spent the weekend in Munich with e.

it was my first opportunity to meet the german side of her family. they spent much of the time sprechening sie deutsch, so i mostly just smiled, laughed when they laughed, and drinkenend sie weissbier.

apparrently i made a good impression.

last week i played in a freeroll tournament on party poker and came in 27th out of ten thousand. thus i won real money. by "real" i mean "legal tender" not "a significant amount of". still...

books, booze, health, pornography.

on day four, i sat in the sun in the grand duchy of luxembourg, ate sandwiches and ice cream, read pornographic literature, and listened to eminem.

i had to climb for another 10km or so out of saint hubert; but long climbs are not nearly so disheartening in the morning as they are in the evening. at about ten a.m. i reached what will likely be the high altitude point of my ride¹ and from there on out day three was a day of glorious downhills that i only partially had to earn back. also, if my computer is to be believed, i set a new personal non-motorised land-speed record at 84.1 km/h².

in which i climb far too many hills.

yesterday i woke up in rotterdam with e. she hopped a train back to hilversum, i hopped one to bergen op zoom, a town a bit further south in the netherlands and which i figured to be a feasible one day ride from brussels, my intended first stop.

games have always figured large in my life.

though my father and i were often at odds, one of the few activities we enjoyed together was chess. and a love for--and occassional obsession with--that game has been with me since. with my mother, it was backgammon. and heavily house-ruled games of Risk with my three younger sisters are an important part of my family's christmas tradition.

and on those frequent afternoons and weekends with my grandmother (as young as some moms) it was games of all sorts; for she was a gamer through and through. though scrabble, checkers and cribbage were our mainstays.

Wednesday March 28

distance travelled: 0 km

on the third day of my training regime, i sat on my ass and ate sandwiches.

in which the combined might of the allied forces protects some cows.

and in which i go not quite as far not quite as fast.