Yep....le Tour starts in just ELEVEN DAYS! Woo HOO!
And for the first time, I will get to ENJOY every single stage without needing to fast forward (unless I want to)!
So...it's been almost FIVE MONTHS since I retired...how is that possible? Rae, I totally understand your comment about finding a talent in wasting time...I have found that also! All of February I was on a real bike riding tear...4 to 5 rides a week. Jeanne was working from home in her little office, and I had absolutely guilt-free riding... she was home with the monsters, and with me gone she had absolute quiet for work...it was perfect! March rolled around and I caught some bug...seemed like a typical cold, the first week was the usual head-cold symptoms...and THEN, whatever that little alien monster bug was it dropped down into my chest. And for almost the rest of March I was in misery. I had aches and pains like I don't remember having, and I tried to ride once and realized that wasn't going to happen. Took a Covid test (as did Jeannie, we were both worried) but no. It finally released it's grip near the end of the month...that was really something. Jeannie had been forced to work back in the office (even tho her Union Contract says she can work from home) and her 4-10's schedule was also revoked (even tho that was also in her Union contract)...so at least she didn't see me suffering most of March. I don't recall ever being sick that long in my life. Good thing I was retired, I'd have hated to burn that much sick-time being SICK! (I sold back over a months worth of sick-time and several months of vacation I'd been hanging onto).
April arrived and I started riding again, boy how quickly I lost my hard-won fitness! But the weather was good, not hot, not cold, and the spring WINDS were moderate and ridable. May arrived, I'm still avoiding any big house-projects...tho my LIST is getting longer by the day. I still had my Peacock subscription (got it last year on a special offer, something like $25 for a year which was quite a deal). So I was able to watch most of the Spring Classics, that was fun. And sheesh, can ANYBODY beat Pogacar?? Man oh man, he is something! Classics, Grand Tours, he's a rare rider for sure!
May came and it got HOT. Not here in my little town, but go inland just a few miles and BAM...90's +. I did a few long rides on days that were forecast to ONLY be in the 80's, but the winds and heat were relentless in the interior. Then June came and same thing...so I looked into my house list of projects, and the one I decided to tackle was replacing Fascia boards (the 'storm-side' of the house 2x10 boards, the roof 'trim' if you will) were needing replacement. Thankfully we have a 1 story house, but it does have a vaulted ceiling. That goes up PRETTY HIGH. But I came up with a plan and I'm about 3/4 of the way done. I got the entire side of the house fascia off, did a bunch of stucco patch where a creeping vine had worked it's way onto the stucco not long after we moved here (we liked the look so let it go for a few years, turns out it really digs into the stucco and is a royal beast to remove...it did damage!) I got new 2x10's, made the angled cuts to put them together (all on the ground on my saw horses), painted them (front is our house trim 'white' and the back is the color of the house...a very light brown 'mocha' type color). I bought an airless sprayer and painted the entire side of the house just 2 days ago (had to wait a few days for the winds to lighten up a bit...we've had a week or so of high winds which is pretty abnormal for this time of year). So now I'm waiting to hang and install the new fascia boards...Jeannie doesn't want me doing high ladder work or going up on the roof if she isn't home...which I understand.
So it looks like I won't finish the fascia until after I get back from two short trips. On Thursday morning I'm meeting up with my brother Greg and we are road-touring down to Santa Monica (on Sunday afternoon we take the train from Santa Monica to Union Station/downtown LA) and from there we catch the Surfliner that takes us both north and home. Then Tuesday morning I fly to Las Vegas to meet my other brother Dave and we get our rental Jeep and get OUT of LV, headed to the Grand Canyon North Rim this trip. Yep, it's going to be warm, but if we stay up high it will be tolerable (down in the canyon it would be horrible hot). I fly home from LV next Friday afternoon. So maybe next weekend I can install the fascia boards, put in new strips of tar-paper to cover over the boards an inch or so, and the re-install the cement roof edge tiles (they hang over the edge a few inches). I originally wasn't going to tackle this project cuz it's kind of dangerous...but I figured out ways to do this by myself with only minimal danger...I think the hardest part will be putting the new boards in place...I've developed a way to hoist the boards into position, set them on brackets I made and shim them firmly to the roof and use special screws to install them to the rafter boards, then my air nailer using stainless steel finishing nails to nail the roofs outer 'ship lap' boards to the 2x10's. It's the getting the 2x10s perfectly positioned that will likely be the hardest part...once I do that the screws and nails are a piece of cake.
So the completion of my fascia project is on hold, and anyway I need to get the rest of my road touring gear out of the attic, along with my hiking gear for the Grand Canyon trip...so I'll do that today. I've been working the 2x10s for almost 2 weeks now...(roofers would have done it all in a day, but they wouldn't have been painted, and also I did cut out and replace a few sections of damaged ship lap roof boards along the way). We had some estimates to have a crew do all this, and it was pretty pricey indeed (the house across the street is a 2 story and their fascia is REALLY bad, their quote to replace it all was 20 grand! We only need 1 side done, about 40' worth, and that was still several thousand...yikes).
My excitement for the upcoming Tour has led me to watch the Dauphine this year (suddenly I have TIME!). My 1 year Peacock subscription ended a week or so ago, and I held out...HOPING they would make me an offer I can't refuse, and they DID! So I got another year for the same price (I was going to have to go monthly for like $17.99 because the normal annual is like $79.99 I think) and just get July, so this is a WAY better option!) I really don't ever remember watching the Dauphine before. I know it's THE SPRINGBOARD for Tour GC hopefuls...Vingegaard and Remco are both there, so along w/ Baby Face, that would be my top 3 choices for the Tour, assuming all are/stay healthy and unhurt. I just watched Stage 6 (in the background while I was typing here)...had to leave the computer when Baby Face just RODE AWAY from Vingo and Remco like he had an electric motor (ala Spartacus in his famed attack in the cobblestones...the attack where non-believers actually claimed he had a motor in his bike...remember that? It was when the electric bikes were not here yet, and conspiracy theories had a few select pro's having prototypes in their bikes, Cancellara was one of them). And wow, in Pogo's 7.2 kilometer solo ride today (I reference past races I'm just now watching like they JUST happened, cuz to me it did) he put a minute on Vingo and almost a minute and a half on Remco (who WAS wearing Yellow since his ITT win on Stage 4...he put over 40 seconds on Pogo). Vingo HAD 21 seconds on Pogo going into today...so now the GC status is Pogo all by his lonesome, Vingo back at 40 seconds or so, and Remco down by like 1:20. That's just nuts! And the next 2 stages are mountains! Baby Face is more like Baby KILLER! Man, he is something...they went thru the laundry list of BK's season so far and it was crazy with podiums and wins! Back in Stage 1 the Peacock crew of Bobke and CVV did the announcing, and then on the rest of stages it's been the other Euro guy (Todd?)...I'm getting use to him...but nobody replaces the Peacock Tour Crew! Anyway, Bobke and CVV were talking after Stage 1 that it's impossible to compare any athletes from different generations head to head, but they both agreed that IF it's possible to be as good or better than Eddy Meryx, Pogo is it. That's some pretty heady-stuff!
Oh, and I failed to discuss MY new found talent for wasting time...well, to be honest, I've ALWAYS had it, but I kept it in check somewhat. Now that I don't have to go to work, I get up when I want and do what I want...yea, not really. Jeannie gets up before 4am most days, and me being a light sleeper, yep...I'm awake. Every now and then I can shake it off and go back to sleep, get up around 6. But not very often...most days I lie there till 4 to 4:30 and finally get up, get some coffee, and put on the news (we got rid of our satellite TV and got us a Tablo and 2 Firesticks...works well for us! The Tablo is wireless to both TV's, and the Firesticks have any streaming Apps we use). We have wall over 100 channels on the Tablo for FREE, including all the local channels and many movie channels. Jeannie wheels and deals and gets us constant streaming services for cheap, bouncing around to whoever has a deal...(those are usually for 30 to 90 days). We always have Amazon Prime, and now I have Peacock again for a year, and I think we have Netflix, HBO and Starz right now...so THERE is how I can waste WAY TOO MUCH time...all those channels! I sit down at 4:15 to 4:30 with the monsters Sophie and Abbey, and before I know it, it's 9am and I've done nothing but watch the TV! I haven't ridden a bike in over 2 weeks now...(the fascia project took over my life, that and the early morning TV). Oh, in my defense of not riding for 2 weeks, my neck has REALLY been bothering me again...got hurt LONG LONG LONG ago (I was 19 I think?) and the last ride I did was just miserable. Usually this sort of thing will mostly go away as suddenly as it showed up...right now I'm taking a ton of ibuprofen every day...that's got to slow down/stop soon I hope.
Oh, and one other fun item...I just applied for Medicare Part B... I turn 65 in September (how very fast THAT is coming up!) and that's going to hurt. I never took the rather pricey company insurance because I have Tricare (gov insurance) due to being retired military (Jeannie is on my plan too). When I turn 65 Tricare for me becomes free for the rest of my life, but becomes backup to Medicare which I have to pay for. And how much will that be? Don't know yet, but its going to hurt...because that price is based on OUR annual income...from LAST YEAR! Right now I'm not taking any of my 401k (now an IRA), or my other IRA's (a Roth and another one with our financial management company) and I won't take my SS until I hit 67. So MY income is down to just my Navy Retirement and my company pension...so lets say about half of what I WAS bringing in when I was working. Next year Jeannie can petition the Medicare cost based on our taxes for this year (which will be significantly lower due to my cut in gross income)...but for now it's gonna hurt I'm very afraid. But it is what it is, and WHEN I start taking my IRA's and SS I'll be in great shape! (for a while anyway...we'll see how inflation kills us once we are both fully retired). California isn't really a great place to live as they are KILLING us with taxes and fees, and just the cost of living...I heard recently that if you're making under 100k you are poor in most of CA...I get that. Single people are really living hard around here unless they have a fantastic salary.
OK..enough on that. Time for me to get up off my butt and do stuff. Attic, here I come!
Have a great week, talk more starting on the 5th for my annual "Tour Talk", it's gonna be a GREAT RACE!
Later gators!
