A year in Brussels here.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Aug 26 century

Sunday I took part in the Reston Bike Club Century. A colleague from work invited me on this ride and it has been a while since I got an event t-shirt. This ride started in Reston, just south of Arlington, to almost the corner of VA, WV and MD and back. The ride ended up being 167km and I was in the saddle for 6hrs and 25 min. I just got a new cyclocross bike I had been dying to seriously put it to the test. It rode perfectly.

The route wound through about 40 km of suburbs. This blew me away. The suburbs were all built in the last 10 years and they went on for miles and miles. The entire route had no flat parts, it is very hilly (and forested) in this area. During this suburbs portion, the crest of every hill exposed another huge valley of endless homes with a dinky little tree in every yard. And the houses were huge. In fact, the average new home size in the states in the last few years is 240% larger than the average home built in the 50's. And family sizes have shrunk too.

Anyway, the scenery was amazing once we left the suburbs.... but the houses and cleared land per house got bigger. Who wants a house with 5 air conditioners lined up outside, a ring of baby trees 250 meters from your house, where the only thing nearby is a neighbor with a garage with 1 more door than yours? The best part was that most of these giant houses had owners out riding their lawnmowers. Obviously a 5 hour job for most of these places because for the entire ride most houses had someone mowing the lawn. I guess there are not enough Mexicans this far from the city for them to hire to mow their lawns for below minimum wage. Or, they can no longer afford the hired help when the cost of building that lake on their property seems to be more then they expected.....??

Oh, I was writing about the ride..... The pace for the first quarter was pretty good, stopped at the rest stop and filled up with calories, salt and potassium. The next quarter as a bit slower. Though the day was much cooler than recent weeks, it still passed 32C, and my colleague had not had any salt and was cramping. Just past the midway point we came to another rest stop where finally got him to have some salt. Here we parted ways. He took a short cut to a rest stop 15km from the end while I did the next big loop. I later found out that the salt fixed him up and he felt much better. Meanwhile I continued to go up and down all the hills and finished just in time to have a big dinner at the finish line.

I had trouble with shifting. My new bike's rear shifter works opposite to my mountain bike. It has been hard to break my shifting reflexes. Even after getting partway up a hill and shifting in the wrong direction over and over, the added pain and misery did not force my fingers to start shifting right....

Saturday, August 25, 2007

I should count myself lucky I even get 10 days......



Wednesday, August 15, 2007

This is Columbus

I had been in Columbus Ohio for work last week. With a population close to Winnipeg, it seemed much smaller. One night we made it into town for dinner in the Arena District and saw the LeVeque building, and the Santa Maria replica. There was a Modest Mouse concert about to begin while we were there. Sadly we had to miss it, not without trying to get in.

Across from where we were working was the Budweiser plant. No wonder the beer tastes like it does after seeing the factory it is made in. It just doesn't seem right.

I was a nice clean city, seemed like it was well into a renewal.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Absenses

I am about to hit the road for 9 days. I will be in Columbus Ohio until Thursday, so I will be off the grid. I am visiting Worthington Steel makers for work.

Then I go straight to Winnipeg for 4 days to visit friends and family.

Check out Kona's new 2008 commuter bike.

Sunday, August 05, 2007

Thomas Jefferson Island

In the heart of DC/Arlington, on the Potomac, is Theodore Roosevelt Island. We went for a walk around the island yesterday. A slow walk around the perimeter took 1 hour. It is for pedestrians and accessible by footbridge only (though a major road goes over the S end of the island). The trails go through forest, beach and swamp. From the island you see much of downtown DC, from Georgetown (NW) to the monument (SE).


In this photo we see the Watergate buildings, the left building, 6th floor office was made famous by the Nixon administration. The island is covered in deer which take over the island at night.



Me! Sorry, no wikipedia entry for me........ yet. ;)

Last weekend of July visitors

Last weekend we had a couple more visitors from Toronto. They drove down Friday and returned Monday giving them 3 nights and 2 days in DC. We started with an evening in Alexandria for dinner. Saturday we did the DC thing - brunch at Dupont Circle (location) then to the Mall. We walked the mall, or at least tried too, it was so damn hot. We stopped in at the Modern Art museum of the National Gallery of Art to view some modern art, have lunch, and cool our core temperatures. We did not continue into the West building of the National Gallery that contains the older works.


We spent the evening recovering from the heat on a boat ride up the Potomac from Alexandria to Georgetown and back. There was historical narration on this trip but it was far too muffled to hear anything the speaker said. (photo: Georgetown docks)




We made our first trip to the Arlington National Cemetery, saw the famous grave sites like the JFK family and the unknown soldier.








Finally we ended the weekend at a football game between the DC United and Club America (wiki). Some Mexicans at work asked me to join them and we all thought this was a great idea for an evening of fun. Some of the fans had much more fun than we did..... I found it particularly entertaining when they were throwing their Bud Lights at the police arresting a rowdy fan. Thats the best use of a Bud Light I have ever seen. They had every right to be rowdy, the Mexican team played like crap.

Saturday, August 04, 2007

Hey y'all


One of several nationalistic licence plates around these parts.