Friday night, Priming the Bathroom

The weekend before I had gone to the paint store and they recommended a special primer as I planned to paint over the worlds grimiest, dingiest texture blue floral wallpaper. Something about the primer being an alkyd. Picked a nice yellow paint. I'm cheap and try to be eco-friendly, so I didn't buy a paint tray just one of the disposable plastic tray liners. Friday night I come home from work, toss a frozen pizza in the oven, turn the music on, crack a beer and start taping the walls. I even took off the plastic covers for the light switch and electric outlets. Eat the pizza, have another beer, start priming. I finish putting the primer up about the time the third beer gets finished. PERFECT.

Go into the kitchen to wash the roller and tray so they can both be reused. The primer isn't coming off the roller so I get my hands onto the roller. About 3 seconds after I get both hands on the roller, completely covered in primer, it dawns on me why I had to use a special primer to paint over wallpaper; an oil-based primer. I know from chemistry that oil based liquids aren't water soluble. I now know from experience that alkyd = oil based.

I'm staring at my now chalky white primer covered hands. And the phone rings. Open the phone with my teeth, press the talk button with my nose and tell my sister I'll call her back. Soap will be useless to clean my hands... Where is the citrus cleaner I use to take kick wax and klister of my classis skis??? The only thing I can find is a citrus based aromatherapy called 'Refresh'. Dose my hands with Refresh. It forms enough of an emulsion that between the green plastic dish scrubbie, dish soap and another dose of Refresh about 75% of the primer comes off.

Water the universal solvent. Sometimes True

Last year I decided that 2008 would be the year to ride faster. The best way to ride faster? Commit to a race.

The BC Bike Race is a 7 day mountain bike stage race starting in Victoria and finishing in Whistler. This will be a challenge.

The training program provided on the race website calls for spending 15-20 hours a week on a bike. I'm hopeful that spewing sharing cataloging here will make me more accountable to stick to the training regime. Because, perceived guilt and judgment by people I can't see should be motivating??

The best part of the current phase of the training program? "This is not the time of the year to make any moves to be lean, if anything over-eat."

Time for black bean nachos.
And I didn't go for a skate ski today...