With my SSL certificate back in place, I think, THINK!, I have the website back up and running. As with most problems I’ve encountered in my life, I fucked enough shit up that I needed to ask for help; repeatedly until I finally got it sorted. It was like the parable of the leper and the unleavened bread from the 2nd season of Fraggle Rock. I think.
I was in bed by 10 PM on New Year’s Eve, which is an improvement to last year’s un-celebratory events. And while there was still no “celebrating” of the new year due to me not really caring, my attitude seemed significantly better.
This is my last post of 2022. A year-end wrap-up post, if you will. Almost all of it has to do with crawling out from the rock of depression I’ve been living under for the past couple of years. Read if you want, or don’t.
Last week’s Winter Storm Elliot ended up being pretty standard stuff for my part of Michigan; however, the gusting 30+ MPH winds, my unwise decision to “hold off a bit longer” until I got the snow tires put back on the 2014 Ford Escape, and the county’s strange decision to forgo plowing or salting the roads meant that I missed two days of hiking that would have easily g0t me to my self-imposed 25-mile weekly hiking goal. Crap.
My family and I are about to spend the Christmas holiday in our own home for only the 2nd time in the past 12 years. The first time was in 2020 when the world was balls deep into the COVID-19 pandemic, so there was little to feel good about. This time it’s ongoing dog boarding issues have prevented us from traveling back to Western PA for the holiday, and if you know me, my distaste for holiday travel, and my love of routine, you know I’m pretty stoked about that.
As I start this post in the morning darkness of the winter solstice, I have just cut a large Yule Log (the reason for the season?), and I am eagerly awaiting today’s very limited appearance from the sun before heading into the woods to burn some incense and get freaky with a nymphomanic Yule Goddess in celebration of longer days returning.
After early last week’s shin injury scare, I bounced back harder than a large rubber dong repeatedly bounced off the back of a skull and ended up with 28.23 miles on the week and 306.71 miles (now 316.05) hiked since the start of my 2022 Not Dead Yet Comeback Special on September 19th.
As I start this post in the pre-sunrise hours of Wednesday morning, I sit on 9.02 miles hiked so far this week and 287.50 miles since the start of the 2022 Not Dead Yet Comeback Special on September 19th.
This blog, website, journal, whatever the fuck it is, is holding on like the last elastical strains of Moscato-flavored vomit off a drunk sorority girl’s chin; for that, I apologize.
In all honesty, I should have put this thing to bed years ago when I realized my love for cycling, especially racing, was evaporating. However, if I sat around thinking of all the things I should have or could have done with my life, I would be a depressed, 51-year-old fat man living in the middle of nowhere-ass Michigan with no real career, dreams, desires, passions, or lusts left in the tank. Um, OK, forget that.
With all that said, I begrudgingly continue on for some reason.
Holiday #1 in the Trifecta of Holiday Evil has come and gone without incident, as expected. Mostly because B’s schedule and dog-boarding issues prevented us1 from traveling 13+ hours round trip for the pleasure of me being riddled with enough sadness, anxiety, and resurrected childhood traumas to keep my mind racing in The Bed of Torment for the next 12 months again. Fuck that shit. Continue reading