Saturday - feeling weak

Flying in a Blue Dream

It was like flying in a blue dream. #cyclinglife #strava #maine #ride #ridetothrive #stevevai

A post shared by Mr. Fury (@geologyjoe) on Aug 10, 2017 at 3:55pm PDT

Feeling and Update

I haven't written any thing here in while. I guess I spend my time else where. Being present at home. Doing stuff I must, and stuff I love.

Like lots of people I've started an instagram. i mostly post photos of cycling.
I do twitter. for news stories generally.
And strava. because if its not recorded it didnt happen. :)

But the blog is the real gift to my kids one day. The place where they can read back on stuff i did, or thought or whatever. Capture moments for them.

So kids. read and enjoy.

Ill get back to it.

Strokes Suck

It was early Wednesday morning on September 4th when my father in-law George called at 6am. I was getting prepared to attend my grandmothers wake and funeral. I would be a paul bearer.

" Hi Joe. Its George. I have a problem. She fell out of bed and can't move or talk."
"What does her face look like?"
"She can't move her right side."
"George, she's having a stroke. Hang up call 911. Right now. Call 911."

I beat the second ambulance to their house, about 15 minutes from our own.  With that I found myself helping two of the EMT's carrying Irene out of the house on a burrito style back board.

My in-laws and wife immigrated from Hungary in 1980.  With only three suitcases of clothing and my 3-year old wife in their little car, they traveled to Austria and never returned.  Thee ended up in Maine and in 1996 bought a small two bay garage with one gasoline pump in a rural town, G&G Gas and Repair.  American Dream and all, right?

As time went by and the cost of fuel went up, the cost of health insurance went up faster (with reducing benefits and increasing deductibles), a decision had to be made. Continue paying $2,000.00 per month ($1,000 each) for the health insurance (more than 60% of their annual income) or drop it altogether and seek alternatives methods for health.  What would you have done?

At 59 and seemingly fairly healthy, no one knew.

The stroke had been very serious and her carotid artery is full occluded.  They would not attempt surgery to unblock it as the risk of another stroke were too great.

Now at the hospital Irene has since been stabilized and transferred to a rehabilitation clinic. Although they have been US citizens for 30 years a language barrier still exists.  Since she had no speech or movement on her whole right side rehab includes physical, occupational and speech therapies.  Progress is being made but this is going to be a long slow recovery.  We have no idea how much ability will return. We remain hopeful.

My wife has been doing most of the communication with the hospital and state health care agency (Maine Care).  She has also taken responsibility of managing the business finances. She spends about 10-20 hours per week on this.  We also hired a family lawyer to assist us with the Maine Care application.

I am now leaving my regular job at 3:30 pm and going to the garage for a couple-few of hours per night to pump gas so that George can work on the cars.

The response from the local citizens has been overwhelmingly positive and helpful.  From people bringing food, (George can rebuild a transmission, but can't cook rice) to monetary donations and they even organized a benefit supper (October 12th). Several of the more trusted folks are working the pumps for lunch hour or filling in for a weekend shifts so that George can visit Irene at the hospital down in Portland.

With all of that help we are sure that the medical bills and probable modifications to their house will out weigh anything incoming.

We have started an on-line donation campaign at Give Forward.

Girls are here

We picked up the girls this morning. 6 to start off. They hatched about a day or two ago. For the next few weeks they'll brood in a wood box that I cobbled together using scrap osb from the patio project last summer and some short pieces to 2x4.
Well this should be fun.

Chickens are commin

Since we didn't need the second dog house any longer I hve moved and converted it into  a chicken coop. This pic is shwoing it in a nearly complete form. We are starting out w 4 bird then add on as we get the hang of it. 
Should be fun.
What are your experiences with chickens?

Summer Fun

I was going through the camera today and found a cool pic I took last summer.

Sunday-3-18-12

It was such a beautiful day today. Besides walking the dog with the boy and some yard work I also squeezed in a bike ride. And this year i have been tracking the rides using MapMyRide.com. With the app loaded on my phone it tracks my route and speed and all kinds of other shit. Then the web site gives me embed code to fly over the route. Here it is"


       
 

Pretty damn cool if i do say so. Oh  yeah I nearly forgot to mention. A big doe jumped out in front of me at mile 13-ish. i missed her by about 20 feet. If I were going faster, definitely would have hit her.

Burn-day

Its a nice day for a brush pile burn. Videos to follow.

Soil gas sampling

This is me, in early november collecting a soli gas sample from a site in Brewer, Me.

Pumpkin land

Yep we went to pumpkin land. It was pretty fun. My favorite part was the piglet races.

StoryLand

So yes, on September 3, 2011 we had the StoryLand experience. Below is some vid I shot on my droid.

I barely remember going here when I was about 6, and on this day it was time to bring my boy. It was a good time. We cant wait until next year. Note to self: bring hand sanitizer.

Bike Hack

It was a Saturday afternoon and I had taken my bike and trailer down into town to the grocery store to pick up some foodstuff and log a few miles.  I live in central Maine so this actually becomes a fairly good ride. 
On my way out I noticed a couple of very average mountain bikes in the rack next to me.  My guess is that the owners were inside picking up some butts and Allen's coffee brandy. 
But anyway, as I was loading the trailer I looked back and the bikes and noticed that the seat clamp on one was replaced with a pair of full sized, made in the USA, vise-grips.  I'd call it Yankee ingenuity, but this is just too much of a hack solution to garner that prestigious label.

Happy 4th

Today is the 4th of July, 2011. It is the 9th anniversary of marriage to my wife. Melinda. Happy anniversary Woman.

Today she gave me a gift. A gift of alone time.  I worked on a patio I am building for her today. Today was the 4th session of excavation.  During the 1st session I removed the existing gravel and flat stone.  I used that material and made this:




Then there were two more session of additional soil removal.  Today was the fourth and final. I have move a total of approximately 17 yards of gravel, rocks, and till and now have a perfect hole to backfill with stone, sand and and the concrete patio blocks.  The following pic is the end of the 4th excavation session/. 7 hours today. 22 hours total. 10 tractor hours.

 This hole is level to 24 inches depth (+_3inches) from the pavement on the left, all the way to the right.  The bottom is hand tamped (compacted).  It is about 200 sqft. 2 feet deep.    There was a lot of hand shovel digging.  Hard, but I got my man hands back.
This fucking shit will not frost heave when I am done.  Effort in equals favorable results out.

Excuse my derivation from good formatting, I am too damn tired to care. It is beer O'clock


Oh yeah right. i haven't posted in a while...I got a tractor. Its frigging aWEsoMMMMe.

Damn. That was steep.

I got my self out for a bike ride today. It was so beautiful out, my F. Moser (Falcor) was asking me  for a good challenge. So, I decided that the crux of todays ride would be the climb out of Hallowell.  As I approached the area I decided that a smaller side road would be interesting and different.  I was right. 

I took a left on to Central Street and immediately started up the first lift at 8,9,10%  grade for a few hundred feet of road. It flattened out to 7-8% for the next few hundred road  feet.  The second lift 10-11...skip over 12 to 13%, again for a few hundred more feet. Another flat section (7%) then an increase to 9% with a final kick that was fucking crazy. it looked like a wall. 16-18, 20% percent grade for about 300 feet.  The total climb length is about 1 mile.

I pedaled slow and hard. I've never grunted during a climb before, but I did today.  Pushing down hard with every stroke while pulling on the handlebars with my arms. I REFUSED TO WALK.

The following 20 miles was comparatively easy.  I am looking forward to bringing some unwitting soul up this hill someday soon.

*note* i wrote this back in June 2010 and forgot about it. So im posting what i had written at that time.

@ the pond.

seems like the best way to post is to do it via mobile, too get the basic post up. Then come back and edit, format and add info. So, here we are today walking the dog at our usual place.

Tree Drop 301

This past Sunday we went over to the in-laws house.  They needed me to take a down a dead pine tree in their front yard. So while my brother handles the camera and provides a blow by blow narration of the event, I get to work.  When the tree does go down, the sound of it was really cool.

Papa Got a New Pair of Shoes!

I had been looking for a pair of new cycling shoes for the past several months.  Last year I had just finished building up my sweet F. Moser Leader Ax and wanted something special.

 One main decision makers in the process was that I do not like the look of the modern shoe with the straps and clips.  I began to wonder if there were a nice leather cycle shoe out there.  After all my best hiking boots are leather (in good shape and more that 20 years old), my nicest and most comfortable dress shoe is leather (italian i might add) and my old rock climbing shoes have a leather upper. Why not my bike shoe too?

Like any modern aged asshole with an internet connection, I googled, 'leather cycling shoe'.  It didn't take too long before I found that Dromarti is making and selling just what I wanted.  Then this spring, Bicycling magazine features the shoe in a 'gear' issue.   Time to pull the trigger.

 After figuring out that my size 10 American foot needed a size 43 European shoe I ordered the 'Sportivo' in black.  Martin Scofield soon got back to me that the order would be delayed a month due to a back order issue and that payment would held until the shoes shipped.  I was not in a big hurry so I was not at all worried about this.

My shoes were shipped and arrived about 4 weeks later.  Much to my initial disappointment I received the shoe in brown, not the black I had ordered or was indicated on the enclosed order forms.  Although after looking at them for a while, I realized that it was a 'good' mistake.  I contacted Martin, told him of the error and my decision.  He promptly refunded me the cost difference. 

Brown does have more of a 'classic' look and ultimately that was I was going for.  The leather is soft right out of the box and has that sweet, sweet ' im gonna get high sniffing the leather' odor.  The contrasting light brown interior is beautiful.

I have only had a chance to use them for one ride so far.  It has been cold and these are not for cold weather.  The fit is tight laterally across my foot so extra socks are not an option.  I squoze my foot in there with the laces fully loose, adjusted the tongue and tightened them while weighting my foot.  If there is one thing I have learned about leather, and shoes in particular, is to set them up perfectly the first time, because you will never undo a bad crease or slanted tounge.  

I set out on the initial ride.  The fit reminds me of my rock climbing shoes or ice skates, tight enough to make your foot muscles tired but all  in the name of performance. Regardless of the tight fit I found them very comfortable and had no issues with hots spots.  The heel cup, a common problem area, was unnoticeable.  Im sure it wont take long for the leather to form to my foot,stretch a bit, and be super comfortable. Especially if they get wet and I ride until they dry.  After all I had the same experience with my hiking boots. 

Be warned, by purchasing these shoes you are importing them into the US and will be subject to duty import fees.  Mine were an extra 56$ that I was not planning on; fuck you very much.  Even still, the total cost is about the same as a similar high quality 'modern' sytle shoes like Sidi.

Here are some links to other reviews.  BIKE RUMOR, 

URBAN VELO,  PROLLY IS NOT PROBABLY.

RIDE ON.

Sunday funday

I woke @ 7am to whipping wind and pumeling rain. I take a look down the drive way and see the culvert is backed full of water and sheeting across the driveway. Knowing it was probably only a couple of sticks, I went down with the steel rake and cleared it out.
After a breakfast o eggs, pancakes, toast, juice and coffee Wife took the boy to Augusta for shopping. This gave me time to go fill tthe truck with gas (81$ for 21gals) and start some yard work.
I sharpened the chain saw and set to work. Cutting up everything that needed cutting. For over and hour I cut. Now that its all smaller the pile build can begin.
Lunch came @ 3pm.  Some thia leftovers.
At 4 the boy was napping so it wass the perfect time to head to the grocery store for some food.  The picture here is after the return, while I sit and type this post on my cellphone.
Good night.

Guitarin' with Mr. Atkins

A couple of weeks ago the boy saw a CD in the player.  

"'dis, dis, wana play 'dis" he says.

"Ok, you want to listen to Chet Atkins and Tommy Emmanuel -The Day the Finger Pickers Took Over the World.?" I say.

"Yeah."

The second it started playing he wanted to play along with his guitar. That at this point he has no concept of how to really use it.  But it was after the first super-cute music session that I made up a strap out an old belt of Wifes and recorded the video below. It can't hurt to start early.

Now every time we listen to the CD, we get this show:

Plus I figure that Chet Atkins and Tommy Emmanuel are a pretty damn good guitar role models.