Holy crap but time does fly

It's September 2007. It's been a year since my last post.

I've logged a beefy 84 miles in four rides in one year. As many would expect, I done fell off the wagon and the youthful enthusiasm of yesteryear waned as quickly as it had waxed. In the twinkling of an eye and the shifting of a Granny Gear it was all over.

Excuses? I can give you them in spades. First there was the wedding last October. Then the notice that our landlord's son needed a place to stay and our lease would not be renewed December 1. Then the crazed scramble to find another place. Then the actual move. Then the holidays. Then a little stint with the bronchitis. Then the trip Back East for a reception. Then the return to California to The Great Job Explosion of 2007: "How, son, would you like to take over responsibility for the entire University's web presence while we hire someone for the full-time position? Oh, yeah, and bring up an entire new central web environment for the campus in a comically short timeframe?" Golly! That'd be swell!

That last one was almost six months ago. We still haven't even interviewed for the full time person. I went from working with department heads and team leaders to suddenly meeting with vice chancellors and deans. My own little department's project plan, which was already the biggest thing I had ever headed up, suddenly became a footnote task in the scheme of the larger university project plan ... which I was now also heading up.

Has it been fun? Oh, yes. Has it been wonderful? Quite. Has it been stressful? Ommmmm ... Needless to say, it's been half a year of hitting the brownies and ice cream. Hard.

Which brings us to the present.

I have become Fat Elvis.

I look more pregnant that my sister-in-law did right before she spat out her kid four weeks ago. PBH, my beloved white and puffy, peanut-butter-spotted, beautiful and fluffy kitty-wife, has taken to constantly kneading down my huge and squishy belly for sport. I wonder if she does it half in the vain hopes of making it flat once again. She and my human-wife (I actually have one now!) are both horrified.

Here's how bad it is: This weekend (which, by the way, was the hottest Labor Day weekend in San Diego on record) I got back up on my shiny red bike and said, "I'm getting out there ... even if it's just for 10 miles!" Two miles into it, I'm a huffin and a puffin and a wheezin up a hill when -- pow! -- my back tire goes kaboom and blows the presta valve right out of the inner tube. Frowning, I bust out the CO2 inflater ... pffffffft .... the cartridge, much like my own cycling aspirations, expired a year ago and had no more life in it than Phil Rizzuto.

As Cosby #3 would say: "Well, Theo, sometimes you just have to try your best, ya see." I have since replaced both the tube and the CO2 cartridges. And today ... I ride!!!!!

8:36 a.m. update:

I defied both physics and good taste by weebling and wobbling my way through 10 miles. Took just over an hour and I almost hurled, but Fat Elvis Rides Again!