Sorry for the delayed return to bloggin', especially after such a riveting cliffhanger. :) What I meant in my last entry was that I've gone and upgraded the drivetrain on my fixed gear commuter bicycle. I'm sure some of you don't care, but some of you do. I appreciate it. :) The "Dingle", is Surly's new track cog that is a non-freewheeling unit (fixed gear) that incorporates two gears instead of one. So now I can choose to ride a 42 (front ring) x 21 tooth fixed gear for days when I expect some resistance from the wind (which is abundant here) or hills (which there are none here), or a 42x17 for the quicker days. The chain is tensioned the normal fixie way by sliding the axle forward or backward in the frame dropout. Neat. However, the weather has gotten fantastic around here the past couple of days, so I'm actually planning on commuting on my touring bike. I'm sure there will be more foul weather for the fixie though. It was so nice yesterday that I got ambitious, having the day off, and rode my second outdoor road ride of 2007. I was so excited to be outside that I ended up riding a half-century (50 miles). I brought more food that I thought I'd need, but I thought I'd only be out for about 30 miles, so my two Clif bars and one Clif Shot did the trick just perfect. I could have eaten a bit more though, seeing as my heart rate monitor estimated a 2,800 calorie burn over the entire ride. Loosing the winter tub already. Here's a fairly non-entertaining shot along yesterday's ride. Still lots of snow in the ditches, but it sure was nice out.
But it will be sad to see all the snow go away with respect to snowshoeing. We had two blizzards since last time I blogged (MN is nutz) and Al and I only got out once in the powder to walk. Here's a couple shots:
I told Alison to pose like the silly REI catalog models, who always seem more concerned with lookin' good than actually doing anything outside. :)
In other news, I am the newest part time flight instructor at Twin Cities Flight Training at the Anoka County Airport here in MN. Doesn't mean much, I mainly took the job to have on my resume, because I don't really think they'll have much work for me anyhow. I haven't gotten much satisfaction from what I thought would be a relaxed fun job at the shop, and I'm pondering returning to the flying world already. Didn't take much time, but the job is definitely not what is was described as in my interview. Live and learn. I'm probably going to bite the bullet and apply at a regional airline to give that a shot. Life takes you for a lot of wild rides. So I've been studying the Airline Transport Pilot written exam guide quite a bit lately, and should be ready to apply for interviews soon. As always, we'll see what happens. But anyhow, I need to go to work, so I'm off....
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