April 19, 2009

(disclaimer: this picture is not me but the bike is simular)


4:00 A.M. Yes I woke up early this morning. Turns out the corned beef/cabbage I made last night put me to sleep and 9:00 P.M..





Friday afternoon was up to 55 degrees and sunny. I brought out the dirt bike and started her up for the first time in two weeks. The bike started on the second kick and purred like a lion. I tested her out in my back yard and within 5 minutes I had a small practice track.





After my backyard dirt bike riding adventure, I proceeded to clean the back yard up. The yard is about 80 yards long and 40 yards wide. The far back yard is overgrown with brush and low hanging tree branches, and the previous owners left a cornucopia of trash, rotton wood, and many dog toys. All this crap was hidden under the snow from when we first moved here. I piled up much of the wood and tree branches and made a medium sized bon fire. With the radio blaring out ancient hits from Louis Armstrong, Bobby Darin, Dean Martin (we have a heck of an oldies station up here), and an excellent view of the sun setting over the top of the not-so-distant "Wellsville" mountain range, combined with the company of "Freddy" the wonder dog, it was an incredible evening. Later that night and a few gin and tonics later, we proceded to slowly cook the best steaks I could find, which I bought earlier at the local Mexican grocery store. The butcher (who is also teaching me Spanish), seasoned the steaks personally. The thin cut, seasoned Mexican steaks, were better than the finest Ribeyes and T-bones. Mexicans know how to cut and season steak! After stoking the fire for 5 hours or more, we finally got most of the wood burned, and the yard is much improved. Freddy and I came inside long after midnight, smelling of smoke, and grilled meat.





Saturday, April 19th; I woke up at 7 AM, woke my son, who had an appointment for Saturday School, and cooked eggs, homemade hashbrowns, toast, and picante sauce. I read the online news for 30 minutes, and went back for another round of well needed sleep.





2PM: Chopped up some onion, cabbage, potato, threw it all in the crockpot with a 2 lb. corned beef brisket and a few seasonings. Turned the pot on high. Then proceeded to assemble the trailer hitch motorcycle I bought last month. After an hour of wrenching and pounding the sections together, I managed to get the thing together. Now I can attach my motorcycle onto the back of my truck, the only problem will be, trying to ramp the bike up high onto the carrier without any help. I really can't imagine doing this alone, since the ramp is steep and the 4 wheel drive F-250 sits up pretty high. It sure would suck being alone in the mountains and having no one to help load this heavy dirt bike. I might have to get a trailer after all. Bummer.





Read a few chapters of James Michener's "Alaska" which is an excellent novel of historical fiction. I was checking my old phone messages and accidently called my friend Lynette, whom I haven't heard from in a while. Nice to hear she's happy and doing well. By this time I was getting quite hungry, since the smell of corned beef and cabbage was wafting throughout the entire house and front porch. While eating the victuals, I was watching people actually going to the Thai restaurant across the street, I couldn't help feel a bit sorry for them, because this corned beef and cabbage is far superior to any Thai food I've ever eaten over there.





By 8 PM I was full and quickly falling asleep, it seems that after 5 days of hard teaching, it takes a couple days to catch up on sleep, so I crashed until 4 AM this morning. Now its after 5 and I am totally awake and ready for todays adventures, whatever they turn out to be.