Good eatin’

Jen made ribs and rice for dinner, and it was yummy.  She noted that I once complimented her cooking on the blog, and hoped I’d do it again.  Here it is again.

Lunch was also excellent.  Wednesday is “unlimited free oyster day” at Casablanca restaurant on the Miami River.  It’s as good as it sounds.

It was a stressful few days because I had a big hearing early this morning.  It’s done until next week, so I’m relaxing on the couch and reading some of the many magazines that I apparently subscribed to when I was stuck in the hospital bed.  I’ve received the latest two issues of Stereophile and Shutterbug, and I have some bike magazines to read.  It’s geek bliss.

I did get in some more retro video game bonding with Jake. Tonight was Joust, Donkey Kong and Missile Command on the Atari 800, and Galaga on the Atari 7800.

Music of the Moment – Suresh Singaratnam, Lost in New York.  It’s a fairly recent recording by a trumpet player who does both classical and jazz performing (a little like Wynton Marsalis). This is a pure jazz hard bop group recording, and it’s excellent.  If you loved the second Miles Davis quintet (Hancock, Shorter, Carter, Williams), you’ll love this.  It also has some vocal tracks and some electric guitar. Highly recommended.  I especially recommend the CD (as opposed to iTunes laziness), because the liner notes and pamphlet are excellent.  While I do subscribe to Zune Pass for the new music releases,  I almost never do paid internet downloads of individual albums.  I prefer to buy the cd because it sounds better, and it’s usually the same price (Thank you Amazon Prime).

Still sleepy, but with a full tummy

We’ve had a good couple of days.  Jake has had his friends over a few times for a lot of swimming (and a little arcade action), and he and I have had a little bonding time playing Atari 7800 games in the arcade.  He’s felt a wee bit sick in the morning and evenings, but is in good spirits.  He’s got a bunch of summer math homework to finish, but otherwise has a free ride for the next two weeks.

I rode a slow, hot and sweaty 80 miles on the bike on Sunday, and did a fast and painful (pain in aerobic sense but not the injury sense) 35 mile group ride this morning.  It feels good to be on the bike, but my normal 6am bike time is a bit of a challenge because I haven’t been sleeping well. 

The McIntosh MA6100 integrated amp arrived yesterday, and the house is full of tunes.  It really does have a distinctive sound.  A little bass-y, and a little tube-y.  Vinyl sounds great. Our main room is all tile and reflective, so the bass can be a little much on some of the more complex recordings. We really need to school the dog so I can put out a throw rug.

My appetite seems back, so I have to be careful to balance my eating with my exercise.  I like the feel of having slimmed down a bit, and don’t want to lose it.  Physical therapy is still very painful (a torturous and sadistic version of massage) but there’s not much aerobic to it.

Hot and sleepy

Jen and Jake are back, and her parents have left.  I resume the position of honor on the couch, and I have much less flexibility in dictating the home entertainment media formats.

I did the Bells group ride this morning.  It was the most intense Saturday ride we’ve ever had.  Much of that is my impaired state, but they were really cooking.  We averaged 22 on the way out and over 24 on the way back.  I came home and crashed in the hot tub.  Now that my riding is more aerobic and less muscular, I spent two hours at a 160+ heart rate.  I’ve been hydrating and sitting all day, and I’ve barely recovered. Tomorrow is my easy ride from Coconut Grove to Black Point Marina.

We went to Ikea.  There was a 15+ minute wait for their restaurant, and it was worth it.  We love their meatballs, and everybody was happy. We bought some pots, some throw rugs, and a narrow “Bennie” DVD holder bookcase (which is too small, but was fairly easy to put together).

My 1989 Luxman K-111 cassette deck ($20 on EBay) came in the mail.  Luxman was a pretty snazzy brand back in the 1980’s, so this deck goes into the main stereo and the Technics RS-B78 (which is probably a better deck, but Technics isn’t a snooty label) goes into the arcade sound system.

My Sony HD Radio tuner ($75 on Amazon) came in the mail yesterday, and it works great.  I only recently found out that our local NPR stations have music channels (“91.3-2”) that you can’t hear unless you have an HD tuner.  That means I can now listen to Echos at night instead of NPR news.  Echos is the successor NPR show to “Hearts of Space”, which was the old space music show.  It makes me nostalgic for when Cindy and I used to go to the “space stuff” store (the name escapes me) on Eighth and Broadway after school to look at the hologram stuff.  Maybe I can buy an Apollo 11 patch to sew on my denim jacket.

Today was the first day of English Premier League soccer.  My two teams get mixed reviews.  Aston Villa looked good.  Everton didn’t.  I’m now watching the L.A. Galaxy versus the NY Red Bulls.  Thierry Henry’s not impressing me.

Music of the Moment – Rachelle Garniez, Mesuline Years (2008). Kind of like Kate Bush doing French music.

A calm week, except for the darn dog

There's no dog calamities, but he is a pain in the butt. Puppy play involves the scratchy teething of his little but sharp teeth, so it roughs up my arms. He craves attention while Jen and Jake are gone. They come back from Gainesville tonight, so the dog will be off my back for a while.

The car broke down on the Gainesville trip, so now I have to fight Jen's subconscious urge to replace the "now unreliable" car. It's a 2009 Honda Pilot with 30,000 miles, so we ain't getting rid of it anytime soon. The breakdown was apparently due to a faulty Jiffy Lube air filter replacement, so there's going to be some follow-up on that front.

I haven't biked all week. I ran on the treadmill yesterday afternoon and went to spin class yesterday evening, so I'm particularly sore today. I have biking planned for both mornings this weekend.

No big new purchases. Bought a cheap ($25.00) eBay Luxman K-111 cassette deck to replace the eBay Denon deck that never arrived (and is the subject of a Paypal dispute), and a cheap ($16.00) eBay Sansui SE-77 graphic equalizer to try to fix the acoustics in our all-tile living room. Damon picked up our loaner hospital bed (and we are really grateful for the loan), so that frees up some acoustic space. The room sounds good for jazz, but bad for rock.

Music of the Moment- The new Tom Petty album, "Mojo." A little too bluesy, but excellent.

Good checkup

The orthopedic surgeon says everything is looking good, and that he's glad they didn't do the bone-joinder surgery. The ribs are still fractured (you can see it on the x-ray) and there's some kind of stuff that's growing (in a good way) between the separated clavicle parts. He says that I shouldn't do any strength training for the next five weeks, because the ribs aren't completely healed yet. He sentenced me to another 5 weeks of PT.

Jen and Jake went to Gainesville today through Friday for his kidney check-ups. I'd be bachelor (which involves lots of computer time and breakfast cereal as dinner) , but Jen's Mom is staying with us until Sunday.

Music of the moment - John Escreet, Don't Fight the Inevitable. Brand new free jazz album. Jen's Mom hates it. The dog hates it.

Animal cruelty

I took a day off from bike riding, and was hoping to sleep until 8. I rode in the rain for three hours yesterday. It was slow and pleasant. If it hadn't been raining, it would have been unbearably humid.

The dog has a floor button at the back door which rings a chime so he can go outside. This is what he allegedly learned during his three weeks of sleep-away training. He's long-abandoned any thought that he would limit the use of that button to "as-needed." He started ringing the bell around 6:30am. I go out with him (he won't go out alone), he sniffs around the backyard, and comes back in. He repeats this process every 15 minutes. I should have gone bike riding and left him for the family to deal with.

I have physical therapy at 2:00pm. Yuck. Everything still kinda hurts from last week's PT. I hope to jog on the treadmill afterward, but we'll see.

Lots of good music listening yesterday with the family. We stopped at Yesterday and Today Records after going for a great dim sum lunch at Tropical Chinese. Bought some corny 1950's orchestral jazz and some 1970's corny electronica. I think I like the Ft. Lauderdale record store better.

I've managed to fight off the used eBay equipment buying urge so far, but it's a day-to-day process. Today's recommended album- Gene Harris and Jack McDuff, "Down Home Blues." Great bluesy jazz for the car.

Back to the healthy blog

Now that I have declared myself healthy and recuperated, I’m switching over to the neglected family blog to express my nerdness.

The hernia site and the shoulder both still hurt (sometimes a lot), but I’m tired of acting like a patient.  Accordingly, I’ve ridden my bike every day:

Tues. – 38 miles

Wed. – 30 miles

Thurs – 38 miles

Fri. – 30 miles

Saturday – 55 miles

I’ve also been running 2 miles a day on the treadmill, but that sucks.

When I get on the bike, I have to will away the abdomen pain, but it deadens in 10 minutes or so.

Riding is different than before.  I can stay in the front pack, but it requires more aerobic work because I’m much less muscular than before.  That means I get more tired.

Getting back on the bike has allowed me to hold the stereo-upgrade urge at bay for the week.  I’ve had this incredible urge to buy an old pair of AR-9s, which were the mother of all speakers in 1980.  Is it worth $1300?  I stopped into one of the local stereo stores to see what $1300 worth of modern-day speakers sounds like.  Unfortunately, that store has converted 100% to computer based music, so they couldn’t play the cd I brought and couldn’t hook in my Zune.  The speakers sounded good, but I didn’t have my own music to compare the sound with home.

Jen’s Mom is staying over for a week. She’s great – the only downside is the inability to get a midnight snack in my underwear.

Today’s music- Gary McFarland Orchestra w/guest Bill Evans, on the original 1963 Impulse vinyl. (I had a record store visit on Thursday).