Drag Racing Nationals

I think I forgot to mention that I went to the Drag Racing Nationals a few weeks ago. It was awesome! We got to see funny cars, top-fuel, motorcycles, etc. We even got to walk through the pits and check out what was going on. It was a lot of fun.

Anyway, here's a picture of hte funny cars taking off. Notice how great our seats were...
 

Michigan State

Wow, they lost again. Absolutely amazing.

Whew

Ahhh..... thank goodness for the Colts.

Michigan State

Okay, what do we have to do to get MSU to get their head out of their bum? I swear we don't know how to maintain a lead. Every time I've ever seen us get a lead over a good team we blow it. It's like we can't believe it's happening so we get all wussy and let them come back. We need to learn to BURY THEM! AHHHHHHH!!!

I now hate Notre Dame even more. Hopefully the Colts will win today. Hopefully...

Lawn of the Century

Well, thanks to the rain and my laziness the lawn has reached an all time record length. It's been two weeks since I've had a chance to mow. Okay, not "since I've had a chance", just since I've done it. Eventually the neighbors should go ahead and do it for me.

I also haven't managed to bike in over a week. I tried this weekend but I had problems with the tube in my rear tire. First I got a hole in the original tube. Then I realized my replacement tube was the wrong size. So by the time I finally got a new one I didn't have time to ride. Then we had cruddy weather the rest of the weekend. Oh well.

Class is going okay. We have a test next Wednesday. We haven't covered anything terribly difficult yet so things should go okay. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Anyway, that's it for now.

Dish Network HD

Jen and I decided to switch from DirecTV to Dish Network satellite. We wanted to get a DVR (digital video recorder, think computerized VCR) but we also wanted it to be high definition.

DirecTV's current stuff like that is definitely lacking. They only have five HD channels, plus their DVR is old and soon to be obsolete. They say that they will replace it, but you never know.

So Dish Network has something like 27 high definition channels and a brand new DVR that looks pretty cool. Plus it's something like $20 less per month. Not bad.

So the Dish Network guy is supposed to come this morning and set everything up. I'll let you know how it all goes.

Another spoke goes down

I broke another spoke on Wednesday. I went out for a 30 mile ride and broke a spoke at 22 miles. At least this time I got more than 4 miles in before it happened. Oh well.

The guys at the shop told it might happen again. Apparently they usually have issues when replacing a single spoke like that. It's hard to get the wheel properly aligned and tightened, so sometimes another spoke will end up breaking.

So now they're in the process of respoking the entire wheel. It's done (finally) but I can't pick it up until tomorrow. Three days without riding is killing me!

Bicycle Mania

I've been all about bicycling the past few weeks. For some reason I've really been into it. I've ridden at least 500 miles in the last two months. My longest ride has been 50 miles, but most of them are between 20 and 30. I just met the goal I set for myself when I bought the bike: 20 miles at an average speed of 20 mph. That was tough, I almost puked. Next up: 25 miles at 25 mph. That will be much, much tougher.

Anyway, it's great exercise and pretty darn fun. There's nothing quite like putting the hammer down and hitting 40+ miles an hour down a hill. Of course, it's not so fun when you break a spoke at 40 mph like I did on Saturday. I heard a loud metallic PING and realized that something broke. Luckily it wasn't anything catastrophic. I was able to ride home (slowly) without any trouble.

So right now I'm wishing I was outside riding while my bike is getting fixed. I might be able to go get it tonight, but not in time to get a ride in. Oh well, tomorrow I'll be back at it.

P.S. I do, in fact, wear the little biker shorts and jersey. Yes, I look like a tool. I'll have to take a picture next time so everyone can have a good chuckle.

Long overdue update

A whole bunch of little stuff has been going on recently. The two main things are plumbing problems and bicycling.

We had some sort of plumbing issue last weekend. Jen realized on Friday morning that our downstairs bathroom ceiling was full of water. Ugh. It hadn't collapsed yet but the drywall was definitely shot. I called some guys out and the four days of fun began.

When they came out they couldn't really figure out what was going on. They thought it might be condensation, because everything was damp. After a bunch of hemming & hawing we decided to dry things out (with the water & air conditioning off) and do some tests.

Well, once things were dry I turned the air back on. No problem. Then I turned the water back on and the drip came back. So it had to be a pipe, right? Apparently not.

When the guy came back he cut a hole in our upstairs bedroom to look at the pipe behind the upstairs tubs (which are above the downstairs bath). When we started investigating we realized that the shower had a leak where a hand bar met the tub. This was all cracked and leaked like a sieve. So we fixed it with some silicon caulking and all was well. Or was it....

As it turns out, we also had another leak. There was a pinhole leak in one of the copper pipes. So they guy had to come back on Monday and fix that.

What are the odds that we'd have two leaks in the same spot at the same time? Weird. Anyway, all's fixed now.

Everything else has been about bicycling. I'm loving my bike right now. I twisted my ankle pretty bad in basketball so cycling is one of the few things I can do at the moment. Plus, the Tour de France is on, so I've got all kinds of motivation watching those guys fly through the mountains.

That's pretty much it. I'm just glad it's the weekend now. Score!

Jen and I on the hotel beach