First Snow

Today was the first measurable snow we've had since last winter. It snowed about 6 hours and left us with about 3 inches. Not quite Buffalo standards, but enough to cause concern among those who either hate to drive in snow or those that are bad at it. I love watching snow fall. It evokes such a sense of quiet and peace. It doesn't hurt that it snowed so close to Christmas. It fits right in with the spirit of the season. Who knows as cold as it has been, the snow might stick around long enough for us to have a white Christmas. Those are few and far between here in Virginia. Because it started to snow after I was already at work, I was worried about how long the commute home would be. Epic delays are not uncommon around here whenever it snows. Add in the fact that there was only two of us in the vanpool today, I figured I was due to be the driver on the way home. As it turned out, the other guy, much younger then myself, volunteered to drive both ways. That made my day. I promptly fell asleep coming and going leaving the driving to him. As it turned out, the commute home took us about 2 1/2 hours with a stop for gas thrown in. Frankly I thought that was great time given the circumstances. Of course my car was covered in snow when we got to the commuter parking lot where we leave the van. It was a fairly dry snow so it was easy to clear off without getting too much snow all over my shoes. Ann called me on the way from the parking lot to say she had hired two teenagers to clear our driveway and sidewalks so score one for that. Our outside Christmas lights look great glistening from under the fresh coat of snow. It really is looking a lot like Christmas.

Commute from Hell

I cover a lot of miles in my daily commuting. 160 miles a day on those days when I have to actually go into the office. Due to the distance, I take semi-public transportation - I'm in a vanpool. A company owns the vans and we do the driving. The vans are not new, which is an understatement. They all seem to have close to or over 200,000 miles on them. They look good, but they do have some mileage on them. As with any vehicle sooner or later they will betray you and yesterday on the way home was that day. And it's not the first time. Apparently the alternator gave out and shortly thereafter so did the battery. All the gauges went first and then the transmission cease to function. We literally coasted down a small hill for about 1/2 mile and made it to a gas station. Albeit one with a convenience store and not a true service station. Time - 5:00PM. The company that owns the van is located in Fredericksburg. We were stuck in Waldorf, MD. For those not familiar with the local geography, we were on one side of the Potomac River and the van company is on the other. A good 70 miles away during rush hour and only two bridges to choose from. We were screwed any way you looked at it. It took the van company until 7:50PM to show up with a replacement van. Almost 3 hours. Suckers. Did I mention that the temperature was 96 degrees? Double suck. Needless to say I missed my practice and the Happy Hour the club was having after practice. Triple suck. And the convenience store didn't sell beer either. Stupid Maryland.

The Ice Man Cometh and One Year Ago

Yesterday was Virginia's primary election and I was looking forward to voting in it. In Virginia you can chose to vote in whichever party's primary you want. I figured the Republican side was all but locked up by McCain, so I was going to vote in the Democratic primary. Unfortunately the weather had a say in it all. On voting days, we usually try to leave work an hour early. We must have been brain dead (or just too tired) to think about coordinating 8 different people's schedule in order for the vanpool to leave early. By the time we thought of it, it was too late and we paid for that mistake. It took us 3 1/2 hours to get home in the freezing rain. The last 16 miles alone took over two hours. The Springfield interchange, better known as the mixing bowl, where three interstates converge was shut down as all the new flying ramps were iced over. Even after we took back roads to avoid Springfield, we got caught in the HOV lanes as they closed them right in front of us to clear an accident. Three and a half hour commutes suck.

My Dad celebrated his 79th birthday over the weekend. My sister and her husband took him out for a lobster tail dinner. Ann, The Son and I called to wish him a Happy Birthday. Here's to many more Dad.

Speaking of The Son, he was over on Sunday and we went over his taxes. They're still pretty easy to do since he bought his Condo so late in the year. Next year he can start itemizing. He came over again on Tuesday and had dinner with Ann while I was stuck out highway. At least someone got a warm meal.

Daughter#2 called on Saturday to let us know her dog Gracie, had been injured while they were hiking. She has no idea what happened. Gracie is use to being let off her leash during their hikes and running ahead and to the side of her and her husband, but always returning from time to time to check on them. This time when she returned she had a nasty gash on her side. One that required 18 stitches to close up. Poor Gracie.

February 12th also marked the first anniversary of Ready....Row. I've enjoyed writing it and hope you've enjoyed reading it. Comments and e-mails are always welcome.

Tough Week for Commuting

I missed my practices on Tuesday and Thursday because I got stuck in traffic on the way home from work. Missing the two practices leading up to your first race, a sprint race at that, is not good. Even on good days I'm literally changing clothes in the parking lot of the marina where our boathouse is located so any kind of traffic backup just screws me. Both times the delays were caused trying to cross the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. Coming from southern Maryland where I work, for the most part, we're going against rush hour traffic so getting across the bridge is not usually a problem. This week it was. Three to six mile back-ups. Its frustrating to sit in that traffic after a long day at work. Tuesday I didn't get home until 6:40. Thursday I reached my car at 6:10 about the time my boat would be launching. So I headed out to Sandy Run instead and grabbed a single to row. I figured, the men would be down practicing on the race course, but I didn't see anyone at all, which was strange. I figured the men or the women would be practicing there. I headed upriver figuring to row to Fountainhead Park and back. I didn't see any of the club out practicing as I paddled up river. We had a thunder storm come through earlier so maybe practiced got cancelled although the storm had moved out well in advance of our practice time. When I reached Fountainhead and was preparing to turn around, I finally heard our coach yelling instruction over his megaphone to two 8+s. I turned around and waited for them to finish practicing some race starts. I rowed back down river with them and practiced whatever they were doing - race starts, high 20s, settling and final sprints. It was a good workout, but seeing as I'm suppose to be one of the strokes on Saturday, I really needed the practice time with my 8+. They need the time to get use to following me as each stroke tends to row a bit different. Its possible I might get bumped out of the stroke seat, but our coach didn't say anything last night. I'll check with him this evening when we get together to de-rig our boats and load them on the trailer.

Speaking of which, I'll have to leave the boat loading early in order to go pick-up The Son who is returning after two weeks in California. As we speak he's on a lay-over in San Francisco waiting for his flight into Dulles. I'm sure he's looking forward to coming home.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. I'll let you know how the race goes and hopefully have some pictures.

Damn Van

Last night's commute home hit an all time low. It was my turn to drive and not five miles from the base, the van breaks down. One minute its running fine, the next moment, total loss of power. I manged to get it off to the side of the road. Smoke was pouring out from under the hood and oil dripping out from underneath. Attempts to restart it were futile. It was dead. Not going anywhere. We contacted the company that owns the van and they sent a replacement. The problem was we were in southern Maryland. The van company is in Fredericksburg, VA. Two hours away. The good news, the van broke down across the street from an Outback Steakhouse. During Happy Hour. I finally got home at 8:00. Thank God I can work from home today.

If Its Thursday, Its almost the Weekend

Ah Thursday and in my world that means one thing - Treat Day. Today's Treat day gets a B. Fruit salad for the healthy eaters among us (not me). I just can't stand the taste of melons, whether it be watermelon, honey dews or cantelopes. They just taste nasty to me, so I'll skip that. Bagels from Panera Bread. Frankly their bagels are only so so. I can get comparable bagels from Giant or Safeway, which isn't a ringing endorsement. Also available are something akin to donut holes in chocolate covered and something that appear to be some sort of mini eclair. So today was ok, but nothing to write home about. Oh, also an angel food cake with strawberries to add. However, since the cake is all wrapped up, no one wants to be the first to dig in. Todays Treat person needs to prime the pump, so to speak, by unwrapping the cake and taking a piece. The rest of the vultures will dig in.

I got stuck driving the van in today and it sucked. Even on a nice day, driving in in the morning while its dark is a chore. Maryland needs to look into actually repainting some of their lane lines because I can't see them. What made it worse today was the rain. My way of coping was just to follow someone else and hope they didn't end up in a ditch. The up side to this is I can take my Treat Day sugar coma onto the van this afternoon and sleep all the way home.

I took my own advice and quit the "you fly, you die" philosophy while erging. My last two pieces have me back very close to my personal bests in the 30:00 minute row (within 4 meters) and the 5,000 meter row (within 6 seconds). I'm looking forward to getting off the erg and back on the water, but the weather is just not cooperating. I'm schedule to row a double on Friday, but the forecast is not looking promising. Where is spring?

Spring Weekend

The weekend was a reminder that Spring is here or at least on our doorsteps. With promises of 80 degree temperatures on Tuesday. Bring it on.

I did make it out on the water for a row on Saturday. I rowed bow in a double for a nice seven mile row. I was in a mixed boat, which in rowing terms means you're rowing with member(s) of the opposite sex. A friend and I are toying with the idea of rowing a mixed double in some races this year and this was our first time in a double this year. She's strokes and I row bow and steer. Although, unlike the Quad I was in two weeks ago, a double doesn't have a steerable rudder (you use your foot to steer in the Quad, you turn your foot in the direction you want the boat to turn). A double turns by using more force with one of your oars than the other. I'm used to rowing bow in sculling shells and steering while rowing so its not a big deal to me. I know the Occoquan well enough to know when to start my turns and how to get the right points coming out of a turn. A lot of my teammates are not keen on being in the bow of a Quad with the responsibility of not only rowing hard, but steering as well. Its does take a bit of practice to be able to push off your foot stretchers with your normal stroke pressure with your foot cocked at a strange angle making a turn and constantly looking back over your shoulder to check where you are going, look for debris in the water and to avoid other boats. Where most rowers have the problem is over steering the boat. The tendency is to apply full rudder when actually only a slight amount of rudder is required. You see the boat zigzagging from one side of the reservoir to the other. That's a lot of extra rowing for your boatmates, which won't make them happy. I like to think that some of my ability comes via Daughter#1. Daughter#1 got me interested in rowing although she is not a rower herself. She's a coxswain and a very good one at that. I think a bit of her has rubbed off on me via our talks, watching her cox or being in the boat she coxes where I'm no longer her dad but just another rower in the boat. Which is how it should be - most of the time anyway. The row in the double went better than I expected. It doesn't mean we'll be that competitive, but the set was good and the boat ran fairly well. There's nothing like hearing that gurgle under your boat as it moves along. The competitive challenge that we'll face is we're both classified as lightweights. That's under 165 lbs for men and 130 lbs for women. The races we might possibly enter have no separate lightweight category for mixed doubles so we would be racing against crews much bigger, heavier and stronger than us. Not a good thing. Now I can live with this as I understand most mixed races are considered more fun races than anything else. A chance to get in an extra race or two when you are at a regatta. My partner though seems to be highly competitive and I think our race results might be a shock to say the least. We'll see.

The Son is off to California for a week long trip to Vandenberg AFB. Its his first trip to the west coast so I think he was looking forward to it. The only bad thing was he had a 6:00AM flight out of Dulles to LAX. Guess who got to drive him to the airport? You got it. There is nothing as unpleasant as to having to get up at 3:30AM on a Sunday. Did I mention it was foggy. Its the heaviest fog I've had to drive in in quite a while. I almost missed seeing a red light as I was concentrating so hard on seeing and following the lines on the highway. The more amazing part of it, by the time I dropped him off at the airport (I didn't park and go inside) and headed back, the fog had mysteriously disappeared. I did manage a few hours sleep after returning home, but I felt a bit out of whack the entire day.

I also found out on Sunday, that I was responsible for van this morning. Normally I meet the vanpool at a commuter parking lot, which is not the origination point of the van. However the usual drivers that start the vanpool run were both unavailable leaving me the default driver. Given my druthers I would never drive the van. I much rather sleep than drive. I'm not crazy about having the responsibility of the safety of several other people that happen to be in the van with me. However, I also realize that we have to take turns because no one really likes to drive the beast. Rather than drive to the commuter lot where the van is parked when not in use (not my commuter lot, but another one) and then having to drive home in my car from that lot in the evening a process that would add about another 30 minutes to my commute, I chose to go get the van yesterday. I'm sure my sleeping neighbors enjoyed the sound of its diesel engine starting up at 4:30 this morning. The good news is I don't have to drive it in tomorrow and I get to sleep on the way home today.

No Daughter #1 updates as I didn't talk to her this weekend to see what she was up to. Sometimes no news is good news.

Payback

Two posts and the Internet karma is already catching up with me. So last post I tell you how my commute isn't all that bad despite the distance and wham! it takes me 3 hours to get home on Thursday. A combination of bright sun, an accident on the Beltway and those escaping early for the holiday weekend did me in. The trip between southern MD and the beltway took our usual hour or so to cover that 50 miles. The final 30 miles took 2 hours. It was more than a one beer night once I finally got home.

The son cooked dinner last night. Tasty salmon dish. His sister got him a Rachel Ray cookbook for Christmas and he's really getting into the whole cooking thing. I know Ann really appreciates the nights off when he cooks.

I'm working from home today so no death march commute. I'll leave that for the son who has a meeting in the Bailey's Crossroad area starting at 2:30. That should put him squarely in the middle of rush hour after the meeting is over. There's good reason why Washington has the 3rd worse traffic in the country.

Today I'll do a 30 minute row. I'll update with results later on. Hope everyone has a great fun weekend.
Edited to Add: Missed by personal best by 12 meters for a 30 minute row. So close yet so far.