As of today, I have supposedly returned to the regular daily grind of a mild-mannered professional bureaucrat and leaving behind my detour into the life of a free-wheeling, wild-living rock star.

As if.

In any case, please enjoy the following brief after-action report:

The gigs at ConGregate and Confluence were, on the whole, reasonably successful. I played my shows to reasonably sized crowds, sold a few CDs (sufficient to basically cover the cost of gas to and from the venues), saw some friends, made a few new ones, and had a few days at home in between to take care of some lingering domestic tasks and get a few miles in on the trail, even if I managed to break two bikes (don’t worry, they got better)* in the process.

But yes, today, I’m back in the saddle, watching meetings get rescheduled, system test partners leave out critical information, and clearing out the inbox in spite of my “I’m not here” autoresponder.

That, however, is completely normal. No Brownian motion from liquid almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea required.

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* – indeed, I threw a spoke or three on the road bike approximately six miles from the trailhead during a particularly sweltering afternoon, resulting in my requesting a rescue from my lovely spouse, as I wasn’t about to carry the bike (spokes pop, wheel goes out of true and won’t turn in it’s allotted space in the frame…) six miles back to the car in 100° weather. The following day, I decided to take the other bike over to the state park and run the trails, getting about five miles in before blowing a tire at the bottom of a mid-level single-track run. This involved my pushing the bike two miles up an old forest service road to the trailhead, taking shelter for half an hour while a big thunderstorm/downpour passed, then hiked the bike another two miles down the mountain to the parking area.

However, a quick tube change at home, and a short stay at the bike shop for a tune-up I was planning on doing anyway, both are back in service…it just wasn’t my week.