Meet Sophie

For some time Daniel and I have been on the fence about getting a dog. For one reason or another we have continued to put off the whole dog thing.

Last Monday, Mike, the editor of the magazine I work on, sent out a company-wide email saying that he was looking for a home for one of his dogs and that he would even offer a week-long trial period. Now how often do you get to test drive a dog? We figured it was a golden opportunity for us and that if we discovered that we weren't dog people, we would kindly give her back.

Saturday morning, Mike came over with Sophie. She is a 45-ish pound Beagle mutt who is extremely friendly and very well behaved. Unless you are a stranger. Unfortunately for us, we were strangers. She did fine when Mike was there, and even after he left and we took her inside, she was good for about 30 minutes. But somewhere in there she started getting nervous and soon was growling and barking at Daniel. A dog that barks at his owner isn't much good, but we decided to give her some space and some time to adjust.

 

Daniel took off to do some work for a friend and I hung out doing Saturday chores and ignoring our new pup. Over the course of an afternoon of on again, off again thunderstorms, Sophie and I bonded. To be truthful, I think a round of thunder made her realize that letting me pet her was probably a better alternative to laying on the floor cowering to the rumbles in the sky.

Daniel came home and Sophie growled and barked but she soon she warmed up to him as well. I ran out to go grocery shopping and came back and things were much better, still some barking, but that is to be expected.

Sophie was not overtly curious about our house at first. She was actually scared of our basement, but she soon started exploring. She stays off of our furniture and out of our things and knows to go outside to do her business... what more could you ask for? 

Saturday we did a couple of tests to see how she would do without us home. First we went on a 10-minute walk to make sure she wouldn't destroy our house. As soon as we went out the door, this is what we saw...

She whined for a little while, but eventually calmed down. When we came back, she was laying calmly in front of the window. We decided to test her a little more and we left for an hour and went and grabbed dinner at Five Guys. Again, the whining, but she didn't bother anything in the house.

Sunday we went to church for 2-ish hours and she was fine by herself. It is so nice to not have to worry. In fact, we were kind of asking ourselves what was wrong with her because this all seems way too easy.

After lunch we put her in the car and took her for a walk at the greenway. We really want to socialize her a bit more to people. She really liked the car ride and didn't bark too badly on the greenway - I think she was just overly excited to be in a new place with lots of scents to follow. 

So far things are going great. She loves to play fetch in our back yard. She tends to be attention happy, but we are spending some time ignoring her so that she doesn't think that she needs to have our attention 100% of the time. Daniel managed to get her to go into the basement today and now she has no problem going up and down the stairs and in and out of the basement. She leaves us alone when we eat - no begging from this dog. One funny thing Daniel noticed today is that she is starting to move certain items of ours. He found a hat in the middle of the living room. Twice. She doesn't chew, she just takes it with her. She is a funny dog and has some quirks, but we really like her.

The best part (according to me) is that she is short haired and doesn't shed terribly, she doesn't drool (too much) and she is not a kissy dog.

Ever had one of these mornings?

Didn't sleep that well last night. Was in a rush to leave for work and locked the front door before I realized it was cooler than I had expected and that I needed a jacket. Went back inside for said jacket.

Proceeded to make it to the car before I realized that I had left my coffee on the counter. Since you can't sleep poorly and then not have a large cup of coffee to start the day, I went back inside for said coffee.

Proceeded to the car a second time. Sat down, stuck keys in the ignition and had the feeling I was missing something. Checked my purse and saw that I didn't have my phone with me. Went back in (for a third time) for said phone.

I hope my day does not turn into a continuous string of forgetfulness...

Bake or Break...

I recently came across the blog Bake or Break, Adventures of an Amateur Baker. I.LOVE.IT. I can't wait to try some of the recipes.

Some of my faves include:

Pecan Pie Cheesecake

Hazelnut Crescent Cookies

Fresh Berry Tart

Cycling

Some time in the past year, I got it in my head that it would be cool to ride a century (100 miles in cyclist speak). Quite possibly this idea got into my head, when my friend, Taryn decided she was going to ride in the Hotter'N Hell Hundred in Wichita Falls, TX.

Daniel and I have recently been discussing the need to 1) get back into shape and 2) reclaim some of the fun things we used to do with our time (hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, cycling, etc). Now that Daniel has time to work on the house during the week, we are feeling the urge to get out and do the things we love again.

So this morning we decided to start "training" to ride 100 miles. Our initial goal is to be able to ride the full length of the Virginia Creeper Trail (67.2 miles round trip, starting in Abingdon, VA). We have actually done this ride starting in Damascus, VA for a total of 35.2 miles. Doing the ride from Abingdon will give us a metric century (approximately 100 km).

After that, we are considering doing all 72 miles (round trip) of the Cherohala skyway. A couple of summers ago, we actually biked 18 miles of this beautiful road (my introduction into road biking). This would be more difficult than the Virginia Creeper due to the mountainous terrain.

Building on that, we would like to find a route where we can ride a full 100 miles. Hopefully this is something we can work on doing some time this year.

We plan to start a pretty aggressive riding schedule to help us work on our mileage. We started today, riding a measly 8+ miles on the greenway. We have A LOT of mileage adding to do to get to 100, but I am excited about having such a lofty goal.

Update

You may have noticed that I haven’t written many notes lately. Chalk it up to not having much to say, but I really haven’t been sure what to write about… Should I write about life with an unemployed spouse? Should I write about how I feel about my own work? Should I post about my general restlessness or my thankfulness for spring (even with the onslaught of allergies).

Here is a quick recap of my trip to Memphis...
Last week/weekend I was able to spend a lovely five days with my (very pregnant) sister and her husband. Also saw my parents, grandma, great aunt and uncle and my sister’s in-laws. However, I did miss that my little brother couldn’t come visit, but that is life these days, you take what you can get…

Besides visiting with family, the highlight of the weekend was attending my sister's baby shower and surprising her with my gift... Five years ago, when Daniel and I went to Papua New Guinea, we bought a bilum for carrying babies. We figured someday, we would either use this bilum ourselves or we would share it with my siblings. To be truthful, I had forgotten about it until a few days before my flight to Memphis. I am so happy I remembered because when my sister opened it, she started crying because it was such an unexpected and special gift because she was actually born in PNG.

Angela with the bilum

And now a brief update on the unemployment status...
I figured that it is about time to give an update on how things are going with Daniel and the job search. To be truthful, we agreed that he should put off serious job hunting to allow time to study for his Professional Engineering (PE) licensure test, which thankfully he took last Friday. He feels good about the test, but we won’t know the results for a couple of months.

Now that he has extra time on his hands, he is focusing on finishing our house renovations. This week he is actually working on a house project for a friend, but I am anxious to get our basement and master bathroom finished.

At this point, we are taking life one week at a time. The job market continues to look bad in the Charlotte area, last I saw, unemployment is hovering around 12% and civil engineering job openings are practically non existent.

He has passed the one-month mark for unemployment and we are finding that we are able to live within our means and even save a bit. This is encouraging. It would be nice for Daniel to get a job, but this gives us some leeway for him to find a good job, hopefully in a good location. We are not really sure what the future holds for us, but in the mean time, we are not stressing about it.

Deep Survival

I just finished reading the book Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales. The book relates many extreme examples of survival that people were able to live to tell about. It also shares some examples where people did not survive. The point of his book is to try to understand what makes some people survive while others just give up and die.

In the last chapter it talks about 12 possible things that sets survivors apart from the rest. These 12 things include the ability to:

1. Perceive and believe your circumstance
2. Stay calm
3. Think, analyze and plan
4. Take correct, decisive action
5. Celebrate your successes
6. Count your blessings
7. Play
8. See the beauty
9. Believe you will succeed
10. Surrender
11. Do whatever is necessary
12. Never give up

One other component not covered in this list is that there is a degree in circumstance. Sometimes you happen to be in the right place at the right time. Conversely others may be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Overall the book is about how people react when they are put in trying circumstances.

Since reading this book, I have been thinking about the times in my life where I have been a survivor. I was hit by a car as a kid and ended up going home with no injuries. On the day I was hit, I decided to take all of my school books home with me in my backpack - this was odd because I rarely did homework at home, I always managed to do it during school hours. I vividly remember seeing the truck as it was about to hit me. I turned to try to go back to the sidewalk. When I turned I inadvertently put my backpack full of books between me and the truck. This most likely saved me from serious injury. If I had seen the truck and froze in my tracks, there might have been a different outcome to my story.

Other times I remember are being in a cave (Alexander) and getting to a point where our group thought we were lost. My brother panicked. His panicking actually helped me to remain calm because I knew I had to be the source of calm. Obviously we got out of the cave, but there was a period of time when our group had its doubts about the outcome of our day.

Once Daniel and I headed up to Mt. Rogers in April. Looking back, we really didn't have the necessary gear for possible bad weather. We spent a night in a shelter on the trail. The next morning we woke up to cold temps, strong wind, wet conditions and fog so heavy you could barely see the trail. If it had been a few degrees colder, we could have been in more serious trouble. We hiked out.

When Daniel cut his leg open with a chain saw, I initially panicked, but after a while, I was able to pull myself together enough to be able to get the necessary things from our house and drive us to the ER. Daniel was calm through the whole event which helped me greatly. Inside I was freaking out, but outside I was able to function.

I hope that if I am ever in more dire circumstances, like those presented in the book, I will be a survivor.

You have bike questions, my husband has answers...

There have been a couple of times people have asked me about bike stuff. While I do ride a bike for pleasure and sometimes for commuting or to buy groceries, all of what I know or do comes from the research of my overly analytical husband who loves bikes and loves researching. Anyways, here is a comprehensive list of suggestions he wrote a while back. If you are looking into getting into biking and are curious about the costs and recommendations, this is for you...

Includes info on helmets, gloves, hydration, bike shorts & seats, locks, lights, racks & panniers and general thoughts on types of bikes (in that order).

SUGGESTIONS FROM DANIEL
Helmets: $20-$40 ones are fine, they all protect the same, some are just cooler looking so people pay way too much $$ for them.

Gloves: Padded are more comfortable and protect your hands if you fall off. Maybe $15-$30?

Hydration: Water bottle is fine for rides 1 hours and less, longer than that you’ll need either multiple bottles, or a Camelbak, which can be used as a backpack as well as a water carrier. There are lots of brands of hydration packs, but the original Camelbak brand has the best water bladders (easiest to clean, least likely to leak).

Comfort: Understand your butt will hurt when you first start riding, and will continue to every time your ride if you only do it once a month. Do it at least once or twice a week and after 3 or so weeks of that your body should be a little more used to it. If it still hurts at that point, consider some comfort purchases, such as padded shorts or different seat.

Shorts: If you start riding more than 5-10 miles at a time, and your butt doesn’t hurt at all, great, but if it does, consider padded shorts. Do not buy them at Performance Bike, theirs are not very good IMO, do buy them at a bike shop or REI, expect to spend $30-50 each, Canari and Pearl Izumi are good brands, there are others.

Don’t wear underwear under them when you ride (but do when you try them on in the store). They have some that have outer shorts that look more normal in case you’re not in the mood to wander around wearing skin tight spandex.

Also, some people are never comfortable on the stock seat that comes with bikes, you may have to try several different ones. As long as you don’t mess the seat up, and you keep the tags and receipt, Performance Bike and REI are good about letting you return seats you’ve ridden on for a few miles and figured out you didn’t like.

Lock: If you are going to park your bikes anywhere besides your own house, even for 5 minutes to run into a gas station, get a lock. How big/heavy/tough/expensive of a lock depends on:

• How nice your bike is (ie how tempting it would be to a thief)
• Where you are parking it (dark alley in the hood at night versus outside the local deli on a bright sunny day for lunch)
• How long you are going to leave it parked there.

Don’t get the one with swing set-chain from WalMart for $6.88. U-locks are much more secure, and make it much less likely anyone would ever try to steal your bike, BUT they are heavy and a pain to carry. And it’s harder to find secure objects to lock a U-lock to than it is a cable lock. I have a U-lock that stays at work where my bike stays parked 12+ hours some days in a dark parking garage, but I keep a cable lock with me to use for quick stops at the grocery store. Maybe something similar to one of these (shown in increasing order of price, and increasing amount of security provided).

Wussy Cable Lock http://www.rei.com/product/736398
Better Cable Lock http://www.rei.com/product/719323
U-lock http://www.rei.com/product/721699

By the way, always make sure your bike FRAME is locked to a secure object. Some people lock just the wheel and return to find that they are now the proud owners of a single bicycle wheel. If you can, lock the frame AND wheels to a secure object. More than you ever wanted to know about locking your bike up here: http://www.sheldonbrown.com/lock-strategy.html

If there’s any chance you’ll be out when it’s dark, including when it’s raining hard during the daytime, blinking rear lights are a must, and front lights are recommended. Those should be $20-$25 max for the front, and $7-$20 for the rear. There are a lot of good ones, I like http://www.amazon.com/Blackburn-Quadrant-Combo-Bicycle-Light/dp/B000BNZ0ME/ref=pd_bxgy_sg_img_a

If you start carrying stuff (ie commuting to work, grocery shopping) very often, rack and panniers are way better than backpack, much more comfortable.

Specific Rack Recommendations:
I’m not a fan of the seat post mounted racks. They are easier to attach/remove, and probably work OK for light loads, I’ve even seen a couple of Charlotte bike cops using them for carrying really small bags, but I just feel like it’s too much weight to hang off a thin aluminum seat post tube that is only a couple hundredths of an inch thick.

While it’s not likely the post would break, it is possible (aluminum is a lot weaker than steel, and it does have a fatigue life), and you need to consider what it would happen if the top of the seat post tube broke off and took the rack and seat with it, and you suddenly found yourself “sitting” on what was left of the seat post, a large piece of jagged aluminum shaped like a spear pointed straight up. Get the picture?

So now that you’ve decided to get a regular rack, my recommendations assume you aren’t going on a world expedition, you’re just taking local rides to grocery store, work, run errands etc. And I’m only talking about rear racks here; not front ones. There’s not that much difference between a $130 rack and a $30 rack unless you’re hauling a LOT of weight, or venturing into the middle of nowhere.

My current rack is no longer in production, but if I bought a new one today, I would buy this guy, made by Topeak: http://www.rei.com/product/697821

Two other good brands (at lower price points) are Blackburn and Delta, especially Blackburn.

Fitting a rack to your bike: They’re pretty generic, but a couple things to note.

If you have disc brakes, you will probably have to get a rack designed to work with disc brakes, such as http://www.rei.com/product/735847

They attach to the frame near the rear axle, and a mount on the frame just under the seat post collar. If you don’t have the proper mounts on your bike (like Cheree’s bike), you can still mount it, just requires more creativity, using stuff like this http://www.rei.com/product/700230

Specific pannier recommendations:
It really depends on what you are going to do with them.

For grocery hauling or camping, you are going to want some that are large. The only pair of actual panniers we currently own are these: http://tinyurl.com/chevsj

They might be a bit on the large size if you have a small framed bike. If you put really big panniers on a really small bike, you may end of having your heels strike them (depends on your foot size too). Generally you would just move the panniers as far to the rear of the rack as possible, but even then there are some combination's that might now work. Nothing to obsess over, just don’t plan on putting the biggest panniers you can find on a 13 inch bike. MOST of the time most panniers will fit most people/bike/rack combos just fine.

I used those Nashbar panniers for a while, predominantly for bike commuting, and a bit of touring. I only carried one for commuting most days, except during winter when I hauled the 2nd one empty to work during the really cold mornings, and rode home in the warmer afternoons with the 2nd one stuffed full of my extra clothing from the cold morning ride.

They’re fairly cheaply constructed, but are durable, and work well for the larger hauling tasks. And at $40 for two, the value factor is great. If you just want to find out if you’ll like panniers or use them much, these are a relatively inexpensive way to explore the option. If you don’t like them after a few uses, sell them on eBay. They have one large main pocket, a small one on the side, and a small one on the top. And they’ll fit pretty much any bike rack.

Eventually though, I wanted something that was easier to carry around at the grocery store and between my desk and the parking garage. There are some nice panniers that come with backpack straps attached, like http://www.rei.com/product/780448 or http://tinyurl.com/ddeua9

I wanted something more organized, easy to carry, and not so huge, and my mom got me this for Christmas a few years back (thanks mom!): http://www.rei.com/product/710472

This is (and has been for a long time) my #1 choice for general use bike bag. It’s expandable, so it’s only as big as you need it to be. It has a padded shoulder strap, so it’s easy to carry around at the office or grocery store, even when loaded. It has multiple pockets, and organization sleeves. I don’t drink beer, or much soda, especially while biking, but fellow cyclists have noted the main compartment holds a 6-pack perfectly, and keeps it cold for a while. For me, my tool kit, pump, spare tube, and other contingency gear stay in the bottom of the main compartment, and stuff that gets put in / taken out daily, like clothes, sits above it.

The panniers that zip out on the side are a bit smaller than a set of dedicated panniers, but they still hold probably 80% as much as the others, and it’s a lot easier to carry everything when it is all attached into one package with a shoulder strap, compared to 2 separate panniers with thin nylon handles that cut into your hands if they’re heavy.

The best part about it is if you have a Topeak MTX rack (recommended above), it slides right into the rails, and clicks into place. Takes <5 seconds to attach, and about 2 seconds to detach, and it is rock solid, and mounts in the same place every time.

Sidebar: My panniers have landed in the road once or twice when I failed to secure them properly. Fortunately most Charlotte area motorists have an aversion to running over a large black bag in the road out of fear it would hurt their high end luxury cars with 3" of ground clearance, so no harm done, just a couple scuffs on the bag. YMMV, especially if you live somewhere where more people drive big trucks and are less picky about what they drive over (Texas comes to mind). So if you stick with the panniers, make sure they're well attached if you're riding in/near/on the roadway.

Back to the Topeak bag, do note it will take a bit of practice to line up with the rails to attach it when it’s fully loaded, but once you learn, you don’t even notice anymore. My panniers only get used on really long rides in the mountains, or for groceries now. The other 95% of the time, it’s the Topeak MTX Trunk Bag EXP with Zip-Down Panniers. I sound like a stinking commercial, but really, I do like the bag a lot.

On upgrading bikes (if you ever think you want to): I wouldn’t buy a pure road bike unless you really want to either look cool (or think you do), go extra fast, or put a lot of miles on it keeping up with other people in group road rides. I had one, liked it OK, but didn’t ride it that much, so I sold it. They’re a lot less forgiving than a hybrid or mountain bike, a little less comfortable (you’re trading better aerodynamics/more speed for comfort), and they get flat tires a little easier. Most every ride I take ends up being on my hybrid-ish bike.

If you decide you like mountain bike trails, it can be worth it to buy a mountain bike. You can generally rent them first, or check out http://www.trekfactorydemo.com/ to see if they will be offering free rides in your area.

Hope that helps!