Too Late

The skies were cloudy as I slipped out the door this morning, hoping to get in a decent ride before the predicted rain arrived. Perhaps I should have checked the radar first, though, because it turned out I was a bit too late. Although it was not raining when I hit the road, by the time I reached the levee, just 10 minutes later, a light drizzle was falling. I was a few minutes early for the 6:40 a.m. group but I figured I'd ride toward the Playground on the levee bike path so that I didn't waste any precious on-the-bike minutes. I didn't get far before the raindrops got heavier, and looking up the river to the Northwest, the sky was looking pretty bad. About then I saw Joe riding toward me and I turned around. There was no point, really. It was becoming increasingly clear that the day would be a wash-out and since I was only planning an easy day anyway, I decided quite easily to just bag it and head home in the light rain. If I'd started riding at 6:00, I probably could have gotten in about an hour without getting soaking wet, but today I was too late.

So I rode in to work in the car with The Wife with the windshield wipers running, a cup of coffee in one hand, and the radio playing. When you're accustomed to riding a bike to work, driving a car in rush-hour traffic is really a frustrating experience. On the bike, there's always a way around, and although you may not be going as fast as the cars, they rarely actually impede your steady progress. Driving the car is quite the opposite. Every RTA bus, every moron with a cellphone in his ear, every traffic signal, every construction zone feels like a slap in the face. What are these things doing getting in my way! Geez, it's a good thing the drive is only about four miles long. If I had to deal with bumper-to-bumper traffic on the interstate for an hour every morning I'm quite sure I'd lose it and end up the subject of one of those helicopter video reality TV car chases where the perp always seems to end up smashing the car into an immovable object of some sort.

At work it stormed for hours around mid-day. I'm talking about flooding streets, lightning, power outages, etc. Around 1 p.m. much of the area lost water pressure for about an hour. The Unversity sent out an email that read:

Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 13:45:08 -0500
From: Sylvia Major smajor1@tulane.edu
Subject: Conserve Water
To: MEDSTAFF-L@tulane.edu

We have just learned that there is no water pressure in the city at this
time. Please do whatever you can to conserve by using all facilities
sparingly. Dr. Bihlemeyer's office is handling the problem and will alert
us as to the extent of the problem and whether is will be long or short term.

Which is a nice way to say "please don't take a leak until we tell you it's OK because the toilet is not going to flush more than once!"

I rushed through an update of the LCCS points this afternoon, updating the spreadsheet, the various web pages and uploading it all to the LAMBRA website. Hopefully I didn't make too many mistakes, but with a manual system like this and little free time, a few are inevitable. Even for me! I'm sure I'll get the usual handful of e-mails and end up re-posting everything at least once. Anyway, I spent quite enough time on it today and I've got a truckload of work on my desk.

You know, the kind of work I actually get paid for.

I did a little IM with The Daughter this afternoon and she sounds happy to be back in Iowa City and back into some sort of training routine doing mostly core conditioning and riding her bike on the trainer. For some reason she seems to like that kind of thing. To me, riding a bike on a trainer is an absolute last resort. I'd much prefer a ride in 98 degree heat or 30 degree cold any day. Go figure.