Jen and I on the hotel beach 

A gator in the Everglades 

A man-made pond in the Everglades 

Giant grasshopper in the Everglades 

Looking down South Beach. It's huge! 

Jen as we arrived at South Beach. The beach was huge! 

So tired...

Well, it's 3:45 am and I'm getting ready to drive to Cleveland for work. We're going to drive 5.5 hours, have a 2 or 3 hour meeting, and then drive back 5.5 hours. Sounds fun, huh? Anyway, I'm waiting for my ride to show up so I thought I'd finally get around to posting again.

The bike is doing nicely. I haven't been able to ride as much as I'd like, because I have to wait until 7:30 or 8:00 in the evening so the roads are cleared off. By then I'm usually in the middle of something else. It's really nice to go out and ride, though.

The vacation was great. I'll put up some pictures in a bit, but suffice it to say we had a good time. It was good to see our Aunt Casey. She seemed to be doing really well. Jen hadn't met her yet and really liked her.

The only real things we did in Miami were visit the Everglades and go to South Beach. Other than that (and including South Beach I guess), we just layed around by the pool or on the beach. We each read two novels, so you can guess that we were nice and relaxed.

Okay, now I'll post some pictures before my ride shows up.

I got a new bike!!!

Well, I dropped the hammer on Thursday and bought a new bike. It's a Raleigh Grand Sport 2005. Aluminum frame, carbon fiber front & rear forks, carbon fiber seat post, and lots of goodies. It's got all the upgraded gear stuff, brakes, shifters, etc. My neighbor is also a biker and he's pretty jealous. That's how I knew I got a good bike., jealous neighbors. :^)

I got a good deal because it's last years model. Plus, since I work with the guy that owns the place I got 15% off of the bike and 25% off of the accessories. Gotta love the good deals.

Anyway, I've riden twice now. Ten miles on Thursday and 11.5 miles today. Today I averaged 16.7 mph. I know this because I bought a computer that attaches to the bike to tell speed, mileage, etc. Like a true engineer, I'll be keeping a running log of my distances and speeds. I'll be a geek later and post my progress.

Updates to come...

Hail Damage

Wow, did we ever get the mother of all hail storms! I've never seen anything like it. It started really quickly, building for about 5 minutes, until it proceeded to pound us with golf ball (& bigger!) size hail for about 15 minutes. Check out the picture below.

Unfortunately, the storm caused quite a bit of damage. Both of our cars were outside. Currently the damage is estimated at $2800 on Jen's car and $3500 on mine. Of course, we have a $500 deductible on each, so there goes a quick 1000 bucks. Ugh!

The storm also nailed the house. The guy from All-State came out about a week ago. The entire roof, all the siding on all sides, all gutters and downspouts, some screens, and other small stuff all needs to be replaced. We haven't gotten the estimate yet, but I'm guessing well over $20,000 by the time it's all said and done. Of course, another $1000 deductible on that. Nice.

The only saving grace of the whole situation is that I might be able to save on the replacement costs of the house and pay the deductibles. The siding was aluminum, and we're thinking of replacing it with vinyl, which is cheaper. That could be a good $3000 or $4000 in our pocket. It doesn't effect the resale value of the house at all so it's probably a good option. I might also be able to do some of the repair work myself, or at least help. We'll see how the financials all work out.

It was definitely a cool storm, but now it's a pain in the rear to try and deal with everything. Oh well.

Look at all that hail! They're the size of golfballs.