Today after a long weekend I’ve got the nose to the old grindstone.

I say that, but I do love my job. Obviously my dream job would be to sit around all day writing the words I want to write instead of the ones that make me money, but I still love my job. Writing code is still a creative outlet. Writing documentation and requirements, well, I can do it even if it’s dull work. At least I’m sitting inside on the computer and I can get up and grab something from the fridge when I want it.

Do you want to know what my favorite part of this weekend was? I’m sure you do. It was taking a picture of couple of ducks.

NO! Wait.It was my favorite daughter learning to ride a bike. Mostly riding a bike.

When I was a kid and I wanted to go somewhere, I didn’t ask Mom or Dad “Hey, can you take me over there?” They had their own things to do and as a boy I was left to my own devices if I wanted to go somewhere. If I walked it could take a painfully long time to get from point A to point B. So if I didn’t want to walk somewhere, I had to learn how to ride a bike. It was a powerful motivator for me. Living in the sticks like I did meant everything was a good distance away and to get there took a good deal of time on foot. So I learned how to ride a bike.

My favorite daughter never had that motivation because we drove her to school, drove her to her friend’s parties or she got picked up. We live in the city and even though it’d be a short bike ride, it’s in the city. I’m not a fan of my favorite daughter out there on the road where some driver not paying attention could run her down. Call me over protective, but I’ve seen too many bad drivers.

It wasn’t from lack of trying. We used to spend a lot more time camping and she did have a bike with training wheels, but where we camped it was just as easy to bike as it was to walk. Again, not a lot of motivation.

This weekend was different. We’d bought her the bike some time ago and she’d been on it a couple of times, but never for very long and she never really got the hang of it. So I took her out bike riding and had her run with her legs down and balance. Then put one foot on the pedals. Then two feet. Just coasting, not pedaling. She knew she had to pedal so she started doing that on her own. Sure it took the better part of a day and we started and stopped many times, but she got the hang of it enough that the next time her friends said “Hey! Let’s go ride bikes” She was able to go with.

It was a proud dad moment, that’s for sure.

In other news, I’ll be writing like a madman again this week.

In even more news, I interviewed Mike Plested about his book, Mik Murdoch. Check out the interview here.

I’m off to go find more pictures of ducks.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!