Still Here!

But you would not know that by the posting here. It is almost like I vanished!

And I did. Sort of. I settled into a routine of working and then days off. The good thing is I get three full days off a week. The bad thing is that a work day is 12 hours. So between working, getting ready for work, driving to work, then getting food and whatnot after work - there is no time for anything else. On work days if I get 5 hours of sleep that is not unusual.

But there are some cool things going!

I might get temporary work with the Census. Apparently in my area there are a number of people who live on boats. These people need to be counted. And since you can not get mail delivered to a boat at anchor, the only way to count people is to go up to the boats and ask how many are on board.

Which is where I come in. You see, the census people are looking at ways to count boat people - using other boats. Already they are hiring temporary workers at $15 per hour to beat the streets, but there is talk of paying people $35 per hour PLUS FUEL (a big plus for boats) to take a census worker out to count people living on boats.

For that scratch, Ill take a leave of absence from my regular job - as the $35 per hour is more than I am getting now by a good deal.

And finally - I got my tax return! And of course, I promptly squandered it. And what did I squander it on??

A bicycle! Yes, a bicycle. A very nice bicycle. I have a nice aluminum frame mountain bike, but it was not really cutting it anymore. I have a friend that is also into bikes now. For years he was a smoker, then he quit and bought a road bike.

Well with the mountain bike, keeping up is really hard. So if I wanted to do longer distance rides, I was going to need a road bike. Something with a more aggressive riding position (yet still comfortable), lighter weight, and more suited for longer distances on pavement than shorter runs off road.

And partly because of the shit economy, I found a 2008 model bike that was still brand new. It has a full carbon frame, SRAM gears, Mavic wheels, and so on. All good shit. In 2008, this bike had an average retail price of $2300.

I picked it up for a whole lot less. $1,000 less actually.

Now I was not really looking for a full carbon bike. I did not think I could afford one. I was looking at bikes that had an aluminum frame with carbon forks, or carbon forks and rear stays - but then I found an all carbon bike for the price of an aluminum / carbon bike. And so I have it.



A nicer bike than I was originally looking at. More than I thought I would get. so I should be good for a long time to come in the bike department.