Saturday, March 28, 2009
A few months back Jillian promised me she was going to stop playing frisbee until the wedding. Then Sheila called.
Sheila currently lives in Spain. She was planning to be back for just one week, which included the weekend of the Gettysburg home tournament. She wanted Jillian to play frisbee. There's no way to understand the Sheila-Jillian frisbee relationship. You really need to see (and hear) it. Jillian invited some friends of her from the UVA Hydras to come play.
David and I enjoy having people around. We decided we'd show off our kitchen skills. I cooked some Vodka Sauce Pasta. We even had side dishes.
Like any good frisbee team, most players had nicknames. So it was Ducky and Devo that came to play with Jillian's team. Having two people in the house named Devo was rather confusing at first, but since I had my nickname back when she was still in Middle School, I won. For the weekend she became Devo II.
On a side note, David got a brithday present from his mother. It was a gigantic watch. We half-joked that he could guide ships into the harbor with that thing.
After making breakfast for everyone, I went up to Gettysburg to watch the games. During the last game, Jillian tried to get a disc but her mark ripped and twisted it away. Jillian dislocated her shoulder. Since this is a regular occurance, I shot a picture.
While rolling around on the ground, Jillian actually managed to get it back in the socket, just moments after this picture. She was helped up and sat out the rest of the game. Afterward, Ducky made Jilian a sling.
We all went to a brief picnic where we got a few hot dogs and then drove back to Frederick. Ducky and Devo II took a shower, Jillian and I went to the Immediate Care Center. Fortuantely, the X-ray was good, so we just went home with Jillian in a sling.
We got dinner, and the ladies returned to Gettysburg the next day for Day 2. Jillian, even though she had the opportunity to mark another player in a sling, didn't play at all. Sheila and Friends (the official team name) won the tournament and captured a bubble trophy (I'm still not sure what that is).
Although Dave cooked up a 10lb Ham Dinner, Ducky and Devo II needed to get back to Charlottesville. So after stopping back in Frederick to pick up their stuff, they were on their way.
David and I have a lot of ham left over.
Jillian's arm is starting to feel better, so we should be ok for the wedding. But no frisbee is allowed at the rehersal dinner.
| posted at: 21:00 |
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Wednesday, March 25, 2009
So even though my official New Year's Resolution was only to give up Coffee, I thought it would be best to give up all caffeine. I succeeded, mostly. I finally gave in this week and had my first Mountain Dew in several months. I wasn't going to be heading home from school until almost 7 and I needed something just to stay awake. Stupid work schedule making me run back to Caffeine.
Still, it was kind of neat. I had just one 20oz bottle and found myself hyper. That hasn't happened since early in High School.
| posted at: 20:00 |
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Monday, March 23, 2009
These are the only pair of pants I'll be taking on the ride. They're North Face Scramble pants which I purchased on clearance for more than 50% off. They're completely non-cotton, which is very important in case we get wet. They also zip off at the knee, making them more versatile than most pants. They also zip up the calf, meaning it's easy to slip them on over a pair of riding shoes.
They're not a terribly warm pair of pants, but I don't need them to be. They'll be perfect if I feel like I need to slip them on over my riding shorts before we go into a civilized establishment. They'll also be perfect for cutting a night breeze. If it's really cold I can pull my cycling tights on under them. Then my legs should be good into the 40s.
As a special bonus, note the bike in the background. Note this doesn't mean that the bike is at our apartment yet, it simply means this is an older picture.
| posted at: 20:00 |
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Saturday, March 14, 2009
Jillian officially won the 1000 mile challenge today.I remain several hundred miles behind. I need to stop having a job so that I can simply ride all the time.
But I suppose I'll simply settle for having summers.
Now that Daylight savings time has passed, I'm hoping I'll be able to ride in the evenings again. Temperatures seem to be staying in the 50s instead of the 30s and 40s like we had most of the last two weeks. Jillian might have on the challenge, but I still hold hope that I'll be in better shape before our ride starts.
| posted at: 17:17 |
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Sunday, March 08, 2009
The weather was still beautiful today, so Jillian and I wanted to spend as much of it as possible outside. What better way than on our new Hase Pino?
We're still nervous about starting and stopping, so we decided to drive to Utica Park, just north of Frederick where we could get some more practice before riding through town. We stopped at Frederick Coffee Company for bagels and muffins to have as a picnic breakfast. I thought the food was delicious. Note my very unfashionable Zinetic Pocket Slippers. We were actually stopped while getting food by a woman who thought they were the coolest thing ever. Not very comfortable, but they're so light and fit on the bike well. Hopefully I won't need them when I buy spd shoes.
We started by riding through the Utica covered bridge before turning North on Old Frederick Road. We were giddy. Neither of us could stop smiling. Jillian took the better part of seventy photos in the first hour, mostly of farm animals. The road was mostly flat, but it was here we discovered our first potential problem. Jillian would stop thinking about pedaling while trying to get a photo, and suddenly it would become a lot more difficult for me. I had to remind myself that she was taking a picture and would be back pedaling in a second. It wasn't too bad at first, but a couple of hours later, I started to get frustrated because I was exhausted and it felt like she was taking a break while shooting a photo. We started to wonder if we should switch up the gearing so that either of us could coast. It would make it easier her to stop pedaling while taking a photo, and it would make it easier for either of us to coast when we felt like it.
About two hours later we arrived at US-15, just south of Emmitsburg. Rather than cross a busy highway or ride along the shoulder a couple of exits, we turned right and went what I thought was a North Eastern Direction. Instead, it turns out we went South East. A lot. While we were on this part of the adventure, two dogs decided we might be fun to play with. For those who aren't familiar, Jillian was attacked by dogs while riding a few years back. She has a rather large scar on her ankle because of it. When the first dog decided to run, Jillian simply froze. This worries me a lot. I can understand freezing, but if she freezes on the bike, it means that I need to pedal not just for me, but also for her. Our speed dropped significantly. She didn't immediately reach for the Halt!. Fortunately, the dog decided to not run onto the road, and instead just barked from the yard. An hour later, a Doberman went running along a fence to get us. Jillian froze about half as bad, but panicked and couldn't get her hands around the Halt!. This time the dog was confused, and ran right past the exit to his fence and got stuck in the corner of the property. I'm actually more concerned about dogs than I was a few months ago. I might need to carry a backup thing of Halt! just in case Jillian can't get to hers in time.
You can view the entire route on Gmaps Pedometer
Not long afterward, I saw some hills in the distance that didn't make sense to me. I decided to call my former roommate, a middle school National Geographic Geography Bee State Champion, to Google Map where we were. Althought it would have been fastest to simply turn around, I wanted to avoid going by the dogs again. So we turned on the next main road we came to and went to Taneytown. While stopped at a Sheetz, we were asked by a group of Harley riders all about the bike. They seemed to like our bike a lot, though most said they'd need to give up smoking before trying it. We were stopped by 4 groups of people throughout the day, and most simply told Jillian that I'd stopped pedaling without her knowledge (our cranks were on the same chain - one of us stopping without the other noticing was quite impossible). One asked if the camelback straw was for whipping and yelling "Mush!" Everyone was very friendly and we got a lot of stares - just like Larry at Mt Airy Bikes had promised us we would.
From Taneytown we found our way to Gettysburg, where we had an awesome lunch with our friend Tammy. Naturally, she had to give our bike a whirl, since it's such a unique experience. One of the pictures we took perfectly illustrates another problem we have. I'm the captain - I sit in the back where I control steering, brakes, and shifting. Jillian is the stoker, she simply sits up front and pedals along. When we stop at an intersection, I want to be able to see both ways before crossing. However, if I pull up to where I can see comfortably, I end up putting the front person into the intersection. Jillian reminded me a couple of times on our ride, but I had to see this picture before I realized just how bad it was. Jillian and I will need to work on communication and she'll probably be in charge of crossings from now on.
We had an uneventful ride back home, returning to the car about seven hours after we left. Not so bad, when you consider we had seven stops, including one for more than an hour for lunch. Neither of us was terribly sore, except for my behind. I might need to play with saddles before doing this every day. I had a few new concerns
- Dogs
- Stopping to use a bathroom - I was happy to stop only three times - Jillian wanted to stop twice as often.
- Food - We carried a few candy bars and water. I ran out of energy and stopping at a gas station for a PowerBar really reenergized me. We'll have to plan for food and water better.
- One of us being more exhausted than the other - when I got really tired and Jillian wasn't tired, I just wanted to coast on downhills and flats. Jillian, in much better shape than me, wanted to keep pedaling. On the other hand, if I could have spent more time coasting, would Jillian have felt the ride was unbalanced, and be bitter that she'd worked harder than me?
We also had a list of a long list of things to change about the bike. Before long I'll be returning the bike to the shop so they can do some work on it and use it for a few rallies and displays. But final option? We love this bike. We're very happy on it. I've heard tandems referred to as "relationship accelerators". Regardless of if things are going good or bad, you're going to get there faster. We think this bike will help create a happier and fuller marriage for us.
| posted at: 19:00 |
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Saturday, March 07, 2009
Since it was 70 degrees today, we decided to take another check ride on the Pino at Mt Airy Bikes. Our goal was to buy the bike at the end of February, since it can take up to 8 weeks for a bike to be delivered from Germany. If we still really loved riding this bike, we were hoping to buy it today.
While we were on the ride we visited with some horses.
We also ran into a couple riding trikes, which look like a ton of fun. They were kind enough to take our photo.
We were very happy with the ride, an decided it was time to buy the bike, so we rode back to the shop. There we spoke with Larry, who has owned three of them. According to him, his wife often sits in the front and reads or knits while they ride. He just kept telling us stories over and over about how much fun they have while they're riding. Once we'd made a deposit, he asked us if we wanted to take it for a spin tomorrow. Since the weather looked like it was going to be beautiful, we eagerly said yes and agreed to call later.
Then we went home and I took a nap. It was wonderful.
Around 5 we called to say we were going to be taking the bike a ride tomorrow and that we'd be by in the morning to pick it up. But it seems we were mistaken - the shop is closed on Sundays and we needed to pick it up right then. However, we were still very confused. Although everything makes perfect sense now, we had originally though we were just going to be making a final check ride to make sure we liked the boom positioning and such. It was only as a last minute thought that I threw the bike rack into my car, just in case. I know this makes us seem kind of silly - but we almost drove all the way out there only to not have any way to transport the bike.
So we drove the Pino home. I'm still amazed that he was trusting us, with just a check as a deposit, to take a very expensive bike home. When we got home, I pulled into the alleyway when Jillian yelled "STOP!". The bike sits a full foot wider than my car on both sides. There was no way it was going to fit down the alley.
We made David come out back and ride the bike for a few minutes. Jillian captured this gem:
Hopefully I don't look like that when Jillian is in the back. David and I are hoping to take the Pino on a one day tour of the entire C&O Canal Trail in a month. We're going to need a lot more riding practice.
Thank you so very much to everyone who has contributed to our Bike Fund. So far (although it's only been a few hours), we're incredibly happy with our purchase. We'll definitely bring it up later this spring so you can give it a try.
| posted at: 19:00 |
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Sunday, March 01, 2009
This weekend Jillian and I went up to New York for a Jack and Jill Wedding shower with my extended family. Less than half of them were there, so this couldn't have been too scary for Jillian. She seems to have made it through alive.
We arrived early Saturday morning. Jillian was very tired, having spent the entire previous week rushing to get the first draft of her thesis done. When we got to New York, my father was baking cookies in the shape of bicycles.
My mother made pretzel ice cream cake. Apparently pretzels and ice cream go together in central PA. I still think it's the strangest thing ever.
Around dinner time we went over to my aunt and uncle's house, where the family had gathered. We played some ridiculously hysterical games (sadly, Jillian and I lost all of them, despite our competitive nature) and ate some delicious food.
Thank you to my aunt and uncle for hosting and thank you to everyone who attended. We had a fantastic time.
| posted at: 11:34 |
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