Bicycling

Not So Busy Sunday

ConnecticutChanged the oil in the Emperor and rotated the tires. I did it a little early in preparation for our driving trip to the northeast starting next weekend. Then later in the day we changed our plans for the trip for the 8th and final time. We’re now flying into DC and renting a car. I say final because we are now locked in to some non-refundable airplane tickets. Two days in our nation’s capital, two days of who knows what, two days visiting my family in CT and two in NJ, before driving back to DC to get on a plane for SC.

I may get a second chance to sign the Ultimate Drive northern fleet’s signature vehicle that I forget about last Thursday in Columbia because they will be in Sterling, VA on Monday, April 8th. Its a mere 30 miles from where we are staying in DC.

We went for a tandem ride after I got done with the car. Cruised through some neighborhoods and hit a couple places to shove some bills into slots and then the Post Office to mail the rest. We ended up tallying over 15 miles, which is about 5 more than the last few rides and it felt pretty good. A few more weeks of 2 rides per and we’ll be ready to tackle a 25 mile loop. We have gone so far as thinking of adding some rack to the tandem so we can try to ride it to work some Fridays.

I re-upped for citizenship in the Red Sox Nation tonight. It was supposed to happen automatically, but they had the number on file of my comprised card that is no longer valid, so it didn’t happen. Tomorrow is opening day for the FRS in Kansas City, but the real season doesn’t start until Friday the 20th when the Bronx Bombers come to Fenway.

At approximately 9:40 PM my wife made the mistake of flipping through the channels and pausing long enough on USA for me to recognize what was showing – TDPM.

Will Turner: This is either madness… or brilliance.
Jack Sparrow: It’s remarkable how often those two traits coincide.

In other exciting news, with the 20% off coupon from Bed, Bath & Beyond that was in today’s paper, I got a new pillow for sleepy time. We bought a new one for Donna too.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 106

Ischial Tuberosites

After work today I went out into the garage and removed the cobwebs from the tandem, aired up the tires and rolled it into the sunshine. That’s right, for the first time this year, we went for a bike ride. Just cruised around a bit before ending up at the Municipal Building where we paid our water bill.

At about seven miles there came a call from the back seat to start heading home because the ischial tuberosites were starting to bother her. Mine had been letting me know I hadn’t been on a bike in a while for a few minutes already, but being a man I didn’t complain, verbally anyway.

As a reward for burning a couple hundred calories cycling, we went out to Outback and promptly consumed 4 or 5 times that many for dinner. Twin lobster tails with mashed potatoes and a salad, water to drink was what Donna had. I opted for the grilled salmon with broccoli and a salad, which I washed down with iced tea.

Meal Cost: $41.62
Tip: $6.38
Spent Today: $48.00
Year to Date: $551.74

Warm Sunday

For the first time this year we went for a bike ride. Fifteen miles and by the time we were done we were glad to get off the thing. Amazing how easily you fall out of shape if you don’t do it often enough. If Donna and I actually verbalized, or in some other way memorialized, our New Year’s resolutions, every year this one would be right up there at the top – Bike Ride More Often.

This afternoon I took advantage of the warm weather to do a little Miata service. I changed the oil & filter at the 52,788 mile mark. Remind me to never buy a Pure One filter for the Miata again. One thing is that the filter wrench doesn’t fit it, but more importantly and maybe it was just this one, but it didn’t have the little rubber gasket that seals it to the engine block. This is something you don’t want to find out like I did either, after you have drained all the oil out of the engine in the only car you own. Makes it kind of hard to take it back to the parts store and complain. Fortunately for me the gasket from the Fram filter I took off, was an exact replacement for the missing one. I definitely have to go back to buying a six pack of OEM filters from a dealer.

The Emperor also got his monthly bath. When I looked in the car wash bucket I realized I was out of car wash soap. I didn’t feel like driving somewhere to pick some up, so I substituted. No I didn’t use dish soap, I know that it is too harsh and will remove all your wax. I used clothes detergent. Yeah, it probably is even worse for the finish of the car, but I was desperate and I was sure it would be OK for the cloth convertible top. At least I didn’t use Rose Petal scented bubble we have in the house, although in hindsight…

Started up, went down, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 19

It’s Begining to Look…

…Somewhat Like Christmas.

We went over to the big city of Augusta today to do some Christmas shopping for the the last two people on our list, us. The mall crowds were not very big when we started shopping in the morning, but after lunch it was a madhouse.

Tonight, for the first time in a long time, we got on the tandem and went for a bike ride. We just went a short distance over to a neighborhood that is traditionally chock full of houses that really get decorated for the holidays. Because it has been awhile since we’ve ridden our butts gave out about the same time as the battery for the headlight at 7.2 miles and 36 minutes.

About the only thing that wasn’t seasonal was the weather, it was in the middle 70’s (not that there is anything wrong with that.)

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 510

The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged)

Went for a “Bike to Breakfast” ride this morning and ended up at the Atlanta Bread Company. Mileage for the ride was somewhere between 10 and 15. I could get a more accurate figure for you, but I’m too lazy to walk all the way out into the garage and look. Besides, do you really care? My right backside from Thursday’s rollerblade crash landing didn’t bother me too much. It is just sore enough to make me put my wallet in the back pocket on the other side. Still no bright purple bruise.

My inability to contact anyone at ssWebHost or HappySupport to cancel my web hosting for mr-miata.com led me to 2CO who actually does the billing for them (I don’t know why I keep saying them, when I’m sure it is one nerdy little guy in a rundown apartment somewhere) and I left a message on their site.

I have tried without success to contact ssWebHost, but I have two open help tickets open since at least 3 weeks ago that have gone unanswered. The credit card used for this reoccurring bill has been canceled after some fraudulent charges were detected. Since they have been unresponsive I have purchased another domain and webhosting with another provider and wish to cancel my services with ssWebHost. My hope is that this will get some one’s attention over there so I can cancel as other methods of communications have not been successful. I have no intention of using their web hosting anymore, but if they would like to sell me the domain, mr-miata.com, that they purchased for me I would gladly pay a fair price for it.

I killed the brian@mr-miata.com email address and emptied out directories on their server. The only things I left behind were the custom 404 page and the index.php file that redirects the dot com address to the dot net one. This way if they close my account and forget about the files it leave behind the cookie crumb trail to the new me. This is what happened with the Barndoor Fan Club site. I canceled there nearly two years ago and my error file is still out there. of course those redirects lead to the soon to be defunct mr-miata.com…

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 400

Fresh

Farmer's MarketWe didn’t have any bills to pay today, so instead we went shopping by bike. You know we planned this because Donna put a backpack on instead just relying on stuffing things in my jersey pockets.

After a few miles of meandering around our first stop was the New Moon Cafe for a couple of bagels for Sunday’s breakfast. From there we headed over to the Aiken County Farmer’s Market. Corn, squash, tomatoes, cucumbers and some local cheese went into the backpack with the bagels. Oh yeah, four homemade peanut butter cookies came home with us too.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 336

Town Hall

Municipal BuildingIn spite of my best efforts to do nothing at all today but lay about the house, my lovely wife coerced me into a 2-part, approximately 12 mile jaunt on the tandem this morning.

The first part consisted of some random travels around our side of town with the final destination being the city building to pay the water bill. While we were cutting through Citizen’s Park on a newly created roadway connecting the 2 existing ball field complexes to the newly opened 3rd, I started expounding on just how useless the several speed humps they placed on the road were. They are about 3 feet wide and maybe an inch and a half high. They would hardly register in our low slung, tightly sprung Miata, let alone the typical SUV or minivan that would be traveling this road. Of course they were marked with bright yellow signs proclaiming “Speed Hump” just in case someone did notice a slight tremor in their Starbucks coffee cup they would be assured it was an actual road hazard and not the offspring of someone they might see in the pick up line at the Montessori school. Donna asked where my camera was, so that a picture of this extra layer of asphalt could become this blog’s POTD. I said it was at home, so that is where we went next.

After slipping the camera into a jersey pocket it was back on the front of the bike for part two. It was getting late enough in the day that I thought it better just to head downtown to take care of our real business instead of going back to take pictures of a road. We more or less headed directly to City Hall. But a couple of early church services must have just let out because traffic was as bad as it gets in our little town. We did a couple of rights on red so as not to have to wait on lights surrounded by nicely dressed old folks in big cars. We finally ducked in through an alley and arrived at the Municipal Building and the front of the place was thankfully deserted. I propped the bike against the curb and took a few shots. Fortunately most of the church goers had cleared the roads, so we had a pleasant little trip home.

I didn’t avoid the bike ride, but the lawn remains unmowed and the car is still filthy inside and out.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 324