Placid

Sometimes it takes me too long to update this page. The promised high winds from earlier in the week didn't eventuate. I had a feeling this would be the case when the Bureau of Meteorology website managed to avoid getting quite as excited about the forecast as the tabloid "news" sources did. Still, it was nice to get the opportunity to finally ride in some cooler temperatures (even if they didn't last long).

There's something placid and relaxing about those cooler temperatures. It's not something that drains you the way the summer humidity does, but it does tend to take the edge of whatever trepidation one is feeling at the time. Wednesday morning I recorded a minimum temperature of 4 degrees C while taking a pre-dawn ride to Little Nerang Dam. It somehow become one of those rides that I really wanted to savour. Even when I realised I had to hurry things along a little due to time constraints, I didn't feel agitated in any way. Perhaps that might explain the more laid-back attitudes I find in people I meet when I visit places with cooler climates than this one.

In other news, I appear to have just about tied up all the loose ends in my life before going away. The process has been more than a little frustrating, and at different times I've "vowed" to sue government agencies whose incompetence annoyed me (and cost me money), and even start my own country to avoid having to deal with them again. Unfortunately, we seem to have created a society where nobody can think for themselves, and can't even so much as press a button on a computer to print a document they've stored for years without orders sent in, sent back, signed in triplicate etc etc. Then of course, they act all surprised that anyone should get annoyed when they fail to meet their stated "service standards".

They're no longer interfering with my life for the moment, so I no longer care about them, but it has been a frustrating process. About the only saving grace has been these placid early morning rides to reduce the stress levels for a couple of hours each day.