Conversations and packings

If you've read the anonymous comment regarding my post yesterday, you'll likely want to start in on a conversation with somebody. I wanted to have a conversation with the person who commented (Thank you anonymous one, for your insights, reminders, and kindnesses!). I still do. And this is the shortcoming and, in some way, the strength, of this medium. The shortcoming is the relative anonymity of much of the interaction. Even if the person identifies themselves by name, and even if I know that person, there is distance between us, and because he or she can't see my face, or hear the tone of my voice, the conversation is odd. I/we don't really know where we're at with one another. I can't be sure about how much irony, or sincerity, is behind the words. The strength of this medium though, is evident in the thought (I'm assuming sincerity at this point) and care the writer took in responding. He or she gently pushed back, and then made some great points that should be made. Because he or she can sit and consider the words and ideas carefully, the quality of the response is high, and the potential for future discussion is high too, IF we decide we have the energy to continue the conversation. I'm not sure how necessary it is to continue this conversation, since we're not really likely, between the two of us, to solve the problem by keeping at it, but we have reminded each other of one thing or another and that's valuable. Really valuable. But at some point, it would be best to sit across the table from the person. At some point this medium will become too slow and tedious to have the kind of energizing discussion we might have over drinks, some place nice.

We're packing, well we're pretty much done packing, to head out tomorrow on a 5-day canoe trip. We did not argue (much, not much at all) as we packed, and this, this is a wonderful thing. The route we're taking will be East of Kenora, and south of the 17. We'll be nowhere near an internet connection. I'm going to leave this thing at home. So there will be a lull in these web-based proceedings.

I did ride today, on the new wheel I got to replace the broken Mavic. My brother and sister-in-law and their son and I drove across the border to an intersection just North of Leroy. Then we rode to Leroy, to Walhalla, back to Leroy, and back to the car. It was just less than 50 ks, and the roads and scenery were excellent.