James Pearl Thinks Blogging is Dead

[Norm]

Today

...I did more or less nothing bike nor exercise-related. I imagine I do not need to explain why that is.

D made pancakes this morning, which would have been done in a camp around a bunch of smelly people ordinarily on this specific day. Instead, I ate my pancakes with more or less no body odor, after having slept in an air conditioned room, that had a nice queen size bed, well-protected from the rain coming down. After breakfast I went to pick up the pup from the dog sitter. By all accounts he had a good weekend.

My mom was supposed to have a small family picnic today but 2 of the 4 relative units bailed. We still went, but as it was raining we mostly stayed in the house. Well, they did. I sat outside mostly under the canopy because it was kind of cool to just hang out under it listening to the rain hit it. It was a good day to take a break and just relax.

 

[JimN]

I sat outside mostly under the canopy because it was kind of cool to just hang out under it listening to the rain hit it.

It was actually pretty nice listening to the rain hit the tent last night. It's been a pretty long time since I last camped in the rain. I think we really lucked out this year that the rain stayed away as long as it did though.

 

[Norm]

It was actually pretty nice listening to the rain hit the tent last night. It's been a pretty long time since I last camped in the rain. I think we really lucked out this year that the rain stayed away as long as it did though.

I totally know & love that feeling.

If this storm had been a bit faster it would have f'ed the weekend entirely. As it was we got 2/3 of it in, and how much do people really stay on Sunday anyway?

 

[JimN]

and how much do people really stay on Sunday anyway?

I've been to almost every Cranks and probably only rode on a Sunday once or twice. I usually sleep in, hang out a few hours eating people's leftover food, and go home.

 

[rottin']

I sat outside mostly under the canopy because it was kind of cool to just hang out under it listening to the rain hit it.

I appreciate this and @JimN comment about listening to rain in the tent. There is definitely a soothing component to this for me. I realized today that I also really like being on the water when it is raining--today one of my brothers and I were kayaking during the storm and the rain felt really relaxing on the water, after a while we just stopped paddling and just drifted in the rain. It was a cathartic moment...quiet, in the sense we weren't talking or paddling except for the sound of drops hitting the water or me or the kayak. Felt great. I've had a few experiences this summer with extended paddling in the rain that have been good...40deg and raining would not be so good...

 

[Mitch]

It was actually pretty nice listening to the rain hit the tent last night. It's been a pretty long time since I last camped in the rain. I think we really lucked out this year that the rain stayed away as long as it did though.

I love that sound too. The best is your imagination. You're listening to the pounding rain in the am and don't want to get out of the tent. Then when you do, it stopped raining already and its just the rain from the trees for the past 2hrs keeping you up. Either way its cool. This was a fun Cranks, way different then the 1st Cranks when it was Schilling and myself in our site and maybe 20 other people max camping. Two days of riding, 2days of getting stung, 2 days of so many friends and beers and 2 days of all around good people. Ill take that any day of the week.

 

[Norm]

Today

...I will pull a page out of Joy's book and say that work was a drag. This is an extension of last week when work was off the rails. Just the amount of shit expected of me right now is stupid. It's not actual throughput, which is one thing. It's that I have 10 client projects right now, and every single meeting we have with the client means I have to be there. Add in the internal meetings and I'm sitting at about 25 meetings a week. As of right now I have 26 meetings on my calendar for this week. Spoiler alert: that number never goes down.

My coworker thinks this week is going to suck because many people want to take next week off.

We went to setup for a road ride tonight and D had a flat tire. So I changed the tire out back while I played catch with the dog. The game is sort of like this. I throw the ball, and he absolutely sprints to get it. He comes back, but only most of the way. He then wants me to chase him. I have to turn around and pretend I'm going inside. He will then follow me, then sometimes drop the ball. I will eventually trick him into dropping it and throw it again. In general, the less I pay attention to him, the quicker he drops it.

Then we went for a road ride. 25 miles & 90 minutes. It was weird weather. Humid, hot, yet cool in some places. Clear sky but some patches of dark sky. Breezy then stagnant. I felt pretty decent today. Did not hammer but got in a good ride to start the week. CR would have obviously been a no-go today. There are roads still underwater out there.

Wrapped up the daylight hours by taking Bear to the dog park. He had a good walk. He should sleep well tonight.

1. The ball is orange
2. Yes I need to mow the lawn again

 

[Norm]

Today

...I'm going to start the Foundation series of books. I pulled out the first 1 which is actually a 3-in-1...it doesn't matter. Point: While flipping through it, I found a bookmark, which was a box top ripped from a box of Goldfish. The expiration on this was 1995. So it appears the last time I read this, or tried to read this, was in the 1994 range. I'll assume Goldfish have a solid 1+ year expiration date. I think I read it fully in high school maybe. This would have been the end of college days. I also found a really, really old bookmark that my mom gave me like 35 years ago.

Funny kind of event of the day. Simon had his middle school orientation this morning, and rode his bike back to his dad's. Julia asked me to drop her off at her friend's house with her bike. Zac & his friends were playing soccer at the town fields, then eventually rode their bikes over to Julia & her friend's house. D and I also rode our bikes. In this weird pseudo independent reality, all the members of the household rode their bikes for different reasons today. Pretty neat if you think about it.

D and I went on a road ride tonight and I felt fabulous. The "maybe I had a good week" last week is extending to this week. I'm cautiously optimistic I'm getting better with the electrolyte balance and so on. The heat in the last 2 days has not bothered me as much.

FIL Update

He's coming home on September 2nd! Woo hoo!

That is all.

 

[ChrisG]

Yay for the positive FIL update!

I’m quite sure I was given a “Virgo” bookmark when I was a kid, but it wasn’t a Garfield model.

 

[Carson]

Yay for the positive FIL update!

I’m quite sure I was given a “Virgo” bookmark when I was a kid, but it wasn’t a Garfield model.

I'm guessing...

 

[serviceguy]

Today

...I'm going to start the Foundation series of books. I pulled out the first 1 which is actually a 3-in-1...it doesn't matter. Point: While flipping through it, I found a bookmark, which was a box top ripped from a box of Goldfish. The expiration on this was 1995. So it appears the last time I read this, or tried to read this, was in the 1994 range. I'll assume Goldfish have a solid 1+ year expiration date. I think I read it fully in high school maybe. This would have been the end of college days. I also found a really, really old bookmark that my mom gave me like 35 years ago.

Funny kind of event of the day. Simon had his middle school orientation this morning, and rode his bike back to his dad's. Julia asked me to drop her off at her friend's house with her bike. Zac & his friends were playing soccer at the town fields, then eventually rode their bikes over to Julia & her friend's house. D and I also rode our bikes. In this weird pseudo independent reality, all the members of the household rode their bikes for different reasons today. Pretty neat if you think about it.

D and I went on a road ride tonight and I felt fabulous. The "maybe I had a good week" last week is extending to this week. I'm cautiously optimistic I'm getting better with the electrolyte balance and so on. The heat in the last 2 days has not bothered me as much.

FIL Update

He's coming home on September 2nd! Woo hoo!

That is all.

Great news about the FIL, I'm happy for @Dominique as it must be a big relief for her!

Also, I like to think I kind of fit the description on that bookmark, even though I barely made it into a Sagittarius (if you believe in those things).

 

[Norm]

Today

...is Wednesday, but I feel like it should be Thursday. This week really has the vibe that it's about to throw in the towel. I know I am.

We had a S2D call at work today, which is Sales to Delivery. We have an existing client that signed another SOW. So the Sales team hands the project off to us, and gives us the details of what they know is coming. I am not on this project...for now. But we all go to every one of these calls because this is Delivery's chance to ask questions that Sales more or less has no answer to. But we can ask anyway. So I joked with 1 of the EMs, asking how long it would be until I get pulled into this. The answer was 9 minutes. That's how long it took for me to become a resource in this project.

I went for a road ride in the middle of the afternoon oven and tossed it all out there for 2 hours. Strava effort was 192. Average HR was 162. Weighted Coggan power 303. TSS 200. I don't know just how accurate this PM is, but even if it's reading a bit high, this was a huge effort for me. When I was done I started losing my voice again. This is such a strange phenomenon. The last mile was torture, truth be told.

We grilled burgers today. I drank 1 of the fake beers that JManic got me. It was good. A tad hot to be standing in front of the fire, but not too bad.

 

[serviceguy]

Today

...is Wednesday, but I feel like it should be Thursday. This week really has the vibe that it's about to throw in the towel. I know I am.

We had a S2D call at work today, which is Sales to Delivery. We have an existing client that signed another SOW. So the Sales team hands the project off to us, and gives us the details of what they know is coming. I am not on this project...for now. But we all go to every one of these calls because this is Delivery's chance to ask questions that Sales more or less has no answer to. But we can ask anyway. So I joked with 1 of the EMs, asking how long it would be until I get pulled into this. The answer was 9 minutes. That's how long it took for me to become a resource in this project.

I went for a road ride in the middle of the afternoon oven and tossed it all out there for 2 hours. Strava effort was 192. Average HR was 162. Weighted Coggan power 303. TSS 200. I don't know just how accurate this PM is, but even if it's reading a bit high, this was a huge effort for me. When I was done I started losing my voice again. This is such a strange phenomenon. The last mile was torture, truth be told.

We grilled burgers today. I drank 1 of the fake beers that JManic got me. It was good. A tad hot to be standing in front of the fire, but not too bad.

Try that with real mozzarella cheese, capers and tomato sauce...

 

[Patrick]

Try that with real mozzarella cheese, capers and tomato ...

fixed. (i find bleeding burgers a bit annoying) - i put capers on just about e'rything

also add sweet onion and dill pickle sammich slices, but let us not get crazy.

 

[serviceguy]

fixed. (i find bleeding burgers a bit annoying) - i put capers on just about e'rything

also add sweet onion and dill pickle sammich slices, but let us not get crazy.

Tomato sauce dries up and doesn't bleed if you don't put too much, tomatoes leave a chunky texture that not everybody likes, unless you peel the skin off which makes them basically sauce. And by sauce I mean just pressed tomatoes, or passata. Either way, tomatoes, potatoes...

 

[Norm]

Today

...we started the day dropping Zac off at the fields for his soccer scrimmage. I had calls solidly from 8:30-12:00 but I decided to go to the game anyway, but first I went home while he was there for the warmup at 8:15. I hop on my 8:30 which is short today, and D comes back from walking the dog and says he has rolled in something god-awful. A quick sniff test verifies this.

Reasonably sure it was dead animal of some sort. So we hope against hope that he doesn't sleep on the couch while we're gone, because he smells like a homeless guy in a dumpster about to catch fire. We go to the 9:00 game and I have 2 calls back-to-back with clients, which fuck it, I take from the sidelines. Both calls more or less go fine and I watch the game as best I can. He is done at 9:45 and the rest of the practice is an internal thing, so we head back home to deal with the furry homeless dead carrion-smelling dog.

I get on the 10:00 and listen while we throw him in the bathtub downstairs. He doesn't freak out when we do this, but he doesn't love it. Sort of stands there dealing with it. We wash him several times over then rinse him off and at 10:20 he is done and only marginally smells like shit. He shakes it off, spraying pseudo-clean wet dog/carrion stink all over.

At 10:30 I lead a 90 minute client-facing workshop with absolutely 0 prep. It goes fine. At 12:00 my calls for the day are done.

Mid afternoon I do a really dumb thing and try to mow the lawn. I get through sectors 1, 2, and 8. This is about 45 minutes worth and when I am done, I am totally soaked. I shower, work for 1 more hour, then D and I head out for a road bike ride. It is still hot, brutally hot. We just check the box, going an hour+ at a moderate pace.

I cannot believe it's only Thursday.

 

[ChrisG]

That’s one photogenic pup.

 

[Norm]

That’s one photogenic pup.

Sure but he don’t smell so hot.

 

[rottin']

Why would you shower after mowing when you know you're going to go out for a ride? Especially on a day like today?

 

[Norm]

Why would you shower after mowing when you know you're going to go out for a ride? Especially on a day like today?

Because it’s a quick & easy way to feel better. Plus I needed to do work between 4-5 before the road ride.

I’m working with some guy in LA and I knew he was going to be a while so I mowed part of the lawn while I had to wait on him. I’m answering your next question preemptively.