The Other Don Kelly

…winter was half over!

I don’t have much to say about that (winter, that is), it’s been pretty lame as far as winter sports or activities go, mostly snow-free and unseasonably warm. Oh well, we’ll have to plan a trip north I guess, if we want to do any skiing or skating.

Meantime, Groundhog Day has come and gone, and so has the Superbowl, and so has the Superbowl of Chili in Easton. Of course I went, as did John R, Eric, George and Doug & Lori. Good times, we were through the door early and got our chili on, including maybe a little on our clothes. D&L took off after that, and the rest of us went for coffee at Easton Market, followed by drinks at Two Rivers, where George’s girlfriend Jessica met us. We were all stuffed, but she was hungry and got food while we drank, then she gave us all a lift home. Another one in the books!

By the way, here’s what I wrote about it in 2004, and here’s what I wrote in 2005. Lotta chili under those bridges.

Merry Christmas! We just ate the biggest breakfast… Now Anne and Ben are out biking to a rare book store, and Emmi & Kyle are on a walk through the neighborhood, and I have a few minutes downtime.

Little Women

We saw this last night. I didn’t want to see this, only decided to go (at the last moment) because everyone else was going, and really expected I’d have to “grin and bear it” through this movie, but I found it compelling, an awesome story well told, and with visually stunning cinematography — it didn’t hurt that lead actress Saiorse Ronan was pretty easy on the eyes, as was everyone else in the movie.

It was also fun to see Laura Dern in another movie so soon after Marriage Story, and in a role so different from her part there.

Photo Catch-Up: UPDATE

I had a bit of a failed experiment here: I’ve been “curating” my photos, meaning I’ve been adding tags etc in my home photo editor and then posting them to Flickr. I also have a plugin here on the blog which supposedly lets me publish Flickr albums here, but I just tried it and it didn’t work. Oh well, if you want to see my newly posted photos you’ll have to check out my Flickr account.

Anne and I had a bit of an “Easton day” yesterday.

There was a lecture at the Canal Museum in the afternoon: the Lafayette College Library’s director of digital studies gave a presentation on “Old Maps and New Technology,” basically about digitizing historic maps and using them with GIS, and it was right up my alley. (I was surprised that Anne wanted to go too, but she also enjoyed it, and we bumped into my friend Kirk there, which was a pleasant surprise too.) We also took a little tour of the current exhibit, which concerned changes to the Lehigh Valley landscape over the past centuries and was heavy on old maps and aerial photography, and had a pleasant conversation with the speaker.

After that we were meeting Kathryn and Beth for dinner at a new place downtown (Aman’s Artisan Indian Cuisine, and very good), but we had some time to kill first so we walked around Center Square — I scoped out some of the new downtown amenities for the maps — and stopped in at Pearly Bakers. We walked over and met them for dinner, then we all went across the street to a place I’d never even seen before, called Oak.

This was a sort of Washington, DC-style, upscale steak house: three stories and an enclosed rooftop bar, exposed brick and wood and architecture — we ended up on the roof, at a table with a small fire in the middle, and continued our dinner conversation for another few minutes. We only stopped in for a drink and a look-see, no idea how the food is (yet) but the place looked awesome.

We were actually home pretty early, like before 9:00, so I spent the evening updating OpenStreetMap.

(I’m also in the middle of working through some photo curating: The other day I moved my photo collection over to the new machine, which was much easier than I thought it would be, then finally finished catching up with adding metadata tags to my old photos. Once I was caught up with that I started importing photos — my backlog goes all the way back to 2015 — and posting them to Flickr. Check them out, yo! And stay tuned for plenty more.)

Tonight I’ll be playing with my cello ensemble. Time to go practice.

Morning weigh-in: 179.5, 12% BF

It’s been a while since I posted a weigh-in, and it’s also been a while since I’d weighed this little. But I’ve been under 180 for a few days now and I thought I’d celebrate. I was close earlier this year, hovering around the 180 lbs mark (down from 190+ lbs) before Colorado, but then Colorado happened, and so did Columbus, and also Thanksgiving…

I haven’t been radically diet-conscious lately, but I can say I’ve been a little more careful, and I think we both have been eating better (Anne especially) these last few months. I’m also back on the “100 push-up challenge” for the winter, where I do at least a hundred push-ups a day — not that that in itself will change anything, but that plus other weight routines I do with it, plus the rides (when they happen: it’s been pretty crappy out lately), and the not-really-a-diet have all been chipping away at the inner tube.

Today was a morning cello session with Donna H, getting ready for our Sunday concert at the local nursing home, and in a few minutes we’re going out to take Anne’s mom up to see friends in Jim Thorpe.

Anne and Lorraine went to Columbus for a knitter’s convention, and then (last Sunday, after the convention was over) Ray and I drove out to meet them so we could all spend a few days checking out the city. We were in the part of town called Short North, which was one of several quaint sections, all brick houses and cobblestones — we stayed in a converted loft in a former Wonder Bread factory, just on the edge of the neighborhood. The area was ideal for walkability, and for restaurants, and night clubs and coffee shops and bookstores…

There’s not really much to say about what we did: we got breakfast, we walked around, seeing the sights and visiting bookstores etc, and in the evening we grabbed dinner and drinks. Nothing particularly notable, it was just a pleasant visit. Ray had gone to college in Columbus, and lived pretty close to our AirBnb for a number of years, and so we visited some of his old neighborhoods in our walks. In between all these things, we read the books we bought.

We did visit two major attractions while we were there: the Botanical Gardens and the Art Museum. I only took pictures at the Botanical Gardens (and maybe I’ll post some soon), but both were really fun.

Aye, and I’ve headed West (twice! — we just got back from Columbus, which was lovely) over the past month or so, as well as north once or twice on the D&L, and today we’re heading south to Philly for a brunch visit with Ben & Candace, and also maybe Russ & Mimi.

I have things to say about Columbus, along with some pictures, and we bought a bunch of books there so I have some readings to talk about, and I’ve also been playing with a new GIS project, and there’s more to say there too, but we’re out the door in about 5 minutes.

So… back with more posts, soon.

Well, we’re back — we got home Sunday evening, then went out for dinner and drinks with John & Dona, and also Kellyn & Eric. Yesterday was unpacking and some running around, and today we did a huge grocery mission.

What now? I’m now playing catch-up with the cello, and with maintenance on the Iguana — as soon as I got the headset replaced, the crank developed a wobble because the bottom bracket bearings have gone south. I can’t get them out either, so it’s back in the shop. Hopefully it’ll be ready for our ride this weekend.

Meantime, I got into putting together a list of rides, and associated points of interest, for the Road Scholar program. (More on this as time goes by.)