Promoting the ride

I have ordered some promotional business cards from www.moo.com; nice pictures and all the information to get people to part with their cash; shame about my typo of 2010, not 2012. I think I will order more of these anyway once I have had some of the promotional pictures done – more interesting and relevant to the project. If nothing else, it will at least give me an idea about the design and whether it can be improved or not. My intention is to hand out to people as a conversation starter, hope it works!

 

I have started a list of possible commercial sponsors and also written an e mail to a data tracking company to ask if they would donate a unit and log in to the ride. Once the publicity photos have been done and added to the profile etc., I will send this off, fingers crossed. I need to contact Damian to sort a time to go over for the publicity shots – Harriet is very keen to meet Matias and anyone who calls at the house is mugged for their 5p's.

 

I managed to fall off on the way home from work on Friday; it was an eye opener in that I was the cause because I wasn't concentrating. The bike path between the A34 Abingdon and Marcham is narrow in places, it was dark and I looked up to see a single light in the middle of the path. He had nowhere to go because he would have been in the road so I chose the ditch. Usual thing, over the handle bars but rolled this time to avoid undoing the surgeons work. Unbelievably, no injuries or bruises/stiffness, but I did land in nettles…in my shorts; somewhat ironic given no incidents on the A34 earlier in the day. It did teach me a lesson though: if I cock up like that on a main road the outcome might not be as positive – 100% concentration at all times. I reckon that the work route is so familiar that I switch off sometimes – another good lesson.

 

This Saturday saw the launch of the Mars Science Lab, I followed the launch blog until the coverage ended following successfully separation from the booster….by the time the landing is attempted in August next year, all this will be over. I'm fascinated by spacecraft engineering, especially that of Apollo. This tenuously reminded me of some words of wisdom from Gene Cernan, Apollo 17 Commander in 1972 – he kept reminding himself to enjoy every second of his unique experience because regardless of how fatigued he was, he would regret not doing so after he got back. He faced the unknown and kept his marbles, let's hope I am made of the Right Stuff too…