Brief hitter

All week I am doing remote training once again so these will be quick hitters if anything at all.

Saturday was mostly a workfest that included weed whacking, mowing, weeding, cleaning and dusting, what fun.  One out of the ordinary project was my work on the van to make it at least somewhat presentable.  I hit the 15-20 rust spots on the drip rail with a drill attachment to get it down to solid metal.  Then I went around with a small brush and a cup of that rust converter stuff and coated each spot, twice.  It turns the metal into a black primer like substance.  From there I plan to simply mask it off and hit it with some white paint.  No it won’t look great but it will look better than it did.  I also used the attachment to knock off some of the rust streaks on the paint.

Sunday morning while Ali went to spinning I decided to do some real world spinning and take my road bike out for the first time since the trip out west.  It also was the first time I took it out since I screwed around with the gears.  Thankfully it actually seemed to be shifting a little better.  As I was riding along I looked down at the front brakes and noticed that the one pad seemed to be rubbing against the wheel.  It annoyed me and I stopped a little later to see if I could adjust it by hand, I could not.  It was creating a significant amount of drag, if I free spun the wheel it would stop within two revolutions.  F that, I decided to cut my scheduled 18 mile ride short and instead turned around at about the 6.25 mile mark. 

I was working hard enough with the high humidity and blazing sun, I didn’t need to work against the brake as well.  My pace was well off the Randall pace the last time the ride was done.  When I got home I was able to adjust the brake properly.  My skin was just oozing sweat by the time I got back.  Boy did the pool feel good.

In my haste to get in the pool I hadn’t noticed that Sadie had been busy while I was gone. Sadie pulled a Wii remote off of a counter and decided to use it as a chew toy.  Boy was I pissed.  I stomped towards here holding the remote in my hand while yelling NAUGHTY!!!!!!!  Instantly she retreated to the outside, knowing she was in deep shit.  I mean WTF, there are literally 100 dog toys stuffed in two baskets and instead she decides to destroy one of MY toys?  I was really hot for quite awhile.  Every time Sadie tried to approach me I just gave her “the look” and she backed away.

Originally I had plans for Ali and I to go to see Bruno.  I had heard it was funny on the Stern Show.  Well Ali didn’t share in my desire to see it.  Her sentiment was reinforced when Randall gave his review after seeing it on Saturday.  He said it just wasn’t good.  So that was out the window and instead we decided to go see Harry Potter.

Before the movie I had a number of stops I wanted to make.  One of them was at the bike store.  I finally got around to buying a seat that is similar to Randall’s.  It offers more padding as well as a “relief zone” in the middle so you aren’t squashing your junk.  I also snagged a small rack that mounts to the seat tube so I can strap stuff on like a repair kit, extra hydration, etc if I want to.  Yea I don’t think you see too many road bikes with a rack on it but who cares, I’m not a conventional road biker.  I look forward to getting the stuff installed on my bike and giving it a test run.

So even though this was opening weekend for the Harry Potter movie I had no fears, we were going to Coconut Point again.  We arrived 15 minutes before the start and the theater was basically empty again.  We had no problems getting a primo seat in the big 400 person theater.  During the first half of the movie I was having a VERY hard time staying awake.  It wasn’t because there was anything wrong with the flick, I was just extremely tired from getting up on my own at 5:30 am followed by the energy consuming bike ride.  Even the Diet Coke and chocolate Raisinets couldn’t stave off the drowsiness.  On more than one occasion my eyes closed for a few moments.

Anyway the movie was good just like all Harry Potter movies are.  Since I only read the first two books the plot of this movie surprised me.  I didn’t expect certain things to go down.  It’s funny how they have to digitally shrink Daniel Radcliffe down to make him appear younger than his actual years in certain scenes.  If you’ll like Harry Potter you like the movie.  You’ll probably like the movie even if you never read the book. I’d give it an A.

Wow my brief foray into Sarah Palin discussions turned into a huge deal once it got sucked over to Facebook.  In total there are nearly 40 comments about it.  Tom got the worst of it from the commentator side of things but he was gracious through the beatings.  As I later said in the thread, politics and religion are like throwing a match into dynamite.  Whenever it is brought up you are likely to get some blowback.

I’m happy to take a hiatus from those type of discussions for a little while.