Yesterday I used my remaining paid vacation hours of the year and left work early, at 11am. First, I finished fixing up my cross bike (which has been neglected, sitting out back in the weather for months). Then I took full advantage of the unseasonably warm weather (in the 50s+) by riding my cross bike up 2 miles of snow, slush, and ice on Rocky Canyon Road. It was a lot of effort but also a lot of fun. Before heading home I rode to Table Rock. After the road turned to dirt, I rode through mud, slush, and a 100ft long puddle made by fast melting snow. At its deepest point, my feet were submerged, but I kept pedaling and made it through.

Later in the day, I met Fern at the YMCA and had an excellent upper body workout on some equipment I never used before. The last activity of the evening was reading cycling magazines at Barnes n' Nobles.

Today I worked a eight hours. Business was very slow. Oh, and by the way, one of the customers I helped out a couple of days ago (Cheryl) came back yesterday while I was off and bought the women's road bike I showed her. I didn't accomplish much at work today however, but I did find a list of Boise's biggest employers (like Micron, St Luke's, and BSU) which included the number of employees actually employed by those employers (wee!). I'll use this list and the bike route maps I now have to come up with recommendations for commuter routes to and from these major places of employment.

After work it was all about two things: Laundry and a tornado chasers reality show. I had an enormous amount of laundry to do-I actually spent more than 10 dollars and washed and dried seven loads of laundry. Thankfully the Discovery Channel was playing back-to-back episodes of their tornado chasers program. Everyone knows that if I wasn't a sales manager at a bike shop I'd be a storm chaser. So yeah, I was entertained.

It was back to work for me today. Last night I held onto aspirations that I might get up early enough for a pleasant coffee shop experience before work; alas, a deep winter sleep once again kept me in bed for as long as possible. So it was straight to work.

It was nice not having to listen to Christmas music for once. There were a handful of customers I helped today. Two were thinking seriously about bikes, and we had good interactions that may result in a bike sale in the next few days. One customer and his wife (Dean and Julie), who we've seen come in the store on many occasions, were considering purchasing our most expensive mountain bike, the Specialized Sworks Stumpjumper FSR. We had it on sale, marked down from $6,700 to $5,300. I could tell Dean wanted it, but with sales like this, you don't want to be perceived as pressuring the customer. So currently Dean is probably dreaming of this bike-he'll be in tomorrow to buy it, I'm sure.

I managed to find time to work on my commuter zone. I posted the Ada County Bike Routes map, and relocated the road and trail maps to achieve maximum fungshwai (or however you spell it).

After work, I went to the YMCA. I put in a short ride to warm up and then did two rounds of the circuit training weight room, again concentrating on lifting heavier weight slower. I rode home and prepared to host my girlfriend for dinner and telly. We said goodnight just after 9pm. Of course I had to watch a stage of the tour while enjoying a bowl of cereal before bed. The stage was ridiculously exciting, with a break away of four fighting (including American Danny Pate) for the stage win, and a chase group of all the favorites all trying to drop each other on the final climb. In the end, Frank Schleck was able to drop Cadel Evans by 6 seconds to make up the one second he needed to gain the yellow jersey.

Friday, December 26, 2008

I broke the short and sweet rule yesterday, so I'll try to make up for it today.

Went on a small cleaning spree this morning. Met Fern at her apartment around at 2ish and we went to the YMCA for a workout. We were both desperate for some physical activity and getting back on track for our overall fitness goals. Both of us have expressed a desire to reach a new level of fitness, and we were making steady progress before all the pigging out and inactivity surrounding Christmas put a temporary stop to it. At the gym, I spent about an hour on stationary bikes and 15 minutes or so in the circuit training/weight room.

After working out, we drove to The Benchmark outdoors supply store to reserve some snowshoes for tomorrow's adventure with Leah and David. Then we satisfied our craving for Asian food at Oriental Express. We both had General Tsaos Chicken-tasty! Then it was on to Rite Aid to pick up some necessary house hold items. Finally, we spent a half an hour or so at the Flying M. I read a few pages of a Carl Sagan book over a mocha, and Fern did some knitting.

For our evenings activity, we went to my apartment and watched a little TV, as well as most of The Borne Identity (which Eric had gotten as part of the trilogy of Borne movies for Christmas). Then there was a little more quality time spent together before I bid Jennifer goodnight.

Christmas, 2008

I slept in rather late this morning. Till nearly 11am. The last several days, I think I've been sensing a primitive desire to stuff myself with food and hibernate through the rest if winter. Very typical behavior this time of year for me. And by the way, so far this year its been very typical winter weather. Temps in the 20s and 30s and several small snow storms throughout December.

There were no coffee shops open this morning, so Fern and I didn't engage in our usual sort of morning hangout for weekends or holidays. Instead, I invited her over to the house and we opened presents. I had a few for her-a couple pair of ear rings, winter socks, knitting magazines (including one subscription of her choice), and a very amazing work of art depicting memorable scenes from the first four years of our knowing each other. The gifts were no trip to San Francisco (which I had almost booked the week prior), but I think she likes them. Fern got me three sets of professional racing DVDs. Awesome! There was the 2008 Tour of California, 2008 Tour de France (12 hour edition!), and the exciting 2008 Giro de Italia. Also, Fern knat me a cozy ninja balaclava.

I received several presents from my Mom as well as a check for a certain sum of money. The presents were all good stuff, but I especially liked the big book "Questions and Answers; Countries and Continents". Its got perty pictures and easy-to-read information. Erin sent me a funny/cool T-shirt with a cyclist on it and the caption "Its business time". Dad and Janet sent me a Harley Davidson hooded sweatshirt-totally my style!

Eric was the last to open his gifts. I got him an Anthony Bordaine book (traveling food writer) and a comic book about Barack Obama and John McCain.

After presents, Fern and I cooked up some food for Christmas dinner and headed to her parents place. On the way we picked up her sister Joanna and Joanna's boyfriend Brian. We all had some pleasant and rather intellectual conversation before dinner, as well as during dinner. The meal consisted of ham (John), brussels sprouts with bacon (me), creamy scalloped potatoes (fern), and savory sweet potatoes (Joanna). Oh, for an appetizer we had stuffed mushrooms.

After dinner there was a little more chatting, as well as some dog patting/wrestling/hugging/dancing (John has a young dog that is ridiculously energetic and overly happy to see everyone).

On the way home Fern and I had to pick up some Starbucks frapuccino drinks because we thought we had caffeine withdrawal headaches. We went to my place and took a "nap". I never actually fell asleep, but I became so relaxed and comfortable I might as well have. Frankly, I had become so unusually relaxed that I didn't feel like doing much with the rest of the day when we climbed out of bed at 7:30pm. But Fern convinced me to do some indoor riding. It took a little while to set everything up, but we did ultimately get about 45minutes of riding in while watching my new Tour De France DVD. A good ride and totally necessary, considering the calories I've been taking in lately.

Now I'm looking forward to some deep, long sleep. I've stayed up late the last couple of nights working on my present to Fern (during which I developed a painful headache), so now that that's done I'm feeling totally stress-free and relaxed and looking forward to sleep and the next two days off of work.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Got up a titch early and procured a Flying M mocha on the way to work. Wasn't sure I'd stay upright on my bike in the fresh snow, but once again I was amazed I didn't hit the deck. Was my usual bad self at work-put up bikes, helped customers, worked on my to-do list. I also sent Tom and Mike a couple of emails. One asking their approval to plan/organize a sales clinic for all of George's sales staff. Another suggesting we put some noticeable signage outside alongside Front Street or else facing Winco.

At home I made myself some macaroni cheese and peas and watched a little bit of the Poinsetta Bowl featuring BSU and TCU before getting ready and making my way to Fern's apartment. We spent some quality time chatting and such. I left for home close to 10 and spent some time on a christmas project. Now I'm dead tired and am looking forward to sleep and a bit of R&R tomorrow.

Monday, December 22, 2008

This morning I crawled out of bed about 20 minutes earlier than I usually do. You know how it is when you wake up and you're really really tired and you don't want to get up, and then all of a sudden a certain thought shakes you awake? Well, the thought that got me up early this morning was that I could go ahead and pay some bills that have been sitting on my desk for months. So I did. As of this morning, I don't have to worry about how much I owe St Lukes, A Reason to Smile Dental, and the Health Wise Clinic.

Before making my way to work I deposited my check and enjoyed a warm pecan roll and coffee at the Flying M.

So yesterday I slacked off at work. Today I spent almost no time chatting. I dove right into work. Its a good way to make the day go by quickly, and I did in fact have a lot I wanted to accomplish. I was able to put together a long list of bikes we still needed to fall in line with my Master Floor Plan. I also managed to edit the Floor Plan a little. Otherwise, we had quite a few customers that kept me occupied throughout the day.

After work I went straight to the YMCA. I warmed up on the Expresso exercise bike for about 10minutes. Fern showed up. We said hi and I handed off the bike to her. Next, I spent a good 40 minutes in the circuit weight room (other than the Expresso bike, my major destination at the Y). I did all my usual machines twice. And I made a point to lift higher than average weight, and lift it rather slowly. This is my new tecnique. I've been feeling a little impatient about putting on weight, seeing faster results, so I'm hoping the slow and hard method works.

With my muscles all nice and pumped, I left the Y, headed home, had dinner, and engaged in some Christmas preparatory activities. Till tomorrow...

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Hello.

I've spent some time lately rereading some of what I've written over the last 3 point 9 years here on this blog, and I've realized a few things. First, I used to write a lot more than I do now. And I used to write really long blogs. Reading long blogs feels work.

Part of the reason I stopped writing so much is because I used to think I should always have a lot of interesting things to say, which made writing more of a process. Now I realize that its actually a chore to read a long blog, even if it is interesting. And hate to say it, but some of my attempts to entertain were actually obnoxious (at least to me). Perhaps the thing I enjoyed the most about reading through my old blogs was revisiting daily activities. So, with these lessons learned, its time to get back to writing on a regular basis.

Today I slept in. Lately I've been sleeping pretty well, though not very deeply. Its probably because of all the time spent at the gym. I'm getting in better and better shape, so I think I'm more tired and breathing easier at night.

On the way to work this morning, I stopped by St Luke's Starbucks and procured a venti coffee. Most mornings I look forward to a good cup of coffee or a mocha. My favorite is a white chocolate mocha or a regular mocha from the Flying M, but I try to save a little money a few days a week by opting for the plain coffee with cream and sweetener, or skipping coffee altogether. Anyway, today I had a Starbucks coffee, which was pretty terrible. After having garlic breath last night thanks to Fern's tasty garlic and chives mashed potatoes, today's uber strong coffee breath was especially unwelcome.

I was especially layed back and jovial at work today. Sundays are often quite casual, what with no superiors around and work lasting from 11-4pm. (I'm the "boss" on Sundays, but this time of year business is slow and there's no reason to be a hard ass). These days my company at work are two fun loving people-Toby and Karen. We had a good time.

I met Fern at Winco after work and we did a little shopping before going over to my place. I decided that I wanted meatloaf. I bought the ingredients and made a big ol' loaf for Fern and I. We enjoyed it while watching a couple episodes of CSI. Fern finished knitting a black balaclava for me today. We had some fun posing like ninjas. At any rate, it was a comfortable and affordable domestic night for the two of us.