The new campfire thread...ooooh purrrrty!!!!!!

[Fenlason]

semi sunny and 10 degrees… We are currently gathering clothes and such for tonight's ride. We have a dinner party this evening. This is something we have done for a few years now.. with a regular group. It always ends before midnight. So we will come home and head out for a ride. For a few years now we have ridden out the old year and ride in the new. We head out before Midnight. We have done much outside cold weather riding for a little bit, so we have to find and figure out what we might need.

I will be heading back out to get our bikes ready also. With all the ice around we will ride our Pugsleys with studded tires.

The people we had dinner with last night.. Dave and Angela.. Dave is the one who will be my new manager.. we did talk some last night… He said if we had any questions.. it was a good time. We talked a bit.. but not of some of the questions I might have. For one I don't know that he knows I don't work weekends etc.. or didn't. I worked two days a week.. and any extra.. I was asked if I could help out.. not told you have to work this and this extra. It didn't feel like a time to talk that stuff.. too early for that. He is excited, but also anxious.. for he is giving up a stable job to do this.

Some things will of course not change.. others will. He did meet with my co-workers in our store.. I think Friday.. and talked to them some.

The nice thing for me..and Laurie did bring it up Friday night when she and I talked about it.. I don't "need" to work. I do this job.. because I enjoy it, and it really doesn't contribute to our household income.. for everything I earn… goes back into our cycling habit.

[Alan Wood]

Happy new year.

[toypusher]

Hope everyone is having a Happy New Year (at least so far)!

Got the rest of the Christmas stuff down and put away this morning. Not sure what's up for the rest of the day. Doing some laundry right now.

[Fenlason]

Happy New Year!!
We had our usual dinner party last night. 4 couples.. then came home for our ride. It was snowing pretty hard by then. We headed out for our ride a little after 11:00.. and got back at 1:00 am. hmm I think we got in 14 miles.

We have been out doing snow clean up.. it has just cleared off.. and is warming up.

Oh.. my boss [old boss] called yesterday to give me the news… we then talked about my account. I owe him some money.. on a layaway.. and he owes me for a couple of deliveries. I owe him more than he owes me.. but he said to not worry about it. Then right after my co-worker called to ask me to help with a delivery… which might mean I am sort of working for free…

[caseydog]

Happy 2017!

It was pretty quiet here, except for the two planes colliding a few miles North of me. What a bad ending of 2016 for the three dead and their family members.

As for me, I did some yard work since it was 70-plus outside. Mostly dealing with leaves.

I cooked up a USDA Prime steak using my immersion circulator to sous vide the meat to a perfect medium rare, followed by a quick sear/char over some scorching hot charcoal.

Today, I took the meaty ham bone from christmas dinner, and made a big pot of ham and bean soup. It took all day to make, but it was really good (food pr0n below).

Psycho poodle got steak scraps last night, and has a ham bone to chew on tomorrow, under my supervision (bones are both good, and bad for dogs -- you have to supervise).

We are supposed to get some strong storms tonight, and we could have some frozen precipitation on Thursday. Other than that, 60s and 70s here.

CD

.

[Fenlason]

Yesterday was mostly a lazy day here.. although I did do some work on an electric radiant heater for my shop, and did a little work in my porch. Then a couple of rides on the bkool later.

Today was my delivery.. and at least my boss was in.. and saw I did have to work today.. so maybe.

The delivery went well.. I had to go to our other shop and pickup someone to help [the delivery was down his way anyways]. We I dropped him back off the new manager was meeting with one of our vendor reps.. I stuck around to be part of that.. and part of some other conversations after the rep left. I am feeling more and more hopeful as I hear more.

[toypusher]

Yesterday was a rainy day all day and I did get some laundry done and also got all the framing up for my door in the garage. Just need to cut it out and put the door in today. Might get in some shooting with Mark today also.

[toypusher]

Yesterday was sunny and windy, but almost hit 50 degrees. Got the door installed then went shooting. Finished up some detail stuff on the door and rearranged the garage so that when my truck is in there, I can still open the man door and walk around the truck. Then finished the day off by going for a 45 min walk (not sure now that I should have done that). Kinda sore from the work to install the door, but not too bad.

It's 24 degrees and not going to get much warmer today, and will be mostly cloudy. A bit breezy too. Not sure about my walk today, but most likely will go mid day or so, just have to dress for the temps and wind chill.

[Fenlason]

We have had a wide mix of weather.. snow.. sleet… freezing rain and rain. I did some more clean up yesterday… and did a little work on the porch.

We are colder today.. but I think we are to be sunny.

[Fenlason]

We got up to about 20 degrees today.. we had some sun.. then some high thin clouds appeared. I did do some work on the porch [the outside one] I worked on the "bar".

I sort of wanted to go for a trail ride.. but felt guilty with Laurie at work.

I did do a little hammer on the bkool. I had a track ride I wanted to do again. I have done it twice now.. the second faster than the first. It's a 3 mile ride on a velodrome in Spain. My goal was to do it at an average of 30mph. My second ride I got to 29.5. I felt a little better today then yesterday.. and did it faster.. a bit faster. 32.5 I think. I think I could have done better with a better warm up. In the past years.. I have been far better at long endurace "stuff".. and the training for that.. leaves it hard for me to hammer this short stuff. So I have been working on that.

The sale did go through today on the shop… again I heard it through Laurie…

[toypusher]

We got a couple inches of snow last night and the temps were in the low 20s. So, it is sunny and 25 degrees, but not much melting. It was freezing to my driveway when it started so is a bit slipper this morning. put ice melt down so my wife would not slide out into the road when she left this morning. Doing some laundry this morning and need to go out to return a couple of movies to Redbox. Not sure what else today. Not sure about my walk today (or not)!

[Fenlason]

I wanted to do a trail ride yesterday.. but felt guilty.. being able to, but Laurie not. Especially since I would be leaving from her work.

I did some chores this morning and was going to head out.. but then I couldn't get into the barn.. and couldn't get into my van. The barn will be an easy fix. I used a lighter to be able to unlock the padlock. The lock is now inside de-frosting / drying out. I crawled through the back of the van and was able to open the side door. Now for some work on that. The van has been a problem all winter. Most often, it will open but then not re-latch shut. So now it is time to try and fix this.

[Fenlason]

I did some work on the porch while I had a halogen light on the door mechanism that has been freezing up. It did sit some more [without the light] while I got ready for my ride, and the door wouldn't latch again. Although it was back to being able to reach inside the door and temporarily fix that. Interestingly the door worked after driving to my ride location.. and when I got back from the ride. sooooo

The ride started with a little hectic feeling.. with all the door problems.. and now a latish start, I was worried about having enough daylight, and getting back before Laurie was out of work.

It was weird snow.. and there were places it was pretty slick out. Most of the way to my turn around spot [in town Clinton] the trail was a little different.. and there was another turn that I did not recall. The way I was headed had not had any traffic since that last snow.. rain.. freezing rain mix. I was not sure how the riding would be. Some of it was so-so.. some of it was FAST. I hit an area with a lot of fresh deer tracks.. and laying in the trail was a nice antler drop. It was a beauty.. I stuck it in my pack. It looked like the trail was closed in town.. or where I was going to turn around anyways. There are some areas where the trail runs through some culverts under the interstate.. my guess they aren't safe yet.

Oh.. there was a place maybe a mile up the trail [from the start] where there was a tracked bucket vehicle. Someone had been cutting branches and trees back from a smaller power line. The equipment was running.. had flashing lights on it.. had signs around it stating it was a drop zone.. but there was no one in sight… an hour + later on the way back through.. it was unchanged.. I was wet and getting cold.. so I did not look around much… but there didn't seem to be anyone around. [at least no blood]

We made some phone calls when I got back.. we called the police department.. they said the state police covered that area.. so we called them.. and they sent us to the game wardens. .. we told them about it.. and we then found out he was covering for someone else and wasn't super familiar with the area. So I changed and went to meet him. We hiked out [about 3/4's of a mile].. and the machine was gone.

[Fenlason]

10 below zero this morning.. and cloudy.. usually when the temp is this cold it is nice and sunny..

Laurie and I were hoping for a bike ride.. but we will wait to see how we feel after lunch. Something we ate didn't completely agree with us.

Doing some chores.. Laundry etc.. but otherwise taking it easy.

[toypusher]

A bit cold here this morning (for us anyway) 11 degrees and -1 windchill. Really disappointed that my 'millionaire' lottery ticket did not win this morning.

Think I will just stay in the house today and watch TV. That is after I go out and get the paper.