Changes in Latitude

Jingle Cross Rock - Saturday on the Mt. Krumpet

My last day in Iowa City, Saturday, included a fun few hours at the Jingle Cross Rock race (as a spectator), and another chilly but nice ride in the countryside north of town.  The weather was just a little warmer and there was a bit more sun, and by then I was finally starting to acclimate to the northern latitude anyway.  Sunday morning we were up early and ready for the drive back south by 6 am, but couldn't actually hit the road before scraping the frost from the windshield and stopping at Starbucks for a little travel caffeine.  The long drive was uneventful until some time around 7:30 pm when I suddenly felt the engine missfire a bit going up a little rise in Mississippi.  A couple of minutes later the dreaded Check Engine light came on with the cryptic message, "Slow Down or Use Higher Gear."  Huh? We were close to McComb, so I backed off the accelerator a bit and watched the warning light go on and off depending on how much load I was placing on the engine.  In McComb I filled the tank, checked under the hood for loose vacuum hoses, and finding none, fired the car up again.  All seemed fine, so I eased back onto I-55 and latched onto the draft from a big US Mail truck that was going a nice steady 65 mph.  This worked fine and I didn't see the Check Engine light again until the truck pulled into a weigh station and I lost the draft.  For the next couple of hours I stayed in the right lane feathering the accelerator and watching the warning light go on and off, but somehow I made it home before 10 pm.  Monday morning it was rainy so I took the car over to the Volvo dealer, got a ride back home in a messy cab that reeked of some kind of nasty air freshener (which I smelled for the rest of the day), and rode in to work.  About $600 and five hours later I picked up the car after having one of the ignition coils and all the spark plugs replaced and the intake system serviced.  Turned out to have been a very expensive little trip.

So this morning the streets were a little damp and the radar not looking too promising, but I headed out anyway expecting to be riding alone. The temperature was around 70F, the sky was grey, and the air was thick with moisture. To my surprise, I found Woody, Mignon, Zack and Howard up there, so we headed up the river hoping to get in a decent ride before the weather closed in.  We ended up turning around before reaching the parish line because the northwest sky was looking pretty threatening and we were beginning to feel a few little droplets of rain.  The pace started creeping up as we were all subconsciously trying to stay ahead of the rain, and at some point I saw Zack pull out of the paceline and sit up.  A little while later I came off the front to find only Woody left.  Then, all of a sudden, we felt this freezing cold downdraft hit us like ton of bricks.  Within thirty seconds the temperature dropped at least ten degrees and a 25-30 mph gusty wind started trying to blow us right off the road.  Woody looked back at me and said, "Better give me a little wiggle room!"  After he pulled off I eased up for a minute and Howard caught up, but after the playground I was on my own again and the drizzle was starting to catch up with me.  By then, though, I was starting to pick up a serious tailwind.  I blasted down from the levee onto River Road and flew down Oak Street at 30 mph, arriving home a bit damp and cold but not really too wet.  A little break in the weather allowed me to ride over to a meeting on campus, but on my way back it started raining, so I got pretty wet anyway.

All Layered Up

I was looking forward to today's high of 34°. After scraping the frost off of the windshield so I could drive down to the local coffee shop, and after suffering through a couple of hours at the shopping mall, I was finally ready to get all layered up in winter cycling gear that hadn't seen the light of day since last March.  I'd been hoping for a nice sunny day, but the best I could do was an overcast grey sky and blustery wind.  Fortunately, I was desperate.  After three days off the bike I was up for just about anything. 

As headed out around 2 pm, I was surprised that it didnt' feel nearly as cold as I'd been expecting.  I rode the same route I've ridden before, crossing I-80 and heading for Sugarbottom road.  My out and back 34 mile ride included some nice rolling hills through the countryside around Iowa City.  Considering the conditions, I wasn't planning on a hard workout or anything, so I kept the effort level under control and enjoyed the uniformly grey scenery.

We made it over to the Jingle Cross race site just in time for the start of the elite women's race at 6:30.  I was amazed at how long and difficult this course looked.  It must have been at least two miles around and included what looked like a really hard bit of climbing up the side of a big hill.  We stayed just long enough to see the first lap of the elite men's race before heading back home in search of warmth.  It looked like a fun race, and I think I'll try and get over there at some point tomorrow.

Sunny and Sixteem

It's 16° F right now in IC, but there's hope.  Rather than yesterday's 20-something high temperature and cloudy skies, today it's clear and sunny and may get all the way up to 38.  That means I might actually get out on the bike for a little while.  We'll see.  I spent most of yesterday sitting on the couch eating and watching movies, and haven't been on the bike since Monday.  I'm hoping I'll also be able to make it out to see a little bit of this evening's Jingle Cross races.  For now, though, I need coffee.....

Chamois Time

It was a weekend of nice weather and long group rides, in many ways not so much different than the one before.  On the agenda for Saturday was an NOBC club ride out to Fort Pike. Although we were scheduled to start fifteen minutes after the Giro from Kona Cafe' on Lakeshore Drive, I decided to stop at Starbucks and have a cup of dark roast with a few of the Giro riders before heading over to Lakeshore Drive to meet the NOBC group.  It was surprisingly chilly, and even though it was supposed to warm up considerably, I rode out there with knee and arm-warmers.  I didn't regret it, either. 

Over at Kona I found a good turnout for the club ride.  It can be a little tricky sometimes finding just the right group speed that will keep everyone together.  The ride turned out to be pretty good, despite a steady stream of speeding dump trucks along Chef Highway.  We have been dealing with the trucks for months already, and I suppose it will be quite a few more before the levee work out in the east is finally completed.  At any rate, it will be nice when the work ends and our weekend rides can return to normal. Unlike the Giro, the club ride stopped a few times to regroup and make adjustments for the rising temperature.  We even posed for a picture on top of the Rigolets bridge.  Kyle, who moved here recently after completing his degree at Purdue, was nice enough take the photo, although I'm afraid my little camera struggled a bit with the focus.  After the ride, a number of us stuck around at Kona to eat, so by the time I got home it was after noon and I had almost 90 miles on the odometer.  Thanks to the moderate pace, however, I felt I'd be good to go for the Sunday northshore ride.

Some time early Saturday morning the Sewerage and Water Board's big water treatment plant lost power for a few hours, and as a result almost the entire city was under a "boil order" until Sunday afternoon.  Really sucked for the restaurants.

So Sunday morning I drove across the causeway with Woody, who was trying to recover from a head cold, for the regular northshore ride.  It was much warmer than Saturday and although I started out wearing arm-warmers, I knew they'd end up in my pocket pretty soon.  The group was big - about twenty-five, I think, and we headed north from the school at a smooth but brisk pace.  Things stayed together nicely up through Enon and along Choctaw Road to the sprint just before La. 10, but then we had a long delay because Kurt (was it Kurt?) broke a spoke in his rear wheel and it went too out of line to clear the seat stays.  After loosening a bunch of spokes, though, we finally got it to where it would roll, so he and Elizabeth headed back.  I think a few others had also turned back early as well, so as we turned onto the hilly stretch heading toward Sie Jenkins Road we were down to a nice well-matched group. 

The rest of the ride was pretty good - fast enough to be a good workout but not hard enough to make me a worthless couch potato for the rest of the day.  We did cheat a bit and take the Dummyline Road shortcut, probably because some people had plans for the early afternoon Saints game.  The last ten miles or so got fairly fast, and by the time we were on the last stretch my legs were beginning to complain.  Anyway, although I was back home by about 1 pm, I sure put in a whole lot of chamois time this weekend.

That afternoon I picked up a copy of the new Peloton magazine which has a nice article on New Orleans and Kenny that Jered put together before leaving for Europe.  Tomorrow (oh, well actually today I guess) I will have a lot of things to wrap up at work because we'll be driving up to Iowa on Tuesday. 

Chaos and Droppage

It seemed darker than usual, and as I glanced up at the pre-dawn sky all I saw were fast-moving grey clouds.  Perhaps I should have taken it as an omen.  I was already running a few minutes late for the 6:15 am levee ride, and despite its 59 degree temperature the thick air cut right through my two jerseys as I rushed out to the river.  Up on the levee I could feel the full force of the wind and knew the crosswinds would make the ride a little more difficult than usual. "A little more difficult" turned out to be an understatement.  The ride started out smoothly enough, but for some reason Scott decided to stay on the front for a really long time.  Ordinarily that might not have presented a problem, but on a day full of crosswinds it meant that four people were getting a draft and ten more were strung out along the edge in futile attempts to hide from the gusts.  So after a few miles Luke rode up to the front and told Scott he had to pull off more quickly when there was a crosswind.  It didn't seem like he took it well, but he eased up and I came through, took a short pull, and started to drop back.  By then Rob had come up to the front and the pace started to ramp up.  Almost immediately, riders started letting gaps open since most of them hadn't had any real draft since the start, and the whole thing degenerated into chaos.  Then other rides would surge past.  It was like the whole group had gotten into a big bag of crazy pills.  I looked over at Woody and said, "I think we need to have a workshop on pacelines!"  There was another surge, but with five or six already at the front it was almost pointless to go with it since there wasn't hardly a sliver of draft left to be had anyway. A few riders had already come to their senses and dropped off the back. So we let a little gap open and started a nice second paceline which was rotating smoothly and holding the gap to a manageable distance quite nicely.  Just as we were hitting our stride, somewhere around the Country Club, Woody flatted.  I coasted for a little while, and then turned around, riding back to the little cluster of riders standing there.  As I came up to them Woody asked if I had a wrench.  A wrench?  I looked down at his bike and saw he was riding his track bike.  As it turned out he'd had a flat before the start of the ride, and when he'd fixed it he'd left his peanut-butter wrench in his truck. (There's a Wikipedia listing for peanut butter wrench??) Well, needless to say, none of us happened to be carrying a 15 mm wrench, so Woody ended up riding back on the flat.  Good thing it was his front tire.  

So the rest of us rode out to The Dip, where a couple went ahead, a few turned back, and soon it was just Mignon and I.  Rather than turning around at The Dip, we decided to ride easy and catch the group on the flipside, hoping that by then some of the craziness might have dissipated.  At first it seemed fine, but after The Dip, and another stop for another flat the ride back again started getting a little out of hand.  Mark and Howard stormed off the front, and then Max, who was on his TT bike, started ramping it up and up and up, which naturally resulted in some significant droppage in the rear half of the group due to the aforementioned crosswinds.  Suffice it to say, the last ten miles were pretty fast, at least for the handful of hard-headed survivors.

After a quick stop at Zotz for a cup of dark roast (the temperature hadn't risen a bit since I'd left home), I made my way home and then out to the westbank to renew my driver's license.  Every eight years we have to do this in person, I guess so that they can make sure that (a) we're still actually alive, and (b) we can still see.  Apparently I passed both tests, thanks to my glasses and, I suppose, a sufficiently broad interpretation of the term "alive."  On the plus side, I had taken some good advice and driven an extra couple of miles out to Gretna where the process was somewhat more pleasant and efficient than it had been the last time I did this at the office on Airline Highway.  Every time I go to some state or municipal office like this I always wonder where all the normal people are.  They must go to some special office, the location of which is a closely guarded secret.  The large bra-less woman with the saggy breasts and dirty t-shirt next to me was holding a letter documenting the expungement of some sort of first-offense felony (the word "felony" was printed in boldface).

Dirt, Gears and Ferries

"B" Race riders negotiate the barriers

It's November, and that usually means some significant deviation from the usual riding regime, so Friday evening found me down in the basement trying to cobble together something suitable for the HooperCross cyclocross race up in Baton Rouge.  Rather than take the easy way out and use my 1980's vintage mountain bike, I decided to go really retro and see what I  could do with the 1970's vintage Pennine (aka my rain bike).  I pulled out that big box of discarded bike parts (admit it, you have one too) and started travelling back in time.  Pushing aside the old road pedals with toe-clips still attached, and the odd-diameter seatposts, I eventually excavated my way down to the 5-speed Regina Oro freewheel that I'd bought for a cycle tour of Colorado 1983.  Even better, I also found the all-steel long-cage Japanese derailleur I'd picked up somewhere around Crested Butte after deciding that I really did need to be able to get into that last ultra-low cog in order to haul my fully loaded bike over the continental divide.  Together with the bike's 44-tooth small chainring, I figured I was more or less good to go.  There was, of course, the little matter of not having any cyclocross tires, but since the weather has been dry I thought I would try and get by with the $9.95 commuting tires that were already on the bike's 27" wheels.  So I removed the fenders, swapped out the freewheel, changed the derailleur, and installed a nice new $11 chain.  Then I wrapped the steel top tube cable clips with some leftover handlebar tape and electrical tape so they wouldn't dig into my shoulders or hands.

When I arrived at the Hooper Road park, somewhat early, there was only one other person there. Eventually riders started filtering in and the promoter headed out to set up the course. I think we ended up with about twenty entries. There were two races:  "A" and "B."  Since my license says I'm a Cat. 2 in Cyclocross (which I am definitely not), I entered the "A" race.  I knew it wouldn't matter anyway, since I was planning on starting at the back and staying there. After a few warmup laps I had a good feel for the course and knew I'd be fine with it.  There were a couple of long fast stretches in a field, a technical section with some tight turns, a section of 4 barriers, and a nice bit of single-track through the park's mountain bike trail.  Everything was flat and although there were some sandy turns and three kind of crazy moguls (basically piles of dirt), it looked like I'd be fine with my road tires as long as I didn't try anything foolish.  So according to plan I started more or less last and took my time negotiating the barriers on the first section (hey, I'm short enough to need a step-stool for those things).  I wasn't really trying to be competitive since this was the first cyclocross race I'd done in probably ten or fifteen years.  Still, I was having fun and starting to get comfortable riding in the dirt when I came up the the barriers for the second time and had a little trouble getting unclipped before lifting the bike over them. Then, I had more trouble getting my left foot clipped in again, at which point Will Cheramie sped past me.  I finally got clipped in and gradually caught up with Will who seemed to be taking the turns with a large dose of caution.  I was right behind him, or maybe next to him, when we came up to the barriers for the third time. This time my left cleat would not release, despite the fact that I had my foot turned at about a 90-degree angle.  Since I had nowhere to go and was already committed to dismounting on the left, I fell like a sack of cement in front of the barriers.  When I finally wrenched my shoe free I looked at the bottom of it and found that the cleat had lost one of its two screws and was completely loose, which explained why I wasn't able to unclip.  So I walked over the barriers and then straightened out the cleat before hopping back on.  I got clipped in again, but of course there was no way I was going to unclip, so for the rest of the race I would stop at the barriers, grab onto the fence, unclip my right foot, get off the bike, unclip my left foot, walk over the barriers, straighten the cleat out, and start up again.  Needless to say, I was lapped twice by the end, but still had a great time.  Maybe I'll break down and invest in a couple of cyclocross tires.

Sunday morning there was this charity ride, the Tour de Jefferson, that a lot of the local riders were doing.  I was afraid it would just be a slow 45 mile conversational ride, but when Mignon suggested riding to and from the ride to add another twenty-five miles or so, I decided to go for it.  After all, it's November.  We rolled out from my house a little before 6 am in order to take the 6:15 Canal St. ferry across the river.  From there we rode back upriver through Gretna to Westwego where we met up with Woody and Eddie and the northshore crew.  Since it was still a bit early, this whole group went for a little warmup ride before registering at the Bayou Segnette park.  Since the westbank is essentially a foreign country, I was pretty much lost for most of the day.  There were about 600 riders for this ride, so we all made sure to move up to the front before the start.  Well, my fears that this would be an easy Sunday ride were quickly dispelled, and within a couple of miles we were rolling along at 25-27 mph until we had to stop for a while at a train crossing.  When the route turned south and we picked up a little tailwind the group started to string out as the pace ramped up to around 30 mph.  This was starting to look and feel a lot like the Giro Ride!  I recognized almost all of the faces in the front group, which, by the time we to the the southern end of the ride, was down to maybe 15 or 20, followed a couple of minutes later by another slightly larger group.  At that point we all piled onto a little aluminum ferry boat to cross Bayou Barataria. Luckily most of the second group made it onto the first ferry, because there was no waiting around and re-grouping on the other side. 

I'd been expecting the ride back to be a little slower because of the headwind, but it really didn't feel any easier at all.  Crossing one of the big bridges a gap opened and the group split.  I looked up ahead to see Tim and Mark at the front and knew there would be no slowing down, so I hung around on the back of the group, just pulling through once in a while.  By then I was starting to feel the effects of Saturday's race and was getting a little sore in unfamiliar places.  At one point the whole front group was strung out in the left lane behind the lead motorcycle going about 30 mph.  A little gap opened leaving just Tim and Mark on the motor, at which point the rest of the group eased up for a moment.  By then we were almost back to the park, though, and were busy thinking up ways to harass Tim and Mark about drafting the motorcycle!  I stuck around long enough to have some etouffe and a beer before we headed back down the river to catch the ferry and make our way back uptown so Mignon could make it to the Oak Street Po-boy Festival where she was working a table for her son's school.  I was planning on going down there too a bit later with The Wife and The Neighbors, but by the time I got home they were already on their way back home.  I was sorry to miss my soft-shell crap po-boy, but by then I was definitely ready to put my feet up anyway.

Too Fast for Fall

The outdoor thermometer read just a couple of degrees below 60F.  I decided to skip the knee-warmers since it was bound to warm up.  Five minutes later I was regretting that decision.  Along with the slightly warmer temperature and come a surge of humidity. The chill felt significantly worse than yesterday, despite the extra couple of degrees.  Of course I knew it would warm up once the sun came over the horizon, but there's just something particularly uncomfortable about those first few miles in the morning when you feel a tad underdressed.

We had a typical group for the long Thursday ride today.  The pace on the way out was actually uncharacteristically sedate with a number of riders content to sit at the back and let people into the paceline in front of them.  By the time we were halfway to the turnaround the group rotating at the front had dwindled to five or so, but since the pace was hovering around the 23 mph mark, it wasn't really a big problem.  Donald was taking his usual long pulls, and for some reason that eventually must have gotten on Rob's nerves because somewhere way out around Destrehan the two of them got into a little shouting match at the front.  The rest of us just kind of ignored it and went around them.  I mean, after all, it's November.

Unfortunately, that kind of set the stage for the return trip.  Rob and Donald kind or rode away up the road right from the start.  Maybe they kissed and made up.  I dunno.  What I do know is that we soon had a pretty significant headwind.  I guess it must have really picked up because I definitely don't remember much of a tailwind on the way out.  Eventually we got close to Rob and Donald, and at that point things kind of got out of hand.  The pace surged, and then surged again, and soon the paceline came completely apart.  After a little while a new group of five or six formed just ahead of me.  I started to put my head down and chase, but then I thought, "Do I really want to race all the way back to New Orleans?"  So I eased up and waited for a few others. The group up the road was just going a little too fast for fall, and I just didn't feel like playing that game today.  So I rode in with a little group of four or so.  Somewhere way behind us were the remnants of the original group.

Back on Top

Well, I was back on top of the levee early Tuesday morning, feeling quite acutely the effects of seven days spent sitting in conference room chairs.  The morning temperature was on the chilly side, and for the first time this fall I felt the need to pull on the knee-warmers and full-finger gloves.  As often happens this time of year, the group was on the small side and nobody was looking for a hammerfest.  This was good.  Even better, the time change meant I could leave the headlight at home.  It's funny how much of a burden that little headlight seems to be.  It always feels like such a relief to take it off the bike, as if it weighed twenty pounds.  I suppose it's because of its location on the handlebars where you just can't ignore it, and the fact that it symbolizes rides that are cold, dark and/or windy.  Anyway, it's mainly a psychological gesture, like the way I remove my water bottle cages for 3 mile time trials.

So the ride was pretty steady and routine, and aside from the fact that I felt chunky and sluggish, like I'd been off the bike for a week, it was otherwise pretty featureless. Later that day, back in the office, things got quiet and slow and I started thinking about that long to-do list in my head with the "bike racing stuff" heading at the top.  Should I go up to Baton Rouge for the cyclocross race?  What would I ride? More importantly, what disguise would I wear? It was also time to start getting my act together for the annual LAMBRA business meeting, order the 2010 LCCS trophies, check on the new jersey order, update the calendars, update the LAMBRA website with the 2009 LCCS winners, etc.

Wednesday's ride was also quite small.  At the start there were only four of us, even though it was warmer than the day before.  I can never quite figure out when riders are going to show up for a ride. The first thing I noticed was that my legs felt a little stiff.  Apparently jumping into a 40 mile training ride after being completely inactive for a week does have its downside.  We had a nice steady ride, eventually picking up a few more riders along the way.  On the ride home I decided to stop at Zotz for a quick cup of coffee where I could ponder the upcoming Oak Street Po-boy Preservation Festival which would probably be my last chance to see the good ol' Radiators play.  They just announced that they will be disbanding after 33 years.  As one commenter commented, "First the Beatles, and now this?"  Even though I am compelled to admit that The Radiators arrived just a little bit after my time (I'm more of the Deacon John and Ivories vintage), they have certainly been a defining fixture on the local scene ever since.

So after getting home this morning I pulled out that big old cardboard box that we all have, the one full of discarded but potentially usable bike parts, and found a couple of 5-speed freewheels with really low gears.  Hmmmm.  Suppose I put one of those on the old Pennine and call it a 'Cross bike?  Cyclocross tires would be a nice addition, but there can't possibly be any in a 27" size within a hundred miles.  I wonder if I have a 700C 5-speed clincher hanging around somewhere.....

Up in Colorado Springs

Looking through the fence from the OTC at Pikes Peak

It has been a long week. In the last eight days I've ridden exactly 20 miles despite having been in places with great rides and awesome weather.  Friday morning the taxi pulled up at 5:30 am for another ride to the airport, this time for a trip to the USA Cycling Local Associations Summit at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.  Friday night we had a reception at the USAC headquarters where they have recently taken over a bar conveniently located in the middle of their building (it will soon be remodeled into a conference center).  By the time we got back to the dorm at the OTC I was already getting my 24-hour Colorado headache, but before going to bed I fired up the laptop.  Just as I was opening an Excel file listing the meeting attendees, everything stopped, and then it happened.  The dreaded Blue Screen of Death, followed by an automatic reboot resulting is a "media test failure" message.  Crap.  After a few more tries, along with visits to safe mode land, the machine booted normally again, windows loaded normally, everything worked for a while, and then -- BSoD.  I shut it down and went to sleep.  Thank goodness I had the BlackBerry.

After breakfast at the Athlete Center where there were a number of huge wrestlers and impressive women swimmers (some with ice packs on their shoulders), we assembled in the conference room on the other side of the USOC campus.  There was the usual recap by the CEO followed by a lively session with Shawn Farrell, the Technical Director, where we were able to give some input on the proposed 2011 rule changes just prior to the Board meeting where they would be formally considered.  The next day we would learn about the outcome of the meeting where, as it turned out, sleeveless jerseys were legalized for time trials, a whole host of proposed Junior equipment restrictions were defeated, and a long list of other rule changes covering everything from UCI riders in categorized USAC races to Cyclocross feed zones were made.  The rest of the morning consisted of frightening sessions about insurance and nonprofit organization legal issues.  Then, after lunch, we got to see the new USAC online registration and post-event reporting system.  I was impressed with the online registration system. I love BikeReg and would not be inclined to switch unless the USAC system had everything they do at a lower cost.  It looked like it does, and as an added bonus it checks rider entries against the current membership database and won't allow entries by riders with expired licenses.  Promoters who indicate that they will use the system will be able to get their event permits done online without sending a fee to USAC since the fee will simply be deducted from the online entry revenue.  The online post-event reporting met with some significant problems, however, regarding Chief Referee vs. Promoter responsibilities, so that component may take a little longer to get ironed out.  Anyway, the online registration system looks quite viable to me and you can't argue with the benefits of keeping the money (I'm sure USAC has worked it out so they come out a little ahead on this) within the cycling community. 


Colorado Springs visit in 1922


Saturday evening we got on the bus for a nice little dinner at the Phantom Canyon Brewery in the old part of town, across from the Hilton Antlers Hotel.  Although the current Antlers hotel was built in the 40s on the site of the original one (actually the original two since the first one burned down), it was still kind of interesting to see it because it was mentioned in my grandfather's honeymoon trip diary.  Back at the dorm I fired up the laptop and this time it booted normally, so before touching anything else I copied a couple of gigabytes of documents and photos over to a thumb drive while I had the chance. That took quite a long time, but everything went smoothly and it didn't crash again until an hour later.

Sunday's sessions included a presentation on the MyLaps chip-timing system (we had already had a presentation on the Times-7 system), along with an update on the results of the Board meeting on rule changes, a good session on the growing Collegiate program, and coverage of USAC's media and public relations activities and the National Events calendar.  All-in-all it was a great meeting except for the computer issue and the fact that the weather was nothing less than spectacular the whole time we were sitting in the conference room.  Every time we'd have a break I'd walk outside and stare longingly to the west wishing I had a bike.  The flights home were long.  After a two-hour layover at DFW I was more than ready for the relatively quick hop to New Orleans when they announced that the flight would be delayed because the flight crew, which was coming from Barbados, was held up in Customs.  It was well after 10:30 by the time we finally lifted off, and around midnight by the time I got home.  I guess I'll spend tonight trying to diagnose the laptop problem to see what my options are.  The big question with these sorts of random bluescreen errors is "hardware or software?"  I love a mystery, though.  It chilly this morning and I was way too tired to get out of bed to ride, so I guess it will be tomorrow before I'm finally back on the bike.

Five Years

I'm sitting here at Gate 24 up in National Airport with a couple of hours to kill before my return flight to New Orleans.  When I left home around 4:30 am on Monday I forgot to put my camera in my bag.  I've been kicking myself for that ever since.  The annual NCURA meeting went well, even though I had to miss the Sunday night festivities. The sessions themselves were good this year.  I think that I attended only one that was kind of a dud. The traditional Tuesday night party seemed better than usual.  Perhaps both the band and the participants put in a little extra effort this year because it was the last time the home-grown NCURA band "Sole Source and the No-Cost Extensions" would be playing.  They've done this every year for the last 20 years.  After the music ended at midnight I went up to the hospitality suite in order to be, you know, hospitable.  I guess some of the other regions' hospitality suites must have closed at midnight this year because ours was absolutely packed.  Around 1 am I figured I'd better go ahead and make my way back to my little hotel three blocks away before it got too late.  If I'd had another glass of wine I'd probably have decided, however unwisely, to stay longer.  When I left, the party was still going strong.  So after the final two sessions this morning, I walked out of the hotel at noon with a lot of time to kill, so I wandered over to Georgetown, mostly for the exercise, ate lunch, and ended up at a Starbucks so I could send off some emails before picking up my bag and hopping on the Metro for the airport.

When I checked Jill's "Jill Outside" blog and saw her retrospective "Five Years" post, I thought I'd look to see what I was up to on this day five years ago.  We were still living mostly up in Jackson, Louisiana but had come back to New Orleans for a few days.  The city was still reeling from Katrina, but some things were beginning to stabilize and most of our neighbors had been back in their houses for a week or two. It doesn't seem like it's been five years.  It would still be another week or so before we would finally move back home for good and set up the Psychiatry office in our living room.