daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad
It was super-hot when I went out for a run, so I ended up walking quite a bit and taking in the neighborhood sights. It was fun and it felt good to get some Vitamin D and fresh air. I hope you had a nice day!
Mariko said I should cook something for the holiday, so I asked Bay for ideas. He said ribs, and when I mentioned it to my brother, he told me about the method he uses to cook ribs. I tried it with a rack of baby-backs and they turned out great! Along with the ribs, I bought some sausages, Bay made au-gratin potatoes, and Mariko made jalapeño poppers. It was a delicious meal! And I am so happy to finally have a good, reliable cooking method for ribs. 😊
Lately I’ve been going on evening bicycle rides around the neighborhood. They are so relaxing since I take it pretty easy. And I love the granny gears on my bike. It’s like magic powering up those hills. 😊
I spent a little more time removing one last sticker from the frame and now it’s nice and clean-looking. There’s still some gummy residue which is really hard to remove completely, even using Goo-gone and my motorcycle degreaser. But it’s looking good! I just left one Kona sticker on the seat tube, and an International Space Station sticker on the fork. I’d love to find some new Kona stickers for the down tube, but want to keep it simple, such as plain black lettering.
Since we don’t drive much during the COVID-19 lock-down, I use the bicycle to collect the mail from our neighborhood mailbox. The panniers can hold a lot, which was fortunate today since a big yearbook-sized package arrived for Koa. But no problem! I loaded it into the pannier and then went on the rest of my ride.
It’s nice to ride at sunset (I try to be back before dark) since I often get to see the clouds lit up nicely. I also get to see lots of birds, but I don’t have my binoculars. I want to get a handlebar bag or basket so I can have them ready to use without having to get off the bike. I can’t simply reach back to the panniers for the quick grab, which is needed for birding. The problem is, fitting a bag on the butterfly/trekking bars is a little more complicated than on drop bars or a straight bar. Oh well, maybe I can find a bag laying around the house that I can modify to fit the butterfly bars.
In the meantime, I’ll just bring my camera for cloud photos. The clouds don’t fly away nearly as fast as birds do. 😁
Today I went to get my teeth cleaned, which was somewhat worrisome, but ended up being pretty safe. My dentist’s office does a temperature screening, gives hand sanitizer, requires masks in the waiting room, and enforces social distancing as well. It was good to see.
Then, right before I sat down in the dentist chair, I rinsed with a peroxide wash, and for the blood pressure test, they put a plastic sleeve around my wrist. The dentist and hygienists all wore full-body gowns, masks, face shields, glasses, and special gloves. I think it was pretty safe, and I felt comfortable.
It was good to get a taste of normalcy again, even if it was with extra precautions. I feel like this is probably the way we’ll have to operate for a while until a vaccine can be developed. I don’t see COVID-19 going away on its own, sadly.
Today’s photo is of a cute little bottle of Aji-no-moto, or “Aji”. It’s MSG if you are wondering. Yum!
Lately I’ve been enjoying just doodling in my sketchbook using my Pilot Metropolitan and Noodler’s Bulletproof Black Ink. It’s fun to just let the lines go where they want to.
