Well…running really late this morning with not getting up til 7:20 and that is sleeping in for me….and probably a result of the two rides and washing the back of the house yesterday…worked my butt off and was pretty worn out….and it’s almost 8 and I have just started my first cup of coffee so it is going to take a while to get moving today….still hurt almost everywhere this morning and it was so bad yesterday that I did have to take an ibuprofen during the day and another one last night so I could sleep…and I think I’ll take another one before I get on the bike this morning….I did get the grey bike close to being like new after I threw all the parts at it and it is so nice to have the full suspension again…it is so strange that just 4 inches of travel in it makes such a big difference…I don’t know how people ride non suspended bikes….I wonder if I’ll ever take the road bike out again with the thin tires that have to be filled to 60 psi? That thing just rattles my body on the bumps……I was going to run an errand this morning since my potatoes are rotten but I just don’t feel like it…I can wait til next wed…have plenty of food here and I’ll just have to find something else to eat….not much to do today….just the rides and some cleaning but that will wait a while until I have more coffee and read the news…thinking about mowing the lawn again today but it may wait til Monday….we’ll see…more later….

Well…damn, that was a crappy night…up and down all night last night and I thought I had a mouse chewing on something all night and I could hear it even through my earplugs…but, I just found out that I hadn’t latched the front door all the way and the wind was moving it just enough to make the noise…so, I don’t have to run out this morning to get mouse poison….but I probably should since I need gas for the mower, too, and it’s only 50 out there so I’ll be waiting to get on the bike…don’t want to have to wear gloves this early….and it’s almost cold enough to wear my long pants….darn, I abused my hands yesterday working on the bike and they are going to need a couple of days to heal…just like the pain and stiffness from climbing on the roof Tues….that is pretty bad, too, with my back and hips really bad…I think I’ll take an ibuprofen before I get on the bike today…and I need to get the last part of the house washed today, too….that should only take about an hour or so and then I can get at cleaning the windows for winter…and I need to start planning the painting in here…going to do the living room first and then get the extra bedroom done…and I’ll have weeks in the trim and windows in here…probably take a month to complete the room…..but I can’t wait til I can sit here and see a modern paint job and curtains….but it is much more of a pain to paint when I’m living here and have my furniture in here….I’m tired of moving stuff and all that crap….not much to do today…after only eating one meal yesterday, I need to make sure I don’t slip back into feeling like crap from it…I may run the errands I need to do today since it looks like I’ll have to mow again tomorrow and I don’t have any gas….but I really don’t want to do anything right now other than read the news and have more coffee….so that’s what I’ll do….more later…

Well…damn, I am not sure how the day got away from me but I do know that it is after 3 and I just finished up with lunch…and I have been busy all day…started with getting out for the grocery run around 8:30 or so then on the black bike for the first ride…and on that ride I decided to get the grey bike rebuilt and take the crankset off the black one to put on the grey one…that only took about 45 minutes to get it up and running again but damn, the front shifters on these are such a pain to get adjusted, especially when you have to move it to compensate for the larger sprockets in front and while doing that, the cable became frayed from adjusting it so much so that will have to be replaced soon…and I worked on it for over an hour just to get it to move from the big sprocket to the medium one…and all that work beat the heck out of my hands and they are just screaming in pain…but I did take the bike out and got the second ride in and getting the rear shifter adjustment close so I can finish it tomorrow morning…and I hurt everywhere from the roof work yesterday so I should take some time off or some ibuprofen…not sure which yet…maybe both? I am going to try to do a political one in a while but I haven’t read any news yet for a topic… so that will have to happen first…man, I’m beat….

Well…6:36…that’s all I’ll say about that…damn, I’m sore in a lot of new places today after climbing on the roof to fix the soffit siding yesterday….and I got that all done with Tom’s help and that was cool…and I got out for a bike ride after the wind got down to 16mph and I’m going to do two today before I start tearing down the black bike to transfer the crankset over to the grey bike and try to get that up and running today…but, I need to do the grocery run today first…don’t have a lot to get since I am trying to eat out of the freezer and have plenty of food in there….I did get the lawn mowed yesterday morning so that frees me up to do other stuff today…I do have to remember to get gas for the mower Friday since I used the last of it yesterday but it’s not bad that I only used about a gallon and a half since I moved in here….I did check my bank account this morning and went over the 20K barrier this month…that’s a gain of 8K since I bought this place 7 months ago and it is nice to not have to worry about money anymore…but I am going to burn 6K in the spring to buy another Miata but I should be at 25K by then so I’ll still be near 20K…and I may get to the point of having 100K in assets next year if housing prices keep going up and I don’t spend much…I do want a garage door opener but I need to pay off the 150 bucks I spent on bike parts first….not much to do today….just the grocery run and bike rides before I get to working on the bikes…it will be nice to have front suspension that works and a lot less pain in my thumb and elbow….more later….

Well…another 6:05 morning and I am just starting my first cup of coffee….just put the garden waste out to the curb and it is warmer outside than it is in here so I opened the windows to let the breeze blow through…and it looks like the rain is already over for the day but at least we got some last night…it looks like it will be dry for the next week but I don’t think I’ll need to water the lawn for a few days anyway….I wonder if I’ll be able to get in the water one more time before fall? It was pretty cold when I was out there last week but still okay…might try that later in the week….slept okay last night but I’m still worn out…and I have been having cramps in my calves and it hurt like crazy just to put the bags out a few minutes ago….so. we’ll see how it is when I get on the bike here in a few minutes…..only got one ride in yesterday with the rain we had in the morning but I am going to try to do two before I get to the soffit repair today….I got a notice that consumers is going to be out here trimming trees in the next week and there are a few branches in the alley that will need to be taken down….have not had a power outage out here since I moved in 7 months ago and that is better than in GR where I had a couple of half day ones and the power blinked every time there was a storm…not much to do today….just the rides and taking down a dead branch that is hanging over my power lines along with the soffit repairs…that’s enough, isn’t it? More later….

Well…getting ready to do some repairs to the soffit on the house this morning, I went out to get some siding and found out that the 13 inch stuff that is on my house is a special order item that would take weeks to get…so, I decided to buy some 16 inch wide stuff that I will have to cut down to make fit…a bit of a pain but doable…and when I was at Menards looking at it, I noticed a pile of damaged ones lying next to the rack of the good ones and asked the clerk if  they would sell me one of those since I only needed 36 inches of the 12 foot section…he said sure and I got the 20 buck piece for 5 bucks so that was pretty cool…they even cut it in half for me so I could put it in the front seat of the car….and I got caulk to glue the sections in instead of glue since caulk is 1.94 and adhesive is almost 10 bucks a tube…and, if I have to section a piece, I can use the caulk to fill the seam and finish it…so, I have everything ready to do the job tomorrow and it looks like there is a window from 11 to 2 that it won’t be raining so that is plenty of time to get everything done…I hope anyway….and I think I’m going to wash the section of siding near that part of the roof, too…might just as well get everything done at once….oh, and I got some stuff done on the yard today, too….got all of the branches bundled and out to the street and took out the rest of the garden to put out tomorrow so I’ll have three full bags….and I got a bike ride in and figured out I’m going to switch the new crankset from the black bike over to the grey one when I get the rest of the parts thurs so I can get the grey one back on the road…the pounding on my elbow and thumb from the frozen front forks is starting to make them hurt like crazy so I need to get that done as soon as possible….

Well….this hasn’t happened in the 7 months I’ve lived out here…it’s raining…and that makes two days in a row…had a nice little storm come through yesterday afternoon and there is another one coming through right now…my lawn is going to green up pretty well from that…but I think I’ll be down to one ride today since I need to get out and get the materials for fixing the soffit…but I need to be able to put the top down on the car since the siding is 12 feet long…so I’ll have to wait a while and I’m not sure how to do that…have to take a deep breath and just relax about it….I did get started on taking the garden out yesterday but the rest of it has to wait until I get out and get more bags this morning….I had one that is sitting out in the rain and I hope it survives the rain and dragging it out front for pick up tomorrow….I do need to clean this place up some today since I have let it get pretty messy and I don’t like it…but not right now…I’m not sure if there is enough coffee to get me going this morning with feeling this slow….not much to do today…just the errand, cleaning, the garden, and trying to get on the bike…I guess that’s enough for one day…I am going to take wed off…okay, I might take a day off this week….yeah, no….still have lots to do and not enough time to do it…at least I’ll have the outside pretty much done for the winter after tomorrow…then it’s just a wait for the leaves to fall….more later….

Well…5:56…that’s all I’ll say about that….found a new place to get my paper on Sunday and it is much closer to me so that is cool….slept okay last night and had some dreams that I really don’t remember other that I had them…feel okay this morning but I’m a little sore in new places after wrenching on the bike yesterday and I think I’m going to have to let my hands rest at some point since they feel abused and stiff and have for a while now….man, it’s already 71 out here at 7 am and the humidity is off the charts…sweating like crazy just sitting here and will be ready to get on the bike in a half hour or so when it gets light….and it is calm and that very rarely happens so it will be a good ride this morning….need to get out and back here before the F1 race at 9 so I can set up for getting two rides in today….I am going to start taking out the garden today but I only have one bag so the rest of it will have to wait til I go to depot tomorrow to get the soffit repair stuff…can still get it out Monday night for pick up so it won’t have to sit here for a week…not much to do today…do I watch the Lions suck today? Not sure yet but I may watch a bit of it to see the new qb play…have been watching them lose since I was a kid in the 50′s so why stop now? More later…

Well….not sure why I started on the grey bike this afternoon since the parts won’t be here for a couple of weeks but I did….tried and tried to get the pedals out of the crank arms since I have to re-use them and they wouldn’t budge until I remembered that I have a propane torch the kinda works…so I dug that out and heated the arms and since they are made out of aluminum, they expanded and I was able to get them loose with a big rubber hammer on the wrench…but that took almost a half hour and I thought I was done for the day…but, I was curious how hard the crank arms were going to be to remove so I hit them with some wd and got my crank removal tool out…they came off easily so I decided to remove the greasy chain, too, and got that done in about 5 mins…so now I have the bike torn down and waiting for the new parts and it should only take about a half hour to re-assemble it…but I do have to move the front shifter since the big sprocket will hit it if I don’t…it should be easy since I’ve already done it on the black bike and then I’m good for 10,000 more miles….and I hope that going to Shimano cranks and sprockets will mean they last longer…the suntour stuff has always looked cheap….and I really do like the higher gear that this change gave me…I can fly on the black bike over 25 mph and I think I may be able to get to thirty if I have enough coffee….

Well….got out on the bike around 8 this morning but it took me three tries to get out for the ride….when I got on the bike for the first time, I notices a rhythmic thump coming up through the handlebars so I stopped to take a look at the front tire and found that it had separated the cords and the tire had an S shape…it was the original front tire on this bike and that makes it 6 years old so I guess it was time for it to fail….so, I came back here and got the wheel from the grey bike since it is identical, and put that on the black bike and took off again….when I got to the bottom of the hill, I noticed that the computer was not registering any speed and then remembered I hadn’t switched the button magnet trigger to the new wheel so I had to come back here and do that…finally, I got out and got the first ride in but the front shifter was not adjusted right and wouldn’t shift down just one sprocket…so I made a tiny alignment adjustment and now it works perfectly so that is cool….and I got the second ride in with no drama…after I got back here I took a look at the missing soffit siding and there are 3 pieces missing…I have two of them so I am going to have to buy 12 feet of siding to get a 17 inch piece but I guess that will just make spares if any other of them blow out…these won’t since I am going to put caulk under the ends to glue them in…was going to use adhesive but that stuff costs about 10 bucks a tube and I can get exterior caulk for about 4 bucks and I can use that for other things…going to have to cut the siding in half in the parking lot with my tinsnips to fit it in my car but that is okay, too….makes it easier to store the leftover stuff in the garage….