Changes

That extra glass of wine last night put me to bed early. The result, of course, was that half an hour before the alarm I was already up and ready to ride. The sudden change in temperature, down into the 40s, helped control the impulse, though, and so I arrived at the levee only about ten minutes early. It felt chilly, but the sky was clear and the wind wasn't nearly as bad as yesterday. Being a Friday, and a cold one at that, I wasn't expecting much of a turnout. Scott arrived and we waited there for a couple of minutes, looking back down the bike path for signs of life. So it was just the two of us today and we rode fairly easy with a light tailwind, eventually picking up Elliot. Naturally the return trip featured a decent headwind, so we got in a little workout despite our best efforts to avoid it.

In a few hours I will be dragged, kicking and screaming, to the paint store. After much procrastination and avoidance, and probably that extra glass of wine I mentioned, I succumbed to The Wife's decision on paint for the next phase of the eternal kitchen project. Decisive Yellow was the main color choice. I didn't really want yellow. I wanted blue. Apparently I didn't want it badly enough, though, which is true. What this kitchen needs is a $20k overhaul, and since that's not about to happen any time soon, I have a hard time getting very excited about the next layer of wall paint. On the other hand, I guess a little change now and then is a good thing.

Tomorrow will be the first of our annual winter training rides, and I'm looking forward to a good group ride out in the Fall countryside across the lake. It will be a welcome change to the steady diet of Giro and Levee rides I've been having lately. I'm also planning on doing Kenny's ride around the city on Sunday. I hope I remember to bring my beignet* money!
(Note to the Blogger.com folks: Your spell-checker doesn't have "beignet" in it. Must be a fluke oversight.)

Speaking of change, the Tulane Hospital and Clinic has now officially changed its name to Tulane Medical Center (although the URL is still tuhc.com), not to be confused with Tulane University Health Sciences Center, which is the Med. School, School of Public Health & Tropical Medicine, and Primate Center, nor with Tulane University Medical Center, which is what we used to call Tulane University Health Sciences Center until all of the Medical Centers started changing their names to Health Sciences Centers for reasons I've never quite understood. Confused? Don't worry. Everyone will still call it Tulane Hospital despite the big ad campaign and the fact that there are now multiple "campuses" of the hospital scattered around the neighboring parishes.