Hey all. It's Andrew, checking in today.

To start, I offer a song; not new, but good. It also goes with the theme of my day today.

No, I have no idea what the asian girl at the end is on about.

My original plans for today started with me going to work in the morning for four hours. After that, I would bike up to a grocery store, pick up some essential items to be cultured later, and come home to prepare for tomorrows meeting at Dockweiler (sic) beach. However, I found out yesterday that two of my friends were planning a 60-70 mile bike ride which sounded much more beneficial than my previous plans. Thankfully, due to a mishap with my schedule this week, I was able to completely move around my hours; due to not being scheduled at all this week.
So, at 7 a.m. I geared up and headed out. Unfortunately I made a wrong turn getting to the LA river bike path, and ended up in an area with no bike, or even walking path. After the second dead seagull I knew it was the wrong way. Turning back, I found the path, and met up with Aaron to bike down to Juan and the wife of Martin, our local bike shop owner. First we biked up to Long Beach, which was a fun ride. Martin's wife took off, easily averaging 25 while Juan and I averaged 16. (My new bike computer really comes in handy)
So we hit Long Beach and had the Kombucha's I had hidden away in my backpack. Aaron saved his for later, but I downed it in seconds. Without the weight of four glass bottles I was much lighter on the bike. For reference sake, I started with 3/4 gallon Raw Milk and four bottles of kombucha. I was refilling a quart bottle from a half gallon, just for ease of drinking.
Martin's wife left after she got back to her start point, and Aaron, Juan, and I all rode down to the Santa Fe Dam. It's a beautiful ride down there, and it was great fun the whole time. We all had some minor issues with equipment, but we were prepared. I found it much easier to keep cadence and motivation having the speedometer and odometer on my on-board bike computer, and we hit some decent speeds.
Once we hit the Dam, we stopped at Quizzno's. We talked for a while, ate our food, and stretched out for the ride back. I refilled my quart bottle for the second time, emptying my half gallon by then (I had already drank a half gallon of milk by this point), when I found out something interesting. I had kept my reserve milk on the back of my bike, and while the trail was generally smooth we did have some rough spots. Somehow along the road, through these rough spots, the cream in my milk actually churned into a few small gobs of butter. It was funny, and I got used to it through the ride back.
Before we headed back, we stopped in the recreational area and saw something awesome. There was a dog show in town. A Great Dane dog show.

Beautiful, ginormous creatures! There were at least thirty of them, all of them prancing about and being judged by sex and breed.







The Brown ones (left) are "Fawn", the black ones are a straightforward "Black", bluish ones are "Greys", and the spotted ones that look like Holstein cows are "Harlequin".

One woman, who had won Best Male for her dog Turner, was nice enough to let us pet her dog. He shoved himself right up against me, slobbering on my hand while I scratched at his back.





She also let us take pictures, here she is with Turner:

(Turner is Two years old, and has not yet reached his largest size)

He's being trained to be a helper dog, but due to his fine form they decided to show him first. His owner told me that he's actually got his own room, with pictures from all of the shows, and all his awards dotting the walls.



After this we departed. It was a really nice ride, and I feel accomplished, as well as a little sore. This is really good practice for the trip to San Diego we're planning in a few weeks.

All in all, I just needed to get the body in motion. :)

Vive ut vivas
(Live so that you may live)