Sick...

Well, the sickness has progressed. My throat was on fire this morning. Yuck. It is a beautiful Memorial Day, and T and I are both stuck inside sick as dogs. Hers has manifested as an all-consuming headache. Bad timing for Kate to send pictures of her and Spencer's trip to the Giro d'Italia.

Still, there has been some joy in life, mostly surrounding food and furniture. On Saturday night I made Keema (Indian ground beef) for dinner. It was good enough to get T to eat some red meat, which is quite a feat. Yesterday morning, I made banana bread for breakfast. We made quick work of a loaf. After Teresa gave me a great (and free!) haircut last night, I grilled veggies and chicken sausage.

Oh, and the bed is done. It also looks like it is made out of ice. So, my bedroom is complete. Now I just have to pick up the washer and dryer next week, get a bed for Anna's room, and call it good. Phew.

Been a while but................

From hgstoria@gmail.com or, DAD-

Nice to observe Ben making his way as a man, with a plan.  He has returned to Hanover area and got the targeted jobs, got the targeted home, got the targeted furnishings, got the room mate for summer, got the rides, got a lot.   Looking forward to getting there and seeing it all in full color. Wish I could bring the Karate Monkey and ride some of the forest trails with him on my new pair of 29s.    We all miss him but really appreciate his blog so we can keep up to date and also his supplementary family emails.  As an ex interiors mavin, I am really digging his new mid century style furniture.  Very very in right now. Coooooool.  And, what a great price!!  $0. 

Boogie on Ben. 

Done!

I couldn't figure out why I was so tired last night. Well, I woke up sick on this grey morning. After Teresa and I perused the Sachem yard sale, I mounted the hardware on the dresser that Cindy gave me and called it good. Its not perfect, but it sure looks cool to me. Props to Teresa for the hardware locations. The blue is even better in real life.

The bed's the next victim. And now I know the tricks...

Prouty Update

After being decimated yesterday by Eric Schildge, an undergrad and local pro, I was also given some heat about choosing to ride the 50 mile route in the Prouty. As an avid cyclist, I'm ashamed to say that I've never actually completed a century ride. Heck, I tend to bonk after 5 minutes at tempo. Still, I've been successfully guilted into riding the 100.

If there's ever a time to complete a 100 mile ride, it must be at the Prouty. With frequent food stations, I should be able to consume enough calories to keep the legs pumping. I also have a special talent for pounding full meals and then hopping directly onto the bike. And besides with my new unilateral orchiectomy, I should have the fatty acid metabolism to carry me through 100 miles no problem.

If the pain of doing 100 is going to be worth it, though, I darn well better reach my goal of $1000 raised. Thanks, in large part, to the readers of this blog, I'm already at $690! We just have a little bit farther to go, though. So, if you haven't donated, please help out! Puppy Sophie wants you to.

Ben's Prouty Donation Page!

Good Day!

Had the first surveillance check with Dr. Seigne today. Alpha-fetoprotein takes a couple of days, but the beta-HCG levels were normal. The chest X-ray was clean. And Dr. Seigne's exam was normal. Dr Seigne remains as sexy as ever. Good news all around.

And this afternoon I finally rented the second room in my place! Anna is the perfect tenant. She is starting as an internal medicine resident here at DHMC. She's paying a full two months rent for June and July, but she's not even coming until June 15th. She and her husband have a place starting in Queechee on August 1st. Perfect timing! She's from Vermont. Super outdoorsy and vegetarian. Very OCD. When she and her husband walked into the bike room, she said "Great! I can bring my bike!" And she'll be back up in Burlington for most weekends. So, I'll get a bed at the Sachem yard sale this weekend and be done with that saga.

Busy Weekend!

Wow! What a weekend! Having your own place is a lot of work, especially until you get it set up. After a wonderful Friday afternoon ride with my coworker Auden (doc and ex-personal chef to King Hussein of Jordan), I borrowed her truck for the next day's activities. I also had a plunge in the still very cold CT river off of Auden's dock. Teresa and I met up to watch Hanover High's production of Beauty and the Beast. Teresa had been helping out with the makeup and raving about the performances. It really was wonderful. The leads were amazing! Now T and I have been walking around for days whistling the tunes.

Saturday was an early morning. I headed down to Plainfield where my coworker Cindy and her husband, Keith, live. They were kind enough to offer me a bed, a dresser, and a huge vanity for free! The bed is so cool! It has storage in the headboard, and the mattress is basically brand new! The wood color and hardware are pretty 70's, but hey...its a project! After loading up a huge truckload, I headed up to the grocery store to shop for that night's housewarming BBQ. Kolene, her mom, and Begem helped me unload everything from the truck. I took the afternoon to head out for a great mtn bike ride on my new secret trails. I rode the "spine" trail. Wow! It literally follows a spine through the forest, with drop offs on both sides and big rock ledges throughout! I love those trails. Next was prep for the BBQ. I was cooking for 13 people! The menu was as follows: Ben's special BBQ chicken rub, Ben's special turkey burgers (with cheese inside!), grilled veggies, Grandma Jean's baked french fries, and poached pears for dessert. The BBQ was a great success, except for the gloomy weather. It was wonderful to see my large table being put to good use.

On Sunday morning, Teresa and I headed over to Home Depot to pick out a color and hardware for the dressers and bed. We settled on "Arctic Blue," a nearly white, but beautiful blue with some very modern hardware. I started sanding and painting that afternoon in the extra bedroom. I guess that that is one good thing about having no roommate yet. I snuck out for a quick hard climb up Trescott hill in the beautiful, new kit that the Williams Cycling Team gave me! Wow...what a blur of a weekend.

Yesterday was a long day at work, but I rewarded myself with a loop up Tigertown Road and a descent down Beaver Meadow Road into Norwich. Tigertown is a wonderful dirt road climb that follows a river and crosses a shallow lake with no guard rails. After a gloomy day, the sun came out in full force just as I was starting the climb. Glorious. I arrived home to a wonderful dinner procured by Teresa, and we treated ourselves to dairy twirl afterwards.

Thank you to everyone who has donated for my Prouty ride! We've raised over 600 dollars! Some members of the Williams Cycling team are thinking about coming up to ride it with me. I think that we'll look pretty cool in our flashy new white kits.



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Pluggin' along

Nothing much new to report here. Been working a lot and continuing to work on the new place. No roommate yet. People express interest and nearly commit, then back out. Fun stuff.

I rediscovered a whole new network of trails on Tuesday. They are, of course, on no map and confusing as all hell. So, why are they worth it? Well, let's see... They are out my back door. They were clearly built by mtn bikers for mtn bikers. They have more slickrock than I've ridden in Colorado. And they cover about 10 trail miles per mile of actual progress, searching and snaking for the best features in the whole forest. Pictures soon.

In honor of bike/walk to work day, some more pics of the commute. You can see the giant downage that I deal with everyday. I've been in negotiations with the hospital for a couple of weeks now about getting it removed. Check out that root ball! Also a few pics of Drake Lane. And finally, the newest addition to the Eklund family: Heidi.

Prouty

Blog Readers-

One of the things that I love about this blog is that I know people are out there reading it. And I'm not talking about the occasional internet stalker in Turkey (though I have had one hit in Turkey). I'm talking about friends and family. These are the people who we all have in our lives who we care about very much, but with whom we simply can't maintain a connection all of the time. I love that I receive replies to my blog email updates from family and friends reaffirming their love for me and their love of that day's blog entry. So, it is with the mindset that my friends and family out there are reading this that I post the following entry. Don't worry...its not too heavy or anything.

On July 11th, I'm going to ride in the annual Prouty fundraising ride. The ride raises money for the Norris Cotton Cancer Center at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and its peripheral facilities. In addition to being my place of employment, NCCC is part of the reason that I received the amazing care that I did. And though my ordeal sucked, I see people in the waiting room of the Cancer Center everyday that have it far, far worse than I did. The Prouty raises big time money for cancer research and treatment at NCCC. This year they are hoping to raise 2.25 million. As a cancer survivor myself, I'm pretty sure that I get to wear some sort of special recognizer when I ride the 50 mile loop. The whole thing is supposed to be an incredible event. In order to participate, though, I need to raise at least $150. I'm aiming to raise much more than that, though. I'm hoping to raise more than that, and I hope that blog readers will pitch in. It is super easy to sponsor me, you just have to visit the link below. Thanks a ton, everyone.

Ben's Prouty Donation Page

Commuting

Well, today's entry was a mishmash of ideas in my head, and its going to a mishmash of ideas on the interweb too. Let's start with the important stuff.

I wouldn't say that the "nesting" has quite begun at the new place yet, though it does officially smell like Indian food now. Still, my life quality has taken a dramatic turn for the better since moving in. How many people can say that their commute looks like this? How many people can say that they get to enjoy the gently pitter-patter of rain on the way to work?


How many people can say that their commute is meditative?



And how many people can say that they meet friends like this on the way home from work?



Not many, that's for sure. I am one lucky guy. I have only driven my car ONCE this week for about 10 minutes each way. Awesome.

And for another laugh today, "The Best YouTube Video Ever" from Kate Scheider. I'm inclined to agree. I can't believe that the narrator is able to keep a straight face. The video speaks for itself. Art, at its highest form.

Beaker

Thanks to Andy for forwarding this one:

Grey Day

Well, its a slow day at work today, and its a grey day here in Hanover. I'm reminded of this day way back when. I promised pics then and never delivered. So, here they are now.

Life is good. Mental outlook is improving. Its going to take a while to settle into my new place, despite how incredibly nice it is. This year has really done a number on me. Still, discovering more and more and more trails out my back door helps. I hope to consider Hanover "mine" by the end of the summer.