Winter is definitely not my favorite season for many reasons, the main two being cold and less daylight. Both are preventing me from getting any decent outdoor activities in… usually I'll suck it up for the few months and continue riding, but now that I'm horseless, I've had to resort to other means of physical activity. Since my latest goal is to do the Bike MS: Beyond the Beltway ride in May, it's forced me to actually go to the gym after rather than head home and watch Comedy Central. Fortunately, my company is generous enough to provide its employees with a (somewhat small) gym to use, and 3-4 times a week I'm in there spinning and trying to tune out whatever crappy show is on the TV. (Lately it's been CNBC's "Mad Money," which to me is just a giant pitch for this investment guy's book. Better that than Fox News, I suppose.) But hey, it's free, so there's the tradeoff.

Anyway, it's weird for me to use the stationary bike, because it's really a spinning bike and thus has no means of calculating your distance, cadence, etc. What bugs me is the fact I feel like the only thing I'm really working on is my stamina, since pedaling along at the same rate for 40 minutes isn't a good way to gauge my fitness level. Not to mention the scenery (a bunch of sweaty, middle aged men and a few weight-lifting meatheads) kinda sucks.

So, I can't really compare the time spent sitting and spinning on that gym bike to biking outside. When I'm out on the road, 40 minutes is practically nothing, because 20 of those 40 minutes could have been spent sitting at stoplights or coasting downhill. (Or, in my case, pulling on my water bottle a little too hard and accidentally flinging it into the bushes, turning around, stopping, picking it up, then struggling to do a standing start and clipping in without falling over, etc.)

I suppose I could always jump on the treadmill, but I am the world's WORST runner and can't control my heart rate without having to stop and walk every 2 minutes because I'm about to collapse. No good.

Spring, hurry up and get here already, will ya?!

By the way, if you'd like to contribute to my Bike MS fundraising efforts (aiming for $300), click here. Any amount is appreciated - even if it's a dollar. Seriously.

Squoils = Squirrels, in particular Sciurus carolinensis (Eastern Grey Squirrel).

You know, those rodent like creatures that have fuzzy tails and dart in front of cars? Yeah, those guys. Squirrel issues have plagued my family for years. Example #1. Dad is now up to "Squirrel War XII," which is the never-ending battle of the squirrels trying to overtake his bird feeders. I think my family has gone through 30+ feeders, half of them jerry-rigged by Commander Dad to prevent the squirrels from stealing the birdseed. He even went as far as setting up one to deliver an electric shock if the squirrel sat on it. The squirrels then got smart and realized they could hang upside down from the pergola and eat the seed without touching the feeder.

Example #2. My sister once found a baby squirrel that had fallen out of its nest by the side of the road. Despite the fact he was crawling with fleas, he was actually really cute. We named him Miles. Poor, scared little Miles ended up getting rehomed with the Audubon center a few hours later, as Mom was NOT going to let us have a pet squirrel.

Example #3. While spending my short-lived semester at Mary Washington College, a squirrel (we named him Nutley - very creative) made his home on a tree branch squished next to my door room window. Normally that was OK, but he was a loud little guy and was trying to make Nutlets with his wife, so we ended up having to call maintenance to remove the branch.

Example #4. This photo is somewhat famous, as it made the Mary Washington campus newspaper and was subsequently posted on the newsroom wall. It's actually a great shot, I have no idea how I was able to get the depth of field thing going there, but I think having a subject that freezes in place helped.

My most recent encounter with squirrels involved my house. (Thanks to these guys, I almost broke my 21 year record of not peeing my pants when I found out firsthand they lived in the detached garage.) Anyway, the other day I went up to the attic to get something from my suitcase. I unzipped one of the outer pockets, and imagine my surprise when I found a small, neat pile of ACORNS sitting in there. I didn't know whether to scream or laugh. Either way, it was concrete evidence that there our friends are actually sharing this residence with us. Needless to say, the owner of those acorns is not going to be happy when he finds out his secret hiding place has been depleted of its stash and is now fully zipped shut.

(Of course, one of my roommates says, "You didn't LEAVE them there?! Now he's going to be hungry!")

Wow… blog is sloooowwww lately. I'm not sure if it's godaddy's fault for having cheapo servers, or the database is just downright clogged with WP queries.

Lately I've been horse shopping online with the anticipation of not having a horse come April, when my lease on Cass ends. I've decided I have a love/hate relationship with horse shopping, much like my love/hate relationship with Target. I love Target because you can pretty much buy ANYTHING there, but I hate it because there are too many choices and/or what I want isn't on the shelves. I end up walking out of there happy but absolutely exhausted from the effort. For example, the humidifier I wanted to buy for my room - not in stock. I spent about 20 minutes looking at facial cleansers because there are about 200 types available. Too much yet not enough.

Yesterday I saw this guy on CANTER Mid-Atlantic's site. Ooooh, purdy. I'd take him, but here's what's preventing me from picking up the phone and calling the trainer:
1) My eye for conformation is crappy, so he could have some major faults that I'm aware of,
and
2) He's right off the track, something I've never done before (buying a horse straight from the track) and THAT is what the killer is. I cannot do it. I don't trust myself.

I'm so afraid that I'm going to end up with another horse that's going to fall apart on me that I can't buy anything. My trainer is in FL, so I don't have her to come hold my hand, and poor Allie has been the victim of my incessant "What about this guy?" and "I can't doooo thissss!!!" gchat IMs. Seriously. I'd rather hide my head in the sand because no one's around to help and reassure me that I'm doing the right thing.

I'm always trying to do the right thing, and at this point it's nearly crippling me. I can't afford to make another mistake.

For those of you (meaning, uh, two readers) who don't know me very well, I'm pretty good in the Denial Department of life… a.k.a., sailing down DeNile. My dear Subaru Impreza is a good source of prompting those sailing expeditions, as it's getting up there in years and I am NOT ready for it to die.

This weekend it finally got above 45 and I decided to wash my car. My original project was to install the remote starter, but after realizing the "easy to install!" claim on the package was really written in Opposite language, I decided to kill that idea. So, my car finally got a much-needed bath, as it still had a good dosing of salt all over it from our last "snowstorm" a few weeks ago.

Unfortunately for me, doing so forced me to take a good look at how well the body is REALLY holding up after 15 years. As a whole, it's not too bad, but when I took a closer look at some spots, I went . As I've mentioned, northern Virginia has no idea how to deal with snow. So therefore, they dump a crapload of salt all over the roads whenever there's evidence of a single flake falling from the sky. Salt + exposed metal = rust. There's a spot where the rear wheel arch meets the rocker panel that's really bad… to the point of where I was using my fingers and literally breaking off chunks of rust from under the rubber seal. Basically, both lower rocker panels are starting to show signs of rust… not cool. Fortunately, it's not immediately obvious unless you are 8" tall.

Anyway, I cleaned up the car best I could, applied Permatex to the scary parts (fortunately, there's only one that's actually visible from eye level - Bondo and I will be spending some quality time together when the weather warms up), and tried to shove the image of my car slowly eroding from my mind… a.k.a. Denialand.

The next day, I started up the car and thought, "Hey… this isn't idling quite right." I look behind me to see a nice plume of blue smoke coming from the exhaust… awesome. Evidence of the car burning oil only happens once in awhile during really cold weather and only a tiny puff of smoke will appear… but this was a [now defunct] family turbodiesel Volvo-worthy cloud. Gross.

So, of course, I attribute the sudden smoke cloud from having parked on a slight decline overnight. Otherwise the car is fine… just dying a slow death from the inside out.

To make matters worse, Dad continually reminds me that I will eventually need to replace my Soobie and that I should probably actually start thinking of what to buy as a replacement. He's pretty good at throwing down the anchor from my DeNile sailboat. :finger: