Peace, Africa, New Orleans

My short but interesting trip up to DC ended with touchdown at MSY shortly before midnight, and left me feeling pretty tired. Sunday's flight up to "The District" was uneventful and smooth, and left me about an hour for a brisk walk through Georgetown and back to my hotel at Dupont Circle. Dinner was solo at Buca de Beppo, a little place that I always enjoy, probably because the quantity of food they serve is exceeded only by the size of their wine glasses. Monday morning were somewhat informal meetings at the Institute of Peace (which I guess would be the opposite of the Department of War) with representatives of eleven African countries to discuss a proposed African energy-related institute. All went well, and after a long lunch and an hour hanging out at Starbucks I finally descended into the Metro tunnel for the short ride to the airport where I was going to have to do a conference call. Timing was going to be tight until American Airlines started delaying my flight, so by the time the hour-long call ended it was looking doubtful that I'd be able to make my connection in Miami. I walked up to the desk just as they were making the final boarding call for an earlier flight to Miami and was lucky enough to get a seat, which meant a long wait at MIA and a microwave pizza for dinner.

Since I didn't get to bed until around 1 am, it was hard to get my flabby ass onto the bike for the 6:15 levee ride, but somehow I made it out there. Although the weather farther north has been full of ice storms and freezing rain (The Daughter sent the photo this morning of the tree in front of her house), it was in the mid-70s on the New Orleans levee today and the forecast isn't calling for significantly cooler weather until the weekend. I felt like I'd been off the bike for a month, but was glad I'd made the effort. Hopefully I can get back into my routine.

Meanwhile, back in LAMBRA land, the Rouge-Roubaix guys have moved their race to March 9 in order to avoid a conflict with the popular Lago Vista race in TX, which is a good move. Unfortunately, it conflicts with the track championships and the promoter of those has apparently refused to swap dates. A similar thing happened last year, and the result was that all but I think two riders at the track championships were from the same club. Anyway, Rouge-Roubaix had around 160 riders last year while the track events had like 15. I'm still waiting to hear back from the Rocky Mount guys about their date, nor do I have a definite OK on the road championships. Situation normal. Work shows no signs of slowing down yet, at least for our office.