Cut me some slack on artistic quality as I get back into the swing of things.

Sitting at the stoplight headed to pick up my kid from soccer, dark clouds loomed in the distance.

Shot: Canon EOS Rebel T1i w/ Canon EFS 18-55mm

1/100 sec, aperture priority, f/10, ISO 100, focal length: 35 mm

Photoshop: auto levels

(Backlog: Today should be Photo 209. I am 67 behind).

I teach advertising, which gets an oft-deserved bad rap.

We embellish with puffery, but we should never lie to people.

Walking through Lowe’s, I saw Jobe’s Tree Care Products TreeStaKit. Needing to stake my trees and seeing an inexpensive price, I grabbed one. Through the package, I could clearly see that two cheap pieces of garden hose served to cushion the rope on the tree.

I had no problem with this. Until I read the packaging.

“The eyecatching tree tubes are not only strong but also provide high visibility for safety.”

Eyecatching? Seriously? Who are you kidding? It’s uber-cheap garden hose.

Add to this, the rope included was the cheapest, fastest unravelling junk ever.

Jobe’s, I am done with you.

Shot: Canon EOS Rebel T1i w/ Canon EFS 18-55mm

1/5 sec, aperture priority, f/5.6, ISO 3200, focal length: 47 mm

Photoshop: built-in flash

(Backlog: Today should be Photo 208. I am 67 behind).

I fell behind for myriad reasons, none of which was a lack of interest.

July presents problems for my social life, as I am addicted to the Tour de France, and I watch every stage. Given that Versus serves up at least three hours a day, I lose a lot of time.

And I usually spend a lot of time on my own bike, a 2002 Trek 2000.

I bought the bike new from Bicycle Garage in Bloomington, Indiana, when I was a doctoral student at IU. It was a wonderful experience, and I highly recommend them.

For the first few thousand miles, it was bliss. Riding the hills around Bloomington tops most of my life experiences, and I remember it fondly.

Shortly after moving to Columbus, Ohio, in 2005 I broke a spoke, however. The five intervening years offered less bliss.

My Trek came with two 32-spoke wheels. It seems as if breaking one would be trivial.

Turns out this is not the case. It has been nothing but broken spokes since.

The spokes come from either side of the hub, so when one is missing, it torques the wheel out of alignment. Usually the wheel also must be “trued” to make it spin straight after a replaced spoke.

And as luck would have it, truing a wheel is both a science and and art … a largely lost art.

A handful of broken spokes later, I learned that many novice bicycle mechanics true a wheel by tightening and tightening until the wheel spins true.

Along the way, however, they tune the wheel like a set of guitar strings that are ready to pop at any road surface irregularity.

To complicate matters, the new spoke (or spokes) is stronger than its friends because it has had less lifetime stress.

In the past two weeks — since breaking the last spoke during a 22 mile ride in the rain (which is why bike is so dirty) — I have learned a lot about wheels.

The easy part is that I need new ones. The difficult part is deciding.

I’ll spare you the details. They cause me great stress.

Small-statured folk of 140 lbs. to 160 lbs. dominate cycling. One of them, I am not.

For these lean pedalers, every gram matters. So cycling equipment centers on shaving weight.

As quality improves, weight comes down, and prices skyrocket.

Me, I am a “Clydesdale” in cycling speak. I could lose the weight of my entire bike this month. I cannot justify an extra $500 or $3,000 to shed a gram or two on a wheelset.

This complicates matters.

As a rule, spokes cannot be fixed the same day, and I always break them on weekends. After losing my bike for three days due to the first broken spoke, I got the wheel home only to notice that a new, different spoke was broken before it ever touched the bike — much less the road.

Both spokes repaired, I finally went for a short ride this morning. Yes, I know, before I cleaned the rain junk.

But all is not well. It will be less than a month before another spoke breaks if memory serves. The local mechanic pointed out that they all had been overtightened.

So I’m buying wheels. Soon. Ah, that decision thing again.

After that, I am buying the tools to true my own wheels … and I’ll be easy on the wrench.

Shot: Canon EOS Rebel T1i w/ Canon EFS 18-55mm

1/25 sec, aperture priority, f/10, ISO 100, focal length: 24 mm

Photoshop: auto levels

(Backlog: Today should be Photo 207. I am 67 behind).

Unfortunately for the tarantula. it decided to hid behind my car tire unbeknownst to me.

This was the result.

Although they’re cool creatures, being in my house is not cool.

Ah, the joys of living in Texas.

Shot: Canon EOS Rebel T1i w/ Canon EFS 18-55mm

1/125 sec, manual, f/5.6, ISO 800, focal length: 55 mm

Photoshop: auto contrast

Shot: Canon EOS Rebel T1i w/ Canon EFS 18-55mm

1/3200 sec, aperture priority, f/5.6, ISO 400, focal length: 55 mm

Photoshop: auto contrast, curves, contrast

Amazing.

Until you drive across it. It never gets shorter, and I cannot count how many times I’ve made this drive.

Summer teaching interrupted my attempt to get caught up with this Project 365, but now I will redouble my efforts to get caught up this summer.

Here’s a photo of some hot coals at Aguirre Springs campground outside of Las Cruces, N.M.

It has been a family tradition to picnic here with my kids and parents for years.

Shot: Canon EOS Rebel T1i w/ Canon EFS 18-55mm

1/400 sec, aperture priority, f/5.0, ISO 400, focal length: 43 mm

Photoshop: auto levels