Warm and fuzzy inside

Ahhh, I just read FatMarc's breakdown of his race and overall experience at the National's. I loved it, every single picture spoke of the epic weather conditions and showed just how brutal nationals were this year. I really hope no one lost fingers or toes from the race as I know some people on Friday must have become hypothermic.

Read his stories and see the pics at www.fatmarc.com.

I had a sweet weekend this past one. It all began after work on Friday when I hit Yoga with Thea. The Yoga place is normally crowded on Fridays and me with my wingspan can be a little dangerous as I get into all of it and forget where I am. So Friday I finally let loose and really did the full motions without worrying I'd poke some chick's eye out. I needed that as work was F'ing crazy b/c everyone must have been waiting to call in on the first snow day for some reason. So I crashed at Thea's fine place Friday night (who wouldn't take the invitation to stay in a nice warm place when the "weather outside was frightful") and woke up feeling good as the views of the skyline from her 19th floor apartment was absolutely beautiful at 7am. Plus she had made tons of different cookies the day before and so I just had tons of healthy cookies for breakfast. You can't beat that! Came home and worked on the house for a good bit.

In the afternoon I hit the trainer and my crazy neighbor nextdoor knocked on my door and said "Yo bry why don't you borrow my shovel and shovel your walk." So I look left and all the sidewalk was clear and I look right and the sidewalk was clear, but my 10 feet of sidewalk was a glacier. Damn, I'm the only person not to have cleaned my walk, I didn't even realize that. I told crazy Tom I would in about an hour after I was done riding my bike, I even pointed to my bike set up so he knew I wasn't messing with him. He said, that's cool and walked away.
About 10 minutes later I heard some shoveling, so I hopped off the trainer again and Tom was going at my glacier. Damn again I thought, what's he doing, so I opened the door and asked if he liked chocolate chip, raisin, oatmeal cookies. Of course he loved them so I grabbed the big bag off cookies which Thea had sent me home with and I told Tom to grab a few. He grabbed the whole bag and immediatly said how much he and his daughter would enjoy eating them and walked to his house and took the WHOLE big bag of them. Awh man, I was miffed, but then I realized Tom was crazy, and he was shoveling my snow, so I didn't say a thing other than if he couldn't eat them all, to give the rest back to me.

So I end up riding the trainer for a world record breaking 1 hour today, even threw it in the big ring, small cog a few times. I actually felt good on it, but heck, that's what happens when you go from riding 12+ hours a week to 2 hours a week.

I then cleaned up and headed down to Newark, DE to catch up with some friends at Mr. Vonck's Christmas party. Mr. Vonck, who I'm now going to call, Mr. Ratio, is a cool doood working on a kick-ass degree at UD. I always enjoy catching up with him as he's working towards a degree, which back in '99 I was planning to attain, one in Urban Affairs/Sustainable Development. Not only is he attaing a sweet education, he's also living one of the best bachelor lives I've ever seen. He lives with 2 fine young ladies (the beginning of me calling him Mr. Ratio), in the finest bachelor pad around, plus he always has at least a few ladies on him at anytime, including a record 6 Saturday night!! 6:1, that's a helluva ratio!
Anyways, as usual I caught up with some friends whom I hadn't seen in a very long time, Charity, Becca and Mark, whom I hadn't seen in a very long time. See back in the day I was in Americorps and so were Becca and Charity, and the Americorps people hung out with each other all of the time as we were all poor and what do poor people do, but hang out with each other and so that's what we did and had a ton of fun doing it.
Mr. Ratio had tons of yummy food and fine drinks, and like any smart person, instead of going out and buying ice, he just went outside, cut up some ice chunks and then threw them in his cooler. I have to admit that after starting the day eating cookies, I ended the day doing the same. His buddy made these cookie-Brownie-cookie yum-downs which I consumed in the highest of quantities. One buddy's girlfriend sat down while I was talking to her man and I said, those cookies rock! She was like "there's only 2 left" and I was like "oh I wonder why?" Yes, I'll admit I ate 1/2 of them, but heck, I left all the other fine food for everyone else! Thanks KV!

I had a fine time, but was getting tired, and so sometime after 12, myself and my buddy C.Vann decided to roll, Chris wanted to catch up with his Harem of women at a bar and so we went there and hung out for a while. He really had a lot to drink as since I was driving, he was letting it all hang out. He was a mess, but a funny mess. Even grabbing full drinks at the bar which weren't his and guzzling them down. It was funny as he didn't have a clue they weren't his drink. I even suggested as such, but he looked at me like I was the crazy one!!!!
Then when I drove him back to the old house (I lived there at TedLogik's house for 4 years) he walked to the front door and tried to use his car remote to unlock the front door. I totally busted out laughing as I could hear his car keep on unlocking, but for some reason the house door wasn't unlocking. I was like, CV, I think you actually have to use a key for the door. Of course it took about 3 keys to finally find the right one, even though the house key is dinstinctively different than all of the others. It was too funny.

The next day I woke up after just 5 hours of sleep, but I felt good. It's amazing how quiet it is in suburbia as compared to the Urban living! I really felt calm as it was beautiful waking up and actually seeing trees and wildlife running outside in the snow. I ended up hanging out for a few hours as I had to wait until 10 am to pick up my new Tankless Hot Water Heater at the Fairfax True Value Hardware Store. This thing is the bomb and is so energy efficient, I'll even get a $300 tax rebeat. Also I can take steamy hot baths and not feel guilty now.

Then I swung by my dad's house and they were just leaving to pick up some Christmas trees and so I joined them and picked up my first tree ever! It's such a sweet tree, shorter than me, but perfect for my house. Then I came back to their house to catch up with everyone. I was so proud when one of my sister's showed me her power point presentation on the deforestation of the Amazon rain forest. I have a degree in Ecology and so as I watched her presentation, I was looking for certain bullet points and sure enough she hit them all and even through in some stuff I hadn't even known. I was so impressed. It's amazing what 15 year olds can do now!

Came back to Philly for the last 2 hours of daylight and had a totally awesome jog. Philly is definitely a different town with snow in it. It felt like I was in Europe, rather than America.

Good morning everyone. Hope you have a fine day!

-BC