Morning of terribleness

Okay, so I should have known that seeing a spider on the ceiling of the bathroom on Thursday night was a bad omen. So Friday morning comes around, I wake up to get ready for a boring day of orientation at Spirit. As I walk to the bathroom, I see Mike cleaning up the remains of something on the carpet. He informs he that he has killed a brown recluse that was on his wall above his bed this morning. He was pretty freaked out about this, as anyone would be to have a spider above their head when they wake up, especially since ITS BITE ROTS YOUR FLESH OFF! Anyway, I proceed to go about my usual morning routine: shower, clothes, shave, brushing of the teeth. Except something weird happened in the middle of brushing my teeth. Suddenly, the bathroom sounded like Niagra Falls and steam was coming from the cabinet and faucet. I open the cabinet to realize A PIPE BURST AND IS TRYING TO FLOOD OUR APARTMENT! This is the last thing we need, as we are trying to leave for work. However, some things take priority over work, like making sure your house doesn't become a swimming pool. So we call the emergency maintenance line and leave a message. Some emergency maintenance line. So then we try the office. Doesn't open till nine, and it's 7:30. Thankfully, the maintenance guy calls back and tells us how to turn the water off, which we do despite the fact that Mike has figured out the cause (a broken fitting) and has stopped the leaking. So the guy says he'll be there in half an hour to fix the broken fitting and clean up the water. Already exhausted from the morning we head off to be bored to death with orientation...I'll spare you those details. I hope Mike's luck is better this weekend for his trip back home.

In Wichita at last

So it's day two in Wichita. I moved up here yesterday and got interwebs today. It's not that I need internet to survive, but considering Mike and I aren't paying for cable or phone service, internet is all we have. And it's good internet too, a whopping 12 megs, fastest we could buy. I'm still not done unpacking all my crap, just a few more boxes left though. Once things are less messy and more organized I'll post pictures and video of our place. For the first time ever I've been able to play Wii games online, and it's freakin' amazing. I'm quickly moving up the MarioKart bracket, but for some reason Brawl wasn't working for me. It is a little weird living in my own place for the first time ever. I've always lived in the Res Halls or at home. Well, time to waste time doing stuff other than unpacking.

Second ride, going places I've never been

Date: 5/7/08

Second bike route: 10.9 miles, 53 minutes

Wow, that was quite a trip. I think I’ll call this one “Giant Loop,” seeing as I just made a big loop around Rolla. It’s about as close to going around the city limits as I can get without going on random side roads. My butt hurts a lot from not having a proper seat (insert joke about me being butt raped). I need to get a seat cushion *mental note to self*. It has a few hills, namely the one going up to the hospital, the one up to Hwy 72, the one up past Wal-Mart (which was real bad coming off of the previous hill), the one going up 72 back to Pine Tree road, and a small one on Old St. James, but I think that one was bad only because I had to stop there. Reason being that when I was going on Old St. James, my chain fell of and got stuck between the sprocket and the frame (note to self, get some washers to put on the axel to keep this from happening again). I couldn’t pedal, and the last time that happened, I had to walk the bike home (the last time was when I was coming back from TJ after a meeting with the future TJ Sr. Leadership, so it wasn’t that bad) and I didn’t feel like walking 2 miles back to the Quad. Thankfully, I got it unstuck and went on my way. I covered a lot of road I've never been on before. I learned the south side of town on Lions Club drive is really nice. I wish the clouds weren’t out so that I could see the stars; there were no street lights so I think I could have seen them real well. Of course no street lights meant I needed my headlight. I guess I’ll find out soon if I need to invest in rechargeable batteries or not. I really enjoyed this ride, and I need to do it again on a clear night.

Night time bike rides begin!

Okay, so I've started doing night time bike rides. Why at night you ask? Because there are fewer cars and I can ride on the main roads without fear. My rule is that it has to be after midnight before I go bike. It's nice out, and I don't have to worry about the sun. Besides, I like having the moon and stars out better. Anyway, my first ride actually took place before I started my blog, but I wanted to put it here anyway.


The format will have the date, distance, time it took me, and my observations/experiences on the ride. If you think you can ride a bike faster than me, I don't care. This is so I can track my improvement, not compare myself to others, as well as document cool routes to keep going on. The red dot is where I start from, namely the Quad. The blue line indicates the route, and if something interesting happens, I'll mark it as well. Note that whatever the day is, it means that I went out from midnight-ish to 3-ish as that day was starting. I use Google Maps to calculate distances and make my maps.



Date: 5/2/08

First bike route: 6.7 miles, 35 minutes






Huff, huff, I’m out of shape. Now I know why I started riding my bike again: it’s fun and it will help get me back into shape. For this first ride, I basically started at the Quad and rode wherever I felt like going. I’ll call it “Rolla City Tour.” I figured going to Forum would help me get an idea of how much I wanted to do, so that’s where I went first. Okay, so I only rode by the movie theater to make sure Iron Man was playing so that I could see it this weekend. Also, I always wanted to go down Bishop, so I did. I like not having to worry about traffic. I dodged the Bishop and 72 traffic light since I didn’t feel like messing with it. I’ll deal with them another time. I have to remember that Walnut is nothing but hill until it ends: long, gradual hill, which I think I dislike more than a steep one. I actually went to Schumann Park to see if they had adequate water hydrants for the staff social tomorrow, but they only had weak water fountains. Then I went home after deciding it was getting late and I was getting tired. Next time I’ll try for a longer ride.