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Not for me, but for one of my regular customers. A few days ago he showed up with this gorgeous old Bianchi. He told me he was out riding his bike and saw this guy dragging the bike to the curb and leaving it there. He stopped and asked if he was leaving it there for collection and the guy said yeah, if you want it you can have it. So he brought it to me to ask if I thought it was worth fixing up, and I said heck yeah. It obviously had not been ridden in years because the tubular tires were dry rotted, and the grease in the bearings was dried out. The wheels were in desperate need of truing and tensioning, but I managed to bring them back to acceptably true. The paint has a few minor chips but cleaned up quite nice. I overhauled the hubs with new bearing balls, but the cups and cones were fine. No brand markings on the hubs, crankset or bottom bracket, but the shifters and derailleurs are Campy. Haven't found any date codes, but I haven't spent much time looking. Got a new set of tubies stretching on my stretching rims and all the components cleaned up and ready to go back together.

“ Wranglers is what I am wearing! I have not worn a size 38 jean in years. I wonder how long until I can fit in 36s?

For all of you who think you have the cutest grandkids, because it must be depressing to be so wrong. lol GS#1 GS #2 And for the record, the lamb lives with them (in the house cause he is still being bottle fed)

I dislike humans too. the end.

...is not paying too much attention to the LOW temps versus the HIGH temps for the day. As a cyclist, I am always looking at the weather and thinking about the best time for a ride. Usually, this time of year, that's when the temp is warmest and the sun is out. IOW, I ignore the lows and generally the overnight temps because I won't bother riding then. We decided to go camping this weekend, and of course, I checked two things - from a cycling perspective - high temp and sun. Both looked fine - temps approaching 50 and clear skies (just windy). We rolled into the park, my backing into the spot was great (but slow and steady), and we had a location away from most other folks. We set up camp, took the pup on some nice walks, and eventually headed inside the camper for dinner, some games, and then relaxing. I set the thermostat to a mild 68o and eventually we headed to bed. N00B MISTAKE! I didn't bother to open the propane tanks! I'm not sure what time in the middle of the night I realized the heater wasn't running, but when I did, and I checked the thermostat, it indicated it had tried AND FAILED to kick on the furnace Apparently, it was about 20o outside and the AC/heatpump works down to about 40 before switching to furnace heat. If you don't open the propane tanks, the furnace has no fuel and so you end up with it being about 55o inside and the pup complaining. It's funny in some ways because in a tent, we've gone to freezing in the sleeping bags, but we also properly dress for those temps ahead of time. Anyway, I kicked on the propane and we warmed up ASAP, but I will also likely buy a cheap space heater to use when on shore power to save on propane if I'm paying for electricity anyway. Otherwise, a fun weekend in the Airstream and my backing skills are steadily improving

Still testing not pregnant 😷

Installed the wheel hub’s, with fresh grease and new seals and coated the bottom of the trailer with undercoating

Passed my annual dive medical so am good for another year....

Yesterday I decided to drive to a nearby strip mall to get some chicken piccata from a local Italian that I'd have for dinner for a couple days this week, This made me feel eager. After I got my order, I decided to get some lunch at the takeout Mexican place in the same strip mall. But first I took my order back to the car. As I was walking to the Mexican place I saw a large crowd of high school kids who had just come from sporting event at the adjacent high school. This made me nervous. The Mexican place isn't the speediest, and if I got behind them on line, I'd be there all day and it wouldn't be worth it. I tried to pick up my pace, but it was clear they'd get to the restaurant before me. This made me feel sad. But then they all walked past the Italian place and the Mexican place! Half of them went to the bagel shop and the other half went to the big grocery store that has a lot of prepared take out food. This made me very happy! But then I wondered why these kids who go to school next to the stores and must eat there a lot all skipped the Mexican place. This made me worried. I had eaten there before and been fine, but what did they know that I didn't? This made me anxious. However as I entered the store a bunch of the kids changed their minds and went to the Mexican place! This made me feel relieved. As I ordered ,a large line of high school kids formed behind me. This made me feel like I had won the lunch order lottery! Last night I had some of the chicken piccata for dinner and it was delicious. This made me feel very satisfied. The End (at least until I have more of the chicken tonight).

Gall bladder apparently cattywhompus. Awaiting lab report. If so, removal possibly today but could go to tomorrow. Waiting in the horsespittle with no food all day.

In Columbus Ohio. Worst fear came true, couldn’t pee. They put a catheter in. I still have a 300 mile drive home. Felt absolutely horrible all night.

I started up at the gym this week. I swam on Saturday, but only 300 meters, and lifted baby weights to start to get my joints used to that again. I am inflamed now, by body is not used to any real activity, but a start had to be made at some point.

Ethan is down to 2.5 liters of supplementary oxygen and doing well. So happy to be home again. He sees the doctor on Friday.

Disk Drill to the rescue. 4TB of pictures recovered.

She caught a student plagiarizing a paper word for word. At first the student denied it even though my daughter had a copy of the original paper. The student finally broke down and said that she didn't think that it would be plagiarized as she paid a lot of money for the paper on the internet.

The first lightning bugs of the season started to display tonight. Other Springwood/lightning bug news: the Loopy 5s (my rare ones) are up for being added to the endangered species list. The Georgia DNR is doing a survey of Springwood’s flora and fauna. And UGA will again be conducting classes out here.

Those two are besties for sure.

@Square Wheels I finally got around to buying them. 45% off retail and they are beautiful.

Woohoo! I am happier than a clam in sauce. Rotten gall bladder is history and I had a damn delicious dinner tonight! Better than Morton’s!

Feeling good here. drinking coffee and waiting for it to dry up (with more rain predicted) today. Feeling stronger on the bike, and lifting for that matter. At age 70 recovery is taking longer, but, I guess I should expect that with 2 bouts of Covid and 1 of the regular flu (is there such a thing? it was not much different for me than Covid) in 13 months. Let me rephrase that...... I thank the Lord for the recovery I have experienced.

Norm is a guys lot like @Dottleshead. He was in IT and one day decided he didn’t want that to be his future. Norm wanted to be an entrepreneur; make his own way. He decided to open a retail shop for beer and wine. His business strategy was to find a location close to a video store with no grocery chain that would have a no-compete clause. He found a location in Vienna, VA, two doors down from a Blockbuster. This was important because people went to Blockbuster for entertainment, same stop, pick up beer, wine or both. It’s a no frills shop, but Norm knew his stuff. He became popular and profitable. Then the fabric shop that occupied an anchor location left (was once an A&P store if you know what that is). A new tenant, Fresh Market, required a no-compete clause. Norm was told he had to vacate. The community backlash caused the NC headquarters of Fresh Market to remove the clause and allow Norm’s to stay. Today I learned that two local breweries, Dynasty and Old Ox, are releasing an American IPA (7.3%) for Norm’s 25th anniversary. Go Norm. Drink beer.

Stick Boy racing (the tire vendor) asked me to watch his trailer while he runs to the food stand for lunch. I think I'll have a boss is gone sale.

Used Disk Drill to recover everything on my hard drive Had my gallbladder removed 20 years ago My Dad is still in the hospital recovering from sepsis. It will be 3 weeks tomorrow. The twins are great

Check out the third and final day of the Open North American Championship sled dog race. Siberians will never run a sprint race and keep up with the hounds but it is exciting to watch JP Norris running a team closely related to my dogs. The Anadyr line was developed by his parents in the 1940s. He, his wife and his daughter Lisbet race them. Lisbet and her husband have a great tour business with the dogs and Aurora viewing trips north of Fairbanks. Racing will start at 1pm Alaska time in Fairbanks. The live coverage is very good. Great photo of JP and his team of Siberian Huskies. Very close related dogs to Ike, Beretta and Benelli. https://www.facebook.com/Alaska-Dog-Mushers-Association-214130832872/

When I was 28 in the summer of 1979, I head coached and my dad assistant coached an 11-12 little league team, the Orioles, that we started coaching a few years earlier when my brother was 11. It was the "Brooklyn-Curtis Bay Leagues" and the Baltimore Orioles had a "Brooklyn-Curtis Bay Night" at the old Memorial Stadium. The coach of the team that sold the most tickets and the player who sold the most tickets got to go onto the field during the 7th Inning stretch and present the League's Favorite Oriole Award plaque. 3rd Baseman Doug DeCinces, Brooks Robinson's successor, spoke at our leagues Opening Day so the kids voted him Favorite Oriole. A boy named Bobby on my team, actually mostly his mother, sold a huge number of tickets so Bobby and I got to go down on the field. When Orioles officials came into the stands to get us and lead us to the field, my father began to stand up and go with us. I have NO idea why I said it except I might have been afraid dad would get shot down by the Orioles, but I said to him, "Only Bobby and me are supposed to go." That was the game where the Orioles came back from being behind the Tigers 1-4, winning the game 5-4, and was called the start of "Oriole Magic" that year. A million people later claimed they were at that game in the following years. I could say I wasn't only there, I was on the pitcher's mound! After I had time to think about, I hated myself for denying dad a thrill - this brought tears to my friend's eyes today. Several years went by and our monthly Anne Arundel County High Schools Coaches Meetings - great off-the-slab beef dinners with gravy and veggies - were losing attendance. So they decided to get NFL Hall of Famer and former Baltimore Colts Defensive End Art Donovan as a speaker. Arty was often a guest on Letterman late at night and wrote a best seller about football called "Fatso." I realized I could make things up with my dad if I sneaked him into the meeting, lying and saying he was my assistant coach, and let him meet Art Donovan. It went better than I could have imagined. Arty, by sheer chance, sat right across a 3' wide table from my dad as we chowed down on beef and veggies - dad's three missing fingers on his left hand obvious - and that led them to start talking to each other about serving in WW2. Arty was in the Marines, Dad was in Darby's Rangers. My Dad had also been a coaching assistant with a minor league football team affiliated with the Colts and I had been an 11-13 year-old waterboy for a few years. They shot the bull for almost half an hour about all kinds of things. Art was emptying and lining-up about a dozen 20 oz. Schlitz Lite cans while they talked and dad wasn't far behind! Finally, it was Art's turn to give his speech, red-faced and staggering to the microphone. He gave the funniest speech and had everyone laughing, even our Japanese-American Teachers Union President, Suzie Jablinski, who enjoyed it even when he said "those Japs." He told a lot of funny football stories in a drunk and funny way, including the time the Colts played the NY Giants in the old Yankee Stadium the day after the circus had been in town. The groundskeepers hadn't done a good job cleaning up the elephant dung, so every time the Giants O-line set, Art and the rest of the Colts' D-line would pick up handfuls of dung and fling them at the Giants' O-line to try to instigate illegal motion. We had a great time and, later, dad would mention that meeting often during the several more years he was among the living. I was satisfied I had made proper restitution!

Same shit different day. No really different shit but still shit

Please keep Ryan in your most powerful prayers, thoughts, vibes, what ever you have. Thx

All buttoned up and ready to go. A bit more info. The model is Rekord 841 which makes it 1985ish. Not quite entry level but not too high on the pecking order. Hi ten tubing. Haven’t weighed it yet but I have a hanging scale in the garage so I will try to remember to check it before it gets picked up.

We were in Callicoon Center which is about 8 miles from Roscoe. The boarding house where my grandparents met was in Obernburg. The World Famous Roscoe Diner became our go to lunch option on trips to the Catskills after the restaurant that was our go to for the prior 50 years closed (that was the restaurant that served the hot turkey sandwich that made the Not Wild Sister not wild). Here are my grandparents on their wedding day at the boarding house.

So I decided to rebuild mine yet again. I have a WoWilbur 1963 (the sister to the smaller football shaped portable). I've had it for over three and a half decades and it runs just fine. Every few years I put new tubes of fillers in and it looks great. The girl is out on the deck 24/7/365 and the rebuild costs about $700. That beats half of everything. A little clean up works and she looks new. In the long run it's a much better deal than the cheapy stuff on the market out there.

Probably now if you wear them low enough!

If by cry, you mean shit my pants when the piece of wood came flying at me. Yes I did.

Honestly, it's your own damn fault for being in Ohio. Here in the Cafe, we LITERALLY discuss the perils of traveling to Ohio almost every day!

Sorry to hear that. Try not to let them start removing body parts - that is a slippery slope. Once they find oot your medical insurance works it is off to the races!

Cold, windy, some rain, maybe some snow? Em started at the one bag. Got some good reps in there. Warmed up a few times to come in for our starting pitcher but pitch kept working her way out of jams so Emmy stayed put at one. Played a team with a good starting pitcher. Had a nice rise. Emmy wiffed at a rise ball on her first AB for strike 3. Fouled out on her next AB. One of her travel teammates with a huge bat was on the other team. She hit a game changing scud with 2 on that could have really made the outcome different but instead our 3rd baseman turned it into a nice little 5-4-3 double. Second time through the lineup we timed the other pitcher up pretty good and ended up winning by run rule. Emmy pitched JV after that and we won. Pretty unremarkable. First inning was a little wild but she settled in. Glad the first one is in the books.

The exceptional ability of self delusion.

Not much to update Work and I are trudging along. Cheesy is happy spring has arrived.

I'm good. My hip replacement is not even thought about these days as that part of my body is better than it ever was. My last gall bladder attack was about 10 months ago after having several in a short time. A CT scan showed a small stone, but I must have passed it or something because I have had zero issues with it since. My last blood test showed kidney function has improved. There was some cause for concern there.

Me neither!

Well seeing as how this is my job these days I will try. Please call/text if you have specifics. A couple of things. 1. you need to decide if you're doing hemo or peritoneal. Hemo is blood, requires an access. Either a fistula in your arm that you stick needles into or a catheter in your chest that will remain there. Peritoneal is abdominal. You need a tube (like a feeding tube) into your gut. NOT your belly, it just simply goes into the abdomen. You exchange fluid in and out to clear toxins. You can do both at home. Peritoneal is more gentle. It does not require someone to be with you. Hemo is a little more harsh and we do require someone to be with you. You are on the machine for less time though. Peritoneal you can generally do through the night. Hook up to the machine before you go to bed. Disconnect when you wake up. Hemo you stick needles in and run for 2-3 hours and then disconnect. There is so much that goes into this. What is the residual renal function? Do they still make urine? How hemodynamically stable are they? Do they have running water, clean storage area? Do they have rooms with no dirt floors and no critters living in them? These are all serious questions (remember I practice in KY) Of course all of our guidelines are local here. Yours may vary. I do hemo. I have friends that work with me that do peritoneal that I can ask questions of.

I’m glad I am not the only one to select Touch before Tough.

You are dead to me.

Paulie is back on track.