It's a Dog's Life

Thursday, January 31, 2013

CRAZY DOG

Today 14°F and windchill is 1°F

I didn't see any of my friends.

I think they stayed home .

SO...

PARK IS MINE !

Monday, January 21, 2013

“Baby It’s cold outside.” goes one Christmas song I enjoy listening to. It is dropping to below zero Fahrenheit tonight. Long awaited and overdue I say. The four seasons are a wonderful thing and they shouldn’t be experienced halfway.

Our printer broke down so the Christmas greetings went out late but we have a new not so fancy replacement. Today I am checking out the scanning features if I can by chance click on the right buttons. (the prompts are all in Japanese and Misao is out all day)

It is a good time to enjoy indoor activities and one should not be missed if you can afford it. The Bike Federation is holding a Winter Carnival at Ray’s Indoor Bike Park. You save big bucks if you register and pay in advance. The riding ends at 5:30pm when the fun, food and games begin. Metro Mountain Bikers will be holding other events and gatherings for the whole family to enjoy throughout the Winter and over the summer. Check out the website and join to keep yourself informed, updated, in the know …the loop, to keep yourself hip and part of the in crowd …if that is your thing.

Many thanks to the scores of volunteers who worked more than fifteen hours to support Metro and the local trails. They will eventually get a t-shirt. I hang my head at not being able to help more, but with only one vehicle between two people with a half dozen or so jobs between them it just aint going to happen until we get a second car. I had my eyes on a beat up pick-up truck but they wanted too much, which isn’t much for us.

One Winter we went down to Brazil for the Summer. They claimed they failed to fuel the plane in Atlanta and we made a lengthy a stop in Miami. Since then every time I fly I grow a bit more fearful. That Boeing 787 Dreamliner is finally grounded. Yes, I want to fly in a plane that uses batteries that have been known to explode and combust, especially one that tends to leak fuel. When we flew across Brazil Misao was a bit disturbed that some passengers were actually carrying guns on our flight, not our connecting flight because we missed that.

As you can see (pictures make a blog) I was quite a bit thinner in those days and wearing the same cargo pants I wear today. I wish I had had a mountain bike with me. But I have hope. My weight went up eight pounds but has now dropped four. This in the midst of Winter. The cycle of ending up an average of five pounds heavier each year has come to and end. My wife paying more attention to portion sizes is a major contributing factor. I have had little opportunity to exercise let alone ride my bike. Still can’t afford a trainer but the budget printer-copier-scanner seems to work fine.

My well founded suspicions of the harmful effects of corn syrup are being confirmed little by little. Now they say it keeps you from feeling full so you eat more. When we were in Brazil I bought a tiny plate of shredded coconut that had been drizzled with sugar syrup pressed right from the cane. Four of us sat around in conversation while snacking. We could not finish it. We were stuffed after a few bites. I have noticed more and more products returning to the use of cane sugar. It’s a good thing.

As I have long concluded, losing fifty pounds would be just as, if not more beneficial to my race pace than training heavily. I had planned to train heavily this Winter but circumstances are not allowing. The latest claim is that 18 holes of golf are the equivalent of biking 100 miles. I have always been a believer that activities that man has been doing for millions of years, liking walking around with clubs hitting things, are most beneficial to your health. Not that I am against biking in anyway, but if you have a chance to go to Brazil to golf this Winter …make sure you’re not flying on a 787 Dream Liner.

Monday, December 24, 2012

A White Christmas

Look at my Tires!

Now look at your tires.

Now look at my tires again.

Now look at your tires.

Now look outside.

I’m not riding a horse. I’m writing a blog.

Wish you were me?

Probably not, if you are a regular reader of this blog. But far too many people have it far worse off than I as my wife and I work through our own difficulties. Many have been struck by tragedy this holiday season, even today, and I am sure many prayers are going out to them.

Snow tires in this season of white may prevent tragedies small or large for yourselves also. I have heard they are required by law in Germany. Alois…?

We will be strapped financially for many months to come. My weight is going up as it does every Winter and I just don’t know how I will be able to swing getting a trainer. The good news is any workout starts burning abdominal fat right away, or so the radio told me… That reminds me to get out of my rocking chair and sit on the exercise ball as the seemingly insignificant efforts at staying balanced work your core continuously.

Yes our difficulties are small here in the United States even in this financial disaster that not only my family but all of us are facing. Still I would have to put myself easily in the top 10% in the world financially.

Where is that one person who could say, if the idea ever came to their mind, that they are the number one worst off person in existence here on this earth? Where is that person who could say no one has it worse off than they? My money would be on North Korea.

Merry Christmas. Peace on Earth and Goodwill Towards All Men.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Tis the Season

As the days grow short and the year comes to an end I got a few bucks together and treated our peach tree with a pump sprayer. Really the only way you should treat something as large as a tree. Fortunately the weather was warm enough this late in the season. I hope I didn’t poison myself getting a bit of blow back in my face. The wind just swirls there in the back corner of our yard. Afterwards I clearly labeled the sprayer as it should be dedicated to a single product. You don’t want to mix potentially dangerous chemicals.

The holiday season is truly the most wondrous time of the year. Thanksgiving was followed by the failure of the alternator on our vehicle. After replacing that we were hit with two large financial responsibilities, not to mention Misao’s Christmas shopping binge. At least that is almost complete.

On the heals of meeting those financial demands with $0.26 available in the bank and $18 in my pocket our furnace stopped working. Fortunately my brother has a ‘Furnace Guy’ and we didn’t need any money upfront for that.

This past weekend my mother called us very early in the morning and we rushed over to take her to the emergency room. The doctor said she has a touch of pneumonia. I am not sure if that is the same as a pinch of the plague or perhaps a smidgen of shingles.

That night on the way out to our sales route we blew a front tire and I couldn’t get the spare to drop from underneath; frozen in rust. Thank goodness for AAA. Decided to get four snow tires on a line of credit. I also need to get the suspension repaired.

But I have completely recovered from my surgery. I had several masses removed, all part of my weight loss program. The bills started coming in with the first Christmas cards.

It looks like the prospect of purchasing a trainer this Winter is getting slimmer by the day. I’ll just have to rely on the gym if I can get there. I am having trouble adjusting the brakes on my road bike, they drag. We do exercise a bit in the evenings, usually while watching TV and I can always walk the energy crazed furry thing that torments me all day long called ‘Ike’; AKA our dog.

He doesn’t approve of my characterization.

The weather has been favorable for Winter bike riding but my days have been too hectic. We have hit a record for consecutive days without snow and it grows each day. Having bought snow tires this year the probability that we will have a snowless Winter has increased dramatically. I would say I am dreaming of a white Christmas but I would just be called a racist.

It was a few years back when we were coming home in a bit of a snow storm and a gust of wind swept our van perpendicular to the road. My wife screamed and shuddered as a calmly spun the steering wheel into the spin then back the other way as we swung in the other direction. repeating the process twice more, bringing our vehicle under my complete control I continued on down the expressway never giving it a second thought as Misao hyper-ventilated in tiny screeches. Clearly I did not need to buy snow tires but such displays of my steely nerve and unmatched skill and talent in most everything I do I consider extremely vain and unbecoming.

Funny because it is all true. I have to struggle to keep myself from rolling on the floor in laughter as I proof read my post. I am grateful to be rid of those pesky skin tags and for the spirit and wonder of the season.

Merry Christmas!

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.