Say What?

I got off work two hours early to battle the wind on the road...I won. It slowed me some but I had a blast. I even rode with a 60 year old guy, Cleve Pederson, from Minneapolis who was surprisingly strong. He rides around 11,000 per year which is remarkable when you consider our climate for half the year. I headed south on hwy3 and took that to Fairbault. It was very slow going with the winds at times gusting close to 30mph. I turned around with an average speed of 14.5mph. I turned and headed for home the same way I came. I was flying! I ran my speed up to 35mph at times in the flats and would hold that for half-mile stretches then would back off to about 27 mph, then hit it again. Still, the wind had taken its toll on me and as usual, you never gain as much from it as it takes from you. The day was much like the day 3 years ago when I rode past the turkey farm and hit the dog at around 38 mph. I rode by there today and thought I'd try and put out the same speed as I went by but...

I took yesterday off work. I needed a break. I went for a two-hour ride in the morning and took Rachel to the Mall of America in the afternoon to kick around for a bit. She enjoys going places with me and I feel so blessed that she still sees me as 'okay' to be with. She's nearly 13. She's such a good kid but try telling that to her dad. Actually, I did tell him that last weekend. He was riding her about how she seldom calls him and she was feeling bad about it. In reality, he's the one who could be spending more time with her but doesn't. When she goes to see him on the weekend she says they don't do anything. She watches tv mostly and he doesn't engage her in conversation. In a phone call to her last weekend, he mentioned that maybe he should ground her for not calling him. Yea, that's going to make her respect you. She says it wouldn't matter because she doesn't leave the apartment anyway so it's just like being grounded. As it turne...

Years ago I had a pet Cockatiel named Coocoo. She was a Cockatiel that Noy and I had bought when we first moved to Huron, South Dakota in the summer of 1983. This story takes place a couple years later. It was in April of '85 and one of the first warm days of the year. I was at work when I got a phone call from Noy. She was panicked because she had set the birdcage out on the deck and the wind had knocked it over and Coocoo got out. I raced home to find Coocoo still in the area, perched on a power line by our apartment. There was no way she was going to come back to me. The winds were blowing hard from the south and a cold front was bringing some very strong thunderstorms toward us. I remember seeing her fly from the power line and getting caught up in the winds which quickly took her out of sight. I felt so helpless as I really loved that little bird. I couldn't stand the thought of losing her, especially with the violent weather that was approaching. The storm was so sev...

I ended up taking back the Gateway mp3 player because it offered no way to specify the order the songs were played in. I went to Bestbuy and purchase an MPIO but it too wouldn't let me organize the tracks. I settled on the iRiver 512mb, flash media mp3 player. I'm very happy with it. It's nice and small and with my music compressed at 64kps, I can get over 8 hours of music on it. And yes, I can organize the songs. So, it's nice to be jammin' to some good tunes on the road. Last year toward the end of my riding season I was seeing some beautiful Fall colors out on my rides. I remember wishing I'd had a camera along and then I got the idea that it might be fun to be able to snap some photos along the way and upload them to the net and incorporate them into my blog. I found this nifty little camera online and ordered it. It works really well at 1.3mp and it's so small. I got some disappointing news yesterday from the American Association of Stained Glass ...

I've got the all-night shift tonight and a few hours to kill before I'm due back in the control room. I had a good ride last night and was able to get in 50 miles after work before the sun went down. It was pretty nice out with the sun shining and 42 degrees but my toes got a bit numb toward the end of the ride. I rode for an hour and fifty minutes tonight before work on my trainer in the basement. I really want to be able to start getting in some long rides early in the season this year with hopes of doing the trip to Babbitt toward the early part of July while I've still got the longest days to work with. That's going to be about 240 so I'll need every bit of daylight I can get. I went out today and picked up a new mp3 player for my rides. I got the Gateway 310 with 256mb of flash storage. I paid $135 for it and figured that was a good price. The Apple Ipod with 4gb of space is nice for $250 but it's larger than I'd like and the battery isn't replace...

I got to work Chenny's plane tonight about an hour ago as he left Sioux Falls, SD for Andrews Air Force Base. He's somewhere around Chicago as I write this. I only had to move one aircraft for him. I offered him direct routing to save some time but it was declined. I imagine they're on a schedule and want to stay with it. We've been working pretty steady on the lamp for Don and Dorothy. I've got quite a bit of work left to do but it's nice to finally be making some progress. I went to J. Ring Glass Studios last Friday to try and find some better green for the leaves but I wasn't very successful. I bought a couple sheets which will work okay but not as nicely as I'd hoped. Green is probably the most difficult color for me to find. The color is okay but I'm just worried it doesn't have enough life/depth. I suppose I shouldn't worry too much because it's the same green I used in my Laburnum and I'm very happy with how it turned out. ...

I finally began work on a lamp last week for my uncle Don and aunt Dorothy. I'd been putting this project off for quite a while as I just hadn't been up to it. I'm making an 18" Tulip, Tiffany reproduction lamp for them. I began with the tulip flowers first...I got them cut from the sheets of glass and Tammy has begun to grind them to size. I hope to get some more done tomorrow as it's going to be snowing here all day so I won't be tempted to be out on my bike. I'm usually winding down my stained glass projects this time of year because when the weather turns warm I spend as little time as possible indoors...anyway, not this year...I really need to get this lamp done in the next few weeks though. Don is making a violin for Rachel and we're doing a lamp for them in return. I've got a friend at work who wants me to do some glass work for his home but I seriously doubt I'll get to it this year. We also have the window to do for the prayer chapel at...