I'm having a very fun time on my honeymoon! We stayed at a lighthouse the first night and the last two nights were at a Scottish B&B in Grand Marais. We've been biking&hiking and relaxing. I'm only on the Internet because our resort (Bluefin Bay) has wifi in the room. Our hike today was yet another hill named pincushion which provided excellent views of the lake and everything around it. It got a little hot, but the bountiful raspberries helped. They were simply everywhere! I'm used to having to hunt for them and on this trail they were every 10-20feet. We went to a campfire sing-along last night and watched the full red moon duck in and out of the clouds. We got to sleep to the sound of crashing waves last night. Very nice. We will try kayaking tomorrow if the waves cooperate, but may do more biking also or instead of. There is an adult swim that starts at 10 PM tonight. Not sure what that involves...I don't think we are THAT open-minded. I'm actually reading and enjoying the first Harry Potter book. I never started the series because I thought it was just for kids and for some reason women (all the women in my life LOVE the series). Now I have seen my folly and will get to read the whole series at as quick a pace as I choose as my lovely new wife has all the books. Off for s'mores and the only free thing so far: a bottle of champagne.

Well it's been a long time since I've gotten to sit and blog my important thoughts. I'm married now and a honest to God homeowner! We leave for the honeymoon in 2 days and I can't wait! I'm much more in synch with myself and the stress level has finally abated.

So today I was biking along on my Dahon in St. Cloud MN, minding my own business when my right shoe started feeling squishy like I had stepped on some gum. Strange, since I hadn't stepped off the pedal in a few miles for me to suddenly have gum on my shoe. Then I noticed looking at the pedal that there was light showing through places where light had not been before. I stopped to inspect this and had the whole pedal fell apart! So 12 miles into my planned 30 mile ride I had to turn around and ride back to the hotel with a nub for my right foot to push on. This after discovering a front flat before I even got to ride today. Just not a good day to bike I guess. The 96F should have been my 1st clue. I guess the little plastic Dahon pedals aren't meant to get beyond the 1000 miles that my bike is at right now. I'll have to find something more solid because if that happened going up a hill it would have been a very bad day.

Well, I got in.
In means I'm one of 1800 riders in the Cheq. 40 mountain bike race that leaves Hayward on a crisp Saturday morning in September.
In means I'm one of the 1800 who are not the 900 that didn't get selected in the random lottery.
In means I'm racing and not the designated shuttle-bitch for the 3rd year in a row!!
In means I've got motivation to keep me riding hard the whole summer long so that I can finish relatively close to my riding buddy, and my own goal of 1:45, NOT!
In means I can now try to devise a way to use my helmut cam in a race where when I finished last year my face was so dirty (pix will post at later date) that I'm considering making some sort of wiper for the camera's lens.
In is good and makes a very stressed out man a little happier.

A couple weeks ago I came home to find my desk top trying to turn itself on. Turns out the power source failed and fried the motherboard on that 3 year old E-Machine! I got the verdict from the computer guru as I was in the process of breaking my cell phone holster, and having just broken my roller-bag the day before a trip. That was not a good day. That seems to be what God has in store for me this spring. Your typical every day monotony for a few weeks and then the real bad day.
Take today: tried riding my bike inside on my rollers to be interrupted every 5-10' by phone calls. I chose to ride and talk on headset which eventually got me back to working out uninterrupted. My realtor team of Mom and Dad put my condo on the market this morning and already had someone who wanted to see it at 5PM. Dad was to get the lockbox (different from the Al Gore lockbox) to my pad in time for the prospective buyers to have a gander. Too bad he drove 2 hours to find out he didn't have the keys to put into the lockbox (my brother has his keys because he has Dad's truck). But why call my fiance and get her keys? Why go to my brother's work and get the keys from him? Nope, he decided he'd done enough and left the people who want to see my place a note saying he'd get the keys in the lock box tomorrow, (he's sending Mom to do it). So I found this out at the same time I thought it would be nice to chill out and watch one of my Netflix dvds. It won't play, I take it out of this laptop and the dvd is broken. So then I try to use the UPS website to tell them to stop trying to deliver my new desktop while I'm out of town (like they apparently tried today after I had left my abode), and it won't let me. I have the tracking number, and it won't let me change the delivery date, neither will the automated phone system. Nice. Sure hope I get home before their 3rd attempt and they send it back. Do you think Best Buy will give me free shipping twice?
My chiropractor asked if I could reduce my stress level. HA! A handful of barbiturates would do the trick!

It's a lesser world without Kurt V. His brain failed him, or he failed it. He died of brain trauma after a fall.
He said that he wrote everything with one person in mind as his audience: his sister. Why not write for everyone: "you can't just open the window and make love to the whole world!"
I'm glad he was recognized for the talent he had while he was living. He will go down as one of the greats for Am. lit.
Wouldn't it be great if he got the epitaph he wrote for himself: "All I needed to know God exists is music?"

I got out to do a group-ride yesterday in the rain. I broke out the Murray for the 43F, 30-something windchill morning. The weekend before my honey and I had fun riding a tandem through the fog. No fog this weekend, but it constantly rained. Luckily I had my Cub Foods plastic bag duct-taped to my helmut so I mostly got wet from sweating under a few too many layers. There was a guy with a new bike who made the ride a little fast for my March legs on the 40+ pound Murray. I wonder how much weight the rain added? I bet if I would have worn spandex it would have been easier : P

Today I've been working on cleaning out old crap so I can sell this abode and buy one big enough for two, and a dog-cat combo. It's amazing to me how fast stuff accrues when you can just pile it somewhere and forget it. This is the first place I've had on my own and it's got a lot of space to store junk. Luckily Mom is coming down Tuesday to make sure I get rid of the Budweiser clock from high school, and the cancelled cheques from 1994.

Yep, still going. Didn't get to Kitchner, here I am in Memphis. Got to spend the night in Peleston MI. I turned down the cina-bon imatations this morning to get a beat down from the worlds toughest orange. It was all sweet, and I just couldn't stop, but I also couldn't chew the stupid thing!
I'm 10' from Graceland but I think I'll stay here tomorrow so I can hit the catfish shack across the street. MMMM fish and huspuppies! Pilots love to plan the next meal.
I've stayed here before, but never with enough time to do anything but sleep. Today I tried my points card and got a couple free beers and an omlet out of it
Looks like Shaq beat up my Wolves pretty bad. I hope Garnett goes somewhere where he can excel. MN is just never going to be the spot.
I've seen every hub in our system this trip, and it's only day 3 of 5. The way they have me finishing up gives me most of Sunday off: Yay for me! I can't wait to get home to dress for one temp as opposed to this trip where I've gone from 12F-68F in one day

The wedding has changed!

My fiance has come to her senses, (actually, she's always sensible) and shut down the large, societal pleasing, unrealistically expensive, one day affair that was our wedding and we are now doing a simple ceremony with just our parents, siblings and grandparents. I was so happy when I heard her say this that I was in shock for a few days. When I came around I realized I was real happy!
I love those little moments when you are in love with someone and they surprise you in the most unexpected way that makes you say: that's why she's the one! She is so mature about this whole thing, and she's willing to buck society, the system and the family to make our lives easier. I'm feeling pretty lucky today!
This is coming to you from Hattiesburg MS where it's just climbed above 60F. Today I'll be seeing MEM, CHA, DTW, and Kitchner CANADA. I love it!

Stuck between the Mississippi and Missouri

So I was supposed to fly into Mason City IA last night and come right back to Minneapolis. I got to see my first thunder snow showers as we came into land. It went from beautiful colors of blue-purple ground and white shafts of snow from layers of pretty clouds to concern as we watched lightning coming out of snow clouds. The wind was out of the east at 25knts gusting to 36. We landed no problem, then it started to rain. Even with the temp at 30F. So yeah, freezing rain. Planes don't deal with freezing rain so well. Neither did the runways: they were so slippery after a few minutes of freezing rain, that we couldn't use them. So it now became an overnight. I didn't have my rollerbag/ suitcase with me (it's falling apart and I'm waiting for a new one to be shipped). Now I'm stuck here waiting for the weather to improve as my airplane, and much of Iowa has turned into an icecube (it will take over 100 gallons of deicing fluid ($15-20/gallon) to bring it back to flying condition). We've just been informed that we'll be spending a second night here. I really need some clean socks. This town has no taxis. The hotel will drive us ONLY to the airport, but refuses to take me somewhere to buy socks, whitey tideys, etc. After the front desk woman told me her driver doesn't work on Sats. she said she'd look for someone to help. Apparently that was easier to say than "no, we can't take you." Why do people lie. Makes them weak in my mellon. I think I'll try washing my socks tonight...I sure hope they dry by morning. The roads are so bad, it probably would be best to just stay here than find a ride to a store. I still wish I flew into towns with taxis.

I'm doing my last trip before I get back home to the twin towns. I think I'm tired. I'm tired of: excess stress, anger, fear, stupid punks, apathetic consumers, too much unknown and not enough solidness...
I want a new book from my fave Scottish author to escape into. I haven't picked up a great book in months. I got one for Christmas that I'm looking fwd to.
I ate way too much tonight. It was Italian and it was gooood. The holidays have added some girth to my frame. I can't wait to work it off on my rollers.

Some punk honked at me when I was walking on the sidewalk next to his passing mini-van. I'm a biker, I'm used to it. But this idiot didn't look ahead to see that he was about to stop at a red light. I walked up to his stopped van and just stared at him and his embarrassed girlfriend. What do women see in boobs like that? I didn't do anything but stare at him. Was I taunting him? Maybe.

I'm in Kingsport TN on 12/ 8 and it's Bill Bryson's birthday! It's also not quite 20F! He is my favorite travel writer and the only author who can consistently make me laugh out loud in public. His book a Walk in the Woods reminds me of this pix of Neillsville WI (great book). I also loved his book on the origin of American words/ slang and phrases. He's brilliant.

I recently read a list complied of the best innovations of the 20th century and Minnesota got on there for the honey-crisp apple. An apple? Really? There are so many things that top that. How about ALVIN? I mean without ALVIN we would never know where the current resting place of the Titanic is! And without that, we wouldn't have had the movie Titanic and just how could one be expected to go on without that life-changing 3 hour carthisis (sp?)?

Frame is Black

I just had my road bike repainted...BLACK! I considered red, but why not stick with the original color? Interesting that Colnago did not care to imprint any kind of serial number other than a 9. The steel frame got rusty after being ridden inside on a set of rollers by a novice who didn't figure out to cover the frame to protect it from nasty rust inducing sweat. I'm really looking fwd to putting it all back together and riding it on those rollers now that it's too cold to buzz around outside in this Minnesota weather. I also have my MTB all ready to go for the first snow, because I just have to give it a try. I kind of want to assemble a fixed gear road or a single speed MTB, but that will have to wait to see how the finances go, ya know?

BORAT
Do not see this movie!! This was the worst movie I've seen all year (including all my netflix!). I wanted to see it because it is popular, my finacee was hesitant. It's mean humor. I'm good with that, but it's the same jokes that we see EVERYWHERE!! The exception being the anti-Jewish humor. Just because he's Jewish doesn't give him the right to bash Jews for two hours. I don't mind art making me uncomfortable, but this did so for no reason, I took nothing from it. I also don't buy the premise that the people in the movie didn't know they were being filmed. Too many camera angles and too good of lighting to pull that off. Nuts!

The PRESSURE

I've been MTBing for a few years, and these past couple have gotten more serious about it. I've started entering a few races and joined a couple organizations which help maintain trails in my area: CAMBA and MORC.
One of the fun things for me is learning something new. Like today: I had always scoffed at lowering ones tire pressure to the 35-40psi range for MTBing. Pinch flats, it will make me slower I thought. A friend finally got me to try it today and instead of my usual 55psi I went at 40psi. The difference was amazing and immediately apparent. My tires used to bounce off of rocks as if my tire was a giant ball bearing. Now at the lower psi my tires can actually grip the rock! Cornering is also better, but I didn't want to push that one too hard.
Biking in MN at 68F in November: it doesn't get much better than today.

I got to ride my MTB today after installing a new, lighter, better crankset. It started to rain, so I decided to just leave right from home instead of packing up and heading for a MORC trail. I hit a trail that I can usually only see in the fall when the flora has died off a bit for the year. I'd call it a secret trail, but there were a couple of dogs being run off leash by a pedestrian. The trail is one of the first I've been on in St. Paul and I really enjoyed getting back on it. My problem of dropping the chain when switching from the middle to smallest cog (front) is still there. But I'd like to think it improved somewhat (that's what my emotions are telling the part of my brain that hates spending money).

Night rider
Last week I got to do my first off road , bicycle, night ride. I met up with some other MORC bikers at a trail we've worked on this summer (they much more than I) and one of them had an extra light setup for me. It is a very different experience. I think it would have been more fun at an easier pace, but these guys practically live on these trails and know every obstacle where I was kind of: ride it as I see it...in the dark. It was pretty cool when I could keep up with the guy in front of me because I could use his light to see ahead. When I was on my own I kept tilting my light up and down trying to find the perfect distance of what I wanted to see (I think it was falling as I took some bumps also). I didn't wipe, and was able to keep up with the other night virgin (even though he was MUCH better at obstacles I kind of had him in the hilly cardio stuff). I'll do it again, I just have to resign myself to not trying to keep up with the big boys.