I've gotten lots of interesting responses to my haircut. Elizabeth didn't notice immediately and, after a couple of minutes, took a tremendous double-take. Randy stood up and offered my his hand, saying "Hello! My name is Randy..." Bob grabbed me and rubbed my head briskly. Lots of positive comments from everyone.

I got in my longish bike ride yesterday. I rode up to Deerfield, rode around a bit, and then climbed Mount Sugarloaf. I didn't ride all the way to the top. The last third was too steep: I couldn't ride slow enough to either not run out of breath or not fall over. So I walked the last bit. I had read that the descent was dangerous in places, but I wasn't sure what they meant. Immediately after I started my descent, I found out exactly what they meant: There was a brief section, 100 yards or so, that was so steep, I was in serious danger of having my center of gravity directly above the front wheel. I realized after a few moments, that I could no longer dismount because if I moved my center of gravity even a few inches farther forward, there was a real risk of pitching forward over the handlebars. I was braking heavily, but could feel the back wheel beginning to skip as there was so little weight on it. At the same time, I didn't dare tighten the front break any more than absolutely necessary to avoid pitching forward. Like I said, it was only 100 yards or so and after that, the rest was fine, but I'll remember to walk that section next time. It took me a bit longer to get home than I'd expected because my legs were tired, but it was only about a 20 mile ride in all.

The new ESNE site is about ready to go live. Hopefully that will happen sometime over the next day or two. Then I'll begin working seriously to start posting ESNE cards throughout the Pioneer Valley. Ever since I arrived, I've been astonished that there's not a vibrant Esperanto community in the valley: It's such a perfect fit! Well, maybe I can touch something off.


StevenBrewer