Enough
Day 3056
Not that this is a resolution or anything, but I have got myself the new version of FitDay and am hopping back on the get my ass back to fit wagon. I’ve used the new job(s) and my arm injury as excuses to get lazy. I need to cut that shit out.
Cindy is also doing her own tracking program and is being more diligent about exercise. We’ll see how honest she is about logging what she consumes. Somehow I think she still believes the afternoon/evening toddies are calorie free.
It’ll be interesting when I get back down under the Clydesdale biking category (<200lb). I’m curious as to where she’ll be. I’m taking bets, if anyone dares. My own goal? <190 by Aug 15 (our 32nd anniversary) Considering Tour de Cure again this year, but it is difficult to train for a 100 miler as early as June in these parts. Can’t really comfortably ride outside till April, and spinning just isn’t the same. Makes me slightly jealous of all my southern compadres!
Oh!! I’m now comfortable up to 20 reps of 10 lb curls. I’m going to get myself a 12 lb dumbell and work to get to 20 reps of that. Then? I can start tossing a 12 lb bowling ball. Possibly overhand. But I’m thinking maybe the 12th or 13th of January to start working on the bowling again. Might even go hit the golf dome and hit a bucket of balls with some short irons. All good for the fitness regimen too!
Late but not forgotten. Mostly.
Saw this on several trips around the innerwebz:
1. Eggnog or Hot Chocolate?
Eggnog. Rum or bourbon optional.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Wrapped. Not fancy, but you have to have a little mystery.
3. Colored lights on the tree/house or white?
White lights, gold ornaments, couple red items tossed in.
4. Do you hang mistletoe?
Nope
5. When do you put your decorations up?
Usually the weekend after Thanksgiving
6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
Smoked turkey
7. Favorite holiday memory as a child?
Getting up early and just staring at the tree/gifts Christmas morning
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
Not sure. Being the oldest meant that I had to play along for a few years extra
9. Do you open gifts on Christmas Eve?
Nope. Do not open till Christmas!!
10. What kind of cookies does Santa get set out for him?
Whatever I don’t eat first
11. Snow! Love it or dread it?
It’s upstate NY. No need to love it or hate it, it’s going to come anyhow.
12. Can you ice skate?
Yes. I skated TONS on a frozen pond as a kid. Prefer hockey skates to figures skates. Those damn toe picks can kill a guy,
13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
Estes rocket model of a Mars Lander.
14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you?
Family
15. What is your favorite holiday dessert?
I rarely, if ever eat dessert. Do cookies count?
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Baking and decorating cookies with the kids
17. What tops your tree?
An angel that isn’t self lit, so I stick lights up her butt to give her a little inner glow.
18. What do you prefer… giving or receiving?
Giving
19. What is your favorite Christmas carol?
TSO – Mad Russians Christmas.
20. Candy canes… yuck or yum?
Ew.
21. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
Nope.
22. Favorite Christmas movie?
I generally avoid Christmas movies like the plague.
23. Do you have a nativity scene?
Two or three actually
24. What’s the most annoying thing about this time of year?
Besides stores putting Christmas stuff out before Halloween? The sheer commercialness that has crept into what should be a time of giving and reflecting.
Looks like we made national news this past week for all the wrong reasons. How about nut job that killed his sister, torched his house then started shooting at the firemen as they showed up Christmas Eve morning? Total of 7 houses burned, 2 firefighters killed, 2 others shot. They think they found what was left of this guys sister in his own burned out house. Thankfully he killed himself once police got there – saves the county the cost of a trial.
My outfit has an office in Newtown Ct – about a mile from the Sandy Hook school, so that hit close to home too. A guy I talk to frequently down there caught a huge break – his wife is a teacher at that school. That will rattle you right to your core.
‘Nuff bad stuff. New year coming, time to re-start. About time I got back on the sensible eating kick I was on a few years ago. I am NOT happy with my expanding waist land and it’s time to get fit again. Tour de Cure is in 6 months and I might be able to get into shape enough to crank out another 100 mile ride. Sure would be nice . . .
What I Done Did on my First Summer Vacation of 2012
Day 2881
If I were to count, I would note that I have a total of 9 nieces & nephews. Toss in my own 2 and there are 11 individuals in that particular generation of my immediate family. After this past weekend, more are now married than are single.
That, in and of itself is no big deal. It does however, lend a certain perspective to things. Want to know what is the most disturbing perspective? I have turned into my parents. Or rather, what I thought my parents were about 25 years ago. Don’t know quite how to resolve that, it’s going to take some time to sink in – even though I’ve been thinking it for a while.
Made a little trip to Chincoteague Island Va over the 4th of July week. Maybe you heard about that big storm that blew through Maryland & Virginia the night of June 29 – morning of June 30? We drove right through it. We didn’t see a lot of rain out of it (too bad too, could use it) but the wind was pretty fierce and the lightning was spectacular! I wished I could have stopped and watched it. Some blasts were tracing arcs several miles long across the sky – easily going beyond the breadth of my windshield and then some. That had to be one of the top 5 lightning storms I’ve witnessed and I’m really bummed that I had to drive during it all – kinda kept me from really enjoying the show.
After that though, it was absolutely gorgeous out on the island. If you like your daytime temps well into the 90’s with hardly any breeze. Thank heavens there was an ocean with a beach and water that was just the perfect temperature for cooling off in. And? In spite of my relative nearness to the east coast, that was the first time I had the opportunity to actually swim in the Atlantic. I’ve kayaked off the Maine coast and waded in the water at York beach, but the water temps up in Maine are lucky to ever see 60 degrees I would guess. Way too cold for me to even think about getting in deeper than my knees.
Took the old Raleigh Hybrid bike along too. Got in a couple nice rides in the early(ish) morning hours. Turns out that is you cross over to Assateague on a bike you don’t need to buy a day pass for the National Seashore, which is run by the National Park Service – I think like most of the Virginia portion of the island. (Yes, Assateague stretches from well south of the Va/Md border almost up to Ocean City, Md.) But it was good to get some riding in. Just wish I’d remembered things like my helmet, a couple of water bottles and my speedometer.
Also stopped in at the Wallops Space Center, a NASA facility that does dozens of launches a year – mostly sub-orbital research shots, but still – I got my geeky nerd fix and hit up their visitor center/museum. Very cool place (especially when it’s 98 outside) to spend an hour or two while the girls are out grocery shopping. I was hoping to catch a launch while we were there, but the next shot isn’t till July 20 – next Friday. Not making the 9 hour drive to see it, I guarantee that! Maybe I’ll dial up their Flight Facility web site and see it they have a web cam on it. (They do!!! Left column, “Launch Events” then “Launch Webcast” appears in the center column)
Guess what I’m watching next Friday? Might have to be a work from home day!
Gotta run, 2 reports to fix post-review and three more waiting to be written. At a week per report, I may never finish – there’s already 4 more jobs stacked up to do plus four factory inspections. Good to be busy!!
Impressive Pet Tricks
Day 2754
Having a rough day? Check out this over acheiving pooch – it’ll instantly make you feel better, guaranteed.
I’ve been doing some internal grousing lately about, well – about balance. I haven’t had a whole lot of balance in the last 6 or 7 years. More really, but I don;t think I recognized it until 7 or so years ago.
Sure, I got fed up with my health & weight, quit smoking, went on a diet and lost a bazillion pounds. End result of that effort was increased isolation/distancing from the wife which had it’s own wicked side effects (hello, Ms. CL and those wonderful months of indulgence).
Got that straightened out (Good bye Ms. CL, hello marriage counseling). Now that our counselor has up & moved to Virginia (not the greatest thing for bi-weekly sessions), we’re left to our own devices. Hasn’t been all bad, we DID manage to learn how to deal with ourselves a little better. But through it all, my weight is up, my endurance is down and that bugs the shit outta me. I am working on both, but trying a new method. What worked so well before was a Nazi-like adherence to recording every (pre-weighed) morsel that entered my mouth and also recording every minute of serious heart pounding cardio and every ounce of weight or resistance training. It worked fantastically. If you know what goes in and work diligently at exercising, you can predict your weight loss track with alarming accuracy.
But the effort involved saps ones time. There is little time left for anything else. While I was doing all that weight loss I also remodeled the kitchen (again), replaced almost all of the windows in the house, was constantly tweaking things in the yard (hello 5000 gallon fish pond), AND we still had two kids in college. There was no time for being a couple in there apparently.
Now – to get where I want to be fitness wise will require the same effort, hopefully with less Nazis involved. But to retain balance in the family (or couple) life, I am foregoing re-roofing the house this year. Not going to re-paint the house either. Nope. Instead? Gonna hire someone to do it all. Roof, siding, vent work to correct ice damming issues, new gutters & new garage doors. The only finger I’m going to lift is to write the check.
Then I’m going to bike my butt off this summer. Biking, golfing and date nights. NO PROJECTS (except finishing the $%^@#!* pond).
That’s the plan. You with me?
Missed It!
Day 2557
Yeah, Monday was my big 7th anniversary. Quit smoking and entered into the blogging world. About half of what I’ve posted is on Diaryland someplace, don’t even know if I can get to it anymore. Anyhow, since I quit smoking, here’s the numbers I’ve racked up:
Quit Date: 8/22/2004 7:00:00 PM
Time Smoke-Free: 2556 days, 20 hours, 41 minutes and 18 seconds
(Hence the Day # in the title of each post)
Cigarettes NOT smoked: 51137
Lifetime Saved: 13 months, 14 hours
Money Saved: $10,432.56
I’d like to amend that money saved line. That $10K is based on smokes being $4.08 a pack – the price of what I smoked when I quit. Since 2004, New York has hiked up the taxes on a pack of butts at least 3 times. It’s at the point now where what I used to get for $4 now costs $9.50!! Estimating when these tax increases took place and doing a little googling on cigarette prices here in the great state of New Taxes, I mean New York, I can safely say I’ve saved closer to $16,700.
Cindy still smokes and she’s giving me shit about buying a set of golf clubs? WTF was I thinking? In the last month she’s spent more on smokes than I spent on those silly clubs (that I LOVE) (Except for the 3 & 4 hybrids. Weird.) Anyhow, that’s old news. She’s in an indefensible position and has already wasted her martyr card. Ended up cutting off her nose to spite her face.
The interview I did last Thursday at TUV was, in a word, weird. In person, I interviewed with two guys I already know and have worked with in the past. We called their manager in Boston and had him on speaker phone during the interview session. Pete, the lead engineer locally did the bulk of the questioning while his boss, the guy in Boston, really didn’t say a whole lot. At times none of us were sure if he was still on the line, so I’d ask a question that he needed to answer just to see if he was paying attention. Felt more like I was interviewing him at times.
I think my being local is a plus for this one, and I think the guys already knowing me is a plus. My weakest area is that I can’t cite the safety regulations chapter & verse, yet. I know the major points of the two that we’ll be testing to, but there are other sections of regs that I’m not familiar with. Those deal more with consumer type products (hair dryers, dvd players, toasters) not medical laser printers, imaging arrays and x-ray generators. The local office is bombed with work, they need another engineer NOW, but if they bump into someone with more experience than I have, the learning curve may kill me.
Went to another family reunion over the weekend. I showed up all the young ‘uns and won the family golf tournament AND got named most athletic individual for the weekend. I think it was the basketball & volleyball in the gym Friday night, the golf and MORE volleyball Saturday that shocked people. Heh. They got to learn why the other half of the family nick named me “wheels” on a volleyball court. It has less to do with running and more with watching the opponent’s eyes and getting to the gaps they are aiming for. I have to admit, it is really fun getting to shots the other team thought were heading to open space. Their frustration is its own reward. Can be a little rough on the elbows & knees, but I really love the all-out style of play.
ANYHOW.
My attitude at work sucks. I’m skipping a core team meeting at the moment. They’re planning for the future. I’m planning to be elsewhere. I don’t know exactly where, but certainly not here. One thing I think I absolutely must to is take advantage of the time and get my ass and what ever else follows back to the gym. Long bike rides, weights, cross train with running. It’s time to start fit day again and get very particular about what I eat. I’ll have time to prepare decent meals, I’ll have time to work out, I’ll have time to pound the job search. Might even finish that damned bathroom.
Speaking of bathroom – it got primed last night. Tonight I’m going to clear out everything but the essentials and get the underlayment put down. Then I can think about dropping the shower pan in place, getting the Durock up and getting the waterproof membrane installed. Ceiling paint, wall paint, cabinets, couple of little plumbing details – all that stuff might get crossed off the “to do” list by the end of the weekend. Gonna be busy, but it’ll keep me out of trouble.
Speaking of trouble, I need more primer. Later folks . . .
Passive-Aggressive Pilot?
Day 2494
My bike is a Trek Pilot 2.0. Aluminum frame, triple crank in front, 9 speed cassette in back (27 speeds. No, I have NOT used them all) I ride on 700mm rims with 25mm wide tires. Got the nice brake lever/shifter combo controls. Carbon front fork and seat post. The carbon saves a few ounces of weight so my dainty 220 lb frame has less to drag up hill. (I need a sarcasm font.)
The instrument of my torture
Nice bike. Does what I need, mostly. But I think it needs a shrink. (no sarcasm intended here) Last rode it Sunday 6/12 for the big Tour. Haven’t touched it since. How does it thank me for a week off? Two flat tires when I tried to ride in to work this morning. Thinking that perhaps each was caused by a leaky patch, (and after all, I did ride 70 miles on a patched front tire last week) I figured I’d just pump them up and see how things went. Got each tire up to 110 – 120psi in no time flat.
Before I left, I noticed that I forgot my water bottle. Went in, found my bottle, filled it and headed back out only to find that my rear tire was flat, again. Mere minutes after I pumped it up!! (Front was still good) I did a cursory check and found a rock chip impaled in the tread, again. The new, thicker, more flat resistant tread.
So? 1 more day without riding. Tomorrow is golf (lightning permitting) so no riding then. That leaves me with Thursday & Friday to ride, should the weather allow it.
In job news, I got a phone all asking for an interview for a local job. I need to go call that HR rep and get it scheduled.
On a separate note, this is just plain creepy and wrong. How on earth could her parents approve this? Are they Mormon or something? I just can’t see marrying a girl young enough to be my daughter. We live in a weird world.
In other news – we know the gender of our first grand kidlet. I was shocked is all I’ll say right now.
TdC Recap
Day 2486
102 miles behind me. What a grueling, wet, dirty, fun and exhausting day. Here’s the recap.
Blah blah blah, got to the park about 6:30 – 15 minutes ahead of when check in would start. Rather than letting us park down near the pavilion where everything would be, we were told to park alongside the road well away from the center of activities. So I parked, got my bike out, got loaded up and biked down to registration.
Registration is great. They have nearly a dozen people waiting to get you checked in and they do it by ride length/starting time so the 40 milers that are starting at 9:00 won’t gum up the works by trying to check in early.
Anyhow. Checked in and got a bunch of stuff I wasn’t going to ride with. Had to ride back up to my truck and dump all that stuff plus pin my bib number on and decide if I was taking an extra jersey. Temperature wise it was in the low 60’s as we started. I was afraid that once we got going the wind chill would make me want an extra layer. So I stuffed the extra jersey in my back center pouch. Rode back down to the registration center and chilled till start time.
As the lock neared our start time, it started to drizzle. When they played the national anthem – drizzle. As we started riding – drizzle. Spray from my front tire hits the big front down tube and splashes my foot on every pedal stroke. 3 miles in and my feet are soaked. Can’t get any worse, so we all keep pedaling.
6 miles in I hear a scraping noise behind me, a loud “Oh shit!” then the sound of a bike & rider hitting the pavement. Of course someone yells “CRASH!” so everyone behind them knows what’s going on. Dummy me tried to look back. I caught a glimpse of the rider sliding along the road (we were in a pack doing about 20-ish at the time) but turning back made me turn my tire a bit. Nearly caused a crash myself when I did the rubbernecker bit.
The next umpteen miles were pretty bland. Passed up Rest Stop 1 in Rush (mile marker 14.2 – who’s tired yet?) You’re left with dealing with the rain dripping off your helmet visor, squishy socks, a wet ass from road spray and just a general moistness. The best part is you can’t really tell if you’re sweating and you know you can’t get any wetter.
By Rest Stop 2 ( MM 26.4 – Town of Avon) the rain had stopped and we were dealing with only road spray. Not too bad at all. Time to stop and re-fill the water bottles and stretch a bit. Ran into a couple of co-workers at this stop and they asked if I’d like to ride with them. I’m sure they both are much faster than me, but they invited anyhow. I told them I’d hang with them as best I could and tagged along.
The three of us were tooling along pretty well. Had to make a turn to the south (on Rte. 36) that, well, something happened in the intersection I guess. About a mile later I noticed that my front tire was very squishy. I rolled to a stop (mile 31.3), something my riding partners didn’t catch right away. One of them knew I was questioning my tire, but I fell back so quickly we lost contact.
I stopped, got my fix it kit out and set to work. First order of business – find the culprit. Got lucky and found a stone chip that penetrated the tread. Broke the wheel down, found the hoe in the tube, scuffed it up, glued it, got the patch on & reassembled the tire. With my CO2 cartridge I was able to get about 70psi into the tire. Plenty enough to get to the next stop.
I mounted up and got rolling again, figuring that I’d catch up to my riding partners at the next rest station. As I was tooling down the road towards the village of York, I passed one of the Y’s spin instructors. She yelled out my name adding in who it was that was yelling her fool head off, so I slowed up and circled back to them. It was Cheri, the Wednesday night and Saturday morning instructor with a few gals from the Y riding as a group. I stayed back with them and shot the breeze for a bit, but two things happened. A – they were actually riding kinda slow (15 mph or so) and we just ran into a cloud of sweet shit. Seriously. Had to be the stillness and lack of a breeze, but it was obvious that some farmer had just emptied out his dairy barn shitter and spread the manure on his hay field. That was some potent stuff. So I skeedaddled and left the girls behind to take in the sweet aroma of the byproducts of cheese creation.
Turn off of Rt 36 onto Rt 63. There’s a nice long downhill here where we drop into the river valley and cruise the flats for a bit. I peaked at around 40 going down the hill, just tried to stay low & out of the wind. After the free downhill ride there’s about 2 miles of flats then there’s the climb up through the Geneseo Colllege campus. Check out the map below. I only plotted the bit of road through the campus. It starts mild, only a 2% grade. Half way up it gets stupidly steep at a 16% grade. Thank god it’s only for a short stretch. (There’s a hill to climb in Bristol that peaks at 20% but it’s a 2 mile climb, not just a half mile like this one)
It's all about the eevation profile. Purple = BAD
After this climb we head north through the village. North of the village at MM 43.7 is Rest Stop 4 where I found my riding partners. Fate had intervened to get us back together. One guy had to stop and fix his front shifter (so he could gear down to climb that hill) and the other guy got a flat not a tenth of a mile from the rest stop. He just finished topping off his tire pressure as I rolled up.
I refilled my water jugs, grabbed a Clif bar or three and a few hunks of orange, topped off my own tire and the three of us got back on the road. We skipped Rest Stop 5 and headed down Polebridge road and Conesus Lake where lunch was waiting for us at the Lakeville Fire Department.
Check out this little stretch of Pole Bridge Road:
Did I say purple = Bad? Ouch babe!.
That blue section was fun – a quick blast up to 40mph again, zooming under a narrow low pass bridge right at peak speed (I think the speed limit was 35 – do I get a ticket?). Then you have to pay the fare for a quick downhill blast. The climb on the other side of the bridge was nearly as bad as the one through the college campus. That first purple section sucked, then you get a false crown before the REALLY steep section. I wa never so glad to have a granny gear on my front crank. I was reduced to about 5mph, but I could climb those hills without burning up my legs.
From there is was relatively flat getting to the lunch stop. We grabbed subs, took a bio break. It’s amazing that you still need to pee what with all the sweating going on. Guess we were doing good with the hydration. For the record, the two holer guys room had a shorter waiting line than the two holer (I assume) ladies room. Whats up with you gals?
At this point the roads were really dry, so I took the opportunity to wring a couple ounces of water out of my socks. I considered going sockless, but one of my riding partners advised against it. He said wet skin inside a shoe like that would get tore up pretty bad. He’s an experienced biker, so I heeded his advice.
The ride around the lake was uneventful. We skipped Rest Stop 7 (MM 70.5) at the south end of the lake. The crazy volunteers were cheering their fool heads off as we rode past – there may have been a cow bell involved too. Pretty cool.
Rest Stop 8 (MM 79.6)was back at the firehouse, so I grabbed another sub and made it disappear. Rick (he of the sage advice on the socks) was having a rough go of it, so we took a little longer at this stop – got in some good stretches and topped off our tanks. Only 20 miles or so to go – no way we’d be denied.
We stopped briefly at Rest Stop 9 (MM 89.7) to let Rick catch back up. He was fighting through some cramps I think. I’ve found the best way to put off the cramps is to reduce your gear and keep pumping your legs. If you don’t exert hard but keep the muscles flexing it seems to help them loosen up. That’s what he did and he eventually got past the cramps.
Skipped Rest Stop 10 (MM 93.8). By this point we’re thinking “Geeze, it’s only as far as we commute to work – lets go & be done!”. There’s another real kick ass downhill in the last section, another 40+ mph blat down into the Honeoye Creek basin. But again, for every downhill, you gotta pay. Climbing up out of the creek basin back to the park elevation happened over 4 or 6 or 89 separate climbs. Nothing terrible, but after nearly 100 miles climbing an anthill was a chore. Second best sign I saw all day was the one marking the boundary of the park. The best sign was the one a half mile down the road marking the park entrance. I think we hit 100 miles just before the park, then meandered the park roads to the far side of 100 acre pond where we hit the finish line, 102 miles and 5 hours 53 minutes of pedaling later.
After crossing the finish, we headed back down towards registration where we got yet another meal – pulled pork sandwiches and a bucket of coleslaw. After that was a round of hand shaking, ,a bunch of ‘nice riding with you’ passed all around and we saddled up ONE MORE TIME to ride uphill, yes UPHILL back to our cars. We gotta talk about this parking arrangement before next years ride. If I’m still in Rotenchester by then.
Here’s a map of the overall course (click to embiggen, I think):
The route. Copypaste the link to get to a pdf of the course if you're really interested.
or if you’re really interested you can copy/past this: http://main.diabetes.org/site/DocServer/100_map_12Ja11.pdf?docID=72346
When I got home & had the truck unloaded, I cracked open an Eddie Fitz and hopped in the hot tub and let the massager jets do their magic. It wasn’t a replacement for a real massage, but between the vibration of the jets, the temperature of the water (101) and the beer – it worked just fine. A testament to me tiredness? One beer nearly put me out. Such a cheap date!
Stressing the ‘Fool’ bit
Day 2477
So. Nine days to go till the Tour de Cure and my longest ride to date (this year) was a whopping 36 miles. In order to rectify that little problem, I hatched a plan. This plan really emphasized the “fool” portion of my url here. Here it is:
I rode my bike in to work Friday, 8.24 miles. No biggie there. From work, I planned to head north (and downhill) towards Lake Ontario, then tool along west-ish along the Lake Ontario Parkway (legit for bikes no less). Once I cross over Braddock’s Bay I will head south (and uphill) away from the lake and back towards civilization. At the 19 mile mark I will again turn west and go for another 11 miles, putting me out beyond where Cindy & I went (stress the went) for our counseling. From there I’ll take a rather meandering route home, dodging the villages & busier roads. Mile markers 19, 28 & 47 will provide opportunity to stock up on Gatorade and PayDay candy bars. Just for a scale reference, here’s a look at the route: (click to embiggen)
How I got lost on my way home . . .
Yes, that’s my houses real location, but at this zoom level, I don’t think any of you will be able to add me to your Christmas card list. You can see how close I am to the airport. so if you ever fly to or through Rottenchester, I’d be happy to come get you and play tour guide and take you to the best places to eat. Unless you’re on a diet, then you’re screwed. I can also tell you where NOT to stay to keep you from getting screwed that way.
So. The ride itself. Ominous start. Got hoodwinked into a meeting @ 3:30 that ran until 4:30. I WAS planning on starting at 4. Starting at 5 was a bit of a setback and pushed my anticipated finish time to a little before sunset. But it gets worse. A whopping 1.5 miles in, I got a flat tire. Ran over a flattened hunk of metal that must have had something sharp sticking up. I pulled off the very busy main drag and set up shop in the front yard of the Abbey of the Franciscan Friars. Even though I was kinda pissed about the flat, no swearing allowed in front of the brothers, eh? Found the puncture, dismounted the wheel, pulled the tube out, patched it and re-assembled the wheel. Whipped out my handy-dandy CO2 cartridge, re-inflated the tire and off I went. Time lost? About 15 minutes. Now I’d finish right at sunset.
Happy to say the rest of the ride went without incident, even though I was a little paranoid about that rear tire. The only other negative note would be the wind. When I was heading downhill towards the lake there was a bit of a head wind, but the gentle down slope nicely canceled it out. Heading along the shore on the parkway there was a stiff head wind, but the road was flat. What really sucked was that as I was climbing back up away from the lake I was expecting a bit of a tail wind. As it turned out, it was getting late enough in the day that the wind was dying down. No tail wind for the uphill leg. So much for planning . . .
Total for the day? 53.7 miles after work plus 8.25 getting to work for a total of 61.95 miles on the day. Noticed something weird too. Seems that 75% of the seat discomfort actually comes from the undergarments chafing some of the more tender spots in the area. So, for longer bike rides I have a choice to make. Try out some chamois cream, switch to boxer briefs or go commando. I’m thinking of a combo of the first two options. I’m just wondering how one keeps the chamois cream from bleeding through clothes? Time for research.
Went to a sort of a pop-up family reunion today. It was thrown together kind of quickly by my mom’s cousin (only 6 years older than me!) and included a branch of the clan I’d heard of but never met. Turns out that my great-grandfather was born in Birmingham, England in 1890. When he was still a young boy, his father (my great-great-grandfather) passed away. Great-great-grandma had it tough, couldn’t manage to raise 6 kids on her own and basically sold her kids into indentured servitude. My great grandpa was then shipped off to Canada with his siblings and basically served as slaves to pay off the cost of their passage to Canada. After being beaten and fed only bread & water, my great grandfather managed to run away from the farm where he was indentured and crossed the border. Next time he showed up in the census he was in a tiny town in central New York. Over the years he frequently visited Canada to see his siblings and he frequented a fising camp on Rice Lake – ironically enough same place where he died of a heart attack at age 77 out in a boat fishing. What a way to go.
Cripes, I’m practically descended from Oliver Twist. (Actually, his name was John Ward). One of my other uncles (married into this clan of slave descendants) had ancestors with a history of sheep thievery in England in the 1800’s. I remarked to him that he was dangerously close to having been an Austrailian!
Bathroom work slated for Sunday. Got to get the floor closed up, put in a wall for the end of the shower area and start running the wiring for the lights. Actually have a fair chance of completing all of that. Then I can think about insulation & drywall. Oh joy!
Mother Nature is in Menopause
Day 2473
And we’re getting the hot flashes & night sweats!
One of the down sides to living in the Northeast, besides the endless snowfall all winter long, is the fact that so few of us have air conditioning. Normally we’d only need it for a day or two in May, June – August, and the odd day or two in September. Barely a quarter of the year! Man of us eschew the central (or even window) AC.
But much like a southerner complaining about an inch or two of snow shutting everything down until it melts, I’m gonna bitch about the temps here edging close to 90 in May. WTF!?!?! Just 6 days ago I was glad I didn’t wear shorts golfing because it was barely into the 60’s. Sunday morning I was golfing with the boys and we were melting fro the heat & humidity by 11am! Granted, the course was a swamp thanks to all the rain we’ve had in April & May (lost a ball in the fairway because it plugged itself into the ground and I couldn’t locate the tunnel!) but geeze – upper 50’s on Wednesday then lwer 90’s on Sunday? Not fair.
But. Yesterday I paid my dues. I spent an hour in my attic crawlspace running a cable from a wall switch to an electric box I was installing right over our bed. Had to cut the hole in the ceiling, measure & cut the support beam and install said beam all in the comfort of the crawl space. Mind you, it’s a belly crawl, not a ‘on your hands & knees crawl’. And there’s no floor – only the ceiling joists and insulation. I took some small hunks of plywood up with me that I could kind of ‘ski’ on just so I didn’t end up crashing through the ceiling. The worst part was the temperature. Had to be 120 up there. Sweat was dripping off me so fast it looked like I had a hose installed on my head supplying the fountain of sweat that was sprouting from my eyebrows, nose, hair and anything else that would support a drip.
Then I got to come down into the 80-something degree not-yet finished bathroom and think it was cool. Of course, as I started mounting the ceiling fan to the newly installed electric box, I discovered that in my haste to get out of the oven I installed the box support a wee bit tilted. More tilted than I could correct for with the fan mounts. So? Up I went for round 2. At least I had the fan mounting bracket screwed onto the electric box to act as a guide. The re-install went fine. Still hot as a mofo, but at least this was a quick trip.
The upside to this whole mess? I gave up a day of working on the bathroom to get a ceiling fan installed in our bedroom. So even with no AC and the house heated up into the 80’s yesterday, sleeping last night was nearly blissful. If it weren’t for the little fiberglass shards from the insulation making my forearms itch like nobody’s business it would have been pure heaven.
So. Bathroom progress. All the supply plumbing is done & pressure tested. All the drain plumbing is done. Now I get to build the third wall of the shower stall and get ranking on the wiring for the new ceiling lights. Since it’s wiring & wall building – nah – who am I kidding? I’m not going to do a thing on it during the week. It’ll have to wait for the weekend like everything else.
Oh – that story about Cindy’s day off. Here goes.
Many years ago, one fine weekend afternoon Cindy was headed from the garage into the house. There are three steps to negotiate. Well, in her typically drunken state at the time, she had a little trouble navigating step #1, tripped and but managed to get her left leg under her and catch herself. In the process she managed to do some damage to her knee. ACL, MCL, one of them. A month or so after the incident she had her knee looked at, doc said it was a minor tear, not really bad enough to force an operation to repair, it would be Cindy’s choice. She chose to let it heal on its own.
Fast forward a couple years. Summer time. Cindy’s left leg (calk mostly) swells up for no apparent reason. We get her in to the doc, she says “get thee to the ultrasound clinic now and have the call me with the results”. So we went to the clinic. On the way I stopped by the surgical supply store and got her a pair of crutches. At the ultrasound clinic we earned that Cindy had blood clots behind her left knee and they were gumming up the circulation causing the knee swelling. That got her an invite to the hospital for some intensive heparin therapy to try and dissolve the clot. She was in the hospital for 3 or 4 days and missed a family reunion (on her side, that we were a part of planning). She got out of the hospital and was put on a prescription of injection type blood thinners for a week (another place to use my Army training!!), then went on tablet form of Coumadin.
Know what you’re not supposed to do while taking Coumadin? Drink alcohol. It messes with how the Coumadin works. The poor doctor was going nuts trying to find a dosage level that would keep Cindy’s blood thin enough to avoid clotting but no so thin as to be a danger for minor nicks & scrapes. We had the same GP at the time and that’s when I confessed to the Do that I was in Al Anon because of Cindy’s drinking and that that same drinking is what was causing her to have so much trouble dialing in the Coumadin levels.
That was about 5 years ago. Fast forward to last week. Cindy has this little teeny mole in her armpit. Had it for years, never caused any trouble. Thursday morning, while shaving her armpit, she took a hunk out of the mole. A nice, blood vessel rich mole. It bled like a stuck pig. She didn’t even know it until she noticed the shower water was kind of pink. She managed to get the bleeding to stop after 10 – 15 minutes with direct pressure and went on with her day.
Until she got to work. Some how, Some way and for some reason, she looked at her underarm. Apparently there was a HUGE bruise that spread from halfway down to her elbow up through her armpit and down her rib cage a ways. It freaked her right out, so she went home and sprawled out on the couch. It was about 4:45 when she called me and bailed out of spin class. That’s when I called the audible and went for that bike ride instead, because by the time I got home that bruise was gone. Not even a hint of it remained. I saw nothing to fret about. So I went for a ride.
I got my wheel back from the bike shop too. They replaced the busted spoke, re-trued my rim & cleaned the gear cassette. Now I can’t ride again till Thursday. Thinking of riding in to work but taking the really, really long way home, try to make a 50 miler of it. Probably head out west along the lakeshore for 20 miles or so then cut back south and head for home. Need to figure out the logistics of clothes as I don’t want to tackle that long of a ride wearing a backpack with the days laundry in it. Maybe bring in 2 sets of clothes Thursday and bike everything home Friday. Hmmmm – that’s got potential.
In Lieu of . . .
Day 2468
Didn’t ride my bike in to work today because it was supposed to be pouring by early evening. I packed my gym bag instead, pretty much resigned to hitting up a spin class tonight.
Imagine my disappointment when I checked the hourly forecast later in the afternoon and learned the rain was supposed to hold off till 9pm or so. Imagine my delight when I got a phone call from Cindy on my way to the gym. She was calling to tell me she was begging off on spin class. (The reason for that is a story unto itself.)
Since it wasn’t supposed to rain for 3 or 4 hours and my hot date at spin class evaporated, I called an audible. Rather than hit the gym, I headed home, donned the spandex shorts and picked a route – my Churchville/Spencerport/Chili loop. Nice little 34.4 mile jaunt – just what I needed after the weekends 28 mile ride.
Geared up & took off. 5 miles in I noticed a ‘twang’ sound as I took off at an intersection. 5 miles later I stopped for a drink of water and checked my rear wheel. Sure enough, I snapped a spoke. Wheel wobbled but didn’t rub the frame. I twisted the busted spoke around some of the good ones and kept going. 17-ish miles out I ran into a little patch of drizzle, but there was no substance to it. At least by then I’d turned for home.
Long story short, got in a lovely ride. Beat the hell out of spin class (sorry Maria!) (Like she reads this!) 34.5 miles, 1:54 saddle time. Felt freakishly strong at the end too – Want to try and sneak in a 50 miler over the weekend and another 50+ miler next weekend. Then I’ll feel ready for the Tour. Maybe.
More on Cindy’s impromptu day off next time.
Rapture +2 (ok, 3 now)
Day 2465
Geeze, don’t know whether to be disappointed or not. I’m still here, apparently so are you and about 7 billion other folks and their pets. Either God, Yahweh, Bhudda, Allah, your higher power or whoever the heck it is decided we are all unworthy (possible I suppose) or that Fruitcake Camping misinterpreted a bunch of quotes he was taking completely out of context.
I’m a little relieved too. Jill’s due date for grandkid #1 has been calculated (with a little more accuracy than Rev. Camping’s prognostications) as 11/11/11. Had Camping been correct, (suuuuuurrrrre) we’d never get to see the little bugger. As it is, we can all go on with our lives, just as we’d planned all along.
The other reason I know I’m not in heaven? That damn master bath isn’t done. I do have all the drains but one installed, have the vent put in finally (only needed one day free of rain!!), got the supply lines run to the shower & toilet and am working on the tub & dual vanity supplies. Ought to be a blast – have to solder joints that’ll be above the ceiling of the first floor and below the subflooring of the second floor. It’s a nice dark, dusty place. If you slip, you earn a free trip to the kitchen – through the ceiling. Doubt that would hurt much at all . . .
I actually got out and rode Saturday morning too. Wedged in 28 miles in 97 minutes. Not incredibly fast, but at least it was a ride. Maybe I can get in 40 this weekend, and 60 or 70 the first weekend of June. While doing the Tour, there are 2 points where I can choose to shorten the route without going ff course. The first spot would cut the 100 miler down to about 65. The second cut would only knock off 20 (of the more scenic) miles. Depends on legs & weather.
Got in a ride to work this morning too. Gotta love those tail winds – this was my fastest trip of the year. On 4 separate occasions this morning I’d pull up to a stop light just as the dang thing turned green. Of course I’d braked to a near stop losing tons of momentum, only to have to crank it back up again. Had I made all those the lights (like I did Saturday morning) I might have shaved another minute off my time.
The downside of having a tail wind in the morning is that it’s a head wind in the evening. The other downside? There’s a greater than 60% chance of thundershowers this afternoon. At least my bike will get washed. Tonight’s big decision? Do I bike from work to spin or from work to home? I may head to spin, but if it rains and I get soaked I’ll just detour home. And? My right knee is getting cranky. Ever since Friday it’s felt tight – like it’s too full inside. Doesn’t hurt to bend it, hurts to kneel on it and hurts more to put a load on it. Oddly enough, biking doesn’t seem to hurt it. Walking is odd in that it takes me a couple strides to warm up. Heaven forbid if I have to put any lateral load on it, like make a quick turn. Then it gets all tweaky.
~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!
As it turns out, the ride to the Y was dry but windy. Was a little tight on time, but got to sit & pedal idly on the spin bike before class started. Never did stop sweating. Rain held off through class and let me get home dry too. Except for the sweat.
Bushed, rambling pointlessly. Ought to get to bed. Helluva good idea.
Seen on the web recently. Up until recently, it really seemed appropriate.
INSTALLING SPRING…
■■■■■■■■□□□□□□□□□□□□□□ 44% DONE. Install delayed…please wait.
Installation failed. Please try again. 404 error. Season not found. Season “Spring” cannot be located. The season you are looking for might have been removed, had its named changed, or is temporarily unavailable.
Please try again…
Ass? Meet Boot
Day 2461 .
This week has kicked my ass for no particular reason. I am SO gad that today is my Friday. We’re taking delivery of the tub for the bathroom project tomorrow. Truck will be here sometime between 10 and 2. I hope arrives on the early end of the time slot, then I can get out for a bike ride if the freakin rain ever stops. As it turns out, I could have ridden to work Wednesday, but plans for the evening squashed that. Weird, I know – golf got cancelled so you’d think the weather would suck for biking. Unfortunately, golf courses take days to dry out, roads take mere hours.
I should take the time to figure out why this week has seemed so strenuous. Good little inventory exercise. I am also doing one on what it is I fear about considering separating form Cindy. Not that I’m considering taking that step, but I need to understand just what about it gives me the willies.
Have a new plan of attack for the job search & acquire mission. Rather than solely rely on on-line job sites to churn out likely suspects, I am broadening my “willing to re-locate” zone to pretty much the eastern seaboard south of NY. I am listing cities within each state and looking up newspapers in those cities. I will then search through those cities classifieds for jobs with potential. My aim is to start churning out 5 – 7 applications a day.
Last but not least – Saturday is reckoned to by Judgment Day by a few religious organizations. So I’m just wondering – when I wake up on Sunday, just how do I determine if I’m in Heaven or Hell? If, as I suspect, I am in neither Heaven nor Hell come Sunday, how soon can I expect those religious zealots warning me about the coming end of days to shut the heck up?
Silly question, I know. If the religious zealots disappear, I’m in heaven. If they’re still on the street corner pimping the end of days, I’m in hell.
If it isn’t raining in an hour, I’m sneaking out early so I can ride to the Y for spin class. Yes – it makes total sense.
Mouth? Meet Foot.
Day 2459
Oh what a night. Someone around here recently wrote about sticking ones foot in ones mouth. I managed to pull off a gem Monday night that still has me shaking my head.
I was in spin class, sweating & grinding to what the instructor, Lori, generously calls music. I have my own internal gripes about her music selections. They include Lady Gagger, Pink Eye, Split Green Peas, Ludicrous, Snoopy Dog just to name a few. Thing is, Lori is 40-something, the vast majority of her class is 45+ (shut up) and she’s somehow thinking that the above artists are going to appeal to her demographic. I guess some feedback has trickled back to her because she’s added a few new to her tunes to the mix that don’t suck quite as hard. (One is horrible. A version of Janis Joplin’s “take a Little Piece” that had been remixed for a step aerobics class. I’m going to go to iTunes and buy her the real version and ask her to permanently erase that other abomination)
Here are some of my other grievances with her:
A – Her pedaling cadence never matches the song that’s playing.
B – She doesn’t actually DO the resistance changes she tells us to do and sometimes gets lost.
C – She uses a “4 zone” resistance system. 1 = no resistance. 2 = flat road 3 – medium or large hill (an improper reference itself – even a BIG hill can have a mild incline – it’s the incline angle that determines load) (Sorry for geeking out there) and 4 = all the resistance you can tolerate. She loves to bounce back and forth between 3 & 4 or 2 & 4.
D – She uses the term “full turn” but I’m not really sure how she’s defining that (see “B”)
E – She does standing sprints all the time. On a real bike? No one I know stays out of the saddle for very long on a sprint.
F – She does way too many out of the saddle exercises compared to out of the saddle time on a real bike.
G – We do this exercise called ‘Drills’. Pedal left leg only, pedal both, pedal right leg only, pedal both. Most instructors have us increase resistance after a full cycle. Keeps the left/right balance in tune. Lori increases basically at every comma, which produces an imbalance in leg conditioning. The right leg always operates at a higher load.
H – Her taste in music sucks.
And I still go every Monday evening. Why? Because the $^*&@#*< rain around here never $^*&@#*< stops and I can’t ride outside!
Still, Lori is a sweet gal, she means well and if I close my ears I can modify everything else she says so that it’s more like what the other instructors are doing. She even says “Do what you can, modify to suit your needs.” With that disclaimer A thru G pretty much go away.
Last night seemed particularly bad though. Might have been me. And keep in mind we’ve had cold, rainy weather something like 10 of the last 14 days. At the end of class we were doing our cool down and Lori was reminding us about future classes, etc. and she said “and next week Summer will be here” to which I loudly replied “Promise?”. Of course, 3.8 milliseconds after the words flew out of my mouth I realized she was referring not to the season, but to Summer, one of the substitute instructors that we all LOVE and would like to see get a permanent class. (Summer also plays a ton of music out of my wheelhouse, but she stays on rhythm and her tunes don’t suck out loud. They’re just new to me.)
When I heard a giggle or two from the class (3.9 milliseconds after the words left my mouth) I tried to back pedal and make it clear that I was referring to “Summer, the season” as opposed to the craptastic weather we’ve endured this spring. I also went up to Lori after class and apologized privately, but I think she hates me now. I may have to go to her Saturday morning class to try and kiss & make up. (No – not really kiss her. She’s not my type.) I was going to ride my 50 mile Batavia loop, but I might just have to incorporate the Y into it somehow.
Shit.
I Got the Muse in Me
Day 2454
I’m a day late and several dollars short, but I have to get this week Microfiction Muse in. Heck, Diane is even using one of my pictures! So, without further ado, I give you:
“Kid, we gotta get out of here. You see that wall of water coming down the river? Grab your dog and let’s go!”
It helps knowing that picture was taken on either Royal St. or Bourbon St. in the French Quarter of New Orleans. We’re trying to plan a trip back down there this October with one of my brothers, but it depend heavily on how things go down there with the current flooding situation and with how my whole job situation turns out.
Speaking of the job situation, I had a phone interview again last week. It turned out to be more of a coaching session with a recruiter looking to fill a position in a town 35-ish miles east of here. The position is for a job very similar to what I am doing now, just with different end products. The potential salary should be no worse than a lateral transfer and might include a little bump that would offset the additional commute costs. The 35 mile trip eliminates the possibility of biking to work though and it would also screw with bowling and golf. While those are priorities, I’d have to bite the bullet and make some changes.
I also applied for a biomed position at a hospital 4 miles east of where I work now. Don’t know the salary for that one, but I might be willing to take a little hit in pay to stay local. That application went in yesterday and I haven’t heard any feedback yet. Soon, I hope.
Lets see – biked to work Monday & got in a spin class. Biked in today and plan to do a spin class again tonight. If I count spin class as 20 miles, that’ll give me 2 40 mile days this week, plus what ever I can sneak in Saturday morning. Judging by the weather forecast, it might be spin class only. Maybe I’ll take Friday off again, bike in the morning and work on the bathroom in the afternoon. Hmmmm, I’m suddenly feeling a little sickly . . . .
I got a bit of an unsettling revelation last night, and it’s something I’ve suspected for a while. Cindy is hoping that I find a job in another city and we are forced to move. Seems that she’s looking at the potential move as a chance to start over in a place where we (she) has no history. Personally, it seems to me that she’s hoping to apply a geographic solution to a problem that is more internal in nature. A geographic solution won’t work if you take your problems, faults and/or issues with you. I don’t think moving for the sake of moving will solve anything. As a matter of fact, I think it will only serve to isolate us and force us to deal with the issues between us. Or not. Time will tell.
Sun? & Post Mom’s Day Wrap Up
Day 2447
Day 2450
I had the best intentions. The part up to “phone interview at 3pm” is from Friday. Everything after that is current-ish. It starts here:
Driving to work this morning I saw the oddest thing hanging in the sky. This thing made it difficult to see traffic lights when heading east, but the warmth radiating from it made me not mind the temporary blindness. I know I’ve seen this thing some time in the far distant past, seems like it was in a different country even. I’m sure that in moderate doses it will do no harm, but I fear I will have to buy something to protect my eyes. The mole people I am living with will just have to adapt to this new way of life.
Even if it’s only for a few days. Looks like we get a reprieve for 3 days, then it’s back to more rain for Monday & Tuesday. Golf got canceled again last night. The ground is just too soggy to even consider playing. That’s two weeks straight. Next Wednesday’s forecast is calling for sun, but that’s 7 days off. The forecast could change 14 times (at least) by then.
I goofed last night and took my PC home. I did make use of it in going through my job search emails and getting caught up there, but I now have to pay the price. I just am not comfortable with the thought of carrying my laptop on my bike. It’s pretty big as laptops go (17’ monitor), the laptop alone barely fits in my back pack leaving scant room for a change of clothes. I don’t have a cargo rack and wouldn’t trust a PC on one anyhow.
So taking my laptop home negates any possibility of riding my bike to work. With todays gorgeous weather, that’s just plain unfortunate. Forget the fact that it’s only 47 degrees at 9:30am – it isn’t raining!! I am down to 5 weeks to train for the Tour de Cure and my longest ride this year is a whopping 11 miles and less than 40 minutes long.
Combining my miserable, piss poor work attitude with a need to get some work done in that bathroom, another phone interview scheduled for Friday afternoon (!!!) and an urge to get some biking miles in, I am taking Friday off.
My workout plan is to ride to the gym tonight for a spin class. Friday morning, while it’s still chilly, I’ll go through my search engine results and get a minimum of 5 applications put in. Late Friday morning I would dearly love to head out for a 30 – 40 mile ride. That’s something I can do in under 3 hours and it will go a long ways towards establishing some sort of mileage base. After the ride I can putz around in the bathroom, maybe put in a wall or something, than I have this phone interview at 3pm
Up to current times now!
What went as I planned? Very little. Managed to ride to the gym for spin class. Friday was a bust. No bike ride. Cindy ended up taking the day off too because she has personal time to use up by July or she loses it. Personally, I think she just wants to keep an eye on me. I did get a wall put up in the bathroom Friday, and did that phone interview thing. That turned out to be a recruiter working for a local-ish company. It was more like a coaching session by the recruiter and less of an interview. The end result is that I owe the recruiter an edited resume and 3 references on Monday. And the feces hit the rotating blades on two projects here at work. I guess current job has to trump future job for now. After lunch.
Some other things that got accomplished this weekend include getting an old pluming vent moved. It did NOT go as I planned, and I ended up burning half a day and 45,812 brain cells until I came up with plan “D” that I am now semi-confident will work. I even have a picture of the plumbing to share:
You see, I had to move that one vent (hi-lited in green) because it was in the way of the future toilet drain. There’s only 7.5 inches of space to play in vertically and sadly, drains are constrained by the law of gravity. There is no way to just willy-nilly run them where you have space.
That other big white drain pipe that appears to be suspended in space is now gone too. Still have to get up on the roof and patch the hole, but the forecast is pretty good for the next few days. I’ll slap a shingle up there for now and do a formal patch this next weekend. Maybe.
Heard of a very distressing event over the weekend too. A bike rider was held up at gunpoint on a section of bike trail (Erie Canal Bike Trail) just south of where I enter the trail (northbound) when I ride to work. Two guys, one of whom was brandishing a 20 gauge shotgun (think bullet the diameter of a nickel, or worse – birdshot) held up a biker. The biker gave up what he had and high tailed it back to a main road & contacted a sheriff. The sheriff’s were able to track down the jerks who pulled off the hold up and arrested their stupid asses (and the rest of them too I assume).
I rode that northern section of canal path this morning and gave every pedestrian (only one this morning) a wide berth. A lot of people use that path – cyclists, walkers, roller bladers, people walking their dogs, guys out for a little man-on-man action too (kinda creepy, but at least they’re lovers not fighters). Now we have to worry about idiots trying to rob people at gunpoint? That’s the downside of having the path so close to the city I guess – it attracts the wrong elements for the same reason it attracts the legitimate users – privacy.
Oh well, I’m not going home that way tonight. I have to head for the Y and take in spin class. Or maybe I’ll skip Lori’s class (sucky music) and go for a 90 or 120 minute ride instead. Hmmmm – get a Payday bar & a bottle of Gatorade and hit the road. Tempting except for that damn backpack. Ah, well. Sucky music it is.
Later.
What Now?
Day 2544
First, todays big news: Osama Bin Laden is dead. Supposedly. I didn’t stay up late enough to catch the Presidents speech last night and bailing out of this mornings bike commute (again) cost me what little news time I get in the morning.
So Bin Laden is gone, buried at sea in an attempt to follow Islamic custom and bury the body as soon as possible. Nice. No evidence. DNA verification inside of 20 minutes? That proves exactly what to whom? I’ve yet to see pictures of him with bullet holes in his head.
Even if we DID finally get him after 10 years, what now? The Taliban has already signed up to avenge his death, surely others in his organization will step up, what about the possibility of dozens of sleeper cells being planted with instructions on what to do in case of this very circumstance?
I don’t know. I can’t see how killing Bin Laden has really solved anything. All those millions of dollars spent trying to find him and not one of the people he is responsible for killing has been brought back to life. Granted, he will kill no more, but his minion will. Glad I don’t live in a big city with lots of targets.
Friday’s bike ride home was a bit of a disaster. I got out of work, early, with the intention of taking the long way home and getting in a 20 – 24 miler. That plan got changed when I got out to my bike and found the rear tire flat as a pancake. In and of itself, this is no big deal. I have the tools & skills to repair a flat. But this is the 5th flat I’ve had on this particular rear tire in about 1,000 miles of riding. Ridiculous.
I flipped my bike over to its back side, took the rear wheel off, got out my tire tools and pried one side of the tire off the rim. As I was rotating the wheel freeing up the tire, I picked 3 pieces of rock chips out of the ‘tread’ of the tire. (‘tread’ because I ride tires that are slicks pretty much.) Each of these chips worked through the tire itself and had an edge poking through into the tube area. 3 pieces of freaking stone!!! Worse, I saw ALL the evidence of prior cuts, some large enough to make me wonder hoe the tube wasn’t poking out through the tire tread.
Long story short, it was an hour before I could actually start the ride home. Add in some sprinkles, drizzle and a nasty head wind and I was content with getting in just 11 miles. (Not really, but I have to make some headway in that bathroom project).
Saturday morning I snuck in a freezing ride to the Y (380), got in a spin class and a very slightly warmer ride home. In the afternoon I managed to get one wall of the bathroom squared up, moved a heating vent that was in the way of a new wall, and got all the prep work in for securing that new wall. This week I’ll putz around with that wall then hopefully net week I can get the plumbing vent moved and get the drain plumbing situated.
No real update on Lefty’s condition. Learned some new words though. “Idiopathic Interstitial Lung Disease” is the doctors way of saying “you have a disease in your lungs and only your lungs that is of unknown origin and we don’t know wtf to do about it yet”. A more invasive biopsy is scheduled for Thursday that will actually involve a 2 or 3 day hospital stay. The niece that we helped move 2 weeks ago? That’s his daughter and he’ll be in the hospital for her birthday. That sucks. So we’re going to take the niece, SIL and other brother & SIL out to dinner to help forget that shit for a bit, then go back & invade the hospital and try to make Lefty feel less bad about having to be there.
Yeah, that’ll work. Hopefully he’ll be on enough pain meds he’ll sleep through the visit. Even after the biopsy it’ll be a minimum of 5 days before any results are in. Why can’t this be an episode of “House” so we can have 5 doctors dedicated to figuring out what this weird shit is?
I Forgot How
Day 2441
To bowl, that is. I forgot how to bowl. The score I turned in for the work bowling tournament was the worst score I’ve thrown in 4 or 5 years. The good news is, everybody struggled. The guy that organizes the tournament asked the bowling center to put down the oil pattern that was used for the USBC Open Championship. That’s one of the majors for the pros. I have a new fond respect for just how good those guys are. The margin for error on that kind of oil is near zero. If anyone bowls and wants a description of the pattern, ask. Otherwise I’ll spare y’all the geeky details.
In a totally unexpected turn of events, the defending champion team of the tournament (The Spin Doctors – my own team no less) actually came in 1st place again this year. (What I said about everybody struggling was true!!). For our efforts, we each won $25. I also scored a door prize – a gift card for Olive Garden that would cover a nice lunch. Not bad for investing $15 in the tournament entry fee. Too bad it’s my last one.
Rode the ol’ two wheeler into work this morning. (Yes, I’m taking slight advantage of my shitty attitude and sneaking in an update. What are they gonna do, fire me? Oh, wait. They did.) It was a little cool (42) so I opted for the long spandex pants rather than shorts. Looked like the bass player for Def Leppard I think. And no, there will be no incriminating evidence pictures posted of that scary sight. You’re welcome.
Never the less, it was a nice ride. This afternoon I may try out a free app I downloaded for my crackberry. It ties in with MapMyRide and records your route for you, even tracking elevation changes. Too bad it’s so flat around here. No real challenge for the GPS elevation tracker, or the biker. I’m slipping out of work early today and I have a nice route mapped out for the trip home – around 16.2 miles. Leaving here at noon(ish) I ought to get home before the rain starts.
Then I can spend the afternoon working on the bathroom, prepping for tomorrow’s big day. I need to move the main plumbing vent line so I can get one of the shower walls built. The vent needs to be IN the wall, but it involves cutting a hole in the roof, juggling some drain lines and patching the existing vent opening. Simple stuff, but needs coordination and NO RAIN!!!!
Speaking of rain, we’ve set a record for our area for rain in the month of April. We’re up over 6” now. That’s about twice the monthly average and nearly an inch over the old record. I realize that some places get WAY more rain than that on a regular basis, but here, we’re only used to 3” or so a month. Our ground just can’t hold or drain off that much water.
I do have an alternate excuse for bowling so poorly yesterday. As we were getting started, I get a text message with an attachment. Because the bowling center was actually in the basement of a plaza, the cell signal was kinda weak and I couldn’t download the attachment right away. I spent quite a while trying, then finally during the second game I was able to download this:
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Grand-peanut's first photo-op!
THAT is the first grandkids first photo op. I’m told the thing projecting upwards towards the left edge of the image is the umbilical cord, NOT an indicator of gender. Which is just as well really as the kids do not want to know gender ahead of time. You know – prolong the suspense and be surprised, just like in the old days!
Besides, It appears that on my Dad’s side of the family, about 75% of the time a couples first born child is a boy. Like my uncle, like me, like skiddy-eight zillion cousins. Ok – maybe 9 of 13. Yeah, I have 14 pairs of aunts & uncles on my dad’s side. One aunt had no kids, of the rest, I think the first born was a male in 9 of 13 opportunities. (Mark, me, Mike, Gerry, Paul, Bill, Peter, Eric, Donny, ummmm, oh yeah – aunt Peg had no kids either. So it’s 8 of 12 (and I make 9 of 13).
Now. I’m the oldest of my generation. Zach is the oldest of his generation. I’m giving it 3 to 1 odds that this kiddo will be a boy. Cindy? After having two boys of her own, and me coming from a family of all boys, she’s hoping for a girl sooooo hard, she’s going to be crushed when Jill pops out a boy.
Truthfully? I’ll be thrilled either way. It’ll be more of a challenge teaching a girl how to throw properly, but I’ll get her there. As long as I survive the tea parties & playing with dolls.
It’s the END!!!
Day 2440 It’s the End of the World as We Know It
Just for fun:
(click \/ to go to end of world)
End of the World Notification Service
http://www.rowdydow.co.uk/eotw/
“Your alert will tell you when the world will end and who has prophesied it, giving you time to find shelter in a network of caves or say goodbye to your loved ones.”
(Unashamedly stolen from The Whoa. Dude posts some neat images. Warning – not always 100% safe for work, but not porno by any means.
Get to go bowling today. Probably the last time before the end of the world. We’re having a tournament for work. My team, “The Spin Doctors” is the defending champs. It’s a win, win, win situation. Get out of work early, get in a little exercise, get in some socializing with the work folks in a normal human being situation AND!!!! This bowling alley has <a href=”http://www.saranac.com/page/black-forest#>Saranac Black Forest Beer</a>. Yum.
Taking a half day tomorrow and I WILL RIDE MY BIKE to work and back. Maybe I’ll take the long way back. Saturday I am getting in a 35 miler, no matter the temps.
But I also intend to get in 4 – 6 hours of work on the bathroom Friday and another 8 or so on Saturday. Sunday we’re off to Syracuse to help Eric move into his new apartment.
Oh – and today @ 4pm (ssshhhhh, it’s a seekrit) Zach & Jill have an appointment with the Ob/Gyn ultrasound where they will hopefully hear their little eggs heartbeat. When that happens, we can officially announce that we are 6 months shy of being grandparents.
Exciting to be sure, but why do I suddenly feel old?
The Doorway from Hell
Day 2437
It’s not like this doorway was a portal to Dante’s 3rd level or anything, but it was easily the most difficult and trying door installation I have ever done. It was also the smallest and lightest door unit I’ve installed in quite some time.
In the new master bath I’m doing, I had the bright idea of knocking the corner off the room and putting the doorway into the bath the 45O wall. Genius move. Eased the corner, made the bedroom appear larger and didn’t cost much in the bath area space wise.
I figured out how to frame the funky 135O corners and had the layout down to the point where I even knew <i>where</i> the walls & corners had to go. I got the old closet wall tore out & new wall put in Friday, built the beveled wall with the door frame and put that in Saturday. Had to do some long mitered rips on 2×4’s in order to create studs to have something to attach drywall to. Those cuts were tough. My table saw doesn’t have that large a table and holding 8’ long pieces of wood straight, level & square AND guiding it into the saw? Quite a challenge.
Anyhow. Got the wall in, hauled the door & frame upstairs and did a rough check for fit. Things seemed big enough, there would be shimming required but that’s pretty normal for doors.
Sunday morning I started to putz with the door some more. I think the wood in the door frame warped & twisted overnight. There was no way I could get the door to fit plumb & square. I ended up ripping the hinge side of the frame apart and re-built it with old wood. I used old wood with the expectation that it was done drying out and what ever warp/twist/wane was in it would stay. Even after re-squaring the frame, it took about 1.5 hours to finally get the door set in place. It could be that trying to watch the Sabre’s game and installing a door simultaneously was a bad choice in multitasking chores. I’m happy to say that my door turned out better than the Sabre’s efforts though.
Now with that door in, I can drywall the complete exterior of the bath and hopefully contain the worst of the mess. Next up is building the interior walls and getting the electric run.
No real news on the job front. Head from a head hunter down in Harrisburg, sent him some vitals. Also sent a thank you note to the interviewer from that Pittsburgh job. I am trying to compile of reasonable questions I might ask him, just to be sure my name stays on his radar screen. I think that’s a job I’d really, really enjoy. Hate to lose out on it.
Next weekend we get to head to Syracuse & help Eric move. With the wedding not too far off and his lease up for renewal, he & Kelly decided to get a bigger apartment. They’ll be moving into a 2 bedroom unit – IN THE SAME BUILDING AS HIS CURRENT APARTMENT. This <i>could</i> be the best move ever! We have to move him from the third floor down to the first. The bad part? No work gets done on the bathroom next Sunday and meetings prevent me from taking the day off Friday. Maybe take ½ a day? Decisions, decisions.
Oh! Here’s a shot of what the bathroom plans look like:
The latest Grand Design.
(Click to embiggen!)
This doesn’t show the existing windows. One is entered on the south (bottom) wall, one is in the lower end of the west (left) wall and a third is on the top end of the west wall. Combined with the dual windows on the south wall in the bathroom, we have really nice air flow & light.
One way or another, this may be my last big project. If we end up staying here, the inside of the house is done. All that needs doing is the roof. If we move, we’re buying new and getting it done how we want. I’ve look at existing stuff on the market in a few areas. For the most part, it’s kind of depressing to think about all the work that would have to be done to get any of them re-configured to how we like. At the tender age of 52, I’m kind of done with that shit. I just want to go ride my bike. Yes, I am channeling that Queen album right now.
Gotta go mourn my USB hub design. Too *#^$ slow. Back to the drawing board.
Where Does your Peanut Butter Come From?
Day 2434
I’ll get to the title in a day (or paragraph) or two. First, there are several items of note to cover.
First – my brother Lefty has been feeling rather ill of late. For the last 8 – 10 weeks he’s mentioned that he really has trouble breathing. He can go through the mechanics of breathing ok, it’s just that nothing seems to happen. Even a mild exertion (like bowling) tired him out more than it should (hence his struggle at bowling the last 2 months of the season)
He has been in to see his GP doc and has gotten referrals to a couple of different specialists. They’ve done CAT scans, MRI, x-rays, blood tests, pulmonary function tests, blood oxygen tests, pretty much anything they could think of. X-rays and CAT scans showed “ground glass opacities” in his lungs, but only in the lower ¾ of his lungs. The very tops were clear. Mechanically, his lungs are fine. A prednisone inhaler helps, but surely isn’t the cure.
He had a bronchoscopy Tuesday. It’s apparently worse than having a colonoscopy. I can’t say for sure as I’ve never had the broncho-dealie and they knocked my ass out for the colon-dealie. Anyhow – They’ve ruled out all the big stuff. No cancer, no Lupus, MS, Emphysema, TB – none of that stuff. They sucked out a pile of goop while they were in there so they could run some cultures and hopefully find out what’s in there besides air & lungs. The docs all keep asking him if he’s been around birds. Apparently there’s this oddball fungal infection you can get from bird droppings. But Lefty doesn’t even have a dog or cat, much less a pet bird. And in the north east, in the wintertime you don’t hang out with birds in the great outdoors.
So. He should hear today on the great creeping crud mystery and maybe get a plan of action for knocking that stuff out.
At least I hope so. Cuz last week, when his daughter moved into her new-to-her house? He wasn’t able to help much. He had a pulse oximeter with him that he was using to track his O2 saturation level. If he was sitting on a couch, he was ok but not great. O2 would be around 94 with a pulse in the 80’s. He would get up, walk out the kitchen with a box and come back. When he checked his numbers again, his O2 would be in the 80’s and his pulse would jump up into the 90’s. Because he moved one box about 20 feet. For a comparison, at one point I sat on the couch with him & we shot the breeze for a few minutes. He checked his numbers and was at 94/88 (O2/pulse). After maybe 3 minutes of sitting after moving a mattress & box spring upstairs I was at 98/66. That’s how plugged up Lefty’s lungs are. He’s never smoked, is in decent shape and occasionally sits in on a spin class. But this goo in his lungs is really hammering him.
Enough about Lefty – this IS my blog after all. So we got Lefty’s daughter moved in. Felt great to be able to help out. She’s got herself a nice place just outside Buffalo and she’d done a super job negotiating the price. She basically talked the owners down about 20% from their initial asking price by waiting them out and having the place inspected & negotiating for repairs. Savvy girl. Might have her negotiate for me next time.
Job search is chugging along. Couple nibbles from head hunters, but everything is in Pennsylvania. Harrisburg seems to be the next hot spot. I touched base with the job in Pittsburg again this week. Sent the interviewer a thank you note for doing the phone interview and reiterated my interest in that position. Just hoping to make the short list there and get called in for a face to face.
Weather up here has been terrible. Finally got out on the bike last night just to ride to & from a spin class. Crazy stuff – 45 degrees and a 18mph head wind on the way to the Y. Talk about wind chill! Unfortunately, that’s as good as it’s been lately. At least it was dry. Trip home was nice though – 42 degrees and a 15mph tail wind. Actually made the trip home 1.5 minutes faster, even after a brutal uphill sprint spin class. The instructor, Maria? Freakin sadist. We all love her class though so we must be masochists, eh?
Cindy is off grocery shopping, so I’m stealing a few minutes to check on job searches and get this blurb up. Better go get cracking on that bathroom!
Oh – about the title. Found this pic the other day. Makes me re-think my love for peanut butter:
How can I love peanut butter after seeing this?
Post Mortem
Day 2427
Please excuse the gruesome title. I’m only referring to a brief description of the Pittsburgh job interview after-party.
I thought the interview went well. I had prepared a few notes for myself on things to avoid (sarcasm, one-liners, filers like ‘uh’, ‘ah’, ‘umm’), questions I wanted to ask and answers to questions I thought the interviewer might ask. I am happy to say I was surprised by nothing, thught I built up a good rapport with the interviewer (but that may be in HIS skill set too).
The job is to repair and maintain radiation oncology equipment at 19 different sites in and around Pittsburgh (henceforth and forever more known as Pbrg). Initially the job would start out on day shift while the newbie goes through OJT and formal training in the manufacturer’s class room. (A week in Vegas to learn all about Varian detectors!! I just have to avoid showing up on an episode of CSI!! Training on FUJI generators? A week in California? Such a shame!)
One good thing was that UPMC realizes that they’d have to train anyone they hired – this is a VERY specialized job. The better part is that I already have a pretty thorough understanding of a lot of the equipment. I don’t know it to the point where I could repair it, yet, but I have a leg up on much of the competition.
The interviewer left me with the impression that I was a strong contender to be invited down to Pbrg for a secondary interview and some site visits.
The job title is Radiology Engineer, but the minimum education requirements were only an AAS degree. It just so happens that my AAS is in Biomedical Engineering and I have 20+ years experience with X-ray film processors (Lotsa A/C power to deal with) medical laser printers and film-less scanners & detectors. While UPMC does not use much, if any, gear from my present employer (I silently did NOT shed a tear over that) I’m hoping that my background is extensive enough to sway the decision my way.
And? They offer relocation assistance. Even if they just paid for the movers, that would be a huge help.
I’m a little regretful that this Pbrg job was the first to show any real potential. I kind of wish that some spots here in Rottenchester would have popped up first so I’d at least have a basis for comparison. Because frankly? Besides being extremely excited by the possibility of starting a new career in a new city, I’m also scared shitless. I know NOBODY in Pbrg. Well, except the interviewer and good ol’ Mom-on-Roof (who is over due for a “WTF you doing girl?” email) and she’s not even “in” Pbrg.
That’s all the awfulizing (tm – Roxie) I’m going to do on that subject. Interview went well, prospects look good, moving is a scary thought.
What didn’t go well yesterday? Rode the ol’ bike in to work. Felt slow & sluggish. Rode to the 5:15 spin class at the Y. Took a new route that carved nearly a half mile off the ride and it use much more scenic roads. Spin class went well enough. Ended up sitting next to a guy that, well, we’re sort of nodding acquaintances, having seen each other in spin many times. It was good to sit next to a guy that was at a similar fitness level. We seemed to be fairly well matched and managed to push each other a bit. I think. Maybe he was just being nice and let me think I could keep up with him. Then there was the ride home. Funny how you never notice a tail wind but you’re ALWAYS aware of a head wind.
The last thing in the not going well department would be Cindy’s condition during and after the interview. She kept quiet and out of the way during the interview itself, (in the hot tub), but had been drinking before, during and after. She was asking questions, trying to ascertain how the interview went. Unfortunately, she was (more than) drunk enough that she really only asked the same 3 questions over and over, maybe hoping that I’d change my answer. When I started responding “asked & answered, next question” she finally gave up.
After getting in 20+ miles of biking and another hour of spinning, my legs are appropriately whipped today. What’s on tap for tomorrow? My niece is moving in to her new-to-her house. We have to be at her place outside of Buffalo at 9am for the moving festivities. There’s a 90% chance of an all day soaker in the rain category. I can’t wait. I need to find all the clean tarps & plastic sheeting I can tonight.
Oh – “we” would be the moving crew. It includes her dad (lefty) and both NY based uncles (basically our bowling team), our spouses and hopefully what ever young, strong beefy male friends Lizzie can dig up. This is the ONE TIME I hope she has tons of male friends. Any other time, I might have to kick their collective asses.
Time to go rest up!
A meme is worth One Word
Day 2426
One Word answers ONLY……
1) Where is your cell phone? pocket (It’s on vibrate. CALL ME!!!)
2) Your hair? thinning
3) Your mother? Jehovah
4) Your father? missed
5) Your favorite thing? competition
6) Your dream last night? moving
7) Your favorite drink? Milk (or porter)
8) Your dream / goal? happiness
9) What room are you in? cubicle
10) Your hobby? biking
11) Your biggest fear? failure
12)Where were you last night? YMCA
13) Something that you’re not? Type A
14) Muffins? cornbread
15) Wish list item? job
16) Last thing you did? lunch
17) What are you wearing? polo
18) Friends? real
19) Your mood? frazzled
20) Drinking? Milk
21) Your car? truck
22) Something you’re not wearing? spandex
23) Your favorite home goods store? HD
24) Your Favorite Color? Auburn
25) Your favorite place to eat? home
26) Favorite place I would like to be right now? Nawlins
Man, some of those feel like they need explaining, like #3. My mom is a Jehovah’s Witness, not that she IS Jehovah. Cuz that would make me Jesus or something and we know THAT isn’t true!! Considering my strong agnosticism, her being in that cult of Jehoovers Witlesses can create some interesting situations.
#1 – seriously? I’ll pass out my number only if you PROMISE to not be a stalker.
#2 – hair – could have been graying, thinning, too damn long,
#10 – I only mentioned biking because I biked in to work this morning. 8.23 miles in 27:28. I had to dismount and move parts of a downed poplar tree off the canal path at one point. Does that make me a logger too?
#15 – Yeah, I’m wishing for a job. I have a phone interview tonight for a position as a Radiology Engineer in Pittsburgh, another one tomorrow for an SMT Manufacturing Engineer position in Harrisburg and a real live in person interview next week in a town about an hour away for another Manuf. Engr. position. Wish something closer would turn up. Maybe it will after I get all my practice interviews in.
#20 – Had milk for lunch. A nice glass of cold, cold, cold skim milk is my preferred drink at almost every meal. And I’m STILL deficient in vitamin D, even with drinking nearly 2 gallons of milk a week.
#22 – Check me out around 4:30 though. I’ll be sporting a lovely pair of spandex biking pants. They make my thighs look muscular. No – I’m not going to post a picture. But on 38 degree mornings they make a huge difference in comfort – like my quads don’t have hypothermia.
#25 – Eating at home is economical, cooking is somewhat of a hobby and oftentimes what is cooked at home is better nutritionally than a lot of restaurant fare. (Sodium & saturated fats – I’m looking at you!)
This phone interview tonight is going to be interesting. It’s going to be a test of wills too. Cindy is anxious about it and wants to do nothing but talk about it. I’m anxious about it and want to have no part in talking about it anymore. Cindy & I did talk about it, discussed potential questions, potential answers, potential concerns. I talked about it with Janine too covering much the same ground. Now, I want to retreat and review things in my head. Quietly. I will be glad to listen to new material, but I detest hashing the same shit over and over. Cindy loves to go over the same ground repeatedly. After the 85 repetition I’ll finally change my answer to see if she’s paying attention. Often? She’s not.
What else? Hmmph. Not much I guess. Might as well get back to this job I’m learning to dislike.
The Best Planned Lays . . .
Day 2425 The Best Planned Lays . . .
But first, Micro-fiction Muse #2, hosted & carried on by Diane (Trouble maker!!)
The inspiration:
No body treated his friends that way and got away with it. There was hell to be paid and the scum that hurt her was about to settle up.
Now go read this guys REAL story here. I’ll wait.
Amazing story, wasn’t it? What? You didn’t go read it? Do it. Now. It’s brief. Go. I’ll wait.
Now. Abut that title. That’s “best laid plans” you say? Ever hear of the Reverend Spooner? He was an actual preacher that had the unfortunate habit of randomly swapping the first syllables of words. Perhaps it was an early undiagnosed form of dyslexia. Anyhow, these little mixed up phrases came to be called “Spoonerisms. So you see, the ‘planned lays’ and ‘laid plans’ swap is an old literary tool used since at least the 1800’s. Even Grandpa on the old Hee Haw show used to use them. (Boy, is that dating me or what? Call BR-549)
Anyhow.
I had planned to ride my bike in to work today (Wednesday). Yesterday morning those plans got changed. I need to be in beautiful downtown Rochester this afternoon at 4pm to wrap up the paperwork for Bob’s estate. A whole year & 2 months after he passed away, we finally get his estate settled. I dragged my feet on some of it, the lawyers were tied up on other matters for some of it, but it all gets wrapped up this week.
And? Considering my pending job status, the question of whether or not I should take my commission has been answered. After taxes, this commission will buy me several things. A few months buffer on unemployment, moving expenses, or a new roof if I land a job here in town and we end up not moving. And that’s just my commission.
I have to admit, the prospect of moving anywhere, Pennsylvania, Florida, Texas – where ever – is both exciting and dreadful. What upsets me most is the thought of having to give up the house & property I’ve put so much of myself into the past 18 years. It really makes me wonder about why we put so much time & effort and money into changing a place, knowing that it’s all temporary. Is it really that important?
Gotta get back on track here. So. Riding plans derailed by a lawyer’s appointment. Missing out on the riding sucks. Missing out on riding in the rain sucks a whole lot less. While I would have been pedaling this morning it poured. 48 degrees and pouring down rain is NOT conducive to good health for the rider or his bike. So I ought to thank the lawyer for talking me in off my bike today. But tomorrow? Fair game baby – time to ride.
I’m trying to get that phone interview for the Pittsburgh job set up for tonight or tomorrow night. Still haven’t heard back from the interviewer yet. I hesitate to call him lest he try to start the interview on the spot. I could wriggle out of it, but how would that look? I can easily see that EVERYTHING is a test in this situation. Hmmm. Maybe I SHOULD call anyhow? Tonight, after work, but before my declared ‘free time’. When I’m on the road maybe – I can even call legally by New York standards and show how well I wedge things into my schedule.
I need to steer my 1 on 1 sessions with Janine in a different direction. We’ve been focused on the job search lately. That’s been a worthwhile endeavor, but it isn’t servicing our primary aim – fixing the relationship. That is becoming increasingly complicated. There are at least 3 possible outcomes and an unlimited number of paths with which to get to these places. I’ve made the conscious decision to only act on what I know right now. There are soooo many ‘what if’s’ hanging out there that I could awfulize on them forever. But I am choosing to behave according to what I know to be true. I AM keeping an eye toward the future and what may be, but I’m not going to stop doing something now ‘in case we have to move’ 6 months from now. That will lead to paralysis.
How is it I can’t stay on track today? Need to steer counseling sessions back to relationship repair. Case in point – last nights continuation of the Tuesday night drunk. It’s up to 5 or 6 weeks running now. We do counseling Tuesday night. Cindy is done at 6 regardless and heads home. Depending on if we are in a doubles or singles session, at 6 I am either just arriving for my 1 on 1, or I might be leaving after a double, but in either case I have Al Anon in the next town over at 8pm. I look at that as my one night to have Chinese for dinner, so I go and enjoy myself.
Oops – gotta go run off to the lawyers and get this estate settled.
It’s Time!
Day 2420
Jay, one of the front desk people at the Westside YMCA, has been bugging me lately. For about the last month every time he scans me in he looks me up & down and comments “No helmet yet?” which is a not very subtle way of asking “Hey you nut case, aren’t you riding outdoors yet?”
Jay is really impressed by my penchant for riding my bike to the Y just to take a spin class. I’m sure he thinks it involves a certain kind of ‘commitment’ (as in committed to the nut house) to want to do something so silly. Jay clearly does not ride.
I look at it as a nice way to extend and enhance my exercise time. Riding outdoors somehow uses different muscles than spin class does. Try both, then pay attention to how much more your glutes hurt after a nice hour long outdoor ride. Often, the soreness one feels in the glutes has nothing to do with the saddle and everything to do with those muscles complaining about being used so harshly. You just have to get out and ride to toughen up your ass, that’s all.
So. In an effort to become a hard ass, I think I might actually get to put in a few miles outdoors this weekend. I have grand plans to ride my trusty steed to the 7:15am spin class Saturday. That’s a 4.2 mile ride, slightly up hill, usually into what little breeze there is in the morning) followed by around 75 minutes pedaling hard to get no where. After class, I think I might take the long way home and see if I can sneak in an extra 6 miles to make it a 10 mile trip home.
Monday and Tuesday look rainy, so no riding to work. Wednesday & Thursday look pretty nice. Cool-ish in the morning, but if one pedals hard enough, heat generation isn’t an issue. Even at 39 degrees, shorts will be fine, but gloves will be necessary for the hands.
Here’s the forecast thus far:
4/8 to 4/15 weather forecast for Rottenchester
Some of that looks pretty survivable. Regardless, I need to start packing on some serious miles if I’m going to be ready for doing 100 miles for the Tour de Cure June 12. That’s 10 Sundays to build up to 100 miles. If I count spin class as 18 miles (my average outdoor speed on moderate outdoor terrain is 18mph), I think I’m good for 30 right now just falling out of bed.
Then there’s this:
| Week Ending | Long Ride | Commuter Miles |
|---|---|---|
| 4/10/11 | 30 | 8 |
| 4/17/11 | 35 | 32 |
| 4/24/11 | 40 | 32 |
| 5/1/11 | 46 | 32 |
| 5/8/11 | 52 | 32 |
| 5/15/11 | 60 | 32 |
| 5/22/11 | 69 | 32 |
| 5/29/11 | 80 | 32 |
| 6/5/11 | 92 | 32 |
| 6/12/11 TdC!! | 101 | 32 |
| Totals | 605 | 296 |
Roughly translated, starting this week with one long ride of 30 miles, if I increase by 15% a week I’ll be ready for 100 by 6/12. Additionally, I ought to be able to add in 32 miles of commuting a week (2 days round trip to work) so by the time the TdC is done I should have a minimum of 901 miles racked up towards my (newly stated) goal of 1500 miles this riding season. Now I have to learn how to do a table thingy in the side bar to track progress.
Of course, job status, job hunting and job location will play a part in all of this. I got a nibble on a Biomed job in the Tampa/St. Pete area. That nibble has led to a new slew of applications being sent in for similar jobs in the area. The thought of going to Florida is kind of exciting. Year round biking & golf, gobs of sun, new plants to learn about & grow, beach time every weekend if we like.
But.
None of it is real yet. Neither is heading to Pittsburgh, Cincinnati or Philadelphia. Sadly, Portland & Seattle are out of the running – too far from the family. But Tampa? I think we’d manage to see the kids two or three times a year. Sad, but possibly necessary. We’ll see.
Cindy is all about changing schedules & priorities NOW just in case we have to move next week. In our last counseling session when she suggested I do something ‘just in case we have to move’. I explained to her that I will do everything I can towards the job search, I’ll get the bathroom remodel done as quickly as reasonably possible, but I’m still taking the time to get in my TdC training and golfing once a week. I’m not going to turn my world on its ear for something that might happen. If you do that and nothing DOES happen, you wasted a lot of time & effort. I don’t think she buys it. She’s going to nip & nag & apply pressure to get what she wants. She’ll get pissed because I’m resisting, I’ll get pissed because she won’t let up. This will be a perfect opportunity for us each to learn a lot. I hope we’re both receptive to the lessons we’re about to receive.
Hey – I might get to sneak in a rode tonight too!! High of 52, 10% chance of rain – I see a 20 miler coming. There’s a bridge over Black Creek that’s exactly 10 miles from . . . . awwww shit. I need to stop by the bike shop and get chain lube, a new tire and a tube patching kit, then I have to swing by Beers of the World and get a bottling bucket. My batch of Edmund Fitzgerald clone brew is ready to bottle and I need a second bucket. Dang. Oh well.
