Rebirth

The idea of a new year being a chance for resolutions or a new start hasn't been something that I've found myself believing in. However, this past year, I've been feeling more and more like it's time to start doing things a little differently.

I don't want to say that I've been "in a rut" but it definitely feels like it's time to shake things up and see how they settle out.

One of the things I've been thinking about for awhile is a rebirth of this blog. When I registered the domain name and started posting, I had some ideas as to what I wanted it to end up being about but, as with most of the things I start on the internet, I always seem to end up holding back because I know that people in my "real life" (family, friends, employers and such) have seen or may possibly end up finding things I've put up. I still struggle with the issue of keeping my private ideas private and separate from my professional life and I'm sure that I'll always have that struggle. So, I'll take this opportunity to issue a disclaimer that anything here is solely my own opinion. However, there have been things that I've been thinking and would love to put them somewhere. Why not here?

So, as a new start to this blog, here is a list of topics I was planning on working on in my personal life, as well as writing about on my recently retired "motivation" blog:

• eating more healthy / in-season / local food
• cooking at home more
• eating less prepared / fast food
• incorporating more enjoyable physical activity into my life
• finding ways to reduce stress
• worrying less
• meeting new people
• spending more time with family and friends
• keeping in touch with non-local friends
• simplifying and decluttering
• learning new things
• attempting to work on more creative / artistic things
• sharing thoughts and ideas
• starting new hobbies and revisiting old ones
• reading more books
• spending less time in front of TV
• spending less time aimlessly browsing on the internet

The plan, as it stands right now, is to roll the (modified) ideas of that blog into this one and actually share things that I want to share. I'll probably still hold back a little bit, but hopefully be a little more open that I have been in the past.

Winds of change.

I've been finding myself asking different variations of a similarly themed question a lot more often lately: How did I end up where I am today and where do I actually want to end up?

I've been feeling like trying to decide what you want to do with the "rest of your life" as a teenager has it's drawbacks. I initially thought I wanted to be a mechanical engineer because I had a strong interest in machines such as automobiles and bicycles. I used to love to draw and doodle and think of how things I drew would work in real life. I built model cars and then took them apart and made them "better" out of parts of other kits. I took parts off of all of the spare/outgrown bikes that we had kicking around in our family of four kids and made "better" bikes out of them. I felt like I would love to find a job creating new bicycle suspension designs or cars like the ones I was seeing in mountain bike and car magazines and Popular Science... but on a tour of one of the colleges I got into (I think it was Virgina Tech) I was told that a lot of their graduates work in a "toilet paper factory down the road" designing machinery, which was probably meant as a positive that engineers were everywhere. However, I came to the opposite conclusion that to end up as an automotive or bicycle mechanical engineer was a very slim chance. I also felt that even if I did come to a find a job in the automotive or bicycle industries that I'd really end up making other people's artistic renderings a reality instead of actually doing the designing.

You would think that I would have decided that a career in mechanical engineering wasn't what I really wanted... but I ended up committing to one of the mechanical engineering programs I was accepted into. I attempted to make it work for two years before offically deciding that I liked "computers" better. So, instead of staying at that university and switching to computer engineering or computer science I ended up going back home and getting an associate degree in computer information systems from a local community college, just as everyone was saying that the "tech bubble burst". At that point it seemed difficult/impossible to find a job that was "entry level" that didn't want 5+ years of hands-on experience especially in the area I lived in. So, I decided that at that point I was just going to find some sort of job and figure it out as I went. I felt that someday I'd finish my computer science degree and be a computer programmer. I interviewed around for jobs on the edge of what I wanted to do. I had been working summers at a family friend's fast food restaurant and then ended up working in a supermarket bakery department just before I graduated with my CIS degree. I spent a couple years working there followed by different positions in the same company's headquarters starting with a special project with the Bakery and IT departments. While working on that project I found out that the company had an in-house IT department that had quite a few functions and was encouraged to keep in touch with the people I worked with and apply for entry-level things that came up. So I continued to move around to different jobs in the bakery HQ, the corporate pricing department and eventually ended up in the IT department as a Programmer/Analyst, then a Software Developer.

So, I guess that answers the question of: How did I end up here? However, the question about where do I want to be is the harder question to answer.

How would have my life been different if continued with mechanical engineering? What opportunities would have presented themselves if I was willing to move away from my family, friends and hometown? What would be different today if I stayed in school and gotten a better degree? Would I be in this position right now if I didn't spend 10 years in a company doing different jobs while learning about the industry and systems in it?

What would happen if I decided I wanted to do something different right now? What if I was willing and able to move? What if I could afford to go back to school for something different? What if I'd rather start a business related to something I'm actually interested in? (I'm definitely losing interest in the overall mission of what I've been doing for the past 13 years...)

If I was to "start over" now, though, what would I do? The biggest question I have is that once I'm "there" would I be left wondering the same things on the other side of the fence?

Mountain Biking

In an attempt to get myself back in shape and exercising again, I picked up a new mountain bike late this spring. As I've written about here before sometimes I need a little kick to get myself interested and motivated in exercising and the last time I tried to get back into cycling I refurbished my mid-90's mountain bike into an orange cycle-path cruiser and, still, I just couldn't get back into it.

So this spring I decided it was time for a new mountain bike. First, though, I have to have a little nostalgic flashback: Bikes have changed a lot since I was really into them in the mid to late 90's! Back then 26" was the only wheel/tire size for mountain bikes but now there's 29" and 27.5" (650b) and 26" wheels have fallen out of favor except for downhill and all-mountain bikes. Not to mention that there used to be "mountain bikes" that people rode both up and down hills but now the "mountain bike" classification has been split up into more specialized categories. I've seen bikes classifed as recreational/sport, cross country [XC], freeride, all-mountain, enduro, gravity/downhill, dirt jump... and I'm sure there are others that I've missed. Also, in the olden days, there were a decent amount of quality steel frame bikes available. Now, if you can find them (not counting the hi-tensile department store "steel"), they're mostly custom built high-end (expensive) creations. I remember liking the ride of a good steel frame and thinking aluminum alloy frames (which were on the more high-end of the specrum) rode more harshly. Now alloy frames are the most common with quite a few carbon fiber frames available in the high-end and expensive range. A new (okay) entry level suspension fork could be had for less than $100... Now the (okay) entry-level forks are closer to $200-300 and they're heavier than the ones I remember. I also don't remember tires costing $50-100 each.

So, back to my story. I'd always wanted a full suspension mountain bike... and I happened to find one on eBay at a very reasonable price this spring at the same time I had my tax refund money burning a hole in my pocket. I could do something responsible like put the money in the bank or towards some debt... but I'm a good consumer and I'd rather have a new bike.

I wasn't sure whether to try out a 29'er or wait for 650b bikes to become more common in the local shops. (I haven't actually seen one in a shop or been able to ride one yet.) But I happened to come across a new (overstock) 2012 Marin East Peak 5.5 in matte black with white and green accents on eBay.



Assembled 2012 Marin East Peak 5.5 (All original parts except pedals.)

It is a 16.5" (small) frame with 26" wheels (which I'm comfortable with, especially with me being 5'8" tall and it being a 120mm travel full-suspension bike), an entry-level RockShox suspension fork and mostly decent entry-level Shimano Alivio 3x9 componentry.

I then went to town on PricePoint, Bike Nashbar and eBay finding mostly Shimano XT components (hydraulic disc brakes, derailleurs, cassette, hubs [with Mavic rims]), XTR shifters, Ergon grips and a Fox Float 32 RL fork at really good prices. The only stuff really left to do is to continue to ride and get used to the bike and customize my fit (handlebars, stem, seatpost and saddle) and then shorten the brake lines once I get everything dialed in. I've been off-road a few times on it and it's been great so far both up hill and down. To get some miles in on the bike and get stuff dialed in, I've actually been doing some bike-path cruising on it and with the fork locked out and the rear shock pumped up, it's been okay for that, too!



With some of the upgrades...

Now I'm planning on putting a bunch of the take-off parts (brakes, derailleurs, shifters, cassette) plus some of my other accumulated bike stuff on eBay. (I've already sold the fork on craigslist which helped to fund one of the awesome Shimano XT brake lever/calipers.) I'll probably end up reinvesting any "profit" from those parts back into the bike and accessories. I still want a hydration pack and a repair stand. One thing that hasn't changed about cycling is there's always something new to buy. Maybe if I stick with it I'll build up a carbon 650b hardtail next...

[05/19/2026: Removed broken links to PricePoint, Bike Nashbar, Marin.]

Running

Last week I decided that it's time to start working out and getting myself back into shape again. So, I'm doing what I usually do when I'm trying to get myself going on something. I'm having a bit of a "spending spree" to get all of the required gear.

Last year (about this time) I completely refurbished my bike in an effort to build interest in riding it again and by the time I finished the bike the wintry weather was right around the corner and while the refurbished bike was a huge improvement over it's previous build, it still wasn't comfortable to ride at my current weight.

This year I'm trying to get into running again. So last week I went out a couple times for walk/jog/run laps around our apartment complex. However, I realized that my old New Balance running shoes aren't super comfortable. Plus, I don't have hardly any workout clothes.

So, I picked up a couple pairs of shorts last week and I just bought a pair of Saucony running shoes on Amazon. Now I'm on the hunt for some cooler weather running clothes for the next month or so before the winter weather hits and I'm on the treadmill until spring.

I'm hoping to get in shape over the winter and into the spring and then get back on my bike next spring and summer. As much as it sucked to admit this to myself, I really am horribly out of shape and it's time to correct that. ;)

So far, I've (re-)cut soda and energy drinks out of my diet and started drinking more water. I started taking a daily multivitamin and eating salad a couple days a week for lunch instead of one of the work cafeteria specials. I'm trying to also watch my portion sizes and eating a little more slowly so that I give myself a chance to feel full before I stuff more food down my throat... on top of that stuff I've done a little bit more physical activity.

In about a week I've managed to drop about 4-5 pounds and I feel excited to get out of work, lace up my running shoes and do a few laps. I hope that I can keep my motivation up and continue to make progress. My short term goal is to be under 200 lbs by Christmas and ultimately to get to about 160-175 lbs. It's attainable, I just can't lose focus like I did a couple years ago when I started off strong, did well and then just stopped all of my healthy behaviors and went right back to where I was.

Past goals & progress.

I was randomly looking at old posts on my blog today and I found an old post from January 23, 2007 entitled Douglas Coupland books & my to do list which, I'm sure you'll be surprised to read, contained a "to do" list.

In fact, this was the list:
1) finish cleaning up all my junk at the apartment (did some, accumulated more)
2) refinish an old coffee table to bring to the apartment (started...)
3) get my parent's old orange chair over to my apartment (scrapped this idea)
4) pull my mountain bike apart, repaint the frame and overhaul the rest (It's orange now!)
5) go through my accumulated bike parts and sell/donate what I'm never going to use (I donated quite a few bikes and parts but still have some left that can go.)
6) finish selling off the misc. car parts I've accumulated over the past 5 years that don't fit my current car (I haven't done too much with this.)
7) sell off my small guitar practice amp, distortion pedal and cables that I never use (Gone.)
8) (maybe: get rid of one of my guitars) (Acoustic/electric gone.)
9) (maybe: go through my CD's and sell off the ones I'm never going to listen to) (ruled out for now.)
10) (maybe: build a new "entertainment center" that isn't ugly and has room for the TV and all of the electronics) (bought one)

I thought it would be amusing to see how many of these that I actually did since then... so I crossed off the ones that I did. I completely finished 4 and ruled out 2. Out of the remaining 4, I started 3... I should probably get going on those. ;)

Bike parts have arrived!!!

My order of bike parts from Jenson USA that I wrote about on Thursday is here already! I did spend the extra few dollars for "overnight shipping" because I didn't expect my order to even be shipped out until today since I placed my order LATE Wednesday night and Friday was a holiday. I was VERY surprised that it was shipped out early on Thursday!

I'm going to get going on the tear down of my old bike tomorrow or Wednesday and hopefully have the painting complete by the end of this coming weekend. Then I'll let the paint settle for a week or so and put the bike back together in a couple weeks with all of it's new toys.

(Re-)refurbishing my bicycle

I have been talking about (re-)refurbishing my old mid 1990's Diamondback Ascent mountain bike for quite some time now and I'm actually (finally) getting around to starting it.

Last weekend I hit up a couple local bike shops to look for a comfortable new seat and more road-worthy tires. The plan is to cruise the roads to get back in shape and then convert the bike back into an off-roader or pick up a new mountain bike once I'm back in shape enough to get back off road again.

I ended up picking up some semi-slick 26" x 1.9" tires at Wal-Mart because the one local shop that had the right size wanted $22-something each for their generic, no-brand tires. They were half that at Wal-Mart. I would have rather bought them at a bike shop but I couldn't justify spending double the money for practically the same tire. I also couldn't find a seat that looked comfortable enough that was less than $50 at the local bike shops, either, so I passed on picking up a seat. Last Sunday I was going to tear the whole bike apart and get repainting (orange, of course) but I realized that I didn't have a chain tool. So, I just put the new tires on and swapped out my Manitou suspension fork for the original rigid fork and gave the bike a quick test ride. Much better... but the seat is still a horrible implement of butt torture and the stem and handlebar I put on a couple years ago still makes the steering feel weird and the riding position is too stretched out for me.

So, I went a little crazy last night with buying new parts for my old mountain bike. I happened upon some good deals at JensonUSA and I ordered a Park chain tool, Sportourer Zoo Gel seat, Easton Vice DH stem and handlebars, Avid Single Digit 5 v-brakes, Cane Creek Direct Curve brake levers, brake cables, Shimano STX/Alivio shifters, derailleur cables and a Cane Creek S-1 headset.

The slicks and rigid fork along with the shorter, higher rise (50mm-10 degree) stem, riser bars and gel seat should make the bike more comfortable to get back into riding. The other stuff will upgrade worn out (mostly 10+ year old) parts. The only stock stuff on the bike when I'm done will be the frame, rigid fork, seat post clamp, wheels, freewheel, derailleurs and bottom bracket (which might also be replaced once I get it off and see what shape it's in).

I figure that I'll either attempt to make some of my money back selling some of my replaced parts on craigslist/eBay or put them on one of my other older bikes that I gave to my father when I bought this bike.

I can't wait to start riding again!

Vacation Recap

Well, the "vacation" part of my vacation is over. One more day to relax and get shit done before work on Monday. Here's a QUICK recap.

* Monday - The drive up to Hampton Beach, NH was smooth with no traffic. Checking into our hotel, the Boardwalk Inn, was pretty painless. Our room for the first 3 nights was right at the top of the stairs from the hotel side entrance. The room was basically a big, squishy bed and a TINY bathroom. The description of "Ocean View" was a little bit of a stretch. If you stood in the corner of the room and looked at an angle through the window you could see a sliver of ocean. The air was VERY hazy on Monday but we walked the beach for a little while after we checked in to the hotel, anyway. We had dinner at our hotel's restaurant. One thing I did notice right away is that the New England coast isn't a good place to be someone who doesn't like seafood. ;)

* Tuesday - At midnight my girlfriend let me open most of my birthday presents. She got me three AWESOME books of art (Tragic Kingdom, The Saddest Place on Earth and The Magic Bottle by one of my favorite artists, Camille Rose Garcia, a print of a robot with headphones and ORANGE paint to repaint my bike like I have been talking about for awhile. Slept. Woke up. Spent some time on the beach. Went out to a nice birthday dinner at the Ashworth by the Sea Hotel Dining Room. I ended up having a turkey dinner that made it feel like Thanksgiving. Overall it was a very nice birthday. :)

* Wednesday - Basically just hung out at the beach and the "boardwalk". We watched the fireworks on the beach from The Purple Urchin restaurant across the street from the beach. The food there was great and the service was good, too!

* Thursday - For Thursday night we switched to an ocean front room with a balcony at the same hotel. The room was bigger and nicer... and quieter, even... If we go back next year this is probably the room we'll try to get for the whole week. Thursday night we drove up to Wells, ME to go to The Steakhouse. It definitely lived up to the hype surrounding it. I had to park next door to the restaurant because the parking lot was more than full and we had to wait for almost an hour for a table but the food was amazing! It was well worth the wait.

* Friday - We checked out of the hotel and walked around the boardwalk for 40 minutes and decided it was too hot (95+ and humid) to walk across the hot sand on the beach and down to the water. I didn't want to be all hot and nasty for the start of the 3.5 hour drive home. The drive home wasn't bad, though. There were a couple spots of traffic here an there but nothing too bad.

Overall it was a amazing and relaxing week! The weather was much better than we expected. My birthday was very nice. Everything was great. I'm not looking forward to going back to work.

(Broken links removed February 7, 2017.)

Le Tour de France

After reading Sam's latest post about Le Tour de France, I'm starting to see stuff about Le Tour popping up in the news. Today on BBC News there are stories all over, but I found this one with some background on the basics. I thought it was pretty interesting.

I'm not much of a "world traveler" type person but I do think it would be cool to see part of the Tour de France!

I tried to ride my bike yesterday...

What a disaster that turned out to be.

I used to ride my bike pretty much constantly before I started college. After school, on weekends and all summer - every summer, I'd ride my bike over to some trails about a mile from my house and just go blast around in the woods and get all muddy and have tons of fun.

When I went away to college I brought my bike with me but I barely ended up riding it. The most I rode it while away at Clarkson was my last semester there when most of my classes were in buildings on the downtown campus.

After I returned to my hometown I practically never rode my bike. Last year I tried to get myself back into riding by buying a bunch of new parts for my mountain bike to replace things that were worn out (seat, pedals, back tire, titanium bolts to replace a few rusty ones) and to lighten up my bike (stem, handlebar, seat post) so that it would be easier to ride. I also picked up a crank set that I had lusted after when I was really into riding years before. All of the improvements didn't motivate me to ride again, though. I stashed my bike away into my parent's basement and all but forgot about it.

Last weekend my girlfriend's mom gave her a bike that she bought for herself but never rode. My girlfriend wanted to ride her new bike... so I dug mine out, cleaned it up, tightened up the headset and went out for a ride around the exercise trail around our apartment complex. I made it through about a lap and a half before my legs were exhausted. On top of realizing how severely out of shape I am I also came to the realization that practically all of the "new" parts I put on my bike only made it much, much more uncomfortable than I remember it being. The seat is too hard, the back tire is too narrow and the handlebar and stem made the front end of the bike feel too twitchy. Since putting the new crank set on, I also can't seem to get the front derailleur adjusted properly so I can't change the front chain rings without getting off the bike and manually helping it along. I just kept it on the big ring and shifted the rear for the short ride.

Basically, though, it was a miserable failure. I'm happy that my legs recovered pretty quickly, though. They don't hurt today, at least.

I guess I'm going to be selling my Easton flat handlebars, generic alloy stem, Vetta titanium rail seat, Smoke Lite tire and maybe the Kooka cranks (if I can't get the front derailleur working) on eBay soon. I just have to get a spare few minutes to swap the old stuff back on... I think I'm going to throw some cruiser style tires on it and put most of the old parts back on and see if that doesn't make riding it a little better.

I can't wait for the weekend.

Luckily this is a short week at work because I took vacation days on Monday and Tuesday. Sunday and Monday my girlfriend and I went to the NYC area.

On Sunday we left our apartment around 10AM and headed to the New York Botanical Garden until it closed and then took the train from there down to Manhattan and wandered around in the rain. We went to Toy Tokyo and to get Pommes Frites with Pesto Mayo. By the time we were done with all of that it was raining pretty hard and we decided to go back to our hotel. I got myself pretty lost on the way back from the train station in an area I've been to dozens of times and ended up someplace I'd been once before but I couldn't get back to where I wanted to go. I actually had to stop and ask for directions. Luckily the place I stopped gave me SIMPLE directions and I was able to find my way out without any more trouble.

Monday morning it was still pouring so we decided to skip out on our plan to go to the Bronx Zoo and hit the Palisades Mall instead. We had some mall-"Mexican" food and wandered around the mall for a few hours and headed home. I was glad to find that most of the ride home it wasn't raining all that hard because I hate driving in the rain.

Tuesday was spent relaxing and buying another air conditioner for our apartment. I got sick of feeling the temperature rise with each stair I climbed up to our third floor apartment which was like a sauna in anything over 70 degree weather outside. It's much more livable now than it was last summer. I spent a lot of time last year locked up in the bedroom in front of the only A/C in the apartment... so I think it'll be nice to be able to stand to be in the living room for more than a few minutes this summer.

Thanks to Sam for answering my question about what decent but cheap 26" street tires he'd recommend for my mountain bike. I'm going to try check out my bike this weekend and see what kind of condition it's in these days before I spend any money on it. If it looks like it's in good shape I'm probably going to pick up some tires for it soon. I need to get outside and be more active while the weather is nice. It sucks to admit this, but my legs are still sore from walking around this weekend...

Hungry and tired.

The title pretty much states how I'm feeling today. I'm hungry and tired. I slept like a rock last night but I just wanted to keep sleeping when the alarm went off at 6:30 AM. Now I'm at work and I really don't feel like being here today.

Today is the start of me trying to eat more healthy, exercise regularly and just generally work toward being more healthy. I started out today by drinking water instead of coffee, Vitamin Water or Snapple green or white tea drinks. I've already cut WAY back on the amount of soda I drink and I can't stand the taste of diet drinks so that leaves the above drinks or juices on my list of safe drinks.

One thing that I've noticed about myself and drinking water is that my mouth feels much more dry after drinking water than it does a sweetened soft drink. I tried googling to see if anyone had that same particular feeling or if I was just being stupid... and I didn't find anything besides websites saying to drink more water.

I did, however, come across a website called 43 Things that (as the name would suggest) lets you put in 43 things that you want to do into a list and it can automatically email you reminders and stuff like that. Plus it looks like you can share ideas with people who have the same goals and basically try to help each other out. I only started playing with it a few minutes ago... but it seems like a good place to put a to do kind of list up. I started with a few generic ones like "lose weight", "pay off my debt" and "buy a house" but I'm sure once I get some time to mess around with it I can come up with some more inspired goals.

I've also been reading my friend Sam's blog about cycling and it has been kind of getting me itching to go out and ride my bike again. I need to get my bike out and cleaned up and maybe go for a quick spin if it's nice out this weekend. I wish I still had friends who rode bikes.

[2024-02-13: Removed dead link to 43things.]

Old friends and cycling.

I received Friendster friend updates twice in the past few days and I decided to log on and see what was going on with Friendster and a handful of my friends on there. It was a good thing that I did because I stumbled on a friend's blog about his cycling experiences. Lately, I have been thinking about getting back into cycling a lot and his blog might just be what I need to get motivated.

I was never a really awesome cyclist but I had a ton of fun riding my mountain bike miles into the woods on muddy, steep, rutted trails struggling up the hills to blast back down. I loved to hop on my cobbled together freestyle bike and jump down flights of stairs until something broke. (Luckily it usually was the bike that broke. If I was to try half the shit I got away with back then I'd probably end up in a wheelchair.)

As much as I loved riding, there were many reasons that I eventually stopped riding. The one that probably stopped me the quickest were that none of my current (small) group of friends rides. When I was growing up I always had someone around me who loved to ride (usually the same or MUCH more than I did.) The first riding buddy I had was my brother. When I first started to get into mountain biking I talked him into getting a sweet Cannondale M400 which he put a suspension fork on. We used to ride all over the place until his bike got stolen out of our shed. I felt so horrible for him that if I had been able to afford it I would have bought him a new bike!

Throughout the years I rode with a few different friends and even raced in a couple races. (I still have my #420 number plate from Jiminy Peak, MA from years ago. I was so young and innocent back then that I didn't realize why the older guys watching my class struggle were cheering "420! YEAH BUDDY! 420!" even though I was probably 5th from last.)

The second reason that I eventually stopped riding was (and is) my constant attitude that I was (and still seem to be) too busy to go for a ride. "I worked all day and I'm tired." was something I've heard myself say way too much over the past few years. (Never mind that a typical work day consists of sitting in a car for a 1/2 hour commute, then in front of Microsoft Excel for 8 hours, then back to the car for another 1/2 hour ride home.) I still do think this will be something I'll have to struggle a bit to overcome. I live too far (25 practically all highway miles) from where I currently work to reasonably commute and outside of work I haven't had a ton of time to just go riding like I used to. There's no reason, though, that I shouldn't be able to at least go for a few hours here and there on weekends.

Last spring I did buy some parts to upgrade my aging mountain bike that I lusted after in the days before I could afford them. I picked up a used Kooka crankset on eBay and then gave the credit card a good workout on a new Vetta titanium rail saddle, a lighter seatpost, a titanium seatpost clamp bolt, lightweight caged pedals that would work with my toe clips, an Easton alloy handlebar, a lighter two-bolt front clamp stem and a new rear tire to replace the original one that was pretty worn out. By buying all this stuff I was trying to get myself excited enough to get out riding occasionally but after a few short rides by myself I started to make excuses about my new parts, too. I couldn't really seem to get the front derailleur shifting properly with the new crank and my new rear tire was too narrow for my widening ass. The new riding position from my new stem and handlebar were weird compared to what I was used to and I was too lazy to try to find stem with the same rise and extension as the one I previously had and swap my old handlebar back on. The new seat was too hard compared to the falling apart "gel" one that came on my early 90's low-end Diamond Back Ascent.

Anyway, I hope to make some time and find some more inspiration to spend the next few months getting in a little bit better shape and maybe do a little work on my old steed and get that working properly and looking better. It could probably use a nice new paint job, too. Maybe next weekend I'll get some paint and start the tear down. Last time I looked at my old red beast the frame was pretty beat up and I never liked the color red, anyway. It was just the best bike I could afford at the time... and it did ride nice and seemed to hold up to the abuse I threw at it... I was a lot lighter than I am now, though. I might need to go with something a little more heavy duty now. I guess I'll find out soon. ;)

I did spend 20 minutes on the treadmill (that my roomate bought which has been sitting unused in the living room since last year) tonight in an attempt to start doing some sort of workout every day. I'm going to try to do at least 15 (preferrably 20 - 30) minutes on the treadmill every night after work and I'm going to try to make it down to the excercise room and get on the eliptical machine and the stationary bike at least once a week for now.

One of my goals that I mentioned yesterday is to lose 25 - 30 pounds over the next year... so you might catch me talking about that for the next few posts...

Anyway, Sam... Thanks for the inspiration today. Keep blogging! :)