Boy Howdy!

I know I'm out of shape. I know it will be a fairly long while before I am in the kind of shape I want to be in by this summer. I know that riding a bicycle is the only kind of exercise I actually enjoy and also happens to be the only kind of exercise I will actually stick with. I know that it took me a couple of years to get to the point I was at a couple of years ago when I rode the 40-mile Tour de Toad, even though the weirdos who rode the 60-mile race all beat me by at least half an hour. Hey, I finished, and I was happy that I didn't have to ride back to the start in the "saggin' wagon." And now I know just how far out of shape I have gotten.

When I got the new-to-me bicycle on New Year's Eve I knew I wouldn't be able to just hop on it and ride the wheels off of it, unless you count my weight pulverizing the wheels. But this morning I finally took it off the porch and rode it around the neighborhood for a couple of miles. Granted, our neighborhood is a bit hilly (quiet, those of you from Utah), but it's not too bad. And now I have some good first-hand experience with the new toy. It's a pretty good bike for my needs. It's not up to the same level I had the Schwinn up to. In fact, it's not even close. But it will work nicely for what I need right now, which is a bicycle that will not fall apart at a beginner's pace.

On an unrelated note, last night when I got home form work Jax was listening to the radio. It was a piece of music that we both recognized but neither of us could come up with a name for. So I told her to go to the station's website and look it up. The interesting part is that while listening to the music on the radio the birds were just sitting around being cute, but not really chirping that much. But when Jax started listening to the music on the computer, just to make sure it was the right piece, the birdies went bonkers. They started chirping and "singing along" with the music coming from the horrid, little computer speakers, even though they were apparently ignoring the music coming from the real stereo. I just thought that was cute.