Lady Lupe

So about two months ago we had three birds, Charlie, Harriet and Homer.  Now we have four.  I think we've settled on a name for her.  For now it's Lupe but we almost went with Veeta.  When we gave her first bath she smelled really bad.  Not like other wet birds, but like Velveeta cheese, hence the name Veeta.

Veeta/Lupe is pretty cool.  She hasn't really bonded with the others yet so she is actually more content to sit with the humans even when the other birds aren't around.  It's nice because it makes for a bird that will sit with you everywhere you go and anything you do.  I've had Veeta blogging with me and checking Facebook as well as sewing and working on bikes.  She's a champ.  She's also a bit of a character when she wants attention.  If we've been watching TV for an hour on the couch and haven't been giving them any love she'll start climbing around the cage and hanging upside down while spreading her wings.  She's also a little sassy when Johanna starts talking to her.  She'll grumble back without hesitation.  I think she's still working on her balance a little bit.  She doesn't move around quite as well as the rest of the flock but she does ok.  Maybe having her wing feathers clipped doesn't help but I've definitely seen her fall off of a perch or two when she gets startled.  She's settling in though.

and the rest of the flock.

Doing My Part

I consider myself a cyclist...I mean come on, I own four bikes and in peak season I am riding more days than I am not riding.  20-40 mile road ride...no problem...20 mile MTB race...sure thing...but ride 5 miles to work? it almost never happens. 

For a while I had a Specialized Langster for getting around town.  One gear, if the wheels were moving, my pedals were moving.  It was fine except it's a little steep around C-ville and slogging one fixed gear around town really takes its toll.  Combine that with the fact that I was riding super skinny tires and couldn't really bail out onto a rough sidewalk if I ran out of road...I really wasn't riding it much. The Langster just wasn't what I was hoping it would be.

So, I sold it and got one of these.  

A Redline Monogog 29er.  

This is my first venture into the 29" MTB wheel market.  This thing is like a Mac truck.  With no suspension and heavy thick steel tubes it's pretty much bullet proof.  The super wide tires slow me down a bit but I can hop any curb or ride any rough sidewalk without worrying if I am going to destroy the wheels.  

So far it's pretty much stock.  I just hop on with my backpack and ride the 5 miles to work.  I might get some Oury grips or some lower profile tires, but for now...it will do the trick.  

I am managing to commute 2 days a week.  Weather and other obligations that require a car seem to keep me from riding in more frequently.  If the weather holds this week I should be able to bump it up to three.

Do your part...let the car rest a couple of days out of the week...sneak in some more exercise...ride a bike!

A Great Day On The Rivanna River Trail

The RTF is an organization that has built and maintains a trail that runs all the way around the city of Charlottesville. It's about 20 miles of "urban trail". It's not really single track but it's also not paved rail trail either. Some of it is a bit of a scramble or a sketchy ride through a tunnel but a lot of it is pretty sweet riding. Some buff, some technical.

Kyle and I organized a circumnavigation of the Rivanna River Trail as a sort of birthday celebration. Here's a few pics.

Here's the start of the ride. 15 riders total.


Here's a huge creek crossing/hike-a-bike


Most of the way around, chilling at Bodos for a minute.




Dave making an excellent decision with the egg bagel.


Fellow rider (I think he was drunk) on the Rivanna trail. Apparently his rear D blew apart and Dave was helping him get it back together. Only on the urban trails are you going to run into something like this. I would have been disappointed if this didn't happen. Nolan is the muscle, making sure nothing goes down.


All in all a great day, maybe we'll do it again before 2009.

Dark Hours

So, this is a concept that we came up with in college. One evening when I couldn't sleep my roommate and I tried to account for all of the hours in a week, 168. I don't remember the exact calculations but we allotted time for classes, getting back and forth to class, work, homework, meals, brushing teeth, showering, exercise, etc. As I recall we were fairly generous with the time, overestimating to try and get a realistic count. By the end of our exercise, we had accounted for less than 150 hours, almost a full day that we couldn't account for.

As I was driving to work the other day thinking about all of the things I do (poker, paintball, riding) I started to wonder if I could account for all of the hours in my week and exactly how many "Dark Hours" were left, unaccounted for. Here's my assessment.

Sleep
8-9 hours/day
63 hours/wk
(105 remaining)

Work (including driving to/from)
45 hrs/week
(60 remaining)

Eating
3 hours/day
21 hrs/week
(39 remaining)

Riding
9 hours/week
(30 remaining)

Mini-Z Racing
2.5 hours/week average
(27.5 remaining)

Hygiene - Showering, brushing teeth, etc
1 hr/day
(20.5 remaining)

Food Shopping
1 hour/week
(19.5 remaining)

Email, web-surfing, etc
1 hour/day
(12.5 remaining)

I would say most of those estimates are pretty fair. This leaves about 12 hours/week unaccounted for. Granted, I didn't account for TV which could easily be 2-5 hours for me. I guess my time is just a little more cluttered today than it was 10 years ago. I also find myself working on random pet projects around during my idle time...something that didn't really happen when I lived in one room.

I don't know if I expected to have some huge revelation when I started writing this...but I didn't. I guess I am just curious to know if other people have such "Dark Hours" that get lost little by little in the daily shuffle.

Yes, a new hobby

I am always getting into some new stuff. This time it's paintball. I've been a few times and loved it every time. Maybe except that one time where a few of us got pwned at a speedball field in Jersey but you take what you can get.

I don't know how it happened but I've pretty much jumped in head first. I haven't gone overboard. I've got a decent entry level marker (paintball gun) and a nice mask. I've been hanging out in the paintball shop a bit lately and managed to get invited to a game hosted by a local guy that's got a speedball field that he sets up every once in a while. Anyway, here are a few pics of me looking 2 legit 2 quit.

I only managed to hit one guy that day but it was a sweet one shot headshot. I'll take that for now.

Very Busy Weekend...But Also Very Fun

I spent the previous weekend working on a report for work. Saturday and Sunday were basically full of reading, writing and editing. This past weekend was much different. Saturday started with a short ride on my new road bike. Then I went out for about 4 hours of paintball. I was pretty much wasted Saturday night. After a full night's rest Sunday started with a morning of cooking (tomato-lime soup) then a 2 hour MTB ride, then about an hour of dodgeball. After some Tazo Black Tea at 4bucks, Johanna and I rallied for two bac-to-back superbowl parties.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures or the new bike, paintball or the new bike...but maybe next time. I have to be less lazy with the camera. Hopefully next weekend will be just as awesome as this one was.