bogen.org

Interested in playing fantasy football this year?

I’m putting together a league on the NFL’s website again this year. The goal is to get twelve teams managed by people that either I know or that are friends or friends of friends. If you haven’t played a fantasy sport before and want to give it a try, fantasy football is a good sport to try. You really only need to pay attention once a week when you set your team’s roster for the week. After that, your team requires as much or as little attention as you want to give it. But wait, there’s more. Playing on the NFL’s site is free, so it won’t cost you any money to play.

Want more information? Contact me and I’ll be happy to help.

We’ve entered our third straight week here in Madison without any sort of significant rainfall. The lawns that aren’t watered are brown; corn is drying up in non-irrigated fields; there are few mosquitoes out and about and those that do fly are generally eaten by bats.There is a reasonable chance that we’ll get some rain tonight and just about everyone is pulling for it. The biggest upside to this sort of dryness is that the lawn goes dormant and I don’t have to water it. We water our gardens and when it gets dry like this, we’ll also water some of our trees. However, we do not water the lawn. All that does is drive up our water bills and create work in the form of mowing. If the lawn wants to go dormant for a time and give me a month or so off from mowing, I’m more than happy to let it.

Even though we’ve still got some painting to do on the house, we’ve slowed down noticeably in the last week. When it gets hot and humid I lose the drive to do much of anything outdoors and Sarah has been busy trying to get the final draft of her thesis done.

Instead of painting I’ve been working on my bicycles. I’ve been fixing one up for my sister and in another day or so it should be ready. I had to repack the bearings in the rear hub and that has been a slow process. At some point in the past, it looks like someone dripped either motor oil or some sort of penetrating oil into the rear hub. Whatever it was, it turned the grease around the rear axle and bearings into something more like cement. So, I’ve got the parts soaking in a citrus degreaser and once they’re clean I can pack the whole mess together with some high-quality bicycle grease, adjust the bearing cups, re-attach the freewheel, and put the wheel back on the bike. Sarah’s mountain bike needed a new chain, so I replaced that last week and once I finish with this bike for Amy I’m going to start on another bike for myself.

I picked up a bike at the police auction last fall that clearly needs a great deal of attention. It’s an older Fuji road bike; I don’t know the year. It proudly proclaims to have twelve speeds so I’m guessing it’s probably twenty years old at least. The drive train is pretty rusty, the grips are nasty, the wheels are those deadly chrome rims that aren’t used any more, and the cables need to be replaced. Obviously, the seat, brake pads, and tires will have to go, as well. Once I get all the garbage stripped off the frame, I can wash and degrease it and assess the state of other parts, like the bottom bracket and headset.

I’ve been accumulating new and used parts for this bike for a while now because I wanted to fix it up without spending a fortune doing so. I picked up a decent set of wheels off of craigslist that I’m going to use on this bike. A new set of brake pads came cheap from a sale last weekend. I bought a new saddle earlier this year, and a couple of new tires on sale from an on-line shop. I’d like to replace the single side-pull brake calipers with something different, but the frame isn’t built to accept them. Oh well.

Our 50-mile ride last weekend went very well. The weather was kind to us this year and instead of being nearly ninety degrees, the temperature was just south of eighty. That made a huge difference in the ride and our recovery from it. In addition, we rode more often and for shorter distances at faster paces in the run-up to this year’s ride. That seemed to make a difference as we both were relatively spry in the afternoon and evening. Neither one of us had any real lingering soreness this year which was a nice change from last year. Thanks again to everyone who sponsored our rides.

For whatever reason, raspberry patches here in Madison are practically exploding with berries this year. We faithfully pick a bowl full of raspberries for our cereal each morning and we still managed to fall behind our crop.

A bountiful raspberry harvest.

Over the Fourth, we bit the bullet, picked raspberries for quite a while, and came up with enough to make a batch of raspberry jam. It was hot work to make jam in the middle of summer, but it was the best way to get many of our raspberries off the canes and into storage. Even after making jam we still had enough left to freeze several pints of berries. In addition, we’re still eating a bowl full each morning with breakfast. There doesn’t appear to be any end in sight as the summer-bearing canes are still fruiting and our fall-bearing canes have started to blossom.

This is the fourth year we’ve gotten raspberries since planting the canes and the production is simply off the chart. Even considering what we lose to the Japanese beetles we’re still far, far ahead.

Other than making jam, we took it easy on the Fourth this year. We tried to take in a movie at one of the local cineplexes, but the film burned up while they were showing the commercials at the start of the show so we got free passes and left. Since we biked over to the theatre, we took advantage of the time to take a relaxed ride through some neighborhoods that we rarely visit. We got home in time to grab a blanket, some water, and the dog before walking up the street a bit to watch fireworks.

We recently volunteered to serve as trail stewards for a section of the Ice Age National Scenic Trail near our home. As trail stewards we walk the trail with some regularity, trim back annoying branches, pick up litter, and report back any major problems (tree down, trail flooded, bridge needs repair, etc.) to those who can direct the actions of work crews with more manpower and machinery than we possess. It’s relatively easy work considering we’d be out on the trail year-round anyway. It just means that we carry a trash bag, work gloves, and clippers in addition to all the other stuff we carry. Since it is so hot here today (heat index readings around 100), we went first thing this morning when the weather was cooler.

After working on the trail, we dropped Dalla off at home and drove out to the Middleton Airport for an EAA pancake breakfast. The food was decent and there were some interesting planes there to see. I didn’t have my camera with me, so I don’t have any photos, unfortunately.

Once again this year, we’ll be riding for the Boys and Girls Club on 21 Jul 2007. We’ll be on our bikes battling saddle sores and non-trivial hills for the better part of four hours as we ride 50 miles for the club.

As part of the process, we’re collecting donations for the local Boys and Girls Club. If you’re interested in sponsoring either of us, click on our names below to make a pledge. Even a small pledge helps.

• David Bogen
• Sarah Bogen

If you’re ever feeling like nothing can get you down, pick up a scraper and a paintbrush and have a go at painting your house. That should bring you back to Earth in a hurry. After a long tough nine days, our house is mostly painted. Sarah and I worked hard on the preparation for days before a single dollop of paint was brushed on to the house. We scraped, sanded, swore, scraped, sanded, and swore some more. Finally, I blew a gasket and said, “Paint will go on this house today!” Not much paint went on the house that day, but some paint, all primer, did.

After that, we picked up steam, painting more and more each day. It wasn’t until the weekend, however, that the project really started running smoothly. Not coincidentally, that was the day my sister, Amy, showed up to help with the painting.

Amy may not much like the prep. work (who does?), but she has a knack for painting that neither Sarah or I possess. In the time it would take me to paint one short side of the house, Amy would paint almost all of one long side. Not only is she a fast painter, but she does excellent work with no drips or runs. I tried studying her technique, but came up empty. It didn’t appear that she was doing anything different than I was, but the results clearly said otherwise.

With the help of the One Woman Paint Crew we got two coats of paint on the vast majority of the house. We need to do some touch-up work in a couple of spots, and there are two very small areas that still need a second coat, but for the most part, the heavy lifting is over.

If you’re interested in seeing a small portion of the final results (I didn’t take much time to snap many pictures), the photo gallery has a photo or two that may interest you.