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Once again, on my ride in to work I soaked up the experience of just being outside and riding along rather than stuck in traffic. I then came upon a momma river otter with three pups. The three pups were having a blast playing, jumping around, tackling each other in the water while mom swam around looking for something to eat. I stopped and watched for about 5-6 minutes before resuming my ride. The one day I DID NOT pack my camera! DOH!

I have the coolest commute!

Last week was my first week attempting to ride door-to-door and I did fine for my 3 days worth of commuting by bike. I also was interested to see that the trip is a 12.27 mile trip for a total round trip of 24.54 mile day. The kicker though is the trip home ends with a significant incline the last 3/4 of a mile — approximately an incline of about 300 feet in that 3/4 of a mile. The first day was a killer, I thought I was going to pass out near the top, but each subsequent trip got easier.

This week, I made my way in, door-to-door, 4 days. I might have made it 5, however, Wednesday I had to take my pickup in to the dealer to have some significant work done on it. I’m pretty confident that I can make it a full 5 days this next week.

I experienced a couple of interesting things today on my commute… one pretty cool, the other, well… not so cool.

As I made my way down to downtown Bothell and to the Landing where I catch the Sammamish River Trail, there was a rush of cyclist coming down the path. So many that I had to wait a few seconds for a break in groups in order to enter the trail. So I dropped in to the middle of their pack and was amazed at how cool it was to ride with a group. I was easily riding 4-5 mph faster than I typically do. I don’t believe it had to do with drafting, but rather, a sense of motivation to keep up. But it was so easy! Much easier to ride at that speed than when I ride alone.

A fellow rider at work told me that some groups don’t really take kindly to straglers joining their group rides like this. Albeit it was after the fact, I’m not all that concerned about it as I was commuting to work — THEY were out for the joy of riding. I simply fell in and stayed with traffic for the 2 miles that we shared the trail. It was cool though and I did enjoy the 2 miles that I was with them.

On my way home though this afternoon… I was subjected to a sight that I don’t think ANYONE should be subjected to. The weather is pretty warm for this part of the country today and as such I decided to stop in Woodinville, about 3 miles from the house, and hydrate myself before taking on that last 3 miles. Suddenly, along comes riding in a gentleman in his late 60’s, early 70’s wearing sandles, black socks, and a SPEEDO! Ugh! I couldn’t believe my eyes. Sure, it’s warm, but comeon… that was just a cruel sight to subject the public to.

I guess on the plus side though… at least he was wearing a helmet.

A little over a month ago or so I did a bunch of sitting portraits at work — corporate head shots if you will. Now, as people begin to ask for copies of those photos, I begin now to realize that I will never be a Studio Portrait Photographer. Not that I ever really inspired to be one, but I did want to experience another facet of photography and I have to say, I’ve gotten my fill.

The key to studio portraits is, it’s not your job to make someone look good… it’s you job to make some one look GREAT! Not simply capture the moment, but capture the person’s essence and make them look even better — some how.

That just isn’t me. Not that I want ANYONE to look bad, but I’d prefer to capture the moment versus bolster an ego. Of course, everyone seems to be super critical of themselves — myself included. But I’ll leave the pleasing to someone else and I’ll just stick to capturing what I see.

Technorati Tags: studio, portrait, photography

Today, on my 12th day of commuting by bike for the month, I decided to get a better idea on the distance to and from work. Turns out it is 11.62 miles each way for a 23.24 mile round trip — thus, the 278.88 miles for the entire month.

So, remember that tank of gas I bought on the 6th? This Sunday when I fill up again it will have been a full 4 weeks. 4 Weeks on a tank of gas and almost 300 miles on a bike.

I’m pretty pleased and eager to see what I can do for the month of August. If I hadn’t had a business function yesterday, I could have made it 13 days and over 300 miles. Oh well… that gives me something to shoot for in August.

On the deck
Progress continues on the deck. This weekend I finished up the arbor and began cutting and installing the spindles. At this point, with approximately 70% of the deck railing in place, I’d say I have about 70% of that with spindles installed. I need to pick up more wood to complete the spindles. Then… it’s on to the dreaded task of putting up the final 4 or 5 railing posts and then finish it all off. My brother is expected to visit us in September while on a business trip. At my current pace, I should be able to wrap it up and even have it painted before his arrival.

On barbecuing
Last weekend we invited some good friends over for dinner on Saturday. I was grilling my first ever roast on the grill and wasn’t sure how long it might take. Once we determined that it was going much faster than I had expected, the wife invited our friends over. Now, knowing we were fixing to have company I began getting things ready – seating, cleaning tables, etc. Before I knew it, I look at the digital thermometer and my roast was up to 167 degrees! I meant to pull it at 150. I then open up the lid to the grill and I was horrified by a charred, black ball that was supposed to be my roast.

I wanted redemption, so I took another shot at grilling a roast today. I watched over this one like a hawk! Well, maybe not THAT close, but I certainly did check on it often. I also made a change and wrapped it in foil to then unwrap it once it got to 130 degrees, and finally to pull it off the grill at 140 degrees. AH… PERFECT! Redemption was mine.

On church
Lately, Daniel has been curious about church. We’re spiritual, but I wouldn’t consider ourselves religious. We attended a church back when we lived in California, but not since we moved up here to the Seattle area over 11 years ago. Some good friends of ours have been attempting to get us to visit their church for years now, so with Daniel’s curiosity and our friends’ nudging, we decided to attend today. Daniel loved it! He had numerous questions and we’re answering them one at a time. Undoubtedly, we’ll be attending for next several Sundays. Mel and I both enjoyed it too. Initially, it felt a little intimidating, it’s a larger church than what we’re used to, but it did feel welcoming and we were comfortable. We’ll see how it goes. There’s another, smaller church a couple of blocks from the house that we’re interested in checking out too.

So that’s it… that was the weekend. This week is going to be a busy one. I’m going to shoot for a 4-day commute by bike this week. For sure, 3 days, but I’m thinking I may shoot for 4.

OH… and for you SysAdmins out there… Happy Belated SysAdmin Appreciation Day! I hope your users were nice too you. I made it a point to thank ours.

Hope you all have a great week!

Catchy title eh?  First off, the dump simply refers to another info/brain dump that this post is fixing to turn in to.  But first…  I commuted by bike the full distance 3 days this week.  My last attempt (last week) as well as the week of the 4th on my third day I didn’t feel quite up to a full ride in to work so I drove in a little closer to work on those days and biked in from there.  That effectively cut the 10 mile commute to about a 6 mile commute.  It definitely helped on those days.  But this week, I did 3 days the full distance for a total of 60 commuter miles!  At some point I’m going to push towards a 4 day commute, but I think I’ll put that off one more week and do another 3 day full ride week next week.  So, on to the dump.

Great support for bikes at work

A couple of weeks ago I approached the office manager to see if we could purchase a bike rack for parking our bikes at work.  There are five of us who bike in pretty regularly — three of those five are from my department!  I was pleasantly surprised to receive word back almost immediately after my request that it had been approved and already ordered!  As soon as it arrived, I was like a kid at Christmas…  I grabbed my tools and slapped it together and found a place to put it in the shop.  We ended up purchasing this six-bike unit.  VERY cool!

Panniers

So yesterday, I needed to lug my laptop home with me, but I wasn’t quite prepared to do it on my bike.  So I had to get creative.  I ended up locating an extra laptop bag — a standard current Dell bag.  I grabbed some wire, only because I couldn’t locate any zip-ties, and began rigging it up to secure the bag to my rack.  Amazingly, it attached very nicely and looked pretty good.  I even received a comment on my way home from a fellow biker who thought it was very clever.  The only drawback to the laptop bag as a Pannier was that it sat a little too far forward and my heel would hit it if I peddled normally.  So I had to keep my foot angled like I was pedaling with my toes in order to clear the bag.  It wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t very comfortable either.

I’m been Jonesing for a Pannier bag that will fit my laptop so I can cart it to and from work, but DANG!  The only one that I’ve been able to locate that even mentions a laptop runs about $160 list.  That means I might be able to locate it for something like $125-$130 online.  But DANG…  that’s a good chunk of the cost of the bike itself!  I just can’t see paying that kind of money for a pannier.  So now…  I think I’m going to look in to some sort of DIY project to create my own Pannier.  We’ll see what I come up with.

DIY

Speaking of DIY stuff, the day I purchased my bike, I sat in on a two-hour maintenance class put on by our local bike shop.  One of the things that the instructor mentioned was using a large rubberband to close the front brake when parking your bike, especially against a wall, so if it happens to get bumped that the wheels won’t roll causing to bike to fall over.  I thought that was an engenious idea.  I wasn’t crazy about using a rubberband, so I sought out another solution using some of my wife’s sewing materials.  I took a 1″ wide strip of heavy-duty elastic and made a loop (much like a rubberband).  Works like a charm.  Every time I park my bike, I put this strap on the front brake and my bike stays nice and secure.

Other Wish List Items

Seems that like with hobbies, none of this stuff is cheap.  Just trying to make the purchase of this bike pay for itself is likely to take me most of the summer.  On that note, regarding my gas mileage/savings, I filled up on Sunday, the 6th with 19.485 gallons at $4.29/gallong for a total of $83.77.  As of today, Friday, the 25th, I have only traveled a total of 174 miles and my gas guage is just under a half a tank.  For the month of July, I have driven to work 6 days, 2 days of vacation/holiday, 1 day sick, and 10 days commute by bike.  Upon my next fill up I’ll be able to determine my gas mileage in the pickup and THEN I’ll be able to determine how much money I’ve saved on gas.  Of course, that saving has already been consumed by the purchase of the bike, but hey…  my ROI is looking pretty sweet so far!

So back to my wish list times…  One of the next things I want to acquire is a bike computer, a set of fenders, a good air pump for my garage, a maintenance rack would be nice, a pannier bag, and another pair or two of padded biker shorts.  I also want to begin considering some sort of wet weather gear.  I already have a hi-viz rain jacket, but I need something for the lower portion now.

So, just like my photography hobby, this stuff just isn’t cheap!  There’s always some sort of accessory that you’ll want to get.

I’d be interested to know…  how many other are actively riding more these days?  Not necessarily commuting, but just getting out for a ride every now and then.  How frequent and how far are you traveling?

OK…  that’s it for now.  Dump over.  Time for me to get ready for my weekend.  More work on the deck!

Have a great weekend!

This past weekend couldn’t have been better — well, except for my Home Depot experience — but I’ll even set that aside and claim the weekend was awesome.

First off, we’ve been blessed with the most awesome weather over the month of July. It must be in direct exchange for the never-ending winter we experienced. It’s just been beautiful.

I made good, continued progress on the deck and its railing. I’ve got as much of the railing up as I can at this time and have started on the arbor. I hope to finish off the arbor this next weekend and begin putting up the spindles in the railing sections — they are called spindles, right? Once I complete that, then it’s back to digging holes and pouring concrete to set the last 4 rail posts and then I can wrap up the railing. I’m estimating about 3 more weekends to wrap it up, if all goes well.

We capped the weekend off with another BBQ. Of course, I grilled both days over the weekend, Saturday was some tastey hamburgers (nothing beats a home-made grilled hamburger!) and Sunday I attempted my first cross-rib roast on the grill. I used an indirect heat method to grill it, placing a bread pan-shaped pan amongst the coals to act as a drip pan as well as keep the coals pushed outwards to the sides of the kettle. It went far quicker than I expected and before I knew it it got away from me and lept up to 167 degrees. To add insult to injury, seeing how quickly it was going we invited some good friends over for dinner to enjoy the roast. Well… after cutting away most all of the char from what used to be my roast, I busted out the hot dogs! Yes… ALWAYS have hot dogs waiting in the wings for such a disaster — it’ll save your butt every time.

So I know what I’ll do next time, beside pay closer attention. Once my coals are ready I’ll drop the roast on the grill, monitor it until it get to about 100 to 110 degrees — that should be plenty to nicely brown the outside of the roast, then quickly wrap it in tin-foil to finish it off and pull it at 140 degrees. Let it sit for about 20 minutes covered, then slice. I think I may try it again this weekend!

OK… so my Home Depot and grilling experiences could have poo-poo’d the weekend, but they didn’t. We recovered nicely from both and enjoyed a really nice dinner and conversation with our good friends. It made the entire weekend a success regardless of the other negatives ..AND.. our deck is one step closer to being complete.

So another week begins now and another busy one at work. Having biked to work 3 days last week, my goal is yet again to bike 3 days this week, likely Wed, Thur, and Fri. I’ve also started my One Hundred Pushup Challenge. So today was day one of week one and it seems to have gone well. I’ll let you know how I feel tomorrow — I KNOW I’m going to be sore!

I’m eager to burn through my week and get things done so I can get back to the deck and more grilling next weekend. So far, this has been one of my most enjoyable summers since I was a kid — I can’t wait to get outside these days. I haven’t felt like this since I was a kid playing baseball.

Enjoy your week… I’m going to enjoy mine!

We have frequented our local Home Depot since we moved to the Seattle area over 11 years ago.  They’ve received a good chunk of our cash towards home improvement projects.

‘You can do it. We can help.’

Today was the worst experience I’ve EVER had at a Home Depot — there was one other time with my father-in-law, but that time was more of an embarrassment than frustration, I’ll share that moment some other time.

So I’m working to finish up the deck railing and I decide to make a run to the Home Depot to gather up more supplies — 4ea. 2″x6″x12′ pressure treated boards along with a few other supplies.  I locate everything else, but when I go the stack of wood where these boards were last weekend, there’s a bunch of 2″x4″ boards in that area.  I look up above and I see what appear to be what I’m looking for.  Not good, there’a another unit of lumber atop of it.  So I go looking for an associate who could fire up the forklift and pull it down for me so I could get my 4 pieces of lumber.  I can’t locate anyone.  So I go up to the checkout and ask, and as luck would have it, the guy I’m looking for is walking down the isle towards me.

So I tell the guy what I’m looking for, he does a search and agrees with me that the lumber I’m looking for is up in the rack.  So he begins to hunt down a forklift.

So I wait…  and I wait… and I wait.

At the hour mark I start hunting down other associates.  I get redirected back to the kid who is supposed to be helping me.  He’s still searching for a forklift — that HE can operate.  He flags down one pair of associates on a forklift they tell him he’ll have to wait, they have to pull down some other merchandise for another customer.  He flags down yet another associate, same story.

By this time, I’m now an hour and a half in to my wait and fuming.  While the guy who is supposed to be helping me is still hunting a lift, the two guys who he originally stopped come walking by me and I ask them for assistance since they appear to be finished with their previous task.  I’m told to go see the associate who is seeking out a lift.  I explain that I’ve been waiting now for over an hour and a half, and they insist that I must work with the kid who can’t seem to locate a lift.  I begin to express my frustration that a wait of this length of time is not acceptable — they both simply turned and walked away from me.  I was flabbergasted!

Finally, I’d had enough and went to the counter and asked for a manager.  15 minutes later a gentleman shows up extending his apologies and states that he checked with the associate to get the story of what was going on.  I asked him WHY does it take upwards of 2 hours to pull down a unit of wood?  His response was, “It shouldn’t, but I don’t know where you are in the queue.”  I then asked, “a two hour queue is acceptable in this store.”  He had nothing to say.

He finally got a forklift operator to assist me and who walked up and down the isle looking for the wood in question.  I pointed it out to him and he tells me that it’s not it.  He then begins clearing out the pile of 2″x4″s that were where the 2″x6″x12’s were last weekend and low and behold, there they are.

The kid who was seeking out the lift ran over to me, apologized, and practically dove in to the lumber pile to help me pick out my 4 boards.  ARGH!!!!  I could have been out of that silly store 2 hours prior!

Please…  Home Depot.  If you’re going to put someone in a department, especially one like lumber, please ensure the individual is fully equipped and qualified to be in that department.  This kid should have been able to run a lift himself for starters, but even more importantly, he should know that state of merchandise within his department!

You might ask, “why didn’t you just leave and go some place else?”  Well…  I had already invested THAT much time in the place.  It didn’t make sense to me to throw that away and start all over again somewhere else.  However…  my NEXT supply run may very well take me directly to Lowes or McClendons.

So back to that slogan, I think it needs an adjustment… “You can do it.  We *MIGHT* be able to help.”

I thought I got everything out of my head in last night’s post, but there still some stuff lingering there.

Commuting:

Today’s ride was amazingly easy — a very good ride.  I need to get a bike computer so I can see just how fast I’m traveling.  It seemed I was traveling faster today than previous rides as I was bumping myself into the next higher gear.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, I am SO grateful that we have the trail system that we have here in the Seattle area.  Last week, in the brief one mile or so that I must ride in the street amongst car traffic in order to make it to the office, I almost got ran over twice.  Both times were in the same area, just a light apart from one another.  I tell you, for anyone riding…  always look a driver in the eyes.  Make sure that they see you and even acknowledge if possible.  There is an alternative route I could take to remove this section of road from my ride, but it adds an additional 20 minutes to my ride.  If it continues, I’ll go ahead and make that change — 20 minutes is nothing compared to being dead or seriously hurt by a dumbass not paying attention.

While on the topic of my commute and riding, my rack arrived via FedEx today.  Of course, it’s already on the bike.  I had to manipulate the brackets a little to get it to fit, but my metal working skills from the Army came in handy.  I’ll likely post a picture to Flickr in the next few days.  But now, I don’t have to wear a backpack or fanny pack if I need to carry something with me to work.

Health and Fitness:

One thing that I’ve noticed since I’ve begun riding, I haven’t lost any weight.  I thought that I might, but I believe that I’m building muscle instead — which is totally fine with me.  I know my quads have hurt in places they haven’t hurt in years!

Today also makes a week + 1 day that I’ve cut my caffeine intake to zero.  I started to just cut out sodas, but decided to cut out coffee as well.  A while back I made a trip in to the emergency room for an irregular heartbeat.  The ER doctor checked me out and told me that what I was experiencing was PVCs — premature ventricular contractions.  I can’t explain what exactly a PVC is, but wikipedia does a decent job.  The Doctor told me that they were “some-what normal” (as in several people experience them) and likely caused by too much caffeine, but what is odd, I only began really experiencing them AFTER I had started working out — and doing mostly cardio work too.  So I’ve decided to give it a whirl and see how long I can go without caffeine.  Who needs the uncomfortable feeling of a weird heartbeat?  Water will do me just fine.

This post has no real meaning, just a bunch of stuff that’s happened or been floating around in my head that I’ve wanted to blog about, but none of them are enough to warrant stand-alone posts.  So…  I’m dropping them in to one post.

On the homefront

I started on another three sections of the deck railing.  Seems things went MUCH faster this evening than they did over the weekend.  I likely won’t finish off the top rail of these sections until this weekend, unless I find a spark of energy throughout the week — which I may be able to find as I’m anxious to see how this all turns out.  Strangely enough, I’m enjoying this, more so than I enjoyed putting down those deck boards.  Woof!

On commuting

I’ve been keeping a really close eye on my mileage per trip and especially this tank full of gas.  I want to now exactly how I’m consuming it all and how often.  I figure, most automobiles have about a 300 mile range regardless of the size of tank it’s equipped with.  As of today, I have traveled just over 120 miles in total over a nine day period since filling up.  One day I was sick, and two days I commuted to work by bike.  This week, I have used my pickup two days so far and plan to commute by bike at least two days this week, perhaps three. If I can pull off three days, that will mean 120 miles over a 12 day period, which of course, is an average of just 10 miles per day.  At that rate, I would possibly be able to stretch a tank of gas out to a total of 30 days.  Pretty cool feat I must admit.

On fitness

Naturally, commuting by bike has really helped me in this area.  I can feel a big difference in my quads as well as my stamina while riding.  Each day, the ride gets easier and easier — except when there’s a head wind.  But I’ve decided I need to begin expanding on this area — fitness — and incorporate something more that just riding my bike.  I’ve been reading with interest the “Get Fit Slowly” blog and specifically the One Hundred Pushup Challenge going on there (based on this site).  I wish I had stumbled upon this sooner, as it was already in in to week 3 when I found it.  But I thought that this is right up my alley.  Nice and easy, nothing all gung-ho or anything.  Just a simple way to build up my upper body strength.  It got me to thinking too…  this is the same way we did it when I was in the army.  We didn’t get fit from lifting weights or anything fancy…  it was just basic calisthenics that did it for us, and naturally, besides my time in high school, I’d say it was the time in my life when I was most fit — at least in my adult years.

So, along with my gas mileage monitoring, I think I’ll begin posting updates on my pushup challenge as well.  What the heck…  it’s what a blog is for anyway — keep me accountable. 

See…  I told you it was just a bunch of stuff.

You’d think that all my years in IT, I wouldn’t be one to jump on a new version like this, but heck… I’m a just a user now!

Seriously… some nifty new features in this release. If you’re running a Wordpress site, do yourself a favor and upgrade.

Technorati Tags: Wordpress, 2.6, upgrade

One of my most favorite parts of the summer is firing up the grill, grilling ANYTHING after it’s been marinading in something for hours, and enjoying a nice dinner outside on the deck with my family.

I don’t know what it is… but it certainly is one of my most cherished moments of the summer.

In the shot above, this is the never-ending home improvement project — our deck. On a whim, about 4-5 years ago, I decided to start ripping up boards of our old deck — on a Sunday afternoon. Not sure what the hell I was thinking, but in the end, it’ll certainly be a nice deck! All the boards were replaced with composite deck board and mostly what remains is the completion of the railing. Now with Darrin being old enough to play on the deck, the railing is my mission for the summer. What you seen in this shot, what is not painted white is what was accomplished today, along with power washing. We power washed yesterday and part of today, while the railing work that was done was done today.

I anticipate at least another 2-3 weekends worth of work. I’ve said it before, if I had to earn a living via carpentry, my family and I would starve! I’m just way too slow at this stuff. I think about thing too much before I act. I suppose that’s good in some way — but then again, this has been a 4-5 year project already.

Who gets sick in July? I never would have imagined using a sick day in the middle of July — heck, I haven’t used a sick day all year, until now! I was really looking forward to getting up and biking in to work today too on the new ride. So now, that that’s been put off one more day and I’ll be wheeling it in tomorrow — so long as I don’t feel like crap!

Image via Wikipedia

Having purchased a quarter beef and half a hog, we wanted to keep close tabs on what we’re eating and as important, what we have left.  We came up with a rather simple little tool for the task — a basic spreadsheet of numbers representing each cut and the quantity of each that we have. Now, any time we make a meal, we simply decrement the item on the spreadsheet.

Better yet, the wife placed the spreadsheet within a small binder within a sheet protector.  Now we just mark on the sheet protector marking off each cut as we use it and the sheet remains untouched.  There are even blank spaces at the bottom of the spreadsheet so that we can add items that we purchase from the grocery store or perhaps Costco.

So far it’s been VERY handy to keep track of what remains in the freezer and allows us to plan accordingly.

Though simple enough to make, feel free to grab this PDF to use as a sample for your own.

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Since my work week this week is a short one, just three days, I thought I’d see if I couldn’t commute by bike all three days.  The weather here in Seattle is excellent for riding — unless your a serious die-hard rider which then weather doesn’t matter.  I’m not even close to that stage, I still prefer the warmer weather for riding.

I was treated with a nice surprise on my commute in to the office yesterday, about three miles in to it a bald eagle was hanging out in a tree likely looking for breakfast there in the river.  As I got closer it decided to take off and make its way back across the valley.  During this morning’s ride, I was treated to two bald eagles.  About in the same area as yesterday.  Seeing stuff like this certainly makes the commute a little easier.  In commuting by car over the past 10 years up here in Seattle, I can’t say I recall EVER seeing a bald eagle.

The pics below are just more of the scenery that I get to look at.  These were taken today on my commute back home.

So Thursday I made my first attempt at portrait photography. We needed new employee photos at work and we thought this would be a great opportunity for the photography club to get in some good experience. Turns out, the photography club was primarily just me. A couple of others did help out setting up, but nobody else really joined me in this endeavor. It’s too bad… I think I gained a lot of good experience that perhaps I can share back with the group some other time.

I don’t think the shots turned out all too bad, but I still have lots of learning to do. No strobes were used… this was pretty much a seriously low-budget affair. I wish I would have taken a shot of the setup, it’d be easier to show it rather than explain it. There will be a make up session as not everyone was able to make it. I’ll try and capture a shot of the setup then.

Photo courtesy of Shayan (USA)

Tomorrow evening is my annual opportunity to knock the crap out of a golf ball, then hope I can locate the silly thing. I’ve loaded my bag with 4 sleeves of new balls. I know better than to buy expensive balls, the chances are just to great that I’m gonna lose em.

Every year at work we have a Summer Solstice golf event that is a blast. It’s a nine-hole scramble so the pressure and intimidation is removed. Then at the end, the finishing order is determined as normal, then a coin-flip determines who is actually the first place team. Prizes are awarded accordingly, typically being a gift certificate for lunch at a local eatery and company-branded schwag. The last place team is always awarded our special travel kits. Throughout the year, our traveling folks collect up the free soap, shampoo, and what-not from hotels and contribute to the prize pool.

It’s a load of fun and I can’t wait to tee off… I just hope I see where the heck it lands!

Technorati Tags: golf, HATNUS

Ah… it’s very satisfying to have a stocked pantry and/or a full freezer.

With our “economic stimulus” check that President Bush so graciously offered back to us, we decided to put it towards a half a pig and a quarter of a beef (grass fed). We received the pork 2-3 weeks ago, and the beef itself was just finished and ready for pickup today up in Stanwood.

We’ve tried to remain as local as possible with our food purchases of late. With the pork and beef coming from local farms as well as a CSA produce subscription that we get every week. It may ultimately cost us more, but it’s been very satisfying knowing we’re getting good food grown or raised locally and without all the processed crap that ends up in the general food supply.

We have an inventory sheet in the kitchen now so we always know what we have and what we’ve consumed and when it will be time to reorder. I would not be surprised if we end up going to a half a beef in the next couple of years as Darrin gets older — bubba likes to eat!

Technorati Tags: Organic, natural, grass-fed, beef, pork, CSA

Half success! Left this morning at about 6:30 and arrived to work at 7:50.

The ride was nice… a few rough spots on the trail due to tree roots, but I’m not complaining. I’m just glad that there exists such a nice trail for cyclists to use away from car traffic. The last bit of the commute was the most treacherous having to mingle in and negotiate traffic. Naturally, Fall City Road tends to be a rather busy road too.

My calves must sense the end of a ride… seems every ride so far, as I near the end of it they start cramping up on me. I’m hoping that the work day will give them a nice rest before my commute back home this evening.

Take THAT! OPEC and speculators!

[UPDATE] Ride home was quicker, right at 1 hour. Took another route through Redmond Town Center rather than through Marymoor Park which I believe made it a little shorter of a commute by maybe a mile or so. I’m still not keen about having to deal with traffic through that area, but the RTC route I can deal with on the way home, not so sure on the way in.

Also found out that we have a bike club at work — predominantly at our other site next to Microsoft. Every month they do a group ride over to the Celtic Bayou. Next group ride is slated for next Wednesday. Not sure I’ll participate since Thursday I’m supposed to play golf.

Technorati Tags: Biking, Commuting, Cycling

Took a quick ride this evening — and I mean quick, no more than 20 minutes. But that was one painful 20 minutes and 2.2 miles. Every little bit helps to get my butt in shape.

It doesn’t look like much, and to more experienced riders, it certainly isn’t, but it certainly kicked me in the butt. Quick way to get a great lower-body workout, that’s for sure. A hazzard if you will for living in a hilly neighborhood.

Technorati Tags: Biking, Fitness, Workout, Legs