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I’ve been keeping quiet and watching this drama unfold from the sidelines. But I’ve been harboring some conflicting feelings since Brett Favre announced that he wants to return to the NFL. On the one hand, I enjoyed watching him lead the Packers and have nothing but the utmost respect for his accomplishments, both on and off the field. On the other hand, I would like to see the Packers move forward in the post-Favre era (I didn’t expect to see him play forever, even before he retired).

The decision to retire as a player cannot be easy. Favre came out last March and announced that he just didn’t have it in him anymore; this was two months after his season ended. I feel that once you’ve made the decision to retire, you should be absolutely certain that it is what you truly want. Favre, however, waffled and started hinting at coming back only three months after his announcement. He pulled this off after the Packers started its first training camp, after the Packers (and all the fans) started moving on and announced Aaron Rodgers as the team’s starting quarterback.

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I helped coordinate and participated in Bike to Work Week this past May. The idea is that if you ride a bicycle, you should ride it to work. Coordinated by the League of American Bicyclists and state or local cycling advocacy groups, many communities are offering a number of incentives to ride to work.

Since I ride a road bike, I didn’t think it would be too difficult getting to and from work. However, I did a dry run recently and discovered that my ride is actually much longer than I anticipated (17 miles instead of 12 by car; 1 hour and 20 minutes). But that was nothing compared to what I discovered when I rode the first time to work this week:

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