Tag Archives | being an idiot

Hidden Deer and Hermit Birds

By soiledchamois on April 15, 2025 in Outdoors

The weekend into Monday, Ma Nature teased mid-Michigan with thoughts of Spring, but as I’ve said many times since moving here in 2010, you can’t really rely on Spring to bring consistently warm days until early May—maybe.

So, I was not surprised to venture into the woods wearing gloves and carrying around the regret of not wearing my “winter” jacket (actually a Bontrager cycling jacket with easy-to-access rear pockets, but don’t tell anyone) instead of the lightweight rain jacket (also a Bontrager cycling jacket disguised as a hiking jacket. Shhh!). At least my hands were warm as random snowflakes flitted around in the air.

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Lumbers and Germanic History

By soiledchamois on April 1, 2025 in Outdoors

I figured I might as well keep a “not bad” thing going, and I was once again in bed before sunset last night. The result was I woke up more refreshed and rested than I had in nearly two flu-ridden weeks. It only took 13 days, but I’ll take what I can get.

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Lumbers and White Whales

By soiledchamois on March 26, 2025 in Outdoors

It was a week ago today that I celebrated the fact that I was finally able to get 3 lumbers in a row in my feetz, and I was eyeing up my first full week of outdoor fitness activities this month. Sadly, along with the strange feeling of low-grade happiness, I also felt like I was coming down with a cold, which actually ended up being the flu, which kicked my ass like a football made of fevered, achy, sagging, man-flesh.

Fast forward to today, and I have once again completed three lumbers in a row, and HOPE to to get in a full 25-30 mile week of lumbering. There has been no celebrating, just a longing for normalcy and a blessed routine.

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A Much Needed Return

By soiledchamois on March 17, 2025 in Outdoors

I am quite used to dealing with large gaps for such things as my résumé, my memory, and the distance between pants buttons and their holes, but in my “fitness” calendar, not so much.

I know, the sentence above makes it sound like I am some whispy fitness junkie who has 2% body fat, runs like a gazelle, and eats like a bird. But as we all know, or should know, I fill my calendar with lumbers, snowshoes, hikes, walks, runs, and rides as much as I can to make up for the fact that I am a 53-year-old man who loves to cook, drink IPAs, and works like a dog just to limit my pounds overweight to 50 and to keep my mind centered and in the present rather than racing with self-loathing, doubt, depression, and anxiety.

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Thoughts of Emerald Lake

By soiledchamois on March 6, 2025 in Outdoors

In the summers of 1999 through 2004,¹ Wifey and I would drive from Pittsburgh to Colorado to ride bikes, hike, and goof off in the most amazing mountains my untraveled eyes had ever seen; the Rocky Mountains. It was quite the adventure for two Western Pennsylvania flatlanders who, during most of that time, lived in an apartment in what I think qualified as “the city,” given our proximity to traffic, tall buildings, and the sounds of nighttime gunshots.

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Lumbers and Breaks

By soiledchamois on March 5, 2025 in Outdoors

After I got home from running some errands last Friday, I shut the garage door and didn’t leave the house again until 7:40 AM on Monday.

I have little desire to go out of the house if it’s not a hike, groceries, or beer shopping. I have little need for the American public, and the American public has little need for me. It’s your classic win-win sitch between a couple of assholes.

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Crunchy Lumbers

By soiledchamois on February 28, 2025 in Outdoors

With temps already in the high 20s and an expected daytime high in the mid-40s, I knew trail conditions could be “iffy” on Friday morning, but with three good trainer rides already in my meatsticks this week, I really wanted to get outside for some miles in my feetz and hopefully some images on my SD card.

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More Bunny Tales

By soiledchamois on February 27, 2025 in Random

Over the past couple of years, I have had a couple posts about rabbits.

There was the time I accidentally hit one with my car as I drove to the trails to lumber and, ironically, attempt to take photos of wildlife. That one hit hard.

Then, last summer, there were three baby bunnies, alone, snuggled up in a small hole in the backyard, that I had to safely remove before mowing the grass and then saw them reunite with Mama Bunny before bed that night.

Now I have another one.

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Brief Signs of Intelligence

By soiledchamois on February 26, 2025 in Outdoors

I know it’s hard to tell, but sometimes I do actually know a thing or two. Mostly just one thing, but still.

So, I admit, I took some pleasure in that one thing I know, being that the trails would be shit on Monday and Tuesday; thus, me stuffing myself into an ancient bike kit (the one that still actually fits) and riding the trainer two days in a row.

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A Little Less Conversation

By soiledchamois on February 25, 2025 in Random

As I’ve mentioned previously, Wifey is out of town for work and three hours behind, and B is at school an hour away in East Lansing, so I am home and very alone. This is probably why my posts have been rambling word salads that could have been reduced to a paragraph.

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