I'd like to thank all the people I see running, skating and cycling on my morning bike rides. You are the folks who keep me getting out there and exercising.

To the women in low-cut and bare-midriff shirts, shorts, bikinis and sports-bras, I thank you for providing your scenic vistas of skin and muscles. I look forward to seeing you at every opportunity. It may seem like I am just speeding past you, concentrating on the next mile, but I am so checking you out.

To the men with chiseled abs and brand new, 5 pound, carbon-fiber bikes, I thank you for giving me a goals. I look forward to passing you at every opportunity on my 40-year-old, 30 pound steel-frame Schwinn. And when I am passed I feel the thrill of competition carry me forward until you are out of sight.

To the people listening to their ear buds rather than the traffic around them, walking three abreast in the bike lane, or blindly zooming into traffic at the trail crossings, please stop. You're making it hard for the rest of us, and that last one embarrasses me every time.

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Two sporting items of interest:

I went to a Twins game with my mom on Tuesday. They lost. Not a big surprise, but as my wife pointed out the next morning, It's amazing how many people go to games to see the Twins win. Most of the crowd had cleared out by the end of the seventh inning. What fickle fans we are...

I actually enjoyed the game. They actually had decent beer; Summit was the same price as Budwiser. The Mariners played some pretty good ball, I thought. I still prefer Midway park because you can get much closer to the action. A bad seat there is still better than most of the seats at the Dome.

The second item is that I've re-taken-up cycling. In the last few weeks, I've put on over 100 miles and quite enjoyed most of them. The 90°+ days sucked, but that was also at the beginning of my "season". I think I've gotten better since then. Since the power was out for part of the morning here at the office, I had some time to work up a Google Map on the subject while I was waiting to connect to all of our servers.

I've been taking most of my rides in the early morning since the "hot days". So far I've found very few things that will get me up that early. Hunting and road trips are a couple others. This morning, I might as well have been biking in the mountains for all I could see of the landscape around me. There was a bike path, then a walking path, then nothing. It was quite pretty when I could see it, which wasn't often due to the dew on my glasses.

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