(click on yellow envelope at left to send e-mail -- go to www.ohio.com and follow the links for the stories)
Here is an e-mail - among many that I've received - that caught my attention:
From Sam Johnson:
As an older gent as yourself, I don't have the necessary "ballast" to sit on a bicycle seat all day as you are, but I do have some interest in the technical side. Sounds like Denny is a Mac guy. What is your rig? How are you connecting to the net? Why don't the cheapskates at the BJ send someone to you to freshen the hardware? Don't they realize that your tech problems make them look cheap and get in the way of you spending more time writing . . . so that you found that pair of rode/road errors ;-)
My answer: Sam, I thank you for the interest you are showing in the trip. Let me try to explain how this whole thing works.
First of all, the blog is my thing and not the Beacon Journal's, although they do link to it from the Ohio.com pages. Looking back, I do see several typos in some of the previous entries. I can understand how you would expect clean text from a professional journalist. Fact is, though, this doesn't get edited by anyone -- and I write it when I am very, very tired. Thus the typos. And my apologies.
I'm typing on a Compaq laptop with Windows. Denny, being a photographer, is using a Mac. If I could change one thing, it would be that he and I would both be using the same kind of computer with identical software. That way, we would be each other's backup computer.
I live in constant fear these days that one of these computers will die, as Denny's first one did on the first day. However, Sam, I'm pretty confident that if my computer goes bust, that one way or another I'll get another one from the Beacon Journal.
As far as the net, I send my stories to the Beacon Journal through a direct FTP transfer. I do my blog and answer e-mails by connecting to either AOL or MSN (I have both on this computer). I need good outside lines to connect.
An e-mail from Wiley Dixon:
We rode TOSRV, it certfies your ability to circle the state. I had visions of a couple desk jockeys with little experience until I read that you had ridden the Mighty TOSRV. We'd like to ride with you on the Coshocton leg, maybe help shuttle the van. Hoping for tailwinds and sunshine.
My response to Wiley: Thanks for the Coshocton offer - I'll send you the details. As for TOSRV, I'm not sure that it certifies my ability to circle the state. Yes, I think TOSRV is very difficult, don't get me wrong. But it is confined to two long days (of 105 miles each). Normally, I think I can make it through two days of anything, even the torture of TOSRV's rain and wind.
This project presents a whole set of challenges that go beyond that - and beyond the daily technical snafus. First of all, twenty days is a long, long time. Long to be doing anything. Long to be on the road, sleeping in a different town each night. Long to be riding, even if it's only 50 miles a day.
Sometimes I think this would have been a smarter project at 10 days.
Second, the difficulty of writing stories - one for the newspaper, another for online, a third in the blog and then the extra Sunday paper story - is increased by fatigue. I'm a much better writer when my mind is fresh - which it hasn't been in, oh, say, 7 days.
Well, enough of my complaining. Don't get me wrong, I'm really enjoying this project and I hope others are too.
I know, your comment was only about the riding. Come ride the Coshocton leg, Wiley, and you will see that I am average on the bike. At TOSRV, I'm the rider the SAG people stay late for.
***
Today's ride was excellent. The weather was perfect, though I did get a little sunburn. Winds were not a problem.
However, I couldn't help notice the difference in people and environment when we left the country roads and entered Englewood, a suburb of Dayton. Almost immediately, carloads of teenage boys started slowing down and shouting things at me. What is it in teenage boys that makes them do that? It's funny - always an old car, always four of them, always the one in the back passenger seat.
But it was more than that. Everything in the country was so peaceful and quiet. As I mentioned yesterday, we had numerous people stop and ask if we needed help. I felt safe in the country, secure in knowing that if I needed help, the people in the next car down the road would extend a hand.
The city just seems so heartless - or maybe it's a lack of soul.
Of course, all of this may be the result of my nightly reading. Each night, to wind down from the day's activities, I read about 10-20 pages of Bill Bryson's Walk in the Woods. He encountered the same culture shock when he left the Appalachian Trail and re-entered civilization.
Anyway, that's all I have to say tonight. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
10:21:46 PM 
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