now i'm making progress

I have been slowly but surely making slight increases in my riding trying to get up to a respectable distance and at least some amount of a work out.

Today I did just that, I finally crossed the 3 mile amount! I road for about 3.1 miles this afternoon. Granted, the track I am taking is a lot of hills, but that is good, so I am getting a "rest" on the downside and a good workout on the upside.

There is some changing I need to make to the ol' bike to make it a little more smooth. Like greasing the chain and chainrings. Not to mention that a slightly smoother tire would make it a bit easier of a ride, versus my monster mountain biking tires from back in the day.

But I really like doing it. Hurt like hell afterwords, but that is a little less each time. haha...  Anyway, here is my little track. It is like slightly over 1.5 miles one way. Works for me though!

my little pet project

I am trying to find something to work on or do, that is outside of my daily work stuff, and also outside of school. So, I decided I was going to get back into bicycling.

So I hit the garage and got out the old Raleigh M40 mountain bike I bought off my older brother many years ago. I would say maybe 12 or 13? Something like that I think. I know it was a long time ago.

Anyway, it has been taking up space in the garage as we moved from house to house, and then into our own home finally. But I thought, what better way to get outside and do something, then work on getting it back in riding shape. Then I can even do some riding again (once I loose a litle weight first, haha...)

But it has been pretty cool so far. I have replaced the grips with new Pedro clamp-on grips, replaced the tubes in both tires and put in new rim-tape, and adjusted the brakes and the derailers. The tubes were the funniest. The patches from the days of trail riding with my brothers, were hanging on by nearly nothing. Probably explains why the tires kept going flat. haha...

There is still more to go. I am going to put new brakes on it, and then eventually the big "refresh"...... Changing out ALL the cabling. Yep, it is all pretty damn rusty after over 10+ years of spending time in garages. It scares me to think of the hell it will probably be to strip out and replace all the cabling. But if I can do it, I know it will be cool. Plus I want to put on new Shimano shifter/brake lever combos. The shifter still works ok, but it is old and hard to run. But of course replacing the cabling will likely help that as well.

Anyway, here is a photo of the old beast. I will have to update this as I keep working on it through the summer.

[caption id="attachment_26" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="The old blue beast."][/caption]

ah..., the memories

So, I was cruising around Facebook the other night, and came across a set of drinking glasses. So one would think, "A set of glasses? What is so big about that?"

Well, my dad used to be the president of the Oklahoma Jaycee's chapter. It was around the time I was brought into this world, so I don't remember that much. However, I do recall the glasses we drank from many times, as well as a bright orange shirt that had his mug on it.

So I logged into Facebook the other night, and there they were. Someone else that is in the Jaycee's Facebook group had uploaded a photo of the set of glasses that he had. Anyway, you have to see them. I will just say, classic man!

[caption id="attachment_22" align="alignnone" width="150" caption=""Stompin' With Stan" man!!"][/caption]

the loss of paul harvey

Saturday was a sad day this weekend. I was just about to sit down for dinner when a breaking news message popped up on the TV. The announcement, 'Legendary radio star Paul Harvey passed away today at the age of 90."

The station did a neat little tribute on his career, which to me, was all new info. I had no idea that he was born and raised in Tulsa, OK. And that he had tried his hand at TV on a couple different occasions.

But one things if for sure, just the sound of his name "Paul Harvey" takes me back to to the hot summer days in the cab of my grandparent's tractor plowing up the fields and listening to "..... the rest of the story..."

He will be missed.  Here is a neat page I found that has a good photo of him and a few statements by his family and former President George W. Take a look - http://www.abcrn.com/harvey.