Back on the Web

I'm not sure if any of you had any problems, but BooksBikesBeer was not working on any of our home computers. Thankfully our in house technician was able to get to it.

In our absence though, many exciting things have happened. I turned 27 on Thursday. It was exciting and relaxing and, in many ways, I'm still celebrating. For my birthday I got a bunch of snow, some cool argyle socks, a travel coffee mug that I can drink out of, lock the top on, and then carry upside down in my bag should I get the notion. There were also a few other fun things like Scotland Yard and a magnificent dinner made by the wonderful Robin.

And with the birthday snow I have made it out to the Hawkeye XC course twice. Yesterday Robin and I swung by the bike and ski shop so she could purchase her very own cross country skis, which were a semi-belated birthday purchase. From there we went directly to the course and skied until our arms and inner thighs were quite fatigued. This morning we got up, enjoyed our coffee and breakfast, and went back out for more skiing. This time I used my skate skis instead of my classic skis in order to more evenly distribute the soreness.

We did not get a lot of snow in the storm, perhaps about three or three and a half inches. They (I don't really know who they are, but I appreciate them) groomed the course though, and it is pretty nice. Thankfully it has been cold enough to keep the snow from getting too soft, but not cold enough to turn it into ice chunks. Today my skating skills improved rapidly thanks to some short drills and pointers from Bart. And Robin was also making great improvements.

The bikes are on hold now (except for the usual transportation from home to work to store etc.) as we will continue to ski everyday that we can. We are supposedly getting some kind of snow/ice mix tonight and tomorrow; hopefully it is more of the former and less of the latter.