Monday, May 28, 2007

Sista Visit






The Eller Family stormed SF in royal fashion. See pics here: ellers-in-sf.snapfish.com/snapfish






I flew in Friday night after work. For some reason, I wasn't able to check in online. When I got to the airport I was informed that I had purchased a ticket to leave on Sunday the 3rd of June & come back one week later. That was not going to work out so well since I was at the airport on the 25th of May. They let me swap the flights around for only $100 (oh so generous) & I was on an earlier flight to SF. When I got there, I took the BART to Erica's hood in the Mission District & met up with the Fam in a Mexican Restaraunt. It was great to see everyone. We ended up sitting around her table at her house BSing while Dad fell asleep on the couch. He had some very timely snors during our conversation. Erica's roomies were out of town, so we had free use of our vocal range & intensity - which is good when any Eller's get within any distance of eachother - things tend to get noisy. This always makes going in public fun, too - but everyone seems to get that we're just a big group of goofy - no harm done - big noisy people.






Saturday, after breakfast & coffee at the Mission Pis store, we all piled into Mom & Dad's rental car & headed off to see Erica's office where she works as the receptionist for Warren Sheets interior design firm. Then we went to Chrissy Field & walked frigging 4 miles to & from the Golden Gate Bridge along the water. Good times - but I am a wimpy cyclist when it comes to walking. Then more walking to lunch & in China town. Finally, we got home in the afternoon & everyone crashed out. When we woke up - from hunger pains - we decided to try a Sengalize resaurant somewhere between 3300 ft to 6600 ft from Erica's house (Dad & Erica had a lively discusison over how far a street block in SF actually is). At the restaurant, I swallowed my Pride enough to order a Flamboyant (hybiscus, lime juice & vodka) from the beautiful black bartender - errmmm, it's for my mom...I'll have a vodka tonic. A young girl from Columbia really took to my Dad & had to have his hat. After dinner, we crashed.






Sunday, Erica & I went to the bike rental place. While I rode, Erica ran, then we went to the Carnival parade with the Fam. Next we went to lunch on Haight Street & then to Golden Gate Park & saw many a dirty hippie (one decided the landscaping was a terrific place to pee as we were walking by). Finally, I was wiz-iped out & went back to E's place to pack my stuff & get to the BART to go home. At the BART station, I had another episode where I became insanely attractive to all wierdos & freaks & they decided it would be good to try & talk to me with broken English...You are Buuu ti foool. Ummmm... no. To top it all off, the 737 taking me back to Seattle was full of the Mt. Si High School Choir - they're T-shirts all said Shut Up & Sing! No, no - Just SHUT UP! This was pay back for the Eller noise in public places, I am sure. Kharma rocks.

Friday, May 25, 2007

Seward Thursday

Last night was the 3rd Seward Park Thursday night racing I have entered so far this season. It was a pretty nice night & slightly warm, so a mess of people showed up to the 6 o'clock race. I was hoping to hang in there & get a good workout in while working on maintaining my position in the pack & hopefully not at the back.

Things started out good down the descent & around the bend, but when we came up the hill the first time, I was in too small of a gear & went shooting back. Later, I figured out I could just sit & spin up that with my new-more forward position on the bike. About 10 laps into the race, there was a crash on the left hand side towards the front of the field going up the hill. I got caught behind it & had to stop. I jumped back in the pack on the next lap only to get dropped on my own about another 10 min later. Yikes - usually it takes me a few times of doing those races before I figure out how to stick with them.

Later, I tried jumping in the 7 pm race. I lasted longer than I thought I was going to - but that was a fast race & I was burning a lot of matches jumping out of the top 160 degree corner. Evidently, Miller says, there is a way to take that easier & then slingshot by people. Yep - something to work on.
Ciao,
CareBearus