More humor

Not a lot of time this morning, but here's some more exam humor to lighten your day:

I'm in the process of figuring out my intended race schedule for most of the season or at least the first few months. When you have 3 kids, 2 jobs, and 2 athletes you either get on the calendar early or sometimes you don't get on at all. I compiled all of the road and mountain bike race calendars into one list yesterday so now I have to figure out what looks good. The trick is how many can I go to without torturing the family. We'll see how it pans out.

Monday humor

Well my boring life continues to provide very little blog fodder, but I fear being delisted by Gewilli so I have to throw something up. How about some Monday humor? I got a whole series of these from a friend and the title was "Let's face it, we've all got frustrated in exams". I'll stagger the posting of these so I don't blow all the fun at once:

I'm sure the teachers out there will enjoy these.

We had a freakin blast yesterday mountain biking. Hard packed snow has filled in all the spaces on the trails so it was more like really hilly and occassionally slippery pavement. Huge group too so fun was had by all. So far this winter I've only blatantly skipped one ride because of unrideable conditions so let's hope it continues. The commuter bike is in the shop for final prep so I hope the weather cooperates there too. Daylight is now on my side so it's almost time. Only bummer was that there's no reasonable way to get any more than a large trunk bag on the bike because it's definitely a road bike rather than a tourer so I have to go with a backpack. Kinda annoyed there, but I got a really sweet one from REI over the weekend so we'll make it work.

Ok, better do something productive.

Art Gallery

Ok, as promised... the tattoo gallery. In chronological order:

Circa 1994:

~ 1995:
2003 (5th anniversary gift):
2007 (Valentine's gift):
Huge props to T of T's Tattoos in Hudson, MA for the most recent work. For anyone who cares, the most recent one is supposedly a Starley chainring. Bonus points to the first person who gets the Starley reference. More bonus points to anyone who does it without Google. Enjoy the rest of the long weekend.

The rare late night post

Ok, so 10:30's not too late, but it's gonna feel like it at 5 a.m. when the alarm goes off. Just finished cleaning up from 90 minutes on the gerbil wheel and watching the B's blow it again. I should have just finished tape 3 of the 02 Tour to spare myself the pain. Oh, and today's PSA... grease your Speedplay pedals instead of waiting until way later than you probably should have done it. It actually took some force to push the sludge out the back side while I worked the new stuff in. They weren't crunchy so I think all will be ok.

Sort of a slow weekend on tap I guess... with Feb vaca next week there's no swimming or skating for the boys this weekend. So it's just karate and public skating if we decide to take them for extra practice. We're booked for back to back appts at the tattoo parlor tomorrow so I'll finally have the new ink to show off. Pictures no later than Sunday... I promise. I'll even include the rest of the skin art gallery since I'm making the effort. Gotta love when your 5th anniversary gift and a valentine's gift from your wife are tattoos. She's a keeper :)

Ok... hopefully I've wound down enough to sleep. I'm actually better off than my wife... her soccer game started at 10. Still better than the 11:20 p.m. game scheduled in a few weeks. Till the weekend...

Weekly

I guess this is more to keep up the weekly updates than anything. There isn't a hell of a lot going on right now. I did finally get the second bathroom signed off by the town so I now have almost as many bathrooms in the house as I do bedrooms. Considering there's 5 of us living there, that's either a good or a bad thing (or both). I still have work to do but at least the inspectors are gone. Should have the new tattoo by the end of the weekend unless something changes, but I have to go check out the studio tonight to be sure I'll go to that one. Of the other two places I've been, one is real far away and the other closed becaue the guy moved to Florida. I wish I could find the kid from there who did the last one because he was outstanding.

In biking land, I'm more or less behind on anything related to bike maintenance. The commuter bike stalled even though I have all the parts. I've had too many other things to do and it's too freaking cold in the garage to work out there so I'd have to haul it all into the house. The road bike squeaks and creaks right now, but if I turn up the TV loud enough, I can't hear it. The mountain bike probably needs a cleaning too, but the snow ride last weekend cleaned a lot of the caked on stuff off. I should probably lube everything at the very least just to avoid something going wrong. I'll put it on the list and see if I get to it.

Ok, I'm at work so I think that means I'm supposed to do something productive...

Attempting to get focused

Now that January is leaving us, I think it's time to at least have it in my head that the season is not too far off. The first race I care about that I'm seeing on the schedule is Tufts on April 1st. Memory tells me that there were other races earlier than that last year, but maybe it was just Wells. In either case, unless I'm forgetting a March race that was fun, Tufts will be the target. To celebrate this new found motivation, I actually threw some hard intervals into my lunch run today. It was, um, hard. I'm sure I'll feel it tomorrow, but that's good. Now I just need to remember how to actually train without going all gung ho now and being dead by May. The unfortunate byproduct of the motivation is also hunger. I finished lunch about 30 minutes ago and I feel like I could chew a finger off just for a snack. I think I'm going to need some joe and a fattening treat a little later.

Sunrise is now before 7 a.m. and sunset is almost officially past 5 again. I'm starting to see peeks of light as early as 6:15 on clear days and it's almost legitimately light at 5:30. Serious outdoor riding and other nonsense can only be so far away.

Oh, and I've now got a tattoo design done and a studio picked out. Just need time and money now. This page is in serious need of pictures so I'll probably throw up the artwork, bathroom (nearly complete), and bikes all at once... I hope.

Two for two

Wow, 2 days, 2 posts... some sort of record. I've been doing a bunch of simulation work the last couple days and their of a duration that you have to do something to entertain yourself while it runs, but it's not really long enough to get into anything else very in depth. So I burn more time than I should on the web and here I am.

Got the tattoo bug again recently and now it's in full force thanks to kjellquist's new ink. I think I know what I want so I just have to figure out which studio, when, and where on my body. Comically enough, my wife would kill me if I went and got it without her going and getting one too so we have to plan that. We spent our 5th wedding anniversary in a tattoo parlor which is highly amusing to people who wouldn't expect it from us. I'm up to 3 and I say I'm shutting myself off after 4. The thing is that I think it's kinda cool to tell your story through some body art. I won't be the guy that gets my entire back done, but I still like them.

Not a lot else going on. Still collecting bike parts for the commuter including a big score on a D/A derailleur on ebay last night so I need to stay on that. Warmer times will be here soon enough. then again, everything is warm compared to today.

Weekly

So this seems to be turning into a once weekly update... not entirely by choice, but it is in any case. It's about that time...

Hmmm, anything good happen in the past week... other than me starting to stress about being behind on life again, not a whole lot. Got some riding in last weekend despite the frigid cold. Took a spill on some ice on Sunday and now I have one of the uglier bruises I've ever had on my hip. Sadly I'm still in the falling-down-alot phase of mountain biking and it's because I suck and not because I'm being agressive. Hopefully I'll get over that hump soon and be able to limit myself to crashing because I did something totally insane and I deserved it. Classes have started up again so that's a chunk of my life I have to fit in. The class seems like it could be worse, but it's still class time and some time outside. I'll get through this eventually and hopefully it's worth it. Finally decided to blow off some other things on my list this week and start rebuilding the commuter bike. So far I've only replaced the crankset and bottom bracket and identified a bunch of parts I need to find or buy. I sort of stole some stuff off this bike to get the cross bike going so now I can't steal it back. Thank goodness for ebay. It's almost getting to the time of year where I should get semi-serious about training. After racing cross, January can be a blowoff, but February is short and is awful close to March and April when the season really starts. I believe Tufts is April 1 this year so that's my current target for minimal suckage.

Ok, my sims have finally finished. Let's hope I got it right this time so I didn't just throw away another 10+ minutes waiting for useless results.

Oh, go Bears! I never thought I'd say that, but Peyton Manning just pisses me off.

Odd weather and messed up news

So we got our first "snow" of the year last night, but it cleared up so nicely that I went out running at lunch. Barely a slush pile to be seen and bright sun for most of it. The ironic thing is that after all our nice weather and such a nice day today, this is the first day I've seen ice on the Chalz Rivah this year. I guess the 36 hours of real cold combined with the wind is doing it. Pretty cool sounds with the water moving under the layer of ice due to the wind out there. Even though I suck at it compared to days past, running makes me happy.

Breaking news out of the area this morning is that some 16 year old kid stabbed a 15 year old kid to death at a suburban school in a town where nothing bad is supposed to happen. Bad things happen everywhere sadly and now some family is dealing with unimaginable tragedy. Having to go through something like this is one of my biggest fears... how do you even begin to deal?

Ok, enough depressing news... everyone have a safe and fun weekend.

Update for the sake of updating

Well, there's nothing in particular going on, but it's been almost a week so I figured I'd toss something out there. After the holiday breaks from many responsibilities like school (us and the kids), work, training, etc we're getting back into having about 3 too many constraints on our time. Fortunately my wife will be sort of done with classes this week until summer (if she decides to do a summer class) so there'll be one less thing there. I had gotten some time to catch up on a bunch of projects, but that time is dwindling and most of them aren't done so I'm trying not to get overly stressed about it... it's not working. I tend to get frustrated that the battle against the clock is usually a losing battle. No matter how you slice it and how motivated you are, when there are 3 kids, 2 careers, 2 athletes, and a house to keep up, something falls off the list and it's usually not an easy decision on what to drop. I usually try not to drop anything other than sleep and I know that doesn't make things better. Oh well... one of these days I'll figure out the secret.

Not much other news. I am finding that winter is seeming much shorter to me this year partially because of the abnormal weather and partially because I have a goal of starting my bike commuting in early March so that will sort of signal the end of winter for me. Those first few weeks may not feel like the end of winter on the ride in, but there's still sort of a milestone there.

Back to work...

Battle Scars

Well upon MoveItFred's request, here's one of the remnants of the crash. Fortunately for me, I heal pretty quick so my back looks very uninteresting now compared to Monday. Most of the scabs have come off my eye too so now it's just bruise remnants and where the scar is going to be:















Not the best photo, but all I could do by myself with a mirror to see the view screen. Next time I'll remember to get the good pics the day after.

Not a hell of a lot going on today. The kids all have sleepovers at other people's houses tonight so we have an actual adult dinner date planned. Past history tells me that we'll get a call round about dessert that one of them needs stitches or something. Let's hope not...

Long overdue update...

Well folks, updates have been sparse lately and this past weekend was worthy of several so let's see if I can get it all down. Now is a good time since I tweaked something in my back this evening and I am pretty debilitated right now, but typing doesn't hurt.

Let's roll back to Friday... I woke up Friday morning and had one of those "should I just roll back over and call in sick later" moments. My cold had kicked into high gear and I was miserable. Problem is that I have to make a judgement call at about 5 a.m. on whether I'll feel better enough after the cold drugs to make it through. I decided yes which turned out to be wrong. To keep this boring story of my misery short, I made it until about 11:30 and came home to lay on the couch and watch Rocky III (sadly I enjoyed it a little). That and lots of sleep that night had me feeling much better Saturday.

Saturday a.m. was chaos because the boys had karate, then swimming right after. With the ridiculously nice weather, everyone in the club was riding so I had set a soft goal of meeting the local group at noon and I would ride over to meet them since it's maybe 5 miles away. Well, we pulled in the driveway at 11:43 from swimming and I did the super quick change, prayed that everything on the road bike was healthy, and sprinted out of the driveway. I ended up averaging just under 23 mph with a minor tailwind getting there but I made it just in time. After that it was a very leisurely, but long, stroll through the burbs and everyone just enjoyed the global warming fest. I was totally spent by the time I completed the ride and the ride home and we had done 47.5 which was the highest in many months for one sitting. Rest of the day was uneventful except for the Dallas game debacle. I actually hate the Cowboys so it was good fun for me :)

Sunday a.m. I had a planned MTB ride with some of the guys in Hopkinton. We headed out and I knew quickly I was in trouble. The cold had made a resurgence, I was still spent from Saturday's miles, and the guys I was with would be out of sight on the trail before I could even clip into my pedals. I was outside getting excercise, but that was the extent of the fun I was having. Then I capped it off... We're literally <5min from the end of the ride and we head down a nice smooth hill, out of the woods onto a big grassy area. I could see at the bottom there was a dip and then what looked like a little gulley and then just flat grass. I never touched the brakes and found at the bottom that it was a pretty big dip and the bump actually dropped slightly on the other side before the shelf. I got myself airborne and had my weight going forward so I just kept rotating and watched the ground approach. Front wheel hit hard and then my face/head/shoulder followed. Behind me I just heard "Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuude!" Total casualties were a cracked helmet, cut over the eyebrow and the side of my head from my glasses, an ugly thing on my side from landing on my CO2 pump, and a big ugly on my shoulder. The bruises are starting to heal and I rode away, but I'm still getting over the whole experience. Next time out is going to be a big sissy ride :)

Since that not a whole lot has happened. Middle one was sick today so I had to bail early and I'll have to make that up tomorrow or something. He seems fine now, but he's been trying for a month to kick whatever he has. Further proof that we have 3... we let him go a month before we got him checked out. Oldest would have been admitted to a private hospital 3 weeks ago :)

Ok, I'm going to see if I can do anything other than type without being in pain. Congrats if you actually made it through reading this.

Grrr, Argh...

What do you get when you get a severe type-A person sick enough that they leave work early and don't feel look doing anything? A very frustrated individual. I finally threw in the towel today at work and conceded to the germ warfare my kids have been subjecting me to for weeks. I also decided that it was more fair to not stay around infecting everyone I work with. I got home and felt ok so I started picking up the house some. I made it through maybe an hour of that and totally ran out of energy so I laid on the couch for an hour and a half. I don't lay down for that long unless I'm sleeping so at this point in the evening, I feel like I've been useless all day. Oh well, I'll probably pack it in soon and try to sleep it off so that I have some hope of enjoying the nice weather to get out for rides this weekend. Roads tomorrow, trails Sunday if everything goes right. Winter will hit eventually (and all of New England will bitch about it like we've had the worst winter ever) so better enjoy it now.

Random Updates

In no particular order:

- Work is obviously in reboot mode today since it was pretty quiet. That was good because the oldest was here for the morning due to a professional day for the teachers at the school.

- Figured out today that Daylight Saving starts March 11th... now I know when my target date is for starting to bike commute a couple days a week.

- Did an ok job not turning into a fat sloth over the past week even if I did eat my face off at every party.

- Let the NFL playoffs begin... let the attempts to watch 4 games a weekend begin too

- Bathroom addition project is really gaining steam. I should be laying floor tile tonight. Maybe a picture to follow.

Ok, sims are done running... back to earning my pay.

Not a great start to the day

So already this morning I have bailed on mountain biking that I had planned to do because it's a) cold and b) a little icy. I also just had to send the older two back to bed because they are incapable of playing anything together without it turning into an argument. It's both of their faults, but maybe 5 for fighting and a 10 minute misconduct will help them remember that they need to try not to piss each other off.

Oh well, coffee is almost ready so that will make me feel better :) Hopefully I can take my skirt off later today and get out for a run or something. Maybe I'll throw the lights on the SS and go out on that so I'm at least getting a bike ride in like I planned.

I are stoopid

Thanks to Gewilli for this little gem:




Almost out of here. Happy New Year to all!

Xmas Carnage

Well I'm not sure I've recovered from the Christmas hangover and I know for sure that my house hasn't. The boys got just about everything imaginable this year and of course they still complained about what they didn't get. If anyone out there knows the trick to finding balance between sufficiently spoiling your kids and teaching them to appreciate what they have then let me know :) We have the added fun of the older two fighting over wanting to use each other's stuff... I swear we should just buy a pile of stuff for the two of them and then let them take turns choosing like you used to pick teams in gym class. Oh the poor pairs of socks that get picked last... they'll be scarred for life.

Work is pretty dead quiet this week which you would think would mean I get stuff done, but I'm doing yearly evaluations for my whole group this week so that burns a bunch of time. Plus people not being here to bother you also means people aren't here to respond to questions so it's a win/lose. I think I'll still take the quiet over chaos.

2 pieces of big news on the bike front (even though I'm temporarily a runner again just to retrain some of those muscles): First is that I finally got the garage organized last night and I managed to take advantage of the crazy high ceiling by hanging everything bike related. There are currently 4 bikes, 1 partial bike, and 5 wheels overhead with one bike still on the wall. If anything them being all visible makes it look like I have more which I didn't think was possible. Secondly, I made sure to leave expansion space in the overhead bike jungle because I got approval to go ahead with a custom cross frame for next season. I meet with the frame builder next week to kick it off and he said he'll make sure to have it ready in time to practice on it before the season starts. This will be my first custom and I fear how much I'll like it because there are sure to be more to follow. The 8 month or so wait for it will be well worth it, but it will be torture. I'll have to spend the time picking out the goodies to put on to it :)

Ok, back to work... but first, for the cross fans out there, check out the performances so far by Jonathan Page over in Euro land. Guy has been top 15 in nearly every race since going over... worlds could be interesting.

The longest afternoon

Gather round kids and we'll learn why procrastination is bad... So this summer when my wife blew out her knee and then had surgery to put it back together, I had to miss some work time. Not a lot, but an hour here and there. Well we have a way to make that up later, but you have to do it within a certain time period or they charge you vaca. Well I never made it all up and as a result I have to put in extra hours before the end of the year. So here I sit, on the Friday before Xmas, in almost a completely empty building. Part of it is that I'm horribly honest about these types of things so I feel like something bad will happen if I bug out 30 minutes early when I put in saying I'd be here x number of hours today. Must be some fear of getting caught that my mom instilled in me... thanks mom!

Anywho... for anyone who's readying: Merry Christmas! For anyone who's offended because they don't celebrate Christmas: Tough Sh@t! I celebrate Christmas and I felt like saying something nice... get over it.

The boys are all excited about Monday so that should be interesting. We did end up with a change in plans today that has us going to the in-laws for dinner that day. That sucks because we have to pack up and drive there, but it kicks ass because we don't have to cook or clean. I'm numb to driving so I'll take it.

Ok, the timecard police are probably watching so I should get back to work...

The long overdue weekend report

I think I've finally gotten my head back on straight enough to sum up the weekend of craziness at cross nationals. The sad thing is that I think it was more hectic being a "home race" than it will be if I get permission to go to KC next year, but I'm getting ahead of myself. So here goes...

Friday: Woke up way too early for work so I could get as many work hours in by 11 and then leave for the race. I was anxious as hell so it was hard to be productive the whole time I was here. The real snag I hit was lunch. The caf opens at 11:30 and there is nothing that I could easily drive by, park, swing in, and swing out on my way out of town. I figured I'd either get something on the road or immediately when I got there. Well, long story short, my lunch ended up being multiple mini Clif bars and a slice of banana bread because the only food I could find for sale at the race was BBQ sandwiches which were not a good plan <2 hours before the race. Jumped on the course immediately when I got there and got in 2 laps. The course seemed crazy long and definitely a collection of challenges. It's hard to say it was hard, but it sure wasn't easy. There was a little of everything you could imagine complete with a few greasy corners and a minimum of 4 dismounts per lap for mortals who can't bunny hop barriers or ride up stairs (I saw both over the course of the 3 days). I felt kinda ok, but wasn't sure since my chest cold had kicked in a little. For a while did some number pinning, waiting around, and then warming up on the roads and trainer. Saw a bunch of the guys standing around the pits before the M35+ ended because their days ended early. Got lined up for the race DFL as I knew I would be and then the whistle blew. Now I expected to be hanging on when we took off, but this was freaking insane. By the time we hit the barriers I was solidly in last with no sign of gaining ground. I found out later that the first two rows of my field contained guys who ride local elite races and do well. The true low point of the race was coming through after 2 laps and seeing 4 to go when I was sure there was no way we could do more than 5 total. To cut the agony short, I got lapped 2/3 of the way through lap 4 and just rode into the pits and pulled myself. I rode terrible and was just stunned by how fast those guys were. For the record, it was the fastest Masters race of the event. Picked myself up a little with way too much food and some tasty adult bevs at Fire and Ice with some of the guys and went home to crash.

Saturday: Boys had karate from 8:30 to 10 so we did that and then headed to pick up Jeff and get down there in time for the U23 and elite mens races. Timed it perfect and even had time to swing by the Kona team tent and try to convince Treefarm to sell me one of his bikes. No luck there, but it was fun anyways. BTW, I don't know what the stink was about with $5 parking... I never saw anyone charging all weekend so I never paid. Fine spot all three days. The summary of the Saturday races was just simply fast. You cannot fathom how fast those guys are and the way Trebon just rode away from everyone was sick. It helped those guys that the course was dry and packed so there were no conditions to contend with. Probably the only downer of the day was having to constantly remind myself that while it's exciting for me to be 1 foot away from some of the world's best cyclists, the boys think I'm one of the world's greatest so to them it doesn't matter. Trying to explain something that's exciting to you in a way that it will be interesting to your children while realizing that they probably aren't 1/10 as interested as you is one of the many challenges of parenthood. They got to throw leaves at each other and some other kid they latched onto so they had an equal amount of fun :)

Sunday: Up early again and back in the car for another trip to Provo. Course opened at 7:30 and I wanted a good number of laps so I could feel out the course better and figure out how stiff I was. That was a huge advantage because I figured out that this one power hill that I couldn't ride Friday (I was the only tool running) was completely rideable if I set it up. I think Friday also had to do with how crummy I felt. Got in 3 laps before the women's B started and then had time to snack a little and get in some time on the trainer. A trainer with a single speed is kinda of strange because all you can do is spin faster which isn't without value, but it's limited. Got ready and headed down for the lineup slug fest. Started in 140th spot out of 172 (reportedly) which was really funny to see. Really cool thing was that I lined up next to another SS'er who was riding a gigantic gear. Now even funnier than the lineup was the pileup we had on the off-camber which had frosted over at night and then thawed during the women's race. We get there and it's just a wall of humanity and I can hear the announcer yelling "Oh my goodness it's total mayhem". Once everyone sorted themselves out, I realized I was pretty far back in the field (painfully close to last), but that was ok because I could tell it wasn't as fast a race. The rest of the time I just rode hard, had a boat load of fun, and would constantly latch on with a guy for a bit and then lose him. Even though I hurt when I was done, I had enough left to be making faces at Gewilli when he was yelling stuff at me. It was a total blast and I finished 126th without getting lapped so it was a success. The day did end on a sour note with Coley breaking his leg after riding around 5th spot for a chunk of lap one of the other B race.

Ok, that's way too much work time wasted. Till next time...

Crazy weekend on tap

Finally made it to Friday so at least I know the distractions of Nationals will soon come to an end. I've been telling myself for 2 days that it's just another race, which to me, it is since I'm starting last and wouldn't win if I were starting first. Still, it's against much better competition so I've set my goals on things like not crashing and not getting lapped. On a loop this long, either the leaders would have to be superhuman or I'd have to lose an entire wheel and be running to get lapped... I hope. Anywho... just a few more hours to wait.

Odds are I'll be driving well over 500 miles over the next couple days. My driving schedule will be something like:

Friday - Hudson to Cambridge to Providence to Hudson
Saturday - Hudson to Grafton to Providence to Grafton to Hudson
Sunday - Hudson to Providence to Hudson to Sturbridge to Hudson

And people wonder how we put 40k plus miles on the two cars in total for a year.