So apparently there is truth to the old middle school joke:

FDA Probing Viagra Blindness Side Effect.

So I decided to try the Thursday night group ride from Addictive Cycles. The Thursday night group ride is billed as a "nobody gets dropped" ride for folks who have recently taken up cycling. After talking to the Scott Hodge, the owner of addictive cycles, I was pretty pysched about going on this 20 mile ride that was supposed to average 15-16 mph. I knew I was in trouble, however, when I showed up tonight and I was the only rider in the group that had not shaved off all of my body hair! I'm actually pretty proud of myself for hanging with the pack for the first 8 miles of the ride, hills and all. In case you are wondering, our average speed for those first 8 miles was just under 24 mph. After those first 8 miles, my hairy, unseasoned legs just couldn't hang. Not to worry though; Grant, Addictive's co-owner, fell back and nursed me the rest of the way back to the shop, even stopping with me so that I could keep my stomach contents in my stomach. When we finally got back to the bike shop, Scott came over to check out the times on my computer. Turns out that I finished the 20 mile course with an average speed of just under 17 mph - much faster than I'm used to. I just can't wait for next week.

Jennifer and Blue


Me and Coma


So here are some pics from our anniversary excursion to the Helen area. We had a great day which consisted of a lovely riverside picnic, some horseback riding, and a little Geocaching.

My sweet wife riding Blue on our anniversary horseback excursion. 

Harry Potter: Which Member of the Rescue Mission Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Congratulations to Heather for being promoted to 3rd year! Have fun in Hogsmeade!

To the young Marine that Jennifer and I saw in Wal-Mart last night: we get that you are a Marine. We get that you just got out of basic and that you're proud of what you have accomplished. We get that your little girlfriend likes a man in uniform. Now don't get me wrong, I am deeply grateful to you for choosing to serve our country and protect us, but there are a few things that you should be aware of.
1. Your brand new, still bearing the lines from being folded grey Marines t-shirt does not match with what you were wearing last night, no matter how proud you may be.
2. If you are still that freakin' scrawny after just finishing basic, then maybe you should wear somehthing other than the afore-mentioned almost-too-small Marines t-shirt.
3. You should be advised that all of that running outside with your cover on has left you with an extremely obvious tan line on the top half of your head. Accordingly, you may want to consider wearing a hat.

After reading Greg's post, I had a few ideas about the problems with our Department of Transportation. You see, I believe that the DoT starts of with great ideas for improvements and upgrades to our infrastructure, the just have a hard time carrying them out on anything resembling a timeframe. I'll put it another way by giving you my take on the expansion of McEver road as it enters downtown Gainesville. The DoT has been in the process of changing McEver road into a four lane divided highway for several years now. I'm assuming that someone within the DoT drew up plans based on this new four lane highway's ability to handle a certain number of cars each day. The problem is that by the time this new highway is actually open, the number of cars traveling on McEver road will be like triple the number of cars that they planned for. Maybe they overestimated the amount of work that 700 men could do each day on a 4 mile stretch of land, even with another 1200 men supervising. Or perhaps instead of actually buying road building equipment, they blew their entire budget on swanky four door pickups for the 700 men to sit in when it gets too hot. Or maybe the fine folks at the DoT figured that we'd all have flying cars by the time the stupid road was finished anyway.

So I decided to try to ride on highway 53 today. I learned that your legs never get tired when you're trying to outrun 18-wheelers. I probably won't attempt that route by myself again anytime soon, but it was a good learning experience. At any rate, this morning's ride was 13 miles at a 15mph pace and very hilly...not too bad coming off the death cold.

So in case you didn't know, I just got a new bike. Only one small problem with my new bike; I have had the death cold since the day that I brought it home. At first it was just a little runny nose, but that runny nose turned into the worst sinus infection that I have ever had. I now have a sinus infection so bad that it was mistaken for severe migraines. Two trips to the Quickcare and about $150 dollars in prescriptions later (that's my cost after insurance, and $80 of that was spent on useless migraine drugs) I'm ready to start feeling better. Moral of the story: You'll be seeing me in spandex charging up the hills around the metro-Braselton area very soon!