My Love-Hate Relationship

I have a definite love-hate relationship with e-mail.

I really love that e-mail much simplifies my life. I actually think I would find my job extremely difficult without it because I contact so many people in such a short time and we exchange so much information that my ability to do what I do would be much inhibited without it.

I really hate that e-mail makes coming back to the office a painful painful experience. The Friday before the evaluation I cleared out my e-mail inbox. For me that means dealing with anything that needs to be done before I know I'll be in the office to deal with it again, and filing the rest of the e-mails into the e-mail folders I've made for each of my projects with color codes for how soon something needs to be done on that specific issue. I was then out of the office for the week of the evaluation, in addition to the first two days of the next week when I was in a social marketing training. I checked my e-mail halfway through the evaluation week to make sure there was nothing of dire emergency, and again on Sunday night for the same reason. There was very little that needed to be dealt with immediately and the enormity of the task ahead of me made it so that I didn't want to start what was not at emergency level. So last Wednesday I came into the office with approximately 400 e-mails to deal with. I'm not kidding - 400, at the least. And that is an understatement of how many I actually had because that was after I cleared out the 50 or so that were office week specific like when the supply room was open and that there was an e-mail problem which was then resolved.

Between last Wednesday and today I accomplished the slow and painful task of reigning my e-mail back under control. Day 1 - read, respond, and file any e-mails that were specific to the event I have tomorrow, which at that point was one week away. This literally took all day. Day 2 - read and delete all e-mails that were not specific to my program but that I needed to have a general understanding of the information for the purpose of doing my job (ex. some purchasing changes and a whole lot of listserve e-mails so I know what's going on with my audience). Day 3 - read, respond and file any e-mails that were specific to events I've got later this month or year. Day 4 - read, respond and file any e-mails that were specific to projects I'm working on outside of specific events, and respond to needs of other programs for information on mine or information on my audience. Day 5 (today) - read, respond and file any e-mails that involve me taking 20 minutes to write the response, 30 minutes to wait for my boss to OK the response, and then send the response or that necessitate a large amount of time on my or someone elses part getting information together and then sending it.

The ironic thing is that while I am doing this I'm still getting on average 50-80 e-mails a day that could fall into any one of those categories and for which I need to determine if I'm going to let hang out in the inbox or if I need to deal with it. And thus today, with much excitement I responded to and erased the last of the e-mails...just in time to be out of the office for two days at a training and a workshop.

At least I had 15 minutes of looking at a clear inbox!

A Wedding Weekend

So granted, Julia and Joe have now been newlyweds for nearly 2 weeks and I'm just getting around to posting about their wedding, but deal with it people. If you need an explanation read my post on what my life was like last week! Thus, moving onto our story...

Sandor and I (along with the rest of the Charleston crowd) headed to NC on Friday the 12th to start the weekend of parties that was Julia and Joe's wedding! We stopped by Brandy and John's house, which was going to be our jumping off place for the weekend, to change and grab a bite to eat. The pup dog stayed with her brother while we continued onward an additional hour to Asheville. Friday night we joined those who had been there for the rehearsal and following dinner for dessert and bluegrass. It was a gorgeous building and much to my sugar-fiend delight there were delicious desserts to enjoy. It was also fun to hang out with everyone and find out what some of the people I pretty much only see at Julia/Joe parties have been up to. When we left them all at midnight to head back to Granite Falls a good portion of people were headed out for some later night partying...not I said the sleepy Becky!

The next morning we headed to Biltmore for a brunch. It was held at a beautiful location and the food was INCREDIBLE! Possibly the best biscuits and gravy I've ever had in my life, bacon, sausage, eggs, danishes, awesome potatoes, and fruit, not to mention a totally separate table with omelets to order, and a third one for waffles and toppings. It was one of those meals where you are disgustingly full but want to keep eating because the food is so good!

Julia was originally supposed to leave halfway through the breakfast at which point Joe was to show up so they didn't see each other on the morning of the wedding. That didn't really work out, which was nice since it gave Julia more time to say hello to her fan base :)

After breakfast Sandor and I headed off to spend our day exploring Asheville. With as often as we go to visit Brandy you would think we would have visited Asheville, but alas we had not. The first store up was one of the places Joe and Julia were registered, New Morning Gallery. It was AWESOME! We had such a great time looking around the store, and we even ended up getting their wedding present (thankfully there was one last thing on the registry that was right in the price range we wanted to spend! it was meant to be!). Afterwards we headed to downtown, picked a place to park and wandered around. It really was quite fun. We picked up sandwiches for Jason, Holly and us and met them at the hotel they were staying at to change for the wedding (this kept us from having to drive an hour back to Brandy's and then an hour back for the wedding - and much simplified our day).

The wedding was great. We ended up with a good spot in the church where we could see the whole ceremony. Julia of course looked awesome and even started crying which I thought was super cute because it was so unlike her. After the ceremony we headed out to the reception location, which unfortunately was the ONLY place I had not printed out directions for. There were directions on their site and I figured we would be following Maia and Ad who knew where it was so I didn't worry about it. So, when we arrived outside the church and couldn't find Maia and Ad I was a bit concerned, but still figured the directions would get us there. Little did I know these were the most out of the way difficult directions possible. It ended up taking us nearly 45 minutes and we drove pretty much the extent of Biltmore Ave, which changes names a good 3 times. By the time we made our 4th turn around somewhere Holly, Jason, Sandor and I were laughing hysterically at the whole experience, although I don't know that Sue and Eddie thought it was quite as funny trying to follow us. We FINALLY arrived and just so happened to do so at the same time as the bride and groom.

Once we were there we enjoyed the delicious food and drinks (well the rest of the group did, it was Coke and Ginger Ale for me) and towards the end of the night took up dancing with the rest of the crazy crowd. With Julia being Greek we got to see some Greek dancing which was really fun, and Sandor even was pulled into the circle at once point which we though was hilarious. I think that with the exception of cutting the cake, taking some pictures, and coming to see us for a few short moments to try on her new eyepatch (to be explained shortly) she danced the whole night! It was great fun!
So, the eyepatch...earlier in the week we had called to see how Julia's pre-wedding week was going and found out she was getting a sty in her eye and was quite pissed about it, naturally. When Maia told Jason this he searched for wedding eyepatches online and lo and behold they actually do exist. They thought it was so hilarious, but they were a bit overpriced for a joke. Thankfully Sue came in and saw them and in all her craftiness said she could make one that night. And make one she did! Thankfully the sty went away so Julia had nothing to worry about, but her wearing it was hilarious!

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend. Full of fun and laughs, which in my opinion are a pretty good indicator of a weekend. And Julia and Joe are officially the Byrd-Dukes as we like to refer to them :)

Prius for the People

We have been waiting for almost a year on a Prius my supervisor ordered for our division and it has FINALLY arrived!!! I am so excited! Now I get to drive down to Beaufort using a sweet 45 mpg instead of the 21 I've been getting with the cars we presently have to use. Not to mention it will have that 'new car smell'! Ah, it's a good day at the DNR!

Sunday Work

If you have to work on sunday this is how it should be done. It also helps that the humidity is gone!

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The Scots come to Charleston

Today Sandor and I went to the Charleston Scottish Games. It was without a doubt my favorite festival type event I've attended to date. There was just the right mix of things to watch, things to eat, people watching to do, space to wander around in, and diversity of things to see. On the entertainment side, we saw them 'toss the sheaf', 'toss the caber' and 'toss the weight'. It was impressive to say the least, but it was also just cool to learn about the different sports and watch the different techniques people used. We were cracking up that it took 4 people to carry the caber over to the guy who then threw it!

We then wandered over to the highland dancing competition and saw two different types of dances, and then we saw a border collie demonstration! The guy used a whistle to tell the dogs what to do and where to herd the sheep! It was incredible! And I think we have determined that Kaylinn is part border collie - I've never actually seen one until today but she has so many characteristics that match it's amazing. Based on the fact that she has an Irish name, we got her when we were about to head to Ireland, and we now have determined she is possibly part Scottish/Irish herding dog we decided to get her a tartan collar, which I must say she looks very fancy with it. We were going to get her one made from the tartan for the name Walker, but found out that apparently while there is a Walker clan and it does have a tartan, it's not printed very often and the guy said he has never actually seen it in fabric form. So we went with just looking through all the collars and picking out the print we liked the most. We ended up both picking the same one and when we looked at the tartan it was an Irish one, which seemed fitting :) The other thing that cracked me up at this stand was that they had these dog 'clothes' that involved a dog kilt. I am not a big fan of dog clothes in general, however, there are a few that crack me up and therefore I find acceptable (namely Dudley's winter coat). These were freaking hysterical and if they weren't so expensive I would have totally gotten Kaylinn one!

The whole time you were listening to bagpipes and 3/4 of the people were in kilts of every color combination imaginable. And, beyond the fact I had a great time it was a gorgeous day outside! Of course we forgot the camera, but there is always fun pics to steal from the internet!

My Brain Hurts

This week we had a national review of the program I coordinate. There are 25 of my programs across the US and we've been working on this evaluation as a system for almost 2 years. So needless to say it was a pretty big deal. It happened to be hosted in Charleston because the other training program being evaluated is located in Charleston (I'm not going to go into the specifics of the whole thing since it would bore most of you to tears). So, since I was the closest reserve to Charleston I was one of the 'host' CTP coordinators for the whole thing. In short it was quite the week - I think I have emotional whiplash.

We started out the week on Monday picking up people at the airport. I served as the shuttle service since I was here in Charleston and it was cheaper to have me pick up multiple people at a time then reimburse them all for taxi rides. There were 7 panel members (although one is located in Charleston so she didn't need picking up), 3 federal staff who help oversee our programs, and 2 other CTP coordinators flying in. Then there was also a third coordinator driving down from the other SC reserve, and a forth coordinator flying in the next day, in addition to the staff from the other NOAA training program that lived in Charleston. Monday was pretty eventless. I went with them to dinner, which was late, but good to get to meet them and know them all a bit better.

Tuesday morning I was in the 'nervous excitement' mode. We had been working on this for so long and I'd put so much time into it that it was exciting to see it finally here, but a little un-nerving since we didn't really know what all to expect. The day went really well, and it was much more boring than we had originally expected because the panel spent the better portion of the afternoon in 'closed' session, which meant we hung out in the atrium and chatted. The thing was even though we weren't presenting or being interviewed we were still on edge because you never really knew if you were going to be called in to be interviewed. Lisa flew in that day, which made me VERY happy because since we didn't get a winter CTP meeting this year we hadn't seen each other since last October. Once she arrived we headed out for dinner, and chatted most of the dinner about performance measures with one of the panel members (yes, I know only the very sick and pathetic of the world can chat performance measures for an hour over dinner). Official day 1 (semi day 2) ended and I headed home pretty much just to sleep and get up again to head back downtown.

Wednesday was my 'hyper' day. I woke up ready to go at 5am, went into work to pick stuff up, and got down to the hotel to eat breakfast and star the day. I was running on about 16 cylinders for some reason, I'm not sure why, but I was 'awake, alert, and enthusiastic' to say the least. After a morning of presentations, we were heading to Edisto for a boat ride and interviews with some of the people I work with down there (they did a lot of phone interviews throughout the week, so we figured it would be nice for them to talk with real people that day). The boat trip thing didn't really work out because they had to respond to an emergency call and couldn't get the boat to the interpretive center on time, but the panel just walked around and had lunch, and then we set up for interviews. My Edisto folks were awesome, and it was cool to see them be interviewed on what my program did (the didn't close that session for whatever reason so we could stay in). We headed back to Charleston, went out to dinner at Basil (my favorite!) and I stayed in Lisa's room for a little 'sleepover' which was super fun.

Thursday was when the emotional whiplash started setting in. The panel decided the day before to scratch the presentations that were set for that morning. Lisa and I were supposed to present on performance measures, which is something rather important to us and one of the major things we wanted commented on through this evaluation. We were a little concerned that they didn't want a presentation, but figured they may understand more than we though of our system and they still wanted us to come in for an hour for questions so we figured we would just be answering questions on it, which would be fine. Since the morning was all changed around we ended up with 3 hours of nothing to do, so we went to a cute little coffee shop and sat out in the patio and chatted, then some of us when shopping while others did work back at the hotel, and then around lunch we headed over for interviews. When we got into the room and we saw the questions they were going to ask us up on the screen my stomach sunk. There was only one question on performance monitoring. To most people this would be a welcome relief, but as the workgroup chair and ex-chair Lisa and I really needed to get information from them on our system so we could work on it, and we had been concerned when the agenda was put together that this discussion was kept for the last day. You can only fight so hard to get something changed though and we had lost, so we were a little concerned it wouldn't get the attention it needed coming into it. Beyond the fact that it's stressful to try to answer questions for an entire system in addition to thinking through aspects of your program to answer these questions, I was also starting to get tired from having to do it for the past 3 days, and I was frustrated about the performance monitoring thing. When we left that interview to head to lunch I had about 2 grams of energy. We tried to distract ourselves by shopping before dinner but it didn't really work. We did find out that other coordinators had talked to the panel on the first day about performance (which would have been REALLY useful to know going into Thursday) but it didn't really make us feel better that we hadn't done our job. Plus the fatigue of 'being on' all the time was starting to set in, and Lisa was leaving, which made me sad, and the review was winding down which was so much of my focus for the past 6 months that it was wierd to think of it almost being over. After another dinner for 'talking shop' I went to bed ready for my brain to rest.

This morning I woke up totally exhaused. My brain was tired of thinking, I was tired of caring about the outcome of the thing, I was tired of trying to make myself not care about the outcome (it's hard when you love your job not to care about your job), and I was tired of needing to be interesting, excited, upbeat, and informative. I went over to the hotel to make sure there was no need for me to shuttle people to the meeting place, found out they were going to do a 'debrief' which actually made me feel a little better because I kinda needed some closure to the whole thing, and then went to work for a few hours. I went back over to 'debrief', take people to the airport, have my last lunch with some of the other coordinators and then back to work.

Back at the office I was feeling fine because Maia and I were playing with pictures for Julia's door (more on that topic in a later post), but when I left and came home I was in this wierd limbo land emotionally. I was tired, but not sleepy, my brain was full, but I couldn't make it stop thinking, my house was a mess and I had 100 e-mails sitting on my work computer to read and respond to but I couldn't motivate myself and I was feeling kinda like the last person left after a big party when everyone else has headed home and you have to finish up cleaning. I laid on the bed with the dog for a while and finally fell asleep for an hour and then I got up and sat outside reading my devotional, and came back in to start cleaning the house. For some reason cleaning the house is a kind of reset button for me. If I can get to the motivation point to get myself going it helps me reset my brain and refocus my attention on mundane tasks so I can stop thinking.

So, it actually did work as far as making me feel better, but I'm still a bit out of it and I think it may take a while to get back into the world again. It was a wierd week. Great fun, hilarious laughter at points, total frustration at others, lots of thinking and coordinating thoughts, motivation from meeting with the other coordinators, and it's rewarding to have the review done and seem successful enough to jusify 2 years of working on the project, but at the same time I almost feel lost with it all being over. I think by the end of the weekend my brain will have been able to completely reset, but as for now I'm going to finish drinking my tea and attempt to head to bed. I've still got half the house to clean, a week worth of work to do, plus normal weekend relaxing to attempt. We'll see how it goes...

'my people' - Steve, Tina, Chris, me, Lisa, Nicole and Matt - yes frightingly enough there are others like me with this weird skill set that leads to being a CTP person

3 for 1

Finally! The triathlon story, complete with pictures! We woke up at a sweet 5am to get something to eat and head over to the rec center. For some reason the registration pick-up the day before ended at 5pm, so we had to get there early to get all our numbers and such. We found a spot for our bikes and headed over to get our little chip that took care of the timing. After getting the chip (which went on your ankle, as opposed to your shoe like the running races I've been in), and the normal number to pin on your shirt, we then received a number to put on your bike helmet, a number to put on your bike, AND you had your number written on both arms and both legs. PLUS your age and some random coding letter was written on your calf. I'll tell you one thing, I we fell over dead on the course they could definitely have figured out who we were - heck, they could have even told the ENTs how old we were before they ever called back to check registration numbers. We were very marked up and ready to go.

Oh, and I forgot to mention. My dad got us all (including our cheering section) matching shirts so we could find each other. It was extremely useful when you wanted to figure out if that really was Brandy you could see coming up the hill.

After waiting for about an hour (since we had to be there so early to register, we had a long wait time), we headed down to the pool to get ready for the start. Previously in the month we had to submit our 100 meter swim time so they could seed us for the start. Since we were swimming in a pool (one lap you swam in one lane, did your flip turn, went under the lane line, and then swam back down the pool in the next lane over...repeat 5 times) they needed to know how fast you were going to be so that there weren't a ton of people trying to pass you as you were swimming. I timed myself and told Brandy we should put 1:35 for our time. Having experience with runs where you always submit a faster time than you can do so that you don't get stuck in the back of the pack, we figured we should do the same. She suggested 1:19. I was a little concerned by this, but I figured, what the heck. Well a few weeks later she timed herself (since she was training with the people who set up the event she could register and submit her time a little later) and realized that yes, 1:35 really is how fast we can swim. We submitted a 1:25 I think for her time and tried to change mine, but to no avail. Hence the day before when Brandy went online to find out what our starting position would be I find out that I'm supposed to start 6th! (that is why my dad and I had number 6 all over ourselves). Yes people, 6. I was a little intimidated to say the least. My only consolation was that I didn't have to jump out and bike since my dad was doing that leg so I could try to swim a little faster and rest before the run. So, we line up down at the pool ready to start. The first person started, and then every 15 seconds the next person went. 1 minute and 30 seconds into the race, with a bunch of young high school kids and one woman before me I leave attempting to not get passed by all the people behind me.
By about lap 3 I realize that I'm actually holding my own and that with the exception of one person there is no one gaining on me. That guy passes me on lap 5, and I notice his number is 9, which means he WAY underestimated his time and I don't feel bad seeing as how I watch him pass the next two people in front of me. Then on lap 6 I pass the girl that started two ahead of me. By the 9th lap I'm still feeling good and no one is close behind me so I actually finished my 500 meters in the same position I started! I climbed out of the pool, grabbed my shorts from my mom (it just felt weird walking around in a swimsuit so we walked down to the pool in our shorts), and ran up the hill to my dad. We switched off the little chip thing that times us and off he went.
While I was waiting I helped Brandy and John both get off, and then drank some water and sat around until Dad got back. The rec center happens to be situated at the top of a hill, so the last thing you have to do is climb this hill after having biked 13 miles, which is just plain mean.

Needless to say, he made it, we switched back the chip and I headed off for a 3 mile run. Brandy started and finished the swim about 2 minutes behind us, and so she was right behind my dad coming in from the bike. I actually saw her coming up the hill as I ran down so she got a little extra yelling support. She dropped off the bike and headed out as well.

The run was actually quite enjoyable. You started going down the big hill, which is a nice way to get your legs going. Then you ran along this little greenway path, most of it being shaded, and all road crossings were staffed so you didn't have to check for cars. You ran out a mile and a half and then back, and shortly after I turned to head back I saw Brandy. Since I had been sitting at the top of the hill when all the bikers came in I knew that she was the second girl. Since I was in a relay I wasn't competing in the same category. So, as I passed her I told her there wasn't much until the turn and that she was really close to the front. Granted we later found out that there were a bunch of people that started much farther back because of swimming but ended up with faster times, but that's ok, it gave her motivation.

And so, at about 2 and 3/4 miles we were nearly done. All we had to do was run up the enormous hill to the rec center and cross the finish line. Ugh, that hill sucked. It was one of those where you go up, then it flattens out and then you go up again. Being that I never run hills since they don't exist in good old Charleston, it was pretty rough. But I remembered from days of cross country that you put your head down and you use your arms. My mom was standing at the bottom of the hill and I told her to tell that to Brandy, and about 45 seconds later heard her yell it so I knew Brandy was right there with me. Which, for some reason made it seem better - it must have been from all the marathon training, I wasn't used to running pain done alone.

Eventually, we got ourselves up the hill, and crossed the line, and even though we ended up being beaten in time by a bunch of people we were the second and third women to cross the finish line, so we got a little shout-out from the announcer, which was cool. Once we started breathing normally again we walked halfway back down the hill to yell for John as he came up. Poor John had trained the least of all of us and was not doing well by the time he got halfway up that hill. He had said that morning that he was just going to go until he puked...well, he called it. About 50 feet from the top of the hill he puked up all the water he had been drinking to keep himself hydrated. But being the trooper that he was, after a bit of stumbling and causing concern from all around him that he may fall over, he straightened up and finished the race.

We waited until most of the runners were done and then took the bikes down to the car, walked BACK up the hill (I hate that stupid hill) and got ourselves some free food. The did awards, and it turned out that Brandy got FIRST in her age group! It was pretty impressive for her first triathlon!
The only thing left to do was drive home and take a nice long nap!

Notes from the Road

Some things I've noticed while on my bike:

1 - Everyone should be required to ride a bike along a road sometime - that way they won't be so annoying when they pass bikers because they will know what it feels like. This goes along with my determination that everyone should have to wait tables one summer (and thus people would start being nicer to waiters/waitresses) and everyone should be required to spend at least one week in another country, preferably a month, and preferably a third world country (and thus people would be a lot less cavalier about complaining about their own country...I also think this would just generally lead to people to be more aware of the world around them).

2 - Roadkill is gross. I mean it's gross when you are in a car, but it's WAY more gross when you are up close and personal. And it smells. So do trashcans by the side of the road on trash day.

3 - It's amazing how much variation there is in the road grade. Living in South Carolina there is not much change in elevation. In fact the Cooper River Bridge is the only thing I had for a hill when trying to train for Rainier. So, I didn't expect to have to change gears much while riding to work. However, it's amazing how a little change in the road grade makes you need to change gears. And it becomes abundantly clear what water rolls towards one road rather than the other when you are on a bike.

The Interesting Side of Running Errands

There is one thing I have not yet mastered...running errands when you commute via bike. It definitely makes it a bit more difficult. For one, the place you need to go has to be on the way - as opposed to when you are in a car, my 'on the way' is anything that's not more than 5 minutes out of the way. Secondly, you need to be able to get there without endangering your life - there are places that are technically close enough I could make them on my way but they would involve crossing a 5 lane road, which I have definitely not built up to yet. And lastly, the errand needs to be able to fit in your backpack. It also helps if you have a bike lock, which I just purchased for myself after yesterday's adventures.

So, yesterday I was actually able to run two errands. On the way to work I dropped of a dress at the dry cleaner, and on the way home I stopped at the vet (yes, it's amazingly in between work and home) and picked up heartworm pills for Kaylinn. I passed both of them on the ride from home to work or work to home respectively, and they were on the same side of the road as I was going, which met conditions 1 and 2. They also conveniently fit in my backpack, which met condition 3.

The problem is tommorrow when I needed to 1 - pick up the dress after being cleaned and 2- take the dog to the vet for a rabies shot I cannot use the bike because of condition 3. This morning I finally went to the doctor about the cough I've had for the past 2 and a half weeks, which did not allow me to bike because of condition 2. I actually considered going back to the house to get my bike after the appointment, but was already so late for work that I decided I needed that extra half hour of work in order to get done what needed to be done today (and I was correct, I got all but one thing done before I had to leave).

So, it's an interesting world deciding when and how to run errands. It's always seems like a bit of a maze trying to figure out what to do on which trip and when to leave to have time to get here before going there before getting to where you need to be. But now it seems like one of those little puzzles where you slide all the pieces around to make a picture but you can't pick any of them up - just when you think you've found a way to make it work you realize the piece you need on the bottom right is on the top left and you have to mess it all up again to get it down there.
By the way apparently you can make those little puzzle things on Flickr with your own photos, but I couldn't figure out how to do it so I just stole someone else's picture :)

Too Little Time

This is what happens when I have too much to do and too little time to do it. This may work for some people, but it stresses me out! Oh well, off to yet ANOTHER meeting, followed by yet more things that I need to find on that desk because they have to be done first. Good thing the hurricane isn't going to be bad, I'm pretty sure loose papers and files on a desk by a window is not part of the 'hurricane response preparations'.

And so it begins

Well, Hanna is almost off our coast and Ike is on her heels, so hurricane season in South Carolina has officially begun. Granted it's a little late in the season to have just begun, but that's fine, the fewer hurricane warnings the better! Hanna isn't supposed to be nearly as bad as they were originally thinking (for the Charleston area), since it's spinning off a little north of us. Rain is not supposed to start until a bit later today, although the winds have already started, as was very evident on my walk to the office from the car. Oh yeah, we still have to work today, the only reason we can not come to work is if there is a mandatory evacuation. Personally I think there is a range of weather between 'ok to come to work' and 'mandatory evacuation' that could be considered, especially when your office sits on a point right on the harbor, but whatever, the state feels there is no difference.

Here is Hanna coming up the coast of Florida, ready to head our way

And here is Ike, he seems a little more ominous

So, we shall see what today brings! Happy hurricane day everyone!

Minus 2 wheels

Welcome September! and the end of summer in Charleston! September never used to be one of my favorite months, but from the first year I moved to Charleston I realized that come September the humidity starts falling and it seems a lot less of a torture chamber to be outside. And this September did not disappoint. It is shaping up beautiful...well there are a few hurricanes brewing in the Atlantic that may be troublesome, but we'll ignore that for now.

So fresh off my first triathlon (we'll have more on that later when I finally get around to downloading the pictures) and feeling motivated by the drop in temperature, I have officially begun commuting to work via bicycle! And it is fantastic! My dad lent me his bike so I could try it out and see how I like it. I've been thinking about the switch for a few months, but a) I was not feeling it when I started sweating just walking to my car, let alone biking to my house and b) the main road I take to work is a death trap for bicyclists. Then, when I started training for the triathlon I started swimming at the local rec center and found a back way to my house that goes through a neighborhood rather than on the main road. It adds a mile to the distance between my house and work, but returning with all 4 limbs makes 2 extra miles a day worth it.

So, since Monday was a holiday, Tuesday was my first official biking day. And, I rode in yesterday and today as well! Tomorrow I may go with the car option since the first of the hurricanes may hit us at some point tomorrow. I'll be tempted to ride if I wake up and it's beautiful outside though. I think my favorite thing about it is that it forces me to slow down and relax. Since I'm not going anywhere fast I'm not thinking the whole way. Instead I hear the crickets, and smell the marsh mud, and notice the puffy clouds (and how much they need to upkeep the very few bike lanes they have on James Island). So, all in all, I'm a big fan and am very happy with my commute minus 2 wheels!