kentcowgill.org/blog

Lisa was sitting with Matthew when Spike brought Lisa his ball because he wanted to play. So Lisa did some multitasking. Before we knew it, Matthew was laughing while watching Spike run back and forth, so we grabbed the camera as quickly as we could.

Full size video is here. Be sure to check out the rest of my recently posted video on my youtube channel.

So it was a little troublesome, but I think it was worth it.

If you look carefully, you'll see (at this point) a single new post from April of 2001 in the archive section, or if you click on "Older Articles" enough times to go back that far.

Just some background for these posts, since I'll be editing them a bit to 1) format them using Text::Textile) syntax, as well as 2) capitalizing words properly⁸. I had just signed up to ride in the 2001 Canada to US AIDS Vaccine ride - 415 miles in 5 days, and was blogging about my training and fundraising. Back then...

1. My wife Lisa was only my girlfriend.
2. My road bike (Univega) was brand new.
3. I was about to be laid off from a startup internet company.
4. Most of the links I've linked to were still active.
5. I had more of my pictures on the site.

In my editing, I will clean up broken links. I'll also try to re-upload all my old pictures to my new photos directory and link to them once I do that. And lastly, I'll remove most of the references to my fundraising activities and pleas for donations, since the ride has been over for almost 6 years. In case you're interested, I raised $7,080 in donations for the cause. I only rode about 245 miles due to overuse injury (RSI) to my achilles tendons. (Note the plural).

Hope you enjoy a little blast from the past. I certainly enjoy the memories.

⁸ I used to refuse to capitalize letters. Partly due to laziness, partly due to an extreme dislike of CamelCased variables, partly due to the fact that humans tend to be able to more easily visually distinguish between different lowercase letters than capital letters (or so I think I read somewhere). Since then, I've decided to drop the convention. I'm not 100% certain why - maybe due to the rest of the world and their treatment of the capitalization of letters :)

Training, training, training... last weekend I only managed to get out on my bike once. I was going to go to the bike shop so I could pick up a new shirt. Unfortunately, I got a really bad flat tire. As in - I was riding on my rim flat in under 3 seconds. And I had no tire pump to put air in my tire if I patched it. Fortunately, I was within 50 feet of the bike shop. I had actually hit the curb near the bike shop and I think that's what wounded my tire. Unfortunately, the bike shop was closed. Fortunately, a friend (and potential sponsor - hi Jeff!) lives near the bike shop. Unfortunately, he wasn't home. Fortunately, I was maybe 13-14 blocks from Lisa's place. Unfortunately, she was out shopping. Fortunately, she had her cellphone and was almost finished shopping. Unfortunately, she got stuck in the checkout line. Fortunately, she picked me up after about 20 minutes. :) All tolled, about 10.5 miles.

Fast forward to this weekend. I ride to a DIFFERENT bike shop (thinking that the other one was jinxed) without trouble. I bought a seatpost-mounted rack and a bag to put on it so I don't have to carry all my stuff in my backpack. I rode to Patrick's place, and we went out for another Lake Shore Bike path ride. We got down to the University of Chicago area, and stopped for lunch at a deli on or near the campus. I suppose it was Patrick's turn to get a flat tire, because about 5 minutes after heading back, I hear his tire expel all its air. He apparently ran over a piece of glass that totally shredded his outer tire and innertube. Unfortunately, neither of us had a pump, but with the damage to his tire it wouldn't have mattered anyhow. Fortunately, a taxi drove by immediately after we located the offending piece of glass. Unfortunately, Patrick didn't have any cash. Fortunately, I did :) Also fortunately, the taxi driver didn't mind having Patrick load his bike in the trunk of the taxi. So I basically raced the taxi back to Patrick' place (about 8-10 miles). I almost won, because the traffic on Lake Shore Drive was horrendous! He barely had enough time to get home and change before I rolled up. After that, I had had enough, so I went home. All tolled, about 35 miles. And I've got some really nice sunburn for my effort :)

The new job has a lot of my time and energy sucked away.. :(

As far as training, the last month has been terrible! I had a really bad cold and the weather was horrid, so up until about week ago, I haven't been on my bike all that much. Last week, I did force myself out on my bike. My original intention was to ride maybe 10, possibly 20 miles. After about 8, I felt so good that I decided to call up a friend (who lived pretty close to that 8 mile point). As luck would have it, he was just getting ready to go out on his bike. We met up a few minutes later, rode down the Lake Shore Bike Path to the Museum of Science and Industry (and actually just a bit beyond that). We took a break at a promontory looking out over the lake, shivered a bit (I was cold!), turned around and headed back. All tolled, about 35 miles. Nothing too special about that ride - I'm getting a little bored with the bike path :)

This past weekend, I finally got Lisa, my girlfriend, out on a ride with me! I lent her my mountain bike, bought her a helmet, and we rode down to Bluesfest on Saturday. We took it easy because it was her first time on a bike in years. That was about 13 miles worth of riding. Then the next day, I decided to do all my errands on my bike - I rode to Lisa's apartment to put up shelves, I then rode to one of my clients' office to do some work, and then I sprinted (as best I could wih the stoplights along the route) back home for a total of about 20 miles. I think this is significant, because I rode for at least 2 hours each day, and they were back to back. I'm definitely going to be working more back-to-back days into my schedule as the summer continues, because the vaccine ride has 5 days, back to back, with some fairly hefty mileage.