Posts tagged tour de cure

For the first time in months, last week as I was driving to work I had sunlight.  I work at 6 a.m. and driving in that early all winter, I never got to see the sun.  It was dark when I drove in, dark when I drove out, and my cubical is not near a window.  For some reason, companies always like to put the tech support far from windows in a dark corner with half the lights burned out.  I think HR believes that nerds will melt and flee in terror if there is too much light in their world.

In Wisconsin, the spring is a strange time.  The mornings can be in the single digits and the afternoons can be in the 50′s.  Yesterday, we opened all the windows to let in some fresh air because it was so warm, and then in the evening turned on a space heater for our feet and put on a snuggie.  Not that I have a slanket or anything.  If you use your heat and air conditioning in your house or car within the same day, you live in Wisconsin.

This weekend, I did a lot of yardwork.  I put down some borders around the plants, threw down some more fertilizer, and added some grass seed to some bare patches.  The hard part was working around the piles of snow still sitting in the middle of the yard.

Also, dog poop.  When the dogs poop in the backyard during the winter, its gets buried and hibernates.  Then when the snow thaws and makes everything squishy again, the poop appears in piles so large you wonder if your neighbors have been coming over at night and pooping in your yard.

But then daylight savings came around, and now I’m back to driving to work in the dark, and that makes me sad.  The sun gave me hope for a brighter day.  I could feel the positive energy in the morning.  Now my positive energy comes from the terrible office mocha (crappy coffee and powdered hot chocolate mix) and a vitamin B cap.  This is not a fair trade; the sun powers all life on the planet for millions of years, coffee powers me for about 45 minutes.  The only similarity is you don’t want to be around the sun or me when the power runs out.

I don’t even understand the concept of daylight savings.  Supposedly, back when everyone in this country was a farmer I guess it made more sense to maximize the daylight hours.  However, this argument never made sense to me either, because farmers back then didn’t have a digital alarm clock to tell them to get up; they got up when the sun came up and the rooster crowed and went and did farmer things.  Now all daylight savings does is make a couple people late on Monday morning and makes everyone’s internal body clock be slightly off for a week, which just makes everyone grumpy.  As much fun as that is, what’s the point?

Now the argument has been that daylight savings saves us money by not having to turn the lights on.  However, that argument has been debunked in studies and now they’re trying to keep daylight savings going…because they have such a powerful lobby?  I haven’t seen anything on the news about the Daylighters protesting in front of the White House and demanding Obama to make sure the sun stops changing, but then again I barely watch the news.

I have mixed feelings about spring.  On one hand, it has the promise of good things to come.  On the other hand, it reminds me how lazy and fat I was over winter.  Now I’m confronted with the prospect of taking my shirt off in front of people and blinding them with my pasty white skin and amazing them with my doughy physique.  Until I start exercising again, I will look like a freshly opened tube of uncooked crescent rolls.

Now that it’s not cold enough outside to kill Bear Bryant in my backyard, it’s time for me to start riding my bike again. SHAMELESS PLUG: SPONSOR ME IN THE ADA TOUR DE CURE. My favorite part about spring is the spandex shorts make an appearance.  Sometimes I will wear mine even when I have no intention of riding that day.  They’re so aerodynamic that I can get between the couch and the refrigerator much more efficiently than in winter when I’m encumbered by a sweater and fuzzy slippers.

Ah yes, spring is here.

Bring it on you bastard.