I have been in the pain cave...

And I hope to muster up a flashlight.

I rode to the Bike Masters Wed night Group ride and felt pretty good. I recovered well from the 90 mile ride on Sunday. Funny thing, my legs never felt sore after that ride. The only thing was the back of my neck. It's still hurting right now. I guess I built up some good neck muscles when I was putting in many hours a week on the bike. And since, for the past year, I've basically only been commuting the whopping 6 mile round trip most days and occasionally getting a 3-ish hour ride in, those various long distance muscles have faded. Guess I gotta build them back up.

So the ride: The group looked to be pretty solid, but the legendary fasties weren't there. No Spence, Brackenbury, Ellis, or various others. So I had some high hopes for myself. At first Bryan and I pushed the pace a bit up some climbs. That felt good. Then we kept the pace high for a majority of the ride out. I started to fall off after a failed sprint with no goal. Bryan took that one even though we didn't know where we were sprinting to. I just gave up after a few seconds while he kept going = he won. After that, about 45 minutes into the group ride, I was pretty toasted. There weren't any bad hills after that, but we still had to turn around and ride into the 15-20mph headwind. All the way back. Then I had to ride home into that same headwind. Ugh.

After we turned around the group was together. For about a mile. Then Bryan picks up the pace and was pretty much just gone. The rest of us crawled home in various groups trying to rotate and work together to share some of the wind burden. Eventually, when we hit some good climbs, I was off on my own. I just couldn't stay with anyone anymore. So I putzed back to the shop and eventually JP caught up with me. He's got some wicked clunky sound going on with his bike so we checked it over at the shop. My bike is noisy too, but I just haven't really cleaned or relubed any part of it for most of the year. Oops.

After I refilled the bottles it was time for the slog home into the headwind. I had motivation along Fort St with traffic, but as soon as I hit the trail, I could barely maintain 13mph, even when I was shielded from the wind. I stopped by Chipotle for some awesome recovery food and called it a night. Again, I'm not sore today, other than the neck muscles. So that's a good sign. I just need to train those otherwise unused muscles to take multiple riding days again. Then I have to work on my upper end aerobic engine by doing group rides and steady climb intervals. Then, over the winter, I will hit the gym, do some gravel road rides, and rebuild my strength again. So I have about 6 months to muster up a flashlight for this pain cave. Better get musterin'.

An Epicly Epic ride.

Well it was epic for my current fitness level. I guess I shouldn't even say that. My body just isn't used to the miles. My aerobic system was ok, my muscles made it till about the last 10 miles or so. But today if feels like someone took away my neck muscles. I can barely hold up my head. See I've been riding my Bianchi just for commuting for a couple months now. It has way more of an upright position than my lightweight racey Lemond. But I needed all the help I could get to last the 90 hilly miles on tap. So by then end of the ride, after my neck muscles got more of a workout than they ever had, I was more than a little sore. Harlan, the finish town, had a nice massage tent setup. So I got a good working over for 15 minutes with a focus on my neck. So that was nice. But today, I'm still feeling it. Time for some vitamin I - as in Ibuprofin.

So the ride itself was quite fun. Bryan rode 10 miles from his place to get to mine, then we headed downtown after dropping off a couple bags of change-of-clothes at my parents place. We ventured over the 480 bridge pretty uneventfully. The shoulder was just one bike width, so we single filed it, but there was barely any traffic at 6:30am on Sunday. The shoulder was also very rocky/glassy. But we made it across without incident. After moseying through downtown Council Bluffs, we headed North on the very fun Old Lincoln Highway towards Missouri Valley to join the first day of RAGBRAI. This road is not as hilly as I remember. We were taking it rather easy so maybe that was the reason. There were plenty of hills, though, once we got onto the RAGBRAI course. We met up with Matt Pavlovich with a great group of friends that had their own little motif going. It was the running of the bulls deal where one bigger guy was painted red and had these huge bull horns attached to his helmet. The rest of the people in the group wore white garments and had red saches on. They were basically imitating this. Quite hilarious. Also along the ride were many different bike-boom-boxes. Some were little seatpacks, others were full-on trailers, but everyone got to listen to music ranging from C & C Music Factory to Johnny Cash. Again, good times. The many different costumes and bikes kept the otherwise boring Iowa backdrop interesting. There were many a cornfield we passed while riding up and down hills. There was only a couple flat sections. It was funny because as soon as there was about a mile or so of flatness, pace lines would pick up and motor through. But these broke down with any hills since congestion of slower riders made it dangerous.

It was quite an experience, but I'm not sure I'd want to do the whole week of RAGBRAI. I'd have to be trained for it, that's for sure, but after about the 4th or 5th day, I think I'd be pretty tired of pork chops and goofy dressed people. Not that those things are bad, but moderation is always good.

So that lovely/painful 90 mile ride started a new training schedule. This next month is just a break in period so I'm only doing 10-14 hour weeks. That's not hard to do when you start a week with a 5 hour ride. Today is an off day, minus the commute, then Tuesday and Thursday I'll do an hour easy each, Wedsnesday will be a couple hours on the Wed night group ride, Friday will be another off day, then Saturday will be 2-3 hours of whatever. I'm not really assigning intensity yet. I'll go hard when I feel like it, but mainly I just need to build up my aerobic base and get my body used to riding lots again. Also, riding more will hopefully get me back down into the 150s lb range. I'm publishing my training log here. I'll update it hopefully after most rides. This published log will keep me motivated and accountable to all who read it. So if you check on it and there's a few days missing, remind me to either keep training, or to update my rides.

Sunday is the beginning of the end.

I'm tired of wasting away. My quads and calves are thinning down and my waistline is growing. I'm kinda scared about the 80-90 mile ride this Sunday because I haven't ridden that long for at least 6 months. The longest ride in recent memory was riding over to Lake Manawa, doing TT intervals a couple times, then riding home. The total riding time was about 3.5 hours and I was a big wet spaghetti noodle the rest of the day. So this Sunday will be interesting. I hope Bryan will be patient as I can some drifting off the back on a few hills in my future.

But that will be it. That ride will mark the start to a new life for me. Michelle is driving now so I have no commitments after work. I can put in some good training after work to eventually get back to my former...um...form. I am mapping out a training regiment that will involve upping my aerobic rides for the last part of the summer so I can handle 90 mile rides easy. Then, over the winter, I will work on strength and dropping weight. I'm not sure if I can be in tip top shape by the beginning of next race season, but I think I'll be close fairly competitive form.

I thought about the money situation and realized it's possible to make money while racing. You just have to plan better to save money on traveling, eating, etc. and/or finish in the top 5. If I get back to my former strength (or maybe even stronger) I know I can be up there. I've learned from Bryan that you don't have to spend money on the latest and greatest stuff to get strong. It's the training that matters, not the equipment. Granted, when it comes to TT's, aero stuff always helps, but I can hopefully borrow equipment to shave away seconds. I just have to train so my motor isn't holding me back.

So this is it. I am making a declaration that next summer will be my return to racing. I really miss it. I miss the feeling of putting others in the hurt lockers when on an attack. I miss the weekends spent putting in 4-6 hour rides so the intense long races don't hurt that much. I really miss riding my bike.

If anyone wants to go on easy or hard training rides, let me know. There'll only be a couple times a year where I'll have to work late for a month, but other than that, I should be on the road most days by 5pm. It will be fun.

My ears are on fire.

Or...I have ear cancer. Sunday I worked the wheel pit for my officiating duty at the Babcook memorial crit downtown. I put on sunscreen most places, but forgot my ears, temples, and backs of my arms. So those places got pretty red. "Backs of your arms??" you say? I slathered on the screen on the already kinda burnt tops of my arms (forearms, hands), however, did not think that I would be crossing my arms behind me for a few hours out in the sun. Which is exactly what I did. Therefore, the backs of my arms, which never get any sun exposure, got a little burnt. I wore a hat most of the day so that's why my ears and temples got burnt.

So enough skin cancer talk. The Omaha cycling weekend was fun but labor intensive. This was my first official race being an...um...official. I did a couple practice crits early in the season, but they were not, officially official. On Saturday, I was out at Mt Michael (216th and North of Maple) by 7:45am for the time trial. That race went ok with only a few communication issues. All was said and done by about noon so I had an hour to eat and get down to Papillion for the afternoon crits. I was a tad late, but all was still getting setup when I arrived. The different crits went well, but scoring(keeping track of who's 1st through last in the race) was difficult/stressful. These sets of races were all done by 9pm. So that was a long day.

Then Sunday I got wheelpit duty. I was just fine with that since scoring is not so fun, but it involved me standing in the sun most of the day. Hence the sun burn opener. This race also went most of the day. There by 8am, leaving by 5pm. After this weekend, I have a whole new respect for organizers, officials, and volunteers. They make races happen, otherwise it'd just be a bunch of glorified group rides. If you've never scored a race (or have ever protested a result) I'd suggest trying it once. Cause keeping track of 20-40 people going by 25-50 times at different intervals is no easy task.

As an official, I'm supposed to stay neutral, so I just want to congratulate all of the racers who came out gave it their all and (hopefully) had a good time. I do however want to mention that, on Saturday night, it was fun watching Alex Boyd hold his own against 4 other breakaway companions who were all from the same team. I've been in a similar situation before where it's you alone against 3 or so others conspiring to drop you. In my situation, I got dropped. Alex did not. In fact he won the race. Quite impressive, sir. My hat's off to you. There were many other amazing feats of strength throughout the weekend, so congratulations to all who participated. Thanks for keeping racing in Nebraska alive and well.

Warning: Political Content ahead.

Here's another good reason to vote for Obama in November. Having a presidential candidate who's already talking to the bike industry is a great start. Granted, if (hopefully when) he gets elected, bike lanes won't just pop up over night. But if he can get the wheel rolling, so to speak, then I believe change for the better can happen.

Also, here's a bike that I would love to ride someday, just to see how weird it is. Talk about an ultimate grocery getter.

Rough couple of weeks

So I'm officially back from my 2 week vacation. I was actually back on Thursday afternoon. I was definitely not back in cycling shape though, let alone any other shape. Here's the skinny(or should I say squirty?).

Sunday the 22nd, my dad and I were off to Pennsylvania. First stop, South Bend, Indiana for a stay over at a hotel. We didn't have to be to Pittsburgh till afternoon on Monday, so we got up and took a ride around the Notre Dame Campus. Purdy cool. Many of the really old buildings were under construction as was the football field, so our ride was mainly just a pass through. We pack back up, and head off for P-burgh. Clark, my little bro who lives there and was hosting us, had a ton of old stuff at the parents house that we transported to him. After all that was unloaded, the vehicle had plenty of room for our stuff and bikes. The next day we headed out to Philadelphia to catch the 2nd part of the first day of the Tour of PA. The crit was fast and exciting. I talked with Pool a little and called it a day. The next couple days we stayed with some relatives and followed the race across the state at various points. Basically we would get to a spot (usually a sprint spot or KOM) watch them go by, then take a different route to get to the next spot. This was really difficult because the whole state is a tangled spiderweb of highways and interstates that really doesn't make much sense. Usually when we got to our next spot, they were just coming in. It was really cool to see a rolling enclosure in action. You'd have oncoming traffic that got pulled over by the cops, the race would go by, the caravan would go by, then the long line of vehicles trapped behind the race would creep by slowly. So that was a fun experience. Unfortunately, it was not in the cards for Pool or his team to achieve great glory. They did really well for the first half, but strong teams and a goof with traffic into Pittsburgh robbed them of coming out on top. Pool has a good race report on his website.

So after the race, my dad and I hung out with my little brother again. We went cave dwelling, fancy house touring, and we ate some great food. Well, it all tasted great, but apparently one of the many dishes had it out for me. On Tuesday, the 1st, we started to make our way back West. The plan was to stop along the way at various trails and ride our bikes often. Well my dad did, but I did a lot of reading while in a bathroom. I highly recommend NOT getting food poisoning. Ever. Only being able to eat 2 bites of any dish, then feeling full to point of bursting (almost literally) for most of the day was not a great way to travel across the country. We got back on Thursday and I was still not well after 2 days of heavy bathroom time. Friday, I spent some time at Michelle's mom's place since they always do a great 4th celebration. Again, not much food and that night was particularly unpleasant. So Saturday and Sunday I really did nothing but drink as much fluids as I could stomach and rested hardcore.

Today, Monday, I'm feeling better stomach-wise, but am way behind in strength and condition. The ride into work today was probably my worst ride ever. Worse than the -9 degree weather this winter. Worse than even the easiest rides back when I was training hard 20 hours a week. So, needless to say, it's going to be a while before I'm ready to do some intense training rides with you guys. I'm all for easy recovery rides, if anyone is interested, but that's about it. I'm thinking 2 hours tops for a while.

This weekend is the Omaha Race weekend and I'll be one of the officials, so you guys better be on your best behavior. Then the next weekend is the Cornhusker State Games TT where I will also be officiating. So it may be a month before I'm in for some Shabbos goodness. Sigh....

Easy Sunday. Easy Monday. Easy ...

We'll I've decided to get back in the saddle again. I'm a cowboy - On a steel horse I ride. So tomorrow, I'm going to start earlyish (6:30-7:00) and most likely head south on the trail for a while.

Monday - I'm taking the day off and going to try to meet up with the U.P. lunch ride group (if it does not rain). The U.P. lunch ride is way more than I have the fitness for right now, but I need some humiliation for my fat-ass. It starts typically around 11:45 and goes for about 45 minutes. Meet me at the HQ and I'll ride with you for a few minutes until I mercilessly ride away off the back.

Ride more.

Saturday Bike Masters ride at 8:30 in the a.m. Gonna be probably 50 miles, pretty mellow. Just looking for smooth hours in the saddle. Come one, come all, etc.

Celebrate your independence ... from work

Here's a preliminary plan:

Shabbos -1, 6:30 a.m. from Bike Masters. Gonna be back by 10 or 10:30. Uptempo, but never angry, pace.

As of now, I am in control here

Due to a terrifying line of succession, with Mike out of town I am the boss of you, MITMON readers. I checked with Al Haig and he said I'm pretty much free to do whatever I want. It's an awesome, yet solemn, responsibility.

Here's some info to help ease the transition:
1. I propose a Shabbos (Saturday) ride.
2. The time of the ride shall be 6:15 a.m., at Bike Masters or another suitable spot.
3. The pace of the ride shall be race-pace or faster. Probably faster considering we were doing 14 mph at one point in Norfolk. That was pretty fookin' ridiculous.
4. The route of the ride shall be determined later, and most likely based upon wind.
5. Again, the pace of the ride will be fast. Possibly throw-up fast.
6. The length of the ride shall be 3 hours, no more. JP has to be home by 9:30 because his wife has to work and is therefore leaving the kids with him. I would think that at ages 6 and 4, the kids can be by themselves for a few hours. If Jack can do it, why can't they?
7. Think about joining us if you want to go fast. With a gap in Nebraska racing -- or even Iowa racing -- getting more nasty high-speed work in is a good idea.
8. Leave questions or concerns in the comments.

Some interesting events.

Things are gonna be busy this week in prep for my 2 week vacation to Pennsylvania. I leave this Sunday for the East to watch Aaron Pool race in the Tour of PA, visit some relatives, and bike around with my dad. I will be back on the 5th of July. So I may be ready for a Shabbos +1 on the 6th if I've wound down enough. We'll see. Plans can be put up here and hopefully I'll get a chance to check them while out of town.

Monday was a great/horrible day for the woman. Michelle never had a drivers license. Her parents never got around to teaching her and she got along just fine on the bus and with rides from friends. Well on Monday, after a few months of great lessons from my (now retired) dad, she passed the drivers exam and can drive where ever she wants now. No more waiting on the bus. The bus is a great way to save money instead of having a car, but not really convenient. At one point, she was living in mid-town and working out west. She had to take a bus downtown to catch another bus that would head out west. It was an hour and a half trip each way, everyday. Basically, more time than it takes to drive to Lincoln. EVERY DAY. She went mildly bonkers after a couple years of that. Now she works closer to home, so the bus ride wasn't as bad, but still, the need for her to be able to drive became more evident. And since I'll be gone for 2 weeks, she'll be able to get to the store, go out, and generally have more freedom than she's ever had in the past. Good times ahead for her. The horrible part of that day was that she went into the dentists to get a couple wisdom teeth pulled. Way to have a rollercoaster start to the week.

In friends news, Bryan's search for a new job landed him in the same building. He is now working as a tech-geek writer and WORKING DAYS!! I can't imagine the strain of working the shift he's been on for a while, 4(ish)pm - 1(ish)pm. I gripe and complain about working 11am - 8pm for a month at a time, but that's not cutting into a normal sleep schedule. I'm guessing now that he can get proper recovery, he'll be able to really up the intensity of his training. Plus being able to join the Wed. group rides always boosts performance. Congratulations Bryan. Other friend Brady is unwinding from a tough battle in a half-Iron Man down in Kansas. Brady has proved he is one tough cookie when it comes to being on the rivet. Congrats man, for a job well done. Fred, welcome back to blog world. Hopefully we'll get in more early morning rides on the weekend. But not for a few weeks. Catatarian of the year award goes to Bob for rescuing a little bundle of fur from certain automotive doom. Thank you sir, on behalf of all cat people everywhere.

Am I lazy? Yes I am.

bryan said...

a Shabbos +1 proposal:

Sunday, 6:30 a.m. at Crane. I'm planning on 5ish hours, so we'd be back by 11 or 11:30 at the latest. Mike Munson has to be back by 11:30. My wife would prefer that, too.

Speed: It's tough to hammer for 5 hours. Let's call it spirited, but never fast.

I concur with Bryan.

Speaking of riding for fun...

Shabbos ride anyone? We could resurrect the way early (anti-Peter) ride and get a few hours in before the heat and wind get bad.

Post your ride times/routes/suggestions/ideas/philosophies.

My type of cycling hero.

This guy knows how to ride. For fun and for life. That's the way it should be.

Various stuff.

The weekend came and went and I got in an hour ride with the woman. That's it. Otherwise it was on call duty, clean, work on bikes, projects, and avoid tornadoes.

Brady invited me on an early early ride Saturday morn, but I didn't get the message till late. Plus I would have had to turn back after about 45 minutes to be home so I could sit around for my on-call duty. Sucks. In a few months our on call is going to stretch out to once every 6 weeks instead of once every 4. That'll be nice. However this is going to come with other shift changes that'll see me doing the late shift (11am to 8pm) 4 times a year instead of 3. It's all kinds of weird, but we'll see how it pans out.

Bryan had a great weekend at Norfolk. Way to go, buddy! I sure wish I could have been there to race and watch others race, but seriously, I gotta keep chipping away at my debt load. $4 a gallon gas and lack of training motivation has all but taken me out of racing this year.

Aaron Pool is taking up my slack of team representation by doing really well at a UCI stage race in Spain(?). He had multiple top tens, wore the best young riders jersey for a day and says he felt strong in all aspects of his racing. In just a couple weeks, he and a few teammates are flying this way to do the Tour of Pennsylvania. My dad and I are heading out that way for a nice vacation of following the race, visiting family, and riding some rails-to-trails. Fun times!

I mentioned before that I worked on bikes and started a project. Well here's the details, if anyone wants to know, which I'm sure you do, oh yes you do. Actually, don't feel bad about not reading from here on. Topic is dinking with bikes and working with wood, that's it.

So on the bike front, I've successfully stayed away from doing a big purchase. If I think about it, I've made at least one pretty big purchase if not a couple, every year for the past 4 years. It's either been a whole bike, a wheelset, or a bunch of parts. This year, I've bought a couple small items to keep the bikes going, but that's it. And my debt load reflects this. I'm making huge gains on it, and it feels great. So anyway. What I have done to quell my need to get new stuff is continuously change old stuff. I have a bike that my parents got me in 10th grade, so about 14 years ago. This bike was made right when "hybrids" first came onto the scene. It's more of an off-road hybrid since it has 26" tires. It's definitely not aggressive trail riding worthy. I have recently used random parts to make it into a cruiser/fun ride bike that I use on outings with the woman. It has a nice upright position and a big cushy saddle. Very anti-racer like!

The Bianchi commuter I bought last year has also gotten some changes. The stock wheels it came with are heavy, especially with the front hub being a generator. Since the days are so long, I don't really need a generator light, so I swapped out the wheels for lighter training ones. I have my Ree-Lights on these, just to cover any early day/evening rides. I also changed out the rear derailleur and cogset to a mtb setup. The stock was 12-27 on the rear with a single 42th chainring up front. Since this bike is a beast (28lbs with heavy wheels, 26lbs with light ones), I needed something easier than a 42x27 to get me up the hills. Now I have an 11-34 on the back so I could conceivably climb some mountains. I may need that for my Pennsylvania trip since there are some mountains over there. Another little thing I'm quite proud I figured out was my fender setup. If you have fenders on your bike and you ride in the wet, you know that having the fenders fairly close to the tires really helps ward off tire spray. So on the rear fender, there are 3 mounting points usually: a cross brace right next to the bottom bracket, a cross brace near the brakes, and the 2 metal rod thingies that attach to the rear drop-outs near the rear wheel axle. It's easy to adjust 2 of the 3 mounting points. The bottom bracket brace is not so easy. I've heard of people using spacers and longer bolts to move the front of the rear-tire fender closer so it can protect the chain from getting tire spray. When I was going through my parts for a long bolt, I found one of those inner-tube valve stem nuts and got a great idea. I took an old innertube, cut out the valve stem and got a couple more of those valve nuts. I secured the valve stem to the fender, added another stem nut, ran it through the frame's cross brace, then added a final valve stem nut. So now, I can loosen a couple of those nuts (by hand, which is nice since it's a very tight space in there) and adjust the fender for when I might use larger tires. At this point if you still have any idea what I'm talking about, congratulations, you are as big of a bike-wrench-nerd as I am. If not, I might post pics later to show what the heck even I'm talking about.

Edit: here's the pics of said fender greatness:

You can see how it's a valve stem.

Here you can almost see the part that used to be part of the tube.

And here you can see the ginormous pie-plate like rear cogset. Also note how close the fender is to the tire. No spray on my chain now!


On the wood work side, our place has a great/horrible skylight right above our bed. It's great for lighting, but horrible when it rains. The thing acts like a drum for every rain drop and we sleep right under it. It's no fun being woken up by a snare solo at 3am. So my parents were kind enough to give me some spare pieces of wood to create a sort of sound deadening baffle. I started work on that yesterday and will hopefully finish it soon since the rest of the week looks like lots of random storms are coming.

So that's what's going on in my neighborhood. What's happening in your neck of the woods?

And talk about the weather.

Something happens and I'm head over heals,
I never find out, till I'm head over heals.

If you know the song, you're singing it in your head right now. Tears for Fears. The Big Chair. One of my all time favoritist albums.

So anyway, talk about the weather. It's been just crazy. Storms every evening. Rain. Overflowing rivers. The mtb crowd is suffering withdrawal since there hasn't been a dry trail around for a couple weeks. Remember the big weather news like 3 years ago was DROUGHT!!! The Drought of the Century, blah, blah, blah... Not much of that going on now. Good ol' global warming is kicking in so polar ice caps can melt to provide the world with water to fix the droughts. That's my theory. Even though I only know 1 semesters worth of Earth science, I'm sticking to my ideas.

Good luck to those peeps heading up to NorfoLLk. I'm outo shape and broke so I canno make the trip. That road race is really tough and the crit is super fun. Hopefully the weather will kinda cooperate for you guys up there. Most of the really bad stuff has been lingering around Omaha and to the South, so Norfollk should be good.

I'm on call again on Saturday morning and will probably do a bike ride with the woman in the afternoon if the wind/rain/tornadic activity does not blow up. I will, however, be up for a ride either Sunday Morning or afternoon if those staying in the big O want to join in. Leave a message at the beep, or rather comment.

Ouchie

So I joined Brady and his Triathlete friends for some LT intervals. They met early and had a freezing cold swim while I just rode to Lake Manawa from home. We all got a nice warmup in.

The plan was to do a lap of the course as a group, send one person off at a time the next lap for TT efforts, do another group easy lap, then do a pursuit dealie where the slowest person from the first effort gets sent off first while the fastest guy goes last.

I had forgotten the plan was to do this 2nd TT effort and probably went way too hard on the first one. I did the 6.62 mile lap in 15'20" so at an average of about 25.6mph. I was extatic with this time since I really haven't been training seriously this year. Never mind that I had on a skin suit, lycra booties, shaved arms/legs, and aero bars. I needed all the help I could get. Now Lucas; the guy that I chased on the first lap, had no aero bars, skin suit, or lycra booties. His first time was only 20 seconds slower than mine. Sheesh, that's one strong mofo. On the 2nd effort, I again chased him, but I never came close to seeing him. His 2nd time was 15'26" whereas mine dragged out to a 15'36".

So that was a great way to spend a Saturday morning. I hurt alot now, but it was fun and I need this type of motivation. Now I think it's time for a nap.

Nice mellow weekend.

The woman and I had a nice 3 days together. Since she's been working at Goodwill, her days off are usually Wednesday and Saturday. So when she saw that she had the entire 3 days off, she was just a little giddy about it.

Saturday was Michelle's little sisters' graduation. So we attended the ceremony then headed over to her mom's place for the celebration. Much food, fun, and badminton were had by all. Then, she got her graduation present: a Nintendo Wii. The new video game systems are crazy. They connect wirelessly to your network with ease, the graphics are amazing, and they come with too many buttons. Anyway, we played lots of Super Mario Smash Brothers, which was a lot of confusing fun.

Sunday we got Michelle a bike. I had taken her into the bike shop just a couple times before and nothing really interested her. But after the days got warmer and she test-rode this bike she said, "If I get this bike, I will ride it." So Sunday, we got it and we rode. Now, this is the first bike ride she's done in a few years, so making it from our place to the Keystone and up to Dodge was a pretty big accomplishment. We'll probably start out with a ride during the week and 1 or 2 rides on the weekend. She wants to get into shape and the bike will be better for her since she stands all day at work.

Monday was spring cleaning time. We cranked up the stereo, opened up all the windows and went to town on the place. We've lived in this place for about 8 months now and still had some unfinished organizing to do. That, and laundry. And dusting. And sweeping. It's amazing with hardwood floors, you can sweep every three days and still feel grit when walking around barefoot. Makes you realize how much crud must get ingrained into carpet. The cats are also starting to shed, so vacuuming our stairs and upper floor has become pretty common.

In all the cleaning commotion, I spaced out Chris's graduation party. So sorry to Chris and Bryan! I missed out on some good times with great friends. Congratulations Chris.

Other than that, not much has been going on. My hammies are super tight from either the cleaning or the badminton. Not sure which or why. I guess everytime the birdie fell, I had to pick it up. And I spent alot of time hunched over with dusting and such. Guess I need to do some stretches at the desk.

Hope everyone else's long weekend was well used.

I wouldn't call this eye candy...

but, I plan on buying some of this when it comes out.

Dave is truly a funny guy and if he doesn't charge Assos prices for his butt butter, I'll put it into regular use.

Eye Candy

No words are needed!