Asheville - Bele Chere weekend

Live View of Pack Sqaure

We had seriously considered going up to Bele Chere this weekend, but the cost of hotels wasn't worth it - and it's raining now, so it's probably a good thing we're staying home. I love to check in on the views of Asheville every now & then, we really miss it.

It's HOT HOT HOT

From WRAL:

"Tuesday: Hazy sunshine and quite hot. Highs in the low 100s. An excessive heat warning is in effect today. It will feel like 110+ this afternoon. This is dangerous heat! Do your best to stay out of the sun during the hottest part of the day which is from noon to 6pm. Heat exhaustion and heat stroke can come on easily in this kind of heat.

Tuesday Night: Warm and muggy. Lows in the mid to upper 70s.

Wednesday: Sunny, hot & humid. Highs from 100-105. Heat index likely to be 110+ again so take it easy during the afternoon.

Wednesday Night: Fair and warm. Lows in the upper 70s."

You know it's going to be a HOT DAY when it is already 83 degrees at 8am!

The 2005 Tour is finished - Armstrong says "au revoir"

"His final margin of victory in his seventh Tour was 4:40 over CSC's Ivan Basso and 6:21 on third-placed Jan Ullrich (T-Mobile). Speaking after the presentation about his two colleagues, Armstrong said that "Ivan is the future of the Tour and may be standing on this [top] step next year," before hastily turning to Ullrich and adding, "or it could be Jan."

It was a pretty good Tour - not sure what to expect next year... guess we'll just have to wait... now I need a new distraction!

Amazing French bridge -Stage 18 - Albi to Mende >189km

The Viaduc de Millau south of Paris in France. Opened last winter, the Viaduc de Millau has seven supporting towers 1125 feet tall — even higher than the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The deck of this highway bridge, designed by famed British architect Norman Foster, sits 885 feet above the Tarn River. The Tour is passing across it today :)

Here's a live webcam of the bridge

Overall Standings
*1. Lance Armstrong (USA), Discovery Channel, 72:55:50
2. Ivan Basso (I), CSC, 02:46
3. Mickael Rasmussen (Dk), Rabobank, 03:09
4. Jan Ullrich (G), T-Mobile, 05:58
5. Francisco Mancebo (Sp), Illes Balears, 06:31
*6. Levi Leipheimer (USA), Gerolsteiner, 07:35
7. Alexandre Vinokourov (Kaz), T-Mobile, 09:38
8. Cadel Evans (Aus), Davitamon-Lotto, 09:49
*9. Floyd Landis (USA), Phonak, 09:53
10. Christophe Moreau (F), Credit Agricole, 12:07

Longest day of the Tour

It was a whopping 239.5km to the finish today and Discovery team member, Paolo Savoldelli, took the stage win. The breakaway kept the gap at least 20 minutes - the road to Paris is getting shorter everyday. To read the whole story go to Velonews

And another big congrats to Georgie - the winner of stage 15


Paul has been riding a lot, and a lot further, everyday. He's been on some pretty awesome roads around Falls Lake and up into Granville County (appartently there are some strange looking people up in them hills). He hasn't found a group to ride with as of yet. But he's ready to head back to Performace to buy some new shorts and a jersey... which means that there will be something on sale that he needs to buy for the bike... yay.

Stage 16 of the Tour de France

This is what happens when you run with the cyclists like an idiot! We're on the final countdown to the end of the Tour this year - Armstrong & Team Discovery are kicking butt! :)

Latest updates
Vinokourov has attacked out of the main field, but he's so far down on GC, the yellow jersey has opted not to respond.

2:58 p.m. - The ten leaders may soon be joined by the Mazzolini group (now sans Rodriguez) as the three chasers are just 1:00 behind. We're still trying to get a time check on Vinokourov and several other chasers slipping out of the peloton on the climb. None of the attackers poses a GC threat to any of the top-five.

3:02 p.m. - Cadel Evans has decided to go on his own. Now this is a significant move.

3:03 p.m. - Ullrich has attacked out of the main field.

He's off the front of the peloton, with CSC's Carlos Sastre. Armstrong - still there with a large number of his teammates - is not responding. Ullrich seems to be in the hunt for time on Rasmussen.

3:06 p.m. - Ullrich has been pulled back by Basso and Armstrong. There are several T-Mobiles with them, but it looks like Armstrong has Popovych and Hincapie with him. Landis and Leipheimer have made the selection, too.

308 p.m. - My, my, my... the Kaiser is feeling randy today.

Ullrich has attacked again. Armstrong responds and has Rasmussen on his wheel.

3:12 p.m. - Evans is flying up the climb. He's climbing nicely. Already this morning he said he would dedicate this day to his fellow Australian Amy Gillett, who was killed yesterday on a training ride before the Thuringen Rundfahrt in Germany.

3:14 p.m. - Evans is working his way up the climb with a 30 second advantage over his two closest pursuers: Zandio and Flecha. The rest of the original break is spread out on the climb. Vinokourov is picking off stragglers.

3:18 p.m. - The Armstrong group has been reduced to about 10, with Sastre setting a hard tempo at the front. The top seven on GC are in the group.

Vinokourov is now in the company of Roberto Heras.

3:19 p.m. - By George! Hincapie has fought his way back into the Armstrong group. Quite the climber, eh?

3:22 p.m. - Evans is one kilometer from the top of the climb. The Armstrong group is 5:00 back.

3:23 p.m. - Ullrich is on the attack again...

The German is leading a small group now. Armstrong, Basso, Rasmussen and Ullrich. They have caught Vinokourov andHeras.

3:25 p.m. - Evans is going over the top.
Meanwhile Armstrong has moved to the front of his group. That has to be disheartening for Ullrich


3:27 p.m. - Vino attacks again. No response. Armstrong doesn't really need to. - 60 km from the finish

.... more updates at....

Justin packs up

So, Justin has left NC. He's sold all the furniture and packed all his stuff and is now just a few days away from leaving for Japan. It was quite a weekend. Mom came up on Thursday to help Justin clean, pack and load up. Thankfully, mom and I had a little time to talk and shop. Of course time flew by too quickly and pressure grew when people kept backing out on the washer & dryer (there was no way we could store those things)! Thankfully, in just the nick of time, Justin got a phone call and they were SOLD!

Here's Justin working on the final paperwork to leave the apartment


Justin & Baker in parking lot (I was in *spy* mode)


Paul and I in a daze... oh man, was it hot!


Everything was complete by dinnertime, so we cleaned up and took a picture or 3




Justin will leave Atlanta on Saturday morning (early) and thus begins his long journey to Toyko. He'll spend a couple of days there, in an orientation of sorts, before heading south to his assignment. Once I learn how to spell it and find it on a map, I'll post it here. I think Justin may have set-up his own blogspot, and maybe I'll post a link here too. We'll just have to wait & see.

My zinnias in bloom!

Testing new feature

I've read that now I won't have to upload to shutterfly and post the link for pictures... so let's see if this works, random picture posting (can you tell I am working hard today?)


*after checking, i don't think i care for the layout, oh well, back to the long way*

See if you can do this in less than 3 minutes!

Place The State - Intermediate
Place The State - Intermediate

See if you can beat me:

96% correct, Error of 7 miles off, in 200 seconds :)

The brick patio is just about complete!!!

After some back breaking work on a steamy Saturday afternoon, we completed the brick patio! It was a lot more work than we wanted to believe and moving over 400 bricks and tamping them down, was exhausting! We've still got some asthetic details to finish up, but at least the bricks are set and we can USE it! We're still looking at patio furniture and trying to decide what else we want to do with the patio area (cover it with an arbor or something similar).

Quick shots (may be a little blurry, my camera fogged up):

July Fourth weekend trip

Paul and I hit the road for the holiday weekend to visit my family in Atlanta. Thanfully the roadtrip part was pretty easy - we took a slightly different route that kept us off I-95 and off I-85 in downtown Atlanta (i.e. 40/85 to Greensboro, 85S to Charlotte, 77S to Columbia and 20W to Conyers and then A LOT of backroads).

We spent some quality time with the 'rents and their foster/adopted kitty, "Raleigh." (can you tell they miss NC?) Raleigh is an inside cat (being that he is declawed and recent attacked by something...), but he gets a few hours of outside time every day to watch the birds and nap...



The highlight of the trip (besides all the food) was going down to Jackson Lake for the day. My uncle Russ has a very nice boat and he was kind enough to drive us around the lake on Saturday afternoon (NO STORMS! can you believe it?! I'm a storm magnet down on the lake!)

Eric and Bron on the boat (did I mention is was hot as blazes out there?)


For some reason I just didn't take many pictures until after dinner (which was at an interesting little place on the lake where you pull up the boat, tie it up and walk right on in). Random 'nightshot' pictures:

Miranda on the boat


Lights on the water


Ghost, I mean, goat island


Dad and his catfish - who thankfully was thrown back


It was a great day... and sadly the boathouse has been flooded by rains from Cindy & Dennis. Hopefully, they will be able to fix it up for use the rest of the summer.