Numbers

I went on a ride Sunday with a colleague. It was nice. We took it easy, though. He is training for the Iron Man next year, and he has started a lot of other planned workouts, so I got to tag along on a recovery hill ride. I spent Saturday cutting and splitting wood for our wood stove, so my legs were pretty tired from bending over repeatedly to pick it up and stack it. After the 3rd hill or so, I was feeling it. We were about 45 minutes into the ride before we hit the hills, and then I had to really back it off. The downhills were nice. I finally have a bike that fits, so I can comfortably get into the drops and fly.

Tuesday was the first day in months that it rained (for real) on my commute. I think I've been lucky. While Karlsruhe is pretty sunny compared to the rest of Germany, it is still Germany. So while there has been some rain, I have been lucky enough to be able to time my commute to miss it. It wasn’t too bad, but I did get wet. So I started to look back at was has been happening lately while I was trying to ignore how wet my pants were getting, I started thinking about our time here on this trip, and some of the numbers involved (I am an engineer, after all).

4: the number of months we have been here. It has flown by.
6:The number of weeks the kids have already been in school.
2: The number of times we went swimming at the local quarry thanks to a cool summer.
2: The number of weeks at the beginning of August I spent in St. Louis. Those 2 weeks are the only time I have driven since we left in mid June.
2: The number of times (excluding that trip to STL) that I have not ridden my bike to work since I started in July. That comes out to around 82 days. I missed riding the 1st day because my bike was in a box being unloaded from a shipping container. The Friday of my 1st week, I had to make a trip into town to handle our Kindergeld, so I rode the tram on into work from the city instead of going back out to the house and then riding back to the office. Other than that, rain or shine, I bike it.
1: Number of weekend trips by bike to France with the kids in tow in their trailer. I hope to do more next year. That is 1 of the reasons I moved to Europe. To see it.
3: The number of months it took me to get my first promotion here.
7: Number of years I held the same position in my other office. Granted, my responsibilities grew during that time, but I was pretty much as high as that was going.
6: Number of months we have had our house on the market.
0: Number of offers on said house.
1: Number of times our fence next to our driveway has been destroyed since we left.
12: Minimum number months since I have slept soundly.
15: Number of days of vacation I get for the six months I am working this year.
30: Number of vacation days during a full year.

OK. I am going to go read the kids a book and get them to bed.