n_maher

I've been looking at a gravelbike to add to the stable and the Crosscheck is on my short list. But I agree that we need a bit more information about how you intend to use the bike before we can make reasonable recommendations for possible alternatives. Knowing your budget would help too.

The neighbors were supposed to get some work done yesterday but I think the KTR was a no-show. Thankfully I didn't use the same guy so I'm hopeful my luck will be better. A few notes about combat with a bat: 1. A tennis racket is sufficient. Bat #1, which got into the first floor last summer did not provide me with a non-lethal option and thus was taken out by force. 2. Bats are rarely rabid, at least from what my research has shown. They are definitely freaked out when they get inside your house and want nothing other than to GTFO. Sadly, it isn't always an option. I'm a big fan of having them around. OUTSIDE. 3. The gun would be damn near useless, Raf. They are small, fast as hell and you'd just make more holes they could get in through.

Not today but last Wednesday night was a rough night. At 1am we were awoken by the phone ringing, never a good thing. So we launched out of bed and my wife answered the phone only to find that it was a wrong number. Give me a break. At 2am Andrew woke up and needed to be briefly settled before falling back asleep. Ok, ok, it happens and I comforted myself with the idea that I could still get 3hrs + of uniterrupted sleep if I was lucky. Luck was not with me. At 3am I awoke to the sound of a bat in our attic. Shit. It happens and the normal course of action is to put in a set of earplugs and go back to sleep. But I dozed off again quickly but then awoke to a strange noise. Now in order to fully appreciate the following you need to know that our alarm clock is somewhat obnoxiously bright and blue and puts out a pretty eerie glow under good circumstances. Factor in that when I opened my eyes in addition to the normal blue fog I saw a winged spawn of Satan circling my ceiling fan. The FUCK?!?! My wife, for all her wonderful qualities, will launch 10 feet in the air if she sees a mouse. I did not wish to find out what would happen if she woke up to a bat flying at her. So I attempted to calmly wake her up, instructed her to get on the floor and make her way to the door. Once that was accomplished and she was safely shut in with Lily in her room I went about the business of getting rid of the bat. It was thankfully easy. It flew into a window where I was able to pop the screen and set it free. We called a specialist the next day and their coming next week to bat-proof the house. Sleep has been fitful since that night with frequent incidents of additional noise in the attic and we were all feeling like we had life pretty bad until we talked to our next door neighboor last night. He's killed 9, fucking NINE, bats in his house in the last week. I believe that Maura put it best, "We would have moved." I had a stronger reaction, suggesting that torching the place might be in order. Thankfully last night yielded better, noise free sleep.

The issue that I have is that my wrist is narrower just above my ulner styloid so if it fits tight over the bone it just slides up my arm. If I wear it tighter it tends to sit to high up my arm. Bands with a little elasticity work better but even those have been annoying me lately... :sigh: edit - yes, all of my bands have that fine adjustment but even that sometimes isn't enough to find a 'happy spot'.

I don't know about Larry but I struggle with getting bracelets like that to fit well.

So this weekend I rode both my Dad's Salsa Vaya and my brother's CAAD 9, talk about different rides. Anyway, the net result is that I discovered that I've been running my saddle too low. So this weekend I bumped it up a good half inch. The ride into work this morning felt good with no issues. I hammered in pretty good completing the 20.4 miles (thanks to the newly opened bridge) at 19.7. I'm hoping to take a little longer route home since I won't have to catch a shuttle across the river and hopefully the saddle position will remain a positive adjustment.

Happy Birthday, Tyll.

Drool!

This. Some day I won't have a mortgage. That'll be like 2040

I think there have been series in the past that have only had 6. Overall I thought it was a step back in the right direction and thoroughly enjoyable. I'm also fine with no epic special if they can't come up with something better than the last two.

RIP Denver and sorry for your loss, Mike.

Happy birthday, Tom!

Wuhoo @ Vicki! That's outstanding news and I can't wait to see the pearly pictures. Glad the rain has finally let up, Aerius. Me - I've been feeling under the weather since Monday. Seems like there's a summer cold/flu going around right now and I've caught at least part of it. I've got a ride scheduled with a coworker tomorrow evening but the weather is not looking good. I might push it and go anyway.

Gene, When my contract is up with V I'll probably try switching to an alternate via an off-contract phone purchase to see how it goes. When I briefly had an AT&T iPhone the coverage was wretched but several folks in my office seem to have good luck with AT&T on their 4G network. T-Mo is pretty useless up here from what I understand and Sprint is almost as bad. I've got a year left so there's plenty of time to strategize.

Dan enjoys trying to incite a reaction from fans of anything unApple.

I don't trust Newegg enough anymore to order anything from them.

Stock on my GS3 because it seems to be a popular enough item that it receives somewhat timely updates. Really what I need to do is get off Verizon so I can be done with their locked versions of everything but other providers up here simply do not provide the level of coverage, which is maddennig. I'd love to hear suggestions for how to get around that.

I got up at 6 this morning to head out for a little ~40mi lap of the seacoast. It was actually a little chilly up here, with the start temp in the mid 50s. By the time I finished it was up to nearly 70 and felt great. I need to find a way to start hitting some of the bigger hills around here before the century next month.

I'm in.

I would probably put abusive in all those categories so I guess 2k isn't that bad. At least the cassette was still ok.

Took my bike to the LBS today for a tuneup and was informed that I needed a chain as well. 2,000 miles doesn't seem like enough to me, but I don't really know. Thoughts? It's ready to pick up tomorrow so I'm hoping to get in a ride a some point as a part of the pickup and then hopefully get a medium distance ride in Sunday.

This!

Buhbye.

Happy Birthday Todd!

Congrat!