a quick view...

I flew back to visit a few friends and to take part is an incredible ceremony of seeing Brian get married. It was great and I can't express how truly happy I am for him and Summer.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature decided to also show up in form of a flood. Here's just a few pictures of the last few days back in Cedar Falls...

A short 4 days later...

There are more pictures available of both the wedding and the flood... here, here and here.

Where I am going...

So apparently my hometown is big news... unfortunately, the reasons why we ever seem to get real national attention are for the bad... from the tornadoes that struck just north a few weeks back, to the homecoming riots back in the 90's... Here's what NBC News ran tonight:



I'll get a first hand look at this and be sure to show a little bit of a bike tour of the areas hit and potentially hit when I arrive tomorrow.

Rainy Commutes

Now, I'll be the first to admit. There has been a little adjustment that has taken place since selling my car. Thankfully the first week definitely was hot but not rainy. This week, a different story, as no surprise to many of you the Midwest has been experience it's far share of storms lately and Michigan was been fortunate enough to get to partake in said weather.

Today was my first day having to prepare for the weather. When I left for work today, we were between storms, from the radar it looked like I was a least going to experience the beginnings of the next. Somehow the next front missed my area of GR. During work, it looked as if the forecasts were going to be wrong, that was until the late afternoon when the rain hit. Short rain showers that last just enough to get everything good and wet.

Checking the radar and hour-by-hour forecast it sounded like I had a 60% chance that it was going to be raining pretty good when I'd need to make it home. It ended up only being a slight mist but for some reason when it rains Michigan drivers find ways to becoming even worse. I do believe I set a record today with the amount of cars that buzzed my tower.

The beast has been seeing a bit more work these days caring frames and wheels to and from work as I say good bye to one and hello to another. I can't say how much I love my Xtracycle. She'll be seeing a few improvements in the coming weeks which I am really looking forward to. I'm about 90% sure I'll be adding yet another bike to the stable. More on that another day.

Now I've got to begin to prepare for my trip back to Iowa for Bottkes wedding. That's right folks, he's tying the knot this Friday! For sure there will be pictures.

Recap of last Saturday...

... when I still had a car.

Last Saturday, I wrote briefly that I was going to be hitting up a ride with an old roommate, friend and pseudo-coworker, Ryan or R2.

The time couldn't have came at a better time in which we stopped by Founders first, enjoyed a pint or two and then went on our way in what ended up being about a 20 mile ride.

Not bad if I don't say so myself. Going into it I knew we'd cruise around with no real destination in mind and through it I pretty much sure R2 will be getting a new fixie.

Here's a few photos I was able to snap along the way:

As we cruised around Reed's Lake, Ryan switched to Red and took off...

On R2's rig still... Sorry, it's a little easier to take a picture or two when one can coast...

Hopefully tomorrow will bring much of the same enjoyment... I'll be heading downtown GR with some friends for the Festival. I'm really looking forward to it and hopefully it won't let me down.

www.nodrivejustride.com

That's right folks, if you noticed or not, but the blog no longer has the .blogspot on it. Kind of a big deal, kind of not, but update your links it's now:

www.nodrivejustride.com

A little fun

Stumbled onto this via the Surly blog. Has made me consider getting a few things for Xtracycle aka the Little Idiot aka the beast.... enjoy.

more like... Can't Drive, Just Ride.

Well, needless to say it's been an interesting last few days. But before we dive into everything, no I did not lose my drivers license.

Let's start back a few weeks ago when I was driving home from Mars. There is a corner record store affectionately called The Corner Record Shop [creative I know], that had an old VW Bus sitting there that had a small for sale sign on it. Like many, that vehicle has always caught my eye and I thought it would be fun to have. But I left it at that, saying that I'm not in the position to buy another car, let alone anything that might be a fixer-uper.

On Sunday a few friends of mine went to play a quick 9 of disc golf and after finishing my roommate and I decided to give the VW a closer look just for kicks. Well, this is where the fun truly began. It looked pretty good, given it was a '79 and you have to consider that. For kicks I decided to put my car on Craigslist without any pictures, just to get a feeler if there was any interest. I did this late last year and had no response. This post was placed at 3:46pm Sunday.

By 5ish, I had already received 10 emails, 2 or 3 each wanting to see the car soon. By 7ish, 3 more emails and I had begun to line up a time to get together with a potential buyer. I had to run some errands and hang out for dinner with friends. This person was so interested that they wanted to come over Sunday night at 10:30 to check it out! Crazy! I agreed and at this point I was still trying to figure out exactly what I was going to do.

I get home at 10pm, get a few last thing together. The guy and his daughter come over and take the car out for a drive. In talking with them, he said that he had lost out on two cars earlier that day and was going out of town Tuesday and had to get this settled before hand. After the test drive he asked how firm I was with the price and I said I felt I had a fair price on it and had no need to go lower with the amount of interest I had gotten in such a short time. He agreed and said he'd take it.

Needless to say at about 10:50pm on Sunday I had sold my car. Now this puts me in quite a difficult spot, do I rush out and purchase this VW Bus? I decided to take it for a test ride Monday. It drove fine, has a few issues but for the most part I was sold but I wanted to get it check out Tuesday by a mechanic. Unfortunately, Tuesday was not as glorious. The mechanic wasn't opposed to price I had worked out with the seller but he did bring up a lot of great and valuable information that I had not thought through.

I decided that the smart thing was not to get the VW but now that does leave me vehicle-less. Which is AWESOME! The beast is gone and the crutch has been kicked out and it's time to really step up. I am now needing to be much more creative on getting rides and planning trips, and although not having a car at 26 and being single doesn't really help to solve that problem. It should be a good summer.