Motivated to Succeed

4:00 PM - In Pittsfield this weekend. Been very rainy and temperatures in the 70s and humid. Blah. It was nice though because after one of the storms Emma and I went for a walk. Took about an hour. It was fun, and on one road we literally saw HUNDREDS OF SNAILS! I've only seen a handful in my life and usually in the garden or on a hike in a damp area. It was hard to walk without stepping on them, and I apologize to Mr. and Mrs. Snail if I stepped on a couple of their babies, but dang there were so many!! Crazyness!

Total Time: 60:00 Total Mileage: 3.5 miles Average Pace: 17:08

9:00 AM - So I am back in New York and today I didn't work until 4 in the afternoon, and I had a CD that matured at the bank. Jonn's bike came last night and I helped him put it together. It's pretty flippin' sweet. I can't wait for mine to come! We decided to take his bike on its maiden voyage, and we biked up to the bank where I sorted out the CD issue and since interest rates blow right now, only renewed it for 3 months. Then we biked down to the track and I did 1.02 miles in 8:57. Jonn informed me my running form is atrocious and that I need to work on it. I said I would, I guess I just need to practice on correct form when I do my cool downs every day he said. I'll give that a try. Also funny that we managed to break the speed limit in town :). Were going through the village and the school speed limit is 25mph, well I accidentally accelerated to 31 mph!! haha! Oops! Cruised on another 10 miles to home. So a little over 15.5 miles today on the bike. I'll do more tomorrow before my workshop. If the weather holds up that is! It's been horrible weather here in New York :( this whole week.

Total Time: 1:16:32 Total Distance: 16.53 Average Speed: 13.0 mph

*Max Sustained Speed: 38.0 mph

8:40 PM - So today was day number 3 of 9 in a row at work. 2 girls quit, one left for Pennsylvania and another to camp for seven weeks, so who else do they call but Super Benn. I swear I own that bookstore. They would be lost without me. Worked 8:30 to 2:00 to cover for a guy, then drove to Albany and had a workshop 4:00-6:30 on Child Abuse Prevention. Get out of the workshop and Jonn leaves a message saying he was goofing off in the basement of the garage with my other brother Harry and their friends and they threw a tennis ball into the glass of our sauna and busted it, so I am thinking about that the whole way home and how my parents are going to kill him. Then I get home and he tells me to go look at it, and its my bike.. no cracked door to the sauna, but my nearly fully assembled bike!!! I did some tinkering and took it down to our road and did 8 x .3 mile hills :) It is definitely a flippin' sweet bike!!! Today is day #1 of a new bike! :) Yay! Hopefully I can get in a quick ride on it before I have to work @ 10am tomorrow!bb

7:50 PM - Long and tiresome day at work. Hot and humid. About 85 degrees, and hazy. I think I was sweating before I even got on the bike. Was frustrated because with 4 girls just missing from the store I get shafted now. I spent all day helping to set up the store's stand at SPAC, and now I don't even get to work it. I looked at the schedule and I am by myself in the cafe all day each day from 8am to 5pm both Saturday and Sunday. Kind of funny seeing as a guy (whose name oddly enough happens to be "Guy") who was hired 2-3 weeks ago somehow gets to work both days after a manager promised me in April that I would definitely be on the list. Oh how I am not appreciated huh? Oh and I got another warning about not getting 60% of my transactions using the rewards card. Well I won't get into detail but I've decided I don't care, and if they threaten to fire me I'll quit and I think for once I'll be happy!

Onto the bike ride. Got home and knew I didn't have much time if I wanted to get a ride in. So I quickly changed and headed off. Felt nice on the new bike, except I noticed from about the first mile a weird squeaking noise as I pedaled. I finally figured out with about 5 minutes left in the ride that it wasn't the wheel, but actually a manufacturer sticker that they didn't remove after mounting the chain on the sprockets. Ended up going on the usual route on Jockey Street, and turned around. Swallowed way too many bugs tonight! But it felt good to get a ride in. I will make myself get in another one tomorrow after work. The new bike is so sweet! :)

Total Time: 55:30 Total Distance: 16.05 miles Average Speed: 17.3 mph!b

Sigh. Disheartened with the stupid fricking weather. It has rained every day for more than a week, and it was oppressively humid today, but of course no showers until about 4:00 pm, an hour before I got out of work. Torrential rains. Temp is about 83 or 84 and humidity near 100%. Same weather for tomorrow and from 8pm tonight until 2pm tomorrow the hour by hour forecast on weather.com says that it will be raining. I hate global warming and I hate not being able to get a bike ride in. Grumpy today sums it up. Stupid work. Stupid weather. Time to go pig out on food now. Ciao.