Vacation

I figured I would spend more time writing while I was on vacation, but I have kept away from the computer more than I thought I would. Also, our cleaning/organization plans have not been as swift as I had hoped.

One reason is the fact that we spent the day after Christmas bargain hunting and setting up Christmas gifts.

One gift I received was an XBOX 360 and some really cool games to go along with it, including Call of Duty - 2, Gears of War, Need for Speed - Carbon, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six - Vegas and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell - Double Agent. Brian is amazed that I had the patience not to set it up on Christmas day. The reason for my patience was the fact that Best Buy had some amazing deals advertised, so Julie and I returned to the store Tuesday morning to take advantage of the specials. When all was finished, we left Best Buy about $90 better off. After leaving Best Buy, we went to pick up Brian so he could "assist" in setting up my new toy and help me make sure it all worked properly :)!

After playing for a while, we all headed up to Cadence 120 to finish installing one of my other gifts. A friend of mine gave me a new Garmin Edge 305 with Heart Rate and Cadence. This tech toy is super cool. With this, I will be able to upload my ride data for everyone to see at MotionBased.com. No more entering my ride data in my posts...I will just put a link to the data at MotionBased. How cool is that?

Another unexpected project was taking the car in for a brake job. Coming home from Brian's, the car made the most horrible noise when the brakes were applied. I took the car in to Big 10 Tires on Wednesday morning and learned that it was time for a brake job. Now nearly $500 lighter in the wallet, the car stops like a champ...a very quiet one at that! Next up for the car is new tires. They did not have the tires I wanted in stock, so they have ordered them for me and they expect to have them by next Tuesday.

Finally on Wednesday, we resumed cleaning and organization of my room. As we were putting the finishing touches on it, Julie decided she wanted to re-paint the room. She finished prep work tonight and the room should be completed tomorrow.