After a long hiatus, I’ll finally be working a bike event tomorrow (03/`8/22). Providence Bike Jam, a reincarnation of Critical Mass, is expecting a crowd of over one hundred riders. This mission of PBJ is simple.
Calling cyclists of all ages and skill levels! If you’ve ever wanted to join a group ride, but felt there were too many speed or spandex requirements, we’ve got you covered. Come join our casual, monthly night ride where we roll through the city, playing music along the way! Rides are typically @10 miles or so and we try to end someplace for drinks and socializing afterwards. We follow the rules of the road, as long as it’s safe to do so. Come have fun!
I have my equipment charged, cleaned and ready.
It was fun to be back at some serious editing working on and intro to the ride.
Wheels up at 7PM in downtown Providence, R.I. My over under for the number of riders is 125.
I left the house in a cold and overcast late afternoon. The forecast called for occasional snow squalls. No problem for this season ticket holder for the New England Revolution. A forty five minute drive to Gillette Stadium is usually an easy commute on the weekends.
The Midnight Riders tailgate was cancelled and members were posting that they would not get to the game as early as usual. I made a sandwich, added a thermos of hot coffee and had a plan.
I would arrive to lot 4, which is reserved for supporters group members who displayed a parking pass using Sue’s Prius, since lot 4 had charging stations. There was a half tank of gas and I decided to fill up. Checking the maintenance book and seeing the last time I put gas in the Prius was, June of 2021, brought a satisfied smile.
Ten minutes into the commute, the snow squall hit. I was mulling weather or not to continue and pulled off the highway to check the Foxboro weather. The snow was predicted to continue till 8 or 9 PM with heavy winds. Do I want to suffer through that? Why am I even thinking about this. I have been a season ticket holder for twenty seven years and also have a great seat in row 2 of my section. I also have access to the Presidential Suite and I drove home to settle into my favorite chair in the entertainment room. “The Presidential Suite.”
I was rewarded of my choice when the Revs gave up three goals in the last 15 minutes to fall to defeat at the hands of Real Salt Lake 3-2
The weather is improving and the roads and paths are clear. It’s been a struggle for two years to get content for this blog, which was created to showcase local and out of the ordinary bicycle events. Today is not one of those posts. {{{{{Breath}}}}}. They are however, returning with the first event next Friday, March 18, 2022.
Providence Bike Jam March Magic
Grab your wands and mount your steeds, there’s magic in the air. Fly with us like the dragon and the griffin as we howl the night away!!
Spring is here, baby. Join your fam and let’s cast some spells over this city
In the Spring of 2020 we had planned to attend Tyler and Susan’s wedding in Shanghai, China. After two years, we finally met up with the newlywed who stayed in our home while they were looking for an apartment in Boston. They returned to Fairhaven every afternoon and we all spent some quality time together.
Yesterday was the home opener for the New England Revolution. Like last year, they are not looking that good and still managed to squeak out a win. Fortunately the opponent was a very disorganized Dallas team. The pregame tail gate was fulfilling, with the emphasis in filling. The Midnight Riders pot luck brunch was a success. Joining us, as he does every game, was the Revolution general manager. Every once in a while former MLS players who will be in the broadcast booth for ESPN for Fox Soccer pay us a visit.
Riders President with Revs GMHardhat riderThe fruit and veggie tableFlap JacksDJ
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Charlotte FC Home Opener
FC Charlotte, the new kids of Major League Soccer, played their first game at home to a world record breaking attendance of 75K There was also a wonderful back story.
Kljestan, a Chivas USA player in 2010, gave Hegardt, then a eight-year-old patient, a United States men’s national team jersey. Now 20, Hegardt is with expansion team Charlotte after being drafted from Georgetown.
LA Galaxy midfielder Sacha Kljestan and Charlotte rookie Chris Hegardt swapped jerseys after LA Galaxy’s 1-0 win over Charlotte at Bank of America Stadium, 12 years after Klijestan visited Hegardt at a Los Angeles children’s hospital.
Morning passed with the daily routine of making coffee, feeding the pups, reading the paper and ended with a two mile walk with Reba and Owen (the dog), not to be confused with Owen the boy. (Grandson). It wouldn’t take long for the mundane to be overtaken by the shakes of the head that lead to smiles, that inspired this post.
Two appointment were on the agenda. A trip to the auto dealer for a minor repair, followed by a chiropractor visit. Lets get to it.
The Auto Repair.
A part on back order was finally delivered to the dealer. $300 was paid in advance and the time had come to get this fixed. “Should be a little more than and hour. Are you going to wait?” Asked the service rep. I had my book, there was plenty of comfy places to sit and coffee was complimentary. Except that the industrial one cup brewer was not working. “See sales rep. Jam” scrolled across the screen. Not a big deal at all.
Then came the head shake. A middle aged over friendly woman tried to make a cup of coffee. After a few attempts at getting the door open to insert the pod, she turned and looked at a man who was watching her. “Is this still broken” she asked. “Yes” the man replied.
With a pretentious attitude the woman scowled, “when were you going to tell me?”
He said “sorry, I assumed your could read.” {{{{{SMILE}}}}}
Having more than an hour for the Dr. appointment, I stopped at the Boston Burrito. It was my fist time in the joint and the menu looked good. “Tres tacos con carne y agua por favor” “That will be $11.38, cash only” Oh oh! I only had a ten. I was about to downgrade my order when the owner said, “Don’t worry about it.” I responded, “But I don’t have cash for a tip.” “No problemo”, he said. {{{{{SMILE}}}}
There were a few patrons also waiting, most were young and I realized that this was a hot spot popular place. Then the {{{{HEAD SHAKE}}}} as shown by the photo. I was the only person in the building not texting or browsing.
I was the only person in the building not texting.
I knew a quiet spot along the waterfront. A place with no other people around. A place where I could enjoy my tacos in solitude. Maybe, just maybe the title of this post is not very elusive.
P.S. The auto dealer ordered the wrong part. Also, it would probably take quite a while to get it. That was another head shake moment. Until, they gave me a free car wash and issued a 10% discount on the part, which brought a smile.
The weather has been a beast the last few weeks. Snow, Ice, single digit wind chill and laziness all conspired to keep me off my bike. I did manage a few rides and a couple of hikes, but new content is difficult to find these days.
Today I was perusing some posts from my blogspot account. Some quotes and photos really show how things have changed.
This one from May of 2005 has a quote for the ages.
“I made it safely to the car, immediately took out my cell phone, extended the antenna, turning myself into a lighting rod, and called home.”
This quote from Aug 2007 made me smile. I’m sure it happened but I have no recollection. ” I stopped at a golf course and watched a threesome approach the tee. I was on the road a little behind the green. It’s about a 100 yard shot from tee to green. It looked like young high school kids and when I saw one change clubs I figured he took one out that was long enough to reach me. Time to move on. I glanced back on the way out and saw him change clubs again.
In 2010 I rode the NYC Five Boroughs Tour. I had done it a few times in prior years. We always spend the day before the ride as tourists. On this day while walking through Times Square, we saw this crowd of hundreds watching a car fire. Brandon and I joined the group and were no more than 25 yards from the burning car. Not a big deal till we got back to our hotel and turned on the TV. The car was filled with explosives, and the terrorist botched the ignition device.
If he was any good he would have taken out most of this group.
Getting out on the bike has been a challenge this month. The days that allowed riding, were days to shoot B-rolls for February. The bike events, that are the bulk of my video work, will resume soon. I did pass on the last two in Providence. With a ride length of eight miles, the idea of spending six hours to get very few rolls in the dark, kept me home. But a friend did get some photos.
Meeting at Burnside Park, Providence, R.I.Riding the streets of Providence, R.I.
Sports
New England Revolution
MLS opens it’s season next week. The New England Revolution travel to Portland on Saturday before returning for their home opener on March 5th, hosting Dallas. The signing of Sebastian Lietget, Omar Gonzalez and Jozy Altidore should more than offset the loss of Matt Turner to Arsenal, and Tajon Buchanan to Club Brugge in Belgium.
Yanks in the The Champions League
Captain America, Christian Pulisic from Hershey PA, scored for Chelsea in the round of 16 game vs League 1 champion LOSC of Lille, France, at Stanford Bridge in London.
Christian Pulisic
Club: Chelsea London
Pulisic is at the top of his game and should be more than ready and motivated when the US plays in the final window of World Cup qualifications. At Mexico, home to Panama and ending away in Costa Rica. I’ll be at the Panama game in Orlando at the sold out Exploria Stadium, on March 27.
Juventus and Villarreal played to a 1-1 draw in the first leg of the round of 16.
Westin Mckinney
Club: Juventus, Turin, Italy
Mckinney with help, hobbled off the pitch with what looked to be a serious ankle injury. Hopefully he will be recovered to play in the qualifying window next month.
Finally, with his value soaring, twenty one year old Brenden Aaronsen has become a European sensation in the soccer world. His play was instrumental in leading Salsberg to a 1-1 draw in the first leg with the German Powerhouse, Bayern.
Brenden Aaronsen
Club. Red Bull, Salzburg, Austria.
He confidence was on display during his post match interview when he said, “We can play with any team in the world, and I know we can beat Bayern in Munich”.
The main theme of this blog is biking and bike events. This winter those things have been scarce. I still like to get outside with my cameras and film things I can use for b_rolls. (supplemental or alternative footage). I usually don’t do any advanced planning during these off season shoots. Sometimes I go out and shoot b-rolls just to show things I see while riding or walking. When I have enough footage I edit the content and make a YouTube video.
Today will see a 40 degree jump in temperature. Dawn broke to 5° F, and by 9 AM the temperature at risen to 35°. The sun will help the high reach 45°. The side streets and bike paths will definitely be cleared to ride by tomorrow morning.
SUNDAY
I watched the “Power of the Dog” on Netflix Sunday evening. I still don’t have a sense if I liked it or not. Sometimes things like this grow on us after the fact. Network TV is rarely on here. Streaming channels are the norm. However, one of the network shows I never miss is the “Grammy’s”. Channel surfing after the movie I stumbled on the Super Bowl halftime show. I have seen quite of few of these extravaganzas, and except for Prince , they all pale to this years show. It’s not every day that I can’t stop myself from dancing in front of the TV. Sunday was one of those days. I loved everything about it. Everything.
SPORTING NEWS
The Revolution are moving on in the Concacaf Champions League, and they didn’t even have to hit the pitch.
New England’s opponent, AS Cavaly, wasn’t able to solve its visa issues and had to withdraw from the tournament. The first leg was supposed to take place Tuesday night at Gillette Stadium, but was postponed to Friday.
Now the Revolution don’t have to worry about the Round of 16 anymore, as AS Cavaly announced it had withdrawn from the tournament Tuesday night.
“AS Cavaly (HAI) has notified Concacaf that the club has been unable to obtain the necessary visas required to travel to the United States for their upcoming SCCL matches against the New England Revolution (USA), and that they have made the decision to formally withdraw from the competition,” Concacaf said in a statement.
The Revolution now advance to the quarterfinals, where the club will face the winner of the Pumas UNAM (Mexico) vs Deportivo Saprissa (Costa Rica) Round of 16 matchup.
Earlier in the week, I surprised Sue with a mystery trip to Boston, where we experienced the van Gogh immersion show. I wanted to top that off last night with dinner and a movie. The snow put a damper on that forcing us to dine at home. Sue ordered her favorite, mushroom pizza, “crispy”, and told me to pick it up in twenty minutes. I’m not fond of pizza so I made myself a nice crispy salad topped with a spicy chicken burger. We then settled into our PJs, and watched, “The Power of the Dog”.
This is New England
The town, finally doing the right thing, didn’t bring the DPW workers in overnight to plow. With only three or four inches in the roads, there really was no reason to plow at all. This is New England fercryingoutloud. We are a tough bunch, and can handle that little snow easily.
Our laundry room is being redone. Actually it was never done, we are making it a room in lieu of cellar space. The clothes still have to be cleaned and dried so I made a trip to the local laundromat this morning. It’s not a bad place to read BTW. On the way, I made a video, and the link is below. I have to do the link thing till I figure out how to make it so when someone clicks on the video on WordPress, it goes to YouTube and doesn’t open on my WP page. Till then CLICK HERE for today’s video.
On the lighter side
My five year old grandson in Atlanta celebrated his birthday with a party at local park in the city. I asked him in my normal accent. “How was your pahhty in the pahhhk”. He just looked at me and smiled. I repeated, “how was your pahhty in the pahhk? Again, no response. Finally I said, “Hey Y’all, how was your pourrtee in the pourrk while contorting my face. “Fine” he said . His dad got a kick out of that.
I really enjoy hearing all the different accents and dialects. Over the decades of listening and paying attention, I have become very astute at recognizing the regions and countries. Wouldn’t it be very boring if we all sounded alike?
Sports News
The New England Revolution Concacaf Champions League vs AS Calvary has been moved from the 15th to the 18th of this month due to challenges the Haitian club is facing in their attempts to obtain the necessary visas to travel. That’s OK with me since the prediction of temps in the teens at game time. We’ll see how the 18th pans out.
Because of a positive Covid test, I cancelled my trip to Columbus, Ohio for the US/El Salvador, World Cup Qualifying game. Fortunately, I was able obtain a ticket to the sold out US/Panama Qualifyer in Orlando, Fla next month. Things may work out for the best because this could be the game that actually qualifies the US for a spot in Qatar.
and mount your steeds
, there’s magic in the air. Fly with us like the dragon and the griffin as we howl the night away!! 
A Midnight Rider 