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. 

Snowy Hook

 

When there is more than a couple of inches of snow on the ground it is hard to find a place to ride. Once the roads are plowed you can try to ride on them but between the reduction of the width of the road and possibility of hitting patches of ice its not very safe. Riding on the trails around us is not an option either because anything over an inch or two is usually two slushy or icy to be ridable. At times like these I use to go to Tyler State park or Pennypack Park because they plow their paved paths so it use to be possible to ride there after a snow storm. This winter, as we found out in December, they don't seem to be plowing the paths. When we went to Tyler State park in December only about half the paths were plowed. 

It was going to be 40 degrees on Saturday so I wanted to find some where to ride. I decided to head towards the shore as it hadn't snowed as much there so my thought was that some of the paths and roads might be ridable. I headed for Sandy Hook and got Jack, Laura, Pete and Ricky to join me. I was going to try and ride part of the Henry Hudson trail and if that was too snow covered to ride then I was just going to ride around the roads of Sandy Hook.

As I was driving up to Sandy Hook there was less snow but more than I thought there would be. Laura showed up with her new gravel bike which she miraculously found after only a couple of weeks of starting to look for the bike.

 

Its a Cannodale Topstone and this was its first ride.  

We headed over the bridge to the other side of the bay to get on the Henry Hudson trail. It's a nice trail that goes along the coast line for a few miles before heading inland. When we got to the trail it was a little more snow covered than expected.

It had been packed down by people walking on it. I rode in a half a mile for a picture hoping it would get better but it didn't so I turned around. I'm sure it would have got better by the Marina but it would have been hard to get there. 

We headed back to Sandy Hook stopping at a few places to get a view of the bay. Once back on the Hook we meandered around the roads stopping for pictures at some of the beaches. There was a observation deck at the north beach where we got some good pictures of New York. It was one of the clearest days I have seen at Sandy Hook. (Click on the picture below to zoom in)

It was in the mid 40s and sunny so we were relatively warm and didn't mind random exploring the different places in Sandy Hook. It has been a few years since we went this far in to Sandy Hook. We even went to a few places I don't normally go but it was fun just looking around. There was a stiff west wind that was mostly a cross wind so it didn't really slow us down but did occasionally pelt us with sand in a couple of spots. 

We ended up spending about two hours riding around and ended up with a little over 20 miles. It was fun winter outing and a good way to get a ride in.

Friluftsliv

 

The weather has been very close to my lower limits the past two weekends but I still managed to get a ride in. Both were mountain bike rides on trails. Going out in cold weather takes two things. First and most important is attitude. You have to believe that going out in the cold is better than staying inside and riding on a trainer. This is sort of the meaning of the Norwegian word Friluftsliv (roughly translated as "free life air") It is the belief that getting outside, no matter the weather, is good for your mental and physical health. My weekend bike rides are one of the things I look forward to every weekend and if I don't get one in then I'm very disappointed and it definitely affects my mood. That is why I will brave the cold and wind even when my body tells me it is going to be painful.

The second thing you need to ride in the cold is good clothing because as another Norwegian phase puts it. "There is no such thing as bad weather just bad clothing". Over the years as I have ridden in the cold I have learned what works and what doesn't so that I know have clothing for most weather conditions and can ride comfortably down to about 25 degrees.  When comfortably I mean is that my hands, feet and most of my body is warm enough once I start riding. There is still the initial shock of the cold as  you get your bike out of the car and get ready to ride. This is the time I am usually questioning my decision to be out in the cold but once I get a few miles in I'm always glad I made the effort to come out. 

Going out in the cold is more than getting a few miles outside its about observing nature in the different seasons. For example. It was cold enough for ice to start forming on the Delaware river as the picture at the top of the blog shows. This doesn't happen that often and its interesting and cool to see and makes me glad I did the ride. 

Last week I did the Columbia trail with Laura and we ended up going down by the river. 

There is a certain stark desolation to the landscape in the winter that has its own beauty so it was again worth braving the cold. I did hit some ice and took a spill. Luckily I wasn't going very fast and ended up just falling over side ways. I did bruise my ass a little but was otherwise fine. 

I don't like all the extra layers I have to put on to ride in the cold. Also as I have gotten older the cold seems to cause me to have to ride a little slower to maintain a reasonable heart rate. But I'm happy to ride a little slower and shorter rides if it means I can still get outside on the bike each week.

Common Sense

 

Winter riding is always about trade offs. Even if have good warm cloths you are never completely comfortable. It's hard to dress correctly for cold weather you are either too warm and sweating or a little cold. It takes some common sense and planning to enjoy a ride in the cold weather. 

When, where and the direction you ride have a lot to do with not trying fighting against the elements for a miserable  ride. A couple of weeks ago with temperatures barely above freezing and a nasty north wind I took to the canal path to be sheltered from the wind and did a ride from Washington Crossing to Trenton and back. Riding my mountain bike on the canal path takes more energy which keeps me warmer so it good for rides when the temperatures are below 35 degrees.

Last weekend we had weather in the mid 40s with a south wind so I lead a ride from MCP to Bordentown. There was rain overnight that hung a little longer than expected on Saturday morning so we post pone the start time of the ride until the roads were a little dryer.

Laura and Pete joined me on the ride. It was one of those rides that I was a little over dressed and was sweating by mile10 but I didn't shed any layers because of the wind and the occasional clouds which kept the temperature more or less constant. In fact I think it got colder towards the end of the ride. 

In Bordentown we swung by the river and visited Tom Paine again. As the picture up top shows he didn't have a mask like he did last time we were there.

So either he got the vaccine or realized he was a statue and didn't really need a mask. 

It has been about a year since the first case of Covid was discovered in the US and its got a lot worse since then. We are probably close to the peak in terms of daily cases and deaths as the holiday surges are in full effect now. I know a couple people who were a little lack during the holidays and have gotten Covid although most of them have mild symptoms. 

I do think things will be getting slowly better with the vaccines rolling out and a new more fact base administration in Washington. So hopefully with a little common sense we can all make it through this winter and to a spring that should be better than last years.