Well…up and running at 5:31 this morning and slept okay I guess but I stayed up late trying to tire myself out and that didn’t help…oh, well…the new coffee beans I bought are growing on me so I just might buy a couple more bags before the price goes nuts…I wonder how long you can store sealed coffee bags before the beans go stale? Have 2 full and 3 opened bags right now so I may need to look for some containers to put them in…got the new tires for the bike yesterday and I like them…they actually have tread on them and I got tubes with them and two sets of the bands that go around the rims to cover the ends of the spokes that normally cost about 10 bucks each and two tubes that are 8.99 locally…and all of this cost 34 bucks when the tires I’ve used for years cost around 30 bucks for one tire…so it looks like a bargain but I’m going to use up the tires on it first before I put the new ones on and try them…and that won’t be til late summer…down to the last book that I should finish up today so I can take 8 books back…not going to get that many this time and I am going to try some new authors to broaden my available books so I don’t run out…not much to do today…skipping the grocery run this week since I really don’t need anything and the freezer is full anyway…going to make a pizza tomorrow and with the stir fry I made the other day, I’ll have meals to last til Sunday..okay, need to get on the weight work…more later…

Well…darn, my bike computer died after the first ride today and for the first time, I can’t fix it…so I ordered the exact same one but instead of 18 bucks, it is now 25 bucks but I guess it should have gone up after tariffs and inflation..I looked at others but came back to the Cat Eye 7 since I already know how to program it and I know the battery lasts a couple of years…all of the others I looked at use GPS to measure speed instead of a sensor on the wheels and they all said that trees, buildings, and fog can make it stop reading and that describes my rides every day…and I don’t want to have a cloud account where they have all of my information about my rides and you need to download a smartphone app to be able to program the damn things…so, I guess I’ll stay old school as I have the past 7 years…and that is pretty damn good for an 18 buck computer…and the new one will be here today between 5 and 10pm so I can install it for tomorrow’s rides…might even go down and do an indoor ride so I only lose 5 miles today…

Well…just poured the first cup of the cheap bean coffee and I really think it tastes like coffee…yeah, I really can’t say much more than that with how little I can taste…and I am reluctant to recommend anything anymore because of it….but 11 bucks for 32 ozs of coffee is cheap in this environment…I mean the last ground coffee I bought was 11 bucks for 35 ozs but that is now 21 dollars…and, from what I can tell, this doesn’t taste worse so I’ll probably buy at least one more bag…damn, it appears I’m not meant to sleep at all anymore since I took a benadryl before bed last night and was still up before 4am…I was able to get back to sleep for a while after that so I guess that’s something…it rained really hard this morning and it just started again so the rides are going to wait a bit but it’s the only thing I have to do today…and overnight it was raining so hard that it woke me up even though I had earplugs in…it stayed 70 overnight so I could leave the windows open for the first time this year…I am glad that I got the lawn mowed yesterday since there is going to be rain on and off for the next couple of days and it was getting pretty ugly…it’s still ugly and will be unless it rains every couple of days and that is not going to happen…don’t have to cook today other than making some more pickled red onions and maybe some pickles…okay, I do think this coffee is good and it has a good jolt of caffeine so I’ll take it…more later…

Well…got the new HiIls Bros beans today and just ground enough to set them up in the coffee maker for tomorrow morning…first impression is that they are good looking beans but might not smell as strongly as the other beans I’ve used…normally after I grind beans and put them in the coffee maker, I can smell them whenever I walk into the kitchen but these only have a whiff of scent…but they are a dark roast Arabica bean and should be okay…and at 1/3rd the price of the 8 0’clock beans, I sure can live with them…after I drink some tomorrow, we’ll see if I order more of them to make sure I’m insulated from the price increases that are on the way…I’ll bet they’ll be up to 20+ bucks later in the week…

Well…got a notification that both the Hills Bros coffee beans and the tires I ordered yesterday are going to be here today…and I am really curious how the beans will taste when I grind some to make tomorrow’s coffee…how bad can it be? 64 ounces of beans for 22 bucks is a screaming deal after the price increases on everything else…but I’ll still use them if they are terrible…what else could I do? I really think that Hills Bros didn’t get to a be a hundred year old company by making crap…maybe making stuff to a budget but again, CDS is all I need since I can’t taste anything…so I’ll have coffee for the rest of the summer easily…and I’ll have new tires to replace the set that is on the bike now when they wear out…need to make lunch with the last of the chicken taco ingredients so I can do a stir fry later today…man it’s been busy today with the rides, paying the water bill, mowing the lawn and making a run for two reasons, I wanted to get two more English cukes to make pickles and a red onion to make more pickled onions…and I love driving my car with the top down and just tearing around in it…every day the shifter gets better and the clutch takeup, too…just fun…

Well…I don’t know how much worse my seep has to get before I resort to taking something for it…stayed up til 11 last night but out of bed at 4:30 and that gives me a baseline of 5 1/2 hours but with all the tossing and turning and waking up, it was more like 3 hours and I’m not young enough to take that anymore…ick…it’s going to be a busy morning today with getting two rides in, paying the water bill, and then mowing the lawn before the rain comes in later…ha,ha..yeah, every rain forecast makes me laugh since I know it’s not going to rain…after having a tire fail yesterday and seeing that a new one that I use costs at least 26 bucks online, I changed how I’m looking at tires and wanted to get some that had some tread on them and would last the rest of the year…and I found a deal on amazon for 2 tires, 2 tubes, tube protectors and changing tools for 34 bucks…and buying just the tires and tubes locally would cost 70 bucks so I thought I’d give them a try…and I just got a notice that the Hills Bros coffee beans I ordered have shipped so I’ll be able to try those in a few days to see if I need to order more…it’s warm enough to go out in a t-shirt and shorts as soon as the sun come up so I need to get moving…yeah, I know…that sucks at 5:20 in the morning…one of these days I’m not going to “get moving” and just take a day off…yeah, that made me laugh, too…more later…

Well…after giving up on the F1 race from Monaco since it was just another “follow the leader” parade that the announcers tried to turn into a race by showing the 4th and 5th place cars following each other for lap after lap, I got on the bike for the 2nd ride and noticed a huge vibration when I got down he hill to the trail…so I stopped to figure it out and the front tire had failed in two places leaving 2 bulges in the tread…so I turned around and came back here to fix it remembering that I had a used tire with 1/4th tread that I had taken off the rear last year…so with 15 minutes of work, I was back on the bike and got a nice 2nd ride in and I think that one will last until I get a new tire this week…but damn, the prices of the tires I buy have gone from 24 bucks to 35 bucks each thanks to the idiot’s tariffs…I really had to think when I last replaced the front tire and I think this is the only hybrid tire I’ve had on the front since I replaced the knobbies with them…and that would make it at least 7 years old with over 40K miles on it…that seems like a lot of miles since I only get about 8K out of the rears but the inside of the rim looked pristine so maybe that’s true…and the entire tread of the tire was cracked and falling apart so who knows? This is the 3rd day of peace and quiet up here and it is just so damn nice to not hear the assholes in the rental…

Well…damn, I really wasn’t ready for how much my right forearm would hurt after pulling weeds in the lawn for and hour the other day…have had to treat it with topical painkiller and will have to do that again today before getting on the bike…we’ve got a couple of really hot days coming with the high getting to 90 Monday and then some rain and storms late Monday and I’ll take that…I love the heat and have the big fan out and set up in the living room so I’m ready for it…didn’t get much done yesterday but I really do need to clean today for at least a bit…started a little yesterday but need to get off my butt after the rides…or one ride until later since the F1 race from Monaco is on at 7:55 and there is no way I can get 2 rides in before then..or I could if I went out in the dark right now but without coffee, that is not going to happen…and even with coffee that’s not going to happen…I’m tired of rushing around all the time and just want a day of doing what I want instead of what I’m compelled to do…so I’m going to take time to have coffee and a bagel before I get on the bike…for the first time in months the wind is calm out there and that is going to be weird after going into 20-30mph wind all the time out here…so it’s bagel and 2nd cup of coffee time…more later…

Well…with getting out on the bike this morning in the fog, by the time I got the 1st ride in I was getting damp and a little cool so instead of refilling my water bottle like I normally do between rides, today I got out a contego non spill coffee cup that just happens to be the same size as my stainless 1 quart water bottle…so I filled the cup up with hot coffee and headed it out…and it was kind of nice to have coffee on the bike since I only took time to have one cup before I started out at 6:15am and I really needed it…so I think I’ll do the same thing tomorrow but that means I’ll have to set up the coffee maker for extra coffee in a few minutes…and I think I’ll grind some beans for that since I have 4 pounds coming and still have about 4 1/2 pounds here…