the love of riding

cobbled streets is something unique. something beautiful. something challenging. the way that they flow. the way that they are worn in & not worn out. that's part of the beauty...they wear in. they become this mirror of the traffic that drives on them. a reflection of auto traffic. 

cobbled roads are often built upon sand that stabilizes the base of the street. then the bricks are laid with either a machine or by hand. then more sand to fill the gaps between the bricks. with this "base" there becomes this movement. the bricks have room to move not only with the traffic, but also with nature. the sand may shift, or (my favorite) is when grass grows mid-summer in between the bricks. there's something tranquil about it. now ride your bike down these streets at speed. you don't know what the next fifty feet are going to bring. how the road will be. will it dip unexpectedly? will it rise? maybe both.

asphalt roads do not do this. not even close. they decay. they fall apart. they create potholes. when they are filled, or if; they become bulbus bumps. jarring if you're not paying attention. possible car wheel swallowing impediments. forget about cars...i've seen some destroy bikes & cause serious injury to people. don't get me wrong...I love a fresh brand new asphalt road on my bike. the smooth feeling of speed.

if I may...brick roads (& excuse my tangent here) last considerable longer than asphalt. cleveland cobbles is riding on roads that are hundred years old. that require minimal repair over their lifespan & at a lesser cost long term. versus asphalt roads that require full repair every 10-15 years (if we're lucky) at greater cost & effort over time. brick roads obviously require repair from time to time. a brick brakes. cracks. becomes 'missing'. replace the brick. replace an area of bricks. much easier & less time consuming. 

i'm even buying into the fact that more roads should be stripped of their asphalt where brick roads are underneath. turning them into brick roads exclusively. this will assist with controlling speed on side streets. because of the nature of brick roads, vehciles are not going at speed or speeding down these roads. they're taking their time. they're slowing down. natural speed bumps if you will. but I digress...

just as you can never step in the same river twice; you never ride the same cobbled road twice. depending on weather conditions. direction. speed. incline. decline. all these are factors at the same time, to provide a different experience of the same road you've been on time and time again.

namaste...

where am I going

with this...one of my struggles these last few years is not to be attached to work. I was attached to teaching. to the shop. in a way that was (& in some sense still is) my identity. who I was/am. but now, it's not. not even in the slightest. I do my work & leave. I care about my work, but it stays there. I now get a mid day break where I get to do house stuff, workout, bike ride...it took me a long time to get there. in most ways i'm still working on it.

and this maybe one of my reasons for not working for some billion dollar company. I couldn't care about the work. I couldn't care if company x made more money because of something that I was doing or needed to do. I see these parents (i'm a soccer dad by the way) in the parking lots of practices, of games, at tournaments that have these management/email gigs; & they're always working. meetings. emails. I just can't see myself doing that. that kind of work.

my current situation may not be intellectually fulfilling, but I have time to work on me & the most important thing is that I am here for my family. I have a gig now where I can take off a few days for soccer (which sometimes becomes a lot) or to get my daughter somewhere she needs to be without question.

during time at my last gig, my dad had open heart surgery & I had to get time off for the surgery & any follow up appointments. when this was going on, they weren't too happy about it & suddenly asking me family questions out of nowhere. made me feel uncomfortable & hr didn't do a damn thing. not to mention I had 4 managers telling me what to do. me. leave me alone. my work gets done & it gets done well. very well in fact. doesn't help when I storm out of the office & say (very loudly) "i'm smarter than all of you." 

and I think that's where another of my issues come up. people don't want thinkers working for them for fear that they will be smarter. i've had interviews that didn't well because of this. ego. I also had an interview that went great & would've been an awesome fit for me, but I was passed over because the 'big boss' hired someone that they knew. so not based on merit; which goes back to something that linkedin said once...'it's who you know'. damn man. that one hit hard. real hard. I was depressed for weeks cause I was really excited for the gig & knew that who would've been my direct manager liked me.

I still keep an eye out if anything comes up, but i'm not really going after anything. so here I sit. thinking about my late morning workout. happy to be here & available for my people & their needs. 

namaste...

my struggle for

the last four to five years has been the thing that pays my bills. that keeps food on the table. that keeps a roof over my family's head. that keeps my daughter playing the game she loves. simple...work.

"how's work going?"

fine

"do you like it?"

not really

"are you looking for something else?"

meh

I know & understand that your work should not define who you are as an individual. I know this all too much. however; my past existence was pretty awesome. I taught philosophy at local colleges for a little over ten years. I was paid to think, talk, & discuss philosophy! ethics. logic. critical thinking. religion. epistemology. metaphysics. how freaking cool is that?!?! take my word for it...very cool. how cool was it being an adjunct...not very. I received high marks from students & the other instructors. I thought I was doing well. then one day I was called into my dean's office & he told me that unless I get my phd & full time position became available he would have to hire any phd over me. I said "but I have this proven track record..."; doesn't matter. fuck. being an adjunct was always difficult because you had to string over 5 classes in one semester together at more than one institution to make what full times guys did with just 3 in one place.

the other part of my major existence was bike shops. managing. wrenching. sales. & if you know anything about bike shops...I did it all, & you know what that means. it was great. getting people to ride bikes. helping people to ride bikes. helping people find joy & happiness by riding bikes. & I took this responsibility very seriously. I mean; life gets complicated & when you have time to ride, you don't want anything messing that up. so that's the way I looked at it. I am here to make sure your happiness goes according to plan.

I am kind of glad about being out of shops (I do help out my friend once & awhile) with all the beeps, boops & motors. I maybe becoming a retro grouch. but the teaching I do miss. tremendously. not going to lie here. however; even though I have my master's, if I were to get into teaching grade school, i'd have to go back for another degree. not a big fan of that idea right now. 

as of now, I have my cdl & drive a school bus. is it great? not really. but as stated before, it's fine. I did put forth an effort to get a different gig; however, in today's age, your resume has to have so many certain words for the algorithm to allow an actual human being to see it. I could be the best human candidate for the gig, but you'd never know. not to toot my own horn, but i'm a pretty likable person. i'm also a very smart person to where I know I could do pretty much any gig or challenge you present to me. my fault though...is that I don't speak bullshit & I can see through yours. I found out people don't like that, cause then that calls them out on theirs. people don't like their egos hurt. another thing I found out is that with what i've done in life, i've actually cared. I cared a lot (cue Faith No More). I cared about teaching. I cared about the bike shop.

to be continued...