Weekend in the Boondocks

I ran out the door early Saturday morning and got in a nice solo training ride while the gettin' was good. I had been volunteered to help with some interior contruction type work at the country home of one of The Wife's co-workers. This place is way, way out in the middle of nowhere, the nearest town being Mount Hermon, LA. I had been told that they needed to install some molding in the little guest house out back. The little guest house was built by someone who was apparently unfamiliar with the concept of a right angle. Fortunately, being from New Orleans, I'm not too uncomfortable dealing with fix-up jobs involving houses that are less than square, and I am entirely capable of compromise when it comes to this sort of thing. As it turned out, the molding was the easy part. Before that, I had to frame up two entirely non-standard closet doors using certain methods that ran afoul of some basic principles of pysics, including gravity. Then I had to install a bunch of panelling over pre-existing sheetrock on walls where the studs were obviously placed at random intervals. The owners thought it all looked wonderful when we were done. I was far less impressed and made them promise they would never divulge the name of the person who had done the work.

I had brought the bike with me, but Saturday night was a big storm, complete with a four-hour power outage and tornado warnings, and when I woke up just before dawn the road was still wet, the wind was gusting, and there was a light rain falling. Since that was my only window for a ride today, I was screwed. Naturally the weather improved tremendously while I was improvising new construction techniques and mumbling things like "nobody will notice this once it's all painted." Maybe I'll try and get out the door extra early tomorrow and log a few bonus miles. I could use them.

Haven't heard from GiVo today. She said she would stop driving around Birmingham AL before finishing the last leg Saturday morning to Athens for the Twilight. I see that one of her teammates finished 4th in the Pro, 1,2, Women's race, but I don't know if GiVo started or not.

Joe Martin is coming up. $80 entry fee? I'd have to come in 4th to break even. Sure would be fun though.