kush
Active Member
I can't tell you how good taking 4 weeks off training was, completely, and eating all the food. I'm literally looking forward to these 4:30am 20 degree workouts. Though that may not last. But it's pretty cool now.
Winter in the Land of my Bikes & Wife
- Thread starter Norm
- Start date
I can't tell you how good taking 4 weeks off training was, completely, and eating all the food. I'm literally looking forward to these 4:30am 20 degree workouts. Though that may not last. But it's pretty cool now.
Thursday December 23rd
Ilya mentions taking time off and I backed it down for 2 weeks, and really another 4 weeks at the end of the cross season. I haven’t ridden 10 hours in 8 weeks or so. But the real problem is that the same OCD that helps me do well at biking is the same that got me to 290 pounds at one point in my life. I sort of go full bore at everything, be it biking or eating. Plus, when I’m just chilling around the house I feel like there’s a live wire stuck up my ass because it’s a series of do this...do this...do this...so, I just go ride my bike.
The past few days I’ve been checking the weather in Taiwan routinely. Last night when I was going to bed it was 72 and clear. Looking like 65 and 60% chance of rain on the day we land. This morning it’s 29 here, with the winds howling. Not terribly cold but it sounds cold, and that wind is rough. I had to scrape myself out of bed to the sounds of that howling. I hope this ride isn’t a circle jerk like Fred asked me.
So last week someone had suggested I try this thing called “mountain” biking. With Battenkill only like 100 days away, I figured this would be some sort of road bike riding in the mountains. Well, actually on the mountains, as there are no trolls mining trails on the actual inside of them. It turns out I was wrong.
Last Sunday I agreed to try this “mountain” biking and it turns out that people, who I would consider otherwise sane, ride their bikes on dirt trails with logs that face any random direction, over rocks of all sizes, and through streams. I was really thrilled to find this new and unique sport called “mountain” biking exists in our state, and is in fact somewhat popular. I continued by going again both yesterday and today. Too bad there’s not a website about this stuff where we could all talk about this new and exciting sport.
Anyway, today we did 4 hours of the Allamuchys which included Deer Park, Stephens, the rail trail, KVSP, and finally Allamuchy North. We ended up with 4 hours and 37.5 miles. I think maybe a total of 2 were on the road and some were on the Sussex Branch Trail. Technically that qualifies as a Death March, but it doesn’t feel pure.
Good ride today, with a real good group of guys (Ben, Fred, Young Rob, Utah, Iggy, Kris, and Kirt) who kept a good pace and we managed to keep stopping to a minimum. The ride link has 42 minutes of stopping but well over half of that was at the Grist Mill coffee shop pit stop around the halfway point. It’s pretty rare when you embark on an endeavor like that and don’t have something go wrong, be it mechanical, getting lost, or having group pace problems. I’m told I may have pushed on the pace a bit. But nobody yelled at me and Ben usually tells me when I’m going too fast. Kirt cut out a little early and Kris took the road back from KVSP. In all, I’d give it a Borat ranking of great success.
I can see my bike handling skills getting better in just a few days of riding the mountain bike so much. I probably should do it more next year if I want to do well in actual mountain bike races.
After the ride I went home, showered, went food shopping for Christmas dinner, then came home and wrapped presents. Oh and Pearl came over to pick up his new (to him) cross bike. I expect big things from James in the race scene next year.
At 5:30 my food calculator told me that I was 3096 calories down on the day. That’s why it’s easier to drop pounds this time of year when you’re banging out these big hours. This is my only hope of going to Taiwan and not gaining 12 pounds. In general, I’d prefer to just ride big hours all year round but that’s not what the talking heads say you should be doing.
Tomorrow I’m going back to Allamuchy because I am entirely devoid of common sense. So far I have almost 8 hours in the last 5 days. After tomorrow it will be almost 11 hours in 6 days. Looks like Utah, Young Rob, Ilya, Chris26er, Jeremy, and Bill with his brother-in-law (or soon to be) are going. As Jake calls it, the Farewell Tour continues with a good showing. Young Rob is really sending me off quite a bit this week.
Need to figure out how to get in 4.5 hours on Sunday. I’m thinking of taking Can O’ Beans out to make sure it fits and rides well. I’m also littering it with stickers. If I show up at that group ride in Taiwan they’re going to think I’m a retard. Maybe they’re right, I don’t know.
Nobody got a pic of Weber hugging me today so I give you this, which Capers tagged me as:
Ilya mentions taking time off and I backed it down for 2 weeks, and really another 4 weeks at the end of the cross season. I haven’t ridden 10 hours in 8 weeks or so. But the real problem is that the same OCD that helps me do well at biking is the same that got me to 290 pounds at one point in my life. I sort of go full bore at everything, be it biking or eating. Plus, when I’m just chilling around the house I feel like there’s a live wire stuck up my ass because it’s a series of do this...do this...do this...so, I just go ride my bike.
The past few days I’ve been checking the weather in Taiwan routinely. Last night when I was going to bed it was 72 and clear. Looking like 65 and 60% chance of rain on the day we land. This morning it’s 29 here, with the winds howling. Not terribly cold but it sounds cold, and that wind is rough. I had to scrape myself out of bed to the sounds of that howling. I hope this ride isn’t a circle jerk like Fred asked me.
So last week someone had suggested I try this thing called “mountain” biking. With Battenkill only like 100 days away, I figured this would be some sort of road bike riding in the mountains. Well, actually on the mountains, as there are no trolls mining trails on the actual inside of them. It turns out I was wrong.
Last Sunday I agreed to try this “mountain” biking and it turns out that people, who I would consider otherwise sane, ride their bikes on dirt trails with logs that face any random direction, over rocks of all sizes, and through streams. I was really thrilled to find this new and unique sport called “mountain” biking exists in our state, and is in fact somewhat popular. I continued by going again both yesterday and today. Too bad there’s not a website about this stuff where we could all talk about this new and exciting sport.
Anyway, today we did 4 hours of the Allamuchys which included Deer Park, Stephens, the rail trail, KVSP, and finally Allamuchy North. We ended up with 4 hours and 37.5 miles. I think maybe a total of 2 were on the road and some were on the Sussex Branch Trail. Technically that qualifies as a Death March, but it doesn’t feel pure.
Good ride today, with a real good group of guys (Ben, Fred, Young Rob, Utah, Iggy, Kris, and Kirt) who kept a good pace and we managed to keep stopping to a minimum. The ride link has 42 minutes of stopping but well over half of that was at the Grist Mill coffee shop pit stop around the halfway point. It’s pretty rare when you embark on an endeavor like that and don’t have something go wrong, be it mechanical, getting lost, or having group pace problems. I’m told I may have pushed on the pace a bit. But nobody yelled at me and Ben usually tells me when I’m going too fast. Kirt cut out a little early and Kris took the road back from KVSP. In all, I’d give it a Borat ranking of great success.
I can see my bike handling skills getting better in just a few days of riding the mountain bike so much. I probably should do it more next year if I want to do well in actual mountain bike races.
After the ride I went home, showered, went food shopping for Christmas dinner, then came home and wrapped presents. Oh and Pearl came over to pick up his new (to him) cross bike. I expect big things from James in the race scene next year.
At 5:30 my food calculator told me that I was 3096 calories down on the day. That’s why it’s easier to drop pounds this time of year when you’re banging out these big hours. This is my only hope of going to Taiwan and not gaining 12 pounds. In general, I’d prefer to just ride big hours all year round but that’s not what the talking heads say you should be doing.
Tomorrow I’m going back to Allamuchy because I am entirely devoid of common sense. So far I have almost 8 hours in the last 5 days. After tomorrow it will be almost 11 hours in 6 days. Looks like Utah, Young Rob, Ilya, Chris26er, Jeremy, and Bill with his brother-in-law (or soon to be) are going. As Jake calls it, the Farewell Tour continues with a good showing. Young Rob is really sending me off quite a bit this week.
Need to figure out how to get in 4.5 hours on Sunday. I’m thinking of taking Can O’ Beans out to make sure it fits and rides well. I’m also littering it with stickers. If I show up at that group ride in Taiwan they’re going to think I’m a retard. Maybe they’re right, I don’t know.
Nobody got a pic of Weber hugging me today so I give you this, which Capers tagged me as:
83 (i'm 84) posts and i finally get a mention.
james pearl likes this.
james pearl likes this.
ArmyOfNone
Well-Known Member
I have to say this "mountain" biking was really quite fun today. So much fun that I also am going to do it again. Unfortunately I cannot make it tomorrow.
I also learned today that gears and suspension make rides much more enjoyable.
I also learned today that gears and suspension make rides much more enjoyable.
Dusty the Whale
Mr.Chainsaw
Baby James had the CX bike at 6milez last night. He is fast on that thing and should do well when it comes to racing bikes on grass next year. He doesn't give himself enough credit when it comes to riding bikes fast...he can totally ride fast
F maddox in the A! Yesterdays ride was 100% Epic! Pace was amazing considering how many people we had and how long we were out there for.
Todays ride on the other hand....I felt like a wheel barrel full of bones that someone dumped off of a cliff.
Im the wuss of the group and I now have 6.5hrs of mooch in the past 24hrs. 🙂
Todays ride on the other hand....I felt like a wheel barrel full of bones that someone dumped off of a cliff.
Im the wuss of the group and I now have 6.5hrs of mooch in the past 24hrs. 🙂
Friday December 24th
It’s remarkable how much the morning after a hard ride feels a real lot like a hangover. When my eyes opened this morning my body was in pain and I had some serious cottonmouth. Getting out of bed was a chore. I went down hard on the ice yesterday and fell on my right side. Last night and this morning, my right hip and elbow are really sore. My elbow is swollen a little bit.
As much as I wanted to stay in bed, there’s a group of 9 going this morning. Fred was worried about that whole group ride circle jerk yesterday, but today I’m worried the other way. I need that kind of ride today. Well not the stopping and standing around, but I fully well expect to use a lot of low gears today. I’m thinking a pure North ride today is going to hurt either way. I suspect I’ll be fine “enough” once I get out there, which basically translates to you’re riding today covers your gluttony for tomorrow.
Bill was in rare form last night. I’m fairly sure he’s going to wake up this morning still drunk. That should help keep the pace reasonable. It was his company’s Christmas party yesterday, and he lived it up. At some point he texted me some incoherent ramblings about jetlag, Lynard Skynard, and finally a picture of him holding a guitar.
“What song is it you wanna hear?”
Today’s ride ended up being on the easier side, but as you well know, nothing in Allamuchy is easy, especially when you start going up Cardiac. The group was me, Ilya, Utah, Jeremy, Woody, Bill, Chris26er, RobP, and Bill’s BIL Matt, who was a cat 3 racer this past year. So it may have hurt a bit, as I kept the pace easy but stopped as little as possible.
I crashed on (I think) Freaking Middle, mostly (again, I think) because I stopped paying attention. My shift lever bent up and got wedged into my bars and Utah needed to perform open heart surgery on it. The patient lived and we rolled away. I probably got a little lucky as my face rushed at mock speed towards the ground but I managed to land between the rocks. I guess I wasn’t going too too fast.
In general I was dreadful at technical riding today. I lost all confidence entirely on the rock face rollers and ended up walking things that I’ve had no problems rolling in the past. On Rollie Pollie my fork compressed fully and I almost went over. After that, I walked 2 of the roller-drops that looked sketchy to me. I don’t love that trail to begin with and today it was a bad combination for me. Then on Dan’s Trail something I rolled over the summer when riding with Kirt seemed impossible to ride today. Then on the white down to the Waterloo lot there was another rock face that I walked for no good reason.
So I’m pretty beat up right now, and I feel like I’ve been in a car crash, which is what Utah said he felt like this afternoon. 3 pretty solid crashes this week have me sore in about 4 significant areas, plus my legs are toast and my triceps feel like I’ve done 3000 pushups this week. In all, I’ve done 84 miles in the Allamuchys since Sunday. Holy crap that’s a lot.
I’m pretty sure you can easily put together a 6 hour Mooch Quad without going totally nuts in North. Matty and Chris both think you can add some miles in DP, and we obviously did almost nothing in Stephens yesterday. I’d say you could add 1:45 just with those 2 parks alone, and likely another hour in North without going too nuts. I guess that’s almost 7 hours. Math is good.
I think the vastness of the park is the biggest draw of Allamuchy, not necessarily the quality of every trail. I found that a lot of what we’ve done this week are rough trails that aren’t well-ridden and are on the more raw side. The green trail from Waving Willy is just an old carriage road, as is the white trail it connects into. Don’t get me wrong, there are some really solid trails in the Mooch. But more often than not the trails are raw and untamed. I hate to say it, but I think I see Brett’s point in that regard.
Having said that I want to learn these trails better. I’m sure a lot of what I do isn’t all of the best stuff. Kirt brought me on a really good loop once that I still have the link for. I’d like to start really linking these all together. I was surprised that ChrisS didn’t know everything in there, as I thought he was a regular.
Rest of say was Standard Christmas Pregame.
I threw Jake a Christmas bone yesterday by putting his name in bold. But really, how much more do I put Jake in bold than my left nut? As Jeremy notes, this is my (demented?) world, and Jake (Merry Christmas) just lives in it. He sorta lives in everyone’s world these days, as he doesn’t want to carry his own blog but likes to talk about what he’s doing. So he often says, “That’s cool. So I rode KVSP today.”
Pearl did catch me wrapping Xmas gifts yesterday. He actually called me and immediately said, “I see you.” Why do I have expectations for him? He’s 24, doesn’t drink coffee, doesn’t drink beer, and wants to get faster. He’s not as dedicated as Young Rob, who will make a huge step in 2011. But he does want to do better. In talking to him, my big concern would be his lack of persistence in getting the hours every week. But if he keeps it up, he’s going to rocket past the guys he rides with now. I’ve invited him to a big ride when I get back from my trip.
I can’t totally agree with Utah that yesterday was Epic. It was solid, and qualifies as a Death March, but I don’t think it was Epic. The ride Bill and I did last fall was Epic. That was the one where we got lost for an hour and ended up bushwhacking and being out for something like 7 hours. Then of course The Mahlon Suprise (tm) would probably qualify since it’s a bit of MTBNJ lore.
Don’t get me wrong, it was damn solid. But I felt like if I had to I could have gone another 1-2 hours. I feel like Epic should be a ride where you scrape yourself back to the car and are generally too tired to take your riding shoes off. It was solid though. I don’t think I’ll be up for that on February 13th, but I’m pretty sure I will be on the 20th. Let’s do 6!
Merry Christmas everyone!
It’s remarkable how much the morning after a hard ride feels a real lot like a hangover. When my eyes opened this morning my body was in pain and I had some serious cottonmouth. Getting out of bed was a chore. I went down hard on the ice yesterday and fell on my right side. Last night and this morning, my right hip and elbow are really sore. My elbow is swollen a little bit.
As much as I wanted to stay in bed, there’s a group of 9 going this morning. Fred was worried about that whole group ride circle jerk yesterday, but today I’m worried the other way. I need that kind of ride today. Well not the stopping and standing around, but I fully well expect to use a lot of low gears today. I’m thinking a pure North ride today is going to hurt either way. I suspect I’ll be fine “enough” once I get out there, which basically translates to you’re riding today covers your gluttony for tomorrow.
Bill was in rare form last night. I’m fairly sure he’s going to wake up this morning still drunk. That should help keep the pace reasonable. It was his company’s Christmas party yesterday, and he lived it up. At some point he texted me some incoherent ramblings about jetlag, Lynard Skynard, and finally a picture of him holding a guitar.
“What song is it you wanna hear?”
Today’s ride ended up being on the easier side, but as you well know, nothing in Allamuchy is easy, especially when you start going up Cardiac. The group was me, Ilya, Utah, Jeremy, Woody, Bill, Chris26er, RobP, and Bill’s BIL Matt, who was a cat 3 racer this past year. So it may have hurt a bit, as I kept the pace easy but stopped as little as possible.
I crashed on (I think) Freaking Middle, mostly (again, I think) because I stopped paying attention. My shift lever bent up and got wedged into my bars and Utah needed to perform open heart surgery on it. The patient lived and we rolled away. I probably got a little lucky as my face rushed at mock speed towards the ground but I managed to land between the rocks. I guess I wasn’t going too too fast.
In general I was dreadful at technical riding today. I lost all confidence entirely on the rock face rollers and ended up walking things that I’ve had no problems rolling in the past. On Rollie Pollie my fork compressed fully and I almost went over. After that, I walked 2 of the roller-drops that looked sketchy to me. I don’t love that trail to begin with and today it was a bad combination for me. Then on Dan’s Trail something I rolled over the summer when riding with Kirt seemed impossible to ride today. Then on the white down to the Waterloo lot there was another rock face that I walked for no good reason.
So I’m pretty beat up right now, and I feel like I’ve been in a car crash, which is what Utah said he felt like this afternoon. 3 pretty solid crashes this week have me sore in about 4 significant areas, plus my legs are toast and my triceps feel like I’ve done 3000 pushups this week. In all, I’ve done 84 miles in the Allamuchys since Sunday. Holy crap that’s a lot.
I’m pretty sure you can easily put together a 6 hour Mooch Quad without going totally nuts in North. Matty and Chris both think you can add some miles in DP, and we obviously did almost nothing in Stephens yesterday. I’d say you could add 1:45 just with those 2 parks alone, and likely another hour in North without going too nuts. I guess that’s almost 7 hours. Math is good.
I think the vastness of the park is the biggest draw of Allamuchy, not necessarily the quality of every trail. I found that a lot of what we’ve done this week are rough trails that aren’t well-ridden and are on the more raw side. The green trail from Waving Willy is just an old carriage road, as is the white trail it connects into. Don’t get me wrong, there are some really solid trails in the Mooch. But more often than not the trails are raw and untamed. I hate to say it, but I think I see Brett’s point in that regard.
Having said that I want to learn these trails better. I’m sure a lot of what I do isn’t all of the best stuff. Kirt brought me on a really good loop once that I still have the link for. I’d like to start really linking these all together. I was surprised that ChrisS didn’t know everything in there, as I thought he was a regular.
Rest of say was Standard Christmas Pregame.
I threw Jake a Christmas bone yesterday by putting his name in bold. But really, how much more do I put Jake in bold than my left nut? As Jeremy notes, this is my (demented?) world, and Jake (Merry Christmas) just lives in it. He sorta lives in everyone’s world these days, as he doesn’t want to carry his own blog but likes to talk about what he’s doing. So he often says, “That’s cool. So I rode KVSP today.”
Pearl did catch me wrapping Xmas gifts yesterday. He actually called me and immediately said, “I see you.” Why do I have expectations for him? He’s 24, doesn’t drink coffee, doesn’t drink beer, and wants to get faster. He’s not as dedicated as Young Rob, who will make a huge step in 2011. But he does want to do better. In talking to him, my big concern would be his lack of persistence in getting the hours every week. But if he keeps it up, he’s going to rocket past the guys he rides with now. I’ve invited him to a big ride when I get back from my trip.
I can’t totally agree with Utah that yesterday was Epic. It was solid, and qualifies as a Death March, but I don’t think it was Epic. The ride Bill and I did last fall was Epic. That was the one where we got lost for an hour and ended up bushwhacking and being out for something like 7 hours. Then of course The Mahlon Suprise (tm) would probably qualify since it’s a bit of MTBNJ lore.
Don’t get me wrong, it was damn solid. But I felt like if I had to I could have gone another 1-2 hours. I feel like Epic should be a ride where you scrape yourself back to the car and are generally too tired to take your riding shoes off. It was solid though. I don’t think I’ll be up for that on February 13th, but I’m pretty sure I will be on the 20th. Let’s do 6!
Merry Christmas everyone!
Dusty the Whale
Mr.Chainsaw
I'm one the dude he rides with and will rocket past. I was actually glad he was on that shit box CX bike cause he BASHES me to bits at 6mr all day urrday. He may come to the Death at the Hook ride sunday....we'll see
kush
Active Member
Merry Christmas
I had bunches of fun riding that what you call it - a mountain bike? Fortunately, the pace was light, as I have 10 hours in my legs this week already, plus the hockey; i was sure I was going to be left for dead somewhere.
The guys that rode the epic yesterday were for sure hurting. Stoically, but you can tell. Then, Bill was still inebriated, but managed to hop, skip and jump everything anyways. Well, some, in a round about way 🙂
Good times. These are the kind of rides memories are made of.
I had bunches of fun riding that what you call it - a mountain bike? Fortunately, the pace was light, as I have 10 hours in my legs this week already, plus the hockey; i was sure I was going to be left for dead somewhere.
The guys that rode the epic yesterday were for sure hurting. Stoically, but you can tell. Then, Bill was still inebriated, but managed to hop, skip and jump everything anyways. Well, some, in a round about way 🙂
Good times. These are the kind of rides memories are made of.
ArmyOfNone
Well-Known Member
I am glad to hear I wasnt the only one hurting today. I was crying in some sections at round valley.
I'm still slightly hungover. I'm not sure how I made it thru that ride. Fortunately there are some sections that require better than avg skills so I was able to keep up. Norm - you are faliing on some whimpy ass shit, don't let the mental break downs influence your riding on the more difficult but totally do-able sections, ride like a man on a mission.
Sunday December 26th
Slept until 8:00 today, so my own pre-jetlag effort is going ok. That’s 9:00 pm Taiwan time, which means I only need to adjust 6 hours to be “close enough.” While this isn’t horseshoes nor hand grenades, it qualifies. I have 3 more mornings, so I’m hoping to wake up at 11:00 on Wednesday, which should easily allow me to stay up through Anchorage Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Julia only slept until 10:00 today, so her effort isn’t going as well as planned.
Rode my bike to Lewis Morris today. I was supposed to do 4.5 hours but I’m still tired from the week, I woke up late, and the snow was coming. Add it all up and I just wanted to get 3. I ended up a bit short but had 13.5 hours on the week, all but 1:42 on the mountain bike. Saw Chris Esnes and some of the HG gang out there. Chris and I are on the same wavelength these days, as I seem to cross paths with him almost every other day.
Bill commented that I was falling on some wimpy stuff, which isn’t entirely accurate. The unfortunate truth is that I wasn’t even trying a lot of it on Friday. Utah said he was screwing up easy stuff too, so I chalk it up to being very tired and not wanting to break myself before the trip. But I think that’s being disingenuous. I simply had no nerve out there. It was a Rick Ankiel day for me. I may have to retire and become an outfielder.
I started sorta packing tonight which means doing laundry, drinking beer, and making some lists of what we’ll need to pack eventually. I’m pretty good at not getting too caught up in the details, so I don’t think Wednesday will be overly insane. I made some lists of daily living stuff and then bike stuff. The daily living stuff was 1 line: clothes, shoes, coat. The bike list may have been a bit more extensive, so I can't list it all here, In fact, it was 31 lines long. Nat saw my list and said, “What the hell is that?”
I also need to decide which book(s) to bring. I often bring books that I’ve always wanted to read but never got around to it, with the logic being that I’ll have all sorts of time to really absorb the book. The reality is that my brain is more often than not bleeding out my ears because I’m too tired, and that dissertation on the social impact of the Jimmy Carter peace accords on the baby boom generation of Syria is as appealing as sticking my arm in a wood chipper. So I’ll probably bring some fantasy tripe that’s easy to read.
Of course, one trip I read The Odyssey which was really good. Never did get around to reading The Iliad.
With the help of my Facebook Support System, I’m enjoying some beers tonight. I have to get these in because the selection in Taiwan really sucks. That will be a mission, to find good beer there. That and ride my bike a lot. I’m hoping to ride the day we land. I have a list of 8 things to do that day we land. 3 of them involve eating, and 2 of them involve my bike. The other 2 are work-related and the last is to figure out the phone situation.
These posts are only going to get later and later in the next few days. Tonight we’re trying to stay up until 1:00.
No pics again today so I trolled Facebook and came up with this one. I'm glad I'm not the only one who drinks beer that doesn't make the logo pop. 3 colors was too $$ though. The pic:
Slept until 8:00 today, so my own pre-jetlag effort is going ok. That’s 9:00 pm Taiwan time, which means I only need to adjust 6 hours to be “close enough.” While this isn’t horseshoes nor hand grenades, it qualifies. I have 3 more mornings, so I’m hoping to wake up at 11:00 on Wednesday, which should easily allow me to stay up through Anchorage Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Julia only slept until 10:00 today, so her effort isn’t going as well as planned.
Rode my bike to Lewis Morris today. I was supposed to do 4.5 hours but I’m still tired from the week, I woke up late, and the snow was coming. Add it all up and I just wanted to get 3. I ended up a bit short but had 13.5 hours on the week, all but 1:42 on the mountain bike. Saw Chris Esnes and some of the HG gang out there. Chris and I are on the same wavelength these days, as I seem to cross paths with him almost every other day.
Bill commented that I was falling on some wimpy stuff, which isn’t entirely accurate. The unfortunate truth is that I wasn’t even trying a lot of it on Friday. Utah said he was screwing up easy stuff too, so I chalk it up to being very tired and not wanting to break myself before the trip. But I think that’s being disingenuous. I simply had no nerve out there. It was a Rick Ankiel day for me. I may have to retire and become an outfielder.
I started sorta packing tonight which means doing laundry, drinking beer, and making some lists of what we’ll need to pack eventually. I’m pretty good at not getting too caught up in the details, so I don’t think Wednesday will be overly insane. I made some lists of daily living stuff and then bike stuff. The daily living stuff was 1 line: clothes, shoes, coat. The bike list may have been a bit more extensive, so I can't list it all here, In fact, it was 31 lines long. Nat saw my list and said, “What the hell is that?”
I also need to decide which book(s) to bring. I often bring books that I’ve always wanted to read but never got around to it, with the logic being that I’ll have all sorts of time to really absorb the book. The reality is that my brain is more often than not bleeding out my ears because I’m too tired, and that dissertation on the social impact of the Jimmy Carter peace accords on the baby boom generation of Syria is as appealing as sticking my arm in a wood chipper. So I’ll probably bring some fantasy tripe that’s easy to read.
Of course, one trip I read The Odyssey which was really good. Never did get around to reading The Iliad.
With the help of my Facebook Support System, I’m enjoying some beers tonight. I have to get these in because the selection in Taiwan really sucks. That will be a mission, to find good beer there. That and ride my bike a lot. I’m hoping to ride the day we land. I have a list of 8 things to do that day we land. 3 of them involve eating, and 2 of them involve my bike. The other 2 are work-related and the last is to figure out the phone situation.
These posts are only going to get later and later in the next few days. Tonight we’re trying to stay up until 1:00.
No pics again today so I trolled Facebook and came up with this one. I'm glad I'm not the only one who drinks beer that doesn't make the logo pop. 3 colors was too $$ though. The pic: