Bicycling
On November 1 I passed 10,000 miles for the year. I’ve pulled off this trick for each of the last six years. My ass hurts.
The 10,000 miles included 360 miles on my recumbent indoors. To put the boo birds to rest, I passed 10,000 miles out-of-doors on November 13
On the 4th, I rode the Cider Ride with a really great group of people. The ride was 60 miles long involving river views, rolling hills, donuts, apple pie, and hot cider. And yellow jackets. Yellow jackets looove apple cider. One member of our group brought along a single stalk of celery for a mid-ride snack. No, I am not making this up.
Little Nellie moved into second place on my favorite bike reaching 2,000 miles for the year and surpassing 24,000 miles since I bought it in 2007.
Watching
All the Light We Cannot See: This four-episode, four-hour limited series on Netflix is based on the excellent novel written by Anthony Doerr. The series does a good job of capturing the environs of Saint-Malo, a walled city on the coast of France under seige by Allied forces near the end of World War II. Unlike the book, the series uses flashbacks to describe how the characters arrived in Saint-Malo. This is an economical choice, but upsets the flow of the story. The series totally nails the environs described in the book. Unfortunately, the actors portraying French people seemed challenged by the accent, most disappointingly this applies to Mark Ruffalo, an actor I very much otherwise admire.
Cocaine Bear: This is one of the great films in cinematic history. Not. It’s gory beyond belief but the gore is played for laughs. I felt rather stupid laughing at some of the sight gags and jokes but they were undeniably funny. To its credit, the film is only 90 minutes long.
Get Out. Damn, they don’t make horror movies like this anymore. Great acting. Great script. Great editing. Great directing. Creepy music.
Whiplash: A light comedy. NOT. Totally intense study of the use of abuse to motivate genius. J. K. Simmons earned a well deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance.
Squaring the Circle. A documentary about Hipgnosis, a small company that designed some of the most recognizable album covers of the 70s and 80s. Their clients included a whos who of popular music. Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Peter Gabriel. 10CC, Wings. Let’s just say that creative artists are different from the rest of humanity.
Reading
Brave Companions: Portraits in History by David McCullough. I have yet to read a book by McCullough that I did not greatly enjoy. This one is no exception. Time magazine asked McCullough to write an essay about the events of historical significance that occurred during Time’s first 50 years of publication, from1936 to 1986. This essay is joined with several other essays that were written from research McCullough did when writing other books. Suffice it to say, I am now primed to read his account of the building of the Panama Canal and his 1,000-page biography of Harry S. Truman.
A Few Spokes Shy of a Wheel 
Wow, John!! VERY impressive you’ve ridden over 10,000 miles this year!! Jeez! Make me feel like an old lady! ha! I don’t keep a cumulative log, but maybe when I retire, I will. 🙂 Congrats! 🙂 🙂
I just happen to keep track. Started in my running days.
Congratulations on another amazing year of riding. Sadly I have to report that a bicyclist was killed on Central Avenue in Albany the other day. He was not wearing a helmet. He was the third person killed in the last two weeks on that road. The other two were pedestrians. On a positive note after 2 1/2 years of treatment, my leukemia has become virtually indetectable. Nothing changes, however. Still need to get bloodwork every 3 months for life. And some people who can remain undetectable for 2 years can try stopping the medicine. But of those people who stop, 45-50 % quickly relapse. So guess it is what it is.
Good to hear about your leukemia.
You ought to be able to move about your town without wearing body armor. Central Ave is a great example of a street designed without the slightest concern for pedestrians or bicyclists. Every city has them.