Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Thank you Mrs. Lindsay

You know the reason. I don't know why you took the action that you did but I don't disagree with it at all. Hope all is well with you and your family. Send me an email sometime with the latest....

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Go Figure

The city is working on a water line somewhere near the house. So at the present I have no water! I have a project I could be doing at the moment. Which is the perfect time, so that I do not get sprayed with water while completing it. However I cannot locate my teflon tape...go figure! Maybe I should quit the search and complaining and just go buy some more before the water comes back on.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Fall is here

There are only 100 days left in the year. I hope all of you are better off today than you were a year ago, or even a month ago. I hope this year has been a good one for you. There were always be highs and lows but what matters is that we learn from our experiences and use that knowledge further down the road.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Hmm...

I heard this on the radio yesterday from one of the DJ's as she pointed out it was her birthday and it really made me think. I wanted to share it with you and see what you think about it...Please let me know.

"You can only be young once but you can be immature your whole life..."

CPO MLA!!

Hope the pinning ceremony went well today! Congratulations again and wish you well on your decision of where to go from here...

Monday, September 15, 2008

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Infatuation or Greediness?

Tonight after putting it off for so long, I took on the task of counting my bucket of change. I have always had a fascination with getting it filled to the brim before taking it to be cashed in. Of course I have never succeeded at it, either because I came up with something to spend it on or just became over anxious with it. Well I am so close at filling it up that I am sure I can hold out until that day arrives. Even though I get the thrill of taking it in to the bank, just the same as if it is Christmas morning and I am walking into the living room to open presents.

Of course every time, I walk in with my bucket I always receive stares from people, as if they are saying how childish to be walking in with your "adult piggy bank". It's also if they are saying that coins are a waste of time... For me however, I see the penny left behind in a parking lot as bringing my bucket level that closer to the brim.

Call it what you will but with my present amount at $167.13, I think I will have the last laugh as I walk through the bank lobby to cash it. Of course the amount will be greater by that point...

My change bucket, which was a previous beer pitcher

What $113 looks like in quarters

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

A reminder

I went out for a ride this evening. The heat has been dying off in the later afternoons along with the daylight. I figured I better get out there and make the most of what I have before it is no longer a possibility.

I started out on my normal warm up and then headed for a decent gradual climb, that ends at a mountain bike trail head. As I neared the end of the climb, I noticed some cyclist ahead shooting the breeze. I rode past them to the end of the road and then circled around and started to head past them. They returned my hello, so I stopped and had a chat with them. We introduced ourselves and right away I picked up on the type 2 of the 4 were. They were both on Trek road bikes and were talking like they were the greatest as if Lance had rode their bikes personally to 7 straight Tour wins. All of their stuff was high end from their bikes to their clothes to their shoes. And I can definitely tell you that it wasn't because Specialized gave them their high end shoes. Or Mavic gave the Ksyrium wheels. Or Trek even gave them frames.

They started looking at my bike and right away were giving me compliments on how they were impressed with it. I gave them my story of how I had it custom built and such, from a REAL bike shop not something they call a bike shop here in good 'Ol Farmington. I told them that it weighed in at 16.5 pounds when it was shipped to me. One of them piped in right away and said his only weighed 16.4 pounds and he had a triple on it. I told them that I could have made my bike lighter than that but what was the point? I will never compete in a UCI race and even if I were to, I would not be the weight I am today. Not to mention that the guy with the lighter bike was my same height and much heavier than myself.

As we headed down the road, the two of them as in true Farmington fashion started sprinting like they were headed down the Galibier racing into Grenoble. The Galibier is one of may famous climbs in the Tour de France. Anyways, the father was talking to me while going down the road, and there was no traffic. So I was just coasting with my hands off the bars. Hey said that there was no way he would ever do that! I told him everyone has the limits of being comfortable on the bike. Needless to say he didn't like my answer and quit talking. So I shifted down a few more gears and went flying past his son and never looked back until I hit the light at the end of the road and realized they had turned off about a mile up the road and were not interested in riding with me back up two other short climbs to get back to where we were both headed.

I was relieved honestly. Those are 2 guys out of many here in town that think they are just so cool. They are the kind that you pass on the road and don't even give you a friendly wave back to acknowledge you. I just have this to say to them, they have no clue what cycling is all about! Trek bikes suck! It's funny that Durango is such a town overwhelmed with cycling and cyclists and it is so close yet so different. However you don't have the same mentality there as you do there vs. here with cyclists. And they have many pro cyclist that live there! Farmington has zero!

Okay enough of my rambling. A reminder to myself! The majority of Farmington cyclists suck, that is why you do not have any one to ride with. Probably any cyclist around here that is worth anything has already figured this out and made the choice, just as I have to just get out there and ride alone! I just miss my world of cycling that I was first introduced to and they guys that introduced me to it.

Monday, September 01, 2008

Will it ever end?

Hit by car while riding bicycle.

It doesn't matter that she is a first lady. It seems that the above all else it has nearly become a daily headline somewhere here in the country. There is a lot of finger pointing on both sides.

I am just wondering if people are becoming to careless and/or complacent?

Regardless it is highly disturbing....

This reminds me of a story. The summer of '03, Cody, Amy, Jake and myself were on our European vacation. We were in Munich, Germany and had rented bicycles and were taking a spin around the city. We were confronted by 2 bicycle cops and they made us stop where we were and cross the road, so that we would be complying with the local bike riding laws. It was pretty interesting that they had cops out there enforcing those kind of things. I guess it just shows, the big difference Germany had over our current home of Italy. Not to say Italy was the worst. Considering we used to ride on highways with no bike lanes and cars always seemed to make room for us. Or those Sunday morning rides where the road was overtaken by 300+ cyclists that forced cars off the roads and made them fall in line behind them. There were no police escorts either. Riding on the roads here in the U.S. sure is a different experience from Europe, where bicycles are a way of life.

The states can't compare when you see things like this in Europe.