"Biking"

Since the weather was reasonable this morning (it's getting ready to rain right now), my wife and I decided to take our regular walk around the neighbourhood. We do this as often as weather permits. For us that means that it's not raining or snowing. In that case, I substitute a half hour on our stationary bike. I've been using that bike basically by myself; my wife does her exercise by doing her normal housework - we have a "split-level" home, and she's constantly walking up and down the stairs.

By now, the bike's odometer reads just over 6043 miles (over 9700 kilometers). I commented on this exercise bike in March, 2009, at which time the odometer read 3000 miles. At an average of about 9 miles per half hour that additional distance represents roughly 330 days on which I used that bike.

It shows how often the weather around here is bad enough for us to forego taking a walk, because this means that there have been something like 170 inclement days per year during that interval; it's an indication that we live in a "high precipitation" city.

Here's the link to that previous post:
http://penmachinedad.blogspot.com/2009/03/turning-3000.html

True friends

Last night, since Derek has been feeling a bit better for the last couple of days, he had a date with some of his buddies to go to dinner. They arrived in a limousine to pick him up, much to Derek's surprise. The dinner took place at Gotham's - one of the "in" dining institutions in this city (http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fflic.kr%2Fp%2F9c7N4i&h=6d43a. Fortunately, Derek has not lost his appetite; food is one of the things he can still enjoy.

What a considerate thing to do - true friends indeed.