It’s 7:50am and I’m not wearing pants, or cycling bibs. The Grand Poobah declared summer hours starting today. We can go in a half hour later and leave an extra half hour earlier. I love me some Grand Poobah. I miss the good ‘ol days when he’d stand a top a stone bench and thrust a sharpened water buffalo tusk into the sky. That was back when we edited actual audio tape with an actual razor blade at work. These days, it’s Pro Tools or Adobe Audition and we got the news in an email. Where’s the danger in that?! Now I’m not quite sure to do with the extra half hour. Certainly, as Curly on the Three Stooges, I could ride my bike to work. Nook. Nook. Nook. Definitely as Rainman, with sunrise around 6:30am (or so they tell me that's when the sun rises), I could even get in an hour to hour and a half ride in before sliding into my work chair. Definitely.
Most bike racers I know would’ve done that, been up by 5:30am, on the bike by six, and back to the house by eight so they could shower and get to work by nine. Just yesterday a guy at at the Big Dave Sports Masters Road Race in Cincinnati told me he’s up at 5:45am and riding the trainer before his kids get up. I slept till 7:30am and at the moment am mulling the possibilities of the bonus half hour out loud, getting the lay of the extra half hour land by blogging. No wonder he took 3rd and I DNF'd. It’s the first day of a summer full of summer hours. Cut me some slack. I’m in my underwear (definitely K-mart Cincinnati), nursing my Masters ego and my wife drained the coffee pot.
Ah ha. Normally I wait till I get to work to have a first cup of coffee, hence the lack-o-pantelones and run-on sentences. That’s not going to fly with summer hours. I need a game plan. I could be The Worlds Greatest Masters Aged Bike Racer In The World. I’m going to need coffee first thing in the morning, pants, and a blue phone. Otherwise, I’ll sleep away the time. Or worse, sit in front of a computer and blog.
The good news is I rode the GX45 Super Cruiser (my nickname for my 1994 Specialized Crossroads Hybrid bike) up to the square over the weekend to pick up my mountain bike shoes from the Cobbler who sewed new Velcro on the straps. Yes, I said Cobbler. It’s probably not a politically correct term for a professional shoe repair guy anymore and I don’t even know it. On top of being able to mountain bike again, the bonus is I pumped the tires and lubed the chain of my Specialized Hybrid Sport Utility commuting bike. It’s ready to roll. The bad news is, due to the lack of coffee making motivation, I probably drive anyway. At least I’m coming up with a game plan for the next two months of shorter work hours.
I keep looking up at the LED clock in the cable box. At least I’m not watching TV. The 30 minutes of my free 30 minutes are ticking by. I keep doing the calculations. I can drive to work in 13 minutes. I used to leave at precisely 8:17am, now I can leave at 8:47am, so I really should shower by 8:15am. If I want to ride the bike to work, I need to be ready to ride at least by 8:20am. It’s 8:18am. Definitely not riding today. Yeah. Definitely still sitting in my underwear. Definitely.
What did I do on my first morning of summer hours? I definitely didn’t ride my bike. I blogged in my underwear laughing to myself by imagining if the Nationwide Insurance spokesperson speaking like Rainman. "Definitely gonna need a blue phone." Yeah. Definitely, going to need to set the timer on the coffee maker tomorrow. Definitely going to put on my shorts. Definitely going to ride in the morning…tomorrow…definitely.
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