So it's been quite a while, and Fred has complained about that on more than one occasion. So, Fred, here you are. Another post.

The last couple of weeks there has been a considerable amount of uncertainty in my life. At those times, I tend to not say much. Most of the uncertainty is surrounding work, but I cannot divulge much here. I am still gainfully employed, but confidence in the continuation of this is not all that high. In an effort to maintain workplace marketability, I have been spending much of my time reading and experimenting with stuff at home. The experimenting has been with PHP, CSS, and the like in the web development realm. My reading has been around software design patterns. Interesting stuff, really.

In other news, this past weekend was a holiday weekend. Labor Day (for those of you living under a rock). The last three weekends I have managed to meet Thad and others for one mountain bike ride per weekend. Only one per because who wants to get up early on both days in a weekend? They were a good time. The Montgomery Bell trail system has really grown on me lately. After riding it a couple times before, I was not impressed and would avoid going out there. I have lately gained an appreciation for it. I think this has much to do with (pumptrack) Jim working on the trails out there and setting up the race course. There is a Norba race there in 2 weeks, but there is also the grassroots Firewater 50 the same weekend. I am drawn more to the firewater. It is free, it is 50 miles, and it has an adventure element that a lap race just doesn't possess.

This holiday weekend, besides trekking out to Monkey Bell to ride, I also joined Fred, Ivan, Elliot, and a few others for a (Harpeth Bike) Hank country ride. I am thinking long-haul trucker ride, so I get there on my steel gunnar with my wide 27 or 28 tires, my wide heavy brooks saddle, and the cantilever brakes of a cyclo-cross bike. Of course all of the others show on their high dollar ti, carbon/ti, carbon/carbon, 10 speed ultra-lightweight bikes. I probably had 5 more pounds in my ride than anyone else. Well, in all seriousness, if I had known what others were riding, it wouldn't have changed anything cause I don't have anything else any faster. Ends up I was probably best suited for the terrain because the ride was complete with gravel roads, creek crossings, and some long climbs. It ended up being a great ride. The gunnar killed it up the hills and on the gravel roads and maintained nicely on the roads. With my gunnar I was also the only one to make it across all of the creek crossings on my bike. By the end, Fred, Ivan, Elliot and I were cruising back into Fairview at about 30mph. Definitely couldn't have kept that up for long, but knowing the end is near always provides for a good kick.


Saturday night was a knock-down drag-out night of Bike polo. Literally. Tempers flared and by the end I don't think anyone was particularly satisfied with the night of competition. From early on it was looking like a game of chicken all over the court, and the other team wasn't giving an inch. After a couple of quickly lost games, my team figured out that was going to be the only way to play them. It definitely wasn't the plan to try to collide with the other team, but it was generally decided that the only way we had a chance was to play their game and not back down (cue tom petty). So that's the way it went, and by the end of the night, people were pissed, warn out, hurt, and generally needing a break from the tension and the competition.

The break didn't last long, as there was a short night of bike polo at the mannonranch mannonlaborday blowout cookout. Playing on the slower grass in the dark was the perfect challenge and diversion to cool tensions and get the polo back on friendlier footing. The throwdown was just that as we managed to float a 5 gallon warhead of Yazoo pale, polish of a few pounds of shrimp cocktail, blaze through about 3 pounds of potato casserole, and kill quite a few bratwurst. A few games of mafia, a visit from a darlin from m'boro, and some jamming in the music room rounded out a great way to celebrate labor day.

If you have never done so, scroll to the bottom and you can see that I am MONETIZING. I signed up for google adsense mainly to see how it works and see what kind of ads get pulled for my blog. If you feel like it, click on an ad and I get paid!!! Sweet!!! But not much. Like I said, it is mainly an experiment for me. Just investigating. As it is now, the only ads to show may be public service ads, but this should change after the next time Google does their internet scan and my page gets re-indexed.