Much Ado About Nothing

No morning weigh-in -- oops!

Country girl, I think you're pretty
Got to make you understand
Got no lovers in the city
Wanna be your country man.
- CSN&Y, "Country Girl"

A bloated and depressing song, once you get past the surface of it: a monument to despair, last song on a bloated and depressing album... I got to thinking about it after reading today's featured wikipedia article: The Country Wife. No connection really between them, except the similar titles. Speaking of country women, looks like Steve Gilliard really didn't care for our new American Idol.

Meantime, back in the real world: I got a call last night from my friend Doug; he and Lori were downtown, grabbed dinner at Which Brew and would I like to join them? I'd already heard from another friend that Lori's grandfather had died during the day (it was her birthday too), and so I guess they were in Easton hanging with family and dealing with the situation. They both looked pretty subdued, must have been draining. Lori felt that her grandfather was more than ready to leave this world, and he passed quickly & painlessly; that might make it easier to let go, but it's still not easy...

Anyway, we were supposed to go to Burlington this weekend, ride up at Stowe, catch the night life, and cheer on Kris R's marathon run. The rain's been pretty bad up there, trails are trashed so it looks like riding's a wash, and with the viewing tonight and the funeral tomorrow, D&L have dropped out (ditto Bob & Karen). Maybe it's not meant to be... still planning to go as of right now though.

And speaking of Vermont: I'm signed up to do the VASS Vermont 50-Miler in late September. Registration opened yesterday evening, and it's already full.

Slatyfork Photos

Me in West Virginia
Originally uploaded by donXfive.

I just uploaded a new gallery of shots from a 2001 trip to Slatyfork, take a look here. I know I have better quality copies of these photos; when I find them I'll replace the ones currently on display.

Into The Rapids Again

Morning weigh-in (Tuesday): 177.5, 8% BF
Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 178#, 9% BF

The car went in for inspection and an oil change Monday night, only this time I took it to Revelation Motors, right down the block from me. Good job, I picked it up last night -- rather, they dropped it off during the day and I walked over and paid after work. I took a second rest day, played with the computer & did laundry, hit Which Brew for dinner. Early night, but then I went home and played with the 'puter some more, next thing it's 2:00 AM, ouch.

I've been thinking about going down to West Virginia, maybe doing the Wild 100 again, and I've been trying to drum up some group vacation enthusiasm so I've been rooting through old vacation photos, trip literature and maps etc lately. Last night I decided to put my 2001 vacation shots from Slatyfork (and 2000 photos from Moab) into photo galleries, so stay tuned for some gallery page updates. (What actually kept me up late was that the photos were numbered in a sequence I didn't like, so I had to rename them all and I decided to do it all in one shot, a single bash command, so had to experiment and foolaround, linux voyage yadda yadda, probably quicker to have done it manually but it was interesting new ground.)

Bounceback

Morning weigh-in: 177#, 11% BF

I rode the towpath Friday night, totally dragging. I think that Tuesday's "rocket ride," followed by Wednesday's hill workout, followed by the singlespeed at Jacobsburg on Thursday -- well, they all may have taken their toll. I went out to Which Brew, but it was dead so I went over to the Blue Tone Cafe to catch the Foolz, met some people, all of a sudden it was a late night...

Saturday I woke up, and had the feeling in my calf as if I'd had a cramp, all sore and feeling like it would be cramping up again. Uh oh. I skipped all cardio or legs at the gym, in fact I took it easy on quite a few exercises, then I went home and napped after eating a noodle salad for lunch. Welcome to slumpsville! I got up, got a turkey sub and a gatorade from the store up the block, then got the Turner ready for the "big ride" scheduled for Sunday. Another nap, then I went down to the Mug Club party at Which Brew -- probably why it was so dead on Friday, everyone planning on a big Saturday night. Well, I zigged instead of zagging, and now paid the price: free food, free beer, hanging out with Heath & Hans plus Brian, also a ton of other people, but I left early, was probably in bed by 10:00.

Sunday was the South Mountain Trifecta, probably our longest and toughest MTB ride so far this year. Me, Brian, Doug, Eric, Bob W, John C, Hans and Bob F, starting from Eric's house and riding the Salisbury, Lehigh, and Emmaus trail systems -- in other words, all the riding on South Mountain, and all the hardest stuff in the Lehigh Valley. We started at 9:00 AM, did Sals first, rode over to South Mountain Park where we lost Bob F and John C to time constraints, then back to Eric's house for a quick rest (we also lost Bob W here) before riding over to Emmaus. Brian was waffling, decided to ride but cut the Emmaus part short, so in the end it was me, Eric, Doug and Hans, and Hans was back on his home turf. So much for wearing him down, he was flying... at least for a little while. We were all pretty cooked by the time we got back to Eric's.

Burgers, tomato pie, Bob's birthday cake (he left, but we ate it anyway), pretty good end to the weekend. I was very happy to finish the ride, considering how I felt Saturday, and was even happier to finish strong.