Life in the City

I'm too distracted to write about triathlon tonight. I just had an encounter with the neighbor behind our house. I'd never met the guy before—he's the owner of the house but it's a rental, on Glisan, the busy street parallel to and south of ours. For the second night in a row he was running his leaf blower at 9:30 p.m. The Lad's room is upstairs and to the rear of the house and he's a good sleeper, but this was keeping him up. Understandably. There's something especially obnoxious about the sound a leaf blower makes. I asked the guy nicely—I swear—if he could please do his yard work at a more reasonable hour. He asked my name and where I lived. I told him. Why not? I was being neighborly. He says, with a bit of a smirk, "Well, Pete, technically I can run this thing until 11 p.m." I reply, "Technically, too, I bet you could shove that thing up your ass." With that, he turned on the leaf blower. What an idiot. (In fact, the city noise ordinance prohibits use of leaf blowers after 7 p.m. But seriously, why is it even a question? I mean, leaf blowing at 9:30 in a residential area?)

Well, OK, a little triathlon (it's 10 p.m.; he's stopped, it appears)… It was rainy today: trainer. I'd taken the Cervelo off the Computrainer and wasn't going to put it back on. It's just too much of a hassle taking it off and on, with all the cables and shit. Plus, I'm counting on lots of good weather the rest of May. (What an idiot.) Anyway, I could have put the old Lemond on the Computrainer, but I like to have that bike at the ready to just hop on and off at any time. So I retired the Computrainer for the season and hauled out my old CycleOps trainer and set the Lemond up on that (takes about 15 seconds). I rode for an hour and 45 minutes, mixing in some hammering with some mellow spinning while watching Wolf Blitzer in The Situation Room. What an idiot. (Wolf, I mean.)

The house had warmed up and even with a fan blowing I sweat buckets.