State of the Blog Update

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Joe Johnson

Six months ago I came up with a crazy idea to start focusing on my long neglected blog. I was unemployed and needed something to work on that would help keep my mind occupied so I wouldn’t get over-stressed after being laid off. I have never done well when I don’t have enough work to do, so the thought of not having a job to go to was driving me a little insane. I also thought it might be nice to write again and have some current work to show prospective employers if I had any luck breaking into the social media field. I wrote off and on for four months and managed to post ten commentary pieces, mainly about cycling. I wrote about Lance Armstrong, losing weight, and charity rides. I even had a couple stories picked up by www.cyclerecycleuk.com and published on their blog site. I was also lucky enough to be featured in www.wheelsuckers.co.uk, a social network for cyclists in England. They featured my work in their members’ newsletter after I published a few blogs on their site. I am proud of a couple of those pieces and they provided a good foundation for what was next.

I was happy to be writing but I wanted to do more with my blog site. I decided to follow some advice and publish on a set schedule. I had read a feature on WordPress about bloggers who took up a challenge to publish on a weekly schedule for a year and decided that I would give it a shot this year. This is how the 52 Posts in 52 Weeks Challenge started. To be honest, I threw the idea out on twitter and got such good feedback that I decided to go for it. That would be a repeated theme in the next few months.

I had an idea of when to publish, and had committed to 52 new posts, now I just needed to figure out what to write. My first post contained the rules for the challenge. I set out the idea that each post had to have a central idea and only some of them could be about cycling. The last part was to force me to write about more than just my current passion. The rest of the rules were set to try to make the posts as readable and entertaining as possible. I never assumed I would have readers, but I wanted to try to entertain anyone that showed up.

I began to get more and more serious about the blog and making sure I had content each week. This isn’t as hard as it might be for others as I am still looking for a full time job. I did begin to get more serious about the blog as an undertaking. I started to promote it on my Facebook and Twitter pages but I began to feel bad about forcing it on my friends each week so I jumped in and created a Facebook page for the blog. I still can’t call it a fan page with a straight face, but I am continuing to work on building up the content of the page and using it to promote the blog. I have also dedicated most of my Twitter feed to the blog, connecting with other writers and participating in #MondayBlogs, a great tag for bloggers that is used to help us cross promote each other each Monday.

So, where does that leave us after two months of blogging? I am pleased to say that the state of the blog is…..okay. Some ideas have worked really well, like the #MondayBlogs promotion. Other ideas have met limited success. I sent a query letter to Bicycle Times Magazine to see if they would be interested in publishing one of my pieces in their magazine. I am still waiting to hear back from that. I am pleased to say that the Facebook page is over 100 “likes” and I am announcing the winner of the first giveaway today on Facebook. I am still trying to build a readership, so please like that Facebook page and share the blog!

Moving forward I think that I am going to concentrate more on my story. I am going through some changes at the same time the blog is starting to gain some traction. I have a very ambitious spring, summer, and fall lined up for cycling and running. I have started to blog about what I am doing to get ready for all of these events and what else is going on in my life. These blogs seem to be the most popular ones so I think I am going to keep the focus on these events. I hope that everyone enjoys being let into my life a little more over the next few months; it is going to be interesting living it, I hope it is just as interesting reading about it. I am going to take everyone behind the scenes as I train for the big rides and the Rugged Maniac race that I will be running as well as how my dieting and nutritional struggles are going. The first one or two posts will be giving everyone a baseline of where I am and where I am going.

I hope I can report back in a few months and let everyone know how much the blog has grown. Let me know if you have any suggestions or if there is something you would like me to write about. Most importantly, thanks for reading!

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Everything Worth Doing is Worth Overdoing

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Joe Johnson

I often let things get bigger and more complex than they might otherwise become on their own. I think I get caught up in the idea that everything worth doing is worth overdoing. Recently this can be seen through my approach to cycling. Everything started innocently enough. I started riding a trail on an old bike because I was only working three days a week. It was fun and I started to lose a little weight. It fit in with quitting smoking and gave me something to focus on with my free time. At the end of my first season of riding, my father-in-law asked me to go on a charity ride with him through Hartford butt on by Bike Walk Connecticut. It was a great introduction to group rides and had me hooked for the next season.

The next season came and I bought myself a new bike to ride. It was a lovely Trek Dual Sport and I rode it all summer. I put more miles on over this summer than I thought was possible. My average ride went to over thirty miles and I felt great. I even took my bike on a quick trip to Philadelphia so I could get a ride in. We rode the Hartford charity ride and added a new ride on Martha’s Vineyard. The Hartford ride seemed to shrink but the Martha’s Vineyard ride was amazing. If I wasn’t hooked on the idea of doing more group rides before, that day sealed the deal. I promised myself that I would be ready for the next season.

I followed the advice of a friend and bought myself a trainer. Now I could ride all winter in relative comfort. I bought books to learn more about training and cycling in general. I started reading and subscribing to cycling magazines. I started watching cycling more, even though I am more of a trail rider than a road racer. I tried to find the bike culture and learn as much as I could. None of this helped my ride any stronger, but I felt more secure with a little knowledge of what I was supposed to be doing.

My obsession continued to grow, or in this case shrink. If I am been amazingly generous, I am overweight. I am in far better shape that I have been in ten years, but I am still not in the shape that I should be. At six foot four I will never be the ideal body type for a cyclist, but I can do more to at least be the proper weight for my size. At first the weight started to fall off, but then I ate more so I started maintaining. Because I really do overdo everything I started to eat better. Then I started to take vitamins and even a supplement. Now I am attacking my nutrition issue at the base and I am counting calories and monitoring my intake. My wife is not thrilled at this latest change as I used to be the source for all of the good yet unhealthy food in the house. The whole milk and salty snacks. The ice cream. The alcohol. I’ve stopped buying it all. Now she tried to sneak in two percent milk instead of one percent.

Katie does support me in everything, and she is also the voice of reason in our house. She is the one who pointed out how far I’ve come and how much my habits have changed. She has a great sense of humor so when I get out of hand she jokes around with me about it to help me stay balanced. She also supports me when I have a setback like getting hurt and having to be off the bike or if the numbers on the scale go the wrong way at weigh in.

Even I was surprised at the latest development. I love to ride my bike, but I generally hate to do other forms of exercise. I never expected to want to run. Recently I have kicked up my time on the trainer in preparation for this years’ first big ride, the Five Boro Tour of New York. I am riding with a friend who has always been faster than me so I want to do extra work so I don’t slow him down much on the ride. The extra work has been causing some leg pain. Thankfully it’s not knee or joint pain, just extra muscle soreness at the end of the ride. I did some research and found out that running can help develop your legs’ other muscle groups and help make you a stronger runner. Now I can’t wait for the snow to melt so I can start logging some miles. While I was waiting for that to happen, a friend asked for someone to run a mud/obstacle race called the Rugged Maniac in Massachusetts. I jumped right in and signed up with her. What better motivation for me to run than knowing I have a 5K at the end of the summer?

I also had the idea to invite some of the people that have inspired me to get on a bike or run. The people that have helped my see that anything is possible and that I can change what I weigh or how I look at exercise. My friends Tara and Katie from college have been a constant source of support and encouragement. My friend John has been supportive of the blog and following my journey. My friend Matt who volunteered to ride with me in New York even if I slow him down. My friend Angie who inspired me by running a half marathon. After speaking to them I have decided to open the invitation up to anyone who follows the blog. We are going to start a team and run the race together. Everyone is welcome, even if you aren’t in the best of shape. Especially if you need the motivation of a huge end of the season challenge to help get you running. Anyone who is interested can contact me through Facebook or Twitter for more details as they become available, or check out Rugged Maniac’s website. We also need help coming up with a team name and possibly a t-shirt if enough people are interested. I can’t thank Alysha and WickedMuddy.com enough for all of her help figuring out how to put a team together and how to register. I am sure I will be bothering her for more help throughout the process.

From a simple way to kill time I ended up obsessed with riding my bike. My friends’ call for someone to run a 5K with her inspired the team idea. If it’s worth doing, we might as well over do it! Who’s in?

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Back on the Bike

Posted on February 18, 2013 by Joe Johnson

Sometimes it’s hard to get back on the bike. You spend a week riding every day and the weekend derails you due to social obligations or you just need a rest day. Sometimes a blizzard hits and you spend a few days digging out and you just can’t look at the bike on the trainer. Sometimes you just can’t stand to look at the bike. You butt hurts or you just run out of motivation. A few days pass. Sometimes more than a few days pass and you finally look at the bike. You get dressed up in your kit and you put your shoes on and you look at the bike some more. You know the first ride back is going to hurt a little bit. You know that it’s going to feel a little strange as the muscles warm and you pedal the first few miles. You know that you will be beating yourself up for taking a longer break because you will feel it more than a shorter break. You know all of this as you stand there looking at the bike. These thoughts might have even been why you took that extra day off of the bike. You know the first time back is going to make you pay for those days away.

If you are anything like me, you will sigh to yourself and get on the bike. You will push slowly away and start your ride full of trepidation and a little enjoyment. I do love to ride, even if I take a few days away. Even when I have to ride on the trainer, I feel the same way. I know that my time away is going to come at a painful price, but I will get over it. The first mile goes slow and painful, but then my pace picks up and my legs remember what to do. The burning starts to fade away and the saddle starts to feel a little more comfortable. The act of riding becomes second nature again and you can start to enjoy the ride. The next thing you know you are pulling back into your driveway and the ride is over. You start to think that you could have gone a little longer or tried to ride a little faster after all.

I am hoping that writing about riding is also like that. It has been quite a while since I have been able to write about riding. The 52 week challenge only has one entry that is about cycling, and that was about Lance Armstrong’s interview so it doesn’t really count as being about cycling. I have written about a teacher, a television show, a dietary challenge and a eulogy for my friend, but not much about cycling. This feels like a rest day that has turned into a week off the bike. I wanted to write each of those pieces and some were time sensitive. I also wanted to make sure that I wasn’t focusing solely on cycling as that would become boring and repetitive to read and write. I did want to make it a focus of this blog, so I will start to return to it with a few planned posts that I need to get in before the real start of the season. Just like the first ride back after a break, I wanted to refocus my efforts with a slower start this week. I wanted to concentrate on one aspect of riding that we might take for granted until we need it.

A lot has happened recently in my life recently that has made it more difficult to focus my thoughts than normal. My good friend died suddenly. I am still searching for a job and unemployment is dwindling quickly. My father in law is going in for minor surgery. The amount of home repair projects is mounting around the house but we are too worried about spending money to really do much about the list. Thankfully the repairs are all minor, but they will still need to be done sooner or later. Some of these topics needed a blog entry to help me work through them, like Ed’s death. Others are just little nagging issues that I hope are going to be dealt with soon. I feel like things are starting to turn around. I have a phone interview and a second interview both happening this week. Finally getting off unemployment will be a huge win for me and will help most of what is bothering me seem much more manageable.

Riding helps me deal with these issues as well. The physical exertion helps to strip away the extra thought. When you are worrying about breathing and your legs are shouting at you, you don’t worry about what may happen in an interview. Once your body is warmed up you can slip into an alpha state where you aren’t consciously thinking about the act of riding the bike. Your mind starts to wander and your subconscious starts to work on your problems while your body pounds away at your workout. I didn’t know I wanted to write about Ed to help me deal with losing him until I rode 20 miles and wrote most of the post in my head. I didn’t even think about it for most of the ride, it just bubbled up as an idea fully formed. My subconscious did most of the work of deciding what was important.

Cyclists always talk about the benefits of riding. They often cite the health benefits or the positive effect on the environment. Some will also throw in the social aspect of group riding. I think the best benefit is the peace I find in the ride. It is much like meditation in that you are falling into the “no mind” state and able to let your subconscious wander. The riding doesn’t solve the problems, but it does free your mind to work on them while your focus is on the ride.

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Rest In Peace Ed Cunninghham

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Joe Johnson

This blog was supposed to be about my upcoming year of riding. I had gone through the calendar and sketched out a few of the rides I wanted to do this year, money and time permitting. Then something awful happened. My friend Ed died a few days ago and I found out yesterday. I actually got a text message from a close friend asking me if I could talk. I was worried because this friend doesn’t talk on the phone. I had no idea what she was calling about. I answered the phone to her crying and knew right away that something was drastically wrong. All she could say at first was “Ed is dead, I think Ed is dead”. She had gotten a text from another friend of ours giving her the news. I spent the rest of the day hoping that there was a mistake. No one knew anything specific and there was no news on line. People had tried to contact him, but not hearing back was ordinary. Ed almost never responded; he just caught up with you the next time he ran into you. A friend of a friend of a friend was the messenger so I really hoped that there was some kind of mistake.

I met Ed when a friend of mine and I joined a new bowling league. Angie and I had bowled in a different league before and wanted to bowl again but we were short a full team. We signed up for the league hoping to get good teammates that would help Thursday nights be fun. I talked to one of the league officers who pointed to a table occupied by one skinny man with five beers in front of him. He had a long gray biker beard and looked annoyed. I went over and introduced myself expecting the worst. I also thought his other teammate might be there judging by the amount of beer in front of him. I was wrong on both counts. Ed turned out to be one of the nicest guys I know, and he drank each of those beers by the end of the third game every week.

Ed wasn’t outgoing, but he was friendly to new people. He wouldn’t really warm up to anyone until they were around long enough. Even then, you almost didn’t know if he liked you right away. He had ways to test you, dirty jokes or comments. If you laughed, you were in. Ed never really opened up to people all that much. He didn’t talk to people on the phone, and he would barely respond to text messages. He would tell you certain things about his life so you would never really notice that he never told you everything. He would talk about his ex-wives and wanting to get a massage on his day off. He would talk to me about his jobs as we were in the same industry, just different ends of it. He was a truck driver and a teacher at a driver training school. I was a truck driver that moved into the safety, training, and environmental fields but still dealt with logistics. We understood each other and the struggles of being a driver and a trainer for a living.

He loved heavy metal music but hated older rock. He was in his fifties and resented people thinking he should like the Doobie Brothers because he was old. He loved bowling, but I think it was the people more than the sport that he enjoyed. Ed did like to win, but our team never seemed to do a lot of that. For two years we were lucky to finish near the middle of the league standings. We were definitely in it for the fun. This year things seemed to change. We managed to finish the first half in second place, something we never thought would happen. The last two weeks Ed came to bowling we managed to win most of the games as well. I think he liked that more than he let on.

There was a secret Ed as well. There was a side of him that he didn’t share easily and with many people. He cared about people in general. He might have been gruff with his students, but he cared about them. He took time to make sure they understood what they were doing. He also took time for them outside of class. Former students would come up to him when he was at the bowling alley and he took time to ask them about their lives and families. Ed cared just as deeply about people in need. He was the first person to pull his wallet out if someone was collecting for a charity. He bought corned beef dinners and cookies. He sponsored me in a walkathon. He would hear people asking for donations for the needy and wordlessly hand over cash. Ed never did any of this when people would really notice. He did it quietly.

Ed loved his god daughter and he was proud of her. He didn’t talk much about her, but when he did you could hear it in his voice. He cared about anyone that he decided was family. I don’t think he really cared how you fit in his life, if he wanted you in it you were family to him. He met my son and treated Brennen like he was a favorite nephew. He was instantly warm to my wife when she met him or would stop by. We went to a New Year’s Eve party at the bowling alley and he was a large part of why my three year old son loved the party.

There was one other secret the Ed kept from us. We are just now learning the details so I won’t give too many because I want to honor his desire to keep this quiet. Ed had bone marrow cancer. He never told any of us about it. He dealt with it and worked two jobs while suffering from it. Ed was constantly hurting himself and had just broken his arm before he died and I thought that is why he missed bowling the week before. It’s also why I thought that there might be some mistake when Angie heard that he died. Maybe he was just hurt and the story grew out of proportion as it went from strangers to teammates to me. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I didn’t know about his cancer, Ed only told you what he wanted you to know, and that was his right. I don’t mind that he didn’t tell us, I just wish we knew to be able to help him. I also think that is why he didn’t want us to know. I think he wanted to be Ed the bowling partner and friend, no Ed the cancer patient. I respect the desire to want to be defined by who you are not some medical prognosis. I am proud of my friend for making that choice and respect it even now when it is difficult to accept.

I drove to the bowling alley hoping that I would see his beat up blue pick-up truck in the parking lot. It wasn’t there. Worse, Donna, one of the league officers was looking for me when I walked in to talk to me. She wanted to make sure I knew, or to give me the news if I didn’t. The rest of the league officers showed up and Laurie was able to get ahold of his family and find out the details. All day I had feared that he was in an accident or had a heart attack. I never thought it would be cancer.

The rest of the night was a blur. Angie and I were alone at the table; Fran wasn’t able to be there. It just seemed like we were all alone as people went on bowling and laughing and enjoying themselves. I kept thinking that it was wrong, that everyone should be sad, but most people there didn’t even know at first. There was a collection and the league gave it’s half of the 50-50 raffle to his family as well as taking up a donation to help with his services. Other teams came by then to say sorry or share a memory. People cried and we put up a makeshift memorial. It didn’t seem right that there were no Bud Light bottles on our table. We bought his beer and left it in front of his empty chair. It will be there again next week, and the chair will stay empty for the season. We always sit in the same chairs, and his will be there for him.

Ed's Memorial

Ed’s Memorial

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Time for a Change

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Joe Johnson

It can be strange how a small choice can change your life. Actually, the first choice in the change wasn’t all that small, but my wife and I put off making it for as long as possible. We never wanted children when we were first together. We said that we wanted to have fun or that we didn’t want to compromise our lives to fit a child in. We would actively tell our parents that we were not going to have a child when they asked about grandchildren. In the beginning all of that might have been true. I know it took a while after we got married before I could think about having a child. I truly didn’t want one for a time, and then there were reasons not to have one. We both said that we might want one someday in the future, but not now. I think I worried about the money and time needed to raise a child. I think my wife worried about having a healthy baby. I think we both found reasons to not be ready for a very long time.

I did some baby math one day. I was 34 years old. If we had a child in the next year I would be 51 when I taught him or her how to drive. I would be 53 when they graduated high school. I would be 57 when they graduated college. If everything went right, if they took after me I would be older. I had a good job at the time, and we had settled into our new house. I began to think it might be time. Katie was less than enthusiastic. Her math was four years behind mine and we had said that if we ever had kids, it would only be one. She was thinking that she had a few more years. We agreed on letting the universe choose for us. We didn’t try to get pregnant as much as we just stopped trying to not be. I guess the universe thought it was time because 9 months later Brennen was born.

Having a baby changes everything about life, and I mean everything. When you get up, when you go to bed, even how you sleep. I could sleep through anything before Bren was born. I could, and did, sleep through a fireworks show. Now I wake up if there is a noise in his room. Even if you talk to other parents and do research and plan everything out, everything you think you know will be wrong. It is different for every person and family so there is no way to anticipate the changes or explain them in three pages on the internet. Sometimes the change starts with your child but then takes on a life of its own.

The first thing I changed once Brennen made his arrival was to quit smoking. I had tried off and on for years and had even taken prescription medication to quit. I had tried cold turkey, the patch and the gum. I had even thought about being hypnotized. Nothing worked. The only think trying to quit had taught me is that you have to want to quit. I didn’t want to. I loved smoking. I still dream about smoking, even now three years later. I walk by people smoking outside so I can smell the smoke. Once he was born though things had to change. I wouldn’t quit for myself, but I could for him. This wasn’t driven by some desire to keep him away from second hand smoke. I always smoked outside and didn’t smoke around Katie once she was pregnant. It was driven by another thought. I had many friends who smoked and most of them had something in common with each other. Almost all of them had a parent that smoked. A small minority of my smoking friends had parents who didn’t currently smoke, but even most of them had a parent who used to smoke at one time. That can’t be a coincidence. I don’t know if it shows a genetic predisposition to smoking, or if it just creates an atmosphere where smoking is somewhat condoned. I do know that thinking about this is what motivated me to quit. Yes, I will admit to smoking if Brennen ever asks me about it. I will tell him how hellacious it was to stop smoking and how I never want him to have to go through that. None of it may even matter, but I am doing what I can by quitting. I think that my generation is the first to be able to make these choices. I know my father quit smoking when I was a child and I have always admired him for it, but I think this generation can break the cycle because smoking isn’t as socially acceptable anymore. Fewer and fewer people are doing it and the cost of the habit is prohibitive these days. I hope that by the time that Brennen is old enough to be exposed to smoking it just won’t be prevalent anymore.

After my first year of not smoking I felt a little better. I decided to make another change in my life to see what would happen. I decided to give up salt for Lent. I don’t often give things up for Lent, but it seemed like a good time and had the built in excuse if I couldn’t keep it up after Lent ended. I didn’t fail if I went back to using salt, Lent was over so it was okay. I cannot overstate the shock this caused to people around me. Katie was sure that I wouldn’t make it a day or two. My mother almost fell off her chair. I was a person who couldn’t sit down to eat without a salt shaker on the table. Salt was almost always on the shopping list and I would stress about it when we went out to eat. My friends all teased me about how much salt I would use. After quitting smoking I became very defensive about it, claiming it as my last real vise. I made a few rules for giving salt up. I put away the salt shaker and vowed not to use it. That was the source of my problem. I could go through a salt shaker in about a week. I would put it on everything, even if the food didn’t need it. I did allow any salt used in cooking as that wasn’t my problem. I also allowed any salt on pretzels or other snacks, but I wasn’t allowed to add more or ask for extra.

Not much changed after Lent ended. I managed to keep away from salt. I didn’t feel much different, but some foods tasted different to me. Some foods tasted better, others were a bit of a disappointment. If you take salt and butter away from corn you are left with Styrofoam. I did notice a change in my clothes after a long bicycle ride. I used to have large whitish stains on my clothes that I thought were sweat stains. They were actually salt stains. That was pretty disgusting and a great motivator for staying away from extra salt.

Now it’s almost Lent again. I need to decide what to do to make a change again this year. I am thinking about using the time to relearn how to eat healthy. I have quit smoking and salt and I have upped my millage riding my bike, but I am still overweight. I think the reason is that I am still eating horribly. This needs to change this year. I need to reduce my total caloric intake as well as start eating healthier overall. Too many times I will sit down with a bag of chips meaning to eat a few and eat the bag. I need to start eating carrots instead of chips. I am going to make this my Lent challenge this year. I think a rule of thumb of 2500 calories as well as looking at each meal and deciding if it is healthy enough should be a good start. Lent is going to provide the catalyst but it will not be a built in excuse if I fail this year. This year I will have the internet to keep my honest and working after Lent. Once you claim something like this on line, people will keep you honest. I will report on my progress on the new Facebook page and write an end of Lent wrap up here to let you know how I am doing.

The small choice was not having Brennen, that one was a huge choice. The small choice was to change. At first I really didn’t have a choice, I had to stop smoking or risk the effects of secondhand smoke and unconscious acceptance of his eventual experimenting with smoking. The change became more than just one choice when I gave up salt. It began to grow into a commitment to be healthier in general. It piggybacked on to the lifestyle shift of becoming a cyclist and created the desire for more change. Instead of fighting eating better, I now want to be healthier; both for myself and to be a better role model for my son. If he grows up knowing the best ways to eat he will never have to fight temptation to eat poorly. It will just be normal to him, and that will be the best change of all.

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A Facebook Game Goes Too Far

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Joe Johnson

A good friend of mine started a game on Facebook with her status update last week by posting the answers to five questions. She answered the questions twice, once based on an age given to her by a friend, and once based on her current age. One of her answers was that she drove a Saturn Coupe when she was 26. I commented back to her about my desire for one as I drove a Saturn sedan and always thought that the Coupe was cooler than my car. I didn’t mean to add myself to the list of people wanting to participate, but I didn’t say that I didn’t want to participate either. She replied back and gave me an age as well, twenty four or 1999. I don’t think she could have picked a more difficult age if she tried. There was no way I could answer the five questions in a status update. I actually asked for a month to narrow it down and that didn’t help. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to turn my answer into a blog post. I am getting backed up with potential post ideas, but to do any less seemed like I would be taking the easy way out of answering the five questions. They are:

1. Where did you live?
2. What did you drive?
3. Where did you work?
4. What did you want to do with your life?
5. What did you fear?

Age twenty four was a year of massive change for me. I had met the woman I was going to marry and she was already changing my life. The year before she had asked me to return to community college and finish my Associate’s Degree in broadcast communications because education is important to her. I had surprised her by also applying to the four year college she was attending and gained acceptance. 1999 was the year that I graduated one school and moved to Philadelphia to start my Bachelor’s degree at the next. All of this means that even the first question was going to require more of an answer than just a simple location, but here we go.
Where did you live? I lived in both Meriden, Connecticut and Radnor, Pennsylvania. I lived with my parents in Connecticut and at school in Pennsylvania. Both places I lived required a bit of adjustment from me and a bit of acceptance from the people I lived with. I had recently moved back in with my parents to save money after quitting my full time job to go back to school. It was definitely different to go back to living with them after being on my own for a few years. I tried hard to respect their rules and space, but I didn’t always do the best job. I was twenty four and thought I knew everything, so there were some stressful times. Once I moved onto campus things were even more interesting. I had never shared a room with anyone, or experienced any type of group living environment. The idea of sharing a bedroom with someone, or sharing a bathroom with six or seven other people made me uncomfortable to say the least. If you have ever seen a college dorm bathroom you will understand. I was someone who enjoyed my privacy and struggled with how to give much of that up. Katie had picked out a roommate for me and we didn’t get along well. A large part of the problem was my struggling to adjust, but we also had a personality clash. He was a good friend of Katie’s, and I think that he also resented her spending a significant amount of her free time with me. I regret things not going better, but I moved to a new room after a couple of weeks. My next roommate and I got along much better. We were both adjusting to living on campus after having our own apartments so we understood each other a little better. We were able to give each other a little privacy and we also got along well enough that we didn’t mind sharing some space. The next semester I ended up with a new roommate and then I became a Resident Assistant. One reason the position appealed to me was that all RAs got single rooms and some even got an attached bathroom.

What did you drive? When I was living in Connecticut I drove a white Saturn sedan. Katie hated that car for many reasons, but I loved it. I loved it because it was the first car I had ever bought from a real car dealer and not off of someone’s front yard. It was the first car I owned where everything, for a while, worked. It was a Saturn and that didn’t last long. It was a sensible car I bought when I thought I was going to settle down. It was also a great little car that constantly broke, but always started and ran no matter what I did to it. The seats broke, the windows wouldn’t go up and down and a million other little issues, but it always started. The only major issue it had was caused by my constant overloading the car, so I never held that against it. Katie hated it because she loves Pontiacs and Trans Ams and I traded in one of her dream cars for the Saturn, a 1987 blue Trans Am with T-Tops. I think she is still a little bitter. When I was getting ready to move to Pennsylvania my father suggested that I donate the car as it probably wouldn’t make repeated trips to college and I might not need a car. It was pretty beat up so I agreed, so for a few months of 1999 I actually drove nothing, but rode shuttle buses and mass transit trains everywhere. When I came home for Christmas break my mother helped my buy a red two door Chevrolet Blazer. It had seen better days, but I fell in love with it. That truck made countless trips between school and home over the next year and a half until graduation.

Where did you work? When I lived in Connecticut I worked as a bowling alley mechanic at Colony Lanes in Wallingford. That might have been one of the best jobs I have ever had. I loved going to work there. I worked behind the machines fixing whatever went wrong at night. I also learned how to drill bowling balls, cook in the snack bar, and change beer kegs. The people I worked with were amazing as well. I loved going to work just to talk to my friends. Some of them I had known since I was a kid bowling there and others I got to know once I started. We worked hard but always had fun, bowling after the center closed or going out to eat at the all night diner. They are people that I will never forget. Once I moved to college I worked multiple jobs. I had a work study job as a tutor. That was a lot of fun, but mostly I sat in a room waiting for students to come in for help. I will always remember one student that had been passed through high school in Philadelphia and had never learned how to write properly. I worked with him for an entire semester and he went from being in danger of failing his English Composition course to thinking about changing majors to journalism. He was brilliant; he just needed access to the proper tools to get his ideas across. I also got a job at a place called a record store. Younger readers may not know what that is, but once upon a time it was magical place where people sold vinyl cylinders that were like MP3s, but played on things called record players. We also sold compact disks and tapes. They even stocked some basic instruments and sheet music. This was after the internet but before iTunes. I liked it, but I worked in the stock room and it was pretty boring. Just before I went home for Christmas I found a bowling alley near school and started working there as a mechanic. It was different than Colony Lanes, but it was good to be back doing something I liked. I was able to help coach kids and the people on staff treated me great.

What did you want to do with your life? This is the funniest question to answer because what I wanted to do then is so far off from what I do now. I wanted to work in radio. I wanted to be a morning drive deejay. I had a talk show on the school’s radio station and I thought it was pretty good. It was interesting and a total zoo and people seemed to like it. In 1999 it was just getting started with my first partner. We had a great time and people listened, even off campus. Once I graduated I worked for two college’s Residence Life staffs and sent out demo tapes. The only time I would get any type of positive response would be for low paying jobs out in the Mid-West. I didn’t want to risk my relationship by moving out there, and the truth is I didn’t really care about radio enough to go out there and broadcast to corn. If I did, I would have gone. Instead I moved home and went back to driving a truck for an environmental company. It wasn’t perfect, but I liked it enough and I got to marry my wife which is what I was more concerned about than a career in radio.

What did you fear? I feared not being smart enough to succeed in college. I had the idea that I was going to a school where everyone would be focused on achieving some type of academic excellence and that I wouldn’t be able to catch up. Anyone who has been to a four year school will be laughing at that fear. I had never seen so many people drink so much alcohol! That was the most expensive party some people will ever go to and that I had ever seen. Don’t get me wrong, I had a lot of fun, but some people took things way too far. I feared my relationship not working out. I felt like I was out on a limb, committing to getting a four year degree and moving onto campus. I was afraid that Katie would decide that I wasn’t what she wanted and move on leaving me in a strange place alone. My biggest fear for the year wasn’t even a thought to me until December. I got home from college for Christmas and found out that my parents were getting a divorce. At that point I don’t even know if there was a fear, other than the fear of the unknown. I didn’t know what had happened, or what was going to happen at that point, I just knew that life had changed for all of us.

The next part of the game is answering the same questions again, but from your current perspective. This is a lot easier in some ways, but also shows just how much life can change. When I was young I thought I knew more than I did, but I also made mountains out of ant hills. I don’t even thing my problems were mole hills then. Now, I think I worry less about things than younger me would have. I still treat problems as important, but I don’t think I let the things that are out of my control worry me as much. Twenty four year old me didn’t know to relax and almost missed the amazing year that was ahead of him. I finished my first year at school, became an RA, had a great summer at home, met some amazing people at school that are still my closest friends to this day, and spent even more time with Katie. I think that’s what makes the questions easier, more of a sense of perspective.

Where do you live? I live in Manchester, Connecticut. This is the second home that Katie and I bought, and where we hope to stay for quite some time. Sure, we would like to move somewhere a little less crowded, but we have been here long enough that it just feels like home.

What do you drive? I drive a Chevrolet Silverado. This is my dream truck and I love it every time I climb into it. It is a full size four door truck. There is plenty of room for everything and everyone. I can tow my trailer, haul almost anything I need to, and I never get stuck. My son’s eyes light up every time we go somewhere in it. He loves it as much as I do.

Where do you work? Nowhere. This is the one issue that I have right now. I have been looking for a job since I lost my last one in August. I had an interview last Saturday that I am very hopeful about and it seems like things are picking up, but as of right now, I am still searching. If anyone knows of anything, let me know.

What do you want to do with your life? I want to be a good dad, a good husband, and a good man. I am an environmental professional, but I am open to change. I would like to do something with my communications degree, but being unemployed I am not picky. I feel like one day, if I keep trying, I might even get to be a writer.

What are you afraid of? I am afraid of letting my son or family down. I know that is vague, but that is what I am most afraid of. I am afraid of doing something, or not doing something, or not knowing something, or really anything that could hurt them. I can’t imagine what that feels like, and I never want to know. I can’t even really think about losing any part of my family and that is my biggest fear. Everything else will solve itself.

I keep thinking that is the one thing I wish younger me knew. Everything will be okay. It might be different, but it will be okay. Things change. People move, jobs disappear, change happens, but it will be okay. Just relax and enjoy the good things.

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Goodbye Attack of the Show

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Joe Johnson

When I was growing up I never knew I was a nerd. Sure, there were signs as far back as Elementary School. I can remember a friend of mine introducing me to role playing games like James Bond and Dungeons and Dragons. We would go to the park and build characters. I can also remember rushing home to watch cartoons, though I always gravitated to Japanese Anime without knowing it. Transformers were cooler than G.I. Joe.

When Middle School started it was even more obvious to everyone but me. I was in the honors classes with all of my friends so I didn’t notice it. I was by no means the smartest, but I held my own. I was also a band geek. I could play a number of instruments including brass, string, woodwind, and some percussion. I read voraciously and not very selectively. I read Lord of the Flies, Of Mice and Men, and To Kill a Mockingbird. I also read every Stephen King book published, even It. I read that one at summer camp one year. We were staying in college dorms and I had to sleep with the lights on and the closet doors open. I read almost every Science Fiction book I could get my hands on. Some of them, like Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, shaped the way I think and still color my world.

High School was more of the same. I was still in honors level classes and still friends with the nerdiest kids in school. Some of them even wore pocket protectors, but still I didn’t think anything of it. I never sat at the cool table for lunch, but I sat with my friends and I thought they were cooler anyway. These were also the kids that were on the cutting edge of technology before there really was a cutting edge. There were building their own computers from parts scrounged at Radio Shack and hobby shops. They were the only kids to get excited when you could buy a new processor or when they could finally get on the Apple II in the library. I still remember some of them bringing in floppy disks that had crude pictures of girls in bikinis or setting up bulletin board servers in their rooms. Everyone laughed at them, but I bet they are doing great these days.

I didn’t really know I was a nerd because it was only part of my life. I played Little League in the summer and Pop Warner football in the fall. I bowled all year long. I traveled to tournaments for bowling and even went to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs for target shooting. I was a band geek, but I was also into hard rock and played guitar. I went to a ton of concerts with some of the prettiest girls in school. I drove a cool car and had a lot of fun and certainly no one ever really called me a nerd except for my best friend and that didn’t count. Looking back, I was also a head taller and a hundred pounds heavier than everyone else, so that might have had an effect. Most kids don’t tell the guy well over six feet tall that he is a nerd, especially one on the football team.

The truth is that I fit in everywhere, but I also fit in nowhere. That is the curse of being a nerd, there is almost no group or clique that you really feel at home in. My friends always fell into groups that had a dislike for other groups which also included friends of mine. The jocks, the computer nerds, the band geeks, the metalheads, all of them seemed to define themselves as something the other group wasn’t. It didn’t bother me much, and I had a great childhood, but I also always felt a little bit like an outsider.

I grew up and got married to a wonderful woman who also didn’t know she was a nerd. Her love for computers and electronic sound boards should have given us a clue, but it didn’t matter. We were happy that we found each other. We would spend our nights watching television hoping to find something interesting, and we always ended up on SyFy or however they are spelling it this week. One night we stumbled on a channel named G4. There was some strange show called Attack of the Show on. It was mostly funny internet videos and pop culture interviews. The set was super cheap, the main decoration seemed a couple of flat screen TVs and later some old cell phone hanging from the ceiling.

So we watched. And we watched. And we watched some more. Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn reminded us of all the different things we loved every night. Internet videos. Product reviews. Kevin’s amazing interviews with just about anyone important in nerd culture or in current events were underrated and fantastic. Comedy skits and world record attempts that made us laugh. We were able to reconnect with a culture that we never really knew we belonged in but missed anyway. Blair Butler had a feature on comic books that got me back into the shops for the first time since I walked there as a kid. Alison Haislip, Jessica Chobot, and others took us behind the scenes of big summer blockbusters or to conventions all over the county. Chris Hardwick did tech reviews and Chris Gore did DVD reviews. Both were a big influence on what we bought and watched. Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb reviewed video games on their show and on Attack of the Show. Over the years the cast changed and Candace Bailey, Sara Underwood, Matt Mira and others joined and brought a new feel to the show, but it was always Attack.

All of a sudden it ended. Kevin left and the show soldiered on for a little while with guest hosts. There were tweaks to the format. Then there was the announcement that the show was canceled. Last Wednesday there was the last ever Attack of the Show, and my wife and I were both saddened. The show that had brought us back, had made us laugh, informed us, and generally entertained us was gone after seven years. It was more than that though. Attack of the Show was G4’s flagship show, and it was a huge part of showing Hollywood that nerd culture was worth embracing. Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Spider Man, Thor, Captain America, Transformers, Avengers, Star Wars, Star Trek, the list goes on and on of what was taken from the culture and turned mainstream. More than that, the show also showed the entertainment industry how loyal and dedicated this culture is to what they love. San Diego Comic Con, New York Comic Con, Star Wars Celebration and every single time Doctor Who does anything in this country are proof, as are the lines of Apple fans waiting for days to get the latest phone or tablet computer. Attack of the Show didn’t cause any of this, but I believe that the show opened Hollywood’s eyes to it all and paved the way for some of it to happen.

So, goodbye to all of that. Goodbye to the show and the people that created an hour of entertaining live television a day. Goodbye and good luck. We and countless others will miss you. We will follow you on Twitter and cheer you on when you start your next endeavor. All any of us can do is thank you for what you have done. In my case, thanks for reminding me where I fit in and feel like I belong.

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Oh Lance

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Joe Johnson

Awhile back I wrote a blog post vowing to never write about Lance Armstrong ever again. I feel like Taylor Swift because I need to go back there again, despite saying never ever ever again. I don’t know how to avoid him as a topic after the two night confession extravaganza interview with Oprah Winfrey on the OWN network. I don’t know how anyone that follows professional cycling or is part of the cycling subculture would not watch. I wanted to ignore it, but I knew that I would watch. I did DVR the program both nights in the vague hope that I wouldn’t contribute to the ratings. I also didn’t want to contribute to lining Lance Armstrong’s pockets with much needed cash, but I am sure that Oprah paid him for the interview. There is no confirmation of that, it is just my suspicion of why he chose Oprah to conduct the interview.

There were no real revelations to be had in two and a half hours of viewing. Oprah asked the most important questions first. Did you cheat? Did you use performance enhancing drugs? Did you lie about it? Armstrong answered yes to all three questions. I don’t think there are many people left in the world that would have thought otherwise before hearing it from Armstrong. What I had hoped to hear was that he was going to work with cycling’s governing body (UCI) or the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) to show how he managed to dope for so long. I had hoped to hear some type of acknowledgment of wrongdoing, or even some remorse for what he had done to fellow riders, their families, the sport, or Greg LeMond. I didn’t feel like Armstrong took any of that seriously. The most repeated sound-bite of part one was his quote that he didn’t call Betsy Andreu fat.

“I called Betsy Andreu a crazy bitch, but I never called her fat”

I did a quick poll on Facebook and Twitter before the interview to see if there was anything Armstrong could have said to change people’s opinions of him. Everyone claimed that their opinions were formed and it would be almost impossible to change them. Supporters still supported him and would no matter what, often citing his charity as a saving grace. Critics were expecting confirmation of doping and felt the damage done to cycling as a sport and to people around him were too much to forgive. I don’t think anyone expected Armstrong to barely say sorry before claiming that to him, doping was as necessary as “putting air in the tires”. He managed to come off as a big jerk. He never spoke about the cost to his family until the second night of the interview, though part of that might have been due to the OWN producer’s editing. There were many twitter comments and a few articles about his missed opportunity to help his image. I can’t disagree with the missed chances, but I also wonder how much of this is Armstrong’s own mentality, and how much is he reflecting society’s morays?

Bicycling Magazine January February 2013, Pages 42-43

Bicycling Magazine January February 2013, Pages 42-43

I came across this article and advertisement in Bicycling Magazine the day after I watched Lance Armstrong sound so tone deaf on doping. Ted King’s article focuses on his belief that cycling’s attitude about doping is changing for the better. King speaks about a sea change at the rider level, each choosing to ride clean for themselves. I truly hope his is right, but the interesting thing is the advertisement that is positioned on the bottom half of the second page (Bicycling Magazine, January-February 2013, page 42-43). It is for MRI’s new supplement E02, a product that “…gives cyclists a proactive approach to building and maintaining endurance and oxygen availability to help power your body’s capacity to peak performance”. I did a quick Google search and came up with a site that quotes a marketing blurb not used in Bicycling.
“Endurance athletes are a unique breed – they thrive in a training zone few dare to enter. Enter MRI EO2 EDGE™ – a breakthrough formula that meets 6 critical factors of endurance head on. The advanced, research backed EO2 EDGE formula incorporates ingredients that may help support: Efficient fuel for active muscles, optimal blood flow, natural RBC support for peak O2 availability, muscle recovery from training induced stress, optimal muscle contractions and increased time to exhaustion and restoration of body-hydrating fluids.”
RBC seems like it should stand for Red Blood Cells from context, though it isn’t spelled out in the marketing blurb. A quick tour of MRI’s site also shows the claim that the product promotes “optimal circulation and oxygen utilization”. That sounds very familiar. It sounds a lot like the first sentence in the Wikipedia entry for Blood Doping.

I don’t want to make too much over the placement of this particular advertisement in Bicycling Magazine. I can only assume that the product is safe to use as a supplement to a training regimen. I am sure that it is perfectly legal and not on any banned substance list. I also do not want to say that Bicycling Magazine should turn down supplement advertising, or any legitimate advertising. I will question the placement of the ad. I will also say that I wouldn’t have paid any attention to the product if it the advertisement was placed anywhere else in the magazine this month. What made it eye-catching to me is that it is a half-page advertisement for a supplement that mimics the effects of the very doping that Ted King is renouncing. I am not sure if that says more about the magazine editor’s poor choice of layout, or of the cycling community that might not see the placement as an issue, or even as ironic. Maybe this is part of the reason Lance Armstrong has issues seeing what he did as wrong. In his mind everyone is on something, their drug of choice just isn’t on the list of banned substances yet.

I think that if cycling is to move forward, that is the mindset that needs changing on all levels, from disgraced pro riders to recreational riders like myself. We need to think that the rider that just dropped me is a better rider, not that they have better supplements.

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Mister Germanowski

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Joe Johnson

“You are rude and disrespectful!”

That line was often bellowed at the top of his lungs in front of a classroom full of seventh grade students who were always a little rude and disrespectful. It is part of being a seventh grader. That line would always bring whatever was happening in the classroom to a complete stop. You never kept going once Mister Germanowski started yelling. Those six words could stop talking, notes in mid-pass, or any other shenanigans. More often than not they were also the start of a fusillade condemning the action that triggered the words, as well as the thought process that must have preceded the action. No matter what was happening, those 6 words stopped the class and whatever wasn’t supposed to be happening immediately.

We were crazy kids back then, but probably not as crazy as I remember. I don’t think we could hold a candle to kids today. Some of my friends are teachers and the stories they tell make those long ago days seem innocent in comparison. Casey Cahoon wanted to boycott school because there was too much homework. He wanted to make signs and walk a picket line in front of the school in the morning. He was all for it and we were with him, right up until realizing we were too lazy to make the signs. I used to use newspaper delivery money to buy candy from the corner store on the way to school and sell it to the “cool girls” for a quarter a piece. All of the boys tried to wear shorts to school in June because it was so hot and the girls could wear skirts. That one actually worked, the school changed the rule to let us wear Bermuda shorts. We all looked ridiculous in flower patterned shorts that had to touch our knees, but a win was a win. Really, we did kid stuff; but we were just kids. There were no drugs, cigarettes, or really ANYTHING back then. It was just silly innocent kid stuff that never meant any real harm. We weren’t perfect, we were just typical seventh graders in the 1980s.

Mister Germanowski wouldn’t put up with any of it. When you went into his classroom, you went there to learn. End of story. There would be some fun times. He taught science and would do experiments in the front of the room. It was the first time we had ever seen a Bunsen burner. Most of the time it was Mister Wizard style experiments. He would demonstrate osmosis or chemical reactions that would change colors that would grab the attention of young minds. There were painful lessons too. There was nothing worse than multiplication tables. We would have to sit and listen as he read multiplication problems and write the answers down. 6 times 7. 8 times 4. 10 times 12. This would go on for up to fifty problems. Then we had to trade papers and correct our friends work. There was nothing worse than being the person that had to correct your friend’s bad quiz. It still surprises me that none of us really cheated when we were correcting. We were probably too scared to get caught to take the chance. We were too scared of hearing those words!
“You are rude and disrespectful!”
Mister Germanowski was a force of nature once he got started. There was no arguing, there were no explanations. You could try, but nothing you said would make any difference, and would probably make whatever punishment he was going to issue much worse. We all tried to lessen his wrath the first time it was directed at each of us, and we all failed. We all learned that it was best to say “Yes sir” or “No sir” when he asked questions and take our medicine. Even trying to argue mitigating circumstances would often double detention.

I hated his classes. I have a mind that naturally bends itself towards the artistic academia. I will never truly be a scientist, even as I work in the environmental science field. I am proficient at my work, but I will never have a passion for it as I do for literature, history, music, and film. Memorizing multiplication tables and defining mitosis was a slow daily torture for me. I coped by daydreaming and acting out which caused endless confrontations and almost daily doses of the Rude and Disrespectful speech. I longed to escape to music class or even across the hall to English class. I thought what I was learning was a complete waste of time. I probably sounded like every After School Special.
“I will never use this stuff in my life!”
“Why do I have to do this?”

Of course I do use that stuff every day of my life. It is very important to have a basic understanding of science. I actually relied on many of Mister Germanowski’s lessons to help me through my college science courses. I still think of him when I can multiply or divide numbers in my head. I don’t think I had a math teacher that could explain the concepts to me as effectively as he could until my junior year in college. I don’t think I always remember who taught be 12 time 12 is 144. I know I learned it somewhere and I am glad I knew it, but most of the memories of what he taught came back to me as I was thinking about what he really taught us.

The man who always told us when we were being rude and disrespectful actually helped teach us how not to be those things. Our parents taught us how to act in public, but this was slightly different. Each of us thought that we could do whatever we want as long as our parents didn’t find out. We could walk the line with no real consequence until we stepped over it and got the dreaded letter home. The letter home that detailed your offences so your parents knew and had to be signed and returned. That was the ultimate punishment when I was in middle school. We never really thought about it, but we all knew that if we didn’t cross that line then what we did at school wasn’t that big of a deal. Until Mister Germanowski teachers would yell at you and then move on unless you did something bad enough to get the letter. They didn’t send you to the principal like they did in elementary school or give you detention. Mister Germanowski would give detention. If you rode the bus home you needed to find a ride. Your parents would find out because you weren’t home when you were supposed to be. He wouldn’t send you to the office, but he would do other things. Chores instead of recess, presentations in front of the class, extra homework for you, or worse, for the whole class were all part of his arsenal. Suddenly each and every action had a consequence, even away from our parents. They didn’t have to find out for us to suffer some very real punishments. He taught us that we chose to act a certain way, and those choices would have consequences. He also taught us that by admitting fault and answering respectfully with a “yes sir” and not making excuses you could avoid more trouble. Try to get out of trouble by denying your responsibility or blaming him and you would make it worse.

These real lessons are the reason I will always remember him. I can still see him in his shirt and tie, eyes flashing behind his thick glasses, angrily telling me what I did and waiting for me to say “yes sir”. These are lessons that I tried to pass on to students when I worked in Residence Life at two colleges. You chose to act, and by those choices consequences are determined. It is not the fault of authorities that you find yourself in a bad situation, it is yours. These are the lessons that I will try to pass on to my son. I can only hope he finds his own Mister Germanowski to complete the lessons. He will teach him that even when I am not there and won’t find out about it, that each choice has consequences.

We used to complain that Mister Germanowski was too hard on us. He was mean and punished us for no reason. We hated and feared him because most of the other teachers would let us get away with acting up. Twenty five years of perspective have taught me that he was choosing to be a hard teacher, but it was for our own good. It was not the easy road we thought it was as kids, it was an incredibly difficult choice to make and live with. It was one that could only come from caring about your students as human beings enough to help form their character as well as teach them multiplication tables. Teachers are amazing people and the good ones even more so. Their students never know the real lessons taught until they are adults and it is far too late to say thank you. I am going honor my teachers by treating my son’s teachers with respect and kindness, and to never be rude or disrespectful to them.

I had planned to write this before the events in Newtown, Connecticut. The selfless actions of the six staff members who lost their lives that day show that Mister Germanowski is not alone in his belief that the students are the most precious trust imaginable. Thankfully heroes like these are still there for our kids every day, teaching and protecting them.

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The Challenge!

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Joe Johnson

I started this site back in September as a way to write about cycling and life. I had dreams of blogging through my unemployment and weight loss while saving my sanity. I feel like I have managed to post a few good pieces and some have even been published by CycleRecycle and Wheelsuckers. I am proud of what I accomplished in 2012, but I think that the site deserves more energy, and possibly more importantly, structure for 2013. I have been thinking about this for a while but I hadn’t thought too much about what to change or how to accomplish it when I ran across and interesting blog on Freshly Pressed about bloggers who were completing challenges in 2012. These bloggers had given themselves content challenges where they had to update daily or weekly for the entire year. This inspired me to take up the weekly challenge for 2013! Without thinking I announced my new idea on Twitter and people seemed to like it. I hadn’t really thought it through at that time. This was going to be difficult. 52 new updates! 52 new ideas! I started to stress out but it wouldn’t be called a challenge if it was easy.

The 52 Posts in 52 Weeks Challenge was born. I am challenging myself to write 52 new blog posts and publish one on each Monday of 2013. The purpose of this challenge is to push myself to develop as a writer and to force some structure on my posting schedule. Last year I published twelve posts from late December to New Year’s Eve, almost one post a week. Some were published days after the last post, others waited almost two weeks. That was no way to build a schedule or even get people interested. This year I will force myself to publish once a week on Monday as part of the awesome Monday Blogs movement on Twitter. You can follow @RachelintheOC and @MondayBlogs for more information and more Monday Bloggers.

The rules will be fairly simple. Rule one will be each Monday there has to be a new blog posted before noon Eastern Standard Time. I am going to play with the update features of WordPress to see if there is a way to save a post and auto-update at a given time. If there is, the new post will go up at noon. This rule is important to help me develop as a writer by giving me the most dreadful constraint ever, a deadline! Every real writer works under one, so it is time that I share their pain.

The second rule is that each update must be a post that has some type of central idea or theme. I cannot post a blog that consists of “I got up and did this then that”. It must be a post with a point. Ride Reports will only count as part of the 52 updates if they are reporting on a significant ride. I am hoping to attend the 5 Borough Tour in New York City this year; that Ride Report would count. A Ride Report on a Tuesday night training ride wouldn’t.

The third rule is that not all updates can be about cycling. I need to push myself to write about other topics. In that spirit I am going to make a rule that no more than two thirds of the posts should be about cycling. This includes book and gear reviews. I can write about cars, life, politics, or anything else to round out the posts. I even have had an idea about taking requests from readers. I might tie that to Twitter to make a contest out of the requests, but I am not sure. I might also tie requests to a milestone number of posts; something like every tenth post will be a request topic. Anyone who has any ideas, or any requests, please let me know. This seems like a fun way to push myself a little.

The fourth rule is another one dealing with content. When I started this blog a friend asked if I was trying to bring back my college radio persona as a blog. That persona was a little rough around the edges, sarcastic, and sensationalist. It was very fun to “be” that person on the radio and it was very easy. This challenge is more about developing as a writer and not going for the easy way out. That is not to say that writing humor is easy, it isn’t; but I am not allowed to bring back that particular persona on the blog. Humor is allowed, but for the challenge I will write in my real voice.

The final rule is that this is about setting a specific goal for myself as a writer not about stifling creativity or setting general rules for the site. The rules only apply to the 52 Posts in 52 Weeks challenge. Any posts that I publish on other days can break whatever rules I have set out here and not violate the challenge. These extra posts will be for quick updates or other things that would break these rules.

This challenge is going to push me to plan my posts and to write to a deadline. I am already looking for topics for the rest of the month and trying to write ahead to keep on schedule. I hope to keep my posts entertaining and engaging to you, and I hope you have fun following along to see if I can complete the challenge. I also hope that you keep me honest. If I fail to update or break any of the rules, please call me out on it.

See you next week!

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