Goodbye to all of that

The first blog post of 2011 was about how we ditched satellite TV and instead used the internet and over-the-air signals for content. It was a smashing success — better than we imagined it would be, even.

And the rest of the year? Well, let's check it out ... .

In January I poked the sleeping bear and told everybody I didn't give a crap about their ice beards or epic snowy gravel rides. I still don't care. You don't get faster from riding gravel, you get faster from riding — it doesn't matter where. Now go shave, hippie.

In February the thaw came reasonably early and I got some pretty good miles in. Also, the Trek Store got all ripped up and remodeled and everything. Oh, and we found out a baby was on the way in November.

In March I spent about 30 days coughing constantly. My form in April bore the effects of all of that.

In April, I did OK at Twin Bing and much, much worse at the Tour de Husker. And in between I swatted with futility at Wednesday Night Worlds success, started a shitstorm when I asked if we should have waited longer for Kevin on the same ride and then created a preamble for a fall of cyclocross by saying, "You know, I really want a 'cross bike."

In May I got stung on the forehead by a bee. For the record, I think bees are total assholes. I mean, thanks for the honey and pollinating all of the plants and all, but why so much stinging? Anyway, it was like a damn tumor for, like, a week. That sucked. Elsewhere, we planted a tree in the backyard and then I raced sort-of OK in Lincoln at the end of the month. And then I got a 'cross bike.

In June I finally felt like I was starting to put the pieces together. I don't know what I thought I was building, but I started getting faster. Also, because he's a small boy with lots of energy, Jack jumped over/onto the deck and split his chin wide open. We spent a Sunday night in the ER, which was ... well, it wasn't that bad, really. (For me, I mean.) I got a replacement Dura-Ace 7801 wheel, which was really exciting, and then we saw the Cubs lose in Kansas City. Thanks, Cubs.

July was better.

In July I somehow found my way onto the podium for the first time since 2008. I checked the results a dozen times to make sure it wasn't a mistake. I raced on back-to-back weekends that featured absolutely ridiculous heat and humidity and actually did pretty well. And it was then that Brady finally hit on the reason it took me so long to be halfway decent again: breaking your back is a very traumatic injury that takes a long while to heal.

In August I went to Trek World for what may be the last time for quite a while. I didn't know that at the time, of course. And then Mark and I happened upon an ambush at a ride in KC, which was actually pretty fun. Jack turned 4 on the 20th and then a week later ditched the training wheels. That was easily the best part of the month.

In September I used epoxy to glue on my license plates, won the NCA's Rider of the Year award after they canceled the last two races and then left my job at the bike shop. Or, rather, I decided to leave. And then I signed up for two 60-minute 'cross races. I never said I was smart.

In October I really did leave my bike-shop job, then raced a little 'cross and then watched the Cubs hire Theo Epstein to run the baseball works. Huh? What? The Cubs? Holy crap.

In November we won the game of chance and had a baby born on 11-11-11. My favorite number is 11, by the way. I did my last race of the year — where I won some cash — just two days before she arrived. And after she was born, I finally finished up building my new 'cross bike.

In December ... wait. December is done? Actually, it wasn't that much of a blur. I rode in the snow and then in the warm again. I got winter boots and snow tires and it's been warm ever since. I've done as much gravel as pavement and I still don't feel any faster. Guess I'm not epic enough.

And now it's December 31. Chris has been sick for a few days, meaning our usual New Year's Eve celebration — good beer and not-good-for-you food — is on hold. Two more days until I have to go back to work. I'm sure we'll work in a celebration at some point.

But that's all there is for 2011. It was a good year. The last couple of months were a bit nuts, but it was otherwise pretty entertaining. I don't see 2012 being any less of a thrill ride.

Shoes are now required

If you've ever stepped on a Lego block before, you know how that little plastic block can take on the qualities of a razor blade. You're going to want to wear protective footwear at our house from now on.

Chris and I decided to stick our toes into the shallow end of the Lego pool by picking up a couple of small Cars 2 Lego sets for Jack for Christmas. Though the pieces are pretty small, Jack has done pretty well with being able to take them apart and put them back together. And to not leave them all over the floor ... .

When we were in Algona earlier this week, I got out some of my old Lego sets and let him go to town. If the ones we got for him are slightly over his head, the space plane from 1985 was WAY over his head. He dropped it once on my parents' hardwood floor and sent pieces skittering across the room.

But, for the most part, he did pretty well. I imagine we have a future ahead of us that includes plastic totes filled with foot-slicing little blocks. And I'm cool with that, because Legos are awesome.

Foreign relations

At certain points of the fall and spring, my high school cross country and track coaches would load us up into a cargo van and drive into the country. They'd kick us out and say, "See you back at the school."

Because of that — and from exploring southern Kossuth County, Iowa, on my own — I'm fairly familiar with the gravel roads around Algona. Even looking at the map this morning, I could picture the roads I'd be riding on.

So that was nice. Memories came right back as I rolled out of town — south, toward Irvington — and onto the gravel. My previous rural-road gravel experiences came in handy pretty quick: farm dog, 3 o'cock.

It was obvious right away that it was the friendly kind of farm dog, the one that's basically saying, "Hey! Can I run with you? I like running! Yay! Run run run run run!"

Though I knew it was futile, I told him to go home. And then I picked up the pace and really got moving. He kept up. So then I tried to trick him by heading back toward his house, letting him get ahead and then doing a quick U-turn. Nope.

Then I thought I'd go farther down the road — and faster — trying to drop him. He was on my wheel when I got to a fairly busy country intersection. So I turned around and took him back ... again. When we got there this time, he laid down on the grass in front of his house. And then he got up and trotted toward the house, as if he heard his owner opening a door or filling up a water bowl.

So I took off — again — and ripped down the road. Again.

After a half-mile, I looked back and the damn dog was running after me. This time, I had a pretty good gap, so I ripped through the next little (ghost) town, around a couple of curves and back out into the open country.

That dumb dog was there the whole time. When I finally got the point where I could not, in good conscience, allow him to follow any longer, we turned around. Back through the ghost town, back across the intersection and on the way back to his house.

Like any good dog, he got distracted when we went past another farm house, at which something exciting was happening. And like that, he was gone. I wish I would have known about that distraction on one of the other four or five passes past that place.

By the time the dog was gone, my ride window was fairly well blown and I had to head back. Prior knowledge helped once again, so I took a slight detour on the way back into town. It would have been nice to get more miles, yes, but it was just nice to be out to begin with.

And, hey, I made a new friend, if nothing else.

New adventures in the old country

For the first time in a few years, it was actually worth it to bring a bike home around Christmas. The last two or three years have been either super-snowy, super-cold or super-cold and snowy. And I didn't have a 'cross bike until this year, anyway.

But it's actually pretty nice this time around, so I packed accordingly.

If there's one defining feature of my home territory, it's the complete and utter lack of elevation change. It's flat enough to see your turnaround point off in the distance. The few hills there are come from the vast network of creeks around the area. And those are 30-second hills - slight inclines, really - at best.

And while the area isn't particularly windy, when it is windy, it blows across the plains for miles and miles. That was today's scenario. In Omaha, when the icon on Weather.com just says "WIND," you can hide a fair amount in the valleys. Up here, you hide from the wind by staying inside.

I mapped out a route to a nearby town that was made up almost entirely of gravel or rails-to-trails surfaces. The initial stretch of pavement was only a couple of miles long and straight into the teeth of 20-30 mph wind. After that, it was gravel all the way to the turnaround town.

Only one section had big, loose chunks and the rest was pretty standard gravel. One section had a "No Snow Removal" sign on it, which was interesting at first, but it ended up looking exactly like the rest of the road.

After a quick bottle fill-up and a snack at the halfway point, I headed back west. The SSW wind was really ripping, and it felt like a block headwind a lot more than a cross-headwind. I was fortunate to be on the Rails-to-Trails section for the return trip, as it offered a bit of protection when I passed through brushy or lightly wooded sections.

Still, though, it was a long slog. When the trail finally kicked back north again, it was a sweet, welcome relief. Suddenly the cranks turned easily and the gusts stopped grabbing my front wheel. I rolled back into town with four hours on the clock and food on my mind.

I'm into my second cup of coffee by now. I think I still may take a nap.

Super-secret ultra awesomeness

Though I've had access to bike-shop-guy pricing for nearly three years now, some of this stuff is still expensive. While there's no real way to get around some necessities, there are ways to cut costs even further: food.

Sport-specific stuff is expensive, even at shop-guy prices. Some stuff you can't avoid — energy gels work well for me in long road races and in preparation for crits and such — but if you just need sugar and a little bit of fat, regular food does the trick.

And the best place to get regular food that works on the bike is Costco. Nature Valley granola bars? Twenty-five cents apiece, 190 calories. Pop Tarts, another fine source of sugar and a tiny handful of vitamins, end up being 45 cents apiece (or so). And it's 400 calories if you eat both pastries.

And those waffles from earlier this year? Yeah, those are awesome, too. There are at least a dozen regular-food items out there that would work great as on-bike food.

But there's one holy grail of bike food that has just now found its way to Costco. It's the kind of item that gives me pause when considering whether I should actually have such easy access to such things. It's so ridiculously inexpensive compared to even the generous shop-guy pricing.

Brady made me promise not to tell.

So I won't. But I'll say this: If you're at Costco searching for something to stuff in your jersey pockets, take a right at the second-run Calvin Klein jeans, a left at the big coolers, another right at the 8-pound bag of ground beef, a right at the Mexican Coke and another right at the giant tub of whey protein.

Keep your eyes peeled. You'll see what I'm talking about.

There's a prize inside

It's almost time.

Historically, I've had a problem waiting until Christmas Eve to find out what's under the tree, in presents marked with my name. My parents can attest to this. Chris can attest to this. If there's a way for me to find out, I probably will.

That's not to say I dig through the house and try to find out. Well, not anymore. The seventh-grade me found a baseball card magazine long before Christmas, and by the time the big day had arrived, I'd read it cover to cover. And I recall one year very, very carefully (and probably not as quietly as I thought) pulling back a slightly unstuck piece of Scotch tape to open the flap on ... I think it was a GI Joe something or other. Regardless, it was undoubtedly awesome.

This year, mostly due to having a baby in the house, things like getting presents under the tree (to say nothing of getting the damn tree up to begin with) happen when they happen. Chris just started wrapping presents a few days ago. And because I have bigger fish to fry, I haven't even checked underneath. (That could change, of course. All it takes is one tiny fit of boredom.)

Jack, meanwhile, has the whole thing mapped out. There's nothing so obvious — like Lego sets — under the tree, so we might have him fooled for now. And while he's had a problem keeping mouth shut in past years, he hasn't told Chris what he got her. But I think he probably forgot, since it was in the middle of a busy, distracting trip to Village Pointe.

On the opposite end of that, though, he inadvertently told me what I was getting — sort of. Some bike tools and socks. Of course, I asked for a number of different bike tools and just sort of pointed toward the socks. Could be anything.

Hmmm ... maybe I'll go find out.

Commuting

Since I started at Harvest a couple of months ago (that was a fast two months, by the way), I've been trying to ride to work at least twice a week.

The ride is the same as it's always been, with the exception of the last half-mile or so. Instead of going past the first Furniture Mart warehouse and turning into the parking lot, I turn just before the warehouse and cut straight east toward Lowes, Jimmy John's and Starbucks.

With the exception of the first couple of weeks, every ride home has been in the dark. And the gear I've accumulated over the past couple of months has little to do with racing (in the short term) and everything to do with continuing to ride deep into winter.

I started by adding a headlight — the NiteRider MiNewt 150. Nothing too crazy, but enough to light up the Keystone (which is surprisingly dark in spots) and grab the attention of motorists. Though I also rode home in the dark when I worked nights at the newspaper, I had only a pretty simple battery-powered headlight. The difference? No traffic at 2 a.m. Sometimes I rode Radial Highway from downtown.

My 'cross bike will be the prime commuter over the winter, and I've added fenders, too. Studded tires are on a hook in the garage, and I hope they stay there. I realize this is probably an impossibility, but I'm holding out hope.

As for the Shimano boots I picked up — they're pretty solid. They are by no means revolutionary and won't keep my feet toasty warm down to 5-below. But they're certainly easier than shoes and covers and will be way more durable.

And despite stories by others of being honked at, cut off and otherwise treated horribly by motorists, I really haven't seen it. The only even remotely dicey part of either portion of the ride comes in the first mile on the morning leg: I have to get down Fort Street, which is fairly busy. I can get up to speed pretty quickly and get out of the way in about 30 seconds. After signaling, a little wave of thanks to the driver who let me in has me set up for an easy ride the rest of the way.

With a slightly busier schedule this winter, hopefully a couple of rides to work per week — and the first half/last half is hilly — will help maintain fitness. I'll still have to get good noon-hour work in, along with weekend rides, but I'm hoping I can be a little bit better for the races earlier on the calendar than I was in the last two seasons.

December reprieve

With one week left before Christmas, I got out twice over the weekend on my road bike. Even better, it was actually semi-warm both days.

Dry roads in December isn't a miracle or anything — I remember December of 2008 being not so bad. The two last two, however, have featured snow on the ground by this time.

Anyway, it was nice to get out on the road bike, especially after I'd pretty much resigned myself to riding the 'cross bike for the next three months. (Which isn't a huge deal since they're set up exactly the same.) I put the super-heavy 20-year-old wheels on the Madone, which probably added three pounds. They're ridiculous.

Saturday was about three hours or so. Chris took Jack and Maddie to the Childrens' Museum to see Santa Claus. Wanting nothing to do with that, I met them there around lunchtime. I promptly negated the ride by choosing the Patty Melt-Phatty Style at the Dundee Dell. It was still worth it.

On Sunday I decided way too late to join a group leaving from the downtown Blue Line. (Seriously, people — why do winter rides always leave from downtown?) In any case, I was drilling it to get there in time when I came upon a road closed sign leading into Elmwood Park. "No matter," I thought, "I'll just go cyclocross style and ride around it."

That didn't turn out very well. Unlike most Omaha "road closed" situations, there was actually a pretty huge ditch involved with this project. And parts were muddy. "OK, go farther around." Not two feet onto the grass, a stick kicked up and jammed itself into my rear derailleur.

Yikes. I got it out, put everything back together and got onto the cart path for a proper detour. By the time I got going again, I was late and still 10 minutes away. Ugh.

And when I finally did catch up to the group in Council Bluffs, we were minutes away from the first of several big climbs for the day. I was pretty much toast right then. And, even better, my rear derailleur hanger was bent, which made the bottom of the cage just barely touch my spokes on the easiest gear. That meant I climbed the first huge hill in a 39-21. Ow.

At the top, I stopped to bend it back and got on with things. Of course, I also hoped it would stand up to the rest of the ride. Two bends to a derailleur hanger is two too many. As it turned out, the hanger was the least of my worries. Saturday's effort, combined with an hour of pinning it just to meet the group, left me wanting in the power department.

I ended up just shy of 70 miles, which is pretty solid for December 18. After that, I spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on chores — yardwork, cleaning, laundry — and then cooked supper.

I'm still pretty worked over right now, but I'm summoning the will to ride to work today. It sounds greedy, but I feel like I should take advantage of these nice-weather opportunities as much as possible.

This is still strange

Madelyn will be five weeks old tomorrow. November 11 seems like ages ago.

That said, I can't remember much between then and now. It's been a blur. I looked at the calendar this morning and realized Christmas is 10 days away.

Huh.

Life is moving pretty fast right now. I'm honestly happy I've been able to get any semblance of training in, let alone fairly consistent work. My training goals are fairly straightforward: Get faster. Ha!

It's more like this: work on my right-leg weakness, refine my pedal stroke, get stronger overall. It's obviously a little more complicated than that, but that's the main idea.

I've been riding to work twice a week, doing a little bit of running and getting outside for longer rides when possible. It's not been too bad so far.

Of course, Chris has been home for the entirety of this five-week span. She has about four weeks left (or so), and then heads back to school. It remains to be seen if either of us can keep this kind of semi-efficiency going.

Based on some of the mornings and evenings around the house, I'd say it's a 50-50 chance.

Can't explain it

When we started stocking Sidi shoes at the Midtown store earlier this year, I was among the first to try some on. I mean, why not? Sidi is one of those iconic cycling names.

But, iconic name or not, Sidi's standard last (which is the shape upon which its shoes are built) just doesn't fit me. Shimano fits best, followed by the newish Bontrager RXXXL. Sidi does make a narrow version of all of its shoes, but I know my feet (big, high arches, bony), so I'm not ordering anything I can't try on first.

Though all of the above is established and straightforward, I cannot take my little gear-obsessed mind off of these shoes:
The new Sidi Ergo 3. I have no need whatsoever for these shoes. They retail for $400. They are completely ridiculous and completely awesome.

Similarly, this helmet has been on my mind for months after first putting it on my skull:
It's the Kask Vertigo, which is worn by Team Sky. It's $300. Again, I have no need for this whatsoever. The Lazer (and Bell Volt) helmet I have right now is perfectly fine. But the Vertigo might be the first helmet I could wear without needing to spend some time "customizing" it with a Dremel tool.

These are the things I think about when there are no upcoming events to think about, or real training to consider. Just spinning the miles away, thinking about upgrading every single piece of gear I have.

Is it necessary? Hardly. Would it be awesome? Yup.

All in

Welcome to winter. It's time for the annual debate about what makes you faster: riding inside or outside.

The answer is neither. Riding — getting your work in, regardless of where you do it — makes you faster. If you're in doubt, think of your competition; the riders closest to you in terms of ability.

There are guys who rode outside and touted their trainer-less winter who were faster than me. And they've always been faster than me. Inside or outside doesn't matter in that case. Are they faster because they rode outside? Not likely.

There are guys who rode outside and touted their trainer-less winter who weren't faster than me. I've always been faster than them. Inside or outside didn't matter there, either.

(If you want to skip ahead to arguing below, go ahead. )

Regardless of which side of the fence you're on, riding outside in winter is fun — provided you have the right gear for it. I've had most of the clothing for a couple of seasons now. I have gloves and clothing pretty well dialed in. I very, very rarely make a mistake on those.

Picking up a 'cross bike this fall was a big step, of course. And after a couple of dirty rides on it, I saw the need for fenders. And though ripping around the lake and the snowy paths was awesome, it was clear that if I wanted to keep riding to work, I'd need some studded tires.

Check, check, check.

What's left? Footwear. Pow.

I ordered a pair of Shimano MW81 boots last week and tried them out over the weekend. The Bontrager RXL thermal booties are awesome — easily the best booties out there — but they don't work nearly as well on MTB shoes.

Long story short, these are very nice, but they aren't a magic bullet. Your feet (or my feet, at least) will not be toasty warm for four hours. It will, however, take much longer for the chill to set in, and you'll be far less frozen at the end. My feet were warm again pretty quickly after the ride was done.

All together, this stuff will allow me to go play outside a bit more this winter. Getting my workout in is still most important, but like I said before — it's fun to go ride with your friends.

It's too early for this

It is December. We are months away from baseball season. Even the beginning of Spring Training — when pitchers and catchers report — is still a full two months away.

Yet I cannot stop thinking about the upcoming season. The Cubs will likely be, at best, pretty average. There's still not a ton of talent on the Major League roster; the starting rotation is woefully thin.

But with Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer — a pair of certified baseball wonderboys (though they're older than me, so they're probably not exactly boys) — in charge, there's actually some hope. Maybe not for next year — that may already be a lost cause.

The year after that, though? Maybe. The moves being made now are, from my decidedly non-wonderboy view, telegraphing the intent of the management team. Even though the Winter Meetings from the Cubs' perspective were pretty tame — just a fairly ho-hum trade — I kept a ticker rolling all day.

They're going to do something. And it might be slow progress but it's going to be awesome.

That's what made me go home at the end of the day and want to play PS3 baseball all night. (I still ended up playing Arkham City instead.)

It is December. It is time to try to block out that awful, awful 2011 season. But I'm excited for baseball, and I wish it was April.

A Christmas classic

Two-year-old Jack, circa 2009. Chris has been decorating the house, but this video is all I can think of.

Heavy rotation

We listen to a lot of music around here. In fact, when we moved our home theater setup downstairs about a year ago, we bought a little sound bar for the living room upstairs just so we could keep listening. Well, keep listening without blasting the downstairs speakers ... which is awesome, by the way.

Compared to years past, we didn't buy a ton of music this year. I typically find myself buying six or seven new albums — those released within a given year — and then filling in gaps from years past. This year, I think we only bought four or five.

It's notable, too, that most of these were streamed in their entirety on NPR before they were released. Being able to preview an entire album is probably one of my favorite parts of the digital age.

Anyway, here's what we've been listening to:



Wilco: "Born Alone", from The Whole Love

We're big Wilco fans, as you might know. They were in KC on Saturday and Des Moines on Sunday. We were in Omaha. Sigh. Anyway, The Whole Love starts off hot and then twists and turns through almost an hour of music. Good stuff, like always.



Decemberists: "Calamity Song", from The King Is Dead

I've held a long disdain for Colin Meloy, the leader of the group. He comes off as pretentious and nasally. That said, this album is pretty great. EOB has made fun of me for mocking the band in the past, but Chris and I have both played the hell out of this album. My hypocrisy knows no bounds, apparently.



Bright Eyes: "Jejune Stars," from The People's Key

My first exposure to Bright Eyes came when I stopped by the Omaha Public Library a few years ago for my then-weekly allotment of books. I probably added to my music collection by 20 percent when I started digging through the library's offerings. Having been in Omaha for a short time, everybody made it a point to mention Bright Eyes. I grabbed I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning and was impressed. The People's Key is probably the band's most balanced and accessible album to date.



Ryan Adams, "Ashes and Fire," from Ashes and Fire

I remember the early days of Ryan Adams — the wonderboy who was the next great singer-songwriter. He had about two years of fame around 2001 and 2002 and then promptly went off the rails. After about five albums' worth of "bleh," he came back with Ashes and Fire. It's still not as good as his best work, but it's quite good.



The New Pornographers: "Moves," from Together

This is admittedly an album from last year. We saw the band live at the Waiting Room in the spring and haven't stopped playing them since. The best part about hearing a band you're into — but not REALLY into — is that you hear stuff you haven't heard before. We filled in some gaps in their catalog after the show, and it's become a road-trip staple.

I'll probably think of more along the way today. I might add them in. And if there's something I should have checked out this year, please toss a link into the comments. We have a lot of road tripping coming up around Christmas. We're going to need a distraction.

Get your money's worth

As expected, riding time is not plentiful when both kids are in the house. I was prepared for that.

With that in mind, I decided a few weeks ago that all workouts over the winter had to be worth it. As in, if I'm going to ride, I need to make it a good one. Plus, when you think about the flow of my week — little pockets of ride time here and there — it's not that much different than what I've been doing for the last month.

On Saturday, as the snow was coming down, I jumped onto the trainer for an hour. One of my objectives for winter training is strengthening, so after a good warmup and then some upper zone-3 intervals (5 and 10 minutes), I dumped it into the 53x11 and spent 15 minutes climbing an imaginary mountain.

After some quick stretching, I was done. I noticed how easy it was to slip back into workout mode, even after a few weeks of "definitely not trying to be fast on a bike." I haven't officially started any sort of preseason plan — and I might not for a while — but it's time to get moving a bit again.

On Sunday, with the street out front scraped mostly clean, I figured it was time to see exactly what a 'cross bike can do. With only a couple of exceptions, the roads I usually ride on in winter were clean enough for a road bike. That said, the Madone is shiny and will probably stay inside for a long while.

Anyway, I decided to plow through the path around Standing Bear, then head out on Ida for a few miles of gravel. Though I had a couple of times where both tires were sliding a little bit, it wasn't too bad. Actually, it was a really good warmup. I have Clement Crusade PDX tires on right now, so when I did get to the crunchy snow, I had plenty of grip.

Once out on the road, I enjoyed the looks people had on their faces as they drove past. It was actually really nice yesterday — 28 or so, no wind — so the conditions were really comfortable.

On the gravel, it was 95 percent OK, and the parts that weren't OK had nice, bright-white snow on them that made it very difficult to get any idea of texture or depth. On the way back in, I continued the theme of strengthening and worked a big gear up the hills.

As usual, the last two miles (along with the first two) were the worst. Streets that allow an easy exit in the summertime are usually a mess in the winter. Most of it was snow and ice, while some was just flat-out ice. I would imagine that after a bit of freeze/thaw/freeze, the paths around Standing Bear will be similar.

Once home, I quickly cleaned my bike. Or, rather, cleaned it as quickly as I could. I got a paint brush to brush away the snow around the BB and derailleurs, along with the braking surfaces and brakes. I'm going to re-examine my fender situation, too, because while I was clean and dry, the bike was not.

Later in the afternoon, while I was taking Jack to a birthday party, I noticed the sidepath essential to my ride to work was clear. I later checked on a couple of the sidestreets. They were predictably packed with snow and ice, but that's probably something studded tires could take care of. I still want to ride to work at least twice a week, but I'd rather not take 50 minutes to get there because it's all sketchy.

Guess I'm heading to the store today.

It's too early for this

I get up every morning at 5:25. Well, at least that's where the alarm is set every night.

At 5:25, I have time to get things done (GamJams, and sometimes a blog post); I have time to drink a cup of coffee (or two). Basically, I can ease into the day. It's a pretty low-stress way to get things rolling.

This morning, I woke with thoughts of an annoying little mistake I made at work yesterday still stuck in my head. And I didn't sleep well to begin with. About 10 minutes later, Maddie started making noise — she was having problems going back to sleep after being fed around 5. I ended up putting her in the swing.

At some point in there, Tonka decided to do his Tonka thing, which is to be completely dumb and unreasonably freaked out about something ... which is usually nothing.

Jack woke up at 6:04. Since I'm the one who gets things rolling in the morning, I have a rule that he needs to stay in his room until 6:30. Because he has little-kid dyslexia (not really), he sometimes transposes numbers and letters. He insisted it was 6:40, and therefore time to get up.

So I had to explain to him that no, it was actually 6:04 and he really, really needed to get back into bed. After much protesting and a veiled threat of screaming really loudly, he complied. I swear he's like a cute, tiny little terrorist.

At 6:15, finally, the house was quiet. I was waiting for the little yappy dog next door to chime in and finish things off, but today is an off day for my neighbor — which means things will be quiet.

I intended to ride to work today. I did not. I'm not worried about cold — I have plenty of clothes. I just didn't have the energy to kit up and roll down the hill. It's a sad setup for the day when you're tapped out at 7 a.m.

But I did bring my bike with me today. As much as I hate taking my bike for a drive, sometimes that's just how a ride gets in. I'll aim for that ride during the heat of the day, which is only supposed to be in the mid-30s.

I need a ride, though. Bad. Well, that and a nap.

Stop eating, tubby

Six weeks into the new job and yes, everything is awesome. I felt instantly comfortable and got down to the business of getting good things done.

So that was nice. And, because of a pretty loose and easy-going schedule, I can ride a bit more than before. Great!

But because I'm sitting on my ass all day instead of running around the shop, I'm getting a little ... umm ... soft. Not fat, by any means, but not exactly race trim.

That said, I haven't really been riding a ton over the last couple of weeks. And sleep has been OK, but not great. And I'm just getting over a cold that lasted a few days.

Hopefully, with the gunk clearing out, I can get back on the bike during the lunch hour. And hopefully, by the time it's time to really start riding again, I won't have to go on the soup diet.

Because although I like soup, it's a semi-desperate measure. And I'd rather not go that far. Yet.