A Christmas Song.

I'm not one for Christmas music. Not just the frilly froofy jingle jangle Christmas music, but even if a "normal" song mentions Christmas, I turn it off.

Maybe I'm just not one for Christmas.

Anyhow, here is a Christmas song that I do like, and I hope that you to, too!

Money-making opportunity

If I can't figure out a way to make money by commenting on people's blogs...

Here's Mine

Bev asked her readers to show her where they do their blogging.

Here's my special blogging area:



Sorry, but I would've cleaned if I knew you were coming over.

Weekends Wrapup

Well, this weekend was pretty boring, so I'll write about a different one. Three weeks ago.

A cousin of mine was getting married, so I drove into town on Friday night. I got a late start, so I drove straight to where everyone was having dinner. And by "everyone," I mean Mom, Aunt L, her husband, her daughter, and her daughter's boyfriend.

Luckily, Aunt L was at the other end of the table, so I wasn't forced into conversation with her. I just sat back and listened to her contradict everything that anyone else had to say. At one point, I asked her husband, who was sitting across the table from me, what time they had flown into town. He told me that they arrived at 11am, but had to wake up at 3am to catch their flight.

Then, from the other end of the table, came, "Nooooooooo, G! (Yes, AL really does talk like the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.) We didn't get in at 3am, we got in at 11!")

*sigh*

When I mentioned that they woke up an hour after I went to bed, someone asked me what I was doing up so late.

"Pulling the hair out of my legs."

Then, from the other end of the table, "Nooooooooo, Frank! Don't be so vain!"

I just had to laugh, as this is the woman who's had a facelift, I don't know how many chemical peels, and paid for her daughter's facelift. Said daughter tried to come to my defense by talking about how "cyclists shave their legs for aerodynamics and stuff."

"No," I told her (quietly so that it couldn't be heard at the other end of the table), "I shave them because it looks better."

:-D

Aunt L started going into how she didn't like her worthless son's girlfriend (the girlfriend is not worthless). "She's over 40 years old, and never been married!" she complained. Mom was kind enough to point out that I, too, am over 40 and forever single. Good ol' Mom!

"Nooooooooo," Aunt L said, "Except for that last one, all of the women that Frank has dated have been married before."

Actually, including "that last one," only two of the women I've had relationships with had been previously married, but that wasn't the problem with her logic.

Finally, dinner was over, and we went home. Cousin mentioned that Mom had been walking a bit unsteadily all week, so I should keep an eye on her.

At Mom's house, she was coughing a bit and complaining about her breathing. I asked her if she wanted me to take her to the after-hours clinic, but she said no, and got into bed to read. I was in the other room, watching TV, and could hear her rasping breath and coughing. Eventually, she called me in, as she had just thrown up.

I took her to ER.

She got in pretty quickly, considering that it was around midnight on a Friday, and it turned out that she had pneumonia. She was in the hospital for a week, and was released the following Friday, but I had to be back in Austin to volunteer for the LIVESTRONG Challenge. They sent her home with a walker, since she was still a bit wobbly.

Fast-forward to a week ago last Wednesday, when I went back to Mom's to hang out with her for a bit to help out. When I walked in, her walker was in the kitchen, and she was in her bedroom. She had been getting around pretty well without it.

Thursday, Mom told me that she had fallen that morning, and banged her head on the bathtub. The brother-in-law of a friend of mine had just been in the hospital with a subdural hematoma, so I wanted to keep an eye on her for the day. She seemed to be doing ok, even walking next door (with the walker) to have lunch with my cousin.

Mom came home to take a nap, and when I was talking to her, I noticed that her left arm was just kind of hanging out in space, and pointed it out to her. She just shrugged it off, and went on to take her nap.

A couple of hours later, the lady that Mom had cleaning her house came in to get me, as Mom had fallen when she tried to get out of bed. I tried to get her up, but she just wanted to sit there for awhile. As she was teary-eyed, I got a kleenex for her, and handed it out. She grabbed at it with her left hand, missed it, but dabbed her eyes with her empty hand.

I took her to ER.

Luckily, my cousin had a wheel chair at her house, because Mom could not walk at all.

Thursday afternoons in the ER are even less crowded than Friday nights, and Mom got put right into triage. A CAT scan showed no hematoma, which was good, but an MRI showed two minor strokes, one to her right cerebrum, affecting her left arm, and the other in her cerebellum, affecting her balance. An EKG showed that she was experiencing atrial flutter, which the doctor said was probably what produced the clots that caused her strokes.

Mom showed great day-by-day improvement the next few days, and is now in a rehab center, where she's still showing great improvement. She was walking walkerless on Friday. I'm back in Austin, do take care of some things, and my sister went to stay with Mom for a week. I'll go back next week.

Aunt L flies back into town on Wednesday, and is talking about staying through the end of the year.

*sigh*

What they say is true.

About getting back on a bicycle, I mean.

I've not been on a bike in over four weeks, for many reasons. The main reason being that my main road bike (aka Black Bike) has been out of commission. A few months ago, it decided to start shifting by itself, which got really annoying, especially when I was climbing up a big hill. I changed the chain and cables, but that didn't help. Then I cleaned everything up real good, and that didn't make much of a difference, either. This problem still existed for my cycling trip to Colorado (a blog about which is still in progress), but I was able to get by.

After a bit of research, I determined that the shifter needed to be rebuilt:

See the two tabs on part #9? One of them had broken off.

While I had it apart, I wanted to replace a bunch of other bits and pieces, and took my parts list to my favorite local bike shop, Hammerhead Bikes and they put in the order. They could only find about half of the parts, so I ordered the rest from my favorite on-line bike shop, Branford Bike. After I got the shifter apart, I realized that I needed to order another part, so I rode the steel road bike in the meantime, but that didn't go so well.

I rode my mountainbike on the road a couple of times, but I'm having an issue of air not staying in the back tire, and haven't really felt like dealing with that. It's been too wet here to ride off-road, anyhows (that's not a complaint, we've really needed the rain!).

So, what's the point in all of this? Give me a minute....

Oh, yeah! I rode the Black Bike tonight! I finally got it cleaned up and put back together late last week, but didn't ride over the weekend because of rain. I did a few last-minute tune up things (can't have the brakes sticking, now), patched a spare tube, and headed out.

The battery in my GPS had lost its charge, which was probably a good thing, since I really didn't want to know how slowly I was riding. The ride felt good, though. I just did a 20 mile out and back along Parmer Lane, near my house. I did catch one guy on the way out, at a stop light, but luckily I was turning, whereas he was going straight, so I didn't have to worry about keeping up with him. It's that cyclists' ego thing, y'know.

On the way home, however, as I was lazily climbing a hill, I noticed the shadow of another rider who had just caught up with me, and was riding on my rear wheel, letting me cut the wind for him. Being the nice guy I am, I started pointing out obstacles, such as gravel for him. At the top of the hill, he rode on past me.

No problem, people pass me all the time, and I pass other people. That's the thing about cycling, you'll always find people who are faster than you, and people who are slower. But this guy didn't bother to say anything. How much energy does it take to say a simple, "Hi, " or "Howya doin'"? I always do it. That's a pet peeve of mine.

I would normally have just let the guy go, but I now had a mission. I caught him at the bottom of the hill, and rode on his wheel up the next hill and down, coasting so I could get a little rest break. When the road leveled out, I went on around him and dropped him like a the last leaf on a New Hampshire sugar maple in November. I never looked back, but I could see his shadow fall back, and I kept riding hard until I was sure that he was gone. I finally backed off a little bit, until I saw his shadow reappear, then I hit it hard again. His shadow again faded away.

He caught me at the next red light, and still didn't say anything. When the light changed, I let him go ahead, as I was taking the next right, anyhows. I was pretty tired, too, but shhhhhhh!

I rode to Chipotle for a burrito, then home, where I saw that they were mentioned on tonight's episode of South Park.

What's Worse?

Not having anyone read your blog, or having people read your blog and not comment?

The Tuesday Nighter

I've got five bikes, each with its own purpose. There's my the first bike that I bought as an adult, which I've turned into a time trial bike, the Black Bike, which replaced the older bike as my regular ride, a mountain bike, a fixed gear bike, and the Delta Bike.

The Delta Bike is the "classic sports car" of my bicycle stable. I'd always liked the Campagnolo Delta brakes, and when I bought a set of them on EBay, I built a bike around it, using a classic steel Colnago frame, and all parts were from the same early '90s era.


Since the 1970's, there has been a Tuesday night training race in Austin, called the Tuesday Nighter. It's a non-sanctioned race, with no entry fee, no prize money, and no organization. Everyone just shows up, the 'A' group goes off for their three laps, and the slower 'B' group starts a few minutes later for their two laps.

I'd never done this race, mostly because I'd heard that it could get a bit crazy (i.e. non-sanctioned, no organization) and because it wouldn't be easy to get down to South Austin after work for the 6pm start.

Last night, my friend Greg and asked me if I'd be interested in doing this week's Tuesday Nighter, because he was going to try it out. It sounded good to me, but since my Black Bike is in pieces (I'm rebuilding the shifters), I'd have to use the Delta Bike. I've been riding the Delta Bike for the past week or so, so that wasn't a big issue. I told Greg that I didn't want to crash the Delta Bike, so I'd just hang in the back of the peloton.

I drove over to Hammerhead Bikes to meet up with Greg, Cody, and a few others, and we rode down to Mellow Johnny's, where we picked up another 20 or so folks, then rode to the start of the Tuesday Nighter. It was a pretty mellow ride, and I had 20 miles in by the time we arrived at the race. I was having some problems with the shifting of the rear derailleur, but I just put that off to a tuning issue.

We waited for a few minutes, then the 'A' group rolled out. We followed shortly thereafter. At the bottom of the first hill, we hit a rough spot, and my chain got hung up in my rear derailleur. It's done this before, and I was able to get it straightened out while still being able to stay with the pack. A minute later, the chain was hanging again. This time, however, as I was trying to get it straightened out, it got much louder, and the rear wheel locked up and started skidding.

This couldn't be good.

I was able to keep the bike up, and bring it safely to a stop. When I looked, I saw that the piece of the frame to which the rear derailleur is attached (called, coincidentally enough, the derailleur hanger) had broken, and the derailleur was dangling on the cable.


This was not good. The two pieces pointed to in the following picture should be one piece (See? They're the same color!)


The bike was now not rideable, and I had to walk back to the start. I didn't want the derailleur to drag on the ground, so I walked the bike, leaning over it to hold the derailleur, which was a pain. I tried a couple of different ways to push the bike, including holding the rear wheel off the ground, and just rolling it on the front wheel, but this was hard to control. I carried the bike for a while, too, but it wasn't fun.

Several cars drove past me, but none stopped to help. One car did stop, and the driver asked me how I was doing. When I told him, "I've been better," he proceeded to ask me if I knew where the nearby car junkyard was. He went on to tell me how he'd driven all around, but couldn't find it.

Thank you for your concern, sir. Yes, I know where is the place for which you search, but I'm going to let you find it yourowndamnself.

Finally, a woman in a minivan, going in the other direction, stopped and asked me if I needed a ride. She then went down the road to turn around, came back, loaded me up, and took me to the start of the race, where I thanked her profusely.

Luckily, a Violet Crown rider, Robert, had driven to the race, and agreed to take me and my bike back to Hammerhead.

I'm hoping that Cody and the good folks at True Fabrications can replace the rear dropout on my bike.