Ryan McFarland

I guess i’m feeling old suddenly.  Petersburg elected it’s youngest councilor “in recent memory” yesterday - Sara Stoner.  She’s one of the original FFF regulars.  I was listening to the regional news that announced election results for other SE communities and heard that Janine Gibbons was elected to the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly.  Cena went to school with Janine.  And i also heard that Scott McAdams was elected as the Mayor of Sitka.  Scott was the student body President at Sheldon Jackson College the year after i was.  He was also like me - a transfer student that lived in family housing.  As a coach for the Sitka High School football team he tried to help me get a team started in Petersburg quite a few years ago.

Nice to see my peers getting involved in the local politics!  Congrats to all of them!

Projector working again

Originally uploaded by zieak

Since early May my LCD projector that shows movies on our bedroom ceiling has had a blown bulb. Last night we finaly were able to watch something in bed again.

My first Xtracycle cargo

Originally uploaded by zieak

Hex alLowed me to walk her around the house in my new longtail cargo bags.

Miss Birthday Girl

Originally uploaded by zieak

Don was willing to wear this sash most of the night. Until I ripped it off of him and wore it as a headband.

Steaks

Originally uploaded by zieak

Lots of steak means Don’s 37th birthday celebration.

Another beer that i have never seen in a can before: Newcastle.  I didn’t try this one - i have to be in just the right mood to have a Newkie.

I was amused by the “paint by number” toilet paper that was in the restrooms at the Interbike show.  Note the palette.

In 1994 i was the Northeast Region Chief of the Order of the Arrow.  At that year’s National Order of the Arrow Conference we had a small gathering for people from the Northeast and i invited Elizabeth Andre (Miss Teenage America) to come to our region’s rally before one of the conference shows.

I knw that Steve, Kevin and mom were there - but i found some old pictures and scanned them and thought this would be neat to post.  I had a horrible zit that day.

Having successfully eliminated debt (for a little while) i have set my sights on another goal for this year.  100 consecutive push ups.  I meant to start the routine two and a half weeks ago but just didn’t take the time to write up the required reps and sets in my phone’s calendar.

Two and a half weeks ago i tried to do as many push-ups as i could in a row.  I hit 20.  Supposedly if i follow this routine i can hit 100 in a row (without resting) at the end of the six weeks.  So last night after the Petersburg Centennial Committee meeting and while Cena was watching Sex and the City with a group of girls i entered a bunch of alarms in my phone that look like this.

10, 12, 8, 8, 12+ @ 90 sec

So today i did 10 push ups, rested 90 seconds, 12 push ups, rested 90 seconds, 8, rest, 8, rest, and then as many as possible but at least 12.

A ten minute work out every other day with weekends off!  I suspect I’ll be keeping you posted on my progress.  There are a few benchmarks where you see how many consecutive push ups you can do along the way.

If you read the comments on my page you probably caught the one on the post about Mike and I heading to Interbike and the comment from Arleigh saying she was headed there too.  I sent Arleigh an email with my cell phone number after checking out her website at 650b.  I warned her that i’m not much of a bike geek anymore (there was a few years back in ‘87-’88 that i knew about every part and manufacturer of freestyle bikes) but that Mike and i would be around and to send me a text when she wanted to meet up.

I did some more web snooping and found her online persona on Flickr and then on to a few other blogs that she writes for.

Arleigh sent me a text while Mike and i were winding down from a day of riding bikes and wandering exhibits.  We bounced messages back and forth but didn’t commit to anything.  Just that Mike and i were going to get some food and drinks and that I’d keep her posted. After the dirt demo i was back in the hotel room for a shower and to cool off and rinse the dust from my throat.  I uploaded a few photos that i took earlier in the day and saw that Arleigh had also uploaded some.  I browsed through them, commented on one, and we soon took off to find some food.

Mike was in the mood for Mexican but we ended up leaning toward a Brazilian style steak house by the time we were in the cab.  We changed our minds 3 times before settling on a Gordon Biersch.  I told Mike that i had eaten at one in Seattle a few times and the one in D.C. before.  When we arrived i realized that i also had been in this one.

Sidebar: a few years ago Cena had a trade show to attend and i walked to a Kinkos or MailBoxesEtc. or something to mail something out that needed to be sent via FedEx.  We can’t mail FedEx from Petersburg. I walked in the 100 degree weather until finding it, mailed the package, walked back into the scorching weather.  I glanced up and saw this Gordon Biersch across the street - slogged over and went right to the bar.  The place was almost empty.  The bartender slid a menu in front of me and said she saw me walking across the parking lot and could tell i needed a cold drink.  Anyway - back to the original story…

We sat down at a table near the bar, ordered samplers and food.  After an hour or so i thought i saw someone from some of Arleigh’s pictures from the outdoor demo walk by.  I brushed it off.  Then moments later someone that looked like Arleigh walked by.  She stood and talked to someone at a table 25 feet away for a while.  I sent her a text: “We settled on gordon biersch.” And i watched to see if she’d pull her phone out.  Nothing.  Oh well.  She sat down with some people and after five minutes i got a reply “We’re there!”  Now things were kind of strange.  Out of the 23,000 attendees at a show like Interbike what are the chances that she’d post a comment on my blog?  Certainly a good number of bloggers are cyclists.  Technorati finds over 2,500 posts that mention Interbike.  There must be thousands of places to eat in Vegas.  What are the chances that we’d end up at the same place?

I didn’t know what to say.  I sure didn’t want to come across as a stalker.  Mike and i laughed about it and i kind of decided to just ignore it.  A few minutes later she called.  I told her to turn around and then waved at her.  She came over, intoduced herself and we were able to clear up that she was the one stalking me.  Just kidding.

Unfortunately, my big luck was used up by ending up at the same restaurant as someone that i only knew from a few pictures on Flickr and a couple of text messages.  Despite best intentions, we didn’t end up socializing with Arleigh any further - partially because i lost her phone number in the Great Cell Phone Switch of ‘08.