A few months ago, I was faced with the choice of "staying put" in my career, or embracing a new challenge. I've never been much of a stay-putter. About four or five times a day for the past few weeks, then, I've been regretting this about myself. Heh.
The consequences of my decision to throw down have been super-harsh, but the challenge has also totally energized and consumed me. Mostly, I have felt like I am underwater and just barely staying alive by sucking air from the surface through a straw. But those few breaths give me hope that I won't fail. It's really, really weird, but I have started to appreciate the chaos. Even though I want it to stop.
I'm just coming off a trip to Vietnam. I exchanged $50 and was a "millionaire" for a while. Until I bought a sandwich for 30,000. And then I wasn't. Maybe you can kind of see what I mean, about the weirdness. Or maybe you just consider me a crazy dude. Which I totally get. Whateva.
Upon my return to our lovely country and city, and amidst our shared passion for all things bike, I immediately stripped the studded tires off the pump track bike. My dream of gliding over the frozen slopes under the winter sky was seriously flawed. Nothing close to that dream ever happened. Let me just admit.
So these next few pics are, in order, me taking first laps of the season, and then the wheelie bike languishing and at the same time poised, and then what I've been up to the last coupla nights, which is transforming the fatbike once again into its ideal purpose. In my humble opinion.
6 comments:
I love both the front and rear racks on the 9zero7. What are they?
I once spent 4 million on a birthday dinner for my wife. Turkish lira, that is.
Looks like whatever your new job entails, at least you get to travel to interesting places.
Will, both racks are DIY jobbies, cobbled together in my shop.
Andy, I hope you have managaged to retain that event as a bargaining chip when negotiating for new bikeage. i.e. "Remember the time I spent 4 "MIL" on you for your birthday?? All I'm asking for is a lousy 1950 for a Krampus."
I haven't intended to be cryptic about my job. I'm a mechanical engineer by trade and for the past 22 years I've enjoyed working in that capacity. Now, I've been offered and accepted the opportunity to serve in the capacity of engineering manager and it's a way different gig. While I have to rely on my engineering experience to influence my judgement and decisions, my days of engineering-related activities are pretty much over, and that's sad, because I REALLY like doing that stuff. But there are these amazing opportunities for progression that we are compelled to make, or not make, in the culture and society in which we are so, so fortunate to live in, and I chose to seize the opportunity, for the adventure that it holds.
The engineering positions within the company entail a fair amount of international travel, as part of the job description, and this trip was about a manager accompanying a new engineer on his first trip out, which is standard procedure. And now part of my job.
I remember the thrill of getting a couple of hundred dollars worth of Dong (I just had to say it) from the ATM and seeing that my available balance was many millions.
TBCC, there's one in every crowd. I was trying to turn the page in terms of the respectability of this blog. But no. You had to bring up the Dong.
Fine. Since the cat's out of the bag, I would like to say that while in Vietnam, I possessed a large amount of Dong.
I just realized that my rusty bicycle avatar is from the Saigon Zoo.
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