Archive for June, 2009

Well, a lot has happened since my last “blog” (journal) update…that was last Monday, over a week!

Volleyball on Tuesday

Long, and by long I mean a lot of waiting, story made short: bonesaw remains undefeated. Shout out to the guest performances of Carly Anable and Big Del.

Camping, where do I start?

Well, it all started last summer when me and Sarah Holden had some awesome fbook conversations while we were both bored at work…and we came up with the idea of going camping. The biggest difference that I have noticed this summer as compared to last summer is that with a year of college under our belts, rather than just talk about things, we plan them and do them this summer. Like going to Toronto…for example. So I have been camping a lot, perhaps where some of the problems/drama started. I mean, I’ve done week long treks out of a canoe where we carry all the food and gear we need for the whole week with us into the wilderness. That’s the one extrema, me. The other extrema, sorry Dan, has to be Dan Zdanowski. He’s lived in more countries than I have even seen, but never left the comfort of running water and a warm bed at night, ever it seems. So, I didn’t wanna go to a back-your-car-up and pitch the tent right next to it “campsite” type deal, cuz even the thought of calling that “camping” seemed upsurd to me. Since I knew that not everybody was going to have super advanced gear, like frame backpacks and lightweight tents/sleeping bags, the oppposite of a “campsite” which would be parking a trail head and ascending a mountain, and just finding somewhere to camp, was out of the question. I spent a great deal of time researching about different campsites and about “backcounty” camping which was what I was thinking of. So online, I never really found anything that like detailed a backcoutry trip, which I guess is to be expected. I think that like a book on the ADK’s would have something like that… But anyway, it was Mrs. Zdanowski who gave me the idea to go to “Russian Lake.” It seemed perfect, a 3 mile canoe plus one mile hike out of civilization, but not entirely remote… So I made quite few phone calls, and got the low down on renting some canoes, and did that, talking to Sarah and Zdan and Dknick all that day that I rented them. So that night, I spent a lot of time making up a pretty detailed packing list and description of the trip, from everything that I had. Unfortunately the title “Please read THOROUGHLY if you’re camping!!!” wasn’t enough to make Zdanowski read it, but why would he need my advice on what to bring camping, anyway? So some pretty “hairbrain” ideas came up like putting drying sheets in the food and spreading clorox around the campsite to deter bears, and I wanted none of it, and I was trying to be helpful by telling Sarah and Dan Z that we didn’t need that stuff. I definitely used some harsher terms…probably where I went wrong, I think I was little too mean to Sarah there. What really suprised me was how obstanate Zdan was, I mean being such a smart kid and all, still wanting to pour chemicals on the ground that reach our drinking water after reading 50 reports a day about chemical disasters at SRC…

I took a half day Friday so that we could get up there, and at Del’s when we were about to leave is when I think things exploded. I got there, and we all waited for Zdan and Fox for a good 20 minutes to show up…and when they did, I started putting my stuff in Fox’s car. I didn’t have that much, but his car was brinking on full from the two of them’s stuff and beverages. Dan insisted that we take three cars, cuz it wouldn’t fit, and that it would somehow making coming back easier…and as I started loading my stuff into Fox’s car to make sure that it fit, Dan just blew up. He was yelling at the top of lungs that I was outta control and that we HAD TO TAKE A THIRD CAR!!! He even tried to take my stuff outta the car, and was right about to go to his house to drive his own car up…but my stuff fit, even though I didn’t have a whole lot of room in the back. He then refused to ride up with me…like refused. He wasn’t going to ride with me. This kid has quite the temper, I’m suprised he didn’t start swinging, like he did at Del in bball once. Fox could see out the back and we were all good to go though. Dan was stilled pissed the whole ride there, I think he eventually got over himself.

More Later..

That’s all the time I got for now…also to come in this past weeks edition: more about camping, my new vibram five finger shoes, relaxing on sunday, swimming Monday with Kaity, and Bonesaw’s win streak continuing. Plus a special on my new wheelset that I picked up today! And the toaster is still in progress, I’m planning to call my Uncle Carl’s friend Dave to get some help building it, he’s really interested in this stuff. And I found a fully assembled one online, following a lead from Lauren seeing one on Rob and Big, some show on MTV, thanks Lauren! You can check their out here, I think that I might have to fold on the alternator or finding a DC induction motor of my own, and buy theirs. It’s $150…which I think I did the math on, and it will take me 9.13 years to make that much money back in electricity, biking 1 hour a day at 250W with electricity at 18 cents per kWh. But hey, that might actually be doable!

New Stuff

Here’s a look at some of my most recent purchases…first the “shoes.” I’d seen them around campus I think first, and thought that were pretty interesting. I found them online, and they are called the Vibram Five Fingers. Since the sizing needed to be pretty precise, and I didn’t want to trust the sizing chart that they had online of a conversion from my regular shoe size for something like that, I really had to find them in store. Online, they have a store locator and there wasn’t one in Blacksburg, and not one anywhere near Syracuse. My only hope would have been to stop somewhere in Roanoke on my way up for the summer…so I wasn’t really able to get them. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I think Kyle mentioned that one of his friends had got a pair, I checked their store locator online and found one in Syracuse! It was at J Michael Shoes, on SU Campus…so I gave them a call and took Eric W. with me on an adventure through the city to find the place and after finally just parking somewhere and walking there, I finally got to try some on. The red open-top ones that had looked good online didn’t actually look right on a foot haha, maybe my feet are too white, but I ended up going with an all-black model that covers the whole foot, and they are definitely less obnoxious than the other choices…the thought crossed my mind to try to get away with them at work, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen haha. You really don’t notice them unless you look kinda close… So I ran around the yard that night (I think it was last Tuesday) and was amazed at how comfortable they were. I really didn’t want to take them off haha. I didn’t get another chance to really wear them that week, but wore them camping and got some good use of them as water shoes and even some “trail running.” Overall, I’m really happy with the shoes, I think they’ll hold up pretty well too. Not sure that I’ll ever be able to run with them on pavement though haha…well without furthur adue (spelling…?) here they are: (I hope this comes out right with my html…)

…don’t have pix (moved from older blog)

Next up, my new aero wheelset! I think that every cyclist wants an aero wheelset, but I wasn’t about to put up the >$1000 for a limited-use wheelset…and my paired, bladed spokes were about as aero as I was ever gonna get in college. But, being on the OCC listserv finally paid off, after 100’s of emails about doping debates and stuff, I can across the sale of set of Spinergy Rev-X (4-spoke) carbon wheels! I looked on ebay, and found that they were going for like 100/wheel so I emailed the person who listed it to the oCC, and he gave me the contact of the person who was actually selling them, so I emailed and then called her and took Eric on yet another excursion after work, and we drove to Liverpool or something like that to check out these wheels. As it turned out, the person selling them was the ex-wife of the previous owner of all this bike stuff, and it was hers now, so she was looking to get rid of some of the stuff in her basement. I offered her 200 for each wheel, even though the rear has a sizeable ding, that was a really good deal for an aero wheelset I think. I’m still all excited about them, and even put on my aerobars with the front wheel to prepare my bike for that time trial environment of the triathlon, which includes the Great Race in August, which me and Lindz will hopefully be doing the tandem in! So now all I got all the equipment for my triathlon…short maybe a swim cap, all I gotta do is keep learning how to swim and actually riding my bike and I’ll be all set! Here’s a look of the bike set up, with all the wheels:

Big news: X-Factor, formerly know as Bonesaw, won the Marcellus Park Pick-Up Sand Volleyball League Tournament on Tuesday. The roster included three Reagans: myself, my Dad, and my Mom. Along with us was Andy Caster, Ryan Del, and Jenn Daley. Me, Andy, and Jenn played almost every week last year without a victory, and with the help of some strategic position and bump-set-spike play, claimed our first crown this year the first week of play, without losing on the way there!! It was a lot of fun overall, the other teams were pretty cool, although obnoxious at times…

This evening, I forwent playing basketball at the Park to officially join and go for my second ride with the OCC. It was a really good ride, totaling 34 miles, though slightly shortened with the threat of rain. For about 10 minutes, some guy named Paul pulled us into a stiff headwind and on a slight uphill at over 28 mph…and by the time we reached Jordan (about 40 minutes in) we were at 23.4 mph AVERAGE! It slowed down slightly, but we still finished over 20 mph, a pretty solid ride. I think that puts me up to like 80 some miles with the OCC, and only two rides. After the ride, a few of the guys asked me if I was on a race team, which was pretty cool. I must’ve ridden fast or something? I did pull the first few miles to seperate the six of us from sight of any of the other riders… The worst part was that in a rush to get there, I forgot to bring any water or food, and after getting lost twice on the way there and taking the long way home I was starving and pretty frickin thirsty! I got lost on the way there because on Warners road, in some park on the right, there was a ton of bikers and bikes on cars so I stopped there thinking that maybe they changed the start location…and then they told me that the OCC ride started right around the corner at Airport Rd but after driving a mile down that way…that was also wrong, it was where the directions pointed all along! Possibly the coolest part of the ride, besides the crazy pull by Paul, was seeing two fawns, more precisely stopping for them to cross the road so close that I could’ve touched them!

I’ve also been getting a lot of hits for clothing since Tim posted the leftover list to the VT team site, which is pretty cool. Lots of Tech alums and new riders, exciting!