Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Attempting to get focused

Now that January is leaving us, I think it's time to at least have it in my head that the season is not too far off. The first race I care about that I'm seeing on the schedule is Tufts on April 1st. Memory tells me that there were other races earlier than that last year, but maybe it was just Wells. In either case, unless I'm forgetting a March race that was fun, Tufts will be the target. To celebrate this new found motivation, I actually threw some hard intervals into my lunch run today. It was, um, hard. I'm sure I'll feel it tomorrow, but that's good. Now I just need to remember how to actually train without going all gung ho now and being dead by May. The unfortunate byproduct of the motivation is also hunger. I finished lunch about 30 minutes ago and I feel like I could chew a finger off just for a snack. I think I'm going to need some joe and a fattening treat a little later.

Sunrise is now before 7 a.m. and sunset is almost officially past 5 again. I'm starting to see peeks of light as early as 6:15 on clear days and it's almost legitimately light at 5:30. Serious outdoor riding and other nonsense can only be so far away.

Oh, and I've now got a tattoo design done and a studio picked out. Just need time and money now. This page is in serious need of pictures so I'll probably throw up the artwork, bathroom (nearly complete), and bikes all at once... I hope.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Two for two

Wow, 2 days, 2 posts... some sort of record. I've been doing a bunch of simulation work the last couple days and their of a duration that you have to do something to entertain yourself while it runs, but it's not really long enough to get into anything else very in depth. So I burn more time than I should on the web and here I am.

Got the tattoo bug again recently and now it's in full force thanks to kjellquist's new ink. I think I know what I want so I just have to figure out which studio, when, and where on my body. Comically enough, my wife would kill me if I went and got it without her going and getting one too so we have to plan that. We spent our 5th wedding anniversary in a tattoo parlor which is highly amusing to people who wouldn't expect it from us. I'm up to 3 and I say I'm shutting myself off after 4. The thing is that I think it's kinda cool to tell your story through some body art. I won't be the guy that gets my entire back done, but I still like them.

Not a lot else going on. Still collecting bike parts for the commuter including a big score on a D/A derailleur on ebay last night so I need to stay on that. Warmer times will be here soon enough. then again, everything is warm compared to today.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Weekly

So this seems to be turning into a once weekly update... not entirely by choice, but it is in any case. It's about that time...

Hmmm, anything good happen in the past week... other than me starting to stress about being behind on life again, not a whole lot. Got some riding in last weekend despite the frigid cold. Took a spill on some ice on Sunday and now I have one of the uglier bruises I've ever had on my hip. Sadly I'm still in the falling-down-alot phase of mountain biking and it's because I suck and not because I'm being agressive. Hopefully I'll get over that hump soon and be able to limit myself to crashing because I did something totally insane and I deserved it. Classes have started up again so that's a chunk of my life I have to fit in. The class seems like it could be worse, but it's still class time and some time outside. I'll get through this eventually and hopefully it's worth it. Finally decided to blow off some other things on my list this week and start rebuilding the commuter bike. So far I've only replaced the crankset and bottom bracket and identified a bunch of parts I need to find or buy. I sort of stole some stuff off this bike to get the cross bike going so now I can't steal it back. Thank goodness for ebay. It's almost getting to the time of year where I should get semi-serious about training. After racing cross, January can be a blowoff, but February is short and is awful close to March and April when the season really starts. I believe Tufts is April 1 this year so that's my current target for minimal suckage.

Ok, my sims have finally finished. Let's hope I got it right this time so I didn't just throw away another 10+ minutes waiting for useless results.

Oh, go Bears! I never thought I'd say that, but Peyton Manning just pisses me off.

Friday, January 19, 2007

Odd weather and messed up news

So we got our first "snow" of the year last night, but it cleared up so nicely that I went out running at lunch. Barely a slush pile to be seen and bright sun for most of it. The ironic thing is that after all our nice weather and such a nice day today, this is the first day I've seen ice on the Chalz Rivah this year. I guess the 36 hours of real cold combined with the wind is doing it. Pretty cool sounds with the water moving under the layer of ice due to the wind out there. Even though I suck at it compared to days past, running makes me happy.

Breaking news out of the area this morning is that some 16 year old kid stabbed a 15 year old kid to death at a suburban school in a town where nothing bad is supposed to happen. Bad things happen everywhere sadly and now some family is dealing with unimaginable tragedy. Having to go through something like this is one of my biggest fears... how do you even begin to deal?

Ok, enough depressing news... everyone have a safe and fun weekend.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Update for the sake of updating

Well, there's nothing in particular going on, but it's been almost a week so I figured I'd toss something out there. After the holiday breaks from many responsibilities like school (us and the kids), work, training, etc we're getting back into having about 3 too many constraints on our time. Fortunately my wife will be sort of done with classes this week until summer (if she decides to do a summer class) so there'll be one less thing there. I had gotten some time to catch up on a bunch of projects, but that time is dwindling and most of them aren't done so I'm trying not to get overly stressed about it... it's not working. I tend to get frustrated that the battle against the clock is usually a losing battle. No matter how you slice it and how motivated you are, when there are 3 kids, 2 careers, 2 athletes, and a house to keep up, something falls off the list and it's usually not an easy decision on what to drop. I usually try not to drop anything other than sleep and I know that doesn't make things better. Oh well... one of these days I'll figure out the secret.

Not much other news. I am finding that winter is seeming much shorter to me this year partially because of the abnormal weather and partially because I have a goal of starting my bike commuting in early March so that will sort of signal the end of winter for me. Those first few weeks may not feel like the end of winter on the ride in, but there's still sort of a milestone there.

Back to work...

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Battle Scars

Well upon MoveItFred's request, here's one of the remnants of the crash. Fortunately for me, I heal pretty quick so my back looks very uninteresting now compared to Monday. Most of the scabs have come off my eye too so now it's just bruise remnants and where the scar is going to be:















Not the best photo, but all I could do by myself with a mirror to see the view screen. Next time I'll remember to get the good pics the day after.

Not a hell of a lot going on today. The kids all have sleepovers at other people's houses tonight so we have an actual adult dinner date planned. Past history tells me that we'll get a call round about dessert that one of them needs stitches or something. Let's hope not...

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Long overdue update...

Well folks, updates have been sparse lately and this past weekend was worthy of several so let's see if I can get it all down. Now is a good time since I tweaked something in my back this evening and I am pretty debilitated right now, but typing doesn't hurt.

Let's roll back to Friday... I woke up Friday morning and had one of those "should I just roll back over and call in sick later" moments. My cold had kicked into high gear and I was miserable. Problem is that I have to make a judgement call at about 5 a.m. on whether I'll feel better enough after the cold drugs to make it through. I decided yes which turned out to be wrong. To keep this boring story of my misery short, I made it until about 11:30 and came home to lay on the couch and watch Rocky III (sadly I enjoyed it a little). That and lots of sleep that night had me feeling much better Saturday.

Saturday a.m. was chaos because the boys had karate, then swimming right after. With the ridiculously nice weather, everyone in the club was riding so I had set a soft goal of meeting the local group at noon and I would ride over to meet them since it's maybe 5 miles away. Well, we pulled in the driveway at 11:43 from swimming and I did the super quick change, prayed that everything on the road bike was healthy, and sprinted out of the driveway. I ended up averaging just under 23 mph with a minor tailwind getting there but I made it just in time. After that it was a very leisurely, but long, stroll through the burbs and everyone just enjoyed the global warming fest. I was totally spent by the time I completed the ride and the ride home and we had done 47.5 which was the highest in many months for one sitting. Rest of the day was uneventful except for the Dallas game debacle. I actually hate the Cowboys so it was good fun for me :)

Sunday a.m. I had a planned MTB ride with some of the guys in Hopkinton. We headed out and I knew quickly I was in trouble. The cold had made a resurgence, I was still spent from Saturday's miles, and the guys I was with would be out of sight on the trail before I could even clip into my pedals. I was outside getting excercise, but that was the extent of the fun I was having. Then I capped it off... We're literally <5min from the end of the ride and we head down a nice smooth hill, out of the woods onto a big grassy area. I could see at the bottom there was a dip and then what looked like a little gulley and then just flat grass. I never touched the brakes and found at the bottom that it was a pretty big dip and the bump actually dropped slightly on the other side before the shelf. I got myself airborne and had my weight going forward so I just kept rotating and watched the ground approach. Front wheel hit hard and then my face/head/shoulder followed. Behind me I just heard "Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuude!" Total casualties were a cracked helmet, cut over the eyebrow and the side of my head from my glasses, an ugly thing on my side from landing on my CO2 pump, and a big ugly on my shoulder. The bruises are starting to heal and I rode away, but I'm still getting over the whole experience. Next time out is going to be a big sissy ride :)

Since that not a whole lot has happened. Middle one was sick today so I had to bail early and I'll have to make that up tomorrow or something. He seems fine now, but he's been trying for a month to kick whatever he has. Further proof that we have 3... we let him go a month before we got him checked out. Oldest would have been admitted to a private hospital 3 weeks ago :)

Ok, I'm going to see if I can do anything other than type without being in pain. Congrats if you actually made it through reading this.

Friday, January 05, 2007

Grrr, Argh...

What do you get when you get a severe type-A person sick enough that they leave work early and don't feel look doing anything? A very frustrated individual. I finally threw in the towel today at work and conceded to the germ warfare my kids have been subjecting me to for weeks. I also decided that it was more fair to not stay around infecting everyone I work with. I got home and felt ok so I started picking up the house some. I made it through maybe an hour of that and totally ran out of energy so I laid on the couch for an hour and a half. I don't lay down for that long unless I'm sleeping so at this point in the evening, I feel like I've been useless all day. Oh well, I'll probably pack it in soon and try to sleep it off so that I have some hope of enjoying the nice weather to get out for rides this weekend. Roads tomorrow, trails Sunday if everything goes right. Winter will hit eventually (and all of New England will bitch about it like we've had the worst winter ever) so better enjoy it now.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Random Updates

In no particular order:

- Work is obviously in reboot mode today since it was pretty quiet. That was good because the oldest was here for the morning due to a professional day for the teachers at the school.

- Figured out today that Daylight Saving starts March 11th... now I know when my target date is for starting to bike commute a couple days a week.

- Did an ok job not turning into a fat sloth over the past week even if I did eat my face off at every party.

- Let the NFL playoffs begin... let the attempts to watch 4 games a weekend begin too

- Bathroom addition project is really gaining steam. I should be laying floor tile tonight. Maybe a picture to follow.

Ok, sims are done running... back to earning my pay.