As you’ve probably seen from the latest picture of the day, I am now the proud owner of a unicycle. Why do you ask… because real men only need one wheel. Acutally it’s something I’ve always wanted to learn and last night I found out how fun that could be.

Day 1: I got my unicycle fairly quickly, it came Monday evening. After I got most of it together (yes… some assembly was required), I found out I needed a couple of metric allen wrenches. After paying twice as much for the set of metrics then for the set of standards, I had my unicycle together. I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the subject and thought the seat height was good for my height of 6 foot. Before going out I tested it, and found out it sure wasn’t, I could barely reach. the peddle when it was at the bottom. Time to get the ol’ saw out. I’ve got a small saw with an 8″ blade on it, after I realized I was using the wood blade, I soon made short work of the first cut… still too long. I made another cut and thought it would be alright and headed over to the high-school for a wall to help me learn. After half an hour I managed to figure out how to get on the thing, and how to fall (which to some people is important, heh!) Later that night I made three more cuts to the seat post, with the metal blade =P, and I think I finally got it at the right height.

Day 2: This day went a lot better than the first outing, I think mainly do to the fact I had the seat at the right height. I was getting better at getting on it (still using the wall to help steady myself), and managed to hit a record of 10 feet without using the wall to help maintain balance. I tried free mounting (getting on without a wall), but that didn’t go so hot… I was out for about an hour today…

Day 3: My break through day! I started using the wall at the school for about an hour… I noticed my seat was a tad crooked and asked Susan if she could bring me my allen wrenches on her way to the gym. Luckily she hadn’t left yet and managed to get them to me. After correcting my seat I practiced for another half hour or so and everything was going really well. I had managed to get good enough to go the length of the wall, only problem was there was a wall perpendicular to this one… I quickly decided I’d make a go in the parking lot. Using a lamp post to get on my uni, my first trip sent me out about 40 feet or so (wOOt!) A couple more lengthy trips (still using the lamp post to start from) and a voice over the PA system told me, “School’s closed, pack it up and go home!” So I did just that… I tried free mounting and was acutally able to get in a couple revolutions, but mostly I practiced by using our mailbox to help steady me. I was doing pretty darn good, as I was getting 20+ feet every few tries, sometimes 40 feet, and I made a record trip of about 65 feet! At this point it was getting dark, and I saw Susan coming home from the gym. Wanting to impress her, I waited for her to pull into the garage and was on my uni when she came down the diveway. I managed to get 50 feet, and all she could say was, “Wow you’re kind of wobbly…” and “why don’t you just ride back?” as I wa walking back… Some encouragement… but I didn’t let it get me down, I was super excited I could go that far at all. Unicycling is a ton of fun, I can’t wait to get back out and try some free mounting and maybe learning to turn (could be useful…) Today I was out for about 2.5 – 3 hours.

Susan did say she was impressed later that night. In other news, we have been hitting the movies up quite a bit lately… We did a double feature of Transformers and Harry Potter. Harry Potter was okay, but I really liked Transformers… Susan said she even liked it so it can be all bad… We’ve also seen Ratatouille (twice), Hairspray, and Knocked Up (not for the faint of heart)… I gotta give it to John Travolta for pulling off some of those dance moves, in a plus size woman suit (Hairspray). They were all pretty good. I’m still trying to get Susan to go to Live Free or Die Hard…
As many of you know, the last Harry Potter book hit the stores last weekend. Susan was pretty bummed for not getting a pre-order, but Friday night we thought we’d swing by Wal-Mart around midnight to see if we could get our hands on this critically acclaimed book. Sure enough we found the line and didn’t even have to wait that long (though we were about 30 or 40 people from the front). After we got our copy, we headed to the front of the store to check out. Logical Wal-mart only had one lane open and there was one heck of a slow moving line… An announcement came over the PA, telling all employees to move to the front of the store to open some more registers. Hearing this, it was my idea to stand by one we thought would open and sure enough it worked, we were about the third ones in line. Our associate however had the daunting task of figuring out how a gift card works (we spent a long time waiting for the first person to be checked out in our line). After that we had our book in hand… and Susan stayed up most of the night reading it whilst I was immersing myself in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (execellent game). That was pretty much our weekend, Metroid and Harry Potter…
As for my job status, I’m still looking for something new and exciting… my job has gotten quite boring in the past few weeks. A couple new oppurtunities have presented themselves, but all I can do is apply… wait… and hope… Tuesday was actually pretty fun, I did my second speech for Toastmasters. It was about racquetball and I think everyone really enjoyed. I got great feedback and am now aware of a few things I can work on for my next one (which I’m really excited about doing!) As for playing racquetball, Mittag has gotten to be quite the opponent, the harder he is to beat, the more fun it is to play (for me anyway…)