Apr 30 - prepping

Yes, that's my excuse. I was getting my bike prepped for tomorrow's ride. That's why I'm so late getting to my blog. Mea Culpa.

Interesting -- Mea and Culpa are both spelling mistakes but Twittered is not.

I was getting some grinding from my drivetrain yesterday so I gave it a good cleaning. I even pulled the left-side crank and removed a bunch of fine sand that had accumulated. The road shoulders were really full of crap from the winter. Oh yes, I did go for a ride yesterday.

What did my procrastination earn for me, waiting from Wednesday to Thursday ? Better weather, right ? Nope. Colder, cloudy, a smattering of rain. It serves me right. However, after a brief stint wearing my rain jacket I guess that the rain gods decided that I was too well prepared and spared me and I took the jacket off. The weather is supposed to be colder tomorrow with scattered showers. That figures. The weather is supposed to be the same for May 9th in Rochester. That also figures.

Sandy had a successful day in Sudbury, as days in Sudbury go. She hit all the stores to which she intended to go and also kept her appointment at the physio/accupuncture/chiropractic/whatever clinic. She thought that it was a comprehensive place, and it was, but the guy is a one-man band doing everything. I'm not sure that I buy it ... but I will. Believing in the solution is important and she went away feeling that this guy could help her arm/neck/shoulder problems.

I did do other things, other than riding that is. I filled the wood-box in the house. I ... hmmm ... I'm sure that I did other things but they escape me at this point.

My plan is to head out for Alex's around 5pm, perhaps a little earlier to visit Home Depot in his area. The ride is at 8am tomorrow, about 1/2 hour from his place, gathering at the Tim Horton's (typical, right !) in Alliston. The RBA insists on lights, even if they're "stick on" as she puts it. Well, I'm not going to "stick on" lights on my beautiful new handlebars on my new bike, so I'll take the Hummer. Truth be told, with the cool weather I need to be able to bring and shed clothes anyway and don't want to carry that stuff around in my jersey pockets, stuffed like a hunchback, all day. Also, with the possibility of wet weather, I'll use the older bike :).

I'm going to check out Jason's today, turning on heaters but leaving the breakers off and show Sandy how to turn them on. Lorraine said that they'd call early tomorrow if they are coming up and Sandy would then turn the breakers on.

I'm looking out at the thistle feeder in front of the house and counting 12-14 finches clinging to it and eating with as many fluttering around and on the tree and another group on the ground. They move from this feeder to the sunflower seed feeder depending on their mood. The blue jays have found the sunflower seeds too, there were 5 of them on and around the feeder this morning. I guess that the birds are happy to have us back.

It's foggy, misty and overcast now but not raining. The Doppler shows relatively clear -- I guess that it doesn't pick up the ground-level rain ! It has to be high enough to be a cloud with water coming down. Being able to walk through the wet cloud doesn't count. The temperature is reasonable -- 10C/50F but as it clears the temperature is supposed to drop overnight to 0F/32C tonight, tomorrow night and then -1C Monday night.

There are a few black flies around but they're not out in clouds yet. That will probably happen about the time that Bev shows up, May 12th. This year I'm not rushing around getting the gazebo finished so that we'll have safe haven ! It survived the winter well, thank goodness. There were no issues with either the screens or the tiles. I hope not -- I put a lot of time, effort and expense into that floor with the floating base on the plywood on the deck.

It's interesting -- Alex's is about the same distance as Gainesville in Florida, but it doesn't seem as far. That's because it's all relative. 2.5 hours to Gainesville vs 5 minutes to the grocery store makes it seem long. 2.5 hours to Alex's vs 1.5 hours to the grocery store has a different feel to it. Up north we're always driving long distances for everything. Heck -- in FL I get the mail at the end of the driveway, here I have to drive 17 miles. It's definitely not more fuel-efficient to live here.

Well, that's all that I can think of to prattle on about this morning. I won't be prattling tomorrow morning since I'll be at Alex's.

Onward ...