New Best Time of 45:26

Yes, another new record. Reminds me of that Russian weight lifter that used to beat his record by 1/2 kilo every big match. He set the world heavyweight record about 50 times in his career (hehe). Well, I don't think I'll ever get that prolific but I did ride the short (14.2 mile) course today and hit 45:26, beating my old best time by 22 seconds. With an average speed of 18.75 mph, it's also interesting that the speed for the 2nd half (7.1 miles) of the ride was 20.06 mph. Still, all in all, I don't think I'll get 20 mph for the entire ride anytime soon (that would result in a time of 42:36, although that would be pretty good.

Now I'm just a little tired of Microsoft producing (yet another huge piece of) bloatware ... this time they're calling it Vista. The main "benefit" that I can see, besides eye candy, is a little bit of extra security functionality and some enhancements to the graphics interface, called DX10. Meanwhile, to "support the Operating System" (notice, this is not supporting running your own applications faster) virtually all users need to go out and buy either a beefier PC (again, remember Windows XP?) or add a gigabyte or two of additional memory. Sheesh! Anyway, with the advent of the new Intel processor Macs, I'm seriously thinking about switching, perhaps I'll get a Mac next winter. A bit nearer on the horizon would be the easy (and cheap) route of going to Linux (which is open source ... free) and a dual boot system (WinXP & Linux). By the way, Windows XP will not be available installed on new PC's starting this fall and Microsoft plans to end production and sales of XP by January, 2008. So I ordered a "closeout" version of WinXP Pro in order to make sure I have a copy for perhaps dual booting a Mac. I found it for $106 online (don't go to Best Buy, they still want $299 for the non-upgrade version of XP Pro).

Well, better get a shower here and decide what to do this evening. Tough to sing with this hoarseness in my throat ... it still hasn't gone away since RAGBRAI. Probably because I've been singing a little more, meaning more time in a bar (smoky) environment. But it still makes me smile ...

Later ...