random pseudo humor

I'm situated in my frigid office (think the penguin encounter exhibit at the zoo...not in the walkway, but actually inside with the penguins), bobbin' my head to Bob Marley as I continue my feeble attempts to install MATLAB on my computer (it refuses to install, first because the path to the license file wasn't working, now I'm reinstalling and it's stuck at 95% completion...gah!). Suddenly, I hear "you've got mail" chime in with Bob...and I start singing along.
So I'm here in my ice cave singing "you've got mail", with a reggae beat.
Nothin like rasta mail. egads.

hrm, sigh

I'm in a post Tour de France slump. I so enjoyed waking up and sipping my morning Java while watching stone-faced men sweating and grimacing as they voluntarily propelled themselves through the French countryside. It's addictive. Not psychoactive substance addictive, or chocolate addictive...but mildly addictive (like a good salsa set in front of you when you're famished and you can't stop eating it). So I'm not in withdrawal, but definately have cravings.

Anywho, it's probably better that instead of going home and watching the primetime Tour coverage, I'll do my own road ride...and then settle into chowing down on our monstrous amount of leftover chinese. Yes Indeed. :o)

This weekend was the last in New Haven until the traveling ends at the end of August. It was a good one. We finally made it to Arcadia Management Area in Rhode Island (largest area of mountain biking trails in Rhode Island)...not my best ride, but any time spent on a bike can't be called bad really. Another of Jake's brothers (this one lives in New York) came to visit Saturday evening. We had our first brunch in New Haven. A little corner place called "The Pantry". It was one of those very unassuming- kinda looks sketchy from the outside-but serves the most awesome breakfast around, kinda places. 2 thumbs up. I ate a Belgian Waffle the size of my head. The end.

mmm mmm protein

Where'd last week go, and where's this one goin?? I'm high on protein drink and coffee this morning. Seems like a list kinda day for me (too scatter-brained to weave cohesive thought this mornin :oP). So, without further ado...

In the past week I had two really good firsts:
1. Found Gonzo Imperial Porter!!!!! (ooooh, it's good...better than any Flying Dog I've tried)
2. Played Ultimate Frisbee (and now I hurt from using running instead of biking muscles for 2 hours straight).

Secondary firsts included:
1. Finally going to the store and buying enough towels so that I won't have to wash 'em continuously (biking lots + humid weather = lots of showers x 2 people = lots of towel useage)
2. Finally reaching the half-way point of Moby Dick
3. Making baked potato wedges (no oil, lots of paprika and ground mustard....YUM!)
4. less than 1 hour mountain bike ride (cuz Jake's bottom bracket broke and we had to go back to the car)

Future First = three road trips in Pennsylvania three weekends in a row: 1. Lancaster (going away party for Peace Corps friend) 2. York (cousin's surprise birthday) 3. The 'burgh (HOME)
whew. Let the games begin.

blog-ism and Cyclism

It seems every week there's a new article in the paper/online about "bloggers". This week I found one talking about people getting fired due to blog content (revealing not so nice things about their place of work online). The article had this aire of alarm, announcing the dire consequences of baring your soul to an abyss of anonymous web surfers. I considered my own blog technique and smiled. No cause for concern here. I put some ideas out there (nothing I wouldn't say in everyday conversation), share some life stories, sometimes be off the wall or funny about nothing. It's like a mental coffee break. Media is such a strange thing...somehow, we're all "media" now. eek. what an odd concept.

On a completely unrelated note. I am deep in Tour de France mania. We have basic cable, and magically that includes OLN. That is a beautiful thing. Stage 12 is just completed, and the peleton finshed 10minutes behind the stage winner! hrm.

new englanding

So we had a visitor for a full week (Jake's brother). It was pretty cool to have a third person bumming around...like college again. For once, I didn't have a bazillion dinner leftovers (i sometimes cook obscenely large amounts of food for 2 people). We were lazy most of the week. Video games, food, chillness. That's good vacation stuff though. I had the joy of going beer shopping. I love to beer shop, and it's even more fun when you have guests and feel the impetous to try new beers. In my quest, I happened upon Thomas Hooker Imperial Porter. Ohhh, was it good. The beer is brewed by Troutbrook Brewing Co. (in Hartford, CT). This Porter is about one of the best I've ever had. Anything with carmel and coffee flavors was bound to be good (to me atleast). So we had the porter as our "treat" beer and then loaded up on some old faithfuls (sierra nevada, brooklyn lager). The weekend brought more laziness, but also seeing SIN CITY (very good), riding Tyler Mill (which I found to be a bit too twisty and full of close-together trees...riding through trees where your handlebars almost touch still makes me nervous, and loose momentum), and a trip to Misquamicut State Beach in Rhode Island. Ocean water up here is soooo cold, but we had a good time sunnin ourselves and throwin a frisbee around. Even swam a little bit.
So there you have it.
Beer, Beach, Biking.
Beautiful.

burning lung

I have leg muscles! This amazes me. I haven't been riding as consistently as I would like, so it reaaally amazes me. I can feel it when I ride though, there's a subtle improvement in my climbing and overall endurance. Rode Rocky Ridge (near York, PA) this weekend. It wasn't a terribly strenuous ride, but the heat and hill climbs combined resulted in my lungs spastically retorting at the top of the first hill. I started almost hyperventilating and turned beet red. But the 'ol lungs recovered and came through for the rest of the ride. whew! The human body never ceases to amaze me...you can punish it mercilessly and it bounces back. We have all these nifty fail-safe devices that allow us to do crazy things.

If I try to brew beer, maybe the first one will be called "burning lung".