Point Sources

So this weekend I had this great post planned that talked all about Brian and I heading to Raystown to meet up with Jerry, Bunny, and the whole Pittsburgh contingent for some mountain biking and some boating. It was a lot of fun, even though I was unable to keep pace with any of the people I rode with.  Instead, I was presented with a much better post that I will commence now.

After my trip to Raystown on Saturday, I planned to sleep in, drink my coffee, and then do some work around the house on Sunday.  I got a casual start on things that included mowing the grass (for the second time in less than a week), trimming some tree branches, and prepping my porch for an overdue paint job. I also planned to take in one of the last minor league baseball games of the season which meant that I would miss out on a grill session with the neighborhood crew.  As luck would have it, there was a nice solid rainstorm that rolled through the SC allowing me to bag the baseball game and head over to Cathy's for some grilling and football.  Since I was going to be an afterthought for the grilling, I decided I would take a bottle of wine (to go with my PBR and High Life).

As I went into the wine cellar (read: basement) to pick out a nice bottle, I noticed some water at the bottom of the steps.  When I looked in the other rooms around the basement I noticed more water on the floor.  This got me thinking that a pipe had broken and was leaking.  This was unfortunately not the case.  With a little more investigation, I discovered that water was leaking in through one of my basement windows.  Even more important, upon further inspection, I noticed a crack in my foundation below the window that was also allowing water to intrude in my basement.  

While I prepped the vacuum and began to extract the liquid that had accumulated in every room of my cellar, I thought about what might have cause the crack in my foundation.  It came down to two possible options.  One was the earthquake that recently occurred here in the northeast but that seemed unlikely  What I determined to be the more plausible option was the repetitive drilling of massive holes through my house to make way for the new heating and cooling system that has been installed.  Either way, I started to reevaluate my "to-do" list for the house and the foundation repair has managed to make it to the top of the list.  

Fortunately, the crack in the foundation was only part of what occupied my thoughts while cleaning up the basement.  The other thing that consumed me was why, after several years and plenty of significantly more torrential storms, had water filled this window well and overflowed into my basement.  Regardless, I wasn't going solve this issue overnight, and with the water vacuumed up, I decided to grab that bottle of wine and make my way around the corner to grill.  

As I walked around the side of my house I noticed a few things.  One thing I noticed was all the sticks and other debris from the rainstorm that littered my freshly mowed yard.  The other thing I noticed was the downspout that I had moved in order to mow.  The downspout that I moved right next to my basement window and forgot to move back after mowing my yard.  There's nothing like the feeling you get when you realize that the hour and a half you just wasted cleaning up water in your basement was because you decided to directly pipe all the storm water from your roof right into your basement.

Four Horses

So this weekend I played host to Jerry from Pittsburgh and our friend Nate who now lives in Montana. Nate was previously a resident of the SC so he is well versed in the single-track that is Rothrock State Forest, but hasn't been back in a few years to enjoy it.  The main item on our agenda for the weekend was to ride, eat steak, and avoid dude parties.  I was looking forward to getting back on the bike since I'd taken a few weeks off but I was not looking forward to riding with these two individuals because of their bicycling prowess.  To make things more interesting Brian was joining us and to add extra doses of fun Jerry and Nate decided to invite Ryan, one of their former teammates, to join us on our rock garden tour.

Let me break this down for you: Jerry is a cat one road racer and is crazy fast.  I'm not sure if it's from his disproportionally large ass (compared to the toothpicks he calls legs) or his love of queso dip but either way, he's scary strong.  Nate is a cat one road racer (retired) and can ride the wheels off any bike that is provided to him regardless of age, fit, or components.  Ryan is a former masters cyclocross national champion therefore further details or elaboration isn't necessary.  Finally, Brian is just a freak and somehow has the ability to change his riding ability to keep up with whomever he is with and punish them mercifully.  

Then there is me.  As I mentioned earlier, I've spent the last three weeks not riding.  Of course even if I had I would still only be about one fourth as talented as any one of these gentlemen on their worst day.  I felt like I was riding with the four horsemen of the apocalypse, except instead of horses we were on bikes.

Needless to say it was a lot of them waiting around for me and then me falling apart and having to bail. I would have provided pictures of this menacing group of soul crushing individuals, however I was never close enough (or had enough energy) to snap a picture.  Besides, knowing my luck any photo wouldn't turn out since these four guys are borderline inhuman and everyone knows they can't be captured on film.  Overall, however, the ride was super fun but also super humbling.  Someday I hope to actually stay in touch with any of these four on a bike, but I doubt that will ever happen.  Quite frankly I wouldn't want it any other way.

Add One

So this past weekend I made a short trip down the road to Scranton to see some old friends who were visiting from Atlanta.  The reason for this outing was that Sean's parents decided to throw he and his wife Lucy a baby shower.  You see, in order to have a baby shower one needs to have a baby.   If you're paying attention, that would mean that Sean and Lucy are expecting a child; their first one; in about a month.  

This was not your typical baby shower as Sean's parents invited both men and women to this event.  It also was not your typical baby shower because while there were fancy finger foods and spritzers, there was also bonfires, clay bird shooting, and beer drinking; not necessarily in that order.  It was actually one of the best baby showers I have ever been to.  In full disclosure though, I think it was the only baby shower I have ever been to as well.  

While at this baby shower having all this fun, I got to thinking.  The groundbreaking thought that I had was that maybe I should have a baby.  Okay, let's not get carried away.  I'm not planning to, nor am I in any position to have a baby, so relax.  That's not going to happen.  

Instead, I was thinking that maybe I should get a dog.  Dogs are kind of like children, except they can't take care of themselves so if I were to get a dog it would always need me to take care of it.  Yeah that's right, I'm considering getting a built in need factory.  I realize it sounds a bit crazy and for those of you that know me it quite possibly is insanely nuts, but you never know, maybe it will be good for me.

Slothy Blah

It might not be completely obvious when people first meet me but I like to think that I'm a fairly active person.  While I like to think that I'm more active than most of the people in this increasingly rotund country of ours, lately I've been feeling more doughy than normal.  There are several factors that I attribute this trend, however I think it's about time reverse this (hopefully) momentary lapse in fitness.

I feel like most of this started about a month ago when I started hanging out with a girl.  We would get together and have some drinks or have some food or go to a movie or just hang out.  I was foregoing time that I would normally spend on my bike to spend time with her which was not good for my midsection.  This was then followed by a vacation (of sorts) to Florida where I spent a week eating, drinking, and sitting on the beach.  Sure I was riding my cruiser around but it provides surprisingly little fitness when your main goal is trying to go "no hands and no feet" for as long as you can.  

Now that I'm back to my normal day-to-day in the SC it seems as though I've had some trouble getting back to being active.  I've been bogged down with work stuff and meetings, I've been trying to finish up some house projects, and it's been raining a bunch over the past few weeks.  All of this has kept me from my bike and therefore kept me from getting back in shape.  Unfortunately the next few weeks are going to be difficult for me to carve out some time to be active, but I'll have to do what it takes so I can get back on the bike, get back to eating normal, and hopefully get back to fitting comfortably in my pants.