BDR Final Prep

A few people have asked -- the Big Dumb Ride (BDR) is now a few days away.

Mechanical shakedown ride will be tomorrow (Wednesday). This is a final check that all is well with our bikes.  Thursday I am taking entirely off (I'm having dental work done) and then on Friday we'll come home from work, pack up the gear, and head to the hotel near the venue.

Sign-ins start at 6am on Saturday and I'll be rolling on the course around 7:45am.  The course is open until 4pm, though I hope to be done by around 2pm. Mrs. Durden is also doing the ride, but is signed up for the 'fun ride' while I'm headed for the century (100mi).  We'll see each other regularly around the course, and plan to ride together for parts of it.  But for the majority of my day, I'll be on my own, or making friends with strangers as best I can.

I'm as ready as I think I could have been.  I followed a 10 week training plan, but started it knowing that I'd fall short of it due to weather and RL commitments -- and I did.  I fell well short, actually.  But I'm exiting the training period stronger than I've been in a long while, perhaps ever.

I'm also far smarter about what I need to eat and drink to function at a high aerobic rate for 3, 4, or 6 hours without leg cramps, gastrointestinal distress, or early energy drop (aka "bonking").  I've been doing endurance events for awhile now, but hadn't been happy with the results of my nutritional plan until this year.

As I type, the forecast for this weekend continues to churn.  The past few days the long term models have been highly favorable for a good riding day.  At the moment, it's 80% chance of rain and thunderstorms, which makes me less than happy.  Hopefully the weather systems involved accelerate or decelerate and give me the day I need to be successful.

Easing Back Into Reality

Spent the last week out on the U.S. east coast; rented a half a house on the oceanfront with my family and Mrs. Durden.

The drive out and back is best done in 2 days, but we saw fit to complete it in a single session on both the outbound and return legs.  We rented Saturday to Saturday and got up very early yesterday to say goodbye to family and the ocean and make the drive home.  It's a holiday weekend in the U.S., so we arrived back home to cookouts, high school graduation open houses, and the usual summer kickoff events.  Which is a little weird - my vacation is "over" but all around me the party is just beginning.

We'd been looking forward to this trip for quite awhile.  The past 6 months here have been a sprint with the job, house, and other "real life" problems.  I went to the ocean with only 3 main objectives:

1. Sleep a lot.
2. Drink a lot of coffee by the ocean.
3. Read a book.

I accomplished all my goals.  Book of choice was Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising, which I first read in high school and try to pick up every 5 years or so.  The coffee was mediocre, probably due to the local municipal water quality, but I drank it anyway.  

The house we rented was oceanfront.  From the deck, we could watch the tides coming and going maybe 50 yards away.  We made up our daily agenda as we went, but I spent a lot of time just sitting and reading or watching the water.  I'm not one to sunbathe or sleep on a beach, but a comfortable chair within a short walk to the coffee pot (or fridge, for beer) and an ocean breeze is a good way to spend the day.

The first few days, I was jumpy and generally bitchy about perceived offenses committed by my family members.  By about Monday, I found my irritability draining out of me as I caught onto island time and cared a lot less about things that the others said or did.  I felt more like myself than I have in awhile.  

If you've never truly experienced island time, I highly recommend it.  In western civilization today we live such regimented lives in a world of schedules and rules and routine.  But left to our own devices, it's interesting to me how quickly those rituals fade in importance.  Some structure, I suppose, is a good thing over the long haul, but the lack of almost any obligation was liberating.

I had my laptop with, but didn't sneak away much to spend time on it.  I bounced through EVE every other day or so to check on things and read EVEmail.  The time away was good and I came home with a short list of goals that I'd like to accomplish.

I plan to ease back into reality.  I spent this morning brutalizing some Serpentis and have AE4 on deck.  When the dew burns off, I need to mow the lawn.  We have some tuna steaks for dinner that will go on the grill.  I have very little idea of what I'll do tomorrow, and right now that's fine with me.

But for now, it's time for more coffee.

EVE That Was

EVE has been occupying my idle moments lately.  That's good, and bad.  Well before the 85% post, I was pondering things, and dark thoughts flitted in and out of my head.  Upon close inspection, these thoughts would evaporate; I could not force them to congeal into a concise position.  But yet the feeling of unease lingered, and the comfort that I sought was elusive.  I've felt like I've been fighting a blanket that's too small on a cold winter night.  The cold keeps creeping back in.

And that's why, when Neville's 85% post hit, I jumped on it with both feet.

And yet, with time, that single post doesn't quite keep me warm at night either.

Oddly enough, it was mowing the lawn that I think has finally caused a breakthrough.  Mowing, me, and EVE go way back.  At the old house, in the summers of 2003 and 2004, I'd have to afk for an hour every Saturday so that I could go push the mower around our postage stamp in the subdivision.  During that hour, I'd hatch plans and create a mental map of all that I needed to do and all the folks I needed to contact when I returned to my comfortable chair.

Today, as regular readers know, we own 10 acres and I mow between 2 and 4 acres of it depending on the week.  Yesterday I was plotzing around on the Deere, and I happened to think of EVE in the early days, and those Saturdays long ago at the old address and how energizing that time was.  EVE was a central focus, mowing was a chore but a mental break (chainsaw therapy) that I needed to step back and look at the game strategically.

So, yesterday, I began thinking about the game in its infancy - May and June of 2003.  The feelings I had then for the game and the feelings I have today are so distinct that it feels like two very different game titles.  That's not to say one is better than the other - they're just different.  Imagine meeting your dad when he was in his 30s and interacting with him as a peer and contrast that to the father you know today in his 50s or 60s. These two individuals are the same man, but are probably very different people in terms of experience, intensity, interests, and perhaps even temperament/demeanor. Your own role as son/daughter vs. peer plays a role in how your interactions shape up - and that's similar in a way to how you approach EVE today as a returning bittervet or a noob undocking for the first time.  Your expectations and approach are different.

I think it's safe to say that the EVE of yesterday appeals to my soul better.  There's no way I can go back and relive those early days, so this is a moot thing to type about, but while the EVE of today is better in almost every way, I miss the crusty and simple aspects of the game of 2003.  I've known this for awhile, but on the mower I again realized that trying to recapture that feeling of the early days is what makes me continue to sub up.

Lately I've not been productive isk-wise or progress wise.  I've just been touring the highsec systems and regions and have been doing things more randomly; docking at different stations, visiting old systems, and just looking at the skeleton of the game that I know is still there.  I found my favored space-taxi (Amarr Navy Slicer) and popped through random gates without the shackles of using autopilot to plot my jump route.  I went to regions that I used to frequent as part of my trade routes and space trucker empire but no longer have a viable business need to visit.  I checked out some highsec citadels, visited some moons and asteroid belts, and looked at a sky that was Caldari blue.  I'd missed it.

The next 2 weeks are going to be a blur with work and Big Dumb Ride prep, but I'm hopeful that after the dust settles and summer takes hold, I'll be able to devote more time to investigate the EVE-that-was that's still within the EVE-that-is.

I say things like "more time for EVE soon" quite a bit... but one of these days, I'm going to be right. :)

Brain Dump

Many thoughts have been swirling lately, so let me give you a brain dump.  Just for fun, I'll sort these by word-association.  These are in no particular order and are appearing just in the manner in which I begin typing them.

Behind:
Work sent me to the east coast this week for a series of meetings.  Productive and overall a good experience, but I really didn't have the time at home or at the office to be out of pocket that long.  Lugging the work laptop around, I didn't bring the gaming laptop and have been out of touch with most everything. A modern cell phone can do a lot, but only so much.  I got back to the house after 11pm on Thursday, was too wired from the trip home to sleep and was still awake at 1am.  Alarm clock went off at 5am and I did a full day at the office. Came home and crashed, then took Mrs. Durden for mexican at the local cantina since we hadn't really talked in almost a week.  There were a handful of things I should have done last night and I didn't do any of them.

As I type, I'm staring out the window at grass that's well beyond needing mowed.  So that's task 1 for today.

Discouraged:
Big Dumb Ride prep has again been interrupted.  When I signed up for the ride, I knew that I'd struggle to get the miles I needed in April and May.  The weather is unpredictable, and waffles between "super mega-nice" and "shitstorm rain."  I track all the miles I've ridden since 2013, and April is typically in my lowest mileage months, with some years recording a big fat zero.

Although I've hit some great high marks - longest unsupported ride, and a non-formal-event metric century (100km), I am not getting the less glamorous weekday rides in that I need to maintain and extend my base.  With the work trip this week, I'm behind on a thousand things at the house and the weather is again uncooperative - I may not ride at all this weekend.  The BDR event day is closing in and I'm now beginning to doubt my ability to hang on for the full Imperial Century (100 mile) goal.

Hopeful:
One bonus perk of the cold/windy/wet weather is that I might actually be able to undock this weekend and kill some Guristas or Sanshas.  It's been awhile....

Philosophical:
I've had a sequel post in my head for the previous "85%" bandwagoning, but will spare you the long dissertations and give a few thoughts with bullet points.  Bullet points are cool.

• No, I don't agree with everything in Neville's post.  But I do agree with the overall sentiment.
• I am not against Citadels.  I'm not personally interested in them, but I see the perks, and like the overall size/shape/flavor of the design.  For the past year or more, I've been pretty happy that CCP seemed to be balancing dev investments pretty well.  All corners of the community got something (sometimes big, sometimes small, but SOMETHING) in each patch.  
• My beef with the 2016 plan seems to be that CCP is banking on "trickle down economics" of null driving interactions in other areas of space.  And yah, they will.  But it's that feeling of being second class citizens that chafes.
• As a person pretty heavily invested in capship BPOs, I really do want to see capship Fleet warfare get fixed and come back to being en vogue.  But I wanted it alongside content directly focused at my preferred way to play.
• I am not upset with CCP Affinity.  I think she's done the PVE community a few favors over the past year.
• That being said, I stand behind my previous words about the lack of focus, clarity, and scope control from a project management perspective.  I'm not disappointed with any single hardworking dev; I'm disappointed with CCP as a whole for being unable to demonstrate reasonable management and having the balls to communicate directly with us.
• Is it the end of the world?  Bah, hardly.  I can still rain hot kinetic cruise missile death down upon my foes, save the damsel, and poke the occasional burner in the eye.  I've said before and I'll continue to say: EVE today is the most playable state we've ever enjoyed.  And that's pretty ok with me.

Aging:
Abavus quietly celebrated another birthday.  He was born just after midnight server time on May 10th, 2003.  That's a few days after the original launch.  In those early days, owning a battleship seemed like an impossible goal; having 1B isk in your wallet (let alone 20B) was a laughable thought.  I don't exactly how how I pictured spending my time in EVE, but at the time it probably involved a lot of Merlins and Kestrels.  Every time I think I've peaked in this game, I find another goal and another plateau to climb to.

Pukin' Dogs was actually born several months before EVE's launch, notionally in October of 2002 (though the exact day and even month are now fading with time).  We existed in EVE's beta7 but because of skills and cost didn't actually appear in EVE until 31 May 2003.  So, around Memorial Day in the US, I'll be hefting an icy cold beverage to the Dogs.

Back then, the notion of playing this silly space game in 2016 was absurd.  Perhaps just as absurd as playing the game in another 13 years in 2029.  But who knows?


And with that, it's time to go mow the lawn... fly safe!

I am the 85%

I've been trying to sum up my feelings on EVE lately.  After a generally surprisingly good EVE Vegas experience, some 'meh' things have happened.

• I was underwhelmed by fanfest, I have little use for citadels in their current incarnation, and while the capital ship changes are good follow-thru from Vegas, I was hoping for new and exciting things in 2016 beyond fixes for null.
• I've been largely disappointed by the non-announcement that PVE staff and devs had been redirected, or at best floundering.  Check the CSM minutes and read the Team Astro Sparkle entry (pg 32) and try to figure out wtf is going on with PVE.  If you can figure it out, you might want to explain it to CCP, because it appears they don't know either.  Best I can tell, "PVE" has been relabeled to "engagement" which is actually more about "holiday events."  It smells like a team with changing scope, poor management commitment, lack of clear goals, and no near-term deliverables.  In my day job, I call these "failed projects."
• The PVE roadmap that CCP Affinity talked about apparently never happened.  (Note, I remember CCP Affinity making a comment on Sugar's blog about providing a roadmap, but now I can't find it and the bitter in me makes me wonder if the promise were deleted or perhaps it was all a troll/hoax).

Lately, I have written pages and pages of draft blog posts that basically sound like "I'm Abavus Durden. I quit, but you can't have my stuff."  And then I delete them, because that's not the message.  I'm still here, I'm still a customer of CCP, but I'm not entirely sure where I'm going or what the future looks like for my part of the game.  So I've said nothing, waited patiently for clarity, and written more about bikes.

And then Neville Smitt comes and writes this post that almost entirely captures my current sentiment.  Go read and support if you're of a similar mindset.

Big Dumb Ride Prep

Looking at the calendar, there are 5 training weekends remaining until my long (100mi) charity bike ride (hereafter dubbed the 'Big Dumb Ride').  Normally this ride is later in June, allowing a later start to training, but they've moved it forward to avoid other conflicts.  I signed up knowing this, of course, and hoped that the March and April weather would let me get out and get some miles in.

Some background:

• I'm embarrassed to admit that I've never done an Imperial Century (i.e. 100mi - a 'Metric Century is 100km).  
• This is a rite of passage for many bikers, and a lot of guys do multiple Imperials per year. Now in my 8th biking season, I've never done a single one.
• I've been close a few times; my longest ride is 75mi and I've done several metric centuries, plus a Half-Iron distance Swim/Bike event where I swam 2000m and then biked just short of 100km with one short rest break.
• I've had several attempts thwarted by weather, injury (I almost scrubbed my entire 2014 season due to lower back pain) or making a snap decision early in the day to ride with family instead of scooting off on my own.
• The past 2-3 years, I've focused on triathlons. Biking is my favorite, but with swim+run events to consider, training time gets sacrificed.  More, the TYPE of training that I do tends to be different, since my Tri events are far shorter (14-26mi), the training I do is more to prepare myself for a sprint and then manage the transition to jogging after.
• This season, we have no, zero Triathlons on the calendar.  This is intentional.  If I miss my goal in June, there are 2-3 other events I could jump on to knock the Imperial Century off my bucket list.
• The BDR is not a timed event (i.e. not a race) but there is a time limit to how long the venue will be open, and the longer I'm on the course the more weather plays a variable (in particular, wind is typically worse as the day goes on). So I want to turn in a decent average speed (and besides, going slow sucks).
• We've done portions of the BDR in 2009, 10, 11, and 12, but due to cost and other commitments we haven't been back since then.  
• I want to finish in good form, not just limp across the finish line and need help to get to the car.  On a perfect day, I could probably do 100mi right now.  Having some reserve strength will help me get past whatever the weather happens to be that day; and after 2014, I don't want to risk any sort of injury by being stupid.

Early march weather was fine; above average even.  But late March and most of April have been pretty poopy.  I don't deal well with biking in the cold, and although I got some time on the spin bike at the gym, my mileage overall was far below what I'd planned

That being said, I started the season stronger than any other season to date.  Dropping swimming in late winter let me focus.  Time on the indoor bike on the gym reduced the amount of 'acclimation time' to my bike seat (aka sore ass).  In 2014 and into 2015 I made several minor changes and adjustments to my bike's equipment and setup, and although my bike isn't the quickest/lightest/sexiest carbon-fibre beast out there (it is, in fact, a steel framed Italian bike designed for fast touring on questionable roads), I have never felt more confident on it.  Things just 'clicked' when I grabbed it off the wall this spring.  So, despite not hitting all my goals, I am better and stronger and in better condition of any biking season to date.

Looking at the calendar, it's make or break time.  Either I'm going to get the training miles or I'm not.  If I'm not, then I should admit it now and enjoy sleeping in on the weekends while I can.

However, last weekend the weather finally cooperated and I set out to extend my mileage and make up for lost time.  It was a COLD morning (46 deg F), but the temp raised 20 degrees while I was out and I was hot by the time I came in.  I turned in a 41ish mile ride with a decent average moving speed. I wasn't out to set speed records but was happy with the pace.

This week I set out for a 50 mile ride as the next stepping stone.  I left my driveway this morning (Sunday) a little before 8am and followed a slightly modified course to get the additional miles.  Temperatures were about the same - a chilly 46 deg at the start - but I was better prepared and broke my thermal gear back out of the closet.  Wind was far different - last weekend there was almost none, just a whisper from the NE; this weekend was a steady 10mph SE at the start that shifted to a 15mph straight out of the south by the time I was coming back home.

The grind home today was a rude surprise. Weatherbug had predicted steady 6-8 mph SE winds shifting South throughout the day.  I set out knowing I'd be returning into the wind, but 6-8 is very manageable.  However, the wind was actually double that (confirmed when I got home). The crops of course aren't in the fields yet and the area I was in was flat and bare - the wind simply howled at me and all I could do was pedal on.  At a few points, the wind funneled between trees and I'd drop into granny gear just to keep moving. Although it wasn't the worst wind I've ever ridden in, the amount of time I had to keep at it really wore on me.

Today I finished 50.3 miles with an avg moving speed only slightly below last week. I'm happy with this, considering the ~15 miles of grinding I did in the wind.  Garmin says my avg HR was 150 (146 in my 'all day' target) and I burned 1637 calories.  This represents the longest unsupported (no chase car, non-event) ride that I've ever done.  It's the 4th longest ride I've done since I got my Garmin in 2013, displacing last weeks' ride for that spot.  Training wise, I finished strong and could have done another 10-15 if I'd had to, though I would not have tolerated more time into the wind very well.

Next weekend my folks are in town; with an appointment on Tuesday and weather turning to shit on Weds/Thurs, I may not get a ride in at all.  But if I get lucky, I hope to add another 5-10 to the course and maybe even push for a metric century (100km, 62mi).

Chainsaw Therapy

Chainsaw Therapy is a category of yard work that I put under the category of "tedious, exhausting, and often good for the soul."  It started with any sort of literal chainsaw duty - with hearing protection on and the noise of the saw, you're alone with yourself inside your head for the duration.  While one part of my brain works on the puzzle of the task at hand (like how to safely knock over a very heavy tree without catching power lines, the house, etc.) the other part of my brain is chewing on EVE issues or work issues or whatever has been keeping me up at night.

Chainsaw Therapy is an expression I use with friends and often get blank stares in return.  Many folks don't get it.  I enjoy being outside, doing something manual, and losing myself within it.  For many, the only reference to a chainsaw is the one in DOOM or a random zombie movie.  These are the ones that might respond with a bad pun or a comment so idiotic that only demonstrates their lack of knowledge.  (These are the same people that seem to believe the scenes in the movies that show a 12ga shotgun knocking people backwards several feet with the kick, sigh).

But a few understand.  Usually people with property or farmers.

I took today off to work around our 10 acres.  I started the morning with a pot of coffee made from my special, expensive, and utterly delicious Hammer 53x11 coffee instead of the usual Folgers.  I drank coffee and made a list on an 8.5x11 inch piece of printer paper, folded in half.  The to-do list ended up taking up 2/3 of the half-page and resulted in 2 columns of tasks.  By 8, I was headed to the garage and began working down the task list.  I picked up sticks by the armload (thank you, wind storm), fertilized the lawn, seeded a bare patch, plugged a hole in the pole barn foundation where critters had been getting in, pruned several trees, mowed 2 1/2 acres, and a half dozen other tasks. I stopped only for a couple of breaks and took a 45 minute lunch (egg and cheese burritos, yum).  I'm now sitting on the couch, exhausted, happy, empty beer bottle next to me, and maybe a little sore.

But my mind is free, and my mental burdens seem lighter.  Chainsaw Therapy works, more people should try it.

EVE Revenues Down

Saw this on MassivelyOP.  Link HERE.

Hat tip to marketsforISK blogger croda for digging into CCP’s 2015 financials, which were released to the public at the end of March. The good news is that CCP posted record post-tax profits of $20.7 million in 2015. Even if we exclude the one-off sale of the World of Darkness franchise, this a record year for the company, particularly since 2014 saw heavy losses.


The bad news is that studio revenue is down 16% since 2014, thanks largely to a decline in EVE Online, whose revenues are down to their 2009 levels. In fact, croda extrapolates a 16% subscription dip for EVE.

Edit:  Sorry for the horrible formatting.

And Then it was April

Things continue to shuffle along here.  The pace at work has slackened just a bit, and a few things that were hard for me a couple months ago are now getting easier with additional experience.  With the spring thaw has brought the return of yard work, and although I enjoy being outside a great deal, it's also a distraction.

I should have started an 8 week bike training regimen this week and I did pretty poorly.  I actually haven't biked (indoor or out) for over a week and a half.  Random weather and a sudden work commitment kept me grounded this week.  Wednesday was absolutely fantastic weather, but I opted to re-mount the mower deck and spend an hour mowing an acre out front that gets ahead of everything else.

I'm actually off work today; it's a premeditated vacation day with the intent of accomplishing more random things in 3 days than I could realistically hope to get in 2.  With the forecast, today was chainsawing and brush hawging until the rain came around lunch and drowned me out.  This afternoon we'll off for errands and a late lunch at a local diner we found a few weeks ago.

Tomorrow will hopefully be a 35-40 mile bike ride to jump start my training regimen, I need to pick a route that takes into account the amount of wind I suspect we'll get.  I hope to collapse in a heap afterwards.

Sunday's task will be to light the pair of brush piles I've built and toss on all the stuff I cut this morning.  Sounds simple, but will be 4-6 hours outside eating smoke.  Oh, and somewhere in there, I need to clean the gutters and pile some gravel in the hole the raccoons are using to access my pole barn.

This has left precious little time for EVE.  This year has warped past me at a blistering pace; I can't believe it's April already.  I've been in game a few times to try to keep some plates spinning, and I'm trying to follow the onslaught of the Imperium war, but most things I need to do within the game involve a lot of time investment.

Oh wow, now it's hailing outside.  We came inside just in time. :)

5 Random Things

Stealing the format from another blog I read.  Here are 5 random things I did this week:


1) Signed my will.  As in my last will and testament.  We're old enough that we should have one, and it's been on my New Years' to-do list each year for the past 2-3 years (and if I say 3, it's probably been more like 5 years).  Last year I actually logged into LegalZoom but didn't actually purchase the form.  This year we found a local attorney to hammer out the details.  It was painless and far less expensive than I expected.

2) Was a featured speaker at a Lunch n' Learn event at work.  My part was less than 10 minutes, though I also coordinated the other 4 speaker's content and assembled the consolidated package.  I am not a great public speaker but it went well enough.  There were about 50 people in the auditorium and another 30 people online via webex.  Not my largest audience ever, but probably the most free-form speech I've ever given (since I wasn't giving a "briefing" against a standardized agenda).  My boss' boss was in the 4th row and has this eagle-eye stare that unnerved me.  I had to find someone else to look at during my hand waiving.  After starting at the new office in October, it was nice to be asked to speak and be a visible person in my new org.

3)  Rode 20 miles on the bike.  Early season rides are always a crapshoot around here, and normally this time of year I'd be happy getting a "real" ride of maybe 10 miles.  Last Sunday it was sunny and warm with only medium wind so I suited up and went out.  The route I picked started on some of my favorite roads and I ran into a TON of other bikers - the biking community here has really exploded in the past 5 years.  As I considered my return route, I opted to add another 5 miles and went out scouting a new return route on the way home.

4)  Patched up EVE.  I haven't undocked in awhile, but did manage to get my Desktop client patched up and checked training queues.  Everything is where I left it, although I'm noticing that some of my older burner setups are now broken (the Gila fit for the Sansha BC Burner in particular).

5)  This morning, we ran a local 5k.  Every triathlete has a least favorite event; running is mine.  I am neither a great runner nor a horrible runner, but I don't enjoy it and therefore don't train for it.

However, while I am focusing on Bike this season, Mrs. Durden is opting to chase down some running goals.  She signed up for this event long ago and I jumped on board last month (mostly because of the finisher medal, I must admit).

I went into this unprepared ... I have run exactly twice this year - the only other jogging session was a 5k event in February - and the time I got today was pretty good for not actually preparing for the race.  The weather was pretty cold (38 deg F at the start) and after I overheated in February, I undercompensated and was dressed for a day 15 degrees warmer.  Luckily, we were able to hide in a local pub before the start and once on the course I felt really good.  Mrs. Durden did also well and the finisher medal is cool and we're better off for having done it than sleeping in on a Saturday.

6) Bonus:  Tonight we're going to the Opera. We're season ticket holders, believe it or not.  I can take or leave the singing, but I really enjoy watching the pit orchestra. With dinner and the show it will make for a nice evening out.

Early Sunday

It's early for a Sunday.  It's not quite 8am and I've already been out of bed close to 2 hours.

At around 4:30 this morning, I awoke with a start.  I was having one of those pulse pounding dreams, and I wasn't able to really get back to sleep after.  The dream itself was new and interesting - Mrs. Durden and I were making our way somewhere late at night.  It was dark, horrendously rainy, and the headlights weren't cutting through the haze.  The road we were on was in the middle of nowhere, and very hilly, and we had someone tailgating us.  We knew there was a rail line ahead and could see the train in the distance; I began watching for the cross guards.  We descend into a valley, crest a small hill, and suddenly there's a bridge that's washed out by the rainstorm.  Mrs. Durden (who was driving) slams on the brakes.  We skid to a halt (Hollywood style) with our front tires teetering over the abyss of rushing water.  I'm urging her to back up before the bank collapses, and she's saying something about the car behind us maybe can't stop in time.  She begins to back up just as the bank starts to crumble....

...And that's when I woke up.  I'm sure it's going to be an interesting day today.  We have few plans, so I'm hopeful for a long nap this afternoon.


Anyway, the reason I'm here is that although EVE is somewhat on the back burner, I'll try to keep a feed here going, even if it's not game related.

March is already here.  I've done reasonably well with my Winter to-do list around the 10 acres we own, and if the weather cooperates will have knocked out the last of the pre-Spring prep perhaps next weekend.

I'm also looking forward to more miles outdoors on the bicycle.  I have a big event in early June for which I need to train.  Winter training (indoors) has been going well, and I feel stronger now than I did perhaps a year ago.  But the real test will be getting some 25-50 mile rides in to test my endurance in the saddle.

/Time to Ride...

Spring is both a horrible and a great time to ride here.  When the weather turns warm, there's always a strong south wind that brings it.  Wind is a part of biking, but after your 3rd or 5th ride in a grinding 25mph gusty wind, you've really had enough.  (Of course, in July and August when it's 105 degrees F and 95% humidity you're praying for a little wind).

But only so much can be done indoors; eventually you need the real miles on a real bike on a real road.

I have done what I can, I think, to make the season successful, but Spring is always a challenge.  The weather the next few weeks will be very important - if it's too wet, I won't be able to ride, and won't be able to knock off chores around the house.  This is important because the same days that are ideal for biking are also ideal for working outdoors.  I'll have to make hard decisions whether I work or play, and those decisions get harder if the weather windows are few.

If things cooperate, I'll be able to tetris my tasks/training together very nicely and accomplish much.  If things don't cooperate, it'll mean an unruly mess and a lot of compromises.

Last year was an unruly mess with a lot of compromises.  So far, this year is better.  But the next few weeks will set the tone for the entire season.