Smooth and Steady Progress

One thing I love about this time of year is not having to guess at what to wear. Any shorts, any jersey, any socks. It shaves literally ten minutes off my morning prep time, which usually means that I get to the start of the training ride early rather than late. I must admit that I do have the occasional day when I pay more attention to my cycling ensemble than usual. For example, since the Tuesday ride is usually both well-attended and fast, I will typically try to wear shorts and jersey that more or less go together. For me, that's usually something like the team kit from a couple of years ago. You know, the green years. For a Giro Ride, where it's essential to properly represent, I will even pull out the current year or last year's kit if I'm not racing the next day. On the easier days, though, like Monday or Friday, I tend to use the really old stuff from many years past, but since the shorts never last as long as the jerseys, I'm usually not very well coordinated on those days.

So this morning I headed out to the levee in the green kit, revision #2, from a few years ago. It was a pretty smooth and steady paceline ride for a Wednesday -- a bit slower than usual -- and I found myself taking longer pulls and, toward the end, intentionally riding in the wind at the back to provide a little more workload.

On the hospital front, The Dad has been making good progress the last few days. Yesterday they were talking about releasing him from the hospital on Monday, which resulted in a major improvement in his attitude, and then this morning they were talking about maybe pushing that up to Saturday. Of course significant at-home assistance will still be needed, but in general it's always better to be out of the hospital sooner rather than later.

So today I'll be trying to figure out how the State and the LSU system and the La. Board of Regents managed to avoid awarding a single penny of $20 million that they had for the "Post-Katrina Support Fund Initiative" to Tulane despite the fact that we submitted SEVEN research proposals from people like the Director of the Gene Therapy Center, the Associate Director of the Cancer Center, the Chair of the Department of Physiology, etc. They all seem to be able to write successful research proposals to NIH, but I guess they're not good enough for the Board of Regents? Add to that the outright insult that the half of the funds for this "Post-Katrina" initiative, that was originally pitched as a program to help insititutions affected by the hurricane, went to LSU-Baton Rouge and La Tech in Ruston (although I kind of like the fact that La Tech got away with something). Meanwhile, the state is literally pouring additional funding into the state university system (well, mainly into LSU-BR) because as a result of the hurricane they have a huge surplus in the budget. Yes, I said that the state has a huge surplus. The city of New Orleans doesn't have enough money to fix the seawalls or fill the potholes or pay the fire department or fix its public school system, but LSU in Baton Rouge will likely get a hundred million for new construction in this session, while the University of New Orleans will be lucky to get five. OK, I have to step down from this soapbox now before my blood pressure gets out of hand...