Joseph Finnegan Keelin (Finn)

My sister and her husband welcomed a beautiful little boy to their family on July 24, 2010.

Commuting, theft, and injury with insult added.

There are moments in my life where comedy meets tragedy. There are also moments in my life where I make a bigger deal out of things than I need to. My current commuting situation happens to be emblematic of both of those realities. As many of you know (because I can't shut up about it), I have been riding my bike to work every day for 3+ months now. Well, that was until recently. See, in early June I made the unfortunate and karmic decision to cancel my MetroPass effective July 1st. The MetroPass that I can get through work is a pretty killer deal - $50/month for unlimited trips on any MetroTransit route. Combine that low cost with a Hiawatha LRT station less than a block from both my home and work, and it was always difficult to motivate myself to cycle into work often enough to justify canceling my pass. In fact, let's do some simple calculations:

22 work days per month
2 rush hour trips per day
$2.25 rush hour fare on LRT
$99.00/month value

So, to ensure that I save money, I would have to ride my bicycle into work for at least half of those trips. Since I had in the previous 3 months pedaled in an average of about 90% of the time, I figured it would be simple to keep up. In the long run, it probably will. However, two events occurred in June after I had set the ball in motion (a ball whose motion cannot be reversed) to cancel my transit pass.

1. Theft - One of my bicycles was taken from my garage (which I idiotically left open overnight), and was replaced by a much less desirable ride. Luckily, it was the bike that I hadn't been riding much lately, what with the honeymoon I've been going through. While it looked all fancy, it was probably the bike with the least monetary value left on it in the garage. So while this didn't directly impact my ability to ride to work, it sure made the whole experience a little frustrating - I mean, I could have sold that bike for 6 months worth of transit passes! Anyways...
2. Injury - I went on vacation with my in-laws, like I do every year during the summer. I neglected to bring a bicycle with me, and felt that I was in need of a bit of exercise while in the north woods. So I strapped on my running shoes and went for a leisurely jog. Didn't push myself too hard, just got the heart pumping for 2 or 3 miles, and I felt great afterward. Cooled down, took a shower, and went on to have a very relaxing vacation. Fast-forward one week. I'm riding home on my bicycle on a Friday afternoon, my fifth such trip of the week. My right ankle had slowly been getting crankier as the week after my vacation wore on. I got home, grabbed a beer, and took a seat in the living room. As I took off my socks, I realized that my right ankle that had been bothering me was fairly swollen. I'm sure this all started with that silly little run. Perfect.

Now here I am, about a week and a half since then and my ankle still isn't feeling 100%. I don't want to hop back on the bicycle, because I'm sure this is one of those things that will just take forever to heal if I don't rest it until I'm fully recovered. My transit pass is canceled, I'm down one bicycle, I've got a bum ankle. Shit. There are worse things, but this is pretty close to being unbearable for me. Partly because I'm a drama queen, but mostly because this happens every time I get to a point where I have my physical well-being under control. Ah well, I see the humor in it all anyways, damned hilarious coincidence...