Thursday, 2/29/2024 (LEAP DAY)

2024 MILEAGE - 1114.3

I was completely wiped out yesterday, and so took the day off. This morning, because the next episode of The Chosen was a longer one ("The Wedding Gift," where Jesus turns water into wine), I chose to go with a single episode rather than two. 

This gave me a ride of 12.2 virtual miles in 55 minutes.

Trailer for The Chosen

Wednesday, 2/28/2024

2024 MILEAGE - 1102.1

Yesterday, being absolutely exhausted by the time I finished the morning's errands I needed to do, I gave myself the day off. Then during this morning's ride, I once more watched (with great appreciation) two episodes of The Chosen—episodes 3 and 4 from Season 1 ("Jesus Loves the Little Children," and "The Rock On Which It Is Built").

This gave me a ride of 21.5 virtual miles in L20.

By the way, it was especially unfortunate that I didn't ride yesterday, as we reached an astonishing (for February) high temperature of 72° under sunny skies!  But today the temperature has been falling all day ... currently (at 3:15 p.m.), it's 24, with a brisk 22-mph wind whipping at us out of the west, and light snow falling. My, what a change 24 hours has brought!

Trailer for The Chosen

Monday, 2/26/2024

2024 MILEAGE - 1080.6

Today's venture of watching The Chosen during my ride on our stationary cycle went considerably better than yesterday. That does not mean that it was trouble-free, however.

First, I had hoped to use earbuds in order to hear it better. But when I sat on the cycle and prepared to begin it, I discovered that my iPhone has no place to plug them in! So I went and got my laptop, and watched on that instead of the phone .... which was a good solution, as it has a marginally greater sound level, and substantially larger screen.

Also a plus was the fact that the chain on the cycle was not clanking and clicking like yesterday. However, negative factors included the fact that many of the scenes in The Chosen are interior, lighted only by candles of course, and also the characters are rarely identified, leaving the observer to make guesses as to their identities and relationships.

Still, it was a positive experience for me, and one I look forward to continuing. Today I watched again the opening episode ("I Have Called You By Name"), which I watched yesterday, as well as the second ("Shabbat").

This gave me a ride of 21.8 virtual miles in 1:35.

Trailer for The Chosen

Sunday, 2/25/2024

2024 MILEAGE - 1068.8

In recent years, a major broadcasting project has sprung into being—a highly regarded presentation of the stories and characters found in the Gospels. Called The Chosen, it is spoken of highly, but I had not seen any of it. Now it is streamed free, however (on the chosen.tv), so I decided to begin getting familiar with it.

Today I watched the first episode of the first season (three seasons have been released so far). However, my experience was marred by two factors combining to make the soundtrack unintelligible to me. (1) For the first 20 minutes of my ride, the chain on the cycle was clanking and clattering horrendously. (2) The sound (even with my phone's volume turned all the way up) is what I would call modest and restrained at best, with the dialogue usually soft and employing accents.

Since after the first 20 minutes things improved dramatically, I am going to give it another try tomorrow, rewatching the same episode, to see if I can follow it better. And I think I will try using earbuds also, which should help.

This gave me a ride of 13.7 virtual miles in 54 minutes.

Trailer for The Chosen

Saturday, 2/24/2024

2024 MILEAGE - 1045.1

This afternoon's ride was almost unrelieved frustration. I had hoped to wqtch the rest of the baseball movie Eight Men Out, of which I had seen the first half during last night's ride. But the feed from YouTube ended up being wonky, and kept diverting me off to other baseball-related videos. After several instances of this, I finally gave up and switched over to Interlodhen Public Radio and listened to a broadcast of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony from the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the German text of which I was able to follow nicely, having been blessed to sing that work as a senior at the Interlochen Arts Academy in 1975.

This gave me a very modest  ride of 6.8 virtual miles in 32 minutes.

Trailer for Eight Men Out

Friday, 2/23/2024

2024 MILEAGE - 1038.3

During my ride tonight, I returned to a baseball movie, watching Eight Men Out, about the way the 1919 Chicago White Sox threw the World Series (for gambling purposes). However, I decided to settle for only the first half of the movie tonight.

This gave me a ride of 13.7 virtual miles in 1:00.

Trailer for Eight Men Out

Wednesday, 2/21/2024

2024 MILEAGE - 1024.6

Saturday, Michelle and I enjoyed a play very much at the Purple Rose Theater in Chelsea. The play, Diva Royale, was written by actor Jeff Daniels, and he founded the theater in 1991, named after a 1985 Woody Allen movie in which he had starred (The Purple Rose of Cairo).

This made me curious to see the movie, so I watched it during today's ride, and enjoyed it very much.

This gave me a ride of 18.9 virtual miles in 1:24.

Trailer for The Purple Rose of Cairo

Tuesday, 2/20/2024 - 3rd outdoor ride of 2024

2024 MILEAGE - 1005.7

Today, my schedule seemed as if it would work best for me to ride outside after I got Michelle home from school; so, grateful for the extended daylight we are now enjoying which made a 5:00 ride feasible, I set out to ride the 10-mile round trip to Marsh Park.

However, the combination of rapidly failing daylight, the cool temperature (42°—so, even though today was unseasonably mild for a Michigan February, it was clear that winter is not wholly over YET), and my weak, noodle-like legs, made me decide to shorten even that modest plan, and just ride the little baby ride that is the shortest one I ever allow myself to do (the "Silo Ridge Loop").

Happily, though, I saw my friend Doug Franklin during the ride (as I frequently do, during his long daily walks up from his home).

This gave me a ride of 6.2 miles in 55 minutes.

Relive video of today's ride

Monday, 2/19/2024

2024 MILEAGE - 999.5

During this afternoon's ride, I finished up the portion of Titanic which I didn't watch yesterday.

This gave me a ride of 21.4 virtual miles in 1:31.

Trailer for Titanic

Sunday, 2/18/2024

2024 MILEAGE - 978.1

Inspired by our attendance at the play Diva Royale yesterday at the Purple Rose Theater in Chelsea (written by Jeff Daniels, who founded the theater, the play is about three Michigan women who are big fans of Celine Dion, and their trip to New York to see her, and the theme to Titanic, which she sings, is woven throughout the play), I decided today to watch the movie Titanic. However, as it runs about three and a quarter hours, I surrendered after the first half of it, and decided to finish it tomorrow.

This gave me a ride of 22.4 virtual miles in 1:44.

Trailer for Titanic

Saturday, 2/17/2024

2024 MILEAGE - 955.7

Last night, Michelle and I watched a 2021 romantic comedy, Falling for Figaro, which (though it garnered somewhat lukewarm reviews), I found immensely appealing as a music lover. So, even though I had just seen it, I watched it again this morning during my ride.

This gave me a ride of 20.7 virtual miles in 1:40.

Trailer for Falling for Figaro

Friday, 2/16/2024

2024 MILEAGE - 935.0

Today I decided to ride virtually on Mackinac Island, northern Michigan's premier vacation destination. And the blue skies, greenery, and birdsong in the videos were a most welcome respite from the winter gloom that currently has Michigan socked in.

I first did a ride around the perimeter of the island on M 185, the only highway in America on which cars are banned. Then I enjoyed an "amazing lilac tour" of the island.

This gave me a ride of 15.3 virtual miles in 1:06.

Ride around perimeter of Mackinac Island

Lilac tour on Mackinac Island

Thursday, 2/15/2024

2024 MILEAGE - 919.7

This past weekend, I attended a Christian men's retreat, and one of my fellow attendees was my friend Dave Hendricks. Dave is a retired pastor, and at one point in the conversation, he was sharing with us stories from his experience with the 2010 film Stone starring Robert DeNiro, which was mostly shot in and around Ypsilanti.

Despite the fact that Dave said he would not endorse the film in terms of its quality, I was curious to see it anyway, and so watched it during my ride today. Dave plays a small part in the movie, as Pastor of the church in which a funeral takes place.

This gave me a ride of 23.1 virtual miles in 1:42.

Trailer for Stone

Wednesday, 2/14/2024

2024 MILEAGE - 896.6

Today's ride had me watching the rest of the 1998 movie Lost in Space, after having watched the first hour of it yesterday.

This gave me a ride of 14.3 virtual miles in 1:01.

Trailer for Lost in Space

Tuesday, 2/13/2024

2024 MILEAGE - 882.3

Yesterday I didn't ride, because I had to return to Adrian to pick up a piece of my computer equipment that I forgot and left in my room when I checked out Sunday. Today during my ride, I watched the first hour of the 1998 movie Lost in Space.

All my life I've been a major science fiction aficionado. As a boy, one of my favorite television shows was Lost in Space, which ran from 1965 to 1968. They produced an update of it in 1998, but I had never seen it before today.

This gave me a ride of 14.3 virtual miles in 1:00.

Trailer for Lost in Space

Sunday, 2/11/2024

2024 MILEAGE - 868.0

In late December I first became aware of The Martian, a book that was first self-published, serially, on the author's blog before being picked up for publication, and then being turned into a major motion picture in 2015. I watched the movie at that time, and have been reading the book in recent days, so today I watched the (superb) movie again during my ride.

After having been out of town and unable to ride yesterday, I was glad to be able to get back to it today.

This gave me a ride of 32.2 virtual miles, in 2:22.

Trailer for The Martian

Friday, 2/9/2024 - 2ND OUTDOOR RIDE OF 2024

2024 MILEAGE - 835.8

My stats for today's ride were funky, because the MapMyRide app was misbehaving, and kept cutting out during the first mile of the ride. So the stats shown in the video from my ride do not match those I've listed below, which I know from having ridden this many, many times (somewhere between 100 and 200, I'm quite sure).

I'll be out of town and thus unable to ride for the next couple of days, so I was particularly eager to go today. And I did manage to bump it up from yesterday's meager effort, riding a round trip to Marsh Park today. If the weather should allow me to ride outdoors next week (a big "if" at this time of year), I hope to increase it to the nearly 14-mile square route which is my most frequent ride.

This gave me a ride of 10.2 miles, in 1:25.

Relive video of today's ride

Thursday, 2/89/2024 - 1st OUTDOOR RIDE OF 2024

2024 MILEAGE - 825.6

Today, the unseasonably warm stretch of weather we're experiencing allowed me to do my first outdoor ride since November 20, a day on which I settled for a short ride that I call the Silo Ridge Loop (a little over 6 miles) in 41° highly windy conditions.

Today I hoped to ride the 10-mile round trip to Marsh Park.  However, I was reminded anew, as I am annually when transitioning from indoor to outdoor rides, how much conditioning I've lost, by the strength of my legs, which have all the firmness of cooked spaghetti. And I was also battling a rather robust wind during the first half of the ride. Even though I was able to ride comfortably in a t-shirt, that wind knocked the "feels like" temperature down considerably.

Because of these challenges, as well as some schedule constraints, I decided to settle for a repeat of the Silo Ridge Loop, bookending my winter indoor rides.

This gave me a ride of 6.3 miles, in 53 minutes.

Relive video of today's ride

Wednesday, 2/7/2024

 2024 MILEAGE - 819.3

I note that I neglected to update my blog yesterday, when I rode 22.1 virtual miles in 1:44 while watching Major League. Today I stayed with baseball, and had planned to watch the 1994 film Angels in the Outfield. However, instead I found and watched the 1951 original Angels in the Outfield, which Wikipedia tells me was the favorite movie of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was in office during my 1957 birth.

This gave me a ride of 20.0 virtual miles, in 1:38.

Trailer for Angels in the Outfield

Monday, 2/5/2024

2024 MILEAGE - 777.2

During today's ride, I finished up the second half of The Natural (1984), starring Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs. Although my favorite of the baseball movies in my rotation is Field of Dreams, today I came to realize that The Natural is the one of them contains the most pure baseball action.

This gave me a ride of 15.9 virtual miles, in 1:10.

Trailer for The Natural

Sunday, 2/4/2024

2024 MILEAGE - 761.3

Returning to baseball movies today, during my ride this afternoon I watched the first half of The Natural (1984), starring Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs.

This gave me a ride of 15.1 virtual miles, in 1:10.

Trailer for The Natural

Saturday, 2/3/2024

2024 MILEAGE - 746.2

Having watched Mary Poppins during my ride yesterday, today I watched its 2018 sequel, Mary Poppins Returns. Since I never saw the original as a boy (as I explained yesterday), seeing the sequel was my entree into the whole Poppins world.

This gave me a ride of 26.7 virtual miles, in 2:05.

Trailer for Mary Poppins Returns

Friday, 2/2/2024

2024 MILEAGE - 719.5

This afternoon during my ride, I watched Mary Poppins. Surprisingly, although I am 66 years old, I never saw this 1964 movie until a little over a decade ago. I grew up in an area where the nearest movie theater was 20 miles ago, and thus it was an extremely rare treat for us to see a movie (in those days long before you could see one in your home). In recent years, I've come to greatly appreciate this one's artistry and music, however.

This gave me a ride of 28.6 virtual miles, in 2:17.

Trailer for Mary Poppins

THURSDAY 2/1/2024

2024 MILEAGE - 690.9

This afternoon, I did a good long ride on our stationary cycle while watching the musical Hamilton.

This gave me a ride of 32.8 virtual miles, in 2:30.

Trailer for Hamilton