While I continue to vacillate on whether to keep the truck or get rid of it, my plate renewal notice came in the mail.  I'm still going to need to drive to biking events so I decided to go with the Oregon Share the Road plates.

Later

Kayaking

Heat was oppressive over the weekend.  Broke record on Saturday - over 100.  Went kayaking on Sunday to try and escape.

We rented with Portland Kayak Company and took the afternoon Ross Island Tour.  There was a ton of boat traffic on the Willamette.  I tried to make the best of it and pretend that I was ocean kayaking over swells.  It was a fun outing.  Next time I go with Heidi we need to do the tandem so we're in the same boat, going the same speed.  She was lagging behind abit.  Also would like to work on my personal skills to do some whitewater and ocean kayaking myself... I could see this as a good hobby once we have more room to store stuff.

Everyone was a newbie so we got in the kayaks to get a feel for em on the dock.

Once in the water Heidi was looking good.

A little more peaceful down river away from the boaters.

Not bad for a first outing.  Done lots of canoeing, basically the same except a little closer to the water and even easier to tip over than a canoe.

Bicycling

Couple weeks ago I blogged about going to a class and building bike buckets.  I scanned the handouts into PDFs if you want to try building your own.  Get them here.

Also I dropped the mountain bike off to be worked on at Sellwood Cycles during the week.  In two weeks I have a weekend riding event in Oakridge.  No racing.  Just hanging out, riding trails, listening to music, drinking beer, and camping out.  Should be fun.  I'm pessimistic about them fixing the bike because it's been tried before, but I haven't seen them work yet and the owner is local pro mtn and cross bike racer Eric Tonkin.  The shop is pretty bare bones as they are mostly a repair shop and not a new bike retailer.  We shall see...

New House

We're in the process of looking to build a new house.  We love the location so we are planning to demolish this one and build another on top of it.  We've struggled with the rules and regulations and zoning around here... for example, we can't build a two car garage and the front door needs to physically be in front of the garage door.  With all the regulations we can't even find any housing plans on the market to use, we need to have custom ones made up.  We're in that process now...

July 4th Weekend

Going up to Seattle for pleasure for the first time.  I was up there a year ago for work but didn't see anything.  Heidi and I are taking the train up to Seattle this afternoon and are going to check out the town.

This time Heidi gets to be the tour guide since I was the Chicago tour guide.

I'm looking forward to the train ride and seeing the mountains, wildlife and Puget Sound.  I'm bringing the laptop so I should be able upload photo's and write abit.

That's all for now.

Later.

Team Fortress 2 (TF2)

My gaming fix has been coming from TF2.  If you're wondering what that is, here's your chance.  Free weekend to try it out this weekend, June 20-22, 2008.

And the new pyro unlocks come on Thursday.  Be sure to check out the new sniper video.

Bicycling

Last week I went to a class with the wife and built bike buckets.  I've used em twice already to make trips to the grocery store.  They're cheap and work great.

I even have a nice set of instructions on how to build them, what parts you need to buy, etc.  If you're lazy you can buy em for $25 each here in Portland.

So I haven't driven in over a month.  I just checked and now my truck battery is dead.  Need to renew plates, get oil change, and get gas which is pushing $5 for diesel now.  26 gallon tank.  I'm really contemplating on selling it.

UPDATE - 2008.07.03

I scanned the handouts into PDFs if you want to try building your own.  Get them here.

Watching the Tour Divide

I've been watching(?) by the tour divide race (web|blog) by following along in Google maps.  It's a race down the continental divide.  Reading the race reports is partly cool.  The real cool is that they're using a GPS device called SPOT to track their progress.

So you can follow along as well from the leaderboard, or here's a link to a full blown Google map so you can pan, scan, view satellite, terrain, etc.

Fathers Day

Called my Dad.  Doin' alright.  But his heart is having problems again.  New meds.  I need to stay on the bike.

Heidi's Dad drove up.  We did the Gondola ride.

First we go up the hill.

Great view at the top - Heidi and her mom on the right.

Then we ride back down.

That was enough effort for the day.  We headed over to the new Deschutes Brewery in Portland.  Awesome woodwork inside.  New favorite fish and chips is here.  Beat out Henry's.  And the beer is damn good.

Here's a red that drinks like a Guinness and you can only get it at the pub.

I'm in heaven.

Later

Forgive me cycling gods, for I've have sinned, I haven't commuted to work in almost a week.  In an ironic turn of events, I'm driving 40 miles round trip to work in my 14 mpg 3/4 ton diesel pickup with a cycle commuter tattoo on my shoulder.

At current gas prices of $3.99 per gal of diesel, that's 28.5¢ per mile, $11.40 per day, $57 a week, $245 a month, or $3,000 a year.  That doesn't even include oil changes or maintenance; like a $3,000 fuel injector pump replacement... (yea I guess it's a problem in these Dodge diesels).

Funeral

Thursday was a day off from work to attend a sad event.  Heidi's grandfather passed away earlier that week and we had to drive 2 hours down to Eugene for the 2 pm service.

A few observations.

One.  I liked how they gave everyone a chance to stand up and say something about him.  It was a nice touch.

Two.  I didn't realize how important organizations like Freemasonary or Eagles can be later in life.  Heidi's grandfather was a member of both.  I didn't know you could be a member of multiple organizations.  The Freemasons did a very nice job at the service and 10-20 of them showed up to pay their respects, dropping a pine branch (forgot exactly the name of this item) each and one of their members actually performed the service.  Also, charity work is a big part of what they do and according to many of the fraternity brothers that attended the service, Heidi's grandfather wanted to help as much as he could.

Lastly.  Is cremation the new way to go?  Or is it a west coast thing?  You don't see very many cemeteries out here as compared to back east.  I can remember as a kid going to my grandparents funerals and they were open casket services at the funeral homes with a short drive to the cemetery for a service.  I'm not religious but I was even proud pallbearer from my grandfather.  Just curiosity.

After the service we went to the Eagles hang out.  Big barn-like structure with a meeting room, bar, pool, card tables, video gambling, and plenty of tables for eating.  Reminded me alot of playing pool above my grandpa's garage.

Hives?

We didn't get home until late that night.  When I took my socks off my ankles were itching.  I woke up the next morning and had these strange red itchy blotches on the back of my ankles and on one elbow.

Poison ivy?  Poison oak?  Wasn't like I was mt biking through the woods...

We got a new cat.  She's been driving my sinuses nuts.  My only assumption is that having her sleep at the foot of the bed has caused me to break out in hives..

They itch like mad and now it's Wednesday and they still aren't gone.  Forced me into wearing sandals all week and not riding because having shoes on hurts badly.

Tattoo

Got my ink on Saturday.  Think it turned out good.

  

Follow that up with a pot of chili and some New Glarus from Wisconsin and it's a good day.

Later

We had Monday off out here.  President's Day.  I guess that's what they swap out here in exchange for Good Friday.  So instead of waiting until April for you first day off after New Year's you have to only wait until mid February.

That means I didn't ride Monday.  I've been doing a Mon-Wed-Fri commuting schedule.  20 miles into work.  Hop on the bus to ride the 16 miles from work to downtown Portland.  And then ride the 4 miles all uphill to the house.  Which gives me a 24 mile day, 3 days a week.  The other two I'd like to hit the gym but for now just trying to make sure I don't come up with an excuse not to ride when that alarm goes off at 6am.

So here's the google chart. I had to increase the width by 100 and strip off the week label to get it to look decent.

Year	Week	Mileage
2008	3	49
	4	50
	5	80
	7	72
	6	72
	8	72
	9	48
2008 Total		443

Attempting to capture the magic of the sunrise again as the sun tried to blast its beams around Mt Hood, whose head was in the clouds.

Later

Seen a couple people run red lights this week.  One guy in Chevy Blazer damn near t-boned me in downtown Portland.  This morning, I almost watched a woman driving a van t-bone a guy in a small truck as she ran through the light when he was turning left...  Need to stay alert as best as possible.

It's all worth it.  I couldn't help but exclaim to some poor guy walking along the sidewalk this morning, "Did you see that sunrise!  Woohoo!".

Later

What do Lance Armstrong and bicycle commuting, two topics you would not have thought to combine together, have in common?  Looks like Lance wants to open up a bike shop in Austin, Texas that will be called Mellow Johnny's in May of 2008 (this year).  Mellow Johnny's is a take off of what's called the "yellow jersey" leader from the Tour de France which is "maillot jaune" in French.

"This city is exploding downtown. Are all these people in high rises going to drive everywhere? We have to promote (bike) commuting," Armstrong said.

Last weekend we had the 4th Annual North American Hand Made Bicycle (site) show here in Portland.  And Lance showed up.  Here's what he had to say when he got back to Austin.

Armstrong said he'd like to see Austin evolve into a place like Portland, Ore., where biking is part of the culture and people pedal to work, to restaurants and to run errands. "Walk outside, and the streets are lined with bikes — because they have a safe place to ride," Armstrong said of the city long known for its bicycle-friendly amenities and policies.

Here's the link to the full article.

Since moving out here my focus has switched more to commuting than to bike racing.  While there's many factors that attribute to that and I'm hoping to balance that out this year with a few more races than last year, commuting has by bike has been a great point of conversation for meeting new people.

It would be great to have a household name like Lance Armstrong to get behind a great alternative to cars.  He could bring lots of money and focus into cycling which could bring better technologies, getting more women to cycle, and more businesses and politicians to take cycling as a serious option to getting back and forth to work and running minor errands.

Later

As the time passes it's not like I don't have things to blog about.  It's that I'm too damn lazy to write.  I think about wanting to post about topic A, and then don't forget B, and then there's this story about C and then I think, this is too much work.

Perhaps it's just the short days, lack of sunshine.

When it gets really cold out here, from the wind blowing down the Columbia River Gorge, it blows away all the rain clouds.  Last week it was 19 degrees and sunshine and with an 1:15 - 1:30 on the bike I had to wear Ski Goggles to keep my eyes from freezing.  The Ski goggles plus the balaclava left me with no exposed skin and so the ride was very comfortable.  Only my toes were icicles.  I tried using both toe warmers and hand warmers for my feet and settled with the toe warmers being a better option as the hand warmers didn't work at all.  Heidi talked me into ordering some winter cycling shoes which should help my feet.

This week the temperature is right around freezing and we had some light snow accumulation.

Even in winter it's still green.

Last week I wiped out on the ice and broke one of the brackets snaps off on the panniers.  Today I was able to maintain balance.  Although I almost lost it on the downward side of the northbound I-5 bridge when the rear started fishtailing.  Not so smart on two wheels.  Guess I should get off my lazy ass and put on tires that aren't slick road tires.  I keep expecting to turn the corner and the 45 degree rainy days.

Then again, maybe a good wipeout will make for a good post.

Later.

Spotted this billboard on Broadway yesterday during morning commute.

I like how the bike lock is mounted.  Never thought of using front panniers either.  Maybe a good idea one day.

Legs are shot this week.  Truck needed some major repairs.  Dropped it off on Monday morning and used the bike or bus until picking it up Thursday night.  Figure around 100 miles this week.  Might even be interesting to figure out the # of feet climbed.  Wonder if a GPS unit might help with that?

Later.

On the commute home last night I had to wait on one of Portland's several bridges (they have 10), for the first time during my commute, when it opened to let a ship pass beneath it.  The Broadway bridge is almost 100 years old yet it seems fairly new and is one of the main bridges used for bicycle crossings in Portland.  I don't actually recall any annoying alarms going off.  Just a little sign and two gates came down to prevent the crossing.

Just before the traffic was allowed to cross, the bridge engineer (?), spoke over a PA system to let you know that he was about to allow crossing again.

Interesting.

Later.