Feb 19 - I've been spoiled

Yes, I have to admit it. I've been spoiled. As I was replacing the piece of trim in one of the master bedroom windows, cutting it with the little mitre saw, nailing by hand and then using a punch to recess the finish nail heads ... I longed for my DeWalt saw and my DeWalt finish nailer. Actually, the saw worked fine ... it was the nailer that would have been really handy. I should have planned ahead and brought it down. It's not very big ... I brought it down last year ... I just forgot. Oh well ... I'll "rough it". I'll be doing this again when I replace the master bath door.

Of course there are lots of other ways that I've been spoiled too, but I don't want to think about all of them -- today it was just the finish nailer. I don't want it to go to her head but of course I'm spoiled by Sandy's cooking, by the fact that we're in Florida not up in the snow right now, by the fact that it's going to be 29F when I start riding on Saturday ? no -- that will be hardship !

I'm waiting for the spackle to dry now. In the U.S. they call cellulose fillers spackle ... in Canada they are called polyfilla. Those are probably both brand names, but they're like kleenex -- go into a store and they know what you mean even if they don't carry that brand.

Back to work ...

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The trim has been painted; I'm almost packed; it's morning again.

Actually I make it sound like a big deal but it took all of five minutes to paint the trim and I must admit that I forgot all about it until just before dinner when I went into the bedroom, realized that I hadn't done it yet, and postponed it until the morning. The reason that I postponed it was two-fold -- first, there was no need to smell fresh oil-based work all night and second, I thought that I was going to have to put on two coats. After I put on the first coat I realized that since the trim had been primed already anyway, one coat was going to cover. It took longer to write about this work than do it ...

We got some heavy rain yesterday so it was a good thing that I went for a long ride on Wednesday. That'll also give me time to recover before tomorrow's ride. Sandy and I went over to Home Depot and ordered the master bath door then went to the fish store to pick up dinner and then to Publix for some groceries. We had Hog Snapper for dinner -- it was excellent, slightly firmer than Red Snapper and just as tasty. Sweet potatoes and sauteed zucchini completed the picture.

I just looked at pictures of Hog Snapper, Red Snapper, Mangrove Snapper and Yellowtail Snapper and they are all similar, other than Hog Snapper, which has extra trailing lines, almost string-like from the tips of its fins. We know it as the Hogfish from diving and we know the Yellowtail Snapper as Yellowtail -- one of the most common fish on the reef that moves in schools of several fish to a hundred, typically under 12 inches long in size.

I'll leave today sometime after lunch to be in Gainesville before dark. The organizer of this brevet prefers evening check-in and bike-check, so I'll accommodate him this time by being there for his 6:30-7:30 checkin time. For future rides I might not make it until later in the evening. with Gainesville three hours away it pretty well dictates that I go there the night before. Tomorrow's ride starts at 5am; the 400 at 4am, the 600 at 3am -- you get the idea.

I kept hoping that weather.com would realize its mistake -- that it's overnight temperature prediction of 30F was for Detroit or Toronto, but alas, there's been no change. That means about 3 hours of cold riding before the sun starts to warm things up. I still have not decided how many layers of jerseys to wear but I'll prepare for the worst when I finish packing. Right now my cycling clothing is in the dryer.

I did play around some more with the 705 yesterday, installing the Garmin Training Center which can map and plot the results of rides once they are downloaded from the 705 to the computer. It's interesting stuff -- would be more interesting if you were REALLY training for races and had a specific program. At this point it's just interesting, and clearly overkill for my usage -- elevation ? what elevation ?

Alright, I'm just killing time ...