Wednesday, March 22, 2023

Surprises

 Surprise!

This morning I was surprised.

"Surprise" is a word that gets lots of use. "I was surprised..." "we surprised him with..." "it was a surprise to learn..." "it was a nice surprise..." "I don't like surprises..." "it may surprise you...."

My surprise today happened on my morning P2 Loop.

No, it's nothing even remotely bad or disturbing. Besides, I do my best to be extremely focused and on the lookout for cars and people coming and going.

What surprised me this morning was a first for all of my 286 P2 Loops to date: another cyclist came down the ramp from P1. Hard to tell, but I suspect he was as surprised to see me, as I was surprised to see him.

I am posting this because it's an opportunity to explore what a surprise is. I think that it's something sufficiently out of the ordinary that it lights up our neurons as soon as it happens. Not always enough to provoke a significant physical reaction like a jerk, or a gasp, or a shout, but certainly enough to feel a psychic jolt of a kind. It's definitely a physical experience that stems from our perception of our environment.

We become familiar with our environment. We develop complex sets of expectations. It's our way of navigating our world, of predicting the imminent future. The surprise is unexpected. This encounter certainly fit that bill.

He was a serious cyclist, perhaps a commuter returning home. Our paths crossed in an instant. We were traveling in opposite directions, me northbound approaching the ramp, he exiting the ramp to head southbound. I assume he was headed to P3 because after that brief moment I didn't see him again.

We were alike in many ways as far as I recall. Both men, both dressed in shades of dark grey, both wearing gloves and black helmets, both alert, and very focused on riding, both moving at a decent pace. Both silent in our movement.

We were also quite different. His was a road bike, mine a Brompton. Mine had lights fore and aft, his had none.

Now I wonder how he would describe our flash encounter.

Was he surprised?

Happy Spring!

Thursday, March 16, 2023

What's a million?

I'm glad I asked.

Clearly it depends on what you count.

Stars? A million is nothing, less than a drop in the universe.

Grains of sand? Nada. Maybe a sand castle on a beach?

Humans? Humans are never nothing. We are just the most amazing and bewildering things in the universe... as near as we can tell, we think. It's likely that many of the cities boasting of a million or more people, are places you have never even heard of.

Money? Ha... not what it once was, that's for sure.

So what's this particular million?

It's actually the millionth

The millionth Brompton bicycle rolled off the Brompton assembly at the sacred plant in London that all Bromptons come from, including mine. I 'liked' (loved? hearted?) the video of course and just had to comment.


I recommend that you watch the video too. It's obviously historic. It will be even more so if King Charles heeds my advice and knights Andrew Ritchie, Brompton's brilliant creator.

Feel free to chime in and poke King Charles in favour of Sir Andrew Ritchie.

Thursday, March 2, 2023

"Good morning"

"Good morning" are two words that I give, and receive, multiple times during my morning P2 Loop.

They bring happiness, and start my day on the right note.

This morning an enthusiastic dog turned, looked me in the eye as I was passing and woofed a few woofs while nodding and wagging its tail. I took that as "Good morning" so I said "Woof, woof" with a smile, which I took to be pooch also for "Good morning".

The copyright in all text and photographs, except as noted, belongs to David Masse.