Daryn Nakhuda

Chris Cornell - Watching The Wheels (John Lennon cover)

A little twitter thread yesterday turned into a real thing. Back for one last time (or so we say), it’s Cover Friday on tumblr.

This one is a little too obvious for tumblr street cred, but it’s one of my all-time favorite songs, sung by one of my all time favorite voices, and a theme I’ve been thinking about a lot recently.

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round I really love to watch them roll No longer riding on the merry-go-round I just had to let it go

Five years ago, I rode in the first Obliteride in memory of my wife's dad, who died from pancreatic cancer in 2001, and in support of everyone who has been affected by cancer (which is, sadly, just about everyone in the world).

This year, I find myself riding again.

My friend and co-founder Matt Bencke was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Matt is an avid cyclist, so our team felt there was no better way to show our support than getting in the saddle together for this event.

Lots of my all-time favorite albums have turned 20 and 25 over the past few years, and I’ve never been surprised by the passage of time. High school (class of 1994) and college feel a lifetime or two away, and that music is firmly anchored in that period. 

To hear that Of Montreal’s “Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?” is turning 10, however, was a shock. This CD has been firmly planted in my car since 2007 and still makes it into rotation fairly regularly (which isn’t as quite as impressive as it sounds: I don’t have any other digital music player in that car, and the rest of my CDs are packed away in a cardboard box somewhere.) 

Such a great album, it takes me back to when the blog music world was fun. I was first introduced to Of Montreal by Fred via some tracks he posted on his AVC blog. Those music posts were also what caused me to join tumblr, build my flash MP3 widget, and lead me to getting to know so many of the awesome folks who have come through these doors since then. 

A few years ago I discovered Flywheel Sports and quickly became obsessed. Being located around the corner from my office, it was easy to hit a class before or after work, or even pop over for a lunchtime ride. I averaged 4 or 5 rides per week that year, was in better shape than I’d been in years, and it was awesome. Sadly, between moving offices and moving out of the city, it became much more difficult to get there, and I fell off the wagon.  

When I first saw the Peloton bike on Kickstarter, I was intrigued, but skeptical. Could they really pull off the in-studio user experience over the internet? Would they even ship the bike and launch the service? Would I stay motivated when the bike was always available, instead of attending classes that I signed up and committed to? I didn’t back the project, but I kept my eye on the company, finally pulled the trigger last April, and the answer has turned out to be a resounding yes to all. The hardware is fantastic, the instructors are all top-notch, and the in-home class experience, with the leaderboard and metrics, are every bit as engaging as Flywheel ever was and as long as I’m at home, fitting a workout into my schedule is never a concern. 

It is also incredibly impressive how far they’ve come in the past year. There is an almost cultish community of 20,000 riders in their official Facebook group. Everyone supports and encourages one another, post their rides stats, milestones and photos, and talk about how much they love their bikes and being part of the “family”. They We even make pilgrimages to the mothership - the Peloton studio in Chelsea where the live classes take place. I went twice during my last trip to NYC, and it was really cool to make the jump from virtual to real, and see the instructors in person. 

I did 100 rides last year, shooting to at least double that this year, and can’t say enough good things about Peloton. If you like indoor cycling, and you’re on the fence about buying one, DO IT, you won’t be sorry. 

La Sera - Whole Lotta Love (Led Zeppelin Cover)

I’ve been having fun learning about different folks’ first seven jobs on twitter and their blogs, so this seems as good of a place as any for me to start posting again.

Here are my first seven jobs. They cover a period from around 1988 to 1999. Depending on how you count, I’ve had just over 7 more jobs since then, though they’ve been much less diverse than the list below.  

Nursing Home Volunteer - not technically a job, as I didn’t get paid, but this was the first time I had to go do something every day that wasn’t school-related. I continued doing it as my required community service once I was in high school.

Yard Boy - on the same grounds as the nursing home was a home for retired priests. The groundskeepers would mow the lawns, and I’d do the edging with scissors, pull weeds, and paint benches.

Data Entry - still in the nursing home (my dad worked there), I don’t remember the specifics of this job except filling out spreadsheets on actual spreadsheet paper using a calculator, and then keying it into the “mainframe”. It was really cold in that room.

Photographer - this was an awesome job. I had just gotten a job offer as a dishwasher, and when I excitedly told my girlfriend’s mom, she asked me if I wouldn’t rather develop a skill that I was interested in. Well, of course I did, and she got me a gig as a photographer for the construction company where she worked. I spent the next year and later school breaks photographing job sites and events.  This also has the distinction of being the only job I’ve ever be mugged at… #Baltimore

IT Guy - same company, different job. I worked on installing software off floppy disks, troubleshooting hardware, and maintaining the office network.

Forest Service Volunteer - another volunteer role, this one through SCA. I led hikes, gave talks, handed out flyers, and pressed the play button on the VCR in the visitor center at the Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, Alaska. If it wasn’t for this position, I never would have moved out to Seattle.

I never intended to stop posting here, it just sort of happened. Less writing, less music, and eventually less cross-posting of instagram photos, and suddenly it had been 10 months since my last post. I’ve also mostly abandoned the tumblr dashboard, choosing instead of go old school and subscribe to the RSS feeds of the few folks I wanted to keep up with, and leaving the rest to chance.