Seeking Coastal Utopia

Jeez, what a cliche for a title. That particular phrase is on the back of t-shirts sold by Rebound Physical Therapy  in Redmond.  However, I am glad this week has come as I am glad to be able to start sweating again.  After being in Oshkosh standing around talking to customers all last week for EAA Airventure , I started this week on the technique trainer that Laurie got for me from Performance Bike about 100 years ago it seems.  I started off the ride with a high pedal cadence (90+ RPM)  to get blood flow through the legs and allow me to push less hard to protect the knee.  I also need to work on my pedal mechanics.  Here is a video from the Livestrong YouTube Channel and Chris Carmichael regarding high-cadence pedaling. I start with 5 minutes small ring-big ring and every five minutes skip two gears until I am small front-small rear for 5 minutes, then back up for cool down.  This has been the morning wake-up all week an...

It has been 3 full weeks since my surgery and the swelling has come down considerably.  The pain is significantly less, however the amount of movement is still less than optimal.  Additionally, as the Dr. Cara Walther at Desert Orthopedics had stated, the muscles in that leg took a vacation and have pretty much been taking their sweet time to listen to any commands.  Even the simplest "flex my quads" command meets resistance and quavering.  Still not fully up or down the stairs with confidence yet, but after swimming 3200 meters on Saturday helped more than I thought it would. Especially kicking, as painful as it was.  Of course, after not doing much of anything the past 3-1/2 weeks made me feel like a true weekend-warrior!  Now all my muscles are tight and need significant stretching.  Surprisingly enough my aerobic capacity was not as bad as I though it would be.  Must be all this high- altitude training and living we do here in Bend! ...

Image via Wikipedia So I was lucky enough to start my conversations a few weeks back with the folks at L3 Avionics in order to discover costing and availability of the Trilogy   Electronic Standby Instrument for the Lancair Evolution  avionics package.   Mark Linsley  has been extremely helpful by answering my questions and was kind enough to ask me if I would be interested in going on a practice flight with the Aeroshell Aerobatic team on Wednesday morning.  My response was along the lines of "Uhhm, yeah?!?!  Are you kidding me?!?!" Wednesday morning rolls around and we are down there at the Aeroshell booth awaiting the turn.  The four T-6's sitting there on the grass on the side of the taxiway just begging us to come for a ride.  We sign our lives away, they strap on our parachutes and get the briefing on the flight.   Steve  in #3 gets the pleasure of me as his passenger.  As we are briefing, he tells me "O...

The family decided to spend the day on Elk Lake here in central Oregon .  We borrowed some Ocean sit-on-top kayaks like this one  from our close friend Mellanie and proceeded to load the kids and our day gear and set off. These are nice kayaks to use for poking around and it allows us to load a reasonable amount of gear and have the kids sit between our legs as we paddle about.  We have used these type of kayaks on dive excursions off Catalina  ( Guide to diving Catalina Island ) and with an eco-resort (Matava) in Fiji . The weather on Elk Lake couldn't be any more perfect, a nice warm day, no clouds, and a calm lake.  The idea was to find a nice beach to sit out on and play with the kids and do some swimming.  Dax and Ivy found some friends they play with while hanging out at Kids Corner at Juniper Swim and Fitness  making the most of it.  Has anyone tried to use a paddle board yet?  Laurie is a natural at it!  It really wo...