My bruised thigh from Giverola is killing me. I can't sleep very well at night - every time I move my leg, it cramps. Joy. The only thing I seem to be able to do effectively is ride. That's a relief. The training's been great. While my bike was in the shop yesterday - Kuttel Radsport, the Cannondale Dealer close to Graenichen - I hopped on Florian Vogel's Team Phonak Road Bike (which is about a size too small for me) and rode from Granichen down towards Luzern - to a little town called Neudorf. 25 kilometers one way. Not bad for spring training...? Riding the road bike was incredible. In the last couple months of not having a road bike, I forgot how nice it was to just go out and hammer into the wind without worrying about much. Riding on slicks with the mountain bike is not the same - but it will have to do. Cannondale is not providing bikes for riders this year, which means that we have to pay for our carbon fiber machines... although we get a good discount, I couldn't afford the luxory of three bikes this year...
Oh wow, enough of an update... I have to go to german class!
7 comments:
Hey dude,
Read Rand's favorite author: Victor Hugo. He's actually easy to read and very entertaining as well as a social critic of the time.
You can also read my web comic, but there is only four chapters of it! It's fantasy, but your mom actually liked it. Doing a book in comic format is really challenging and very different, but interesting to compare the story in pictures with the story in words.
I hope you got some cake for your dad's b-day. Meghan ate your share! Actually, sounds like she ate the frosting before she made the cake!
You could read Schiller...auf Deutsch? hah!
Actually, what you might like is "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein. Thoreau is very good and so is Annie Dilliard. One of my favorite books, which you might not be able to find is Kon Tiki, the story of Thor Heyerdahl and the raft they built to sail from Chile to Tahiti. It's a very exciting story and true. Another wonderful book is "Out of Africa" by Isaak Dinesen. "West with the Night" is also good (early plane exploration of Africa) and anything by Antonie St. Exupery is wonderful. He was a mail pilot for years and tells some harrowing tales...
Have fun riding around--enjoy the manure! Did you consider that part of the smell thing is altitude and humidity? Eugene is full of smells, not all of them manure! It's so wet here that going outside is a total olfactory adventure. Not like CO which only smells of snow.
Hope your leg gets better.
take care
me
Yes, with the high altitude, I think a lot of the smells are carried away by the wind, and don't last long anyway with no humidity and not much air to move around in.
Thanks for the book advice. I may pop into the local library, see if there's an English section. LOVE Thereau, although his writing is a little too haphazard for me - so much "this of that and the other thing" all piled into one sentence. I get distracted easily with that kind of reading... save me from Hawthorne... hence the love for Rand. Anthem and The Fountainhead top my list of books, daily thought about life, etc, but for some reason, Atlas is not pulling me in the same way. I am kind of bummed. I needed a book like A.S. that would take me the entire trip to finish, and then some... I've heard Hugo is good - although i couldn't see me sitting down for Les Miserables - nor could I see me carrying it on the train... It's so big! The only reason I didn't bring The Fountainhead was because it was basically a separate carry-on in itself. ha. The Little Prince was fantastic - similar to Candide in my mind - I love those novellas with so much deep meaning - I will look into some more Exupery. I read Thereau's "Walden", but have yet to get my hands of "Civil Disobedience", which I know is a must have. I'll look into the others as well.
Very excited to go to CU in the fall and jump into some higher level English classes - creative writing please! After so many years of my high school monotony, I'm ready to jump into some more interested academia.
I'll send you some. Here are the choices:
Life of Pi-
Desert Solitaire-Edward Abbey
Kite Runner
Blindness-Saramago
Brothers K-Duncan
Les Miserables-Hugo (in small paperback)
Corelli's Mandolin-De Bernieres
Any that you think want?
Love,
Mom
Life of Pi and Miserables, yes... any others that you think I will like. Also, in my room - Thereau's Walden - would like to have that around. Don't bother sending them if it's expensive. Or, better yet, you could pack them into the box with my oakley lenses. should be here today...?
Hey Kev,
Since you're there--what about Eiger Sanction? Also the James Bond books by Flemming are pretty good. We've just read all the Perry Mason books by Gardner and their also very good. Mason is very much a Rand sort of character, so is Bond. My guess is that the library there would only have St.Exupery in French, ditto Hugo.
Have fun with the smells! What kind of cheese do they like there--too bad you're not into beer!
hugs
me
Hey Kevin,
I just started reading White Noise by Don DeLillo, I don't know if you have access to it over there in Europe land, but its a great story in terms of postmodern-esque, psychoanalytical fiction.
Enjoy the rest of your trip, and looking forward to hear more about racing overseas!
Sam
Great! I doubt I can get my hands on it in Europe, but I can get it when I'm home in May - one of the many pros of having a mom that works in a book store!
Will see you in Angelfire - I think that's my first race back... I'm gonna miss racing Junior X, but you'll kill it this year for sure.
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