You call this winter?

I've been regretting the fact that my last bike ride was Thanksgiving weekend and piling the guilt on myself until I couldn't take it any more. Admittedly, I have been kind of busy with the holidays, Ben and Emily's wedding and working on "The Mother of All Projects". But today I resisted the tyranny of the urgent and when I mentioned to Irma that I wanted to take a bike ride, she replied "you should do that first". My wife is awesome! I was out the door in minutes.

It was 45° with a 15 mph wind. Not exactly Yukon conditions but cold for a ride none the less. I was anxious to see how some of my Christmas gear worked out, so with winter bike pants and REI wool socks, I suited up like a ninja with a Coleman cooler helmet and headed out pushing between 10 and 20 mph with a red blinking light under my seat announcing "crazy" "crazy" to all the passing motorists.

Mile 1: doing good, head is a little chilly.
Mile 2: warming up nicely.
Mile 4: warming up a little too nicely.
Mile 6: getting hot, legs are starting to sweat.
Mile 8: sweating my @ss off.
Mile 10: finally a stiff headwind, cooling me down a but.
Mile 12: been pumping hard into the wind, feel like I'm not going much more than 5 mph.
Mile 14: still hot, but almost home.
Mile 16: made it home and ripped off a variety of layers, trying to cool down.

I went outside in just my bike shorts and a T-shirt to chucker the dog.
Is this all you got, winter?

The General

And his new little buddy!

Mother of All Projects (3)

Here's a quick update on the bathroom renovation. It's finally coming together and there is light at the end of the tunnel. If it's not a train, we might be in luck!

Hardibacker around tub with drywall done and painted. Lights are up.

Next, Kerdi applied to tub wall with modified thinset.

Ready for tile.

Floor heat mat thinset to floor and then Ditra over that. Ready for floor tile.

Everything is an awesome orange!

Stay tuned for more progress.

I'm Back!!!

....for 2012, after a much needed blogging sabbatical!

It seems like my inspirational droughts often occur when I should have the most to blog about. Maybe it's because I'm so busy with other things, that I lose interest in cyber expression.

The last 2 weeks of 2011 were a delicious brew of events. And the memories have simmered and fermented in my head and are are almost ready for the barrel tasting!

I will blog no event before it's time!

And it's high time for a post about my son Ben's marriage to Emily on December 28th. Emily, we are so happy to have you officially join the family! Their photographer had a "Photo-booth" at the wedding. Plenty of opportunity for embarrassing Facebook posts, but I selected some of my favorites to post here.

The Happy Couple! All smiles!

Irma and I

I was totally sober, honest.

Hold for the flash....your daguerreotype will be ready to pick up 2 weeks from Monday.

What does this mean?

Stay tuned for upcoming posts on "The Mother of all Projects", All things Bicycle and "The General"