A bee in my bonnet

It was very summer-like here today, right down to the humidity. It was 81 by shortly past noon, about 85 by the time I finished my ride, and genuinely muggy the whole time. Well, not first week of August muggy, but there definitely was water in the air.

I rode down to the Fort Snelling overlook. I have ridden there a handful of times this year but it is a bit further than my rides have been of late. Still, it was a nice day and the miles came pretty easily.

Here is a view down into the river gorge from the overlook. Any questions about the boat should be referred to Ms. Wireless.Something happened on the ride home which has never happened to me before. A bee flew into one of my helmet vents. I have had that happen before but always before the insect flys back out. This one was walking around in there. Very disconcerting, to say the least. I had to quickly pull over and yank my helmet off before Senor Bee got any aggressive ideas.

Speaking of Ms. Wireless, she had arranged a late afternoon movie date for the three of us. In view of this schedule I had to ride at noon and missed the football game. More on that in just a bit. The movie was "Two Days in Paris" and it was fun. It is pretty funny with lots of language barrier produced outrageous behavior.

Missing out on the American football was not a loss as I had watched an excellent football game on the soccer channel in the morning. In front of more than 75,000 fans at Old Trafford, Manchester United defeated Chelsea 2-0. It was an excellent game between two of the giants of the sport. The big news in football this week was the departure of Jose Mourinho as manager at Chelsea. Mourinho had presided over two league championships and an FA Cup but it was apparently not enough for the Russian multi-millionaire who owns the London based Blues. Mourinho is out by what is being termed "mutual consent".

In France, visiting Troyes held Le Havre to a 0-0 tie. Le Havre inches a point ahead of Nantes with Nantes to play Monday night against Libourne, the team residing next to last in the league. Nantes looks poised to at last assume first in the table on points in addition to the goal differential which has been the margin which has placed the Canaries first for most of the early part of the season.

And in cycling news, Denis Menchov of Rabobank wins the Vuelta a Espana. Carlos Sastre of CSC complained during the last week that the race was not hard enough. That's certainly a complaint we haven't heard before. The other cycling news is that Floyd Landis has lost his appeal of his doping suspension. It looks like the organizers of the Tour de France will finally be able to declare a winner for 2006.