Fins to the left

Saturday I showed up for the usual Airport Ride with the bike club http://www.gdbclub.com/ for 50 + miles on a nice but cool day, any idea of a modest ride vaporized when some of our racers showed up. We had a good but very hard for me ride with a new route and some new streets and hills, my heart rate was over 90% a lot of the time, as a bonus Morgan invited us to go sailing with him and his girlfriend Hiam.

We met them at grapevine lake on Sunday afternoon it was a cool overcast windy day perfect for sailing. I was looking forward to putting the Catalina 27 tall rig through its paces and it performed well and was a joy to sail surpassing 6 knots numerous times. This boat also has an Atomic 4, 30 horse engine which moves the boat effortlessly, now I feel my 8 horse on the O'day 272 is a little light.

GETTING READY
HEADING OUTUNDER SAIL

Today the wind is blowing thirty and gusting over 40 and is is short sleeve warm, I guess its a good day to start the winter garden planting of onions and a lettuce mix. I think we will try to grow potato's in a large container this year. We will try to make the most of our small garden that gets to much shade.

I'm on a vision quest

Dennis Starkey

Gettin Kinky

Thursday I found out Kinky Friedman, a former Texas candidate for Governor was going to be at a local cigar shop so Michele and I went to meet Kinky. When he arrived he was very pleasant and was cutting up and signing autographs as well as posing for photo's, he gave Michele a big smile when he came in. I did have the camera with me and pulled it out, turned it on and it beeped and said battery exhausted, great. The purpose of his visit was to promote his new line of cigars, one of them is named the Utopian after his animal rescue ranch and the proceeds of this cigar go to those efforts. I had the impression he was a large man as he is always wearing a cowboy hat, but in real life he was not very tall but it was still a fun time.

I was scheduled to lead a bicycle ride for the club called the distance builder on Saturday, but it was in the 30's and none of this group showed up so I did a ride of 50 miles with the more hard core Airport group and we had a good ride with light winds and sunshine even though it was cold. Monday Michele and I went to the GDB spin class and had a good workout, I used my heart rate monitor and worked for a little over an hour with a maximum heart rate of 182, and overall average of 151 and burned 915 calories, not bad for an old guy.

Sunday we went to Eisenhower State Park and did some hiking along the bluffs at Lake Texoma, the lake was deserted and we saw no other hikers on the trail, I guess the cold and wind made it a perfect day for us. The limestone bluffs were full of fossilized sea shells and makes me think it was all covered by water at some time.

A woman and her faithful DogWe visited the Eisenhower Birthplace to round out a politically themed week. The annual State Park Pass allows us free entry to the State Parks and Historic sites and has paid off for us.

Losing retirement money faster than I can count

Dennis Starkey

West Systems Epoxy

When work allows and weather permits I am still sanding the bottom on the O'day 272 in preparation of repairing the blisters on the bottom of the hull. The hull is now dry and all the blisters are open, and a lot of the gel coat is ground, or sanded off.Santa brought me some West Marine gift cards for Christmas and I bought round one of the Epoxy supplies I will need to repair the blisters and apply a barrier coat of epoxy. This is about it on the O'Day until the weather warms up.

I have had several good bicycle rides over the past week or so, On Tuesday I rode a night ride on the White Rock Trail for 22 miles, and then Saturday I rode 55 miles with the club www.gdbclub.com . This was a good training at a good but not all out intensity level, For a lot of the ride I was on the wheel of a guy with a powertap and we stayed at a consistent 200 watts of power. The powertap is a hub on the rear wheel that accurately measures power applied in watts, since I was drafting a lot my power output was a little less, but I have a heavier bicycle and weigh more myself to even it out.

Michele also got in a nice ride on Saturday with the clubs distance builder group, they rode to The State Park Fairgrounds and explored that area. We both did the Spin Class on Monday night and it looks like cold weather is going to set in for a while now limiting our rides.

I think I've got cabin fever

Dennis Starkey

1963 Biscayne for sale

For the first of the year my brother Bart,his son Austin and I went down to the farm to do a little work on the place. we bagged up a lot of debris and trash. In this remote are there is no trash pickup so a lot of bottles and cans and anything that won't burn is still there. It had been at least 3 years since the driveway was mowed so we mowed the one driveway and around the newer house, the grass was the same height as the pasture and was hard to mow, but it looks like someone is taking care of the place now.Mowing the grass helped a lot but the amount of work that needs to be done is staggering, we also need to sell a few vehicles, like the 63 chevy in the picture below. If anyone wants a Cheech and Chong low rider we have the title and would take $500. The car is all there and has never been wrecked, but has not been moved in at least 10 years

My nephew Austin Starkey loves to target practice and is becoming a good shot, we shot several guns and in the pic he is shooting the gun my dad gave me when I was 12 years old, A youth model 22 single shot rifle. We set up targets and had a little safety course and a lot of fun, my shooting was not up to par, I'm going to blame on my aging eyes.

On the bicycling ride side of things I was riding down to meet the club Saturday and the street was wet, I hit a section that was muddy and the bike instantly just shot out from under me. I wasn't injured but did suffer a good Raspberry on my Bum after sliding about 20 feet on it. Its healing nicely but I may not be able to ride for a while, guess it will be work on the boat time for a while.

Sea ya

Dennis Starkey