Tidbits

Saturday I decided to go for a mountain bike ride. At 2 pm. I think locals will spot the problem. Not sure why I didn't. My defense: I really wanted to ride my mountain bike. The water tank road was fine at first, then I hit mud at the last pitch of the climb. The tires balled up and the drive train was gravy. I bailed down the Cliff trail and I was relieved it only had a few spots of mud. When I got down I dunked the bike in the Provo River to wash off the mud - I was there 10 minutes and plenty of mud remained, but the drive train was clean. Yeah, bad call, a road ride would have been the way to go.

On the way back I saw a hawk dive on a mouse not 20 feet from me. The hawk dropped off the top of a telephone pole, tucked back it's wings and dropped swift and silent right on the poor rodent. Not as cool as a Golden Eagle taking a snake, but I got a kick out of it.

I went for a road ride Tuesday at lunch. It was sunny and 45. I enjoyed the ride even though the decline in my fitness is significant and disappointing.

I also rode today at lunch. Not as nice. Overcast, hazy and 42. But the forecast looks like rain the next 3 days so I figured I better take it. As always it felt good to pedal and move on down the road, but I sure don't have much kick. Oh well, still plenty to like about riding.

One of the kids got Ghostopolis (a graphic novel) at the library. I picked it up on a whim and couldn't put it down. The story is unusually imaginative and fun (although it does have some problems). The illustrations are fantastic and excellent. I finished it in under an hour. Everyone in our family read it and liked it. The 8 year-old loved it (he skipped the big words, the pictures helped). A fun story with cool pictures. A movie version is in the works starring Hugh Jackman - the story would work for a movie, hopefully they do a good job with it.

I'm having some gadget lust for the NookColor. I fondled, er, evaluated one at Best Buy. Very portable, screen looks good, web browsing, and of course ebooks. I like the idea of ebooks, but at the current prices I doubt I'll buy many. The library has 2,300 titles available, but not many best sellers on the list. There are plenty of free classics available. The kicker is it can now be rooted so you can run any Android app on it. That makes it the cheapest tablet available. So tempting.

Jolene's broken leg still hurts. She's getting around on the crutches pretty good, but when she's up for a few hours her foot and ankle swell up and turn purple. This doesn't sound right. We see the doctor next week so we'll see what he says.