You're not stupid for just one day

Sadly, I think I've used the above blog post before.  I guess it makes sense though, as it's true.
So: three weeks left of work.  To keep busy, I booked a nine night trip to Japan.  Picked out the tours I wanted to go on, got all read up on Shinjuku and Japanese culture (it's impolite to eat in public, aside from restaurants, they're not big coffee fans, and they tend to dress rather formally: who knew?).  I didn't pull the trigger on it because July's apparently not the best season to go, based on the heat and humidity: one should shoot for the spring.  Plus then you get the cherry blossoms!  So if I don't cave under the pressure of being without a steady income (or structured day or pension or extended health care) and I'm still rocking out in 2014, I will go in the spring, except SuperMommy said she wanted to try and qualify for Boston and I told her if she made the cut and her husband didn't want to go with her, I would.  That would make four trips to Boston for me. 
Ask me if I like Boston.
But to the part where I'm stupid.  It's really hilarious and I probably shouldn't tell the story, but I will because I'm fatigued and it seems more funny than embarrassing currently.  I will likely delete this post tomorrow.
Anyways, I have this Mediofondo coming up in A MONTH (and naturally I only stated quasi-training in early May) and I have to be able to bang off 92k.  Today I wanted to get in 70k, so Michael (who is doing 150 or 160k) and I got up at 6am, biked to Stanley Park and looped it twice, then went to Deep Cove and then did the Demo Forest.  Lots of MAMILs (middle aged men in Lycra) out in the early hours, but most people were friendly and even said "hi" and "good morning" because, well, because you're in a certain segment of the populace when you're looping Stanley Park at 7am.
Anyways, I am not technically savvy at all.  One time I tried to get into my granny gear and my chain fell off, so I always left the left shifter on "2" after that.  My rationale was that (and bear with me here as I try to explain cycling to you, given that I don't know anything about it) the range of the middle gear should be adequate for me.  And it was.  The lowest gear on the second ring was sometimes hard, going up a steep incline but doable.  A lot of bikes don't have a smaller ring so they don't even have the granny gear option.  And putting it in the highest gear while on the second ring meant that I could cycle hard down some of the hills, which was fun from a speed perspective.
So today I'm cycling and I feel a little bit like it's easy - resistance-wise - and also a little bit like I'm going nowhere.  And my legs are spinning and I'm kind of going nowhere and something just felt off. 
The long and short of it, is that at around kilometre FIFTY of a 75k bike ride Michael asks what gear I'm in, and lo: I have it on the first and shortest and easiest ring.  No wonder my legs are spinning like mad and I'm going nowhere but working hard to do it.
#MORON
Like, why I wouldn't deign to look at my left shifter is beyond me.  Always with the right.  I just assumed I was on the second ring.  It was almost a waste of a bike ride because I can't adequately say how I might have done since I would never ride on such a small gear except to get up a brutal hill.  Good fucking christ.
On the positive side: got passed by a peloton going up the steep hill and it was pretty cool.  The sound of them rushing up behind me and then being rather enveloped by them before they surpassed us and headed on.  Dealt with the typical assholes on the Mount Seymour Parkway and on Lynn Valley (I hate that fucking road as a cyclist so much I ride on the sidewalk, and so if you ever see a cyclist on the sidewalk on LVR: cut them some goddamn slack because it's a nightmare).
The cool beans moment of the day was when we were coming back on the Demo forest and I thought I saw a deer on the left (I thought I saw a deer twice before, and sometimes I also think I see bears).  Anyways, it was a deer!  And it had pretty good antlers and there was another one across the road from it.  I thought surely they would bolt when they saw us (Lasqueti) but they didn't move.  It was nuts.  We rode slowly between them and they could've cared less.  We probably could've fed them if they were into chocolate covered peanuts and Vector bars.  We were so close we could see the velvet on their antlers, their markings, their eyelashes.  It was so cool.
Anyways.  The other (first world) issue that's sort of come up is that of communication.  A friend of mine had some really good news she wanted to share with me about a week ago.  I left a message on her land line and then, a few hours later as Michael and I were boarding a bus to head downtown she called my cell which I had inadvertently left on.  I turned it off.  Her response was that she had tried my cell but it didn't connect.  My response (via email) is that I really only use my phone in dire situations.
If you call my home and I am not there?  It is because I am out and otherwise occupied (to be read as: busy).  Leave a message and I will call you back. When I am not busy.
Unfortunately, I am out more than I am in.  But I'm not going to capitulate on this.  My time is valuable and precious, and I also want to hear what my friends and family have to say without sharing my conversation like an asshole on the 240 to downtown, or whatever.
I also missed my cousin who wanted to have coffee with me today because I don't turn my phone on.  I feel bad: I'd've like to have seen her.
I'm not always "on".  I have an email account and a home phone number with voice mail!  Call me retro (just call me).
I remember listening to the CBC on my way in to work and the announcer commented that he didn't have a cell phone.  I thought that was so awesome that I essentially stopped using mine.
So that's my little anti-technology rant which my nephew perhaps will one day read and think to himself "what a fucking Luddite".
Funny story about technology, however....