Rain Day

When it rains, it pours. As I'd planned, I skipped riding Monday morning on the dubious theory that my legs needed a day off the bike. Midway though my morning shower, however, I started to notice a lot of police and ambulance sirens. When I looked outside I could see there had been a fairly serious accident a block away, at Claiborne and Broadway - air bags deployed, smashed minivan, ambulance. Even so, there seemed to be a lot more police cars than usual. I threw on some clothes and walked outside where I could see numerous police officers walking around on the other side of Claiborne. Apparently the driver of the offending vehicle had taken off running after the accident (the victims were uninjured thanks to their airbags), and the police were searching for him in bushes, underneath houses, etc. I presume they found him, because a little while later one of the ambulances moved a coule of blocks away where there was a cluster of police officers. By then I was running late, so I scarfed down a couple of leftover Gulf shrimp and headed off to work. So that's how my week started.

The Tuesday morning levee ride had a pretty big group, but was relatively civilized this week, which is to say that the group mostly stayed together. It helped that John flatted on the way out and most everyone stopped to wait.

The Tulane cycling club's jersey design is finally ready and Rich has put up an order page on BikeReg (may still be some refinement to that before he officially announces it), so things are moving along on that front again. By early afternoon I was sitting in a doctor's office waiting room with my dad for one of his routine visits. We were there a good hour for a ten-minute visit.

After that I drove up to Baton Rouge with The Wife to check out some reported damage to her mother's house that has been vacant for the last five years. We arrived to find that the entire road in front of the house is completely ripped up and in the process of being widened, so we had a little hike in the mud just to get there. What we found was that someone had gotten in there and broken every single pane of glass in the entire house, kicked in every door, ripped down every light fixture, kicked holes in the walls, and generally had a fun old time doing as much destruction as possible. So we filed a police report just on principle since there's only liability insurance on the property at this point, stopped for dinner at the local Outback, and got home around 9:30.

Naturally, since I'd already taken one day off the bike this week, this morning I stepped out the door all dressed for riding, only to be greeted by a loud clap of thunder and rain. We're already getting rain ahead of the tropical depression that's out in the Gulf. It's projected track has it heading straight this way, but all indications are that it won't be very serious -- just very wet. Maybe I'll ride out to the lakefront this evening, weather permitting.

Stan Truxillo, who had that massive heart attack last week, had bypass surgery yesterday and seems to be doing great. Two hours of surgery for four bypasses, and by 5 pm he was back on his feet. If all goes as planned he'll probably be out of the hospital in a few days.