Reducing the stress... and cycling more.

This year I set two New Year's resolutions for myself. One was to go see a space shuttle launch before 2010, when they stop flying, and the other was to reduce the unnecessary stress in my life. Now, the first hasn't happened yet, but hopefully sometime this fall it will. The second one has begun to take shape. I've decided to stop stressing myself out over the little things in life. I don't *have* to go to the store tonight, I don't *have* to get that new shirt I've been wanting for 3 months, tonight. You get the point. The little things in life can wait, and the world won't end becuase of it. Part of this also includes only allowing myself to do one or two things a night, max. That is, it would be nice to eat dinner before 9pm at night. And it would be nice to just go home after work some nights and not worry about being out until 10pm running around town.

Also, as part of my "reduce stress in my life" mission, I've decided to step down as CTM Treasurer. I'll make this rant short, but lets just say there were a few things that were just annoying me, and people that I could no longer work effectively with. Mainly, I'd really like to know why one cannot just open a bank account in a organizations name without having to contact the IRS for a tax-id number. And then when you talk to the people at the IRS, some tell you that with a tax-id number you have to file taxes for that organization, and others tell you that you don't necessarily have to file taxes just because you have a tax-id number. That was it, the last straw. So now I've just gotta finish updating the member list (which I should have done this weekend, but forgot about), and then I've reduced my stress count by one.

On a total side note, this year I've decided to start climbing more, and mostly cycling harder. Last week I got a new rear wheel and trainer tire for my indoor trainer. It's so nice just being able to switch out wheels on my bike, so I don't have to worry about ruining my road tires. And now that I've figured out how to set up the trainer properly, I should be good to spin and not ruin this tire either. All total the rear wheel plus tire cost about $170, but it was a good investment. I also went out on a Sunday morning ride this past weekend with Brent. We road barton springs rd. to mopac frontage road, across the mopac bridge, west on southwest parkway to HW71. Up HW71 to 2244 (scariest part of the ride), back east on 2244 to 360, south on 360 to mopac frontage road north, back to barton springs road, up robert e lee, and back to my house. It was about 32 miles total, but almost all hills. It was a great workout, and great training for the MS150!