What I really love

Long, Sunday rides with friends. It really doesn't get any better than that.

Cliff, Sharon, J, and I headed out and around Rt 5 to Charles City for a nice 50+ mile jaunt. No rain, a little wind, and little to no traffic.

There were no dog chases. There were no obsenities yelled by drivers, in fact there were few cars at all.

Now if I can keep the dogs from falling in the river, my day will be set.

What I'm probably not going to love is going back to the office tommorrow and looking at email. I have no idea why some people rush to be the lowest common denominator, but there seems to be a pretty good competition out there to reach the bottom. Sharon laughingly told me about most of the emails that await, so I'll probably just hit delete to most of them.

We are putting on our second race of the year on Sunday, and most days I wonder why we bother. Then I get someone who says, "thank you" and means it. This race is a benefit for the soldiers on Ft Lee. As promoter, my club and I are taking nothing. Most of the officials are donating their time. We got some great sponsors like Best Buy, General Dynamics, and Hammer Nutrition. It's going to be a great day, I hope we raise lots of money, and I hope that all the soldiers and families on the base have a great time when they come out to watch.

For those in the lowest common denominator category, I hope they stay home. We wont miss them.

Yum!

For Cliff's birthday I got him some little things and the big TA DA, a wine dinner at Lemaire, the 5 star restaurant in the Jefferson Hotel. I scored big time, getting us in for 1/2 price, one of my better deals of this year.

Worth it, oh yeah!

Pre-dinner reception with a lovely Sauvignon Blanc, fried oysters in grits, fresh figs, etc... yum.

Then we were ushered into a single room with a long dining table. We were lucky enough to sit across from a med flight pilot and his wife, and a lovely lady who works for International Blood Services. She told us some very interesting tales of her travels and travails in Africa. Yikes.

Course after course of unbelievable food, paired with wine from Washington... all presented by the vintner. Getting to sit next to her and ask her questions all night was the best. Wine and wine making are facinating and she didn't disappoint in that regard.

Got a couple hundred laying around and want to do something really cool? I highly recommend doing one of the wine dinners at the Jefferson.