So once again I blow off the dust here and scramble up some words for the Google bots to parse. So without further adieu here we go...

It was over 5 years ago that I wrote this:

http://popeyescorner.blogspot.com/2009/06/years-worth-of-cycling.html

And for the most part it held true, but then the following March I fell off the wagon, quite literally when I crashed the bike (not seriously in the least) and took a hiatus until March of 2013. I had sold the LeMond to a co-worker and was without a proper road bike for a while so I found a vintage French marque to ply the roads on:

 

A late 80's Vitus, bonded aluminum frame, downtube shifters with 7 speeds, no waiting. It was great to be riding again, rode all around the place, made some mods and then decided to get a nicer bike. One reason is that the bonded frames tend to fail after time/fatigue and although this particular one had not I found a spot that the joint looked suspect (even though it was a non-critical area). So I started looking at titanium frames, which of course don't always come cheap. Merlin, Litespeed, Moots, Seven, Lynksy, Serotta... Hmmm Serotta. Ah yes here's one, late 90's Legend Ti dinged top tube, that always scares the punters away! 

Before

After

 A complete tear-down and rebuild with new parts yielded a fine bike. I've changed the bars and stem since this was taken but it's been a faithful steed that has weathered several thousand miles and 2 crashes without much incident other than a trashed wheel and then a gaffed shifter that took a while to sort. 

But naturally the eye wanders here at SMF...

and now there's the other woman. French in origin and carbon in design. No pictures as yet, she's still a clandestine lover, but in due course I suppose. Meanwhile I'll just have to spread the love around like a flower child at a Dead concert.

Voodoo Chile (...A Slight Return)

  It's been awhile, but then as is typical few come by this way to know, care or comment so I guess it matters not. This then is my "Been a goddamned long time" post and while nothing may occur within these margins the attempt is made to restart the flow of mental dross that sometimes reads well, sometimes falls flat. Mostly it allows me to take a load off and just have a laugh at no one's expense.

  To update then it's been close to two years now and little Elliot is coming along just fine, he's a little slow on vocalizing though but by all accounts he's just not ready to speak. All the other metrics seem fine and he communicates and understands typical for his age. The challenge of being middle age and having a toddler though is at times tough, for keeping up with younguns is a younger person's sport as my joints don't respond as well as they used to and my brain isn't as plastic as it once was but I will get through this and make it to retirement... I should hope anyways.

Twitter is only worth 140 characters, but a picture is worth thousands...

First off I don't have a Twitter account, it was suggested to me once but I wasn't interested in another social feed at the time to read and keep fed, Facebook was enough along with the various personal interest forums plus the rare and random blog entry I might post. But then came Instagram, John Gruber sung it's praises and he being a smart guy I decided to have a look and signed up. What a difference an image makes to my psyche, and the stream of images floating in from all around the globe was a wonderful kick in the creative pants. So I trudged off and began filling my own tributary with images and before long I had followers, comments and a river of stuff online.

To be sure, Twitter does have image sharing but since the focus is more on text and the art of txtng with an occasional image link thrown in, blathering is all too easy to accomplish and I want to speak volumes and find it easiest to do with images. And like MySpace/FaceBook/Twitter, Instagram is filled with cutesy pet images, sexy images from Asian girls, general adolescent falderall and faux artiness that all quickly becomes redundant but in between the cat pics and shots of leggy feet are some truly brilliant images from creative minds world wide. It's a giant goddamn collective photo exhibit and my shit is in there too!

Hell yes!

Now no space to find and organize, no materials to shell out for and hope the printer gets it right, no hanging pieces and getting that right! No invites to send or parties to coordinate. And more importantly no fooling one's self that you'll ever make a bleeding dime or receive critical praise from someone other than a lover, family or friend. It's great! Getting feedback or a follow from someone whose images you respect and have never met yields plenty of satisfaction given the time and effort put into content creation which is almost effortless and the results worth far more than the cost of being in the community (nothing). It's like an Easy-Bake Oven! It does have it's limitations though and I find myself fighting cliches (unless purposeful) and overt imitation (unless one is directing the nod to the inspiration).

The downside I've found is the level of addiction is greater than the internet itself (for me at least) because I feel free to express my self with imagery in a fashion I have not had before. Sure I can share images on Facebook or MySpace but the layers one has to get through to do so burns through my time and there are other distractions there, besides one can cross post via IG to almost any social network site, even Flickr! And since IG is really about the image commenting is secondary, though some blather on as elsewhere. The other downsides are it is currently an iPhone only app and there is no web based content linked to the inner being so you have to do it all on the phone, and as such I go through battery life quickly...

In short it's both a liberating experience and an addiction, but I will take the pleasure with my pain for now and have fun with content creation, because my phone is always with me and it's become my de facto camera and processing center as I am not chained to a desk and computer so I can roam, shoot and post at will. Nice!

Home @ last!

Yesterday concluded Elliot's stay in the nursery, the doctor had cleared his discharge earlier in the day. So at 7pm at the shift change we all bugged out of the SCN for the last time. We said some good byes to the staff and made our way to the parking lot to install the car seat base.

I forgot what a pain they are to install and get right. Note to the manufacturers of these things: Make installation videos and either toss a DVD in the box or post in the support area of your site or both. Reading manuals for these things is a pain in the ass, because so much of it is feel mixed with random odd geometries due to variations of car interiors.

This just in...

Elliot was moved out of the SCN/NICU and into the regular nursery today and has been doing well with his feeding although a little pokey at times. This may just get him home by the week's end. Go Baby Elliot!

The home stretch

Tonight I learned that Elliot's feeding tube was removed overnight and since he has been taking the bottle pretty well all milestones are pointing homeward. His nursery mates Matthew, who left on Sunday night and Georgina, who is destined to head to Barcelona on Thursday (SAN->ATL->BCN, ohhh Mr Toad's wild ride!) have come a long way in the time they spent in the special care nursery. Others have come along now and entered life with a short layover in the SCN often beginning with the incubator stay, IV, monitor lines and photo therapy as the first stop. Next stop is the clear acrylic bassinet and feeding tube as nature begins to wake and take its course within the snugly wrapped burgeoning souls.

I think we have been fortunate in witnessing mostly favorable outcomes while we've been visiting as there are several testimonials indicating otherwise, one a framed remembrance to a 4 day old the other a plaque on a donated rocking chair in the name of a lost child. I forget what the mortality rate is for preemies in the sub 30 week category, but I'm glad we won't really need to know that stat. Survival to term for them is a struggle even in the best of circumstances and the effects of such an early birth can carry well into adulthood or be a permanent part of their life. Again I feel we may not have as great as many concerns in this regard, but time will only tell.

So here's to the final stretch and another day beginning...

New member of the family

(I penned this on the 6th but am just now getting back to adding to, and posting it...)

So Saturday was a bit of a tease, because Sunday brought my son into the world. I had no idea that was going to be the day, I was under the false impression that we might go 3-5 more days. Had I known this would be happening I wouldn't have burned the midnight oil hanging out with some friends and watching them play at a local restaurant.

Of course once it was known that Laurie would be having a c-section we had to wait further because she had been given food at 7:30, so the procedure would take place 8 hours from that point. Well it so happened there were 2 other c-sections ahead of us so by the time she was prepped and moved into the OR it was 5:00, I joined a little later after the OR was prepped for the surgery. I sat warily behind the drape with her and only took a few short peeks at the procedure, not being down with blood and guts. I took a few grab shots as they doctors were going about their business out of a morbid curiosity in surgical technique.

So at 5:38 he was officially delivered into the world 6 weeks early. His breathing was induced and he gave out a few short cries and wiggled about on the warming tray. Had he not peed first thing, he might have tipped the scales at 4 lbs, but the call was just a half an ounce shy of that figure.

So now it has been 2.5 weeks and baby boy Doyle is still in the NICU, he at least has a name (Elliot Owens Doyle) and a car seat to ride home in. He is doing well with little to no issues other than feeding which is common among preemies. But he is getting the hang of suck and swallow as well as latching on and once they remove the feeding tube he'll be in the home stretch.