I have a new toy, and my commuting enjoyment has gone up several notches this week. I have yet to come up with a suitable name, or decide if I'm enough of a geek to even name a bike other than the painfully obvious Frankenbike. Outside of a long-ish first ride in the burbs on Saturday, I haven't really had time to get an impression other than "Woo hoo! This bike is fantastic! Green light! Pedal! MOVE!" Let's just say it's the smoothest fun I've ever had on two wheels and leave it at that.

The threat of more rain today seemed to keep some people off bikes and honestly, I'll never understand why more people don't bike in the rain. Yes it's wet and yes city rain isn't quite the cleanest thing you could get covered in, but it beats the heck out of temps in the high 80's with humidity to match. Which, if you think about it, is what you're going to get for Chicago summer anyway. Rain or sweat, you're soaked either way. After gritting my teeth through a Chicago winter, I can't really complain about 80's and humid mind you. The rain is just refreshing.

Current beer-scale: 8.4; seasonally high due to a lack of softball this week.