Friday Woohoo.

Friday Woohoo. It took a while to get here. Kathy had some online Plone troubleshooting with a Plone site that amongst other issues is firmly convinced its 2002 and all its content does not yet exist as it was created umpteen seconds in the future and I spent much of the day getting my Plone skills up... not to Kathys level.. but a long way up. Our original Plone Test site has become a testbed for the web development we are doing for a company I,ll call DMA so we set up another Test site. Again on an ABOC server of course Its a test site remember so stuff is going to appear, disappear, work.. not work etc. Its a rough copy of www.PerfectNotes.com.au and is here Tinkering with it with Plone atm. Its talking to the Paypal sandbox. I shall be working with this site a bit in the next few days.

Last night Sally had a work do just down the road and borrowed a bed from Chateau du Percrime. She was supposed to be here in North Blackburn at 9:00 pm. I left the CBD at 8:15 on the pushy and had to push fairly hard. I can confirm that the new bike lane in Albert St East Melbourne is getting its green color. Felt a lot like sand actually. The road was full of road workers. That lane is pretty effin narrow at 50 kph.. pretty easily achievable heading towards Richmond and strangely since 50 is the speed limit its apparently as slow as cars are allowed to travel. Its their minimum speed. Interesting the number of cars who HAVE to overtake you and instantly slow while changing into your lane. Fun trip home tho. I trailed Sally by about 3 minutes. Foggy and spooky for the last few klicks but great fun.

In the morning Sally and I got up at Dark oclock and did the Maling Room Ride. We ended up in a small splinter group consisting of the gorgeous and newly married Mrs Blybo, the stunning Lian (Mrs Wak, and the wonderful Sally, poor Mr Wak and myself managed to bring the groups glamor back down to average. Fun yet casual pootle. No fog.. and not cold. Yet again the professionalism and politeness of our friends at Ventura Bus Lines . was obvious, happy to give them a plug Funny story about Ventura. Over the 3 or 4 years of the Maling Room Ride the bus drivers have become friendlier and more inclined to give us space. I am sure they have figured out that Tuesday and Thursday are the go hard days.. Wed and Friday the pootle efforts. Dodgy overtakes followed by pulling over and parking.. often alongside 40 kph + cyclists just do not happen any more.

This bus line was always pretty good. I save all my cursing at buses these days for the jokingly misnamed "Driver" bus line. And no I am not giving them a link. They do not deserve it. Losers. But I digress Anyway on this particular fast MRR a couple of years ago II was off the back of the fast bunch. (my tail light had fallen.. and I went back to get it.. OK??) I was trying hard to get back on. And got a light. Bus pulls up alongside. Driver opens door. "Want a lift up to them" he asks. Cool. Very cool. "No thanks mate, I can catch em:" Well if they catch the lights I can. Woot.

After the MRR and 2 coffees me and my mate Simon escorted the Sally to her work at a charity in Blackburn. Simon lives in Blackburn and PerfectNotes in Blackburn North. Sally has the exact opposite commute to most people.. living as she does on the top of a building in the CBD and working in Blackburn. Commuting by train or bicycle (or duel mode) as she no longer has a car Sally has a interesting commute. On the way again I wondered at the desperation on the grimly intent drivers who scream past us at high speed in order to stop 100 metres down the road at the end of 40 cars stopped at the lights.. Do they think there is any chance whatsoever of beating us through the lights? And its not us holding them up.. but the 40 cars stopped at the lights in front of them. Seriously... why don,t they get it? Poor sods. Lots of em have no choice but to be in a car but they nearly always look so unhappy. Roads that are a lane and a half wide are the perfect roads for cycling.. its always amazing how the traffic always forms into clots of stopped cars.. then no cars for a kilometer. But they are all in such a hurry to make it to the next stop. Its the desperation that is really disturbing

We horrified the charity by following Sally in wearing lycra. No they were OK with it actually. We had another coffee with Sally then Simon and I left.. had a hot chocky (Simons shout) around the corner in a little french pastry joint and then I left for work and Simon left to put another 100 klicks on the clock. He wants to get some training in before his new child is born.

There is an invitational sprint series being organized at DISC. Given that the flying 200 times required are 2 seconds faster than I could do when I was 18 I think that I shall be involved purely as a helper. But I will be there. I,ll put details up here if anyone wants to come and watch some truly world class sprinters. The weekend is here. This weekend involves some work. An evening watching a film about Aspergers Syndrome with some of my friends, some of who actually have Aspergers. Training ride in the morning Which will be the RRR . And much gardening must be done. Urk.