Is it a little stuffy in here?

When all your belongings will not fit into the folded-down trunk space of a Honda Pilot, you probably have a bit too much stuff. I guess I'm guilty as charged.

As I'm heading back up to Boston on Friday, finally going back to Tufts for the first time in eight months, I decided that today, Friday, might be a good time to start packing. So, at around 4pm, after a ride and a late lunch, I started loading pieces of boxed Ikea furniture into the back of my car. I'd like to add here that were it not for the fact that I have a completely barren bedroom to furnish, I would have no trouble squeezing all the contents of my life into the trunk (if you count the bike rack as part of the trunk). But, I'm not really keen on sleeping on the floor or doing my work at the kitchen table, so Dad's trunk space will have to share the load. It's a good thing he's coming along. Thanks Dad.

I'm not trying to deny the truth, though. I really do have a lot of stuff. I admit it and embrace it. It's not that I'm materialistic, as I honestly feel that I am anything but. The way I see it, I have a few very specific interests about which I am rabidly passionate: namely, cycling and cooking, both of which require quite a lot of stuff to pursue. More to the point, they require quite a lot of big stuff. So, additional trunk space is going to be required to haul all of my cycling and cooking stuff, along with the normal stuff like clothing and bedding plus the aforementioned furniture (stuff) needed to make my life for the next year and a half more commodious in my new house.

I would take a picture of all this stuff, but at the moment it is still scattered about the house. Maybe on Sunday as I stuff my stuff into the trunks of the cars, I'll try to capture the moment.

At least all that stuff is mostly out of the way now, so I can enjoy my last day at home tomorrow before moving into my new one at school. Thanks to Wednesday's snowfall, I was off the roads until today's ride, but I found good ways to occupy my time. Thursday was another humbling day on the cross country ski trails. And after Wednesday morning's shovel session, the fourth of the season, I headed to Roger's house for a lactate balance point test. The results were interesting, and helped to confirm my progress and that the zones we thought I should be training were, in fact, what we thought. It's always reassuring to know you are doing things right, and it was fun, in a sick sort of way, to ride progressively harder for an hour while having my finger pricked.