Introductory Baloney

Well, everybody but me seems to have a blog.  I constantly watch for bicycling blogs in the Albuquerque area, but so far have not found any with recent, regular, entries.
My main purposes for this blog:
-Maintain a journal-type blog where my friends and loved ones can get clues as to my weirdness
-I'm getting up in years and want to provide documentation of the times I live in so my kids and grandkids can "Look Me Up".
-Hopefully provide a running commentary on the state of commuter and recreational cycling in the Albuquerque NM area
In years past I have done a better job of keeping written journals.  I must have at least 12 volumes of handwritten journals, 40 or so pages of entries printed out from my Commodore 64 days, and a spiral notebook containing the handwrtten story of my life up to about the 1980's.
For several years I worked to transfer my written journals to my web page but recent concerns about identity theft convinced me to stop that.  We'll see fi I can avoid giving out sufficient information on this medium for anyone to do more than hassle me personally, without undue financial consequence, shall we say.
I've been interested in bicycles about as long as I've been interested in radio and electronics, which means about as far back as I can remember.  My first memory of a bicycle is when I lived in Lovington NM as a child.  My father worked as a carpenter, building everything from matchboxes to houses.  His motto was "If it's Wood, I Can Make It."  One day brought home a used bicycle, with both tires flat.  He tried to get me to get up on it and try riding it, but I couldn't see how I could do it.  Not only did I not yet know how to ride a bbike, but the wheels would barely turn while flat, and I gave up easily.  I don't recall what happened to that bike, but he didn't try to air up the tires or help me figure out how to ride.  Other Dads took their boys hunting, taught them things like how to tie a tie, ride a bike, shoot a gun etc.
My Dad was great about many such things as teaching me how to work (mostly by taking me to work with him much too often for my tastes), how to use some tools, and how to drive.  When I was a tyke, he would let me sit on his lap and steer the truck (He always drove a pickup truck, all Fords).  As I grew and my feet got long enough to touch the pedals he would let me drive often, even on the Mother Road, old Route 66, as he drove between home in Bluewater and his shop in Milan, NM, just west of Grants.
He likely figured he had tried the one time to get me on a bike and he was now too busy.  I learned to ride a bike, without training wheels, at my Uncle TD Devenport's ranch hear Hereford, Texas.  We spent a week there visiting when I was about 6 years old and my cousins Darel and Ron had good bikes, kid sized, with AIR in the tires, and they freely allowed me and my brother George to practice riding all we wanted.
After several days of wobbling around their yard and falling down, etc, I well remember that thrill as I first realized how to balance myself and stay upright on the bike.
I bought a cheap 10-speed when I got home from Viet Nam in 1970 and used it exclusively for commuting to classes while my wife kept the only car at home for her transportation needs.  I always loved the feel of speed under my own power and the wind in my face as I rode.
Years later, when we moved to Los Alamos for several years, I blew $400-something of my per diem money to buy a brand new Diamond Back mountain bike andx rode most days, summer and winter, to work.
When we lived in White Rock and I worked at TA-46 it was 6 or so miles uphill going to work and a screaming downhill ride going home.  Needless to say, the uphill ride was uncomfortably warm in the summer and the downhill ride was painfully cold in the winter.
When we moved from Los Alamos to Moriarty in 1994, I commuted 101 miles each way to work and thus was unable to ride the bike.  I endured a divorce and remarried and my new wife always questioned why I didn't "Throw that old bike in the trash.  You've never ridden it...."  Little did she know how nutty I get about bike riding.  I started riding part-way to work, again, about 4 years ago, starting by new tires and flushing out the rust on my 30-year old Diamond Back.  Now my wife tends to occasionally complain because I leave home so early and get home so late (so as to allow time to ride the bike the last 7 miles in town).
More later... laptop battery is getting low and I need to make some firewood runs to replenish the woodpile outside in this unusually cold winter.