May 2026

Watching

Daredevil: Born Again, Season 2 – The final two episodes of this series includes gun violence, insane fight sequences, and a courtroom scene in which, in the tradition of A Few Good Men and The Caine Mutiny, the bad guy’s hubris does himself in. Also, the hero uses his Catholic faith to persuade the bad guy to surrender. The entire series is characterized by good people turning bad and bad people redeeming themselves. Not your typical comic book show.

Off the Chain by Pahrnia Parsons. This is a video series of her trip with her boyfriend Henry from Ushuaia at the southern most point of South America to Mexico City. It is a work in progress. The tour is orders of magnitude harder than anything I’ve done. Parhnia is not an experienced bicycle tourist so it was a leap of faith to take on this journey with her boyfriend. The difficulties are obvious. Incredible winds, snow, hail, numerous crashes, illness. Suspiciously, she seems to have enough clothing to outfit a fitness shop. Regardless, the trek is truly epic. I look forward to her new posts in the future.

Washington Nationals – I went to my two games and watched nearly all the rest on TV. The team faced a brutal schedule with 17 games without a day off followed by 16 games without a rest. And they played some of the best team in baseball. They won 16 and lost 12. I expected them to stink and be unwatchable (just like the last 4 years) but instead they are competitive and showing signs of real progress. Alas, the dog days of summer will expose their shortcomings but I don’t expect them to be cringeworthy. Progress.

The Land of Hopes and Dreams – Bruce Springsteen at Nationals Park. I’d never seen The Boss before which seems like a ludicrous oversight given the fact that my mother’s side of the family hails from Freehold, NJ. I am not the biggest fan, but I know his reputation for putting on a bona fide rock and roll show. He did not disappoint. He played for 3 hours which is not half bad for a 76 year old. Yes, he’s lost some of his physicality on stage but his passion for his music and his country haven’t faded one wit.

Reading

Home Stretch by Graham Norton. My fourth Norton novel of the year. A young man admits to driving a car that kills three and disables a fourth passenger in his small Irish hometown. The man becomes a pariah and leaves home for decades, breaking contact with his family in the process. The facts are not what they seem and his being gay in small town Ireland in the 1980s propels the plot in unexpected ways. My only issue with the story is an improbable twist, not unlike one in The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. Still, the book is well worth the reading.

Forever Home by Graham Norton. My last Norton novel. Carol’s older, romantic partner, Declan, develops dementia and is put in a home. His children, who are estranged from Carol, sell the man’s home where Carol had lived with Declan for many years. Carol’s parents secretly purchase the home. The home contains a horrible secret, a dead body in a freezer. The second half of the book pivots on the decision not to report the body to the police. Sadly, Norton passed on the opportunity to turn this into a comedic story in the style of Richard Osman but played it straight instead. Not his best work.

Riding

Cue the Gene Autry because I’m back in the saddle again. I took one zero day and one “nearo” day (ten miles), but otherwise I rocked and rolled. 70, 51, 50, 45, 42, 40, 40, 40, and 40 were the longer rides with the rest between 30 and 40 miles. Having successfully tweaked The Tank, my Surly CrossCheck, I managed to cross the 34,000-mile threshold on it while riding 367 miles in May. I hauled Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent out of the basement and rode it 394 miles, passing 55,000 miles on the odometer in the process. The Mule accounted for another 292 miles. In total I rode 1,054 miles, the most since June of 2024. For the year I’ve ridden 4,013 miles, on a pace for 9,700 miles for the year. (Slacker!)

Also, without missing a day of riding, I snuck in a blood donation.