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2008 in review

1Q 2008:Travel to Reno (NV), Vancouver (BC), Portland (OR). Rode (most of) SIR 200k March brevet – So close to finishing. Had my first forty-something physical.  Tried volunteering at a local school.  Learned that dried spaghetti, when bent enough, will break in at least three places. 2Q 2008: Travel to: Pendleton (OR), Richland (WA) Rode […]

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Cycle Oregon 2008 – Part 2

Day 3: Baker City to Halfway – The big epiphany today was that skipping the (now monotonous) breakfast meant I could sleep in.  By getting on the road at 7:30, versus 6:30, I didn’t freeze my … um… didn’t need a jacket for the hour it was too cold.  Now I just needed a step

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Cycle Oregon 2008 – part 1

Last year at this time, Cacade’s Ride Around Washington was leaning towards the “Ring of Fire” volcano route.   I’ve had good experiences on two of their other events, and was looking forward to riding this year’s.  In every other year, the ride has open slots through June, plenty of time to figure out my

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Geocaching

Not that I need another hobby, but… I’ve belatedly taken my friend Tracey’s suggestion to try geocaching, essentially a treasure hunt.  When I started reading about it last month, I was impressed with how many of these things there are.  Check out the map of geocaches within a few miles of home: The first one

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Price trends

I don’t drive as much as I used to, but yowza, $54.87 to fill up my gas tank today.  For some historical perspective, the Energy Information Administration at the Department of Energy who publishes weekly gasoline prices.  Here, they attempt to explain gas pricing, best summarized as: World crude oil prices reached record levels in

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Time capsule

Inspired by Spring being officially upon us in the northwest (while the rest of you in North America are having “summer”), I went on another cleaning rampage the weekend before CROC, this time focusing on the garage. For the most part, this involved coming to acceptance that the 17″ piece of baseboard, fractional container of

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Close, but no cigar

I felt great when I rolled into Greenwater, the point geographically farthest from the start of Saturday’s 200k brevet. I got my card stamped inside the store, reloaded my water bottles with the unnatural blue sports drink, and chomped away on a slab of vanilla ice cream surrounded by two, chewy chocolate chip cookies. I

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Pasta puzzle

I’ve been having a lot of fun reading “How to Fossilize Your Hamster“[1], an entertaining and enlightening collection of quirky science questions and experiments one can do to observe the the principles. It’s very conversationally written with abundant humor. For example, in answering the best way to get ketchup out of the bottle, where they

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