The Adventures of a Digital Sensei
My wife is accustomed to celebrating the holiday on Christmas Eve as per some obscure Norwegian tradition. As a result, this has also become a family tradition for us over the past few years. Every Christmas Eve we head out to one of our favorite restaurants for dinner. We still celebrate on Christmas morning. We just try and make sure that she doesn’t miss being home too much.
I went with my wife to the NY City Motorcycle show at the Jacob Javits Center yesterday to pick out a bike for her next Route 66 trip. She and a few of her girlfriends did the trip last year while she was on sabbatical. The girls chronicled their entire journey from NYC to Las Vegas on Route66Explororer.com. She had so much fun on the trip that she now wants me to join her next time, and for us to do the journey by motorcycle. She got the idea for the cross country bike trek after our joint Groupon motorcycle class a few months back.
She got so inspired by the class that she went ahead and got her motorcycle license without me. I was kinda pissed off that she went without me, but I couldn’t blame her too much since my schedule during this last year on the tenure track has been so crazy that I haven’t able to set aside the time to take the MSF rider course. The entire time we were looking at bikes at the Javits Center the only thing going through my mind was that as soon as this tenure crap is done I have to get my license.
We spent more than a few hours looking around at the show. I am really loving the Honda Fury, but she fell am in love with the Suzuki Boulevard. The Fury is way too much bike for me since I will just be getting back into the riding groove. I am looking something a bit more practical like the Kawasaki KLR 650.
This year Thanksgiving took on a slightly more poignant tone as I realized that it had been far too many years since my closest male cousins and I had been in the same place. I should say we were more like brothers than cousins. We all grew up within a few blocks from one another, and were all very close in age. But yet over the years various circumstances have prevented us from getting together. I hope that this year marks a change in that trend.
I try not to rant to much on this blog but sometimes things just can’t be helped. I don’t know if it is because of my recent tenure notice, or the fact that the holiday season has begun, but I have been feeling extra salty as of late. All I know is that life is too short to deal with people that do not bring out the absolute best in you. It doesn’t matter whether they are co-workers, friends, or family. If they diminish you, or those around you, then you should cut them loose. If they change their behavior at some later point then you can decide if you want to re-engage with them. But until then they need to kick rocks and keep it moving.
I haven’t told many people but exactly two weeks ago I received news that my college has decided to award me tenure. I haven’t spoken much about it because I keep waiting for the feeling of elation that some of my colleagues who have gone through the same process have reported. But it hasn’t happened yet, and I don’t know if it will. For the most part I just feel numb.
I am not going to go into extensive detail about why I feel this way. I have already discussed some of my reasons through my research and my media appearances. Suffice it to say, it has been a long and difficult process. Several long years in fact, and it has been Continue reading “I feel numb”
I am so proud of my wife for finishing her 11th marathon! So far she has completed marathons in NYC, Boston and Berlin. She had been eager to run NYC again because last year it had to be cancelled because of all of the damage incurred during Hurricane Sandy. It is odd to think back to exactly a year ago when instead of cheering her on, we were sitting in a dark apartment huddling around a transistor radio with friend that flew in from Norway to see her run. It was a miserable few days until the power came back on. Also, I had a fair amount of agita because this was the first major marathon in NYC since the Boston bombing earlier this year. My wife only decided to skip that race only because of a nagging training injury. We were lucky.
Fortunately the NYC race was uneventful this year and my wife made it to the NYC finish in slightly over 3 hours and 33 minutes. At first the kids and I were worried that we had missed her in the crowd and then, Continue reading “2013 NYC Marathon: Take that Sandy!”
Last weekend the family and I took a trip to West Virginia Wesleyan for my wife’s 25th College reunion. The kids and I were a little pissed that we had to cut the annual family pilgrimage to nerd mecca (aka Comic Con) short this year. In order to make the trip to West Virginia in time for the reunion we could only attend the opening day of the Con, but since Ski’s 25th reunion only comes around once and Comic Cons are eternal, the kids I sucked it up in order to make Mommy happy.
It was also my first, and most likely last trip to West Virginia so we splurged and rented this nice little ride called the Chevy Cruze for the trip down. I haven’t driven much since I got rid of my car a few years back and I have been missing owning one. We don’t really need one in NYC so getting to drive a new car was something I was looking forward to doing. The satellite radio and the GPS made the trip pretty enjoyable.
All in all the weekend Continue reading “West Virginia Road Trip!”
My old flat screen monitor blew out at the beginning of the summer much to my dismay. It was an older HannsG 27in LED monitor that I think I paid about 500 bucks for it a few years back. I remember being ecstatic when it arrived because it was going to be my first dual monitor setup. Well, I have been so satisfied with a dual monitor system that the thought of relying on just my ancient ten year old 20in Planar flat screen was intolerable. I searched the regular sites like TigerDirect, NewEgg and Amazon until I found an inexpensive monitor to snag. I was shocked to find out how cheap monitors have become. So shocked in fact that I figured I might as well replace the older Planar monitor just so I had a matched set that displayed things at the same resolution.
I picked up two AOC 27-Inch LED Backlit Monitors for less than Continue reading “Dual 27s son! They spinnin’, they spinnin’!”
This was my first bike ride since returning home from Oslo. I have been getting over a cold for the past week or so. I think my body has been rebelling against the NYC air quality and humidity. I had trouble getting to sleep because my legendary insomnia was in full effect as a result of the new job. Since I was wide awake I decided to go for a little late night ride. I was still missing Oslo but I felt pretty good all things considered.
I had forgotten how much I love NYC at night. I stopped biking in the city more than a year ago after being Continue reading “No Sleep ’til Brooklyn part deux”
A few months back my wife and I signed up for an introductory motorcycle class. We have been doing all of these semi-adventurous things as a way to celebrate her promotion to full Professor and her year long sabbatical. Over the past year we have gotten NRA Certified for Pistols, taken up Thai style cooking, started practicing archery. I am proud to say that she just got her motorcycle license after a 2-day intense course at the Motorcycle Safety School (MSS) at Lehman College. I wasn’t able to join her because of my work schedule, which is sad because we always have a lot of fun together doing this type stuff. The good thing is that she is no longer opposed to me getting a bike. Plus she is now talking about wanting to travel down Route 66 on 2 wheels for our next big vacation trip. Personally I would rather ride through Europe, but we have time to figure all that out. I still have to get my license.