For the past ten years I've had the annual ritual of updating my blog's navigation bar with "this date in" links for the prior year.  As I added '12 to the list it occurred to me, there's not much there; I did my daily posting on Facebook.  Boo.

On 9/11 this year I posted my usual remembrance and on that occasion also paused to revisit everything that had happened in the past year. That was a pretty cool list to have (for me anyway).  So in lieu of having personal history in my blog archive, here's that list again, updated...

2012 revisited:

•  Moved to Westlake Island
•  Started a daily view from the bridge, following bike rides
•  Celebrated leap day
•  Visited Vancouver: USCAP conference
•  Sailed in the Caribbean (fourteen days, seven islands)
•  Attended conference in San Jose: ATA conference
•  Began following the baby geese
•  Rode Breathless Agony (114 miles, 12,000 feet)
•  Spectated Amgen Tour of California, Mount Baldy stage
•  Visited Venice, Sweden, and Munich, conferences, customers, and symposia
•  Started something new; still cooking, stay tuned for [much] more :)
•  Cherished my Megan, wow
•  Sailed Round the Island race, yay, and...
•   Survived the C-15 nationals, double yay
•  Kept riding to the beach
•  Enjoyed Le Tour de France, as always
•  Watched the London Olympics
•  Cheered as Curiosity landed on Mars
•  Felt amazing as Aperio agreed to be acquired by Leica (okay to celebrate :)
•  Raced the Hoodoo 500 (517 miles, 34,000 feet), and finished!
•  Czeched out Prague: ECP conference
•  Loved the La Jolla Art and Wine Festival
•  Experienced my first Parker 100
•  Weathered Hurricane Sandy in Baltimore: Path Visions conference
•  Voted for Romney / Ryan, and accepted their defeat...
•  Escaped to the Ritz Laguna Nigel for a celebratory weekend
•  Celebrated Fall on the Lake
•  Made a pilgrimage to the Tesla toy store :)
•  Gave thanks for everything, not least my wonderful family <3
•  Wondered and shopped in Chicago, dressed for Holiday: RSNA conference, and...
•  Listened to a performance of Wurther, my annual brush with opera
•  Traveled to Dublin (!), met my new colleagues and enjoyed their city
•  Completed my 54th trip around the sun
•  Journeyed to Winnipeg, and...
•  Landed in Vegas (!), with the Jersey Boys (!!)
•  Boarded Big Bear
•  Wished everyone a Merry Christmas ...  and...
•  Welcomed the New Year in Napa !

So what's next? Well, I'm still living on Westlake Island, and still working for Aperio. But I do have some cool new projects cooking, and I'm totally excited about 2013...

Please stay tuned and I'll keep you posted!

Greetings blog friends, and Happy New Year.  Yes, it is 2013 (yay!), and yes, it has now been over a year since I've posted regularly over here; I'm posting daily on my Facebook, and it's all public, so if you'd like please subscribe to me over there.  I know, I know, it's not the same - and I'm not ruling out returning to more or less daily blogging - but I have no immediate plans to do so.

I did want to check in because it has now been ten years since I started blogging.  Wow.  During that time I have posted 2,618 entries incorporating 7,556 pictures, and they're all still  online and accessible.  I like having that history, and love being able to go back and see what I was thinking around a given time.  (For example, during last fall's presidential election, it was so cool to visit blog posts from October 2008 and October 2004.)  You might be interested to know this blog is entirely home grown and lives on a server in a closet of my house, and yes, that server is a Pentium II from 1999, and yes, it is running RedHat Linux 8, and yes, it is stable as hell.  Old technology for an old blog :)

I do still intend to recover from my extreme Yak shaving and come out the other end with a blog I can completely maintain via email.  As I've shifted more and more of my daily spelunking to my iPad this has become more and more pressing.  Or speaking of pressing, I could move the whole thing to WordPress... hmmm.

From: Ole Eichhorn
Sent: Tuesday, Sept 24, 2012 6:20 PM
To: Ken Wheeler*; Nick Wood
Subject: One year! - lovin' it!

Greetings Ken and Nick –

It has now been a year since I took delivery of my spiffy Renovo R4, and I wanted to write you a love letter about it.  I knew I would like this bike, but it has exceeded my high expectations in every way. 

I’ve put about 6,000 miles on it in the past year, including the Furnace Creek 508 [right after I took delivery last year] and the Hoodoo 500 [about a month ago], and it is so darn comfortable on long rides I don’t know how I ever rode without it.  It climbs great – people are always amazed at how light it is (I have really light custom wheels, and the Di2 groupo is light too of course) – but what is amazing is the rock solid way it just motors along in the flats.  It is so smooth.  For an old guy like me it is perfect.

And oh yeah, it is beautiful!  Everywhere I go people admire it.  At the Hoodoo 500 start the announcer made a particular point of calling me to the front so he could show everyone “the first wooden bike we’ve ever had in the race”.  That was pretty cool.  Riding it around is like dating a supermodel, it sure gets positive attention.

Oh and by the way the Di2 has worked great … I was worried about the wiring and the battery in the seat post and all that, but the bottom line is I haven’t had any trouble with it.  The battery lasts forever and it is pretty much worry free.

Anyway I just wanted to report in and tell you how much I’ve enjoyed my Renovo.  If you ever need a testimonial from a customer, please let me know :)

Cheers

* Ken Wheeler is the founder and owner of Renovo Bicycles, Nick Wood is the guy who built my bike (and yeah, that really is his name :)

This is a picture of the World Trade Center site, with the new Freedom tower which is under construction.  I think this is an entirely fitting tribute, I love that the site itself won't be built on, but instead will remaind dedicated to the memory of 9-11.  We must never forget and remain ever vigilant.

As those of you following me on my Facebook know I've been in Prague, Czech Republic, and actually flew back yesterday, which was already 9/11 in Europe, and wow flying on 9/11 really brought back memories from 11 years ago.

Hi blog public; I'm back?

I haven't posted here in ... wow, five months (I have continued posting on my Facebook in the meantime) ... but couldn't resist posting a 9-11 tribute today.

Maybe this will loosen my "posters block" and I'll get back into blogging. Stay tuned :)

At right, my favorite picture from my just-completed visit to Prague, Czech Republic, of Prague Castle with St. Vitus Catherdral, and the Karlov Most in the foreground.

Some stuff which has happened:

• Moved to Westlake Island
• Started a daily view from the bridge, following bike rides
• Celebrated leap day
• Visited Vancouver: USCAP conference
• Went sailing in the Caribbean (fourteen days, seven islands)
• Attended conference in San Jose: ATA conference
• Began following the baby geese
• Rode Breathless Agony (114 miles, 12,000 feet)
• Spectated Amgen Tour of California, Mount Baldy stage
• Visited Venice, Sweden, and Munich, conferences, customers, and symposia
• Started something new; still cooking, stay tuned for [much] more :)
• Enjoyed my Megan, wow
• Sailed Round the Island race and C-15 nationals, yay
• Kept riding to the beach
• Enjoyed Le Tour de France, as always
• Watched the London Olympics
• Cheered as Curiosity landed on Mars
• Felt amazing as Aperio agreed to be acquired by Leica (not celebrating yet okay can celebrate now :)
• Raced the Hoodoo 500 (517 miles, 34,000 feet), and finished!
• Czeched out Prague: and ECP conference