>SIGH<

I'm floored. Can't write about it, but I'm floored. Those that know, know. I just can't believe it. I just needed to say it outloud.

Ebay

Ebay is one of the most fabulous inventions ever. I love it. Great for the collector, bargain hunter, and attic cleaner outer.

Until your done.

After doing some record lifts at the gym tonight, I spent the last 4 hours emailing, boxing, printing, weighing and taping. And I still have more to do.

Good night.

Tricks of the Trade

Had an experience tonight that made me think a little. I'm not always the best at putting together names and faces. Given that my name is Kermit, folks tend to remember the name. I'm also not real quick on my feet when it comes to recovering in public. I witnessed an awesome thing tonight that is so simple....of course I'll never apply it, but...

I grew up in the RVA. I left for about 7 years for school and partying, but I came back. When I went to work, it was for growing company. That's when it began. I was always running into people who I knew from high school.

When I started doing wedding photography, it only got worse. Now, I'm not one to go to HS reunions. There are plenty of people I'm curious about, but you never know if they're going to be there or not. And lets face it, sometimes the past is best left there. All too often it just doesn't live up to your memory.

(Wow, that sounds horrible. I don't mean it that way at all. Its just that the girl you had the crush on never ends up like you think she should have. People are always wanting to be your friend who didn't give you the time back in the day. Its hard to separate that from the folks you genuinly wonder about....especially when they may not give a rats ass about you).

Ok so back to what I learned. Tonight I ran into a guy I worked with in HS. We were friends, but you know, not buds. Probably partied some. I ran into him once in Charlotte while I was in school. How odd was that. After that time he achieved some fame, so naturally I remember him. Well, tonight he walked up and said hey, introduced his kid, etc. Very nice. So here's the trick. As we were talking, he's putting my name/email in his PDA. And here's what he said; "Kermit, how do you spell your last name?" How simple is that! There's no way he'd have remembered it anyway.

Not sure why I'm fascinated by this, but I am. Such a simple thing, and it doesn't come off as fake. This is a talent I do not have. Like, at my wife's company Christmas party, she's talking to this guy who says "I bet Kermit doesn't remember me!". Crap, what do you do then? Fact was I did recognize him, but couldn't come up with his name. Guess it wouldn't have worked to ask him to spell it, huh.

Ride. Saturday. Be there or be.....busy doing something important.
My tattoosake, Einsturzende Neubauten is playing in the backgound and is calling me.

Busy Weekend

For my kid, anyway. I guess me as well.

Friday night my kid went to a sleepover. This was her first. She's had kids stay at our house, and most have gone ok, but she was scared to go somewhere else. Not sure what happened. And, they even had a dog! My kid is scared of dogs! When I asked where the dog slept, she said "anywhere. It was a nice dog". Ok then, where did my girl go?

We went out to dinner at our close by fave, Patina Grill. Turns out I went to highschool with the owner. Been going there for years and never realized it. Such a small town, the RVA. Anyway the food was great as always. I started with a standard martini, and I gotta say, it kind of hit me. I can usually drink quite a bit, I'm not small and my tolerance is usually good. I have to say I kind of felt it. I had a fantastic Salmon meal. My wife, as usual, wanted dessert. I can't have dessert, so I went for an after-dinner coffee drink. Plenty of booze. I had to ask the wife to drive home. I got home and went to bed...at about 8:00. Honestly this doesn't happen to me. I have no idea what was going on. So strange.

Saturday AM brought the bicycle ride with Diane and Richard. I bundled up and went forth amid great protest from my body. I use to ride in the woods in the winter, but somehow this is different. We couldn't decide how far to go, so we picked a point to make a decision and headed out.

The beginning of the ride was a little tough. I suck in the morning, but I've gotten use to it. Frankly the cold only makes it worse. Takes awhile to get warmed up and moving. The begining of the ride wasn't great, but wasn't bad either. The second half seemed a bit better. I haven't looked at the stats to see if we were moving any better on the return portion. The three of us seem to ride pretty equally. Everyone has off days and on days, but for the most part I don't think anyone really holds anyone else up. Of course I'll never forget Diane and her brother in law dropping me like there was no tomorrow on the metric we did, so...

The rest of Saturday was cleaning up and a few errands, which are tough this time of year. My kid was at several more functions on Saturday. Sunday AM brought me trying to get a gingerbread house completed prior to yet another even for my daughter. Then, while she was gone, we raked leaves...possibly my least favorite task in the world. Thankfully, we don't have a ton of leaves. We got finished and I headed out on the motorcycle for a quick ride. I actually rode our bike route as it entails some nice, low traffic roads. I feel pretty confident on the motorcycle, but fact is I'm really new to it. I'm still kind of uncomfortable on the highway. My bike is pretty light, and tooling along at 75 with no fairing or windshield just feels loosy goosy.

Then was time to get the Christmas tree. All our cats haven't been around one. The two kittens did their inspection and did some playing, but seem to get over it pretty quickly. Until you put water in the base and they want to drink that. We'll see. Probably leave up undecorated for a few days to be sure its safe.

Had to pick up for the maids today, and then order a few Christmas gifts. And now I'm here, blowing off a meeting.

W00t!

Please Explain

Really, I'm totally for being healthy. Really. I do my best. What I don't understand is why a good dose of gental fiber makes a woman so happy. Everytime I see a commercial for fiber, by the end of the 30 seconds, the woman seems soooo happy. Is fiber better than chocolate? Wine?

Really, I'm all for a great poop, but ...

I Mean to, Honest!

I have been meaning to blog all week. I've also been meaning to exercise. I've been staying up every night futzing with the computer. That's the way it always is, isn't it? New toy demands attention.

I've been loading software and messing around. I've fixed a few issues, cleaned up some stuff, etc etc. Still got a ways to go. Of course, this is the fun part. Only a handful more apps to load, place is mostly cleaned up.

Well, I am going out with Diane and Richard Saturday (and whom ever else shows up, I suppose). I'll also be at Performance after work looking for gloves that fit. Its supposed to warm up some, but I'm not sure I'm counting on that. With any luck I might get in a little time on the motorcycle Sunday in between all the plans and Christmas decorating.

Which reminds me, I need to do some clicking and shipping tonight or tomorrow. Am I the only one who ends up buying stuff for themselves while shopping? Maybe I should buy some carbon wheels while I'm at Performance?

So anyways, Cap to Cap it is. That will be a century for me next year. It'll take a bit of training. Last years metric had me pretty done. I'll have to make myself do some quality trainer time this winter and then figure out a schedule of increasing distance to make sure I can manage. I mean, I'm pretty sure I can do it, but it would nice to not be on the course when they sweep it. I suppose if I do some 40s, 60s, 80s etc, I should be able to hang with my biking buds. It would be great if I managed to drop some weight along the way. Less to tote up the hills.

On being a Wuss

Went for a ride with Richard on Saturday. Honestly it was my first cold road ride. I use to mountain bike in the cold, but you just aren't moving so fast AND you're generating heat. Its a bit warmer. I even went mountian biking in the snow and ice. Ok, that was just plain dumb.

(Note to self - this Microsoft keyboard doesn't have good key click. Will it break in? Hard to type fast).

So, we hit the road. No idea what the temp was, high 40s maybe? Low 50s? All I know is it was pretty chilly. And, there was this head wind. So, that means the windchill was at least -60 for sure. I have warm socks and some toe covers, but my toes were still really cold. My gloves were too tight, so I need new ones. Rest of me wasn't too bad. Could probably use a little more warmth, but it was ok. A balaclava would have kept my neck a little warmer. I pulled for the begining of the ride. I think I was going a whopping 14 mph. ugh. Thighs hurt. Not sure why.

Richard took over around halfway or so and that was nice. Whew. Drafting FTW!! The ride back wasn't as bad, but weren't breaking any speed records. Still, it was nice to get out on the road again.

Oh, and I hate my pedals again.

I'm on the new 'puter now. Most things are working ok. I had been getting a couple of errors on boot, but that seems to have worked itself out. I'm pretty big on letting things fix themselves. I finally ran my monitor probe tonight and it looks soooooooooooo much better. I'll run through the calibration again, just to be sure, then move on to the printer. Maybe I'll finally be able to get prints that match what I see on the screen.

Otherwise, I'm still tackling the mess that surrounds me down here in the man room.

Got back to the gym tonight and insanity set in. Lets just crank the resistance up on the X trainer. Woo hoo. You know its too high when you simply can't push the pedals down without almost jumping. But I managed, if at a slower pace.

Did free weights instead of the machines. Tomorrow should be interesting. Someone was using my usual weight, so I figured I should move up anyway. Yeah.......

Seriously, I usually go for reps as I'm more concerned about the exercise than the strength, but I know I need more strength. I think this winter will be an exercise in going up in weight. Now, do keep in mind that I only have a little idea of what I'm doing and I only use dumbells (insert obligitory joke here). I don't know enough about what I'm doing with a bar and I work out alone, so it just seems better this way. We'll see. I really want to increase my leg strength so I can climb better on the bike.

And, in the spirit of goals, my little one this year is to do a century. And do it in a reasonable amount of time. Naturally I'm not sure what that amount of time is which gives me a great out. I just want to keep a good pace for it. Hopefully I can figure out what that should be in early spring.

And to answer the question, the tattoos are fine. They are still shiny, so its a bit tough to tell if they need touching up. Well, the Gabba Gabba Hey one doesn't, I'm sure. The EN man may. I've never closely looked at anyone elses tribal style tat, so I don't know how even any of them look. I think its too soon to tell. I can say that it flaked more than my others, but that makes sense. I've moved on to my 2nd container of Eucerin (1 per year, more or less). I'll keep it up until they aren't shiny and raised. Hope all the Tri-Girls tats are healing equally well.

Werd.