2004
Getting Ready for France
Tammy and I dropped our bikes off at Erik’s Bike Shop tonight to get them packed in the Trico Iron Cases that I got on eBay what seems like forever ago. I had also just gotten a tune-up on my bike and replaced the chain which led to the unfortunate issue of realizing my rear cogs were all worn out so my new chain was slipping (always take some test rides!). So, new cog set is going on and I’m taking the opportunity to go from a 12-23T like I usually ride to a more “Alpe d’Huez friendly” 12-27T. I think I’ll be very thankful for those four additional teeth when suffering up the climbs.
Will pick the bikes up on Thursday. Rest of packing will be happening soon. Need to download French and Swiss maps to my eTrex Vista GPS (yes, I will be posting some GPS data as well – I can’t help myself). Fly out on Saturday!
I also got one of my books to read during the trip. Amazon delivered Heft on Wheels today by Mike Magnuson. Looks like fun reading, and probably some stuff I can relate to.
Mother's Kitchen Demolition
Tammy and I went and helped my mom today with the demolition of her kitchen. She’s been working on her new house for the last year and this is the start of probably the biggest project, but also the one with the most impact, a new kitchen. We went over to help her gut the room to the studs and got plenty dirty in the process.
Learn to Row Pictures
I took my camera gear to rowing class today and went with our coach Lauren in the launch (motor boat) to have some fun shooting pictures of our Learn to Row session.
See All 8 Row! and Learn to Row.
ALARC Legends 5k
Tammy and I did the ALARC Legends 5k this morning. Tammy has just started taking a running class with ALARC and they had an included pancake breakfast after the run which was enough for me to get on board. 🙂
Tammy ran it in 25:13 and I around 26:30. It was a nice run, a little humid and I was glad it started at 7:30am to avoid any heat.
This run is called Legends because they invite a number of Minnesota runners that have had an impact in the running world. A number of marathon record holders were there as well as a 90 year old dude out running with all of us. I hope I’m so energetic at 90!
All 8, Row!
We had our second “on the water” session in our Learn to Row class tonight at MRC. Tonight was significantly better than the first night. We did a much better job of setting (leveling) the boat and we had a more authoritative coxswain (she said it was her first time, but I find that hard to believe) which gave me more confidence. We did a number of drills tonight. First we rowed four at a time. In this configuration either the bow four or stern four will row while the other four level the boat. This is nice as even if you really mess up the four that are leveling will keep things generally stable. We then did six at a time, which is the same story just with six rowing and only two leveling. I was in seat 6 tonight on port side. I liked that spot better than seat 5 that I was in last time (the bow seat is seat 1 and the seat in front of the coxswain is seat 8). Tammy was stroke seat or seat 8 tonight and did an awesome job setting the stroke for the boat.
At the midpoint of our class we actually started rowing all 8! That was very impressive. The first stroke that you all make together just launches the boat forward. It wasn’t pretty at all times as we are very, very green but it was pretty good. Apparently our class is progressing fairly quickly.
Tammy and I are both enjoying the class. I really like the team atmosphere of rowing. It reminds me in many ways of riding a pace line on the bike. I find the technical terms enjoyable (again, like cycling) and I like how you work together to create such amazing speed on the boat. We are both interested in continuing into the novice program at MRC which allows you to row in eights for the season. Who knows, maybe we’ll get in a league. 🙂
See first class and rowing pictures.
Learn to Row
Tammy and I are taking the “Learn to Row” class at the Minneapolis Rowing Club. Tonight was our third class which was our first class to really get out on the water. We are taking the class with 10 people and learning to row a sweep eight. We will also have one day where we will scull which is the one-person boats.
I got a little uneasy when the boat got wobbly (not set). Our instructor reassured us that it is very hard to flip an eight, but I wasn’t buying it.
Rowing is pretty fun so far. I’ll try to get some pictures on our weekend classes.
Watermelon Ride
Every year TCBC holds it’s annual 4th of July ride called the Watermelon Ride. It’s aptly named since there is a lunch afterward where large amounts of watermelon are made available. Tammy and I had not done this ride in the past but had wanted to. It is a great route, very flat which makes it a very managable fun ride for the holiday weekend. Two ride options are available with milage of 25 or 55 miles. We did the longer route. Couldn’t have asked for a nicer day on the bike to get some comfortable miles in.
The (Not So Good) Taste of Minnesota
Tonight Tammy and I planned to cap off a really great 4th of July weekend with a trip to the Taste of Minnesota, also known as “the taste”. We hadn’t been to the Taste since 2002 when it was at the state capitol for the last time. Taste is usually a fun afternoon of food that is fried and should not be consumed on anything approaching a regular basis with a good background of outdoor music and sunshine.
We made plans to go to the Taste with our good friends Tracy and Jeff. We arrived early and started to explore the new venue. The Taste is now on Harriet Island instead of the Capitol grounds. That’s a big change but we were left a little surprised by all the other changes.
The Taste has gotten a lot bigger. A lot of new things have been added and none of them, in our humble opinion, have added to the event in a positive way at all. Tammy and I did a quick trip around after wading through the new fair rides (what are those doing here?) and the sea of “interesting” people and were dismayed at everything.
We decided to call an audible and get Tracy and Jeff on the cell phone and change our plans at the last minute to go to the Downtowner Woodfire Grill which was nearby. We had a great dinner and conversation saving a near disastrous evening at the now pathetic Taste.
We’ve removed the Taste from our summer calendar for good.
A hint to the committee that organizes the taste. We already have one State Fair, we don’t need another. It seems that the Taste is just trying to become another fair with none of the legacy of the Butter Heads in the Dairy building to make it fun. Instead, it’s turned into a dirty, grimy mess. We’ll consider going back when the event gets back to its roots.
Stillwater Fireworks
I lived in the Twin Cities for a number of years without anyone ever mentioning a thing about the fireworks in Stillwater. Maybe most people don’t know, but Stillwater has some amazing fireworks. It is on par with the best fireworks I’ve ever seen. The first time we saw them was 2002 when we ended up in Stillwater on a whim and decided to check them out. We both left thinking the show was awesome. I cannot remember off-hand why we didn’t go back last year, but this year we were able to enjoy them. They last a little under 30 minutes with music accompanying them. Adding to the fun are all of the boats that line up on the water to watch. There are thousands of people that line the shore and vendors even setup concession stands. Warning: getting an ice cream cone right before the fireworks can take quite a while! Anyway, highly recommended for your 4th of July planning in the future.
Two things really stood out to me though while I was doing some people watching before the event. Have you all realized that well over 90% of teenage girls are now wearing flip-flops and a decent proportion of their male counterparts as well. All these girls were walking by and essentially every single one (with minor exceptions) had flip-flops? Who finds these comfortable? Who would ever want to walk a mile in these things. And why are they all wearing them? Perhaps it’s some sort of flip-flop plot to cause some counter-insurgance in the country.
The other thing I wondered is are more people smoking? Sure seems like there are more people lighting up lately than there were even two years ago. Have we gone completely insane?
Of course, one could write-off both of these observations with my sample set. Perhaps both flip-flops and smoking are a craze exhibited only in pickup driving towns with teenagers overloaded with hormones. Perhaps. Or should I say I hope.
Canon PowerShot S500
We recently added yet another camera to our collection of digital cameras. There is absolutely nothing wrong with my current Canon EOS Digital Rebel. I find it to still be a great camera and I’m having a wonderful time figuring out how the different lenses can give me different shots and how to really work the camera. The goal is to not just happen upon a great shot here and there, but really start to understand photography better. At some point I would like to take some classes to get some formal training in it.
Additionally, my old camera (or Tammy’s camera as it’s known now) the Canon PowerShot G3 is also still working great. It’s prosumer point & shoot qualities make it a great camera for your average day of shooting. It’s also nice that Tammy and I can go shooting together and we’re not sharing a camera. At some point, we’ll get another digital SLR body and we can just start sharing lenses.
However great both of these cameras are, especially the Rebel, there is one thing that neither of them are and that is light and portable. With our upcoming trip to Europe I found myself really wanting another camera that we could take for just whimsical shots around Paris or more importantly something I could have on the bike with me and take shots while riding in France. I read our tour guide and as it mentioned all these great sights from our ride I knew more and more I wanted a camera that could make the trip with me. (As it turns out, I’ve gotten a handlebar bag that is big enough that I could probably fit the Digital Rebel in it if I wanted, so I may have options.)
We purchased the Canon PowerShot S500 for both of these qualities. I’ve shot about a hundred pictures with it and so far I’m very pleased. We previously had made a trip into the small & portable digital line with the Canon PowerShot S230 and returned it because the pictures were horrible. This camera hasn’t had any of those problems. Pictures are crisp and clear, focusing is good, color quality seems nice and shooting a 5 megapixel image means we can still get really nice prints if wanted. Important as well is the case. This camera is built like a tank and I don’t think twice about just sliding it in my pocket and forgetting about it.
(You can tell I have a thing for Canon. I find their cameras to be particularly intuitive and the overall design is well done. I appreciate Nikon’s lens variety and camera quality, but their firmware on the camera is just not intuitive and has caused me frustration nearly every time I’ve picked one up. I’m sure I would get used to it if I worked at it, but I’m stubborn.)