Just before midnight three Monday ‘s ago I awoke — not with the realization of society’s systemic racism, but a realization as basic and personal.  I was struggling to breathe alone in bed (so no cops were involved).   This had happened once before 18-months ago.  After a few minutes of deep breathing assessing my body and calming my mind I contemplated what to do.  The tightness in my chest and constricted feeling at the back of my throat made breathing a conscious effort.  Read More

So, I’ve been hoping for the energy, ambition, and a conclusion to write this.  Instead thoughts, sporadic notes, and an initial draft in October marinated.  The last few months repeating my experience to friends finally prompted me to follow-up to my previous two posts from 2020.  The short story is I am still not fully recovered after eleven months. The past year started nice enough with several warm days to ride outside in January, which was unusual for Chicago.  At the end of February, I traveled to Tucson for a training camp with the Johnny Sprockets Cycling Team and returned March 6th.  Read More

HAPPY NEW YEAR and 2020 no less! It’s hard to believe an entire decade has just slipped by.  Reminds me of shampoo.  Not the 1975 movie with Warren Beatty.  Of course, now I have completely dated myself, even though I did not see it in the theater, rather on TV a few years later.  Anyway my point was, losing a decade is like shampoo because it slowly sneaks up on you, using a little each day, then seemingly all of a sudden… Bam!  Read More

These days it is unusual for someone to take on large, long-term projects, particularly, in an age of short attention spans, churning news cycles, and quarterly business returns.  Yet, this is my predilection.  Most people find it unwise, ridiculous, or even crazy to spend months, let alone, years developing an idea to see if it will work.  Hmm… have I stumbled on the definition of a creative (or worse yet, a dreamer)? Regardless, there is something in my DNA that propels me through long slogs of research, explorations of the unknown (at least to me), and vaguely envisioned, time-consuming ideas.  Read More