Big Phish!

Check out the size of the monster fish my Brother-In-Law Eric recently caught with a piece of cheese & his fishing rod. Being a Conservation Agent he let it go.

Tulsa Tough Day 3

Day 3 was freaking hard! Put it this way people were being pulled in the first lap. I think less than 30 people finished without being pulled. The guy who won the first two days got pulled 20 minutes into the race. So it was fast & hard. I rode pretty hard @ or near the front trying to avoid gaps on the steep climb & stay out of trouble on the nasty descent into the finishing straight. I felt good till about 15 minutes to go when the heat started wearing on me. I managed to sit in enough to recover some & still take 11th in the field sprint. Not too bad a weekend 17, 29. 11th. I did about as good as a confirmed non sprinter can do. The team didn't do so well this weekend though.

I've died & gone to heaven! Neutral support had about 20 pairs of 404's. Of course not a flat for me all weekend.

The start of the Big Boys. Farasy & Greek waiting for the Ready, Set, Your pulled!

The hill. Melissa told me she really loved it & it was great for training.

Tulsa Tough Day 2

Yesterday didn't quite go as planned. Was sitting about where I needed to be to finish in the top 20 in the last lap. Some wank curbed it & crashed in front of me & I got caught behind so rolled across the line in 29th. I did a lot of work, probably too much. Got in lots of breaks. Singly handedly brought back a break by sitting on the front for 2 laps pulling it back. Bridged up to a break with 6 to go that I thought was going to stick, but we got caught with 2 to go. The break didn't stick for a reason but I'm not going to name the 3 guys names but lets just say they thought they needed a free ride to the line. Two of them where on the same team & neither ended up finishing in the top 30, serves them right. The same guy who won Friday night repeated again followed in 2nd by Holloran. Hmmm, Tulsa Tough Sandbagger Fest? Farasy had a great day finishing in 32 in the P1/2.

Amber & I killed off some time earlier in the day by going to the aquarium. Kind of small but they have to start somewhere. The main attraction being the shark tunnel. They also have the State Record Gar in captivity. Its over 7 feet long. It looks like a tree with very sharp teeth. If I knew that thing was swimming about I'd never get in the water.

Mia wasn't too impressed with the sharks

The OK State Record Gar is 1.5 feet longer than me!

The Dunsmuir's sure do like Aquarium gift shops for photo ops.

The Pace Car

Quick note if your not using Firefox start using it. Amber's Aunt & Uncle have IE & Firefox but IE is their default browser. After an hour of pure frustration trying to get this uploaded I discovered they had Firefox & 15 min later viola! I run it @ home & I highly recommend it.

Tulsa Tough Friday Night Lights

Didn't have a chance to post last night so here is a quick update on Tulsa Tough. Did alright ended up 17th(87 starters, 57 finished) in the field sprint, there is some heat here. I did manage to win a $20 prime. Have a nice rasberry on my shoulder from avoiding a wreck & having some dude flip over his handlebars & pile drive me on my right side. Not sure how I stayed up but found a bike wide gap & shot through it. Fitness is better than I thought. Got in 3 or 4 breaks, 1 solo. Don't have the snap yet so hopefully by Sunday it'll be in my legs. When I was warming up I got interviewed by the local news. Amber's Aunt Reba taped it for me. I'll try & get it uploaded when I get back to town.

Farasy finished! He's the mystery rider in 61st place. He got gapped with 2 laps to go when there was a huge pile up in the P1/2 race. But he did stay in the middle of the group until then. The big boys raced under the lights which was pretty cool. Reported avg speed for 75min crit 27.7 mph! I think the in the 3's we only avg about 25mph.

Here's some pics of the bigs, Amber will be @ the race tonight so maybe I can get some of me.

Oh to be young

Wednesday night had a tremendous turn out with 9 guys making the spectacle(not sure what it means but seems to make Jimmy happy). OG was on hand to once again rub in the fact that he has 404's & I don't. Plus he seems to be frying my brain & my heart rate monitor with that high output wireless rear computer. He did offer me the 404's as a loaner for the weekend, but I turned him down graciously since I wanted to not worry about breaking them in Tulsa. I'll have enough going on not to have to soft peddle the corners & risk loosing 16 minutes in a crit. EPO made an appearance fresh from his Colorado tour. Coach Ken, Joey B(the only OCC under 50 who races as much as I do, good guy), The Penn State JR, some random Belgium guy, JW, & the Hulk with anger o plenty. It took about 15 min for the Hulk to start talking about a WWF Smackdown cage match, "Snap into a skinny biker dude!" Luckily it wasn't me, I had on a sleeveless jersey & I think he was a little intimidated by the Gun Show.

Wanting easy miles I quickly joined forces with JR & showed him the bail out loop to get him back in time to catch his ride home. I'll say once he gets a little stronger on the climbs he'll be pretty good. I looked backed on a 40+mph descent & he was glued to my wheel, something that can't be said for most guys twice his age. I was a little impressed. Skip seems to have been as well, so he's batting 3 for 3(I get 2 votes since I swing a heavier bat than Skip).

Friday I head to Tulsa for my first races in 5 weeks. Seems strange after the spring campaign I put in to finally be racing again. Amber & Mia are going to accompany me for the weekend since her Aunt Reba has graciously gave us the use of their house for the weekend. Less driving & no hotel bill, YEAH! The website says the race course will be a WIFI zone so I'll see if I can get Amber to do a little play by play semi live ala Cyclingnews. This will be Mia's first time to see her Daddy race & hopefully I won't let her down. Though she will be saddened her dad will be rolling on inferior wheels.

One year of mindless dribble

That's right yesterday was my one year anniversary of boring you all senseless with my ramblings. That's 255 posts for an avg of 4.9 a week? Man that seems like a lot but I have posted a lot of pics that were separate entries so not as bad as it sounds.

I hope everyone managed to thank a vet this past weekend. Mia thanks her Top for all his years of service & I shook the bubble head's hand that works for me. Made his night, said it was the first time he'd ever been thanked on Memorial Day. I always try & thank @ least one Vet. Remember they do a thankless job.

Friday night I think I had a rare Cycling Skip sighting. To confirm it wasn't a hoax 1) I hadn't been drinking, 2) I wasn't in a dark basement, 3) I had sunglasses on to avoid the glare from the pasty whites, 4) I was hidden in my Skip blind on the Greenways @ Galloway Station, 5) The Greenways are were wild Skips do get released each Spring from their basement lairs. So beware on the Greenways!

The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful. Lots of time spent with Mia & Amber. I did manage to get in a 3 hour ride with JJ & Norton on Sat & a 4 hour ride on Sun with Jason W & the OG(say with a hint of jealousy in your voice since he has 404's & I don't!) Be warned if you show up to a ride were the both of us are present expect the pace to be hot while I prove to him that 404's only make me fast. Though they have seemed to increase his speed so I might have to rethink that idea. Especially now that I know a damn Hippo can sprint faster than me.

To upgrade or not to upgrade

That is the question. Once again I'm posing a decision to my readers. This time I might actually follow your advice unlike the visor decision. Depending on how you read the "rules" of the USCF upgrade guidelines I have btwn 10 & 47 points toward my upgrade to cat 2's; 25 min, 60 auto unless your from Arkansas or Ryan Holloran then its unlimited. Everyone gets 1 vote except Jim & Cale who get 2 since it will be their butts I'll be whooping if I cat up. Ultimately its Mike Weiss who decides if I cat up or not. He has turned me down once already. He does have a random method of issuing upgrades.

This weekend makes 5 weeks since I last raced. My legs are tired though from hard training & the start of commuting to work. I ended up taking yesterday off from bike practice since I had to stay @ work till 11am for an IT meeting. Way past my bedtime.

Me & my daddy are a team

Nap time

It has been a busy week so far. Monday Mia got her first trip to the Doctor. Tuesday Amber got her staples out & is recovering very nicely. Though I think a little boredom is starting to creep in since she can't drive yet. I guess you can only watch so much Dr. Phil. Tuesday also saw me return to work.

Since I no longer have to worry about rushing Amber to labor & delivery I've started riding my bike to work again. Should save me about $30/wk in gas & tack on about 80 extra miles a week to my mileage. Not sure if that will be a good thing or not. So far my legs haven't suffered to much after 2 back to back hard practices followed by a ride to work. Coming home in the AM is rough after working all night then having to peddle home with already dead legs. The Springfield Farms hill seems like Everest then. I am using my MTB so have the granny if needed. My Jet light's bulb died on me though so I'm having to uses my headlamp to ride in @ night which is no big deal.

I'm glad I paid the $20 for the Internet coverage of the Giro. Its been pretty cool to watch each stage as Basso is killing everyone. Though I was a little disappointed this AM when they stopped the stage before the dirt road. That was the main factor in me getting the coverage so I could watch that spectacle. I've not been impressed with how Discovery has been riding. My boy Salvodelli has been left alone a lot on the climbs. Since he's not a pure climber he needs some help which he's not getting. Not the same team of old. The commentators keep talking about the Great White Hype Danielson & how Discovery is going to launch him into GC contention. Not sure what race they have been watching but the first person dropped each climb is Danielson. Kind of hard to move up on GC when your getting beat by sprinters on the climbs(Bettini).

Been a few days since I posted any pics of the kid so figured I'd better get on the ball.

All dressed up for a quick nap before eating again.
Amber snapped these while I was enjoying a nap with Mia.

And Baby makes 3

I should have charged entry into my front door this weekend, I could have put Mia through college with the proceeds. Shane was right, you become Very popular when you have a baby. I lost count of the visitors & phone calls this weekend. They all are appreciated since all were offering help in some manner or form. Makes you feel good to know not all of man kind is a total write off.

Mia is eating like there is no tomorrow. She also got her first bath @ home. Amber has developed a NASTY post op rash which was bad enough to require a return trip to the hospital. It sucks for her, but Mia & I got to hang out solo for the first time which was way cool. Granted she slept most of the time & I had to wake her up to feed her. She wasn't thrilled about that.

That 2 wheel monster in my garage I ride from time to time got used 3x this weekend. I was able to get out on the TT bike Friday for a leg sapping TT practice. On Saturday I hooked up with The Ken for 3.5 hours. For an old dude he can motor. After which I required a nap to help recover. Yesterday I got out for just over 2 hours of hard tempo. During which I got bit for the first time by a dog while riding. The bastard's owner just stood there & watched him lay into me. Luckily I was able to kick the shit out of him & no skin was broken. I was a little worried about taking to much time off this month but it doesn't seem to have hurt my form to much. I definitely need to get some racing in my legs though.

Mia wanted to put on her Monkey outfit to say Hi to Sophia the monkey.

Hello world

Being from my gene pool Mia is already recovered enough to come home a day early. Not to be outdone Amber said she was getting the Hell out of the Hospital too. The 3 of us are now settling in. This is just the tip of the iceberg so here goes:

About 5 minutes after being born

Her litttle feet
One very proud momma.

Chubby cheeks

Modeling the hat my 8 year old niece knitted her.

I'm biased but she's Damn cute!

Getting ready to go home a day early.

Just a quick note for now

Last few days have been a blur. Amber & Mia are A O K . Mia had to be delivered by emergency C Section Tuesday night after Amber labored for 14 hrs & only dilated to 4 so the Dr. decided to go ahead with the C Section. She was "born" @ 9:57 pm Tuesday just 2 hours short of sharing her birth day with Amber. Happy birthday to my wife she's a whopping 25! Mia weighed a slight 9lbs 5 oz & measured 20.5 " just a few inches shorter than Jim (Had to say it before Shane). She's by far the biggest baby in the nursery. I'm guessing she'll grow into her weight like I did, if so we'll have another climber in the family. All the calls & visits & gifts have been appreciated. As soon as I can see straight(I've slept like 2 hrs since Mon) I'll post a ton of pics. All for now have to get back to the hospital.

You can find anything on the Net

A wrench in the works

Amber & I had a little surprise this AM @ our visit to the OB. Mia had decided to turn. That means no C section on Friday. Now we have a planned induction on Tuesday of next week... MAYBE. Inductions can be canceled so we won't know till Tuesday @ 5am. Good times. But @ least now we get to try & use our Lemond Class learning. With any luck maybe Amber can go into labor this week to really make things interesting.

Yesterday after getting in a nice ride & getting home in time to watch the Giro I decided to assemble my new fleet of strollers. Thats right fleet. I have 2 cars, 2 strollers, 3 car seats, & 1 kid. I'll have to get Skip to do the math on that one. I'm going to have to add a wing on to my house to fit all of Mia's accessories in. And I thought I had a lot of toys.


I have to admit I paid the $20 & got the broadband feed for the Giro. Pretty cool when you can get it to work. Seems A LOT of people did the same thing & Cycling.TV is having server bandwidth problems. I only got to watch the last 25 minutes of today's stage. It came on just after Pettachia's crash. So I'm a little less than thrilled with it right now. It did make me switch from the beta version of Mozilla to the release version of Firefox. Hopefully they will get the problem solved by stage 16 so I can see the dirt road climb to the finish.

Stay tuned this week may or may not get sporty.

The last free Saturday....kind of

Saturday was a pretty big day being our last weekend without a little one. Amber had her final(#3) baby shower. Lots of good stuff though no 404's, Mia will be very disappointed that her daddy has to roll around on inferior wheels. She did get a set of very cool onesies with a bike theme. The coolest saying my daddy & I are a team with a pic of a trike & a old skool race rig.

Friday night the Hymen(as Jeremy has been calling it) was broken thanks to Darin, Uncle Jeremy, & Daddy Rick. That's right the first beer in over 5 months. Was kind of anti climatic. We wen to a Cardinals game then over to the Bombay Bicycle Company. Good food but way too smoking unless you can sit outside, which the weather did not allow. I think the excess smoke ruined the flavor of the Guiness for me. Good job Kathryn.

Saturday AM I went for a good ride with some of the OCC boys, my first time on the bike in 9 days! 5 of us, the Hammer, Jason W, Peter, Coach Ken, & a buddy of Norton's made 6. A shocking turnout with the threat of rain on the horizon. We did get almost all of the Wed night loop in before it started drizzling constantly. Was good to see 5 OCC uni's cruising down the road. The sightings of the team kit have been few & far btwn this year.

While Amber was away her Dad & I installed new headlights in his Mini Van. Not lamps the whole damn light fixture. Somehow they had clouded over & you couldn't see crap @ night. Rick had found a new set on EBAY for cheap so I gave him a hand getting them in.

Since we were having people over Sat afternoon the D.O.double G's had to spend the day outside in the rain. They have a big ass dog house which they refuse to get in since they'd rather lay in the mud while it rains. To come in for the night they had to get bathes. With both of them way 70+lbs it makes it very interesting.

As you can see they were pretty damn muddy & now I have to clean up the aftermath.

Today makes us T minus 5 days & counting. As you can see Amber is ready & I think would go today if the Doc would let her.

Sometimes work doesn't suck.......too bad

Most of the time my job is a lot of the same repetitive things over & over. After 4 years I see a "head scratching" break down about once every couple of weeks or so. Being a supervisor I now get to spend most of my time babysitting & dealing with temper tantrums. Grown men can be such pussies.

Last night had not 1 but 2 breakdowns that I had to use not only my brain, but my hard learned skills as well. First one involved me figuring out how some engineer had programmed a machine & how the machine "told" the computer what it was doing. Quite challenging to say the least.

The second was fabricating parts for a machine that was built sometime shortly after WWII(I'm not exaggerating). This particular machine has several Scott creations already on it. The fix had me welding up the stripped out aluminum base(my guy that does the welding can't weld aluminum so I had to do it). Then boring & broaching a new gear to replace the very worn out one that had caused the bolts to be plucked from their home. Its pretty cool knowing that given enough time & patience I can fabricate most parts to fix the 100 year old crap we have. I keep saying one of these days I'm going to have to buy a tube set & build me a new ride.

Missed the Wednesday night ride this week since I'm on my Spring Break. Will be back next week. My week off has been filled with sleep(might as well get it while I can) & last minute to do's before Mia comes. Tonight Amber & I are going to our last Lemond class since we'll be having a c section (does the c stand for chainsaw?). Monday I find out if I get to make the incision or not.

Not many pics lately since I'm about to make everyone sick of seeing pics of my kid, but you now what? Screw you its my blog & I'll publish what I want. Put that in your pipe & smoke it oh wan tan.

Here's the only # I care about right now: T minus 8 days to BDAY.

Mark your calendars

Friday May 12 @ noon @ St. Johns. We had to schedule a C section because Mia will be 9 lbs 5 oz & breech. So unless something changes btwn now & then, thats when we become proud parents. Sometime that evening I'll be falling off the wagon as well.

H2-0H!

Got up yesterday AM with every intent on heading up to the STL to race but Amber greeted me with the fact that she was having contractions again. So I figured I'd better stay close to home, besides it was pouring & very windy. Turns out just another false alarm though. I think they're more wishful thinking than false alarms. Amber is done being pregnant & I can't blame her. The 9 months thing is a big fat lie. Full term is 42 weeks. But I digress. Around 1:30 I was starting to go stir crazy so I loaded up my boat & headed down to Shady Rapid for a couple of hours of park 'n play.
Finally got a significant amount of rain. Just over 4" in the last 6 days. About time I thought I'd have to permanently give up boating. Had a good time & the river actually came up while I was on it which is a rare occurrence in Midwest boating.

Had an invite to go boating today as well but the level & the group didn't really fit my tastes. So today after a big fat breakfast with the in-laws @ Cracker Barrel I'm occupying myself with to-do's. Right now I'm taking a break from my all time favorite yard work. Once the rain starts up again I'll move inside to finish up a few projects I started yesterday. Perhaps even take a run over to Lowe's to wander the isles & to some dreaming.

What about biking you ask? Well Since I skipped this weekend my planned month off started a week early & have wrote this week & next off to recovery. Don't get excited its a month off from racing not training. I plan on some super hard intense training to get ready for the summer season. In fact one of this weeks projects is to get the moto up & running for some motor pacing sessions. Now I have to get back to the yard, oh yeah.

3D Mia

Had another ultrascan this AM to make sure Mia was going to become ginormous. She's got 3 more weeks in the oven & she already weighs 7lbs 11 oz or 3.48699134 kilograms for my metric readers or .0549107143 stones for my English readers.