andy reagan only the interesting stuff

Moving in and Week 1

So I never really got a chance to finish this post...but moving in was good (a lot of work), my classes are great, I'm loving it as a math major and have research coming up soon at the VBI, and just celebrated my one year anniversary with Lauren last night! This coming weekend I plan to compete in VT's home MTB race, and since my bike has been broken I've been running and swimming a fair amount...and am looking at triathlons but who knows if I'll do one haha.

Driving down/day 1 (8/19)

Lauren and I made good time on our way down last Thursday, getting to my house in 9.5 hours with stops.  We had just missed Dave, but James was there to let me in and give me a key.  First walking through the house was really weird, because it was so moved in to and foreign.  The front yard was sprawled with scrap wood and the fridge was full of random food, and all that was in my room was the mattress and some of James and Daves stuff. After moving my stuff in from her car, into a pile in the corner, we went to Mike's for dinner and then to Mary Kates for my car and things I had stored there.

My car was still stuffed full to the roof, and we put some things in Laurens car so I could make just one more trip...so much stuff! After letting my car run for a minute, it began to rev from 1k to 2k rpm in idle...not good.  I was going to try to drive it home still, worried though, and told Mary Kate that I would call her when I got home to let her know I made it.  The way home was scary, the car creaking, revving in idle, and complaining in general after a summer of neglect.  To my relief, we made it up the hill up Harding to my house, I was bummed that the car was not working though.  Lauren and I were both tired from all day driving, and I unloaded my car the remaining floorspace in my room and went to bed not long after, having bought new sheets at Target on the way there.

Friday, day 2 moving in

In the morning I went with Lauren to help her move in, and we got checked in to The Village. It was amazing how different her living situation is...its so clean and new, she had brand new carpet and all the furniture is from like target haha not the home depot scrap lumber bin. She was the first there, and after a little bit her parents got there and I helped to move all her things in. One by one the roommates were showing up and I helped moved them in as much as I could. After a little while she took me back home and I started to move stuff into my place.

Since the car was still running weird, I went to advance auto parts to pick up oil and an air filter to change those. The guy there said that he thought the car just needed to be opened up and driven. To get the last of my stuff (chair, TV, speakers) and drive the car, I headed to Mary Kates and on the way there drove the car hard across Lusters Gate Rd. After loading it up, on the way back it was no longer revving by hovering near 1100 rpm shakily. Up harding though, the check engine light came on and I thought I had killed it haha. Back at Advance, they read it with their computer and the code said I needed a new Idle Air Controller. That make perfect sense, bc the only time it was having trouble was idling. The part was $200 but I needed it, so I ordered it and it was supposed to come in on Wed. Good news was that I now knew what was wrong and driving the car wasn't going to hurt it.

Back at the house, I unloaded the car and now all of my stuff was in my room...in piles around the mattress haha it was a mess with no desk or storage at all yet. After that I went out for dinner with Laurens roommates and her parents who treated us to Red Robin and it was really good.  Got a chili burger that I had to eat with a fork and a bottomless root beer float!

Saturday: Burke's Garden Century and Day 3, shelf building

I got up super early in the morning and rode with Greg to a flat century that's been going on for a few years now, about 30 minutes away as a get away from all of the campus traffic.  Long story short, I finished the century in just over 5 hours, at an average pace of 19.9 MPH! It wasn't entirely flat, there was one climb that we did both sides of, but 80 miles were at less than 1% grade haha.  Going out, I thought that Greg and I were with the fast group when we broke away from them 20 miles in, until we got caught by Justin C and John Delong's four hour group! They smoked by us, and I actually got caught up in their paceline and did a few pulls at 27-28MPH ...and was recovering from that for the rest of the day.  With stops, I got back to my house at 2PM and showered and took a nap haha.  Then I spent the rest of day trying to get some shelves built so I could start to unpack.