First of all, a clean, well-lubed (heheh... thought you'd like that Dee ;-) bicycle chain... (sorry honey) makes all the difference in the world. My chain was grimy. It was grungy. It was caked on grease and road dirt. After running it through a handy-dandy chain cleaning device with some MEC Biodegradable chain degreaser it is now clean and bright. Apply sparingly some synthetic lubricant and I now have a chain that purrs like a kitten.. actually, it's quieter than a kitten. ;-)

Secondly came the brakes. I realize now why cantilever brakes are not even MADE any more. Firstly - there is better stopping technology out there (v-brakes and disk brakes). Secondly - they are bigger than the biggest bitch in the world to adjust. You have like five hundred billion adjustments on them.. they are INFINITELY adjustable.. the problem is, you have to adjust all five billion things at the same time, so it takes forever to get it just right. Thank goodness for George who came to help me with the final touches after I had fought with them for going on an hour and a half. They worked great this morning and didn't squeal a bit!! Whee!

I want to get a better bike next year... but I also don't want to have it stolen - so perhaps the better bike will have to wait until we move to a house and I can lock it down in the garage or something. I don't want a road-dirty bike in my apartment, and I don't want my new baby to be stolen from the bike room downstairs - which is a common occurrance for nice bikes. Thankfully mine is good quality old technology that looks like crap!

The apartment is decorated for Christmas, my laundry is done and the dishes are clean and put away... what's gotten into us?! I'm trying to get more organized in my life so I can get down to improving my knowledge for work and pleasure. I want to know more about how NT and Win2k work so I can be more effective at problem solving. To that end I'm going to study my buns off on the Win2k MCSE materials and even take the tests. I don't just want to pass the tests, though, I really want to understand it - so that's my goal.

On another note, I've developed a really strong desire to go on a very long bicycle ride this summer. I'd like to start bike touring/camping as a regular gig - it's just my speed and it's affordable, too. I've discovered that I'm just not a competitive person at heart. I like beauty, spirit and seeing the joy in life... I don't like pain, pressure and stress. I'm not afraid of hard work, but I want to be able to stop when I like and breathe in the clean air, smell the flowers and oogle at the beauty that surrounds us on this planet. I would dearly love to ride accross Canada one day and that is going to be my goal. Perhaps I can use that ride to raise money for something worthwhile. I'll have to think about what cause I really want to support, but two come to mind right away - heart disease in women and research on spinal cord injuries. Cycling helps fix one of the problems -- and the other is just so worthwhile... hopefully no one I love will ever need that research.

Anyway... back to work for me! 6AM shifts rock.. except for the getting up at 4:30 part. ;-)