Midweek Musing

Well, the commuter and I did manage to make it home yesterday evening thanks to someone in The Wife's office who had a patch kit and pump. It had been a long time since I had ridden the bike home with The Wife. She has never really gotten the hang of inner-city commuting, though. For me, the ride is an exercise in moderation. The goal is to go just fast enough to feel the breeze, yet slow enough to stay comfortable in dress clothes. For her, it is an exercise in, well . . . exercise. The Wife, riding her antique Trek mountain bike with road slicks, practically attacked the Broad St. overpass (relatively speaking, of course). By the time I reached the two block long flat section on top, she was already disappearing down the other side. She finally realized that I was tooling along at my usual commuting pace half a mile later and waited for me under an oak tree. When we got home she went out for a run. I went to the refrigerator and ate some ice cream.

Today it is hot and hazy and surprisingly windy in New Orleans. There's supposed to be a little cool front that will come through late tonight, which means we might get a low temperature somewhere in the upper 60s. This morning's ride was fairly easy with long tailwind stretches on the way out, but some harder crosswinds coming back. Nothing too exciting, though.

After a number of phone calls, I finally got my digital signature to work. I had to buy one in order to submit our lobbying report to Congress this year and although I thought I had retrieved the certificate correctly, as it turned out there was one more step that I had missed. It's a pretty screwy system that needs a certain version of Adobe Acrobat that has to be running inside of Internet Explorer with a certain version of the report form. Basically, it's a pain in the ass designed to reduce the work in Washington D.C. while transferring more of the work and expense to the people who the people in D.C. have forced to fill out the forms. That would be me.

The Daughter is in the midst of Finals Week up in Iowa. The thought of finals still sends a chill through me. Toward the end of next week, though, she's flying to Nassau with a few friends for a little R&R. After that, I don't know what she's got up her sleeve.