i'm a terrible greek

of course there's lots of terrible news these days about the economic woes of greece. it makes me a little sad that the land of my grandfather is in such dire straights.

but, why would i be sad? i'm a terrible greek. i don't even know the alphabet, much less the language. i'm fond of telling people that i'm greek in name only. that's the truth.

my father uttered only a precious few greek words in my presence. to be honest, i don't know if he knew much more than a couple of words. it seems that his father was in a big hurry to learn english and fit in here in america. in his haste to do so, he didn't pass on any greek heritage to my dad. at least that's my story. maybe my dad was the real culprit and was just too lazy to pass it on to us recalcitrant kids.

i keep saying that one day i will learn the greek alphabet. i keep saying that one day i will visit greece.

maybe i will.

eli's t-ball photos

what a handsome little devil. thank you to flannery allison for the wonderful photos.

build a bear for dogs??

poor rosco. every time hanna comes to town, she puts the little guy through all kinds of humiliating situations. at least he looks humiliated. maybe he doesn't care. here, he has on a build-a-bear outfit.
watch it rosco. you may end up showing a plumbers butt if you're not careful.

rosco doesn't like baths

the beautiful mrs k gave rosco a bath tonight. he just gets so cranky after that. after running around like a mad dog, he settled down between the end table and the couch. it's a tight fit, but he's a little dog.
i came around the front to capture this shot. he didn't even move, despite the flash of the camera. i didn't know it was possible to get that worked up over a bath.

memorial day weekend at aunt jane's lakehouse

although it was a scorcher, the water was c-c-c-cold!!! the kids ventured into the water just a bit on the first day. the docks were a great place to goof off for a while.
i have no idea what is going on here......
always ready to do something fun, the kids anxiously await the next adventure.
the beautiful mrs k, in the kitchen at the lakehouse.
getting ready for a ride on the formula boat, eli finds time to practice his facial ticks.
under way and in the sun.
our wake was pretty big. we were going fast as the lake was pretty empty on monday.
hanna and tyson were enjoying the view from the helm.
tyson convinced hanna to get into the freezing water. it didn't last long.
then tyson convinced deanna to get into the freezing water. that didn't last long, either!

love that black off the front kit!

thanks to the photographers at indian camp creek for the photo. i really like the black off the front kit. it has a slimming effect! i do fear that on the hottest days it will add to the misery, though. actually, i shouldn't worry about it...it's ruben's kit anyway! thanks ruben!

friday we had eli's preschool graduation picnic. big sister hanna was in attendance for this momentous occasion.
"no dude, i'm telling you, contador does NOT have the giro sewn up yet. anything can happen in the last time trial!"
"these things are totally delicious. tell me they don't have any high fructose corn syrup!"
eli and his crew owned the playground.
posing with big sister and big brother. he's all grown up now.
"son, it's time we had a little talk. there comes a time when a man........"

racing season officially started, lessons learned

the whole off-the-front crew, mitch johnson, greg ott, the holtman's, jfp...and i'm sure i'm forgetting a few, but they turned out a quality event at indian camp creek park. it was a 3/6 hour endurance mountain bike event, and i wisely chose the 3 hour solo event.

the only endurance event i have done in the past was burnin' at the bluff. that doesn't count because i did it as a team. i picked this as my first event for two reasons: i HAVE to start sometime, and the beautiful mrs k sponsored the event with a fist full of cash. no excuses, i had to race today.

cross country events are almost always 2 hours or less. at least the ones that i do. so stretching my racing another hour was tough. especially since i have been a slave to my recalcitrant pancreas for the last few months. not much riding. no racing. evil pancreas.

there was a ton of people there! we did a lemans style start, where we run to our bikes parked down the way. i got into position pretty well and ended up riding with some familiar faces for most of the race. sam moore and i rode together for a while, and he was doing the solo 6 hour. after quite a bit of pushing each other, he wisely slowed to 6 hour pace, because he was killing them and didn't need to stay with me. chris ploch was killing me, and for 2 hours i successfully held back jeff yielding. but, it's a 3 hour event, right? oh, yeah. jeff pummeled me on lap 4. i limped in to the finish at 2:45 and opted not to do another lap. so, i took third out of a pretty big field.

lessons learned? i'm not a 3 hour endurance athlete. i should ride more. i should have a prosthetic pancreas made as soon as possible.

7 years ago, May 13

on may 13th, 2004, i met the beautiful mrs k for the first time. we had pizza at fortell's and a beer at mallie's on hampton. i know, i know, it sounds totally romantic, doesn't it?? it must've been good because this photo was taken exactly one year later, the day i proposed to her at the lake house.

we make a cute couple, don't we?

i can still ride a mountain bike

as luck would have it, the psycho rain showers that have plagued our great city for months did not ruin my mountain bike ride on tuesday night. i drove to castlewood after work and i was fully prepared to do wicked hill repeats up cardiac hill to avoid the muddy mess that i thought the trails would be in, but i was treated to some of the best soil i have seen in a while.

it's a shame that i felt like a wet dish rag. the humidity was right up there into sauna territory, and i am still quite unrecovered from whatever life-threatening illness i did or did not have. i did make the best of it, though. in fact, i went back this morning and hit the trails again. i felt no better. in fact probably much worse. and the humidity was legendary.

but i rode my mountain bike, dammit. and i liked it.

smile for the camera!

this alfa is a dodge viper

and never have i loved a viper so much. photo courtesy of autoblog. here is the story.

tyson and the birthday cake

hanna brought along a nice cake for tyson's birthday, so we put on some candles and sang the song.
for some reason, hanna and tyson have been really into this "face in the cake" thing for a while. here tyson is just emerging from the mess.
and he looks great! man, we may need to get that kid a weight set for christmas.

strange body

yesterday i rode in wildwood and hit a few of the tough hills. i'm not joking when i say that i was crawling up the climbs. it was really odd. today, i rode again, and just to punish myself for yesterday's horrible performance, i rode twice as long and hit twice as many hills.

i'm going to go out on a limb here. i'm not right just yet. it's been an eye-opening experience to ride a bike and feel like a beginner again. i am not going to be stupid and say that i am completely recovered from "the pancreas incident". in fact, my body is telling me that i've got a long way to go to be normal. it's depressing because this was the first winter that i haven't suffered a lot from my typical sinus infections, and i was able to get in those consecutive days of riding in vegas.

i don't know what to say. i'm guessing that i'll just have to see how it goes for a while, and take the races off of the calendar until things come around. i think i might start the tuesday night worlds next week, but i would hate to get out there and just not be able to do it.

curses.

bigwheel-athon

today was the annual bigwheel-athon at eli's school. this year, the course was bigger and better, as you can see from the photos. i was getting a little jealous that i wasn't going to be ripping around this sucker.
the back straight was brimming with checkered flags.
eli was totally jazzed. he sat quietly on the mat, waiting for his turn on the bigwheels.
i was quite unaccustomed to the way the teachers pinned on the kids' numbers. masking tape? simple and effective, i guess.
eli was checking out the competitions hardware. he had the fast bigwheel, for sure.
lined up and ready!
a popsicle for the effort! eli gunned it around the course. i have video, but it takes so long to load it on blogger that you'll just have to take my word for it.
and they even got some encore laps after the race.