Because of work demands, I take occasional unexpected breaks from blogging about the scooter. This one has been longer than usual. In fairness, I am going to share a little about what is going on.
If you follow any of my other work, you already know that I have been experimenting with the Apple iPad as a potential replacement for carrying a laptop computer. That experiment is working well, with a handful of exceptions. The most notable exception for the moment is my blogs. For years I have used desktop software for my blogs. The primary reason is that I find them easier to use and manage. The problem is that as I have divorced from my laptop, I have given up some of the flexibility of using said desktop software. At the moment, I do not have a good solution.
Oddly, even that really hasn't been the biggest issue at hand. The biggest issue has been the insanity that is work.
Never in my professional life have I seen the convergence of so many things crammed into one three month period. We are moving, hiring, merging another company into ours, have a major development project wrapping up, another starting up, have seen existing support demands skyrocket and we have our annual trade show/convention in the middle of it all. It probably doesn't look like that much until you consider that we are a 5 person company.
Needless to say, busy does not begin to cover it.
Through all of this, I find that I still love the ride, but all of my riding is for a purpose, and none is for pure recreation. I miss the recreational riding, but I think riding for a purpose is making me a better rider, because it forces me to ride roads and routes I would not otherwise take. They take me out of my 'comfort' zone.
You see I find the discomfort to be a motivating factor. Riding a road that make me uncomfortable makes me more aware of risk factors. Looking for new static threats that haven't been categorized in the repeated rides on them, all while maintaining the normal awareness of the mutable threats on the road.
Those two terms are something that I use to categorize the types of threats. Static threats are the ones that are always present and do not change. These are the general 'lay of the land' if you will. Road fixtures, hills, blind curves and features that are more or less permanent. These are categorized and become part of the fabric of the ride.
The mutable threats are the ones that are constantly changing. This is the traffic, the people in the cars, animals, kids, weather and pedestrian threats that must be reevaluated every minute of every ride.
Anyways, back to the comfort zone. In the comfort zone are the roads where I have spent enough time on them that I know most of the static threats at a subconscious level, and have a general feel for where the highest concentration of mutable threats lie. You know the roads, those where complacency is most likely to set in. I do try to avoid it, but it can happen even when you are trying to prevent it.
Most people do not like to stray from their comfort zone, and to a certain degree, I would be most people. When it comes to riding though, breaking the comfort zone helps me improve the skillset. It forces me to keep the brain in full 'ON' and helps me prevent slipping into 'AUTO' (pilot).