Standard time, November miles

As I considered my options at about 11am this morning I noticed that the promise of all of the weather predictors was for a temperature of about 49. The sun was out and a review of the weather log in the daily newspaper revealed that 49 is the average high temperature for this date. The day looked pretty, it promised to be at least average temperature, out I went.

It was windy. But it was a nice day for November, way nicer than about 2/3 of the days in October. It was windy and windy is hard work for a bicyclist but I pronounce it good, I had fun.

The wind was from the northwest, mostly from the west and so in the first half of the ride I tried to get a little further west than I usually do. The last time a similar wind event occurred I rode through the campus of Northwestern College, a place I had never ridden before. The skies that day were heavily overcast but Northwestern turns out to be located in a very pretty spot and I promised myself I would be back when the sun was out to get some sort of photo.

Northwestern features the imposing figure of Billy Graham as a former president. The college was located in Minneapolis when Mr. Graham was president. At a later point in time the college moved to Roseville, to the former archdiocese of Saint Paul campus of Nazareth Hall. The current location is perched on the west shore of Lake Johanna. I was on campus once long ago when the older Pelzer daughter got married, Uncle Al was there. I had not been there since or ever in the daylight. It is a pretty spot.In view of yesterday's post, it is perhaps pertinent to point out the wooden cross which the college has erected on the lake shore. I suspect that this idyllic spot probably constitutes some sort of gate to heaven (French translation requested) for the on campus faithful.

I saw only four other bicyclists while I was riding today. The first two were female college students arriving on campus as I was leaving Northwestern. I know that the college has some student housing across Snelling Avenue and I suspect that these two were bicycle commuters, having ridden perhaps as much as three or four blocks. I identify them as college students and not as serious bicyclists based on their costumes and demeanors. This is a differentiation which was easy to make on a windy November 2. The other two were less than 10 years old, brothers I think, on the smallest size bicycle (but with the training wheels removed). The two of them were making circles in the driveway of their house. Of course, much of what I do can and is by some identified as just riding in circles as well. However the circles I ride are a fair amount larger than the circles those two boys were making in the driveway.

Based on the evidence I pronounce myself to have been the only bicyclist out there yet again today.

Today is the first week day of standard time, a day when in my previous life bicycling was not possible. As I rode today I pondered what the change to standard time used to mean to me and what it means now. Previously the change of time was of huge significance. The more I thought the more obvious it became that the time change now means pretty much nothing at all. It was a nice day, I went for a ride. It was dark when I got up, it will be dark when I go to bed. The hands on the clock now provide only a reference point. The clock no longer dictates where I must be when the sun it out. This is pretty much what I wanted, this is pretty much why I wanted to stop going to work, not to be too dramatic or anything, I am free. And it is good.

This evening in France, the arch nemesis of FC Nantes, Le Havre, has once again heaped ignominy upon les Canaris, pummeling the Nantais visitors to the northern city by a humiliating 4-0. FC Nantes continues down an unsatisfying road, falling to third in the table as Le Havre rises to second.