A short video of riding around town.

First Post : An Introduction

So, here we are. This is it. The World Wide Web. I'm not exactly sure how this Blog thing is supposed to work out. I figure an introduction is in order to kick things off, so here we go.
I'm Isaac. I live in East Tennessee where I moved after leaving the Midwest U.S. I dig TN quite a bit. I spend a lot of time on bicycles (which I imagine will become a main topic on this blog) and this seems like a great place to do so. The town is big enough and small enough to bring several enjoyable elements to a cycling experience. My adventurist instinct calls me out past city limits a lot, but I have become known for urban cycling more than anything else. Cycling is my main way to shed stress and clear my mind. I often times take off to pedal not for a physical destination but a spiritual destination. The biorhythms created and the tasks at hand on the bike can take a person to a point of self reflection and ability to digest the days happenings that I refer to as "Two-Wheel Zen". The bike humbles the rider every time you get on. Any ride is going to have a tough part. It may be the flow of traffic, a chasing dog, a hill, or a mountain range. Point is, that it will make you work. It will hurt at least a little bit. It doesn't chose to put the hurt on just you. These sort of elements don't care if you are on the old steel ten speed from the shed, or the latest carbon aero beast. It doesn't matter if your Lycra matches your paint job, or if the seat of your cut-off jean shorts is falling out. Out on the bike you pedal. You will sweat. And if you ride with me, we'll probably have a really good time doing so. More on bikes and views on cycling to come. No need to get to far into that quite yet. After all, this is only an introduction.
So, along with being car-free, comes the topic of fuel. I think the demand for tasty calories to burn is responsible for my affection towards good food. I eat my veggies and still enjoy a burger here and there, but food always seems to taste better when it's cooked at home and served with friends. Since the dawn of man the relationships and memories we all share often times revolve around a time, a place, and a dish. I'm not timid to share my affection for pork, and my need for heaping piles of carbs. I'm not sure how much food I consume these days. I know it's not as much as it once was. At one time I was commonly consuming close to 6,000 cal. a day. Can you believe I still didn't gain weight while on the "pile it on regiment". A combination of genetic makeup and an addiction to bicycles has always kept me tall and slender..... even scrawny at points in my life.
So, let's see. We have covered an intro including location,bikes and food so up next would be music.
I have been playing music as long as I can remember. As a young child my parents and my grandmother taught me songs to sing and gave me musical how-to lessons pertaining to whatever materials school or church was teaching us. My grandmother in particular would also give me introductions to whatever she felt I needed at the time to advance, if nothing else, as a listener and appreciative fan of the art. My father eventually got me my first "real" instrument in the summer between 4th and 5th grade. I played that saxophone intensely all summer long and continued for 4 or five years, learning everything from "Mary Had A Little Lamb" to marches and eventually to jazz. The discipline of being a formal musician didn't stick long enough for me to have developed passed a wide range of intermediate skill. You see, in this time I had discovered songwriting and acquired a guitar and had played several other more easily acceptable instruments for a kid in that age of exploring. I played in bands in high school and a bit after graduating. We had some punk rock projects, and some folky sorta things, and typical alt-rock packaged to sell, but that all got so full of ego inflating bullshit that I returned back to intense listening and took a breather as a player. That was the best move I could've made as a creative musician. These days all the stepping stones of evolution has led me to my own sound that I humbly work on, sometimes obsessively, without any stipulations or labels. Creative freedom is worth all the solo jam sessions and, who knows, maybe a legitimate performance project may emerge. For now, I think I will just fill my iPod with John Coltrane and Mars Volta, put the headphones on, eat some BBQ and pedal out to my next destination.