Finally

I've finally managed to stagger into my winter vacation. This has been a long and rather difficult year and I'm hoping that BeanSS and I can recharge our batteries over the next few weeks. To that end, I threw down a quick couple of laps at Sweetwater this evening.

My father's memorial was held earlier this week, and it was nice. The solemnity of the Veterans' service was especially moving. The rare, simultaneous presence of all of my brothers and sisters seemed to make it as much a reunion as it was a goodbye. I picked up an urban fishing license so I can make good on my commitment to go fishing, a pastime to which my dad introduced me but for which I've found less and less time over the years. The license is only good until the end of the year but maybe I'll make a resolution about angling more next year.

I also have some wrenching to do on my motorcycle. Yeah, I was recently overtaken by events but back in mid-November, I finally found the used bike for which I'd been searching for six months. It's a 10-year old Kawasaki KLR650 - my very own low-buck, single-cylinder adventure bike. It runs pretty well and I've been riding it here and there, but it needs a little bit of work before I'm willing to ride it past the city limits sign. If you know this model, you'll understand when I say that it needs the Doohickey done. I also have to replace the shift-shaft and countershaft seals to stop the bike from marking its territory with little dime blots of engine oil. And here I thought that keeping up with bicycle maintenance was difficult.

The much-delayed arrival of the motorcycle allowed (or at times, required) me to keep commuting to work via bicycle. I ended up with a bit over 150 round trips for 2008 and also reached another milestone - my 10,000th mile of commuting since starting in earnest in January of 2000. I doubt I'll continue heaping on the miles now that I have a motorcycle, but I still hope to maintain a decent bicycle mileage base and be able to ride harder on weekends. We'll just have to see.