So I promise that I’m still alive. I realize that having my most recent post be about my surgery makes it seem like something dramatic happened and I wasn’t able to blog for a long time, but alas my only excuse is business and a bit of burnout. This fall ended up being very busy with COVID in the house, putting on a trail race, travel, and general life. At multiple points in the fall I told myself I should get back to writing more. And then… I’d get sucked into watching some YouTube or dealing with random life things (ready to not have plumbing issues for a while…).

Compound this with a bit of burnout, and stepping away from a lot of social media, and it means that I neglected this space more than I should. As we head out of 2022 I’m hoping to do my traditional year-end posts that I do every year, and then we’ll see where next year brings. I’ve got a review partly written on the Surly Ghost Grappler that I know people would like to see. I’ve also done a flat-bar conversion on it that’s worth some words, but I need to spend more time riding in the configuration first (hard to do now that we’re in full winter).

I also have a lot of thoughts on the state of shoes that I need to get into more. If you read my Timp 4 review you know that I’m getting very frustrated with all the changes that Altra has been making to my shoes. I’ve been expanding a bit into other brands like Topo Athletic, but have ‘thoughts’ there as well. With all of these thoughts I need to make sure I’m not just coming off as an old man who’s screaming about all the changes in the world, so it’s important that I get my thoughts together in a more coherent fashion.

Photography has also been happening (helped by a child going to college for photography) and I’ve been enjoying being creative in this space more. With all the other areas of my life that I dedicate time to, sometimes those first hobbies from childhood get left behind, and that’s not always right. So maybe in the new year there will be some more photography sharing here as well.

Anyway, that’s about enough rambling for now. I hope everyone has had a great fall, and I look forward to trying to add more content here in the new year. Or maybe not, I guess we’ll find out together!