Just as the title reads, "Panels 3 and 4 are complete." The next step is foiling all the pieces (Erika's speciality). Soldering the individual panels then the entire assembly soon follows. Been taking my sweet time with this one. It's been unusally hot and humid this summer. Nice time to sit in front of the A.C. and read a book (Casting Forward by Steve Ramerez) or do some astroimage processing (future post) or watch some movies (too many to name, Amazon Prime is a good thing) or planning the last phase of my life...whoa, that's a big one!
Now, I don't want to just mention this tiny bit of information in passing. I'm almost 64. The males of the Kimball family have a history of expiring in their 60's. I'm a "just-in-case" kinda guy so, I've been planning what I will do before my demise, you know, a bucket list. I've already experienced my midlife crisis. That's why I'm in Japan having the time of my life. Nope, nothing like that. There has been something missing in my life that "was" part of my core identity. Life has a way of getting in the way of things that you used to enjoy. Actually, enjoy isn't the word I should be using. It's more than that...much more. When I was a kid, I loved to ride bicycles. This grew into an obsession as I got older. I rode everyday and everywhere. One hundred miles was a routine ride for me, exhausting, but no big deal. I didn't want to learn how to drive in high school. As a matter of factly, I didn't get my license until I was 19. It was out of neccesity. The urge to bicycle to new and exciting places required a car. Well, that lead to all kinds of mis-adventures. Washington, Oregon, the California Coast, and the Sierra Nevada. Sometimes I would travel with my brother, John and sometimes with my best friend John C.. Often, I would explore on my own. In Sacramento, I purposely commuted an extra 25 miles to work so that I could ride on the American River Bike Trail. I would ride day or night, rain or shine. I absolutely loved the feeling of getting outside with nature and challenging myself under my own power. I was in control of myself. Does that make any sense?
Eventually, I had to get a "real" job and everything changed. I moved to the Bay Area, went back to school, found my career and got married, and bought a house with furniture. You see, up until that point, I could put all of my life's belongings into the back of my Toyota pickup truck. Easy peasy. Life became complicated with bills and responsibilities. Cycling was out of the picture. Sure, I went on occasional rides with my brother, but eventually we went on our own seperate ways. I guess we grew up. During this hiatus, I grew old. My previous cycling accidents were catching up to me. I was almost run over by a bus in Sacramento. The rear wheel of the bus nicked my helmet. Good grief. Well any hoot, those injuries finally caught up to me. While living in Seattle, I had an MRI that revealed a severe impingment of my spine near C1 and C2. Erika was extremely worried about my health. I was in physical therapy for 3 months and eventually I received a cortisone shot up my spine...fun! Holy crap that needle was long!! I knew deep down inside that my cycling days were over. Eventually, I had to leave my job with the airlines. We moved to Japan and the rest is history.
To get to the point after this long and drawn out story, I've found a way to cycle again. Much more on this development in another post (Don't you hate when someone ends a story like that?")
