Kenny's Blog of Greatness

Happy Rides, Happy Weekend, Happy Monday

2012-05-29T13:29:00.001-04:00

So I totally rode my bike 32 miles home last Friday.

As I passed the IKEA right near my office, I waited at a traffic light next to a gold pickup truck with Georgia license plates and a large "G" in the rear window (for Georgia Bulldogs, I concluded, after seeing the matching bumper sticker).

18 miles later, near the Stafford County Courthouse, I saw the same truck.

HA!

So my two-hour ride home was fun on my bike, and although it would have taken the same amount of time in my car, no doubt I'd have been clenching my butt cheeks and gnashing my teeth the entire time. Indeed, for a couple of miles (not in a row, but spread over the length of Route 1) I found myself pedaling faster than the stopped/walking speed cars.

It was great.

And then early Saturday morning, I rode my bike back up to the office to I could retrieve the Mighty Corolla. So I got another long ride in as well!

So I had some good rides over the weekend, and as of this moment, I am a shade under 33 hours short in my goal of riding my bike more time than commuting in my car this year.

Full disclosure: on Saturday morning as I neared my office, traffic was increasing and since it was early, the cars were speeding along Route 1 at a high rate of speed, and some of them seemed not to see me, or maybe just wanted to give me a wake up call and pass by me very closely. At those moments, I did wonder to myself why exactly I was doing such a thing.

But then I got close to my office and meandered around the large empty parking lot of Potomac Mills Mall, weaving and swerving to feel the bike swoop around curvy turns, and I remembered: THIS IS WHY. IT'S FUN.

Forget This, I'm Riding My Bike Home Again! (also, tank 319 - 24 May 2K12)

2012-05-25T07:12:00.001-04:00

I'm mega-fed-up with spending 90 minutes in the Mighty Corolla just to get home from work. It's boring and dull and I don't like how other drivers seems to think the lane they picked isn't the right one.

Just pick a lane and stay in it already! I camp out in the slow lane and generally keep pace with you all who weave in and out of the other lanes!

This week has generally been a bad week to drive home, with an average commute of 73 minutes. This takes into account one day that I actually left for home from a meeting that was about 9 miles closer to home than normal. My average commute home from the actual office has been 84 minutes.

I expect that this afternoon's rush will be massive, with people leaving work and home early to drive south to experience their rightfully-deserved first vacation of a lifetime for the year, and since they'll all want to leave early, the main roads will be packed with cars.

Because I'm riding my bike home again today!

So take that, everyone!

And then I'll wake up early tomorrow morning (Saturday) and ride my bike back up here to my office and drive the Mighty Corolla home in the cool of the early morning! It's totally a win-win situation: I miss out on the torture of sitting in my car this afternoon, plus I get two good bike rides to chip away at my (too large) deficit of almost 40 hours between commuting and bike riding.

So although I'll probably end this month with a deficit of more than my hoped-for 35 hours, I think it's all still looking good- I've got a pile of use-or-lose vacation that I'll start using in June and July, and maybe I can do this bike ride home trick a couple more times as well.

Oh, and also I put gas in the Corolla yesterday afternoon and got 37.72 miles per gallon.

Rode the Bike Home Last Thursday (and Most Every Day Since)

2012-05-21T12:04:00.001-04:00

By the Numbers:
Miles: 33.11
Time: 1 hour, 55 minutes
Average Speed: 18.4 miles per hour
Top Speed: 39.7 miles per hour

I am pretty okay with my decision to ride US Route 1 all the way home last Thursday. (Friday was a scheduled day off for me, so I did not officially take part in any "ride your bike to work" events, although I did ride my bike.) There were more places than I expected where there was no hard shoulder to the outside of the white line, but mostly those pesky cars left me alone. There were a few that stood their ground and refused to grant me any more space than minimally possible, and a couple who appeared to swerve into the shoulder lane after they passed me, for whatever reason I don't know, perhaps to show me they could take the shoulder too, I guess.

It was a fun and speedy ride home. The draft provided by the drivers who buzzed past me really helped to suck me along at a good speed.

General car traffic wasn't as bad as I hoped it would be for a Thursday. Maybe it's because all the accidents and related mayhem the day before, so drivers were hyper-aware of their surroundings so as to avoid getting stuck in it for a second day. Riding my bike got me home faster on Thursday than driving home in my car the day before.

Adding my weekend bike rides, I am now about 32.5 hours short for the month. It's set to rain most of the week, so it's looking like I won't take many "healthy wellness" rides at work. But we have a three-day weekend coming up, and this entire month has the most scheduled working days of the remainder of our planned time in my work building. The move is set for 14 August. All these factors lead me to conclude that even if I end this month with a greater than 35-hour deficit, I'll be able to add a smaller deficit for the next couple of months and get back on my predicted schedule, which will result in planned activities that will ship away at the deficit for the remaining 4.5 months of the year so as to end 2012 with me having ridden my bicycle for more hours than I spent commuting to and from work in the Mighty Corolla.

(As I wrote that previous sentence, I couldn't help but wonder if that sort of confusing logic is what's behind the general budget formulation and execution process our country goes through each year.)

As I got closer to home, I managed to snap this great picture of a sign that's near the local hospital. Those pedestrians there are just too fast and must be slowed down.

Tank 318 - 16 May 2K12 (Was It The Coasting?)

2012-05-16T08:22:00.001-04:00

Refueled early this morning at the Fas Mart near my house for the fourth consecutive time in a row. The Mighty Corolla had gone 442.3 miles, which is pretty far for a tank of gas, and I put in 10.943 gallons of gas.

So my mileage was 40.42 mpg. It's only the second time this year that I've gotten over 40 mpg, and the other time I did it, I also got 40.42 miles per gallon. Weird!

Also like last time, my 40.42 mpg mark was preceded by a tank that achieved "bad" mileage of less than 37 miles per gallon (36.84 mpg this time, 36.73 mpg last time). I'm not sure what to make of this piece of information.

I recently bought a new battery for the car. The old one died. I think it may have been the original battery, but not certain, because that would have made for the battery to be about 8 years old, which is pretty old for a car battery I think.

But anyway, with my new battery I feel confident that when I turn off the engine and coast down the long hills during slow rush hour traffic, that the car will re-start when I need it to at the bottom of the hills. I've done that a few times over the course of this last tank, and a couple of those times I coasted for 90 seconds or more with the engine off.

It should be stressed that I only do this not-completely-safe trick while in the far right, or "slow" lane, which affords me a shoulder of road to coast on to in the unlikely event the car won't restart.

Tomorrow is "ride your bike home from work day" for me, because I am not scheduled to work on the official "ride your bike to work day" on Friday. And I'm lazy and don't want to ride my bike both ways tomorrow. That would be like an 80-mile round trip, since I can't ride my bike on the interstate.

So my friend John will pick me up on his way to work and drop me off at my office.

There's an "offsite meeting" scheduled for tomorrow as well. It's less than 10 miles away and on my way home. So my trip home will be broken into two medium-sized rides. I suppose that will work out pretty good for me, as long as there's a place for me to change back into my Friday clothes when I get to the offsite location.

Maybe I can get myself uninvited to the meeting.

Bike Riding v. Car Commuting Challenge: Mid-May Update

2012-05-15T12:50:00.000-04:00

Well, this month started out just great, I was ahead of planned schedule and was optimistic that this whole challenge of riding my bike for more time that I sat in my car driving to and from work would be an easy slam dunk win for the bike, since my office was moving in mid-August and I'd have a much shorter commute for the last third of the year.

Now I'm not so sure.

Last time I rode my bike was last Friday afternoon. Then the family went out for the weekend to graduation ceremonies at Liberty University (highlight of the commencement speakers: S. Truett Cathy, founder of Chick Fil-A, whose first words to the crowd after he received an honorary doctorate were: WHO HERE LIKES CHICKEN? And everyone cheered and applauded his wisdom.).

And then Sunday was Mother's Day, so I couldn't go out for a morning ride because of all the festivities and activities necessary to celebrate the day in the manner in which it has become to be expected in my house.

Then it rained. Rained Monday. Raining today. It might stop tomorrow.

Long story short, I'm still on track, but only if today was the last day of May. I'm 35 hours behind on the bike.

This week was looking to get better, as I'm off on Friday and planned to ride my bike home on Thursday. The Thursday bike ride home would have helped in two ways: 1) one less car commute home on a traditionally bad driving day, and 2) at least two hours of bike riding during the week.

But now I get a meeting invitation for an all-day off-site meeting on Thursday, until 5:00pm. If I go to that meeting and still ride my bike home, I'll likely miss the last soccer game of the season for one of my daughters. Maybe I can skip out of it early.

But looking ahead, I'm planning on taking a few days off in June and July, which will prevent some commutes to work and potentially allow an hour or two of riding on some of those days.

There's still hope and the expectation I'll achieve my goal for the year. It's times like these that keep things interesting.

Tank 317 - 8 May 2K12 (I Arrived at Work Full of Gas)

2012-05-08T13:34:00.001-04:00

I made the rare move of refueling the Mighty Corolla at dawn this morning. The car had only gone 391.3 miles and it's probable that I could have driven the 65 miles to and from work today and not run out of gas, but the low fuel light was on, it took me 75 minutes to get home yesterday in heavy traffic, and it's supposed to rain this afternoon, which caused enough people to FREAK OUT that traffic in general slows considerably.

Thus, my early morning visit to the locally famous Fas Mart. Gas was $3.639 per gallon, and I put in 10.623 gallons, making for a fuel economy of just 36.84 mpg for this tank.

Bike Riding vs. Car Commuting Challenge: One-Third Year Update

2012-05-01T08:26:00.001-04:00

I finished April with 81 tracked bike rides totaling 96.25 hours, and 150 commuting trips to and from work in my car, totaling 123.0 hours. Due to rounding that happens on my chart posted here, my total difference between riding and driving was 26.84 hours.

Coming into April, the bike riding was about 25 hours short (25.22 hours short on April 4), so losing less than two hours over the course of the month is a good development. Clearly this is due in great part to my 6-hour century ride on 21 April. Ordinarily on a Saturday, I'd ride 2 or 2 and a half hours, so the extra four hours is what really helped this effort to remain on plan.

As we enter into May, the weather report calls for rain each of the next 4 days, so opportunities to ride the bike will be limited. So, my happy situation of being ahead of schedule (running a deficit of 7 hours per month) will probably take a change in the wrong direction. Also in May are a Saturday graduation I will be attending, and Mother's Day that will likely preclude me from a bike ride.

However, I plan on the "ride your bike home from work day" on Thursday 17 May to look forward to, and that ride will probably be more than two hours, plus I will avoid driving home in the car that day, so the commuting by car time will not increase on that day either.

Of course, the official "ride your bike to work day" is that Friday, 18 May, but that's a scheduled day off for me so my little way to participate will be that day before, and since it's more than a 30-mile trip in each direction, I'm cheating a little by just riding my bike home.

But next year, as my office will be in a new location closer to my home, I just may be able to ride my bike both ways on that day. We'll see about that and remain optimistic.

Monday Morning (Rode Bike, Got Gas, Blah, Blah, Blah)

2012-04-30T09:46:00.001-04:00

So I did lots of things over the weekend that normally I find notable enough to post here on the least-viewed blog on the Internet, but this morning I don't feel like it's important enough to share.

Truly, there was nothing notable or different about my last tank of gas than the hundreds that came before, and the only thing notable about my bike rides was that one of them took me past a number of crappy hand-made street signs that annoy me to no end.

So the weekend ended, and the new week begins, and I get to start it all over again. Like it never even stopped.

Wake up, eat food, go to work, shuffle papers, ride bike if you're lucky, go home, shower up, eat food, attend/take kids to whatever the evening activity is, sit for a bit, go to bed, start over again.

Lather, rinse, repeat...

But today I guess it's a little different. One of my meetings is offsite so my boss will drive us there.

So lunch will be late.

Is this a case of the Mondays?

Tank 315 - 20 April 2K12

2012-04-24T11:54:00.001-04:00

I ended up putting more gasoline in the Mighty Corolla last Friday, but other events kept me from sharing until now.

It wasn't special in many ways. Indeed, it may be notable because of how ordinary the fill-up was. 11.309 gallons after going 437.6 miles, so a fuel economy of 38.69 miles per gallon.

So my average mileage for the year is up to 38.44 mpg.

This was the fourth tank in a row that occurred after 8 days.

Big Ride, Big Rain, Big Monday

2012-04-23T08:37:00.003-04:00

From the time I reached home last Thursday afternoon until this Monday morning, I rode on my bike for about eight hours. Going into the weekend, I was more than 31 hours behind with my resolution to ride my bike for more time than I commuted to and from work in my car.

Saturday was the day for the inaugural (and possibly last, based on the number of complaints the participants had with the organization of the ride) "Lake Anna Century Classic." I had signed up for this at the end of January, and Saturday's weather called for a sunny warm morning with thunderstorms and wind blowing in after 2:00.

My plan was to be done before the rain!

Happily, I managed to get done just as clouds were rolling in.

Sadly, the rest stops were not as advertised. There were two adequate stops at 20- and 40-miles. Later I learned that later riders arrived at these stops to find the water supplies gone and no fruit or clif bar snacks at them.

A third stop was around 60 miles, and a small group of four of us got there to find other guys leaving. There was nothing there but a sign saying "rest stop" and a single porta-potty. I was depending on that stop to refill my water bottles and hopefully get more snacks! But about a hundred yards away was the only other structure in sight, a small church.

Being aware of my church and its security, I told the others that I'd go check it out, and maybe a door was left unlocked so we could get water. I decided not to check any doors, but I did go look for a hose connection. Most buildings have an outside hose, and this church had one. So I got to refill my water bottles.

None of the others wanted to refill their water bottles. Maybe they were afraid of trespassing or something, but my experience is most churches will happily let you take some of their water.

I feel bad for everyone else who didn't try looking for the hose at the church and had to go 15 more miles with empty water bottles. It was hot and sunny.

At the location where everyone thought the fourth rest stop should be, it was just a convenience store that was thrilled to have 200 bicyclists stopping there to buy gallon jugs of water and snacks. It was a self-generated rest stop. People bought gallon jugs and left them outside for other riders. It was nice. And lots of us went inside to get snacks. I bought a Coke and a Snickers bar.

Then to top it all off, the ride was only 96 miles. So instead of turning into the parking lot, I turned right and rode another 2 miles out and then turned around and got back just as my odometer passed 100 miles.

So I did the century, at least. And that was nice.

I achieved my goal of finishing, and managed an unexpectedly speedy average speed of 18.0 miles per hour when I was moving. Overall, I started at 8:07AM and finished at 2:08PM.

For the month, I am now holding on to a 24.3 hour deficit between riding the bike and commuting in the car. So there's about four hours of wiggle room to keep on track with my goal of running not more than a 7-hour-per-month deficit. I might make it, and I'm encouraged by the progress that was made over the weekend.

Next month there's "bike home from work day," but also a Saturday that I won't be able to ride due to a graduation ceremony out of town. But there's a holiday, too. But I'll worry about that when it happens.

Gearing Up for a Century on Saturday (Helps Keep the Resolution On Track)

2012-04-16T07:52:00.001-04:00

As I left work on Friday, the bike riding vs. car commuting challenge was looking poor. I was running a cumulative 29.43 hour deficit for the year.

In my plans, I should be exiting April with a total of a 28 hour difference between bike riding and car commuting. When my office moves to a closer location in the late summer, my commute time should be reduced such that if I maintain my same bike riding efforts, I'll end up the year with the bike riding either equal or slightly ahead.

The next couple of weeks will, well should, help with things.

Yesterday and the day before, I managed two rides of over two hours each, so I'm entering this week with a 26.97 hour deficit. So my two long rides helped to eat away about 2.5 hours. This week is scheduled to be a 4-day workweek, and on Saturday I'm registered to ride a century ride around Lake Anna.

Probably this will take around five and a half or six hours. I hope to average about 17 miles per hour, but there will be rest stops for snacks that will add to my time. But there's also the prospect of riding in a group, which likely would help my average speed increase due to the advantages of drafting.

But it may also rain. The weather reporters are predicting 50% chance of significant rain on Saturday. But that's five days from now, and weather prediction accuracy falls of dramatically when you get three or more days out. So I won't worry about that until Wednesday or Thursday.

But rain will probably slow things down, which will help my bike riding time to be higher, so that'd be nice in a way.

Roughly estimating, I'll be adding about six more hours of commuting time this week to and from work. With my predicted six hours of riding on Saturday, plus a couple "healthy wellness" rides at/after work this week, my current 26.97 hour deficit may be reduced by another few hours this week, too.

Looking forward into May, June, and July, it's likely I'll take some vacation days in these months to avoid holiday weekend traffic and take some minor trips with the family as vacation-lite activities. So my commuting times will not be as large for those months, but at the same time my bike rides may be reduced if we go places that will prevent me from riding. We'll see about those things as they happen.

A lovely image that's making the rounds...

2012-04-13T10:33:00.001-04:00

Tank 314 - 12 April 2K12 (Mighty Corolla Got New Wheelcovers!)

2012-04-12T13:26:00.000-04:00

Refueled this morning just after lunch at the Wawa near my office. Gas was $3.989 there, and I got 11.130 gallons of it, after going 430.0 miles.

So my fuel economy was 38.63 miles per gallon. Not too shabby. I am maintaining a higher mileage for the year than last year. If this keeps up it will be a new annual high average. But it's still early in the year so I best not get my hopes up.

Maybe It's My Diet...

2012-04-11T12:43:00.001-04:00

I must be unwittingly eating lots more beans and fiber than I used to.

Some days, I feel that if I wore a pair of those Heely sneakers, I'd be able to jet-propel my way around the office!

I Will Not Buy Facebook Stock, and Here's Why.

2012-04-10T08:29:00.001-04:00

Based on what I have been reading, many people are freaking out (!) about the upcoming public offering of Facebook stock, like it's going to be the one true investment that will bring riches to everyone and put us all on easy street for the rest of our lives.

I don't think this will happen.

Now, I'm not an expert by any measure, but I do have a few "investments" in mutual funds and individual stocks. Some investments have gone up in value, and others have gone down. Back in the mid-1990s, I did not buy any Amazon.com stock, although if I had, it would have been a great investment with a wild rate of return.

People seem to always be looking for the next big get-rich-quick stock to buy. In the last several years, Facebook has become a household name, with millions of people across the world using it regularly to check up on their friends and to share their lives with others.

To me, it seems that this indicates that Facebook has already gone through its rapid growth period. The Facebook market is saturated. Most people who access the internet have heard of it, and have gotten Facebook accounts if they want them. Indeed, many people have multiple Facebook accounts.

Facebook has done this while remaining a privately held company. It makes money on advertisements themed to what members post about and like.

As a public company, Facebook won't be an exclusive company controlled by a few high ranking people. It will be run by a board of directors and be answerable to all shareholders, shareholders who expect to see continued growth of an extreme magnitude. Growth = advertising revenue = shareholder value.

Well, the way I see it, since Facebook has already grown to be so large and involved in many aspects of our lives, when it goes public, the share price will already reflect this value. The only way to gain more value is to continue its exponential growth.

This brings me to my next concern, based mostly on my own personal experience.

Three years ago, my high school used Facebook to organize much of my graduating classes reunion. This was the time when, if Facebook was a public company, I should have bought some shares. It seemed that all of my friends, both local and as I could see across the country (since my graduating class had spread from New York to Virginia, California, North Carolina, and Egypt), were signing up with new accounts to get information about old friends. All these new accounts were new eyeballs to see advertising to generate more revenue for the Facebook company.

I saw this high school reunion effect happen with many of my local friends as well. I can only conclude that similar things happened across the country. That would have been a great time to buy, but we couldn't buy Facebook stock at the time since it was still privately held.

Now, three years later, the Facebook market seems saturated. Lots of high school classes have used it to organize reunions. It seems everyone who wants an account has one. Not much new growth seems apparent, or very possible.

But what about the new generation of upcoming teenagers? Won't they want to Facebook, too?

Sure they will! But many of the past generation of teenagers used MySpace. MySpace yielded to Facebook, and to a certain degree Twitter. It's fairly certain that someday there will be a great replacement to Facebook, something that hasn't been thought of yet, that will easily incorporate your Facebook profile in as much detail as you want (Google +, perhaps, but likely something newer). I may be wrong in this aspect, as Amazon.com still reigns supreme in online retail.

(As an aside, Amazon.com actually sells tangible items to make money. Facebook relies on advertising revenue based on eyeballs looking at the screen)

But as many people sign up for Facebook accounts in the future, the number of stale, inactive accounts will also grow. We used Facebook to plan events and catch up with friends, and now that it's passed, the need to check in on Facebook is lessened, so we'll cut back on how often we check it, and realize that life didn't end when we weren't online, and many older accounts will just slowly become less and less active. The high numbers of Facebook accounts will remain, but that will be balanced by a related number of inactive or forgotten accounts.

And a final point about Facebook becoming a public company that concerns me is the refreshes that Facebook does every now and then.

Remember how angry everyone got when the Timeline was introduced? People got in an uproar!

Now think about what will happen to the Facebook stock price when it introduces something new that is instantly ridiculed by the masses who hate it. Management won't be able to say "be patient, you'll learn to love it" any more. Shareholders will see the stock price go down and get antsy and complain with loud voices. That will likely not be pretty. The company won't be able to sit back and say "be patient, you'll grow to like it." Management will need to scramble and fix it quickly in order to satisfy the unrealistic demands of shareholders.

I'm having a hard time thinking of a good reason to buy Facebook stock. Maybe it'll go up and up for the first couple days or weeks due to the newness and related enthusiasm, but over the longer run, I don't see much value in it.

Didn't Lose Ground Last Week (Bike vs. Car Update)

2012-04-09T08:55:00.000-04:00

I had a combination of good things happen last week so that the bicycling deficit remained about the same.

First off, I only worked Monday through Thursday, so the horrible Friday commute home was avoided. Secondly, I went on a nice 2-hour ride on Saturday, which was more time than I have typically been able to ride (Thank you, early sunrises! Curse you, daylight savings and "springing ahead!").

I remain about 25.2 hours short in my bike riding > car commuting resolution. If I can keep the deficit to 28 hours for the month, I believe I'll be in good shape. Even if it stayes under 30 hours, that ought to be good, too.

However, this week is more of a challenge, as I am scheduled to work all five workdays this week, and all that implies.

But also I can look forward to a good long ride on Sunday, providing there's no snow or freezing rain in the forecast, as two daughters are scheduled for a three-hour youth group meeting on Sunday afternoon. This means I can drop them off and go out for close to three hours on a bike ride. I am pretty sure this will happen, as my planned century ride is less than two weeks away and I am framing next Sunday as my final long ride in preparation of this event.

So maybe this week won't be as dire as I originally was anticipating. Plus the century ride will probably be about six or seven hours of riding, which is four or five hours more than I normally do on a weekend. Things are looking good...

Happy Monday, everyone!

The dream I has last night, it was Nuts!

2012-04-05T06:47:00.001-04:00

I dreamed last night I was attending a conference, and the speaker picked me as a volunteer so he could show the whole crowd how easy it was to access anyone's entire medical history. He gave me an iPad to use and enter my name and PIN number, and I entered the wrong PIN number over and over because I didn't want the audience to know that I had neuticles.

Tank 313-4 April 2K12 (Plus a Sneaky Morning Bike Ride)

2012-04-04T12:05:00.001-04:00

So this morning I refueled the Mighty Corolla at a Fas Mart, but not the convenient one near my house.

I went to the Fas Mart by the library.

Gas there was $3.859 per gallon, and I put 10.954 gallons in the tank after going 428.3 miles. So my mileage was a good 39.10 mpg.

Today was unusual in that I had the grand opportunity to drive one daughter to school today. Because of that, I could sleep in a little bit and also go out on a morning ride in the neighborhood. I only went about twelve miles, but every little bit helps as I press towards my goal of riding my bike more than I commute to and from work in my car.

I have ridden my bike just over 1,000 miles so far for the year. In contrast, I have driven my car over 5,000 miles during this same time. Perhaps years from now I can make it a resolution to ride my bike for more miles than I commute in my car, or drive overall. But that's another problem for another time.

Indeed, the circumstances that required me to drive my daughter to school this morning also compelled me to leave to go home from work early yesterday, so my commute time yesterday was a speedy 38 minutes.

And then this morning during my normal commute time, an HUGE accident slowed everybody down to a crawl. Coworkers who normally arrived with a 30 minute commute took an hour and ten minutes to get to work today. Due to my daughter's efforts, my commitment to drive her to school allowed me to avoid that nightmare. I drove to work at the tail end of the hysteria and my trip was only about ten minutes slower than normal.

So that's nice.

So we're five days into April and I'm a little more than 25 hours short on the bike time. There are three more commute trips in my work week, then three days off for a weekend. Heading into next week I ought to maintain this gap if not gain on it a little.

And as I look forward to the 100-mile ride I signed up for on the 21st of this month, my confidence in meeting my annual goal is rising. Now I can look forward to the office move in September, hoping it happens sooner, and cursing every day that it is delayed because the hope I have for achieving my goal hinges on the office move happening in September.

Time to Relax!

2012-04-03T07:49:00.001-04:00

Yesterday afternoon I got home from work and felt compelled to get some bike riding time in so that I didn't fall behind any more on my resolution to ride my bike more than commute in my car this year.

I have used a trick before of asking one of my daughters to come along with me to the library to drop off and/or pick up some reserved items from there. So as I drove home I called home, and planted the seed that I wanted to ride bikes to the library.

When I got home, the daughter who normally rides with me wasn't full of energy, but she got ready after dinner and off we went on the epic 5-mile round trip.

She was quickly riding slower than normal. I asked if she was okay and she reported she didn't feel well. "Are you nauseous?" I asked, and she said no. So we pressed on at a meandering pace.

Normally we can get to the library together in 14 or 15 minutes, but it was a full 20 minutes before we arrived.

As we walked in, I say my long-time friend Geoff! I haven't seen him in close to two years, so I was totally thrilled at seeing him! We caught up and learned that each of us is doing better now than we were a few years ago, as the waves of turmoil that caused discomfort had calmed substantially and life seemed more in order. We talked about mutual friends. He gave me a Craig Biggio baseball card.

As we stood there and visited, my daughter became bored, of course, so we eventually finished our visit and I checked out the movie that was waiting for us there at the library.

And then on our ride home, my daughter was a little peppier and we had a little race where she took the shortcut road and I took the long way (maybe 100 yards longer) to see who got to the end of the intersection first. So her trip back was more pleasant than her trip there, we both had fun, and I got a little nice bike ride in as well as got to spend some time with my daughter, and a visit with a friend to top it off!

And this morning when I went to the library's website, I notices that the librarian must have glitched it up, as my account still shows that my movie is still there, waiting for me to pick it up.

Is it ironic that the movie that wasn't checked out correctly is the stoner comedy "Your Highness"?

Little Hope to Stay On Schedule (Bicycling vs. Commuting Challenge Update)

2012-03-30T13:24:00.001-04:00

It's looking probable that I'm going to end the month of March about 25 hours behind on the bike riding vs. car commuting challenge.

My hope today was to get about 75 minutes of "healthy wellness" riding in at the office, to counterbalance my anticipated commute home, but it is raining right now and thus unlikely I'll go out as I am a pansy wimp and afraid of getting wet.

So I'll strap the bike on the back of the Mighty Corolla for my trip home. When I get there, it's likely that my dear old Dad will be there for a weekend visit, and for that I'm happy.

My remaining hope is that I squeeze in a Saturday morning ride before everyone gets up. This is likely to happen. But still I'll be more behind schedule than I hoped for (My master plan calls for a 7-hour deficit each month, so it was expected to be a 21 hour shortage at the end of March but it'll be more.).

Happiy, April has one fewer commuting day in it than March, plus I'm scheduled for a century ride on the 21st of April. So I'll probably not lose any ground and hopefully gain back a little.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Tank 312 - 27 March 2K12 (Good Mileage, Good Miles!)

2012-03-28T08:33:00.001-04:00

So I refueled last night at the convenient Fas Mart near my home, and my daughter said, "Dad, this is a Valero."

So at the Fas mart I pumped in 11.597 gallons after driving 447.0 miles, making for a mileage of 38.54 mpg. It was 56 degrees.

Yesterday was also a great day for biking. I took advantage of my office's "healthy wellness" program and rode for close to an hour at the end of my work day, and then drove home, where I picked up aforementioned daughter and took her to soccer practice, where I commenced riding my bike for another 65 minutes.

So over the course of yesterday, I rode my bike over 29 miles and close to two hours. And I spent only about an hour and a half actually commuting to and from work, so it was a net gain for the bike time yesterday. Please enjoy my updated pie chart that includes all biking and car commuting up to and including this morning's arrival at my office.

We still have 2.5 commuting days remaining in the month, and I am 21.5 hours behind in the bicycling. My general estimate to meet my goal of riding my bike more than I commute in my car calls for about a 7-hour deficit per month until my office moves in September. So I have reached that limit for the month already, and thus my mild concern of 2.5 more days of commuting to end the month.

But I ought to also have 2 more happy wellness bike rides, plus a Saturday ride to close out March, so the difference shouldn't be that much greater than 21 hours.

And then in April I am scheduled for a century ride, which should help shave some of the decifit down.

And I learned this week that the contractor is promising to be done with the new office before September and that we may get moved by the beginning of August. If that happens, I'm even more confident I can achieve my goal and it may not even be that close in that case.

But I'll still do my best to ride my bike as much as I can.

Last Sunday I had a Bible Study meeting at our church in the evening. Usually I drive but, being aware of my cycling time deficit this month, I rode my bike to and from the meeting. That bike trip was 8 miles round trip and 36 minutes more in the biking time column for the month. I bet I can do that more often in the future, too.

Overall, things are good. It's springtime.

Tank 311 - 19 March 2K12 (I Talk a Lot About Gas, But Would Rather Be Bicycling)

2012-03-20T07:27:00.001-04:00

So I refueled early this morning at the convenientest gas station near my house, the locally famous Fas mart.

The Mighty Corolla had only gone 391.1 miles at this point, but my plans for the day include a field trip north after work to meet an old friend for dinner. I know I'd have needed more gas in order to make it there and also get home again this evening, and I also know that gasoline is typically more expensive than the $3.739 per gallon that the Fas mart was selling it for.

Yes, I know I am a big supporter of more expensive gas, because I'm pretty sure it helps traffic flow more smoothly due to a few people who start to drive less severely and more sanely to conserve expensive gas. But that doesn't mean I'm going to go out of my way to spend more on gas than I have to.

I just won't complain when gas stays above $4.00 a gallon.

Indeed, my choice to gas up at home instead of here where I work saved me about 25 cents a gallon. Which for my 10.049 gallons of gas, works out to about $2.50 that I didn't spend on refilling my gas tank this morning.

So my mileage for the tank was pretty good, at 38.92 miles per gallon.

This was only the third tank of gas where I put more gas in without the low fuel indicator light being turned on. The last time this happened, it was Veterans Day 2009 (11/11/09).

Upon further review of the data, I can't confidently say it was just the third time. I only started keeping track of this data in 2007. I started keeping track of it a couple tanks after my wife refilled the tank without writing down the miles she went, or resetting the trip odometer afterwards. That was a fun time. My data had been perfect up until then, and I think it was the first time my wife had put gas in the Mighty Corolla (Tank 117). She had taken the car on a trip or something and took it because it got better mileage.

But it's all okay.

I haven't ridden my bike since Sunday. It's only Tuesday morning, and my body can feel the lack of exercise in that my feet are going a little numb and my lower back is hurting a little bit. I think the bike riding position helps stretch out my lower back and release pressure on the nerves around there that make my lower legs and feet numb.

In the back of my mind, I remember hearing the doctor's words from four years ago. He said "look at this X-ray. See these grey blotches? These are your old failing discs in your back. Thise nice white creamy ones are okay, but these six- three down here, and three in your neck, are going bad. I'm fixing this one here (points to the one he was going to fix). I'll see you in about 15 years when the next one blows out.

"And also, your spinal cord is about three sizes smaller and skinnier than the typical man's. Good luck with that."

So every bike ride is special, because of these ticking time bomb discs in my back that are deteriorating each day. While I'm still probably ten years out from another "disc blowout" experience that cripples me to the point of immobility, the dark spectre of pain and incapacitation looms over my head, a shadow of dispair waiting to rip open and rain agony and depression upon me at any moment.

Have a great day!

Kenny

Bike vs. Commute Update: March Hasn't Been Good So Far

2012-03-16T09:12:00.001-04:00

One of my established goals for 2012 is to spend more time riding my bike than I do commuting to and from work in my car.

My general plan for success includes running at a deficit of about 7 hours per month for the first 8 months of the year, and then in September my office is moving to a new location that will reduce my commuting time by (hopefully) about 50 minutes per day. The reduced commuting time combined with keeping the bike riding time the same appears to swing the deficit the other way for the rest of the year, and it's likely this will result in success (defined as more time riding my bike than commuting in my car for the year).

But I'm already 21 hours short on the bike riding with two weeks left in March.

The only solution I can think of now is to take a couple days off from work. But that's not likely.

I'll continue to track this data and trust that perhaps April will be surprising and this trend will reverse and stabilize.

I think that as the office move gets closer, I'll be attending site visits, which would count as work, and going home from those site visits would thus be a shorter than normal commute home on those days. That will help.

A final nugget of hope is that there's a commuter parking lot about 13 miles from my home and about 6.7 miles from where the office will likely be moving to. I'm mildly confident that I can park the car there and ride my bike the rest of the way a couple days a week. That plan would make those days bike time heavy, by a lot, and help close the gap swiftly.

It's wrong that I think so much about how I can ride my bike more. I ought to be working.

Tank 310 - 12 March 2K12 ($3.659 per gallon)

2012-03-13T07:57:00.001-04:00

So over the weekend we drove to Charlottesville in the Mighty Corolla, so it used up a couple three days worth of commutes, so yesterday I refueled after just six days.

But the Mighty Corolla had gone 435.3 miles and I stopped at the Sheetz and put in 11.233 gallons of gas there. According to the math, that meant a mileage of 38.75 miles per gallon.

But of course we all suspect that the gas pumps at Sheets turn off sooner than the pumps at the Fas mart we tend to use more frequently, so there's a chance that my mileage wasn't really that good.

But then again, we blame Sheetz for the whole "37.23 mpg" debacle of last week, so it seems to be all leveling out over time.

The last time gas was this expensive was last May, when I paid $3.929 and $3.859 per gallon over the course of two consecutive tanks. Probably it was last May then that I did the math and determined that for someone of my commute distance, gas prices going up so much made for an additional cost of $6-$10 per week for gas, depending on whether you drove a Mighty Corolla or Ford Valdez.

My conclusion then was that if you can't absorb an additional cost of $10 a week for gas, you might want to reconsider some of your life choices.

My addendum to that conclusion is that there's no law requiring you to drive alone to and from work in a gigantic 12-mile-per-gallon behemoth of a monster truck. I'm sure there was no actual gun to your head to force you into buying a truck with sucky mileage.

Big cars and fast cars have one thing in common: they each get stuck in traffic alongside me in my economy car.

It doesn't make sense to me to spend my money on more gas than I absolutely have to use. So I drive slow like a granny and drive a car that gets good mileage.

You can do the same, too. You all have the choice.

Tank 309 - 6 March 2K12 (14th farthest Ever on a Tank)

2012-03-07T08:57:00.001-05:00

Refueled yesterday on my way home. I drove through the Wawa gas pumps because they were entirely filled with gas-buying patrons, and then the traffic lights were on my side and I managed to go through two lights and turn left across a busy street without stopping and ended up at the moderately notable Fas mart near my home, where I put in 12.041 gallons of gas.

So it was the 14th farthest I'd ever driven on one tank of gas (448.3 miles), and the 7th most gas I'd ever put into the Mighty Corolla (12.041 gallons), making for a fuel economy of 37.23 miles per gallon.

I was expecting better mileage, but then remembered my last tank refill was at Sheetz and it's probable that the pump there put in a little less gas than the Fas Mart pump did, so the mileage this tank may be falsely reduced since I replaced the used gas with more than I would have used had I gone to the same pump at Sheetz again.

Still, 37 miles per gallon isn't too shabby. Indeed, I'm pretty sure the way I drive the Mighty Corolla gets better mileage than all other non-hybrid cars.

Meanwhile, I'm starting to re-think my conclusion that men who drive BMW-3-Series are the worst drivers out there. It may in fact be all Hyundai drivers (particularly Sonatas) and Honda Civic Hybrid drivers. But that's another topic.