February 27th, 2022

 Sunday morning and the end days of a long February. It's sunny, the birds are chirping and the snow is starting to melt early morning. It seems like we have turned a corner. This past Friday I finally went in for that eye surgery. The cataract had formed right over my left iris making it impossible to see anything out of that eye. It also taxed the other eye and gave me headaches all the time. It was nearly impossible to get on a computer or laptop and do any sort of typing. 

This is my first try at typing, just a couple of days later, and it is amazing how different it is. I'm thankful to everyone for the support and well wishes. 

I had not made any goals because of this situation. No races or rides planned yet. As usual my main focus will be commuting to work and everywhere else when the weather gets decent. Tandem rides with my wife and my daughter. Gathering and riding with friends I have not seen in a while. Visits with friends I have missed in the couple of past years. 

The shop will start to get busy as soon as the weather cracks. I have preordered and received some essentials. We still have a hard time getting a lot of shimano parts like chains and cassettes and shifting components. It will be a while until this market straightens out. So,if you have a running bike be happy. Keep your drivetrain clean and lubed. Keep your bike clean and make things last. We are not out of the woods yet. 

Ari

Thanks for reading. I will keep posting more as things improve visually. 

long overdue post. yes, it's 2/19/22

 Believe me I have had all good intentions to give this old blog an update. We are all well and have survived the infectious virus so far. A lot of stress and a lot of isolation at times but here we are. Now on to the next subject. That has been my left eye. A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving holiday a pesky cataract that was creeping around my eye decided to land on the bullseye of my iris. So one day I awoke and thought I had something in there. No I didn't. The cataract had covered the iris rendering my left eye useless. In a few days I will go under some super duper laser thing and they will break up the cataract, and install a shiny new lens. I hope it all works out like the science says it should. For Thanksgiving I ate a lot and was so thankful that we are born with 2 eyes. Brilliant idea. 

I rode the rollers for almost all the days in January. Balancing and watching the euro cross races on the  telly. Starting february that came to a halt. Things got crazy with work and such and I decided to take a break. I started cleaning and getting my film cameras running again. I took a lot of photos with my one good eye and taught it to focus since prior focusing was always done with my left one. I guess I could have used the autofocus mode but that's another story. We will see what happens soon enough. I see a lot of plans, races, bikes starting to show up. The new Surly Ghost Machine? has caught my attention. Not that I need it but I think it's kinda neat. I just don't see so many people having the time to go bikepacking. But what do I know. If you still read this old blog I thank you. You are very kind. 

Ari