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China and North Korea this trip. He figures these are places that are in for big changes soon, so he wants a "before" impression in case he can also get there "after". Kyrgizistan in the Fall. Scotland and Wales in between.Quote:
Originally Posted by uk elephant
Duck, what is he doing?? Sounds interesting.
Amanda, I'm glad Maggie is holding her own. Subcu can really keep animals happy and relatively well for a long time.
And Biciclista, Nina is really doing pretty well right now, considering that: she is 17 1/2 years old; has diabetes, IBS, and herpes in her R eye (not currently active, the animal eye doc said today). She is sweet and happy and purring. We really love her. We still really miss the Beeper.
I would like it to warm up just a little, soon. I've been freezing my butt all winter, seems like.
I cannot believe I have taken to running around Greenlake. Who would ever have thought I would do such a thing?
The forsythia that spills down the bank behind our house is starting to bloom. Spring!
We had a chance of snow overnight, so when I woke up, I peeked out the bedroom window and had a shock! It was all white out there! but hmmmm what's that little bit of pink mixed in?
OOOOH! It's the plum tree right outside the window, all bloomed out! lol. Not a flake of snow anywhere. I'm glad. :)
Karen
I despair that i will ever ride my bike again. It's either below freezing or it's raining/snowing.
Oh, I have the cure for you! Buy a trainer. You won't even have to ride it. As soon as you set it up, winter will end.Quote:
Originally Posted by Biciclista
Mimi has a 'trainer' that makes fruit smoothies....but how many can you drink?Quote:
Originally Posted by redrhodie
We have had tons of rain, over an 1" when I peeked at the rain guage yesterday afternoon then it started again. It has been magical for me to wake up the last two mornings to hear it coming down. Thankfully we carpool because I hate driving in the stuff. Heidi and Maggie have not shared my enthusiam but I think the big landscaping we did last year is happy. My Society Garlic almost looks to have perked up into song. Maybe it is just my imagination. :)
Congratulations on the rain, AA. I remember that feeling when I lived in AZ, where rain was so infrequent. One of the weirdest videos we have is when my husband actually taped a monsoon downpour one summer. Like rain was something so unusual, we had to video tape it.
I *think* I might actually ride outside Saturday. Predicted temp. of 46 and sun. I have a ride to lead in a month and I have to get my butt in gear. Not that I haven't been active, but still. It's the first winter i haven't ridden outside at all. At least the snow shoeing and skiing was good.
FINALLY we will get some decent bike riding in- look at our forecast, I'm so excited!!!!! :D :D :D :D
woo-HOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
Quote:
Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 50. Calm wind.
Sunday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 56. Calm wind.
Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 44.
Tuesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 48.
yes, that IS better. We've got a great ride planned tomorrow, but the weather is NOT GREAT.Quote:
Originally Posted by BleeckerSt_Girl
Rain 80% chance of precipitation 40-48 degrees. :confused::confused:
I saw my first Robin of the season this morning and it was snowing lightly. The poor little bugger was all fluffed up and looked to be trying to pluck a worm out of the frozen soil.
We're having beautiful weather this weekend, sunshine and blue skies with highs in the 50's! It's my honey's 50th birthday today so I think we're heading out for a hike and then out for a fancy dinner tonight.
us too, if you're a duck.
fortunately my husband IS a duck. I am ducking out of our ride and he's going alone. It's pouring here and the forecast for where we're supposed to be riding is worse than here.
I feel liberated. I just deleted my Bike Journal bookmark. No more feeling the pressure of keeping up with the Joneses.
Good for you! I know exactly how you feel. I felt the same way when I removed my bike computer. Free!Quote:
Originally Posted by Crankin
I felt the same way on Thursday when I deactivated my facebook account!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Crankin
I'm a duck too, but I enjoyed finally having a day of cloudless sunshine and above-freezing temperatures. :D Spring is definitely on its way. Another week and days will be longer than nights. Which is true for anybody in the Northern Hemisphere, but here they'll also be longer than days anywhere in the States south of Nome, Alaska. :cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by Biciclista
well, they canceled the ride but my ducky husband is riding anyway. YUCK!
Here's to knowing when to cut something out of your life! :D
Mimi, I'm so glad you are not riding in the pouring rain. D is nuts!
It is now dropping great big gloopy snowflakes, the biggest snowflakes I've ever seen. MY spouse just headed off to do a 100K. HE is ALSO nuts. Me, I have an hour-long track workout that I have to do soon, but that's only an hour and I'm not likely to fall over and hurt myself during it. Gah. These randonneurs.
Yes, they are the biggest flakes I've ever seen also! and they keep falling! but not sticking yet.
I wonder if i should tell DH that your DH is riding. hmmph.
Hmmph is right. Bleah. It's pretty much turned into rain now. I will be heading off for my track workout soon. The nice thing about sprint triathlon training, at least as I am doing it, is that my run and swim workouts are typically about an hour long. I can do ANYTHING for an hour. Then I plan to come back home and pursue some long neglected weaving.
we're going to Bike Expo in a few minutes. We will be in the Redmond Cycling club booth until noon, and then from noon until 3 we'll be in the Seattle Randonneuring booth (sigh)
I hear the weather in the pavillion is pretty bad. Massive water on the floor and cold.
i just want to go back to bed. I had no idea poker was that much fun :o
ha! I don't think it was the poker putting you back in bed!
Karen
My liberated feeling from dropping BJ continued after my ride. I was only concerned with miles, not speed, and how good/bad I felt for my first outdoor ride. This is how I felt when I first started.
Getting ready to go out and ride again now. It's 50 degrees! And sunny.
Enjoy, Crankin!
It's gloomy and raining here in the DC area. I ended up slogging out 43 miles in mist/drizzle this morning (it was about 40 degrees). Luckily, it was light enough that I didn't end up too wet or cold, and I was thankful that it wasn't snow or cold enough to freeze.
My magnolia trees are just starting to bloom and my camelias are looking gorgeous. All the bulbs are popping up and daffodils are in bloom. Trees are starting to get that first blush of green, right before the leaves pop. Now if we can get some consistent nice, warm spring weather with sunshine!
I had one and a half beers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tuckervill
Three bowls of chili and two slices of cake:eek:
We're on day 3 of heavy (for us) rain and 40-ish degrees. I haven't even been on the trainer. In 2 weeks, we've gone from snow to 80 degrees to 40 degrees and rain. I'm ready for spring to come and stay (but not summer - that can stay away thankyouverymuch).
CA
I log my miles in BikeJournal primarily so I can keep track of bike maintenance stuff, particularly, how many miles I have on my tires.
I have nothing against Bike Journal. It's just that it made me feel bad when my average was not as high as others, or what I wanted it to be. This way, I only look at my trusty computer.
As far as maintenance, I use the visual method. My husband is my mechanic, he is very good and so far, after almost 9 years, I have been very lucky. I am easy on parts! Only 2 flats on the road, one broken deurailler cable, about half a mile from my house, and one time on a commute home, something happened with my gears, so I couldn't get out of the little ring after going up a hill (also close to my house).
I just decided I needed to make cycling more fun again. At the end of last year, I was starting to hate my road bike. I'm also changing the way I train a bit and am mixing up some running, too. Last summer, I used my commuter to do errands a lot and I was starting to enjoy that more than anything else, so I knew things needed to change.
Yay, Crankin!
I dread the first graph posting of the season :(
I've given up Bike Journal this year, too. I don't care how many times I commute, or how many miles I ride, and I don't care to compare myself to others. It's just one more thing to keep track of, and I'm not going to do it any more, darnit. Feels so good!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crankin
You ladies rock!Quote:
Originally Posted by divingbiker
Crankin- I too began really enjoying using my bike for errands a lot more last year. I'm ready for errand biking bigtime this year!
I am such a geek sometimes. I think this is fascinating; it's by my favorite weather guy on KOMO4's website:
How do snowflakes get so large?
Story Updated: Mar 15, 2009 at 12:03 PM PDT
By Scott Sistek
One of the most remarkable facets from Sunday morning's snow was the unusually large size of the snowflakes. In fact, a reader from Shoreline described it as "it looked like someone was plucking chickens in the sky."
As to why they're so large, it's a factor of both temperature and intensity of the precipitation.
First, let's tie it to rain. You've noticed most of the time around here, the rain is generally light and the raindrops are small enough that you won't get too wet if you're caught outside. But then there are sometimes when the raindrops seem considerably larger and can leave you soaked in seconds.
Large raindrops mean that there are strong updrafts inside the clouds above your head. These upward blowing winds can hold raindrops inside the clouds for a longer period, allowing them to continue to grow in size until they finally become heavy enough for gravity to finally win the battle over the updraft, allowing the raindrop to fall to the ground.
That's why thunderstorms tend to have large raindrops, as they tend to also have strong updrafts. It's also why rain in the Midwest and East Coast can quickly leave you drenched.
Now, it works for snow too, and it helps to have warm temperatures as warmer air can hold more moisture than colder air. So when you've got temperatures on the fringe of freezing, as we did Sunday, *and* a heavy precipitation event, that can lead to big snowflakes. Had it been, say, 40 degrees Sunday it would have been like a tropical downpour.
Hmm. How about that.
I thought it was going to be something about hydrogen bonding.
Now who's a geek?
Geeks have more fun. :)
Okay, well here's geeky :D
Are the individual snowflakes really larger? Or is it just that there are a lot of them stuck together? (I know it's at least partially the latter. But in addition to wet snowflakes getting stuck together in updrafts, do larger raindrops then crystallize into larger snowflakes as well?)
One geek in my family is enough.
But, he doesn't do Bike Journal and he doesn't even wear his Garmin half the time. But we do have a home filled with every technological thing you can imagine. I can't use half the stuff we have and the rest I don't care to or need to use. As long as I can use the expresso machine and put air in my tires, I am good.
The snowflake thing would be mildly interesting to me, though. But only after I finish reading my research article about (please, no one get offended, this is real) how Asian American Gay people identify themselves (i.e. as Gay or Asian).
I've just got to post this--I got a book called Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day. This week we have eaten fresh bread with every meal, and literally only 5 minutes of prep time before each meal. mmmmmm....
Karen