The Frozen North

Since we arrived in Iowa City shortly after a blizzard, the bike has not moved from its spot in the hallway and I have yet to convince myself to go to the local health club for some exercise. Amazingly, I've seen quite a few people out riding bikes through the city, though clearly they are all using them for transportation rather than exercise. Yesterday the temperature made it up to maybe 23F, but driving wasn't really all that bad. I could sum up what we've been doing here as an endless cycle of shopping, driving, and eating. The driving and eating I can handle. The shopping, well, not so much. Today the temperature got all the way up to around 32F, which was really not a good thing. The roads got wet and sloppy and slippery during the day. Then everything turned to ice. We were lucky to make it home from dinner in one piece, and much of the credit for that goes to the Volvo's traction control system. Just slam on the brakes and as you slide on the ice and the computer somehow keeps you going in a reasonably straight line.

On Monday we drove out to the Cedar Rapids airport to pick up The Daughter's car which had been there since she flew down to NOLA for Christmas. Since all of the the cars were covered with snow, it was a bit of a challenge just to find it. She'd lost her key fob/remote somewhere during her trip to New Orleans, so every time you unlock the door, the alarm goes off until you start the car. The other problem was that the heater fan only works on high. It was pretty chilly in the car for the first fifteen minutes. Car heaters take a very long time to start putting out hot air up here in the frozen north. Luckily, the car also has heated seats. Today the car is at the Jeep dealer getting its heater fixed, among other things.

So yesterday was spent largely at the Mall over in Coralville. I spent fifteen minutes at the Best Buy and bought a new off-the-shelf laptop (Toshiba Satellite A505,Windows 7) and then about three hours sitting on benches while the rest of the crew shopped for clothes and things like that. I was, in a word, miserable. Later in the evening, though, I fixed The Daughter's laptop which was missing drivers for its wireless adapter and touchpad after having had its hard drive replaced. I also had to download new security software for the 16 gig flashdrive so it would work with Windows 7.

Today The Daughter was doing a little intra-squad practice meet with the gymnastics team she coaches, so I was recruited to do the video recording for that. Since the temperature by then was up around the melting point of ice, we took a walk through campus and across the river to get something to eat before the meet started. Later, we went out to the suburbs for dinner at the Iowa coach's house. By then the streets were getting rather icy. I was amazed to discover that there is such a thing as a snowman kit that you can buy at the store just in case you're running short on snowman accessories. The drive home was pretty slick, and the car's traction control system got quite a workout as we made our way up and down the hills at 20 mph. Anyway, if I can drag myself out of bed in time tomorrow morning, I may try for the 5:30 am Spin class over at Core Fitness. I'd say there's a 50-50 chance, but I'm starting to get desperate. I am not particularly motivated right now, and perfectly reasonable excuses are in abundant supply. It is, after all, still December.