The Dream Is Over, and I'm a failure

I guess I was kinda always hoping I'd hit 3000 miles on my bike this year.

16.5 miles in January 2007
9.43 in February
213.41 in March
138.05 in April
641.92 in May
640.14 in June
495.63 in July
294.43 in August
208.74 in September
54.25 in October
117.66 in November
0 miles in December

That's a total of 2830.16, or 170 miles short of my goal. If I had finished RAIN, I'd only be 22 miles short - 22 miles I'd be sure to ride this week.

To be honest, I could have easily made up those 170 miles - and if I really wanted to to I could get through them in the next four days, but that's not going to happen. Instead I think I'll attempt to ride this Saturday, finishing up somewhere near 2860, and look forward to doing more next year.

Looking at those numbers is encouraging - well all that data except for the weight I started at last year (I'm nine pounds heavier as of this morning) - but it looks like it should be easy to improve upon. We'll see.

Former Country Mouse meets Current Country Mouse, Worlds Shaken

For the past two months or so Gina and I have been getting home delivery from Farm Fresh Delivery, an "online home delivery service that provides organic produce and natural groceries to its members". We got into Farm Fresh after I did a lot of reading about Food Co-ops and decided that the unpredictability of random fresh produce might be the sort of adventure I need in my life. So far we've been pretty happy with the service.

Just before we left for home this weekend we received our latest delivery - a bin full of fresh fruit, some bread, eggs, pasta, and turnips. Knowing that we wouldn't be able to eat all the fruit before it started to spoil meant that the best course of action would be to bring it back to Trenton IL with us, where it could be used as a source of holiday nourishment. My mom gladly accepted the fruit and turned it into a fruit salad for consumption on Christmas day.

Of course that all seems normal enough, but somewhere along the way the cousins and aunts and uncles became aware that we had served organic fruit - and you would have thought that we had brought the fruit from a different planet. Not only were the relatives taken aback at the thought of organic fruit, some seemed to be amazed that we had it delivered to our house.

Some of these people went to college - they live only 40 minutes from St. Louis, and have television and the internet... and yet the idea of home delivery of organic produce was earth-shattering.

Or maybe they were just giving me crap. I mean, I know they were, but crap about organic fruit?

he then became the sort of person who took photos of his cat

I don't plan to make this a regular feature, I'm just testing out flickr and whatnot.

You need to be made aware of this.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/teeth/trailer/

also, fulham have sacked lawrie sanchez. finally.

Witchcraft!

When I read about Adelaide's solar power bus, I am renewed with hope and reminded of Arthur C. Clarke's Three Laws -

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Maybe it's not that dramatic a breakthrough... but nevertheless - next up, solar powered flying houses made entirely of tax-reversing, carbon-eating, dusts. Free to anyone, and outfitted with flat panel televisions.

Hat tip, Du Nord...

It's the off-season. Sergio stands before Sheri, his gorgeous cocoa-skinned girlfriend of nearly one week. They're in his South Beach mansion's movie room. She claims that she loves him ... but she really wants to choose the movie tonight.

"Please, Sergio? I love-love-love Brad Pitt and George Clooney," she says.

Sergio falls to the fine carpet, screaming, holding his hands over his heart as if he had been kicked there. The pain is too much for him to bear! He might not be able to take it one second longer!

Sheri relents.

"Fine. You pick what we watch," she sighs.

The pain suddenly erased from his heart, Sergio stands and kisses Sheri on the cheek.

More moments in a soccer player's life at McSweeney's.

It's easy enough to hate Christiano Ronaldo - fantastically fit, (arguably) handsome, kills Fulham... but it's hard to argue with the talent. No player strikes me as being so scary with the ball. If he's running at goal all defenders seem to be able to to do is poke and hope.

Here he is juggling the ball with some other guy, who despite playing with probably the best player in the world, seems to hold his own.

it's happening again

Today, spurred on by the discovery of Belgium Knee Warmers, I started thinking about bike racing again.

I had plenty of opportunities to get into racing last year; in fact a fellow rider basically begged me to get out and ride CAT 5 (beginning class), saying that anyone on our normal Tuesday night training ride could hang. Most of the guys I ride with are 50+ years old, have been riding forever, and seem to think that sort of thing is behind them. I think it's still in front of me.

Of course any new activity requires a new bike - the Bianchi I'm riding right now if fine as a sort of century ride comfort road bike, but what I really want is something with the zing my LeMond had, except turned up to eleven.

Maybe an aluminum Cannondale with wheels that cost more than the frame?

Maybe I should pay off my credit card first.

I hate that fucking credit card.

So I'm thinking in the meantime, in addition to the Tuesday night riding I'm still doing (except not right now because there's snow on the ground), I'll pick up that
regular Saturday ride. And maybe put the trainer in the living room again.

You wanna talk about fun? How's sweating your ass off in the living room sound?

* * * * *

Also, sort of unrelated - I wanted to talk about Lance's arm tan, a tan that all regular cyclists have. A tan I can't get rid of, no matter how long winter lasts. Gina even picked up the tan in her very limited riding last summer.

The tan is a weird thing, especially when it gets deep and dark in the middle of those hot months. Depending on what jersey you're wearing and sleve lenght, you can end up with tan stripes.

I happen to think that's kinda cool. I also don't wear sunscreen, and I'm sure I'll regret it later.

* * * * *

*by the way, I'm still on the cross country bike thing, it's just hard to book two months off work two years in advance

yeah whatever

maybe you don't read hbg, that's fine, you're not into beer, whatever

this post is pretty entertaining, anyway... haikus, song lyrics, reviews in the style of dune...

well i thought it was entertaining, anyway.

The bacon chocolate bar

A couple weeks ago while making our first ever visit to the goose market, Gina picked up a chocolate covered bacon bar. Yeah, I know. And it was $7.

Well, it wasn't so good that we ate the whole thing at once - in fact most of it is still sitting on the kitchen counter.

Today I came across this write up about the bacon bar. And then I posted about it here, without reading the article.

That's how I roll.