Flats

Bummer on this morning's ride....I flatted twice and had to get a ride back home. The cause is a mystery because both tubes are punctured in the same relative place and we checked the inside of the tire casing before inserting the new tubes. I'll have to look the tire over later today to see what the problem is.

I wanted to ride Sunday but couldn't muster up the enthusiasm for it. We did some cleaning up around the house (well, Jonnene did most of it) and went shopping at Lowe's for new gutters and some Quikrete so I could repair the front walkway (which I did Monday). Monday morning's ride was a good, spirited one with seven of us showing up.

Ahhhh-so

Great ride this morning at the "Seize the Road" bike tour here in town. It's put on by the Epilepsy Foundation of Louisiana so it's a good thing to support. Like I expected, it was pretty fast almost from the get-go with LaS'port leading the charge ahead of the rest of the tour riders, with a few extra riders mixed into our group for interest. We spent a large part of the first 28 miles at race pace...there were a lot of breaks attempted and reeled back in. I only sniffed the front of the pack a couple of times, once dragging them up to a break by Bolt and Patrick (something I rarely do more than once) when we were near Blanchard. I remember one time where we were chasing DP and Patrick...for about 1/2 mile we were cruising above 30 mph. Most of the time we stayed between 24 and 27 mph which was pretty darn fast in the terrain we rode in. Finally, about 30 miles in I and a group of six lost the lead pack which was no surprise to me. I haven't been doing long fast training rides in 8 weeks and just wanted to hang as long as I could. Still, it was a good ride...our group ended up covering the 60-mile course at a 22.4 mph average, so a less than 3-hour effort. I'll take it.

Jonnene was with a group that covered the same distance with a 18 mph average but she dropped her chain twice and that cut back her chance to be a little faster.

As to last Thursday, I spent 12.5 hours on set (actually, two different sets) and didn't get in front of the camera ONCE! It was interesting to see the whole process and watch some of the acting but I ended up not getting my big show-biz moment. Just a lot of time standing around, sitting around, talking to some of the crew (one of the lighting guys was a Louisiana native from Lafayette...sounded like a true Cajun), and grazing at the food services table. We were not going to starve, that's for sure! The afternoon set was at a local park where there were several camera angles shot for the same basic scene. What's interesting here is how EVERYTHING would be moved from place to place to stay out of the camera's view...I mean, tents, tables, lights, reflectors, extras (including me), crew, anything was moved from one spot to the next in less than 10 minutes! The good thing of all this is that I do get paid for doing nothing. The check is supposed to come in two weeks. I might get called back since I didn't appear in front of the camera. Extras usually only work one day or one scene since the movie people don't want the same person showing up in the background repeatedly in a movie.

But my movie career is not over yet. I've gotten another callup to be an extra next Thursday in "Leaves of Grass" which has nothing to do with Walt Whitman's collection of poems. This one stars Ed Norton, Susan Sarandon, and Richard Dreyfuss. I'm supposed to be in a scene as part of the congregation at a local synagogue (yea! I get to sit down a lot!). I was also asked if I could use my truck in a scene showing traffic in front of the synagogue which means I get paid a little extra for using my vehicle. Dreyfuss is supposed to be in the congregation scene so I'll get to see him at work. Should be interesting. Depending on things I could be there all day again or it could be short and sweet.

More lights, camera....acktion!!

Okay, to ease the anticipation from the previous entry, I no longer have the baby flying squirrel. When I went out for my bike ride Tuesday night, I put my cat in the house and left the little squirrel in the soft cloth it was sleeping in out next to the tree outside where I found it that morning. My reasoning was that maybe...with the cat gone...that maybe the mother might come back to look for its kid. That's what I was hoping for anyway. I gave the little guy a good long drink from the mixture I had and he gulped it down pretty good, then he went back to sleep. I hated doing this but I felt that he might not last very long if I didn't improve his diet real soon. I didn't have the 30 or so days to support him until his eyes opened up. AND I had a cat in the area. Nothing else was coming up as far as handing him off to someone who could care for him. I felt this was the best (but not great) way to handle it. So I left him at the tree, cuddled up, and went for my ride.

I got back about two hours later and I went to the tree to check on him. He was gone, as in he wasn't there anymore. The cloth looked like it hadn't been touched and I picked it up, noting nothing was there. I looked around carefully in a 3-4 circle around the tree as it got dark and couldn't see any evidence of him around at all (I would check again the next morning and find nothing). So that was it. I am going to think that his mom found him and took him in and that he's fine. There are no other cats in the neighborhood so I know that wouldn't be a reason for him to be gone. But as to birds, owls, or other predators, I don't know. I hope he's home or if he's not....that it happened quickly. Of course, I had second thoughts about leaving him out there and that maybe I could have taken care of him. But too late now. I'll just hope he's fine and will be flying above my head someday in the trees. I won't forget him and I'll feel some guilt about the whole thing for a long time.

Thursday I'll be an extra for the "Front of the Class" Hallmark movie. I have to show up at 6:30 am and could be there until 6 pm. I hope they have a decent food cart!! I need to make sure I have a good breakfast before I leave...and walk the dogs...

Jonnene made it to Kansas City and should be back sometime after I finish my movie star work. The trip up there was uneventful and that's the way we like it! I spent most of today working in the yard. I'm also a mentor for a high school student on his senior project...that might take some work but our first meeting was this afternoon. He has lots to learn and I hope he pays attention!

Just Great....

I found a baby flying squirrel in the side yard this morning. It was in the same place where we chased off my cat when it caught a full-sized flying squirrel as it tried to land by the base of a tree. The adult took off up the tree when we got Taz away from it and I thought all was fine then. I came back out about 15 minutes later and found the baby on the ground. It must have been hanging on to its mom and fell off in the brief attack.

The poor thing is young, its eyes aren't even open yet but it has a healthy coat of fur on it and seems to be unhurt. It's alert but sleeping a lot. When it's curled up it's about as big as the circle I can make with my thumb and forefinger. I'm giving it a mixture made up of water, salt, and sugar based on a website I found about these things. But I can't take care of it in the long run. I've called around to see if someone or place can take it in but no luck so far. Mom's thinking there's a place north of Bossier City that might be good so I'm waiting to hear if we can hit the jackpot there. But if that doesn't work, I'm not sure what to do. I might have to take it somewhere and let nature takes its course although it certainly helps to have more flying squirrels around. We've got more than enough regular squirrels, that's for sure!

Jonnene's going to be out of town for a couple of days so I'll be batching it here. I got another call from casting to be an extra in the "Front of the Class" movie on Thursday so I'll be out there all day in about 3-4 scenes. I have no idea what I'll be doing, outside of being an adult in the background or something like that. We're doing scenes based in 1996 and 1985, and I have to bring clothing somewhat appropriate for those periods. Too bad I don't blow-dry or feather my hair anymore!

Almost in the movies again

I got a call this afternoon from Glorioso Casting to be an extra in a movie this Monday. I would play a professor in a banquet scene in a Hallmark TV film called "Front of the Class". It had been almost two years since I last worked in a film so it was a surprise to get a call.

But I had to turn it down. I had a meeting scheduled with the new cycling club at Centenary College to get that club off the ground that evening and the filming was set for all day into the night. Since I'm being paid to direct this club then that was the priority. The guy who called asked me to update my information at the website and that they may call me again. I told him, please do, that just wasn't a good day for me to come out. He said he understood, that we do have lives outside the film world.

And the story takes place in a faraway land...called Oz

Just found out the release dates for AUSTRALIA (link). It opens Down Under on November 13th and in the States on November 26th. We'll be in Oz when it opens state-side, so I guess we'll see it in Perth! I hope this is good....the music already sounds fantastic. When I watch the trailer all I can think about is Jonnene.

On another note, AN AMERICAN CAROL (link) opens on October 3rd and this should be funny. I think I'll like this one.

The Second Hurricane...Here's Ike!

I'm working backwards to catch up to what's been going on here. This past weekend we had our second hurricane blow thru the Ark-La-Tex when Ike passed by Tyler, Texas (about 100 miles west of us) after making landfall on the southeast Texas Gulf coast between Galveston and Houston earlier that morning. I was expecting a lot tougher time with this storm than we ended up getting. Shreveport was going to be on the northeast side of the hurricane which is the worst side to be on...expect plenty of wind and rain and spun-off tornados, the usual stuff. All we got were wind gusts up to 40 mph and a steady diet of light-to-medium rain all day into Saturday night. It was interesting to see some folks running in the neighborhood during the brief dry spells to get in some kind of workout! We also heard about a couple of friends who did a 100-mile ride in this weather as part of their training for Ironman! Not many folks can say they've ridden 100 miles during a hurricane...well, okay, it was down-graded to a tropical storm by the time they rode but it was still a wild ride!

It doesn't look too bad here but loose and rotten branches were blown out of the trees and all over the yard and the house. We'd hear loud sounds like someone was stomping around on the roof but it was really tree limbs raining down on us! This photo is during a break in the rain and Tropical Storm Ike is about 100 miles away to the west.

Looking down the driveway at the branches and pooled-up rain water. The fun part was cleaning all this up on Sunday!

The only "real" damage we suffered was losing our cable TV connection! We finally got some of it back today but we can only get basic since it looks like our cable box died over the weekend. It won't power up or anything, so it'll be returned to the company for a new one. But, seriously, we did quite well compared to other parts of Shreveport where trees fell on some houses, there were plenty of power outages, and some other damage was inflicted here and there.

When I did the 5:50 ride this morning, I noticed a few houses in certain sections of our neighborhood with no power and I could hear generators running here and there. But generally, it looked like everyone was okay. However, when I crossed 70th Street heading north I saw that Gilbert Street was completely dark. I was having to navigate down the road with the little headlight I had and by my memory of the road layout. Not really a problem but I realized how much I relied on the street lights to ride out there. The highlight was almost hitting a barricade that some kids (I assume it was dumb teenagers) placed across the street and, hitting the brakes hard, stopped about three feet from it! I saw it at the last minute in the dark and was pretty proud of how I stopped so quick without skidding. There were a few other barricades on the side of the road blocking excess to a downed power line. Some people think they're being cute doing sometime that they can't fathom could actually hurt someone. After the ride, I came back the same way and the barricade was still out in the street...cars were just driving around it. Nobody had moved it yet and you could tell from its position that it wasn't supposed to be there.

I spent the rest of the morning doing more yard work, cleaning up the leaves and such from the storm. This afternoon I got a real live massage from Amy, who Jonnene uses for her massages once a month. I had figured I needed some work on these tired muscles (I ran last night and biked this morning, for instance) and Amy put the hurt on me! She worked on my right shoulder that's been acting up lately and my left heel on the Achilles tendon which has gotten tender in the last couple of weeks. It should do some good if I get into a regular habit of this.

I know, it's been awhile....

Yeah, yeah, I know. I haven't posted any entries in over two weeks. I just haven't had the urge to write anything down but I know I need to update what's been going on the past 18-20 days. Right now, I'm leaving a couple of pictures to tease you with and tomorrow I'll get up to date on what's been happening.

We did our little trip to Montana two weeks ago during the Labor Day weekend. Above is Jonnene and myself standing at around 11,000 feet above sea level at Beartooth Pass (in the Beartooth Mountains, natch!). It was a nice place to go and maybe we'll do it again but for longer than two whole days!

Hey, we had a hurricane come through yesterday! Here's some of the branches and leaves that fell in our driveway Saturday, as well as all over the yard, and we spent today picking it all up. That's my cat, Taz, walking around at the bottom of the picture. He was outside during all the storming going on and he didn't seem too keen on the whole thing. This was actually our second encounter with a hurricane in two weeks but I'll tell more about that tomorrow. In the meantime, keep the folks in Houston and Galveston in your thoughts and prayers.