wordpressing attempt 2

so, i've gone done it and put up a new website.

check it out. let me know what you think, if you wish, or not. but, i do like to hear people's opinions.

http://www.helpingfriendlybook.org/

yeah, i'm a dot-org now. don't question it!

john herding

so today, we went john herding. same cast of characters as yesterday, matt, dave, lindsay, john, and i went out for another nice long slow gravely ride. and on the way back home, on the coralville path, we were playing bike tag. suddenly we got the clever idea to herd john. so we chased him around for a while. good times. i encourage anyone and everyone to give john herding a try sometime. its a pretty awesome passtime.

plus we got the new iowa kits in. and the bib shorts.....oh boy. glorious.

things i've been up to

saturday i went home for to visit with the fam, as it was older sisters birthday. brought the single for some dirt at scott county park. it was great, but too wet, so i cut my ride short. got in about 45 minutes of dirt play time though which was great. as for the sister's birthday, mom's friend jean joined us for dinner, and the four of us had a most excellent evening.

sunday was to see what i should like to call nothing short of an epic gravel road ride. dave, lindsay, john, matt, and i went out on our singles, mostly. the theme of the ride was to be not so fast, just long time on the bike. starting at noon-thirty, and ending at four thirty....i think we didn't do too poorly. made our way our prairie-du-chein past sugar bottom road, and onto some gravel out there. ended up in solon, and took the trail behind the high school. eventually ended up in the park, made our way to the raptor center, for a nice visit with the birds. and headed back in by way of north liberty and the bike path. all in all it was a great ride.

today not much of anything, perhaps a bit of groceries. take in some recycling. definitely doing some laundry. and yep, that's about it.

can anyone explain to me why it is insisting on being spring in january? where's my snow?

more ouachita prep

rode matt's trainer today. could only manage just a bit over an hour of it. that's some hard stuff. so, up my base miles total to about 35ish. awesome. now, there's a solid platform to build on...right....

the ups man dropped off my pedals while i was on bike. they are pretty nice. but, one complaint. crank bros. packaged them beautifully. doesn't sound like a complaint? it is. the packaging is made of a hard molded plastic case, with a what looks to be aluminum cover for it. it looks great. but is highly not recycleable like their cheaper, and equally attractively packaged lessor models. i dunno. i guess i'd rather see them in a cardboard box that i could recycle rather than a flashy tin which will probably find its way into a landfill someday. so thus i think i'm going to sell them on ebay. unless anyone who reads this is interested in some double ti egg beaters? and buy a cheaper set, recycle the box, and hopefully have a bit left over for some cranks or other such desperately needed parts. anyway, we'll see.

on a somewhat related note, i bought my books today. all kinds of new edition, non-used goodness. four hundred and ten dollars worth to be exact. ouch. the one history course i'm taking for fun, thought it would be a good joke to make me buy 7 or 8 little books. although, i shouldn't complain too much, as those 7 or 8 didn't total as much as one of my math books. perhaps i should go into the textbook publishing business, it seems they've got quite the racket going on there.

margo seems to be doing well in colorado. i've talked to her a few times now, and she always sounds like she should. like she's in the 'rado, and its a good thing. yeah, i'll say it again. she's officially better at life than me.

ouachita prep

i figured that since everyone else has been talking about it, it was about time i started "training" and "getting ready" for the undertaking that is to be ouachita. i was going to ride matt's trainer today, but then i walked outside, and then andy rang. and thus the first road ride since november was born. i now officially have about 20 base miles in. sweet. ouachita is probably going to kill me.

friday night fixie ride and such

....back on its namesake night, wednesday. headed out tonight with michael, david, fritz, and joe. rode almost out to coralville mall. turned around as i didn't wear proper gear and thus couldn't feel either my fingers or my toes. it was chilly. lost joe as he needed to go home. carried on to dabs circle. had a few enthralling rounds. and a couple of nice tumbles. then off to el ranchero for some most excellently appreciated mexican food. ran into roomy and court leaving as we were just arriving. there's some poor timing for us. thats it. no pictures tonight. it was cold enough i wasn't feeling taking the gloves off. nighty night

oh yeah, matt and i are in for ouachita. its going to be brutal. and awesome. i guess i should start getting used to riding bikes again. and perhaps put my mtn bike back together since its semi-demise in early november.

i won some pedals from dirt rag. they should be pretty awesome. and arrive sometime early next week. oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy

back from colorado

returned from colorado late last night. good times. colorado is a beautiful place during winter. boarding was great. one of the best parts of the trip was a walk i took through the snow on saturday evening. had a scientific experiment, and proved once and for all, birkenstocks are indeed all-weather winter footwear.

the sister is in fort collins. the little lady hauled off and headed west. sunday from what i learn. way to go sis. i passed her on i-80 and didn't even know it. get settled in so i have a place to visit! you guys go right on and rock colorado like 2 the hard way.

going to colorado

i'm off to colorado for some boarding, we leave tomorrow morn at 5.15 am. i have literally only $21 cash to spend on this trip, i'm going to have to see just much of a workout i can give my credit card. talk about some poor planning on my behalf.

i'm in the midst of packing and was just thinking, up until now i had assumed i'd take the compy along. but, i have since decided it might be nice to escape it for a while, take a short break from this noise... not to mention, its a really expensive, fragile toy to be tossing in an already full car, and a condo full of guys i have yet to meet most of. so, this is to be it until sometime after my return, which, coincidently is to be sunday. until then...