Last week, I got my Peavey EVH Wolfgang restrung and tuned, but I am just unable to get a good distorted tone out of my my little Peavey Classic 20 tube amplifier and its single 10″ speaker. But, this morning a stumbled on the two videos below which using the same amp, he’s able to get a Van Halen-ish tone. Granted, he’s using a different guitar, but my EVH Wolfgang should be able to produce a similar tone with its Edward Van Halen designed setup.

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Amanda and I tackled a fairly big home improvement project this weekend – installing a tumbled marble backsplash across our kitchen and over the course of about 8 hours yesterday and into this morning (past 1am), we got it all installed.

I’m really impressed and satisfied with its look, our workmanship and the wonderful aesthetics it’s added to our home’s kitchen. I’ll write up a full post about the project and its process, etc. once we’ve sealed, grouted and taken photos of that. In the meantime, check out a few photos of the installation process below.

Backsplash Project Photos

We had a great weekend down in Mt Gilead, North Carolina with Amanda’s folks and two of their close friends!

We got to boat around Lake Tillery all day Saturday, seeing two of the hydroelectric damns that created the reservoir, hang out with everyone, watch some football, eat poorly and just relax. More on that all after a night of sleep. My only weekend regrets – not bringing my bike for some nice scenic rides (though my body did need a few days rest… 4 days oughta do it.. back to the bike commute tomorrow morning) and the fact that the weekend is over.

Part II of my iPhone applications writeup coming tomorrow!

Tonight’s sunset was 6:50 – just over 10 minutes earlier than the previous Tuesday. As I rode out for the final Gyros Tuesday night ride (which has had an earlier start time the past few weeks cause of the earlier sunsets), my knees and arms ached a bit. As I rode over solo to meet up for the group ride, I questioned whether or not to even ride with the group. But with it being the final Tuesday night ride till the Spring, I powered through.

As it turned out, the ride for the most part was pretty leisurely and my pain and discomfort quickly faded away.

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This time a week ago, I had returned from my final crit of the 2008 season in Jacksonville, NC, satisfied with my results on the year. I’ve kind of relaxed and have put in less training in the past week – a little sore from a lot of miles in 2008 – substantially more than 2007.

Anyway, I’m in the position to do a free fitness assessment at the private gym in the same building I work in. I’m going to do that to setup some goals and training for the offseason. Here’s my preliminary plan for ways to make 2009’s bike racing even more successful than 2008 (possibly upgrading to Cat4 racing):

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So this morning marked the official end to my first full racing season and the 2008 racing season overall, that is unless a crit or road race creeps into the schedule for here or down in Florida over the holidays.

My teammate Greg and I did an overnight down in Jacksonville, North Carolina for the Warriors Criterium at the Coastal Plains Raceway is a .4 mile paved oval raceway – familiar territory for Greg and I, after many Tuesday nights this season out at Ace Speedway.

The Coastal Plains Raceway was a slightly larger track than its Altamahaw, NC sister, but had a very similar feel. Our arrival at the track was met with a closed gate. Several of us were raring to go at that front gate and ended up having a fair amount of time to wait around for the first race of the day.

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Doh! Busy day and night yesterday lead to a rare non-posting day at Keefer Madness. Oh well. I’ll get over it, if you all will.

I just got back from a little training ride around Research Triangle Park – great place to get some miles in on the weekends. It’s pretty much a ghost town on the weekends (which is why I’m also really wanting to get a criterium there in the 2009 season).

In a few hours, I’m packing up the car with my trusty cycling race checklist, and heading eastbound for my first overnight race trip, which also happens to be my final criterium of the 2008 season. I’m rooming with my partner in Cat5 crime, Greg and we’ll be right near the race in the am. It’s a little twenty lap race and then I’ll be back in Durham in time to have lunch with Amanda and Bongo. Wish me luck!

I’d been anxious to do today’s tasks for quite awhile – every time I mowed the lawn and saw the patchy spots, every time I battle with the weeds in the front and back yards and every time I looked down on the backyard from our second floor.

Well today, as the official last day of summer and the temperatures cooling off, we bit the bullet and did our annual lawn reseeding. I did a tight mow yesterday afternoon in preparation for today. We rented a core aerator and I fought with that thing for close to two hours, pulling plugs of dirt (clay). Simultaneously, Amanda put down some pulverized limestone. After returning the aerator to the hardware store and having some lunch, I spread the fertilizer and then put down a ton of grass seed.

Exciting stuff? No, not at all. But I am anxious to see some real progress this autumn in the filling in of our front and back yards. The drought this year kind of screwed over last year’s seeding, but hoping 2009 won’t be as dry. Plus, with us having the little automated sprinkler system, we’ll be supplementing the watering on a regular basis.

So as you can see – absolutely nothing too exciting going on here – just domestic maintenance in suburbia, and hopefully some exterior progress to the homestead.