I dunno, but....

I better only race downhill crits if I'm gonna make this place a habit.

The marinated ball tip= addictive.

This is why we do it........

This little morsel coming up next weekend.

I will eat enough.

I will spin the little gears.

I will stay below LT in the first 2 climbs.

And I'm gonna take tons of picx.

Cause the views at the top of these climbs are awesome!

You Feed Us Lies From The Tablecloth

Mmmmmm a rest week, feeling good and perky.

Dropped off my trusty wagon today for a little service in San Ramon and headed to Diablo for the first long threshold test of the season, I hoped for a PR, frankly.

Weight is decent, strength is through the roof, and the last time I went up there in the middle of a training week I PR'ed the first time up, now I'm sporting a compact set of rings until the Shasta ride is over, and I figgered it would only help, sooo?

No cigar, I worked hard at my threshold, had a nice EIA attack halfway up ( no puffer, my rule for training rides, maybe time to rethink the rule) and couldn't push the gear needed for the speeded. Still ended up 4 minutes off the PB , and definitely not a happy camper, but that's the beauty of the local climb and proving ground, there's no bullshitting a clock.Step up or shut up, and I'll be shutting up, laying off the Kinders', and eating more leaves......

There's always a silver lining, though, and while un-cycling related,it brings me happiness....
The Garlic has sprouted!

Thanks Fanelli, I did it!

The Tomatoes are coming in, long strings of Roma's, some nice Early Girls, and a Black Heirloom that should be beautiful with some Buffalo Mozzarella tossed with vinaigrette .

Corn is 7 feet now, and starting to seed, soon every one I know will have a bag on the doorstep :-)
Labs are bringing pears in to eat every night...

One last gardening note- I planted a dwarf nectarine 3 years ago, today I got the first sweet little fruit off it!
The tree is so full of fruit it fell over and I had to stake it today, another week of sunshine and we should be edging off the Safeway grid a little........

Good luck to all the racers at Lafayette, maybe I'll come out to say hi......
J

Old School Hollywood

Looking forward to riding my new toy tommorrow.... only3 months till the real racing begins!

SS is the pure shit for me, something about just picking a gear and living with it for the duration appeals to me, and getting pummeled by SS mutants is always fun as well, now to start looking into some disc wheels for racing, thinking about a Stans' tubeless system, but I know little about such dark arts.....



After CTK last week, it seemed that a Hamilton Loop was in order today. My first time riding it from San Jose, and I liked the gentle climb to the top, plugged in a little System Of A Down for the last few k and it was all good, lots of tempo work, soon the hard stuff will come, but for now I can count the times on one hand I've been over threshold since March.



Good luck to all racing tommorrow and tonight at Carrera, I really wanted to come out, eat a burrito and heckle, but Miz C is still down and out with her bum wheel, and flyin' solo after being gone all day would kinda suck some ass on the home front, so some Borders time with the kid was called for instead, picked up the new Hannah Montana CD for her, she's been helping big time around the house and deserves so much more, ah, the life of a suburbanite.....

Here's to your thin red line, I'm stepping over.

Climb To Kaiser, 2007

My first time at the ride/ race, and what a challenge.

We started in the dark following the CHP moto out through Clovis....

We got it going for a minute or two on the flats heading out, but I couldn't get enough help to really make a dent in the speed, so relaxed and took pics/ pulled occasionally, got out of the way when the real action started.

I had some minor mechanical issues that Tri-Sport mechanics were able to help me with at the second aid station, thanks, guys, the bike worked flawlessly all day after!

And on that topic, the aid stations were excellent and the volunteers tireless, I got massages, popsicles, cold towels, and all the canteloupe and Perpetuem one could stomach :-)

This is halfway up Tollhouse Grade, I was feeling good here , only to start to bonk 30 minutes later.

I don't think Ron was even breathing hard :-)

With all the experience I have going long long, I still made the classic mistake of not riding within myself and eating enough.I guess I just got caught up in it all, but I dug a nice hole for myself.

By the time we hit Shaver lake, I was concerned and had throttled back and ate , but while I caught the bonk early and was fueled up , with the heart and lungs ready to go, a series of vicious cramps started to tear me up and took me off the bike and ready to quit more than once.

Nome moved on, and I was going to go back to Shaver, but started to think about driving home with a DNF, and decided to go on and just see.....

Nome's buddy Tom was along shortly, and he and I rode together for the remainder of the day.

This is Big Creek, the monster climb of climbs.

I was cramping bad here , but got up by paperboying and standing.

Somehow standing was better than sitting, although standing for 8 miles is kind of hard on the rest of ya....

A little snack and I tackled the last big climb up Kaiser, which wasn't that bad, except coming at 80 miles.

The best aid station up there, these massage guys helped me out immensely.

Time for some of the longest, nicest descents around.

Too bad my legs were still locking up.

The last aid station was getting hot, but the cold popsicles were fantastic.

The cramping left for the most part and all the easy riding spent babying my legs over the climbs gave me plenty of gas to pull a big group home.

The post race BBQ was oh- so excellent!

My legs hurt still today in a bad way, that ride truly humbled me.

To envision riding it in 8 and a half hours is unbelievable.

Maybe next year I can come back and challenge myself, although all this distance training is tough on the family, I like the 45-60 minute races!

The Devil never changes

A good weeekend on two wheels, four of the Spidey force on the group ride doing Diablo x 4.

Well, only one of us made 4 times(and can ya guess who that wuz) but the majority got up a few times before turning the rigs for home..

A green smoothie and a long nap and I pummelled myself again today on the MTB for a couple with the Xterra crowd, bastards are sucking me in :-)

The deal with the devil..... free lanes at my favorite pool if I coach a little.....

Getting a few bucks to run some running workouts already... good for cross anyhow.

Place to stay in Kings' beach.

MTB skills are half ass good right now.

Dusty wetsuit looking at me on the shelf....

MMMMMM

PR the first time up Diablo Saturday, took 4 minutes off the best at tempo/ threshold all the way.

Biig confidence builder for CTK, that is one bad mama jamma, and this boy don't go uphill too good :-)

Compact crank is going on this week, hopefully that will save my bacon.......

Blow the Whistle

I keep trying to write a race report for last weekends' race at Laguna Seca, but just have been oh so tired in the head.

Lot's of family issues lately have got me down, and when Miz C. ate some dirt trail running at the ridge last Thursday, the trip almost got canned, a recurring theme all weekend, with me spending 3-4 hours a day on the phone debating whether to pack my shit up and go or stay and race, much vacillating went on, Miz C's leg felt better and then worse, but the little nurse helped out big time.

Vicodin is not a good drug for my wife, that's all I'll say about that.

When is the love of sport turn into a selfish thing, or more clearly, too much of a selfish thing?
This was the burning question for me during the downtime between laps.
My mom, my wife, my kid, all pulling me away from 2 wheel mayhem

Achieving balance is one of several reasons I stay away from Ironmans these days, the 25 hour weeks were sucking me in and bumming the family out too much, I really dig a hard 8-10 hours a week getting up for cross and whatnot and find some semblance of balance in there..... sometimes.

We put together the same team as last year, a good group of middle-aged dads out for a fun escape from yardwork and other suburban bliss.
Can-Am was nice, we were on the corner, so we saw everybody coming through, but didn't have to ride up any obscene hills after a lap.
The kits turned out nice, I believe WM sponsors a team of Cat 2's in Arizona and we got some of their extras, but we looked nice and matching, at least before the dust and blood took over.

Recapping the whole time would be boring, but a few highlights-

Rodney was snakebit fro the get go, I'd like to see a blog posting, but poor dude almost exhausted the entire tube population of Monterey County and still had to run his bike. And that was his FIRST lap.

Jimbo busted his shoulder hard in one of the new sections, a tricky descent on a old trail that grew a rut that looked like the Grand Canyon by the middle of the night, kind of a dusty piece of crap with lots of washboardy holes. Dude still rode 11 miles with a fractured shoulder and kept me from having to go again,- just a stud.

Kareem is getting way fitter than last year. And talking me into a 8 hour pain fest- just savage, dude.

The Seal was a rock as always. Need two laps? Got it. Need some food? Got that too.
Always bring a Seal with ya.

I had a good race, the fitness is coming on. I actually dropped some climber types on the "grind", a longish mostly middle ring kind of affair. A longer course this year and no idea how to keep track of my watch restrain me from throwing out numbers, but for the most part, I was doing well judging by how many people passed me/ I passed.

MY LIGHT SUCKS- I saw corporate team guys out there with HID set ups, looking like a combine coming up behind me on the singletrack.The stuff is everywhere now, how to justify a 600.00 light for once a year, hmmmmm.
The difference between a old halogen and the new stuff is ridiculous, it's soooo easy to outdrive the lights with the old school stuff. I finally just eased up and flowed by feel, it was only when racing the course that the big boomers were really needed.

3 LAPS IN A ROW SUCK TOO- 1st one, cool, just ride tempo.

Second one, light is failing, go to commuter backup and led backpack lamp, still hit the climbs hard.

3rd one (unexpected due to teammates' spectacular urp-fest)- the hammies were doing the shamalamadingdong on the climbs, sucking gatorade and Gu, feeling my own urp-fest coming on soon, good thing I stole his light, or I would bitch about that too :-)

THE FOG IS WEIRD.
It looks cold but is often warm.
You can really freak yourself out riding in it when no one is around.
I was halfway up Hurl Hill before I realized I was ON Hurl Hill.
Lights are kind of useless in it, especially when rummy at 2 am.

The off season weights are paying off, by Tuesday I was recovered enough to to hit some intervals up, my goal out of the weights was not to get majorly stronger, but to bounce back faster and survive my job for 15 more years. By the end of the Valley swing, I couldn't pick up a sack of concrete without hurting myself. I could feel the power coming out of the core muscles on the bigger climbs all weekend, strange how working rotational muscles can help with a vertical axis movement, good stuff.
Now to find some leg speed......
And 2200 bucks donated, with the match from Waste Management we are looking at almost 5k donated to fund ALS research, yeah!

Barely any pics, sad to say with 3 bloggers and a semi-pro aficionado, all we could come up with was a 2 MP snapshot or two.

It is what it is....

The good - The EMC crit came off relatively well. Our (4th?) year and this one was the best, the new pavement and opening up the course really showed itself to be a positive, we were a little worried about people forgetting to turn right every once in a while and protecting a whole other side of a course gave us chills, but except for a couple of bonehead moves, the races looked good.

One of the interesting things about setting up a course is anticipating the lines taken by the beginning classes and then realizing that hay bale won't do any good at all when the pack goes to the complete other side of the course to give their buddies the gutter, yum yum .

Almost got me fired up about racing seeing all that suffering, good thing Yoda and Nome took me out to mines road the day before and thrashed me thouroughly, keeping me out of trubble.

Some family health issues have me spending time in hospitals lately visiting folks and my heart isn't in it yet, more than a little preoccupied with things.

This is a hard ass sport and way of life and when I can't focus 100% ?

It feels like a waste to be signing up.

So I go and train and some days are good, this morning was the first set of intervals for the new season, just some tempo work while heading into work on the crosser, backpack and all, with the Rage Against The Machine Live at The Olympic pouring into my soul, and I forget about the bullshit of life for a while and we are good today and the hemoglobin counts are up and that's what matters.

This weekend is the 24 hour race, we have raised 2100 bucks so far for ALS research, thanks to all the bloggers that contributed, you folks are really fantastic, here is a link to the donation page if you like, we should have some nice pics up soon, camping, racing, buddies, a good cause...

good stuff, all of it.

J

shut yer mouth when yer talkin to me....

As a recent Cat 4 exile, I found this comment by D. D. in cycling news rather interesting...
""It's not that I refuse it," said Di Luca, referring to his lack of an ear piece which many riders in the modern peloton cannot function without. "But after a little while it gives me troubles in my head. In fact, I've had to use my mind instead of just listening to the instructions given by the director. I'm convinced it has helped me improve to the level where I am now. I know what I have to do."

The thinking is the hardest part......

Soul Rebel

Oh the joys of a weekend around the house.

One of the best things about bike racin' ?

The travel and adventure.

Also one of the most exhausting.

Even though I've been taking a sabbatical from racing till I feel the hunger bloom in my belly, the training is going well, well enough that when I realized I had to stay around this weekend due to some standby commitments, well, no bitchin' from me about taking a mini- break.

I've been rollin' out to Oakdale for some weekend pain- fests lately, real good group riding, wind, rollers, and a few good hills out Murphys' way as well. Good stuff from a organized bunch and a nice lunch apres-ride can be found at a local deli.

Looking forward to some reports of goodness out at Mt. Ham tommorrow, some of my compadres look real good right now , I hope a little luck will touch em' and help em' out. early word out of Iowa is good, real good, so I hope we keep it going........

Little C and I took a break from flattening out a area in the back to plant our corn and etc and rode the tandem down to the farmers' market today for some organic chicken and vegan brownies from the Feel Good Bakery van, best thing about the tandem is the ability to talk while riding, very underrated when your dealing with a pre-adolescent girl, I know the game is all going to change in a couple of years tops, she already knows Dad's a geek, but still doesn't despise me for it, and rolling around with me and pulling our flip-flops out of the panniers and tasting all the goodies is still fun.......

Back to getting ready for next weekend, we got a nice race coming up here in Pleasanton, the closed course opened up on the finish is going to speed things up a lot and make the upper category races safer with more runout for you 30 mph burners out there, the good thing is the new pavement is fantastic, I'm out there every Wednesday night for sprints and the stuff hooks up real nice, and that's diving into a bike lane with a open road.

Little Wood Duck

Little C and I spent the day at the old salt mine together.

Actually we spent the day touring the salt mine and snapping pics.....

This is the girls all lined up outside after their safety lecture....

Dad is happy he's not digging ditches today.....

There was a goose egg right next to these two geese in the weeds... hmmmm, who does this belong to?

Boat rides on closed reservoirs are fun!

Especially when you get to drive!

31 eggs in this nesting box south of Moraga.

While all the girls snuck up quietly, even with the ladder, not one hen was to be found. Hopefully out feeding and not a victim of Mr. raccoon.

Lots more on this trip, many nontraditional jobs were explained, etc.

Driving the big yellow machine was cool, but the boat ride got the rave reviews.

Too bad the camera batteries pooped out!

Commuter Blues

The best part of my day today, and it was not a nice day, full of hard feelings and ditchdigger bitchiness, was passing the half-mile of cars on the boulevard while the Musical Youth broke out in some "pass the dutchie".

The wind became my friend again.

I started to gutter imaginary foes on the Iron Horse Trail while peeking over my backpack.

I tucked my headlamp away, the one that makes people smile in their cars cuz I'm such a DAMN GEEK riding around with a headlamp, like Rick Moranis in Honey I Shrunk The Kids.

I hit the freeway bridge where the trail ends and I psuedo-crawl to the Pleasanton side under the ramps, but not before hitting the first full speed/ braking with the back wheel while threading the needle with the right foot/ grabbing the top tube/ dismount of 2007 and tossing that bad boy on my shoulder.

Geek-a-Rama.

Them cars can kiss my ass, though.

Pop that jersey like you mean it

In one week, I sawAfrican tortoises doing the horizontal mambo in a backyard in Orinda,

carried a picket sign for the first time in memory,

discussed knitting methods with Little C,

crawled underneath the 580/ 680 connector ramp twice with my bike taking the shortcut home,

and had ice cream 3 times for no good reason at all.

Life is crazy and takes turns that no one, much less me, can comprehend.

Them damn Warriors got heart right now, though.

The Faceless Man

And yes I have been needing some new music on the player, even on shuffle I'm hearing the same crap again and again....
Though how I rode around for hours without tunes is beyond me :-)

Merkley and X dawggie- a pair of great training partners.

Lot's of times now I really prefer to be off by myself, well, me and my Bean. Some folks, you negotiate some goals for the ride, discuss how hard things should be.... " no problem, dude. We'll be MELLOW."
Then the half wheeling trip to anaerobic oblivion begins, often slowly, cuz they just hafta ride a little too hard for themselves and you.

Bastards.

The two fellas above, though?
They do it right, baby. Piano when it's piano time, and slug Gianni in the face when that time comes as well. 22 seconds never made me smile so big as today.

Hit the cats' hill yesterday, and things are a little different when one is hawking tires and drinking rootbeers. A man's perspective is a little different.
My first time at the BIG RACE and it was cool in some ways, I really enjoyed yakking with XB and Disky, and in general hanging out and people watching.
But I really thought things would be more raucous and wild, like a big NRC race.
I saw the hill, and checked out a few laps, but maybe you gotta race it to appreciate it a little more.
The inevitable squabble about last lap smasheroos in the expo area was in some ways more interesting to myself and the junior sociology major I seem to be raising.
One more observation on the Cat-Boogie- How badass is Larry Nolan? Dude types up the workout to get ready for CH on the NCNCA list, goes out and teaches the workout on Tuesday night a couple of weeks ago, he and JA write a little thing on the CH blog on how to get ready for this race..... not very secretive if ya ask me!
Oh, and I TRIED to do that whole workout the next night at our little Pleasanton thrashfest and could not complete.
The wind was savage today out on Mines, X and I went past the junction to the edge of the Valley Of Death before Ham and turned around into it.
Muy Duro with 5 minute pulls even downhill it hurt, so mmmmmm.
Tried to get a even c-note by riding around my neighborhood for 1.7 more miles, but cramped ridiculously in front of little kids in the park and had to limp home one legged... me= dork.

Now for some of Groovys' recipe Caesar chicken pasta and the best night of TV all week on HBO....
J

Fritter Postride

because a day old cinnamon roll tastes just like new iif you nuke it for 35 seconds.

Because my chain broke in the middle of Mt. Diablo blvd at quarter to six this morning and I still made it to work on time.

15 minutes of traffic lights on the Boulevard on the way home sux.

Fresh baked crescent rolls coming out of the oven as I rolled into the garage made it all better.

Send the pain below

Finally some nice weather, a little acclimatization going on for me, I rode home over Redwood yesterday on the crosser and had to stop at a markey in Castro Valley for 2 paydays and some water, still had a headache all night even slugging water like crazy, but thank got for paydays, cheap and almost the same nutritional profile as a energy bar for half the price.
Today I hit the early WOT ride and enjoyed the entire ICCC cat 3 team hammering towards Berkeley, till I flatted and had to reaarange the plans a little.
Rode around until 9 and caught the second version, but after descending Dublin Canyon, found that the paving contractor had closed the road to bikes, and how screwed is that, especially if you rode all day like out from the east bay and were trying to get home to Oakland and didn't really feel like retracing your route, then climbing Norris/ Palomares.And they are letting cars through, kind of bullshit IMHO.
Anyway, this threw the bunch into disarray and I opted to ride with a teamie over Diablo to WC back to the pad, ending up with 95 miles, the last 15 or so getting slower and slower,very charming to have a Boulevard Stalker suck my wheel for 5 miles down and when I finally sit up and move over to share a little of my bonking pain, attack me like he's winning the Ronde De Danville or sumpthin and ride 300 meters in front all the way to Danville.
Mr. Freshly Showered No Sock Dude , that was a chump move, but no worries, if that floats yer boat, have a nice day and all that.
Turkey chili with cornbread crumbled over it is a great recovery food, and the afternoon watching Amstel Gold and the ToG was real nice stuff.

Looking forward to the reports from the Firestone and the Madera pain fest, tommorrow it's onto the MTB for a little bit, we have this race coming up and I want to do us proud....
Already 1200.00 bucks in the bucket, we are doing excellent and it warms my heart to see the generosity from people.
Now to figure out a theme for the campsite.....

Go be a tourist

has been the name of the game today, I have been punishing myself in the gym 3-5 times a week with the Core Performance routines and starting the longish rides at least 2 days a week, hard to believe that 3 hours of high cadence work can leave me so damn tired, but I really am starting from a ways back and need to stay patient this spring to do well this fall.

Anyhoo , It was all about soigneur duties today down in the SC.

A little rain over the summit at 5:30 am looked gloomy, but the day got nicer and nicer.

Miz C's race started late, at 7:20, absolutely crappy race management, very unimpressed with the organization, they ran out of drinks, food, etc for the slower runners, probably the ones that need the support the most.

Little C and I bounced ASAP for some breakfast and found the Seabreeze Cafe, I remember a blog entry from somewhere about this spot this winter, and through cyberspace found it again, it's not Foodie Friday but who cares and I gotta plug it, a GREAT tofu scramble and fresh out of the oven cinnamon roll with some dark cafe and lots of salsa over some non-greasy homefries, just perfect.

Miz C came shuffling in nursing a sore toe/hip/knee/cramp wheels came off thing, not a happy camper she was and that damn running will beat ya up quick.

But the people watching was superb.

The cruz has a few interesting folks, but it wasn't the locals that really caught my eye, it was the runners . Before the race they all look good, even the unfit. Some wear the tri- emblems- a bike jersey in club cut over running shorts with elastic laces and a been -there- done that running hat.A few cover themselves with clothes from head to toe, and others wear as little as possible, even in 51 degree rain, and I wonder what message they are trying to send to the others in the tribe. My favorites are the old guys with baseball hats and cotton t-shirts, wheezing through the warmup, been doing this stuff since before Jim Fixx, got their New Balance order down to a T.

Wait till the finish and it's a different game, the early focused ones, digging into the pain cave, the medal awaiting them.
The next group of exuberant ones, PR's for this bunch, the training has paid off and they had the race of their lives/ year/ season and they are savoring every moment as they can hear the announcer faintly from a block away.
Then the various finishing looks start to show, the hollow eyes that refuse to look at the bystander to not let the pain out of control, the jogging together saving private ryan move, not leaving your buddy behind no matter what, the whoop-de -doos that are smiling like a boxer that will fall if he gets hit once more, hoo-rah-ing to keep the negative thoughts away.

Or the folks that give out a quiet "thanks" when they hear a cheer for them and keep on trucking ....
"The eyes are the windows to the soul".

Winners and losers

Winners rarely show it off, unless to make fun of themselves.

Losers revise history to make themselves feel better.

Winners always choose to help when they can, even when things are not so pleasant or smell so nice.

Losers choose the blind eye.

Winners realize the world is round.

Losers can't see beyond the horizon.

Winners have perspective.

Losers go for the easy way out, every time.

Winners walk through the doors of life, ready for the challenges of the other side.

Losers hold onto the jamb for dear life.

I get to choose every day.

Just a Little Bit....

The break is over and the work has begun again, it feels great to build a schedule and plan and dream, anything is possible at the beginning of a season, before life and genetics foul it up :-)

I actually took a week off the blogs as well, spent some time in cold drizzly LA, running some and eating lots of great Japanese food, but just letting the mind recover and allowing the fire to build was so worth it..

Sprints tonight felt great, we have a tiny group out here in pleasanton on Wednesdays and I try to think of new and devious ways to amuse ourselves... tonight was small ring restriction for all the grownups and our one Junior phenom gets to use whatever she wants, nice to spin the legs out and keep some snap in them,
The strength program is morphing as well, moving more and more to developing speed and power as opposed to big beach muscles that are useless when that gawdammn runup shows it's face in November at Watsonville, mmm, watsonville.

Actually commuted last week on the SS, but need a bigger front ring, it took 2 hours to go 25 miles, so four hours of riding on a SS was a little much, especially after digging ditches all day, I had to stop and eat a couple of vegan trail mix cookies on the way home as I was running on fumes, but still real cool to commute again after a 5 year layoff, even for only one day. I'm thinking a 42 ring if I can dig one up and a 15 track cog spun onto the back will tighten up my hack pedaling stroke a little and help me get some much needed training hours in a busy week.

Hope you all enjoy the Otter, I'm hard at work on call this weekend, but I look forward to the reports and perhaps I can carve out a little time to catch some island stories soon ....
J

J

All the things I meant to do.....

Are getting done now and it feels great!

I finished the walkway in the front in September, and just now in April got in all the landscape, a couple of nice trees, some sage, lavender and rosemary, looks good and will look better in a year or so, now for some lighting and color and we'll be good.

Went for a nice 2 hour run in Tilden with Miz C on Friday and still my old bones ache, even with jogging slowly. Stuff I stay away from in the bike racing season, the slow trail runs really slow my slow self down, but the views of both Suisun and S.F. bays were beautiful. When I tore my ankle up in 2002 I was training for a 50 miler up on this ridge and used to run a different section every wednesday, but never really checked out the area down in Tilden, but really nice running, a couple thousand of climbing in 8 miles or so, but smooth and shady.

Heading out this afternoon for a MTB cruise with the Seal after he returns from his morning bay swim, nice and easy for the both of us, but my attention is beginning to focus on this now.
We have the Chico , Kareem, the Seal, Big Jimmy V, and myself going again in June.
Shifting the focus to giving back a bit and it's good.
I'll be revving the fundraising engine back up soon, we got a matching sponsor for this years' contributions and I really really want to get them to write a big check :-)

Anyhow, the race reports sound fun and all, but I see nothing I want to train for for months now except for some loony century the Nome wants to do, but it's good to not have to train right now and stay unstructured for a bit.
Back to the home improvement store....