I Need a Little Sun, Ears and Music

Waking up at 0300 hrs. and willing myself back to sleep was unsuccessful. Usually and also this time, I slip out of bed and make my way to the living room where I curl up beneath a soft coverlet on the sofa. I flip the TV on and veg out to the weather channel. It doesn't take a lot of concentration. Eventually the lack of stimulation allows me to drift off for a couple more hours of rest.

As light filtered through the window at the end of the sofa, I flowed up from my sleep and headed for the kitchen and the coffee pot. While the coffee was brewing, I slipped into bike shorts, shirt and a light wind jacket and stepped outside to do a weather test. Chilly and windy. 

4 miles later, I'm back to the house to shed my jacket and sit down with a cup of coffee and more of the weather channel. I wanted to do more riding this morning  but a fine drizzle of rain sent me home to wait it out. The weather channel doesn't show rain for today here so that stuff falling out of the sky must have been a UFO ( unidentified falling object.)

I'm watching the reports on all the collisions and resulting injuries and deaths and I'm thankful our roads seldom see that white stuff.  34 car pile up in Colorado and the winter snow has just started?

I-70, Kansas City, with 50 car pileup in a white out? 70 car pile up in Arizona in the rain?

I'm looking outside at the sun that is now chasing the moisture from the pavement and I'm ready to do a few more miles. I'll strap the I Touch to my upper arm and insert the ear buds and be on my way. Music on my rides is now a standard!

Did I mention anything about a bike and a truck to you?  That would be MY bike and THE truck I hit. At the time there was no humor attached to this incident but now a few days later, I can't even talk about it without laughing.

It's all those gadgets and controlling them that caused this incident. I hate ear buds and anything that is supposed to plug into my ears. I see those I Pod users with the ear buds plugged up and ignoring everyone while their brains are plugged into the music flowing through those ear buds. It doesn't work that way for me. The ear buds do not stay in place and that's how the truck incident happened.

I was rounding a corner of an apartment building in the parking lot, one hand on the handlebar and the other trying to plug the left ear bud back into my ear. I looked up and before I could convince myself to drop the ear bud and grab the handlebar to squeeze the brakes, I was head ended into the bumper of the truck. The tire made impact and the bike spun around and down and it was over before I realized what had happened. Picking myself up, I straddled the bike again and moved to the side while gazing at the handle bars that were no longer lined up with the front tire. Thankfully, I had my little tool kit and Allen wrenches so I could loosen and re tighten the handlebars. I laugh because my main concern wasn't whether I was hurt or not but that I may have a crowd that was watching. It was early in the morning. No audience to my little debacle and no harm done other then a few bruises and a  few sore muscles the next day.
The husband gave me a lesson on how to jam those ear buds into my ears and turn them until they are seated. I'm giving them another try as using them beats the hell out of headphones. Music is more intense and clean when it is buried close to the ear drums. Healthy? I don't think that is a concern for serious music listeners.
Huh? What's that you say? Ah, well yeah. I'm a little deaf. Blame it on the ear buds.