Days In The Sun ... 45:29!

Today, I went to the new movie, The Bourne Ultimatum. It's a good action movie. And it's consistent with the preceding movies. I also have now purchased the books (by Robert Ludlum) as I'm confident they will be good reading.

Interestingly enough, my weight today was down to 155 ... fully 4 pounds less than on my return from RAGBRAI one week ago today. I'm eating 2500-3000 calories a day and I've played golf twice, danced for a few hours and only ridden 43 miles since that return. Not a great amount of exercise ... so it's a mystery to me. Well, I guess all I can do is eat more and enjoy it, eh?

Today I did my laundry, mowed the lawn and then changed the chain on the bicycle. I have almost 2100 miles of riding in this year with 1800 of that on the TriCross. The chain stretch was right at 1% so it was time. The new chain is a Shimano HG73 (same as the original equipment on the bike) but I'm going to look in to availability of, perhaps, an SRAM chain for the future. I think that there are other chains out there that last longer than the HG73 ... and I also like SRAM's standard "SuperLink" for easily breaking the chain. This facilitates removing it for more thorough cleaning and I'm using a Shimano compatible SuperLink with the new chain. I haven't ridden hard on it yet, but it was quiet and smooth shifting in my quick test ride. Hopefully, the new chain will extend the life of the cogs and chainrings. I also washed the bike ... and it has been raining today ... kind of a fitful spitting of the clouds, for the most part. Perhaps reflecting the melancholy I'm feeling this weekend. And, yes, I still want more days in the sun .

At this point, my throat is still hoarse, but for unknown reason(s). This started in the middle of RAGBRAI last week. I don't seem to have a cold of any sort, nor strep, as far as I can tell. But it keeps me from singing and, of course, that's not good.

At this point (about 6:15pm), I'm watching my DVD of "300". It's pretty good ... but, of course, definitely *not* a chick flick. And I'm thinking about my new driver, which I'll be trying out "in combat" during golf league on Tuesday.

This week, my son sent me a 3 DVD set of "Underdog" shows . I've always liked that cartoon ... it'll be fun to watch. Of course, the other great show (from college, primarily) is "Rocky and Bullwinkle" ... not sure if they have any DVD's out of that.

Well, at this point, I have several books to read ... the Bourne trilogy, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" and Daniel Dennett's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea". And, of course, I have several more DVD's to watch as time permits. I find that I enjoy the reading most ... but tend to spend more time singing than anything else. However, with my voice out of commission, I will certainly read more ... h-mmm, that's worth a smile.

PostScript: At about 7 tonight, I just got tired of not riding and so I went for a test run with the new chain. And I broke my old best time by more than a minute, from 46:48 to 45:29 (about 18.7 mph average). There was a fairly brisk east wind, which negatively affects the second half of the ride but helps the first half. In fact, I reached the 5 mile point in about 14 minutes and halfway (7.1 miles) in about 23.5 minutes. So you just never know when all systems are going to be "go" for a record ... eh?