I have no idea why it took me so long to get a real bike. Finally made it to Roscoe Village Bikes last night, got to see my new Surly Pacer all done up. Looks great. Blue isn't as sparkly or as bright as I thought it'd be, much more subdued. Took it out for a test ride. Picking it up off the sidewalk I was amazed at it's weight. It's a steel bike too. And it's so much lighter than my current tank. Riding it, well, it's smooth, quick and nimble. Super easy to put the hammer down and shoot off like a rocket. Any of my worries that it wasn't my bike slowing me down, and it's actually me that's slow, well, that's put to rest. I can't wait to get it one some real roads/trails to open it up. But, it'll be another week or so as I'm getting new saddle/bar tape, going with a nice Brooks Swift in Honey Brown with matching bar tape. Ordered up some pedals/clips/straps. Going old school. Need to find some old school cycling shoes. This could be a very slippery slope into riding. It will take me a little bit to get used to a drop bar and aggressive road position again. Definitely not a city bike.

Been watching the Olympics, kind of, when Tracy watches after Lucy goes to bed. So while I'm trying to do some work, it's slow going, getting distracted, and then really start working it's already late, so right now working on a pretty big sleep deficit again. Really need to get to bed tonight. Got my other bike related stuff over the weekend. Will try and switch over to my pedals and cages to get used to them before the Surly Pacer comes home. Foursquare might have changed something on the API/rss side, but my personal storytlr isn't picking up updates anymore. Maybe I need to actually write a real plugin. With all that free time I have. Saturday went down to Ohio St. Beach with the family. Lucy loves her beach time. After lunch went out to Minooka to see the Cases, got stuck inside due to a storm, but after dinner got a little pool time in. Lucy's got a Swimways Power Swimr setup so she can try swimming, but we haven't quite figured out how it keeps her head above water yet. Still working on that. Good to see the Cases too. Sunday's big plan was to go to H Mart. Ended up at Northbrook for a little bit, then checked out an open house in Northfield that's probably way out of our price range, then finally to H Mart where I got my dream popsicles, sweet corn. They're awesome, and I'm going to try and give one to Lucy tonight.

Interesting number always. Kind of caught up on sleep. So that's good. Weather's taken an interesting turn, much cooler and wet. I guess the rain's a little late to help with the drought/crops this year. Hoping it helps though. Set up Gallery on the webserver to host my nephew's photos. Took a little while to get it all configured, but I think it's all set up. Requires a username/password to view. Checking out an iOS app and will check out iPhoto export plugins as well later. Still don't have my Surly Pacer. Bar tape was back ordered. Pretty used to my toe clips and straps though. Do need to find some biking shoes, like old school Italian leather ones with stiff soles. Since I am kind of going all old school with it. Hung out with my dad yesterday. Went to an IHOP, which, as snobby as I might be in terms of food, was pretty good, and I'd go again. I really liked their hash browns.

I now have 3 bikes in the garage, my Sprint, the Xtracycle, and now the Surly Pacer. Had to reorganize some stuff, but the Pacer now sits under the shelf, besides the Xtracycle. Might put it up on hooks, we'll see. Can't wait to take it out for a spin though. Still waiting on the bar tape though. Still backordered. Cashed out some $AAPL. A limit sell order placed last Thursday executed first thing Monday morning. Didn't think it would hit that, but then it did and blew right by it. Crazy. Don't remember if that happened the last time I sold some as well. In somewhat related news, upgraded the iMac to an SSD and finally upgraded to Mountain Lion. So I'm all Mountain Lioned up. It's nice. And somewhat related news to that, finally upgraded my work desktop to Windows 7x64. Seriously, I was still running XP. Finally figured out how to run XP Mode though. Because I still have to do some development in VB6. Seriously. My dad had some home networking issues, so I'll be headed out to Woodstock on Sunday with Lucy to spend the day. I'll fix the computer stuff, and Lucy will get to play in a yard. Just realized I should probably upgrade my dad's iMac to Mountain Lion too. No nuke and pave, unless I bring home a backup disk, which I might just do.

Another beach trip on Saturday. More swimming and playing in the sand with Lucy. After nap, another trip out to a playground with some sprinklers, before picking up dinner from Pasta Palazzo. Sunday drove out to Woodstock with Lucy, but felt bad for her since she couldn't play outside because it rained all day. Took me way to long to get my dad's DSL back up and running. While following directions to try and set up the 2Wire as a dumb bridge, actually wiped out the DSL password, and the one I had written down wasn't working. Then I tried to allow the automated system to download the tools to update the password, but those weren't working under Lion. So then tried to do it online, but didn't follow directions, so wasted some time there, until I followed directions, and tried to get it changed, but didn't realize I had the wrong last four SSN digits for the account owner, so ended up locking the account, before I just gave up and called into tech support, which then forwarded me after waiting, to an automated line for resetting the DSL password. And then it worked. Then I tried doing a backup, but would have been too slow over USB, so gave up on the nuke and pave to Mountain Lion. But I was able to set it up so I can again do remote troubleshooting through Remote Desktop from home. So that's good. Way too long for something that should have been really really simple. Good portion I have only myself to blame. Oh the way back, dropped by H Mart, but disappointed again because they didn't have the sweet corn popsicles like last time. Not a bad weekend, but that Sunday was just frustrating. Too much time in the car too.

Networking problems at home, so that's why the websites were unavailable for an unspecified amount of time. Makes me wonder if I should look into Amazon's EC2 again. Somewhere between $10-15 a month, just for an instance, still have to look into persistent storage. But then at least I'd know it'd be up more reliably, without me screwing up with hardware or stuff. Hmm, maybe when I magically have more time. Rode into work this morning for the first time on my Surly Pacer. Absolutely awesome. Rides like a dream, I shoot out like a rocket, and shaved 5 minutes off my commute. About a minute a mile. And I wonder if I could drop that even further. Also riding in my Vittoria 1976 Classic cycling shoes. Bought on a whim, because they were so cheap, but not in my exact size, but pretty close, I contemplated returning them or not, but decided to eat the cost if they don't work. They seem a little small, but fit like a glove. If anything, reminds me of trying to find cleats to wear for Ultimate. I could buy a pair a size up, and have all that extra space, squeeze into the right size, or spend years trying to find the magic pair that fit perfectly (Kelme for cleats). I'll keep looking, but in the meantime, these will do. And riding in today, hardly noticed them at all. Do have to figure out a better commuting setup though, as the sweaty back from messenger/backpack just won't do.

Ok, I love my Surly Pacer. Also love my Carradice Barley saddlebag. I've wanted one for a long time, and now that I had it for 1 ride? Should have switched to it a long time ago. I just need to configure it with an easier/faster attachment system. Especially since I'll be switching to the Pacer full time. I don't think I can go back to my Sprint, so I'll be putting that bike out to pasture. We'll see if any places will take it as a donation. However, today I took the bus in to work. Can't remember the last time I didn't ride in. Crazy. I was looking forward to it because I got to do some more reading. Taking the train out to Lemont, since Gabe and family's in town for Rachel and Julio's wedding. Also, Gabe, Sania, Tracy and I are doing the Hell Run tomorrow morning. Haven't trained at all for it. Should be interesting, and muddy. And tiring. Signed up officially for the North Shore Century, even though I haven't done a ride longer than 7 consecutive miles yet. Might only do 50 of those miles, but we'll see. Tracy just plowed through the first 2 seasons of Downton Abbey this week. I'll admin, it's addicting. So weird, and I have to imagine Masterpiece Theater never imagined it would be this popular. I mean, it's Masterpiece Theater.