Saturday

This is a shout out to my pal Pete. He drug me through 30 miles this afternoon when I absolutely would have stayed on the couch if he had not called. And I was pathetic. Way too much Sonia red last night. For his outstanding efforts, he is Pal of the Day, a new, but important recognition for 4000 Days.

Pete and I will be doing the local bike club's "century" ride in two weeks, which will be the last significant ride for me for the Summer. He'll do the metric century (62.5 miles), and I'll do a half century (50 miles), kind of like a half marathon. Believe me, 50 will be a marathon for me. I don't want to clutter his ride with my lack of speed. He has a couple of other guys with whom he regularly rides, faster, so we'll connect at the rest stops.

And here's a small shout out to 3 who is playing tourist in Washington DC this weekend. I know that she was a little worried about missing some Iowa FFF, but it didn't happen. 4 blew in and out of town before I could fire up my new grill. We did watch part of the Iowa game today over lunch at Sport's Fans. Hardly FFF worthy.

Actually, for less than full-family attendance events in the future, I'll be using some lower case "f"s.

Iowa's "No Smoking" law has been interpreted to extend to the parking lots at State university football games. The fans can BBQ, but not smoke. Let's hear it for decisions by committees.

I will be curious, along with most of the rest of the country, as the vetting of Sarah Palin hits full stride. The Democrats would love to find some Alaskan dirt with sticking power. The Republicans fear the same. I'm pretty confident that this Sunday's NYT will present a balanced point of view.

Thanks for reading. Have a great day.

BCOT

Thursday

Is Thursday night the official beginning of the Labor Day weekend? I did my 16 miler as a kick-off effort. With the days getting shorter, you really shouldn't be out on a bike much after 7.

Here's a little recognition to 1 and 1.1 since they won't be down here for the weekend.

Tonight does kick-off college football. Several games being played tonight. Personally, I've never got used to real football being played in August.

I'm still claiming to suffer from flight-cancellation hang-over. Ever since that middle-of-the-night automated call canceling our early morning departure for vacation, and the subsequent long day of travel, I have felt this odd mis-connection from normal. Yesterday, I failed to remember a 4:30 client meeting that had been on the schedule for a couple of weeks, and I had even double scheduled myself by making a date to see 4 for din-din in IC. In the end, I had to miss 4, and was a half hour late for my meeting. That's just being a step off on the dance routine.

Tonight is a big day in Major League Baseball. For the Cubs-Phillies game tonight, they are using Instant Replay for the first time. How long will it take for the umps/administrators to screw this one up? They are following the lead of Little League Baseball which used the concept in the recently completed LL WS.

What do you say that we get the two Presidential candidates and their handlers to agree to pull their respective favorite hole cards out of play for the Fall campaign? No race or soldier references, on offense or defense. Everybody knows the Big O is Black and that there hasn't been a Black President and that there has been prejudice in America against Blacks. Similarly, everybody knows that McCain spent several years in the Hanoi Hilton as a POW while in service to his country. I say, "Enough".

Another pretty decent, moderately-priced California Cabernet: Murphy Goode. Around $15.

4 is due home tonight for the first time since heading back to IC after Tahoe. Sounds like FFF this weekend. I'm considering a new grill, with a hand-me-down of my Weber to 2 for her new house. I've come to appreciate a little more space on the grill when I am cooking for more than two, and I've been checking out Labor Day sales at the home improvement stores.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. I'll be adding to the blog along the way.

BCOT

Tuesday

The reason that my ashes are to be spread at the top of Mt. Rose is because I expect you guys to always get back to Lake Tahoe together. (BTW, do the spreading surreptitiously. I don't think that permission is likely from the local constabulary. And any of you "green" folk in the peanut gallery, "Get over it!")

It has been difficult to concentrate on work these last couple of days as I have been enjoying the unbiased reporting of the Democratic National Convention from Denver. I may not be able to sleep to night from the excitement of Hillary's speech.

2 was tangentially related to a Big O story on last night's local news. The Big O was in town for a small gathering of undecideds (right!), and somehow he was encouraged to call the proprietor of Ross's in Bettendorf, one of our favorite breakfast places. And home to the Magic Mountain, a concoction of pancakes, eggs, gravy and who knows what else. 2 is the only person whom I know who orders a Morning Mountain. No wonder she's a Big O supporter!

My pal Roy is at Yankee Stadium tonight for the Boston-New York game. I'm a little envious. But from a Aesop-ian point of view, it is an American League game. (You might need Wikipedia to figure that one out.)

All for tonight.

BCOT

Monday

The Top Ten things that I learned on my Summer vacation, not necessarily in order of importance:

1. A "Full-Sized" rental car seats five, not six. That front console is a game-breaker. We're talking "Luxury" car in the future. Four adults don't fit in the back of an Imapla. In my family, based on a 20 year recollection, 4 girls of any age don't fit in that confined of a space. Live and re-learn.

2. A Lake Tahoe vacation is a lay-up. It can't be screwed up. A day at Sand Harbor is perfect.

3. Renting a good road bike is a much better option than trying to transport your own by air or delivery service. Not only are the economics at least as good, if not better, you don't have the hassle of handling the out-sized box. And with my skill level on the bike, and the quality of the average rental bike, why think that your riding experience will be measurably less? Hello Italian bike.

4. A mobile office can work. Technology can allow you to remain in communication with customers and perform most functions regardless of your location. I participated in a 4-way conference call on my cell phone in the middle of a ride up Mt. Rose on one day, and handled all my email each morning so that there was no backlog on my return.

5. Our clan can drink some wine. And I'm not sure that it has to be all that good of wine to meet our minimum criteria. (Aunt Margaret and Uncle Howard do help out with the average consumption rate.)

6. One week is not enough of vacation to cleanse the mind and body of the stress/challenges of everyday living. Then again, when you get to be this old, if you get away too long, you forget what it is that you're supposed to be doing. Tough call.

7. One community laptop computer with open wireless access to all is enough for the fam for this kind of trip. Since we don't spend that much time in the condo, the extra machines would just become baggage.

8. I could probably spend a little more time at the Hot August Nights auction. Its worth a return trip in a future year. And I will get bidders' credentials.

9. Starbucks is a family addiction. The Incline Village SBs is one of my Top 5 favorite SBs. Its also handy to have our rental unit within walking distance of the coffee shop. With The Sev and Raley's all right there, what more could a family on vacation need?

10. Air Travel is a crap shoot. (Like this is new news.) Next time, the direct flight to Reno out of ORD will be my first choice.

All in all, Lake Tahoe is a wonderful Summer place to visit. I'm thinking that the snow in Winter might get old (although Uncle Phil says not). Traffic around the lake can get iffy, but if you pick your spots, its not awful. Wally beers on the deck at the Embassy Suites will never get old.

Have a great day.

BCOT

Sunday

Great day here in the QCA. The last week of Summer?

I seriously considered picking up the NYT this morning to capture the full experience of a SB's Sunday morning, but I hedged my action first by reading a couple of their on-line pieces, and thus decided to save my $5.

Obama's selection of Joe Biden as his running mate was fairly predictable. It gives the ticket some strength in areas where the nominee may be lacking, and it brings in an unhesitating attack dog to back up a candidate who likes to stay above the fray. This selection may also be the linkage needed to bring the Clinton branch of the party back into the fold. Interestingly, you also add a career politician, a classic Washington insider, to the Candidacy of Change.

In politics, ultimately, everything is about getting elected. And in the current environment, for virtually all Democrats, the battle cry is, "Anybody but the Bushies!" That unifying sentiment should be enough to win in November.

I mean, how many houses do you own? Really.

Switching gears...

One story from the Olympics that I have followed now for several weeks is the case of Becky Hammon, a South Dakota native who played for the Russian women's basketball team. There are many cases of curious connections of athletes to the countries that they represent in the Games, but no other situations have engendered the patriotism debate like this one. The Internet is filled with articles on this item. Just do a Google search and you'll get all the details.

This is the case of a good player with no collegiate or pro pedigree like most of the members of the US National team. She's not even asked to tryout for the team. So when she takes her game to Russia, for $2 large, and they offer her a spot on their Olympic team, all of a sudden she's Benedict Arnold. And when the US beats Russia in a semi-final game, several US players go out of their way to further paint Hammon in a bad light. Including star Lisa Leslie who won't even slap hands or acknowledge Hammon in the post-game line-up. What a crock.

The Hammon story has a reasonably happy ending: the Russians won the third place game, so she goes home with a bronze medal. Good for her.

And speaking of Nationalism, patriotism, and the Olympics, if this is a celebration of athletics in the world community, why do we go through the ritual of a national anthem for each medal ceremony?

The late night talk shows have been in hiatus or reruns during the Olympics. Do they get two more weeks of vacation for the conventions? For NBC which spent buckets of money for the broadcast rights to the Games, showing table tennis rather than Leno is probably justified. On the other hand, the bean-counters at CBS probably did the math and determined that the the marginal benefit of new material in the face of Olympics coverage didn't justify the production costs. Is that reality TV or what? And for the financial analyst in the crowd, is it a case of micro or macro econ?

Is Bob Costas the new Dick Clark of anti-aging fame?

From here, I'm headed to Lowe's to buy a dehumidifier for my basement. I think I've got so much mold down there that full correction may not be possible. It wasn't so bad until this Summer. I'm wondering about the incubation/gestation/reproduction period/cycle of common household mold. Actually, not really.

So hope everyone has a great day. Thanks for reading.

And lest anyone forget, it was originally my bed.

BCOT

Friday

Here's an unusual recognition for 1 as Daughter of the Day for the second time this week. She landed a long-term sub job earlier today which is certainly not her dream job, but is a great first step forward. Way to go, Kiddo!

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The computer conversion is basically done, and it seems that most of the bugs have been erradicated. We'll see after a few days just how many are still left in the electronic woodwork.

Does it seem like the Olympics have been going on for a month, or what? Then again, I'm not all that anxious to face two weeks of saturation coverage of the political conventions beginning this weekend either. Of course, that second convention might have trouble making it on to the front pages or evening newscasts.

We have the Amman, Jordan branch of the clan now in the readership. They are obviously desperate for entertainment in the mid-East.

Nice little move in the market today. Favorable words from 3's BFF Warren Buffet gave rise to a higher opening, and then Bernanke's comments mid-morning were not so damning to take the air out of the balloon. Still lots of issues out there with the credit markets, so don't go betting the rent money on a big push upward next week. Look for more ups and downs as the housing inventory sorts itself out. Over the next year or so. Ugh.

The U of Iowa's football coach was considered one of the worst economic investments in some review of college coaches' salaries published last week. The guy makes $3 large per year, and the team has played .500 ball the last three years. They don't get lots of blue-chip players in IC, and they have a small problem keeping team members off the police reports. They open this year against the powerful Maine Black Bears (who happen to include on their schedule this year such opponets as Stoney Brook, Iona and Monmouth). Brats in the parking lot may be the order of the day every Saturday.

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The Cubs continue to draw 40,000+ for every home game. That's a lot of Old Style.

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So again, congrats to 1.

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Have a great weekend.

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BCOT

Thursday

Computer conversion day. 'Nuff said.

BCOT

Wednesday

So this is 3's turn to shine. She is Daughter of the Day. Last week's pic has her current 'doo, but she's very pretty in pink too.

Sounds like her first couple of weeks in Boston have been good, but it will take some time to adjust to the new city and job. My guess is that she will come to enjoy the history and East Coast perspective that Boston has to offer. Not to mention the menu's in the local Italian restaurants. (There's also the small matter of the Notre Dame-Boston College football game on November 8th!) Be a star, Kiddo!

The small bonus photo of 3 and 4 would be a Tahoe pic on Uncle Phil's boat. Hard to believe that we are now at the two week anniversary of my ride up Mt. Rose. Time flies.

We are going through a major computer conversion today. New machines, new servers, new IT vendor. My guess is that there will be some short-term bumps in the road, but the long run has to be better than our current situation.

I see a small story on the wire that Jennifer Lopez is upset that Michael Phelps is stealing her headlines, given that she is training for a triathlon and all, just a few months after giving birth. Hollywood will have to stand in line to get any of Phelps' spot light. Too bad.

The big news in Des Moines is that NASCAR has awarded a Nationwide series race on August 1, 2009 to the new track in Newton. (Well, maybe the Shawn Johnson story is a little more newsworthy.) (4 always had a little problem with me saying that we were going to Adventureland in Des Moines, when we would normally stay in Newton.) I may have to make my first appearance at a NASCAR event for that race.

Hope everyone has a great day.

BCOT

Tuesday

Another great day in the QCA. But we're dry. Hard to believe after all the rain that we got earlier this Summer that we're now asking for a good shower. Feast or famine.

Here's to 1 as Daughter of the Day. She's hanging in there, dealing with a little professional challenge right now. Good news will be coming her way in the future. Keep those positive endorphins flowing!

I was reminded of her determination in reading about the US women eight's gold metal in the rowing competition in Beijing. Not that I would have wanted her to spend 10 years in the boat to get there. The sacrifices that those gals made, forever, is another of those stories of Olympic athletes giving up the rest of their current lives in order to train for success in their respective discipline.

My garden patch is producing some tomatoes, but they are very average. I'm thinking that the plants that I purchased at the farmer's market this year were of a lesser variety. The birds seem to like them. And maybe the rabbits. Next year, I moving the garden to another spot behind my garage where I have a little more space and there's better sun.

I made one upgrade on my bike when I had it tuned for the non-trip to Tahoe. I had become aware of several new features now available in cycling computers (including GPS), and I decided to get a wireless model that eliminates the need for a small cord from the wheel to the handlebars. Speed and distance are displayed on the computer based on a reading triggered by a magnet placed on the front wheel. It took me two rides before I figured out that the reading device on the front fork was placed a couples of millimeters too far away from the magnet on the front spoke. My speed and distance were less than I sensed, and I was thinking that the computer was defective. As is the case with most technology things in my world, it was actually a problem of operator error.

Busy day here.

BCOT

Monday

This is not in response to 4's comment on yesterday's blog, but there will be those who conclude otherwise.

I had actually been considering the timing on this recognition all of last week. Here's to 4 as Daughter of the Day for beginning her last year of college. While this is definitely an important year to her, it has been a year that Mom and I have been looking forward to for even longer. When 1 went off to St. Thomas in 1998, we had 16 college years to provide for in the higher education economic equation. Having the last of those years on the active roster is a big deal.

Our Internet connection at the office is down today. It went down Friday afternoon and I spent 45 minutes on the phone with a Qwest advisor going through the re-boot protocols. To no avail. And our IT contractor hasn't returned our calls. Welcome to Monday.

The Hy Vee meat department has been pulling a fast one on me all Summer, and I just figured it out yesterday. I have been buying 8 ounce steak filets for 2 for $8 for the grill. They're the right size and thickness for an almost always perfect meal. When I stopped in yesterday, they were marked 2 for $5 and I thought that I was really getting a deal. As the butcher pulled my request from the case, and I commented on the "deal", I also did the math and realized that the steaks were 5 ouncers rather than 8's. So the reality was/is that the price per ounce had not changed, but there was that initial perception that I was getting the "deal".

But even after I realized that I wasn't getting a "deal", it took me a little longer for the clouds to clear and for me to see that I was spending $8 per pound for the meat, regardless of the price per ounce! And I would never pay $8 per pound!!

More math later. Have a great day.

BCOT

Sunday

This is a visit to my old stomping grounds: Sunday AM at SB's. Some of the worst music ever.

Yesterday was a big day for 2. Moving day into her new house. We did a U-Haul truck for the morning and got all of her bigger stuff transported in a single trip. Now she has the challenge of making the new address her home. She is again, Daughter of the Day.

3 reports that Boston has been a good experience thus far. She did manage to get lost on the way back to her apartment one night, and there were a couple of relatively small things of damage from the movers, but so far, so good.

The Olympics have been all Michael Phelps. At least one national sports writer wrote the obligatory, "I Hope He's Clean" column, similar to those on Dara Torres last month. To an extent, I actually consider the column a bit of butt-covering, the equivalent of "short-selling" a popular growth stock in the face of a rising tide. With all the adulation pouring towards Phelps, a somewhat negative article will be largely dismissed. But if that small likelihood of a cloud were to later surface, this hack could lay his claim to the the "I told you so" insight of a brave Protector of Truth. Right.

I finally got back on the bike a couple of times, including 25 yesterday. I think Mt. Rose took a little more out of me than I had originally thought. Over the next month, my goal is to keep in the 100 miles per week range, and then shut it down for Turkey Trot training. The local bike club has an event in September where they set up a "century" course. For the more-committed, that's a 100 miles. For the less-anal, that being me, a metric century is the order of the day. My pal Pete will pull me home.

There was another local cyclist killed last week on a ride on the Illinois side. A 61 year old physician out on a mid-morning training ride. There has been no toxicology report on the driver, who left the scene, not that it matters. Nationally, there are always similar stories. Sometimes there is some road-rage from the driver, sometimes poor choices by the rider. Golf commentator David Feherty transports his bike each week on the PGA Tour, and he's been hit twice this year. Usually, bikers don't come out real well in run-ins with cars.

Shocking to see that the Irish aren't in any of the pre-season college football rankings.

My experience with the airlines, and the Incline Village Bike Shop, last week pretty well convinced me that when 2 and I make our trip to Italy next year that I'll be renting a bike when I get there rather than trying to transport my own. The cost of shipping is a big impediment, although these costs can vary dramatically from airline to airline, and there are different rules for international travel compared to domestic travel. (Delta wanted $175 each way to get my bike to Reno. My 5-day Tahoe rental was $171.) Who knows what the rules will be a year from now.

I had actually prepped my own bike to take to Tahoe on United (@$100 each way), but the flight cancellations convinced me that chancing the timely arrival was not my best choice. And the bike I rented was just fine. And I didn't have to struggle with the big transport container for the bike, another big negative for travel in Italy.

Probably the best thing about the Olympics is the overshadowing of US politics and such other critical news such as Britney and Brangelina. I suspect that most of the wags have been using the break to scour their thesauruses for new superlatives for Barack.

So I'm off to seize the day. Have a great one.

BCOT

Wednesday

These pics are not from Hot August Nights in Reno last week. But they could have been. Margret is not a show car, but she still draws interest. 2 and I saw a Margret clone in convertible format at the auction. For a minute, I was tempted to get into the mix. Fortunately, the bidding got into five figures which took away my interest. Like I needed another car.

My body has yet to recover from the trip. From the time I got the 1AM Friday morning automated phone call on the cancellation of our flight, I have been one groove short of matching the regular/expected response ratio. Just plain off. I didn't think that it was a sleep thing, but maybe that's it. Last night I was staring at the ceiling at midnight.

Lots of news in all forms of media on the Olympics. I haven't got the bug. I find the time difference disconcerting. I've never been a fan of tape-delayed broadcasts, even if its a round of weekend golf on network TV. Some of the NBC televised evening events are coincidentally live as they are actually taking place the following morning in China.

It is interesting to read some of the stories of the men and women who compete in obscure sports that you never hear about, even in the box score pages of USA Today. They work years and years on skills that receive publicity only on this quadrennial basis. Whatever it takes.

The three commercial outlets in Incline Village that we most-frequently visit on our Tahoe vacations, SB's, 7-11, and Raley's grocery, are examples of ventures that could fail only if management made a concerted effort to do so. I suppose that they could run into problems if they lost contact with decent employees, but with their locations, and the lack of competition, even poor service might not hurt the bottom line all that bad. That SB's has to be a gold mine.

Knock on wood, but I think that I fixed an electrical problem on Margret that no less than three maintenance shops either failed to address or diagnose. My brake lights were staying on after I had driven the car around town for several errands. The problem only appeared after the brake fluid had heated up and the switch on the master brake cylinder wouldn't perform it's auto-shut-off function. My neighbor Jim and I figured out it was the switch last night, and I replaced it tonight. Shockingly, the local Autozone Parts store had the replacement switch. For good measure, the wrench I used to make the fix was an old pipe wrench from the farm. I mean, Margret is from 1964!

This last photo today of Sand Harbor in the distance was taken from the scenic overlook above Incline Village right after we took the family pics. What great stories those rocks hold!

1 and 3 need to share their digital photos. I'm hopeful that one of the family pics on those cameras is a little better than my copies. (Uncle Phil's photography skills may need work.)

OK. This is a good first step back at the blog. More tomorrow.

Have a great day.

BCOT

Monday

Tahoe pics.