Thankgiving Eve

I've hardly been on my bike since the Tour de Ouachita, almost 11 days ago, so I thought it might be a good idea to make it to the 5:50 ride this morning and get back into some kind of routine. Plus it might be the last warm morning of 2007 and I better take advantage of it! Including me, there were seven of us cruising down the parkway but the pace wasn't that quick. I think I might have averaged 21.8 mph during my long pull but that was into an 8 mph southerly headwind and that tends to slow you down. And I'm nowhere near the shape I was in back in September.

I did a tradeout with Blackwell Research regarding a couple of jobs I did for them that I hadn't sent invoices for yet. I got a rear Hundred wheel with Shimano hub as well as a Blackwell double-wheel bag....very nice stuff. The wheel had been used last week when the Blackwell team went to do some tests at the Texas A&M wind tunnel, so technically it was a used wheel but it's just as good as a new one. Plus you can find pictures of it being used at the tunnel (it's the rear wheel). The wheel bag is pretty neat...holds two wheels securely and has two pockets for skewers and other gear. Very heavy duty and pretty. Basically the two products combine for about $1200 retail but with this tradeout, Blackwell only pays for cost and that pretty much equals what I billed them for the jobs I did a while back. I'm still waiting on one last check from them for something else and then my professional association with them will be over. I'll still buy their stuff when I can and support my buds over there.

Got more work done on the kitchen today. I'm reburbishing the cabinet doors instead of replacing them, which is cheaper in product but takes up more of my time. But I've been satisfied with the results and will just keep cranking it out. There's other things to do and I'd like to have the whole room done by the end of the year. So far I'm quite pleased with the results.

Lots of fallout from the ULM-Alabama game since Saturday. My alma mater has been in the news continuously for one reason or another, in association with the Tide's "embarrassing" loss to us. Hey, the Warhawks played hard and made Alabama work for all it got. We stopped them when we had to and the better team won that day. Now on another day, Alabama would probably kill us...but on November 17th of 2007, we were the better and classier squad at Bryant-Denny Field. Thank goodness we don't have to play them next year!

Tomorrow is Turkey Day...The Wife and I will do the annual Turkey Trot run in the morning and the rest of the day is to be spent/tolerated with relatives. The rest of the holiday weekend we'll try to get a number of things accomplished around the house and elsewhere. Hope we're somewhat successful!