FUCK 2020!!!

 

 Nobody is going to have fond memories of 2020. It was a horrible year for a number of reasons. The main reason of course was the pandemic. Although we knew about Covid-19 last January nobody really understood how bad it was until March when the case and death count rose dramatically and it was officially declared a pandemic. As of today John Hopkins website shows that over 1.8 million people have died world wide with over 342,000 in the US alone. That is a lot of tragic stories of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and friends dying an untimely death. And unfortunately it is not over as the case and hospitalizations are at an all time high and we are setting new records almost daily.

There is some good news as there are now a couple of vaccines available that should help stop the pandemic but it may be a few months before enough people are vaccinated to see a drop in cases and deaths. This means the first few months of 2021 are going to be a continuation of 2020 but at least there is hope that 2021 will be a year of improvement and healing. 

The pandemic was not the only thing that made 2020 a bad year. There were months of civil unrest because of the inequality in our country as highlighted by the death of George Floyd, Breonna Talyor and too many others. On top of that there were horrible wild fires in the west that burned millions of acres and thousands of home. There was a record number of hurricanes this year. Its like nature is angry at us. And there were of course Murder Hornets invading the US. 

On a personal note I lost my mother in January which was a sad start to the year. As the pandemic set it I was anxious of course but I was already working remote so it wasn't as big a change for me as for other people. My wife and I have taken a very cautious approach to the pandemic and have limited our contact to a very small circle of friends and family and this has kept us safe and disease free but has meant no vacations or family gatherings (Although to be honest I don't miss certain members of my family that much). 

I do know a few friends who got Covid but luckily none has had a bad case so I have yet to be directly impacted in any big way by the pandemic. My heart does go out the people who lost loved ones and are struggling because or lost wages or jobs. I know things will get better soon but it is a very painful time for a lot of people that is going to leave scars that we will all need to help heal (especially the nurses and doctors that are on the front lines of this). 

I am thankful during this year that I had the insane bike posse as it helped keep me sane. It was just good to get out and do something almost normal. In the beginning of the pandemic we stopped riding together but as we got more information about the virus and how it spread we found ways to safely ride together like most other bike groups. 

Because of the pandemic we didn't do any bike trips this year but we did go to a few places in NJ that we haven't been in a while and is something we will continue next year. We also got together on Zoom meetings like most other people. Initially it was to check in with each other and talk about the pandemic and how to safely ride together. We kept it going most of the year to keep some type of social interaction going. This year has been the most fucked up year of my life but I'm glad I had my bike and a few friends to make this year a little more bearable.

 

O Holy Night

With Christmas comes the story of the birth of Jesus. According to the story there was a bright star that guided the Magi to the manger where Jesus was born. Astronomers have asked themselves if there was some celestial event that would explain this bright star. There were some planetary conjunctions and some reports of comets within a few year of when Jesus was suppose to be born. One of these conjunctions was the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn which also appeared this year around Christmas. 

I have been watching the sky for the past couple of weeks and got a few good pictures just after sunset from my house. 

The one about was taken on Dec 17th. You can see the Moon on the top left and Jupiter and Saturn just above the trees on the right. Jupiter is the brighter one. I watched Jupiter and Saturn get a little close each day. Here is picture I grabbed from https://spaceweathergallery.com/ showing Jupiter and Saturn getting closer. Click on it to zoom in.

The actual conjunction was on Dec 21 where the planets would be within 0.10 degrees of each other. The planets haven't bee this close in 800 years. Unfortunately on Dec 21 it was just too cloudy to get a shot but here is another one from https://spaceweathergallery.com/ show what it looked like. 

You can see Jupiter and Saturn in the top middle of the photo. The inset on the top left shows you a close up where you can see the rings of Saturn and the moons of Jupiter. 

I did get a few picture on Dec 22 where Jupiter and Saturn were almost as close. Saturn is now to the right and below Jupiter. The wide angle shot is at the top of this post. There were clouds around so there only a few opens to get the some pictures. 

I did get a good close up of the conjunction on Dec 22. Saturn looks a little elongated because of the rings and the glare around Jupiter is actually the moons. This is a pretty good picture from a point and shoot camera.

I also got an couple of shots on Dec 23 from my house. 

I'm not sure why these type of planetary conjunctions generate so much interest as they are just two points of lights converging in the sky. But these conjunctions have interested people for thousands of years and is one of the reasons the field of astronomy exists. Originally these conjunctions were thought predict some important event and if that is the case lets hope this conjunction means better things for next year.

Snow Day

 

The weather for December has been a mixed bag. It started off with a cold weekend that was too cold to do a road ride so we ended up on the LHT trail. The LHT trail is continually being improved so its always nice to take a ride and see if anything has changed. The main change they made recently was around Rosedale park where they added a couple of bridges to get rid of some messy and dangerous parts of the trail. 

Last weekend I ended up two road rides on my own as the weather was warmed up and almost hit 60 on my Sunday ride. 

This week we got 4-6 inches of snow and after the storm it stay cold so none of us wanted to get out on the road. Laura suggested Tyler State Park and we all agreed. Tyler State Park has a series of paved paths that they keep plowed in the winter so its one of the few places that you can ride after a snow storm safely. 

It was 24 degrees when we all got there at 10am. I had my warmest gear on and once we got started it was warm enough. I have a nine mile loop around the park that we usually do twice. However once we crossed the dam over the Neshaminy Creek and headed up the hill we found that not all of the paths were plowed. We usually go down to the covered bridge but that path was still snow covered with just a couple of ruts in it from a truck that went down it. I went about a quarter mile down the snow to see if it was possible to get the bridge but turn around as it would have been an ice mess trying to get back up the hill. 

Usually we take a path that dumps us into a neighborhood and then take a path back into the park. However the path back into park wasn't plowed either so  we ended up taking side streets through the neighborhoods and a golf course to get back to a paved park path. 

While going through the neighborhoods we hear a lot of loud sirens. It sounded as it was a mass causality event but it ended up just being the local firehouse Santa parade. 

We eventually made our way back into the park paths but had to make one last detour on the local roads to get back to the start. We only have about 10 miles in so we did another small loop around the park this time keeping to the paths we knew were open. We ended up with close 14 miles and 800ft of climbing so it was a good work out. The weather looks cold for the rest of the year but I'm sure we will get a few more rides in before the new year.