Written by Mike Young on July 21, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Well, I had a couple of days of exciting business meetings in CA. Despite all that, I couldn’t wait to get home. I really am not one of those types who loves to travel. I don’t know why. I suppose I just like my ability to work in the comfort of my own home. Imagine my enthusiasm when Em calls me to tell me the only road to our house has been closed off indefinitely due to an explosion at the water treatment plant.
Apparently, a tanker offloaded some chemicals into a wrong tank and created a chemical reaction. This resulted in a chlorine explosion. Yep! Chlorine! They evacuated the south shore campers at Carter Lake and about 500 residents. I didn’t even know we had 500 residents here.
Anyway, I had to navigate a back road from Estes Park. The normal route was completely blocked off. When I got to the back road intersection around 1:30am, it was blocked, but I managed to get through. There was no one standing there to stop me. The HazMat crews were still working at the plant.
Besides the obvious inconvenience and scare, the explosion has left me with no T1 Internet access. I have been having some chronic issues and had spoken to MegaPath earlier in the day. They had noticed an extraordinary number of tech calls over the past 6 months. They decided to put pressure on AT&T and Quest to fix things. That sounded great, with one small problem. The trucks couldn’t get to equipment. One end of our T1 is obviously at our house. The other is next to the treatment plant. So, here I am online via the Satellite backup and without VOIP capabilities.
Written by Mike Young on July 16, 2007 at 10:56 pm
Well, this year’s Tour de France is leaving a bit to be desired. I’ve enjoyed the past years with Lance Armstrong. And I enjoyed last years with Floyd Landis before the fiasco with trying to take his title away. But this year has left me hanging. I’m still waiting for the US stars to show up. What a disappointment so far.
Despite all that, yesterday did hold a nice surprise at Stage 8. Michael Rasmussen, the Danish rider for Team Rabobank, had an amazing day as he blew everyone away on the second day in the Alps. It was a pretty incredible feat.
The funny part is they call this guy, “Chicken Legs“. And if you look at his legs you’d see why. They’re so skinny. But I guess that’s not where he actually got the name– though it should be.
Despite his build, this guy averaged 31 miles per hour to take the yellow jersey. 31! I was stoked yesterday to hit a new high on my ride. I hit 17.3 miles per hour. And I wasn’t riding through the Alps. Sad, huh?
So… I’m a huge fan of Voice over IP (VOIP). Been a Vonage customer for more than four years. Yep, I’m one of those early adopters. And for years I’ve made fun of those who use Skype. I first encountered Skype via my step-siblings. They use it to talk to their friends and family in Korea. And my ex-father-in-law uses it when he’s on business in Asia.
Anyway, the whole thought of talking through my computer seemed pretty lame. I was pretty proud of Vonage because I still used a “real” phone.
Well, I had my first Skype call to China the other day and am hooked. It was so much clearer talking PC to PC via the free service than my Vonage was ever able to achieve. And the other nice thing about it is that I can see who’s available before I call. I can’t wait to have my first video call, now, with my son. I miss his little expressions. So, for those of you not familiar with Skype, give it a try. It really is good stuff. And for those I’ve previously made fun of, I owe you a big apology.
Okay, I’m back in business! I’m speaking of my cycling. After the numerous maintenance problems I described last week, I’ve finally got my bike back in tip-top shape. The biggest problem I actually had was finding replacement screws for my Speedplay Zero cleats. I would have thought that the wide-spread popularity of these pedals would have ensured the availability for replacement screws. But nope. I was wrong. I searched all over the place for a mention of them. When I tried to inquire and order just the screws, my only option was for a pair of replacement cleats, which happened to come with more screws. Hmm… not ready to shell out $35 for screws. Know what I mean?
Anyway, after finally figuring out the size of the screw, which wasn’t easy because it’s hard to tell the difference between an M4 and an 8-32 screw, I managed to find them at a local ACE Hardware. Hallelujah!!! Seriously, you have no idea what I went through. It wasn’t enough that these screws were metric. They were also countersunk so that they could sit flush with the cleat.
To make things more interesting, walking around the driveway, with all the rocks, didn’t help my situation. Apparently, I had worn down the screws so much that it was hard to get the screwdriver to get any bite. It took a lot of work, but I finally managed to get all 8 screws out of both shoes. After a little bit of cleanup, the new screws were a piece of cake to insert.
Apart from the shoe fun, I also put a little thought into my tire situation. I estimate I had put nearly 1500 miles on my last set of tires. Replacing them didn’t take much thought. What did require me to think a bit was the potential use of Slime Lite tubes. These were never an option a year or so ago. I’m very weight conscious when it comes to my bike. With pedals and cages, my bike weighs close to 14 pounds. Trying to put heavy, wobbly Slime tubes in didn’t make much sense. Well, with a little branding help, I was convinced otherwise. I had an excellent ride yesterday and didn’t feel any side effect from the new tubes. Instead, I felt a new level of confidence that descending the mountain road at full speed wasn’t a foolish feat. I didn’t worry about a blowout sending me into the windshield of an oncoming car. While the ride wasn’t my best time, it was my second best ever as I found myself climbing that final road back at speeds of 10 to 11 miles per hour. That’s a huge improvement over my normal 6 to 7.
Well, you ever wonder if God’s trying to give you a message, but you’re just not pick’n up on it? I suppose what happened today could be an indicator of something.
Decided to go for a ride today. But as usual, I tried doing the ride later than I wanted. It was almost 9:30am when I decided to head out the door. But the real issue wasn’t the time, it was the heat. I should have been out the door before 7am-ish. Anyway, because I knew it was gonna get hot fast, I opted to change my routine 25 mile ride to just a 15 mile one. And it’s a good thing too. On the 2nd half of the ride, I had to pull over twice to tighten some screws to my left cleat. One of the screws must have fallen out, but the others were stripped and I couldn’t tighten them down. Imagine all of the pedaling efficiency of a one legged cycler. That was me.
If only things stopped there… Not with my luck. Besides the loose cleat, I experienced some really harsh cramping in my lower back. This must have been due to me trying to catch some dudes that were pedaling well ahead of me. I had seen then turn on my route and thought I could catch them. Well, I did. But I was so tired that it was hard to maintain such pace. That should really teach me.
As discouraging as the ride could have been, I was very glad I cut the ride to only 15 miles. I not only received a slow leak on my rear tire, I had a complete flat at the last 1/4 mile of my ride. Had I extended it, I may have had some much more serious hiking to do.
I guess it just goes to show you that sometimes you just need to be thankful you didn’t get what you originally wanted. I really wanted a 25 to 30 mile ride. Seems like I maybe need to ride my Mt. bike for a while. What do you think?
wildernessVoice is totally for my own purposes; to vent, rant, elaborate and to generally discuss my thoughts and views. Sometimes I write about theological items, political perspectives and even technical tidbits.
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Well, I had a couple of days of exciting business meetings in CA. Despite all that, I couldn’t wait to get home. I really am not one of those types who loves to travel. I don’t know why. I suppose I just like my ability to work in the comfort of my own home. Imagine my enthusiasm when Em calls me to tell me the only road to our house has been closed off indefinitely due to an explosion at the water treatment plant.
