I am baaaack!

It has been a while. We're in the mid January and my last post was from the end of July. Hmmm. Well, lets do the short and sweet so we catch up.
I started smoking on August 1st of last year.
I quit my job on August 14th (I think). Well, they gave me 3 months leave of absence instead. So, off to the West Coast I went on my big bike, spent 3 weeks riding up Hwy 1 and Hwy 101 along the coast, made it to Vancouver Island B.C, came back through Washingto, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming. What a trip. I camped all the time, ate relatively healthy (had a restaurant meal 2x in six weeks), basically I just lived on cereal, granola bars, fruits, veggies, bread, cheese and coffee. Occasional wine (when I parked Pebbles for the night, of course. Pebbles is my bike - '96 BMW R1100RT), sausage over camp fire, etc. Came back from the West Coast trip weighing all of 166 pounds. That's early September. Spent a week at home (interviewing for another job among other activities) and left for the
East Coast Trip. The idea was for 3 weeks, too. I made it as far as Quebec (the city), then turned down south, saw New England area, Pennsylvania, down to Asheville NC via the fabulous Blue Ridge Parkway. Ran out of rubber in Kansas City, put on new set and came home on October 7th. Summary: 12500 miles in 6 weeks on a big bike. Awesome. Was about 175 pounds when I came back (I ate a bit more in restaurants and slept in motels quite a bit due to weather - it's cold in Vermont in mid September when it rains).

Started new job on the 17th and it was about time, since the company I used to work for closed their Colorado office on December 16th. Just in time.