Super sweet freshness

Well, I just finished my project of the last six weeks. She still needs a fine tune, but really is in pretty good shape. Now it's time to ride!

egg in the leg

So, here I was about 4:50am sleeping like a fat bear and then my calf decides to contort itself. Some pain is good, this is not. I bolt upright in bed and start massaging the hell out of it, and then throw my leg over the bed and start stomping my toes into the ground. Eventually it goes away and I passed back out for an hour.

Whoever decided that it should be called a "charlie horse" either gave birth to 17 kids while passing a stone or they uttered the final words "charlie horse" right after a bus ran them over because they doubled over in pain in a cross walk. Charlie Horse implies something friendly, like a pony you'd want to have over on your 7th birthday. It doesn't bring visions of someone digging into your calf/thigh/hamstring with a meat hook, twisting it around, and then trying to pull it back through your skin.

Maybe they should be called inter-muscular shrapnel grenades.

Nothing to say

This is how our at home weekends usually end up.

Pics from the Tour of Missouri

The Fam went downtown on Sunday to catch a little of the Tour of Missouri as it was wrapping up. Me being a bike geek and all, of course I was beside myself and fidgety and had the hair on my arms standing up. Penny and Aiden were a bit more collected. So we get there pretty late since Kieran desperately needed his nap (as did AB) and we could only catch the last lap. That sucks, but it's better than nothing. We went down to the Power and Light (or Power and White, as it's affectionately known around here) to watch Those Whose Thighs Are Greater Than My Waist (and that's no small feat). We lined up about 100' past the Sprint line, and it was a lot of fun. I could tell Penny started getting excited when the lead out motorcycles and race officials were hauling ass past us and she couldn't believe how fast they were going for a BIKE RACE. I'm like, "oh yeah, they are moving this fast and this is going to be awesome" and then I melt into a pile of squealing girlishness.

Several seconds later I regain my composure and you can see a couple lead out guys trying to steal the stage, and about 10 seconds behind them is the peloton, probably 120 dudes tightly packed and trying to reel in the breakaway. This is all coming at us downhill, so a few more motorcycles and patrol cars going hauling past us, and then the breakaway guys ride by us, obviously suffering. Cowbells are everywhere and I'm giddy. I'm shooting my camera as quickly as I can, hoping for one or two great shots. Then the peloton gets to us. More like hits us. The wind from them is UNBELIEVABLE and feels like a semi truck just narrowly missed hitting us at 60 mph. These dudes were moving.

And then all the team cars came by and it was over. Yea, it goes by that fast. Next year, we need to try and get there for at least 4 laps. Speaking of next year, Missouri Governator Jay Nixon wants to pull the state support for the Tour. I think he could certainly make a wiser choice. And not just because I'm a cyclist and because I live here and think that the mundane Midwest needs exotic, international events like this, but because the state puts in about $1.5 million, and in 2008, the event generated $29.8 million in economic impact. How can you turn those numbers down? Anyway, here are the pics. Hopefully some of them came out ok!

Here's one of the videos of Kieran walking. He gets a little excited, and in the end, AB dumps K because K drools all over AB's eyes.

From Kieran walking

Two weeks!

So yeah, it's been two whole weeks since we posted an update. I say "we", because I don't want to fully shoulder the blame.

The good news is that we have lots of pics/galleries to post, and even some videos. I'll have to figure out how to post videos, but it seems pretty easy here.

There is no bad news, so there's an upside, even if it is only Tuesday.

Kieran had a great party over the weekend and we were thrilled to have so many friends and family come share the special day with us. I say "we", and I mean Aiden, Penny, and I. K-man has been having a pretty rough time transitioning to the 1-year old room, plus he got a bunch of vaccinations (MMR/Flu/Pox) yesterday, he's fighting a cold, and maybe starting to get another ear infection. I think the reason kids get so sick in day care is that the drool all over the place with their teething and there's no feasible way that the day care people can wash their hands that much while juggling 4-6 toddlers. This is life I suppose.

I've often caught myself wondering about existentialism, specifically how much longer humans are going to be around this rock. I think that overpopulation (ergo, the Duggars) are causing us to a) tap out resources, b) exponentially increase the transmission of viruses, c) cause said viruses/bacteria to mutate more frequently and with more lethality. It has been estimated that the world's population will hit 9 Billion by 2040. For reference, when I was born, the population was only 4.241 Billion. That's almost 5 billion extra super-petri dishes walking around. I also think that as globalization is becoming more defacto, with frequent air travel and increasing importation/exportation, that this will only exacerbate any situation involving communicable diseases. Experts say we have a 50/50 shot between some sort of evolved, utopian society and extermination. I'd say it's more like 20/80, but I'm a pessimist. Ok, so this got way off topic, but it's been on my mind.

So, I'll try and get all the pics/videos posted before we die of swine flu (which is probably highly overrated). Talk to you all soon.

C

Back again.

Here we are, back at our jobs and schools. I'm going to have to put a thumbs-down on a Friday night-Sunday afternoon vacation. All that seemed to do was speed up the weekend! Well, at least we had fun.

I was quite proud that the guy at the dock was very impressed by my docking skills with the pontoon boat. I didn't have much room to maneuver and "landed" it on a dime. Hehe. I think that's the difference between a BMW driver and a Lexus driver. Oh snap!

Had to go there, didn't I?