Sunday

The new picture is one that I took with my not-so-smart phone on my first road ride today out to McCausland.  The hill is a good one, maybe a half mile long or so, and one that I have climbed at least a couple dozen times a year since I became a road cyclist.  Today, I actually went down it, and came back on a parallel hill on a route a couple miles to the West.  It's real road-ridin'.

3 reports that she did a 5K in Beantown this AM, after a late evening of champagne-shrimp.  You da' girl!  And Daughter of the Day for the effort.  The race was a fun-run held the weekend before tomorrow's Boston Marathon, and finished at the marathon's finish line.  Very cool.  (Bonus points to 3 for getting back on her blog last week too.)

The Country Music Awards show is on this evening.  Pretty sad to admit that I have little clue about many of the nominated artists.  Then again, I really don't spend much time listening to the radio any more.  My hey-day for country music was when I spent a lot of time in the car, or working on house projects for our first home in Davenport.  All that, plus the fact that the music has progressed to a lot more pop-rock and New Age stuff that doesn't do anything for me.  Sorry, Taylor.  (What ever happened to Shania?)

Interesting ending to the golf tournament today.  In a two-man play-off, a guy named Brian Davis (whom I have never heard of) was playing multi-PGA-tournament winner Jim Furyk.  On the first play-off hole, Davis' approach shot went on to the beach next to the green.  He had a shot, but the ball was sitting near some reedy-type grasses.  He decided to try the shot rather than take a one-stroke penalty since Furyk looked like he had a par in the bag. 

Davis' shot got to the green, but it was a long putt for a possible tying par.  But before that attempt, Davis did what is done in no other sport.  He called a penalty on himself because he had hit one of the reeds on his back swing.  End of tournament.  He gets a nod on 4000 Days for keeping golf's integrity far above other competitions.

Then you have baseball.  The Cards played a 20 inning game last night.  They used 10 pitchers!  A utility infielder actually pitched the last two innings.  At least twice in the extra innings, with chances to win the game, the Cards had their pitchers hit with the bases loaded, either because they had no one else to come in to pitch, or they were out of pinch hitters. It went on for like seven hours.  No way would I have stayed past the seventh inning.

Speaking of baseball, I am definitely getting out to Omaha for the College World Series this year.  I thought those games were in May, but I just checked the schedule and the dates are June 19th to 29th.  I'm guessing that the end of that first week will be my choice, but I'm flexible.  Takers?

Still trying to get a handle on the Icelandic ash cloud.  If flights in Europe are all canceled because of the volcano, is there anyway that I could use the problem to get help with late tax payments for my clients?

So I am committing to ride Mt. Rose that week after the reunion, probably the Thursday the 15th.  That means I have around 80 days to train for Tahoe.  I'm going to have to put some thought into my training schedule so that I can be ready for the challenge.

With April 15th behind us, I hope to get back on a more regular program for the blog.  Funny how much energy Tax Day sucks out of you.

Have a great week.

BCOT