allowed a first motorcycle ride for 2014.  Since it is rare to not get the motorcycle out at least a couple times every month in the winter, this was a nice breather.
After a tolerable day yesterday, the forecast calls for a winter storm bringing rain, ice, freezing rain, sleet and snow to the area.  As much as meteorologists get verbally beat up for imperfection in the models, they usually do get it mostly right.  This morning saw everything coated with ice and the predicted unfriendly radar.

NPR had an interesting story earlier this week.  It asked the question (NPR never answers anything) whether something is good due to intrinsic qualities or if there is something else, even chance playing a role.  The conclusion of some research by Princeton's Matthew Salganik was that chance plays a significant role.  The extension of this was that it could apply to things in everyday life as well.
This seemed to be a bit of a stretch based on the brief synopsis of the research, but it validates my belief so it must be true.  I'm pretty convinced that a few simple decisions I made around the age of 15 lead directly to where I am now.
The seemingly small decision to purchase my first car, resulted in my getting a job a few years later at an auto shop, which led to me working as a mechanic a few years later.  With a few Twists, this is the reason I was able to (and decided to) continue in college through graduation, resulting in my current job and current position in life; good, bad or other.
If I wouldn't have bought that car, would I be destitute and homeless?  Probably not, but the tree of events is there.  Seemingly small decisions can end up having huge implications years down the road.

My oldest dog has kidney disease.  As a result, she is on Science Diet K/D.  While every day is different, the food has helped her immensely.  But, she hates it.  She has gone form a beagle who excitedly scarfs down food to picking at it very slowly.  With two other beagles waiting and anxious, she has to be isolated until she eats her food.  In order to encourage her to eat, she gets a combination of dry and canned K/D plus a few spoonfuls of Heinz gravy (no protein).  With this buffet served twice a day, I am surprised she doesn't eat more exuberantly.
Without her knowing it, there is little question this despicable food has improved her overall life expectancy, if not her life.

So maybe there is a bright spot to this horrid time of year.  Wet, snow, ice, cold, mud...
"Knowing that things come to an end is a gift of experience, a consolation prize for knowing that we ourselves are coming to an end." - Tobias Wolff

The cold weather is forecast to be in place for longer than normal this year, but it will end.

Even if tomorrow turns out to be unpalatable, I'm confident I'll wake up one day closer to something better.