
“Mail Run” Cedar Park, 2023
I rode my Brompton to pick up the mail this evening, and the weather and light was so beautiful that I went for a nice ride around the neighborhood. Blue hour is so great!

“Goodbye Cloud” Cedar Park, 2023
daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad

I rode my Brompton to pick up the mail this evening, and the weather and light was so beautiful that I went for a nice ride around the neighborhood. Blue hour is so great!


When I look back to the few years I spent in Japan with Mariko, it was like a laid-back slice-of-life dorama. Such a nice time! And now we are thinking of spending more time in Japan (perhaps splitting the year moving between the US and Japan) and I am excited about what that dorama might look like. I can’t wait!

The forecast said it would be raining, but the ground looked dry so I went for a neighborhood run. It was fun to look at where the darkest clouds were and imagine them soaking the ground below them and happily, they stayed if the distance.
The area behind my right knee (I don’t know what that is called) has been sore lately so I need to keep an eye on it. But it’s not preventing me from running or bicycling so that’s a good thing.
I hope you had a nice day!

Happy New Year! We started 2023 off with a delicious osechi brunch. Mariko and her friends prepared everything here, with my contribution being the roast beef. All the dishes were yummy!


These past two weeks have been filled with a lot of yummy foods and plenty of dessert, so I need to get back into my exercise routine quickly. With that in mind, I went for a long run this afternoon and completed my monthly half-marathon challenge in Strava. I struggled a little bit and walked a couple of times, but it wasn’t too bad. I’m really looking forward to a nice year of running!

“There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes”. That’s a Norwegian phrase that was going through my head as I suffered yesterday on my run. So today, I added another layer on top and put on my baggy tights on the bottom. What a difference it made! I was warm and the run was a lot of fun! I’ve always disliked running in cold weather, but with the right clothes, it can be very pleasant.


I have many notebooks with empty pages in them, but that number went down by one!
My new notebook is actually one I had used before, but only filled about 20%. Looking at the old notes, it appears I stopped writing in it in maybe 2018… so there’s quite a gap! But that’s fine.
Actually, I kind of like that this notebook will be a mix. Notebooks are not meant to be perfect.

This afternoon I went for a ride with Sophie, my 1972 Peugeot UJ-10 bicycle. I haven’t ridden the Peugeot in a while so it was fun to go for a spin on the vintage road bike.
I like to record my bicycle rides with my GoPro and post to YouTube, but decided to leave those at home and just ride without the extra burden of the video camera. You would think that filming with the GoPro would be simply hitting the record button and just let it run, right? But actually, it causes me to think a lot about it when I am riding. For instance, “is the angle still okay? had the battery overheated and shut the camera down? do I need to change batteries?”. If GoPro cameras were reliable, then I’d have less stress about it, but they are pretty flaky.
Anyways, the only camera I had with me today was my iPhone, so I was just focused on the ride and seeing the sights. It was so fun! The Peugeot is a lot different than my other bicycles – it’s faster and a little more challenging to ride, especially over any gravel or dirt. I mostly kept to the hard surfaces, but there are a couple places where riding over gravel is necessary, and it got a little sketchy! Still, I enjoyed the whole ride.

I hope you had a good day!