What's Next??

I have created a new bike blog on blogspot. The new blog will be 100% bike related...so hopefully it won't make the people I care about feel too exposed. Also, any folks looking for bike content can dodge my yammering on about non-bike stuff. We'll see if I ever feel compelled to update it.

I'm a little worried that I won't because I think writing about the current events in my life is what has inspired me to write so much on this blog, and the current events in my life aren't always 100% bike related. I still might keep private blog entries about my family. Maybe I'll create different public/semi-public blogs for political rants, car stuff, and non-bike projects. Maybe not. We'll see.

I really like blogspot, BTW. Livejournal's free accounts only let you add five links on the menu bar. Blogspot lets you add arbitrary HTML to create any look you want. I already like the format of my blank blogspot blog a lot more than my fully-customized livejournal page. Blogspot also allows you to have multiple blogs with one login and one profile, and allows you to post your blog entries in categories. So it makes it easy for readers to filter the entries they see to only get the content they want. Blogspot allows easier integration with web counter tools, and has a very easy plug in with Google's AdSense. I don't really want ads on my blog, be I'd be OK with the idea if it actually generated some revenue for me...I might try it out after I get some readers and take a blog poll to determine how much people hate it.

Goodbye. Maybe I'll see you on blogspot!
-Andy

This journal is over.

I hope you have enjoyed it.

Feel free to browse the archives to get a skewed, ego-centric view of my life from Sept 13th 2005 - Jan 2nd 2006.

If you know me, and want to hear what is going on in my life, you'll have to call or email me from now on. I expect the lack of Live Journal updates will give me more time to write comprehensive email responses.

If you don't know me, but want to, feel free to post a comment. I'll get an email and will get back to you.

The End

So I didn't get around to swapping slicks onto my bike last night.

Yesterday at work and was sitting in my cube and I heard a hissing noise suddenly start...I turned around to find that it was my rear tire, spontaneously going flat. "No problem," I thought, "I have an extra tube and patch kit!". So I changed the tube, but I got busy and didn't have time to fix the old one. I hardly ever get flats anyway.

Except when I was about 1 mile from my house on a pitch black street on the way home. It was really too bad because I was making really good time. I decided that there was a non-negligible chance that I wouldn't be able to find the hole in the tube in the darkness, and a non-negligible chance that it would take longer to pull the tube, find the leak, patch the tube, put it all together, and ride the last mile home than it would to simply walk for 15 minutes. So I walked. I felt a bit defeated, pushing my bike, but I realized and remembered that I really like to walk places. It was a really beautiful night with a fingernail clipping of moon hanging over the mountains, filled with cold crisp winter air.

So I made it home a little late, but made it home under my own power, none the less!

So after we got the kids in bed and after I got to hang out with Liza a bit, I went on a tube-fixing bonanza. I fixed my holey spare mountain bike tube, my wife's punctured rear recumbent bike tube, and my two road bike tubes. I replaced the brittle and cracking rear 27X1" rear tire with a slightly better and MUCH bigger 27X1-3/8 tire.

On the ride home, I realized that half of the horrible racket my front tire was causing was actually caused by my metal fender vibrating at the fender stay. So, I shimmed it up with some scrap pieces of rubber. My bike was WAY quieter on the ride in this morning. I think I *may* keep the studded front tire on there for the winter after all. We'll see.

The ride to work this morning was awesome. I took the four-year-old to his preschool in the trailer. Part of the route is on a bike path that follows a creek through town. As we were bopping along, I saw a dark, circular thing swimming in the creek. I thought it was a turtle, so we pulled over to check it out. By the time we got to the bank, it was gone, so we waited. Then, from behind a grassy, under-cut bank I saw it rise again. It was a beaver sticking his head out of the water!!! How cool is that!?!? Unfortunately, the four-year-old was too short to see the beaver over the bank of grass, and by the time I picked him up to look, the beaver had submerged again. Oh well. It was pretty fun and exciting anyway.

Work has been steady today. It feels good to be in here, and it feels good to be getting things done!

So I mounted the front studded snow tire on my touring bike and rode it in today.

PROS

• It looks awesome
• I bet it has awesome grip on icy roads
• My 1980s Fuji Touring bike can take 700x35, super knobby, carbide-studded tires AND thick chromed steel fenders without any clearance issues!!

CONS

• They're friggin' LOUD!!

So, I didn't expect them to be quiet or anything, but the studded tire running on dry pavement is so loud that I can't hear anything else. I couldn't even hear if I needed to trim my front derailleur. I seriously think that one studded tire makes my bike almost as loud as a quiet car. The tire was so loud that I tried to ride in on the stripes on the street. The carbide spikes were a lot quieter scraping against paint than they were scraping against raw asphalt.

I had originally planned to just keep the studded tires on all winter (in case it ever happens to get cold), but they're so loud that I don't think that will work. So, I think I'll swap on my 700X35 slicks tonight. That will be much better. If/when it ever snows or gets icy, I'll re-mount the studded tires...then LOOK OUT!

OK...so I'm finally getting stuff together...

The last time I had much chance to update, my plan was to bike to work 100% of the time.  That was blown out of the water when we found the new house and my cube was moved last week.  I didn't bike a single time to work last week.  Monday and Tuesday I had to meet with lenders and a real estate attorney at lunch, didn't have time to bike it, and decided that it wouldn't be a bad idea to show up to the appointments not sweaty.  Wednesday and Thursday my cube was getting moved/messed up and then fixed, so I worked from home.  Friday morning we met with the Robo Cop of realtors, so my wife dropped my bike and me at work after the appointment.  As I was pushing my bike from the van to the bike rack, I noticed that the fabric on the sidewall of my rear tire was ripping/bulging to the point where the tire sidewall would hit the fender stay on each revolution.  So, I called "the sag wagon" at the end of the day, and my lovely wife drove me home.

Anyway, the new house is coming along, finally.  Our real estate attorney had a purchase contract written up on Saturday, but it needed a couple of changes, so we met him at lunch again today.  It's frustrating that it has taken 7 days to get a contract together, but I'm glad that we finally have a complete, signed contract in our hands.

So, the new house is awesome.  It's a small, three-bedroom bungalow from 1950s with a one car garage.  It is on a quiet street that is 7 blocks west of College Avenue and 6 blocks south of Town Square.  For those of you who don't know Fort Collins, that is a great location.  Old Town is basically a grid between busy thoroughfares, so almost every street is a through street.  Luckily our new street is only a couple of blocks long, and doesn't hook up with any major thoroughfares, so it is actually not a through street!  Best of all, in striking contrast to the rest of Old Town, our new house is actually affordable!!

I'll try to get some pictures up soon...it doesn't look too exciting from the outside...just kind of simple and cute, but the inside and the neighborhood are Beautiful!!

It's a little bit smaller than our current house, but that's OK.  It seems that a person collects enough stuff to fill their surroundings (have you ever seen a not-full closet, no matter the size?).  I think we'll have to scale back a bit, but I'm pretty sure we can easily fit into the house comfortably.

Liza is especially concerned about the one-car garage thing.  I think her father always made a point of parking his cars inside of a garage, so Liza kind of feels like leaving one or more cars outside is the same as not taking care of them.  I disagree, but I come from a different place.  Besides, even if leaving cars outside is the same as trashing them, I'd be happy to trash some cars in order to live in the most beautiful part of the city where everything is on a pedestrian scale, where there is some sense of place, where all the neighbors aren't neocons, and where my kids can go to an amazing school with a diverse student body.  Especially if I keep buying cars at the auto auction for prices that allow me to sell them three years later with screwed up and faded paint for $1000 more than I paid for them.

When Liza gets very serious about the one-car garage concern, I've been looking at it as an opportunity to talk about paring our household down to one car.  I don't think we're quite ready yet...maybe we will be once this house thing settles down and I can bike commute every day. 

In semi-related news, my studded snow tires and front wheel came today!!  If it ever stops being the Summer and starts being the Winter here, nothing will stop me now!  I plan on getting my bike together tonight while Liza teaches her class.

In other semi-related news, I posted an ad to sell our old van.  It's time.  If anyone out there wants it, it's in great shape.  I'm asking $2400 (WAY below blue book), but I could go lower.

In yet, other, semi-related news, Todd posted some amazing pictures on his cleverchimp blog (one mom, two kids, four bags of groceries, and no car):

I'm so going to try to figure out how to buy an Xtracycle and go down to only one car.  How rad would that be??  I think the awesome new Old Town house is step 1.  I repeat that I don't think we're quite ready to do it yet, though.

UPDATE: My wife just called me.  The seller called her back and has accepted our offer!!  If Robo Realtor can move our drastically under-priced house in the next couple of months, we're getting the new house!!!!  I'm SO excited!!!

I finally got around to uploading a ton of Christmas pictures!! Check them out if you want!



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My life has suddenly gotten really crazy and busy, hence the lack of LJ updates.

On Friday night I fixed the low-beams in the new Previa! This involved taking off the airbag, which involved disconnecting the battery and pulling all the fuses to not trip the airbag light (that only the dealer can reset). Airbags are basically an electrically controlled explosive device. Airbag units have all kinds of scary warnings that say "DANGER! EXPLOSIVE! DO NOT REMOVE UNLESS YOU ARE A TRAINED CERTIFIED TECHNICIAN! blah blah blah"

So, whenever I remove an air bag, I feel like a member of the bomb squad in a cheesy action movie, struggling over the decision to cut the green wire or the red wire, as the LED counter counts down and sweat runs down my forehead. Actually, it wasn't quite that action packed, and I didn't have to cut any wires, but it made me feel pretty bad-ass, none the less.

I got a used "combination switch assembly" from ebay. It has one connector that goes to the headlights, turn signals, brights, cruise control, and front and rear wiper controls. The ebay combination switch's stalks were all faded (vs. the van's new-looking stalks), and I was worried that maybe the ebay combination switch had some other problem. So I ended up taking the combination switch apart, removing just the turn signal/bright indicator switch, pulling individual pins from the connector, and swapping out only the broken switch.

When I finally got it all back together, everything worked! Even the low beams!! How awesome is that?!?!?

I got to head out into the Pawnee National Grasslands alone on Saturday. I had a really good time.

On Sunday we found an awesome beautiful old house in great shape in Old Town. It's on a quiet, hidden street, we can comfortably afford it, and it is right next to both a really great neighborhood school and a bilingual charter school. So we've been obsessing about the new house, scrambling to get an offer together, and scrambling to get our current house back on the market.

Yesterday Liza taught her first ESL class. The little guys and I had a fun evening at home. Even the rascally baby was unusually happy and sweet. After I put the guys to bed, I took apart and fixed our broken humidifier. I had to solder in a new fuse and re-solder a connection to the ultrasonic component that actually causes the water to humidify. Multimeters and soldering irons are great.

Work has been hectic, but not unpleasantly so. My cube is getting moved across the floor tomorrow, so I have to pack up and label my stuff today. I'll get to work from home tomorrow.

I'm off to a meeting with a real estate attorney in a few minutes. Hopefully we'll have the contract in and accepted by tomorrow. Hopefully we can sell our current house to get all of our money out of it before the contingency expires. I'm now just interested in selling our house and getting moved. I'm comfortable with the concept that we might not make any money on it.

In the mean time, I have a lot of running around to do.

So the snow yesterday did stick - kind of.

The ride home from work yesterday was beautiful. The city looks different with wet, slushy streets and a dusting of snow on everything. I like the hissing noise my tires made on the wet pavement, and the breathing sound they made going through powdery snow.

This morning, everything was covered in ice. Luckily, for the most part, it had the same texture as sandpaper. I rode my mountain bike in. There were a couple of dodgy parts, but the roads were pretty good, for the most part. The sky was bright blue and the air was cold and crystal clear. A layer of clean white snow covered everything that wasn't paved, and the sun shining on the road made the asphalt look like a mirror. It was quite beautiful.

I'm glad I rode in. I think this "riding to work all the time" thing might just work out. I feel less silly about ordering the studded snow tires for my touring bike.

So I did it! I ordered:

• 2 studded snow tires for the touring bike
• A new front wheel
• A new chain
• A new helmet
• A couple of patch repair kits.

Currently I have 27-inch wheels on my touring bike, a 27-inch wheel on the front of the tandem, and a 700mm wheel on the back of the tandem (the only surviving wheel from my Bianchi).

The snow tires are for 700mm wheels...I needed to buy a new front wheel so I can put the new 700mm front wheel and the 700mm wheel from the Bianchi on my touring bike, and the 27-inch rear wheel from my touring bike on the tandem...so I can mount snow tires on the touring bike.

I needed a new chain because the 700mm cogs on the Bianchi's rear wheel are spaced closer together than my touring bike's cogs, so I'll need a narrower chain when I swap it on.

I needed to buy the new helmet because my current helmet is NASTY.

I got the patch repair kits because they were cheap and because I don't have any small tire patches left.

The only problem is that I forgot to look for and enter any coupon codes when I placed my order! After I placed the order, I found a coupon that would have saved me $15!!! Doh!

The snow isn't sticking...but I'm totally motivated to bike to work 100% of the time. Once I have studded tires, nothing will stop me! Hahahahaha!!

So I made a marital faux pas this morning.

Since we got our new van, we have three cars: Our new, super-awesome 1997 Toyota Previa with AWD and a supercharger, our older naturally-aspirated RWD 1991 Previa that we've had for about 2 years, and our 1991 base model Toyota Celica with an automatic transmission.

Clearly we need to get rid of at least one car.

My ranking of our cars goes:
1. The new van
2. The old van
3. The Celica

I really like the old van. I like that I got it really cheaply. I like that I've been able to work on it. I like that it has held up so well despite the fact that it has almost 200K miles and is 15 years old. It also just has happy vibes. Climbing inside makes me think of all the fun trips we've done in the van, and it makes me smile.

The Celica is a happy little car. However, I guess I got down on it after Liza got so terrified driving it in the total whiteout, surrounded by a ton of maniacs driving in jacked up SUVs on the interstate between Colorado Springs and Denver.

I guess I also got down on it when I was driving the 10-year-old across town in it. Some mornings we would drop the four-year-old off at his preschool on the way to the 10-year-old's school, so the four-year-old would sit in the front seat. On these mornings, the 10-year-old would be difficult. He would whine and complain about being cramped in the tiny back seat, and he would fight with the four-year-old about pulling the front seat forward so he could climb inside, and he would always whine and complain and scuff up the interior with his shoes while making a big production of climbing from the back seat to the front once we got the four-year-old's preschool.

I also have always been a bit disappointed that the Celica is an automatic.

So this morning, I announced that I thought we should get rid of the Celica and keep both vans.

I had not considered that the Celica is one of the only things that Liza still has from before she met me, that Liza's mom bought the Celica brand new and it was her family's fancy car all through high school, that Liza's parents gave her the Celica as a gift, and that Liza really loves the Celica. I think driving minivans makes Liza feel like a lame mom who should be wearing sweatpants, and driving the Celica makes Liza feel like a young hipster. It is important for Liza to feel hip...although she hardly ever gets to drive the Celica because at least 90% of the times she drives, she's hauling around little kids.

So, I was mulling all of this over in my head as I rode my bike to work today, and I realized a few things:
1. I shouldn't discount the serious emotional attachment that my wife has to a car that has been special to her for 15 years. If I still had the car that I was emotionally attached to in high school, there is no way I'd sell it.
2. I like working on cars.
3. I like driving the cars that I work on.
4. I love riding my bike.

So, I'm thinking we'll keep whatever car(s) Liza wants, get rid of whatever car(s) Liza wants, and buy whatever car(s) Liza wants. I'll ride my bike.

The streets were dry at my house when I climbed on my bike this morning, but the sky was dark grey and smelled like rain. As I rode in, it got colder and colder. I was hitting occasional snow flurries by the time I arrived at work. It's snowing pretty hard now. We'll see if it sticks. We have hardly had any snow at all this year. It is good that it's snowing. The snow will be a good trial of my decision to just bike it and stop caring about what car(s) we have other than the new van.

I might need to invest in a set of studded snow tires for my bike, if I'm really going to go through with this not driving thing (especially if it ever snows here again).

I got Dr Martin Luther King Jr Day off, so I had a three-day weekend!

On Saturday we drove 60 miles to Laramie Wyoming with some friends of ours. They wanted to go sledding, but since our little guys were still kind of sick, and we were still feeling a little daunted from the cross-country-skiing fiasco the weekend before, so we were less than enthusiastic. Our lack of enthusiasm is probably what made us neglect to bring sleds or gloves.

We like these friends so much. Their enthusiasm was contagious. They took us to an old, abandoned ski area where we could hike up the old ski trails and sled down. They had brought extra sleds and extra gloves, so we were all able to go sledding. Sledding down ski runs is AMAZING fun! The area also has a bunch of groomed cross-country skiing trails, so we know where to go next time we get the urge to attempt a X-country ski adventure.

Everyone had a fun time sledding until their three-year-old veered off of the ski run, sped under two fallen trees, and bonked his head. It was a little scary, but he was basically OK.

We all headed into Laramie's cute, red-brick old town, got hot chocolate at a really great cafe, walked around, and popped into an amazing toy store, consignment shop, and used book store. We found a pair of fancy cowboy boots for our four-year-old at the consignment shop for $3. He has been watching the Lone Ranger and wearing a cowboy/Indiana Jones hat lately, so we jumped at such a good deal. I got a Popular Mechanics from 1952 at the used book shop. I love old issues of Popular Mechanics, with its combination of Brill-Cream-laden, world-of-the-future optimism, ethos of self-reliance, and insanely-dangerous how-to projects. I once got a Popular Mechanics from the 1950s that had an article with step-by-step instructions to build your own scuba gear from discarded fire extinguishers. How awesome and insanely-dangerous is that?

Laramie is a major railway crossroads, and they have a super-high pedestrian bridge over the train tracks. At the end of the day we got on top of the bridge and stood directly over a speeding train. It was really fun, terrifying, and exciting.

We then drove home as the sun was setting. The drive between Laramie and Fort Collins is on a little two-lane road that goes through some very wild and untamed country. Parts of the drive reminded me a lot of New Mexico.

The next day's trip was like a Bizzaro Trip to Laramie. Instead of north, we headed south to a suburb of Boulder for our very first trip to Costco. Instead of a quiet, two-lane highway, we took the super-fast, super-congested interstate. Instead of empty wild canyons and hogback peaks, we were surrounded by bleak empty plains that are getting more and more crammed with sprawl. Instead of ending up in an isolated little town of 25000, we ended up at an expansive shopping complex with housing development after housing development stretching out as far as we could see.

So, why was I going to Costco, and how does that mesh with my values? Well, basically, we have found a fantastic new local supermarket, called Sunflower Market. They have a ton of organic, delicious food, in a laid back environment, with great prices. Their whole produce section smells like delicious fresh fruit and vegetables instead of floor wax. Sunflower Market is kind of like Wild Oats, except without the yuppies, pretension, and high prices. So, I really want to do my shopping at Sunflower Market.

The problem is, Sunflower Market doesn't carry things like deodorant that does anything, diapers, shaving cream, ziplock bags, etc. So, we decided to join Costco, drive down every three months or so, stock up on all of the non-organic, non-wholesome crap we use, and go to Sunflower Market for everything else.

We wandered around Costco, trying all of their food samples, and filling up the gigantic shopping cart. The cart was so big that it had two child seats, side-by-side. As we were about to finish our shopping, the baby started freaking out and throwing a fit. I found myself, being another spaced out consumer, wandering around Costco, with a squirming, yelling baby with a poopy diaper in one arm, pushing a gigantic cart with an eight-cubic-foot brick of toilet paper thrown on top with the other arm, and I felt like a complete caricature. I ran out with the baby to the van and changed his diaper while Liza checked out. I still felt full of despair at the whole Costco situation, but the sunshine helped me feel better, and it made the baby happy to be able to run around in the van.

The Costco trip was $300, which is staggering for me. On the other hand, we are stocked up on all of the non-perishable stuff we will need for a long-long time, all of our weekly shopping trips can be to Sunflower Market, and I have deodorant that is more effective than the block of aloe and wax that we got at Sunflower Market the week before.

Monday we just took it easy around the house. I think the little guys needed some downtime. Monday night I went to Liza's English as a Second Language school to register new students. I got to speak some Spanish, and that felt really good. However, I was lost and had to defer to the actually fluent program coordinator when two Hondurans came in and started explaining very quickly and in intense detail that they had given a friend of theirs money for the class, and the friend said she had paid on their behalf, but they didn't have any paperwork, and they didn't know who she talked to.

I rode my bike to work yesterday. That felt good. I almost caved and drove because the kids were sick and I wanted to minimize the time I was away from home. Luckily Liza said that I needed to just jump on the bike and go. I sure love that girl. The baby seemed even more sick, so Liza took him to the doctor and found out that he had a little fever and an ear infection. After dosing him up with antibiotics, he slept much better last night.

This morning I rode my bike to work again. I pulled the four-year-old to his preschool in the trailer. He was so excited to ride. He wore his new cowboy boots.

Now I have a handful of loose ends to tie up at work...Got to get to it!

I went to the "back doctor" today. They took some X-rays, asked a bunch of questions, did a bunch of reflex-type tests, and tried stretching me a bunch of different ways.

It was all really good news. The disks in my spine look fine. They said that my hamstrings and quads (the big muscles on the front and back of my legs) are really big and strong from biking, but the muscles that move my legs sideways are disproportionately weak. All of the muscles in my legs are really tight, but not evenly so. This causes a lot of uneven stress on my pelvis and back. They think the super-painful episode was a massive muscle spasm at the base of my spine.

They said that they expected my back to feel better and better (which it is), and they gave me some stretches and exercises to do. I haven't done some of the stretches before, but they felt really good. I haven't been doing any kind of stretching routine, but I think I'm going to have to start one.

Some of my co-workers have told me stories about their back problems that made me wince. I was so relieved that I don't have an impending horrible back problem. When I stepped outside after the appointment, the day seemed sunnier. I felt like a condemned man who had gotten a reprieve.

On the way to work I listened to Jimi Hendrix. Jimi is always sounds good when I'm feeling relieved and sunny.

I'm starting to get seriously concerned about my back.

Two nights ago I changed the oil on the new Previa. This involved a lot of stooping to pour used oil into jugs to take to get recycled, a lot of stooping to pour in new motor oil, and a lot of lying down and standing up. I got it all done, and everything was fine, except I realized I got the wrong oil filter.

Then I started to clean up the garage. The first thing I did was put our friends' Jen and Ray's skis back into a big long ski bag. I was stooping down, getting the bag zipped up, when my back totally froze up.

It was really bad. It made me drop to my knees.

I went inside, washed up, and watched a movie with Liza. After the movie, my back felt much better, but was still sore. I slept pretty well, but was dimly aware through the night that my back was sore.

Then, just before I woke up, I rolled over strangely, and my back was suddenly in excruciating pain. I tried getting up, but could I barely walk. So, I got back in bed, but my back hurt so badly that I was literally seeing stars. Luckily Liza knew what to do, since she had some back problems when she was pregnant. She jammed a pillow under the small of my back, and everything was bearable.

I ended up taking four ibuprofen and tried to walk off the pain as best I could. At first I could only hobble around, taking 6-inch steps, steadying myself along the wall. Every time I lifted one of my feet, I'd feel shooting pains in the leg still on the ground, and I would feel like my knees would buckle.

Luckily, after about an hour, the pain subsided. My back was still sore, but I could walk normally, and I could sit comfortably if I was conscious of my posture. I made an appointment with an orthopedic doctor for Friday morning to get it checked out, and I drove to work.

I made it through the day pretty well. At lunch I took a gentle two-mile walk. I felt pretty good, but I was pretty irritable by the end of the day. It didn't help that on the way home I stopped by the auto parts store to get the correct oil filter for the van, and stood there for 15 minutes, waiting to pay, while two other customers kept describing mysterious stalling symptoms to the two parts guys working at the time, who kept repeatedly saying, "I don't know what the problem is. If you get it checked out by a mechanic and want to do the work yourself, I can sell you the parts. This part is $X and that part is $Y. I don't know if you should buy that, you should get the problem diagnosed by a mechanic first. Lowering springs for your car are $160 for the front and $120 for the rear. Yes they are 'real expensive'". It drove me friggin' nuts.

Liza is teaching English as a Second Languages classes again this semester. The classes haven't started yet, but she has had to go to a bunch of meetings. She had one during Lunch yesterday, and she had to leave for one last night almost as soon as I got home, so it was just me and the little guys at home last night. The four-year-old has a bad cold, but he has such a great attitude all the time. I'd look at him, sitting on the couch, with his flushed cheeks, pale face, watery eyes, and hacking cough and ask him how he was feeling. He'd always reply "Great Dad! <cough, cough>". It broke my heart. The baby was a rascal. During dinner he'd flash me a big, fake smile and say "Nany?", and I'd say "No candy." He'd frown, then flash me another big fake smile and say "Cookie?", and I'd say "No cookie." Then he'd throw a tantrum, and I'd haul him out of his high chair with my aching back and drop him in his room. He'd then come out, I'd heft him back in the chair and the cycle would repeat.

After Liza got home, we got the kids in bed. I jacked up the new van and climbed under to put the correct oil filter on. I was worried that this would hurt my back more. Surprisingly, after doing these things (carefully), my back felt better than it had all day. I cleaned up the garage more and got my touring bike ready to ride this morning.

Liza and I then watched Harold and Kumar Go To Whitecastle, which is actually a very funny and entertaining film, if you're in the mood for marijuana and boobs being punchlines to jokes. Luckily we were, and we laughed pretty hard.

My back felt even better this morning, so I rode my bike to work!! My back is still pretty sore, but I think the bike riding did me some good. It felt a lot better to swing my leg off the bike than it did to swing my leg on the bike.

The moral of this whole episode (actually the moral of most of my non-super-positive posts): Riding a bike makes it better.

I'm still keeping the doctor's appointment, BTW. I'd really like to know what I can do to keep my back from ever getting any worse. I think trying to never ever stoop for anything is a good start.

Our weekends keep being hectic, in a good sort of way.

Our goal this weekend was to go cross-country skiing. Our friends, Jen and Ray, let us borrow some ski equipment: Ray's boots, poles, and skis worked for me. Jen's skis worked for Liza. We ended up renting a complete cross-country ski package for the four-year old, and poles for Liza from REI. We rented some boots for Liza, and a really neat kid-trailer-sled-thing for the baby from Jax.

Saturday was beautiful and warm. We rode bikes to the Olive Street Bakery. Liza rode her recumbent, pulling the baby in the trailer. The four-year-old peddled along on the trail-a-bike that I towed with my mountain bike. We had a fun time, except that Liza was cold on the ride to Old Town, and kept getting annoyed at me for exclaiming how warm and beautiful the weather was.

We spent Saturday afternoon running around and renting stuff for our cross-country ski adventure.

There are basically two main options for cross-country skiing near Fort Collins:

• Rocky Mountain National Park, up Highway 34
• Cameron Pass, up Highway 14

Although Jen and Ray also let us borrow their annual Rocky Mountain National Park Pass, we ended up trying to go to Cameron Pass. I know Cameron Pass pretty well, we aren't very familiar with the good skiing areas in RMNP, and we didn't want to have yet another experience where we were driving around in the mountains for hours, trying to find a suitable spot.

Sunday was another warm, sunny day in Fort Collins. However, it was a very different story, 70 miles up Highway 14. It was dumping snow and windy. It got scarier and scarier. First the air was filled with snowflakes. Then the road got snowier and snowier until you could only tell where the shoulders were by looking at the trees. Then the road went up a ridge, with a drop-off on either side, so it wasn't defined by the trees anymore, and the wicked blasting wind filled the air with so much snow that it was impossible to see further than the width of the road.

At this point we turned back.

We ended up parking, a little further down the mountain where the storm wasn't as severe, and skiing about 50 yards up and back. Even there, the gusts of wind were rocking our van, and filled the cargo compartment with snow while I was unloading everything. I'm glad we got to get out a bit, I really liked the trailer thing. The four-year-old and Liza did great. However I am a bit disappointed that we didn't get to go on a big ski trip in a warm, sunny mountain day under a crystal blue sky...but I guess that's the weather for you.

We took a couple of pictures. Hopefully I can post them tonight.

We took our new van, and Liza was at the wheel. That girl is the best winter driver ever. We were also really glad to have the all-wheel-drive and the anti-lock brakes in that awful storm. You can call me lame for enjoying this kind of technological crutch, but it really does make driving in adverse conditions easier.

Today I took my mountain bike into a bike store to get the new fork installed. I had my heart set on building a headset removal tool and headset press and doing it myself...but I have been having a hard time juggling spending time with the family, working on the van, keeping my commuting bike in working order, AND finding time to make tools to improve the mountain bike. This way, the bike will be ready to ride tomorrow afternoon, and I'll get to spend time with the family tonight.

Since I was driving today (to take the bike to the bike store), I took my four gallons of used motor oil to the auto parts store to get recycled, and bought a couple of oil filters and an air filter. I think I'll change the oil in at least one of the vans tonight. I bet the four-year-old will be excited to be a big helper.

Got back from mountain biking on some trails near my work with come co-workers. It was a beautiful, sunny, freakishly warm, 63-degree day. I discovered:

• Off-road bike riding is really fun
• Fort Collins is an awesome town with a lot of beautiful places
• I really like my co-workers
• I actually like my mountain bike

I felt pretty nervous about being on dirt at first, but I felt a lot more comfortable by the end. In fact, I think this was the most comfortable I've ever felt riding off-road.

I hope we can get out together to do this on a regular basis. It certainly was a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours in the middle of a Friday work day.

My wife is going to back to teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) classes this spring. So, last night, the family and I piled into the new van, and hung up fliers for the class where Mexicans might see them. I got to pop out of the car and have conversations in Spanish with the proprietors of La Tienda Mexicana, Las Comales Taquerilla, and Cosas Mexicanas. I always get nervous, in a good way, when I start trying to speak Spanish, and it's always such a rush when I realize that I can actually have little limited conversations. I talked it over in Spanish for a few minutes with the guy at the Taquerilla. Afterward, I felt totally energized and great!

My friend at work bought a fancy, dual-suspension mountain bike in December. Yesterday, he suggested to me and another guy at work that we should try to ride on some trails near my work at lunch today. The last time I had ridden my mountain bike was in October, when it was filling-in for my crashed road bike before I bought my Fuji Touring, so it had full fenders, slicks and a solid fork.

So, last night I spent a few minutes making it slightly more trail/commuting worthy...I swapped on my Brooks saddle, a knobby front tire, and my LED headlight and tail light. I aired up the tires and rode it to work today. Riding in sure was a lot more effort than riding the touring bike. We'll head out in about 15 minutes. I expect to be left in the dust, but I am excited anyway.

In other bike news, I decided that maybe I should convert my mountain bike back to a full-on mountain bike (instead of a lame, watered-down, heavy, wanna-be hybrid), so I bought a new $400 front fork on Ebay for $85. It's a Noleen linkage suspension fork, like this:

I've always thought that these are the coolest forks ever, and it's too bad that they don't make them anymore. It arrived yesterday, and it is AWESOME. It is so much lighter than I expected, and the suspension seems so much more substantial than the bargain-basement, probably dangerous, telescoping suspension fork that my mountain bike came with. I still need to buy a stem and a threadless headset, but I'm excited about maybe trying mountain biking out more. I also like how this fork looks like something from star wars. Do I think this fork will make me Super Mountain Biking Man? No. Am I excited anyway? Yes.

Maybe I'll get to swapping on the fork this weekend, but maybe not. We're going to go cross-country skiing. We have rented a baby sled/harness thing to pop the little guy(s) in. I also have a few little projects that I'd like to finish up on the new van. We'll see how it goes.

We got back from our New Mexico trip, and we had a lovely time. My family and my wife's family are all so wonderful, and it was great to see them. Maybe I'll post some pics and more details in a few days.

We drove back on New Year's Eve, and we got home around 8:00pm. We were all pretty tired from the drive. The two little guys had fallen asleep in the car, so we just tucked them directly into bed.

My wife and I unpacked all of our perishable goods, and had a mini-date. We watched a movie, drank some St. Brendan's liqueur, and ate some cake. We didn't make it until midnight, though. We were clonked out and asleep by 10:30pm. I guess that's life with long car trips and little kids who wake up at 6:30AM.

We left the 10-year-old at his mother's house in Albuquerque. He kept wanting to go home alone to his apartment to play video games and watch movies rather than spend time with us at my mother's house. Whenever I'd talk to him or drop him off, he'd sound thrilled, excited, and full of energy. However, I felt like such a horrible person when I'd drop him off to be alone in a dark apartment.

As he stood in his mother's dark apartment, beaming with excitement for being big enough to be left alone, and lucky enough to have a Nintendo Game Cube, my heart would break. He looked somehow smaller and skinnier when he was standing alone in the dark apartment, telling me goodbye.

He called last night. Today is his first day of school, and he was nervous. It sounded like he really missed me, and that he was choking back tears. I couldn't really get in a conversational groove with him, though. I'd say something, and he'd say something, but we weren't really conversing. I told him that I missed him, that I was excited for him, and that I hoped his new school was great. We hung up after less than 10 minutes.

I hope he's OK, and that we will be able to figure out how to converse over the phone.

It's really hard to have him down there, but I just keep telling myself that living with his mother will:

• Make him a happier guy
• Make him appreciate life with me more
• Make my household in Fort Collins less full of strife

And our household has been less full of strife. In fact, it has been wonderful. On New Year's Day we went to Jax Outdoor. Jax is kind of like a locally owned combination of REI, a really nice and fancy home furnishing store, a great cafe, an Army Surplus store, a fishing shop, a fancy and great shoe store, a hunting store, and a gun store, all rolled into one.

My wife looked at boots while the four-year-old, the baby, and I looked at the army surplus. The four-year-old tried on all of the gas masks they had (he calls them "gas maskes"). Whenever he'd put on a new kind of gas mask, he'd wear it through the entire store, looking for his mother so he could show her. He really wants to buy one. The cheapest is a Finnish gas mask and filter and bag for $18. He has $12, and I think he intends to save his money and buy it in a few months.

Later, the four-year-old helped me work on the new van during the baby's nap time. He was such a big helper and had a fun time pretending that the van was a spaceship and passing me tools.

I also got to fix up my solo bike!! I wrapped the handlebars in black cork, set up the new Panniers I got for Christmas from my wife, set up my unreasonably bright home-made headlight, and installed the cycle computer that I got from the City of Fort Collins SmarTrips program that encourages alternative transportation.

Then, today, I FINALLY RODE MY SOLO BIKE TO WORK! It has been way too long. The direct, solo trip took only about 35 minutes, and I was able to leave when I was ready. Now, I'm sitting at work, and feeling good as I feel the endorphins pump through my neglected muscles. I plan to try to ride as often as possible. We'll see how it goes.

In other news, I finished reading "See No Evil". I think I need to mull that book over a bit. It was really good, but pretty information-dense in some areas. It made me wonder if the Clinton and Bush Sr. administrations were as crooked and corrupt as the George W administration.

At the very least, there were fewer instances of the curtain being pulled back on these other administrations to see the horrible corruption (compare the worst scandals of the Bush Sr./Clinton administrations to George W's billions of dollars spent on no bid contracts in Iraq and New Orleans, wars waged on faulty/fraudulent intelligence, Patriot Act, grossly unbalanced budgets, unprecedented shifting of the tax burden from the wealthy to the poor).

However, Robert Baer levels some pretty serious accusations about the Clinton White House being for sale to the highest bidder, and about international criminals involved with big oil and Russia's government buying access.

Initially I was inclined to dismiss Baer as being full of crap about his accusations, his description of the CIA's administration neglecting and killing off its human intelligence branch, and his amazing stories from inside Beirut and Tajikistan. However, the photographs of him with an AK-47 in Beirut in the 1980s, and the total lack of understanding that the White House had of Iraq and the aftermath of our invasion do give him and his accusations a lot of credibility in my eyes.

Maybe every White House administration is as horribly corrupt as George W's, but George W's has just had a lot more stuff hit the fan. I think I need to mull a lot of this over.

In the mean time, I'm motivated to learn more about the middle east and the behind-the-scenes political pull that it has. I have been studying Eastern Arabic via a Pimsleur audio course, and I think I'm going to work harder at it. I watched a movie with some Arabic in it the other day, and I was able to pick up a word here and there, like "Excuse me, blahblahblah a little bit blahblahblahblah. Where is the blahblahblahblah. blahblahblah hopefully blahblahblah thank you. Good bye." That was really exciting for me.

In Eastern Arabic, the word for "excuse me" and "you're welcome" are the same: "afwan". Isn't that crazy? I find languages totally fascinating.

I dropped off my driveshaft at a custom driveline place in town. They're going to chop out the worn out, non-serviceable joints and weld in new, serviceable ones and balance the whole thing for $150. Not bad!

I won the headlight/turn signal/cruise control assembly on Ebay for $40.99, including shipping. Again, not bad.

Once I get back from NM and swap these suckers in, I'll have an awesome, roadtrip-worthy vehicle!! I'm stoked! Too bad it won't be ready for our imminent road trip to NM.

In the mean time, we're frantically trying to get ready for our trip down for Christmas. The 10-year-old's room is all packed up. Packing him up was definitely a sad experience for the both of us. I think he is starting to realize the gravity of the decision to live with his mother and leave all of his friends behind. It is very clear that living with his mother is something he feels like he needs to do. I hope that it will make him a happier little guy, and if it doesn't, that it will at least make him appreciate his life with me more. I know I'll be going out of my mind with excitement when he comes up to visit!

His friends all signed a card with messages about how cool he is and how they'll miss him. He got email addresses from everyone in his class, and a lot of the card's messages implored him to email. His teachers and some of the parents gave him going away cards too. The woman who watches him after school cried when I picked him up from her house for the last time, said she'd miss him so much, and asked him to email.

It was neat to see how much he will be missed by everyone, and to realize how much joy he spreads to so many people in the community. I don't think I fully comprehended this before yesterday.

I sure will miss that guy. I'm excited that he will be able to live where he believes he must, and I'm hopeful that our household will be a more harmonious place - both when he is gone, and when he returns.

I pulled the driveshaft on the new Previa last night.

It's a two-piece unit with a slip-yoke in the middle. The RWD Previa's Driveshaft is a one piece unit that is about 3 inches longer than the AWD driveshaft.

So, the option of switching driveshafts between the two Previae so we can drive the new one to NM for Christmas is out. The option of simply shortening a one-piece driveshaft with replaceable U-joints to fit is out.

So, I'm left with the choice between buying a new driveshaft from the dealer (found a new one for $276), or getting a driveshaft shop to chop out the U-joints, weld in new ones, and balance the whole thing. They are going to call me tomorrow with a price, and they said it would probably be less than $260. It would be especially nice if the new U-joints they weld in were serviceable!!!

I think Toyotas are awesome cars. Typically I appreciate how easily serviceable they are, especially after my horrible experiences with a 1995 VW Passat with a VR6. However, I have to complain that manufacturing a car with a driveshaft without replaceable U-joints makes me think of the GM Whim.