It’s the first day of school in Howard and Baltimore Counties. The past couple of years, I have telecommuted on the first day of school, but I decided to ride to work today to get an early start on fine-tuning my routine for the school year. There are certain times when it’s bad to leave the house due to school traffic, and certain routes that need to be avoided as well. My route passes through several school zones, so I have to take several bell schedules into account, and different schools affect me in the afternoon than in the morning. This year will require some adjustments to my routine, as HoCo has tweaked the start and end times for most of their schools, and also expanded the walk zones near where I live. This morning, I rolled out at 7:20, and it worked well. I think any later than 7:20-7:25 will cause issues with car and foot traffic heading to the nearby middle school. That should clear out by 7:45 to 7:50, but last year, when I left that late, I ran into issues with school traffic in Baltimore County. So, I think 7:10 to 7:20 might be the sweet spot this year.

I killed the last of my light roast coffee beans this morning. Next, I’ll work on using up my remaining half-pound bags I bought in Delaware, which are both medium roast. One bag is sourced from southern Mexico, and the other a is blend from Guatemala and Colombia. The light roast I just used up was from the same roaster and also from Guatemala and Colombia, so I suspect it might be the same blend of beans, just roasted differently. It is labeled a “cold brew blend”, and I’ll try it that way, but I suspect it’ll make good hot coffee as well. Since both bags are medium roasts from the same general region of the world, I’m hoping I can find a single recipe that works well for both, whether it’s pourover, AeroPress, or French press.