The weather was glorious, about 65 degrees F (I prefer days that aren’t so hot), and I got over to CP for a morning ride on Saturday. There weren’t too many folks there when I arrived, maybe 5 or 6 vehicles. Its only the third time I’ve been over there this season, and the second time I went I rode with a friend late after work and we only did 6.5 miles and one Black Diamond. This time I was going to hit them all and try to make it under an hour. The whole trail is about 9 miles when you do all the optional routes, and at the end of last season I was able to complete it in about 50 minutes if I booked. I’m rusty though, as I could tell from my first time marker (3 minutes over), but I wasn’t tiring, so I decided to attempt to do all three of the impossible hills in the back. I never make the first one, but the CLIMB guys had lain down some wood chips and the trails were really dry, and for the first time (ever) I made all three hills! I finished at 1 hr 7 mins, but it was a good ride. The new XTR high-rise dérailleur makes a big difference on the climbs, making it alot easier to get into the right gear on the way up.

Saturday afternoon I cruised over to a friend’s place to work on my Exalted character a little and watch El Hazard (an anime with an Exalted-esque theme). Exalted, 2nd edition is a role playing game by White Wolf which is *not* based on Tolkien at all. Drawing on Japanese comics (manga) and animated movies (anime), as well as larger than life heros like those found in Greek mythos or Robert Howard’s Conan, Exalted doesn’t feel like D&D at all. In fact, having never played a White Wolf game before I felt like a total n00b with the mechanics, but the Core rulebook is quite readable, and thanks to the guys in the game I now have a pretty good idea of what I need to do to polish off the character. The concept of my character is that he was kidnapped at an early age and raised as a pirate. At some point he realizes that the pirate life is wrong and decides to dedicate his life to imposing order on the chaos of the western islands which are currently overrun by pirates. Had a really good time, and met up with the brother of one of the guys in the game who does a lot of ambient digital music now (yet another person affected by Mr. Biava in High School so many eons ago that is still playing music).

Sunday morning I managed to get the cedar shingles on the shed painted with the driftwood grey oil, though its obvious that I can’t put off replacing the facia boards and the roof shingles any longer. In the afternoon Richie helped me get the roto-tiller running again (a spritz of starter fluid to clean off the spark plug and a bit in the spark plug hole and it fired right up) so I could do Dian’s garden for her like she had asked last week. I did some areas in my own backyard before dinner as well.