Gotta watch the tape of the final episode of "24," so this will be quick. Today we bought a beautiful evergreen tree, which is my parents' birthday gift to me. I won't bore you with a picture of it, because there was something a lot more interesting at the nursery. Sharp-eyed Mary noticed the misspelling first. Other news: I had a great birthday, then the following two evenings had major hammer road rides on the Litespeed. I hope there's something left in the legs for tomorrow's century. By the way, Mary is getting strong. She did 40 miles at 15 mph average on last night's double loop at the Schwing Ride.

VICTORY at the latest cross-country mountain bike race! I felt good and strong on Saturday, even on lap 3, so I think my recent diet change is working.

However, let's get right to the whining. My mood was crummy going into the race, because the organizer, whom I have no reason to regard as anything but a sincere, good guy, had a brain fart and decided to hold the race despite major forecasts for rain. Sure enough, it was a mudbath. Supposedly, he did so because the weather in the few days BEFORE the event was good and the course looked OK to him. Never mind that several hundred racers were able to turn on The Weather Channel or go to weather.com or a zillion other places online to learn about TOMORROW's weather. After Blue Marsh, I think we were all grateful for the "rain date" approach advertised for Hershey. Then the rug got yanked. Anyway, the poor guy has been sufficiently flamed that I don't think he'll make that mistake again. In fact, some guys need to get a grip and be nicer to him or we'll all end up facing a shortage of people who are willing to put these races on.

Today is my birthday. Mary makes a fuss over it, so it's quite a bit more fun than it ever was BM (before Mary).

@#!$% blogger.com has a frustrating bug... a "503 error" with my template. So I'm making this entry without the help of blogger.com. About that picture I promised... patience. I'm getting some freelance work now, and the lawn needs mowing, and the front derailleur cable on my Litespeed snapped during a ride last evening, and the lawn needs mowing.

Thumped my way over to IdeaFarm today. It was nice to get more work and see brother Jeff and niece Emily, all at one place. The old Ascot rusted a little more in the parking lot, courtesy of two or three showers, but I didn't get rained on coming or going.

I'd like to show the Ascot here, but that picture's still in the camera, so how about a different one? Let me rummage around and I'll be right back...

A day or two ago, I entered my suggestion for the name of the new tech guy in the Beetle Bailey comic strip at www.beetlebailey.com. Calling him "Overbyte" does require a small modification to his appearance, which you'll notice in this image only if you've seen the new character by Mort Walker. .

Last evening, Paul mailed me some interesting links. Attention, big guys (and really big women). Is that Harley just too small and sissy for ya? Cheer up. There is now an 1100-pound motorcycle being produced with a Chevy V-8. Read about it in this Popular Mechanics article or on the Boss Hoss site.

Mary and I got back last night at about 11:30. Turns out it's only a little over five hours if your'e driving something

faster than an old Mercedes 300D towing a trailer [which is how we made our trip in 1998]. So we made it a one-day visit,

rather than messing with a motel. Saved time, money.

Thanks to his advanced case of congestive heart failure,

Uncle Roger is tethered by a 40-foot oxygen hose to a unit about the size of a dehumidifier, and he's not feeling well at all.

But he and Aunt Marjorie really appreciated our taking the time to drive up to Henderson Harbor and visit for the afternoon. I got a look at their Saturn LS (with four
cylinder... I didn't realize they aren't all V6). Uncle R always got the smallest engine in any given car. For example, they once owned a full-size 1968

Plymouth Fury wagon with a slant six! And later, they had one of the rare four-cylinder, five-speed Ford Taurus wagons.

It was a beautiful day.
Tonight we got a call-- Sharp-eyed Aunt Marjorie found the 32-meg SmartMedia card I dropped in the front yard and will mail it down! For the preceding 24 hours, Mary had been gracious enough not to point out the obvious-- that I had been a dummy and lost an expensive thing. She's a good egg.

Dad,

By and large, it's not hard to think of more meaningless filler phrases, so to speak. One cliché I was trying to think of at lunch and couldn't is "if you will." This has become hatefully popular among businesspeople and TV talking heads over the last several years. I think it has peaked and is on its way down.

Another winner is "by the same token." When I hear someone say this, I tell him it's impossible to buy the same token, but that's OK because they all look alike.

Anyway, thanks for starting the subject over lunch. It went well with the noodle soup and that bad apple pie.

Boy, am I tired. Although I've been training and racing, it's been six weeks since my last century. So the last thing I needed was for Joe to be in the best shape in years and to bring two buddies along who could match his pace.

I'm talking about this Saturday morning's 100-mile bike ride. We started at 7 AM at my friend Kyle's place north of Manheim, PA and rode north toward Fort Indiantown Gap. Man, the place was full of guys in fatigues, Humvees, trucks, and tanks. More activity than I've ever seen. Of course, the last time I rode through was before September 11, when we weren't at war.

Despite the dim-witted grump on the Harley who slowed down just to make nasty comments to us before we even got out of Kyle's neighborhood, it was a beautiful day and a great ride. We did a paceline for ten miles, climbed a mountain at 8 mph and descended it at 50, and ate tasty stuff outside a convenience store situated right next to the roller coasters at Hersheypark. Built-in parking lot entertainment. Some of the coasters were only half full, which surprised me, it being Saturday and nice weather and all. I guess it's early in the season for peak park population. Plus, they keep adding new coasters all the time. Maybe there are finally enough.

To wrap up the whining part of this post, at around 80 miles my legs announced that they'd had about enough for today. I explained to them that another 20 miles had to be covered. Unfortunately, the last 10 miles or so to Kyle's place involve lots of climbing, and that's when I watched in kind of a dream state as my four companions ascended away from me without apparent effort, while I dug for a gear lower than my granny-like 39-27 and watched the speedo dip deeply into the single digits, like 7.

Then it was over, and I threw the bike into the cavernous back of the Saab 9000, shook hands with those guys, and drove home. Called The Precious on the cell phone. It was already 2:30. What a way to use up a day. By starting to ride at 6 and eliminating the long junk-food stops at convenience stores, one can get a century in by 1:00. Next week we'll do that.

Tomorrow, Mary and I will drive north for about seven hours to visit my aunt and uncle. Uncle R is over 90 and not doing so well, and I'm darn near positive this will be the last time we see him. The man's been a character his whole life, and I have interesting things to say about him, but not tonight.

I'm still experimenting with spacing and fonts. How'z this? I need to go outside on this beautiful afternoon, what's left of it, and tear out a bush that's due to go to shrub heaven. Why blog when I can dig?

Success! After 24 hours of monkeying around with blogger.com and getting nowhere, I took matters into my own hands. I figured out that you don't NEED blogger's (currently broken) mechanism for getting a template for a new blog. Ya kin jes' view source on a sample template, paste it into the blogger template edit window, and figure out how to reverse-engineer the blogger tags into it. VIOLET-WA! as my friend Soichiro used to say. There you have it, as my wife, The Precious, likes to say. Goodbye for now, says I!

Wednesday: Well, this certainly is a drag. Can't shake that 503 error about template not being found.

Hello! This is my first test post to my first blog.