Just love this photo from a fall festival a few weeks ago.

bedtime conversation with ryder last night:

Reading ‘If You Give a Pig a Pancake’, the pig mentions at one point that she is homesick.

Ryder: “I got homesick once”
Me: “Oh yeah? When do you get homesick?”
Ryder: “On the way back from the beach, I was carsick. Then we came home and I had some crackers and juice and I was homesick”

Time definitely flies, Logan turns one year old today! Happy Birthday Logie, we love you!

As usual, it’s been a pretty busy summer. kristy and i have taken to scheduling everything out on a shared google calendar and we’re currently booking through september. that’s pretty ridiculous. I took thursday off for a whirlwind trip up to Diablofreeridepark.com. drove 10 hours round trip, made 16 runs down the mountain for a total of 22 miles of downhilling. i was a zombie afterward but it was well worth it.

had a neighbor’s mini-golf birthday party on saturday, the Ironworks DC company picnic on sunday and a trip up to Hershey on monday with yiayia. the kids had a blast and were so well behaved even though we didn’t get home till 11pm. both of ‘em passed out for the whole trip home.

looking forward to:
rise against/alkaline trio/trice @ rams head
henry rollins @ the birchmere
MTB trip up to Highland Mtn

So I’ve been commuting to work on my bike pretty regularly for the past couple of months. Tuesday I finally had the absolute commute from hell. I had to drive in on Wed just to clear my head.

I carry my laptop in a timbuk2 messenger bag. That morning it was exceptionally heavy, so I decided to bungee it to the top of my rack, above my panniers. I guess the extra weight got to the mounting hardware, so about a quarter mile from my office, the nut vibrated off the top bolt and my whole rack, panniers & bag swiveled backward around my wheels dragging me to a stop like an anchor. Luckily I was able to use the bungees from my bag to strap the whole rack back on to the bike.

On the way home I had my first beer can thrown at me by a car while commuting. I hear about this sort of thing all the time but I was still virginal. I guess I offended the car full of young latinos when i blasted by on the shoulder while they were stuck in traffic. As I turned onto Cedar, they screamed something unintelligible and threw a half-empty can at me. I threw a double fingered salute right back. They had horrible aim.

About a mile further at a very busy part of the road, I was trackstanding in the middle of the road waiting to turn left during a break in my lane’s traffic. I managed to knock one of my panniers off in the middle of the road. Had to throw the bike into the shoulder and dart for my bag before it was run over by traffic.

I’m hoping that I got all my negative karma points out of the way on that day. Today’s ride in was uneventful, even enjoyable.

Today is 7-11-08, that means two things… free slurpees @ 7-11 and Ryder is THREE!

Happy Birthday little man, I love you so much!

My first design project with Ironworks to go live is PBS Teachers Connect. This is a dynamic community for teachers of all walks to discuss and collaborate. Log in and take it for a spin.

You know you really, really want to buy my suv. I want to pick up something a little smaller and a bit more reliable. The Exploder’s really been living up to it’s name lately. Looking for an equivalent year/mileaged car or wagon, here’s my list. Really leaning toward an Outback or Forester, but that’s probably just my inner lesbian speaking.

i’ve been working (barely) on a new design for this site. this new look won’t last long, so don’t be alarmed. i’m sure you were nearing hysterics.

also, i’ve been thinking about taking this site down for a bit, to force myself to redesign it the way it should be done. so if you come back and see a placeholder, oxygen masks will fall from the ceiling.

wordpress 2.5 in the hizzy. who says ‘hizzy’ anymore?

warning, “life updates” ahead. still stupid sick. i’ve always been a pretty healthy person, so this perpetual string of sinus and lung and head have been ridiculous. me and the kids are just passing it back and forth. i don’t like it much. kristy got us a ‘neti pot‘ so i’ve been pouring salt water up my nose. it’s weird and i end up drinking a lot of it.

my truck’s been suffering as well. transmission was flashing all kinds of errors on my way up to frederick last weekend, so i took it into the shop and the tranny had to be rebuilt. oh, and i’d broken one of the rear coil springs. and my 90k was due. $4000 lighter, i have my truck back after a week. the only positive thing i can take away is that it forced me to commute via bike to work all week. even in 40 degree rain, it really wasn’t that bad. i’m putting those ancient cannondale panniers to work (thanks dad). my plan is to ride in to work at least 3 days a week.

Corey:pink eye and sinus infection.
Kristy: sinus infection and pink eye.
Ryder: double ear infection, pink eye.
Logan: sinus infection and pink eye.
listen

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