Brief Notes

Independence Hall from a distance.

Spent part of last week on the east coast. Had a little time to look around Philadelphia, got in trouble at Independence Hall for cross the street (to get close to the building) prior to the official opening. I guess park security doesn't like that.

Overall Philadelphia is not a great town, but it was cool to look around the historic area. Here are some pictures of the graveyard Ben Franklin is buried in:

All the hotels I stayed in had low wattage, eco-friendly light bulbs. Very cool and I've taken to leaving a note on the comment card about the lights, either thanking the hotel or asking them to change.

Ade and I went out of town for our 10th anniversary, down to colorado springs. Had a relaxing night at a B&B, walked around Garden of the Gods some. Very cool area.

The team is looking promising, figuring out all the details on bikes, more on that later.

East Coast

So I'm on the east coast right now, Philadelphia and Princeton NJ. Crazy driving is one thing I've accomplished, making a lot of right hand turns out of the left lane, left hand turns out of the right. Detours miles long, all sorts of fun. The drive to Princeton lacked much adventure, but we did see this cool bridge. The picture isn't very clear as I was on the phone to someone and hung up quickly to take the picture, but the bridge says (in huge letters) "Trenton Makes the World Takes". I was unaware Trenton was the epicenter of the world, but I guess I know now.

Cyclo-Cross

So after a 10 day break off the bike I decided to race cyclo-cross this season. Not a full schedule, but enough to force myself to actually work at staying in shape. Planning on an opening race on September 23, then a few in October, and a pretty full schedule in November. Hopefully the racing will go well.

I've been working on putting together a team for next season, taking Racing Green to the next level. I have a few people interested in riding and hopefully can get some sponsorship dialed in. If I can get a sponsor the team will be on, if not I don't think I'll run a team without sponsorship. I'm hoping it works out as the teams mission will be to promote riding the bike as an easy means of sustainable living. I'm planning on working with a couple local schools to teach kids about riding and how it can be a fun, easy and non-environmentally impacting way to get around. Hopefully some sponsors will want to be a part of that. I should have more details by the end of next week.

Criminal Activity

We went up to Sheridan, Wyoming for Labor Day weekend. We met Ade's dad at the half way point between Denver and where he lives. It had been a while since we had seen him so it was nice to visit. Seamus loved it, he has this strange ability to recognize people who can (will) spoil him and warm right up to them, even if it has been a long time since he has seen them.

Grandpa Al wanted to take Seamus fishing so off we went. Seamus young enough not to need a license, Al and Ade smart enough to buy one and me, well just plain stupid. Things were going along well enough with the whole fishing thing (other than our inability to catch fish) when the Game Warden walks up asking to see our fishing licenses (which I didn't have). Long story short, an $11 license cost me $110 in fines for not having one.

Ade did catch a fish, but we succeeded in killing it before we could "catch and release". Note to fish, when we are around be careful. If you happen to stumble onto our line you are SOL.

On another note, when I got home I went to the grocery store and saw this.

Our grocery store has just started a bin to recycle plastic bags. Every time I walk in it is full or overflowing. I guess they didn't realize the demand from eco friendly shoppers. I hope people are reusing the bags a few times first to get the full value out of them, but glad to see they are getting recycled. Don't forget more than grocery bags can be recycled, for example the plastic bags newspapers come in, bread bags and others can be recycled. Just look for the number 2 or 4 on the bag and you can recycle.