The Price Family Home Companion

Amazon is Guns UP!

I was amused to see this Deal of the Day at Amazon earlier in the week. Nice to see Tech getting props from the eCommerce giant:

Olympic Insight

Chantell, Salem, and I have been watching the Olympics together each evening. Salem isn't too interested in the swimming competitions, but she gets a huge kick out of the gymnastics.

She repeatedly says I one do dat and he's feenish, mah turn while doing summersaults or throwing her arms up triumphantly (yes, it would be nice to have some pictures here, but our digi-cam is boken).

The best one yet, though, was during the men's team competitions, Salem said Dee doe es open. Confused, Chantell tried to figure out exactly what door it was that Salem said was open. I nearly died laughing as that's a statement Brody and I were saying just days earlier after one of the girls bobbled the dismount.

And 20 Makes 176

For the month of July, we racked up around 175 miles by bike (a quarter of that coming from the Katy Flatland ride alone). Although Lance Armstrong could do this in his sleep (backwards), I'm pretty proud of us; especially considering how lazy we are (or once were) and how horribly hot the summers are here in Houston.

Our Kind of Ride

Now here's a bike ride we're seriously looking at doing this "winter" (from a flyer we received in our Katy Flatland ride package):

Tour de Doughnut

The Sweetest Bike Ride in Texas
November 7, 2004

The Tour de Doughnut is a unique bicycle [ride] where riders embark on an appetizing 20-mile journey with rest stops along the way serving as many delectable doughnuts as you can eat. For EACH tasty donut [sic] that a rider consumes, the rider is awarded a tempting 5-minute time credit. Eat enough delicious doughnuts, and you can finish the race before you even started!

I figured out that we'd have to eat 20 doughnuts a piece to break even time-wise. We agreed that that wasn't likely going to happen (no matter that Krispy Kreme is a ride sponsor). Chantell admitted, however, that she plans to eat 30 minute's worth of doughnuts.

The announcement goes on discussing a 60-mile (non-doughnut enhanced) ride option, but we didn't really give that one a second thought.

Still Breathing

Chantell and I completed the Katy Flatland Century bike ride this past Sunday (babysitting complements of Nonnie). This is our story:

My first disappointment came when I was loading the bikes up Saturday evening. It was the realization that Chantell's bike wasn't going to work with the car rack (her bike has the pass-through frame) Stephen lent us. Luckily, her bike was small enough to fit inside the car.

The second and much more devastating set-back came that same evening when I was putting more air in my tires. The valve stem of my front tire essentially broke off leaving me with a nice flat. Being relatively new to cycling I wasn't prepared for this scenario and had to make an emergency trip to Wal-Mart. To my surprise (and relief) they did have them in-stock and I was back in business before I turned in for the night.

We awoke very early Sunday morning to drive out to Katy Mills Mall where the ride would start at 7:00 AM. Thousands of riders were on hand.

Not having participated in one of these before, Chantell professed as to how she's now seen enough crack through shorts to last a lifetime. Further, she strongly supports the non-proliferation of royal blue spandex as it has such profound characteristics of transparency that it should be considered a crime against humanity.

Also cause for concern was the alarming number of people that simply fell over with their bikes... I can't explain how odd it is to see someone falling without even a trace of effort to prevent it. Splat! There was one wreck almost halfway through the ride that was so bad that we had to walk our bikes through single file past several ambulances and support vehicles.

We had our fair share of humiliation in the form of being passed by roller-bladers (and never seeing them again), grandparents in matching jerseys on tandem bikes like we were sitting still, and recumbent bikes so reclined you'd swear the person was taking a nap (and probably was).

To top it all off, a stray dog panted after us for several miles. We stopped at one point (because I had another flat), but he was skittish and wouldn't come near. Later the dog was running after me, separating Chantell and I. The image tugs at Chantell's heart to this day.

All in all, we had a good time. We finished together, in just over 3 hours. We may not have been the fastest (we weren't), and we may have been the only two with kick-stands (we were), but we're proud. For a couple of lazy bums like us, 45 miles is not too bad!

Chantell admitted (by stop #2) how she was hooked. So, we're looking forward to our next ride, The Melon Patch Tour coming up in August. We'll be doing that as part of our 5th Wedding Anniversary weekend... how sick is that?

Gluttons for Punishment

Chantell and I just finished registering for the 2004 Katy Flatland Century bike ride. While we haven't quite worked up to the century part, there are several shorter rides (60, 45, and 30). We'll be attempting the 45 miler, but giving ourselves great leeway to wimp out and only do 30.

This will be Chantell's first ride, and only my second (the first was 40 miles). We've been riding 3-5 times a week (at least 10 miles each night) for a few months now (weather permitting). Unfortunately, with all our travel this month and now non-stop rain, we haven't had too much opportunity to "train." As such, we're both a little nervous.