Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Friday, May 27, 2005

Vacation?

Well, the last couple of weeks are supposed to have been vacation time for me and I have enjoyed having time to basically take care of my priorities instead of having a set schedule. The time hasn't been very restful however. Between the hammer sessions on the bike and the two to three hour stints working in the yard, I've been pretty busy. I plan to relax a bit this weekend with no actual yard work being done and rides only in the mornings when it's cool.

Yesterday I went up to the montains to ride. I did three gaps and then, because I'm a glutton, I turned around and rode back up tot he top of Neel's Gap for the hoots and giggles. My legs spent the rest of the day threatening to cramp. It was a three hour ride but becasue I had to go through Atlanta the trip took eleven. I was reminded why I don't live there. I was stopped, slowed, annoyed and inconvenienced by three accidents directly and that was after having modified my route to avoid three other accidents. How do people actually live up there? I'm so glad to be living in rural Georgia.

I've won the campaign on the western front with the kudzu. I identified the enemy's major supply sites and destroyed them this week so hopefully that problem will no longer plague me. While the eastern front has been the site of several successful offensives, the infidel is massing for its usual late spring/early summer campaign from previously conquered territories. The native population refuses to rise up against the oppressor so I've been forced to resort to clandestine raids over the border to attempt to establish a buffer zone. Still, the tendils of evil creep towards Fortress Hightower and I wait with clippers and mower and glove over ruthless hand.

Thanks for reading.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Stop...Hammer Time

Since my last update here most of my time has involved pushing the bike down the road or recovering from the effort of having done so. I did a nine day stretch of 50+ mile days that left me exhausted and sleepless. Following that I did a week or so of recovery rides followed by some racing up in Union City where I got a good TT result and was very solid in the road race. The last couple of days have been hard, hard, hard rides. Tuesday I did the evil 83 rolloers loop and held an average of 22 mph. My hamstrings were telling me about all the extra work they did today so I took them out on a TT ride just to show 'em who is boss. I did 20 miles at about 26 mph before things started to unravel. I overheated and the effort of the two days of abuse started to catch up with me. I also tried out using a Camelbak under my jersey instead of a water bottle. Things were promising but there's more work to be done before I decide the whole contraption is ready for Salt Lake City.

My other pastime has been yard work which is going well with a lot of help from some of our very generous students. Anna, Ali and Micheal Paul all chipped in some time and we got a lot of cleaning up done. I've opened two new fronts on the Kudzu in the spring campaign of the jihad. I've done very well in ridding certain parts of the yard of the evil vine. Right now there's a lot of "incursion" into neighboring territories. The neighbors on either side of me are somewhat less zealous in their desire to rid their yards of the infestation so I've done a bit of crossing the border to get at the enemy's service and supply facilities. No one's complained to the UN or War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague so I guess I'm OK.

Watched "National Treasure" last night. Interesting movie in a one night of vaguely mindless entertainment sort of way. The critics panned it but it wasn't so bad as long as you didn't expect too much. The conspiracy theory angle was interesting if a bit thin and the ending was cheesy (liek cheeze whiz) but there were some fun action sequences and there was some actual thinking being done on the part of the characters which can be rare in this genre so it was OK.

Thanks for Reading.

The Physicist   Link Me    |