Thursday

A bit of a change weather-wise.  Last night's temps dropped into to the mid 60's for the first time in a few days.  And lower humidity.  Almost comfortable.  I even brought Margret out for the day.

This morning would have to be a Top Ten day for RAGBRAI.  I've throw this daily map in here just to give a sense of the area being traveled today.  (If you click on the map, you can see it on a full-screen basis.)  These towns have seen RAGBRAI before.  I remember spending a week in Clarksville one afternoon with my pal Pete.

The heat had discouraged me from going out for a ride after work yesterday, but I had the bright idea to catch a late afternoon spin class at Gold's just to get in a good workout.  My personal trainer was the scheduled instructor and I figured that there would be few participants, thus giving me the chance to banter with her during class.  It was a good idea, except that my trainer had taken the day (and rest of the week) off to catch on with RAGBRAI.  Five people showed for the class, and the substitute spin-Nazi was okay for the workout, but not near as much fun.

The Dell repairman showed as scheduled yesterday, and the laptop is fully back in service.  I had suspected that the battery was trash, but the replacement of the mother-board and the the AC-adapter proved me wrong.  Warranty fully covered the call.  I wonder what my next problem with it will be?  The warranty expires within the next month or so.

All my close friends are out of town this week.  Nobody to call on for a ride, wine or coffee.  Bummer.

The Corps of Engineers missed the estimate on this week's crest of the Mississippi River by a large margin.  Their projections last weekend had the City of Davenport scrambling to build the temporary berms in the downtown area to safeguard the district.  Lots of street detours etc.  It's hard to be too critical of the plan, especially with the damage floods have done in other parts of Eastern Iowa recently (and over the last couple of years).  But this time, it was much ado about little.  The skies cleared.  Old Muddy spread out elsewhere.  Just a little here.  And the berms are coming down. (This pic was taken by 2 on Tuesday out her window at the Figge Museum.  Pretty tame stuff.)

Hope everyone has a great day.

BCOT