Friday, March 31, 2006
I take it all back
We had been getting told that there might be some soggy weather coming our way for the weekend. To make a long story short, we got a LOT of soggy weather yesterday afternoon. Right about time to come home from work, in fact. Oh boy, oh joy... :-(
There were VERY high winds (tornado type high winds) and bucket loads of rain. In fact, there was talk on the radio that there was even a tornado touch down in mid town! Pretty scary...
I personally had to make a run to the Post Office for work, and was in it at about the time it was all happening. RAIN, WIND, stuff flying everywhere... Oh, and the Post Office was closed down temporarily because of it too. Wasted that trip out into the nasty weather... :-(
Upon returning to work from the failed Post Office trip, I noticed that there was a lot of... somethingortheother on the road in front of the building. Come to find out, the wind was so bad there for a bit that one of the chairs from the patio of the 5th floor cafeteria (clarification: the cafeteria on the 5th floor has an outdoor patio) had been picked up by the wind an hurled into the cross walk from the parking garage to the main building! THAT explains the stuff all over the road: it was sky walk glass! (I sure hope I don't have a flat tire this morning...) I will try to get a picture of the -probably covered up by now- sky walk damage for to post here.
Other than that... Things were fairly boring here yesterday. Thank goodness it is Friday, because I am getting tired of this week. (Gloomy days will do that to me...)
Anyway... Go and have a good and safe (and DRY) day and I will post at you later!
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
The Red Bike Diaries: Episode IX
And now, on to the Updates... (All 3 of them!)
This one is the most recent. (Tonight, in fact...) It shows that I have moved on to the 'sea' and the little blue bird too. It feels VERY nice to be stitching something besides green. That and the fact that I am down to the last 9 colors that need to be stitched in... Well, suffice it to say that I am probably going to get this thing finished a bit sooner than I was starting to think I was. (It kind of helps that I didn't put in the 'sky' as per the pattern also...)
Let's see... What else? Well, most of the snow from last week is pretty much gone. In fact, it was almost 70 degrees F here today. Oh yeah! Spring is on its way... FINALLY!!! (Of course, we might get rained on this weekend. But I will take rain over snow ANY day!)
That pretty much sums up things on this side of the computer for now. I hope everyone is doing well and I will (try deligently to) post again soon!
Saturday, March 25, 2006
More Adventures With Smiley Cup
Smiley Cup in...
Smiley Cup
Goes To Work
(Song for this story:"A Day In The Life" by the Beatles) One day, Smiley Cup asked gC if he could go to work with him. "Sure!" gC said and the 2 got ready for work. When they were ready to go, Smiley Cup got gC's keys and the 2 headed out to leave... Apparently, it had gotten pretty cold out the night before. Once outside, gC and Smiley Cup saw that the windows on gC's car Kharma were covered in frost! Smiley Cup volunteered to help scrape the windows. gC was very happy for the help... Soon after clearing off the windows, gC and Smiley Cup headed out of town. Smiley Cup was excited! He hadn't been to 'work' before... After leaving The City Limits, gC and Smiley Cup headed on down The Interstate towards Work. Smiley Cup was still excited, because it had been a long time since he was on a Road Trip on The Interstate. And he was going to Work too, which he still found exciting... But what gC knew and Smiley Cup didn't know was that the trip to Work was a long one! Every day, it took a whole hour to get from Home to Work. gC had long since gotten used to it. But since it was Smiley Cup's first time going to Work, he had a hard time not dozing off while gC drove. After a while, Smiley Cup could no longer stay awake and he fell asleep... And it was probably a good thing that Smiley Cup fell asleep on the way to Work; mostly because once they got closer to Work, The Interstate traffic started to get busier and busier due to Rush Hour Traffic Conditions. Smiley Cup might have been a bit nervous if he saw how much traffic there was on The Interstate at Rush Hour. But Smiley Cup was asleep and he didn't see any of it... Once gC arrived at work -and woke up Smiley Cup- they went in and started to get things ready for their busy day... While gC turned on the lights and other machines -gC is almost always the first one in to his Work- Smiley Cup helped out by turning on one of the department computers and logging into the network for gC... Once all the machines and so forth were on and ready to run, gC introduced Smiley Cup to Work Cup, gC's cup that he uses for coffee or water at Work. Smiley Cup was impressed with Work Cup because he was so big and obviously had been a Cup of gC's for some time... Next, gC took Work Cup and Smiley Cup up to the Break Room to get some coffee. When they all got there, they saw that the coffee was almost all gone. (Well, the Regular Coffee was, at least...) So, since Smiley Cup wanted to make a good impression on Work Cup, he made coffee... After that, they all went back down to gC's Department. Once there, gC showed Smiley Cup how to run the Mail Inserter Machine that he operates. gC calls it Hagar because... Well... He calls the other Mail Inserter Machine Bertha and Hagar sounded like a good name for a 'mate' to Bertha. (Bertha is an Older Mail Inserter Machine and can be a bit cranky at times...) The first of these next 2 pics is Smiley Cup running Mail and Inserts through Hagar. The second pic is of Smiley Cup gathering up the inserted and metered mail at the end of Hagar's line... gC and SmileyCup continued working until Morning Break Time, when gC had to run an errand... After Morning Break Time, gC and Smiley Cup got back to work and worked until Lunch Time. At Lunch Time, gC worked on ‘The Red Bicycle’ Project. The Project is coming along very well. In fact, gC managed to finish stitching another color and decided to take an update picture. Smiley Cup thought it would be cute if he played the part of the 'sun' on the Project. Smiley Cup can be so silly sometimes... After taking the update pic and finishing his Lunch Time, gC went back to work until it was Afternoon Break Time. Since Smiley Cup had been so helpful all day long, gC decided to take him with him when he went out to get a cup of coffee. This would be a special treat for Smiley Cup, because gC was taking him to the Scooter's Coffee Shop near his Work. Here is what Smiley Cup saw when they both got to Scooters: "Wow!" thought Smiley Cup. "A REAL coffee shop! And so close to Work too. This is pretty neat." And not only did Smiley Cup get to go to Scooter's, but he made some new friends too. He meet the barista who made gC's latte' -gC likes a good latte' in the afternoon- as well as 2 Scooter's Cups! Smiley Cup was really thrilled to meet the Scooter's Cups and asked gC to take the following picture so that he could remember the event: After all that excitement, Smiley Cup was ready to go back to Work and finish the rest of the work of the day. He could hardly wait to get back Home and tell Grape (make this a link to Grape pic) about all of his adventures of the day. Smiley Cup thought that Work was kind of fun; what with making coffee, running Hagar, and going to Scooter's. (Smiley Cup really liked going to Scooter's!) After Work, gC and Smiley Cup closed things up at gC's Work and headed out of town. Smiley Cup was still a little bit bubbly from his day, so he didn't notice the drive Home as much as he did the drive to Work... About half way Home, gC pulled off of The Interstate into a Truck Stop. Smiley Cup was a bit at a loss... "Why do we need to stop here?" Smiley Cup wondered. Well, gC knew why. Kharma's gas tank was almost empty and he wanted to fill it up before it got much emptier. gC got out and started to fill Kharma's tank. After a while Smiley Cup became impatient at how long it was taking, so he got out and went to try and help gC. Needless to say, Smiley Cup was a little bit surprised to see what was displayed on the Gas Pump... "Oh my goodness!" thought Smiley Cup. "Do you ALWAYS pay that much for gas, gC?" "Unfortunately, yes. Every 2 to 3 days, depending on how much extra driving I do" gC said. Thankfully, I have a Car Pool Friend who helps me out by driving every other day. That saves me money and gives Kharma a break too. " "Wow!" Smiley Cup said in awe. "Car Pool Friend is a really nice person." "You said it, Smiley Cup!" gC agreed... Once Kharma was all gassed up, gC and Smiley Cup headed back out onto The Interstate. After a while, Smiley Cup fell asleep again, with a big smile on his face... Back at Home, Smiley Cup filled Grape in on His Great Adventure At Work. Grape was impressed. Smiley Cup fairly beamed! It was another good day for Smiley Cup... The End. Thanks for reading this latest story. Stay tuned for More Adventures With Smiley Cup! (Thanks MUCHES BUNCHES to Kim for helping me get this post FINALLY ready to be posted!!!)
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
I'm SOOOOO Confused...!?!
Therefore... On with the post!
:-( The pic on top is a shot of the tree outside our front window. The pic on the bottom is of a rather chilly squirrel. He is the same squirrel that Kim has over on her 'blog. This cute little bugger was running around frantically tying to remember where he had stashed his nuts before the 'real' winter hit. Needless to say, he appeared a wee bit freaked out. At one point, he looked as though he didn't want to get out of his tree. Granted, he had been running around in the snow during the storm... Mayhaps he had cold feet. ;-)
It was an interesting snow storm. One moment it was gently snowing... the next it was snowing great big snow flakes, and then the moment after that it was either snowing smallerflakes or not at all. Like I said, an interesting storm. Add to that the fact that we ended up with over a foot of snow, and that last week it was almost shorts weather... Well, you can see why I say it was an 'interesting' snow storm. One thing that I can say though, is that it made for some interesting pictures...
(This is a picture looking out onto the dog run outside of our apartment building...)
In 'The Red Bike Diary' world: I have taken up needle and floss again and am now back to working on it again. Intermitently, but working nonetheless. I managed to get a good bit of it done during the snow storm, but haven't really done anything interesting enough to take an update pic of it. Let's just say that the 'tree' is filling out nicely. I will do some more work on it and then make an actual update post about it.
Note to FLYBYU: Congratulations to you and Tina on your impending nuptials! You 2 make a really cute couple.
Notes to San and Lili: keep your eyes upon your post boxes. That is ALL the hinty poos you 2 are going to get... >:-)
Everybody else: hope you are having a good (snow storm free) day, things are going well for you all, and you are all staying safe and warm.
KEEP SMILING!!!
Friday, March 17, 2006
The Red Bike Diaries: Episode VIII
Hello everybody and Happy St. Patrick's Day! (For those who celebrate it, that is...) I FINALLY decided to post a progress pic of The Red Bicycle. And since it is St. Patrick's Day -and almost everybody will be wearing their green- and the project is practically dripping in green (at the moment) I would let you see what I looks like. So... Here it is:
I personally don't notice that much of a change from the last pic, but then again the stitches I have been putting in have been somewhat spartan. Kim called them 'confetti stitches' and if you think of what confetti is and how it is used... Well, methinks you can kind of get the idea as to how close together the stitches are. Fun, fun, fun... ;-p Let's see... What else to say... Not much at the moment. We are expecting to get -in the words of a co-worker of mine- 'all the snow that we haven't gotten this winter all at once' this weekend. On the one hand, I think it will be a good thing: we need the moisture and another snow day would be kind of nice. ;-p On the other hand, it will cause havoc in my already "why isn't it REALLY Spring yet?!?" brain. (Yes folks, Cabin Fever is setting in pretty hard this week...) Stay tuned to The Weather Channel and see what happens to us.
Alrightythen. I better post and run so that I can get to work, do my work, and then head home from work. (Work, work, work... that is all I seem to do sometimes... lol)
Be safe, be warm, be happy, be stitchy!!! ;-)
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Let me try this one more time...
The Adventures of
Grape and Smiley Cup On A Sunny Saturday Afternoon
(This story is best read while listening to "Everyday Is A Winding Road" by Sheryl Crow.)
On Saturday, a bright and sunny day, Grape and Smiley Cup decided to go on a Road Trip. The idea was to go and find a New Coffee Shop for Smiley Cup to endulge his favorite past time: having a cup of coffee! The plan was simple: get ready, and go. SIMPLE! Or so our intrepid adventurers first thought...
The first thing that needed to be done was to air up Grape's tires. Grape just hates to go out on a ride with squishy tires. (He tends to get pinch flats when he does that...) Smiley Cup helped to pump up Grape's tires. (See picture at left.) The front tire filled up quick and easy. But half way through filling up the back tire... PSSSSS! Oh, no! said Smiley Cup. (Well, a variation there on at least.) It turned out that the tire pump had sprung a leak. Not to worry though; because Grape ALWAYS carries a tire pump for just such an emergency. Grape is so smart!
Then, water bottlles needed to be filled up for gC so he woudln't dehydrate. (gC just HATES to get dehydrated...) Smiley Cup filled the water bottles and then put them into the "special" behind the seat bottle cages. (You can just see them in the picture at left.) Grape really likes his bottle cages, because he hardly ever looses a bottle on a ride. And that is good because if he lost a water bottle, gC might get dehydrated; and we all know how little gC likes to be dehydrated... Since Smiley Cup doesn't have a helmet -even though helmets are always a good idea- he rides with Grape in a special bag on Grape's rear rack. The bag is where Grape keeps all of his other tools as well as any of gC's personal effects that gC might need while on the ride. (gC ALWAYS carries his I.D. just in case...) Okay! Everybody ready? Good, let's go...
The first stop was this local bike shop. gC has a soft spot for bicycle shops. He just can't seem to pass one by when he sees one. Oh well, Grape and Smiley Cup didn't mind. For one, it gave Grape a chance to flirt with the cute little blue EZ-1 in front of the store. He found out that it is a grand-child of the Tour Easy ; which has a pretty nifty pedigree of it's own. Of course, it was hard to say who was doing more flirting: Grape or gC, since gC took the bike out for a short, around the block spin to see how the bike handled overalll. gC says it isn't a bad little bike for it's price point and would be just the ticket if someone wanted to get a cautious start in the recumbent bike riding game. (If you are curious about giving one a try, check out the dealer listing @ EasyRacers for a dealer near you. Okay, end of shameless plug...)
But Smiley Cup wasn't just left in Grape's rear rack bag. Nopers! Smiley Cup decided to go to the coffee shop in the folk art store next door. Unfortunately for Smiley Cup -and unbeknownst to gC- the folk art store was recently closed for good. Apparently it wasn't having much luck selling the craft stuff or the coffee. Smiley Cup felt pretty bad about that, since a good cup of coffee is always a good start to a bike ride. (See in the picture at left? Smiley Cup's smile is upside down, A sure sign of an unhappy Smiley Cup...) Poor Smiley Cup... Oh well, back to the bike ride...
After a little bit of riding time, Grape and Smiley Cup came to a local park that had a trail running through it and decided that it would be a good short cut to 84th St., which is the Big Street that would really be the start of the Road trip. At the park, they saw this Star Art 2006 sculpture. It is called "Star Light, Star Bright." Grape was really impressed with it; since it appears to be designed to light up at night. (Grape likes to light up at night too.) Smiley Cup liked it too because it looks like it would be very cheery once it was lit up. (Smiley Cup likes cheery things.)
After leaving the Star and the park, Grape and Smiley Cup finally made it to the Bridge Over 84th St. The trail in this general area is based on an abandoned railroad line. The Bridge makes it safer for folks to cross 84th St. without having to dodge the traffic below. (84th St. is a VERY busy street.) As you can see from Grape's flags in the picture at left, it was a rather windy day Saturday. But not so windy as to make it a not good day to do a Road Trip...
That silly Smiley Cup! Disregarding Grape's comment on how windy it was, Smiley Cup decided to sit on the gaurd railing and get a better look at the traffic passing under the 84th St. Bridge. It is a good thing that gC was there taking pictures! It was so windy that Smiley Cup was almost blown off of the railing. gC to the rescue! He was able to catch Smiley Cup just as he was about to fall off. (That is why Smiley Cup is showing his unSmiley Face in the picture at left...)
After his near-death experience -and once our cheery little group made its way to the Gas & Sip at the end of 84th St.- Smiley Cup decided that he needed a cup of coffee, and right now! Luckily for Smiley Cup, the Gas & Sip had some good, strong coffee to help calm his nerves. As you can see at left, he was a much happier Smiley Cup after he had his cup.
Grape -however- was feeling a little out of sorts. Normally, Grape is a pretty laid back kind of bike. But as Grape was waiting for Smiley Cup to get his coffee, it dawned on Grape that he was parked in a potentially compromising position: almost literally between a "Handicapped Parkers ONLY" sign and a "Unauthorized Vehicles Will Be TOWED" sign. Needless to say, Grape asked Smiley Cup to hurry up once Smiley Cup got his coffee. Grape would feel awfully embarassed if he ended up getting towed for being where he was...For the most part, the next part of the ride was fairly uneventful. gC still wanted to try and find the New Coffee Shop, but his time limit for being out with Grape and Smiley Cup was getting short. So, the group decided to go at least as far as The Next Town before turning around. How long could that possibly take? Well... A little longer than gC first thought. But that wasn't really a problem. Because even if gC was a little bit late, he wouldn't be that much later than he said he would be. So once the group made it into The Next Town -without ever really seeing the City Limit sign- the decision was made to turn around and head back home.
The return trip was failry uneventful, since it was pretty much the reverse of the trip out to The Next Town. The pace was a little bit faster though, since gC had a Deadline to meet. (Come to find out, the trip would take the group about 30 minutes longer than first planned. Oops!) All in all, this was a good day for a ride.
EPILOGUE: The final numbers from the Road Trip...
Once back at home, Grape, Smiley Cup, and gC went to look at Grape's computer to see what kind of ride they had. By the numbers, so to speak. What they found was this:
Apparently, some time during the Road Trip gC had accidently kicked Grape's computer and broke the mount! Uh oh! That is going to cost gC... At least this is a -relatively- easy thing to fix. ($25 or so at The Bike Shop and it will be as good as new...)Anyway, on to the numbers:
Trip time: 2 hours, 12 minutes. (This is the amount of time that Grape was actually moving. The Road Trip acutally took about 2 hours longer than that...)
Maximum speed: 21.3 mph, probably heading down 84th St.
Average Speed: 10.2 mph. This was a casual Road Trip. Something more agressive would rate a higher average.
Total distance: 22.46 miles. Half of that was the trip out to and back from The Next City.
Grape's poor computer! The poor thing is at least as old as Grape -c. 1996- and it is really starting to show its age. gC may have to spring for a newer, fancier one one of these days... Nah! The old one is still good... ;-)
Well, that concludes this post about Grape and Smiley Cup's Sunny Saturday Adventure. Stay tuned for more exciting Adventures of Coffee Shop Searching!!!
(gC Note: Thanks a bunches to all and sundry whom I mentioned either directly or not so directly during the posting of this post. Only Grape's computer mount was harmed during the creation of this post. Thanks again everybody!)
That concludes my little story. See? I told you it was cute... ;-)
Post at you all later!
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Is it Friday yet?!?
Here it is Sunday night, and I am already wanting it to be Friday... I guess that is what happens when you spend most of your Sunday indoors because it is rainy and cold outside. :-( Of course, Kim and I did go out to do laundry and grocery shopping so the entire day wasn't spent inside. lol
Oh well... I guess all that I have to say is that I want you all to be waiting patiently for Red Bicycle progress pics -I'm still working on it! Honest!!- and look to my other site tomorrow night for what should be a cute story with pictures and everything! (That is the plan. We shall see what happens...)
Okay, until then happy stitchy and be safe, dry, and warm!
;-)
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
It isn't that I am giving up on stitching, or even biking (as if!) No... I have just decided to split things up as far as how I do my blogging; when I do blogging, that is. >:-)
Do I have you all curioused up yet? Well, let me just say that if you are then you will just have to go to this page and see what I have to say... (Yes, I do have a way of being sneaky when I want to.)
And just so you all know, I AM going to be doing more on The Red Bicycle soon. Just not tonight. It's kind of late and all that, you know? lol
Okay, off to bed with you all and me and Kim too. Have a good night and I will blog with you soon!
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
This calls for a toast
(A pic of the grilled cheese sandwich Kim had the other night...)Well, let's see... This weekend I went for a ride on one of the local trails and took some pictures. So let's look at some pics first...:
First of, some info about the ride : I decided to ride my other bike, WIP. The name stands for "Work In Progress" because it is the current bike that I use to indulge my 'bike tinkering' fixation. (Ask Kim, 'fixation' is putting it mildly...) I rode about 21 miles total (half on the trails and half on the city streets) in just under 2 hours (saddle time) with a maximum speed of 22 mph and an average speed of about 11 mph. Not the fastest or longest ride I have ever been on, but at the time it was well worth it. Now, on to the pictures:
This is one of the Tour de Lincoln sculptures. It is called "View From the Road." If you look closely, you can see that it is designed to resemble a pair of eyeglasses. You can see why I like it. ;-) It looks as though the intention of the creator was to make it out of steel and then let it 'age' naturally. That means that the brown color you see in the picture is actually rusted metal. Pretty neat, methinks.After taking the above pic, I headed back over to the trail and headed south. I was aware of a relatively new section of trail that was opened up last year so I headed for it to see where it went.
Here you can see the new bridge that goes over 14th street (I think) south of Old Chaney Rd. It is one of many of the overpasses that you see while on the trail. It is nice that the planners here in Lincoln are willing to plan out the trails in such a way as to not always have to deal with city traffic. MUCH better than my old haunts, IMHO...Further down the trail, I found a rather large YMCA and park. "Cool" I am thinking because I was curious about parts of town where I hadn't been yet
.
Here is a treat for my viewers from outside the US: These roundabouts are also popping up all over town in the newer construction developments. Yet again, the city planners are planning things well in order to make things a bit safer for folks in parks and other areas where people frequent.One of the first things that I was was this star sculpture. It seems that these star sculpture are the "new thing" in outdoor sculpture this year as they are popping up all over town.
After I had taken all my pictures I got back on the road. Next thing I know, I am in a familliar part of town! It turns out that the trail heads down towards the general area of The Southpointe Mall. This is one of a couple of the big shopping areas in town and a place that Kim and I have been on many 0ccasions. In fact, we went there to see Shrek as one of our first dates here in Lincoln. ;-)
Anyway... Once I realised where I was, it was pretty easy to get back on track to head back home. 27th Street -the main street that passes by South Pointe- pretty much cuts Lincoln in half. All I had to do was follow that back up north and I would be home in no time.
Okay... pedal, pedal, pedal, and next thing I know I am on "O" street. That is one of the other bisecting streets here in town, and also the street where the above pictured "View From the Road" sculpture is located. So off I go up the street heading toward home when I see, off to my right, this other Tour de Lincoln sculpture:
This one is called Tour de Force and I must say that it is one of the neater
looking ones around town that I have seen of late. The wheels (see close up pic at right) are actually big pinwheels that move when the wind blows. Also, the colored bits of this sculpture are colored glass (maybe plastic) that act like stained glass windows when the sun is shining. (Look closely at the close up pic and you can almost see the blue shadow...) This in one of the more prominent Tour de Lincoln sculptures as you can probably guess...After some more pedaling and a crossing of "O" street, I am back on the trail that started this whole adventure and almost home. It is always good to go for a ride in town, but almost as much good to be making the final leg of the journey back home. (Upright bicycle seats are not very forgiving of the out of shape back sides...)
Okay, got back home and said hello -and a few other cute things- to Kim and started to wind down. Pretty much didn't do much more than that. I did do a little bit of work on The Red Bicycle, but not much to really make a post out of. All that green I am working on looks like all that green I have already done so you aren't missing much... I can say that it is still coming along nicely. I won't lie to you: I am getting a little bit worn down with it. (Hence the lack of update posts.) But I am still enthusiastic about it. Just not overly much so at the moment. ;-)
Well, as usually happens I have blogged my brains out here. I get an idea and I can't hardly stop until I am then and then I am 'kaput' done! Oh well, that is what I get for not blogging very often: I want to tell everybody everything that I can think of. ;-)
Some final notes:
Lilli, I have almost maybe possibly decided to not make a decission on the charity ride right now. Most likely I will be doing a different ride for the SERTOMA club that day.
FLYBYU, good luck on the 9 speed upgrades to your Burley. I can understand why you don't like the grip shifters; too many moving parts for my taste. I tend to go for Ultegra bar end shifters myself, but that is a personal preference thing. Happy trails to you!
To everybody else, happy trails, happy stitches, and happy day to you and yours! See you next time...
