Snow!?

Today it snowed. I was much distressed by this. The small child in me that always rejoices at snow jumped up and down in excitement and was ready to go sledding. On the other hand YESTERDAY I went bike riding on the roads and it was amazing. So I could not decide if I was prosnow or not. I think some more debating will have to go on.

Biking in the real live world

Look I now have a picture and a new blog Template. I will have to keep working to make my blog pretty. I was looking at my fellow rider's blogs, and many of them are prettier and more complicated then mine. I will have to actually spend time some day, but it is currently very far down on the sticky note listS of things I need to do. Sometimes I feel like making list is more discouraging then helpful. As emphasized by the S on listS my todo list is rather long. I hope to get thank you notes for the time being crossed tonight. Hopefully someone else will donate, and I will have to add it again to my list. My current total is $1750. I would like to thank Lara H., Andy T., and Kelly D. for the donations. I have finally gotten up the nerve to start asking all of my friends for money. I know most of them are broke like me, but even a $5 donation gets me that much closer to my goal. (I only need 450 more people to give me $5). The more I work on this fundraiser, the more I realize that part of the goal of this trip is not only to raise money but also promote awareness. If someone can't donate to me, then I hope that at least they begin to think about this issue. Maybe further down the road they will donate either time, or money to this cause. The following people and businesses that supported me on day three and four of door to door fundraising: Evalyn G., David and Jean P., Joe P., Sarah and Bill W.,and Sproul's Furniture Store.

Today it was way too beautiful to stay inside and do my work, so I finally fixed my bike. (This is my mother's bike, I am still trying to figure out what bike I want to cross the USA on) It's chain was unhappy, so I put lots of grease on it and then wiped it off again. It seamed to solve the problem of it jumping between gears. I have a feeling that my bike repairing skills will improve on this odysseys. I then had to test out my bike, and went for my first bike ride outside in months. it was a beautiful day: Blue sky, above freezing, and no wind. It felt like spring was here, but it doesn't look like it was here to stay. Tonight it is supposed to snow. Boo on that. I think winter has had its chance, and now it is time for spring. Although it was warm, it really wasn't warm enough for shorts. Oh well live and learn. Although I did not see quite as many bears, or space stations my ride was vastly superior to riding on the stationary bike. The sights along the way were a Junk Yard that had various school buses, and decrepit cars, a man clearing ice off his driveway with a tractor the size of a riding lawn mower, deer in the meadow that were still enough that I am slightly convinced that they were fake. Next time I ride by I will have to check and see. If I remember I'll keep you posted on the realness of the deer.

Ok I think it is time to correct some math homework. I am correcting Calculus II, and for the most part it is not the calculus that the students are having a hard time with, but the algebra. Although I keep trying to tell myself that can't be that bitter about it, since I know that I have made many an algebra mistake in my life. Me and Algebra actually usually are in a fight.

In closing I ate all the fruit snacks, and tonight in an attempt to replace them I made green jello. Did you know if you eat jello to early it is not as jelloy and much more liquidy. I just hope it doesn't continue to jellify in my belly.

Don't tell my Mother

It has happened, today I played bridge instead of doing my work, or going to the gym. Don't tell my mother because she will say: I told you so, once you learn how to play bridge it all goes down hill from there. Before I know it I will flunk out of school, and have to beg my parents to have mercy on me so I can live in their basement. But on a happier note: I had good cards, and me and my partner won the majority of hands. Since we were only going to play a couple of hands, so we weren't keeping score. It turned into quite a long couple of hands. Oh well looks like tonight will have to be a long one.

I did have a new exercise adventure. Since my roommate has been sick, and I no longer have anyone to convince me to go to the gym. Yesterday I didn't convince myself until almost 9PM to exercise. The pool on campus is either open early morning, noon, or 7-10. None of those really are when I want to go, so I think this was the second time I have gone swimming in the last six months. The water was very thick, and the very difficult to swim through. My weak little arms were not happy with this new form of exercise. They like it much better when I bike or run, because all they have to do is sit there, and sometimes move back and forth. None of this being responsible for the moment of an entire body. They were very vocal in their unhappiness. I could also swear that the pool was not just 25 yard pool, but at least 50 meters. My arms were not the only part of me that informed me that swimming was NOT a good idea. Since I haven't swam regularly since high school I didn't have either goggles or a cap. So my eyes were exposed to the chlorine, and this is never a good thing. Now, I have to open my eyes under water, cause if I don't I run into things. I try only to open them when I am breathing, but this never really helps. The other problem I had forgotten about it when I swim without a cap, is that my hair is not long enough to stay in a ponytail. So my bangs were always in my face. I could kind of alleviate this by breathing every third stroke. But since I am in such horrible swimming shape, I can do this for about 6 strokes, and them I am out of breath. In the end I just decided to kick for most of the practice. I could even wear my glasses while swimming, and the world returned to being in focus. Without my glasses I am legally blind. The big E I haven't been able to see it in years. This rant does have a happy ending though. Today I had to go to the mall, so I was able to buy both cap and goggles. So now I am ready for my next swimming expedition. I just have to motivate myself to go again... Tomorrow is bridge night, maybe I'll go and swim after that. I feel like if I call my exercising expeditions, or adventures it makes them much more fun.

In closing I have no new donation to report, but I would like to thank the following people who supported me on day two of fundraising, which is my most successful day to date. I raised $495 in one day. I walked along Main St. Damariscotta, and along West View Rd. The following businesses donated: Elinor and Anita's, The Mediterranean Kitchen, and Scarborough's Collision. The following individuals also donated: Lynn A., Peter D., Teresa B., Robert and Patricia K., Frank and Cynthia K. I also received donations from the residents along West View Rd. Thank you all for your support.

Ok now it is time for me to go back to the hyperbolic world. I have to write up the proof that if two lines are asymptotic parallel to a third, then they have to be asymptotic to each other. It isn't that bad of a proof.

One more thing. I bought FRUIT SNACKS!! As you can see I was pretty excited.

A week of planing for the future

So I have not updated in about a week. I must also confess that I have also only exercised
twice in the last week, and have done very little fundraising. I was too busy trying to write 2 pages single space about me. I applied to the Austrian Fulbright English teaching assistant program. I quickly got very sick of writing about me, and it also reaffirm my hatred of writing. Why can't I just experience the experiences? Over the six days working on this application I worked up a great antiwriting rant. I will not go into it here, but probably over the next couple of months I will probably rant more then once about how much I hate to write.

Other exciting news in that happened in the last week was I had five new donation: Glen D., John H., Jane K., Rita K.-V., and Grandpa Al and Earline. I am now 42.875% of the way to $4,000. Thank you very much. Because people donated before I had this blog I have decided each time I update my blog to thank a couple of people/businesses who donated preblog. First thanks to Supplies Unlimited donated my brochures to me. As I began fundraising I realized these brochures were invaluable, because I had written information I could give to the people I was talking to. The first day I began walking door to door asking for donations the following businesses donated giving me courage that I could raise $4,000: Stars, Twin Village Hobby & Educational Toys, Village Optical, Yellow Front. I would also like to thank everyone that has listended to me. Even those who could not donate to me were always polite. Everyone I have talked to about Bike and Build supported me, if not through a donation, then verbally. This made it possible for me to have the courage to walk up to the next door and ask for donations. As much as I dreaded raising $4,000 so far has been a positive experience.

This weekend I hope to work some more on getting out fundraising letters, as well as sending out thank you letters. I got behind on writing them. I think that is all the news from here. Oh and if you were wondering in hyperbolic space the first parallel gets arbitrarily close together in one direction, and arbitrarily far apart in the other direction. It was a fun proof.

The first whole day I went without updating

Yesterday I biked through the stars. It was quite exciting, although there were not animal sightings along the way. I did wonder how I was able to breath out there in the vastness of space without a space suit, but apparently they have developed the technology so that there can be floating bikeways in space. As you can apparently see, I believe everything that I see on my television screen. If it says I can bike in space, then I can bike in space. Maybe my next goal should be to bike across space. Although in the words of Douglas Adams "Space is big, I mean really big." Ok so maybe that is not the exact quote, but it is pretty close.

Now on a more real not I painted today. I pained walls, base boards, ceilings, floors, boots, sweatshirts, pants, newspapers, plastic, and probably some of my fellow workers. Of that list the first two things are actually the only things that were supposed to get paint on them. I have five different colors of paint on my hands, but what is most impressive is I didn't even use black paint, and I have some on my hands. The reason I was painting is I did my first day of work with our local Habitat chapter. We went to Cortland to work on a house that is two weeks away from completion. The owner was there working with us, and she was so excited about the house. She had picked out different color's for each of the rooms. One of the other volunteers described the house as the happiest house ever, because the color were so vibrant. I spent most of the morning painting the mud room caramel. We were using Dunkin Donuts coffee cups as paint cups, and except for the mud like consistency of the paint we probably could have fooled someone into thinking it was coffee with cream. For lunch we went to a deli where I got a veggie sub that had so much stuff on it I had to eat it in two parts. It was amazing. In the afternoon I helped clean brushes, painted a baseboard, and worked on painting the living room paprika, and a green color. Not colors that I would have picked, but they did look good. And finished with painting one of the walls of the dining room a darker green. I think my favorite room that she had was one of the kid's rooms that was green with a darker green pattern on one wall. Then she painted a black square on the wall that he could use as a chalk board. It was pretty cool.

As I worked today I decided I have two goals for my habitat experience. I hope to get experienced enough to know what needs to get done on a job site, and have the skills to do it. I spent a lot of time standing around today, because I didn't know how to continue. My second goal is to be able to finish a job, and say hey that looks like it was done by a professional. My painting today was not bad, but me and my paintbrush got in more then one fight where it wanted to paint something that I did not want painted.

Well I'm off to some exciting Saturday night activities such as writing my biography in two pages, and correcting math homework. I am so very excited!

Today I was sore.

The title says it all. Today was deemed a rest day.

The day of the less then one Mile run

See I can almost make a title for my blog post be without a number. Weather today ICKY. Cold rainy rainy cold turning to cold rainy icy. So in the long and the short NOT biking weather, but gym going weather. In the beginning all three of the bikes with monitors were filled. I though ok, this will be a great time to try cross training. There were many a treadmills that was free. Many people enjoy running on treadmills. It can’t be that difficult. I even have been know to use them before. All those bad memories I have of them, could not be true. So I get on said treadmill, and press the HUGE green button that says start. Then it tries to give me all these options, but all I want to do is run. I get to what feels like a reasonable pace: 6.3 (I have no idea of the units for this number). Not fast in anyone’s book, but I am still just warming up I tell myself. When I watch people on treadmills I feel like they pick a place to run on the belt, and that is where they stay. When I run I feel like I sway back and forth, and also can’t quite keep an even tempo so I always have the feeling like I will shortly either be running off the front, or falling off the back. Sometimes I feel like I look so bad that a cop will come into the gym, and arrest me for operating a treadmill under the influence. I will have to say, no officer, these are just too complicated a piece of machinery for me. The other image I always get when criticizing my treadmill form is the hamster that can’t quite figure out it’s exercise wheel. At some point the wheel gets the better of it, and it end up stuck inside the wheel going round and a round. Luckily nothing like that happened to me today. I was running along for what seemed like forever and a day, when I look down and realize it hasn’t even been two minutes. I knew that it is going to be a very very long workout. I convince myself that I can do this, running in place can be entertaining. So after another 5 minutes of endlessness I decide that I will call it a running warmup, and then will see what other machines are available. I even bump the speed up to 6.5 units for the last 3 minutes in attempt to switch it up a bit. I think I look down at the time about every 3 seconds. As I watch it count down the last 10 seconds I successfully use the HUGE red stop button. But at the same time I do manage to hit the headphone wires to my Ipod shuffle and it goes flying. I know that the entire row of ellipticals behind me saw. My roommate was on one of then, and yes she did make fun of me. In 10 minutes I ran an impressive .92 somethings I’m assuming are miles, and don’t have it in me to run .08 somethings to get a nice round one something. I will be the first to admit that running fast is not my forte. I used to joke that the only time I would run if a large man with a VERY big stick was chasing me. By this time one of the video bikes were free, and I get on it. My legs inform me that no they do not like this new work out routine. They like the one where I sat around all day much better. So I pick out a work out with nice rolling hills called Apple Grinder. It was a nice country ride through the brown and yellow fall trees. It was much more entertaining then the treadmills. I didn’t even look at my clock until over five minutes had gone by. As I was riding along I was thinking about what I could include in today’s blog entry. Of course now I don’t remember all the brilliant things I was thinking about, other then the trees looked really fake. This time instead of getting greener as they got nearer to you they got browner. I ended up riding 7 miles, plus a 3 min cool down, and was rather proud of meself. Other than that today was pretty uneventful. Tonight me and some of my friends played bridge. We are just learning how to play, and don’t really have all the strategy down, but did have a quite a lot of fun. I think anyone with bridge knowledge would have just shook their head at our technique. Most importantly my team won. We were awesome! Now I have successfully avoided the work I was supposed to have done by writing this one massive paragraph. I figure it’s not a long entry if it is only one paragraph. Right?

Day Two

Some day I will have to get more interesting titles for my posts, but I like number. Well actually I think I like the idea of numbers. In reality numbers and I usually are in a fight. Why can't 2*4=6 sometimes?

On a more relevant note I saw a bear today. Actually, I saw the same bear twice. I was warming up and peddling through the Red Woods today, and off next to the path was a brown bear. Luckily it was far enough away that it was not a threat. In fact it looked rather grayish and 1 dimensional. The computer animation on the bike at the gym are really not the best. After I finished my warm up through the red woods, and I did actually bike THROUGH a red wood. Yup I am that cool. I biked O Mama. It was a rather hilly, and some what scenic rout. I saw a blue mass that I can only assume was the sea off in the distance. The computer animations keep me quite entertained. Why do trees start off light green, and then as they get closer, they get more detailed with dark green? It looks like they are reverse camouflage trees. They get more visible the closer you get to them. All and all it was a good ride. I completed a little over 11 miles without actually moving anywhere.

Speaking of going places I went to get fitted for my bike, and it is a complicated process. I did not actually get fitted, instead I just got to learn about why I should get a Trek 520. The man who I was talking to says that the three bikes that I have an option to ride, are all racing bikes, and I should invest a little extra money to get a touring bike. The trek 520 is in his mind a very good touring bike for it's price. So my new plan of action is to contact Zane's bike shop, the store that is getting my bike, and see what they have to recommend, and what these options cost. If I am going to ride 3428 miles on a bike, I guess I should do the research to find out what a good bike entitles. I'm guessing it is a little more then 2 tires, a break, and some gears.

On the fundraising news I have currently raised $1350.04, which is than 27/80th or 34% of my total goal of $4000 dollars for affordable housing. It is pretty exciting. Thank you to everyone who has already contributed.

Now I must get to work on my school work. I have managed to avoid it all day. I am very good at avoiding work. I have a feeling this blog will be a procrastination tool.

THE FIRST ENTRY

I feel like any first entry should be deep and meaningful, but I am currently not sleep deprived enough to philosophize. Instead I will tell you all about my dragon killing expeditions today. Ithaca has decided that freezing rain is a fun type of weather, and the derailer on my bike doesn't really like to pick a gear to stay in, so I have been forced to train inside. Today I tried out the new stationary bikes at the gym. The bikes have video monitors, and you can select a program where it make it looks like you are biking. You have a path to follow, and there is scenery to watch. It was pretty exciting. I warmed up with a casual bike along the sea, and then found out that you can play a game where you collect coins and then run over the dragon of the right coin. It was pretty entertaining (for about 4 minutes). Then I decided to bike through mountain goat pass (well I don't remember exactly but there were goats in the snow on the sides of the road). I did not actually finish the ride, because Maggie had finished her work out. Other than that today consisted mainly of school, doing homework, and playing gin rummy. I won! I did also prove that if you are living in hyperbolic space, and more then two lines through a single point are parallel to any given line, that parallel line and the given line cannot be equidistant apart. It was almost as exciting as the dragons.