Friday, August 21, 2009

I love my thumb levers

I have a really nice bicycle in Michigan. On every trip there I am always a little bit surprised by what a nice bicycle it really is. It serves me extremely well. There is just the one thing about it that in a perfect world I would change. I request forbearance from any bicycle geeks in attendance but on the other hand I know that they will understand when I say that my Michigan bicycle has components manufactured by a manufacturer of fishing equipment. The bicycle that I love the most, the one that I ride when I ride from my garage at home has components manufactured by Campagnolo. Any others in attendance who, like me, love our thumb levers know just exactly what it is that I mean. I love my thumb levers.This photo is another foray by moi into the world of on the bicycle one handed digital photography. It is worth noting, however, that the speedometer function of my bicycle computer is visible and I clearly wasn't going very fast.

It rained quite a bit yesterday and continued overnight. It was dry enough this afternoon but not really warm enough for August. I just pretended that it was September. I put on my jacket and went for a ride. This is the prettiest lake I saw.Compared to other photos posted recently which feature a lake this one is pretty lame. I mean, you can see the opposite shore. What's the deal on that?

We miss you Lake Michigan.

What do you think of this?I arrived home from my ride to discover that TOPWLH had been on an inspection tour of the back yard. Those are apples off our apple tree. They are not big apples but the truth is the tree is a Minnesota variety (Beacon) which doesn't produce those big Washington state sort of apples. Those are actually pretty nice Beacons (retirement jewelry for scale). TOPWLH reports that there are probably at least a dozen more still on the tree and that there were also several on the ground. All previous comments about never getting any fruit from the apple tree are hereby revoked.

This evening in France: Nantes 5, Istres 0.

This whole watching the game on steaming video is a much, much more rewarding experience than trying to keep up with the team from text updates (in French) on the team website. The net stream picture quality is obviously not network HD quality but I can actually SEE the game.

Today's game result is HUGE for the team. The team website headline is that the team affirms its ambitions. Midfielder Djamel Abdoun looked this evening like the Ligue 2 equivalent of current FIFA world player of the year Cristiano Ronaldo. The first half ended with Nantes leading 1-0. Abdoun scored the second goal with a play that greatly resembled many of the goals produced last year for Manchester United by Ronaldo. On a free kick from about 30 yards, Abdoun curled the ball around the wall and inside the far post to completely defeat the Istres keeper, a wonderful goal. Then on the third goal he again channeled Ronaldo with a series of high speed step over moves which freed him to cross the ball into the box where both of his strikers had arrived with only one defender to mark the two of them. The defender was in position to do what he could but he wasn't able to prevent an easy header from 5 yards out by Ténéma N'Diaye to put the game completely out of reach. FC Nantes advances to fourth in the table, on the outskirts of the top three promotion zone.

It is obviously very, very early in the season but Nantes is again raising the hopes of its fans for a return to the top league in France.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Being that the whole first and last paragraphs of your post today seem to be written in Finnish...I'd like to comment on the apples. Beauties!! Tree was a late bloomer or something. Perhaps you should save one to dessicate on a desk at home. Oh, your air quality is probably much friendlier than that in any given state office building. Might just lead to fruitflies.

Also, in case you missed it, gear up for Monday, Fatty will have your most very favorite color for sale in jersey format. Will you get one?
BTW who is your reader in Tibet or Bhutan or wherever that red dot is?? jilrubia