So my quest for new bicycle wheels is finally over.  I found a set of very lightly used Mavic Aksiums on Craigslist for a good price.  This same kind of wheel shows up every now and then for sale, as they come standard on a lot of bikes and people swap them out for nicer ones.  They are plenty nice for me though, and a good upgrade from the ones I have now.  (Especially considering mine are bent.)  I’ve always missed out on buying them before, somebody always gets them before me.  This time, after trading a few anonymous emails, it turned out I actually knew the guy selling them so he hooked me up.  Small world.  As an added bonus, he loaned me the tools to swap them out so I don’t have to pay the shop to do that.  I’m pretty excited to get them on and go riding, as I am sure these new black ones are going to be considerably faster than the gray ones I have now.

One of my recent absolute necessities was a “nettop” computer.  These little things are pretty cool.  They are very small PC’s, and most newer models come with HDMI connections so you can plug them into your digital TV.  I’ve been shopping them for several months, and finally decided on the Lenovo Q150.  I almost built one from scratch, but when you price everything out the Lenovo actually comes in cheaper.  (When it’s on sale, which it was last week.)  So, what can you do with this little thing?  Well, it’s first use was to video chat with Ed & Kim and the baby.  I might get a nicer webcam for it someday, but the one I have did OK for the time being.  Since then I’ve installed Boxee on it, so I can use it watch TV shows, Netflix movies, etc.  Mostly I just sit on the couch and surf the Web though.  It’s like having a 32″ monitor for your computer, it works great.  The only downside I’ve come up with is that it sort of makes me wish I hadn’t bought my recent webserver and the PS-3, as the new toy could pretty much take the place of those two purchases.  I do occasionally play games on the PS-3 though, so there’s a little justification there.

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone.  My Valentine has taken off for parts unknown so it’s just the cat and I for dinner.  Boo hoo.  Actually we already had our Valentine meal.  We went to the Blue Bird Bistro on Saturday night, and had just a fine dinner.  (We had a coupon, naturally.)  I would honestly say that was one of the best dinners I can remember eating.  Donette had a ribeye, and I had the bison tenderloin, both of which were just awesome.  If I’ve ever had a buffalo steak before I don’t remember it, but it was great.  Granted, a good part of the flavor may have come from the 1/2 stick of butter it was soaked in, but it was delicious at any rate.  Everything was so good we didn’t want to quit eating, so we ordered dessert too.

So, what else did we do this weekend…  Well, not a whole lot.  Friday night we went to 75th Street and had a pizza.  Something of a trend as of late.  Saturday afternoon I met Munkirs & Belanger up at the new Bike Source on 95th, mostly just to check out the new digs.  Quite a store, although I tend to agree with Bruce that they may be a little optimistic with their inventory.  Are you really going to sell dozens and dozens of $5,000 bikes in Kansas City?  Who knows.  Not to me they ain’t, I know that much.  Speaking of Bruce, I was pleasantly surprised to see him there.  My first thought was that he was going to take up cycling with us this Spring.  Fat Back Cycling is always looking for new team members.  Turned out he was just there to make fun of our hobby though, darn.

Sunday morning Donette drove to the downtown airport and participated in the “Love 2 Run” event.  I would have joined her, but I do not “Love 2 Run,” which automatically disqualifies me.  It sounded like a good time though, or at least as good of a time as exercise can be.  After that she hauled me down to the Brooksider so I could enjoy the nice-ish weather on the patio, and she headed out of town for some kind of class she is taking.  I will be accepting any type of charitable entertainment for the next two evenings.  Oh, and you have to come get me too, I don’t have a car.

I got to hang out at the Phoenix last night for a while.  I do like that place quite a bit, but I’m usually in such a hurry to catch the bus and get back to midtown that I walk right by it.  Last night I was feeling rather what-the-heckish though so I dropped in to listen to the piano player for a while.  It was more crowded than usual but not too bad.  I stayed for about 3 hours, for his entire set actually.  He’s a good pianist, at least as far as I know, not being the biggest piano fan in the world.  I like listening to him at any rate.  If I had my choice he would skip the singing, but it ain’t that bad and he seems to enjoy it.  Might just go back next Thursday…

Nothing to report from last night.  Donette went out with some friends, I stayed home and played Wii games.  My amusement of choice was Cabela’s “Big Game Hunter.”  I don’t play the part where you stalk and shoot the animals though.  That part requires too much thinking, coordination, and all that stuff I have no need for.  I just play the “Shooting Gallery” part, which is a lot like the old Nintendo “Duck Hunter” game, with better graphics.  Man if they’d just put the dog in there, they’d really have something.  It passed the evening remarkably quickly;  Might just do that again tonight.