Say What?

I didn't get out on the road until 11:00 this morning. Kind of a slow start but I've got to pace myself as I have to work until midnight tonight. I'll be filling in for Reid in a few weeks but other than that this will be my last Saturday night for a while as I'm changing my days off and not necessarily for the better. I have some misgivings about the change as I like the crew I've been working with and it's only going to become a better crew with some of the newer guys being added to it. I'm going back to the days off I had for years and to an older, less enthusiastic group of guys. I can't complain. At least I have a choice. I like to think I'm aware of changes to the world around me when I'm out on my bike but apparently, that's not so true. I was riding northeast on highway 13 today just east of Cedar avenue under a low overcast sky. It's an area that usually has a fair amount of traffic moving along at 55 mph or more with ...

I came home from work yesterday just as Tammy was getting back from having driven herself to the doctor. I figured she must be doing better. She wasn't. Her doctor says she has influenza. It was good to see her getting around but she has no stamina. Along with the flu she has a head-cold and both a sinus and ear infection. She's still feeling quite miserable. She stopped at the store and bought several bottles of hand sanitizer which she placed around our home. I had a laugh when I got in the house. I saw on the counter an over-stuffed envelope to the Republican Party of Minnesota. Tammy took the contents of a mailing we received from them and crammed it all back inside the return envelope to let them know what they can do with their future mailings for our address. I'll send it back in tomorrow's mail. And to think, she was working the phones four years ago for Republicans to get out the vote. It's good to see glimpses of the woman I love while she s...

Tammy's fever finally broke this morning but her headache remained for most of the day. It's good to see her getting around again. She did a slow walk on the treadmill this afternoon to try and get the fluids moving through her body as she's kind of swollen all over. She thinks that may be caused by one of the drugs she's taking. She mentioned tonight that she's beginning to feel better. That's great to hear. I'm thankful that so far Rachel and I have escaped this nasty virus. I've been making a half-hearted attempt to keep up with what's going with the government bailout of the struggling financial giants which apparently have much more influence over us all than they have a right to. Like most people, one of my main concerns is that the executives/CEO's/manager types of these failed companies should not be allowed to continue on at a rate of pay anywhere near what they've been getting if they're allowed to continue on at all. ...

The older I get the less I take my health for granted. To have a healthy body is something we should pause to appreciate and of course, give thanks for. Tammy knows all too well. We had a bit of a scare last night as she was taken by ambulance from Urgent Care in Apple Valley to United Hospital in St. Paul. A few nights ago we had a friend from Tammy's work over to the house to grill steaks. Job is from Kenya and we don't get together often enough. Tammy was in the middle of a five day stretch of time off from work and totally enjoying herself. She had spent the day working on a homecoming dress for Rachel for this weekend's dance. Friday came and we had plans to go out to dinner with Reid. Late in the afternoon she told me she wasn't feeling well but thought that she was okay enough to follow through with our dinner plans. We did get together and although Tammy wasn't feeling all that well she had a nice time. Saturday found her in bed most of the d...

A guy walks into a bar wearing nothing but a pair of jumper cables. The bartender looks at him and says, "you can stay as long as you don't start anything". My Garmin GPS tells me that the sun is setting at 7:21. For a guy who likes to ride after work I always get a bit depressed as the days get shorter. I try to tell myself that the break from riding will be good but I have a hard time convincing myself of that. I managed to get on the road by 3:30 yesterday afternoon . I didn't intend to ride as far as I did but I kept telling myself that I needed to take advantage of the beautiful day and the daylight I had. In another month, any ride longer than 40 miles after work will be a rarity. I got a phone call from Jim Barbour on Monday night. I'd written about Jim back in July. He was wondering if I'd received his email but I hadn't. It turned out that he had the wrong address for me but once we got that figured out he had some nice photos for me to add...

I was out on the mower this afternoon when Rachel got my attention to tell me that she was going to the mall with Katrina (in separate cars) and that she would leave for her dad's house from there. She gave me a hug and I asked her to text me when she got to her dad's 40 miles north. A little past 8:00 pm and we hadn't heard from her so I texted her to see if she was there yet. No response. An hour later she called and I could tell right away that something wasn't right. Her voice was shaking and she was crying. She'd been in an accident; a small one. She said she was leaving the Burnsville mall and looking at her GPS when the car in front of her suddenly stopped and she rear-ended it. She said she was fine and so was the driver of the car she hit; in fact, there was no damage to the other person's car. The other driver went so far as to say it wasn't necessary to exchange insurance information because they didn't see any damage to their car. I think I...

It seems that each day at work a new shipment of goods arrives at our loading dock for distribution throughout the facility. From large flat-panel TVs to computers and office furniture. There's no lack of funds for all things shiny and new. Still, no money however for pay raises for those of us who do the demanding job for which this facility exists but plenty for those who watch from a safe distance. We're about to enter our 3rd year of no such raises while management shrugs their collective shoulders and looks forward to their yearly raise. Speaking of work; I was given a letter of recognition yesterday to commemorate my 30 years of government service. They were five months late in their recognition of my achievement as I crossed that milestone back in April but management apparently had more important things to do then than to acknowledge my service. Rachel has a new boyfriend. It's been nearly one year since she and Grant broke up. I'm actually a bit surprised...

I woke up yesterday morning, let the pups out and read the front page of the paper while I waited for Toby and Allie to do their thing. It was a beautiful day. I'd be riding within the hour. I fired up my computer to check the prevailing surface winds and as soon as the screen lit up I could see that there was a problem. No more Graham Watson Tour de France cycling background for my wallpaper. Instead, I now had a bright blue screen with a large box declaring that my computer was infected with two viruses (or more specifically, malware ). Within the box was a handy tool, "Antivirus XP 2008" with which I could fix the problem. Yeah, right. I opened my home-page (Google) to type in " Antivirus XP 2008 " and noticed that there were a couple million links to this little bugger. It didn't look like it was going to be that difficult to fix. However, clicking on one of the links would do me no good whatsoever. There was a nifty browser hijacker associated with th...