Commuting by Bicycle

Wow... I haven't blogged in a long while. I'll need to work on that.

Last night, the planets were aligned just right, and I got to thinking about how outrageously expebsive it's getting to fill my gas tank. Thoughts of how to conserve gasoline overwhelmed me to the point that I finally decided I can no longer justify driving in to work. With:

• triathlon race season upon us,
• warming temperatures,
• soaring gas prices,
• the fact that I drive an SUV,
• the Cherry Creek trail going almost right past my house and straight to downtown Denver,
• the fact that I live maybe 5 miles from work, and
• my gym having showers and other amenities being in my building...

I finally decided to stop talking about it and, to borrow a phrase from a well-known company, just do it... commute by bicycle, that is.

I have to say that I loved it!

I left the house at 5:30 this morning and rode 2 miles to the Washington Park pool to do a quick 2000 yard swim. After that workout, I just jumped back on the bike and hit the Cherry Creek Trail north straight into dowtown Denver. It was so easy and so invigorating, I can't believe I haven't done it before.

I highly recommend commuting by bicycle, if you can. Of course, it helps to have your gym near work, and it helps when you don't have to carry a lot of stuff back and forth to and from the office. I don't see this happening every day, because sometimes, I have too much stuff... but I will do it as often as I can.

Sometimes I Just Don't Get People

I had and interesting experience yesterday on the trinewbies.com website, a triathlon community and forum that I frequent. Basically, some lady posted about how her husband, a frequent visitor and contributor to the forum, had been cheating on her with "hundreds" of women, and that she knew there were some in the TriNewbies community. She then proceeded to blast the whole community, as well as the sport of triathlon, as the cause of the destruction of her marriage.



All I could think was... "Geez, lady! Get a grip. There are nasty people everywhere. Why blame all of us?"



Anyway... you'd think that'd be the end of it, but no. Some of the morbid freaks on the forum kept after her to name names and tell everyone who the offenders were... It went on all day, and predictably, ended with names named and feeling hurt.



I just don't get why people would do that. Is it morbidly fascinating? Sure. But these are real people, who have real problems that don't need to be aired on the Internet. How cruel can we be?



All right... rant over. Time to go to work.

Back in the office...

Today is my first day back at work after the holidays. I hate coming in after extended time off... It's so hard to get back into it. I do have a lot of work to do today, though... so this will be a very short post.

Got up at 5:30 am today to get in the following workout before work:

• 1 hour and 15 minutes on the spin bike. Mostly at aerobic HR. It's base building time.

After work, I'll hit the weights.

A New Year

Happy New Year to everyone.

I hope to make 2005 a really good year, both professionally and personally. I have many goals this year, and I'm setting them down in writing on this blog site. Maybe we'll look back on December 31, and see how many I've met.

My Goals for 2005

• Bring in 5 new clients to the law firm
• Bill 2000 hours for the year
• Stick to my 2005 triathlon training plan
• Qualify for the Half Ironman Championships in Kansas City

I'm sure there are more... I'll add them as I think of them... unfortunately, I'm a little crunched for time today.

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Friend

I got this book for Christmas, and started reading it today. It's hysterical. It's the story of the life of Jesus Christ as told by his childhood best friend, who also happens to be a real asshole. I haven't made it too far into the book, but I've already laughed out loud several times.

The book is by Christopher Moore (www.chrismoore.com), and I'm sure you can get it at amazon.com.

So far, I highly recommend it.

This was a very nice Christmas

So we moved to the mountains... finally. We've been here since late August. I haven't been skiing yet. So what do we do? We go skiing on Christmas Day. Actually, it was great... less crowded, since people want to spend the day with family.

We went to Keystone, and decided to learn to snowboard, instead of ski. I gotta say... snowboarding ROCKS!. It's really hard to stay balanced, but I hear that once you learn, it gets much easier, much more quickly...

What's the saying? Snowboarding is hard to learn, but easy to master... skiing is easy to learn, but hard to master.

I haven't worked out in a month...

Ironman was a month ago. I haven't done a thing since. I'm going to turn into a big, fat bastard if I don't start running, biking and swimming again.