The Start of Summer

It's been a busy few weeks for us newly-weds, with visiting family, parties in Chicago and some nice early summer weather. Work at the gallery had been interesting lately. I've had a lot of "take home" projects, from scanning and antiquing photos to organizing captions and formatting poetry. I also have been a bit accident-prone. I have at least one glass/paper cut on every single finger on my right hand, and a burn on my left hand. I seem to go through phases like this. I'll go for weeks without a single mishap on the job and then they all pile on at once. I'm sure I could draw conclusions on my broader mental state from this, but I choose not to.

In other big news, I took my yakima racks off my car for the first time in... um... well, since I've owned a car. This was not an easy decision for me as I always have liked the look of the racks, and for many years having them on was extremely practical. However, I don't think I've put a bike on the racks since I moved to Iowa City. It seems to work out here that if I'm going to need a bike somewhere, I will ride the bike to get there. If I'm going to take the car, that usually means I'm going to see my horse or hauling lots of stuff - activities which do not require a bike. So, as cool as they might look, I suspect the racks cut down on gas mileage and make a lot of noise at higher speeds. I am going to spend the next few tanks of gas gauging how much of a difference going rackless actually makes in these two areas and then make a final decision based on what I discover. I must say the initial change is somewhat unsettling. My car hardly looks like my car anymore, and I fear I will have trouble finding it in parking lots.