Archive for August, 2006

Keep them dogies movin’

Wednesday, August 9th, 2006

We broke another record with tonight’s ride—around 40 participants, although I didn’t get an exact head count. They broke into three fairly even pace groups, just like they did last week. Dotti was passing out flyers for the open meeting for cyclists and collecting email addresses on her clipboard. Rick S had commitments that caused him to hand leadership of the C-Group to me, and it got a bit wild at first when a few teens wanted to squirt too far ahead of the pack, but I think I managed to get their respect by outriding them.

“Don’t try to understand ’em. Just rope, throw and brand ’em.”

Finally crankin’ in sync

Tuesday, August 8th, 2006

An important thing happened at my
B.I.K.E. meeting tonight. The people that showed up took the bull by the horns and put my idea of holding an open forum back on the table. The difference this time is that it’s going to be for bicyclists only, by invitation, and not promoted to the general public. An experienced facilitator agreed to moderate the event. The consensus was that it’s time to put our organizational framework in front of the cycling community and see what they want to do with it.

I think that many who were there felt a bit uneasy about moving things sharply away from my proposed agenda items, but I was pleased with the development. My goal all along was just to provide enough leadership to get a team of volunteers moving forward with their own defined priorities.

Prospecting the high country

Monday, August 7th, 2006

Despite the difficulties in punctuality I had pulling myself away from the Dixons of Broadwing Farm, we managed to arrive on time at our appointment with representatives of Lincoln Memorial University. Our primary goal was to follow up on Jerome’s prior contact with the dean of the new DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine, but due to understandable concerns about the comprehensive visual identity of the parent institution, other administrators wanted to sit in. We had no problem with that—it dovetailed with our own philosophy of image management and it gave us the opportunity to promote our creative services to a wider audience. The meeting seemed to go well. I’d never heard of LMU, but it’s a beautiful setting and progress on the new College is moving along rapidly. Faculty will be in place next winter and the first incoming students are scheduled to begin classes in the fall of 2007. Now is the time for them to invest in projecting a high level of graphic credibility. Dana and I are ideally suited for this work. Will they choose wisely?

After leaving LMU, we headed through the tunnel into Kentucky and found a decent Mexican lunch in Middlesboro. (Home of Lee Majors, who Brendan’s dad always liked and I still admire for his work long ago in “Will Penny.” He got his start, like my pal Andrew, at Pioneer Playhouse, here in Danville.) We decided to go through with our idea of making a cold call on the University of the Cumberlands. The weather was awful, pouring like a sonuvagun, and I was trying to safeguard the portfolio. All the time I wondered if the whole thing was a forlorn hope. Quite the contrary. The timing seemed almost perfect, and we sat down with the director of community relations just as he was thinking about severing ties to a big expensive outfit from Iowa (the same kind of specialized organization that nearly recruited Dana and me back in the 80s). That meeting seemed to go well, too, and I found myself getting more and more comfortable with that KY-TN border region as fertile ground for the graybeard prospector.

Finally… our return to the high valley of the French Broad

Sunday, August 6th, 2006

Drove to Hot Springs yesterday via 25-E, which, during the daytime, is a much more pleasant route than the Interstate. It gave us an opportunity to locate the LMU campus and learn that it’s quite close to the Cumberland Gap tunnel. Much of the way I read to Dana from “Simple Loving,” a book that used to belong to Joan and Joe. By the time we arrived at Broadwing Farm, we were thinking sufficiently “outside the cube” to make our short breakout worth it, even if nothing comes of our appointment tomorrow. Bob and Carol had a delicious supper prepared and we talked until sleepiness held sway. Typically, we spent today in deep conversation, fueled by natural foods, fresh air, a majestic view, a run to the nearby coffee hangout, and a dip in the spring-fed pond. Carol turned us on to Sarah Susanka, Bob convinced me to start watching the series “Band of Brothers,” and Pete gave me some hemlock slabs from the sawmill for my woodcut experiments. The regional infestation has worsened to the point that he’s been forced to harvest a lot of hemlock from the forest, but the timber is being put to good use in building a horse stable and a third rental dwelling. This one will be called Cedar, and will surely add to the success of Poplar and Pine at Broadwing Natural Bath Cabins.

Wish I were there

Friday, August 4th, 2006

I finally completed my log entries from the recent trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Of course, there’s nothing like being there, but it all comes down to one thing—the memories.

Tales of the Graybeard Prospector XX

Friday, August 4th, 2006

• The road trip is back on! The bewhiskered one is loading the pack mules and setting his sites on Broadwing Farm first and then Lincoln Memorial University.

“Off to the hills! Best take the Medicine Woman for good measure.”

. . . G B P . . .

d a n g

Thursday, August 3rd, 2006

We thought that circumstances might be shaping up for a long but interesting weekend, but everything to do with our sought-after prospecting loop through Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee fell apart today…

Wednesday Night Bikes

Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006

Tonight we had over 30 cyclists show up for our ride from downtown Danville, a new record. Most of us would agree that it has a lot to do with the outstanding bicycle coverage provided this year by the Advocate Messenger.

B.I.K.E. has had a goal of boosting participation in regular group rides. A turnout like we had this evening causes us to intensify our focus on safety. Another priority for us is to increase awareness of the “Share the Road” attitude. I’m hoping that our advocacy organization can work my connections at the newspaper to develop a story idea that better explains the issue of motorists and cyclists coexisting on local streets and highways.

Various & Sundry, part forty-one

Tuesday, August 1st, 2006

— Month of July workout totals: Swim-6; Bike-7; Run-2; Lift-3; Yoga-2

— As I continue to thoroughly enjoy my peak cycling season, I notice an increasing level of muscle tightness and pelvic inflexibility due to a decline in periodic yoga practice. Balance and discipline. Why is it so difficult to calibrate?

— On Saturday, when Dana baked Terie a birthday pie (Blue Bank blackberries plus organic red raspberries), I decorated the crust with her favorite thing that makes her happy.

— I seemed to need every available minute yesterday to meet my evening deadline, but I managed to complete three mixed media collage artworks, including a “Fifteenth Cosmosaic,” the largest composition in the series so far and the first to be executed specifically for public exhibition and sale. Dana and I hand delivered them to Kathleen, the coordinator for the Lexington CONNECTIONS show, and she accepted all three on the spot. Even though it was getting late, she was kind enough to spend some time providing framing advice. I’ve been concerned I haven’t yet developed the ability to frame my work in a manner commensurate with the quality of the art. I intend to rectify that with these pieces, which are due in the city next month.

V & S