four months later.

So first I had to remember that I had a blog, and then I had to remember how to log in, and then I had to remember my username and password. When one's attention spa- oh hey look a fuzzy bit of fuzz! Wow, that's cool, I like fuzz, it's friendly. Hey, do you like vanilla chocolate malts? They're made with vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup. You know, who first looked at the vanilla bean pods and thought "hey I bet this would taste good in ice cream?" I bet that guy got a medal. Do you have to keep medals polished, or are they lacquered?

ahem.

Anyway, s'yeah, pretty much forgot I had a blog. Then it became now and that is obviously not the case any longer.

Things that happened between then and now: Horchata. Tortilla Cafe (yes, the two are related). Rimless glasses. Lots more mountain biking... but still not anywhere near enough. Straight-razor shaving.

The discovery that there are people who refrain from using serial commas but use semicolons as dividing punctuation in a compound sentence due to comma use in at least one division and indeed put a semicolon where otherwise a serial comma would go (if internal comma use was not a factor). What is that all about? Pick one! (reference here, last paragraph.) Lesson learned: under no circumstance is there ever any good reason for not using the serial comma.

It's fun to cook for two every night, but it would be really nice and far less expensive if I had sufficient leftovers to take to work the next day. I guess that would require a kitchen big enough to accomodate cooking on a larger scale... and with few cupboards, and a range that doesn't put out enough BTUs to keep a wok full of food searingly hot, that won't happen.

Problems.

Oh yeah, wool socks are great when the wind chill makes it feel like eighteen degrees.

Got my eyes examined today.

That is all.

aaaaaand... SHIFT

I'm in Maryland now! Burtonsville, specifically, for no longer than the end of the month, and then hopefully this groovy little apartment complex in Silver Spring that exists a couple blocks from the metro station and a couple more to Amy's office. That means not usin' cars for many days at a time, which means lower insurance rates (I hope) and no more $280 gasoline bills (at least until that sick black crap is $6/gallon). I am pleased, I think. I drove to the metro and metro'd to the bike shop, and at the end of the day metro'd back and ate at Lebanese Taverna because they have Monday half-price sandwich platters. $6 for my meal and $2 of that was tip. I flippin' love this place. Metro was $3.70 round-trip, while the estimated 24-mile-each-way trip from Burtonsville in a car would set me back easily double that in gasoline at $3.09/gallon. If any of you South Carolina folks are reading this, a) comment, dammit! and b) buy all the $2.88 gas you can because you don't know how good you've got it.


This has become an awfully money-centric post. So be it. I got nothin'.

New bike & new developments

First, lemme get this out of the way -


...whew, alright. Took it to Pisgah Forest last Saturday and on the long descents it wanted to get out from under me, like I wasn't riding it fast enough. Well, next time I'll just have to ride it fast enough, I guess. Fit is just about perfect - maybe a slightly longer stem, maybe. We'll see. I'm looking forward to seeing how it treats the old stomping grounds back home. I will have to get in better shape to properly take advantage of it. Someone on a message board compared bikes to prostitutes the other day, and he's right:

I guess bikes are kind of like prostitutes, you can ride a cheap one but the expensive ones are better to be actually seen with and brag about to your friends.
They probably will perform better but you have to perform also to really get your moneys worth.

Gave notice to the office a week ago. My last day will be July 28. If you work for the Hawley Company, please don't tell the owner that my supervisor intends to take care of me when it comes to the monthly bonus (if we make it), even if I'm not around for the last day of said month. That'll be nice.

Still looking for a place to live come the end of August. Anybody know any decent units within walking distance of the Takoma Park or Silver Spring metro stations? I'd like to mothball my car and do everything by bike or metro - and since Amy's office is right near the Silver Spring metro, she could too. That'd rock so hard you have no idea. Well, I have no idea, anyway. I'd like to find out.

....aaaaand it's about time to rock out of the office. Hopefully the next installment won't be nearly two months coming. Party on.

The two sweetest bikes I've ever owned, and they're goin' up on eBay tomorrow...

This one arrived the week between Christmas and New Year's Day back in '99. I'd wanted a road bike for months, and I could finally afford to plunk down the Visa for an employee purchase deal at the ol' bike shop. An '00 Bianchi Veloce, in a color scheme they hadn't done before or since. Italian-made steel frame. Every single component has been replaced at least once. It's as good a road bike as I'd really ever need, and it's in pristine condition. I'm gonna miss it.



This thing I just bought because I needed a geared mountain bike. I'd been all set to pick up a Kona Kaboom, this rough-an'-tumble singlespeed, when a slot opened up for 24 Hours of Snowshoe back in '01 and suddenly I needed a full-on XC mountain bike. More Italian-designed steel. Welded in Taiwan, but those folks know their stuff; the frame was as near-flawless as my Italian-made road bike. Again, all the parts have been swapped out once or twice since I bought it... well, almost. I think the front derailleur is original. And the fork. That fork has seen better days, and in the interests of full disclosure I think I'll point out in the eBay ad that it's probably time to replace it. This thing has been banged around and knocked down more often than I can remember. Not gonna miss it so much, though. Why? Check out the entry below. My grin should say it all.

A photo is worth a thousand words:

More fun, exciting, expensive news

So today I ordered me one of these. I'm pretty excited. It'll build up into a 4.5" travel modified single-pivot 29er mountain bike. The wheels are 3" larger in diameter than standard, so it tends to hold momentum better and put a thicker contact patch on the ground at the slight expense of acceleration - and for my tall lanky frame, it'll probably work far better than the old-an'-not-quite-busted mountain bike I'm on now. Very excited. It'll take me a couple of months to get it built up; I'm going to eBay the current bike and build the new one up from scratch with all-new parts, some of which haven't even come out yet. Did I mention I was kinda excited? Dope disc brakes, a sweet fork (but '06 instead of '04, with nicer lowers and jacked up to 100mm travel to match the frame), lots of trick machined aluminum, and handbuilt wheels made of parts from the fine folks at WTB... yeah, I'm excited. Definitely going to require a few months' worth of disposable income to get this puppy built up right, but it'll be so worth it.

I'm excited.