Cycling Scribe

The bike build.

2009-05-02T11:19:00.000-07:00

Once again, it's been a while since I posted. And once again, I have no good excuse, so I won't give any. In the news lately around here, (as Dave mentioned in the last post) we sold our house in Fargo, FINALLY! It closes mid May and we have already found a new place in the Phoenix Metro. Hopefully everything goes through smoothly and we get the place; when we have pictures, we'll post them.

Tonia and I passed our 7th anniversary in Sedona. It's pretty close to the metro so we drove up on a Friday and came home on a Sunday. We went on a 4x4 Extreme Hummer tour called "The Jeep Eater".

Our ride.

The easy part of the trail.

Hummer on only two tires.

We had both rain and shine in Sedona but we were able to get some nice shots of the mountains during the rainy weather.

In other news, the new bike is pretty much done. I still mourn Mr. Peanut, but Mr. Yuk is pretty bad- so I'll get over it. I still need a longer bottom bracket, and I may get the Singleator from Surley, but otherwise he's good to go. Here are the picks I've got. For those of you who don't know who Mr. Yuk is please enjoy this video.

The paint booth in the Garage.

Stripped frame in the paint booth.

Two tone paint job.

Tonia removing the vinyl decals from under the black paint. (cool effect, huh?)

The finished frame.

Close up of the paint job.

Close up of the top tube.

The finished ride. Not too shabby for a couple amateurs!

Visitors from the North.

2009-03-21T11:35:00.001-07:00

Tonia and I have had a couple busy and very enjoyable weeks. First of all Kelli Z. came down to visit Tonia. It seemed like she had a good time seeing the sights and lounging by the pool.

She and Tonia went out on the town on St. Patrick's day. The same day that J came for a visit.

Since she's been here we went to the Hole in the Rock at Papago Park in Phoenix where we climbed up and took in the views.

We also walked around the park near the Zoo and saw these very friendly and demanding Geese.

We've spent some good times hanging out and exploring the city. Last night Duane and Janet Wheeler (parents of Danette Abraham) took us out to an interesting restaurant in Mesa called Organ Stop Pizza. From the outside it looks like any other restaurant, but when you go inside the place is huge!

They have a huge pipe organ that comes up out of a pit below the floor. The organist plays requests and a selection of standards. Two of the more enjoyable were the Star Wars montage complete with the cantina song, and the Little Mermaid Under the Sea.

As you can see the place is a favorite of the snowbirds.

Seeing how many people were milling around the place, J decided to play 'Where's Jordan'.

Good luck!

In other news, Tonia has stripped the Antelope down to the metal getting it ready for its future paint job. She has some bold ideas for its new look. All I'll say is Yuk.

Also I have decided to try one last quick polish on the first novel and I'll send it out to agents. If I hear back that it needs editing then I will pay the $3000 for editing. I just can't justify paying that kind of coin on something that isn't a sure thing.

We have J for a couple more days and we are having a great time with her. We may have to cancel her ticket and make her stay. We'll see.

Mister Peanut is dead. Long live the 'Lope

2009-03-03T18:23:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I last posted but there has been a tragedy in the Litchy home. Mister Peanut, the most awesome single speed bike ever built has been stolen. For those of you who don't know Brian built me Mister Peanut a few years ago as a commuter for the North Dakota winters. He was a great bike and so named because of the Mister Peanut stuffed animal face stuck on the front of the bike thanks to little Mario's hatred of stuffed animals.

Basically Tonia and I went to a movie downtown and locked our bikes outside. While we were gone someone cut my Kryptonite cable lock and stole my bike leaving Tonia's Trek 800. In addition they took the severed lock so I couldn't even see how they cut it. So since the bike was gone and never coming back we began the hunt for a replacement. What we found in Phoenix is that bikes are a commodity and finding a used one is both difficult and often over priced.

After looking at thrift stores, bike shops and a couple pawn shops I finally picked up this old Trek 820 Antelope.

We've already started fixing it up. As soon as I get it stripped down I'm going to build it back up as a single speed. Tonia found a community bike workshop called Bike Saviours where we took it in and picked up a new seat and strait handle bar for it. The people there volunteer their time to help others fix or build bikes. Everyone was super nice and they even have a ladies only night where women can work on bikes without feeling intimidated by all the weird guys who work on bikes. I'll take some picks of my new parts and the bike as the it moves forward and post them next time. Tonia wants to paint it so we'll see if I'm patient enough for that or not.

As far as activities, Tonia and I have been hiking and biking whenever we can and a couple weekends ago there was a Japanese Matsuri Festival downtown so we walked over to that and looked at some interesting art and people.

Tonia also ran into an old high school chum at her work, so we had a double date at a cool piano bar downtown called My Florist. I had Merlot and one kick ass Ruben. The pianist played nonstop for over four hours and even covered the Super Mario Brothers theme montage. She was amazing! It was a good time and we had lots of good conversation.

In other news my forth novel is under way. I finished the third one a week or so ago and was so excited that I leaped into the fourth one that same day. So here are my current dilemmas and I could use some advise. I sent novel number 1 to some professional editors so see what it would cost to edit it. The quotes came back ranging in price from $3000 to $6000 dollars for the project. So do I wait until I stumble upon $3000 or do I give it one more cleaning and send it off to agents and see if they say it needs polish? Please send me your advise.

Dilemma number 2 is not so much a question as a statement. I need to do some major polishing on Novel #2, but I'm having trouble making myself do it. I know I just need to bite the bullet and get after it; plus Heather is asking me to send it to her, which I want to do, but it needs polish. So this is just me whining about it. Buck up mister, right?

Anyway, I thought I would end the post with some of the interesting art in our neighborhood. The first image is an odd little sketch that's on the wall of a building next door to the Church of Scientology.

The second one is truly amazing. I intended to take a better picture since the sun was shining so brightly and the lamp post is casting a shadow in the painting, but this is what you get for now. Here's what I found amazing, the entire mural was done with aerosol spray cans and all done in less than a day. It still blows my mind when I see it.

Alright, that's it for now. Everyone stay safe and warm.

"There's no Excuse!" We'll see!

2009-02-07T11:11:00.000-08:00

Tonia and I at the Japanese Friendship Garden

So thanks to Heather's persistence and reminders by both Dave Simmons, and Auntie Alane I am finally updating the Blog. So you may say, there's no excuse for not updating for over two months, well I say there are plenty of excuses. And here they are:

5) Traveled to El Paso and Mexico for work. Forgot how to speak English.

4) Alan and Danette visited over x-mas and we couldn't very well ignore them, right?

3) While Alan and Danette were visiting, a serious Wii tournament kept me from Blogging.

2) Had to travel to Farmington, NM for work. The cold and snow there were too depressing and I could not possibly blog.

1) Lost the camera cord and could not upload pics to the Mac, thusly, could not update Blog.

I'm certain I could come up with a few more but I feel that should be enough to take the heat off. So as far as to what's been happening, we've been keeping pretty busy. Like I said, I've had a few business trips and the Abraham 'rents came down for a visit.

At the Waffle House

Also, I've been trying to ride and write as much as I can. Tonia too has been riding more and more and is pushing 100 miles total on her little road bike. The best road challenge in town is the South Mountain Municipal park and Tonia has been going down there and riding the 5 miles to the top and tearing back down again.

I've been doing a lot of mountain bike riding at Papago Park, where there is a nice flowy course about 4 miles long. I've been going over there a couple days a week after work and trying to get two or three laps in each time I go. It's only like a mile from my office so it is very convenient.

I've been spending as much time as possible writing as well, going to my newest haunt The Fair Trade Cafe.

The Fair Trade Cafe

It's right next to the Light Rail and I've been taking that to work on the days I don't go biking. It's great being able to read on the way to work rather then worry about the many bad drivers down here.

So I just sent novel #1 off to a professional editing service... since I just never felt right asking friends and family to do it. I'd rather have you guys read it for pleasure. Novel # 2 I finally printed and will begin my read through of that. And novel #3 is at about 104,000 words and should be done before long. I've been pushing through it because I am very excited to start on novel #4 which has been bouncing around in my head for a while now.

Work is going well, I'm super busy and the days are flying by. Tonia has started doing some temp work at the Phoenix Convention Center until we can finally move and she can look for something a bit more permanent. Many of you have also asked how little Mario is doing, so I'm throwing in some pics of him suffering through his first Arizona winter.

T-day and Tonia in Mad City

2008-12-08T18:51:00.000-08:00

So I decided to take off T-day week from blogging so I'll do a little recap here. Even though I would have been just as happy doing nothing, Tonia loves cooking too much and so we ended up having the best Thanksgiving diner ever. Tonia made turkey breast with cornbread stuffing, mashed fresh sweet potatoes, green bean casserole and pumpkin cheese cake. We ate like royalty all weekend long. Once again we did some riding and had an all around good time.

On Friday Tonia flew off to Mad City to visit Brain, Heather and family. I think Tonia is being used as day labor to help get the house ready for LBA. Though I'm pretty sure that she has been going through withdrawals here in PHX as we have nothing to do on the place we are renting. Although I think the cold weather waiting for her there will remind her why we moved.

Since we've been here I finally found a place to write. The Fair Trade Cafe is a great coffee house down town PHX and has a great ambiance. I've slipping in there on the weekends and on a couple week nights and trying to finish novel number three. This one has reached a pretty big halt seeing as the move has completely disrupted my routines. The first novel I'm going to send to a professional editor since my readers (Those who finished or gave any feedback at all) said it was worth moving forward with. The second novel has been sitting for a while now and I know I've got to print it out pretty soon and start editing that one.

So since Tonia's been gone I've been reading, writing, and riding. The 3 R's. I went out to South Mounting Municipal Park over the weekend and I was once again humbled by a real mountain. I rode up what was called the Ranger Trail, and for the second time in my life while standing on a rock covered mountain trail a guy on horse looked at me like I was nuts. He told me I'd be hike-a-biking and boy he was right. I pushed my bike more than my first Afton, only this time it was up a series of rock covered switchbacks. I HATE SWITCHBACKS!

At any rate I didn't quite make it to the top and I turned around and shot back to the bottom in about two minutes. I rode around on some of the other trails that were more level and found them to be more to my liking. I'm sure I will go back. The pick below is about a third of the way to the top and you can barely see the car in the distance. In the far distance, where all the big buildings are, is our house.

Thats about it for now. Later.

"I Did Fun."

2008-11-24T18:37:00.000-08:00

Not a lot to report for the week of work. Lots of problems to solve around the office and more people are getting to know me and I’m getting to know them. Tonia has been busy cooking me many good suppers and getting the house organized.

Once again we tried to bike to the countries largest municipal park called South Mountain. Last time we tried we just didn’t go, this time we got going around 8:30 am Saturday and made our way through the maze of the downtown’s one-ways and construction. Once we got on the bike lane of Central Ave we moved at a pretty good pace. Here’s a pic of our destination: the mountains in the distance.

Here’s Tonia rocking along behind me.

We hit a roadblock when we suddenly ran out of bike lane and were forced to turn around only a mile and half from where we wanted to be. The road was just too busy to ride without the comfort of a bike lane.

We turned around and headed back home with Tonia setting the pace.

When we were getting close to downtown Tonia noticed my tire was a little squatty. We pulled over and sure enough I had a flat. Luckily from my experience with Dave on a ride through Sabin I was prepared with my hand pump, tube and tire tool. After a quick change we were back on the road. We road home and sure enough what ever was in the tire was still there and I was flat again as we rolled into the house. I took the tire off and found the tiniest little bastard sticking into the tire enough to flatten the second tube. Not sure what it was but I had to use a tweezer to get it out. I put in a third tube complete with self sealant, thanks Brian! All in all it was a 14 mile loop. Not too bad for Tonia’s VT training.

Tonia has gotten a job walking dogs for Fetch PetCare so she went off to training and I chilled around the house. She hasn’t gotten any assignments yet, but I’m sure it will be cool to see different area’s of PHX. When she got home we went to eat at Red Robin and I can only say, “That place never disappoints!”

Sunday I rode to my office on my own just to get a feel for how long it will take. It took about a half hour to get there and I was in pretty good shape. I rode home hard and shaved ten minutes off my time. Once home Tonia and I chilled for a bit then took off to Papago Park to do some mountain biking.

Papago is rated mostly with beginner tracks and easy rides. Tonia and I bounced around a bit and still didn’t ride a third of what the park had to offer. It was only about 6 miles we rode but Tonia rode all the down-hills and most of the climbs. A few of which were very technical and covered with loose rock and sand. We took it easy and Tonia’s quote was, “I did Fun.” I assume it was a combination of I had fun and I did good.

Here a few pics of what we saw on the ride.

Till next week.

Tonia ate Fish!!

2008-11-17T20:42:00.000-08:00

It’s been a week since my last post and I’m trying very hard to stay consistent. I don’t know how long I’ll keep up but I’ll do my best. Since Big J left we haven’t done nearly as much as we did prior to her coming, or while she was here. We spent a lot of time cleaning and moving around boxes. Sadly, since the sun sets by 5:30 or 6 there’s not a lot outside you can do after work.

Once the weekend came we took a bike ride over to the downtown farmers market and picked up some fresh cherry tomatoes, and a spaghetti squash. Not to mention some awesome pickles pickled with peppers (yes I picked a peck). They didn’t have that much zing when we tried the smaller samples at the market, but when we got them home the zing really came out. Tonia was a bit taken aback by them.

Around mid-day we took our first road ride together. Tonia and I took off to try and ride to my office so I can start commuting to and from work. After a few turns down some very questionable neighborhoods and working through some construction we found our way. Round trip was around 15 miles. It’s not that far but neither Tonia nor I have ridden much lately so we were both a little spent. We were going to go on another ride Sunday but it never happened.

That night Tonia decided it was time to break through her fear of eating fish so she prepared an awesome meal of grilled Salmon with garlic and herb couscous and a salad of romaine, artichokes, hearts of palm, and red peppers. It was delicious with a bottle of Homewood wine and we enjoyed it out on the patio in some very moderate temps, I think they were in the high 70’s or low 80’s. At any rate Tonia ate and enjoyed the Salmon. No gagging!!

As there seems to always be something going on in our odd little downtown neighborhood there was a block party that we walked through and once again got to enjoy the oddities. Didn’t take many pictures other than this huge monster truck that was sitting in the street. It’s kind of dark but its pretty cool.

Sunday we didn’t do much but arrange some furniture. So there’s not much to report there. I’m going to try to ride to work this week so we’ll see how that goes.

Till later.

We're Here.

2008-11-11T18:47:00.000-08:00

Once again I must apologize for the length of time it has taken me to blog. As you will see there has been a lot going on.

First of all we are fully moved from the state of North Dakota and are in our new home in AZ. The house has not sold, so we are renting down here until it does.

It was an adventure filled trip with the Camry on a car hauler with all the bikes loaded on it. It was a grueling drive of 1700+ miles. The real drag was that the Trailblazer only got 10 miles to the gallon the entire trip. I’m pretty sure we bought a barrel of gasoline by the time we got here. However, I was pleased at how easy it was to get dog friendly hotels. All the Comfort Inns and all the La Quinta Inns are dog friendly and don’t even ask for extra fees to keep them.

Mario handled the trip okay and had no trouble getting exercise considering we were always stopping for fuel.

Once we got to Phoenix we went about exploring our new surroundings. We're living in a loft downtown and loving all of the culture around us. So far we have seen a Halloween parade.

We went past a place that makes some crazy bikes including one made from an old push mower.

And a Heartless Bastards concert at the Rhythm Room.

After our stuff showed up and we buried ourselves in boxes Big J showed up and stayed for five days. It was way too short of a trip, but we were glad to get her while we could. We made sure she was able to experience as much as possible, but she seemed just happy chilling out. We did however go to First Friday which is like a street fair and art show in downtown Phoenix. It’s held every first Friday of the month.

Saturday we went to the downtown Phoenix Farmers Market and bought some all natural cleaners made by locals. So far they haven’t disappointed. We took Jordan to the Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall where Jordan found a pair of $400 jeans she really liked. She didn’t get them.

We went to the Zoo on Sunday and had a good time looking at the animals.

Monday night we had a nice dinner and watched the Illusionist which is a fine film.
One Tuesday we saw Big J off and were sad to see her go, but loved the time we had. I’m sure it will be no time before we are up to visit her or she is down again. I’m pretty sure she was happy to miss the snow and cold while enjoying the 80 degree temps down here.

That is about it for now, but I promise to update much more regularly in the future. Now that we are in Phoenix I know we will have to do more so everyone can keep track of us. Please comment so we know you're out there. Next update in a week.

So much going on!

2008-08-10T12:53:00.000-07:00

Once again I feel as though I must apologize for my inability to blog on a regular basis. So not unlike Brian I am going to cover a couple weeks in one post and try to get into a better flow. As Brian mentioned we were out at their place in beautiful Wisco. On the way out there we stopped in for a evening with Alane and Dick.

At Brian and Heather's place we had a good time watching the Tour, playing with the hounds and playing at various parks. We also went on many bike rides and played a little baseball which was very, very pathetic.

The weekend was fun and went by way too fast. After that it was a mad dash to get home because two days later we had to take off to find out about our next big announcement!!

Just Kidding!! Its only a FOOD Baby!!

The announcement is that we are moving. We spent a very long week looking at houses and seeing some very odd things. Like this odd little add-on in one house that was a combo bedroom-bathroom with carpet right up to the stool and a huge sunk in tub.However, after looking at over 40 houses and putting close to 700 miles on the rental car we ended up putting in an offer on this little fellow here.We're still not sure if we're going to get it, and our house here in Fargo is still for sale, but we are hoping everything falls into place.

On the writing note. My first novel is in the hands of my dedicated readers and I am hoping to hear some feedback soon. My second novel is written and is in the cooling stage while I edit the first one. I've thrown out a couple short stories in between, but I think I've gotten the bug in my ear for the next novel so we'll see what comes of that.

Oh and here's Brian's punishment for me moving Tonia away from him.

It would take how long to walk from Sabin, MN???

2008-05-21T20:22:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long gap in blogging. I've been a little busy with travel and various other projects. In fact I am in Phoenix right now chilling, if that's possible. In recent news the bathroom continues to move forward. I don't have any photos with me, but I intend to get some after Memorial day since its a day off and for once Tonia and I will both be home to work on it.

For the past three weekends Dave and I and sometimes Greg have been going on some pretty good rides on Sunday mornings. The first weekend (well posted on Dave's blog) we did around 35 miles on the road bikes. The following weekend Dave and I rolled out on the gravel. He was on his Cross bike and I took the Top Fuel out for a stretch. I think we put down a similar 35 miles. This last weekend Dave and I took off again and we decided it would be road bikes again.

We rolled into Minnesota and head out toward Sabin. We went out on Highway 75 to Sabin and even through Sabin out to Baker, MN. However, there were no cross roads that were paved. Once we past Baker we deiced to turn around and head back. Just as we were passing through Sabin again there was an odd sound coming from my rear tire. It sounded an awful lot like air escaping from a rubber tube. I had a flat and neither Dave nor I had a tube. Tonia was in the Cities with Kelli, and Jodi so I could not call her, though it was 8:45 in the morning Tonia would not have answered the phone even if she was home. Jenn had little Henry to look after and everyone else I could think of to call for a pick up ride was out of town.

Finally, after a discussion Dave and I decided for him to time-trial himself back home to get his car and roll back to pick me up. We were sitting at about 20 miles from home so it was a Herculean effort on Dave's part to get home as fast as he did. I would say I was only walking for about an hour so he made some hella good time. Without Dave I would have been walking for roughly 7 hours to get home. I walk at 3.3 miles per hour per my computer. Once again I thank you Dave.

What really bothers me it that I would say I was passed by at least 20 pickup trucks none of which stopped to offer help. I was passed by an older couple on their bike path bikes who asked if I was okay and if I had a ride coming. Another rider stopped to see what was up and after scolding me for not carrying a tube he checked his own supply and discovered that he had none my size. I appreciated his attempt at help as well. I know now that I would stop to help a stranded rider in the middle of nowhere who was walking their bike. It's just the right thing to do.

Any way once Dave got me home I took Jordan to the mall and ran straight to Paramount Sports to by two tubes and a hand pump for carrying with me from now on. I will try to be a little more prepared.

As Brian mentioned on his blog I will be riding with him in the cities and visiting Alane and Dick. I am looking forward to both.

In other news I have started sending out pages from the novel to dedicated readers and Brian and Heather have already given me their feedback. Both have given fantastic feedback and it has been monstrously helpful. Thanks guys! I'm sticking with digital because I cannot waste that much paper. I will be working forward into the next set of pages to send out soon. Here is a pre-emptive thank you to all who are helping me out. Thank you!

Ooooh Weldy!

2008-04-21T16:04:00.000-07:00

Alright a quick note. This weekend the weather finally gave way to decent and I got out into the garage and the yard. Tonia was, as always, working in the bathroom trying to get the 30+ year old shower plumbing apart. Jordan and I were in the yard spreading some grass patch and raking up old dead grass. I have to admit that I truly hate yard work. I love trees and grass, and I don't mind mowing, but I hate the bull a guy has to do to try and keep the grass green. Whenever someone decided what a lawn should be they should have picked crab grass or dandelions. Those grow with no problem.

Anyway, I decided on Sunday to break out the welder I received from my wonderful folks for Christmas. It is a very compact and handy unit that is pretty much dummy proof. It's only 110v so I can plug it in wherever and weld away.

That's the little Hobart on the left. Tonia decided she wanted a new piece of modern art for our guest bathroom so she commissioned me to make a small bowl shaped candle-holder out of washers. Note the shoes, Heathrow, even awesome for welding as well as walking. Still rockin' the Airwalks!

I, of course, felt that there was a slightly better use for the item. Am I wrong? I don't think so. After the welding was done Tonia gave it a quick aged spray paint job and here is the final product.

It's not perfect, but it turned out pretty neat. Because of my first time success with welding I think my next job will be the Litchuania line of bike frames. I'm sure I could get Lemond to put his name on them. Here's what I'm thinking...

Ooohhh Cha!! I'm on it!

A long blog break.

2008-04-15T17:30:00.000-07:00

It's been a fair stretch since my last blog and for that I apologize. I'd say it was because we were busy, but that would be a lie. In typical North Dakota fashion the weather has been a roller-coaster. The weather has swung from 60 degrees down to twenty. The snow melted then fell again in earnest. Then it melted again and snowed again. It has been very frustrating. Now the temps are good, the snow is melted, but the North Dakota wind has come on full force. I think it was easily blowing at 25 mph two days ago. Today was beautiful and I was able to give the 1600 a little stretch. Hey Dave, how about a road ride this weekend? Let me know.

Because of the weather we have tried drastic measures to keep Mario's feet clean to avoid the mud in the yard.

They were a bit labor intensive to get on him, but they really seemed to work out. All-in-all it's just easier to wipe the dogs feet rather then making him deal with the indignity of wearing golf club covers on his feet. They will be returned to Fleet Farm.

Tonia and I just passed out 6 year anniversary and since we're planning a trip to Ireland this summer we just had a quiet evening eating some steaks and watching a movie.

Mario however, felt he needed to enjoy the steak as well. So while Tonia was out potting some new vines for the pergola and I was getting the grill fired up, Mario decided to have a little taste. In a matter of minutes, both New York strip steaks were gone into the mighty gullet of the hound. For some reason he snoozed comfortably the rest of the night. We thought he only liked pizza; guess we'll know for next time. This is him digesting and looking sorry, sort of.

On the home improvement front not a lot has happened. We've done a little work on the bathroom, but not much. Tonia was busy helping Kelli with her Bid for the Mrs. North Dakota pageant and celebrating her month long birthday.

I spent a week in Sheridan, WY. Not a lot to report about that week. They do have a Starbucks, but I ended up working long hours and did not get as much time writing as I would have liked.

On the writing front my concerns about running out of ideas seemed to be all for naught. Since finishing my first Novel I have written three short stories and the forth one I started is now over 20,000 words and is at least a novella if not yet another novel. We'll see.

I gave the novel some good resting time and decided to start editing, but I hate editing so it is very slow going. I think I am about 30 pages in. I will say right now, that editing sucks. I must soldier on.

That's about it for now. I'll post some pics of the bathroom next time around.

It is written!

2008-03-20T13:43:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post to let you all know that my first Novel is offically written. Now starts the long editing process and search for an agent.

It finished out at 125,288 words and printed in double spacing she is 400 pages.

The title for now is "The Factory at the End of the World", however, Tonia already expressed a distaste for that title. I guess after a few of you read it you can give me feedback.

Thank you all for your support so far. I'm guessing I'll need it just as much in the days to come.

More Milestones and a Battle with Eleanor

2008-03-16T11:41:00.000-07:00

Firstly, I want to mention that there have been great strides in the bathroom progress. We have now fully cement boarded the shower and the floor. Here are a couple pics:

And here is one showing the suburb curb work Tonia did on the shower pan. She formed it all by hand. It's at the very bottom of the picture.

In working on the bathroom we took the toilet off and found the shut-off to be very leaky. After keeping an ice-cream pail under it for a week or two and changing it daily we decided to change the shut-off. Now anyone who knows us, me especially, knows that plumbing is our Eleanor. We've had water dripping through our houses in the past and gone days with the main off trying to finish things. Tonia has gotten a lot braver about it, but I am still a bit leery. So since Tonia can be brave so could I.

Usually when I plumb I buy a dozen different pieces and plan on returning 11 of them because I can never get it right. Tonia bought 1 shut-off. I had Thursday and Friday off so I decided to help out and change the shut-off. It was a solder connection so there is plenty of room for error, but once on it would be on for good. By some miracle the shut-off attached on the first try. However, while heating the pipe to do the soldering I managed to apply the torch directly to my finger and Eleanor strikes again.

It's not much, but dang that plumbing anyway! However, the shut off went on like a champ!

Also on my day off I installed a new fixture in our stairwell. The fixture hanging there when we moved in was clearly original 70's cool.

After the adventure of getting the extension ladder into the house I got this lovely new fixture hanging. And a big thank you to Kelli Z. at the Lighthouse for helping Tonia find just the right fixture.

On the writing side of life, as I said I've had some time off from work so I've been spending a lot of time at Caribou Coffee and I have been averaging about 3000 words a day. Turning in those numbers I shot past my 96,000 word mark mentioned in my last post and I am now at 116,000. That being said, my bench mark was around 120,000 and following the plot that number will be fairly close to where the book ends.

I've killed off several of my main characters, a couple of which really affected me. I've never written about any one long enough to become attached to them. I've always read about authors talking about how hard it is to write about a character's death, and I've always thought it was a lot of crap, but it isn't. You really become fond of these people and the plot kind of makes its own turns and suddenly your favorites are lying on the ground, dead. It's kind of a drag.

Anyway, I've got a couple more days of vacation to burn up so I'll be taking off Thursday and Friday again. I figure the book will be done this week. I'm not going to lie; I'm a little freaked out. I've never finished a novel before and I'm afraid that there is only one in me. Nothing I've ever written before has flowed like this. What if it never does again? What if I am a one hit wonder? In addition to that I don't want to think about a next book while I'm still writing because I'm afraid I'll loose my way on this one.

Also, I'm really dreading editing over 300 pages of text. I'm afraid Dick and Alane will refuse the envelopes when I send pages to them for editing, if their still interested that is. Plus, this has been the focus of my mornings for the entirety of 2008. What'll I do now? I'm a little freaked out.

How I survived Hobbs without Calvin

2008-03-08T08:57:00.001-08:00

This last week I traveled to Hobbs, NM for work. I was a little disturbed to find out before I left that the town had no coffee shops. I'm not talking about just chains. I mean no coffee shops at all! Now I've become fairly dependant on the coffee shop vibe to help me put down my daily words so I was worried about being able to get my word count in. Plus, I wake up at 4:30 every morning now. The idea of waking up that early and trying to write in my room at the Lea County Inn did not appeal.

When I arrived at my hotel in Hobbs I saw that it had been completely filled by me and a Mennonite group. All I saw throughout the hotel were long chin-strap beards on the guys and frumpy ladies with little hats covering their hair buns. They had completely taken over the breakfast room where I would normally use as a fall back to do some evening writing so I knew right off that was out. When I asked the guy at the desk if there was a Starbucks, Caribou, Dunn Brothers, Seattle's Best or any other coffee house in town he laughed and said the best coffee in town was McDonalds. That did not bode well for me.

Luckily there was one other chain in town that was 24 hours. IHOP. So every morning I cruised over to IHOP and drank a pot of their tolorable coffee and wrote. A side note about Hobbs, NM. This is a very blue collar town filled with oil men, farmers, and construction workers. Most of the inhabitants of the town worked in one of these fields all of which are booming. Retail and restaurants are hard up to find workers. So IHOP was only opened during the hours of 5 to 11 because of this shortage. The same to be said of WalMart. Every morning I was at IHOP I watched the one waitress run from table to table. I felt bad for the lady, but I was easy with my oatmeal and pot of coffee; I didn't take up much of her time.

In the evenings I wrote at a wine bar called the Pacific Rim and they, at least, served Starbucks coffee so that was good. I was able to write well every morning and every evening, but the vibe was just not there. On Wednesday morning, my last day in Hobbs the waitress must have been sick because IHOP didn't open at all. I spent an hour trying to find anywhere to go, but nothing was open. I ended up eating at McDonalds and choking on what had to be, the worst cup of coffee ever.

That afternoon I drove back to Lubbock, TX where I was flying out the next morning. On the way there I drove past this house, which, rumor has it is owned by a Mennonite. It's all brick, huge and looks to worth more than all the other houses in the area. It's neighbor is a rusted brown moble home.

Lubbock, two hours away and home of Texas Tech, has two Starbucks. As soon as I arrived I drove strait to one of them and promptly drank a cup of their finest brew and wrote up a storm. After that I had some supper at a Jason's Deli, which make a fantastic Rueben by the way, and found my way to the other Starbucks in Lubbock which happened to be on the Texas Tech campus. I was surrounded by college people who were all very friendly and I was in heaven.

All in all I was able to write around 10,000 words while on my adventure in the southwest. Not too shabby. Before I left I submitted two stories. One of which I sent to Weird Tales. I have sent quite a few stories to them, and keep getting rejected. I think I'll take the Heather Abraham approach to it. Just keep submitting until they publish me out of frustration.

And it is a momentous day today, as this morning at Caribou I past 95,000 words. This is officially the most words I've ever written for a single story. I hope to keep the flow going.

Not too much to post about the house this week. Tonia was busy with other things and I was gone, not that I contribute much. I'm certain there will something to report next week.

The Nation of Procrastination

2008-02-19T17:50:00.000-08:00

So here we are with two weeks past and the bathroom has progressed slowly. Tonia was able to do her water test and the first layer of the shower does not leak. So that is a success. Today Tonia has been adding in walls and some of the other touches she needs to get done before we mix and pour the next layer of mortar in the shower.

I would like to put more pictures in this posting, but that leads me to the real reason why I have not updated more recently. When we purchased the new Mac we bought a wireless router. That wireless router as sense connected all of our PC's to the internet. So being a wanna be nerd I said, "Hey, that would be great if I turned my PC into a server and Jordan and Tonia's computers could file share with that and use both the printers." So I went to work on it and at first it worked like a champ. The key words being "At First".

Now I'm going to through some back story in. You see, Mac's are so intuitive to the needs of the user that when loading pictures onto the Mac the Mac automatically shows them how you would want to see them. However, they are not actually flipped. So, when I load the pics from the Mac onto the Blog the pics show as they actually are, on their side. Because of all of this I said, "Say, since my wireless network is such a champ, I'll download the camera onto the PC and load grab the pics through the network." Well of course that has yet to work again for me. Now I know I could just post from the PC or add the pics from the PC into the blog as I need them, but darn it I'm like a dog with a bone on this one. I know it should work this way, so of course I will not let it go until I get it. So, long story longer, I have spent any time I should be updating the blog, I've spent it fighting the wireless network.

On another note Mario is getting better. He was given four different medications from the vet.

He's pretty much convinced that everyday is a treat day because the meds are wrapped in cheese and they are so delish! His hives are now just scabbs and are starting to fall off so that's kind of gross. He's still a little listless, but he always was a little listless. The meds make him thirsty all the time and have made him have to pee a lot more as well.

I am still writing at Caribou every morning and thanks to Jordan's need to go see a thrash metal band at the Red Raven Expresso house I was able to write over 3000 words on Saturday. I've been keeping up pretty good numbers, though I've been lazy about posting them here. The novel is just over 73,000 words now and still going strong, though there are a few characters that have been running off and doing unexpected things so we'll see where all of that leads.

Hopefully, next week I'll have progress on the bathroom to report as well as a working networks and an additional 10,000 words on the novel. Oh, and since I've received another rejection letter via e-mail that means I have only two short stories out for publication and I need to get back to editing and spending copious amounts of time on Duotropes and send out some more tales. Perhaps I will even listen to Brian and try sending 'On Your Left' to Dirtrag. We'll see.

Why does Wisconsin Hate the Litchy's?

2008-02-11T17:11:00.000-08:00

Little Mario

What a crazy and busy week. Goals on Tonia's side were far from met. However, being drawn in a hundred directions make home improvement slow work. With the goal of having the first layer of concrete down in her tile shower base before we left for Brian and Heather's house we started strong enough. I got the old tub drain cut out while Tonia cut and installed a second layer of sub-floor. She installed the new drain and I tore out some unneeded studs.

That, sadly, was where it ended. Tonia, being the interior designer for her office as well as general all around maintenance gal, was called in to paint the new office. After that because Mario in his bi-annual shedding, we had to take him to Shaggy's Dog Wash where we scrubbed out a good-sized chihuahua's worth of hair.

After that it was a long drive and a short visit to the Abrahams in Wisco. As always we encountered weather as soon as we got across the border. Wet snow and fast dropping temps made the road treacherous and slow. This happens every time we go into the cheese state. Watching cars fishtail and seeing them in the ditch we slowed down and made it through. Wisconsin fails to destroy us again. Or does it?

After seeing Body Worlds and wiring the Abraham basement Mario started getting sick. He threw up on the Abraham's rugs, sorry about that, and he broke out in hives and stopped doing anything at all. We left on Sunday and he was still under the weather; the poor little fella slept all the way home to Fargo. Today I took him to the Vet since I'm a nervous dad and he hadn't eaten since Saturday. He had a temp of 105 and they did blood work and are keeping him over night. Happily they called and said the antibiotics seem to be working and he ate some food so he should be able to come home tomorrow. Wisconsin will not be happy until it destroys the Litchy's one at a time!

On other notes, because of the busy week I only got on the trainer a couple times and managed somehow to gain a pound. I can't understand how seeing as I ate like I always do and did no exercise. It will be a mystery forever.

Writing on the other hand I am doing quite well. As it shows on the left, I was just shy of 10,000 words this week. Even in Wisco I braved the horrible drivers and icy roads and wrote at the Beans 'n Cream coffee house in the early mornings. It is a very nice establishment with some delicious Joe and excellent decor. As of right now the novel is past its half way mark, but not by much. The book is sitting at 56,028 and there is a lot left to be said. I've been working my life around writing it and intend to continue.

That is about it this week... I leave you with the results of the Photobooth on Tonia's Mac.

What can two talented women do with a high-end design computer and time on their hands??

Oh and by the way I'd love to date you Foxy, as long as you take me to the prom.

The beginning

2008-02-03T08:03:00.000-08:00

So here it is. I've decided to start this blog for several reasons. First and foremost, I suck and e-mailing, writing letters, and calling people. So I feel this will be a good way to let people know what is going on in my and Tonia's life.

Secondly, inspired by Fat Cyclist, I feel that I can use this blog to help motivate me to do things in my life I've been procrastinating on. Things like writing everyday. Submitting my short stories. And trying to loose weight. So I figure if I'm putting these things out there perhaps I will be more motivated to work on them. Even as I type this I'd like nothing more then to delete this paragraph, remove the little box from the top left corner of the page and go watch TV. So now that you've been given the reasons heres where we are.

First of all, Tonia has leapt into the remodel of the master bath with vigor. Last weekend we went to Menards and dropped some serious cash buying all of the special order material for it. Yesterday we used my new grinder and cut the shower stall into dusty razor sharp pieces of fiberglass and hauled it out. A note on using a grinder to cut fiberglass: I would say it has to be the quickest and easiest way to do it, however the dust storm in that little bathroom was fantastic and the odor was mind-numbing; if you can avoid doing it this way, I wouldn't suggest it. There is a lot to do and Tonia is under a lot of pressure from me to do it. I like the master bath, it's handy. I'll be posting some pics of the destruction and construction as it moves forward.

As far as writing and submitting go... I've been on a roll writing my novel. This is the third or forth one I've started in my life, but so far this one has the most steam behind it. I've gotten into the habit of getting up early everyday and going to my neighborhood Caribou Coffee and writing. I've been averaging about 1200 words a day. This morning I checked and I just passed the 46000 word mark. The novel is about half way along with a lot still up in my head trying to get out. I've nearly been late for work a couple times these last couple weeks trying to finish a chapter before loosing where I was going.

As far as submitting goes I've three stories out for consideration right now, but I need to get more out there. I've got a couple that I need to do rewrites on and still a couple to edit, but editing is my least favorite part of writing. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my editors: Dick for finding all of my grammar issues (of which I'm sure this blog has plenty) Alane and Justin for the content editing and Brian for giving me no feedback whatsoever.

On the final note of weight loss. This is of course my least favorite part to write about and my least favorite part to work on. I'm doing pretty good working at my core everyday, but I'm only getting on the trainer about three times a week. I still eat pretty good, but I allow myself a few more cheats than I should. I need to motivate myself, because fat Trent is alway in there telling me to go to the DQ or to indulge in the Happy Joe's Pizza Buffet. I'm up from my lowest weight ever of 232 and am sitting at about 242 right now. I need to work on it, I know. I'd like to be a stronger rider this summer so I can make up for last years dismal 24-9 performance.

Next weekend Tonia and I are going out to Brian and Heathers to wire their basement and go see Body Worlds. I, hopefully, will continue writing in the mornings while I'm there.