August? Already? Yikes!
RAGRBRAI Wrap Up
I did it! Okay, I admit that much like finishing a marathon that completing RAGBRAI is not a monumental achievement, but I’m damn proud of myself.
Seven continuous days of riding.
423 miles ridden.
13 Iowa Craft Beer tent stops, earning my “free” t-shirt.
Fortunately for me the only bad thing to happen was my chipped tooth, for which I will be seeing my dentist this morning.
As far as my riding went I was strong. My legs were getting tired toward the end, but I finished each day cranking hard.
I need to start eating and drinking less in order to shed the weight that I gained. Yes, even riding all week I managed to plump up thanks to the copious amount of food and drink available for consumption.
I heard that Lance Armstrong rode a few days. No, I didn’t see him.
Would I do it again? Yeah.
ITP Flickr Pics
While I didn’t take a slew of photos on this trip, I will be posting two per day this week. It’s funny, I noticed that I didn’t take any photos on Thursday or Friday and only two on Saturday. This was probably due to the lack of neat towns on those days combined with gloomy weather on Friday and Saturday and my desire to get through with the day’s riding.
All You Need Is Love’s (Boonville, state unknown, United States)
On the trips up and back we stopped at Love’s Truck Stops nearly exclusively. I gather that this ensured the school bus with bikes on top would fit.
“Home All Last Week” (Glenwood, Iowa, United States)
Not being able to receive text messages most days of the week made it a bit tricky to know where camp was set up. Fortunately the huge BRAG tent made it a bit easier to find. The tent, and school bus, also provided a lot of advertisement for BRAG, with people taking photos of each and coming by to talk with us every day.
I Tried A New Laundromat
My normal lavanderia was packed with hermanos and hermanas yesterday. Since I had time before my scheduled haircut I decided to try the Laundry Lounge in Ansley Mall. Unfortunately for me, as well as one other customer, neither of us noticed the remnants of a black plastic bag from a previous customer in our dryers. I’m not sure what happened to his stuff, but a rubbery glue was deposited on one pair of my “running” shorts as well as on my Schaefer cycling jersey. I am attempting to get this stuff off of each garment using some techniques I found on the internet last night.
More Busy Weeks For This Unemployed Man
Holy smokes am I ever busy! For a temporarily unemployed person I sure have packed my schedule silly.
Oh, and about my Leave of Absence. The original plan was to quit, take six months off, and then look for a job. I applied and was approved for an unpaid three-month leave of absence, with the opportunity to inquire about returning after that was completed. While in Iowa last week I received the information that the Atlanta office is closing on October 1st. After my dental appointment this morning I will be going into the office to find out more.
This week I will be attending a two-day conference that I’ll talk more about when it occurs, and on Friday I’ll be flying to Vermont for my next cycling adventure. And I also have German class tomorrow night for which I am completely unprepared.
Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]
Atlanta office closing?!? Well, you knew this was a possibility. Best of luck.
Except for being hot all week, I’m not sure you missed much here. I’ve had more flat tires, including a freshly changed one Friday before we were heading to see Debbie’s folks. I had loaded my bike in the car so she could drop me along the way and avoid some rough pavement, when she said she wanted to go by the feed store in the truck. I moved the bike from the car to the truck and POP! Guess there was a bit of tube that was not behaving itself. At that point, I changed clothes and said to hell with it.
Zelda and I went running last week. She did pretty well, once she figured out she had to keep up and not trip me. The full body harness helps as it applies pressure to her if there is tension on the leash.
Got the mower out of the hospital Saturday and did almost 4 hours of work in EP yesterday. The carb is out of adjustment a bit and will go back today for a tweak.
Glad to have you back in one piece, mostly.
-FP
I saw pics of Lance, and he was with 2 Nascar drivers – Jimmie Johnson & Matt Kenseth.
We have to get together for lunch (or dinner) soon – as I need to hear more stories about your fun in Iowa.
Did you stay up for the bands? (or go see them? Sometimes you can hear from camp?)
How many Mr. Pork Chops? Any other interesting vendors selling food?
How about lunch either tomorrow or Friday, Barb?
The only band I saw was Hairball. The expo was always a walk/drive from where we camped, and on most days when the sun went down I went to bed.
I only had one pork chop. I was going to get one on Friday, but I had just eaten a beef sundae from Brewer, that brat folks. The last two nights I ate at town restaurants, including a Chinesr buffet after riding 68 miles.
Wow about your office closing. Where’s the next closest one? Does this mean that your LoA is pretty much void, or would it still be possible to re-inquire about a position again if you were willing to relocate?
Something in my gut just tells me you shouldn’t anyway. I get why you took the LoA instead of resigning (it IS a nice safety net), but something tells me there’s something out there better for you and after this time off anyway you probably wouldn’t even want to go back.
Looking forward to all your pictures.
Next closest office is Denver. I’m not sure if a transfer is possible, and I wouldn’t be interested in taking one if it were.
I chose the LoA to stay on benefits. I still need to talk to HR to find out if, or how, this changes my status.
I just read the words “beef sundae” above and my world is already just a bit brighter knowing something like this exists.
A beef sundae is mashed potatoes covered with sliced beef and gravy, topped with a cherry tomato. 🙂
I think that’s exactly what I pictured. I forgot about the cherry tomato…
Wonder if it’s possible to work remotely? We have folks that do that all over the country.
beef sundae – that’s a new one……. I can’t wait until we get back to IA again!!!!
Let’s shoot for lunch tomorrow – as the Spanish Groves are getting in this evening & Allan will probably be available to join us tomorrow. After that, who knows what his schedule will be.
We can touch base in the morning.
Sounds good.