My geek shirt arrived yesterday! I was just beginning to wonder where it was too. I’ve been reading Daring Fireball even though I am just a Mac user wannabe (in some ways). Still when I saw the new shirt design, I really wanted one. It only means something to other geeks, but tonight someone else recognized the shirt for what it is.
Sox and I have juggled our daycare drop offs for Sprout to allow me to ride every day. For this week only, while I ride, Sox drives to daycare and does the drop off. She then grabs her bike that was conveniently stashed there on the weekend, and rides to work, so that she can get in her Bike to Work Week ride. Very ingenious of us. It just takes longer to get to work for Sox.
Thanks babe. I appreciate your help in this. The ride this morning was quite pleasant too. Warm weather has descended on Victoria making riding in shorts the standard.
A couple of my teammates also had to bail (for other reasons), and they were part of the reason I signed up in the first place. Without them I would have been racing with a bunch of relative strangers, and that is not why I signed up.
I have other vacation plans around the race timeframe, so by not going I can free up more time for camping.
Lastly, by not going I will save probably close to $500 for travel, camping, and racing expenses.
I feel crappy for bailing, but in my heart I know I wasn’t committed to doing the race. I did get out for rides recently though, and that is a good thing.
Lots has happened in the last couple weeks.
The truck was in for regular maintenance, and to check out a couple noises. One noise cost $800 to repair. The catalytic converter was shot. I had decided to try out Victoria Car Clinic too. As a first experience I was less than thrilled since they didn’t remember I dropped off the truck in the morning, and when I called to see if it would be ready, they panicked and I ended up leaving it with them for another day.
I upgraded this site to the latest Drupal release. Very cool. I worked on the theme today to get it more to my liking.
I’ve ridden to work a few times.
Last weekend some good friends of ours got married. It was a very, very fun wedding, and it also marked the first time I have been hired as a photographer. It was fun being the wedding photog, but I don’t think I want to do that full time.
I also finished with my probation period at my new company. I am now a fully fledged Kodak employee!
Life. Nutshell. That’s it.
I wore my new leg armour that I ordered after Christmas and that just arrived recently. I got some Troy Lee Designs Combat Guards, and they are so much better than my older TLD leg armour.
It was a bit of a quick burn on the trails, yet it was still a blast. I still have my technical edge, and my fitness is pretty good, so I had quite a bit of confidence on the ride. I did a couple rock faces, and a few small jumps along the way. The sun on my back felt great too.
We saw Spidey 3, and I enjoyed it. Action flick, good effects, characters that I am somewhat familiar with. Downsides were tackyness (gratuitous american flag), bad casting choice with Topher Grace, and overall cheesiness.
As we were leaving I realized my leg was stuck to my seat. Someone before me had stuck their gum to the bottom of the seat, and my jeans stuck to it. I was pretty angry and disgusted with that. Now I have to figure out how to get gum off my pants.
I unboxed them at work, set them up, and plugged them in. It all went bad when I plugged in the headphones. There was a lot of background static that was loud when the volume was turned down. I was pretty unhappy since the speakers were unusable.
The following weekend I was in London Drugs and saw the same speakers for $10 cheaper. I tested out a set there since I had brought along some headphones, and those had the same problem. I guess it was indicative of the design. Instead I bought a Creative Labs set. These sound awesome with or without headphones, so I am once again a happy camper.
Something I did like about Logitech ones though was that it didn’t have a power brick to plug in. Something else that was well done was the packaging. They wrapped plastic around the plug ends, and taped it closed, but the tape was dog eared so it was very easy to get off. The Creative Labs packaging wasn’t nearly as easy to unravel.
I whipped out the tools and set to changing the tube. While doing this I was passed by at least six cyclists, none of whom asked if I was OK or had everything. Most roadies and mountain bikers I know do this for one another. It is called karma. I have helped people patch tubes, wrench on their bike, and have given up tubes to others in need. Road rides I have done I have ensured other cyclists were taken care of. Here I was though, and nobody said a thing. Weird.
As I was about to put the new tube back in the tire I suddenly had an inkling that I should check the tire for debris. Sure enough I found a 1/3 inch long shard of glass poking though the tire. With that removed I got the tire remounted and inflated with my CO2 filler. It wasn’t a fast replacement, but it was effective.
Last night the wind kicked up before I could ride home so Sox picked me up, and today I rode home instead. No major ride here, but at least I know I can ride 7 km at a brisk pace with no problems. 🙂 Canmore here I come! (maybe)
