If everything goes well, I won't be online for a while. I am expecting word today on a new place to live and, if the word is positive, I'll be moving in tonight. The approval, or lack thereof, on my credit application for the place should be back today. The only possible problem may be my lack of time on my current job as I have only been there for a shade over 3 months. If they approve it even with my lack of time on the job, I should be able to move in tonight. This is a good thing but h...

On March 31, 2004, Jennifer Porter was driving through a dimly lit intersection on 22nd Street in Tampa when she struck four children, killing 13-year-old Bryant Wilkins and his 3-year-old brother, Durontae Caldwell. She then drove away without stopping to see if she could help the children or even taking the time to call for emergency assistance for them. Yesterday Judge Lamar Battles sentenced Jennifer Porter to two years of house arrest followed by three years' probation and 500 hours o...

Since I have recovered from my injuries enough to start working again I have been searching for a reasonably affordable place to live. While I appreciate my mother taking me in and helping me while I was laid up for several months, sleeping on a sofa bed in the living room doesn't exactly lend itself to comfort or privacy. It is closing in on the season when the snow birds will be flocking to Florida for their winter roost and housing costs go through the roof so I knew if I didn't find so...

I rode my bike to the store tonight to pick up some food for the following week. I made a stop at the local watering hole on the way back. In the meantime, the highway department, which had been doing some road work on my route for a whie decided to dig up a larger section of road than what they done this summer. On my way home I ran across this new section of digging, which was a good ten feet before I was used to running into their earlier work. I hit this new section of dirt and gravel ...

Recently I posted something under Humor, which I had seen circulating around the net for the past several years. I found it to be pretty funny and so, when I ran across it again, I posted it, with a few simple edits. To be honest, until now I had never really considered posting jokes, even long ones, to be considered plagarism. Someone stated that, in order to be perfectly honest, it should have been prefaced with something like "I found this on the net". While I didn't take offense to thi...

44 years ago today a terrible disaster happened; I was born, wholly against my will. I was hoping to celebrate by going on a nice long ride today punctuated with some pub hopping, but between the remaining vestiges of the flu bug and the arriving Wilma weather, I'm holed up at home resting. Mom bought the new tires for my bike last weekend as my birthday gift, gave me a nice card this morning, and has a nicer triple chocolate cake for later today ("no you can't have it for breakfast"). ...

I've had the flu, or some flu-like bug all week. With everything going on at work I just couldn't afford to take time off even though I was feeling terrible all week. Yesterday I simply ran out of steam. I worked half a day and came home to rest and imbibe in Nyquil. Amazing how a bug so small ya need a microscope to see it can totally kick your butt. I did everything I could to reduce the odds of spreading this bug to my fellow workers. I sprayed the telephone with disinfectant after e...

One to change the light bulb and to post that the light bulb has been changed. Fourteen to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently. Seven to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs. Seven more to point out spelling/grammatical errors in posts about changing light bulbs. Five to flame the spell checkers. Three to correct spelling/grammar flames. Six to argue over whether it's "lightbulb" or "light ...

One to change the light bulb and to post that the light bulb has been changed. Fourteen to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently. Seven to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs. Seven more to point out spelling/grammatical errors in posts about changing light bulbs. Five to flame the spell checkers. Three to correct spelling/grammar flames. Six to argue over whether it's "lightbulb" or "light ...

A couple of days ago my chain overshifted and went into my spokes. I had to do a tuneup on the drivetrain, setting the derailleur shifter limits and cable tensions. Everything was shifting nice and smoothly after that. But I had noticed a bit of a wabble in the rear wheel. Today I decided to adjust the spoke tensions to true up the wheel and remove the wabble. Low and behold I found two broken spokes and several more were damaged. I hadn't spotted the broken spokes as they had remained exa...

I got a call this morning from the "big boss" in our office. He filled me in on some personnel changes, shift changes, and assorted other work related items. Now, I was still on my first cup of coffee and still not quite awake so I kept wondering "why is he calling to tell me all of this?" Towards the end of the conversation he got around to the "oh, by the way, I'm promoting you to Captain (supervisor) effective immediately." ummm, ok. I've been doing the job all along anyway, so I fi...

As many of you know, I ride a recumbent bicycle as my primary means of transportation. To put it in perspective, the bike is 6ft long. As you can see, it has a very long chain. The drivetrain system is a pretty complex derailleur system and misadjustments of even a fraction of an inch can severely affect shifting. This morning I did a tuneup on the drivetrain to improve shifting performance and eliminate some problems associated with cable stretch as I had replaced the rear shifter cabl...

I am training a new hire at work. He arrived yesterday afternoon, saw my bike parked in front of the guardshack and asked "Who's recumbent?" I liked him right off as most people ask "What kind of bike is that?" He's a retired programmer and so knows computers, rides a hybrid bicycle, all three of his sons are also in computers and cyclists. A lot of our conversations switched back and forth between computers and cycling. It's nice to have someone there who speaks my language LOL. Some o...

Jo Ann and I broke up in June of last year, after over 7 years of being together. Why isn't important at this point, we just did. We are still friends. She calls me every week or two. I don't call her. The first 6 months or so after we spilt up I was busy driving truck over the road, never spending any time in one place. Then I had the wreck which really turned my world inside out and left me severely disabled and bed ridden for 7 months or so. Now I am able to get around reasonably wel...

Last night, while working, one of the new drivers stopped at the guardshack to be checked out. He pointed at my bent parked in front of the guardshack and asked if it was mine. I said it was and he handed me a picture of a nice looking Stratus (my dream bike) saying "this is mine". Cool! A fellow bent rider. He said he rides over to town from Lakeland every Saturday to eat at one of the popular restaurants here and said we should make plans to go riding together some Saturday. Sounds li...