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Jones, our new nephew.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

Hanging with family in Pa.

My dad is cool. A man of few words, he still gets his point across and his feelings know. He’s a “good ol’ boy” and I mean that in every good way possible. His memory is astounding (something I happily inherited from him). His outlook on the world is definitely his own. When many men in my position would find their paths diverging from their father’s, I’m finding myself closer than ever to him. It gives me a great deal of pride to say “that’s my Dad.”

Happy Fathers’ Day, Dad.

Here we are at my 30th birthday party in 1998. He had just announced to the entire party “That’s my boy!”

While we were out and about this past weekend, I noticed a lot of guys wearing pink these days, especially guys that you wouldn’t figure to be wearing pink. There they would be, a stereotypical tough guy with multiple tattoos, a few body piercings, a pencil thin beard and mustache and a whole bad-ass attitude going on. All whilst wearing a pink shirt.

Sorry, but the pink shirt negates the whole bad-ass thing.

Back in the mid 80s, the last time pink was a popular color, I didn’t think it looked right then either. I’ve never owned a pink shirt. I did own a black and white shirt from Jordan Marsh that had just a very small touch of pink in it, but I reserved that get up for gay pride. I couldn’t bring myself to wear an all pink shirt. Not only because it clashed horribly with my auburn hair but just because wearing pink didn’t really fit right with me. I’m old school in that “blue is for boys and pink is for girls.”

I’m a big fan of the earthtones. My clothes selection is very easy to mix and match simply because everything is an earthtone- green, tan, brown. Once in a while I’ll go crazy and wear black and white to work. Or maybe a splash of blue. But I don’t get the pink thing. On the other hand, I don’t get the bleached blond hair, eyeliner or eyeshadow on guys either. I’m not saying that every guy need to be running around with a flattop and full beard (though that would be hot). I understand that to feel good about yourself you need to make the most of what you have. Lord knows I’ve tried numerous styles of my hair and beard. And I like to think that I accept people for who they are and what they are. If they want to wear pink, then wear pink and wear it with pride.

Just don’t expect me to take your “tough guy” image seriously.

Earl and I jammed so much into this past weekend that it felt like we had a whole week of vacation. That made work especially tough to look in the face this morning. I woke up feeling all depressed about having to go back to work and drudging through another day. But I got up, opted to go for a nice power walk and took the morning square on.

It wasn’t bad once I got to work. It was thankfully rather busy today so the day just flew by. I don’t know why I get down in the dumps getting up in the morning, because I certainly love my job. I just do so well when I’m dreaming. I mean dreaming, as in dreaming while I’m asleep. All the things I wish I could do, I do. I studied lucid dreaming, where you basically are aware that you’re dreaming and control what you’re dreaming, a number of years ago and I pride myself on the fact that I’m fairly good at it. I have to remember not to do it too often, for then I don’t get any rest and I end up cranky. But I bet I’m the only nose twitching dreamer on this side of the whole dreamscape. On the other hand, perhaps this is only a dream and I’m currently sitting in a nut house making rag rugs with blunt scissors and humming to myself loudly. Who knows. It does make on thing along the lines of “The Matrix”, does it not?

Well I did it. I made the first of my “long” bike trips. Today I rode from home to my dad’s store in Sandy Creek, 60.4 miles. Very eager, I awoke at 5:00 a.m. and then hit the road at 5:34 a.m., right at sunrise. The temperature was about 55 degrees when I left. It was beautiful, in that there was a lot of wildlife running around, the birds were singing beautifully, and I was headed right into the rising sun. I loved it.

I had planned on reaching Camden at about 9:00 a.m., but I surprisingly got there by 7:30 a.m. So I sat in the park in the center of town, ate one of my packed apples and relaxed a bit before hitting the road.

All in all, I had planned on 6 1/2 hours for the trip. I wasn’t sure of the distance, nor was I sure of my average speed, since this was my first long ride. Turns out I was averaging 14.25 MPH, including breaks, so I made it up there at 10:20.

Earl met me about 3/4 of the way in the truck to make sure I was o.k., and then he kind of met up with me from time to time to make sure I was doing o.k., but not to bee too intrusive.

After the ride, we had a nice lunch with my dad, my uncle and my aunt. It was a nice visit. Earl drove us home, bike in the back of the truck as I napped. We relaxed a bit here at the house and then went to Syracuse for supper. We ended up going to Spaghetti Warehouse on Clinton St. Always good food. I was a bit surprised to find the restaurant only half full at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday; usually there’s a long wait on Saturday nights! Maybe everyone was barbecuing or something.

We were then going to see “Bourne Identity” at the movies, but the movie didn’t start until 10:00, and it was only 8:00 when we got there so we decided to skip the movie and took a leisurely ride home along Oneida Lake on Route 31. Which made me decide on my next long ride, which I hope to do in July. I want to ride about 100 miles, along NY 31 to Rochester. I’ll do it early in the morning again so the summer heat doesn’t kill me and burn me to a crisp. Route 31 is relatively flat, since it goes along the Erie Canal. In fact, I’ll probably jump onto the Canal Trail whenever I get the chance. It’s the next step in my continued biking progress.

Earl bought me my birthday present early on Friday night – a new Palm m515. I LOVE IT! It was on sale at OfficeMax, so he wanted to get it for me while we could save a little money at the same time. I transferred all of my stuff off my old Palm V and gave it to him. I think he’s going to find it very helpful with his commuting between here and Buffalo; and I’m already putting much more stuff in my new Palm.

My legs are surprisingly not as sore as I thought they would be after the trip. I think I’ll sleep good tonight! 🙂