So much to say

Listening to Led Zeppelin IV/symbols/untitled - Led Zeppelin (1971). This album is way too good and unaged to be 40 years old (and only five years older than me).

Noted an interesting comment from an 'anonymous' on someone else's blog last night:

"My, my, Off-Black has a lot to say for her/him self."

Not sure if it is a compliment or criticism, (or if it was made after reading the comments I made on that blog, or reading this one) but to be fair, there are now 600+ posts of variable quality blather on this site, so it is true in a sense. It did elicit a quiet laugh though; they probably haven't met me in real life, since the off-line me is pretty much the opposite. I surprised people with my wedding speech, both for delivering it reasonably competently and eloquently, and because they had never heard me say so much at once :).

As a seems-appropriate-at-this-point aside I don't like totally anonymous commenting on general principle. The absence of an identifier makes conversation unnecessarily difficult, besides opening the door for consequence free trolling. You can still use the non-id'd 'anonymous' label, but at least put a pseudonym, initial or other handle on the comment text itself.

In other news, we three did the Bike The Trail ride on Sunday morning, in weather nothing like as nice as the pics from last year on the official site. It might be early autumn, but winter sent us a postcard in the form of an unseasonably wet and cold southerly.


As rides around here go, it is pretty easy for anyone who rides a reasonable distance regularly. Kudos though to the woman who completed it on a ten-speed on a mostly unsealed trail. Fi decided discretion was the better part of valour, (and being 7 and a half months pregnant doesn't really need an excuse anyway, I am impressed she did it at all) and opted to finish at the halfway station, so I took Charlotte the remaining distance to the river mouth. It was mostly sheltered if occasionally damp for most of the way, but the last couple of k's were straight into the strong and strengthening wind. It was interesting to note that while I wasn't racing, just trying to ride at my comfortable pace, I was still passing people even with Charlotte on the back, even into the wind. It got some fun occasional surprised looks from people realising they had just been passed by a guy carrying a passenger.