Last place I looked

September 21 seems like it should be the autumnal equinox.  Some years it is.  The morning newspaper reports that today the span between official sunrise and official sunset was 12 hours and 12 minutes.

Still on the up side of the TOO DARK for TOO LONG season.

So no equinox yet, but the dark is coming.

Even though I did not discover the equinox I did find something that I had been looking for.  It was in the last place I looked.

That's a spectacularly good tool and one that I was positive could NOT have left the premises without me being aware of its leaving.

One reader may recognize it as the 100 foot tape that I purchased long, long ago for softball.  I purchased that tape in response to a problem that we faced every time that we would show up at an assigned field to play a game.  When we got there the people in charge at the field (usually a minimum wage teenager) had zero idea where exactly the bases were supposed to go.  There most definitely WAS a specified distance by league rules but most often the adult coaches would just throw the bases down somewhere and say, good enough, and the teenage umpire would agree.

Except me, for me I always thought it was NOT good enough.  In fact, within a very short time after becoming a part of this system I became extremely dissatisfied based on my observation that the distance from home to first could vary widely from week to week.  I felt then and probably still do that the game is hard enough if you are all playing the same game every time, the game is impossible if you show up not knowing from week to week the dimensions of the playing arena.

I felt it was pretty important that the bases be the designated distances apart.

I bought that tape measure and forever thereafter I measured the bases.

Now the last time it was necessary for me to measure bases was about fifteen years ago, the last couple of years that I coached games were at a field where the bases were permanently in place.  So fifteen years go by and in the passage of that time the exact location of this tape measure had become unknown to me.

Fifteen years without a problem but when it became a problem it became a problem that I found quite bothersome.  We needed recently to make some measurements for the BigNewTree.  The old tree was twelve feet from the house and we wanted the new one to be eighteen feet away.  I had to make the measurements for this project with just this.

Which anyone who knows anything about these things will recognize as a high quality tape measure.  The issue is, fairly obviously, that it is a mere 12 foot measure.  It is quite possible to measure 18 feet with a 12 foot measure.  It is just that it is a tiny bit inelegant, especially when you know, as I did, that I owned a tape measure totally suitable for the job.

But I hadn't used it for about 15 years and the first places where I looked for it produced no tape measure.

My last firm memory was that it was in the green equipment bag that I used to take bats and the catcher's equipment to games.

Looked there, not there.

I thought I might have loaned it out with some piece of other equipment at some time over the years.   I looked in all of the old softball bags, in the various buckets of balls, in the trunk of my car, not there.  Gradually I reached peace with myself over my inability to find the 100 footer.  And once the BigNewTree was in place the need for the longer tape measure diminished.

Today I was in a corner of the garage that I always thought was right.  I noticed my home plate (who doesn't have a home plate?).  On top of the home plate was a green bag, a lumpy green bag.  Inside the bag I discovered my good set of rubber bases (who doesn't have a good set of rubber bases?) and nestling beneath the bases my tape measure.

It was in the last place I looked.

It was a good spot because the main use of that wonderful tool has always been to determine the correct length between home plate and the bases.  I am satisfied that the best place for such a tool the last time I put that tool away was with the bases.

It is less so that I had lost contact with the tape measure and more so that I had lost contact with my good set of rubber bases (including a regulation home plate).

Going forward in time the tape is less likely to be needed for bases and if useful at all it will be for general measurement purposes.  The tape measure has now been stored in a new spot, a spot in which it will always be obvious and always ready in case I ever need to locate another tree at a distance from the house not measurable with my otherwise plenty adequate Stanley 12 footer.

Today's bicycle content:

It was, despite the non-arrival of the equinox, definitely fall today.

58.

But I have the gear and with the sun mostly out I had a nice ride out to Shoreview.  Another sign of fall for me was this boat storage plan along the side of the road near where I was riding, part way back into the woods.

That upside boat just struck me as a sign, a sign of what has passed, and a sign of what is surely coming.

It was a tiny bit chilly but it was an extremely pretty day out there, this is a tunnel entrance on the trail through Snail Lake Regional Park in Shoreview.

Today was that wonderful day that comes only on the first ride after installing new tires.  It takes about 100 miles to wear that rubber bead in the middle of the wear area off the new tires.  It is always an extra bit of fun to watch that rubber get worn away as the tire circles round and round right there in front of (and slightly below) your eyes.

As the proprietor of my favorite bike shop once noted, today I was just out there wearing some rubber off the tires.

It was a good day for it.