John’s Ramblings

My birthday was last Friday. The family indulged me with many cycling-related gifts and my perennial fave, german chocolate cake. Because my son is connected to the culinary arts program at South Seattle Community College, he thought to commission a cake through the college. The result, which bears the likeness of cartoon characters Wallace and Gromit, is shown here:

I was absolutely blown away by this cake. The little wedges of “cheese” on the border are marzipan. If anyone is looking to hire the pastry chef that did this work (full-time), email me and I’ll hook you up.

For those unaware of who the characters are, I’d recommend renting “Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit“. I discovered Wallace and Gromit (and their creators, Aardman Studios) via two shorter features for these two characters, “The Wrong Trousers” and “A Close Shave”.

Although I’m old, need few knick-nacks, and am generally a pain in the ass to shop for because I’ve already gotten what I want anyway, everyone did great. I received a couple of cool cycling books that will give me some good reading material on while I’m camped during RAW, and an uber-duffel bag that will easily accommodate my gear. When I return from 6 consecutive days of riding, I’ll recuperate by watching my 3 dvd set of the original 3 seasons of Ren and Stimpy.

Sunday was Father’s Day. Terri and I had scheduled a Newcomer’s Ride for the Cascade Bicycle Club. The idea was to extend the range of some of our regulars with a 100% road-ride, as opposed to the local multi-use trails. The ride was from Auburn to Flaming Geyser State Park, a 24 mile out-and-back.

My 23 year old son Brendan has been living with us for the past year as he finishes the Culinary Arts program at South Seattle Community College. He also works in the catering division at the new Seattle Art Museum, so his schedule is congested, to say the least. It worked out that he had Sunday completely free, so he joined us for his first taste of club riding.

Brendan has just gotten his road bike a month or so ago. It seems that just about everyone in the kitchen where he works commutes via bike to save gas and parking fees. Being surrounded by cyclists at work and home, it was only a matter of time before we had another convert.

Locals will remember that Sunday was overcast and cool. It wasn’t the greatest day for a ride, but I had a great time. For most of the ride out to the park, I “swept” the group with Brendan just ahead of me. I watched him ride and gave out a few tips, all whilst “minding my station” with the occasional “Car Back!” call.

I’ve ridden Green Valley many, many times. I know every pothole, gravelly driveway, narrow bridge and turn on this road. The scenery is lovely, and I love watching the young animals this time of year stretching their legs. It is relaxing, but also familiar. On this day, however, it was a little slice of life, a “dad” moment that I will cherish for years to come. I am a lucky man.

He’s been kinda busy, on several fronts:

Cycling: I’ve had two rides, Tuesday the 2nd I did 25 miles with the Use It or Lose It gang. The weather was crappy before and after the ride, but it was warm and no rain fell on our little out-and-back trip to Sumner. I skipped Thursday as I was in the throes of a headcold, and did not want to exacerbate matters with a ride in 40 degree temps. Saturday I went out solo, and did 19 miles in the valley to shake out the cobwebs a bit.

Rim Failure: I’ve been riding my fair-weather bike, as my new wheels have not been finished by the boys at Ti-Cycles. I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to fetch them tomorrow before the night ride. It looks like it’s going to be a wet ride, so I’d much rather be riding my winter bike with the fenders.

Bent Car: My car ended up staying at the auto body place for the weekend, as they had not quite gotten it done on Friday. In the meantime, I drove around in a Ford Focus Hatchback, which was roomy enough to stash my bike in the back, but has seats that were designed by the Bishops during the Spanish Inquisition. I picked the car up this afternoon, and it looks perfect. All the repairs and the car rental were direct-billed to the insurance company of the person that backed into my car. Thank you, Kirmac Auto Body. Nice job!

Gauntlet: Today is Terri’s birthday, but we celebrated on Sunday with dinner at Salty’s. I’m halfway through The Gauntlet with the end in sight.

College Bike: Also on Sunday, I got in touch with my ex-mother-in-law. About 25 years ago, when I was not cycling but owned a bike I had bought in college and ridden up until about 1980. My ex’s younger brother wanted to borrow my bicycle for a while. Rumor has it he never even rode the thing, but it has been hanging in his mom’s garage ever since. I had no recollection about what brand it was or even the color, but Sunday morning we went by and picked it up. It’s a Centurion (predecessor to Diamondback), vintage approx. 1975, 10 speeds. It is pretty well preserved, and not too badly rusted. The tires are shot, as are the brake pads. I may replace those, give it a quick lube, and try it out on the trail. If it is anywhere close to fitting me, I may convert it to a fixed gear bike to do some training and playing on.

Spin Class: I did the spin thing tonight. Class was packed with all the new year’s resolution people, but I got a trainer and class was o.k. Music was so-so tonight, but I tuned it out and got a good workout. He actually played Celine Dion. In Spin class. What is the world coming to?

Advocacy: I had written to King County and the City of Auburn in an attempt to get some sort of fix put in for the Interurban Trail near my house. The trail floods with any moderate rainfall, forcing a detour through truck traffic. The King County Trail folks have inspected this section, and they believe that the flooding may be the result of a clogged culvert. Now the challenge is to see who has jurisdiction over the culvert, the City of Auburn or Union Pacific Railroad. The county folks have promised to track that down, however, so I’m hopeful we can get this problem fixed.

A whopping 44 miles, ytd.

Every year on the day after Thanksgiving, they come out of hiding. Staring, always staring at you. Terri used to insist on having them inside the house. They sat on a big shelf in the family room, behind the couch. They were directly behind you as you sat watching television, unblinking eyes boring a hole in the back of your head.

This year I made a strong suggestion that we put them outside the front door. I bought the box of uber-ornaments at Costco a couple of weeks ago, and incorporated them into a whole icicle light extravaganza in the front entryway. It’s no Maurice Sendak Nutcracker scene, but we live at the end of a dead-end street, and there’s only 5-10 people that will see it anyway. The snow people are going to hang out on the front porch, watching anyone that approaches.

Tomorrow I’m scheduled to lead the Turkey Jerky ride from Auburn to Black Diamond at 9:30 in the morning. At present, it looks like the weather will allow a ride, but it will be touch-and-go depending on how things develop overnight. There appears to be some weather factors converging that could result in snow by Saturday afternoon or evening. If it comes sooner, or if the temperatures are below freezing, I may have to pull the plug. I had one fellow call me today, stating with certainty that “it won’t snow tomorrow, I’ll see you at the start”. I didn’t recognize his name as one of our trusty meteorologists, but he can’t be much more inaccurate than they are.

If you are coming to the ride, bundle up!

Turkey. Lots of it. It was a meat-tastic orgy of tryptophanic goodness. We brined and roasted this poor beast until it was hot, juicy and succulent. We didn’t stuff it, because stuffing is evil. But it was dandy nonetheless. Apologies to my veggie friends, I promise to be a better person tomorrow.

The Gran’s brought pie, for cryin’ out loud! There was this pumpkin-praline number that was to die for, which I may do. Restraint was in short supply, but I restrained myself to a single plate of the mainline food, and a single piece of pie afterward.

Now my esophagus is on fire. Really. I haven’t had a real case of heartburn in years, but I’m burning up tonight, folks. I went upstairs a while ago and rummaged around in a drawer long enough to find an old roll of Tums, almost as old as the Alka Seltzer ad to the left. Tossed a couple of those bad-boys in my pie-hole and chewed them up. Moderate relief has been obtained, but I have a strong feeling that I will be popping a few more before the sun rises tomorrow.

The Inlaws and outlaws all behaved. No one felt like fisticuffs. We didn’t sing kumbayah, but it was close. Everyone wants to come back at Christmas. I guess that’s a good sign!

Tomorrow is a day of rest. No riding, no spinning, no nuttin’. I may do a little programming while the house is quiet, but I’m not counting it as a work day. Four days in a row is just too good to pass up.

We’re back from our little excursion to Ocean Shores. A high school classmate of mine lives out there, and we stayed with her for the night after hitting the town.

We started with a trip to the IGA for breakfast supplies. The stormy weather made itself known with a power outage as we perused potatoes in produce. The store went pitch dark, and it took about 5 minutes to restore the lights. A young family (dad, mom, 1 and 3 year olds) were near us when the blackout occurred,and the kids were pretty scared. Terri and I got out our cell phones, using the display screens as crude lights to help calm the kiddies until lights-on.

We then headed to our favorite food-and-watering hole on the coast, the Galway Bay pub. Terri and I had Guinness with Shepherd’s Pie and Forfar Bridies, respectively, while our hostess Liane had a Tipperary steak. I’ve never seen a tipperary on the hoof, but she said it was quite good.

Liane is a karaoke diva and D.J., so we agreed to “go native” and go to our first karaoke event, at the Ocean Shores Eagles Lodge. It was interesting, to say the least. Some of these folks can sing pretty well, whilst others would scare the water back in the tap if they sang in the shower. 3 martinis makes it all work out as a fairly entertaining evening on the coast.

The total surprise of the trip was meeting a fellow that worked with Terri’s father 15 or 20 years ago. Terri and this man did not know each other, but when he was talking about having worked at a boat building company in Tacoma, I inquired and sure enough, he had worked with her father Larry, and spoke very highly of him. Terri’s dad passed away over a dozen years ago, so meeting this fellow and being able to hear his stories about her dad was a great moment indeed. A testament to the fact that it is indeed a small world, and that we live on through our acts and the lives we touch.

After a couple of hours of this frivolity we headed back to Liane’s for some much needed sleep. We were treated to a long and rather violent thunderstorm through the night, which woke us up a few times with the nearby lightning and thunder. It wasn’t the most restful sleep, but tonight we’re home and we can curl up in our own bed after we catch the new episode of Dexter.

51 years old today, this fellow.

I’m working as usual today, then tonight I’ll go for a 20 miler with Terri. It will be nice to get on my bike again after a few days off. Curry tonight, then tomorrow is the big b-day dinner at El Gaucho in Tacoma.

We’ve bought tickets to see Real Madrid play a friendly match against DC United in Seattle in two weeks. Due to the price of the tickets, that and the dinner will suffice for presents.

On the cycling front, someone tested positive for stimulants after Stage 17 of the tour. Let’s hope it’s not you-know-who, who would have been one of the few tested after that stage.