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.

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!

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.

Security Dog

 

 

Do you know my new job beside watch dog and paper shredder?

 

 

                           It's Internet security .

Winter is Coming

 Hello everyone !  
 I'm doing well happy and keep my owner busy.
                                             

                                       
 Then cold weather is coming...
                                             
  What do you do ?

                                      
 Me ?
  I just sleep in warm.

  I hope you have good weekend .     Love Ike

More Power!

Have been under the weather for a few days. Even more power draining than an oncoming cold for a man, a real man, is the failure of one’s power tools. Yesterday working on a project to rehabilitate our home my electric drill began to fail. Fortunately I got from it all I needed for the day and kept it from a noble but tortuous death in service to its master.

Finally, with the help of Emery’s, that bike enthusiast driven let’s do a triathlon center of fitness bliss, I finally, yes finally got the old road bike back in working order. A piecemeal effort over the summer months has come to fruition as the bicycling season is quickly coming to an end. And I still haven’t swung the cash for a new helmet.

Riding the road bike, to the gym and such takes some getting used to after being off her for so long. The small ring is bigger the the big ring on my mountain bike. I may rebuild the entire mountain bike again, though I really need a new one to compete. The basement will become my work station most of the Winter as I have several projects other than repairing the bike in mind, including creating a bit of finished space for a trainer and exercising. I should make use of all the free fitness videos available on our Roku. How long will they be called videos?

Time, circumstance and the lack of a second vehicle will most likely keep me from the Wigwam MTB Challenge, WORS’ finally event of the season. The word is they will ride the course backwards this year. Not by bike but in reference to the direction of the course. I must set my mind on rebuilding this Winter, not just my mountain bike and state of fitness, to compete with more power next year, but financially, professionally and every way possible.

I missed the “Ray’s sneak peak” last week. It was a night of free riding for Trek employees and Metro Mountain Bikers members. Again it conflicted with my schedule. My Wisconsin site visits overcame the number of visits I was racking up from California, after I wrote of Ray’s Milwaukee several times after they first arrived in Milwaukee. I am not sure why I have so many visits from California. I should visit Ray’s this Winter but it is 4-5 dollars in gas just to get there.

I did get to Metro’s monthly meeting Tuesday. The highlights? IMBA is creating a GPS mapping system and production specifications. Metro wants a new logo but many do not know why. One of the expenses with changing the logo is paying IMBA $300 for the change. Well over a dozen, up to two dozen, will qualify for the fifteen hour of volunteer work free T-shirts by the end of the year. Waukesha is coming along with some great new trails in Minooka.

I haven’t been out to Crystal Ridge for some time, but the baseball park development has brought many changes, still ongoing. For those of you who believe the holiday season begins with Halloween rather than Thanksgiving, or in other words you evil doers, Crystal Ridge is the site of “The Hill has Eyes.”

Weight II

So much for my determination to get in 25 hours of writing and such a week. Misao has been in Japan for two weeks and I got working on two projects of a physical nature and got myself to two political rallies (even ended up doing some telephone surveying) and a lecture at SARUP. I could have gotten to two lectures if they had posted the events properly. Taking care of the retail business by myself added eight extra hours a week. I did no writing while my wife was gone.

Misao had a lot of weight to bring back from Japan. All these sweet goodies were gift wrapped and every piece of sugary goodness individually wrapped. It is like that in most of Asia. So much for environmentalism. The weight of all that containering nearly put Misao’s baggage overweight. I think you can all see why I have become so broad.

Being alone, doing my own grocery shopping I have lost more weight. My experience is that when one approaches 280 pounds it is noticeably debilitating. It is not as much fun to ride the old mountain bike when you get to 270, at least in an aggressive fashion. One of the reasons I have not been riding as much as usual this year. When you get to 260 it becomes hard to compete at a sport level.

More than the goal of dropping under 250 pounds is to get in the best shape of my life this Winter. The type of trainer I will buy depends on where we are financially this Thanksgiving. Financial burdens and headaches should be out of the way by then. A basic Cycleops trainer, for the quality, will be my choice if the money is still tight. Otherwise I will go with the Taxc Flow. You can buy the basic model and upgrade later to a virtual reality system; the Flow Multiplayer. The computrainer is the industry standard for the serious athlete but cost nearly twice as much. It is beyond what I need. Its extensive training features can be accessed by attending a training session at a retailer. On the East Side I believe Crank Daddies holds them in their basement in the Winter.

Weight  is an issue with tablets also. Yes, I am talking those computer things. A basic reader is lighter than a tablet, something ardent readers appreciate. I would like a reader if I could afford one. A question I have been pondering is whether an e-ink screen is far easier to read than a back lit traditional screen. From what I have researched people have no problem reading long periods on LCD screens but find an e-ink screen more enjoyable. Also there is no glare on a good e-ink screen.

Then I thought of when I was a kid, before computers were available to the common man. I hated reading the glossy paged books. So I guess I will eventually buy a reader with an e-ink screen. It would be great if you could get one with Pandora radio or that could play your music files.

In my reading I discovered sidebars and other busy-ness on the page can distract people and make reading less enjoyable. Obviously something our local newspaper has failed to understand in the layout of their webpage. I may simplify my own blogs. They take constant attention, something I have been slipping at, as links often disappear or change over time.

And what about those Packers? Everyone says they won. Even some Vegas Casinos and online betting sites have returned the money to those who bet on the Packers. Even the NFL knows they won as they settled with the real referees real quick like. So if everyone knows the Packers won Monday night, why did they lose? The story of my life.

But September hasn’t been all bad.