Happy Birthday

March 17th is my little sister's birthday, so I had green pancakes in her honor for supper.

G family history: When growing up, while we were living in Grand Praire, TX, we would normally have pancakes on Saturday mornings. One Saturday morning fell on March 17, my little sister's birthday, and St. Patrick's Day. I got up early, made the pancakes and colored them with green food coloring. For some reason, nobody else in the family thought that was a great idea. I got in trouble, Julie, if I recall, cried a little bit, dad got mad. In retrospect I think mom and Melissa might have thought it was funny, but didn't voice their support. Anyway, the pancakes tasted normal, they were just green.

I didn't think much about it, until much later when Wade (Julie's husband) mentioned that the green pancakes had been resurrected by his daughter's, Sid and Abbey, so, here's to you, Sis, Happy Birthday. They tasted normal, but were green.

Riding News

Five days a week commuting is very relaxing to and from work, but I normally get a little tired about Thursday. No problems, I am sure that will work itself out. The state of Virginia has finally (after a year of work) finished the section of the Mount Vernon Trail that connects Lady Bird Johnson Park to the Memorial Bridge. There is now a nice, wide strip of asphalt instead of a narrow, cone infested portion of concrete. I saw them almost finish it off on Thursday this week, and was going to wait until they finished it that night to ride across it, but it was getting late. NOTE: There were two other riders waiting for the steamroller and work crew to finish it off so they could be the first riders over it.

I rode home on Friday over it, and was really enjoying it UNTIL a smarmy, annoying pair of riders stopped in the middle of the intersection to the 14th Street Bridge. Because they stopped, I had to slow my roll down to go around them. After I passed them up, smarmy, annoying rider number 1 (clearly out for his first ride this spring) said,very loudly, in a very annoying tone "If you would have signaled, we wouldn't have stopped". The PTSD monster inside of me wanted to go back and pound the smarmyness out rider number 1, but the sane rational balance to PTSD monster decided not to ruin my ride by doing that. I like the fact that other riders have opinions about my riding, I don't necessarily care to hear them though. The rest of the ride was just fine.

This was the second interaction with smarmy, annoying riders on the Mount Vernon trail. Last year, as I was riding back to Alexandria after another long day of Joint Staff work, I made a very bad pass on a group of riders and some folks could have looked at my pass as almost dangerous, and one of the riders may have had to put on his brakes. OK, got it, be annoyed, say something, got it, sorry. Instead, smarmy annoying rider decided to pull up right behind me and ring his annoying bell at me continuously for about 1/2 a mile. Once again, PTSD monster inside of me wanted to do some biker on biker violence, but rational sane person vetoed the recommendation from PTSD monster.

PTSD monster can be hard to control sometimes.

Sigh, OK, that is off my chest . . . .

On the better side of riding news . . . There is a section of my route that goes between the Jefferson Memorial and the George Washington Parkway, there is a very small garden besides one of the overpasses, in the garden is a statue of a person sitting on a park bench.

I rode by it several times, always thinking "I should go over and see who that is". I did that on Wednesday morning, turns out it is a statue of George Mason sitting on a park bench (makes sense, the official name of the 14th Street Bridge is the George Mason Bridge). I read the sign that accompanied the statue, turns out, George Mason was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and a mentor to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Washington called him a great man and mentor, Jefferson thought he was one of the smartest men in Virginia. Jefferson used parts of George Mason's documents (the Virginia Declaration of Rights) as a model for the Declaration of Independence and for the Bill of Rights. Mason left the Constitution Convention though, after they failed to address slavery in the Constitution, pretty big deal for a Virginia man. Anyway, it is a pleasant little area, worth the walk and I am glad I stopped to check it out.

Weather update

The weather here in DC is reaching the point where it is no longer cold, just kind of brisk, Cheney may be allowed to roam the backyard without her cape. Last year she had a green sweater, which she hated wearing, but kept her warm. When I took it off of her, she bounced all over the back yard for a while. I think she will miss the cape some, but not much.

Husker update

Spring practice has started, it looks like there is harmony in the coaching staff, so we will see. I am cautiously optimistic about our switch the Big 10.