1st look at the new bike..... Minus the racks and pedals.

"The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck" - RWE

Well, I haven't been to confession in a long time, actually never.... but, I haven't posted to this blog in 37 days and that seems pretty sinful.  So I will attempt to cleanse myself with a lengthy post describing these past days and bring you up to speed with where I am at currently in getting this ship rolling.... bus sailing...... bike riding.  I've never been too good with figures of speech or the English language so please forgive me.  I hope that one of those will do.

So, after December 30th when I put my official notice of resignation in I still had 30 days left before leaving which meant that even after putting in the notice much of my work life just went back to normal which was a blessing and a curse.  Although I was ready to leave when I put the notice in it was in a way nice to get back into the swing of things and let the days roll by as they do with work so that I didn't have to think about the time that I still had until I left.

My office at work where I toiled away at for 2 + years.

As I got into the last two weeks I began to see and feel my work load dropping in direct correlation to the amount of Snapchats I sent.  The calculations were quite scientific really, but I won't bore you with that.

Interesting side note, once the news started going around that I was leaving my job the rumors began to fly as to why I was leaving and the possible scenarios for me leaving were quite fantastic.  To name the top 3....
1. The most widely accepted reason - I was fired.  Simple and boring.  No creativity in that one.  Also, just for the record when people get fired they don't then work another 30 days.  Just an fyi.
2.  I had some terrible, terminal illness and was dying.  Not very funny, but a bit more creative nonetheless.  Sorry, I am not sick.
3.  And the favorite one I heard.... I had a baby out of wedlock and was running away with my soon to be wife.

Anyways, the next major date was January 26th.  Moving day for all of my stuff....  And my apartment went from looking like this......

To this....

I then spent the next four nights sleeping on the floor on that mattress pictured above trying not to freeze to death from the arctic tundra that became my apartment.  Thankfully, I survived and on Thursday January 30th I went in for my last day of work which actually turned into a little surprise farewell party given to me by my coworkers and supervisor.  I then officially handed over my big set of keys and my company phone and that was it.  I said my last goodbyes, went back to my apartment for the last time and turned over my other set of keys to my landlord and then hit the road to come back home to Sauquoit, NY.

Some of my goodbye pictures of Brooklyn...

Corner of Putnam and Classon.  My bus stop.

Brooklyn Bridge.

Prospect Park.

Manhattan skyline from underneath the Brooklyn Bridge.

Now I have been home for 11 days and have been trying to do as much training as I can and to get all of my preparations in order before I leave here en route to St. Augustine (where I will be starting the trip from) on March 12th.

Training regimen so far on the bike:

Jan. 31st - 1.5 hours

Feb. 1st - 1.25 hours

Feb. 2nd - 2 hours

Feb. 3rd - 1.25 hours

Feb. 4th - 1.5 hours

Feb. 5th - 1.75 hours

Feb. 6th - 2 hours

Feb. 7th - 1.5 hours

Feb. 8th - DAY OFF!!

Feb. 9th - 2 hours

Feb. 10th - 2 hours

Besides that I have finally ordered my new Surly Long Haul Trucker bike from Dick Sonne's Cycling, Fitness & Skis (www.dicksonnes.com).  I guess that was a somewhat important step and I am eagerly waiting for it to arrive from the Surly Distributor so that we can get it customized and ready for the trip.  It should be arriving in the next few days and when I get it back to the house I will post a pic.

For now I will leave you with that.  Signing off from the "writing room" as I have now dubbed it.  Much better than the cubicle that I was spending most of my days in only 11 days ago.

-BHG