let me just start by saying i'm thinking about giving up on the blog. my last post before this one was may 14 so that says something. well, maybe i'll give it one last try.

topic 1: working the 4th of july
so here's my horrible 4th of july story. this dog came in around 11 p.m. because he was "very anxious from the fireworks and breathing heavily." the dog is actually very dyspneic and his temperature is 109 on presentation. as i get the whole story from the owners, it turns out the neighbors were shooting off "illegal fireworks" and it freaked the dogs out. so they put them in their horse trailor to get them away from the noise and calm them down (??). i think they were in there for an hour or two. so the dog overheats to say the least. i had a long talk with the owners about all the horrible complications of a 109 temp, especially DIC (some say this acronym stands for "death is coming"). here is a little summary of what it actually is. not unexpectedly, by the next morning the dog definitely showed signs of it. but the owners took him home to "see if he would perk up there" for financial reasons. geez.

topic 2: the bike search
i've been doing some bicycle shopping because it's about time to retire the old bridgestone. partially due to some encouragement from dad, i decided to try and get a new one before ragbrai so i could ride it then. however i am pretty indecisive and i've also waited until the absolute last minute so it's not quite going as smoothly as planned. after much back and forth, i thought i had finally made a decision and decided to take the plunge and order one yesterday. so i talked with my local bike shop (again) and found out that the company didn't have any frames in my size right now. the bike i'm considering is a surly cross check. no wait, use this link instead because it has a picture of a freaky guy on the bike. it's not quite a road bike, but i think will fit all my needs better in the long run. but ANYWAY, i think i may have resigned to the idea of giving the old bridgestone one more moment of glory in iowa. i don't want to make some rash decision just because i'm running out of time.

topic 3: ragbrai
something like 3 weeks away? i don't know if i'm really training as much as i need to, but i'm assuming it will work out just fine assuming i don't collapse from the crazy midwest humidity (i can't really add that part into my training). i've been going on rides out in the country east of portland and it's gorgeous. but hilly. but gorgeous. oregon is awesome in the summer. today i went on a leisurely ride out to sauvie island with mary. it's a big island where the wilamette river meets the columbia river and it has a large wildlife refuge, a beach, and several small farms. very nice. we took a mid-ride break and went down to the beach. the sand was much, much hotter than we expected and we had to sprint down to the water because our feet were on fire. when we got down there, we realized we should have sprinted the other way back to our shoes. we stood in the water for a very long time debating what to do (take off our shirts and tie them on our feet? no really, we considered it). we finally borrowed someone's sandals to walk up and get our shoes. i thought my feet were going to have serious burns but they're just a little sore now.