Aug 27 - a sickie

Yesterday I hurt everywhere. I'll moan here -- perhaps I can get some satisfaction out of feeling sorry for myself. I have no idea where I caught this cold -- or where it caught me -- but catch me it did.

I do feel a bit better this morning, so perhaps it's almost over. Today I should be going out for a ride, but my head feels pretty spaced out even though I have not had a "Tylenol Cold" since last evening.

I did get something accomplished yesterday -- assembled my bike. There is one more task that I should undertake, and that's swapping the saddle with the yellow bike.

Aaron commented that I have a real hodge-podge now. Yes, Dura-ace shifters, front derailleur, brakes, chain; Ultegra compact crankset; XTR rear derailleur; ICS cassette ... yes, it's a hodge-podge. The 12-32 cassette gives me some very low gearing vs the existing 12-27. I'm anxious to try it out. There's nothing steep enough around here to make use of that gearing but I'll likely find it handy in NYC on September 13th. Apparently there's a lot of climbing.

I went to install the frame rack and went "oh darn" (or some other more colorful versions of that) because there was not enough clearance between the inside of the new rack mount eye-hole and the chain for a bolt head. "Now what?" I thought to myself. I pictured going back to the clamps and having to go back to Guelph for remedial surgery. Then I discovered (duh) that the rack mounts are threaded ... double duh ... I don't need a bolt head on the inside. Not only that, but the stainless steel bolts that came with the clamps from the rack people are the right ones for the rack mounts too. There must be a method to this madness ! The one bolt, on the drive side, was too long and I was about to cut it and decided to simply screw the nut on to provide a spacer.

So ... that's finished ... not only that but the rack, attached to the rack mounts, is now a full two inches lower than when I was using clamps. That's great because the center of gravity was too high with the clamps. Bring on the washboard gravel !! No ... don't do that ... forget I said that.

The bike work took about 1/2 of the day, but of course I was moving in slow motion and I used up a 1/2 box of kleenex while doing the work. I didn't do much else -- I did take some pictures across the lake of the downed trees (finally), cleaned up some brush behind the shed by the boathouse, had a snooze, watched some TV ... generally moved around and puttered since I was not very comfortable doing any one thing for any length of time.

Jason, Lorraine & Gavin left yesterday early afternoon, so they would have been home for supper. Today they'll be off to Kingston. Hopefully they'll have good luck nailing down a place for Kim to live for the school year. They only have to do this one more time -- Kim's going into 3rd year; Mike, Gavin and Kyle are finished ... well, Mike will always be going to school but I think that he's on his own at this point, from a financial perspective.

We had pork loin for dinner last night, in a new dark-beer marinade that Sandy tried out. It was good. That, along with cauliflower roasted in the oven with an East Indian coating, beans, potatoes ... filled our bellies. Tonight I think that we're having local fish. I believe that Stef and Aaron plan to leave tomorrow afternoon so we'll be back to the two of us. Aaron has gone back to Sudbury this morning -- his optimism about being completed in one day did not pan out. Oh well. Hopefully he finishes today !

Sandy made a hair appointment for next Thursday, I believe. We abandoned trying to cram in hair, dentist, eye, CNE and bike ride into one trip. Quite frankly the way I was feeling yesterday all that made my head hurt even more. I may still do the eye and bike ride thing ... don't know.


That's it.