Iceman Report coming soon. In the meantime...

I'll get around to writing down my many observations about the monster mountain bike event called Iceman. I promise.
In the meantime, the delay can be blamed on Book #2.
I'll only say that writing Book #2 is totally different from writing Book #1.
Book #1 was written without ANY research, ANY notes, ANY outline, ANY planning, or ANY forethought. It was almost entirely off the top of my head. If you have dreams of writing a book, don't do it this way. It's not the most efficient way to go about it. (But since I wasn't worried about efficiency, it worked for Book #1.)
Book #2 is underway. Like Roadie, it's not directed at cyclists. You'll understand when you see it. I can't go into it.
For now, all you need to know is that I've spent the past few months laying all the groundwork so that no all I have to do is fill in the gaps with the story. I don't have a working title. I don't have a character's name. But all that can come later.

And that's why the Iceman report is late.

Lights

I'm normally one who embraces change. But every now and then I'll see small things that have changed, and I'll turn into my "cranky old man" persona and rail against the change.
And let me preface this by telling you how SMALL these things are in the Big Picture.
1. Fig Newtons: they changed their packaging so that it's re-sealable. Why? They went 100 years (I round UP) with the same sleeves of cookies. Why the change now?
The new packaging is slicker. It holds in freshness. But it also makes it harder to get the cookie out. Crumbs everywhere.
And I suspect that there are fewer cookies in the new packaging. I didn't COUNT them, but something tells me that they did it to skimp a little. No problem. I expect that sort of stuff.
You know how the sleeve of cookies had them all in a row? Except for sometimes you'd get one cookie that somehow got turned 90 degrees in the sleeve so that it wasn't like the others? I loved it when that happened. It indicated that one cookie had personality. In a machine that produces consistent results, having one cookie act differently than the others indicates that it had the desire to be different. That's pretty cool. And on further review, frightening. I guess I don't really want my food to think.
Anyway, they changed the packaging.
2. Michigan State Police flashing lights. Forever, the MSP light was a single revolving light on top of the blue car. Today, that light is an LED beacon that flashes.
Small, I know. Big deal.
But there's something very Wal-Mart about it. Like it came from the Christmas display. Chintzy. Fake.
The old red light would shine out across the land and travel in a circle coming back to your eye at regular intervals. It was authoritative. It meant business. It was great when it was behind someone else, not you.
I'm sure we're just lucky to have one MSP car patrolling the roads of Michigan nowadays after all the budget cuts.
3. Televised football with a zillion graphics on the screen.
Do we need the yellow line to tell us approximately where the first down marker is? Really? I mean, it's not exact, so what's the point? I can add 10 to any other number in my head and get an approximation.
Is the score necessary if it hasn't changed in the past few minutes? (I know why they do this. It's so that the guy with the dish can surf across the channel and not invest 30 seconds in the game to find out the score.)
4. I can't think of anything else right now, but I'm sure there's more.
I'll get over it. Kvetching about the small stuff allows me to ignore the big stuff.
Have one of your own? Feel free to leave it in the comments box.