Just got back home from a great ride out at Montgomery Bell. I've not been riding on dirt for at least a month and a half. Life has been a little strange these past few months. Studio work slowed down to less than a crawl and I was having to really reconsider my future ideas. I am so fortunate that Beth's business is doing well and continuing to grow and that I can offer her some help with my free time. It was still a time of soul searching without many answers surfacing. I was laying low mainly as a way to conserve money but also as a way to avoid having to face some of the decisions I was trying to make. Being out of town so much helped to keep me busy but also made the whole thing frustrating since I didn't always feel like I could dedicate a lot of time to my thoughts.
I have started working for a studio out in Bellevue this past week and it's been going great so far! I've worked 3 sessions for them already and everyone has been really happy with my work and we all get along well. Between those sessions and filling in for a buddy on some jingle work, I've worked in the studio the past 9 days straight! Talk about a 180 from the past few months. That about equals my past few months of work. We always say the music business can either be feast or famine and no in between and man is that so true. It's strange to be so close to quitting the only career I've really wanted to do since highschool and then have work pick back up again. I know I have some friends who've gone through this same thing with audio engineering, but this was the closest I've come to be totally unemployed since I started.
In all the time I wasn't working I have decided to start a new business. I have taken over the social media department of Beth's company of 1, I mean 2. In doing so, and after lots of research which is on going, I've decided to try and offer my services and knowledge to other small businesses that either don't understand the great benefits of social media for their business or just don't have any desire to learn and take part in it. I'm not sure what this will turn into in the coming months but I've worked out a couple packages to offer and am slowly putting the word out. If it's meant to work out and turn into something I'm sure it will...and if not, I'll be that much better at the job for Freshie & Zero.
Sooo back to the riding part, this is a blog mainly about cycling right? Well atleast for now. I have some ideas on that too for another time. (Anyone with some Wordpress knowledge or tips, feel free to pass them on).
I finally felt like I was ready to dedicate some time back to riding in the woods. I think I was avoiding it a lot too out of guilt of not working much. Sure I had free time, but what should I do with it? Should I be out riding around enjoying myself or should I be hunkered down trying to work out what to do next, professionally? Well, I felt a weight had been lifted this week, even if just for a short time, and I took the opportunity to get back out and ride. The old crew was ready and willing to let me tag along again and join them for some Montgomery Bell dirt.
Thad, Hilary, Hannah, Jeffy and Wendy all came out to ride. It was such a fine morning that the parking lot was packed with people. The trail was in great shape, a little dusty but I'm not complaining. We varied our normal route some and added some new sections in reverse order. I was feeling awesome for the first 3/4 of the ride. I was actually surprised as how well I felt. Thankfully Jeff and Thad kept a very reasonable pace and didn't kill me. I was able to stick close and chat and catch up on life with them as we winded our way through the woods.
I hit the wall after about 11-12 miles and was ready to be done. I'd had enough and didn't want to stay out so long that it stopped being fun. We all decided it was time to call it and got cleaned up and headed in for some El Monte and 2 for 1 Dos Equis. At lunch, I started following the Leadville 100 race on Twitter after getting a text message from Doug that Lance Armstrong was in the lead by 15 min. It was another great example to me about how cool Twitter can be. I was able to just search "Leadville" and then follow all the spectators who were posting updates about the race in real time. Sure people make fun of Twitter... but there are some cool things with it. (by the way, I just wrote a blog, I'll probably mention that on Twitter.) Lance ended up winning the race, setting a new course record of something like 6hrs 28min and rode the last 5 miles on a flat tire. Wow!
Ok so, until I feel inspired for more blogging....sayonara. Time for some pool action and maybe some wordpress research.
