Just a dandy sort of day

You could not have lived through a more perfect day weather wise. We woke this morning to beautiful sunny skies and a temperature of around 60. The day at the office was nice as well. I cracked the window and let the fresh morning air filter through. We had a couple of interviews to conduct and one out of 3 made it. Suddenly I'm ambushed! 6 different positions needed to be referenced, background checks and filled. 2 of the directors were leaving for vacation and wanted it wrapped up ASAP. No prob! Door closed, big breath of fresh air, latte loaded and hit the phone. By mid afternoon I'm winding it down. Directors happy. Hire buttons pushed. It's shaping up to be a dandy Friday!Terri came by to pick me up at the office. It's really been great carpooling with my wife. We decided today that one Saturday we are going to just hop in the car and find some little town along an Arkansas highway and explore the town, have lunch and come home. I know it sort of sounds retire-ish but who cares. We always read these articles in Southern Living about towns in Arkansas and it's one of those, "I didn't know that about this town." Hang around and maybe I'll have some fun story about some chintzy little community.We got home and Sadie jumps up to peek in the back door so I walk over to let her in and what do I see? Max! Nooo! Not again! Will we ever get rid of that dog? What now? Come to find out that Sean had Max out in his backyard and he didn't fix the fence good enough and Max got out during the day and hung around the neighborhood. So Max was brought over here and left in our backyard. Guess what? It's 9:30 and he's still here. Free dog to good home... want him? Give me a call! Guess what else? My stress level went straight through the roof! I wanted to blow a fuse. I told Terri I was really upset about this and took a deep breath. Not her fault and I certainly wasn't going to be ugly around her either. I knew I needed to blow off some steam so what do I do? Hard guess huh? Yep, I'm going to go ride. Terri and Em were headed to a girls night out at Murrays so I was going to be home alone anyway.I dress out and debate on loading the bike for a ride. I keep thinking to myself, "Why am I driving to ride? I have a bike so go ride it." I choose the other, I drove to the riverboat parking lot and parked, hooked up my tunes and off I rode. Lots of bikes. Small groups and solo riders. I catch the few riders that were ahead of me. They went straight, I turned to climb Ft Roots. Mike Mitchell came down the hill as I was starting up. We did the "Hey" thing and I keep on my way up. As I turned I noticed he had turned around and was heading back. I had had the tunes on "tunes only" but flipped the switch to Tunes and Mike. Yes, that's really a program in my new hearing aid "Tunes and Mike". Ok maybe not but it made fun reading huh? Ha! I didn't slow my climbing much and before I knew it Mike was right beside me and we climbed at about 10mph. It felt good to ride that speed and be sociable. It was cool too that the song playing was Aerosmith's "Don't want to miss a thing." You see, Mike is a bit younger that me but he's one of my all time hero's. He's as good as they come. He takes time for what's important such as family and friends. He didn't have to turn around and ride the hill again.We crested the hill and he was telling me about hiding a baggie with food or reading materials in it. It was a baggie with something but the wind was blowing a bit in the hearing aid and I wasn't getting the whole story until we turned around the loop and he was talking about how the overlook would be a great place to have quite time. I agree and have stopped there for moments of quite time on many solo rides. It is a beautiful place up there and you do feel relaxed and it peace. We talked about Men's Fraternity that Fellowship has and I was asking if 1st Assembly had one but they didn't. The reason I had asked was because it sounds like it's about to start back up at Fellowship but I was trying to find something a little closer than west Little Rock and I think it starts at 5:45 in the morning. i hear it's awesome though.As we started heading down the hill the FGSG group was heading up. We exchanged "heys" and Mike and I headed on. We were both enjoying this ride. He was telling me about going down Batesville Pike and hitting 58mph and how the bike was shaking and was telling me that was probably the most frightened he had been. I told him I was the same about my ride in Branson. I made me gun shy of flying down hills.As we got to the forest I asked him if he remembered he first time we rode? It was one night when the rest of the club ended up riding over in LR due to an ABC meeting. I remember riding up to Cooks and there were several riders out the in parking lot and these two guys just had that look like, "I wonder who this guy is we're supposed to meet?" I rode up and said, "Are one on you John Van Pay?" Sure enough, it was John and Mike. After we rode and got back to Cook's it was getting dark but we stood there and talked a bit then I told them I had to get back to the other end. It was now really getting dark and they were concerned. I told Mike I sang as loud as I could as I rode though the forest that night because I didn't want to run over anybody or anything. It was a funny night that I'll always remember. It was also a night that began a great friendship.We rode over and looked at the bridge and it really looks like you could ride over it right now. All in good time. We started heading back. Mike was telling me about how some friends you don't have to worry about or warm up to. He said "You know there are folks you invite over to your house and then there are those other folks that you invite over but everyone is comfortable and you can take your shoes off or put your feet on the coffee table and everything’s fine." We have one of those sort of friendships. No smoke or mirrors, just buds. We rolled up to his truck and talked for a few minutes while he loaded his truck then I head back toward the sub.I flipped the switch to tunes only again and cranked the volume. I wanted to see what the attraction was to riding with music. Now I know! I made it from the soccer field area all the way back to the sub in 2 songs! I looked down and was getting a 22 mph reading and it felt easy. Music was making a difference. I'll be "tuning tha ride" a lot more in the future. I need to rearrange my play list to go in sync with the ride from the sub to Cook's and back. Warm up, fast, easy, warm it back up, heavy metal guitar frenzy, slow it down a bit, then roll in with some Braveheart movie theme ending. HA!All in all it's been a nice day!Oh big high school game... Sylvan Hills v North Little Rock at Sylvan Hills. Go Bears!