I'm not going to brag about the weather here in Morgan Hill, California. Its not like I'm responsible for it. But damn, its nice. It reminds me of why I nearly moved here. Today it was 74 degrees and sunny.
Its Wednesday. I've been here since Monday night. The majority of my time has been spent sitting in a chair in a "classroom" listening to a "professor" tell the class all about Specialized products. The experience has been made bearable by the free caffeinated bevarages, my doodling, and the occasional new bit of information thrown my way.
For the last two days, my roomate and I have received wake-up calls at 6:20 am. I don't think the wake-up call dude understands that I prefer to get out of bed 10 minutes before I'm supposed to be somewhere so that I can run around in a panic while skipping breakfast. Alas, I've been getting up on time and choosing a breakfast from a number of healthy, freshly made options; like scrambled eggs, waffles, toast, bacon, fruit, milk, juice, sausage, and so on. Weird, I've discovered that a nice breakfast is an incentive for waking up.
Yesterday, we students did a "no-drop" ride on $5000 to $7000 road bikes. A no-drop ride is a ride in which nobody gets dropped. Usually that means that the pace is slow n' pleasant. Funny thing was that our Specialized escorts dropped the hammer as soon as we left town. By the end of the ride, 6 out of 30 people had survived together to the finish, 3 of which were Georges riders. It was a blast.
Today, the class crowded into oversized vans and headed to a large field/hill in order to ride $4000+ mountain bikes on newly cut trails. The trails were rather boring. The sole entertainment we received came about when one of our more cocky "professors" thought that he was going to drop off of a ramp 5 feet to the ground and immediately catch another jump of 5 more feet or so. The drop off was beautiful, perfect form and all. What happened next was tragic, as he missed the second jump, burried the bike into the ground, and threw himself ass over teakettle several times before coming to a stop. He got to his feet soon enough-an action that was accompanied by some reassuring applause by the whole of of the class-but only a moment passed before I heard someone remark about the blood gushing down his white shirt. Then, it was apparant that something wasn't quite right with his nose/face area. From a distance, I declared confidently to all those near enough to hear me that he broke his nose. Moments later I felt concerned enough to ride down the hill to see if I could help, at which point I learned that while crashing, Gabes forehead just above an eyebrow had been gashed open by the jagged end of his own cycling glasses during the time in which his face met the ground. Everyone looked at Gabe, and then at each other, and agreed that stitches were going to be needed. A lot of them.
Anyway, it was neat. But sad for Gabe of course.
More later, maybe.