Small Businesses rock

I have been complaining about my Garmin 310xt that I wear when I exercise. It is a watch that tracks my heart rate, maps my activities and times said events. It has started acting up lately and I was loosing faith in the numbers it was providing post workout. Yesterday I went to First Place Sports to sign up for the Outback Half Marathon on Thanksgiving day. I was asking if they knew what I should do about my garmin. I was told to bring it back in and they would exchange it for a new one. You just gotta love when a business stands behind a product like that. Replacement of my garmin was not what I was looking for when explaining the problem. But I have to say it made me feel really good about First Place Sports. And the new unit seems to have taken care of the problem.

Thanks Guys,

Riding the bus

Lost Friends,

Not really lost just kind of misplaced. I have had lots of friends come and go in my lifetime. When I was young my Dad was in the Navy so we moved around a bit. This was hard on a young kid having to move away from a best friend. The upside of this learning to make new friends. This is a good life skill to have. It seems these days I have a lot of friends that I don't get to see very often. So when I run into old friends I am happy to see them. We have a few minutes to catch up on how we are each doing, ask about some other people and then we each go our separate ways.

Usually I make friends based on the activity I am doing. These shared experiences bring people together. That and the time spent in that activity. If there is some risk involved the experience is even stronger. I raced sailboats for many years. I met many people and counted many of them as friends. I have tons of stories about people, weather conditions and locations we visited. Even when sailing my boat singlehanded I would talk to other people out on the water, in the bar afterwards or while helping each other with our boats. All my favorite memories on the water involve people. I met my wife in one of my sailing classes. I have done Jiu-Jitsu, woodturning, running and now triathlon.

This morning I was thinking about someone I haven't seen in a while. We are both busy with our families and our training. I finished swimming and ran into another old friend from my sailing days, we talked for a few minutes and then went on our separate ways. I have always said life is a like a bus ride. Sometimes people get on and ride for a while and become friends, sometimes your friends get off only to get back on later. So if any of my friends are reading this the bus is only a short ways from the next stop.

Running, Squirrels and Hawks

This morning started with a pre-dawn run downtown, along the river and over the bridges. I ran with Marilyn and Darcy. As we were on our way back along the river the sun was just coming up over the river and the Main Street Bridge. It was a very nice morning, the temperature was just right. The river was flat and we were out with other runners and walkers getting in their morning miles. I got out of the car when I got home and spotted an Osprey on the power wire. I stood there checking him out and then noticed a squirrel in the tree about 10 feet below the Osprey. I thought; "This squirrel is on the menu". The squirrel proceeds to climb up the telephone pole chittering away at the Osprey, then he gets on the wire and is still chattering away at the Osprey. I turn to try and make it in the house to get my camera and the Osprey flies away. I was thinking the squirrel has a good story to tell all his buddies on how single handedly, he scared an Osprey away and saved all the other squirrels. I wonder if they will believe the stories of if in a week it will end up being a whole flock of hungry Eagles. Sometimes these stories take on a life of their own. For my part I have a terrible picture I took with my iphone but was too far away. I learned my lesson with the Momma bear about trying to get closer.

Long Shadows

This morning Marilyn and I went and rode with the Velobrew crew. We ended up getting in 50 miles. We rode at a good pace, about 35 miles into the ride they sprinted away and we couldn't hang with them. We started the ride pretty early as the sun was rising. When it first came up over the trees we were riding directly into the sun. We were about 50 of us in the group riding into the blinding sun was tough, but the group slowed slightly and we spread out a bit. The picture above was taken on the way back. We were still casting pretty long shadows. It started out pretty cool this morning and warmed up as we went. I had a few layers on and was able to take off a few and stay comfortable. The best part was I finished up around 10 am.

Bikes and photoshop

I recently started going back to school. I am working on a Digital Media degree. One of my homework assignments was to take a photo and turn it into an abstract image. I was really unhappy with my first few tries and while they could have been turned in I just didn't care for them too much. Today I was doing homework and thinking about bike riding tonight and decided to look through my photos for some bike riders. This started as a picture of Beth and ended up as the picture above. It was posterized, inverted, blurred, colored and had the colors saturated. I was really happy with the end results and will probably be making more of these.

Territory

Yesterday I spotted these 2 lizards fighting for territory. The fight lasted for a few minutes with the darker lizard eventually winning. It looked like they were fighting over who got to hang out on the trellis. I went out later and saw a green lizard sitting in the sun. So I am not sure who really won the battle. It was interesting while it lasted and it is something that I am sure goes on all the time. I really try to notice things like this.

New tattoo 303

No, I didn't really get a tattoo. I did the Jax Tri series#2 sprint triathlon this morning up in Fernandina. They write your race numbers on your arms and legs. They also write your age on the back of your right calf muscle. After the race I was sitting in the car talking to Darcy and she looked over and said,"It looks like they wrote Mom on your arm". I looked at it and said," Well they wrote WOW on the other arm".

After coming home and washing my bike and both pairs of shoes and my helmet. I got cleaned up and Tami and I went to lunch at Zaxby's. Our order number ended up being 303 which was also my race number today.

The Race went well today. The ocean was choppy. The surf wasn't big but the chop made the swim difficult. I thought I did well on the bike leg of the race and I did my normal slow run. I want to get better running. I saw quite a few people I knew today so that is always fun. Looking forward to the next in the series on August 7th.