Post 31

 

    I started to write something about how much I love riding my bike at night to put up on the blog. The basic draft went like this: 

    There's somethng weird about riding a bicycle on a summer night, especially with no lights, soemthing alll kinds of people will call stupid and dangerous, that will rob you of any sympathy should you get hit. Today I went on one such ride; I wished it would never end. At night, things come alive, the sight is less useful, the senses sharper and the roads, the bike paths especially, deserted. A necessary clearness too, because everything is scary out there, a sign becomes "is that a person?" trees seem like they're moving, and what the heck is that sound? If I'm alert though, I'm probably okay.  I be alert.
    And I move through the cool night world, the bike somehow moving smoother than it ever has, even through the headwinds; sweet, gentle winds of summer. The ride is too short; I take extending detours, circle around parking lots I've never been in before. The night world is new, joyful and private. I remember one particular night ride I went for a few months ago, it was around 11 the week before finals week and some drunk girls shouted something at me, not anything mean but really I don't remember what they said, I just responded "I love being alive!" like some big dumb idiot, high off warm night air for the first time in his life. And that, that's how I feel riding on a summer night; new and pure, heart overflowing with warm blood and feeling. 
    And everyone has loved night forever, all the ancient peoples who spent so much energy and time studying the stars, painters have used the nocturne to communicate what they never could in the day, musicians too, how many pop and dance songs about the moment of tonight, the night in nature too like Eddie Rabbit's I Love a Rainy Night. Night, the more dangerous, less useful time, the time we sleep away, is also maybe the most enchanting. (As I said this is a draft, I know it isn't very good)

    I got there and realized a problem with my idea, it could read as: this is why I love riding my bike at night and maybe you should try it, or it could read as: I am one of the most privileged in  my deeply unequal society and here is something I love which I am able to do only because of that. I know for sure if I was black, or if I was latino I would be much more likely to be stopped by the police out alone at night. A nuisance at best, and potentially something far worse. I know for sure if I was a woman the statistics of my living in a lower crime rate city would not be enough comfort, I would fear getting attacked. Would those considerations actually stop me? No way to know, but I would be thinking about them for sure. 
    Being white and from a more or less upper class background (and also being someone who lives in the USA) that thought "This is something I am capable of only because of privilege" isn't uncommon to me, but I still haven't really figured out what to do with it. I cannot reconstruct the world in a better way all on my own, I cannot undo history. I just wish, and this is something I feel all the time, I just wish I was doing more. I don't even really give money away to charity anymore now that I'm paying for my own apartment, though I guess I really should. I know that when the injustices are so great so too must be the sacrifices, but I'm no Aaron Bushnell, I'm no Luigi Mangione, I'm not the man who gives away everything, goes into the abbey and lives his life only for others. I don't know, I'm just normal like you. 
    But perhaps this acknowledgment and examination of issues, made public to all zero readers of my blog, is at least better than doing nothing. There's a bible passage I often think about when I do some probably futile thing like keep my AC pretty hot, try to eat vegetarian, or bike to work even in bad weather, about a poor old widow. It's Mark chapter 12 verse 41-44. As people give offerings to the temple a widow puts in only a small amount, and Jesus remarks to those around him "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.” It is worth doing something good, making a sacrifice even if small. It is worth it to do what we can. 


    Anyway, clunkily changing gears I'll say I have been reading more stuff on Substack lately. It's cool, and I've sort of been inspired to write some more sort of intellectual stuff. I don't know though, reading more things from Substack has also made me realize how many smart and amazing people there are and has me just feeling like a schmuck. No problem with being a schmuck though, and  I worry about trying to be too intellectual, making this blog too fancy. i like how it is a little like a diary, I like how it is sometimes lowish effort. I think sometimes about the way the internet used to be, all the 20 year old YouTube videos that are just people goofing off or showing the basic mundane things of their life, not trying to be influencers. There's a beauty there in not trying so hard. 
    But whatever, I have an idea for a more polished essay but the idea, at least in the form I have now may require me to learn more stuff in order to say what I would like to say well. Maybe one day. 

 

Post 30: Another Pennsylvania

 

Ehrbergkopf

     I decided to go to Colmar alone after seeing my friend Lane's itinerary for Normandy. It didn't look like much fun, two days of whirlwinding around, carrying a heavy pack and not knowing where to sleep next. I knew how it would go. I'd be, unhappy, stressed out and annoyed with him, I'd probably stop speaking. Even as a I sit here now and write I feel annoyed again. I went to Colmar because I had to go somewhere. It wasn't so big (I was a bit overwhelmed by Paris) but it was fairly touristy and therefore no one would wonder what a foreigner was doing there, and, maybe most importantly, it was in Alsace. 
    I had an attraction to the region, because it's some of my ancestors were from. My great-great-great-grandmother was from there before she moved across the Rhine to Waltershofen, Germany to be with Benjamin Allgeier (the man I am named after) and then from Waltershofen to Green Township, Pennsylvania. For me, going to Alsace would be kind of like going to back to a kind of homeland, my very own heimat, supposedly. It would become apparent throughout the journey that my roots really are in the United States and I can never be anything but American although really I'm getting ahead of myself. 
    From Paris I took the TGV to Strasbourg in the morning, spent like three hours there then hopped on a  Fluo train to Colmar. I arrived around 3pm I think. Because there was a good deal, I booked three nights in a one bed hotel room. I was alone. It was fine. I ate cold cassoulet out of a can, Granola brand chocolate cookies for dessert and read a book. 
    The truth is I was realizing I really don't like leaving my comfort zone but for the moment I tried to set up one in Colmar; I got to know the place. It has such a picturesque, classsic and medieval old town, mostly closed to cars and full of great restaurants and cute little shops. People from all over the world walking around. I was happy to be in France amongst all this new and different stuff but I'll admit even things like overheard conversation between American tourists were a great comfort, so were the anglophone tours (though I never went on one). Outside of the city's old parts was I'd guess fairly representative of a midsize french city, there were the huge socialized apartments, the densely (compared to the USA) arranged little houses, an impressive hospital and a bakery every few blocks. The second full day I was there I would go on a big hike up to the Chateau Hohlandsbourg in the mountains outside of town, and it's the mountains, the Vosges, that I really want to talk about here. I loved, and I still love those mountains. I took the bus down to the last stop, then walked through Wintzenheim and some vineyards to the trailhead, past ancient crumbling walls and the narrow vineyard tractors chugging away. It was getting cloudy.
    What I couldn't stop thinking about was Pennsylvania. So much in Alsace reminded me of Pennsylvania, the wooded mountains seemed about the same height, the soft pretzels were just as abundant and delicious, etc. I noticed the granites that made up the mountains, just like granites you'll find in PA. The mountains like those I'd spent so many camping trips exploring with my family or the boy scouts as a kid, scrambling up stones and boulders, slipping on leaf litter. Did I enjoy where I was because it was like Pennsylvania or because it was Alsace? Silly question I guess, both can be true, but it ran through my head. I made my way up the hairpinning trail, following signs put there by the local Club Vosgien. My thoughts went back to my ancestors, their motives to choosing the area now lost to time but I did wonder, did they go where they went because even in a far-away foreign place, across an ocean, they were looking for home? Did Benjamin and Catherine go into those forests in the back of their property and think of the Europe they'd left behind? 
    With these questions on my mind my ancestors became less myth and more human. They, just like I, had a place that they missed. (They never returned to Europe after moving to the USA.) Now, I know what it looked like, a little of what it may have felt like there. I think of the courage, the sorrow of tearing oneself away from somewhere in which you are entrenched, and the brazen hope to build something unknown and new. Paradoxically though, thinking of the thoughts of Benjamin and Catherine I was making more myths. No one knows what these people thought, why they left, what they were really looking for. They left no diaries, it's all just inference and good guesses. My story, their story, is mostly lost and as such any emotions or motivations I ascribe are fictions, myths of my own creation; thus my ancestors are me and my story is my own and tears fell from my aching, weary eyes. Benjamin would not have walked through the woods in contemplation. Thoreau had only just published Walden, Muir was still in college, and America was still wary of the woods. 
    Now I don't fear the woods, I feel more comfortable there then I do almost anywhere, but I do fear the trailrunner who may see me weeping on my way up to the Ehrbergkopf. It wasn't much but an outcrop of jutting granites on a small crest. I took a little break there, sat on the stones covered in moss and lichens, in moss that grew on top of lichens. And yep, there it was again, reflections of Pennsylvania, Delaware, the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. My Appalachian mountains, my Vosges mountains, my Black Forest, my materials of being blurring into each other. I imagined I was in the Eastern US again; tracing a route through some unknown corner, a memory I forgot. 
    But every time I dredge up the memories I do have, mostly the good ones (I remember so little of my life before like, age 15, I guess that means it wasn't very good) I wonder "Am I scattering this place and homeland into fictions? Making it something it wasn't and isn't? Nostalgia-blind and tainted by a yearning I refuse to exhaust? Do I, by telling myself I am not in the 'right' place, provide myself with a shabby excuse for not living a certain way?" The questions weigh me down even now and who knows when I will let them stop. 
    I left the Ehrbergkopf and kept going up. The trail was steep, rocky, dusty despite the humid air gravid, as I'd soon learn, with soft rain. I put my rain coat on and kept ascending, though few drops made it past the forest's canopy. A large sign painted HOHLANDSBOURG ← put me on track to the last upward scramble before the great castle loomed tall in my view. There were benches at the top, a small parking lot with the road, and one lone trailrunner with whom I shared the view. From the top you  got a great view of Colmar, Wintzenheim, Wettolsheim, the profound flatness of the Rhine River valley, and the mountains of Germany's Black Forest across it, like the siblings of the Vosges. The view was something real, something stunning and it took me out of my head finally. My tired, mahogany eyes met the earth. I was in Alsace, a castle was behind me. I floated in an uncommon mood, light and empty, impressed but unsure. I was all alone. 
    

In the distance you can see Germany, a line of mountains then a faint larger group of mountains behind it, Waltershofen is in between those.

    There's a book I purchased in Colmar called Après le virage c'est chez moi (My Home is Just Around the Corner) about finding our place, like our physical location we live in in our world. I'm eager to read it but hesitant too, like I am afraid it might change what I think. It's like third on my to-read list anyway, I gotta get through some others first. Oh, I don't know, maybe I'll write an update to this thing in a few years when I figure more out. It's weird how four years ago in Hawai'i I was talking about homesickness for Kansas and now I grow tired of it and find myself wanting to go back to the east coast. It's weird how preoccupied I am with where I live. 

     

Post 29, first of 2026

 

I wrote about 900 words of an essay about the problems I see with liberal arts education today and why I hate it while offering some solutions that are so unlikely to ever happen. I thought maybe I would put it on this blog, because I do feel like I have something to say, but then decided against it, remembering a story of a guy who vented on YouTube with a video entitled “I’d rather die than work 9-5” then got fired from his 9-5, and the 9-5 after that once they found out. I do have my name all over this site and think it is something I gotta be aware of.

Another thing is I and probably some other people too have this kind of “essay fatigue” or something. Like I get these essays on political and cultural topics, video essays mostly, pushed to me on the internet and I think “maybe I should watch that” but I just don’t because I’m kind of just tired of alla that. I feel like I already have an idea of what they’re going to say; I already know that late stage capitalism is bad, and our world is so oppressive and blah blah blah. I am already filled with rage, don’t need much more.

AI training using my writing is one of the reasons I haven’t posted any poetry on this site, though I write it fairly often. Pretty sure that’s what all the site traffic from Hong Kong is about, no way I have hundreds of dedicated fans over there. I’ll post one this time though, since I posted it in a YouTube comment on some Twitch VOD. I got 13 likes. There’s something cool about putting poetry in unexpected places.

And in this moment thick fog hangs over water

And the gravel

Curves – slight

Twists away

Chatters with foot and paw

Shallow ponds

Plants fading, at the end of fall’s hard work

Brown, tan, black

Layered thick and vibrant

Fecund, half-frozen humus.

Cattails in the water

One small bird, peeping.

A shiver is let out with the gust.

I myself could become a reed

Standing here

No, I pull out my phone and

In a poor and starving form

This moment lives on much longer

Truthfully it’s not one of my best poems, but I don’t think its so terrible either. Here’s the photo it is about.

I haven’t written a good poem yet this year, I feel like my creativity comes in waves; right now the sea is very calm and boring.

One thing I have been thinking about: How to make nature poetry that is firmly set in the internet age? Maybe even that celebrates the internet age? Honestly, I was spurred to write this post because I felt a need to make an effort to fill the net with real human things. My blogs may not be entertaining or well written, but they sure are human. I feel as though some of the art being made right now is not really in this present moment. My poems can be like this, not necessarily anchored to one time.

One example that spurred on this thought was the album I Love My Computer by Ninajirachi. (Great, great album btw.) Though it is very much in the internet age it feels like a celebration of the internet ~10 years ago.

Another thing I have been thinking about as a space heater warms my legs: No heat feels as good as the heat from the sun and from another body. All other forms of heat feel worse (this includes campfires, I know you may disagree).

The steerer tube is now cut, don't worry

Been doing more mountain biking lately after I bought a Jones SWB. The Jones is a fairly unconventional mountain bike but works great for me. It has a very comfortable, very upright seating position, no suspension, and 3 inch wide tires. I really really love it, it works just as well for technical singletrack trails as it does for long rides on rural dirt roads. Might even end up selling the Handsome Cycles Devil. That was my bike for doing those long gravel rides but if I can do those fine on the Jones I don’t think the Devil has a whole lot of reason to stick around. We’ll see.

Saw a herd of bison too last week, pretty cool!

In one week I begin my new job washing dishes at a local bakery. I have been unemployed for 11 months, so I hope it goes well. There’s no dress code, but I like to keep my work clothes separate from my other clothes so I got a bunch of dark red shirts. I guess that’ll be my “uniform” maybe. I think the new job’ll be good for me.

Post 28

 

Movin'

     Last week, feeling in need of some change, I took off the rack from my fixed gear Spicer and put on some drop bars. And I’ll tell you what, the bike has changed completely. Of course, the Spicer was always more athletic than my white bike but now I can’t even explain it. It’s like you get on the bike and it just says “GO!!”. I think it’s the more aerodynamic position combined with the less weight on the front. Truthfully I feel I need to get stronger now, like I can’t do the bike justice anymore. And the bartape wrap on these bars is probably my best work so far if you’ll allow me to brag. I haven't ridden the white bike much in the past 3 weeks. 
    Part of the Spicer's athleticism or spirit or feel is just something about fixed gears. It's the momentum, the flow; the connection and awareness that comes with lacking brakes. Nothing is like a fixed gear bike. And many people have tried to explain in words the thrill of riding one, some more successful than others. I might join them one day, but its kind of one of those things you just get if you get. When I first got my State 4130 fixed/singlespeed in high school I thought I would probably keep it single speed, my idea of fixed gear bikes was that they were unsafe and silly. Why would anyone not want to be able to stop pedaling? After curiosity got the best of me and I tried it out, then I understood. Now I've been riding fixed gear bikes for more than 4 years. 
    On the tenth there was a high of 38 degrees. I went for a ride wearing a wool sweater and a hoodie, two pairs of gloves, and thermal tights underneath pants. Still I was cold, especially my hands and I was often riding no-handed with them tucked into my hoodie pocket. It didn’t really even do much. On a bike the world feels colder, you're pushing your way through that cold dry air and taking big ol' gulps of it. Through your snotty nose and chapping lips you deliver this poor air into your scrunched asthmatic windpipe then your burning, aching, screaming, muscles. Somehow, it feels good. The self-imposed difficulty in moderation as a reminder of one’s own ability. Climbing steep hills with a fixed gear on a cold day. I was thinking “most people wouldn’t/ couldn’t do something like this” and that felt kind of good, even though all things considered I’m kinda slow. 

Good advice probably

    Lately I have been thinking more about moving, probably back to Delaware. Of course moving somewhere, especially because you just want to go there isn’t ever easy. Probably won’t happen for years, but it’ll happen one day I think. It's true Delaware has higher cost of living, greater inequality, and a corrupt government but it's mine. I just feel kind of good there. Although once I move the feeling could wear off and I’d feel like moving again. 

    Maybe living in four states by the age of nineteen is not good for a person. Maybe its the least of the things that haven’t been good for me. I was looking at old photos from Hawaii earlier and metaphorically kicking myself for ever having left one of Earth's most special places. You just can't live everywhere.

    The hills outside of town now are mostly brown, but the few red and orange trees left look like ugly scabs on the earth; or like bruises on a gray corpse. One night I went up in those hills to try and see the northern lights. Didn’t see much but a really faint red blob. In this shaky long exposure photo one can see it better than the naked eye. Turn your brightness up. 

 

Post 27: Things Go Wrong

    Just wrapped up sitting outside drinking a Best Choice pineapple soda & watching the bats right after sundown. I have been feeling inspired lately, to write some great stories of adventure and triumph. The trouble is, I have none to tell. I spent July miserable and unable to sleep, stuck inside because it was so hot. And it was some of the worst sleeplessness I’ve ever felt. I was pulling all-nighters unintentionally. I have nothing adventurous to write about. A shame. 
    But what put me in this mood in the first place? I had rediscovered the great writing of Jim Carmichael, former editor-in-chief of Outdoor Life magazine. The OL website has archived many of his gripping stories of difficult, hairy-chested hunting adventures. (you should read some sometime) One I really enjoyed was him bowhunting moose in Ontario, and also the one about killing a crocodile in Zimbabwe. I feel a little sad that the era of those, affordable, plentiful, engaging stories that people actually get paid decently to write is long gone. There's a lotta problems with magazines these days as they try to stay relevant. Like how some just employ freelancers now but no one reads anything anymore anyway and blah blah enshittification et cetera. (I’d recommend the Escape Collective piece There’s a Wildfire Outside for anyone who wants to hear a really sad story about a once-great publication, Outside Magazine) 
    Anyway, later in the day after reading some Jim Carmichael pieces I hopped onto one of my favorite websites, The Radavist, to read about some folks bike touring through the Himalayan Mountains. A thought I’ve had before resurfaced while reading the piece, the abundance of photos is, I think, hurting the writing. The story was well written, but it kept getting interrupted by photos. I was tempted to not even read the piece and just click through the photos, something which I’ll admit to having done while “reading” other reports from The Radavist. 
    Now, you could say “well Ben, that’s just a you problem, you’re weird” and you could be right. I do think though that there’s something odd about reading a detailed description of something right below a beautiful picture that shows you exactly what is being described.  


    Anyway, I’ve got a story to tell about a bicycle. 3 years ago I found a neglected Trek 8500 by the dumpsters while taking out the trash for Wing Stop. I probably blogged about it then, I can’t really remember. I disassembled it, bought a few parts for it but didn’t do much with it, and eventually I bought my white bike, the Handsome Cycles Devil, which ended up taking the space and attention this 8500 could’ve had. It lay more or less forgotten & in a partially disassembled state for quite a while, until recently when I sold a bike and some space opened up. Didn’t take long after to start thinking to myself “I could get a new bike now”, but then I realized, I already had a bike. 
    In 1988 the Trek 8500 was Trek’s top-of-the-line model, a bonded aluminum frame made int the USA with the highest quality Shimano parts, it was really something special. Mine had been well loved too, with later upgrades of a threadless headset and suspension fork. Back in the day the bike surely would’ve made folks go green with envy as it pulled up to the trailhead. It deserved a second life. My plan was to build it up single speed, as I’d been thinking a single speed mountain bike would be perfect for the trails around Lawrence.  I had most of the parts I’d need in my parts bin, but still lacked a headset, inner tubes, & a stem. If I enjoyed the bike I’d also probably get some new wheels & tires, so I got a single speed spacer kit for hyperglide hubs too. I figured even if I didn’t end up getting new wheels for the bike it’d be nice to have the equipment necessary to make my white bike SS if I so chose. I ended up spending about $100, including shipping. 
    Today those parts arrived, and I was pretty excited to get working on the bike. My first order of business was to get the frame completely disassembled & cleaned. I did this, taking off the font derailleur, the chain, and the rear brake, as well as the old headset cups. With that stuff off the frame I could take a better look at it, and a small worry I’d had about the frame turned into an actual and real problem breathing down my neck. The seat tube was likely bent. I think the only reason I’d brushed aside the earlier warnings was wishful thinking. I really wanted to build the 8500 into a great bike. So I ignored the messed up bottle bolt threads, I told myself it wasn’t a problem if the seatpost that should fit didn’t. (I’d just use a smaller one and shim it a little, no big deal right?) But there I was sweating in the garage, looking at the seat tube of that bare frame and thinking “you know what, maybe it is bent”. 

    So I’m feeling pretty defeated now I guess. I’ll take it in to Sunflower just for the small chance a professional will say it’s fine and it isn’t bent. I’d have to go to Sunflower anyway to buy a handlebar if I keep going on with the project. I don’t think it’ll be a success though. Maybe I’ll find another way to get a single speed mountain bike. Esker sells one for $2700 . . .   :(                                                                                                                                 There are some lessons to be learned though, one is don’t be so quick to buy parts (a lesson maybe I should’ve learned already) and another is that steel bikes are great, which I knew already but it's always good to validate. My two other bikes, the white bike and the Spicer fixed gear are both steel. If the seat tube of one of those bikes bent in the way the 8500’s did I could send it to a frame builder and have it realigned. With the Trek 8500 that’s less likely to work, as aluminum, though strong, is fairly brittle post heat treatment. Getting the seat tube bent back could risk a crack or high stress point, and the bonded rather than welded construction is probably an issue too. 
    And that might be all to the saga of the dumpster Trek 8500. I will update if the folks at Sunflower say anything encouraging though. I have some photos below from rides I’ve done in the past ~6 weeks. I rode to Vinland yesterday, which was nice.  

Vinland Grange Hall, built 1884

 

 

 

Post 26

    This will be my first blog post written on a Linux computer. Pretty cool. I guess I'm a full time Linux user now. I've got a ThinkPad running Linux Mint Debian edition, which is a user perfect for so called "non-technical" users like me. It works well, but I'm still trying to figure out how to run video games that don't have native Linux support. Thus, lately I've been playing lots of Slay The Spire. I've also been playing the suika game https://playsuikagame.com/ which is a silly browser game.

    Anyway, got soem cool photos from a recent ride, but they'd be better with an actual camera. Don't know where my digital camera is right now. I found perhaps the best view of Lawrence I've seen so far. It's hard to make out in the photo but one can see Fraser, Dyche, and Joseph Pearson Halls on KU campus, and also the Oread Hotel, and some other buildings I didn't know for sure what they are. 

    Here's another photo with the Leavenworth County line, which I didn't expect to go past. 

    Recently I fixed sort of by accident an extremely cheap mouse I had lying around in my room. I'm not sure what I did though. The mouse wouldn't work at all when plugged in, so I took it apart. When I did so I saw nothing wrong with the mouse, everything looked in perfect working condition, so I put it back together, and it just started working again. Nice, I guess. 

 

Post 25

 

New Jersey

    Maybe it’s due to having four or five mental illnesses, but very often I feel so disgusted by myself and I feel like I never want anyone to speak to or see me again. Recently I felt this way and I went to the most secluded part of Baker Wetlands I know, and just sat there for half an hour maybe. Like, I just want to give in and never leave my room and let what life I have fall apart completely.

    Why do I say this? I don’t know. Perhaps I worry I will never be understood so I put this out into the internet hoping that maybe some stranger will find it, I guess. What good does that do me? I don't know that either.

     Oh but whatever, one nice thing is going outside and looking around. Summer ended yesterday, so here's some nice photos from it. Some of these photos are from my trip to the east, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York.

Lecompton-Perry bridge, built 1970

    "Lord Stay With Us The Light is Coming" Found in an antiques store in Finley Lake, New York, an area with a lot of catholic German immigrants in the mid 19th century. My great great great grandfather Benjamin Allgeier was one of them. He settled in Greene Township Pennsylvania, about 15 miles southwest of this store.

Somewhere around NY-PA border

Also somewhere around NY-PA border, young forest

Osprey Nest

 

 

Salt Marsh Sunset

    Life is good!