Application Update

As I mentioned in the last post, the applications were mailed out Friday January 25 in the afternoon. I live 40 miles away and got my application on Saturday. One of our riders from Arkansas got his application on Monday. His brother who lives in Nebraska got his application on Tuesday. If you have not received your PALM application yet, you are probably not going to get one. If you email your address to us, we will mail you an application. If you wait a few days, I'll add a link to the website so that you download the application via the web. If you haven't mailed in your application yet and want to get a rider number lower than 100, you are going to be disappointed. We are behind already.

I've come up with a one word description of Michigan weather, especially this winter: bipolar. This week it went from being 12 one day (with plenty of wind) to the 40's the next (Kevin Degen was thinking about biking) to 13 the next. What can you do? Well, I live about mile from the Redford Theater. It's the last neighborhood movie theater in Detroit and is the home of the Motor City Theater Organ society. They show old movies (mostly for $4.00) proceeded by theater organ music. The theater has been restored(it has stars in the ceiling and a model train setup for Christmas) and mostly the movies are good. (Red River, On the Town, Maltese Falcon, ET, etc.) Last night it was "Tarzan and His Mate". Not so good. It was made in 1934 and while Johnny Weismuller and Maureen O'Hara looked great and the print was good, the sound was bad (from the 30's) and what a plot! Kevin, I know, is holding out for the Three Stooges in April. I'm setting my hopes on Buster Keaton in March.

PALM Applications Are on Their Way

After the coldest week of the year, I got an email from the printer on Friday that said he had mailed out the PALM applications. On Saturday I received my PALM application: the printer was right, he did mail them. At the nadir of winter, summer begins.

Let me refresh your memory on how this works. When you fill out and mail in your application, you are buying summer. At this point $110 (plus extra for meals) is cheap for summer. I'm sure you would pay $135 or more even, but PALM offers you a bargain. Your check clears in February or March so that by June you bike for free. What could be better: summer and a free bike tour, all for signing up now. (By the way this same reasoning works for buying baseball tickets too. Try it.)

We mail the applications by 1st class mail. The printer has software from the US Postal Service that allows him to pick up forwarding addresses. This means if you don't receive your application by the end of this week (in time for the Super Bowl!) you are probably not going to get one. Email us at palmbiketour@yahoo.com to get a PALM application and to be sure that we have your correct mailing address.

My biking has been pretty sparse lately: I didn't bike in November at all (why?), rode once in December and once in January. I'm going to have to start by finding my bicycle. One thing I can do is take it in to the mechanic to get it ready. If we have a warm sunny day in the next couple of weeks, you'll know that my bike is in the shop. Good thing I have more than one bike.

Sunny Day

Yesterday was one of the rare sunny days in SE Michigan in winter. One year it was so bad that the local TV station featured a sunset on the 11:00 news because there had been a record low amount of sun for the month. (I think that December only had 6 hours of direct sunlight.)

On sunny weekend days you have to go outside. How can you prove to yourself that everything is not just shades of gray? One way is to go to Eastern Market. It's open 6 days a week year round, but Saturday is the big Market day. There is a lot of construction there now, but two sheds are open. Bring a lot of ones. Everything on Saturday costs $1. There were a lot of cameras and a lot of languages being spoken.

I almost went on a bike ride. I would have had to wear everything that I had, but in the sunlight I could do it. Instead I worked on PALM and I want credit for it. I added the site pages (in their unfinished state) to the web site. I also made the changes to the registration program. (It's 2008 now, not 2007. We have a jersey this year and the registration and bus fees have changed.) I also changed the text on the confirmation letter. Once again I had to remember how Mail Merge works in Word. Fortunately I complained about this in a blog entry last year. I used the blog entry to help me to do the changes.

The next PALM meeting is Jan 20. If things go well, the applications will be printed. They are not scheduled to be mailed until Jan 25 because I thought that the meeting was on the 27th. Ah, well. I let you know when the applications are actually mailed (by 1st class) so that you can keep an eye out for them.