Well that was a nice change of pace, a day without rain!  I took advantage of the nice weather and went on a group bike ride last night.  I got my bike back Tuesday night, complete with new carbon fiber fork, but hadn’t gotten to ride it yet due to the intermittent monsoons.  I was quite pleased with the new part incidentally;  It’s pretty well used, a little dinged up, but at the price Volker gave me (with installation) I sure ain’t complaining.  Not to mention, it actually fits, unlike the old one.  As a matter of fact, I had enough money left over to get some new brakes too.  My friend Chris (not Martin, a guy I used to work with) came over before the ride last night and put them on for me.  He seemed a bit confused as to why I was replacing my perfectly good (and actually very nice) Ultegra brakes with the new ones.  I pointed out the obvious:  “Because these are black.  I like black components.”  He didn’t say anything, but I’m relatively sure I saw him roll his eyes.  He put them on though, and they look infinitely nicer than the others.  Probably make me faster too.  So, with my super-duper new fork and brakes, we rolled down to Brookside and met up with Munkirs.  Chris is significantly younger than Munkirs and I, and we let him talk us into taking off with the “fast group.”  Turned out to be a good choice;  We didn’t have any problems keeping up and I liked the riding style of this group a lot better.  (I thought they did a much better job of following some basic traffic rules that absolutely drive me nuts when I ride with the “slow group.”)  Chris saved the ride on his nifty GPS, and posted it here so we could see the results.  That Garmin is pretty sweet, I might have to look into one of those.  He noted somewhat sarcastically that maybe if I didn’t spend my money on color-coordinated parts I could get one.  Ahhhh, youthful foolishness, what does he know.

That was an interesting day of weather in KC.  I got my first-ever tour of the basement in the building where I work;  Perhaps an over-reaction but nobody was complaining.  By the time we went back upstairs, the sun was shining and it actually looked like a decent day out.  After work the sun was still out, so I pulled my motorcycle out of the parking garage where it had spent the last few nights because of all the rain, and made the ride home warm and dry.  Emboldened by my good luck, I hopped on my bicycle and rode down to the Brooksider to hang out with the boys for a while.  That’s pretty much where my luck ended.  It sprinkled on me all the way down there, and as soon as I pulled up a seat on the patio it started pouring.  It would stop for a little while, then start up again.  Donette cruelly refused to come get me, so I had to ride my bicycle back home in the rain.  After that we headed up to 75th Street for some dinner, which was delicious as always.  Actually I sort of had my heart set on some mexican food but we have some Groupons that are about to expire so that dictated the menu for the evening.

In lieu of any actual content, I again offer up a fascinating tidbit of news I came across this morning.  The USDA has revised their recommended cooking temperature for pork to 145 degrees.  I’ve followed that for a long time myself;  I hate dry pork chops.  Nothing wrong with a lil’ pink in a nice lean cut of pork.  Now I have to buy all new food thermometers for the kitchen though.

My days are all messed up.  I worked all weekend in St. Louis and my elderly brain is having a hard time adjusting to the change in routine.  This is a thinly veiled excuse for the late update.

I’ll throw up a quick, disinterested rehash of my weekend, for the sake of an entry.  We (Donette came with me) left KC on Friday afternoon.  Her parents had offered to watch the pup, so we had to drop her up there, and then we were on our way.  We had quite a miserable drive of it, as it stormed the entire way.  When we finally showed up in St. Louis it was nearly 8:00 in the evening, so we stopped by Trailhead Brewing in St. Charles for a quick dinner and then hunkered down in the hotel for the evening.

The next few days were a blur of working weird hours and seeing how long I could stay awake.  I’m sure nobody is particularly interested in the details surrounding that, so I’ll fast forward to Sunday afternoon.  After getting done at the office, we headed over to the Jones’ residence where they fixed me a stellar birthday lunch.  I was barely awake at the time, but luckily I was conscious enough to shovel down a good amount of food.  Dessert was about the last thing I remember, then I woke up on the couch at the hotel several hours later.  Semi-refreshed from the long nap, we headed out for a late dinner at a nearby steakhouse.  It was no Plaza III, but at less than 1/3 the price I couldn’t complain.

Yesterday we spent our day driving back to KC, and it stormed the entire way again.  Man, driving in all that rain wears me out.  When we finally made it back home, I spent the rest of the afternoon baling the lawn, which was about six days overdue for a mowing.  Blech, I hate that.  After that unpleasant project, we headed up to 75th Street for dinner and called it a day.

Another year, another birthday gone by.  I considered this a “milestone” birthday at forty-five, as it puts me on the downhill slide to fifty.  Most people guess me at around 58 anyway so it doesn’t really matter.  For the big event, I was secretly hoping to spend my day sitting in a small cubicle staring at a monitor.  What do you know, I got my birthday wish, just going to show that dreams do come true.  In addition to this exciting afternoon, I got some nice gifts too.  Besides lots of nice well-wishes on good ol’ Facebook, my Mom and Donette’s parents went together and got me a new fork for my bicycle.  (They do not know this, but they did;  Thank you!)  It has been brought to my attention by a few different people that my current fork (the part that holds the front wheel on) is not exactly, well, “safe.”  I’ve been intending to replace it all year, but a new one is just a bit pricey.  I guess I should specify, the new carbon-fiber one that I want is just a bit pricey.  I could get a considerably cheaper one, but I think everyone would agree that it’s better to wipe out in a spectacular fiery crash than to be seen riding around town on an alloy fork.  Makes sense to me.  From myself, I got a  USB TV tuner for my home theater PC.  This little toy goes back to our recent unplugging of the cable TV.  I don’t remember if I’ve rambled about this before, but our plan was to hook up an antenna and just watch local TV stations.  Well, as it turned out neither of our TV’s have built-in tuners, effectively wiping out this idea.  So this little gadget fixes that problem, as well as giving me a DVR and some other cool little features.

For my birthday dinner, Donette took me out to Plaza III.  I haven’t been to this fancy-schmancy place in quite a while;  High School prom I believe was the last occasion.  Took me that long to save up enough money to eat there again.  Heck I probably spent more at prom, because this time we had a coupon.  Seriously.  I used to feel a bit funny using a coupon at places like that, but I think I’m getting over it.  Donette had the prime rib and I had a strip steak, both of which were awesome, then we finished things off with a slab of strawberry cheesecake.  While I will continue to maintain that no dinner on earth is worth those prices, it sure was delicious.  After dinner we walked over to Brio and had a cup of coffee, then headed back home, as it was well after 9:00 and the old man had to get to bed.