Thursday, January 22, 2015

Monkeying Around

During the break between Christmas and New Years there was a great opportunity to ride my bike several miles to the library.  Outside it was good and dark and I looked forward to riding with the new Monkey lights installed the front wheel of my winter bike.

As soon as I pedaled off, the bright glow from the Monkey Lights cast ever-changing coloured patterns on the white snowbanks and the snow covered road in front of me.  Combined with the Christmas lights decorating the houses along my route, It felt downright festive!

About half way to my destination, I could see up ahead of me a mother and her two children.  The mother took one glance at me and stopped dead in her tracks to have the children watch my multi-hued display as I passed them.  I was beaming.


After the library, I rode out from my parking spot and cut through the parking lot.  A few yards in front of me was a couple on their way to their car.  They stopped in mid step to watch as I passed them.  Having passed them, they shouted "Do it again!" so I dutifully turned around and rode back and forth in front of them to their great delight "Nice Christmas lights!" the man shouted.

The only danger I can foresee with having Monkey Lights on my bike is keeping my eyes on the road in front of me instead of looking down at the entrancing light display emanating from my front wheel.

Friday, January 16, 2015

Monkeying Around4

It's funny how the mind works sometimes.  An idea can get planted in your head and in spite of evidence to the contrary, there is no shaking it.  Take for example my many fruitless searches of my basement for a set of Monkey Lights that I had purchased from our local community bike shop.

My investigation of the basement took me to corners and shelving units that I hadn't visited for some time.  There were lots of boxes half full of papers.  A can of old casters.  Milk crates of old vinyl that had never seen a turntable.  Children's books.  Two boxes of greeting cards that my wife intends to do something with in the future.

When I've looked in all the places where I think the missing item might be, I then begin to search all the places where I think it won't be and usually it is on that search that I'm successful.  This time, I only had to lift a box of disposable gloves from near my bicycle work bench to find that the Monkey Lights had been stored all along right where they should have been.

My mind was so fixated on the package looking a certain way that I must have looked at it many times while working on bikes and not seen it.  Sort of not seeing the forest for the trees.

The installation of the lights onto the spokes of my front wheel was simple and took at the most twenty minutes.  Half of that time was spent running back into the house to get tools I had forgotten to bring outside with me.

My wife was already in her pajamas and the only way to get her to come outside to watch my new lights was to tell her in an excited voice that she needed to come outside to see the beautiful colours.  I knew that she would think that I was talking about the Northern Lights of which she is very enamored.

She was surprised but not disappointed when, clutching her housecoat tightly about herself she ooed and awed watching me zoom past first in one direction and then another on the street in front of our house.