And babe, don't you know it's a pity,

". . . that the days can't be like the nights."

Whew, it's definitely Summer in the City 'round here. After the first half-hour or so, the smallish morning training ride group was already starting to wilt in the outdoor sauna we call home. Things seem to slow down as the average temperature increases - a necessary adaptation indeed. Last night before I went to sleep around 10:30, I glanced over at the outdoor thermometer. 84F. The moisture in the air keeps it from cooling down much at night (remember those lectures about the specific heat of water?). So, as is always the case, the next month will be an exercise in conservation of energy, both electrical and personal. To go out on a hard training ride is to stand up to Mother Nature and slap her in the face. We didn't do too much slapping of faces this morning, but the pace was nonetheless steady and brisk. Jeff and Jay seemed determined to keep us on track and the result was a nice steady pace, mostly in the neighborhood of 23-24 mph.

High atop my current list of irritations is the city's garbage pickup. Ever since the tropical storm over two weeks ago, they have been entirely incapable of picking up the garbage on time, or for that matter, on the correct day. When they do show up, apparently at whim, they pick and choose which items they will throw into the truck and which they won't. The Wife and I went for a long walk yesterday evening and every now and then the stench of rotting garbage would waft our way as we walked through the neighborhood. On the way back from Audubon Park, we went through the Tulane campus and I noticed that they had finally put up a sign where they had been doing some sort of odd construction work near the old chemistry lecture hall. I walked over there to see what it was they were working on and found that it is to be a combination outdoor classroom and 9/11 memorial. It looks kind of interesting in the typical functionally useless Architectural Digest sort of way.

The La/Ms district criterium championships are this Saturday in Denham Springs, which is close enough to Baton Rouge to be practically considered a suburb nowadays. It seems that they've arranged the schedule to discourage the masters from riding in the Cat. 1/2/3 race. Last year I did the 45+, 35+ and Cat. 1/2/3 races, with two of them back-to-back, and was seriously wasted by the end of the last one. This year, all three are back-to-back. Hmmmm. What to do?

Got the LCCS points updated, but still don't have complete results from the Mad Potter's races - mostly just the placings for the people who scored points. I've a promise to receive the complete results, though, so we'll see. I noticed that in the long TDF stage today the GC leaders allowed the break to get over 20 minutes by the end. Now I know that the team directors have done all the math and everything, but here in my world gaps never get to be 20 minutes. In fact, anything over 30 seconds tends to make me nervous.