I’ve had my Specialized Allez road bike now for just over 6 years. It’s been a great bike and this year I’ve probably ridden it more than any other year of owning it. I’m not sure if the amount of riding I’ve been doing is the culprit, if the wheels have reached their expiration date or lets just face it - I’m not a small little Euro biker, but I’ve broke spokes three times this year. The last break occurred this past Saturday morning when I was about 26 miles into a 50 mile ride. While the bike remains rideable after breaking a spoke, it certainly throws the wheel out of true and requires the breaks to be opened up to prevent rubbing. Overall breaking a spoke takes some of the fun out of the ride and is certainly something you can feel while riding. With all of that being said I told myself after breakage #2 this season that if it happened again I’d fork over the cash for a new set of wheels. Saturday after I returned home I went wheel shopping. I opted for a pair of Mavic Aksium wheels. While not the top of the line, and actually closer to the bottom of the line from what Mavic puts out, they are certainly a great wheel for a cyclist of my caliber. They are definitley lighter and definitely stronger than my last wheels, and from the reviews I’ve read they hold true for a long time to come even throwing some rougher riding into the mix. I’m planning on putting 30 miles on them tomorrow night after work and really looking forward to how they perform.
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On August 16-17th I will be participating in the Bike MS ride known as Pedal to the Point. The ride goes from Berea to Sandusky and back and covers 150 miles. If anyone is interested in sponsoring me for this please go to the following link and you can do so. I would greatly appreciate any contributions to this great fund raiser. Thanks!
I’ve been really anxious to share some exciting and wonderful news. I’m going to be a Dad! My wife and I found out a few weeks ago and after trying for only a month or so we feel very fortunate and are both ecstatic about it. She isn’t due until January, which seems like a long time away, however we know it will be here very soon. In just a few weeks we go in for the first ultrasound and might be able to hear the heartbeat! We’ve also decided to keep the sex a surprise. Neither of us want to know until that moment when the Doctor says “It’s a….” Anyway - just wanted to share this great news. With a few weeks away from the blog machine I thought it time to post - we’ve had a busy past few months and with what we have on our plates the busy times don’t appear to be ending anytime soon. We did however just return from Key West. We ended up tagging along with my parents who were going down to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. We did our share of dining and I think I swam more in one week than I’ve swam in the past few years. The water temperature was a perfect 80 and the air temperature hovered just above that. My Dad and I had a great morning on a dive boat going out to two different spots, where for the first time in my life swam next to sharks. At first glance we thought they were nurse sharks, but as we got closer we realized they were black tip reef sharks. Four all schooling the same area and they were all about five feet long. Just an awesome experience! We spent the days in and out of the ocean and pool and just bouncing around Key West working up an appetite. One thing about visiting Key West for us is the great restaurants. It’s crazy, but we almost plan our days around eating. With that being said - we pretty much knew where we were going to eat every night a few weeks before we even left Ohio. On this trip we ate dinner at Seven Fish, Meteore, Azur and Cafe Sole. All of which we enjoyed, but I’d say that Seven Fish and Azur were the favorites among the group. We also had some great meals in the afternoon. It was peak season for Key West Royal Red Shrimp and I have to say that they are by far the best shrimp I’ve ever had. We also had our share of hogfish, mahi and grouper sandwiches and conch among the various stops. I’ve only been back for a few days, but at the drop of a hat could be back down there - it goes without saying - Key West is fast becoming my favorite getaway spot. Moving on out? We hope to be. We have finally decided to try and sell our home. It’s been a great little house, and one that I’ve now owned for five years, but we are looking for something a bit larger and for something with a little more yard and most likely something a little East of our current spot. Over the past few weeks we’ve been doing a little work on our house to prepare it. For the most part everything is ready to go, but we’ve had a few things hanging over our head that needed some attention. We’re hoping to have a for sale sign in front of it within the next couple of weeks and with the housing market as gloomy as it’s been we are really hoping to get a little interest in the house. This weekend I am off to Columbus for the Hell City Tattoo Convention. Should be an interesting time as I’ve never been to a tattoo convention before. No plans for any ink, but who knows This is worth embedding… 4.20.96 - Buffalo, NY Man - do I miss these guys… This was recorded shortly after they released their 3 song EP that probably had more plays than any other CD that I owned at the time. It was also around this time that a bunch of my friends and I made the trek from Columbus to Cleveland to see them play at some bar that I can’t remember the name of. It’s Friday already? In case you happen to be fans of either Nada Surf, Death Cab For Cutie or even Rogue Wave (who happen to be this weeks mp3 feature) listen up! All three of those bands will be gracing Cleveland with their presence this upcoming June. Some would say fortunately - I say unfortunately that they all happen to be playing within the same week, but fortunate that they’ve all decided to make Cleveland a stop on their respective tours. Nada Surf will be playing Beachland Ballroom on Wed. June 11th and Death Cab and Rogue Wave will be playing together on Fri. June 13th - at what they are now calling the Cleveland Plain Dealer Pavilion. Both should be fantastic shows that I’ll personally be attending. I’m excited about all of them, but most excited to see Nada Surf since I’ve never had the opportunity to see them before. Onward…
And for the millions and millions upon millions of readers who make this blog part of your weekly enjoyment - this week’s mp3 (please sense the sarcasm) - have a good weekend: Late last summer during one of many tattoo sessions I went through to get a traditional Japanese half sleeve - I was turned on to a two volume CD set titled ‘Sucking the 70’s’. Each volume is comprised of two CD’s of music from the 70’s but re-done by bands of the present. During my tattoo sessions my artist always played some really cool music, and on one of those sessions he happened to be playing some tracks from ‘Sucking the 70’s - Volume 1′. In particular a track titled ‘Doctor Doctor’ - a song that was originally done by UFO, but on this album was recorded by Fireball Ministry. Not long after I picked up both volume 1 and 2 and after many listens ‘Doctor Doctor’ still remains one of my favorites off both volumes. Hearing it again - I can still feel and hear the buzz of the tattoo machine grinding away at my skin - certainly gives me desire for more ink. Enjoy and Happy Friday In keeping with the Friday tradition and in honor of their upcoming release, Mountain Battles, slated for April 8th - today I dig one out of the closet (at least my closet). Hard to believe this track comes off an album 14 years old - how time goes by….The Breeders - Divine Hammer A few weeks back we decided to purchase a new television. While there was nothing really wrong with our old one - it was taking up a lot of space physically. We decided on a 47″ Philips with built-in Ambilight. Some say the Ambilight feature is gimmicky, however I totally disagree and after having the television for a few weeks and experiencing movie watching on it have only love for this slick feature. We decided to wall mount the television and run the wiring coming from and going to the television in the wall. With the help of my friend we had it up in matter of a few hours.
Approaching five years and having data enter our home by a smorgasbord of companies - we also decided to shop some bundles from the media providers in our area. Prior we were getting our television programming from DirecTV, Internet service from Cox Communications and since we had Tivo and an alarm system on our home - an active phone line was necessary, so that was coming from AT&T. We live in an area where we have a few choices regarding providers, and since there is so much competition from these various sources we went with what we thought was the best deal financially as well as the latest and greatest from a technical standpoint - hello AT&T U-Verse! After only having this for a few days now I can say that so far I am very pleased - both with the Internet connection and the quality/programming offered from the television standpoint. The high definition availability is pretty awesome as we are currently getting around 30-35 channels. The Motorola box that AT&T is using has a built in DVR and can record 4 channels at one time (1 HD and 3 Non-HD) and up to 240 hours or 24 hours of HD programming. When I called AT&T to setup the appointment they told me that the installation could take up to 6 hours, however the two Technicians that came to our house had it installed in less than 2 hours. We are a one television household though, so I assume that had something to do with it. Being able to program the DVR from the Internet is also a very cool feature. I tested this out right away - after finding some documentary on National Geographic and after submitting my request via the web - the scheduled program was showing up in my upcoming recording list moments later - Cool! My only complaint so far is being limited to 1 HD recording at a time - I know - picky, but after experiencing HD it really is hard to watch programming in Non-HD, and a nice chunk of television that I like to watch happens to be on at times when I’m not home. Regardless - I am really pleased with making the move and anxious to see what else will come to U-Verse in the future. My hipster sister-in-law turned me on to this album a few weeks ago and since getting it has been in my daily listening rotation. Definitely worth getting - and this gem I’m sharing today is one of my favorite tracks on the album. Youth Group - On A StringHappy Easter… |
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