Well, today's wind seems to only be in the 20's but it was a tough ride for all that. Noticed some tree branch and siding damage out there today so yesterday's wind gusts must've been fairly strong (maybe quite a bit more than 40mph for peaks). And it looks like I'll hit 1300 miles for the year before the middle of the upcoming week. I feel like I'm about ready for RAGBRAI so I think most of the rest of my riding between now and July 19 is pretty much gravy.
Not much happening today although it seems that Scott may be around for awhile with some friends as they play cards. Probably have to make a grocery run for that as I don't have any kind of snack stockpile that would support a lengthy game. We'll see ...
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Windy Afternoon
Very windy this afternoon. I think it must be 40mph or more (from the west). Good thing I got my ride in early this morning. Had lunch at Pei's with my pal Bob and since then haven't done much but get a few groceries.
Might be a good afternoon for a BLT, I'll have to consider that. Scott's here but is running around with his 10-year reunion events. I think they're touring the high school and then there's some kind of outdoor thing at Noelridge Park (good luck with that in this wind!).
Nothing much is going on in my life beyond sleeping, eating, riding, singing, dancing ... then do it again. And it feels kinda good.
Best book I've read in a long time ... Vincent Bugliosi's "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder". This is real, published in May, and it's very well done. Just have to make sure that the next President (Obama?) doesn't pardon that lying SOB first. Get the book, you may be surprised in the reading of it.
The other good book I'm reading right now is "The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy" by C. Dennis McKinsey. Published in 1995, it should be out there in paperback. Between this and Bush, you really start to wonder how gullible people (large numbers of them) can be when organizations like religion and government set out to purposely deceive them.
Later ...
Might be a good afternoon for a BLT, I'll have to consider that. Scott's here but is running around with his 10-year reunion events. I think they're touring the high school and then there's some kind of outdoor thing at Noelridge Park (good luck with that in this wind!).
Nothing much is going on in my life beyond sleeping, eating, riding, singing, dancing ... then do it again. And it feels kinda good.
Best book I've read in a long time ... Vincent Bugliosi's "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder". This is real, published in May, and it's very well done. Just have to make sure that the next President (Obama?) doesn't pardon that lying SOB first. Get the book, you may be surprised in the reading of it.
The other good book I'm reading right now is "The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy" by C. Dennis McKinsey. Published in 1995, it should be out there in paperback. Between this and Bush, you really start to wonder how gullible people (large numbers of them) can be when organizations like religion and government set out to purposely deceive them.
Later ...
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Storms Movin' In
Looks like a rainy 24 hours coming up so I got my ride in fairly early this morning. Great temperature and low wind speed though so it was a fun ride. Also, I managed to survive two vigorous blackbird attacks ... boy, those birds need to get a life (hehe)!
Interesting observation today. My heart rate monitor uses my age, height, weight and resting heart rate in an algorithm to calculate calories burned during my workouts. What I've noticed over the past 4 weeks or so (following 3 prior months of consistent workouts) is that the calories burned result for the same ride, approximately same environment (i.e. wind, temperature) and same time of ride has been going down. For example, today's 24.7 mile ride in 88 minutes resulted in 745 calories burned whereas 5 weeks ago I rode the same ride in 86 minutes and burned 900 calories. That's 17% fewer calories burned. Right now my (non-scientific) conclusion is that the "machine" (i.e. me) is becoming more efficient at using the fuel provided to produce motion. It's interesting also that it has taken several months to see anything significant here. Basically, I think that improved efficiency means my heart rate average is lower and, of course, that means something like I may now be getting about 11.5 miles per hamburger rather than about 10 that I was getting earlier in the riding season ... (smile).
We'll see, as time goes on ... later.
Interesting observation today. My heart rate monitor uses my age, height, weight and resting heart rate in an algorithm to calculate calories burned during my workouts. What I've noticed over the past 4 weeks or so (following 3 prior months of consistent workouts) is that the calories burned result for the same ride, approximately same environment (i.e. wind, temperature) and same time of ride has been going down. For example, today's 24.7 mile ride in 88 minutes resulted in 745 calories burned whereas 5 weeks ago I rode the same ride in 86 minutes and burned 900 calories. That's 17% fewer calories burned. Right now my (non-scientific) conclusion is that the "machine" (i.e. me) is becoming more efficient at using the fuel provided to produce motion. It's interesting also that it has taken several months to see anything significant here. Basically, I think that improved efficiency means my heart rate average is lower and, of course, that means something like I may now be getting about 11.5 miles per hamburger rather than about 10 that I was getting earlier in the riding season ... (smile).
We'll see, as time goes on ... later.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Summer's Here ...
Hot and humid today with more of the same expected during the week ahead. Yeah, it's summer alright!
Monday, June 23, 2008
More Perfect Weather ...
So far, today is the greatest one of the (very short) summer season. A bit over 80 degrees with a light breeze from the north and low humidity. Had a great ride to Center Point today and, interestingly enough, encountered a second blackbird that felt compelled to attack and actually hit my helmet two times. The other bird is on my shorter (14.2 mile) regular ride and his (her?) attack is as predictable as the rising sun. Well, nothing much I can do about it but give them "the bird" (hehe).
Today was the third ride on my newly installed chain as I passed 1200 miles for the year to date. So before RAGBRAI, the primary maintenance will probably just be a quick chain clean and lube ... and that will be at around 1500 miles.
Also today I stopped in at the theater and saw Kung-Fu Panda. It's an animated film and it was pretty interesting. Many famous voices were used including Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Lucy Liu and Jackie Chan.
Well ... I'll remember this day as being this nice, which is sometimes hard to do, especially since it's the day after George Carlin died of a heart attack. I still remember seeing his show in Fargo when I was in college (around 1973).
Later ...
Today was the third ride on my newly installed chain as I passed 1200 miles for the year to date. So before RAGBRAI, the primary maintenance will probably just be a quick chain clean and lube ... and that will be at around 1500 miles.
Also today I stopped in at the theater and saw Kung-Fu Panda. It's an animated film and it was pretty interesting. Many famous voices were used including Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Lucy Liu and Jackie Chan.
Well ... I'll remember this day as being this nice, which is sometimes hard to do, especially since it's the day after George Carlin died of a heart attack. I still remember seeing his show in Fargo when I was in college (around 1973).
Later ...
Saturday, June 21, 2008
4 Weeks to RAGBRAI
Four weeks from today (Saturday, July 19) is the beginning of RAGBRAI (although the ride actually starts on Sunday, the 20th). Should be an interesting ride this year and different from last year in at least two ways: first, there will likely be many more mosquitoes this year due to the standing water from heavy rains and flooding and, secondly, it will also be a more challenging ride because the route will have significantly greater elevation changes (i.e. hills) than last year.
Today I got a nice ride in and then mowed the lawn. Also went out to Pei's for lunch and talked with Bob ... haven't seen him for at least a month. Scott's 10 year high school reunion has arrived (how time flies!) and I expect that many of his friends will also show up this week. Should be a fun time.
The weather is great right now ... no complaints at all.
Later ...
Today I got a nice ride in and then mowed the lawn. Also went out to Pei's for lunch and talked with Bob ... haven't seen him for at least a month. Scott's 10 year high school reunion has arrived (how time flies!) and I expect that many of his friends will also show up this week. Should be a fun time.
The weather is great right now ... no complaints at all.
Later ...
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Perfect Weather - 1113 Miles
What a great weather day today! Light breeze from the north and about 75 degrees as I got in a nice 29 mile ride. One of those days when I can eat more since I burned about 1150 calories and need to replace some carbs (could be some Hot Tamales and M&M's, eh? ... of course, that would be naughty ;-)). Well, maybe a BLT day up in Cedar Falls. Haven't done that for awhile and the best BLT's are at Toad's ...
Anyway, it always feels good when the weather's nice and I hope everyone out there is enjoying the same. I had occasion to practice quite a few very old but very good songs this past weekend. I'll have to include some of them on my current singing list as it's always fun to surprise the karaoke hosts with cool but old/new songs.
Take care ... and don't forget that people can hear you smiling when you answer the phone.
Anyway, it always feels good when the weather's nice and I hope everyone out there is enjoying the same. I had occasion to practice quite a few very old but very good songs this past weekend. I'll have to include some of them on my current singing list as it's always fun to surprise the karaoke hosts with cool but old/new songs.
Take care ... and don't forget that people can hear you smiling when you answer the phone.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
1001 Miles Today
The weather didn't look too favorable for riding the bicycle later in the day so I got in a quick early right this morning (windy though! at about 25 mph from the south). And I did break 1000 miles on the way in as the odometer is reading 1001 and 64 hours of riding time for the year. Feels kinda good.
I must admit I stayed up pretty late last night though as I started working on the Gateway laptop downstairs, installing Windows XP's SP3 update. Of course, once you start down some roads you have to keep going and this was no exception. I finally wrapped it up (successfully) at about 2:30 this morning. Now both PC's and the Mac virtual machine are running SP3 and none seem to be having any problems.
Huge flooding problems all over eastern Iowa as they say here in Cedar Rapids that it's much worse than even the flood of 1993. The NBC affiliate, KWWL channel 7, was even off the air for some time this morning so they may have pretty severe problems at their studio up in Waterloo. I know many people in Cedar Falls are not able to leave their houses because of local road flooding, even if they don't have water in their homes.
Right now, the creeks are still risin' and 1-3 inches of rain is forecast for the next several days with a break coming by the weekend.
Good news on the RAGBRAI front ... I got my rider's packet in the mail. I should have about 1500 miles in by the start of the ride. It will be fun and it will be interesting to see how things play out as far as getting a place to stay on a day by day basis. I think I'll replace the chain and tires on the bike about a week before the ride, but shouldn't need much in the way of maintenance beyond that as this bike is just over a year old and I keep it pretty well maintained. Checked at the bike shop and they seem to be too busy to take a look at it without keeping it for two weeks (not gonna happen!).
Finally, I should mention my just completed trip to Florida where I visited with Larry's mom and stepdad (Wanda and Sam) and played golf last Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It was great fun and they were gracious hosts. Have to do that again when it's a bit colder up here in Iowa. Sure is dry down in the Orlando area, though. Those folks really need rain ... now if there was only a way for us to export some of the Iowa excess ...
Later ...
I must admit I stayed up pretty late last night though as I started working on the Gateway laptop downstairs, installing Windows XP's SP3 update. Of course, once you start down some roads you have to keep going and this was no exception. I finally wrapped it up (successfully) at about 2:30 this morning. Now both PC's and the Mac virtual machine are running SP3 and none seem to be having any problems.
Huge flooding problems all over eastern Iowa as they say here in Cedar Rapids that it's much worse than even the flood of 1993. The NBC affiliate, KWWL channel 7, was even off the air for some time this morning so they may have pretty severe problems at their studio up in Waterloo. I know many people in Cedar Falls are not able to leave their houses because of local road flooding, even if they don't have water in their homes.
Right now, the creeks are still risin' and 1-3 inches of rain is forecast for the next several days with a break coming by the weekend.
Good news on the RAGBRAI front ... I got my rider's packet in the mail. I should have about 1500 miles in by the start of the ride. It will be fun and it will be interesting to see how things play out as far as getting a place to stay on a day by day basis. I think I'll replace the chain and tires on the bike about a week before the ride, but shouldn't need much in the way of maintenance beyond that as this bike is just over a year old and I keep it pretty well maintained. Checked at the bike shop and they seem to be too busy to take a look at it without keeping it for two weeks (not gonna happen!).
Finally, I should mention my just completed trip to Florida where I visited with Larry's mom and stepdad (Wanda and Sam) and played golf last Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It was great fun and they were gracious hosts. Have to do that again when it's a bit colder up here in Iowa. Sure is dry down in the Orlando area, though. Those folks really need rain ... now if there was only a way for us to export some of the Iowa excess ...
Later ...
Monday, June 2, 2008
Bailey's & Coffee
Good day for a cup of coffee with a shot of Bailey's. While it is warm out, it's gray and cloudy with a promise of rain. Nothing like a little coffee to brighten things up, eh?
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Just a Great Day
Great day for a picnic ... it's a calm 80 degrees outside at 1pm and wonderful for just about anything. Today's bicycle ride was smooth and fun as I rode up to Center Point and tipped the week's riding mileage at 116 miles with close to 61 hours for the year. Yesterday I laid out some new riding routes that head up through Urbana, Vinton and Shellsburg along with an alternative road route to Waterloo. The road routes I have now encompass distances of: 14, 24, 40, 57 and 110 miles. So that ranges from less than 1 to as much as about 8 hours of riding ... nice.
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