New Diggs

I am no longer homeless. To be completely honest, I don't even miss being homeless. I thought it might be kinda fun for a bit, living on the edge. Be in all reality, it's that same kind of fun that comes with riding your bike really fast across a large icy patch; a bit exciting at first, but when its all over, nice to be back on solid ground.

And so here I am on solid ground. It really is nice to not only have a place to call home again, but a pretty dang nice place at that. Throughout my time here in Provo, I have managed to find incredibly cheap housing. As you can guess, I have gotten exactly what I have paid for.

Some highlights of my past housing arrangements have included:

1. Living in the basement furnace/heater/pipe room where the radiator pipes that heat the whole house ran all through the room and 3 feet from my face while I slept. I had to wear those little goggles they give you at tanning salons just to sleep at night.
2. Living in a house so old the bathtub had feet. Not little feet like a table, but actual clawed feet like an eagle would use to scoop up unsuspecting fish out of a lake for supper.
3. That same house had an incredibly efficient heater. So efficient, in fact, the property management people decided to lock it on throughout the months of June to August. This worked out well on the summer nights when I got a bit chilly and the temperature dropped to 89 degrees. That heater was right there to ensure my home stayed in the comfy zone of 190 to 240 degrees.
4. Cinderblock walls at Cinnamon Tree. Enough said.
5. Last of all, the list topper would have to of been the caving in ceiling in the house that did have a washer and a dryer, just across the room from each other...in the kitchen...next to the slanted pool table...in the room next the the fireplace we used to burn the excess trash that would not fit into the overflowing garbage can we all seemed to forget to take to the curb every week. I am 98% confident things were burned in that fireplace that gave off fumes toxic enough to pollute every drop of water contained in the great lakes 7 times over.
   

With that said, I must admit I really have enjoyed the adventure known as college housing in Provo. (in case anyone from the Provo Residential Zoning department or BYU Housing department does in fact somehow stumble across any of the above information, please keep in mind the statute of limitations on any of the implied above violations)

And now on to the new place:
Here is our living room with our new futon.
Here is the view from the futon. Since we don't have a TV yet, we like to sit down and watch the TV stand. Or we'll watch the cycling posters we haven't hung up yet that we just lean against the walls
Here's just another shot of our living room.

Moving into such a nice place has inspired me to raise the bar of neatness and cleanliness. A few of these changes/goals include:

• Removing shoes before coming in
• Cleaning the kitchen and all involved dishes within 1 month of the meal they were originally used for
• Making my bed each morning
• Taking the time to put everything away in it's place. (And just maybe perhaps it's "place" happens to be on the floor, next to like 20 other things that all happen to be their "place")
• Showering more than 3 times a week. Ok so that's been a goal for a while now. With so many other fun things to do, like computer programming and WarCraft, regular showers are tough to get in. (PS Kyle, I just so happen to have the incredibly chiseled body I do, thanks to hours and hours of sitting with good posture while playing SimCity 2000)

Ok, so in all reality, the best part of the new house is the garage. I don't have a picture of it yet because every time I go down to take a picture of it, I get distracted by the bikes. Yes, we finally have a garage big enough for ALL our bikes. It 's like a little piece of heaven right here in south Provo.

Another great aspect of the place is that its about 4 miles from BYU campus, making for a lot longer bike commute to school. I like riding bikes so I like the extra time on the road each day. Better than that even, the first day I even rode to school, my good buddy/teammate/rival/life coach/role model saw me riding and thought I was tough. Kinda.

Well anyway, I'm off to go do something tough, like make my bed

An Open Letter to My Loyal Readers

Note from the Author: This will be the first of many "Open Letters". I got the idea from a guy who knows how to blog better than us all...

Dear Loyal Fans,
I must begin this letter by first, honestly admitting I never knew you existed. Up until yesterday I really didn't even think my blog was read by anyone other than the Quality Control guy at blogger.com who has the lousy job of reading random blogs to make sure people aren't posting things they shouldn't, like immodest pictures of people in spandex biker shorts.

However, due to certain comments, I am now aware you exist. Thanks to "benson" (Who are you? Do I even know you?) and "austin" and their willingness to be heard, I now know that more than 3 people read this blog. Sure, as I write I imagine thousands upon thousands of people across the country are reading and appreciating my wit, epic bike stories, and random thoughts, and can't wait for more, but even I have a realistic enough approach to life to realize even my own mom won't read this unless I specifically tell her about a particular post. With that said, however many of you are out there, I thank you for being Loyal Readers.

Now, on with the update.

For all of you who are dying to know how many times I fell off the rollers while attempting to ride a TT bike on them, the answer is 0. Yes, zero. I didn't fall once. I would say the biggest reason why I didn't fall was because I haven't tried yet.

After bumping into a couple of Tri-Guys, (certainly a great group of guys, good friends from the shop, men I admire, but alas, they are after all Tri-Guys) they convinced me of how difficult it was to ride on rollers while down in the aero bars. Being the gung-ho go gettem kinda guy that I am, I decided I would try later, and just rode the TT bike on a fixed trainer. I'll post more on that later.

So with the first race only 28 days, 23 hours, 53 minutes away, I must admit for the first time, training is going great. I've been hitting my lifting goals, riding inside whenever the weather is bad, and have a good base under my legs. With that in mind, here are the bits of drama in my life as of now. For those who don't care, don't even bother to finish reading the post, there'll be nothing good after the boring stuff.

Homeless.

I've been homeless for the last week and a half. In an attempt to save a bit of money for new bike parts, I moved out of my old house way too soon. My new place won't be open until this upcoming weekend (or so we hope) bringing Dan's Total Homeless time to just over 2 weeks.

I've adapted quite nicely.

I shower at school, sleep on couches, and keep a change of clothing or two in my car. The best part of being a PE teacher here at BYU is that I can basically wear the same thing to school everyday, and no one says anything, bringing Dan's Total Changes in wardrobe to 3. Not bad for a 10 day span. (Mom, in case you are reading this, don't worry, I do change the unders everyday)

Next:

In case you didn't know, I had a girlfriend once. Yes, it's true. I've made mention a time or two on here about getting dumped last year, but it actually happened. You wonder why I bought a full carbon fiber bike with Dura-Ace parts worth more than my car last spring...it was my rebound. I got canned like an old diaper.

Don't worry. I'm not bitter anymore, but it sure did fuel me up more than a few steep hills last year. Time passes. Emotions fade. Pain subsides.

Now here is where it gets interesting. I've never been one to put anything personal on a blog, but hey why not give the blogger.com Quality Control guy something interesting to read tonight. This girl who canned me almost a year ago, has been calling again. We've hung out recently, and had a good time catching up and chatting, but lets be honest, to go from seriously dating, to nothing, back to buds is a bit to fathom. Austin, here's you chance to counsel...

So with that said, that is all I have to say. I've probably said too much, but hey, when has there ever been a time Dan didn't say too much. Yeah not ever, really.

Well Loyal Readers, chew on that and let me know what you think.

Countdown to Fun

The countdown has officially begun. According to the widget on my desktop, only 30 days, 5 hours, and 23 minutes until the first big race of the season, Valley of the Sun. I feel like a little kid counting down the days till Christmas. Only better, because it'll be 2 whole days of bike racing instead of 1 quick hour of opening presents, which typically I spend the majority of trying to sound interested in what someone else got, when really all I can think of is trying to figure out what my next present will be. I guess it's more like a selfish Christmas. Either way, it's less than a month away.

With that said, I feel the need to address the fact that some rather significant things have been unraveling in my life outside of cycling.

Ok, good. Now that I've got that out of my system, back to the real update.

So this bike race next month. It's down in Phoenix, AZ. Should be good weather. Which is the thing that makes me worry. While I've been up in Utah, riding inside 5 days a week due to excessive cold and icy roads, those pansy boys have been down in Arizona training all winter in warm weather. The few times I do get outside to ride, it's like 20 degrees out! Where is the equality in that? Maybe when I get down to the lower elevation and warmer weather, my legs won't be big enough to hold all the oxygen my lungs will be pumping into them and I'll blow off the front so fast no one will even think about reeling me back in.

Or not....

Maybe what'll happen is that my body goes into shock when I'm forced to ride faster than the 15 mph I've been riding at the last 4 months, and I fall off that back of the pack as we roll off the start line...

Or not...

Either way I'm getting ready to do what damage I can. The race consists of a Time Trial on Friday the 15th and a Road Race Saturday the 16th. There's a crit on Sunday, but I'm still holding strong in my conviction to not race my bike on Sunday. Maybe when I start making gobs and gobs of money like Steve Young I'll start. Until then I'll just keep trying to get one of those questions in Sunday School right. (One day...one day...)

Anyway, I'll keep the updates rolling out, now that I have something to update. I'll definitely have to let you know how the Time Trial bike on rollers turns out.

And maybe a bit about all the other new drama in my life....

Or not...