Thunder, Cycling, Maps, and PC

We had a lengthy and intense thunder storm here Sunday night. It started just before 6 PM and went on for the next 3 hours. There was pea sized hail, huge bright flashes of lightning, house shaking booms of thunder, and heavy downpours of rain. A lot of tiny new leaves were torn out of trees. Nearly an inch of hail accumulated, most of which melted. It was quarter sized hail in San Joaquin county, which is mostly delta and fruit trees, which is probably destroyed the fruit crop this year. Up here, a hundred miles away to the North it was Great Fun. We won't see that for another year, probably. California doesn't get serious thunderstorms very often at all. Its a once-a-year thing. Of course, because I've said that we'll have a dozen of them and this will be the spring where the Alaska Current doesn't come and we get hurricanes in San Diego and LA. Probably not, but life is often funny.

I suspect I may have bought too many lights for my bicycle, but we'll see. Yes, I will be riding during daylight, but I'll also be riding in and out of treelined shadows too, at least on Alta St.

Hills, Trees, and Traffic.

From Linden Ave to Alta Vista (not the search engine) circle, it dips, then climbs a two hundred (200) foot hill. Then it becomes a less steep hill for the next mile till it hits Ridge Road, enough to slow me down, but probably excellent strength and endurance training. However, it's kinda narrow and the trees overhead would shade a bicycle. Lots of parked cars, but thankfully Alta Street has less rush-hour traffic than East Main or Hughes, and the street is a lot less steep. It is, however, a long hill, and adds half a mile to my trip.

Roundabouts are only fun on TV.

It also doesn't have the busy go-round which leaves me nervous in a car and a bike would be treacherous and largely invisible. The flashy pedals were a good buy, I think. I won't have to think about turning them on. They'll just start working when I use them, and stop 5 minutes after I stop moving. Nice eye catching safety feature. The spoke lights will be good in town and around cross traffic. But I'll have to turn them on and off to use them, which will be more annoying. I want to put the yellow reflective tape on my rear fender. And maybe move a red reflector down, put the red flasher on the back of the bike rack, and see about mounting the headlight so it doesn't move. They tend to do that when you mount a round bracket on a round bar and then hit bumps.

A friend of 6 years delivered me a new PC on Monday, one I can play video games on. I want to play Diablo 3, but my current PC won't run it. The new one will. Its probably going to take a full day to transfer all the data from the old to the new. If it seems odd to pay a lot of money to play a video game, what are you paying to see a view on vacation? I paid $350 to play Fable 2, a game I played a few dozen times with many variations and really enjoyed. It was worth the money, and was less than a week of motel rentals and gasoline. I didn't find any other games which I liked that much on the Xbox, other than Torchlight, which was a $20 download. Played that a hundred times too. It's a simpler Diablo 2. Same programmers. Torchlight 2, unfortunately, has flaws which make it stutter and slow and needs a much faster box than spec'd on their website. And they HAVEN'T fixed it. Since I need a fast box to run Diablo anyway, I will finally be able to see Torchlight with the effects turned on, weather, 3D sound, the works.

The old PC, once I clean it up, I can give to my brother to give to my Niece for her Graphic Arts schooling. She's going to be starting that in a year or less. Time to prep and get familiar with how it all works. I'd like to see her succeed in school and business in a ways I didn't. So I won't fully wipe this PC, just remove lots of parts of it. I would like to do something useful for those kids. Entering the real world away from their sheltered upbringing is going to be very harsh. I worry they aren't prepared. I sure wasn't, and I went through public school, not home schooling like them. Maybe she can work in video game design. Its a paying job because its pretty grunt-level labor requiring a good eye for detail.

My mother's health has declined so I'm here for them. Her cancer is back. Its not fun, and I'm not very comfortable. Distractions like the Diablo PC game are important, and bicycling and getting out of the house to hike and take photos will re-center me after dealing with the grief. I help with the meals and cleanup. I help with the yardwork and heavy lifting. I provide the basic IT tech support. Its not a lot, but it makes the difference for them. Getting old is tough.

I still want to date my hiking partner, but we'll see. I don't want any trouble. I can be a friend if that's what she needs. I'm going to enjoy the view either way. She is very pretty and she's the first woman to show interest in me in years. How much interest is highly debatable. I think I could do good things for her, but only if she actually wants good things. Not everybody does. We've yet to actually hike, but maybe she'll call soon.

In a few days I'll have pictures of the new pedals and lights on my bicycle. Then I'll ride. Then again, its going to rain on Thursday. So maybe not, but I'll ride soon enough. Maybe I'll get some white rubber tires. Be even more obvious. I can do that. I'm not afraid of hard work. I'm not afraid of responsibility. I'm management, and I Git Ur Dunn!