On the whole, I'm happy that Biden dropped out and Harris is doing so well right now in the polls, but one bad thing is that it has made me care about things like polls again. When Biden started floundering, I kinda checked out and resigned myself to the fact that Trump would be president again. That wasn't a pleasant thought, but it was actually quite nice to be kinda checked out. I was looking forward to not following the horse race aspect of this election -- it doesn't do any good, anyway -- but now with Kamala taking a slight lead in most polls, I can't help but take an interest in it again. I don't necessarily want to, but if I see a Nate Silver post on Substack about how to weigh the post-convention bump against RFK Jr.'s resignation, I'm going to click on it. I just am.
But not today. Today was a day to "touch grass," as they say -- or artificial turf, in this case. I had a coaching clinic for Lil' S2's flag football team this afternoon, and they just put down some new fake grass on the field it was at. I noticed it didn't have those black rubber pellets on it, but instead something that looked like funfetti. I'm kinda regretting agreeing to coach Lil' S2's team again. We had the option to pay extra and get a league coach, but another dad and I decided we would do it, and now I'm wishing we made the other choice. He's getting to the age where coaching is a decent amount of work and consternation, and I don't need any more work and consternation in my life at the moment (or ever, really). You can't just let the kids run around and everybody is happy. You actually have to, like, come up with offensive and defensive schemes and run real plays. I played very little formal football* growing up, so I don't know a lot of the basic concepts. But, whatever, it will be fine. They're still not that old, and I'll make this my last year, for sure.
*Flag wasn't a big thing when I was a kid, and my parents didn't want me to play tackle until junior high. Then I got cut from the junior high JV team in 8th grade, which was total bullshit, but then I made the varsity squad in 9th grade and quickly realized I didn't really like playing football that much. For some reason, I could never find a helmet that fit correctly, and I would get these awful headaches even when I was just standing on the sidelines. But I played again in 10th grade, until I got a minor back injury, which I used as an excuse to quit for good. The coach asked me to play again my senior year, but I said no, and then my high school won the state championship. So, too bad I didn't play -- I coulda had some good Al Bundy and Uncle Rico stories.
I rode my bike to the field, about 11 miles round-trip. It was a solid little workout. It was the first time I had ridden an actual bike in -- I don't know -- two years, maybe. I wasn't completely out of riding shape because I've been using the stationary cycle quite a bit, but still it's a lot harder when you have to go up actual hills and are in the blazing sun, not an air conditioned gym. I'm contemplating become a bicycle guy -- you know, getting a really nice bike and wearing spandex and riding just far enough away from the shoulder so that drivers can't easily pass me -- but I haven't fully committed yet. I might not ever do it, but biking is definitely going to become my main form of cardio. I far prefer running, but my right knee has gotten old fast, and biking is so much easier on it than running. I foresee a stationary bike in our basement in the near future.* I already ran it by S. It was a tough sell given the treadmill debacle, but she agreed. I mean, it's a totally different piece of equipment. Would you forgo buying a TV because you once had a computer break?
*I can (and do) use the one in the gym of my sister-in-law's apartment complex, but I usually want to go after my last meeting, around 4:30, and even though it's only a mile away, traffic gets kinda bad, and then I always have to park in a lot and walk a bit, so it can take me over 20 minutes to get there, door-to-door. Saving 40 minutes every time I want to work out is worth the price of a stationary bike to me -- probably, I still have to look into exactly how much they cost.
There are a lot of nice areas for biking outdoors in my neighborhood when the weather is sunny, like it was today -- lots of wooded paths along Rock Creek and its offshoots. Since I've been reading Lonesome Dove, I imagined I was on a horse "riding hard" through the old west, looking for bandits. That book has gotten really good, but it's also so damn long. I'm reading it on a Kindle, but I saw it once at a bookstore, and it had to be close to 1,000 pages. I'll put in like a half-hour, and it will tick up 1%. I'm over halfway, though, and I shouldn't complain because I'm going to be sad and empty when it's done. I'm sure I'll end up reading a bunch of other stuff from the author, hoping to recapture the feeling, and I won't be able to do it. That's how it often goes.
Until next time...
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