A while back, Patch.com editors were allowed to join other readers in blogging on these websites. I haven't taken advantage of that opportunity until now, in part because there's plenty of other writing to be done on this website during any given week.

So, instead of talking about Lynnfield news in this section of the website, I'm going to talk about pretty much whatever else comes to mind - anything from food to outdoor sports, photography, music, history - you get the idea. One idea here is to demonstrate that anyone can blog on this website about pretty much anything. The other goal is to enhance the website that much more while also providing myself with another little creative and perhaps at times humorous outlet.

One thing I'm going to talk about in the coming weeks is getting ready to do the 28-mile Reid's Ride, which benefits children's cancer research and which leaves LHS on the morning of Sunday, July 15 around 6:30 or 7 a.m. But that's just one of many topics that will come up here - probably sometimes all in the same post, knowing my attention span.

I did Reid's Ride last year and really enjoyed it - so I'm in it for a second time. Since this is my first-ever blog post, some background information is in order. I'm a 40-year old Type 1 diabetic who until maybe five years ago was in this habit of avoiding exercise and healthy food the way some schoolchildren avoid bees. Granted, I used to make the occasional trip to climb in the White Mountains in my 20s, spent time on the fencing and swimming teams at St. John's Prep in my teens, and was a member of the UMass Dartmouth Kung Fu Club (Wu-Tang style, and I don't mean the rap band) in my college years.

In 2007, I weighed about 35 more pounds than I do now, loved fried food and more often than not cigarettes, and early that year found myself very sick, with incredible fatigue, alarming weight loss, and soon after, blurry vision. I quickly learned I was diabetic, which runs in my family. The blurry vision was obviously of incredible concern, especially given my line of work. My uncle, an optometrist, advised me to start getting some exercise pronto. A couple of prescriptions later and a week or so of hitting the elliptical at the Planet Fitness up near my former home in Laconia, NH, the blurry vision started clearing up - and I never looked back - especially once a few results from the exercise also started to show up on me. I still try to go to the gym two or three times a week, combined with regular bike rides, but with a schedule like this, it doesn't always work out that way.

Even after all those changes, I'm probably still no angel from a health standpoint. I'm more like the old Henny Youngman joke - "I went to the doctor and said, 'Doc, how do I stand?' 'That's what puzzles me,' he replied."

Anyhow, that whole experience with regular exercise set the stage for getting involved with a 28-mile bike ride - an exercise enthusiasm that came at an age when a lot of other guys are becoming steadily less and less active. Talk about a win-win - you get to help raise money for kids' cancer research with a fun, long bike ride, while also having a really, really good excuse to go hit the gym to keep in shape. Last year I had no idea what it would feel like to ride that far or if I even could make it all the way. It turned out not to be so bad at all - although those hills toward the end in Gloucester do take a toll.

Granted, I'm also very much into outdoor photography, so my cycling interest isn't just to do this ride in July. A lot of weekends, I'll head into a nearby state park and vanish into the deepest parts of its trail system, carrying or pushing the bike as often as I ride it, with an eye on finding some great pictures to try to sell on the side on Etsy and elsewhere. In the coming weeks, I'll talk more about some of these places, as well as whatever else seems interesting at the time.

So that's the first post. I type fast and like to jump from subject to subject as you can tell. I'm hoping to make this blog a pretty interesting ride if anything.