Redoing a flowerbed
Sarah and I spent most of today and yesterday weeding and redoing one of the many flowerbeds at my Dads house. In all, I spent about 10 hours working on this. We dug out all the plants, tilled the earth about 4 inches, raked out all the weeds, laid down some weed blocking fabric, replanted some of the plants we took out (minus many of the lilies that we dug out), and laid down mulch. Here are some pics, before and after, respectively (click for larger image):
Now my Dad is complaining that I gave alot of the lilies away. It's true, I did. But before it was too crowded and overgrown. Now it's simple, weedless, and nice to look at, in my opinion.
New bikes on a 22 mile ride
Kyle and I got new bikes from Bike Line.
Today, we decided to give them their first maiden voyage. We started in Oaks and went to Conshohocken. Google Maps says this trek is 13.2 miles each way. via car roadways. However, we figured we rode 11 miles each way by the markings on the bike trail. It took us from about 1215p to 105p to get to Conshohocken (with a 5 minute break) and from about 105p to 2p to get back to Oaks. It was so great. I got such a great workout on this trip.
I also got to use a hydration pack for the first time. This is basically a custom
ized back pack that has an integrated sack of water. You can drink from it via a water line that goes up past your shoulder and comes out near your mouth. The mouth piece restricts water flow until you bite on it. Very cool innovation.
On the last mile before we got back to Oaks, we were struggling. It was so hard. We were taking about 3 pedals and trying to get the most of a coasting motion until putting in another 3 pedals. However, the rest of the trip was pretty fast biking. We definitely got a good workout. I figured we were going an average speed of 13 mph (22 miles in 1.67 hours). Not bad.
Kitters… and my Dad
My Dad supposedly hates animals. Well, now that we have two animals, Petey and Kitters, he's pretty much proven himself wrong. My whole life we didn't have animals because my Dad didn't want any and didn't like them. Now that I'm old enough to make my own decisions, I just kinda pushed the decision to have animals onto my father. My Dad still grumbles about the animals to other people, but, behind closed doors, he loves them completely.
As a matter of fact, I caught one of these moments in a picture:
On my Eee PC using my Treo as the internet connection
I'm writing this from our travel trailer at the shore. I know, not very gracious... but we're humble people :0). Normally, I can't get online from here since there's no internet connection, no Wifi, etc. However, before Sarah and I left for the shore, I researched how to get my Treo 755p to connect to a laptop and for use as a (nearly) broadband speed internet connection.
Success! I'm writing this from a remote location in a trailer park in the middle of the woods. Earlier today, I was on the beach, now I'm relaxing and eating dinner with Sarah. I used this guide to get up and running. Technology is great!
