"Will you calm it down a bit?"

The answer would be NOPE! I'm phsyched for Cross Season. You would be to if you've waited a 1.5 years to be injury free & racing.

MMM Crosss in BADD weather! That's what I'm talking about.

Have I mentioned its almost CX season?

40CM tall. UCI Legal & ready to practice.

11 straight days of training its time for a day off.

"That's Hot"

Yes when metal glows orange it really is hot. Farasy is the master of the obvious. How did I become privy to these words of wisdom? This story takes me back to last week. Farasy inquired about my ability to weld. Of course I can being Mr. DIY.

He needed a little welding done. Turns out the door on his Jeep has broken off. He described the problem. Being in maintenance as long as I have been(11 years) I've become skeptical when some one describes "the Problem" to me. Most people tend to over state the problem. So I set up a time to have Jim drive out to my house. I need to explain I have a welder but it isn't currently at my house. I have him drive out in case it's a problem I can fix without welding being the skeptic that I am. If it does need welding I'll have to go to work to fix it, which isn't a big deal.

Anyway Jim shows up & shows me the problem. Yep he's not exaggerating the door is hanging by a thread & needs some welding. Jim just got himself a ticket to see my place of employment. After getting him signed in & his truck backed up to the shop we're in business. Well sort off. It turns out its as hard as hell to get a good ground on a painted vehicle. But after a few attempts & less than 5 minutes of welding Jimmy's door works like a charm.

Now here's the important part: Jim knows how to pay back a favor. A 4 pack of Young's & a sixer of Guinness (he obviously reads my blog). Now we're both happy I have few useful skills to pay back society. Little does he know I would have done it just to see that silver National Championship medal.

The all clear

Just a quick update. Just got back from getting my staples out. All's good got the zero restriction I wanted. CX season is now a go.

That's right it's cross season

by Michael Miller

Warning Following clip is rated NC-17 because of the F bomb if you don't want to hear it don't watch it. I saw this on another Blog & felt it had some truth to it.



Harden the f#@! up, race ‘cross.

Will the SPR have a CX presence this year? Hope so, got a little lonely last year.

DIY Wednesday

I've been wanting to add some shelving to my pantry ever since Amber & I bought our house 2 years ago. I figured with my shoulder feeling pretty good & having plenty of free time I could kill an hour or two & get it done.

A nice blank wall to work with.

A quick trip to Lowe's in my "truck" to get some lumber.

The current shelves have a little decorative piece I'm going to copy.

Once I figured out which bit I chucked it up in the old Router.

Remember to always wear your safety glasses!

Checking the depth

Here's the finished product, kind of hard to see.

Checking to see if my stud finder is working. Yep.

Cutting the braces on my miter saw.

I'm going to use my compressor & brad nailer to attach everything.

Said brad nailer.

The long braces are installed.

These are the end braces.

My miter saw won't cut 1x12 so had to use my framing saw.

A quick once over with the sander to remove all the mill marks.

The finished product installed. Now it just needs a quick coat of paint & they'll be ready for more food storage for me.

Tuesday means fun with Google Analytics

Being bored I've been looking through my Google Analytics account. Pretty cool stuff. I average about 40 visits a day.

Top Traffic Sources

Sources	Visits	% visits
(direct) ((none))	322	33.97%
timeinthesaddle.blogspot.com (referral)	182	19.20%
google (organic)	125	13.19%
cyclingskip.blogspot.com (referral)	102	10.76%
carolinatime.blogspot.com (referral)	53	5.59%

Top Google Searches to find my blog:
This one is only number 14 but cracks me up:
"bob roll" douchebag

My top old content review right now is:
/2006/03/salt-creek-bike-game.html

Remember that day? Someone is enjoying it because they have viewed it 11x in the last 2 weeks.

Browser that you are using
1.	Internet Explorer	623	65.72%
2.	Firefox	193	20.36%
3.	Safari	127	13.40%
4.	Opera	2	0.21%
5.	SAMSUNG-SGH-I607	2	0.21%
6.	Camino	1	0.11%

Network locations ranked by views:
Some I recognize a lot I don't. I'll name some; hopefully won't get anyone in trouble for screwing off at work but I'm curious who my readers are:

SMS is number 5 I'm surprised they haven't switched the server name yet
Bruer Woodell, No idea who this is ranked number 11
O'reilly Auto Parts is number 14. Pretty sure I know who this one is
JLP your number 21. Yes your company name shows up.
Dammit Debbie your #28
Columbus Communications Jamaica limited is number 45. I'm huge in the islands
Its funny how many City/State government IDs show up. Your tax dollars @ work.
Deutsche Telekom I'm being scouted?
The US Forest Service? I guess their still pissed about that trail I cut @ Hartmans Rocks in Gunni.
Harvard U? Must be slumming.
SRAM Corporation. I'm still waiting for my free Red Gruppo.
the US Dept of Labor- OHSA checking to make sure I'm providing the necessary guarding for your viewing

Stir Crazy

It didn't take long for me to start feeling like a caged animal. I don't do well with nothing to do. Amber had to work all weekend so Mia spent both days with her grandparents. I sat around the house BORED out of my freakin mind. I've watched enough home improvement shows to rebuild all of the SPR. I have been some what productive. I managed to organize & label all the drawers in many tool boxes. Now I can find my tools in record time.

Yesterday I got a slight reprieve & got to breakfast @ the Cracker Barrel. It was nice just to get outside though I wanted back in the AC as soon as I went outside. Damn its hot! My AC seems like it runs none stop even set @ 78. I've stuck a bucket under the condensate drain outside to collect the water. I'm getting 2+ gallons a day, which I'm watering all our plants in the front yard with. I know its very Green of me. Laugh but all my flowers & plants look great in this heat & its not costing me a dime in water.

Mia has decided she's big enough to fill my shoes.

I like the staples looks very Frankensteiny.

I'm amazed at how fast its healing.

Rolling right along

I can't believe how good my shoulder is feeling. My range of motion is almost back to what is was before this surgery. I took the sling off for awhile yesterday. Today I've taken the bandage off & going without the sling again. I've not been taking the pain pills. Not because I'm a bad ass, because it doesn't hurt. The swelling is almost gone. Hopefully on the 20th when I go to get my staples out the Doc will put me in physical therapy & we can really speed up my recovery. At the rate I'm going I'll be back on the bike training for CX season in no time.

All's well

Everything went great & I'm on the mend.

This was my ride for the day.

I'm laying there before the surgery contemplating the 2nd surgery the Doc just told me I might have to have. If the bone was unstable he was going to go back in a couple of weeks. Drill some holes in my collar bone & thread some ligaments through it which he would harvest from my leg. That would have involved several days in the hospital. Luckily that crap didn't have to happen. I won't quote my exact words but they were pretty graphic.

Right after surgery showing off my hardware. I felt about a million times better after this surgery than the last one. Probably the anti nausea patch they gave me. My throat is about a 10 on the soreness scale though. I got the whole knock out process which included a tube down my throat.
I was surprised how heavy this little booger was. It was pretty roughed up, like they had trouble getting it out.

17 weeks till cross nationals!!

E Day

Here in a few hours I'm getting my little buddy removed. Sometime around 1pm if all goes well I'll be on my way back to "normal". For me that is a quotation remark since I've never really been considered normal by anyone's standards. Anyway of the the Hospital; Cox this time, figured I'd spread my business around. Amber will probably guest blog for me tomorrow to let everyone know how I'm doing.

Wish me luck.

My last horray for awhile??

Thanks to Amber for changing her sis' tire out today we had payback in the form of a sitter. HMMM what to do on a Tuesday night with a sitter pre arranged? Duh! Go to Patton Alley. That's a no brainer. So we met up with Amber's Aunt & Uncle who are both a hell of a lot younger than me but I reallllly like; so fun to hang with. I'll let you in on a Little secret the Uncle is a secret blog reader @ work. I know of several blogs he reads religiously but I won't name names & get him in trouble for wasting company time. But he is a mover & shaker in the greater downtown area for those of you who think they can pull off a crit downtown. Maybe I can proctor a meeting over Young's Double Chocolate Stout. It's my meeting dammit & we drink what I want!

Any way I enjoyed several of my favorite brew till the keg ran dry. But I discovered a new tasty special in Rogues Mocha. Very tasty for an American beer. I do favor the Scottish beer for a reason but in a pinch this was very tasty.

I even ran in to a high school buddy of mine Miles Hamilton. For those of you in the know, you know he owns Queen City Cycles.(click on the link) He informed me the '08 Kona CX bikes came out today. Just the bike I was looking @ for this cross season. Kona has a place in my heart since they were my first bike sponsor when I raced MTb's. Any way If you need a bike you should stop in & see Miles then go next door for a cold one.

The Great White Fly Hunter

Cale hunts deer, I hunt flies. They are smaller thus harder to kill. You must stalk carefully or the little boogers will turn on you & attack. It truly is them or me. I watch their habits, learn their ways. I then unleash the Fly Fu. A swat here, a Swat there, & my domicile is fly free.

I had to open up the big can of fly swatter tonight. Our house was invaded & I'm pretty sure I set an all time kill record with 11 in less than 5 minutes. Amber was very impressed with my manly display of all out fly slaughter.

A path to somewhere

Remember this? Well this AM I got up & started work on this little project. A path from the side deck stairs(the original deck stairs) to the back yard gate. When its done it will be about 24 feet long & I'll be very sore from mixing Quikrete. I'm hoping a by product of it will be some return of my upper body. I'm also trying to fool myself into thinking this is a workout since my training has gone to crap since state TT. I know I'll be paying later for slacking now but its hard to motivate when I'm 4 days out from the knife.
I've made it about a quarter of the way on day one. That's 6 80 lb bags of Quikrete laying there. I stained it a nice Charcoal color. So easy even Skip could do it if he weighed more than the bag, he doesn't, so he'd have to get help.
The plan is to put lattice along the side next to the house to allow some sort of flowering vine to grow on it. Once done I'm going to back fill it with some nice top soil & plant grass seed in the voids. Then plant grass along the side to fill in that lovely patch of dirt.

Mini vacation update

Last night was very hot but a lot of fun. The City Market in KC is kind of a weird venue since its a parking lot. It turns out Amber & I were the only two ticket holders who didn't smoke. It didn't take long for a fog of cigarette smoke to cover the venue. Don't forget this is an outdoor venue.

We got there early enough to get a good spot & listen to the two opening bands. First up was Love as Laughter. They were so so. They had some audio problems which would continue through the night. They did have one good jam band-esque song: All Parts of me which you can listen to on their website.

Next up was Band of Horses. I really enjoyed them. Enough so Amber & I are going to buy their CD. They only did a 6 or 7 song set but it was very entertaining. They too suffered some of the previous audio problems. Which makes me wonder if it was the venues audio set up.

The highlight of course was Modest Mouse. They took their sweet ass time coming on to stage, but after some Internet reading this is normal for them. They had some serious audio problems, but regardless still put on a really good show. They just rolled with the problems & really rocked. You have to love a band with two drummers. When they get going it is cool to watch them. We were thrilled to hear our summer theme song from two years ago: Float On.

Mini Vacation

Starting tomorrow I'm taking a mini vacation before I'm an invalid for awhile. Tomorrow afternoon Amber & I are headed to KC to watch Modest Mouse(open this link in a different tab & you can enjoy their music while reading this post(FireFox users you know who you are). I'm pretty excited about this. My plans for my "vacation" are complex. Tomorrow, Mia granted, I'm going to wake up late; go for a ride. Lounge around. Drive to KC; go to the show, get drunk & probably make an ass out of myself, but enjoy every second of it. Saturday will involve some sort of ride. Then I'm going to spend the rest of the weekend working on the path from the deck to the gate. Once done Amber will be willing to have a deck warming party. So stay tuned for the notice on that. All for now I'll keep you updated on my "vacation."

I have nothing to say about any of it