a bit of alison and tony » tony

Canoeing The Clinton River

tony — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 21:07:55 +0000

It was a great weekend of adventure and intrigue. Okay, well, mostly adventure. My father in law and I decided to embark on a voyage down the Clinton River in Rochester Hills, MI. It was a beautiful warm day, a pleasant deviation from the chilly winter days past. After some careful planning we managed to fasten the canoe to his new Ford Escape’s roof rack. (We had a bit of trouble finding good mounting points for the front and rear tie downs under the vehicle. Our 6 mile river run took about 3 hours and had more curves (resisting lame simile) then I can even remember. The water was a bit shallow for our 16′ Old Towne royalex canoe. The shallow water and protruding rocks definitely left their mark on the canoe. The water was cold and surprisingly clear. Despite the suburban neighborhoods lining the river we did see a good amount of wildlife; white-tailed deer, wood ducks, mallard ducks, Canadian geese, and a few fish. By the end of the trip we were both pretty worn out, and the weather quickly changed from sunny to strong winds and rain. Thanks to the cool Google Android app, “My Tracks”, you can check out our tracks on google maps. It was a great advanture.

Back in the Saddle Again!

tony — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:53:03 +0000

Today it finally feels like spring is here! I hope this isn’t another michigan weather tease, i don’t know if I could take any more of that… I got my bike back out again this week and even biked my commute today. My times were respectable at 24, 25 minutes for the five mile trip, but it’s obvious i’m not in the same shape I was last fall. My best times from last year were in the 15-16 minute range. I wonder how long it will take me to get back to those times. My garmin is out of comission, so I’m in the market for a bike computer of sorts. hopefully one that can track best times. For now i’m using the stopwatch on my cell phone. If you’re into the details, check out the bicycling page. Happy Spring!!!

Flat tires are not fun.

tony — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:12:03 +0000

On Tuesday about about a quarter mile from home I got a flat tire… bummer. Especially since last week I had broken my cheap tire pump. I tried to go to a gas station and pump it up and then swap the tube, but the station closed at 11pm while I was there and I didn’t have enough change to run the $0.75 air pump again… oh well… Wednesday morning was rainy and I had some things to mail so I drove… Wednesday night my tire still felt like it was holding air so this morning I was pretty bummed when I was all geared up and hopping on my bike to find they tire was flat again. Oh well. I had been doing pretty well, riding all last week and monday tuesday of this week. I actually miss it now and driving seems boring. I’m excited to get a new trunk bag, rack, and tire pump from my brother in law, Andrew, this weekend! I’ve still been updating my commute times/speeds on the biking page..

Biking is fun.

tony — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:39:13 +0000

I’ve really been enjoying the commute to/from work on my bike. I feel energized all morning when I bike to work, and the ride home is great for unwinding. I actually look forward to the ride now, rather than think of reasons I should drive instead. I’ve got my time down to between 20-25 minutes at around 15mph total which is pretty good on a mountain bike… I’ve created a new page to keep track of my times. Last week I had to replace a broken pedal on my bike, fortunately it broke slowly and i was able to make it home okay. I also picked up a handlebar end mirror to help me stay track of traffic around me better. Glancing back over my shoulder didn’t work too well since I’d be looking around my glasses which means the cars were blurry blobs… More rides to come. Stay tuned!

Biking to Work.

tony — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:05:49 +0000

On Monday I finally put aside all the excuses and biked the commute to and from work. It was a great feeling of accomplishment just to make it there and home again. Special thanks to Dan’s post inspiring me to just do it.

I biked to work for the 2nd time yesterday (Wednesday). The ride was great, even a few minutes faster than the first time on Monday. I have a lot of gradual hills in my commute, but i think the biggest challenge is the stop lights. Cruising down a long hill just to stop for a red light at the bottom is a bummer! I also learned the hard way that I should use more than just my bedroom window to check the weather in the morning… Fortunately, Alison was able to come pick me up after work and rescue me from the torrential rainstorms! I’m working on figuring out a good way to track all the stats coming from my GPS- i’m a geek like that…

Our Sprinklers are Sprinkling!

tony — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:49:32 +0000

Last week I fired up the sprinkler system we put in last summer. It was very rewarding to have everything work right away without any problems. Our baby hydroseeded grass still has a lot of growing to do, it seems so far the weeks are doing a better job growing… I want to wait a bit before i put more chemicals on the lawn, so for now nature must run its course. Special thanks to Kenny for giving us the lawn mower!

Flying Bikes and Squeaky Pipes

tony — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 18:48:44 +0000

This weekend was a busy one chocked full of good times and fun projects. In addition to bowling with our small group, and my company holiday party, we also got a chance to install one of our Christmas presents, using another Christmas present. And by we, I mean mostly me, Tony, since Alison was off doing other things. The bike hangers were easily installed using my new cordless drilldriver… here are some pix of the final product. It really opens up that corner of our garage and gives us even more room – or at least, will when we finally get all our moving boxes unpacked and out of the way! I also finally fixed the squeaky bathtub drain for good. The last time I thought I fixed it actually made it worse since instead of just the bathtub movement making the drain squeak, the whole bathroom floor did! This time I got smart and cut out a 1″ section of the upper PVC drain pipe and replaced it with a flexible rubber section. No more squeak! Now I just have to re-finish the part of the drywall in my closet’s closet that I had to cut into to access the plumbing… And of course, a picture so you can see what i mean…

It’s Hydromatic – Grass Seed!

tony — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 04:01:15 +0000

Today we came home to a nice green lawn! The hydro-seeding is done! It looks like they also did some final grading to the yard which is very cool! They even marked off the sprinklers so they didn’t drive over them with their equipment! I’m excited to get to turn on the sprinkler system now and watch our lawn come to life! I found some care tips that seem pretty good. I wonder if we’ll need to mow this year?!

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Carpet!

tony — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 01:54:31 +0000

That’s right, folks, the carpet has been installed! Alison and I stopped by today and took measurements of the water flow and pressure for the sprinkler system design.
I’ll fax that in tomorrow for our free design from rainbird.com.
I won’t be long now until we’re buying a mailbox!

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Countertops & Carpet Tacks

tony — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 23:55:53 +0000

The construction process continues to move along quickly, today the counter tops were in place in the kitchen and the bathrooms, the carpet tack strips were installed in the rooms that will get carpet. They also started to build the masonry post on the front porch!

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