I'm Back

It’s been nearly a month since I have written anything in my blog. I wish I could say it’s been because I have been so busy with work lately, but that wouldn’t be entirely true. Oh, I’ve been busy at work, but when I get home, I just haven’t taken the time to write.

I was out of town for a week in July. I rode by bike on my sixth RAGBRAI. I wish I could say that I rode the entire thing, but I skipped one day. Sunday night as we were camping in Sheldon, a big storm came through. During the strong winds, my tent began to collapse in on me, so right when the rain began to intensify I fled my tent for the relative safety of our team bus. Of course, when I left the tent, I was no longer in it to hold it down and it quickly started to blow away. Fortunately there was a fence right next to it, so it didn’t go very far. Everything in the tent however was soaked. I didn’t ride my bike on Monday so I would have a chance to dry out my things. I did ride my bike the rest of the way across the state though. After my father passed away in June, I thought about not riding on RAGBRAI as it was something that the two of us did together the past five years, but I decided that it was something that I needed to do. My dad had bought a new bike in March, so I decided to ride it on RAGBRAI instead of my own bike. It is a really nice bike. Perhaps it helped to make the ride easier.

Friday evening, Mel and I went out to dinner with our good friend Homercles. We went to the Irish Democrat Pub & Grille in Cedar Rapids. I had only been there once before, but it was good then, so I thought we should try it again. It didn’t disappoint. The food was terrific. The only problem was that we had quite a wait, but it was worth it.

This past weekend, Mel and I went to the wedding of a friend on Saturday. Then on Sunday we drove to Ankeny for Mel’s nephew’s baptism. We had a really busy weekend. I am looking forward to a weekend where we don’t have to go anywhere. Unfortunately this won’t be the weekend. This Saturday we will be going to Waterloo so Mel can offer support to a friend of hers who is planning on getting a tattoo. Mel is thinking that she is going to get another one herself as well. That’s fine with me. The tattoos she has are tasteful and this one should be too. I keep thinking about getting a tattoo as well, but I don’t think I would ever actually go through with it.

Now that I have returned to the world of blogging, I hope to keep it up.