Anyway, I pay for my drink, and the register spits out a receipt about as long as my forearm. Seriously? A 14 inch receipt for a $1.50 bottle of yuckiness?

The offending receipt.

The worst part is, if I had paid with a credit card, the receipt would have been 3 inches longer because they print out a separate CC portion. Ridiculous.

What's the big deal, you say. Here's my problem with it: Giant tries to pass off this image of being an environmentally friendly grocery store chain. They have the bins in front for recycling plastic bags, they sell reusable shopping bags, their stores are energy efficient, blah blah blah. However, they apparently don't seem to follow the whole idea of conserving paper. Every other grocery store I've been to uses at least half the amount of paper in their receipts. From what I've seen, they use smaller font, shorter line heights, no stupid logo, and generally don't put erroneous crap that no one reads (e.g., sub sandwich points).

Ideally, grocery stores would be like gas stations and give you the option not to print a receipt… or, better yet, electronic receipts. The only downside to that would be missing out on those coupons on the back that everyone uses. (insert sarcasm here.)

Awhile back (before the Vitamin Water incident), I even wrote Giant an e-mail asking about whether they were planning on modifying their receipt machines so they'd be somewhat shorter and less wasteful. The dude that wrote me back said they were planning on fixing this, but that was about 6-7 months ago, and obviously nothing has happened.

BESANCON, France (AP) — Lance Armstrong was unfazed about slipping to fourth place at the Tour de France. Instead, he was riled that his former lieutenant, George Hincapie, was deprived of the yellow jersey — allegedly by a rival U.S. team.

Hincapie, the only man to be a teammate of Armstrong on all seven of his Tour victories, came within 5 seconds of the race lead in the 14th stage won Saturday by Russia's Serguei Ivanov.

Starting the stage as the highest-placed rider in the breakaway group, 5:25 behind leader Rinaldo Nocentini of Italy, Hincapie had a shot to swipe the leader's yellow shirt.

Instead, as Armstrong and his Astana team claimed, the U.S. squad Garmin-Slipstream pressed the pace in a way that helped the Italian hold a slim lead over Hincapie.

Armstrong, on his Twitter feed, took aim at Garmin-Slipstream, which competes with Columbia for dibs as the top American squad at the Tour this year.

"No one wanted George in yellow more than me," he tweeted.

"Until 10km (6.2 miles) to go he was solidly in yellow until GARMIN put on the gas and made sure it didn't happen," Armstrong wrote.

Oh fer cryin' out loud. It's not Garmin's fault Hincapie couldn't catch the leader, Ag2r-La Mondiale (Nocentini's team) was pressing the pace to protect their lead. If Hincapie was truly DESERVING of the yellow, he would have sucked it up and actually fought for the lead, not go stomping off to the team trailer after the stage finish.

According to this Wash Post article,"Hincapie's breakaway group was more than six minutes ahead of the Italian, fanning suspense about the yellow shirt. Nocentini's AG2R-La Mondiale team, then American team Garmin both accelerated the pace, trimming the gap by the finish. Hincapie missed the yellow jersey by seconds."

"TV cameras showed a frustrated Hincapie as he watched Nocentini's pack cross the finish line. He did not speak to reporters before entering the team bus."

Two words: Sore. Loser.

"I mean that's a victory for everybody. That's something that would have gotten attention all over the U.S., that would have been good for the whole sport in America," [Columbia manager Bob Stapleton] said.

Okay, quick poll to non-cyclists: hands in the air if you know who George Hincapie is.

Anyone?

Yeah, I thought so. George Hincapie is about as well known as every other American rider on this tour. As sad as it sounds, Lance is the only one people care about, and Hincapie being in yellow for one frickin day would have made absolutely no difference on the sport.

"Garmin just wanted to prevent another American team from taking the yellow jersey. It's not right," Astana manager Johan Bruyneel said. "It's not very sporting.

No, it's called Garmin was doing what any other cycling team would have done: try to catch up on the lead so their top rider could advance. Also, if I'm reading correctly, having Hincapie in yellow would take the pressure off Astana and force Columbia (Hincapie's team) to work hard to try and defend the jersey… so I'm taking his statement with a grain of salt.

I don't blame Garmin for chasing down Ag2r, because chances are if they hadn't, another team would have. But then again, what do I know? I'm just an impartial observer, following the tour and crossing my fingers that maybe this year riders will stay clean and not dope. (So far, so good…)

More than 700 cyclists were on the roads of Loudoun County over the weekend, some pedaling up to 150 miles, trying to raise money for a debilitating disease, multiple sclerosis.

According to cyclists and Loudoun authorities, several cyclists failed to come to complete stops at some intersections, and a county sheriff's deputy was waiting to pounce. Eight cyclists were ticketed for running stop signs that day in the Lovettsville and Purcellville areas, authorities said.

To several who took part in the annual event… the tickets were poor form, even if cyclists had rolled through the signs. To authorities, who said they received numerous complaints from motorists about cyclists crowding the roads and running stop signs, the citations were necessary to ensure safety on the roads.

Where do I begin… how about this: I participated in this ride but only rode on Saturday. Every single group/charity ride I've done (whether it be the Reston Century or Bike MS), there are the same ignorant people who don't respect the rules of the road. I'm not talking about stop signs — I'm guilty of doing a slow California Stop when I feel it's safe to do so. (Plus, half the time I end up putting myself in MORE danger by unclipping, stopping, starting, then attempting to clip in without falling over before that car gets to the intersection.)

However, and I've covered this topic before: I honestly don't blame the community for being upset with the bikers. As per usual, I saw too many people riding side-by-side (coincidentally, the majority of them were men on racing or tri bikes) when it wasn't appropriate. Riding abreast is OK if you're out in the middle of Montana on a 10 foot wide shoulder, the next town (pop: 24) is 30 miles away and the last time you saw a car was 2 hours ago. Riding in a pack on Halfway Road in Middleburg is NOT OK. Especially when there's a five ton UPS truck trying to get by you.

Jennings said he and another cyclist, a charity participant, slowed to about 1 mph before proceeding through a stop sign in Lovettsville, only to find a sheriff's deputy nearby, who flagged them down.

Um, yeah, it's physically impossible to ride 1 mph - trust me, I've tried (and promptly fell on my side). Maybe if you're track-standing, but normally the slowest speed someone can do while coasting through a stop sign is around 3-4 mph. Put it this way: if you were a driver and saw cops standing around at a seemingly innocent intersection, wouldn't you stop completely? Of course! Same goes for bikers. Duh.

"What was amazing to me was it seemed to me they were there because of the MS ride," Jennings said. "They've donated their time and all their money, and they've donated to a charity, and you've got the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office just sitting there waiting to hand them a ticket. It didn't seem right."

Bull. Sh**. Just because you've donated your time and money to a charity via a bike ride doesn't give you the excuse to ride like a jerk and not obey stop signs. If the police did this during the Reston Century (and I think they should, because most of it is on the W&OD and has even more intersections/stop signs than the MS Ride), you'd still complain.

So, really guys… I have no sympathy for those who blatantly disobeyed a stop sign and blasted through, because chances are you're the same person who thinks riding two abreast on a busy road is acceptable.

Bad News: Number of bird strikes is up. Good news: Damage done by birds is down.

Bad news of good news: they don't know why. The population of large birds, who do the most damage to planes, has increased, as has the amount of air traffic. Large birds, as in Canadian Geese.

Most aircraft, particularly large planes, are able to (for lack of a better term) "ingest" the bird and no harm is done… if the bird is small enough. A larger poop-spewing Canadian goose, on the other hand, will leave a bit more damage.

Needless to say, I've never liked Canadian geese. They honk loudly and make you depressed in the fall, because when you see them you know they're peace-ing out to a warmer climate while you're stuck in the frozen tundra. Also, if you've ever played on a grass field near a lake, then you probably understand my reasoning: GOOSE TURDS. Canadian geese leave these nasty slick green poops all over the place and consequently you come home and find your shoes covered in goose doo.

Additionally, they're MEAN mofos. Female geese have been known to attack humans, and I'm always afraid the ones at our barn might decide to challenge Cass to a game of chicken (or would it be goose?) when we walk by.

Now, according to this website, anti-goose techniques include scarecrows (yeah, sure, like those ever work), guard dogs (Stella the barn dog is not allowed to chase wild animals), propane exploders and pyrotechnics (which, as an added benefit, scare horses too!), toy water craft and helicopters (hmm…), and lasers.

I think a trip to Toys-R-Us might be in order!

I ended up messing up my directions and going down Glen Mill instead of the subdivision to the east of it, so needless to say I probably won't make that mistake again… a bit too much traffic for my tastes, not to mention the road is pretty cut up in spots. Still, I ended up doing a bit over 17 miles (MMR mileage is wrong). Pretty good, although at this point in time I'd like to be hitting at least 20 regularly, but I'd rather keep them short and frequent rather than long and once a week.

So! First ride of the season was last (last) Sunday, as I was away in Utah visiting my parents for the past week. I'm having a bit of an issue plotting out routes that won't destroy my knees with steep hills, which means much of North Arlington, McLean, and Potomac (all which have great biking) are out for a few weeks. Similarly, I've decided that I need to be cautious of where in South Arlington I go, because the drivers there are generally not as mindful as the ones above Route 50 are. DC is limited to weekends, and I've found the risk of getting doored goes up by about 60%. Plus that whole biker getting run over by a garbage truck last year… yeah.

That being said, I think I'm going to actually have to relegate myself to using some of the bike trails until I'm strong enough to tackle the leg 'n lung burners near the barn in Potomac. (Probably might want to stay off River Road if I don't want to get humiliated by the local racers that train there, too. )

Anyway, I managed to plot out a route that worked pretty well — fairly low traffic, not too too many turns, and I only got lost disoriented once. Not a killer workout, but good enough to get the legs workin' again. (And remind me I need to clean my chain.) I think I got around 14-15 miles on my cyclometer thanks to some missed turns, but hey, who cares… I went biking!

Hopefully anyone reading this entry will do me a favor and bookmark this blog. My friend Nadine is campaigning for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Man & Woman of the Year, and I am really proud of her for stepping up to the challenge! If there is anyone more deserving of this title, it's Nadine, so please support her in her efforts to help the millions affected by leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma, and Hodgkin's disease.

There are some great fundraising events coming up, so bookmark or add her blog to your RSS feed, and get involved!

With Cass back in in the picture, I actually (well, hopefully, barring any significant injuries to either him or myself) might have the chance to compete consistently this year… something I've been trying to do for the past 3 years. The fact that Cass is a much more suitable partner for me than Cody ever was has been a motivation to challenge myself and work harder at becoming a better rider. I really, really want(ed) to compete at Rubicon, but it's on the same weekend as the MS ride. Granted, the metric century is only on Saturday, so technically I can compete Sunday, but I'm not sure if my body can handle that amount of stress.

Right now, my two bikes are sitting in my living room, waiting to have their tires pumped and hit the road. However, I've been avoiding them for three reasons: one, the roads here in Arlington are still covered in salt ; two, I can't make the time; and three, it's still just a little bit cold here.

In a month or so, I won't have an excuse based on temperature or lack of daylight hours. Somehow I need to figure out how to fit Cass and biking in the same day a few times a week. I can [bike] ride in the morning (which would mean getting up at 5 AM or so), go to work, ride Cass after work, and then collapse from exhaustion… but the main concern I have is riding that early in the morning. The alternative is to ride solely on the bike trails, but I have an aversion to them mainly because people on bikes can be more dangerous than cars. The other option is to ride my bike after work and then ride Cass, because we have lights in our ring and I can ride after dark.

I need to be Superwoman, if only for two months…

Jesus and Satan were having an ongoing argument about who managed to get the most out of his computer. This had been going on for days and God was tired of hearing all of the bickering. God said, "Cool it. I am going to set up a test that will run two hours and I will judge who does the better job."

So down they sat at the keyboards and typed away. They moused away.

But just a few minutes before the two hours were up lightening flashed across the sky. The thunder rolled and the rains came down hard. And, of course, the electricity went off.

Satan was upset. He fumed and fussed and he ranted and raved, all to no avail. The electricity stayed off. But after a bit the rains stopped and the electricity came back on.

Satan screamed, "I lost it all when the power went off. What am I going to do? What happened to Jesus' work?"

Jesus just sat and smiled. Again Satan asked about the work that Jesus had done. As Jesus turned his computer back on the screen glowed and when he pushed "print," it was all there.

"How did he do it?" Satan asked.

God smiled and said, "Jesus Saves."

So, smart person that I am, forgot to renew my web hosting in January. (Why I have it set on month-to-month, I don't know. Probably because I keep telling myself I'm going to shop around and find a better deal than GoDaddy, but I never end up doing that and end up renewing it monthly.) Usually they're pretty forgiving and will give you a week or two to cough up the cash and renew your bandwith. Unfortunately, if you let it sit for practically a month, they WILL delete your stuff. Like, all your stuff. Including your database that has 3+ years worth of blog posts (that no one else reads).

If I had half a brain, I would have remembered that joke and saved my crap like the good IT nerd that I am. Unfortunately, I don't, and I had to pay $$$ to get them to find a backup tape and restore my stuff.

Costly mistake, yes. But it's only a mistake if you make it once.

That being said… kids, back up your work. That way, if your account gets wiped clean because you were in Uzbekistan and weren't able to renew your account, you can easily restore your data using your own backup without having to pay out the nose to your hosting provider.

I never realized that people can actually have an addiction to eBay. I wrote the post partly in jest, because anyone who knows me knows that I'm a bargain hunter. However, when the shopping/spending habit truly becomes an addiction, then it's no longer a joke.

That being said, I've found myself buying less things on eBay nowadays and have actually SOLD quite a few items. I have a few groundrules that I've set to prevent myself from getting sucked in to an auction.

1. Establish your spending limit. Obviously this is a catch-22, as it can backfire. If you enter in your max bid 3 days before the auction ends, someone could swoop in and bid $0.50 over that bid with 30 seconds to go and win the item. On the other hand, if you wait until the last minute and get in a bidding war, you find yourself saying, "Hey, it's only $2 more to win… $5 more…" etc etc etc, until you find you've won the item and spent $40 more than what you wanted to. So, that being said, I usually do a combination of the both. If it's an item I REALLY want, I tend to snipe but make myself do only ONE bid in the last 30 seconds, walk away, and if I've won, great. If not, there's always another time. The getting up and walking away is the hardest, because you know there's always someone else who may have the same plan as you.


2. Use the "save search" function. I'm always looking for one item that I need buy don't necessarily need to buy this second. Instead of searching every day, I do one search, save it, and eBay will e-mail me a list every day of the search results. You can even set the min/max cost so you won't get a message full of 200+ results in each e-mail.


3. Watch out for excessive shipping charges. I absolutely refuse to purchase from a seller who advertises an item for say, $1 (that normally costs $35) and then charges $25 for shipping. It's illegal by eBay standards to do this, as it circumvents paying a higher commission to eBay. (e.g., if you sell an item for $1, you pay a lower percentage of the original listing and selling price to eBay than if you sell an item for $20. eBay doesn't take a cut of shipping fees.) Even if it's still a better deal to purchase the $1 item and pay $25 shipping, I'd rather go buy it for $20 and pay $7 or $8 shipping since THAT seller is playing by the rules.


4. Never buy anything directly from Asia, especially electronics. It's just sketchy.

This last tip may or may not work against you. If you use Firefox, there's a great extension called myTimeZone for eBay. If you're like me and hate that the ending times are in Pacific Time Zone, this add-on will change the time to your local time. In addition, you can see bid updates in real time (rather than having to refresh), and the page displays a countdown timer with an audible alarm. Also, it allows you to sort listings by total price plus shipping, remove the "featured items" and "additional matching results" section at the top of search results.

myTimeZone MAY (kinda sorta) work to your addiction advantage, as I've found it's not synced to the eBay official time and can be 30+ seconds off. So, if it IS off, you can choose not to re-sync it when the dialog box pops up and thus make it seem like the auction has ended when there are really 25 seconds to go… and thus prevent you from doing any more auction snipping.

And that's all I have for today.