Three gd flats in three consecutive rides. It's enough to make you chew your own foot off. I'm so sick of this, that I'm seriously thinking about hanging up the whole bike commuting thing right now. Any savings I'm realizing in gas are being negated by the costs of tires and tubes. In the past two weeks, I've bought two tires and three tubes. I replaced the original cheap, crappy tires that came on the bike with a set of Continental Ultras; the rear tire didn't even last a day before I flatted. I was a little over half-way back to the car when I ran over two shards of glass so small, I couldn't even see them to avoid them. I didn't even really need to boot the tire, but I threw a couple of patches on the inside of the tire just to be sure. The front tire (so far) has held up like a champ, it's the rear that's been giving me fits the past week. Perhaps my ass is just too fat for any but the strongest tires they make. A set of Gatorskins would probably alleviate my problems, but I'm sure they're spendy. I saw in my email when I got home that Performance Bike is having a sale through the weekend. I'll have to check it out; maybe they'll have something I can afford.
Any advice from anyone who happens to be reading this will certainly be appreciated.
Every day is a learning experience.
- Quick release skewers are waaaay better than a solid axle and hex nuts
- If you have a solid axle and hex nuts, make sure that your multi-tool has a wrench that fits the nuts
- CO2 pumps are apparently not air-tight; if the canister seal is broken and you leave the pump in your seat bag, when you go down at lunch to patch your tube, the canister will be empty
- Coworkers who offer to give you a ride to your car after work = AWESOME
..under the belt and aside from a few mechanical mishaps here and there (with which Dave and the guys at AJ's Bikes and Boards were able to assist me), everything seems to be going quite well.
Some lessons learned:
- Have spare tires on hand, not just spare tubes
- If you have a CO2 pump, you should also have a few spare CO2 canisters
- A mini patch kit is a good idea even if you carry a spare tube
- Make sure the tension on you pedals isn't too high, because the screws that come with your cleats are surprisingly easy to strip out
I'm not sure if it's just me or if traffic has actually been noticeably lighter the last few weeks. I paid $3.59/gal on Friday and by this morning, it had jumped to $3.65. That's the likely reason for fewer cars on the road, and I don't see it slowing down anytime soon. At the same time, I have noticed a few more people on bikes in the morning. With the industrial areas I ride through, you always see the blue collar guys that either can't afford a car or lost their license, but I'm seeing more of those guys plus a few more people who actually know the rules of the road and are riding bikes that don't look held together with duct tape and chewing gum. I've even seen one or two more bikes at the bike rack here at work. That seems to be inconsistent though.
It may not be for long though. I've been getting lots of questions from coworkers as well as from people I don't even know, about my commute, how I clean up, how I manage to not reek, etc... It's pretty cool. One of my manager's bosses even told me I was his hero. That was pretty cool. Now, if only I could find an angle to work that into a raise...
May is National Bike Month.
So, as I posted previously, we took Jack on his first visit to Disney World a few weeks ago.
He LOVED it.
We started out at Disney MGM Studios on Tuesday; the overall reaction from everyone was, 'meh'. It was mostly virtual 3D/4D attractions that, for the most part, we could take or leave. The hit of the day was the "live" Mickey Mouse Clubhouse show. It's one of Jack's favorites on TV and his eyes were as big as silver dollars throughout the whole thing. In it, they do a story with little snippets from shows on Disney's Playhouse; MM Clubhouse, Handy Manny, My Friends Tigger and Pooh, etc... It was interactive and they needed lots of 'help' from the audience. He was talking about it for days. At one point you have to help Tigger and Pooh get a kite out of a tree by blowing real hard and he kept saying "kite, tree" and then acted like he was blowing it out of the tree.
The next day was the Magic Kingdom and after being primed the day before, he was raring to go. We got to the park before Beth's family, so we were waiting around Main Street and saw Pluto posing for pics and giving autographs (who knew dogs can write?). He wasn't too sure about it at first, but within seconds, he was hugging Pluto and honking his nose. After that, he got excited every time we saw the characters. A couple of pics:
Jack's not really into rides yet, so we did stuff like It's a Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion. Ever since the mansion, he's developed a tiny "mua ha ha" laugh. It's awesome! We also checked out the Country Bear Jamboree and Tom Sawyer's Island in Frontierland. The jamboree hasn't been updated in quite a while and it's funny how un-pc it is as far as it's portrayal of 'country folk'. Jack had a blast running all over tome Sawyer's island and around that same time, we also had a prime spot for viewing the family parade as it went by. A couple of the characters waved right at Jack as they went by and he ate that up. One of the floats had nothing but villains on it and Beth was making raspberries and thumbing her nose at them; Cruella Deville saw that and thumbed her nose right back. Unfortunately, Beth had the camera at the time and I wasn't able to get a pic. We took Jack on the train ride around the perimeter of the park as well. He loves trains and thought that was awfully cool too. We hit most of the other must see things in the park and then used the park hopper (the ONLY time we used it BTW) to check out Epcot briefly and see the fireworks show. We also checked out these guys in the Canadian pavilion of the World Showcase. They were pretty cool!.All in all, a full day for anybody, but a jam-packed one for a little guy:
He's not looking for something he dropped there, he's fast asleep.
The next day was a full day at Epcot. I'd forgotten just how cool it was. Jack seemed a little bored with most of it, but Beth and I had a blast. Soarin' is probably one of the coolest, non-roller coaster rides I've ever been on. Will definitely be doing that one again the next time we go. There's a lot that we didn't see there because we didn't spend a full day. It was our last day at Disney and we didn't' want to get home too late. We made a bit more leisurely lap around the World Showcase and tried to get a little food from each pavilion. After that, we made our way back out to the parking lot and made the 1.5 hour trek back to the house.
I was a bit apprehensive leading up to the trip, but wound up having a lot of fun. It was crowded, but not nearly as bad as I thought it would be and the Fast Pass is probably the best invention in recent history. We didn't spend much time at all just standing in line. Although, I completely forgot about looking for hidden Mickeys until the last day, and that would have been a good way to pass the waiting time. We started planning our next trip before we even left park property on the last day.
OK. We're going to give this another shot. Again. I use 'we' in the royal sense, because I doubt seriously anyone is actually reading this (aside from Beth). It's become apparent from my last few posts that this has become less about my running and cycling and more about my everyday life. So, the title has changed even though the URL remains the same. Just in case there is anyone out there that a.) actually reads this, and 2.) has it bookmarked. Plus, I don't want to have to edit my signature files on the various forums where I've included a link to here.
So, what's been happening? A lot of the same ol', same ol'. We went to Disney World a few weeks ago with Beth's family. It was Jack's first visit and he LOVED it. (will follow up in a separate post) Work has been, well.. work. Nothing really changes there. I DO need to start working on some certs and taking some management classes to make it easier to transfer/find a new employer so we can make the move to CO after Spud graduates. I've also started bike commuting to work. Halfway, anyway. It's a 30 mile trip one way, so I drive to a mid-point and then ride my bike the rest of the way in. The original plan was to do it everyday except for our 2 busy days a month, but it's working out to about 3-4 days a week. I'm saving money that would normally be going in the pockets of the oil companies, reducing my contribution to pollution and dropping some weight to boot. to make sure that the money actually gets saved, I continue to fill up weekly, but I subtract the number of gallons it takes to fill the tank from the number of gallons it used to take to fill after a week and multiply that by the price. Then we just set that difference aside.
Not much else to add at teh moment, but again, I hope to keep this updated much more regularly going forward.
Well, it's been a while since my last post. What's been going on?
The roof is done; we were able to get an equity loan to pay for it and the roofers were able to finish it in a couple of days. It looks very nice and seems to be shedding water nicely. So we've got that going for us.
June and July were fairly uneventful. I posted for a couple of positions that I wasn't sure I wanted and didn't get either one; I wasn't really broken up about it because as previously stated, I wasn't 100% committed to either one. I think the biggest reason I posted was for the networking possibilities.
August wasn't too bad, except for the problems with the car. Pulling into the garage at work one morning, the shifter suddenly went slack. Turns out that one of the cables connecting the shifter lever to the transmission broke. Well, not the cable itself, the $2 bushing that connects the cable to the shifter. Unfortunately, our mechanic couldn't just replace that bushing, he had to replace the entire cable. It's a dealer part, so of course he couldn't get just the cable; both cables come as a unit. A $250 unit. That cost around $200 for him to install because it's a FWD car, the engine sits sideways and the transmission is far from the shifter.
September brings football season and the Bucs are 2 and 1. YAY!! So far. It also brings us Lightning training camp; HOCKEY SEASON! WOOHOO!! I took vacation and we went to training camp. Only one day though, the rest of the time, we were remodeling the front bathroom. Which is still a work in progress. We're hoping to have it finished - or at the very least, functional - by the end of this weekend. We'll see. At least our lives aren't dull.
I've been cycling off an on throughout the summer, but haven't been running at all. I finally picked up a new pair of running shoes in June, but still had some knee pain. I'd like to say that I was taking it easy to rehab my knee, but I was a lazy slob. I started running again yesterday and starting today am going to be cycling regularly. Hence, the update to the blog; I'm making myself publicly accountable again. HA! Like anyone reads this thing. I suppose that's about it for now.
