Maywhatnow?

Wow. It's May already. Well here's the latest report from the NorthWest frontier.

We're having an unseasonably warm winter. It's usually cloudy, rainy, and under 50 degrees until August, but we've had some really nice days last month and it looks like it might be a nice Zucchini Summer this year. The new home is shaping up nicely. I recently got a lot of practice with my cut-in as we did some inside house painting (I've never really done much other than touch-up before).

Saw Zappa Plays Zappa in Atlanta last month with my brothers. I have been not up for concert-going over the last 10 years, but last year's Devo and Kraftwerk concerts were great, and Dweezil's group's performance inspires transcendence.

Lot of yard work coming up. Had quite a workout detaching, aerating and seeding a patch last month. The moss really is quite a force to contend with.

HEY GUYS! CATCH ME!

Winter respite

Hey look, winter's already almost over! Looking forward to this new year. Looks like a few changes good and bad are in store for me and mine, but this early warm weather here is making it all a bit better. Nothing much new to mention here, except that I still love living in the Northwest US and the deer keep on munching the ivy.

Here's to 2014! A hell of a year!

Mudderdays

Well, I'm finished with the last of my events for the year. The Tough Mudder was pretty hard but also incredibly fun. My friend and I did this together and I am very proud of and impressed with myself and with him. We didn't get to train much but we made it through every obstacle and worked together really well. Most of the obstacles required everyone to work together to get through, and it was impressive how everyone worked as a 1600-person team. Mentally, the worst obstacle were the electrode-based ones, but the physically worst one was the ice bath. It was a FANTASTIC day for the event, and I'm very happy that we did it. I don't know if I'd do it again, but ask me next year.

Something the hype-man said at the start of the race resounded with us both. 'Every week, do something you've never done before. Make the most of life.'

Mike Check One Two One Two

STP 2014 went phenomenally! The whole team felt great at the halfway point in Centralia and the day after we finished in Portland too! All that training really paid off. Also, I realized it made a lot of difference in comfort having rest stops and food/water supplied to us. It was a well sponsored and supported ride. We also got to see a news making sunset on the ride back to Seattle that Sunday.

Looks like my first Century ride was also my second! Coming up next is a century ride for the Gigantic Bicycle Festival in Snoqualmie and then the local Tough Mudder and that's it for the big summer event plans. Now THAT'S some adult summer fun. Challenges!

Moving along

Spring/Summer has been pretty good so far. The good part of Spring weather this year seemed to come earlier than last year. We didn't really plant anything in the garden because we are in the process of selling the house.


I've been doing a lot of cycling to prepare for the STP (Seattle to Portland) bike ride this year. It's coming up in less than 30 days and I feel *sort* of prepared. I've done a few 70 mile rides and felt good enough to keep going, and good enough the next day to get back in the saddle, so I feel pretty confident about doing 200 miles. All the bicycle training I've been doing has been taking time away from me and my wife doing more things together, though. We have not even taken the canoe out for it's first voyage for the year. The training will stop in July though, so I'm also looking forward to taking it more easy on the cycling.


I am finding it amazing the distance one can go on a bicycle. It feels like a world of possibilities opening up. It seems we can go anywhere on a bike, as long as there's enough time to do it at an average of 14 mph.


The weather has been great up here in the NorthWest. I think the highest temp has been about 80 degrees so far. I'm looking forward to the next few months too.