Today's drive was much better than yesterday's. Though we added 100 miles to the route by going through Scranton instead of the city, we still managed to cut the trip short by almost two hours.

More than half the trip was driven in the dark. There was ample time to get comfortable, but somehow I just wasn't at ease with driving 75 mph in the pitch black with no other drivers in sight.

I kept imagining malicious deer lurking in the darkness, bent on crashing through the windshield. Or perhaps they were just wondering what the heck the solid white lines are for. Either way I end up with a mouthful of furry deer.

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Today's lesson: when making the drive from Philadelphia to Boston, avoid driving through Manhattan at all cost. We lost two hours trying to cross George Washington Bridge. No wonder the natives try not to leave the island.

Another lesson: Boston is not a very good city for driving (or GoogleMapping for that matter). Street names change at random it seems; and if you miss your turn there is no going back without crossing a few bridges. Absurd.

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Tip: when paying bills, write the most urgent checks first. Because you never know how many checks you have left in that booklet. And because you never know how many booklets, if any, are left in the box.

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News to me: eBay just revamped their user rating system. Sellers can no longer leave negative or neutral feedback, effectively preventing them from holding an innocent buyer's profile hostage.

So that one time I was stuck with a leaky coffeemaker, had that happened today I could've least smeared the seller's score without fear of repercussion on my own rating.

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From the corner of my eye, Obama-Biden reads like Osama bin Laden.

Just sayin'. I'm sure the McCain camp has thought of plenty of ways to capitalize on this. It's already gotten ugly. Half a billion dollars at their disposal and the best they could come up with are prime time ads featuring the Dirty Sanchez.

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Tammie asked me when I'd get to obtaining my citizenship. I told her it depends on what happens in November.

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I should've done The Drives; but, recovering from a very painful century, I opted to do The Bulldog instead.

It turned out that the group I normally pass on the way to The Drives isn't The Bulldog at all but The Italian Fountain ride... and that they had planned on cutting half of the ride out.

Not that it made a difference. A block after I joined them, the group ran a red light and a few of us couldn't make it past the Benz driven by an angry fat man who was laying on his horn, flailing his arms, and yelling all at the same time. I guess he really wanted to get home to his doughnuts.

Two of us tried to get back on but the pack didn't wait. Some C ride this turned out to be. I should've done The Drives.

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I got a call from my sister regarding the status change in my Facebook profile. Throughout the conversation, I kept inadvertently referring to the app as MyFace. I found this amusing enough to see if the domain was available.

It wasn't. Someone was amused by this first.

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"Still cramping?" some guy with a helmet mirror asked as I picked through the fruit basket.

"Excuse me?"

"Oh. I saw someone cramping up on the side of the road with a jersey just like yours," he explained.

I thought about what he said—about the likelihood of another Unattached Rider on the same century—when it hit me...

"Wait, that was me!" I replied, perhaps a little too proudly.

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It was spectacular. I was climbing The Hill when both legs seized simultaneously. I couldn't even dismount without cramping up. It was all I could do to neither bend nor extend my legs.

After standing on the shoulder straddling the bike for a few moments, I used my arms to bend a leg out of its locked position, over the bike, and then let myself fall to the side to stretch. It was kinda like a painful game of Twister.

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I tried to give a sleeping Tammie her morning snuggle, but she freaked out.

"I thought you were a monkey that was trying to strangle me with a necklace," she explained.

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Procrastination—the Tamster and I both had our own ideas regarding the location of Trinidad and Tobago. To kill time, we consulted Wikipedia. We were both wrong, but I still win... since I was less wrong.

I had no idea Cuba was so close to Florida. Knowing that adds a whole new dimension to my limited understanding of the embargo.

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I may be the only person who finds this amusing. NBC's coverage of the Olympics has been saturating our evenings for the past couple of weeks so you'd think I'd be used to this by now; but ever so often I'd swear I heard the commentator call someone nasty lookin'.

Juvenile, I know. At least Morgan Freeman does a good job articulating her name in the Visa commercials. No mistake there.

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Someone took a batch of Netflix movies from our mailbox while we were away. How do I know? Well... besides the fact that we never got 'em; they were returned, one by one, in the span of four days.

Now I'd freak out if they rated those titles on my account as well. But that didn't happen.

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Must've been exotic pets' night at the vet. When I stopped by for dog food there was a rooster, a tortoise, and a something between a raccoon and a chipmunk waiting in the waiting room.

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The Drives—today's B was an awful group. Riders were all over the place, no one was pulling through, and there seemed to be more yelling than riding going around. Later on, the yelling was directed towards me.

"Slow down!" the yeller yelled. "You trying to drop everybody!?!" It was at this point that I realized most of the day's verbal hammering came from this guy—the yeller, the guy who rode as if he forgot to install a headset and was simultaneously suffering an attack of Parkinson's, the rider I didn't want in front of or beside me.

"No. Sorry," I replied. I wasn't trying to drop everybody. I was just trying to pick up the pace, since I fail to see the point in a 22 mph paceline. If I was trying to drop everybody, I'd be in my big ring.

I guess it could've been worse. I could've been in the As—which suffered a twenty man pile-up.

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"How many stops do you make in the lot?" I asked the driver. We had left our car in Economy Parking, but forgot to take note of its location. At least I was certain we were close to one of the shuttle stops.

"Twelve," he replied rather shortly.

"Twelve?" I confirmed.

"Twelve."

Crap. That didn't help us. Not one bit. At least I was sure we were close to something J.

Except when we inspected the lot, the rows ended in H.

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Next time we visit the Tamster's family in Nebraska, I'm bringing my ping pong paddle. Just you wait and see.

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I didn't give it much thought—the bottle of tomato juice by the keg—until someone explained the strange Nebraska custom of spiking beer with tomato juice. I suppose the closest I'll come to trying that would be those small chasers that come with a Bloody Mary.

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"Think you could fill this with water?" I asked, handing the flight attendant the small Nalgene bottle.

She looked at me like I just tried to pull a fast one. "Here's what we can do," she says, and comes back with a thimble of water.

Not much you can do with a thimble. What really bothers me is that people who asked for pop got the full 12 ounce can.

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I should've been packing but felt like procrastinating, so I installed WordPress and moved the entire blog over. After tediously tweaking the template (via CSS), I decided I didn't like the new app all that much and ditched the project.

Good way of wasting a few precious hours though.

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Sometimes the best recovery ride is... well... not riding at all.

Today's ride was miserable. My legs were dead and stayed dead—I could barely hold 90 RPM. The entire time I was telling myself that I probably shouldn't have gone out; but with the four-day bikeless weekend coming up, I wanted to be sure I got my rides in.

At Valley Forge, I stopped to eat the energy bar that has been in my pocket all year—melting and re-solidifying with each ride. It was edible, though it had shrunk to half its original size. At least now I get to replace that with a fresh one.

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The Drives—I would've been in the right spot to lead Chris out (my cue was Strawberry Mansion) but a couple of guys went way too early.

I bridged Chris up to the front, began to fade, found my second wind, and came around strong on the right. But just then, the group shifted right and slammed the door on me. I yelled, tapped the brakes, and that was it—I was out.

Afterwards, I got a few riders together for a cool-down lap. Except it turned into an encore lap. It hurt a little.

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I built-up The Tamster's cross bike in time for tonight's Grass Track. It came up to 20 lbs. on the dot—not bad considering it cost us less than $500 and several spare parts.

Bonus—the bike fits me just fine with the saddle pulled way up. Not that I'll ever be interested in cyclo-cross.

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I felt silly driving—it takes much longer to drive than it does to ride to the Pavilion roughly a mile away—but I wasn't completely (100%) sure which trail to take through The Wissahickon. And getting lost might mean missing the skills clinic. I wasn't about to have that.

As fate would have it, storm clouds rolled in on my way to meet the group. By the time I Butt'red up, the leaders decided delay the event by an hour. Great—I didn't have an extra pair of shorts.

While some of the participants spent that time listening to a maintenance clinic, I mingled with the regulars to catch a glimpse of the culture. This is what I learned:

· They like big tires. The bigger, the better.
· They don't use computers.
· They use Camelbaks, not bottles.
· They call everything lycra spandex.
· They don't shave their legs.
· They don't Butt'r up.

At this point, I wish I didn't Butt'r up.

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It was a freaky ride, even for Vino Velo. When I first got on, I tried to hang with a lead group of eight. It was obvious I'd burn all my matches before reaching Ambler, so I dropped off and joined the main group. That's when it all started:

· My rear derailleur started acting up. I had to tweak the cable tension on the road.

· Someone caught a flat at Fort Wash. I heard it pop next to me.

· Darco twisted his chain. A bunch of us peeled off to wait as he took out the link.

· Mark rolled his tubulars on a corner and slammed into an oncoming Benz. He was fine, but his bike went under the sedan and was split into two pieces. I was second wheel on that turn, he was right behind me.

· We caught up to the C group (they passed us at the last incident) moments later to find that a Focus rider went down after touching wheels and was barely conscious. It was a grim site.

Like I said, freaky ride. Considering the succession of the incidents, one could argue that death would be next. We took it easy from that point on. Real easy.

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"This place looks just like the original," I said as I collected our carry-out order.

"Excuse me sir?"

"Looks just like your Northern Lib location," I explained.

Blank look.

"You have been to the original location haven't you?" I prodded.

"No sir," he replied with a poker face.

We ordered from newest restaurant in the neighborhood—Tiffin. We've been to the original location in Northern Liberties. Their schtick is healthy Indian food. I know that doesn't sound possible, but I guess healthy doesn't necessarily mean fat-free.

The restaurant was just a block away but—silly me—I drove. And I had to drive a block further to find a spot. And the same woman who greeted me as I got in the car empty-handed greeted me again as I got in the car with our carry-out. I guess she was out on a stroll.

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I decided not to do Greentree this week. I've been feeling sleep-deprived; having problems focusing my eyes, and my heart would every now and then. If I go, I'll just cause a crash. I took a nap in the car instead.

Ironically enough, there was a pile-up at the course. I won't get into it, but I will say that no one got hurt. Well... not really.

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I just placed the latest order of Unattached kits, the batch intended for fall. The kit was mildly updated, with the dot.coms taken out and new edition badges.

I ordered myself a set, since I seem to be constantly running out these days.

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The Drives—I know it's just the Bs, but today's ride was slower and sketchier than usual. So much that there was no regroup for the last lap; we went into it hot trying to string out group and drop the weaker elements.

As it played out, I was one of the weaker elements. Right as I tried to position for the sprint, I managed to weed myself out. And this was just the Bs, how sad is that?

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I just heard that Charlie sold the barbershop downstairs and is now in the gospel music recording business. Considering the late night practice sessions downstairs, I guess I'm not really that surprised.

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The nice thing about not pre-registering for a race is that, come nasty weather or bad timing, I won't feel obligated to make the trip. But then again, given the choice between sleeping in and getting up at six in the morning, I'll always choose to sleep in. That's how I ended up skipping my race.

On the other hand Tammie, who wasn't scheduled to line up until 11:15 am, had no problems getting to Doylestown on time with adequate sleep. Even with our long detour for gasoline and... err... McDonald's.

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We had dinner with Kirby again; this time at a Vietnamese restaurant in Chinatown.

I picked the place specifically for the Seven Courses of Beef. That and the Papaya Beef Jerky Salad. So I guess that would be eight courses.

I dunno why, but I blurted out "Margarita" when the waiter took drink orders. It was a bad choice and I should've known better.

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Just as we had done last year, we met up with a friend who was in town for a physics conference. Last year it was Tammie's friend Kip, and this year it's our old teammate Kirby. They even stayed in the same hotel, and we had dinner and drinks at the same place (White Dog Cafe).

We found seating outside. At one point, Kirby was having a conversation with a mouse that had settled into a planter next to his head. Needless to say, we switched tables before our food arrived.

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