It's a Dog's Life: November 2012

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Cyber Monday

Cyber what the huh day? No…, Cyber Monday was not something I partook of but the title will most likely bring traffic to my site. Misao went out Thursday night for the Black Friday sales, obviously not native born, and the car broke down. Another expense we could not afford and one of the reasons my plans to buy a trainer will have to wait until Christmas. The car also needs some major maintenance and I am debating getting snow tires as we drive over 500 miles a week easy.

Thanksgiving was a family time well enjoyed. The nine nieces and nephews were well coordinated in not allowing a single moment to pass without at least one scream, yell, proclamation of wrong doing or exclamation of self to fill the air; at least when they were not eating. I actually had over forty hours of work the last two weeks (if you include time on major home repairs) which, with the holiday, left me zonked Saturday and Sunday. It was a nice long very cold walk to the repair shop to pick up the car Friday afternoon.

For Winter training there are some truly good trainers put out by some quality companies. Cycleops has some great stuff and claims the quietest trainer around and they have jumped on the virtual reality road. I will have to look more closely at what they have and research compatibility in general between all the different VR systems. The Computrainer is a standard that you can experience at several local bike shops. Kinetic, 2012 sponsor of WORS, also has their own unique training approach in their trainers. Crank Daddy’s has training sessions in store as well as Winter storage and service plans if you live on the East-Side. Emery’s has training sessions with the Olympic medalist name sake during 21 weeks of Winter. The guy never stops enthusing his knowledge and love of the support to all around. They all use the Computrainer. Very few stores market the Tacx products, but if you ask any of them could most likely order one for you and get it within days.

I am still looking at the Tacx Flow or i-Flow for the virtual reality aspect and price as my trainer of choice. I have been told the Tacx Fortius has more advanced training tools than the Computrainer, though the Fortius is no longer up on their homepage. It is hard to imagine what more you would need than what is found on the Computrainer. Emery's says they will match any price on the Internet. I see slightly lower prices for the Tacx Flow on the Internet but it is unclear if the items are the latest models. I think I will just go with a dealer. I like dealing with people in person and can get personal feedback and support if anything goes wrong.

You would be mistaken to interpret this approach as a sign of any kind that I fear shopping on the Internet. And you may think it foolish for us to depend on our dog ‘Ike’ for our Internet security (shown on the job in previous post), but you’ve never seen Ike in the Cloud.

My wife has kept the blog relevant as one needs a continuous flow of posts to hold the public’s interest. Perhaps Alois will treat us with a Wintery Christmas post from the Alps as the Christmas season progresses.

I have been neglecting my writing and training having been so busy recently. I wish I could receive some kind of compensation for my name dropping but that just is not the case. if you would like to support the blog, or a couple just fighting to get by, you could always purchase my books, available on Amazon. The short stories would make a great stocking stuffer.