Taking Out The Big Guns

Nice ride out to Fort Flagler on Marrowstone Island. Weather was cool
and damp, but little wind and no rain. Roads are in bad shape with
sand, tree limbs and debris everywhere; happy the Pereira is more than
adequate for the task. Even without rain, wet surfaces were abundant
and you never know what surprises lie beneath! Saw blue skies for a
brief moment, but never caught them. Eagles over Indian Island,
divers out in the bay off Marrowstone. Fairly quiet on the roads traffic-wise.
Great time trial back from the bunker above to home, a good 65
minutes of hard effort and a pleasant ride all around!

More Shop Goodies!

My Dad arrived this week and brought me a few goodies for the shop!

Two directional machine vice with a little one to mount to it. This will be used with the drill press when it comes.

Huge, heavy weight vice that will be bolted to the shop bench. Have extra jaws coming, including a round one to hold fork tubes and the like.

A real Park shop stand...I've wanted one of these for over 20 years and finally it's here.

My brother Todd's old Kennedy tool chest...now I just need the top chest and I'll be set. He got an awesome stainless steel one that's huge. I'm more than happy to get the cast-off!

More on the way: drill press, bench mount grinder, TIG and heliarc welders with tanks. Maybe a cutoff saw too. Life is getting better every day.

2008 Review - 2009 Thoughts

All in all this was not a year of big accomplishments, but lots of little fun ones.

Outside

Got to spend 7 weeks in CO and enjoyed many days of telemark, backcountry and XC skate/traditional skiing. Glorious trip to Meadow Creek/Chief Mountain and a banner day on Tucker Mountain. Never did much skate skiing before but it was a blast with one day of 25 km. Got some new Karhu 10th Mountain skis and Switchback bindings, perfect for my Garmont Veloce boots. Old tele boards out and new K2 World Piste skis and Hammerheads in. Now I need some new tele boots...

Cycling was erratic but I had a slew of great club rides, a Fleche, some 200km brevets and a few centuries thrown in. Best of all was going to the NAHMBS in Portland, meeting Tony Pereira and taking home my new 650b Hetre randonneur. Yay! Finally got to do a S24hO with Kent and Matt, though the weather was dampish, spirits were not. A few nice family rides were had. Need more of those.

Camping in the Bus: Needless to say, we did very little this year...that should change for 2009.

Maui-Wowie. Spent two weeks in Maui for my parents 50th anniversary and had an absolute blast. In the ocean every day, swimming, surfing and boogie boarding...followed by copious beverages and piles of food. Really fabulous.

Inside

15th year in business...back to the beginning with just me as Carrie moved on to work in school administration/management. It was odd, but I'm getting to like having a home office again and no employees. So far, so good. I have some great long-time clients and it gives me some freedom to be outside when I want.

Organized my shop, office and cleared out years worth of maps, magazines and papers from art school 15 years ago. Whew. Sold some bikes, got twice as many again, so I've given up on reducing. My only goal now is to build a bigger space for them, some machine tools and whatever else comes my way! (For instance, going from zero bike trailers to now having 4).

Life

My wife's father is dying, so there's been frequent trips to MN. That's been a lesson in many ways. My dear kitty died after 20 years. No more felines for me for awhile, I'm not ready yet.

2009 Goals

Taking my daughter on a backpack trip and a bike tour
Family camping in the Bus
Full brevet series or two starting in March
Gold Rush 1200 km (Davis, CA) July
Last Chance 1200 km (Boulder, CO) September
Some S24HOs - summer
Good ski days, especially backcountry - winter/spring
Less wine, more sleep, better food, more nights under the stars.