June 2002

Well I did it. I made the first of my “long” bike trips. Today I rode from home to my dad’s store in Sandy Creek, 60.4 miles. Very eager, I awoke at 5:00 a.m. and then hit the road at 5:34 a.m., right at sunrise. The temperature was about 55 degrees when I left. It was beautiful, in that there was a lot of wildlife running around, the birds were singing beautifully, and I was headed right into the rising sun. I loved it.

I had planned on reaching Camden at about 9:00 a.m., but I surprisingly got there by 7:30 a.m. So I sat in the park in the center of town, ate one of my packed apples and relaxed a bit before hitting the road.

All in all, I had planned on 6 1/2 hours for the trip. I wasn’t sure of the distance, nor was I sure of my average speed, since this was my first long ride. Turns out I was averaging 14.25 MPH, including breaks, so I made it up there at 10:20.

Earl met me about 3/4 of the way in the truck to make sure I was o.k., and then he kind of met up with me from time to time to make sure I was doing o.k., but not to bee too intrusive.

After the ride, we had a nice lunch with my dad, my uncle and my aunt. It was a nice visit. Earl drove us home, bike in the back of the truck as I napped. We relaxed a bit here at the house and then went to Syracuse for supper. We ended up going to Spaghetti Warehouse on Clinton St. Always good food. I was a bit surprised to find the restaurant only half full at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday; usually there’s a long wait on Saturday nights! Maybe everyone was barbecuing or something.

We were then going to see “Bourne Identity” at the movies, but the movie didn’t start until 10:00, and it was only 8:00 when we got there so we decided to skip the movie and took a leisurely ride home along Oneida Lake on Route 31. Which made me decide on my next long ride, which I hope to do in July. I want to ride about 100 miles, along NY 31 to Rochester. I’ll do it early in the morning again so the summer heat doesn’t kill me and burn me to a crisp. Route 31 is relatively flat, since it goes along the Erie Canal. In fact, I’ll probably jump onto the Canal Trail whenever I get the chance. It’s the next step in my continued biking progress.

Earl bought me my birthday present early on Friday night – a new Palm m515. I LOVE IT! It was on sale at OfficeMax, so he wanted to get it for me while we could save a little money at the same time. I transferred all of my stuff off my old Palm V and gave it to him. I think he’s going to find it very helpful with his commuting between here and Buffalo; and I’m already putting much more stuff in my new Palm.

My legs are surprisingly not as sore as I thought they would be after the trip. I think I’ll sleep good tonight! 🙂

Wow, I didn’t realize that it had been so long since I had written in my journal! I guess I’ve been busier than I thought.

Last week, Earl and I made it through a long week of the “commuter relationship”, with him in New Castle, Pa. and then in Buffalo, Monday to Friday. This week he’s in Buffalo tonight through Thursday night, so it won’t be as bad.

I just went grocery shopping at P&C before settling down here in front of the computer to work on the web site. Bought quite a bit of healthy stuff. Did most of the shopping in the organic/health food section. There’s a grocery store in New England… something Circus… I’d love to check it out sometime, from what I understand, it’s all health food.

I’ve finally installed SuSE Linux 8.0 on my computer here at home. I did quite a bit of research, and though there were some mixed reviews on this relase of SuSE, it’s suppose to be pretty good. I must admit that my experience with it has been less than stellar. The installation was quite simply, a bitch. Maybe I have fscked up hardware or something, but it didn’t like my USB keyboard, it had a fit about the DVD-ROM, I got quite a few “kernel panic” errors as it was screaming for a SCSI disk (which I don’t have). I think I’m going to end up using RedHat 7.3 on this machine, but I’m going to see how well I do with SuSE for the time being. Problem is, I went ahead and purchase the full version of SuSE on the internet, so I have the whole deal going here, and I don’t want the money to be a waste. I think Earl realized the problems I was having this weekend installing it, but he didn’t say anything about it. I so appreciate it when he doesn’t say “I told you so”. 🙂

Well Earl and I began our “commuter relationship” today. He’s going to be working at the Buffalo location for the next three months or so, three days a week. He’s doing what’s best for his company, and I can handle it just fine, so naturally standing behind him 100%. I don’t get really lonely, as I’ve always been able to entertain myself, but I sure do miss his presence.

Took a nice bike ride today, about 20 miles to Rome and back. I handled the hills pretty well this time around. Maybe I’m getting better at this after all. I rode to work and back twice this week, it’s something I look forward to continuing.

I’m listening to the soothing sounds of my Native American flute CD, and I have incense burning up here in the wreck room. Very nice.

I’ve discovered that I like Sheppard’s Pie (again)! I bought a couple of them in the organic section of our new P&C while we were grocery shopping and I enjoyed one for lunch and one for supper. Low fat, low fat, low fat. Relatively low calorie too. That’s the ticket. I’m not losing weight as quickly as I’d like, but I’m feeling a little more solid. Maybe biking is helping turn the flab to muscle?

We’re going out with my dad and his girlfriend tomorrow night for an early Father’s Day get together, and then it’s on to Bristol for Earl’s nephew’s graduation party. We’re looking forward to seeing his family and making the trek. I should really pay attention to the local roads if I can and see what it’s going to be like to bike down there. I’m also planning on biking in a charity ride in July.

I installed RedHat Linux 7.3 on my home computer. I set it up as a dual-boot system so I could go back to Windows XP if I had too. Good thing – I’m going to need to do some serious tweaking to get the RedHat system up and running the way I like it! The Linux system at work is running GREAT! No complaints at all there.

I’m writing this entry as I cool down from another hour of bike training. I’ve been really applying myself to my bike training – yesterday I rode about 35 miles. I’m trying to do a little more each day, though today I focused on going up as many hills as possible instead of sticking the flat lands along the Mohawk River as I did yesterday. My legs are killing me, but it’s a good hurt. My goal this summer is to be able to ride to Philadelphia for one of Earl’s family’s get-togethers Labor Day weekend. I’m going to take an extra two days off from work and take Thursday and Friday getting down there.

I also hope to ride to my father’s by July 4th. His place is about 85 miles away, that should be a good solid day of riding. I’m finding myself tiring faster as the weather gets warmer. I think I’m going to start riding early in the morning. Ultimately, I would like to be able to do a cross-country (as in across the entire U.S.) by my 36th birthday, which is a little over two years away. I’m going to keep plugging away at it, because it’s something that I am building discipline, peace of mind and a better body with. I’ve been weighing in once a week, I’ve solidly lost 11 pounds in three weeks. I say “solidly”, because when I first started training at the gym I lost a bunch of weight, but it all came back when I took a couple of days off from working out. Admittedly, I was starting to get bored with them gym as well. When I’m biking I can enjoy the countryside and such and that’s one of the reasons I’ve been concentrating on that more. I’m going to start keeping a biking journal separate from this, partly because I’m a big exhibitionist, but also because I’d like to share my progress with anyone that’s interested.

Part of my whole exercise thing has been Slim-Fast – I’ve been doing it since I began my weigh-ins. I don’t stick to the lose weight regime as closely as I probably should, but I’m losing a little bit at a steady pace and I’m satisfied with that. 🙂

I’m still geeking around with Linux. I have Linux-Mandrake 8.2 running on my workstation at work, and RedHat 7.3 running on my system here at home. Both are running with Ximian Gnome for the desktop. I really like that desktop the best. It’s the one I feel most comfortable with when I’m working on Linux. I wish they made something similar for Windows, because I really like the feel of that better.

Speaking of desktops, I think my eyes are getting old or something. 🙂 I can’t handle the big resolutions on my 17-inch monitor anymore without getting a headache! That’s kind of weird. I can’t be getting old … maybe just too much computer use.

The bathroom sink finally arrived. And it had a flaw from the manufacturer so we got 50% off. Now if we could just find our contractor to install it! Haven’t heard from him in a couple of weeks. If worse comes to worse, we can install it ourselves, I suppose.

Well my body is feeling like it’s cooled down, finally. So I’m going to go take a shower and get ready for a picnic. We’re meeting our friends Dennis and Vic and heading somewhere for a picnic this afternoon. Our deck is being stained as I type, so we need to go out to enjoy the sunshine without too many fumes!

Tomorrow night I set up the bike log.

It’s been entirely too long since I’ve sat down and written in my journal. I haven’t been on the computer as much, as I’ve been trying to do some more exercise and enjoy the nice weather. So I purposely sat down and said I’m going to write in my journal, so here we are. Of course, I’ve been surfing the internet since supper at 6:00… and now Earl is on his computer surfing as well!

I’m such a geek. I’ve been reading about old grocery store chains and old malls. If you want to take a peek, look at deadmalls.com. I was looking at pictures of Hampshire Mall in Hadley, Mass. and was startled to see that it’s identical to Sangertown Square here in New Hartford! Wow!

Our bathroom is still not completed. That’s right. Lowe’s still has not received our sink and vanity top. Everything else is there, but still no sink in the bathroom. I don’t know what the heck is going on with it. Earl says he’s handling it. And he gets a little cranky when I mention it, so I don’t ask.

I’ve been continuing my exercise. Last weekend I rode my bicycle about 18 miles a day; Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I’ve really been enjoying the exercising. I’m still going to the gym three or four nights a week.

Computer wise I’m dinking around with Linux again. I’m determined to make this work! I haven’t installed it on my home computer yet, but I do have it on my workstation at the office and I’m not switching back to Windows. There, I’ve made a commitment. If I need to become certified in an operating system, I really want to become certified in RedHat. I don’t know if Linux-Mandrake offers certification or not; it’s something that I’m going to pursue this week at work. I’m also very interested in SQL and databases and such, so I’ll probably go exploring in that area.

Earl and I went on a bit of a road trip yesterday. Visited with my Dad for a bit before heading to Rochester to enjoy some food and do a little shopping. We really enjoy the fast food place out there called “Tom Wahl’s”. The food is really down home good. If you’re in the Rochester area, be sure to stop by one of them.

I’ve been pursuing my spiritual interests as well. This week I’m really going to focus on setting aside time to meditate and calm my mind. I’ve been flying off the handle at work again, and that’s not good for anyone concerned, so I need to meditate, breathe and just calm down.

Otherwise, life is going along really well and we’re really happy!