Ramblings

--Need a reasonable couch? Off-white, on the loosely puffy side, lightly embroidered pattern in the fabric. My friends want to sell theirs to make room for what sounds like an "installation". Never exposed to cigarettes, no nasty stains.

--Checked my back tire to see what exploded at the end of the B race on Sunday. A 2-inch gash in the tube matched a place where the tire bead had been shredded to where I could see the steel wire. It's hard to say what abuse I laidon to cause that kind of damage, but they're both gone.

Checked the wheel too, and it's maybe good that I did, since I found in a completely different, unrelated location on the rim that the weld is corroding and cracking. It's a 9-yr-old Campy Berlin rim (ever have one of those? didn't think so) on a 105 hub that was original spec on my road bike. It's mostly scrap metal now.

--With the change to standard time, bike commuting requires riding home in the dark. It's sorta nice in the dark: no matter how slow you're really going, you only really have the breeze on your face to gauge your speed, and you feel fast. There's also the practicality that if you're going to ride home in the dark anyway, you may as well work 'til 7 and wait for most of the cars to get off the road.

--Dinner: thyme-roasted eggplant with julienne carrots wrapped in warm garlic naan bread.

--Riding in the dark also makes me grateful for all the drivers who have passed me and not run into me over the years, which I'm happy to say is all of them so far. Reflective clothes, blinky light, a bright headlight, and a good route make it OK. Still, I was thinking on the ride tonight about all the things that could go wrong. Probably the #1 thing that makes me nervous on the road are drunk drivers--day or night, whether I'm riding or driving, it's so not cool. I have no idea my DUI/DWI is treated so casually in this country: it's a frickin' crime, and for good reason.

If you're going to have beers after a race, make sure someone else who's not drinking is going to drive you home. I'm asking, that's all.

--I may have gots me a phone interview, which is the first glimmer of a future I've had in a while.