I'm in London England for the week with 3 of my co-workers; Jason, my boss Mark, and our head marketing guy Paul. We are here doing some work and trying to expand our relationship with our customer here. While here though we can't be all work and no play. In order to make sure our play time is maximized we took advantage of our yesterday and today to see as much as we could.
We left West Virginia on the Friday evening but didn't arrive at Heathrow until around 10am on Saturday. Our flight from Charleston was delayed getting out so we really had to hustle through Dulles to catch our flight across the pond. Both flights were pretty smooth though on the longer flight I had planned on sleeping but I kept waking up because I was so thirsty. The stewardesses pretty much ignored our section of the plane for most of the flight. Flying coach really sucks.
Once we arrived in Heathrow we bought "oyster" cards for the London Underground (the tube) and hopped a train to the Holborn district. Once leaving the station we had to figure out where our hotel was. We were already on the right road but we didn't know if we had to go right or left. So we looked across the street and saw that the building numbers were going up from 110 as you moved to the left. We needed to get to 232 so we took a left. We walked about a mile or so towing our luggage behind us until we finally came to an area where High Holborn road seemed to no longer exist. I asked for guidance from a local music shop (where the Stones recorded when they were young) and we were sent back toward the tube station we emerged from. Mark was lugging two heavy bags so we caught a cab to go back while Paul decided to keep walking. The cab picked us up and ₤ 10 later we were at the Hotel just as Paul walked up. The hotel was about 100 feet to the right of the tube station. Clearly our American logic was insufficient to understand the London numbering system.
After checking in we headed out to see the town and kept going to the right (east) and saw a bunch of interesting buildings, pubs, and small cafe's. We also ended up finding St. Paul's basilica which was really, really big. There was a couple getting married in the basement of St Pauls and they had an old white Bentley outside to take the couple away in. Later that day we saw another similar wedding car on the street (this one was brown). We didn't go into the main worship hall because it was ₤ 10.
Cheap of us? Probably. However, ₤ 1 = $1.75 and I personally didn't think it was worth $17.50 to see the inside of a church. In general our entire group is pretty frugal which, overall is good, but at times may become annoying if we don't actually spend any money to see anything. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity in general so it seems pointless to being overly cheap.
After walking around St. Paul's we headed across the River Thames via the Millennium Bridge and ended up at a huge factory looking building that is actually a massive art museum. UBS (our client) is sponsering a huge exhibit which was free to enter so we checked out the art. None of us, it appears, are big fans of "fine art" and none of the art really impressed any of us even though we saw works from Monet (Lily Pads) and Pollack. After going to the museum we wandered along a meandering path back to the hotel, changed and then headed out for drinks and dinner. We stopped at the Cittie of Yorke pub on High Holton and then moved on to the Ship Master pub near the hotel for dinner.
After dinner Paul and Mark went back to the hotel to sleep while Jason and I headed out to experience some of the London Nightlife. It was only around 8pm so the nightlife wasn't really that great yet. We went to a few different bars near Soho (Picadilly Circus) and Leicester and then, sometime around 10 we were lured into a night club called "Club 49" where we chilled out and had some drinks and watched some people dance. It wasn't very crowded when we were there though I imagine it probably gets crazy later on. Eventually we left the club and headed back to the hotel to cap off a very busy day. I wasn't particularly tired but I didn't want to sleep day 2 away as it was going to be our only full day in London.
I've uploaded a bunch of photos from day 1 you can check out.
London : Day 1
5 min read
Money for Nothing
10 min read
This past weekend was the annual fund raiser for the Chester Volunteer Fire Dept of Chester, WV. If you haven't heard of it that's ok - I hadn't heard of it until this year when an old Army buddy of mine, Jason Oswald, invited me to join him and some of his work friends for the weekend. Chester is about 4 hours from Huntington and is fairly close to Pittsburgh PA so we got a room in Pittsburgh near the airport.
I took off early on Friday and headed up there so I could get us checked in (the room was in my name). I hit the hotel at around 2:45 and Jason and one of his friends (Cantz) showed up at around 5. From there three three of us headed down the street about half a block to a Longhorn Steakhouse for dinner and then to a bar just down the street to drink, tell stories, and generally act stupid. We hung out there until about 1 in the morning then walked down the street looking for a Denny's - but, once we got to Denny's Jason and Cantz saw an Eat-and-Park so we went there instead so they could eat the breakfast buffet.
We finally got back to the room at around 2am where Oswald and Cantz promptly passed out. I don't sleep well in a hotel as it is and Cantz is a snoring fool so all hope of my sleeping was dashed. That actually worked out pretty well because two other guys showed up at about 3am. They were out in the parking lot calling Oswalds cell. He didn't wake up so I answered it and went down and let them in. I introduced myself, found them spots to sleep, set the alarm clock for 7AM and tried again to go to sleep. One of the two who arrived at 3, Darren, also snored. He couldn't fall asleep with Cantz snoring but, at about 4am Cantz stopped for about ten minutes - before that ten minutes was up Darren was fast asleep snoring as well. The last time I remember seeing the clock was 6:25am. Then, at 6:45 someones cell phone started to ring and thus I was up for the day with 20 minutes of sleep.
We all shuffled through the bathroom, showered, and then hit the road by 8am to go meet up with Darren's brother Joe. Amazingly we found Joe about 5 minutes after getting on the highway and we started following him. He lead us to his brother Danny's house were we picked up Danny, their brother Dennis, and their dad (whom I called Dad - I still don't know his name). From Danny's house we went to a small country diner for breakfast and then headed into West Virginia for the fund raiser.
The fund raiser is kind of amazing. It is $100 per person to get in and they sell 10,000 tickets thus bringing in 1 million. However, they give out $650,000 in prizes with a prize drawing every five minutes after noon. Plus they have 4 $5,000 early bird drawings between 11am and noon. I hadn't bought my ticket early enough to be eligible for the early drawings. The event is held at this big building called The Harv at the Mountaineer Race Track (which is a state owned hotel, race track, and Casino). As soon as we arrived at the bash we found some seats at a table under one of the many outdoor tents, got our selves comfortable, and then began to drink way too much light beer that flowed from an endless tap of free beer. The event lasts from 12:00 - 5:30pm and you basically just sit there, hang out, listen to the drawings, and drink. Eventually I snagged four hotdogs from the food line but that was about all we did at the bash.
Many people who had been there before brought cards or dominos - others even brought pitchers for their beer. Next year, if I go, I think I will bring some kind of game for us to play while we drink and bull shit each other. There are actually other ways the fire dept raises money there - they sell little instant win tickets that you pay $1 each for but you can win up to $5000. I'd honestly bet they sell close to $100,000 of these tickets at the event between straight cash purchases and people getting more tickets when they cash in their smaller winners (1,5,10,25, and $50). "Dad" and some other guy they knew both hit for $500 on those - which was very cool.
We seemed to have a dedicated ticket sales girl who looked, facially, a lot like Kendra Wilkinson from the TV show "Girls Next Door" and our waitress (basically just threw away all of our trash) looked like Fairuza Balk (she was in the movie Water Boy as an adult and was Wednesday Adams in the modern Adams Family movie). It was kind of uncanny how much they both looked like their famous counterparts. I probably should have taken photos but I wasn't sure that would be the smoothest option to go on a guys weekend and then return to my wife with a camera full of photos of other women.
Eventually the bash ended and our group headed into the Casino. Somehow we all got separated and Danny and I headed on a shuttle to the poker room. I've never played Texas Hold 'Em at a casino before; just pick up games, so I didn't realize how everything worked but I was anxious to try it out. I didn't have any loose cash on me at all but I did have a $100 bill I keep tucked into my wallet "emergencies" I was buzzing just enough to figure this was a good place to break out the benny. So I went to the cashier, got $80 worth of fives and $20 worth of ones and headed to the table with Danny. The blinds (forced bets) were $1 and $2 so it was definitely my kind of price range.
I tried to be relaxed and, honestly, to pretend like I was far more intoxicated than I was. It seemed to work (or the people at the table, in general, just sucked) and I was quickly winning money. Now, when I go to a casino and play blackjack I always take my winnings and put them in my pocket at a certain point. So that I am only playing with the money that is on the table and I forget what is in my pocket and thus, when I leave, I'm usually way ahead. I did the same thing as I played poker. After each hand I won I immediately put all of the $4 chips I collected into my pocket so that I always had just about $100 on the table to play with. Eventually I had put all but about $50 in my pocket and then I lost that on one hand that I pretty much knew I was going to lose. So I got up and went to cash in all the stuff in my pocket when, out of the blue, the dealer told me I wasn't allowed to put money in my pocket during the course of the night. She said since I was leaving the table it was OK but in the future I needed to keep my chips all on the table.
Since this wasn't a tourny, and was just a pick-up game, I'm not sure I understand that logic so long as I'm not moving money during a hand I'm involved in. But there you go - those are the rules; don't make my same mistake.
I apologized for my ignorance then headed to the cashier to cash in. $302 was in my pocket! So I put my $100 emergency fund back in my wallet and walked out of the casino with nearly $200 after I stopped off and tipped the dealer. Sweet. Danny finished up shortly after I did and we then had to go find the rest of the guys. By this time my little buzz was gone (though I was still feeling great) and we found out everyone had gone to a bar somewhere between the casino and Danny's house. We caught up with them there and it was about 7:30. The bar was just like any other bar I've been too. Well light, pool tables, dart boards, smokey, and manned by, in this case, two female bartenders. But something wasn't normal - something was very unusual. Both of the female bartenders were completely nude (except for their shoes). It turns out that is the bars gimmick - their bartenders serve in the nude until 9pm at which point, by law, they have to put their clothes on. Odd stuff.
We stayed until 9.
We then headed out to Danny's to let people get their cars back. Oswald and I then tried to find the hotel while the rest of the guy went to Joe's house to party for a bit. Eventually our three roommates showed up at the hotel but Darren then left with his sister in law to go back to Joes. So the four of us headed out to the bar of the previous night where we crashed some schools 10th high school reunion. We hung out till around 2am then walked to eat-n-park for a late meal (I didn't eat). We made it back to the hotel by around 3. I had basically been awake for 40 hours non-stop (less the 30 minute nap of the night before). Cantz, thankfully, slept in a different position and didn't snore so I was able to fall asleep. I woke up a few times but nobody was snoring so I fell back asleep without issue. I was wide awake at 8. WTF?
I headed down for breakfast at the hotel while the others got up and showered. When I got back to the room Darren was back but our showers plumbing had gone crazy and was backing up with some very nasty look and horrid smelling water. Eventually everyone decided they were ready to head out and we loaded up or respective cars, I bid Oswald a good bye, and then drove home to Huntington. It took me closer to 6 hours to drive home because I was so tired that I had to stop a few times to walk around and refresh.
Overall it was a fun trip - though i did drink more than I should have - and it was great to see Jason again. The last time we saw each other was at my wedding in 1999! He lives near Allentown PA now so it isn't really convenient for us to hang out at all. I'm really glad I went and hope his friends thought well enough of me that he feels comfortable inviting me again next year. I've put a few photos of the weekend up.
Fly Me To The Moon - A Review
3 min read
Fly Me To The Moon is a 3-D animated movie from Disney nWave Pictures & Illuminata Pictures that is about three fly's who stow away on Apollo 11 and have the adventure of their lives going to the moon and back with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Well, that's the basic boring marketing premise. In actuality it was really more of a showcase of Disney's new 3D movie making techniques and a lot less about the flys, their adventures, or even the moon for that matter.
The movie starts with the 3 young "teenage" flies hanging out in a junkyard building their own model rocket and dreaming of their own opportunities for adventure. They are quickly taunted by two apparently"cool" flies who are off to a great adventure of visiting a neighboring town. At this point the story goes into one of it's many lulls and the viewer is subjected to a 3D travel sequence. These generally meaningless segments of the movie happen quite a bit but I suppose they aren't any worse than the boring and stereotypical group of heros; the rebel and his two friends (the smart one and the fat one), the soft but cagey old grandfather, the boring and oft-fainting mother, and the too-good-for you cool kids. Add into this mix the typical cold-ware fare Russian stereotypes (where in Soviet Russia even the Fly's are Communist) such as the beautiful and mysterious lady who falls for the roguish American, the scarred spy, and the short and belligerent colonel. In general the cast of characters was pretty lame and predictable (kind of like the incredibly shallow story).
The boys adventure to space attracts the attention of the Soviet flies and the impending danger helps the old American fly reunite with his lost Russian love as well as brining all of the American flies together to save our intrepid heroes. Yawn. To top it all off the price of admission was $27 for three people - or, as the cashier put it, 1 adult and 2 children. $9 a person! Why? Because the studio had opted out of actually telling a story and, instead, decided to try and WOW us with their 3D technology. Consider me unimpressed. We did get some high-grade plastic 3D glasses though; however, I doubt we will be able to use them to save money at a future 3D movie.
If it weren't for the fact that my 7 year old daughter liked the movie so much I would say there is nothing worthwhile in the film. However, the 3D effects really did entrance her and she spent quite a bit of time acting like she was grabbing at the various flies, mosquitoes, and maggots that seemed to jump off of the screen. On a scale of 0-5 I'll give this a 1/2 and only because she liked the effects.
12 Hours Walking
8 min read
This past weekend Lisa and I packed up the girls and drove to Cincinnati. We left on Sunday and met up with my dad and stepmother, Patty, at the Ikea there. As we pulled into the parking lot I though, holy crap that place is huge. Patty, having shopped at the one in Portland before said, "Oh, how cute, look how small it is." I'm not kidding - the biggest store I have ever seen was described as cute and small! I have long heard of Ikea but this was the first time I had actually gone in one and it was quite an experience. Just inside the front door is a child drop-off point for a day care type facility. This place knows it is so big you will be there for so long that you need to get a babysitter once you arrive! We passed on the daycare and headed upstairs to the cafeteria. Yes, we needed sustenance and we hadn't even shopped yet. The Cafe served a variety of Swiss/Norweigen foods and Lisa and I both had Swedish Meatballs. They were OK. The price on the food was right as it cost about $22 for the whole family of four to eat and I even had a nice piece of chocolate cake for dessert. Once we were done eating we headed toward the actually shopping part of the store. Even having seen the outside of the building I didn't fully comprehend what I was getting myself into.
The store is two floors. The first floor (with the Cafe) is broken down into sections based on rooms of your house. We started out looking at living rooms and family rooms. Nested within each section of the store were little showcase's that represented entire apartments. Some were about 200 sq feet others were closer to 600 or 1000. Each showcase was broken down into entire apartments so that there were bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, and closets. The showcases were pretty neat and really got me thinking about our home and the way we have things laid out. Eventually we made it through all of the different showcases and room sections of the first floor and headed down to the second floor. This floor is half "stuff" where you can find pillows or toilet bowl cleaners or glasses and plates. The pillow section was actually really cool because they were broken out by what type of sleeper you are - there were pillows for "back sleepers" and pillows for "stomach sleepers." I've always been a stomach sleeper so I was tempted to get one of their pillows but I resisted. The second half of the floor was the large product pickup area. For instance if you had seen a desk you really liked in the home office section on the first floor you could have written down a code and then, in the pick up section, you could find it boxed and ready to go. After the pickup area were the cash registers and a little grocery area that sold Norweigen snacks and other specialties. Patty bought some odd little chocolate filled cookies. The cookie part tasted like popcorn. They were pretty good but very sweet - I could only eat two at a time. We managed to finish shopping at Ikea five hours after we entered the store. Five hours? That is rediculous - who shops in one store for five hours? Apparently a lot of people because that joint was packed. Lisa and I made it out with nothing more than a small stuffed hamster for Shannon and a toilet bowl brush for the girls bathroom. I was proud of our restraint because there were a few things there we really liked.
We had actually gone to Cincinnati so we could go to their labor day fireworks show. It is supposed to be huge, maybe the biggest in the country, and we thought the girls would really get a kick out of it. I tried to convince the family that we should head downtown early so we could get to our intended dinner place early because the crowds would be huge but I was overturned by everyone. Unfortunately, the downtown area was packed, the bridges across the river were closed, and we couldn't make it to the Haufbrau house in time for our 8pm reservation. Mysteriously, when we called them at about 7:40 our reservations had disappeared anyway so it didn't matter. Instead we drove all over the place looking for somewhere to eat and then settled on a Longhorn Steakhouse. I like the Longhorn but was a bit disappointed we were eating at a chain we can eat at anywhere. Typically Lisa and I like to go somewhere more local when we travel so we can experience something new and fresh. On the bright side though dinner was really tasty but we didn't get back to the hotel until it was pretty late and the girls were exhausted.
The next day we were going to split into two groups. My dad, Shannon, and I headed to the Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson Air Force Base while Lisa, Patty, and Emily went to a 6 acre large grocery store called Jungle Jims. Lisa really wanted to go to the Museum with us but she also wanted to see Jungle Jims plus Patty was definitely not going to the museum and we weren't entirely sure how cool Emily would be with looking at old airplanes all day so she sacrificed her opportunity to hear Dad tell some stories and share his experiences.
The Air Force Museum is much larger than I remember it from 1986. It is three huge hangers full of all sorts of air planes plus a silo that contains some some huge rockets including to ICBMs (which definitely gave me chills to see; they are a scary proposition). The first hanger in the museum contains historical planes and artifacts from early flight through World War 1. My Dad, during his time in the Air Force had actually worked (lead?) a team that restored an old biplane from that period for inclusion in the museum. However, we couldn't find the plane though we did find one that looked similar. I could tell my dad was pretty disappointed to not find the plane that he and his team had spent so much time working on. It would have been really cool had it been there. The second hanger had more modern planes from WW2 to the present. Thus there were old P-51 mustangs along side a brand new F-22 Raptor. This room was really cool. It was much better lit and we were looking at planes my dad had a lot of first hand knowledge. It was great hearing him talk about each plane and explaining how different parts worked or what bits on each were a pain to work on. Plus it was great to see him sharing some of his experiences with Shannon. After we finished up in the modern hanger we were pretty hungry so we headed for the cafe. My dad was kind of bumming about his biplane not being around and wasn't really interested in going into the third hanger, the Cold War. Shannon asked why we couldn't go in that one so Dad relented and after chow we headed into the Cold War. It's a good thing we did too. The Cold War room had bunch of different planes in it including the SR-71 blackbird (my favorite plane) and the B2 stealth bomber. As we wandered around looking at all the modern day artifcats we came across an F-106 from the 49th Fighter Interceptor Squadron of Griffis Air Force Base, Rome NY. The 49th was my Dads last duty station before retiring and he knew this plane very well. He instantly recognized it's tail number and started telling us it's history. He was very very excited to have one of his old planes in there. In fact this plane was retired from the Air Force the same year he retired. It was pretty cool.
After we finished in the Cold War hanger we went into the silo and then we headed onto the actual base to see the Presidential Hanger where retired "Air Force One's" are enshrined. The presidential hanger has a sister hanger on base which is full of experimental planes. One of the planes in that hanger was the only surviving XB-70 Valkyrie supersonic bomber. It is HUGE. It dominated the hanger. All of the experimental planes were really cool - some of them were little more than rockets with small wings; it was hard to believe they could fly. Overall the whole experience at the museum was really great. We got to see a ton of cool planes, hear some neat stories, get a hint of a story my dad doesn't want to tell me, and Shannon seemed to really enjoy it. We were there for seven hours and my back and legs were worn out but it was well worth it. I've uploaded some photos of the museum - the first few are planes my dad had hands on experience with during his career.
The County Fair
1 min read
The girls and I went to the Gallia County Fair with my dad and step-mother last week. I have to be honest - I'm not much of a fan of county fairs but it wasn't too bad. The girls rode a bunch of rides and Shannon won an prize at a dart game. I even managed to win the big animal prize on a game - that one where you roll a ball up a small table and based on which hole it goes in your character races ahead. There were at least ten of us in the race so it was cool to win even though I almost choked after pulling out to a huge lead.
Anyway, here are some photos of the girls at the fair.
Day of the Battered Shins
5 min read
I'd like to think that I was getting better at this mountain biking stuff but, as it turns out, I'd just be lying to myself if I thought that. If yesterday's effort is any indication I am actually getting worse. However, instead of accepting that harsh reality I'm going to blame my poor performance on the conditions and my nagging hunger; yeah, that's the ticket.
Last week I told you that it was muddy and that biking in the mud was pretty dumb. Well, I still hold that position after doing it again this week. I didn't really think the mud caused me a ton of problems last week but it definitely did this week. My tires were pretty clogged with mud so I don't think I had much traction in general and my feet continuously slipped off my pedals. The muddy tires and the lack of traction probably didn't cause me much trouble beyond what I would normally have but my feet slipping off was a pain in the ass (and in my left shin). On at least three occasions my left foot slipped off the pedal just as my right foot slipped and slammed the pedal around in a full circle ending in my shin. It hurt more than falling off the damn bike. So now I have some ugly gashes on my left shin. I think I can honestly say my future career as a leg model has been cut short.
We actually traversed the hill that sent me flying a couple weeks ago. However, I really wasn't feeling like I had my "A" game with me this week so rather than risk a repeat (especially with Sean at the bottom taking photos) I just walked my bike down this time. I did make it down a few hills that were a bit tougher than I normally do so I was happy with that and I was doing better getting up some of the steep hills so the day wasn't a total bust. However, aside from those small bright spots I had a bunch of dark ones. Nearly every rock that could reroute me did, nearly every fallen tree that could stop me did, and nearly every time I could fade off the path you could consider me faded. It was not pretty.
The brightest part of my day was actually the end result of a huge mistake. We were going down a semi-steep hill that did a semi-switchback to the left about 3/4 of the way down - right about when you have maximum speed really. I was cruising down trying to control my speed when I hit that turn and I just couldn't turn enough so I basically just went straight. Now, there is a reason the turn is there and that's because the next 20 feet of the hill, going straight, are very very steep. I cruised over the ridge, gripped my handle bars with a death grip, sat way back in my stance and got as low as I could over my back tire, and hoped for good luck. Now, since I told you this was a bright spot the drama is kind of lost becuase you already know I made it down the hill safely. Amazingly I didn't lose control hitting a hidden rock or fallen tree, I didn't fly over my handlebars, I didn't even tip over at the bottom when I would have relaxed thinking all was safe. I just slowed down, took a sharp left turn, and bunny hopped over and obstacle and got right back on the trail. I was amazed and disappointed that none of the others had the chance to witness my skills since they were well ahead of me.
I think I'll try to just focus on the positives and build on these small victories and try to forget about the pain in my shin and my shoulder. However, to help avoid the shin pain I'll probably start wearing my soccer shin guards. I'm already wearing the soccer socks so now I'll look the part of crazed Mt. Biker. Mark my words some time next year it will be fashionable to wear long songs while mt. biking.
Tomorrow I am going to try to align my rear wheel so I can avoid the $12 it costs to have the bike shop do it. After next payday I think I'm going to buy some new wheels and tires in a progressive step towards upgrading my brakes. Next month some time I'll probably buy new brakes and a support bar so my frame can handle the increased breaking power. I also want to start going out a little on the weekends, maybe at Ritter Park with my other coworker Jason so I can get a bit more practice in (and thus more comfort "in the saddle").
Mayhem on the Mountain
10 min read
Some say three times the charm to suggest that the third time you try something you'll "get it" and everything will be much smoother. In general I can say that held true for me on the mountain yesterday though I'm not sure I would use smooth as the correct adjective to describe my evening of mountain biking. Just like last week there were four of us hitting the trails; Ed, Sean, Mike, and myself. Somehow, even though I left the office last, I was actually the first one at the park. I unloaded my bike (which had some service done on it at the local bike shop over the week) and stretched out my stiff legs (I had played about 3 hours of Ultimate Frisbee on Wednesday night) and then waited on the others. Ed showed up shortly there after but Sean and Mike were both delayed so we got off to a bit of a late start.
This week we decided to do a totally different line through the parks trails. We would circle around the lake then come up through some big field before ascending the mountain via a rough track. Once at the top we descended a gravel/paved road (it alternated surface types) before crossing the main road onto the first trail I rode in week 1. It sounded like a great plan because the lake trail is pretty easy and would give us all a great way to warm up before we had to climb the mountain and then face the descent. We headed down a dried riverbed to the lake trail and, before we even hit the trail I made a mistake. The dried river was fairly gouged. While trying to cross a large crevice I hopped my front tire nicely over it but my back tire hit really hard. My tire pressure was a little low and just like that I had gotten a "pinch flat" - of course I didn't notice it until i had made it down the lake trail a bit and by that time Ed was well ahead of me. Sean and Mike were actually behind me so they said they would go get Ed. They took off and I started walking my bike. Shortly thereafter a nice older guy (in his 50's) came down the trail in the opposite direction on his bike. I asked him if he had a pump and not only did he but he had a tool to take my tire apart with and a patch kit containing a "super patch" which is a self-adhesive rubber patch. By the time the other guys got back to me my bike was repaired. I don't know who the guy was but it was very, very cool of him to stop and help me and I really appreciated it. He wasn't sure I should try to ride on the super patch for long but we decided to risk it anyway and it held up marvelously throughout the ride.
The ride down the lake trail was a blast. Overall it is pretty flat with just some little whoopsie-do type risers; nothing to fancy. The trail gets narrow at times and there were plenty of little slalom type areas where you had to turn quickly between trees and rocks. On one of those there were three trees then a large rock so you had to go left, right, left, right really fast. I went left, right, left but couldn't make the right. Fortunately I wasn't moving very fast. A better cyclist probably could have popped their wheel up and rode over the large rock. I, on the other hand, came to an abrupt stop and went slowly over my handle bars. I was going slowly enough where it didn't hurt at all and my bike didn't suffer any damage either. I hopped back up and resumed my trek through the woods; at this point I was third in line behind Ed and Sean. At one point the lake trail actually encounters a desolate construction area where the park board is working in some new facilities. The ground was very uneven and generally uncomfortable to ride on. At one point my left peddle hit a upthrust stump that caused the tail end of my bike to kick to the right and the pointy part of the seat to get far too friendly with my booty. Fortunately I was able to keep my balance and carry on with nothing worse than a sense of violation.
By the end of the lake trail I was pretty tired - we had ridden pretty hard and fast I thought and we took very few breaks. However we had a nice casual ride across the field immediately after so we were all refreshed before having to climb the mountain. The mountain climb was a bitch. Mostly because I'm just not in that good of cardiovascular shape yet. My legs were actually doing pretty good but once I lost my momentum it was really hard to get rolling again so I had to walk up big chunks of the hill. By the time we all reached the top we were pretty winded and in need of a good rest. While we were up there Ed told us about a guy called The Fat Biker who loves climbing hills becuase he can climb hills nobody else manages to complete in one go and he rolls past them all; he views it as his own super power. After climbing the hill I and failing to do it in one sweep I kind of view it as his super power too.
The ride down to the next trail was cool and relaxing. We passed a couple beautiful overlooks so sometime I'll have to take a camera out there with me so I can share them with everyone who reads my tales.
The next leg was the downhill forest trail I had done in week 1 and I did phenomenally better than I did last week. It was really pretty amazing. I was hopping over trees and rocks and all sorts of other debris like I actually knew what I was doing. I was amazed. I was keeping up with the rest of the group (though I chose to go last in line down the hill so I wouldn't be a danger to anyone else). Being in last but keeping up actually caused me some new problems becuase some of the obstacles required some momentum to complete but if one of the guys in front of me had a problem I had to stop while they cleared. At one point my lack of momentum had me walking my bike through an obstacle and then I had to let some other trail rider go by. After that I tried to get my balance and get going again but I had trouble making a turn, my handle bar hit a tree, and back over my handle bars I went. Again, I was going really slow so it didn't hurt at all but it was frustrating because everything had been going really well.
I got my groove going again and caught up with the group before too long and we kept on cruising. Eventually we were almost done and Ed asked if we wanted to finish on the long, medium, or short trail. I called for medium becuase my arms were really tired. It turns out medium is also really, really steep. We hit that part of the trail and I discovered new levels of speed through the woods. I gripped my back break as hard as I could but the tire spun unimpeded and my speed kept picking up. I pulsed my front break and it had no effect. I started bouncing, and before I knew it my weight was too far forward on the bike and BAM I flew over my handle bars. This time I was going fast. I ducked my head and landed hard on the back of my left shoulder, rolled across my back, saw my bike fly over my body, slammed my right hip and knee into the earth and then popped up onto my feet. My bike was about 20 feet further down the hill. I walked down and got it, hopped on to finish the trek, and my shoulder shot with pain when I pulled up on the handle bars a little. Fortunately the parking lot was only a few hundred feet away by this point so I was able to casually ride with just my right arm holding the bars.
Ed helped me out and put my bike in the back of the car and then I drove home. My shoulder was still sending some sharp pains through me off and on as I drove and my finger tips were occasionally sparked with a shooting pain. Once I got home I saw the lawn was well past need of being mowed so I hauled out the mower and mowed the lawn. Suprisingly my shoulder didn't bother me at all while I did that though most of the time I tried to take it easy on my left arm. Once I got in the house I iced it up and told Lisa about the events. She gave me a pain killer and a medicated patch to put on my shoulder and my right hip (which, by this point, hurt quite a bit). I was not looking forward to going to sleep where I couldn't sleep on either my stomach (my back always hurts if I sleep on my stomach on our current mattress), my left side (painful shoulder), or my right side (painful hip). Thankfully, while I was trying to sleep the pain killer kicked in and I was able to sleep pretty well.
This morning I took a hot shower and, honestly, my shoulder feels pretty good. The spot that bore the brunt of the impact is very sensitive but it doesn't hurt to move my arm around at all and I seem to have full range of motion. My fingers haven't had any sharp pains today at all. My hip still hurts quite a bit so I imagine I bruised it pretty badly but overall I think it is OK too; I'm a little battered but no worse for the wear.
I may end up taking off next week if my shoulder doesn't feel better by then. However, I definitely will go back out. It was a lot of fun and I have progressed a lot in a small amount of time; plus now I know to put my weight way to the back of the bike (well behind my seat) while going down a steep hill! Ed offered that advice after my crash. Before I go back out though I need to get a small kit of bike maintenance supplies such as patches, a pump, a spare tube, and some allen wrenches. I really look forward to getting back out there and continuing to improve. Overall it is a lot of fun and some great exercise; I just need to stay on the damn bike!
Sporting Madness
6 min read
This past week was busy busy busy. To start with on Monday Lisa asked me to clear out some crazy weeds we had growing around our gardens. Truth be told I hate pulling weeds but these were big weeds so it seemed fitting that I attack the job. On top of the weeds being big one corner of the yard was getting over grown with poison ivy and, since I've not been allergic to poison ivy and Lisa has, it was safer for me to dig it out. You'll might notice that I used the past tense to describe my allergic relationship with poison ivy. It turns out I am now officially allergic to that shit; my arms and legs are a living pus laden testament to how nasty that stuff can be. I'll talk a bit more about this later.
Wednesday we had our first official company golf scramble. Technically we had another one a few years ago as a marketing deal where we invited customers and others but this one was just employees of the company and our friends/family. It was a very cool gesture by the owners to give us an afternoon of careless fun. If you have been following my golf history you will know I'm not very good. So far this year my average has been around 114 or so. Granted, last year I did shoot in the 90's two or three times, but in general, my average over the past two seasons is closer to a 105. As pitiful as that is somehow I was deemed by my boss to have the fourth best average in the company's golfers and thus I was the "A" grade player on my team. My teammates were Sean (whom I share an office with and who thinks his average is around 110), Mike (who hasn't golfed in 8 years and thought his average was up near 110 when he did play), and Adam (a 6' 10" guy who also shoots about a 110). Knowing that each of the other teams had a player who averages in the low to mid eighties I figured we were in trouble.
It turns out, however, that a balanced team actually means something as we finished second out of the four teams. Each player contributed a lot throughout the day. I was, for me, on fire on the front nine while the other guys were finding their swing then, on the back nine, when my drives started finding houses more frequently than fairways, the other guys started to heat up. Our entire team was putting well on the back nine too and thanks to that we saved a bunch of pars and bogeys that could have killed us. When all was said and done we ended up at five over par - a 77 - only four strokes behind the team that won (Ed in the 80's, Ryan in the 90-110 range, Brandon in the 130's, and Tracy who had never golfed before).
My teams goal for the day was to shoot bogey or better golf on every hole and we nailed it. We had six bogeys, a birdie(!), and 11 pars. I was pretty stoked. Everyone on the team had a good time and I think we would all be happy to go out and golf as a team again.
On Thursday I got to go mountain biking for the second time. You would have thought that I had learned my lesson last week and boycotted the sport but oh no, not I. By this point my poison ivy was really kicking into itch mode as well and I had some big swollen red areas on my lower calves. You may not know this but you can actually get rid of those by scraping them off with a sharp object like, oh, I dunno, a bike pedal! That's right, I've found the cure for poison ivy just rip it off your body. It hurts and burns like hell but that area won't itch anymore. Woo hoo!
On this biking trip we took a different route to start with - a much more technically challenging route for me with much steeper downhills but I think it helped me gain some confidence when we started the second half of the route which was the same path we took last week. I managed to stay on the trail nearly the entire time and even picked up speed going down some hills. However, about 1/2 way through last weeks path we took a detour to another hard trail that I am not really qualified to walk on let alone ride a bike over. Needless to say I saw my imminent death a few times! At one point I got off my bike to walk it down a particularly treacherous path and, about halfway down it I though; "Oh, this doesn't look to bad, I'll ride now" only to hear Ed yell back up "Bill, Walk on this part! Sean just went over his handlebars!" I was not too proud to heed his advice and thankfully I wasn't becuase the path got really ugly with a steep hairpin turn and some big branches, rocks, and trees obscuring the way. After that portion of the trail the difficultly dropped back to an easy blue or a difficult green slope and I felt much more comfortable again. I rode pretty hard from there on out and really picked up some speed only to encounter a really narrow trail area. Amazingly I managed to navigate through the entire thing without pausing. At the end I pulled over to catch my breath and a group of skilled riders passed me in the opposite direction. I was very grateful that I didn't cross their path when I was going faster or I might have killed one or two of them in my death throes.
Next week Ed has a cool sounding path for us to follow and I'm pretty stoked about it. If I survive I'll blog again!
My Best Photos
1 min read
I have been trying to tidy up my online presence some lately and, in that same vein, I've decided to split out some of the photos I have in order to highlight them a little better. Normally I post all of my photos at our picasaweb location. However, in the future that online repository will be just our normal run of the mill photos of the family and our adventures. Some photos from these adventures, on the other hand, just stand out as really cool images and so I wanted to give them their own little home on the web. For that I have decided to repurpose my long idle Flickr account. So now I have a set called "My Best Shots" that is will feature these photos. As of today there are 13 images in that set. Hopefully you will think some of them are cool too.
I use two of them as wall papers on my computer - the giraffe and the aquarium images. In fact, as of this writing I am using the aquarium image.
My Writings on the Web
5 min read
Did you know I have what amounts to four blogs on the web? You probably didn't. More than likely you are only familiar with this one; the one where I plop all my family updates and stuff. Truth be told this one blog is probably sufficient and I could probably figure out a way to consolidate all my other stuff into this one - but I kind of like the other ones I have and each has its own purpose. You might even be interested in some of the others. With that in mind I am going to tell you about each of them and then, possibly, introduce you to a cool bit of technology that will help you keep up to date on each that you are interested in.
My newest blog is at bits.rawlinson.us and it is a small "tumble blog aka tumblog" where I just stick interesting stuff I find on the web. Generally you won't see big long postings like this one there. Nor will you see much origional content by me. However, I will stick all sorts of stuff there that I think are interesting or worthwhile - mostly videos and quotes of other people. Generally I will be in agreement with the content or I will at least find it highly entertaining. The tumblog format is ideal for these kind of posts and it helps me keep the focus of this blog, primarily, on my family.
In the past I have posted some observational essays about politics or whatever on this site as well. However, overtime I have also been dual posting many of these to a site called Newsvine. Newsvine gets a lot more traffic there so my opinion can reach a broad audience, and thus, I get far more feedback from people there. I won't say I like the direction Newsvine has been heading in lately (as far as the belligerent and rude crowd goes) but overall there are still a lot of bright people there who give back some great comments and criticisims of my opinions that help me figure out where I really stand on the issue. I've actually had the headlines of things I put on newsvine being shown on the homepage of this site for a long time as well.
Way back when I first started this blog I had about as many technically jaron laced posts as I did personal ones yet the majority of my audience wasn't that interested in my tech postings so I ended up starting a second blog In The Trenches that deals almost entirely with more technical stuff relating to my job. That blog is still going strong though, at times, I get as bad about posting there as I do here.
The reason I decided to write this post was because I want to find a way to share the stuff in my tumblog with the people who also read this blog - or at least give my readers a chance to opt into seeing what I've recently discovered. However, there isn't a clean cut easy way for me to integrate the tumblog with the automatic emails that get sent by this site and I really don't want to spam anyone with additional emails. In fact, I don't really like spamming your inbox with my blog updates all that much either. I'd rather help you read my blog(s) at your leisure without getting in your way at all. Fortunately there is a technology that solves this specific problem and does it well; it's called RSS. RSS is a "news feed" where each item I post on any of my blogs would be considered a news item. So, basically, you could subscribe to any of my blogs (or really any blog at all) and use that news feed to keep up with the blogs content without ever having to actually visit the blog.
Basically each blog has a unique web address for it's news feed. So, for instance, this blogs news feed is at http://
Some of you may already be familiar with RSS - in fact I already have five people who are subscribed to my feed and that's without me having any advertisement for it at all. However, if you aren't, even if you don't want to subscribe to any of my feeds, I'd suggest you explore it a little. The technology, in the long run, will make your life on the net a bit easier.
Here are my various news feeds.
- This Site
- http://
feeds.feedburner.com/ rawlinson-us - Tumblog
- http://
bits.rawlinson.us/ rss - Tech Blog
- http://
feeds.feedburner.com/ InTheTrenches - Newsvine
- http://
finalcut.newsvine.com/ _feeds/ rss2/ master?articles
You can subscribe to each or all of these in your feed reader and then categorize them all as "Bills Stuff" or something and viola you have all my writings on the web in one handy place that you can go to at your leisure and read. If you need any help getting this setup please just let me know and I'll be glad to help.