the physical memory prompts

so visceral...

when you find something you haven't seen in 15+ years it can unpack a huge set of memories you'd never have unlocked without work if at all.

Cleaned out the last of the stuff in the barn, left a lot of wrecked shit with history to it there to be gone. Sure I'm a little bit of a pack rat. I've talked about it here before, how it is a very valuable character trait when running a facility and you need to keep everything going and something someone else would have tossed keeps a million dollar microscope working, even the quarter million dollar one... or the hundred k system. Keeping them running and making it work with less downtime is important.

Hanging on to your grandfather's stuff that was your grandmother's because, just because, stuff you never used, but moved from place to place, eventually winding up in the barn in a box that got wrecked from weather or mice or whatnot...  or hanging on to the roll of fabric from dupont, fancy cordura that you got to try and make a few wheel bags in 1997, and just moved that roll of fabric (sealed and wrapped in plastic) from place to place. It is wrecked now.

It is just stuff. It had a use, maybe not for me, but a use and there's a part of our culture that embraces the minimalism of not carrying around things because you can get whatever you need at any point and it is new. That usually implies not hanging on to stuff that isn't perfectly suited, isn't used at all, but could be at some point. The disposable society, combined with instant gratification.

There's a terrible stigma associated with hanging on to stuff. Now hanging on to kids clothes when it is pretty clear that you aren't having any more kids, even accidentally, reaches a point where yeah okay lets move on from there, but anyway. Out in the barn were two filing cabinets we got from University Salvage at MSU, like a lot of our stuff. There's a huge desk out there, got it free, movers kind of wrecked it taking it apart to get out of the basement but moved it anyway and well...  it is wrecked and while I'd hoped to use it again, the house after the apartment wasn't large enough, still isn't large enough but we're emptying it out.

Hey anyone want a piano? Upright, really good sound, needs tuning and to be taken out of the house. Free, just come get it.

In the filing cabinets were files, tax, old long closed bank accounts, I found paperwork from Seattle, Maine, CT and Michigan. Just for me, just for banks. I was reminded my first credit card was a Ford Visa, turned into a Citibank Driver's edge...  never used the benefits associated with it, never purchased enough shit to make the benefits useful. But I had TOTALLY fogotten about having a Seafirst Bank account. Of course it is now BoA. Stuff like that and then piles of graduate work, all the research articles I'd painstakenly photocopied to read. To use. And then I actually found a file folder full of papers i'd written as an undergrad, like on Kant and other shit. Tempted to keep and read them. But no...  they went into the recycling pile and the account statements went into the shred/burn pile.

Now this all went with a some CRAZY mofo dreams. Had a bunch of weird ones lately. All people I know, but this time it was all mixed up - 35 years of people in one place (my head)...  But that remarkable nature of the power a physical object has for recalling a memory, or a series of memories.

Memories that we lose or forget, but they are packed away in the brain somewhere. And that is just FUCKING UNBELIEVABLY COOL! Fuck, try to find a file from three computers ago. Good luck. Even if you have double redundant backups, it isn't easy. But our brain can be given a clue and it all gets unlocked.

I should write more but it is late, I've had a loooong fucking day and I forgot a few things grocery shopping in the midst of the car having the beginnings of a dead battery. I mean I just put a new one in it in 2014, shouldn't be THAT toast right now, except that well that mini-van runs hot, the battery is hanging out near the exhaust manifold, and I replaced that battery in 14 and the van was new in 09 and it is now 20...  Riding was good. maybe more on that at home tonight with my feet up and some time to write. Although, not sure if that will happen there.

Sure - down time is a luxury, it is wasted productivity - who can afford that except those who willingly exploit others?

On that positive note here's a few links to highlights from today's read-all tabs (I opened this to write after reading that then got busy and well 5 hours later here we are)

http://drunkcyclist.com/2020/02/14/gonz-for-president-2020/
and associate video in particular: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZBBjqnLzw4

good read here: http://www.kentfackenthall.com/house-of-sisyphus/
and something for Kent and his moment of low tech analog lifestyle pining:
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/02/justine-haupt-rotary-cellphone/
(i'd be all over this if I actually talked on a phone, and no my phone actually kind of doesn't work anymore w/o being plugged in, aka that's kind of not so good eh?)

Dirt before gravel: https://pvcycling.wordpress.com/2020/02/17/dirt-before-gravel/

you know, I know, gravel fucking SUCKS to ride on, worst of the worst. Dirt roads? Delicious and awesome, and why we've been riding on them the whole time and loving it. Is a gravel bike a CX Bike? That's a bit of a decent discussion but not really. They are different. A gravel bike would be a SHITTY CX bike to be honest.

okay - that's it - no one else is blogging lately - Stevil has stuff - don't forget to catch his new content and that moment when you notice someone IG feed is strange, and then the V-day post and then you are like that's weird to be now saying this about your wife, except to see the FB status as Divorced and that wasn't the case during CX but damn he's gonna be kicking my ass even more in SSCX next season.

Unless I can get my ass in gear.

I was going to stop writing and leave wasn't I...

damnit

heddwch
G