Been a while

Well a lot has happened since my last post. You see we were living in Lexington KY and things were going pretty good than I found out that the company that owns the restaurant I work for was selling the Brand. Then I found out that they were closing my store. Now there I was with a pregnant wife (baby due in 10 days), daughter and a job that was up in the air. Now before you start feeling sorry for me let me tell you that I am a big fan of personal responsibility. You see when I was younger I made a lot of mistakes with money and it took me a long time to clean up my mess. And then I made the decision to never go into debt again. Then I met my wife and we made the decision to live out lives debt free. It hasn't always been easy but when the world around you starts to put up a fight it's nice to have options. So there we were we had no job in Lexington I had a few options that consisted of transferring as a GM to Atlanta, Florida, or Nashville. Now I had worked in Nashville before and had no desire to move my family back there and Florida or Atlanta did not seem like the best choices for us either. So this is where the whole debt free things comes in I cannot tell you how nice it was not to have to make a snap decision when you have no CC payments, car payments, and 6 months of expenses in the bank. So this is what we did. I took a weeks vacation then my week of maternity leave while we welcomed my son into the world. That puts us in the middle of November and my boss gave me a 6 week time frame to make up my mind if I was going to transfer to another store or leave the company that I had spent over 9 years working for. I worked in Louisville for the next 6 weeks while I waited for something to open up. Then the opportunity opened up for us to transfer up to Ann Arbor. So right in the middle of winter we loaded up the u haul and moved our lives up to Michigan. Things are gong well so far we are getting settled in and making friends. My wife who is a graduate of a little school called "The Ohio State University" was afraid she would be the only one in town who wore crimson and grey but it turns out one of the other managers at my restaurant is a OSU alum also.
Now that spring has past and we are in the middle of summer I have been able to ride my bike a little bit. I have rode to work about 5 times which is between 12 and 16 miles each way depending on my route so its a good little work out. I have also been up to Island Lake and Maybarry state park on my mountain bike and have taken a few rides through he corn and wheat fields around here. Things are going good we are going to be looking into buying a house once our lease runs out in Dec. I tell you more about that later.

17:15

Thats how long it took me to get home last night. Still trying to break the 17 minute mark but its definately my best time yet. I thought I would be pretty beat last night especially since we had a group of 14 people walk in at 10:02 ( we close at 10:00) we got them sat and fed as quickly as we could but they didn't leave until 11:20. Thats fine with me we will take any business we can get especially since they spent over $325.00. I left the restaurant around 12:30 and once I got on the bike I felt good. In fact as I got on the road I was right behind a semi truck and tried drafting him on my mountain bike but when I got up to around 30 mph my gears wouldnt let me keep up so I lost him but I kept catching him at every light up to Tates Creek. I am going to start to give you my opinion on whats wrong with this world and people in future posts.

Motivation

I just went outside to get the mail and it is so friggin hot. I was actually thinking about taking the car. Then I decided to get some inspiration from the Internet and found this article on the web.

http://environmentaldefense.org/article.cfm?contentID=5480

If these guys can do it so can I.

Plus I have a great wife who supports me in my commuting and that is so awesome.

Cool Old Guy

As I got stopped on my way home tonight at the light a little west of Tates Creek and MOW I saw this old guy trying to cross from the Taco Bell side to the Shell Station Side. Now I will be honest with you and I am not proud of it but my first reaction was like "wow what a piece of crap bike" because he was riding a Wal-Mart bike with a Wal-Mart helmet and long blue jeans and a yellow backpack. But as he crossed the street something changed my mind. He got about 3/4 of the way across and was just about to cross the right turn lane when this guy in a big a** silver pickup came rolling up and cut him off. The guy on the bike started yelling at the guy in the truck in a very controlled manner. Things like "please stop I'm to cross here" now in a situation like that I probably would of blew my lid. As the guy rode passed me we exchanged pleasantries and he went on his way. As he did my opinion of him did a 180. The rest of my ride home I had a different attitude about things and it must of shown. Instead of getting yelled at and honked at I got two Whoo Hoo's and a Way to go out of the passing cars. Thanks cool old guy.

Dog Days Of Summer

Man is it HOT. I rode to work Sat morning about 6:30 am and it was quite pleasant. On the way home about 6:00 pm I walked outside and at first I couldn't breath it was so hot. I immediately started sweating. The humidity was so high that the sweat wouldn't even evaporate. I can't wait till it cools off a bit. makes those spring and fall rides in the coolness seem quite pleasant.

The end of a era

Well it seems like we are a two car family again. We just bought a 97 pathfinder with 102000 miles on it for 4500. I feel like we got a good deal its really clean on the inside. We took it to the mechanic for his 52 point used car inspection and he gave it a good look up and down. He said it was pretty solid for a ten year old car and there was a list of things that may need to be addressed over the next couple of years. He did say that the rear axle seal and the valve cover gasket needed to be replaced in the next few months. Now let me say that I am not very good at negotiating so when we went back to finalize the deal I didn't know what to expect. The car was listed for 5400 and the KBB was 5600. We offered 4500 cash and then tried to work out a deal on the valve cover gasket and rear axle seal. First we offered to buy the parts and hoped they would take care of the labor but the parts were only 40 bucks. then we offered to split the labor and they said no. So i asked them if they wanted a 1988 Accura Integra with no exhaust and they said sure you have a deal. So the way I see it I just sold my piece of crap car for 380 dollars. I am still riding my bike all over because I like it so much.

Basic Economics

I should teach a class in Economics 101 at UK. Just the fact that I have eliminated my gas consumption for a few weeks has lowered the price of gas from $3.09 to $2.66. I have single handily saved many people so much money. Its a simple case of supply and demand. You can all thank me when you see me.