D minus 40 - Street fighting and New Years Eve

Sorry for the late posting of yesterday's blog entry....I went mountain biking this morning with some good friends, and just got back......here is what happened Tuesday!

Forty days until we pull up anchor and depart RJRP (or D minus 40) for Arizona!  As promised there will be no weigh in announcement until Saturday, but the Subway Diet continues unabated.  I guess I do need to make one small announcement.....as you will recall, my weigh in yesterday was 198.8......well, I took another 12 mile bike ride and upon returning one hour later weighed myself just out of curiosity.....197.6!  Anyway, that's the last you'll hear from me on weight until Saturday.

Tuesday mornings we open the park at 7 am as we always do.....well at least 4 more Tuesdays.....:D  Since it was 11 days since the last trout stocking we did not expect many fishermen, and that's the way it turned out.  Around 8:30 I bid adieu to TLE and went off for my aforementioned bike ride expecting to be back around 10 am, and back in the Kiosk to relieve her by 10:30.

The high forecast for Tuesday was 78, and that was about right......nothing but clear sunny skies for the foreseeable future.  No doubt on New Years day millions of people watching the Rose Parade from places where the temperature hasn't been above 30 degrees for a few weeks will be inspired to move to Southern California.

The ride around Fairmont Lake and up to the summit of Mt. Rubidoux was uneventful, and as I descended the hill on the  south side of the mountain I was right on schedule to be back by 10.....as I continued my ride up to the Santa Ana River Trail to ride the last 2 miles home I came upon a group of people who appeared to be having an altercation with a man who I had observed running up to the group.  He grabbed the leash of a dog from the hand of a woman in the group and flung the dog about 40 feet through the air (it was a small dog), then grabbed the woman and body slammed her to the ground.  It all happened so fast I didn't even have time to get off my bike before the guy went running off through the neighborhood.  We, of course, called the police who responded within a few minutes.  Meanwhile one of the women bike riders followed the man to his house, and then came back.  Once the police had our statements, they went and arrested the creep and hauled him off to jail.  You just never know what you're going to run in to while on an innocent bike ride.  Apparently what set all of the preceding events into motion was the people standing in the street had just watched the attacker's son riding a small motorized dirt bike out of control, lose control and crash.  The attacker got mad that the woman suggested he should take his son to the ER to be checked out as the crash was quite violent.....the crash had happened just a minute, or so before I got there. Why he got mad at the woman is a mystery to everyone....they did not even know each other.

As a result of that I did not get back to the Kiosk until about 11:45, so TLE said she would finish the shift without me......what a woman!

I spent the afternoon getting my mountain bike ready to ride.....I haven't ridden it since we were in West Virginia back in April.  I've been training hard, as you know, and have lost about 14 pounds so I think I'm ready to go out and not embarrass myself.  All the folks I ride with are 13 to 25 years younger than I so the potential for embarrassment is high, but I'm pretty confident I am ready to hang with them again.

We spent a couple of hours by the fire with some friends, the Millers, going back to our involvement in AYSO (American Youth Soccer Organization).  Their daughter, Jennifer, was on several teams I coached going back to when she was 8 years old....she is 32 now.  It was great to see them, and catch up.

We were finally chased indoors around 9 pm as it was getting very cold.  We watched an old Deanna Durbin/Robert Cummings 1941 movie called "It Started with Eve" and then headed off to bed about 11:30.....almost made it to midnight, but not quite.

Thanks for stopping by!