I wrote an intro and tried to submit it; I was no longer logged on and my effort to save what I had written before I lost it through the login process failed (probably spent too much time typing and was booted off the server--oh, well, what can you expect from a computer systems engineer
). I'll try again, with an effort at brevity.
Haven't ridden regularly in years (just to troubleshoot problems on my kids' bikes, and they're grown now). I was the regional IT manager of a natural gas pipeline company until someone in senior management decided the company could do without the field IT department and chose to outsource IT support (no one asked in advance if the plan would work--last I heard, it hadn't, but my plan didn't exactly turn out as expected either). We moved to eastern Washington to get back to the mountains and chose Spokane thinking it would be large enough to have appropriate opportunities for IT work and small enough to feel less like a city. We love it here (we live north of Spokane at Deer Lake), but I haven't yet found IT work. Salaries are a bit less here than my earnings in Amarillo, and I think the few folks I've interviewed with have been afraid I would be unhappy with what they were willing to offer--couldn't have been that I'm getting older. I like to eat regularly, so I'm back driving a truck (never let my license expire), and that brings me back to the need and desire for a bicycle. I'm often 'stranded' at a truck stop or rest area just a bit too far away to walk to some interesting attraction.
I started looking around the internet to catch up on the new technologies and wound up on this forum. Things have changed since I gave my 'all terrain' bike to my nephew in 1976; now I'm looking for a folding Mountain Bike (to fit under the bunk in my truck) that I'll modify as I learn what is appropriate for my needs and purposes. Being on the road five or six days out of seven has also put a major kink in my exercise program--I've lost a few pounds of muscle and put on too many pounds of flab--so I'm planning to do something about that as well (my bowflex won't fit in the truck).
I've already learned quite a bit on this forum, and I've only just begun to explore, so thanks for the information.
Robert