Weekend plans and being all growed up.

I fail at friendship sometimes. Friends ask to get together, I agree, then sometimes don't make it. Case in point: Peter was in town from Texas. He drove here in 1 day. He probably almost died several times. We did hang out on Saturday and that was fun. He wanted to get together again during the week. I had some fiascoes and then money issues, both tied together, so I didn't make it happen. Probably the worst part is that I didn't let Peter know what was going on. I just flaked out. I don't really have a good excuse other than being all weirded out that the wife and I got a newish car.

Our 16 year old Honda Civic was rusting (not a big deal) had 175k miles on it (not that big of a deal, except...) and had one too many upcoming mechanical issues. It still ran great, got upper 20's mpg, but the tires kept going flat, an eminent $800 repair was coming, and getting around in the snow was ridiculous. So over last weekend we found a decently priced, mid-mileage Honda CR-V. I've heard great things about this small SUV and so far we've been really happy. The fiasco part was that the battery died 2 days after we got it. But Superior Honda, the place we purchased it from, did right by us and took care of it. They also took the old Civic off our hands too. So we're still a 1 car family, but this vehicle should serve us well for quite a while.

So back to being a horrible friend. Being that the buying a car thing is a new experience to me (we sort of inherited the Civic) I'm having a little bit of sticker shock. To most people, a car payment is almost as standard as paying taxes. We had yet to experience that. So with the down payment, and upcoming monthly payments, our budget has to be extra toight now. I had some fantasies about getting back into racing next season, but I'm just fine jumping in with some group rides and generally having fun on the bike. I'll be doing the bike building thing again next season, so I'll be working some 12 hour days a couple/few times a week. It'll suck, but getting out of debt and getting on with life is priority 1 right now.

So that was a long way for me to apologize to Peter for skipping out on him. Sorry good buddy. We'll hang out more when you come back in January(?). If your knee injury doesn't get better, we could just hang out with Jonny and do some Call of Duty nights. Good times.
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Weekend plans. Friday night you should decorate your bike and go here. Scott's got a cool setup that I may mimic if I get my act together tonight. I figure more lights on the commuter bike, the better anyway.

Saturday and/or Sunday: gravel? Road? MTB? Post your plans and we'll try to come to a consensus.