Home again.

I got to my desk today and found it littered (pun intended) with signs and pictures. Most of which said things along the lines of "i wish all trees would die" and "we need more CO2 gases" or were pictures of cut down trees and otters swimming in oil (which was a cartoon thankfully). My co-workers love me. They missed me.

Updates-

• French wine is cheap and good.
  
• I maintained my weight loss, I'm about to break the 190 barrier. By June I'd like to be somewhere in the ballpark of 160. Coming down from 215, that's pretty good. Want to see what i look like at around 205? look at the hiking pictures below. i look relatively normal right? weird. (160 is safe, its what my weight was when i was racing before)
• I bought a Fassa Bortolo jersey in France. I'm not a particular fan of that (former) team, but i wanted a cycling jersey from France because I'm cheesy. It came with one of those goofy "dew-rags" and it was the cheapest one of the group and I'm not cheesy enough to buy a yellow jersey. Though i would have taken a KOM jersey just because they look awesome.too expensive though
• I've contemplated the whole continuing to commute (in the dark) vs. riding a ton on rollers at home. I've decided to buy a ridiculously expensive light system, which means commuting. I will however be using the rollers to put on extra miles because i don't enjoy riding in the darkness of night.
• Empire Magazine knows nothing....City of God hit the list at 177 and Revenge of the Sith was on the list at all (idiots). I would like to add though that Terrence Malick went 3 for 4 (it left out The New World...haters), but W. Anderson only landed one but it was at an impressively high ranking of 53 figures it would be The Royal Tenenbaums. The top 50 is predictable (save The Dark Knight), and the top ten even more so.
• i called the bike shop a second ago, and the guy said he'd call me back in a minute, but from the tone of his voice, it doesn't sound like my bike is ready....AAAAAAHHHHHHHH.
  
• Now i have to fix the Audi and sell it. anyone want an 98 Audi A4. It runs, but for how much longer? who knows. I'll be left with a bicycle and a Toyota matrix, I'm thinking of leaving it like that or buying a Smart Car.
  

I missed a whole week of doping stuff and epic returns, which is disappointing. Vino (Alexander Vinokourov) is desiring to make a return to the super team Astana. ha ha. lets see...Lance Armstrong, Alberto Contador (maybe), Levi, Kloden, Vino, Horner?, Noval, Rubiera (i thought he said he was retiring, but with Lance coming back who knows). So that group plus one more maybe Keschekin (or however you spell his name) will come back too. Anyway, i doubt Vino will make it back to cycling, at least on Astana. But i could be completely wrong.

Frank Schleck seems to be in trouble. Which sucks because he didn't even do that great after losing some ridiculous amount of time in the Tour's final ITT.

I finished reading From Lance to Landis. It clears things up a bit...like American cycling in the states, Armstrong's return, Vaughters sucking so much before and being annoying about it, why decent riders left the Postal team every chance they got (Hamilton, Heras, Landis, Levi, Vaughters, Vandevelde). Though it left me wondering, i remember watching the 04 Vuelta rooting for Levi and he beat the doper Heras and took 3rd overall. I can understand how Hampsten and other clean riders won back in the day but with the rise of EPO through the 90's in to today, how can anyone viably compete?

Darryl+Dan+S.District of Shenandoah+dead of winter+X factor=a great 45 mile 4 day weekend trip

by the way, Paris is like DC in French, with a cool public bike system.