Random stuff

Much like watching elementary school kids, it's hard not to laugh at the lineup of carpool vans at 4pm outside one of the entrances at SWA each afternoon. Each van is waiting for its charges before hitting the roads for home.
__________________________________________________________

I leave the door to my backyard open sometimes when I'm home and it's warm enough to do so. My cat, Tweak, enjoys rolling around in the dirt and hunting lizards. The other night the winds were high and something obviously spooked her. She came tearing through the door; into the hous, tail poofed out like a bottlebrush. At that exact instant, the wind blew the front door open (I didn't have it shut all the way apparently) and she took the opportunity to continue her tear through the house and out the front door. The door immediately slammed shut behind her. It all happened so fast, it didn't seem real.

In my laughter filled with tears, I wandered to the front door to find Tweak's fur completely blown up and pupils dialted to the fullest. She scampered back inside, then gave an insolent sniff in the air as if she meant to give that show.

It still makes me giggle thinking about it. Dumb cat.
______________________________________________________

I also giggle when the cat snores. Sometimes it's a slight wheeze. Other times, it's a tiny snort. Either way, it's just so dang cute!
______________________________________________________

The wind in north Texas is awful this time of year. It's just so dang gusty in the spring. Not a week goes by without a trip down the alley in search of an esacped garbage can. You'd think I was beating it or something. Sheesh. I'm ready for May and the wind to die down so I can ride more.
_____________________________________________________

It's almost time to start riding the bike to work again. I noticed on the drive in to work the other day that there was a bit of light on the horizon at 6:30ish. This is a great sign! One check with the sunrise/sunset tables and sure enough, the nautical sunrise, which is the glow on the horizon before actual sunrise, will start to be between 6:15 and 6:30 starting next week. Yay!
______________________________________________________

I've had nothing but junk food this past week. Birthday celebrations are bad for the ass.
______________________________________________________

There are 4 more days until I'm in Belize again.
There are 61 days until the Danskin triathlon in Austin (gotta seriously start getting ready for this).
There are 110 days unti RAGBRAI (7 day bike ride across Iowa - google it) kicks off, and yes, the getting ready for this also applies.
______________________________________________________

Our RAGBRAI team is made up of mostly people from my flying squadron. Okay, they're still in and enjoying the flying time, but I'm retired. Yay!

Over the years, we've spent many days worth of St Croix per diem on Cruzan Rum, mine mainly on Mango rum. In honor of that, we named our team "Cruzan Around".

Thinking that we had a great opportunity to get the word out, I've been trying to get hold of either the company or a local distributor to see if they'd sponsor us by helping us with jerseys or donate rum to the cause. Surely we'd give some away to the other 10,000 people cycling across Iowa? No luck.

Fortunately, yesterday I got a text from my great friend, Greg, who said that we were now being sponsored by Boudreaux's Butt Paste. Wow, what a change, huh? Sadly, I think there will be just as many cyclists excited about this as they would've been for the rum. Either have a way of soothing the chafing.