The weather is still not as warm as I would prefer, especially given that it is windy most days. I don't mind either separately, but together they can make a short ride seem long. At my age, the body doesn't do well in cold, damp conditions. The bright side is that I have an excuse to buy a cycling kit made for these conditions.

I've seen some of my state-side riding buddies have been logging some impressive miles in. I hope that next week I will be able to knock out a fifty and seventy-kilometer ride. My goal is in May to finish a 100 km ride. As it stands right now, I am about a thousand kilometers behind pace. I have quite a challenge ahead of me to make up those numbers.

With the current price of fuel, plus insurance, and budgeting for maintenance, a new bike seemed the cheaper (and healthier) alternative to a car. I broke down and ordered a Canyon Commuter bike for going to the store. Parking here is a challenge, but there are plenty of bike racks in the city. The only other investment was in a heavy-duty GuardDog bike lock. I think the lock may weigh about the same as the bike.

In addition to being better for the environment, it should be better for my health as I can stand to lose a few kilos. It also gets an infinite number of kilometers per liter to help my wallet. Besides, I like riding, and the only reason I don't bike to the store more often is I can't stand my wife's city bike. The seat is too low for me, and it hurts my knees and back to ride on her bike.

In the Fall of 1983, I started attending then Southwest Texas State University as a Computer Science Major with a Minor in Mathematics. I enjoyed the programming courses Pascal and Fortran, and to a lesser extent Assembly Language for the PDP-11. However, my my Computer Architecture and Design class made it clear to me that I had no interest whatsoever in how the electrons moved or what type of chip was installed, I just wanted to code. So CS was out for me. Then, as sometimes happens, I got involved with a girl and decided to focus on a life with her. While she may have been the love of my life, I was clearly not the love of hers. So, a few years later, and a another semester at SWT as a Communications major, I finally ended dropping out for good.

After I joined the Air Force, I was only one management class away from an Associates degree so I took that class at Hawaii Pacific University in Honolulu and got my CCAF degree. Over the next twenty-six years of my Air Force career I took classes through the University of Maryland hoping to finally finish my BS in Computer Information Systems. Unfortunately, I hit a point where the final classes I needed were only available in classroom and the closest was almost two hundred miles away in Waco, Texas. So I went back to Texas State, which may have been a mistake.

I loved my time at Southwest and I have fond memories of the college, even though I was not the ideal student and wasn't focused then. While Texas State initially said they would accept my courses from Maryland as long as I submitted the course substitution request, they rejected every single one. Effectively they turned my remaining year of study into three. Still, here I am just three weeks away from finally finishing what I started in 1983. I'm not really sure how I feel about it. I actually don't really have time to dwell on it right now with so many other projects coming due. I'm sure it will hit me once that last final exam is over.

I've met some nice young people, and some real idiots who should probably consider other careers (lawn maintenance springs to mind for several of them). The problem is, most of my peers are professors and lecturers. I'm older than most of my fellow students' parents. Anyway, it feels good to have the end in sight.