Two weeks after the fracture – I am feeling more like my shiny self.
I never got around to posting the morning selfies today, but there is always time to do that before the day ends. But the news here should be that I actually wanted to pose and do my morning coffee selfies.
Since fracturing my collarbone – I have been in a funk and have not been feeling well about myself. But over the past week, my spirits have been lifting. I know this is not permanent and I will be back to my normal self shortly.
I am slowly getting around to processing the photos from my trip to San Diego for SD Leather Pride. While I was crippled I had a good time down there. It is interesting to see other communities at work. Maybe sometime over the next year I will spend a few weeks down there, work remotely, and check out what daily life is like. I will say I did enjoy the warm weather.
Left: Me on a run roughly a year ago. Right: This morning’s selfie
It doesn’t seem to me like my body has transformed over the last year. A lot of friends and even coworkers have noticed that I have lost significant weight recently. While my close friends say it has been gradual over the last few months, it really seems like it has just accelerated over the last few months.
It took digging up a selfie in the same outfit I took a year ago and putting it side by side with this mornings selfie to see my transformation. While going through selfies from around this time last year, I really wasn’t looking good. But even then, the selfies of me when I was doing a lot of cycling didn’t look much different. I really credit the new diet I am doing for this transformation.
I am happy that I became a selfie whore a few years ago – it helps keep me honest about what my life was like.
A few weeks ago, I picked up a new scale and I was shocked that I was only 210 – and just a few weeks later, I am at 207! 210 was roughly were I was before my old scale broke about 18 months ago – which coincided with my the reduction in my cycling. Even as of 5 months ago with my visit to the cardiologist, I was still hovering in the 225 range.
This morning I realized that my body has no issue running 10k now. This afternoon, I wish I went longer this morning before it started raining. Even as of a year ago, this was unheard of for me – a 5k run was long then.
Today, I am looking forward to actually running Bay to Breakers as a serious runner in May. I will have to figure out a outfit for it. But I have made a goal of doing it in 1 hour, which would be an 8:05 minute mile pace.
I am still getting used to being highly active again. I woke up and my legs were protesting even doing a quick 5k run this morning. So I listened to it and said it’s a rest day. While running helped keep a low level base it didn’t use the same muscles as cycling did. Over the last few months, I went from having about 2-3 hours of active time a week to 6-10 hours of active time a week.
These changes have really kickstarted changes in my body. Between my new diet and being back to a normal activity level – the fat is starting to come right off. I am feeling good both physically and mentally. Riding in the rain has gone from being annoying to something I look forward.
This time spent on my bike puts me into a cathartic state and many of my worries just fall off. I didn’t use to get this deep into a relaxed state before on my old bike and I have an idea why – the new bicycle I bought is a full on race bike and the way it responds has a lot to do with it. While I would not say it is twitchy, it is very responsive to any input I give it. This has resulted in something very similar to the bikers (as in motorcycles) I know say to me, you have to clear your mind and just focus on the road and bike.
This is the type of pain I enjoy. I decided last night that I am going to start training to do a Triathlon or two in 2018. Good thing the office has a nice outdoor pool.
2017 is sure shaping up to be a transformational year for me.
Over the last six days I have been out in Vegas attending Drummer North America. This was an interesting and fun trip for me in many ways. In the end, I really enjoyed the trip and had a lot of fun. But my mood going into it was preventing me from loosening up some to enjoy it.
Starting the trip was rough for me. I was still coming down from the adrenaline rush from the near accident the day before. Sometime on Wednesday evening, my body finally relaxed and I was able to make smooth muscle movements again. It even took a few more days until I was mentally unwound from it.
Thursday started off with a 7.6 mile run around the core part of the strip. I keep on forgetting how many hills we deal with in SF. Went to the Wicked Spoon Buffet at the Cosmopolitan for brunch and got an absolutely great breakfast and started to break my diet by having some added sugar. As a side note, throughout the trip, I cheated a bit on this front and allowed myself to drink. But I am back to following my diet now that I am home.
People watching at the host hotel lobby was putting me in a strange mood. More and more people in typical titleholder dress showed up and I started to feel like I was going to write off this trip as something that I would not do again. I also didn’t really have a good background about what exactly I came for – other than having a friend said ‘come on down, it’s fun.’ And for those who are just starting to follow me, there is nothing traditional or old guard about me at all. At this point, I am glad I weighed down my luggage with some formal leather,. since I was getting flashbacks to my MAL trip.
Some back story: During MAL it felt that one wanted to break the ice with me until I was more formal leather instead of my normal spandex/rubber/leather rocker look self.
But that feeling started to all fade away pretty damn quick at the first set of mixers and events. I got hypnotized on Thursday night – it was interesting seeing the different techniques used especially in a group setting. Nearly everyone there was friendly and fun and seemed to enjoy a variety of fetishes and kinks. Sometime on Friday morning after attending the Leather Uniform Club mixer, my worries all faded away and I really started to enjoy myself.
On Saturday for the Rubber mixer, I wore out the new catsuit. And oh man did it make an entrance. Afterwords, I decided to take a dip in the pool and some of the Women of Drummer helped take the following sequence of pictures for me – which I present to you in GIF form. Apparently I look like Jesus and they started calling me Rubber Jesus for the rest of the weekend – it was fun.
Rubber Jesus splashed for your sins! (Click for the animation)
I ended up winning a Silent Auction and now have yet another pup hood. There will be pictures forthcoming on that. I also got a pass to San Diego Leather Pride in that basket, and just booked my airfare for that. Plus tickets for Drummer California and I am going to plan on heading down there for that now. So much for my plans to reduce my fetish travel for the year!
Overall, I met a lot of new and friendly people, had a lot of fun, and really enjoyed myself. I’d do this again on the years I don’t do MAL.
TL;DR: Taking my morning selfies today was tough. I am still recovering from the adrenaline rush and drop from what happened last night on my commute home. If the events of last night were just a few seconds later, I would have been severely injured or possibly dead. I also think learning how to ride a motorcycle and doing a basic rider course over the weekend also possibly saved my life – it managed to break some bad cycling habits.
Adrenaline rush crashes suck! Having a hard time posing this morning.
To set up the play by play – I am on my road bike with my rear light on flash mode, my front be seen light on flash mode, and my main headlight at the 300 lumen (medium) setting. This is typically how I have my lights setup for night riding. Also, this is over the course of 7 seconds (if that).
At the red light at Oak and Stanyan stopped waiting for it to change. I notice there is another cyclist approaching behind me and is probably going to shoal so I get ready to just take off.
I take off and somehow this guy doesn’t shoal and start the ramp up on that little downhill leading into JFK drive. At this point I continue my sprint downhill and I am in my typical position of being in the left part of the bike lane.
Reach about 20mph and I notice a Prius starts to barely pass me, slows down, and then turns on it’s signal right hand turn signal.
I see the right wheel turn, and I go OH FUCK they are going into the Park and Rec office parking lot. At this point, they are only a car length or two ahead of me.
They keep going without yielding and I scrub off some speed and swerve around them. I managed to scrub off from 22mph -> 17mph in that one second according to the GPS data.
Then I quickly look over and there is traffic trying to get back in the JFK Dr lane since they were passing the Prius and I go oh fuck time to get back in the bike lane.
Here is where I curse the SF and the SFBC – the out I wanted to go is blocked by those flexible barriers in the stripped zone between the bike lane and car lane. If I hit one of those at the angle I was going to hit them at, I was likely to get one in to a spoke and do something bad.
Swerve again and now I am on the path to hit the curb.
Something just tells me look down the path I want to go, so I do and everything just follows and I get parallel to the curb with plenty of space to spare (in this case, I had about a foot in the end)
Now I have the next obstacle, there is a fucking runner in the bike lane running right at me – at least at this point things are stabilized that things are back to normal and that was more of a gripe than an near death experience.
Every time I closed my eyes last night – the events replayed in my mind with different scenarios that would have ended in a bad crash. If that car was just a second or two later, I would have had no other choice but to emergency brake and end up in the door of a Prius.
Somehow throughout this, my upper body stayed loose and never tensed up. The other part was, before this weekend, I didn’t move my head as much on my bicycle. I used mostly my eyes to steer. Now, my head is pointing where I want to go and I am keeping it up more. In fact the only time during my commute the last two days where it stayed pointed down for any real length of time was is on the uphill of a KOM attempt on an overpass segment in Mountain View – and that was because I needed to watch my power output closely.
I really think spending 10 hours on those under powered motorcycles in a parking lot put some new muscle memory into me and may have just saved my ass.
I am really starting to believe from my biker friends that road cycling is way more dangerous than being on a motorcycle. At least if I had my motorcycle gear on, there would have been way more to protect me if I did have to hit the car. Still would fucking hurt.
Well I need to get stuff packed for DNA this weekend. If anyone I know will be in Vegas over the next few days, say woof.
Being Meta – Selfie of me in gear processing selfies of me in gear.
While I was on a 40 mile bike (bicycle, grr it sucks to have to disambiguate) ride, my new semi-transparent blue catsuit from Invincible Rubber arrived. After I bought all of that Hi-Vis Yellow and Blue MX gear, wearing it over a black catsuit didn’t seem right. So I ordered the Paneled Pouch Front Suit, and I am so glad I did.
I just feel damned sexy in this
To me, this look feels complete. I don’t think there is much more other than some elbow and forearm armor (which I have not found in yellow) to really complete it. While I may be in to other various kinks and fetishes, gear is my primary one. And it always seems that I get interested in the gear and next thing I know, I am actually doing the activity.
I need to get someone to do an outdoor shoot with me in this gear
In this case – it is not a hard stretch to end up getting a dual sport or dirt bike and wearing this out in public. I am already on the path to get a motorcycle, and if I no longer have a car in my garage space, I can easily fit a second motorcycle in it. We will see what happens in the future.
Overall the catsuit fits well – I think next time I need to do a made to measure suit. My shoulders are a bit wider than the standard cut and the sleeves are a tad short (by about a 1-2 cm). But the color! I am in love with this color. It is so saturated yet transparent. Something about it just screams me. Even without the gear on, I think it looks great. There is no way that I can hide wearing this suit or gear – this will draw attention.
Now I need someone to do a photo shoot of me in this out in public somewhere 😉
Generally I post my thoughts on Facebook, but lately I have been paying less and less attention to it. In a way, Facebook has been taking too much space in my mind and too much time up. With things calming down locally, I uninstalled it from my phone. So far, No earth shattering kaboom and I feel like I need it less and less.
As I look to what I want to do for 2017, I have realized something. The realization might be very self centered, but it is what I need to be happy for myself. I need to make this about me and not others. I am going to be stepping back from a lot of things I have been doing. The only kink/fetish related travel I am going to do this year is Drummer North America. The only reason that is still happening is that I booked it last year and it is mostly planned. I am also stepping back from my involvement with various groups. The type of involvement I do want to have with the community needs to be aligned with my goals and not what others want from me.
I do want to make this clear, I am willing to still help out with photography for various groups. The reason why is that I really do enjoy it and it is my artistic outlet. I still will go ahead and do my Guys in Gear Drinking Coffee series, but that is going to be secondary to my primary goal for the first half of the year.
The theme around my year is to explore California and to rekindle my connection with nature. I moved out here 4 years ago and really haven’t left the bubble of the Bay Area. The reason why is I don’t feel motivated being caged up in a car. When I cycle around, I feel more ambitious. I am in the process of getting my M1 license, the rider course is next weekend, and will be buying a motorcycle sometime in February. With my current job being an mentally undrivable commute for me, I will be ditching the car as well since I am using another form of two wheels, my bicycle, and Caltrain to get to the office.
I guess having a gear fetish makes it easier to justify buying all of the gear I needed first.
Since my new commute involve a lot more cycling – I am quickly noticing that I just don’t want to be caged up. The sunrise was beautiful yesterday morning, but the whole time I was thinking, I much rather be in head to toe in leather two wheeling it or back outside on my bicycle cutting through the fog with my own body.
What I really want to do is just show up to work on Friday with my motorcycle, a small bag with my camera and a few extra t-shirts, and after work just escape the Bay Area and explore all weekend long. I want to get lost around the mountains and find places for taking sunrises and sunsets. I want to find various ponds filled with birds. More importantly, I want to have fun getting there and doing this. My tongue should be hanging when I come down a mountain.
Worrying about my job right now is secondary. There is a lot of uncertainty in what is going on with my employer. When I step back and think about it I keep on seeing opportunity, I just need to see how things play out over the next few months. I will write about the mental mind shift I have been having when I get into my bike kit – this may be one of the healthiest observations I have noticed about my new long commute.
Outside of doing some longer rides on my bicycle this weekend and hosting a play party, I don’t have many plans. I think cleaning up the home office will rise to the top of my list given how messy it is from the second selfie.
On that note – time to make more coffee and start packing the car up with the stuff needed for the party.
It is amazing how quick 2016 flew by. In a way, I can’t believe is 2017 now. Last year I started off with this selfie.
How I started 2016
Over the year, somehow I became a huge selfie whore and kept on improving my technique. Sometime over the summer I realized, my primary camera has a decent WiFi remote control app and realized I could take better post run selfies at home, and I did. Before I knew it, I ended up with this morning ritual where I would workout and take a selfie.
How I started off 2017
In many ways, I am looking forward to 2017. We are going to have a challenging year for sure, but I have set personal goals to resolve ambitions that I have always back burnered. I hope everyone else will have a good 2017.
As I think about 2017 I have made a few decisions. One of them is I am not going to travel as much for these fetish weekends around. They take up a lot of vacation time and I really feel like I may have over did it over the last year. However, I don’t want to stop meeting people. Often I find the time before and after the event to be more socially rewarding to me than the actual event.
I just wanted to be latex clad this morning
One of the projects I have been kicking around is Guys in Gear Drinking Coffee. I am going to start it in 2017. A lot of my travel over the next year is going to be focused on my photography and trying to get reconnected to nature again. But this should not stop me from meeting like minded guys who are into gear.
The goal of this project is to get pictures of guys decked out in full gear enjoying themselves over coffee/tea/etc in public. The location doesn’t have to be a cafe – out at the beach, in nature, or even a more industrial setting is fine. Once I have travel plans confirmed, I will post them up. For now, I am going to start locally in the Bay Area.
Over the next week, I am going to create a page that has full details on this. My goal is not to make money, but rather travel and enjoy the company of gear heads.
My contact info is all up on the contact page (click here).
You are supposed to read books for the leather book club while in gear, right?
Thanks to Recognition Points at work, I now have an entire new gear outfit for 2017. It is funny how having a gear fetish leads to the next steps. I now have getting my motorcycle license and a dual sport beater bike on my short term life goals for 2017. More pictures of this gear will filter up at some point 🙂
