Whitpenn green, Germantown Academy and some pop

I got lost on the first ride of the day (planning to go to PLRA later to meet Joe for a couple laps but that is another story). Well not lost literally but figuratively. Somehow everything must have been aligned perfectly as I took off from home and for a minute I wasn't some 40 yr old dude riding along on my MTB wearing tight lycra shorts looking like a geek instead I was transported back to my youth and I felt as though I was riding my bike to one of my early morning swim practices at good old GA. It was almost like an out of body experience. The smell of the summer air, the humidity, the chirping birds, everything around me seemed to transform my ride. No longer was I riding old quattro but instead it felt like I was gripping the bars of my old Mongoose. I didn't really like swim practice, the pool was always cold especially at 8 in the morning and the Coach at the time Richard "DICK" Shoulberg was a real ASSHOLE. The only thing that made it bearable was riding my bike to and from it. There were all kinds of trails that could be found along the way and I usually ended up skipping practices (I didn't like kickboards being whizzed an inch from my head) and goofing off on my bike. There was also an old train station on the way which used to have a Coke machine out in front of it. I don't remember how much a Coke was back then (my guess is 50 cents) but I do recall that it used to dispense Cokes in the old glass bottles and they seemed to be ICE COLD every time. I guess that is why I still like riding my bike to this day. It allows me to goof off and not have to worry about what is going on in the world around me and it can allow me to relive some of my good childhood memories. I guess that is why half way through this mornings ride I found a party store and bought a Coke (and a hostess cupcake as well). The Coke tasted the same but somehow plastic bottles don't get as cold as the old glass ones do. Well 3 1/2 hrs later and I'm at home. Gonna get some rest and hopefully have something in me for tonight. If not I'll have some good excuses, right?

762 is way to many

Does anyone have any idea what is the significance of this number? The most creative answer or the person who correctly answers this question wins a prize (which does exist and may have some value to somebody).

SNOW DAY

Yep today is a snow day or at least that's what I call them. The patient volume is low and whenever that happens I let the scheduling girl know that I can be called off if need be. So this morning after exiting the shower and brushing my teeth I got the call. The only thing is that I can't decide what I want to do. I'm sure some lounging by the whale pool and some riding will be in order. There may even be some bike building to be done, but I don't want to put to much on my plate at one time. It's good to be able to relax especially when there are other people who usually spend all summer relaxing who have to work today. I'll be thinking about you Tim as I ride down to get a cup of coffee this morning. Caribou maybe?

Stoney TT report

Not much new to the Stoney course. It seems that after multiple races at the same venue you get to know every rock and root. I pre-registered as usual the night before the race (thanks again Uncle Robert) and really was not looking forward to racing today. I rode 2 laps rather hard out there yesterday with DC and the Wiz (who didn't race today) and my legs were feeling it this morning. As I rolled in to the Bayside lot I could see that the usual suspects were on hand. Christian was going to be the guy to beat at his home course as the Simonster decided to skip the event and do a backroad ride with the Lumpy. The big question in my mind was who would take 2nd and 3rd. As I lined up at the start I was kinda bummed to find that I didn't have a starting partner. I always find that going out with another competitor lets you gauge how hard you should be riding. Anyways I rode out through the grass feeling kinda lame. In my mind I already knew I didn't have the power in my legs today and I knew that it wasn't like I was going to find it anywhere out on the course. So I settled into a comfortable pace but never felt like I was redlining it or pushing myself to hard. DC caught me on one of the uphills (he was supposed to be racing elite but something happened and he ended up starting about a minute behind me). As he stood up to climb I knew that I should do the same but my legs didn't have anything to give so I watched him ride off. It was to bad he didn't catch me on one of the flat sections because it would have been good to draft off of him for a while and recover a little. Well anyway I caught some other guys and never was passed by anybody other than DC and the top expert 19-29 year old guy (also on a climb with no chance to wheelsuck DAMN!!!) Oh well the river crossing at the end gave me a chance to practice some CX dismounting and running (which felt pretty good). In the end I came in 5th in my class. Not bad but not what I wanted. Oh well I guess if I had ridden smarter yesterday the results might have been different. The elite results came back with Christian winning by like 2 and a half minutes over Chris Goddard. I'm not sure who was third and I think fourth was either John Meyers or Greg Kuhncappi. After the race DC and I decided to go ride around and survey some of the other races. We went down to the water crossing but didn't see any good crashes or dismounts gone awry. The funniest thing had to be watching the SS's....Jeff Weinert was absolutely hauling ass (I'll have to look up his time compared to the geared guys but I'll bet he was up there) coming down the downhills with his foot unclipped ringing the bell on his handlebars yelling "ice cream". Freakking HILARIOUS. Actually as I write this I wonder how Jeff would have done on a geared bike against Christian...I bet it would be close...Well that is all to report..Oh yea one last thing that RS girl was flying today...HA HA HA

Haven't had time to blog

With only 200 some pages out of 784 down I haven't had much time to blog...Book review thus far...This book hits out of the gate with action (unlike the last book which took some time to get going). It seems that Voldemort is back with a vengenance (sp?) and that Dumbledore is indeed dead....Oh and a note here for Joeberon a "Muggle" is a non-magical human.

P.S. big shout out to Cathy who came back into town to kick our asses again...
P.S.S. Nice job 2 Erin Vicary (AKA Erin-beron) who took 4th in expert women @ Nats....

The Blue Screen of DEATH

Last week I left my computer only to come back an hour later to find the dreaded blue screen of death....It had been awhile since I last updated my Norton anitvirus protection so I decided to log on (after rebooting in safe mode ect....) The thing is now when I attempt to log on I get a series of pop ups from some Win mark anit-spam blocker pops up...Now WTF is this? I have no idea what Win-mark is and I can't even minimize it or delete the program as it locks up my PC before I can even get into start-up mode....I think I could be seriously F@#KED. This is definately above my head...It might be time to take her in for surgery...In the meantime I will try to keep blogging from work (always a risky business as you never know when management will come sneaking around the corner). Any ideas out there?

I've had ENOUGH!!!!

This neighbor dog thing is getting really ANNOYING!!!! They left that FU*#ker out until 9:30 pm last night...I think just to piss me off. I had to tell Spanky to go home 8 times. I think he is starting not to like me. I am headed off to the Utica Farm Bureau to pick up some of this stuff. I will keep updates on how well it is working. I really wanted to get something that would make him smell like skunk or dead fish if he layed on my lawn but I guess they don't make stuff like that...Either this works or I go with the AK plan....

Not to complain or anything

But........after riding PLRA tonight (With Joe and Erin Beron) one thought kept running through my mind. I couldn't help but wonder why no trail maintainence has been done to cut back some of the overgrown weeds and facewhackers. The guy who had been the previous Trail Coordinator (Hmm wonder who that was) seemed to do a much better job of shall we say whacking the bush!!! Now I know this seems like a petty complaint but there are times when you come flying down a hill or around a corner blindly and you just kinda hope that nobody is coming the other way (yes it has happened) or has crashed yardsale style all over the place. And yes it does seem that the poison ivy is worse this year than ever...I, um.... I mean the previous TC used to spray roundup in certain areas that the nasty foliage was known to grow. Oh well I guess I will have to fire up this bad boy againand get to work.

Performance appraisal

Two words I hate to hear. Came into work this morning and the secretary tells me the supervisor (remember her.....back cleavage lady...aka the laughing hyena) is running late and our meeting is going to be a half hour later.....WTF Performance appraisal...I must have missed the memo.. Well to make a long story short after about 10 minutes of the scheduled 1 hr eval I was so checked out I didn't hear a word of what she said. I do remember hearing the phrase "taking it to the next level" several times and something about Omega crap and green or yellow belts. Blah blah blah...I want to know when I started working at a Karate school. I guess this is all part of some new kind of pay for performance raise system...Yeah whatever Beaumont. I gotta get out of this place.

Let me introduce Spanky....He is my neighbors 11 yr old pit bull. Now before I start this rant let me state that I am a dog LOVER!!! I have had dogs ever since I can remember and one of the worst days ever was last November when I had to put down my yellow lab. Having said that....This dog has become a royal pain in my A**!!!! My neighbors think it is nice that they can leave their dog outside all day and that he never bothers anybody. The fact of the matter is that he really is harmless but he doesn't know his boundaries. He routinely follows the shade as the sun moves overhead which usually leads him to my front yard or in my flower beds....I can't believe that I let this bother me so much....He has kinda of become like the gopher in Caddyshack and I'm Carl the gardener. Everytime I pull in my driveway I walk over to him and tell him to go home which he usually does the problem is when I go into the house he moves back in....It's freakkin MADDENING and I have talked to my neighbors about it but they just Poo-Poo it saying he's just being a lazy dog...Speaking of POO......Yep he has even taken to cutting turds and peeing on my lawn.....This is where I draw the line...the last time I cut my lawn I had to remove 4 piles from the front and side of my lawn (which I picked up with a shovel and hucked back onto my neighbors property). The thing that irritates me is that I would never have let my old dog get away with such behavior and it irritates me that some people could be so IRRESPONSIBLE....I hope I'm not turning into that angry neighbor guy but I don't know what else I can do. Talking to my neighbors doesn't seem to do anything and I can't be home 24/7 to keep an eye on my neighbors dog...I need suggestions....Oh and by the way I was trying to sneak up on him to take that picture but he conviently moved out from under the bushes and started walking towards me as I snapped it.

Stoney kids race....Note that JRC is wearing a helmet...I picked this picture because of the headlock she had on her brother. The race started out at a blistering pace. Robert included a steep climb out of the gate and a nasty off camber downhill leading into the finish. I think we came in 4th to last but had a blast doing it. If we had another lap I'm sure we coulda caught some more kids but the fun was in just pushing my little girl around. TC

Summertime fun with the kids....This pool was new this summer (as the last one made through two years before it ripped and needed to be replaced). The whale already has 2 holes in it (unbelievable) which have been patched with duct tape.

Todays thoughts...... You know it's time to end the buggy (burley) ride when your daughter announces that "something smells back here I think he pooped his pants".....My son did have a full load.. Stereo man....Who is this guy that rides all the time at PLRA....In case U haven't ever seen him he is this guy with an 80's huge jam box rigged up to the back of his old stumpjumper with bungee cords and duct tape...Joeberon said he saw him today crossing the campground road and the guy tried to stay with him...the whole time blasting quiet riot. Quattro...I will have a much more in on her later....maybe a full blog when I do decide to retire her...but seriously Timmy we have a special bond..Even though I do have other bikes she is still my favorite...she knows her way around Pontiac like no other...The only thing is that harsh C-dale ride is starting to wreak havoc on my back and I am starting to think about Ti...but I'm not ready for a FS bike yet..at least not in Michigan...By the way she got the knickname quattro after I got 4th at the iceman last year in the old geezers 40+ expert class. Not bad considering John Meyers came in 1st, DC was 2nd (these 2 shoulda been in the elite class) and some other local guy came in 3rd. One funny story about last years Iceman...I was in the bathroom with John Meyers before the race and overheard him telling his son that he was just using the Expert race as I warm up and that he was going back after he won it and was going to race the Elite class. I'll have to double check the results but I'm pretty sure he didn't race elite...

Fun with Headshocks

Thank god it was raining at my house this morning. AK has set up a Poto ride and when my alarm went off this morning I wanted to throw it across the room. Riding 5 laps at PLRA in the last 2 days had left me sore and wanting sleep. Instead I headed over to DC's to do some bike maintainence (sp)? Last night I heard something snap inside of my fork (never a good thing) and when I loaded my bike into the back of my truck my fork had about 1/2" of forward/backward play in it. After a quick inspection DC said "It's no big deal I think that you have a broken headset bearing...I've got an extra one...it's a five minute fix". So with the rain failing and my body sore I figured some bike work would be the best way to spend the morning. Well after taking apart the whole headshock we found that all of the needle bearings had essentially exploded inside the fork and the new dampening cartridge that I put in 2 weeks ago had literally broken into 2 pieces. The contents of the fork looked like the bottom of s swamp. Lots of black goey stuff mixed in with some remnant bearings. Good thing DC had all the parts to fix her up...After putting in all new bearings and reassembling the dampening cartridge the fork is as good as new...Smooth like butter. By the time we were done it had stopped raining. We drove out to the trailhead at Highland and attempted to ride in backwards to see if we could find Billy, Cathy and the Bird (they had called us mid fix asking what our plans were, if we got done in time we were to head out and meet them). The trail was wet from the morning rain and the wet overhanging branches made for a shitty ride. We only lasted a few minutes before we decided to scrap it and ride the back dirt roads. We never did find Cathy...although she called later and said the trail was "Awesome" Yeah right.....She's getting to be a bad liar in her old age. AK did text that he and AB did the double Poto...It would have been nice to try it today but with the rain this morning and an hour and a half ride to Poto I didn't want to risk it. The best part is my bike is fixed, the fork is working smoothly and I did get somewhat of a ride in...TC