I get so jazzed

when I talk about Africa and development. Tonight was a big night.

Classes at GW started yesterday. I had a class yesterday evening--a history of military strategy and policy course--and that went well enough. Tonight though, tonight's class was good. The class is called Development in Africa, and it's taught by a professor who's big on statistical modeling and conflict/reconstruction. These are all fantastic things. To put it into terms we can all appreciate, when I talk about development, I get the same feeling as I would going off the front with a teammate with 1km to go. I'm energized; I know I've got a hell of a lot of hard work in front of me, but I'm energized. Bring on semester number three. Also fun: the class is 18 women and 6 men. I would like my odds, were I still a gambling man.

In other news, I did my second cross workout of the "fall" over the weekend, and I've got the hitch out of my step on my remount. It's about damn time. I took a little bit of a spill unclipping about an hour into my workout, so I've got the first crash out of the way.

Note the indications of a textbook tuck-and-roll.

Pimp my ride: cx edition
I've also got some fresh new buff & blue (I still don't know what the hell "buff" is) bartape, some new egg beater pedals with blue anodized spindles, and an anodized blue BBG chainguard. It's 4 grams heavier than the FSA carbon guard, and costs $12 on the BBG website. Buy one. Actually buy 8, and tell them where you heard about them. Maybe I can score some free.... chainguards. Because I totally need more than the two I've already got. Whatev.



For those of you in school, I hope your fall semester is getting off to a good start. For those of you who've got a full time job and nothing else to pull you off of your velocipede machine, I envy you. Also, I see you bragging from the other side of the internet tubes.

Listening to Atlas by Battles. Really gets me through my core workouts. See if you can do a plank all the way through the track.