Thursday Already?

Yikes, this week is whipping by. My apologies for taking so long to update this site. Remember back in the good 'ol days when I would post daily? Hard to believe I could come up with something new to write about each day. I'm sure once the 'cross season starts again and I'm back in Belgium, I'll definitely be posting daily. Right now, it just seems as though there isn't a lot going on.

As usual, I'm busy riding my bike. Getting lots of excellent training rides on my road and cyclo-cross bikes. In fact I'm going to head out in a few minutes for recovery ride. I'm going to hit up the singletrack and doubletrack over at Merivale Gardens and Slack Road. Might strap the small and might camera to my head and film some of the riding. I did this last week and posted a YouTube video. You can check it out over here. Looking forward to getting some good long and hard rides this weekend. It is that part of the training cycle where the intensity takes on a different focus and extra things like running are added to the mix.

I'm busy working as well. I'm working on a part-time basis for KingsBridge and I also just picked up another contract with a local company. So this is good. Nice to keep my fingers and brain busy - writing, learning, creating - can't go wrong with any of this.

On the Secret Project front.... Remember I talked about this earlier in the summer? Well, I've made some good progress on this. In fact a large part of today is dedicated to the Secret Project. Soon enough I'll be able to let you in on my little secret.

For the first time last week I made homemade burgers. We're not much into barbecuing here but with it being so hot, I simply couldn't handle turning on the oven or standing over the stove. So thanks to my Clean Eating magazine hoard, I found a most excellent burger recipe: turkey and chickpea. This is the easiest recipe ever: toss a can of drained chickpeas in the food processor, add some chopped green onion, cumin to taste - give it a whir around until everything is mushy and combined. Dump this into a bowl and add one package (500 or so grams) of ground/minced turkey. Mix this all up with your hands. Shape into burgers - I made eight burgers with this mixture. And then easy part - cook them on the barbecue. The only change I would make to this recipe is to add an egg - the burgers were a bit dry and crumbly. But very tasty. They taste excellent with some spicy thai sauce, bit of cheese and a slice of avocado.

Not much else going on. Finished reading the Millenium Trilogy so I do have most of my life back now... Amazing how this series took over my mind. Terrible as it is, I can't remember the name of the book I'm reading right now. But I can tell you that it is very good! Sorry this doesn't help much does it?

Pretty happy to see the movie Eat, Pray, Love opening this weekend. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I've read most of Gilbert's work (except the recent book about marriage) - she is a very engaging writer. I only hope the movie does the book justice.

Lots of little details for the upcoming cyclo-cross season are clicking into place. Though did make one nasty discovery last night... Last year I leased a Renault Kangoo for a little over $3,000 - this includes taxes, unlimited mileage, insurance, and it is a brand new vehicle. This year, the same car costs $4,400. Yikes - this is a big jump in price and a lot of money. So I'm trying to come up with an alternative. I really like that car - perfect for 'cross races - lots of room but not too big that it is intimidating to drive. Hmm, time to do some research and figure out what my alternatives are in the vehicle department. Thoughts?

Well, I best hit publish or this post will keep going on and on and on....

Comments

[Dad]

Borrow your uncle's...

[vicki]

Ah, I don't think Mike is up for being Kangoo-less for four months... Still trying to find a better price.