I don’t know what it is about bike commuting, but I love doing it. Today marked the second Thursday in a row that I did the full bike commute from home to work and back again. In the past, I’d been mainly doing a hybrid commute — driving part way and then biking the rest. But doing the commute door to door is so much better. It’s obviously more saddle time, burns more calories, etc., but it’s just a really cool to pull in and out of the garage on my Tarmac Expert, instead of in the 4Runner or Accord.

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So I know this is a bit of a rehash from Amanda’s post earlier this evening over at LittleBabyK, but oh well. It was a pretty historic and memorable day! The day started out pretty busy and hectic, but mid-afternoon, we had our 3D/4D Ultrasound to check out our little one. We also invited my mom along.

Now the 3D/4D ultrasound was an extra fee, but man, was it ever worth it. Unlike the traditional black and white ultrasound, this one showed a more sophisticated image of our little guy and it’s totally impressive.

Tyler is definitely taking shape in there. Despite having all of July and August, along with part of September, the little dude’s features are unique and mommy and daddy are both represented in Tyler’s facial features, along with other areas such as the little guy’s toes.

This just keeps getting more and more real! I’m totally floored and excited!

So I’ve not been able to log three rides on my new wheelset — the Shimano RS-80 wheels, which were a warranty replacement and upgrade for my Shimano Ultegra wheels that came with my 2009 Specialized Tarmac Expert.

While a full review may come down the road, after some more rides and a few races on them, I wanted to give a first impression review of the Shimano RS-80 clincher wheelset.

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My ‘09 Specialized Tarmac Expert, acting as a carbon drying rack near my work desk, after my morning bike commute from home in Durham to downtown Raleigh. Check out that new wheelset!

So about a month ago, my still fairly new 2009 Specialized Tarmac Expert started acting up. In the big ring, I started getting an occasional click and almost pulsing pull from the chain. It was hard to reproduce on a regular basis, but eventually started to happen more often. It started happening on hard, fast descents, and cornering.

I eventually took the bike back to the shop I got it and they adjusted the front derailleur, but on the next ride, the problem still existing. I rode on for a few more weeks, before finally taking it back to the shop a couple weeks back. On the way over, rolling it out of my office, the pedals were rotating as I rolled it on its back wheel.

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I was lucky in the roller coaster experience department. My first roller coaster experiences were with my dad at a young and ripe age in a little town in Ohio called Sandusky, known for its great selection of roller coasters at a little ol’ place called Cedar Point. Ever since then, I’ve been hooked on the large steel or wooden beasts, its cars barreling over a track at high speed.

I’ve lived several places moving down the U.S. East coast, including Williamsport, PA, Randallstown, MD (Baltimore suburb), Chesapeake, VA (Norfolk/Virginia Beach suburb) and Durham, NC. Ever since we landed in Randallstown, a little place north of Richmond, Virginia as been an amusement park destination for me, friends and family. I’ve seen it go through ownership changes, including Paramount’s stint owning it from 1993-2006. In fact, reading through Wikipedia’s Kings Dominion article, I remember the vast majority of this stuff — some both coming and going. Interestingly enough, Cedar Point’s owner, Cedar Fair Entertainment Company ended up buying KD and the four other Paramount owned amusement parks (including Carowinds straddling the border of North and South Carolina).

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So I said I wasn’t going to do the whole early adoption thing [much] anymore, nor would I camp out for new tech, but I will be hitting Crabtree Valley Mall in Raleigh bright and early to get my black 16GB 3GS (couldn’t justify 100 bucks extra for a 32GB when I’m operating with an 8GB now). I’d also like to head to my old stomping grounds (and former part-time employer) over to the original North Carolina Apple Store at Southpoint in Durham, but I’m closer to the Raleigh store for heading to work after getting my new phone. It’d be nice to take it home to sync all my apps, etc., but unless it’s super quick getting through the line, I’ll have to head right into work.

Anyway, looking forward to my new phone, and hoping the process is efficient and the line is short and smooth first thing in the morning.

So like my friend, John I too tried the upgrade to 2.8 and had an incomplete/successful install of WordPress 2.8 today. I should have learned from his hardship with the new version.

All day today, I was unable to get into the admin tool, and all of the plugins sat disabled, giving me a glimpse of how important those plugins are for rounding out the display of the site, but more importantly, filtering out all the comment spam.

Anyway, for about 12 hours today, this site was limping along, but it’s now back to full strength, with its plugins all working fine with 2.8. It took my web host intervening to get me back up and running. He found a solution on a forum, overwriting some files with new versions for 2.8. Anyway, upgrade is working fine.. now.