I Wanna an Easter Egg

This past weekend was Easter and my wife and I hosted both our families for Easter dinner. Its a large gathering of around 20 or more people but it is always a lot of fun. We usually have a lot of traditional Polish food like perogies and stuffed cabbage as well as assorted other non traditional food like stuffed shells. My wife tries to make something visually spectacular for desert. This year she made and Easter egg from cream puffs and chocolate oreo balls. It was a simple but delicious dessert that was a crow pleaser.


By the way for those that remember the Bugs Bunny cartoon about Easter here is a link to I wanna an Easter egg.

Getting the Band Back Together

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I had put a ride into the book for April 5 but when the book came out it wasn't there. No matter between a few emails and a blog post I got the word out. Most of the regular crew showed up. Laura, Ron, Al Cheryl, Joe Dave, Herb and Mary.

We ended up doing a windy ride to New Egypt. The ride down to New Egypt wasn't too bad but the ride back was tough. It was one of the windier rides that I have done. Still it was good seeing every one after a long cold winter.

Signs of Spring

When I last left you I was drinking away the pain of hard work and lamenting about what a crappy winter it was. I did get out a few times since then and had a couple of rides with Mary and Herb which was fun since I hadn't seen them in a while. Although the snow has melted and there are signs of growth it still doesn't feel spring like. There is hope though since this is the first week since December that snow has not been forecast (although it did sleet on Monday morning). The weather is getting warmer and it looks like it will be nice enough to get my first club ride in this weekend. I know there are a lot of others bikers out there who are depressed and need to get out on the road so lets hope that winter is finally over.

Drinking the Winter Away

My appeal to the weather god got us one decent weekend to ride but with another storm about to dump some more snow on us there is no end in site for winter. Although I haven't be doing as much biking this winter as I normally do I have been doing my best to try and stay in shape for when the weather finally warms up. This weekends cross training work out was the total destruction of the main bathroom in preparation for a total make over.

As the picture shows I took the bathroom down to the studs. It took all day Saturday to rip the walls down and most of Sunday to clean it up the mess that created. After a hard days work of home improvement.there is nothing better than a good drink or some great desert. This weekend I found a way to have both at the same time. I found a Creme Brulee beer. Most of these strange beers that try to mix non beer flavors in usually end up tasting nothing like they should but this beer actually tasted like the top of a Creme Brulee. At 24 ounces and 9.3% alcohol it was the perfect way to unwind after a tough work out.

Note to Weather God

I am putting this message out into the ether to try an appease the weather god, Jim Cantore, or what every divine force that controls the weather

I get it you are angry at us. Between our dumping of toxic chemicals, deforestation, and flooding the air with CO2 we have totally mucked up the environment. I guess you are now trying to punish us by burying us in heavy wet snow that gives us a heart attack as we try to clear our driveways. And even when we do get out on the road we can't see over the 20 foot piles of snow so there is an accident waiting at every corner.

If the constant snow wasn't bad enough what is worst is that our thermometers have spent a lot more time below 20 degrees than above. I don't think colder than a witches teat is even a valid comparison any more.

I am tired of the cold and snow and am looking for an offering that I can give so that I can get out on the bike again. If you need me to sacrifice a virgin that may be tough since there aren't many in these parts. But I am a computer professional so as long as you don't need a virgin of super model quality I may be able to find a shy. slightly unkept, computer professional virgin who is female-ish.

 If you don't answer my plea's then I will have no choice but to take my case to the Flying Spaghetti Monster because we all know he is the one that really controls what goes on in this crazy world.

Penny Pack 2014

Click Here for more Pictures

It was a tough week at work where I spent way too much time getting almost nothing done. So I was glad to see that the weather warmed up enough to be able to get out for a ride. Trying to ride during the winter months means toughing it out in the cold, riding trails or spending time on an indoor trainer.

Yet the winter also brings some unique opportunities to see a different side of the outdoors. Although winter can be a stark and barren it has its own special beauty especially after a snow fall.  The past couple of weeks brought a few significant snow storms and although the roads had cleared enough to ride on them I wanted a more scenic ride in the snow so I went to Pennypack park.

Pennypack park is in north east Philadelphia and has a beautiful paved trail along the Pennypack creek. This is not much to this park there is the creek, a few trails, a couple of parking lots, and small nature center that's it. But the park really doesn't need anything else. Pennypack creek and the surrounding woods have a simple timeless beauty. Although Pennypack is a nice place to ride in any season my favorite time to ride here is in the winter.

Because they actually plow the paved trail when it snows this is one of the few places you can easily ride when there is a lot of snow on the ground. I rode here last winter after a snow storm and remember how cool it was riding through the snow but this year was even better. Because of the single digit weather we had this past week parts of the creek were still frozen over. The contrast between the frozen creek, flowing water and snow pack landscape created one of most scenic rides I have done in a while. It was the perfect way to recover from a frustrating week.

First Ride of the Year

Finally got out on the road today with winter Larry. Last weeks snow has melted and the polar vortex has retreated to Canada where it belongs. At 45 degrees it wasn't real cold but the rain from the previous day had left the roads a little wet. Larry had 12 people and decided to do something different. We headed toward the canal and ended up going down Old Georgetown Rd to the canal.

When we got to the canal I broke off from the group. With a strong west wind blowing I wanted to head home with a tail wind instead of circling around to the north with Larry and the group then have to fight a head wind to get home.

It was a short ride of 35 miles but it was good to get out on the roads in 2014.