I feel a bit lonely lately. You see, I've parted ways from all of my teammates and moved east for the past week. It's very important to point out, however, that I'm now with my dearest Mayo in her apartment in Rochester, which of course lessens the loneliness. She is required, though, to go to work daily and her physics class and lab a handful of times every week, leaving me with lots of time to myself. I'm fairly used to that being a cyclist, where I spend countless hours riding my bike all alone. Yet, this is not the loneliness of which I speak; I am referring to the time I'm now apart from my teammate Omer. You see, Omer and I have been together virtually every single day since December 31, 2006. That is less than one week shy of three months together. Three MONTHS! Robbie was with the two of us from that date until his leg started acting up in late January. Soon thereafter in mid February he discovered that his leg necessitated surgery and he had to part ways. So Omer and I bore on. We were together through team camp, the Tour of California, and host housing all throughout March. While other teammates went home, traveled to friends' houses, or stayed at other host houses, Omer and I stuck it out together. From Santa Rosa, to Clovis, to Redlands one thing was for sure: Omer and I would be together.

Here's a very telling picture of the weeks spent in Clovis. On the left is Scott working hard on the internet. By this point in the picture, he is well within the system's mainframe. In the center/right is Thomas Zirbel slaying a crossword puzzle. Over the course of three weeks in Clovis, we probably averaged more than one crossword puzzle per day. That's how you stay sharp. Lastly in the center bottom is Omer working his way through the lines of Tetris on the original 1989 Nintendo Game Boy. No colors, no dual screen, no mini-GameBoys here. 100% original.