Cassie's new... Uncle???

My childhood dog Christy, passed away last October leaving my folks pet-less and my retired/professional quilter mother home alone while my dad worked during the day. She said she didn't mind and didn't want a new pet but after my dad submitted an application to a springer rescue group and the date of adoption drew near it became pretty obvious that she was excited for her new buddy to arrive.


Rags finally arrived as their new adoptee and the calm 2 year old they were told all about appears to be more of a destructive puppy them I believe they bargained for. Brings back memories of Christy from my childhood. Crate brakes and kitchen trash strewn all over the house...

Luckily Cassie loves her Crate so I've been able to leave her in it without feeling too bad about it. Some day probably soon I know she'll be fine but for now I'm going to keep my bed intact. This weekend Cass and I will probably do our fair share of working out some of that puppy energy while I'm up helping Pops with his new workshop above the garage. God I'm jealous of that.

Post # 400

That's not a very good average I'd say. It's taken me over 2 1/2 years to get to 400 posts! Shoot Gwadz probably hit's 400 per month.


Tiny Cass

In other news, I've really got to get Cass out in some snow. I really think she would love it, especially after watching the clip here. So much fun.


The fit used to be a bit of a stretch.

She's hurt her paw again somehow. She's a bit too much of a puppy to be left out yet (remember the torn up bed) so she spends her days while I'm at work in her crate. She still is perfectly fine with it and spends plenty of time in there on her own accord while we're hanging out at home so I don't necessarily have to feel THAT bad about it. However she seems to have found a way to injure herself while in it. I'm guessing she starts flailing like she does when she is bored and hit on something. So, the good news from this is, I think it wasn't the ride last month that hurt her, but the bad news is she did it to herself somehow and she's now back on the DL. Poor pup.

She WILL play with anything.

This morning I confined her to the entire down stairs minus the kitchen and utility closet. I'm hopeing in her current gimpy state she won't go crazy. I'll be sure to post pictures of the damage otherwise.

Happy birthday to Cass

I'm kicking myself a bit today for Cass. When I came home from work and let her out of her crate (yes as evidenced from the pic below, she still needs the crate though she has shown no aversion to it still) she was limping a bit on her front right paw. I'm assuming it is related to our ride on Sunday, though why it wasn't bothering her so much before last night is unclear.



After the ride Sunday she moved out of my truck and into the house slowly but I figured she was just tired. I didn't notice anything that night and she ran around fine the next morning as well. After a full night of laying in bed sleeping I'd think it would have had enough time to tighten up but she didn't react to it until Monday night. That leads me to think that maybe she did something to it during the day in the crate but I can't be sure. She does tend to throw herself around a bit when bored so it's certainly possible she naged it off something.

Today she is limping heavily and is obviously in a bit of pain. The lower joint looks a bit swollen so I'm thinking it's probably sprained somehow though I'm really hoping it's not broken. Now to figure out what to do for an injured pup's leg. Poor girl will probably go crazy if she can't play for any extended period of time.

To make it worse (maybe just for me, but still), today is her unofficial "official" birthday. ! year old and a messed up leg.

Sunday morning frost edition

I may have found a new favorite riding condition. Got out to Rosaryville early today for a spin before the thaw set in and after getting used to the trails had a pretty fun ride. Actually, it was fun trail wise though fitness wise I was dying the entire way. Even the small climbs were killing me today.

Cass poses with the new Dragon 29'er Frame. Nice looking frame!

I thought I'd learned this lesson pretty convincingly before but apparently I needed a refresher on the basics! After going all day Saturday eating only a smallish hamburger (from this great little burger joint on PA Ave, SE) some fries and a beer for dinner and then skipping breakfast since there was nothing in the house to eat aside from the coffee I drank before leaving...

I'm not sure why, or even how I do it but some days I just don't feel the urge or need to eat. I generally make up for it the rest of the time; this afternoon it was a couple of burritos with a mixture I threw together and I'm not talking small burritos either. Yum!
Cass visits me on the top tube during a short break. All smiles all the time.

Anyway, the ride was nice anyway though I left out the inner loop. I still haven't ridden it in daytime but I figured today with all the ice and snow was not the time to try riding the logs for the first time. I also had Cass with me the entire loop which was fantastic. She did a great job and hung in tight until she started to get a bit tired in the last little bit. Even then she was still doing great, just not trying to run me down all the time.


A well deserved water break with some evidence of actual snow!

She likes to take off at first and lead for a bit until we get into a groove. Makes me a little nervous in case we come up on someone but after a couple of minutes she settles in on my rear wheel and just runs with me. The best part is how well she follows when we come on other trail users. For other bikers I generally make sure to stop and get her over on the woods side of my bike while I let others ride by. Today we caught a couple of trail runners who stepped over to let us pass, she ran up a bit but didn't bother them at all and just kept going before settling back in on my wheel. Also a couple of times when a guy pulled off coming towards us before I saw him we rode by with a thanks and she just stayed right on my wheel and didn't even flinch. Awesome.


Cass gets greedy with the water...

She was made to be a trail dog. And a happy trail dog at that!

Trail rides and a tired pup - And a passing of a good friend

It's been a while since I made it out on the mountain bike; 24 hours of big bear was the last time actually. The bike spent some time at the shop getting the brake line replaced and and then Jerseyman training and the rest of life got in the way. The last few weeks I've been itching to get out and ride and finally today I had the free time to do so. A few dry days after heavy rains and mid-seventies with a light breeze made it the perfect day to get out there.

I decided to go to Rosaryville which I've decided is perfect for a rigid singlespeed set up. I also wanted to bring Cass along and see how she'd do as a trail dog and since I've never seen more then 5 or six other people in the park thought it'd be an ideal place to try it out. Turned out Rosaryville was a pretty happening place to be today with the conditions edging up on perfection. I took her out anyway at a slow and watchful pace and after a minute or two or running around she settled in behind my wheel and didn't leave it for 15 or 20 minutes into the park.

I turned around then and started bringing her back and eventually could see I probably should have done about 5 minutes less out as she started drifting back as I slowed down more and more to wait. She gained some fans though along the trail as all 6 or so of the people we saw cheered her on. She did great with getting out of the way as we let them pass as well so I'd say the first time out was a big success. Plus she's sleeping heavily now and you know what they say about a tired pup...

After I got her back to the truck I decided I could use a bit more riding and so I moved the truck to a heavily shaded area and opened all the windows so plenty breeze would go through the cab while she slept. I hopped back on the trail going the other way and 20 minutes in decided instead of turning around like I'd planned I should just ride the entire loop. My flow was excellent and the shorter slower riding with Cass seemed to work out the rust like a dream. The trails were in fantastic condition and I was flowing through everything.

Before I knew it I was back in the parking lot waking up a sleepy pup in the truck. I got everything packed up; let Cass drink the rest of my water (she'd gone through all of hers already) and heading for Chipotle and home. After I ate in the car with Cass and started driving home I felt a warm rush of liquid along the side of my leg as Cass decided now was a good time to throw up the loads water she'd slurped down along with the grass she'd decided to eat (ok and probably the little pancake I gave her during breakfast too). Plus, instead of on her little platform bed I built in the back of the cab she stuck her face up between the front seats and poured it all out over the center console, into my cup holders and along the side of my leg. I love a dog with a self preservation instinct... :)

The truck is now cleaner then it's been almost since I first bought it at carmax a year ago.

In other dog related news, my childhood dog Christy had to be put down by my folks at just under 15 years old. She was a black and white springer spaniel that we'd picked up on good friday when I was in 6th grade as my dog and had a great life. She couldn't go with me to college and from then essentially became my folks dog but I always loved her to death. She's been struggling more and more the past few years and apparently last weekend while my folks were at my race her liver shut down on her and she stopped eatting and couldn't do much. They said they thought she had liver cancer that was heavily ingrainded and she'd die within a few days no matter what they did...

Christy never really got used to Cass but of course Cassie always liked her.

I know it's just a dog but it still sucks. Poor dog, my father told my mom she was the prefect dog; she was, at least for them. The two of them will struggle with it for a while probably. She was so ingrained in my dad's daily routine, and my mom always loved her company, especially since she doesn't work now. I sense there may be another dog in their future, though we'll see about that.

Steam Release

I cannot for the life of me get my brain wrapped around the flow of the application I'm trying to build right now, so I'm doing this instead. I think if I continue the pressure in my head will only continue to build until it explodes. In all reality I want bash my head against my desk right now, but I'm going to blog a little instead.

Got some decent miles in this week during lunches though I also had plans during lunch two days and forgot my shoes (despite having my bike) another so no real riding for me. I did finally join the greenbelt swim center so I'll hopefully be putting in my first laps this weekend with just over a month to the sprint-tri. I think I'm going to drown.



The pup is rocking her class and is growing like a champ, though she has slowed down from the torrid pace of a 1/2 lb every day or two. I'm thinking she's going to manage about 50 lb when all is said and done, though I wouldn't be terribly surprised if she got bigger still. She's beginning to feel completely at home with our trail system across the street though the deer ticks are as well it appears. I found at least 7 in the past 2 days on top of her fur after and during hikes. Not cool with that.

Off to run a bit to try and blow off the rest of the steam in my brain. Hopefully I'll comeback and be able to work through this shit; either that or its going to be a long afternoon.

More testing, this time with pix

After yesterdays hike the pup was pretty worn out. She's a trooper.

Tired paws

This weather has been great this weekend; I know Cassie is enjoying it. We went for a hike yesterday and today to enjoy it (and wear her out a bit). Right now she is passed out on her bed downstairs.





While we were walking back home along Research Rd between Ridge and Beaver Dam which is closed to traffic on the weekends a car cam e flying down the hill from the direction of Ridge. On side of the road has been open lately on weekends for guys working at the Ag Center facility and so occasionally there will be traffic along the road. I grabbed the pup and threw a hand up at the guy. So he slows down and then comes to a stop rolling down his window to talk. He started telling me how it's a good idea to keep my dog on a leash (she stays off leash when we're hiking). I let into him about the fact that the road is closed to vehicles on the weekends and that he was traveling 50 + miles an hour down a 25 mile an hour road. He then went on to repeat that it's a good idea to keep my dog on a leash so I said thanks and walked away. For whatever reason this just pissed me off.



Not sure if it was because the ass-hat was trying to tell me how to handle my dog or what, though I always get a bit fired up when people are speeding like that on back roads and the residential streets around my place. But anyway, I just had to share that story.



Yesterday after Cass and I went hiking I get out for about a 20 mile ride out Beaver Dam out around to 197 and back in on Powder Mill, looping down into the Wildlife Preserve for a couple of additional miles as well. The ride was great and the weather was decent except for the wind gusts of up to 42 mph according to the news. I could feel it as I headed into at least 30 + mph winds, going downhill from 28 mph down to 13 in a matter of seconds from the wind. Luckily today's ride with Brian (bro-in-law) won't be like that. I believe it's almost short sleeve weather today...

A new addition

The blog is an interesting thing for me… I always want to post and start to think about what I’m going to write, but then I decide I’d rather be out there doing what I want to write about as opposed to well, sitting there writing about it. Not saying I’ve been out riding or running or training a bunch, but I’ve been keeping busy for the most part.

Most recently I got a puppy; not what I’d been planning since the last thing I was thinking in this venue was a 6 year old lab rescue but this came up and I couldn’t pass it by. So, I’ve got a tiny 11 week old baby girl (lab/hound mix). The runt of her litter had to be tube fed before she would start eating at 3 lbs 4 ounces 4 or 5 weeks ago and now she’s moving up on 12 + lbs. Crazy watching her grow. So naturally most of my time is being taken up by that right now.

She’s a good little hiker and follows right on my heels through the trails across the street from my house, climbing over downed trees twice her size. Can’t wait till she’s bigger and we can head out on longer backpacking trips and start running.

Monday with the day off and the unexpected beautiful weather my brother in law and I headed out on a little bike and run combo. We did about 10 miles on the bike and only about a 2 mile run but we’ll be ramping it up a bit more this weekend. I rode the fixed gear, wearing shorts and a short sleeve jersey… God I love this weather. Monday night I refused to let go and wore my flip flops despite having to also wear my perma-loft jacket to stay warm in rapidly dropping temperatures.

Anyway, that’s what’s new with me here. Hopefully as the pup gets settled in I’ll start getting out on the bike more often and as the weather starts to agree with me more I’ll start commuting via bike again as well. We’ll see. I’ve gotten myself into a slightly comfortable rut of driving to fort totten and taking the metro from there. What can you do?

Blessed be thou puppy

October 4^th is the day of the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and the environment and in celebration the National Cathedral held their annual blessing of the animals ceremony on the church steps. The Washington Animal Rescue League was bringing a group of dogs over to be blessed and to be held by important people (aka senators) and had requested volunteers for the event so I went to lend a hand. I got a great little terrier mix named Trudy who loved to cuddle and spent a nice evening surrounded by way to many cameras and a bunch of great dogs and dog lovers.

The whole event was a bit a of a spectacle but it was good to see the dogs and their owners getting out to and socializing with each other. I had a nice moment in the lone interview I did early on when the journalist asked me about my feelings about chushes getting involved in animal outreach programs as opposed to human outreach. My “Duhhrrrrr” moment was short sweet and too the point… Duhhhrrrrr. Ah well, maybe I’ll get my name in a paper.

The congressman who was going to hold Trudy during the ceremony never showed up so I ended up holding her the entire time and taking her to get her blessed. I didn’t hear much of what was said and didn’t really participate in the religious aspect of it but it was fun to be there with all the dogs and spend some extra time with a great shelter dog. Hopefully this will lead to more dogs being adopted from WARL and people won’t take my ramblings as anything to judge the shelter by.

New Routes

What a beautiful weekend for riding! I got out this weekend fro about 100 miles of total riding and figured out a route to my sisters house in Laurel which is very bikable and produces a very nice approximately 25 mile one way trip. Even better is the fact that I could hop on the metro to greenbelt and cut the ride down to around 10 miles if necessary. The route follows the beginning on the Baltimore to Washington trail which I am also looking into using for getting to my folks house in Columbia, MD. It seems like it could be pretty doable and would produce a ride somewhere around 40 or 50 miles one way; great for a weekend at their place.

Anyway, the ride Saturday included just the route to Laurel while Sunday I did the same route with an extra 30 or so miles in the middle along the route that is from Greenbelt to the Bay via Annapolis. All in all it seems like it should be a pretty nice route, though I think there may be a bit too many turns and non-country roads to use for a regular team ride. Eventually I’d like to get a group ride organized that we can call the Union ride and invite teammates, friends and prospective members out on; hopefully soon I’ll get something that’ll work.

It’s so nice having a camera again and I took a few lessons from some of the blogs I read in my photography during the ride. I like having a reason to stop and enjoy my surroundings for a little bit instead of just pushing on the whole way through. I also spend more time paying attention to the things around me when I’m looking for picture opportunities. I’ll just need to make sure I don’t let the picture taking take over the bike riding.

My sister picked up their new puppy this past Friday and being the dog person I am I naturally stopped by three times this weekend. (I probably won’t even do all that when they have their kids)… I took a bunch of pictures of her too and boy is she a cute little pup. A bit shy and scared at first, she is quickly warming up and I can tell she’s going to be a great little dog. They’re being very vigilant with the crate training and following the “rules” of their dog adoption books now so I’m sure she’ll be through that bit pretty quickly here. It’s good to be an uncle…

A wasted weekend in the training/exercising front unless of course you count the workout for my throwing arm. I dog sat my friend’s exceptionally well behaved dog this weekend and spent a great deal of time playing fetch since he absolutely loves it and will play for hours if given the opportunity. My new favorite place is Malcolm X Park; we went there a lot and it was never too crowded so there was plenty of room for me to play with Clay and include a game with myself in seeing how far I could chuck the ball (an the follow up game of how sore I can make my arm from a game of fetch). Anyway, the weekend was amazing with Clay; he went just about every where with me and sat outside on the curb if he wasn’t allowed in.

On Saturday I went out to see my first bike race ever in person and watched the 3/4 and 1/2/3 races at the Quicksilver Winter Solstice Series before helping breakdown the tents and pack everything up. The race was fun to watch as a group of 4 riders broke from the main group within the first few laps and held the gap for the remainder of the race. A second group managed to break away as well though they never caught the lead group it was still exciting to watch. What was probably even better is this morning hearing some of the reports and discussions of race tactics being used by teams and individuals in the race.

(Edit: This picture was taken by Ed Hazelwood and can be found and copies purchased here.)

Unfortunately the Racing Union only had one guy in the race and the way things worked out there was no chance for him to accomplish much after the initial breakaway without the help of teammates but next week there will be two RU racers whom have worked together on multiple occasions and will likely be able to do some damage in the race.

On another note, our official kit order came in last week and I picked up my order at the race. There were unfortunately a number of mistakes with the printing on the jerseys and shorts which our guys spent tremendous amounts of time and energy working on but in the end we’ve decided to keep them since it would take quite a while to get another shipment in. I did really like the color the new kits came out, which was not exactly how they were supposed to since they are brighter and will be more visible in a pack. Also the “hammer man” in the background of the jersey looks awesome and stands out quite a bit more then the previous version. All in all I think I’m very satisfied with the kits, though I didn’t have much input on the changes that were worked on so hard by some of our guys. Oh yeah, another good thing about my kit is that it fits me like a dream; almost as if it was custom made for me. Now I just have to be sure not to gain any weight or I’m screwed.

Sunday I didn’t run like I had planned when I woke up with a sore throat and feeling like general crap. I’m keeping a “close eye” on this latest development but so far it is only getting worse. With my marathon in less then 2 weeks I will be taking whatever drugs and precautions necessary to get over this crud quickly…