Happy Thanksgiving!

And so...another turkey-day is suddenly upon us. It will be different for many this year due to the world-wide Covid madness...we were supposed to fly to Virginia early next week as we usually do, but we cancelled that trip weeks ago (Jeannie's crystal-ball was working top-notch...she saw this Corona re-lapse coming). So we will be staying home this year, having a lovely day with just us and the fur-monsters. 

I was looking at next weeks work-schedule the other day and it suddenly occurred to me: If I take Mon/Tue/Weds as vacation days, I get NINE STRAIGHT DAYS OFF! That's a pretty good bargain for 3 vacation days! So of course, I'm doing it! I mean, I had already planned to take multiple days off anyway...why not stick to that plan? I have GREAT PLANS for those 9 days, including 17 bike rides (or maybe just 4 or 5)...but that will nearly all be dependent on the weather and my "Wuss factor"...you know...ooh...it's a bit windy to ride today...or, ooh..it's a bit chilly to ride today. Stuff like that...my "Wuss factor" can be pretty high sometimes. I'm SUCH a "Fair Weather Rider". 

 I have noticed that my "Wuss Factor" is pretty much directly tied to the weather. ANYWAY...I HOPE to get in a few good rides...maybe even 1 or 2 LONG ONES (the kind I do early in the year before it gets hot, and maybe a few times in the fall). I haven't done ANY long ones yet this year. Three work-trips and multiple "comebacks" trying to get my cycling fitness anywhere NEAR where it was as of early November last year have left me doing only shorter "4 hour rides" as my long ones (in lieu of 8+ hour rides). We will see how things shape up for rides over the next 9 days. I'd place my current "comeback" fitness at about 75% of where I hoped to be by now. But that's not entirely bad..it could still be 50% or lower. I figure 1 or 2 all day rides will do great things for my morale AND fitness. And Jeannie will still be working the first few days, so I've got carte-blanch to go crazy and be gone all day. I can do that. 

We have a rocket launch here on base Saturday morning...SpaceX is launching a Falcon 9 and have plans to land the booster back on the West pad (it hopefully lands just a few hundred yards from the East Pad where it's taking off from). So I'm thinking of driving out to the base and watching the launch/landing, and then continuing on a nice day-long ride. But all of that is subject to said "Wuss factor". And sometimes the "Wuss Factor" can be totally triggered by sitting on the couch with a tasty cup of "Fun Coffee" and not wanting to go out into the chilly overcast air. There are just days when I don't "Feel it". I hope tomorrow isn't one of them. 

And so...I hope everybody out there (and by "everybody I mean both of you...GRIN!) have a wonderful and safe Turkey-day! It will be one to remember for sure...this entire year fits that statement. And it will also be one to forget. Come on Vaccines!!! The world wants their lives back! With that I will sign off...have a great weekend! 

Sunday amendment...I was able to watch the SpaceX launch of the Sentinel-6 oceanography satellite from here at Vandenberg...I was on-base with my bike to watch the launch and then ride all day after. The launch was a success, and they landed the first-stage just a few hundred yards from where it took off from. 

Here is a link to my Facebook-post of the video of the landing (which was just AWESOME to watch in person!) I took it from my cell phone so it's only so-so quality.

https://www.facebook.com/matt.chapek.9/videos/4149652458382621

 And here is the SpaceX video (courtesy of Nasa) of the launch and sucessful booster landing:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm5FnJSIYkw

 

 

Tolerance

So...as we wait to hear who our next President will be (and life goes on), I tried to take my mind off the current state of things and found this over at BikeSnobNYC's blog...(he is a very gifted writer and his post today really struck a chord...so I am shamelessly re-posting part of it here as it's way better than anything I could write to say the same things). "like everyone else, I woke up this morning slightly anxious that we still don’t know who will be the next President of the Canada’s Saddlebag of America, and that this Schrödinger-esque situation could persist for some time. But, as always happens, I felt better about it all just as soon as I threw a leg over the bike and started pedaling. Oh sure, maybe it’s just the endorphins talking, or maybe I’m painfully naive, but here’s why this may be the best possible outcome given our current cultural moment: No matter which side we’re on, too many of us think we’re absolutely right. We think the other candidate is a Nazi, or a Communist, as the case may be. But in truth nobody’s absolutely right–about this, or about anything. (Yes, of course you can be absolutely right about some things, but not about mundane stuff such as which old guy gets to be President for the next four years.) Yet a swift and decisive win for either one of those old guys instantly allows millions of people to think that millions of other people–the same people with whom they share a country, maybe even a town or a street or an apartment building–are not just wrong but inherently bad. And yes, while winning feels good, thinking you’re absolutely right and good and that your neighbor is absolutely wrong and bad is really no way to live. But instead, here we are in a situation where, no matter who ends up winning, it’s obviously pretty close. Maybe this is a gift. I see people lamenting this result as a symptom of our “deeply divided” country, but what if it’s a good thing in that every single one of us is now forced to reconcile ourselves to the possibility that the other guy could win? No more voting, no more phone banking, no more driving around with a giant flag on your pickup…unless you’re a ballot counter or a lawyer for one of the candidates or a Supreme Court justice or something all you can really do at this point and sit on your ass and wait. And while we sit and wait, we can begin to let go of some fear and anxiety and allow ourselves to entertain the notion that no matter who wins it’s all going to be okay. We’re still extraordinarily lucky to live in the time and the place we do–maybe the luckiest humans yet to have lived. We can choose to believe a certain result means we’ll all perish imminently due to climate change, or live forevermore in some kind of Orwellian cancel culture nightmare. Or we can acknowledge that we live in a not-perfect but ever-evolving place where most us just want the best for ourselves and the people we love–and, more importantly, where that is an eminently attainable goal. That doesn’t mean forfeiting being passionate about our beliefs, or that we should be complacent, but it does mean at a certain point we have to accept that others feel just as passionately about things with which we disagree. If we allow ourselves to realize this, maybe we’ll be so busy hugging each other and rejoicing in our newfound humanity that we won’t even notice when they finally announce a winner". OK...I now relinquish the floor back to Vuelta-talk.