tired and damp

Today was my first day back in the office since Dec 18, my first day with the usual commute in probably three weeks. I had planned to take a few days of vacation around Christmas anyway, and then I ended up taking some sick leave, first because Julie had strep and needed to avoid direct contact with the kids until the antibiotics kicked in, and then because I came down with something myself (probably the flu). I'm still getting over it--it started with nasal drip and a sore throat, then there was a day of fever, then the other symptoms continued a while longer before shifting to a runny/stuffy nose, which has held on ever since. Needless to say, I haven't felt motivated to get on the bike without a good reason. I went for an easy ride on Saturday while everyone else was napping, mostly because I knew I'd need some kind of warm-up before commuting again.

As expected, between still getting over the illness and being a bit out of shape, I was laboring more than usual today. On top of that, it wasn't great weather. The forecast called for "wintry mix," which was downgraded to off-and-on rain and freezing rain. But it never got cold enough to freeze, and when it was time to leave the house this morning it hadn't even started raining yet. I did get dripped on for the last few minutes, and there was more light rain on the walk across campus when I got to work, but nothing serious.

It was still just a light rain on the way home, but it went on pretty much the whole way. So I actually got something you could call wet. Glad I wrapped my backpack in a garbage bag before strapping it to the bike. I don't care too much if I get wet, especially on the way home, but carrying a laptop back and forth for work is another matter. At least this time I knew what to do with my brakes. I had one instance where I had to stop at a light and could have been in trouble if I hadn't been dragging my brakes at every opportunity to keep them somewhat dry. If I ever invest any serious money in this mode of transportation, I think the first thing on my list would be disc brakes, or at least aluminum rims and leather brake shoes--almost anything would be better than the combination I have now.

Anyway, I took things easy and allowed myself to rest when necessary. It was a pretty uneventful trip, but good to get home and change into some dry clothes. Jenna was waiting, but I'm not sure whether she was more interested to see me or to rummage through my bag. Ian barely noticed that I was home, he was so absorbed in a kid's show on PBS. We finally hooked up the DTV converter box last night, and one of the advantages is the extra sub-channels. Fortunately, it seems to be working OK, despite my earlier concerns. I think some of it is that the stations are upping their digital signal strength as the deadline gets closer. A lot of it is that we get much better reception here than in the old place.