House for Sale

 

I moved down to this area a little over 30 years ago for a job. It was a good move as it got me to a less crowed area than where I grew up in North Jersey. In 1991 my wife and I bough a house. The real estate market was in a recession when we bought our house so we ended up getting a slightly bigger house than we were looking for. Our house has 5 bedrooms and 3 1/2 baths so there are a few rooms the two of us almost never use. The house has a good layout and is in a good neighborhood so we have really enjoyed living in our house. 

When we bought the house is was in good condition although the people who owned the house before us made some questionable decoration decisions. There was the PINK bathroom, the bright YELLOW kitchen with matching rug and of course the sparkles on the popcorn ceiling. The house sort of had a 60s feel but slowly over the years we made improvements to update the house. This included updating the kitchen to give it a brighter more modern look

 

 Updating the bathrooms to not look like a relic from the 60s

and adding a sun room to let us enjoy the beautiful yard my wife created.

We have really enjoying living in this house and making it our own but it does require a good amount of up keep. With my retirement looming in the next 3 to 5 years we have decided it was time to downsize and start to simplify our life a little. We could of course stayed in our house and paid people to do the all the maintenance. However if we don't move now it will be harder to do in 10 or 15 years so it makes sense to find a smaller place to move to now. 

For the last 3 months we have been preparing our place for sale. Mostly cleaning and getting rid of clutter. And after living in a house for 30 years we had a lot of clutter. We got rid of all the furniture we know we didn't and a lot of stuff we no longer use. It actually felt good to clean house. 

After a little paint and some minor repairs the house was ready for sale by the first week in April. We put the house up for sale on a Thursday and by Friday we already had a full price offer. The current market is starving for homes so any decent house on the market is gone in a few days. We had at least 15 people come through the house between Thursday night and Saturday. We had enough interest and other possible offers that we actually canceled the open house on Sunday. 

 On Monday we accepted the offer and are now in the process finalizing the sale of the house. The people buying the house want to delay the closing until July because of their current lease and that is okay with us because it will give a little more time to enjoy our current house and find our next one. 

I will miss the house when we leave especially the work shop I currently have...

but I'm looking forward living in smaller place with less maintenance so I can dedicate more time to other things like riding my bike.

Holy Kickstand Pandemic Edition

The Holy Kickstand has been in hiding for most of the pandemic but after a member in the insane bike posse had their second minor crash(they're fine but their front wheel needs a little work) I decided to bring it out again. For those of you not familiar with the Holy Kickstand its a is lucky charm that is meant help us stay safe and keep upright at all times during a ride just like a regular kickstand keeps a bike from falling down. Check this link for more details on the the original Holy Kickstand.

Since the pandemic the Holy Kickstand has been enhanced. It has been wrapped with the shroud of bubbles that helps cushion any fall a rider has. It also now contains the medical mask of droplet reduction to help riders ward off bad vapors and humors. 

Before this weeks ride to Neshanic, I performed the Holy Kickstand blessing. Instead of using the Britta water of purity I used Purell sanitizer of surfaces to clean the area we will be riding in. Hopefully this blessing will help keep the posse safe for this riding season. 

We did have a good ride to Neshanic with almost all of the posse in attendance. It was a cloudy day in the high 50s so not a bad day to be on the road.We did this route which put most of the hills in the beginning of the ride. Unlike last week there were no bridge out but we did end up going over bridge on the new 206 bypass across from Mountain View Rd. The bridge wasn't exactly finished but the posse will not pass up a chance to go over a bridge under construction. 

It was a trouble free ride so hopefully the Holy Kickstand will continue to work its magic. It may just be a plastic kickstand wrapped in string, bubble wrap and a medical mask but I'm happy to perform any stupid ritual if it helps keep the posse safe or a least gives them a laugh.

Happy Banter

 

For the past two weeks I haven't been able to ride with the posse as I'm doing some work on my house to get it ready to sell (more on my impending move in a later post). 

I don't mind occasionally riding on my own but after two weeks I really wanted to get back together with the group so I sent out an invite for a ride to Vincentown. We met in Bordentown and it was good to have some other people to ride with. Since the last time we all road together all of the us who weren't already vaccinated managed our first vaccine shot. So now all of use are on our way to being fully vaccinated. Because of this I think the mood of the ride was a little lighter and there was a lot banter going back and forth. 

It was a slightly cold but sunny day and we quickly made our way south towards Vincentown. We did run into a bridge out just north of Cookstown but were able to make our way over the cut in the road by climbing over a little dirt. Of course a bridge out is nothing new on my rides. It fact the ride felt close to normal. I hope as the vaccine is available to more people the case count will finally drop to a point that we can resume most of our normal activities. 

At this time of year as the weather gets warmer and I can do longer rides I always start thinking about possible bike trips. Last year a trip or any travel wasn't safe but this year I'm hopeful there a trip our two in our future. 

 

Volcanic Eruption

The last vacation I took was to Iceland which is one of the most interesting geological places on earth. I friended a couple of guides we meet there on Facebook and enjoy their posts as they help me remember all the cool things we saw there. If you have watched the news over the past couple of days you might have seen that there is a new volcanic eruption in Iceland. Luckily the eruption is not near any populated area and is a mild one. I have never seen a volcanic eruption live but one of the guides posted a link to a webcam of the current eruption. It is mesmerizing to watch and I spent 10-15mins watching it today in between the other things I had to do today. It is fun watching slowly change throughout the day and I'm sure will be keeping track of it over the next few weeks.

Here is the link in case you want to check it out. 

https://www.ruv.is/frett/2021/03/20/beint-vefstreymi-fra-eldstodvunum?fbclid=IwAR3tFxOScFN5Ecy5xCCNCGtUC_RC19j27m9VKGKpjlxdERNPWqYy_K_yw5E
 

One Year Later

Its been one year since the COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic. This past Saturday I lead a ride out of Mercer County Park with most of the Insane bike posse. It was a similar ride to the on I led about a year ago. The pandemic turned out differently than I expected both in a good and bad way. One of the good things was that nobody I care about was directly affected by it which is one of the main things I feared. The bad was that it has lasted a lot longer than expected and killed over half a million people in the US at this point. 

Back when it started there was a hope that shutting things down and using some common sense measures like wearing masks, washing your hands and social distancing would bring it under control. Those measures did help at the start when people started to understand how bad this disease was. However not everybody followed the guidelines and not everybody believed that the disease was as deadly as it was. This lead to a number of surges that make the suffering and death toll worst than it had to be. 

Even though I call the people I ride with the Insane Bike Posse we were very rational about how we handled this threat. For a few weeks we road apart but then eventually as the understanding of the disease improved and how it was transmitted we found ways to ride together safely. This mostly meant riding further apart, carrying all the food and drink we needed instead of going into stores and wearing masks if we did go into somewhere. 

We were all a little anxious when this all started but eventually got use to the new way of things. One other thing that we did was to start doing Zoom meetings like most of the rest of the world. In the beginning it was to talk about how to ride safely but then it became just a way for us socialize. These meetings became a part of my Friday night and helped me stay connected with my friends. These Zoom sessions were somewhat therapeutic and fun and I think helped us stay a little more sane. I know this last year was much easier because I could keep riding and share my fears and anxiety with the posse. 

In this year we have learned that we can ride together and do if safely. Now fear has been replaced by hope. There is now three vaccines that are effective against this disease. Half of the posse have gotten at lease the first shot of the vaccine and I expect the rest of us will be vaccinated by the end of May. Although I think there will be lingering affects from this pandemic both medical and sociological I am more certain of what the coming year will be like and it should be a place where it will much safer to get together. 

 We may never be 100% back to the normal we use to have but I see a possible bike vacation in my future. So it has been a long year but the future is looking better.  

Working from Home

 

I have been working from home in some fashion for about 15 years. Sometimes it was just a day a week at home other times is was three or four days. About five years ago I went to mostly working from home and would go into the office about once a month. That was of course until Covid hit and since then like most people, who are able to, I have been working from home 100% of the time. 

For me, as a software developer, it's easy to work from home and I prefer it. My team is literally spread around the world so its really not practical to meet at an office. There are also plenty of tools like Zoom and Slack that make it easy to communicate without having to actually be in the same location. One of the skills that any software developer needs today is the ability to work remotely and still stay connected to the team. 

If you work from home a lot then you want to have some kind of dedicated work space to work at. Some where that is quiet and comfortable that you don't mind spending 8 to 10 hours at. When I first starting working from home I had an old metal desk which was large and sturdy and served me well but it was really showing its age. I wanted something that not only looked better but also was more functional.

My old desk was large but was covered by a rack that held all my computers for home and work and a large screen. There wasn't actually a lot of open desk space when I wanted work on something. 

The main idea of the new desk was to have a very clean workspace that would still hold all the computer paraphernalia that I need for work and home.  If you look at the picture at the top of the blog you will see the finished desk. It has two file draws on the left and an open cabinet on the right. The top of the desk is mostly empty. The monitor is mounted on an nifty adjustable swivel mount. This makes it easy to put the monitor in the perfect position to work at while also allowing me to move it out of the way to make more space on the desk. 

The only think on the top of the desk is my charging station and my mouse and keyboard which are wireless and can be more off the desk easily when not in use.

The charging station allows me to have an organized place to charge my phone, headset, tablet, etc without have a mess of wires around a plug.

All my computers and the wires associated with them are on shelves in the open cabinet on the right. 

 

This way they are out of sight. You might think that this make it hard to get to them but I found a cool solution to that. The shelf in the right cabinet is on a TV lift mechanism so when I need full access to the computer and all its ports I just raise the shelf out of the cabinet. 

The shelves are on slides so I can pull out any of the computers and get full access to all ports on the computer.

Being able to get full access to a computer and then hide it away when I don't need it is a big improvement to what I had before. My different computers are better organized and now can be easily hidden away when not needed. I also have much more desks space than before. 

I know this is a set up that is not something everyone needs but I have three different computers that I work on at various times so having them in the shelves connected to a single mouse and keyboard that I can switch between them makes using them easier. If you look below you can see it the set up. On the top shelf I have my KVM switch (Keyboard, Video, Mouse) and my Mac mini I use for all my pictures and music. The next shelf down is my current Windows PC that I use for all my personal stuff. Lastly on the bottom shelf is the Mac book  Pro that I use for work.

I have been using the desk for a little over a mouth now and it is working out well. It's a big improvement over my old desk. It not only looks a lot better but will let me get rid of another table in my office that I was using for doing repairs on. I actually have another three draw cabinet I made that will let me create add another top to this desk to create an L shaped desk. That project will have to wait as we plan to sell our house and move in the next couple of months But at least for now I have a much better place to work at at home.

Winter Scenery

 

Because of a string of snow storms and cold weather I haven't been able to get out on the bike either on the road or the trail. There is just too much snow on the ground after an 8 inch storm followed about a week later with a 10 inch storm with a few inches in between. There has been some melting but not enough to clear the trails or the roads so that they are safe.  

Last weekend I went with Jack and Mike on a 6 mile hike on the high cliff trail in the Tohickon valley. 

Although there was still a lot of snow on the ground the trails were packed down so it wasn't too bad making our way thought the snow and we got some good views.

This Saturday some lingering mist from a storm  covered the tops of the trees with ice. At sunrise and the early morning it lite up the tops of the trees as shown in the photo at the top of the post and these two below.

This week we decided to walk around Tyler State park. We had gone there in December to ride mountain bikes around but a lot of the paths had not been cleared. This time more of the normal paths were cleared. 

We walked the normal route we usually ride and ended up down by the covered bridge which is probably the most scenic spot in the park. 

 

This original bridge burnt down in 1991 but was rebuilt using the original techniques as you can see when you walk through it. 

There is also a couple of diamond windows in the bridge to make it easier to see out over the river. 

We ended up hiking a little over 7 miles through some fields

and though some woods before making it back to the boat house where we started. 

Its nice to get outside especially when there is some interesting winter scenery to see but I do hope it gets warmer soon so I can get back on the bike.