Home Stretch

So we're in the home stretch now leading up to this weekend's Tour de Louisiane. 35 years! Online registration is probably somewhere around 130 right now, so we'll have a pretty good turnout this year. Keith copied me on some emails about the money we needed to have ready to pay the police and I was once again taken aback by how much it costs to put on a race like this. It seems like only yesterday when we used to put this on with little more cash than what was needed to buy race numbers (that in itself was a big innovation - disposable numbers!!). No police, no portolets, no cash prizes, no official's fees, no hotel rooms, no online registration. Hopefully we won't lose too much by the time it's all over. You would think that the $50 entry fee would more than cover everything, but by the time you take out the $4 for USCF insurance, the $1 for LAMBRA/LCCS, and another $4 or so for the ones who used online registration, it's not really as much as it looks.

Tonight I'll do a little run-through with the results spreadsheet to make sure there isn't anything that's really broken. Online registration closes at midnight (Pacific time, I think), so first thing in the morning I'll have to download all of the entries and print out the filled-in release forms, noting all of the ones that were not completely filled in (there are a number who didn't put in their USCF numbers or left other lines blank). Then I'll need to run by the post office in case there are any mail-in entries there (we've had one so far) and to pick up the latest check from active.com. Tomorrow I'll have to pick up batteries for stopwatches and tape recorders, make sure we have enough paper, clipboards, pens, copies of release forms, one-day license forms, etc. etc. Robin will stop by the house this evening to pick up the race bible so he can make the copies. Keith is going out to the road course today to sweep (blow?) the corners. Robin will pick up the course markings and signage. We are begging for volunteers for the road race to work corners because the police backed off a bit on the number of officers they could provide. Unfortunately we won't have Brian on Saturday because of the Space Shuttle launch. He has to be at work to view and analyze the launch video. And then of course the Tour de France starts Saturday too. I won't be seeing much of it on TV again this year since I don't have digital cable, but frankly I'm pretty happy with the web coverage.

In the midst of all of this I've been working on getting the roof thing finalized. We're about into the home stretch on that front too. The insurance company makes the check out to me, my wife and the mortgage company, so we've both got to endorse it, then I've got to send it to California so the mortgage company can endorse it and then they tell me they want to hold it in an escrow account and send me the money after the repairs are half completed and they can do an inspection. I have to explain that this is pretty much all for a roof and the whole job takes maybe three days. They finally relented and said they'd endorse it and send it back. I guess they think I will take the money and walk away from the house and stop making mortgage payments. I guess it's been happening with some of the really destroyed properties. So anyway, between that check and the one I got earlier I *almost* have enough to pay for the roof. Now I have to wait for the insurance company to decide to let go of the "recoverable depreciation" part of their estimate so that I can pay for the whole thing. Naturally I don't want to start any of the interior sheetrock and paint work until I know the roof won't be springing any new leaks, and of course I'll be lucky if the old gutters survive the roof repair, so that'll be another couple thousand. I can only imagine the headaches that people who are having to completely rebuild are going through. Anyway, things are crawling along on that front and there's still no water dripping on my head when it rains, thanks to a few strategically placed buckets in the attic, so I'm trying not to get too stressed out about it.

The morning long ride was quite civilized today and everyone, even Howard, was content to let Donald tow the group for long stretches. Shortly after we got into Kenner on the way back Jeff's front tire just randomly exploded. If we'd been out in New Orleans East where the National Guard is patrolling, they probably would have returned fire. It looked like it just somehow blew off the rim.

Around noon we sent a courier up to Baton Rouge with our signed contract for Tulane's disaster funding from the Dept. of Education via the La. Board of Regents, since they needed it today (and told us about it two days ago). That'll be another $14 million to throw up against the $220M deficit. Ten million here, ten million there . . . after a while you're talking about real money.

This morning The Wife rode the Peugeot in to work. I still need to get that old Maillard freewheel off and install the single cog freewheel (and remove the ugly and rusted spoke protector), but anyway she made it without incident so that's nice. It'll be better once the single speed freewheel is on there because the chainline from the single chainwheel will be right. I installed an old Balckburn rack on the back last night but still haven't installed the fenders because the stays aren't quite long enough to reach the dropout eyelets and I'll have to fabricate some little extenders out of some aluminum to make it work right.