Today I feel like a sweet change of pace. Yesterday's entry was a little heavy so I thought maybe a pallet cleanser was in order for this lovely summer day. This is one of my daughter's creations. She is pretty creative when it comes to food. Now that she's a real Chef I get to see all these goodies, but I don't get to eat them because (A) I don't need the sugar, and (B) she lives far away. Good thing too or I'd probably gain so much weight I wouldn't be able to ride anymore.

Today she is celebrating the news that scientists shot a laser beam that collects particles and brings them back into the milky way, and the collected particles have the same enzyme in massive doses that Raspberries have that give them their taste. I find that impressive, useless, but impressive. Maybe they can find a way to spread that around and make parts of the country smell like Raspberries!

Anyway, in honor of the event, here is her Lemon cake Sweet Raspberry Milky Way Butter cream offering to the universe. Not bad huh?

http://www.heythere-cupcake.com/

In the Spring a young man's fancy turns to....

That's right. Motorcycles. All shapes, sizes, and colors. When I outgrew bicycles I quickly turned to motorcycles. Still riding , but getting from place to place a whole lot quicker for sure.

When I stopped riding for a while it was when my kids were little, but I never stopped thinking about it. I just didn't have the money for toys and I needed transportation that I could haul 2 little girls around in, so motorcycles really didn't fit into my life. In time, I was able to get a few beat-up old clunkers and I was able to get back out on the road. It was a nice feeling to be able to feel that freedom that comes with riding, but somehow I knew that something was missing. My wife didn't want to ride with me, she had a pretty bad scare at one time and just couldn't bring herself to get on. I suggested she take a riding class, hoping that she might just get over the fear. As frightened as she was, she was a real trouper and took the class, even though she had some major panic when she figured out that she was actually going to be riding herself! I took the class too, for "moral support". I was arrogant enough to believe that I didn't need to take a class, I knew how to ride. Boy, was I wrong. I learned some skills that amazed me and I broke some bad riding habits that I didn't even know I had.

Suddenly I knew what I had been missing! I wanted to teach this stuff! I felt I could really contribute something to people by making them better, safer riders. I just didn't know when, but I would teach someday. Shortly after we moved back to NY my daughter was in a devastating car crash that left her brain injured and in pretty rough shape. That did it. My resolve became pretty strong then and I knew that the time was right since I couldn't help her. I was sure I could help someone else and save a life, so I found out what I had to do to be come an instructor. It was a difficult week of classes, but well worth it. And to make it even better, my wife watched me go through that and decided that she could do it too. I was so proud when she certified!

Fast forward a few years..I loved mentoring new instructors and working with students. I helped run a training site for a guy that ran a site in another city and truly loved it. In time I was asked by the state program to help them out with the whole state program, and I was more than happy to jump in there as well! I was something that suited me and I loved the people. The program was strictly run in NY at that time, we were very picky about the quality of the instuctors and made sure they were well qualified to come into the program. After all, they were going to be teaching skills to people to maybe save their life and it doesn't get more importatant than that does it?

When the state contract was taken out of state, my training life came to an end. I saw the writing on the wall. It was going to be about numbers and money. Not about safety so much any more. Instructors I mean "Coaches" now are coming into the program with hardly any experience, and the training program for them has been "dumbed down" so that pretty much anybody that can read can be certified. It makes me sad. What happened to hard work and dedication? I see it in the school system for our children now too. We don't want anyone to feel bad so we don't keep score and everybody gets a trophy. Then when they get out into the real world they can't understand why they aren't able to work the way they want and get paid lots of money too. But, I'm getting off track here. The point is, why should average be the goal? What ever happened to pride?

I have high hopes that somebody will see what has become of a once great training program and maybe, just maybe bring it back to the level it once was, but I doubt it will happen. The Emperor has no clothes has never been more appropriate for a comparison of the program. From the outside it looks fantastic, but when you know how it was you realize how poor it has become. Greed is the word, and I guess the feeling that some training is better than no training is "good enough".

It makes me sad to watch the sun set on that part of my life..

This is the old Rexleigh bridge over near where I grew up. It spans the Battenkill River where I used to catch some of the nicest Trout you can imagine. What you don't see is the little access door about half way down the side of the bridge where we used to stand before we jumped  fell into the river. The river comes out from Vermont, down through the mountains. When we hit the water we would have to push the ice cubes out of the way, even in the dead of August. I'm kidding of course, but trust me when I say that rivers that come out from under mountains are really, really cold.

It's amazing how much cold a 12 year old body can take. I doubt I could even put a toe in that water anymore.

I thought I would continue my thoughts of yesterday with the milk story. The ice cream was pretty special, but chocolate milk day was also one of the best memories of my youth.

On hot summer afternoons we would ride the few miles to the dairy when they would be packaging milk in the little half-pint waxy cardboard containers that we all know. They supplied the school with white and chocolate milk that they would draw out of the big stainless steel tanks, icy cold into those little boxes as they moved down the conveyor to be sealed and packed.

My friends and I were allowed to stand down at the end of the line and watch them as they sealed and packed them into the big milk crates and moved them to the cooler where they would wait to be transported to the stores and the schools. The beauty of standing by the line was that there are always a certain number of the cartons that didn't seal and the milk would leak. We were allowed to have as many of those as we could hold since it was going to be thrown away anyway.

I can't tell you how many times we filled up on that icy cold, really fresh chocolate milk and then jumped back on our bikes for the ride home in the hot afternoon sun. You could feel the milk sloshing around in your belly and by the time we got home it was all we could do to keep from throwing up from the combination of cold milk, hot sun, and hard riding. I remember thinking that I was never going to do that again because of the belly ache....and in a few days we would be right back at it again. Some lessons just aren't meant to stick when the rewards outweigh the risks I guess.

I saw some kids riding bikes yesterday afternoon in the 92 degree heat and it reminded me of days long ago when I was a biking fool. Where I lived, just east of nowhere we rode bikes everywhere. It was faster than walking and we covered a lot of territory pretty much every day.

One of my favorite destinations was Nelson's dairy farm. They bottled milk from their own cows, made chocolate milk to be packaged for stores and schools, and best of all they had an ice cream place in town so they made their own ice cream that they packaged in big brown cardboard containers. Art Bristol was the chief ice cream guru there and he made all of the flavors. Tuesdays were my favorite days because that was "Chocolate Mint-Chip day". We would ride out bikes down to "watch" him make the ice cream in the big industrial strength freezers. We would stand quietly and watch it churn in the glass window of the machine and we could see the bright green mixture with the little flecks of chocolate go round and round as it went from liquid to semi-hard.

At some point Art would decide that we probably should "test the ice cream" for him to make sure it was "acceptable for the store" Talk about feeling important! We would take that task as serious as if it really mattered. He always had a great big box of "Eat-it-all" cones in the ice cream room and we would stand by as he pulled the lever and watched the amazingly smooth ribbon of ice cream slowly mound on top of those cones before he carefully handed them over to us. That ice cream was so smooth that you couldn't even feel it when it touched your tounge, and the only way you knew it was there was by the icy cold, and minty sweetness as it slid down your throat. I have never to this day had anything even close to that feeling or that taste, and probably never will again. And trust me, I've looked.

Today, everything has added this and enhanced that, and chemically treated stuff to make it last longer and look prettier, and whatever. It's too bad I couldn't bottle time. I would give anything to be able to have just one more of those amazing cones.

Well it's about time! The rain has stopped for a little while and it's actually getting hot for the first time this year. It was a L-O-N-G winter this year and I didn't think it was ever going to end.

Maybe it's just me, but I think the winters are getting longer as I get older. I love this part of the country 3 out of the 4 seasons, but it's just getting too cold and staying way to long for my liking. Retirement time is rapidly approaching for me and before long decisions will have to be made as to where to spend my old age. Not that I think I will be around to be really old, but I do want to have some time to enjoy my "Golden years" before the long sleep.

When I was a kid I loved winter. Sledding, ice skating, snowball fighting, building snow forts, sugaring in the late winter at my Aunt's farm, and slogging through the snow to hunt rabbits. I don't remember getting so cold back then, but now...even 10 minutes outside and I'm ready to be back indoors. I guess being born in the summer really does make me a warm weather person. I was in the Adirondack mountains here in upstate New York last week and I realized just how beautiful it can be here when the trees get their new leaves and there are so many different shades of green everywhere. If it could stay like this all year I would be perfectly content to stay here. But, then comes the winter again. It is beautiful for the first few days when we get that crisp, clean blanket of new snow, but then it gets ugly real fast and it stays....and stays....and stays.

It's a fun exercise to talk about where we are going when the time comes, we have considered the southern part of California, far from here and where the sun shines most of the time. Time will tell I guess. I will miss the 3 seasons here, but when one season seems as long as the other three? Yeah, it's time to consider the options.

Have a great summer everybody!

Well, it happened. My Sasha that has been with me for 12 years, ever since she was just a tiny little fuzz ball, passed away on Nov 12, 2010. She was my best friend, my partner in all things practical joke-ish, and just an all around great friend. I think she knew it was time to go, she gave so much while she was here and never asked for anything in return.

I'll miss you every day old friend to the end of my own days. I hope you are in a place where the sun shines, the breeze blows, and the food is good. I love you with all my heart.