“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.
