If we can land a man on the moon...

A couple weeks ago, I heard a radio report about the lack of water donations for homeless folks, citing that 2 people had already died of heat related causes. I thought, WTF? and went down to Costco, picked up several cases of water, then headed to the north Glendale library to drop them at a donation center. In the parking lot of the driveway sat one of the stupidest things I have ever seen. See for yourself;


It made me wonder if maybe it was children's reading hour.

Then I realized that the only addition needed to make it perfect would be a bike rack and an extension ladder. The perfect shuttle vehicle...

No. Still stupid.

MTB Complications

I never would have believed it, but it happenedto me so it must be true.

Got in a great ride in Prescott, Granite Basin with some good buddies and had a ball. The trails were in beautiful shape, not too sandy and pretty smooth. We had lunch in Prescott then a leisurely drive back to Phoenix.

Monday morning, I got to work at my usual time feeling great. At 8:30 am almost to the minute, I felt a stabbing pain in my lower right abdomen. It reached the stage of cold sweats, doubled over, ow ow ow ow. Thinking maybe some kind of abdomenal flu or something (I'm no doctor), I went home and moaned the day away on the couch.

No better Tuesday. Went to the doctor and we're thinking appendix, infection, kind of strange, and painful I might add. Prescriptions and go home.

Wednesday, seems a little better, but still pretty bad.

Thursday, Doc says head to the ER. We do xrays and CT scan with some kind of contrast injection. About 30 minutes later the Doc brings in a urologist. He says Kidney stones and progressing kidney failure because the tube is blocked from the kidney to the bladder. Turns out that the contrast agent is hard on the kidneys and one that's in trouble can fail with that stuff in there.

I have to hand it to John C. Lincoln. When they decide an emergency surgery is in order, they don't mess around. About 30 minutes later everything goes dark.

I woke up little while later feeling pretty good, except in the one orifice that can be used to grant access to the bladder and kidneys.

The urologist inserted a laser gun through that orifice and took out the death star with a few proton torpedoes. Then up went a stent to keep everything flowing in the right direction. His final words were something to the effect that I am expected in his office in about 2 weeks when he is going to reach back up there with a grappling hook and yank out the stent. Just thinking about it, I cringe. I really hope he whacks me over the head with a rubber mallet to distract me first.

For those who don't know which orifice I'm referring to, go to Wikipedia and look up Laser Lithotripsy. If you have any imagination at all, you will understand why you don't want to be awake for this one.

Apparently, the jarring from Sunday's ride worked loose to stones, which caused the drama. I'm on the mend now, But If you can prevent this from happening, I highly recommend you do so. Drink lots of water.

All that said, I'm off the bike for 2-3 weeks. Still hoping to race in Flagstaff August 22nd, but I may trail the pack by quite a bit.

Buy a House then redo the whole darn thing

Back in November we bought a house in Peoria AZ. Since then, I've been on my bike maybe a half dozen times. The house was a foreclosure that had been vacant for about a year. Apparently it was originally purchased as a rental/investment. When the housing market went poof, the owner stopped making payments to the bank and the renter got evicted by Sheriff Joe's boys. I don't know anything about the renter, but judging from the condition of the house, he/she was rebuilding engines in the living room, or something like that.

After 3 months of work, we are down to rebuilding the kitchen and family room, and hoe to have that done in 2 or 3 weeks., then we start on the outside. Here's a shot of the powder room sink arrangement:

The countertop is pine, and temporary, until the bamboo countertop Sean is going to make arrives. The layout is basically what it will look like.

For some reason, we seem to like the look of bamboo. Here are a couple of shots of the upstairs floor.

And, just to make this a bike related post, here's where the bike sat while the garage was being used as a paint booth.

Off the bike for a month

Until yesterday morning, I had not been on my bike since Oct 2nd. We spent about 10 days in Oregon, visiting family, then heading to Ashland OR for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Instead of renting a bike and getting in some rides, we spent the time eating, drinking, and attending the theater. The plays were great, as usual, with the most memorable being "A Comedy of Errors" set in the old west.


After Ashland, we were off to Kansas to close the sale on our house, pack up and hit the road. We didn't do too badly on the house, lost a few shirts, but kept the ones on our backs. We made a mini-vacation of the trip. Instead of bombing across the country as fast as possible, we made side trips to Sante Fe, Window Rock, Canyon de Chelly, Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park. Interesting sites.


Window Rock AZ


Veterns Memorial at Window Rock

Spider Point at Canyon de Chelly

Painted Desert

Petrified Forest

We arrived back in Phoenix Sunday night, and did a lot of running around until finally, Friday morning was the first opportunity to ride. PMP, only about 6 miles, but enough to know how much conditioning was lost during the month. It felt like riding in Flagstaff at 8000ft. You know the feeling, just can't get enough oxygen.

Its going to take a few rides to get back in shape.

The Year of Riding Dangerously

I arrived in Phoenix last year, in August. The day Judy and I unloaded the rental truck and set up my apartment it was 114 degrees. Judy stayed a few days, then flew back to Kansas to keep the house from falling apart while we had it up for sale. She also continued to serve in her position as city council member of the small town we lived in for about 4 years. After a year, we finally accepted an offer on our house that wasn't a big loss. It was contingent on the sale of the buyers house, and the buyer of that house had a contingency on his. It was like a line of dominoes waiting to fall. Finally, the dominoes are falling and with any luck we'll be making the final move in late October.

We've moved several times over the years, and it has usually meant that I lived in an apartment while Judy stayed behind to mop up. This time has been by far the longest time we have spent apart, and we are both looking forward to being together again. Its amazing that she's put up with me for 34 years.

Being a bicyclist since I was about 4, getting out and riding has long been my activity of choice. This year, its been an escape from boredom of living alone. Its great exercise. Its fun, and for me at least, its cheap. Yes I'm a cheapskate. My Klein hardtail, bought used in Kansas City in 2000, is about 12 years old and has taken a beating this year. A few mornings ago, we met a guy on the trail who was riding a titanium Edison that had to cost 6 grand. We asked a few questions about it, and when my buddy Karl asked how much it weighed. When he responded 27.1 lbs, I commented, "That's only about 3 pounds heavier than my bike." The momentary flash across his face was priceless. He glanced at my bike dismissively, and was suddenly befuddled, not able to come up with a way of calling Mr. Klein a piece of shit without insulting the old, fat and slow geezer leaning on it.

Through this year in Phoenix, mountain biking has been almost a life saver. Without the Mountain Preserve a mile away, and a small group of friends to ride with, I would have done little other than work and sleep. Karl has been a regular riding partner for about 6 months. We have been up at 0 dark early about 5 times a week, meeting at the 32nd St trailhead at 5 and riding until 6. Sometimes we've pushed it hard and improved skills and fitness, other times we ride a couple of miles, solve some of the world's problems, ride a couple more, solve more problems, etc. until the hour is gone and we're both looking at being late starting our days. We both resolved that we hate riding in the early morning, but we keep at it because, "It's good for us." Eat your vegetables.

Now that the love of my life and I are going to be together again, biking will take a back seat to the many opportunities the Phoenix area will open up to us. I'll still get out a couple times a week. After all, it is still my exercise of choice, but Judy deserves to be treated like the sweetheart she is.

More Interesting Weather

One of those microburst columns happened in the west valley Wednesday evening. I got a call from my consulting engineer who has a construction trailer out near Festival Ranch. Seems the microburst knocked the trailer over on its side. Unfortunately, the trailer, 40 ft long and 8 ft wide, fell over on a water tank which exploded and threw water over all the engineering drawings. Uh oh.

Stormy Weather

With Gustav visiting the Gulf Coast, it seems timely that we had a bit of a storm here in Phoenix last Thursday night. Lots of lightning, rain, and winds up to about 100 mph. Pretty impressive. Apparently, three storm cells converged in the area and pretty well hammered the area. Roofs were blown off, trees knocked down, and widespread power outages.

The most interesting thing about this storm wasn't that it happened, but where the damage occurred. 40th St between Shea and Cactus had downed power lines and was still closed on Sunday. I made a work related run out to the west valley and noticed that trees all through the Festival Ranch development were leaning or knocked over. I'd bet half the trees, mostly desert willows, were ruined. In a lot of neighborhoods around Phoenix, trees, cacti and bushes were damaged.

It struck me this morning while riding in the preserve, that there was virtually no damage to any of the native vegetation. A limb torn from an occasional Palo Verde, but that was about it. Quite a variation from the extensive damage thru the rest of the city. My guess is that all the non-native and replanted vegetation isn't native for a reason. That, and most people over water whatever they plant, making the ground around the plants a bit softer than naturally occurring plants.

The apartment complex where I live was hard hit. Limbs are all over the ground. Here in the desert, we have pine trees(!?) palms, etc. Not exactly the best choice in a place that gets almost no rain.