I demand to know...

I demand to know why is it so hard to get a damn watch in the greater triangle are of North Carolina. I shit you not. I looked for watches at a bunch of different places last night, this morning, this afternoon, and I couldn't find a single one that I liked or wanted. That's just a sad state of affairs when you can't find a watch that you like in amongst the massive infrastructure that we have near my house for malls, and places to shop at. I drove out to REI last night, hoping to find something that I liked there. No dice. Next stop, Southpoint Mall, on a Friday night, I must be getting desperate. Nothing there. Every watch I found at the mall was like a little sissy watch, and kind of not to the "active" type of watch that I was looking for. I even went to the old Fossil store that I got my last watch at, and wouldn't you know? Nothing... Then Saturday morning I went for a training ride, got done that, and went out looking for a watch again. Outdoor store in Carrboro. Zip. Running store in Carrboro. Nothing. Performance Bike Shop. Nadda. Clean Machine Bike Shop. Zilcho. Franklin Street Bike Shop. No dice man. The Trail Shop. They don't even carry watches. I would think that hippies would need a watch to tell time when they're out hiking in the woods and stuff, but no, even the damn Trail Shop didn't have anything. I almost did purchase a new laptop case though, but I figured since I already have one, getting another one would just be kind of silly. So I came up short on the watch hunt, again. This is the second or third time this week. I think the biggest problem I have is that I have become fixated on one particular watch, and nothing less will do. Well, something close would do, but alas, it wasn't meant to be. At least local retail wise. This is when we have our friend the internet. Always willing to lend a helping hand in getting us what we want, so I had to order the watch I wanted on-line. Bear in mind that this is the second time that I've ordered this watch on-line. The first time, they were out of the watch I wanted, so I had to go to another vendor. I won't name who I bought it off of, but hey, I was desperate. I've been a number of days now in a row without a completely functioning watch, and I'm starting to feel like Curtis. Always asking people what time it is, and shit like that. Curtis is one kid that needs a watch. He says he doesn't wear one because he doesn't like to have tan lines on his wrist. That's really not a reason if you ask me. Get a watch instead of asking me what time it is all of the time, that shit gets old. Really quick.

For some reason I became sort of infatuated with this one watch from Nike. The Super Digital Dark Oregon Series watch that they make. Of course trying to find something like this in the damn mall, good luck. They have watches on sweatbands, but not this one mister man. Nope. I don't know what drew me to it, it's just cool looking if you ask me. That's just how I feel about it, and it has a hydration alarm, in case you forget to drink I guess. You'll see, this watch rocks the house. This ain't yo' daddy's Swatch that's for sure. Nike, making good stuff these days. Well, they have been making good stuff for awhile I guess, but me being not one to buy too many pairs of sneakers, and or workout gear unless it's spandex, I haven't seen much of the stuff that they've come out with lately, unless it did have something to do with cycling, which with their Lance tie in, they do have a lot of cycling crap out there now. That's one relationship that seems to have paid off for them, that's for damn sure. Well, I'm sure that it has paid off for both parties involved, but especially for Nike. Once relatively unknown in the world of cycling, there are tons of people out there using their stuff now. Their shoes, their jerseys, and so on and so forth. I'd just like to throw a good jorb out there for them on that front.

Starting today was a regime change for me. My pants are getting too tight, need to work out more, drop some poundage here before "serious" training for next race season begins. So today, I started off with a bowl of granola and some soy milk, add a few raisins, and we're good to go. Ride for 2.5 hours, and catch part of the group ride, and get blown out the back as soon as we hit some hills, but I hung in there pretty good for the time I was in there, and then hobbled home alone after getting dropped, or after sitting up (which is how I prefer to see it). Then this afternoon, got a pretzel from Amanda at Katie's Pretzels in the Carr Mill mall, searched for a watch (as previously mentioned), and then gave up, and got a salad from the Hairy Peter, also known as the Harris Teeter grocery store. Regime change in the hiz-house. Now if I can keep this up for the next 6 months or so, I should be ready to roll when the next race season starts in March or late February around here. I plan on racing as a cat. 2 again next season, because I want to prove something to myself. Prove that I can race at that level, and be sort of successful. I know I can. I have had good races before, and finished well before and I can do that again, so if I flail around again next season, and am just not progressing to where I should be, I'll downgrade, and ride the cat. 3 world again, or just wait a couple of years and do some old guy racing with the masters. We'll see. I predict it will be all good. And I'm looking for that breakout season next year, we'll see if I can do it. I know I can, I know I can, I know I can. Blah, blah, blah. I'm all talk and no action so far though.