Friday, July 13, 2012

Escape Velocity Built

Wow, after what feels like forever, my vacation starts next week.  My last one was back in early March to see my folks and well, visiting the parents, isn't really a vacation :)  Say it's a half-cation.

This time I'm off to the OBX which I haven't been to since probably Reagan was in his first term as president.  I want to say I was in 1st grade but not positive.  Staying in Nags Head and hoping to get some good riding, good relaxing and good swiming in.  Also hoping to make it to the Wright Bro's museum.  

Wakefield ride last night was pretty good, we rode mostly Accotink which is sort of amazingly clear excluding 1 or 2 spots, especially the last big descent near the dam area which is blocked by a HUGE tree.  Got 8 miles and change, no pre-ride as I stayed late at work.  Post ride was good time chilling, drinking beer and hanging out.   The girl who damaged a tooth a few years ago came back for the first time.  Felt horriible hearing a few others were also damaged!  Ouch!  Major dental work for her.  Damn.  Now she wears a mouth guard, probably not a bad idea really.  

Put a deposit down for J on a bike to checkout on our way outa town on Saturday.

Tonight it's Dream Theater at the Warner.  Should be another awesome show, saw them earlier on tour and was really impressed.

Oh and Happy Friday the 13th.  :P

Saturday, July 07, 2012

Sawing Along

Well it's been a long and busy week.  Work has been stupid due to working an extra hour everyday and the 2 extra on Thursday morning REALLY sucked.  Been playing catchup on sleep since then still need a few more.

Thursday we did a ride and clear at Accotink.  Damn.  A TON of trees down.  We cleared a bunch of stuff and some smaller trees using hand saws but a lot simply requires chainsaws.  Larry C sawed out a MEGA ton of timber, probably 100+ cuts or more in 2 hours. 

Also "found" a wasp nest on the Gas Plant trails near the BIG Grass Field.  One of my guys was stung 10-15 times, another maybe more but on the head and body and he bailed out.  Not that I got away without being stung, I got taped once, on the thumb thru my glove.  Oy I was damn lucky.  And very glad I wore my 3/4's shorts over my tights. 

Still a lot of stuff to clear on the new interior trail I believe, though WF is now fully clear.  Actually trimmed the lower third of Phase 4 that was just horribly over growing.  Got tired of battling plants while riding thru.  Another week or two and it will be clear for a good while.

Ran again yesterday, felt much better than on last Friday's same run, this time running probably 2.5 and walking 1 mile of it.  Not sure of time, but definetely ran further and better so my estimate for last week should have been like 1.75 and 1.75 I think.  So thats about  11 miles of run/walking in the last 2 weeks, starting to feel better.  Now I have a major goal to be in good shape as I'm doing this run at the end of October:

Run for Your Lives - Baltimore - Oct 27 2012.

Sunday, July 01, 2012

Well that BLEW!

I was one of the lucky folks in the DC area in that my power only flickered on Friday, never fully lost power at all!    Who knew buried power lines were a good idea????

My work wasn't so lucky their power went out and didn't come back on till 21 hours later at 8PM.  We were on generator through that time.  Unfortunately the COM Room for our whole building is not on Gen-set so we lost phones and some of our networks as the UPS's in there are just too old.  So things are STILL catching up as of 12 hours later and it looks like the queue's won't finish for another 4 to 6 hours. 

Cabin John park is reported CLOSED due to down lines. 

Other trails I've heard about include 17 trees down at Schaeffer and WF and Accotink are war-zones.

Day 7 straight of work is sucking.  Hard.