the Life of Zim

This is the bike ride we went on today. Too tired to write more right now…

…now able to write:
So yesterday we went on a pretty amazing ride. When I really think about it I think it’s one of the longest bike rides I’ve been on in my life, at least that I’ve recorded. We were planning on going for a long ride but were thinking the route we chose would me more like 30 miles. Turns out the round trip came out to close to 40.

There’s a route that goes around Portland called the 40 Mile Loop. Based on the map it looks more like a series of trails that surround Portland, so you could do the 40 mile loop a number of different ways, and I’m pretty sure that there are a few loops that would be far more than 40 miles (considering what we did yesterday).

With the Loop in mind, it seemed like a good general destination was SE Portland (the opposite corner from where we live). There seemed to be a few good parks in that are so we chose one (Powell Butte Nature Park) and decided to go for it. We didn’t really know anything about the part, just wanted a goal. Turned out on our ride out we noticed signs for the Leach Botanical Gardens and decided to go there instead (about half a mile shy of Powell Butte). As it turned out the Botanical Gardens weren’t quite as awesome as we were expecting. I guess by the description of Botanical and Garden we were expecting clusters of flowers. I don’t think we saw a single flower in the whole place. It really just a forest with a stream running through it and trails running all around. However, there were a few really cool buildings along the trails that were entirely made of stone. Laura’s first response was that they looked Hansel-and-Gretal-ish, which was very true. It was interesting to think about when and why someone would have built them in the first place and if anyone ever lived there.

We’d packed a nice lunch with some fruit and sandwiches. Once refueled we were on our way again after our short stroll through the “Gardens” and some quick stretches. The next 12 miles or so were pretty brutal.

It seems that the second half of any journey is always harder. Like climbing into a tall tree and then realizing, “how the hell am I going to get down from here?” I think it’s partially the physical exhaustion but I also think a lot of it is mental. Once you’ve accomplished the goal you were working for you just want to be done and that makes you feel even more exhausted. So how do you rectify such a thing? Make another goal. We decided to set our sites on a place to have dinner and a few drinks to help relax after our haul. We ended up at the Tin Shed, a place just outside of our hood that we’ve frequented a bit. And after are tummies were full once again, and we had a slight buzz for the remaining 5-6 mile ride home, we were off.

Might take a second or two to load…

View Portland, Sunday, May 17, 2009 in a larger map

Once home, we were both incredibly exhausted. We each wanted to other to massage us for a good hour or two, but neither of us had the energy. We’re still feeling sore and a bit cranky because of it. My ass still hurts as I’m sitting on our comfy couch. But it felt great to have the ride that we did. I hope we start doing rides like that every weekend.

Well this past weekend was damn near perfect, which has been very well deserved by Laura and I as we’ve been putting in some pretty excessive hours over the past few weeks. This was the first weekend in a while that we didn’t have to work and all, and the weather gods must have had us in their favor. The weekend was filled with blue skies and temps high 60s, low 70s. Not too hot, not too cold, but just right.

So what did we do with our free weekend? Biked. Here’s the route.
I had a few errands I’d wanted to run around town and so we hoped on our bikes and started the journey. We decided o start out with some fuel and went to the Little Red Bicycle which is this amazing neighborhood cafe about a mile from our house. They’re only only until 2pm and closed on Mondays, which I constantly want to scold them about, but they make some of the best damn sandwiches on the planet. Fried egg with caramelized onions on ciabatta? Hells yeah. So we got some deats and headed out for the long haul. I’d wanted to get to this bike shop in South Portland to get a new rear wheel so I could gear one of my bikes; Portland has a lot more hills than Minneapolis. We decided to go the route of Willamette which is always an awesome view and winded down Greeley Ave, past Adidas (which is a really ugly building) proceeded by a HUGE hill that was quite a bit of fun to ride down.

This part of the ride I think really sums up what I love about Portland. The roads we were on were really quite large roads, with on ramps to the highway (which we had to cross over) and times really almost felt like we were riding on the shoulder of a four lane highway. The whole time we were in our bike lane and felt no danger from traffic what-so-ever. I think it’s truly commendable how much the city pays attention to bicyclists and makes them feel safe throughout the city. In Minneapolis it’s a lot easier to feel like a nuance to drivers that are obviously more important than god. Long story short, you can bike damn near ANYWHERE in Portland and you’re welcomed. Cars stop and let you pass before they make a right hand turn. People are just more considerate.

Steel Bridge from the floating dock

From our massive hill and highway we came across the riverfront and road along this floating dock on the opposite side of downtown Portland from the Willamette. The eeriest part was that we hadn’t realized we were floating at all until we were about halfway down the dock. It’s basically this boardwalk that runs along the river about 40ft from the coast. It was pretty damn beautiful.

And on we went to City Bikes. There are actually two “City Bikes”, one with the sub-name of Annex. I was looking for a used bike parts story and wasn’t quite sure which one was which, so we stopped at both. I’m pretty sure it’s the same shop with two locations. I think City Bikes Annex is the spoiled little sister, and City Bikes is the ugly older brother. We were looking of for the ugly brother.

New Wheel from City Bikes

The Annex was nice though. They had a cool upstairs with a bunch of used bikes. Saw an old tandem that was about the same as the one I have from home that needs rebuilding. Thinking about buying the one they had for the parts or see if I can make a deal for the parts I need. It’s a really crappy tandem either way, but pretty sure they only wanted $200 for it. Anyway… made it to the right shop and scored a new rear wheel and cassette. The cassette was really nice, but super dirty. Just caked with mud and grime, but about an hour on Sunday later and it was spit shined to perfection. And away we went.

Our next stop was at this great park that Laura knew of in the area, Laurelhurst Park. Apparently it was designed by the same guy that designed Central Park and Golden Gate Park. It was pretty sweet. We walked through the part with it’s lines of furs and lake and plopped down for rest and so I had a change to return a phone call to my mom.

Continuing on we stopped on our way to Mississippi Ave at this super awesome little bar on Failing and Williams called the 5th Quadrant. Played some Connect Four, which Laura totally kicked my ass at, had a couple drinks and some food, and continued on our way. Most of the rest of the trip was just our ride home. All in all, we started biking around 1pm and didn’t get back home until about 7pm. In my mind a damn near perfect day. That evening we biked to a friends house for a bond fire and had pretty relaxed day on Sunday that started out with home made pancakes. It was an awesome weekend.

I’m very sorry, but also so thankful to the woman in this video. I can’t stop laughing.

Yesterday was a pretty damn productive day. As working from home holds the great possibility of getting stir crazy, by five o’clock I found myself needing to get out of the house. With mildly stocked fridge and some money in my pocket I decided it’d be fun to ride to the grocery store and get myself some fresh ingredients for an awesome dinner. Needing to get out of the house, of course, I decided to go to furthest of the closer grocery stores in the area, New Seasons, my new favorite-est grocery store. The closest New Seasons to our house is about 4 miles away. I think that I underestimated exactly how far 4 miles really is, at least to someone who’s barely biked in the past month due to moving and a broken thumb. It was an awesome ride, but god was it haul. Definitely not a leisure ride.

However, the view along Willamette is pretty amazing. You can’t really tell from the map, but everything south of Willamette along that route is a pretty straight cliff down, and so you have this amazing view of Forest Park and downtown Portland across the river. At night when the city is lit up it’s pretty awesome too. I’m going to need to get some pictures of the view to post soon.

After the long ride I can home and made a pretty awesome meal. It was a Shrimp with Green Beans pasta dish and I’m going to post the recipe below for anyone to use if they want but mostly as a note of it for myself.

Shrimp with Green Beans Ingredients 1 tbs Ginger – minced 2 tbs Garlic – minced 5 stalks Green Onions 2 Tomatillas – eighthed ±4 cups Green Beans ±2 cups Shitaki Mushrooms 3 cups Fresh Pineapple – Chopped ½ lbs 40/50 Shrimp fully shelled include the tail ¼ lbs Scallops 12 oz dry Linguini 3 tbs Olive Oil Juice of ½ Lime 2 tbs Soy Sauce ½ cup White Wine ¼ cup Butter Salt and Pepper to taste

Shrimp and Green Beans

Cooking Directions 1. Saute Ginger, Garlic and Green Onions on low heat in a saute pan with Olive Oil until browned. 2. Add Green Beans, Tomatillas and Mushrooms and saute 5 additional minutes on low heat. Add Soy Sauce and Lime Juice after a couple minutes. 3. In separate saute pan, saute Shrimp, Scallops and Pineapple with butter and wine until Shrimp are pink. 4. Combine both pans. Toss and saute 1 minute. 5. Add Linguini, coating pasta in wine sauce. Add Salt and Pepper to taste. Serve. With white wine. It was awesome. Could be good with Cashews too.

An article was recently published in the Twin Cities Pioneer Press by Joe Soucheray entitled Not cold nor sludge can stop the morons. In this article Soucheray quotes a colleague of his, Patrick Reusse, to say,

Well, if they [bicyclists] fall down in front of me, I will run over them in their snowmobile suits and squash them like a bug… Oh, I’ll call 911 and tell them where the body is, but I ain’t stoppin’.

After reading a bit of his article, it quickly became apparent how deranged and/or stupid Joe Soucheray really is. One of the first paragraphs on his article starts with,

GET OFF THE STREETS, YOU MORONS! OK, that might be a bit harsh, especially coming from me, as I have made my peace with the two-wheelers.

You see, he’s made his peace, but has now decided to write an article in which he calls bicyclists morons and suggests squashing them like a bug as a reasonable way to vent frustration.

Bikes have a right to the road. They have a right to the road in the winter, and a right to the road in the summer. It doesn’t matter what the weather is like. Motorists must observe the rights of those around them. Motorists do not have the right to “squash them like a bug…” and “…call 911 and tell them where the body is.” Now Joe and the Pioneer Press have the right to express any opinions they may have, but I think it shows a great deal of irresponsibility to endorse a hit and run.

The problem here is not that Joe Soucheray doesn’t like to share the road with bikers. I could care less what Joe likes. The REAL problem here is that there is an existing intolerance shown towards bicyclists by motorists. This intolerance creates a more dangerous environment for cyclists, and Joe Soucheray’s article, irresponsibly published by the Pioneer Press, creates an acceptance of this intolerance. People die every year from being hit by a motorist on their bike. It doesn’t matter if it’s winter or summer. Motorists bully everyone around them, and people get injured and die from it. Soucheray’s arrogance and intolerance of bikers along with the Pioneer Press’ acceptance and publication of this opinion incites hatred and intolerance. Shame on them all.

Well yesterday there was a 37 °F difference between the high and low temps for the day. Welcome to Minnesota. Definitely one of the colder days of the year as it barely got below zero. The high temperature for the day was 36 °F and by the end of the day it was at -1 °F. Freaking insanity. And on top of the temperature change it snowed all night, which has made for an exceptionally interesting Monday. Luckily didn’t fall at all on the way in, but there were definitely some wobbly moments. The forecast for today calls for a HIGH of -1 °F. Biking it this morning it was around -5 °F and snowy roads. So as you can imagine the ride in was pretty brutal. It’s never too bad as long as you’re covered up well enough, but baring the cold again definitely makes me more anxious to get out to Portland. I keep feeling like we’re going to get out there at the end of January with temps like 40° when we’ve been used to temps around 0°. I’m picturing us riding our bikes in t-shirts and everyone looking at us like we’re out of our minds. It should be a nice sudden change in climate though. Just when we think we can’t take any more of the Minnesota winter, we won’t have to.

Speaking of Portland, for all of the good people that like to keep up with my blog, we’ve got some exciting news from this weekend. We’ve got a place to live! Laura actually just mailed a signed lease and check for the a deposit and first month’s rent on a house in St. Johns. It’s a nice little house as we’ve seen from pictures. We had one of Laura’s friends that lives in Portland check it out to make sure it looked kosher. It’s a pretty sweet area (as far as we can tell). We’ll be about 7 miles from downtown, which isn’t super close but definitely bikable. We’ll also be just across the river from Forest Park, which is amazing. The woman renting the house to us is a social working going back to school for her Masters in Social Work, and will actually be living in the basement apartment of the house. I guess she’s normally lived in the house and rented the basement, but as she’s going back to school needs the extra money and has decided to rent out the house. She’s in her mid-30’s, seems like a very nice lady, and has a 12 year old dog named Blue. We’re definitely very excited about the house, but nervous at the same time. It’s a pretty big commitment for a year when we haven’t actually seen the place, but sometimes you’ve just gotta jump. We’ll be paying rent both in Minneapolis and Portland for January, which sucks a little, but it’s nice to know that we’ve got our new home figured out. Next step is figuring out how to get all of hour shit out there.

Well it’s been a little while since my last post. My excuse? I got really drunk and Ben’s bachelor party last weekend and have been getting my ass kicked at work. We’re working on a project for “a client” and basically we’ve got about three weeks (now down to a week and a half) to do around six weeks worth of work. So needless to say we’ve been putting in some long hours and blogging has come second pretty much everything else I have time for.

Today I road into work wearing goggles for the first time in probably 8 months. It’s not terribly cold out (50/60’s) but riding a couple miles on a bike can really get your eyes watering, which sucks. Your vision gets blurry, you’ve got cold water running down your face, people laugh and point because you’re crying. So, today I said ‘fuck it, I’m wearing the goggles,’ and I’ve gotta say it was very well worth it. I’ve been feeling a little nippy the past couple of days riding it, but today it seemed like the goggles were actually helping stay warmer. I hate winter biking, but really kind of love it at the same time. Oh, and the goggles (they’re not ski goggles) they’re actually Motorcycle goggles which are great for a little chilly wind protection, but when it’s really cold, like December and January (and February) they fog up like crazy. As soon as I stop moving, instant fog. For the colder cold months I’ve got some ski goggles that work great, but it’s nice to get some use out of the moto-goggles during these in between months.

Okay, time to work…