Sunday, April 30, 2006

Would you just look at that beautiful day!

Happy Sabbath y'all. Today is gorgeous day #2 for the weekend and I plan on getting my self outside for the remainder of the day.

I met up with a couple of folks from the CRG early this morning for a run up into Pittsfield State Forest. Of course, it's that strange time of year when you it's wicked cold in the morning and it warms up as soon as the sun comes up. So I was way overdressed, and it became a real problem about 20 minutes in when I was dying. Had I just left the vest in the car, I would have been much better off, but I had on tights, a thick longsleeve shirt and a windbreaker vest. Man, oh man was that too much.

Yesterday, also known as Day #1 of a Gorgeous Weekend, I headed out and bought some of that lazy-man's grass seed. You know the stuff with the mulch and the fertilizer and all that included in the bag, and it looks blue until the grass grows through it. I wanted to do the dirt wall next to my driveway and I knew there was no way it would grow with just seed, so I sprung for the good shit. It covered about half what the bag said it would cover, but it did the whole wall. Now I just have to keep it watered and hopefully a nice patch of grass will fill that nasty dirt wall I've been looking at for 4 years.

I also bought myself some plants. I got a pair of hostas, some blueish-purply things and some white things. I got the hostas in yesterday, right next to the side door and my goal for today is to plant the other ones in the garden out front. My hope is that a little bit of life will inspire me to add more plants and have a real garden. We'll see.

I also got the call yesterday to bring my bike that I so handily fine-tuned over to have someone fix it. I tuned it so well that you could no longer shift into all the gears. Not a useful setup on a mountain bike. That lead to an awkward ride on Friday, where I had to ride someone else's bike who, by the way is a good deal taller than I am. Needless to say, the seat wasn't in the "sweet spot" and 30 miles later I was a hurting unit. But, literally one click of this little adjuster and my bike was back in shape. D'oh.

Boy did I feel stupid.

I figured while I was there, I'd have the guy take a look at the rear wheel. It was making this grinding, grit-in-the-bearing noise that I could only assume was some grit in the bearings. His suggestion was to take the whole hub apart, clean out the bearings, repack it with fresh grease and I'd be in business. It took some trial and error, but we got it all hooked up. Of course, now the freewheel (the thing that lets you stop pedalling while the bike is rolling) has some grit in it and he didn't have the tools for that. Meh, that's not as big of a deal. I'm gonna look into getting a bike stand and some basic tools so maybe I can fix my bike the right way next time. I'm also looking into a new bike for riding on the road. A mountain bike isn't quite the right setup for long rides on pavement. Perhaps some new tires would make a difference?

Hmm.

Over and out,
Old Coot

1 comment:

Abbey said...

So, what did I clock in at?
By the dub, you need some new fotos on Flickr. Seriously, man.

"Something inside of me just said 'Hey, wait a minute, I want to beat him.' and I just took off." -Pre