another hot morning in the city

I hate that hot humid, nasty smell outside. I just walked out and it reminds me of H-town (houston tx) and all the oppressive days I had practicing football in 90+ degrees and % humidity.
This isn't exactly working the way I had planned. Moving to Philly was supposed to help the cycling abilitiy, not hurt it. How do all those cat 2's and 3's stay fit in this town when the weather is so uninspiring? Is it some secret ad campaign by the city? Do they have all these racers wearing local team outfits who actually live miles away from the city? Or maybe I just haven't lived here long enough and drank long and deep from the waters of the Schuykill to gain some super power from all that good pollution? Or maybe I haven't breathed deep enough to take in the Sunoco 94 octane brewing out from miles of a grotesque jungle of spewing pipes and release valves.

Oh get this, while walking home from the subway yesterday, I passed an empty lot located on an adjacent street from my street. The spot was owned by a guy who lives on my street and he uses it to park his car. I've been digging the lot the past few weeks as it's turned into a jungle of weeds, which to South Philly is like our little Amazon Jungle. There's not much green down here, other than the paint on cars, and the Newport cig boxes in the street. So twice a day when I pass this lot, it gives me a smile as it shows the perseverence of Nature at trying to green the hardest of spaces. It was to my sadness last evening when I passed this lot and saw all the green browning from what looks like Death by Weedkiller. Sure it's been hot enough to cook eggs on my tar roof, but still, these weeds didn't just go from nice jungle to wilted plant mass in just 24hrs b/c of the heat. I guess the dude thought there was a little too much green was going on and thought it looked out of place...and while I'm on a Nature kick...this week had some big highlights! I saw my first web-making spider and my first bumble bee. Both gave me a HUGE smile, that's weird I know, but you have to know a few things....Spiders can't really take air pollution, (hence all the flies in the city) and 2, where'd the freaking bee come from? Think how far that bee must have come for it to fly into my little back patio..at least it didn't leave without some good chow-down as my basil is flowering like crazy and it was probably a good feast for the big, little yellow guy.

Hey, has anyone seen the price of the Lightweight wheels on Competitive cyclist? WhoTF can buy those? Even if you have EP, the price would still work out to be 2 pairs of Mavic Carbones at retail...seriously! I got a really bad wheel fettish, but even if I did have the dough, I'd rather have a balzy wheel like the "Carbone", than a wheel called a "Lightweight".