The Visit Plan pt.1

Mum and Sis are coming to visit in April, I feel the needed to be a grown up boy, get my shit together and put on a good face for their visit. Here's the "out of bachelor" to somewhat homeowner plan. plus a few points on the end that have nothing to do with anything.

1) buy a fancy TV, so it looks like I am a normal person. (as you can see, it still has the plastic wrap on!)

2) Paint the guest bedroom, which had terrible bland colour and dirty marks on the walls. Throw up some new blinds make all look good. Oh and by the way, the colour is actually a lot nicer than what it looks, in these photos it looks too green.

3) Get some new shit from Ikea to make me look less bachelor like. Table things, maybe a lamp, maybe some sheets for the spare bed. hum... figure it out mate,.

4) Observe fat people in Chipoltle after stopping by for a post bike ride burrito.

5) Found a sweet hand spray painted car, just around the corner from my house, note the gold painted wheels and side view mirrors.

Awesome!

happy and sad ziggy the turtle day

Today was a sad and happy day,
Sad because I let my turtle get adopted,.
Happy because turtle will be much happier from my actions.
For a while now, I have been feeling a bit rotten, rotten because I have not been giving my turtle the happiness that she (Ziggy) deserves.  I don't have at turtle tank large enough and I don't have a way to create a home for Ziggy outside, which would be the  ideal environment.

So..

Ziggy got adopted today, she got taken to a loving home to live in a massive 60gallon tank (3x the size of mine) and the possibility for a summer outdoor pond home. This makes me very happy as ziggy would love to be outdoors. I think Ziggy is also in good hands because she went with a lady who loves animals and works in a veterinary office, thus knows how best to care for Ziggy.

Ziggy is a red eared slider turtle which is classed as an invasive species in Oregon, so you cannot just let them go in the wild as they cause havoc, adaption was the way forward. So here's to Ziggy. I hope you have an awesome life in your outside summer home.

Echo Red to Red

From Echo Red 2 Red

Last weekend(sat) was Echo Red to Red a mountain bike race around the city of Echo, Oregon. Echo is a very small town about 3 1/2 hrs east of Portland. The terrain, is dry, rocky mountain bike single track, lots of rocks and spiky tire puncture things in the fields. This race is 28miles of pure pain with quite a few climbs and some fast descents.
We headed at to the race at an ungodly hour of 6am, meeting my friends Alan and Dylan to share the car journey. The 3 hr drive went smooth, got to Echo, registered, set up, all good to go. The day was gorgeous, high temperatures which was unheard of for early march, sun was out, all was good.

Strudles, Snow, Jawbones, Donut saucing ... all in Feb?

• Feb is the time for frozen strudles from Trader Joes. I love these things sweet joy, baby joy in the oven. Look how good they are:- and yes, if you ride your bike everyday, you can eat a lot of them. Maybe 5 or 6 a week!! Good with icecream, any except ghastly peanut butter.

Riding slow is not so bad, or is it?

OK. A new thing for me, took a lot of courage.
Nice warmish night, clear, no rain. 10pm... bike ride, Portland waterfront!

Here's the spec...
Average Speed = 12.3mph,
Distance = 12.8miles
Time = Over an Hour!
Oh and the critical thing Average Heart Rate = 114..yup I was close to sleeping on the bike. I almost fell off the bike several times because I forgot what I was doing.

Happy Happy Joy Joy