Cold and Snowy

I had hoped that one of the advantages of being retired is that I could get more rides in during the winter. That hasn't worked out so far. Last year, when I was working, I remember a number of times during the week where the weather was warm enough to ride but I couldn't because I was working. This year has been one of the coldest winters in at least 10 years. It didn't get much over 20 degrees in the past week and has been in the single digits most mornings. We also got 10+ inches of snow last Sunday and there is no chance of that melting anytime soon. It may get above freezing next week for a little while but I think it might be a while before we can get any real riding in. 

Tomorrow is Feb 2nd and I sure that useless over pampered rodent Pucxsutawney Phil will probably predict 6 more weeks of winter. Not that I put any weight against his or any other predictions as the farmers almanac said this winter would be milder and drier than normal. The truth is that a coin flip is as good as any prediction model that tries to predict the weather more than a week into the future. 

My theory as we why we have this cold and snowy weather is that we pissed off Greenland and because of that they turned on their weather control machine and created the Greenland Block (check out the link). Hopefully they will have mercy on us soon as my heating bill is becoming a significant expense. My heater also objected to the cold as it malfunctioned right after the snow storm because of ice and water in the intake. Luckily I was able to fixed it before the house got below 60 degrees. 

Exercise is important to my sanity. I know the posse feels the same way as I got a few emails asking if anybody is using indoor trainers. I actually when to the gym in my clubhouse and spent an hour on an exercise bike. I hate indoor riding but need to do something to stay in some kind of riding shape until it warms up. I have some bathroom remodeling work that will keep me busy but I hope to get some kind of riding in. There are a few places like Tyler State Park, Pennypack and Sandy Hook where I could ride if it warms up and we get some melting. 

The temperatures have been abnormally cold almost 20 degrees below normal. At some point we will have to revert to the mean. I hope that it is sooner than later so I can get back out on the bike again and forget about this cold winter.  

 

 

 

Filling My Free Time

I still don't feel like I'm retired. I haven't had to go to or worry about work for over a month but I have still been pretty busy. I guess I just had a lot of things I wanted to do and now have time to do them. The last week of December and the first few days of January were pretty cold with most days not even getting above freezing. Because of that I had the posse come out where I live and do a hike instead of a ride over the Christmas break.

Luckily we had a warm up this week and I got out a couple of times. The one good thing about retirement is I can now ride whenever I want so can plan my riding around the weather as oppose to hoping the weather is good on the weekends or my days off.  

Part of what I did over the last few weeks is put together list of things I want to do with my free time. One of the things on the list is to go get a few pictures of the seals at Sandy Hook. As the water has gotten clean over the last couple of decades more wildlife has come back to some places along the shore. For the past 10 years there have been seals at Sandy Hook in the winter. So if you go there near low tide on a sunny day without a lot of wind you have a chance to see them.

They gather on the rocks and sandbars to relax for a few hours. We tried to see them last year but couldn't find them. This time they were easy to see. 

 

They usually gather at the top of Sandy Hook by the church and old barracks. There are some sandbars and rock outcropping that they like lay on that are only about 100 feet from the shore. We parked in a parking lot behind the barracks and walked out to see them. 

 

There were probably 35-40 of them laying on the rocks and swimming around. I had my good camera with the telephoto lens so go a few good close up shots even though I was shooting into the coming sunset. 

 

We watched them for about a half hour as they laid there and moved around and played with each other. After that we headed out to a place on the water for dinner. It was a nice relaxing way to spend an afternoon. I have a lot of other things like this that I want to do so it is nice to now have the free time to do them, 

This is My Year

 

Welcome to 2026!!! 

I hope you all enjoyed your holidays and wish you all have a good new year. I know people who take this moment to set some goals for the year or create a vision board to guide them to greatness or some other silly stuff. I have never done any of that as most of these goals people set for themselves at the beginning of the year fall away as soon as life starts back up again. 

I'm not saying I don't have some things I could improve upon or that there aren't some adventures I want to go on but I'm more a continuous improvement person than doing a yearly review. However this year is a little different.

For the first time since college I no longer have a full time job. I'm medically and financially healthy so there are no real limits to what I can do with all my free time. This past month I have started adjusting to not working. I have mostly been busy with making calls to get all my benefits setup and taking care of all those small project that I didn't have time for because I was working. 

It is still going to take some time to adjust to my retirement and get into a new routine. Now that the new year has started and things have stabilized I'm going to look for new things to occupy my time. My wife already volunteers at a farm so I will probably help her more with that. I want to do some teaching or mentoring to help keep my technical skills fresh. I'm also going to look for some ways to give back to the community. I have always done some volunteer work that has helped me keep a good perspective on life so I want do continue and do more of that.  

Of course I will have more time for biking and my other hobbies so I look forward to not having a job that will interfere with any of that. I'm excited by the possibilities so am looking forward to the new year. It should be a good year. I know that it is 2026( or 5786 on the Hebrew calendar or the year of the horse on the Chinese calendar). However I'm unofficially naming it "The year of Tom" as this is my year to do as I please and I plan to enjoy it to the fullest.

The Winter Solstice

This past Sunday I started my ride exactly at 10:03am. I'll explain why in a couple of paragraphs but the short explanation is that I couldn't pass up mixing a bike ride with an astronomical event. 

The winter solstice occurs exactly when the sun is at it's lowest point in the sky and is directly over the Tropic of Capricorn. This is the moment the sun stops getting lower in the sky and starts its journey back towards the equator. The earth is tilted 23.5 degrees to it orbit and so the sun's elevation at noon appears to rise and fall (-23.5 to +23.5). That is why if you took a picture of the position of the sun at noon every day you would get a picture like the one below.

 

Its call the analemma and it looks a figure 8. The lowest point is the winter solstice and the highest point is the summer solstice. The middle of the figure 8 is where the spring and fall solstice occurs (when the sun is directly over the equator.)

This past Sunday (the day of the winter solstice) I had planned a ride starting at 10 am but when I saw that the time of the winter solstice was 10:03 am local time I changed my ride to start then. The exact day and time of the solstice changes because of perturbations in the earth's orbit which I won't go into detail explaining so it was just lucky happenstance that the winter solstice was almost exactly when I planned to start the ride. Laura was the first one to notice the unusual ride start time and because she could not attend we sent her a picture to welcome her to the winter solstice.  

We sent it at exactly 10:03 am of course. The ride itself was fine for a winter ride. It was in the mid 40s so not too cold but it was a little windy at times. We did 33 miles which helped me reach my mileage goal for the year. I'm sure I'll do a few more rides in before the new year. 

I know it will be few more months before winter is over and the weather will be warmer but it is good to know the sun has started it trek back north and the days will now be getting longer.  

Gearing Up for Winter

It has been a cold December so it has not been easy to get out for a ride. The key to getting out in the cold weather is the proper clothing and the right attitude. Riding in the cold sucks but as long as you accept that fact and wear the right cloths you can still get out. 

My wife says that when I come back from a winter ride I have a full load of laundry and she is probably right. Here is a picture of what I usually wear when I go out for a cold ride. 

 

On the left is my bike shorts and long sleeve thermal shirt to provide an extra layer of warmth and wick the sweat away from my skin. On the right I have my wool socks, tights (I have tights with different thicknesses for different temperatures), A heavy long sleeve shirt and then a windbreaker coat. The jacket I wear is a gore tex wind stopper that is really good at blocking the wind and offers some protection from rain. It also has a couple of big pockets in the back to hold extra gloves and other things I might need for a cold ride. 

And because I'm follically challenged I have a thermal skull cap as well as a neck gator to keep my head and neck area warm. Then there is the hand and feet.

I have numerous types of gloves that can keep my hands warms at temperatures down to 20 degrees and for the feet I have a set of booties to rap around my shoes to keep my feet warm. 

Using all this gear I can ride comfortably down to about 35 degrees on the road and 25 degrees on the trails. Even with all this gear there will be parts of you that will be a little cold (like your face) and parts of you that will be sweating (like your torso). I'm usually a little cold when I start a ride but warm up quickly once I get a few miles in. Winter rides are shorter and I don't stop if it's below 40 as I don't want to get chilled. 

The only thing that keeps me from riding in the winter is snow. It is just too dangerous to ride on the road with snow and ice on it. I will do trail riding if there is a couple of inches of snow as my mountain bike can easily plow through that but anything over 3 inches is just too hard to ride through. 

This past weekend we got 6 inches of snow so riding was not an option for a couple of days. My wife and I actually took a ride down to the beach on Tuesday. She wanted to buy her beach badges for the summer and I wanted to see the beach with snow on it. It was 25 degrees so we didn't spend much time by the beach. It was weird to see snow where the sand should be and it was good to know that they clear the boardwalk when it snows. 

I did take my mountain bike out on the roads on Wednesday for a short ride. The roads were mostly clear and at 40 degrees I expect any snow on the roads will be gone in another day. Thursday is going to be even warmer so I plan to go out again. Winter riding is not my favorite type of riding but if you gear up properly and get out on the warmer days you can still get some miles in. 

 

I'm DONE with Work

At 2:26 pm on Thursday December 4th 2025 I left IBM in Armonk NY for home. I called my wife and told her I was DONE with work. I didn't mean I was done for work for this day, this week or this year. I meant I was DONE with work FOREVER!!

I had been thinking about retirement for a while so when my manager told me that they eliminated my position I wasn't really that upset or surprised. I had told my manager that if he had to lay someone off he could pick me. I didn't really expect it to be this soon as IBM normally lays people off in March so was expecting to work a few more months. This year they had a special layoff in December so lucky me. 

Financially I'm fine as I have been planning for this for years. The annoying part now is working through all my options for medical insurance and other benefits and trying to get the most out of the package that IBM gave me as they don't provide a lot of guidance. It's going to take a lot of research and a bunch of phone calls to figure it all out but I got plenty of time now. 

I'm not going to miss the daily grind of going to work. (Although I mostly worked remote). I did enjoy what I did. I had a good team and we had fun together. It still hasn't hit me that I won't be going to work anymore. It will probably take a few weeks or months to adjust. 

It is strange to look back at my career. I did a lot of cool things from creating guidance systems for nuclear missiles to launching satellites to helping create the framework of the internet. It amazes me how much technology has changed in the 40+ years I have been working. Now we are just beginning the age of AI and it is going to make big changes to the technological as well as the sociological landscape. 

This last job at IBM was one of the longest and most satisfying jobs of my career. I was the lead software architect which meant that I took the crazy requirements from the project managers and executives and tried to work with my development team to turn them into reality. This is not easy as the requirements are never clear and you will never have the time or resources to properly research, design and implement the software. I could go on and on about all the problems with software development but that is for another time. 

The scary and fun part of my job is that I was the guy at the top of the hill that people came to for answers. There were some peers I could rely on if I needed some help with a particular topic but most people expected me to have the answers or at least know how to get and answers. AND for the most part my 40+ years of experience gave me the answers. And if I didn't have an answer I just made something up that sounded good and people believed me. 

For the last 6 months my manager had asked me to start working with some of the more experienced developers and architects to teach them how I do things as he wanted to spread my knowledge to them. This gave me a chance to try and define my style and way of doing things. I actually gave a "TED Talk" like presentation to the team a week ago and which was a good summary about my way of doing things. 

My team likes me because of how calm I am in tense situation and the empathy and support I give them. I remember the awkward person I was socially when I left college so I'm glad I was able to evolve to a point where I can meaningfully interact and support the people I work with and care about. I was very touched by some of the messages they left me when I told them I would be leaving. It's good to know I made an positive impact to the people I worked with. 

And I think that has been my biggest strength is that I know how to build and create good teams. I use some psychology from Adam Grant, Malcolm Gladwell, Daniel Kahneman, Dale Carnegie and a few others. I also throw in some "Yes And..." techniques from improvisation comics as well as some techniques I learn from reading textbooks for the blind and dyslexic. And of course a dash of sarcasm.   

Concentrating on making the team work better together instead of my own career goals has made me a better architect and leader in general. When you have a supportive team you can do good work and enjoy what you do. In the last few years I have had to work with a lot of younger developers. I know that some people complain about the younger generation being lazy and self centered but I have found the people I work with to smart, energetic and more forgiving and inclusive than I was at that age. They may be a little more risk adverse and anxious but I think they will do great things and hopefully fix some of the messes I left around. I actually hope to keep in touch with some of them and try to continue to support them as much as I can. 

My bike friends who read this and call me the "lying bastard" may ask who is this caring supportive person. But they know that when I bring them across closed bridges, dirt roads and ridiculous hills that I'm not trying to kill them I'm just trying to build character. (Okay maybe a little of it is taking out my frustrations at work on them but let's be honest they are the insane people that keep submitting themselves to this pain)

Not having a job doesn't mean I will just be sitting in front of the TV waiting to die. I could get another job if I really wanted to but I don't need to. I have a lot of things that I have wanted to do. More biking of course but I also want to work on improving my photography. There will also be more volunteer work now that I have some free time. I still want to maintain my technical knowledge so hope that I can use my knowledge and experience to help people and organizations with technical problems.

It's going to strange to not go to work this Monday or ever again. I'm sure there will be an adjustment phase but I'm looking forward to freedom and possibilities of retirement. 

And eating the chocolate I got as part of my going away present. 

 

 

 

Risk Management

Leading a ride comes with certain responsibilities. The main one is that you want to keep everyone safe. I try to plan my routes on less traveled roads and make sure I point out any hazards or trouble spots along the way. There are always things you can't control but you try to plan for all contingencies. I had schedule a ride for this past Saturday and my main concern was the weather. I try not to ride in the rain if possible but sometimes you have to push the limits a little in order to get a ride in. 

I will not ride if it is raining or I know that there is going to be significant rain during the ride. Of course weather forecasts are not 100% reliable and if you look at the different sites you can get wildly different forecasts. When I looked on Friday night it looked like the rain won't end before noon but when I woke up on Saturday morning although it was raining the forecasts that I used showed rain ending by 9am an hour before the ride would start. The question I asked myself at 7am was did I believe the forecast and are the roads too wet to ride. My first inclination is always to do the ride because I would rather do a crappy ride rather than sit at home and be pissed I didn't do a ride. However in order to make the decision you have to evaluate the risk. 

In my job I have to make a lot of decisions everyday about what is the best design for a piece of software, what technology to use, and who should do the work. Part of making these decisions is doing the analysis to understand what is the best choice that will achieve the goals. Sometimes after doing the analysis the best choice is obvious but most of the time there are so many factors involved that picking the best one is a guess. This is why it is always important to consider the risk associated with any choice. 

For example should I use some new technology to develop the software or stick with a technology that I know the developers could easily implement. The new technology offers some advantages that allow us to offer some useful features to our users BUT it could take a lot longer to develop and be harder to integrate in to our current system. Is the risk worth the reward and what happens if we fail, is the question you have to ask before making the decision. This is true not only in software development but in life in general. How to I invest my money do I buy stocks or put it in a CD. A CD is safe but may not generate enough return to overcome inflation but stocks have no guaranteed return although they usually outperform any other assets. There are similar questions you can ask about your career or your relationships. In all cases it is important to asset the risk of any situation and try to mitigate it as much as you can.

For Saturday's ride I decided to do it. I knew the roads would be really wet which meant it would be messy and that there would be a possibility slipping on the road lines and leaves but most of the people signed up for the rides had ridden in wet weather before and the route I planned should be relatively safe. A few people who signed up for the ride bailed and I don't blame then for doing it as it was not a great day to ride. 

When I got to the start of the ride it was a little chaotic because there was a Turkey Trot Run in Joseph Lawrence Park which meant we had to park in the school parking lot. There were even some roads blocked off but we managed to talk our way past the barriers. The first half of the ride was a little messy as the spay off the road coated us and our bikes. We did make it down through Robling and into Burlington, without any problems, to visit the Eagle statue by the Burlington Bristol bridge. Chris even got us to go a quarter mile down the road to see the fishing troll

 

After getting out of Burlington we had a quick stop at the Jacksonville Deli before working our way back to the start. By this point the roads had started to dry out. It was still cloudy and not much warmer than when we started but it was much better riding. So this time taking the risk was worth it as we got the ride in.