cmdr_zoom | 2 out of 3

I'm not yet ready to render a verdict on the whole new year, but this month is fired. Out of a cannon, into the sun. For the second weekend in a row, I have had to walk home in the dark and damp.

Last week was because a family outing - a train ride up to Salem and back - fell through due to delays. What was planned as a day trip was about to turn into an overnight stay, somewhere, and I said "I'm sorry, I can't, I'm getting off the train now before it leaves." The others decided to do the same soon thereafter, but I didn't know about it until I got home (as I have no mobile). A distance of a mile, maybe a mile and a half took me about an hour, for I am fat and old and fat and required plenty of rest stops. My muscles (back and calf especially) are adapted for pedaling, not walking. The train, I am informed, finally left the station three hours after it was scheduled to.

Today was the first LAN party of the year for the local computer gaming group to which my brothers and I belong. It started off all right, mostly - I finally took the plunge and bought Call of Duty Black Ops, a game which is in the process of supplanting former standby Call of Duty 4 in that circle, only to find that my old computer (now being used as my LAN box), even with a better video card, will not run it. Still, I had fun and got to play enough CoD 4 to satisfy me, and will be exploring other options re: CoD BO. Also, the food and company were great. So it was all good... until my rear bike tire went flat about a quarter of the way home.

Ironically, even though I estimate the distance as maybe twice what I had to do last weekend (and the final time was about the same, an hour from start to arrival), it wasn't nearly as painful or stressful. I walked some of it, pushing the bike and resting my weight on the handlebars, which seemed to be sufficient; and I rode maybe half the total distance on the flat. This probably wrecked the tire as well as the tube, but frankly, it was worth it to save time and walking. (And no, there were no open gas stations along the route to try even briefly refilling the rear tube.)

Tomorrow, of course, about the time most of you are reading this, I'll need to walk/ride the bike down to the nearest bike shop (a much shorter distance) and get the tube and probably tire replaced before work Monday. So that's a big chunk of necessity dropped into the middle of my Sunday. I need to go to bed soon so I can get up to do that early, and also because I'm now massively weary.

As a result, I admit to some anxiety about next weekend, when we intend to re-try the train trip (having gotten a refund on the tickets).

Oh, and the cherry? When I got home and booted up this machine to (among other things) log in and make this entry, I got a disc read error that required a restart to boot properly. Eek. Just a random glitch, I hope, but time to run another round of backups...