outside of the bubble

What do you want for Christmas?.. You don't have to get me anything mom, I already have everything I want.. Well if you don't tell me something soon you'll get something you don't want. Well alright then,. get me an MP3 player. What does it do? she asked. Well it records music and stuff.

It also trys to record all of my pictures every time I copy music to it despite my efforts to turn that feature off. That's really a pain. I'd be happy to have one that didn't bother with pictures, or at least let you turn it off. What am I going to do with a thing like this that has my pictures on it?

Welcome to the modern world, a co-worker said..

the Stockmans Bar

The Stockmans Bar in Missoula Montana. Licquor up front, and Poker in the rear. That's a little crude for bicyclelog, but some things just rise above.

Bitterroot Valley picture

A picture from the Bitterroot Valley in Montana. A little peace on Earth I guess you could say.

Flathead River picture

I've added this picture of the Flathead River in Montana and a couple of others I like to my Favorite Photos link on the side bar as well as removing others. I think it works better now as a group. Click on the picture to see bigger.

I've been wanting to do some house keeping on my side bar. I'm reading blogs that I'm not listing and blogs are listed that aren't active that I can't bring myself to remove, not that anyone uses those links but they do look at the pictures so I'm going to focus on that. I'm still going to list blogs I read. It's just helpful.

I would like to get things sorted out. I don't want my blog to end up like my basement.. a bunch of stuff that nobody uses.

The rabbit lives

I thought someone might have done in the rabbit but it looks like it lives. I found its tracks in the snow this morning.

Clark Fork River rocks

Last week I stopped and wandered along the Clark Fork River in western montana looking for rocks and taking pictures. I was looking for that one special rock that I needed for my project. Click on the photo if you really want to rock out man!

It was misty, quiet and kind of eerie along the river that morning. I parked my car at a fishing access and started to roam along the river taking pictures and looking for rocks. I went through a muddy section and and saw some cat tracks. It wasn't a bobcat or anything like that due to the size and the stride. It was a mountain lion/ cougar. A mountain cat. I've seen a lot of cougar tracks in this area along the river and saw one run across the road infront of my car not too far from here. My mom saw a great big one as did one of my friends. The one my mom saw sounded like it was really big from what she described. The one I saw was medium sized.

Anyway it put me on edge a little while I was out of the car. I don't mind bears so much. They are kind of la de da about things, but not moutain lions. If they take an interest in you they don't just let it go. These weren't the biggest cat tracks I've seen but they were big enough.

Gift exchange ideas

Today on bicycle log we are going to talk about eyes and eyewear... Hm, that sounds pretty official.

Anyway. We have have this gift exchange at work. and we each draw a name out of a bowl. They are typed on a piece of paper and then cut apart. You reach into the bowl and pick one out. I really hate stuff like this, but I go along with it. You can opt out but then there you are with no gift, and everyone is looking at you like what's up with you scrooge? So it's easier just to go along with it, and pretend you like your gift and this sort of thing. Sometimes I actually do like my gift. There's a $10. limit but I always go over that. I mean, what can you really get for $10 these days?

So anyway I put my hand in the bowl and got my name of a person to buy a gift for. It was the same person I had last year, so I got to draw again. Heaven forbid you get a person you aren't getting along with or can't stand, or something like that. But I know a way out of that,. just say you got that person last year... On my second draw I got one of the women as there are lots of them where I work. So I decided to get this gal some cheap sunglasses. I've done that before when I drew a male co-worker who ended up getting them ripped off when he left the company truck running and someone took the sunglasses (along with the truck), but that's a whole different story. We got the truck back, but they kept the sunglasses.

Ok,. So instead of me actually going out and buying sun glasses, I decided to ask another female co-worker who is 21 years old and always has cool shades, to go and do my shopping for me as I knew she'd come up with the goods. Plus I woudln't have to shop. Those are the sunglasses in the picture above. She got them at Target and I think they are really cool! I wouldn't mind keeping them just because I like cool things. Not that I'd wear them or anythign like that... I'm not a cross-glasser if that's what you're thinking.

Now the eye part of the post. Today I went to the eye doctor. I need new glasses. Plus I wanted to make sure my eyes are ok which they are. I tend to use them so I thought it would be a good idea.

So the first girl takes me into the test room and does a bunch of tests on me with the equipment. Then I go into the exam room and wait for the eye doctor to come in. While I'm sitting in there waiting I look at the computer screen with my profile on it, and there's a section called "Patient Disposition" or something like that and it says I'm "pleasant and sociable". I'm like, What?! What does this have to do with my eyes?.. What if it said something like "insane sociopath" or even "angry old man"..? I mean I'm sitting there and they've got to know I can read it.. Or maybe they think I can't read it because my eyes are so bad?..

Anway the eye doctor came in and she was into cycling so we ended up talking about trainers and cold weather cycling. So that was cool. Now my profile will probably say something like "know it all"..

My eyes are fine by the way,.. except that I can't see anything without glasses.

Clear and cold

I came across this picture that I took last year so I thought I'd post it again. The weather has been much the same lately. Clear and cold, except the moon has been full. I live off to the left of this shot in the distance. I can hear the train that goes on these tracks at night.

There isn't really enough snow to ski yet even though they have it open. I'm more than ready for my first turns. It's been snowing so perhaps I'll be on my skis soon.