Photography – The Skytreader

I Wrote a Poem

Adrift and without a schedule to really stick to, I wandered through the streets of Brera, Milan. In the past few years I have made a tradition out of spending Easter in Italy. This year, I found myself rather aimless and, for the first time, really just ticking cities off a list.

I was looking for an astronomical museum, aiming to reconnect with a past life. After detours and distractions, I found myself in a university, reminiscent of the one I attended three hundred lifetimes ago. It turned out the astronomical museum is not open around Easter—my plans to pass the time were dead before they could get even started. But that’s travel; you have to be flexible.

Instead, I found myself seated inside a moving art installation engulfed in the sound of literature read softly. As the sculpture rotated in its own solemn rhythm, you could, almost, see everything in the midst of the busy bustle of students and staff, tourists and travelers. Time, in dreams, is frozen, or so they say. And I was left to wonder just when—or where—the boundaries between dreams and my waking life blurred.

It was while seated here that my mind opened up and the words came. I have been trying to write a poem for the past few months with nothing really to show for it other than scraps of embarrassing drafts. I had a high-level idea of what I want the poem to be, how it would work, but ideas are not art until realized.

One cold December night, in the busy scramble of last year, I thought I had the words but I forgot them like a dream evaporating from the first rays of daylight.

But I did not feel the need to rush and write down the words as they came to me in Brera. The past few years, I have come to learn how to kill my babies, figuratively speaking. If you make one good piece for every ten attempts, the only way to be prolific is to keep attempting, get the bad out of your system so you can get to the decent much quicker.

These words are not precious if I could not still remember them by this evening, hopefully in my hotel, where they will be written down for the first time.

Fortunately, they came to be. There is at least one person in the world who found the formulation strong enough that he cannot forget them; they were worth remembering at least a bit more longer. And now he’s sharing those words, without further ado.

Shadows in Summer Skies

I drown
in a paradoxical sea of binaries,
of contradictions mutually defining each other,
of contrasts defining form.
Light and dark.
Plus and minus.
You and me.

(We are drowning
in a paradoxical sea of binaries,
whether you know it or not!)

The words have been drained
from this pen,
from my hands,
from the soul;
these are the last ones
and yet they fail my goal
to deify and sanctify
the very air you breathe
the very space you take
the very…you.

I drown
in waters uncharted.
I guess I am afraid,
that when all the words have been said
when all the praises have been sung
all the hallowed verses immortalized
I will find
inside
Merely you.
Beautiful. Still. As you are.
And yet, mortal.
Not an emanation of the Divine.
Not the ethereal resonance of the celestial choir.

From a whole divided,
Comes forth identities multiplied.
From the darkest night,
Breaks forth the dawn.
The Beauty Surrounds.
And yet all I have to remember your presence
is that sacred and terrible air of your absence.

Well, what else can I say? Over the years I have come to appreciate art for the abstraction with which it delivers messages. As such, I am not really inclined towards over-explaining my art. There is a message, yes, but much of it will be left as an exercise to the reader. No, there is no solution key either.

(How terribly author-is-dead postmodern of me. But I will leave my complicated thoughts on postmodernism for another time. Perhaps.)

This much I will say about this: I have been very deliberate about the form and the words. It doesn’t mean there will be no wrong interpretations; it just means my message, once decoded properly (for some definition of the word “properly”), will be very strongly supported by the poem. Who is it for, what is it for, etc.

I like the intrigue. My greatest achievement in this mortal plane will be to buy a decommissioned lighthouse that I will reside in. My greatest achievement from the planes beyond would be if people (hi Academia) analyze the bunch of writings and journals that I will leave behind, reading between every damn line, distinguishing the purposeful puns from the accidental, maybe subconscious, wordplay. I like to think that from my artifacts, it is possible to reverse-engineer the unwritten rules of my work, my life. You’ll chase a bunch of red herrings, finding patterns where none exist. It will be glorious. It will be crazy. Okay, mostly crazy. It will spawn at least a couple dozen professorial chairs, maybe in my Alma Mater if not elsewhere. You are welcome, intellectuals, I just gave a handful of you in the future purpose in life.

Okay. That’s a looooonnnngggg shot. But in our consumerist capitalist society, dreams remain free. I’ll leave that in.

Another thing about the poem, I mentioned above how I had only a high-level idea of how the poem would work. Well, the concept on which I wanted this poem to operate (and which, I think, it achieved) is contrast. Lately, I have had a lot of thoughts about art and I have come to the position that perhaps the baseline that distinguishes art from kitsch is contrast. Elaboration is left as an exercise to the reader but you can take my 0.02€ worth of advice. Contrast is the baseline of art.

Is this poem about me or my life in any way? The short answer is yes. The long answer is yeeeeeesssssss. The smart answer is that I find it disingenuous to respond any other way. One can write about, for example, war, without ever having personally experienced the horror, and it will be no less a mirror of the author’s life.

But maybe, for this poem, it’s more than a mirror. Maybe it’s a window.

Anyway, another strong influence for this poem is the critically-acclaimed intellectual game Disco Elysium. No, I still haven’t found my next Bioshock Infinite. As a matter of fact, my experience with Disco Elysium has been very confusing. This is not a detailed analysis of the game so, suffice it to say, the way the game was set-up dissonated very heavily with my idea of an RPG. Whereas, for contrast, I had some idea of how I would like to personify my Geralt of Rivia or my Dragonborn, I had zero idea how to roleplay renowned alcoholic and amnesiac Harry Du Bois. So I ended up choosing the most non sequitur choices for better and for worse. I needed the thinnest of threads to tie me to the character and, at least, that manifestation of chaos is something we could share.

All this changed in the final act of the game, its denouement. For the first time, I felt like I knew what Harry Du Bois would do in the situation. His character made some sense. I won’t spoil the game but I wrote this poem from the soft places between dreaming and waking that I, as a player, went through with Harry. It is definitely not written as from Harry Du Bois—I simply don’t think a renowned alcoholic and amnesiac-until-recently could be half as eloquent as me.

But maybe, what I had to confront in this whole exercise is the possibility that I might be more similar to renowned alcoholic and amnesiac Harry Du Bois than I’d care to admit.

Fun fact: I had a poem published in our school paper in my senior year in high school. It was exactly 100 words long, 102 with the title, purely out of coincidence. It was inspired by Star Wars, Norse mythology, and Tobey McGuire’s Spiderman 3.

Another fun fact, possibly related to the first: I was the layout artist of our school paper in my senior year.

TwentyTwentyPHOurTOS

I got ungodly swamped, busy, concerned, and distracted this year, mostly towards the end. It’s all resolved gracefully now, thank goodness but all the same, it’s the bad kind of busy, one where I wasn’t enjoying myself at all. Actually, it even ate into the good busythings, which must’ve just drained me even more.

I don’t really have much time for words right now but even in the busiest times, good or bad, I always have time for photos. And you know what speaks a thousand words?

First of all, I met John Romero, one of the creators of Doom, arguably what ushered in the whole PC gaming industry. I know this photo conveys a lot of things but it doesn’t convey my machinations and orchestrations to make my employer pay for my opportunity to meet John Romero. I am such a savvy guy.

And oh, I already admitted to my not-really-malfeasance. And since it is not a malfeasance, they can’t really do anything about it.

He even signed my copy of Masters of Doom, a book I brought with me all the way from the Philippines!

I didn’t get to travel as much, unfortunately, for reasons related to the annoying busythings I mentioned above. I don’t feel as hard done by the fact; after all, living in Hamburg has been a continuous five-going-six years of “vacation” abroad for me. And I get paid for it!

And I can visit the Schengen area basically. This year I went to Florence, cradle of the Renaissance.

I visited Prague in pursuit of the master himself, Alphonse Mucha. I like Prague. It’s my first Schengen-but-not-Eurozone country and it has its distinct charm. Plus, when I was there, it was not really crowded. I can’t believe it myself either.

And back here in Hamburg, Homeburg of five-going-six-years, I finally entered the hallowed premises of the Elbephilharmonie, the most expensive acoustics that money can buy and that German taxpayers paid for, and listened to the prestigious Vienna Philharmonic perform.

Can you believe COVID19 has been half a decade ago? Goodness!

I might write up on the annoying busythings that got me this year, and maybe more about this eventful year in general, next year. But for now, Happy New Year World! I don’t like the number 25 for reasons but let’s show next year who’s boss, okay?

Twenty Twenty Three

I’m writing this in a rush, in an attempt to beat the new year crossing into Germany in a couple of hours. Honestly, I kinda just took it for granted to even attempt to write something for this year. But, well, I got into the mood. After all, this will be the last alliterative year I’ll get for quite some time. I think the next one will be, what, Twenty Thirty? Hoo ha.

Well, what to say? That’s another year in the books. If I hadn’t updated this blog for a while now, it’s all because I am happily hands-full with other things. I’m touching grass, internationally too. I’m, you know, doing that thing they call life.

Honestly, Twenty Three could’ve been better but I survived it, without new injuries to my person. I lost some luggage. I made some mistakes but also some friends. I managed to start the year in a liminal space of being between Germany and the Philippines. Now I’m ending it on a Sunday, which is really a neat and strange day to have such a transition to occur.

Apparently, this is the year disposables and point-and-shoots are in-vogue again, which is a very head-scratching trend for me, given that one of the earlier story arcs in this blog is how much I struggled to escape that aesthetic. Kids, to recap: I saved up the money from my internship in order to be able to buy my first ever interchangeable lens camera, the admirable speed shooter, SLT-A35. And now you kids have the gall to say these grainy, never-properly-exposed shots are “more authentic”.

Kids. With all due respect. Get off my fuckin’ lawn!

This year, Netflix also adapted All the Light We Cannot See, which is, to my knowledge, the last book to have made me cry. The adaptation, incidentally, has become the last piece of media to have made me cry. Funny how that works. Louis Hoffman is great as a co-lead but, honestly, I’m kinda disappointed the adaptation treated Volkheimer’s small personal story arc very superficially. I understand the creative decision but he’s really one of the memorable side characters that, I think, helped drive home the treatment of war in the story.

Note: I didn’t re-read the book nor my review for that small paragraph above. Also, remind me I gotta watch the film treatment of The Light Between Oceans. You can really tell this blog has been around for some time now when story arcs like this go full-circle.

Oh lastly, this year, I also saw FC Barcelona play live at Hamburg Volksparkstadion for Champions League action, no less. They lost to the “home” team, FC “Giantslayers” Shakhtar Donetsk.

That’s it! I ended up writing more than I intended to. I have some noise/music to meet the new year with. Ciao!

Twenty Twenty Two

It’s been a nice year. Somewhere between me grumbling about how the pandemic is far from over and this post, we did have a good stretch of relative normalcy. I did not expect that either, otherwise my last post would be a bit more upbeat. As a result, though I still worked from my bachelor’s pad of an apartment practically the whole year, I’ve been really busy, catching up with what I missed of life in the past two years.

With all the grave ceremony that accompanied each pandemic update in 2020, I was expecting an equally momentous proclamation from the powers that be of “Pandemic Out!”. Kind of like how I imagine firefighters declare a conflagration extinguished for good. Alas, that did not really come to pass even until now and I’m just glad I realized this sooner than later.

And that is why one particularly wintry Sunday night in March I just decided to finally take my long-postponed trip to Venice. Someday I want to write dedicated blog posts (or, maybe more realistically at this point, they’d be essays in a book, maybe my memoirs. Heh.) about all my trips. But, as I said, I’ve been busy. I’ve literally been doing a lot this year. For now, those detailed reports would have to remain in my journals.

In fact, I think I’m facing this unique problem of getting burned out from all my hobbies. When I moved to Europe, I had one goal for my first few months while I was settling in: I did not want to get bored. That was an imperative, one that, I’m pleased to say, I managed to fulfill through my first few months as well as the pandemic lockdown era that followed shortly. And I did so by accumulating hobbies. It all came “crashing down”, so to speak, when I realized that this year can be relatively normal because now I’m trying to indulge not only in the hobbies I acquired during the pandemic but as well as those from before.

So Venice is not the only trip I took this year. I also went to Burg Hohenzollern to watch Shakespeare’s Othello performed in the castle courtyard. I went to Barcelona and inundated myself with Gaudi. And then to Vienna, a very artistic city, visual and auditory.

And I’m no longer just sketching on my Wacom; Zanshin Dojo is no longer my sole routine outing. I found a sketching group which gave me the time and space and just push to finally finish the A4 sketch book I started in 2017.

I even had an exhibit.

All this at the cost of time to work on my pandemic art project. I’m not disappointed in that trade-off.

Oh, last but most definitely not the least, I got a Steam Deck. Which probably means my quest for another brainfuck of an experience to rival Bioshock Infinite is on once more. In fact, it’s on like it’s never been before!

Anyway, I guess so far 2022 is as normal a year as I could have in Europe so far. At the moment, my plans for 2023 does not solely involve biking around Hamburg but also adventures and reunions with both people and places.

The Frustrations of Bicycle Maintenance

Author’s Note: I desperately wanted the title of this post to make a reference to the famous Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig, one of the many books I have not yet read. But given the actual events I am going to relate, I felt it disingenuous to imply any relationship to the state of Zen. Hey, I may be a small blog, but this blogger has ethical standards!

A tranquil early morning sun, bright and warm as a fond memory, lit the grounds of the spacious Winterhude Stadtpark. Just less than a month ago I had my bike tires changed and it is with the accompanying Enthusiasm for New and Shiny Things that I set about exploring the sparsely-peopled grounds. A ride this early (and, frankly, even earlier) is something I have long since planned; unfortunately, given my predilections to staying up late, you will understand why I needed some extra motivation to even be riding here.

Again, I don’t really see myself as a cyclist—bikes are transport first, exercise second—but these new tires just improved my relationship to cycling. I immediately noticed that uphills are ever so slightly more bearable and I objectively became faster too. Just when I thought I would no longer get the satisfaction of breaking a personal record in Strava, I go ahead and improve my record in a particularly thrilling sector of my usual route by a stunning 10 seconds and that’s without even trying, on my very first ride with the new tires.

Of course, I might’ve also become fitter than last year. But I really want to think it’s the tires. After my elbow is well enough to ride my bike again, I wouldn’t even try to go fast in my stock tires as they were looking all the worse for wear.

It did not matter to me that only my tires (and, well, pedals) were new; I rode around the Stadtpark, maneuvering my way around dirt paths with hardly any worry. There were barely any people in the park this early in a Saturday and I could do laps to my heart’s content. My new tires—Schwalbe Marathon Plus—had been nothing but a pleasure and, at the moment, I knew I had quite a budget of rubber to burn through. Not that I had any particular need or desire to do so. I decide to descend towards the pond, a central feature of the park, and ride along the edge because it’s a beautiful morning so why not?

My mind focused on navigating the short but rough downwards incline, I notice flecks of shiny green in the dust: shards of a broken bottle. I panic, knowing they could cut my tires but it’s too late to change lines. I ride over the broken shards, prepared to dismount immediately if my tires deflate. Thankfully, they don’t. I let the downhill momentum exhaust itself before finally dismounting to inspect my tires.

Visually, they look fine. I squeeze on them, time honored test of whether you have a flat or not, and they are as firm as when I picked them up from the bike shop. They even survive the trip home and have no issue at all in my usual Thursday rides to my Kickboxing classes at Zanshin Dojo.

One thing I’ve made a point of in the last two years is to never waste the sun. As a newcomer in these northern latitudes who arrived in the transitory months between spring and summer, I found it nice, cordial, but odd, when coworkers would end meetings with the pleasantry, “Enjoy the sun”. Having lived in a tropical climate until then, it never occurred to me that in other latitudes, fall and winter can be depressingly dark.

I mean, I’ve read books. I’m not an idiot. But it still hits differently when you live what you’ve only read about.

Admittedly, this simple pleasantry has become an imposition lately, underlined by the pandemic lockdowns as well as the fact that Hamburg’s weather does not exactly make for ideal and pleasant summers, the kind that would make bards wax lyrical about beauty. So when the sun is bright and shining outside, you go out, no two ways about it.

And so it was the case the Saturday following my Stadtpark excursion. I did not really have any plans but the sun was ripe for a ride. So I get dressed down and go down to my apartment’s bike cellar to get my bike. I notice that my rear tire is flat. Not worrying as I have an air pump, let me just go get it.

I notice that it is flat big time.

I notice a big gash at the edge of the tire.

And just like that, my pleasant weather Saturday nonplans turned into a couple of hours in my apartment’s basement trying to rescue a damaged tire without the proper tools. This was an eventuality I should’ve prepared for but did not. I regularly watch GCN but, for all the enthusiasm and good will they project about biking, all their daily drivers cost four-figures in Euros, at least. Their video about changing your bike tire, for instance, tells viewers to use the quick-release lever on the wheel. My wheels, do not have quick release, Si. It would also tell you to press a button on your breaks to open them and give your wheel clearance. Yup, another thing my venerable but humble bike, The Adventure Time, does not have.

Note: I like GCN. Their content and explainers are welcoming and not condescending to any skill/interest level but Park Tools’ library of content has been far more useful for me. Park Tools’ channel covers what GCN lacks for as a consequence of their fancy schmancy Pinarello frames and Shimano group sets.

I know that the DIY mindset has a certain association towards sustainable and frugal living but one thing I find often overlooked in this movement is the fact that you still need a certain amount of capital to get started doing repairs on your own. Before you can use whatever is just lying around, you first need to have a few things (or more) lying around. There’s no pulling yourself up by the bootstraps. Tools and spare parts don’t grow on trees.

If I may digress for a bit into the world of computers, this is what I found so puzzling about the design of the Raspberry Pi, especially the earlier editions. It featured solely an on-board HDMI display port which made it incompatible with any of the monitors I had access to in 2013, and I was already working in the industry by then. Sure you could use adaptors but, first, you need to find adaptors!

Maybe, the touted cost-efficiency of DIY repairs depends on the item you want to repair. A spool of thread and some needles to patch up a pair of jeans is very accessible, easy to learn/use, and, yes, leagues cheaper than buying a new pair of jeans but for basically anything beyond that, you’d need tools, spare parts, as well as some training, all of which have a considerable upfront cost. Not to mention, hurdling that barrier does not completely preclude the possibility of failure.

(Ironically, what I really like about Software Engineering is the relatively cheap cost of mistakes. You can’t CTRL+Z a Civil Engineering miscalculation.)

As such I have learned to repair things in the least invasive manner to begin with. The best fix in the world is the one that does not call for disassembly. Alternatively, why fix the hardware if you can compensate for it in software?

So imagine my dread at being faced with a repair task that is pure hardware and has no uninvasive option. That tire and inner tube would need to be replaced. Heck, the wheel itself needs to come off at least.

But first I needed tools.

I already had a small 15mm wrench that I tried to use on my pedals a while back, for unrelated reasons. I bought it because it was cheap but unfortunately, this taught me the hard way what makes good tools. Small and cheap meant little to no leverage. I was unable to remove my pedals with it.

So I needed a wrench with sufficient leverage.

And speaking of levers, apparently there’s a very special type of tool called tire levers that you use to unseat a bike tire from the rim. I also needed that and I managed to order this small item from a local bike shop online that very night. This provided me with some comfort in my distress because I don’t remember seeing this tool in any of the bike shops I occasionally visit.

Naturally, tools are useless without the spare parts. I needed to buy tires and inner tubes. Despite the premature failure of the Schwalbe Marathon Plus, I took the events to show that this particular tire managed almost 20km on borrowed time. That sounded like a nice feature so I decided to stick with it. Not to mention it would bother my meticulous self endlessly to run two different types of tire in my bike, let alone different brands.

The Sunday that followed was uneventful but for this exact reason I was annoyed. I have long since learned that there is no situation that I detest more than those in which I feel helpless. So long as I can struggle against something, I can find a certain peace, a certain satisfaction that my fate is not completely out of my hands.

Waiting is not a struggle.

Monday arrives. I visit this nearby bike shop for the first time because I am certain they have the exact tires I am looking for. I buy a pair of tires and a pair of inner tubes because I was certain I’m going to fuck up at least once. At this point, it also does not hurt to have spare supplies at hand.

Tuesday arrives. The tire levers I ordered online should arrive tomorrow. I visit BOC, perhaps the largest bike shop in Hamburg, and I finally get myself a pretty hefty wrench. If this does not remove the damn nut, I don’t know what will. I also see a set of tire levers and, despite having ordered a set already, I buy it anyway.

That turned out to be a good decision.

I return home and immediately my Feierabend is dedicated to replacing my rear tire.

It was frustrating.

I’ve already related how much I value my self-sufficiency in living as a stranger in a strange land. I take a certain pride every time I complete a conversation in German, no matter how short, no matter how imperfect I sounded, because like Python, I learned German more or less completely on my own. But for the first time, as I was in the common garden of my apartment trying to swallow my frustrations at reinserting the damn tire, I dearly wished I had someone to teach me.

It started to rain and the tire is still not properly seated. I hurriedly gathered all the separated parts and brought them back inside the basement. I already feel like I failed to take care of my belongings when I saw the tire damage last Saturday but now I have to leave The Adventure Time broken and vulnerable and in the basement’s darkness, no less. Undeterred, I decided to bring the half-finished tire upstairs inside my unit and continue working on it; thankfully, I had the good sense to clean off all the gunk in the gears before I even removed the damaged tires.

So, in my apartment, over a small makeshift work area of newspapers I picked up for unrelated reasons several weeks back, I continued my thankless toil. I have no idea how it eventually came to pass but sections, arcs, of the tire started to seat firmly on the rim. I get the idea to use my tire levers to help me in the process; this will turn out to be a mistake. But at least, in this Tuesday night, I have an accomplishment.

Behold, the first tire I ever attached myself. It’s the IKEA effect speaking, I am well aware, but what a beauty!

Inflated to a little over the minimum pressure required, I am satisfied with my handywork. I even still had time to go downstairs and reattach it properly to The Adventure Time. That night I slept with the peace of mind that I did not leave The Adventure Time in a vulnerable condition in a dark basement.

Now, English has this curious expression for disappointment, “to burst someone’s bubble” which sort of compares a person’s happiness to a bubble (or if you are J.K. Rowling, a balloon) the bursting of which is the equivalent of dismay.

The following morning, I go down to check on my bike on a whim. That Wednesday morning, my body still sore from yesterday’s exertions, the bubble was my bike’s rear inner tube and it burst overnight.

With the first stage of grief imposing itself on me in that cramped and dirty bike cellar, I tried to inflate it in vain. There is an audible exhaust of air; the tire would not even take form. I take a deep breath through my nose, the way we were taught to stay composed in Taekwondo. My lungs fill with air in a way my rear tire won’t. I exhale, my head clearing just a little bit. The faster I process my grief over this setback, the better it will be.

Wednesday is typically my grocery day for no particular reason than, well, it’s a pretty day to pay for things at the cashier. I would usually walk to the grocery at around 7PM (that’s 19:00 for you in European) be done in less than an hour and by around 8PM (or 20:00), I will be done sorting out my groceries, taking out my trash and I’ll be settling down to read a book or watch Netflix. But not today, no no no. Having done all my chores for the day, I pick up my orange toolbox and a LED lamp and proceeded to disassemble The Adventure Time once more.

This time I worked faster. I removed the inner tube and inspected the damage. The rupture wasn’t difficult to locate as it was exactly on the longitudinal fold of the tube, around a centimeter long deflated—a tell tale sign that I simply messed up my first attempt and pinched the tube between the tire and the rim. Knowledge from research suggests that this would commonly happen if you use tire levers to reseat the tire into the rim.

So this time, I perform this arduous task with a hard embargo on using my tire levers. It was still frustrating and took some time but, despite the restraint I exercised, I definitely accomplished the task faster this time around. I worked with the assurance that it can be done and I did not mess up the measurements of the spare parts I bought.

The rubber neatly attached, I proceeded to inflate it. I have no excuses for the decision that follows other than (a) I’m a software engineer, not a bike mechanic and (b) I am just tired at this point but I inflate my tire to just below the recommended pressure. I decided to attach it and leave it like so overnight, reasoning that if it does not burst until morning, there are no pinches and I will proceed to inflating it to the recommended pressure.

Thursday arrives, that one day in the week where I actually have a destination to bike to; it’s the usual day I attend Kickboxing lessons. Eager to see the results of my experiment, I go down to the bike cellar to see that the tire has, yet again, deflated.

At this point, replacing my rear tire has transformed from a challenging little DIY excursion into an imposing Sisyphean task. My body is weary and my mind is frustrated. Once more, as yesterday, I give in to the sweeping wave of denial, my mind even venturing as far as exploring the possibility that it is, after all, not my fault. Perhaps dictated more by desperate delusions than sound reason, I tried to inflate my tire, as I did yesterday.

And what do you know, this time it actually holds air! Unlike yesterday, the tire actually takes form at least for a few seconds. There was a distinct jet of air emanating from it—it was still not rideworthy—but this was definitely an improvement over yesterday. When you are desperate, you take your wins no matter what form they take.

Thus I found myself with a crucial decision to make: do I attempt another inner tube replacement and risk riding that to Zanshin Dojo that same day or should I go to Kickboxing class by other means, heck maybe even cancel for the week?

There is probably an Economics or a Game Theory textbook somewhere using this exact scenario as an example of risk evaluation. So far I have proven to be a shitty mechanic and it is unwise to take a 9km ride on a bike repaired by someone with my track record. This does not seem to be a hard choice to perform rationally.

Alas, you are reading my blog, not an Economics or a Game Theory textbook. I have so far outlined how a series of suboptimal decisions has lead me to this predicament, this holistic exhaustion, starting with choosing a travel line across a downward slope. What’s another suboptimal decision in this story?

This is how I ended up dedicating a portion of my lunch time that day buying inner tubes from that nearby bike shop I went to last Monday. I buy not one, not two, but four spare inner tubes. I disassemble my bike once more, this time setting it aside in a convenient nook in the basement as I take the wheel to my apartment.

Our tale nears its end and I don’t want to give the false impression that I facilitated the decisive turn of the plot by myself. Again, this blogger has ethical standards. Tutorials from GCN and Park Tools having failed me, I ask YouTube’s search as if it is human, “how to avoid pinching inner tube”, which, for all the clout this blog can give a link, has lead me to this video from a certain Tony Marchand which suggested that (a) I powder the inner tube before I place it in and (b) a check to perform before I inflate the tire to minimize the probability of a pinch flat.

This time, my body has already synthesized a technique for the nail-bleeding task of reseating the tire to the rim; the whole process took me maybe 40 minutes, an indisputable improvement over my first attempt last Tuesday. The tire neatly fitted, I performed the test Tony Marchand’s video suggested. Passing that, I then proceeded to inflate my tire, this time with no half measures.

Satisfied that it is already well within the recommended operating pressure, I proceed to test it even further. Through all the disappointments, I was just thankful my mistakes manifested while the bike was at rest and not while I was riding it; QA Testing could quite literally save me another accident. So I bounce the inflated tire off my floor several times. I squeeze it, hit it lightly with a knife-hand chop. I let it stand in a corner for a few hours before I finally re-attach it to The Adventure Time.

Back in high school, one of our teachers has remarked that our class had a tendency to perform a dry run test simultaneously with the first (and only) performance of a class production. In line with my belief that everything is practice until it isn’t, I pack my bags for my Kickboxing class as The Adventure Time waited in the basement.

With a little over half an hour to go, the lines distinguishing a dry run test and a first outing blur once more as it did all those times in high school. I lightly kick the rear tire for luck before I mounted The Adventure Time. The first few moments were nothing but tense. So far, it has held my weight. That is encouraging.

“I am not Lewis Hamilton,” I repeatedly tell myself as I pedal. It has become a sort of mantra which I believed would save me another inconvenient accident and especially so today. On red lights I try to glance at my rear tire, noting every bit of deformation, especially on the part where it made contact with the road.

Pressing my brakes for a terminal stop in front of Zanshin Dojo’s makeshift outdoor gym, the tire I replaced has just survived its first 4.5km. And it’s still looking great.

Coda

It is Friday. Yesterday’s Kickboxing went fine except that I could definitely feel my exertions even for the most basic of techniques (writing this in retrospect, this is definitely the exhaustion from the whole week showing itself). I could at least take pride that I pushed through even when I was gassing out; you don’t improve from easy sessions.

I am standing in front of a DHL Packetstation. I scan this small note I just retrieved from my mailbox. For some mysterious reason, DHL could not deliver the tire levers I ordered online to my doorstep. So here I am, trying to sign my name on a cheap unresponsive touchscreen interface.

Though tired and without a goal in mind, I decide to ride out. It’s what cyclists would call a recovery ride. I have another purpose in mind though: despite having survived the back-and-forth trip yesterday (and has even broken the record set by its predecessor by 2 seconds, again without me even trying), I am still not quite confident with my work’s reliability. I reason that it had better fail in a controlled environment, rather than be caught by surprise when I least expect it to.

I ride to that nearby park where, last year, I observed the Comet Neowise. It has gravelly paths, comparable to those at Winterhude Stadtpark. I do a couple of laps and notice that the rear brake feels different. I wouldn’t classify it a hazard—I still get to a complete stop—but the bite is weaker than I remember. I make a mental note to learn how rim brakes work.

Still tired but satisfied, I ride back home. It is cloudy, portentous, perhaps, of next week’s weather. But through the clouds, a beautiful sunset just couldn’t hide itself.