The interplay of light, sound, and touch are critical to every aspect of our lives.
Riding Samoa home last night, every little flicker of light on the path was welcome. My eyes darted every which way for the first 10 minutes after leaveing poor richard's. Slowly, as as I came back onto sections of the trail that i recognized, the tension started to ease and I basked in the cool night air gliding past my face.
In a book I've been reading about green houses (not green garden houses, houses with green construction methods) the author talks about what the human body needs to live. One of those needs is light. Not just a lamp or a chandelier that hangs in the dining room, but natural light. I think that when most humans are depressed they stay in dark places.
Not outside where there is a breeze blowing past you as you stare at the night sky, but a place with no air movement or sound .
Sound
the cracking of spokes as they settle in on a new bicycle wheel or the creak of a crank that will almost fall off when I get home from the ride to poor richard's.
the rush of gravel against smooth tires calms the soul...
The creak of the cranks make my heart race as I think of walking home 5 miles in the dark in my bike shoes.
The woosh, crunch, crunch of the tires against the gravel and sand makes takes all the cares of my soul away and lets me flow down the path without a care in the world.
Now if it would just stop raining I could go again tonight... A screw it I'm going tonight anyway
Samoa waits quietly in the garage for the ride downtown tonight.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
The Fixie (Samoa)
Scary.... Dark.... Hard to stop.... Smooooooooth
The ride downtown on the somewhat sketchy bike trail is incredibly soothing.
Definitely more fun on the paved sections than the gravel (I think that is the first time I've ever said that) .
Going home I think I will need to take the ipod off and enjoy the sounds of the night with the quiet of the fixie in the background.
I rode from the house down to poor richard's coffee shop. I never realized the joy of riding down a bike path by yourself in the middle of the night. No cars rushing past. No technical drop around the next corner (I hope) No people, or hardly any, to pop out in front of me.
A fixie id great for thinking. The bike and I were wrestling each other for control, but at the same time supremely enjoying each others presence.
Oh yeah!! I named my fixie Samoa. So I think I will have to call her Sam for short. She is getting ridden again and taken care for the first time in a many years. Sam is smooth, light and somewhat scary since I am not totally in control of her.
A chill goes through me everytime I get on her. I am not sure if it's from pleasure, fear or both...
The ride downtown on the somewhat sketchy bike trail is incredibly soothing.
Definitely more fun on the paved sections than the gravel (I think that is the first time I've ever said that) .
Going home I think I will need to take the ipod off and enjoy the sounds of the night with the quiet of the fixie in the background.
I rode from the house down to poor richard's coffee shop. I never realized the joy of riding down a bike path by yourself in the middle of the night. No cars rushing past. No technical drop around the next corner (I hope) No people, or hardly any, to pop out in front of me.
A fixie id great for thinking. The bike and I were wrestling each other for control, but at the same time supremely enjoying each others presence.
Oh yeah!! I named my fixie Samoa. So I think I will have to call her Sam for short. She is getting ridden again and taken care for the first time in a many years. Sam is smooth, light and somewhat scary since I am not totally in control of her.
A chill goes through me everytime I get on her. I am not sure if it's from pleasure, fear or both...
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Moab in a parking lot
Moab is a beautiful, harsh playground.
We started out the weekend sprawled in a line of sleeping bags trying to block out the sounds of cars roaring past us. We arrived in moab at 4 in the morning on saturday with a list of campsites. You would think that there would be one free campsite in 10 campgrounds, right??? If a open campsite existed, we could not find it. We pulled over into the raft put in, in Castle Canyon and crashed in the parking lot. (In the picture the road is in the background...)
We headed into town to get all the supplies we forgot. Big surprise for those of you who know me, but in this case it was only ice and gum. I think Jamie might've needed some coffee but we were not about to let her have any.
One of my favorite things about going to moab is the water coming straight out of the side of the mt. The tap is always a lifesaver. Plus the water tastes sweet.
I wish we had a pic of the jeep we took. It looked like a wheelie would happen at any moment. Of course, 5 bikes, 5 people and assorted camping gear probably exceed anything rating a jeep would have for that sort of thing. On second thought I do have one!!
Anyway, with the nose of the jeep pointed skyword we headed out to the Klondike Bluff trail. Almost any trail in moab is cool, but the main features of the Klondike bluff trail are dinasour tracks and a breathtaking view of Arches National Monument. Outside of the rampart resoviour trail, I think this was probably one of the longest mountain bike rides the girls had ever done. This was Dave, Allison and Jamie's first experience with slick rock, and I know at least dave loved it, maybe it is just a guy thing to be awed at the terrain as much as the views.
And as a preview of the next episode please see the picture below. The next episode includes miller light and McDee's icecream at the same time!!!
Saturday, May 05, 2007
yurt living?
What is going to happen to the yurt??
As many people know... I have been looking for land to set a yurt up on for the past month or so. In the midst of all this I found this great little fixer upper out near palmer lake, co which is a really cool little town. The house had great views but in all reality was a piece of crap. I would've basically been tearing the whole roof off the house and gutting the inside which would've been a major undertaking considering I wanted to do it all myself. Luckily I got some good advice from a friend before I made any major decisions on it.
So back I go to building a yurt. My ideas are always so much bigger than anything that is feasible but I really am looking forward to building the yurt. My next step is to make sure that I can get it approved by the building department. I think that will actually be the hardest part of the whole process. I am going to draw up plans for the yurt later this week and take them down to the building department for a review. I think the next part will be the structural engineering aspect of the house. I will see. I am going to draw up 2 plans. One using
Wood sides and a Metal insulated roof and the other will be the traditional Yurt Structure. I think that I have a good chance of getting the wood sided yurt approved once I have a structural engineer look at the drawings. It would be alot more expensive then a regular yurt but if it could pass code i think it would be worth it. I think that I may try to use Bill Coperthwaite
which you can see below. It really a cool design and can be built in sections. You can see more pics of some of his yurts at Shelter Hub.
The yurt is really one of those things that I feel that I have to build for my own sanity. I love creating things and since my current job does not support being creative (at all) I think that building the yurt is one of the best ways to exercise at at least a little bit of the creativity that is bursting to get out.
It's kind've weird because I think that if I really examine my motives the desire to build the yurt overrides any financial gains that may be had by remodeling a house or anything like that. Guess I better order the plans for the yurt so I can get going on finding the land for it...
As many people know... I have been looking for land to set a yurt up on for the past month or so. In the midst of all this I found this great little fixer upper out near palmer lake, co which is a really cool little town. The house had great views but in all reality was a piece of crap. I would've basically been tearing the whole roof off the house and gutting the inside which would've been a major undertaking considering I wanted to do it all myself. Luckily I got some good advice from a friend before I made any major decisions on it.
So back I go to building a yurt. My ideas are always so much bigger than anything that is feasible but I really am looking forward to building the yurt. My next step is to make sure that I can get it approved by the building department. I think that will actually be the hardest part of the whole process. I am going to draw up plans for the yurt later this week and take them down to the building department for a review. I think the next part will be the structural engineering aspect of the house. I will see. I am going to draw up 2 plans. One using
Wood sides and a Metal insulated roof and the other will be the traditional Yurt Structure. I think that I have a good chance of getting the wood sided yurt approved once I have a structural engineer look at the drawings. It would be alot more expensive then a regular yurt but if it could pass code i think it would be worth it. I think that I may try to use Bill Coperthwaite
which you can see below. It really a cool design and can be built in sections. You can see more pics of some of his yurts at Shelter Hub. The yurt is really one of those things that I feel that I have to build for my own sanity. I love creating things and since my current job does not support being creative (at all) I think that building the yurt is one of the best ways to exercise at at least a little bit of the creativity that is bursting to get out.
It's kind've weird because I think that if I really examine my motives the desire to build the yurt overrides any financial gains that may be had by remodeling a house or anything like that. Guess I better order the plans for the yurt so I can get going on finding the land for it...
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