bugatti veyron enters realm of the ridiculous

a long time ago i stopped lusting after...nay...even reading about such vehicles. they just became ridiculous characatures of cars to me. it's just so hard to get excited (for me) about something that is so far out from the prospect of ownership as to be fantasy.

autoblog has a little insight into the cost of ownership of a bugatti veyron. 4000 mile life span for $30,000 TIRES? a yearly running cost of $300,000??

uh, that's ok. i'll stick to lusting after mustangs and maybe used corvettes and porches. call me boring.

it's my birthday today

11 years ago, i was born somewhere in middle missouri. some nice people came to check out us little pups to choose which one they wanted to take home. at first, these nice people chose some wimpy little guy that i used to push around a lot. i was sad, but a few weeks later, those same nice people took me home! seems the wimpy guy developed a hernia and couldn't be adopted just yet, and i was next in line. lucky me! my older brother was adopted by these same people a couple of months earlier.

i was dad's birthday present for his 32nd birthday. over the years, rudy and i saw LOTS of changes. we lived in st. charles, glendale, maplewood, and affton. we saw the addition of a little girl named hanna, a boy named tyson, and another little terror named eli. along the way, we also gained a new buddy, a big ass dalmatian named rocky. we've always had nice back yards and certainly nice living accommodations.

a short while back, i lost my brother rudy. that wasn't so easy. even though he was a cranky, sort of chunky guy, i miss curling up with him on mom and dad's bed. so i've had to make some changes, like curling up to rocky and he's really big and he smells sometimes, but i have learned to love him. the first time i met him i really let him have it. i think i could have taken him if dad would have let me.

through everything, i'm still dad's shadow. i still hunt animals in the back yard, i still drag in the occasional rabbit carcass or dead bird, and i never back down from a big dog (except certain pittbulls, which are pretty scary).

i'm 11 years old today and i don't feel much different than the day i came home.

holy 1975 ford ranchero

ranchero's and el camino's have always baffled me. i kind of liked them way back in the most redneck portion of my brain, yet loathed them all at the same time. the ranchero, being a ford, was my pick but i rarely admit to anyone that i'd be caught dead in one. truth is, if i found a nice one, early or late, i'd be tempted into buying one and turning it into something vaguely like this one. credit autoblog for this story.
underhood is a 604 cubic inch version of ford's own "hemi" engine, the boss 429. this thing is off the hook.
mmmmm, delicious.

my little pirate

eli, myself, and the beautiful mrs k were sitting at bread co. eating tonight when out of the blue, eli said: "arrrrr, matey" and stuck his fist up to his eye like he is in this photo.

at that moment, deanna and i looked over and saw an older man walking toward the door to leave. he had an old fashioned leather eye patch over one eye.

we will probably go to hell for it, but deanna and i laughed and laughed in amazement that our little not-yet-4-year-old was making pirate noises at someone who, to him, looked like a pirate.

giant tcr advanced 1 final iteration

and so it goes. after robbing my cross bike of it's shifters, bargaining my friend doug out of his brakes and derailleurs, and flat out buying some new cranks, i have shimano-ed my tcr. and it feels like home again. i kind of like the new ultegra crank look. not completely. but it will grow on me, especially given the price of the new 7900 cranks. hell, the 7800 cranks, if you can find them new, are more than a car payment for me.

i love this bike.

kids like winter weather

i don't know if they like the COLD, but they sure do like the snow. the kids have been praying for snow since halloween. i thought they were collectively going to have a cow when it flurried on christmas day. hanna and tyson have school on the mind first...snow equals snow day. after that, every other snow benefit is gravy. eli loves it because it turns the whole outside world into a playground. i think he'd lay down and sleep in it if we'd let him. no wait, he doesn't sleep.

so naturally, the entire time all of this snow talk is going on, i'm gritting my teeth praying that it won't snow. it makes me feel so guilty. i mean, here are my little angels (poetic license taken with term) just dying to get out in the snow and i'm hoping that the entire world never sees snow again. even the north pole. santa can rent a 4 wheeler for all i care, or walk because he looks like he could stand to lose a few pounds.

we took the kids over to a nice little sledding spot pretty close to the house on sunday afternoon. i was dreading it, of course, but i really wanted them to get out and have some fun in it. even the beautiful mrs k had suited up to do some sledding. i hung in there for a while, helping push them down the hill for extra speed, cheering them on in their distance contest, laughing at them when they would yard sale....then i got into the car,turned the heater on full blast and that's where i stayed. deanna took some photos of the day and i'll see if i can get them up tomorrow.

some time around 7 or 8 years old i learned to hate snow and cold weather and nothing has changed my mind about that yet.

ah, that's better

i lifted the entire bar/stem combo from my cross bike, complete with dura ace shifters...
and added it to my new dura ace rear derailleur....
and calipers. thanks, doug!

hand made bicycle

this is as close as i'm going to get to a handmade bike for a while. it's a great little gift that grandma picked up for deanna and i on one of their trips this year. the frame is all brazed steel tubing, and the cranks turn, the pedals turn (cool sheet metal), and the handlebars turn with the steel wire cables. the little chain is awesome. i need to tighten it.
i want to replace the rather rudimentary axles with allen head bolts. in this photo you can see that the spokes are even brazed to the rims. check out the moto fender in the back!

i love this kind of stuff.

give me dura ace or give me death

so i'm completely in love with my new road bike. the giant is stiff, smoooove, and it looks way faster than i can make it go. but it doesn't have my dura ace shifters on it.

you know how you find something that you really like? and you stay with it? ok, well maybe most of you are not like that. i am. i still have a 2001 fastback and a 2000 homegrown sitting around. and after 10 years on campagnolo ergo shifters, i found my soul mate with the 7800 dura ace (and 6600 ultegra) shifters.

they fit my hand. they feel like home. i still have a pair and i'm putting them on the tcr. it's a shame, because i wanted to fall in love with the 2010 force. but, it's sort of like an arranged marriage....the force is there for me, but my heart is with the d/a's.

pretty deep, i know.

good news bad news scenario

good news. i marched up to target yesterday and bought myself a ceramic heater for the basement. promptly ticked off my super-sensitive surge protector several times until i plugged it into another outlet without any other devices in it. ahhh, i have pointed it directly at me, about 3 feet away. it's sort of like a mini wind tunnel of warmth.

bad news. it's snowing. a lot. and it's getting even colder, if that were possible. somebody wake me when it's june.
good news. i rode the tcr outside today for the first time. in fact, it was my first venture outdoors in a few weeks. then tonight, the beautiful mrs k and i worked out in tandem while watching the 1999 tour de france on dvd. yuck, that is in fact sweat on the floor mats.

bad news. it's snowing. a lot. and that means i'll be riding even more inside. somebody wake me when it's july.

dear god it's cold

anyone who knows me knows that i am not a fan of cold weather. any cold weather. i don't even like the 60's. so what's a guy like me to do here?

the cold is even more daunting right now because my office and work space is in my basement. it's a balmy 45 degrees down there. so i'm working in temps far below my threshold for coldness, and then i have to suit up to go out into even more cold when stepping outside. the only time i'm warm these days is when i'm in bed, where the beautiful mrs k and rosco do a wonderful job.

much to my chagrin, it's getting even colder, and even a bit of snow will be added in.

i will have to dig deep into my suitcase of courage to brave this. come on, spring. please.

happy new year, or, this ain't no st. charles!

the beautiful mrs k made plans for us to go to aya sofia for new years eve festivities. we love the food and the owners are friends of her family. here, we had just arrived.
kevin and katie came along, too. they drove all the way in from their wilderness love nest somewhere's out west.
jim and denise were actually our chauffeurs. before hitting aya sofia, we all went to the movies and saw "in the air". it was depressing from my point of view. which meant it was time for some frivolity.
"oh!" the belly dancer said to kevin, "it's your birthday??"
yeeee haaaaw. now that's some good old fashioned fun! although a quarter of his size, the diminutive belly dancer lassoed her some kevin. she probably would have hogtied him right there in the restaurant, but the shocked and appalled lady in the lower left of the photo would not stand for it.
i, on the other hand, decided that her efforts were worth at least two bucks. i'm always a bit nervous at these moments, especially a few years after my stripper experiences have past.
and for this, she turned up the heat and gave us a little sword play action. you can plainly see the cash hanging from her waist band. it was at this point that we lamented keith and 'reesa's absence from the family new years fun. we couldn't imagine that they were having as much fun as we were, since they were in st. charles. you know, this ain't no st. charles.
kevin: happy new years, honey!
katie: happy new years to you, too. and if you mess with that belly dancer again i'll use that sword for something really painful. this ain't st. charles, you know.
happy new years, bucks! it's evident here that jim has truly topped out, and that it wasn't st. charles.
looking quite drunk even though we weren't, we rang in the new years with complimentary champagne. i don't even like champagne. but, i pretended and we closed out our non-st. charles new years eve bash with style.

babies grow up

eli often (especially today) tests my patience. but, i look at his little face and i can't forget his first days.

business taxes

this is just a small portion of the receipts, forms, and invoices that i have to compile to be able to do the taxes for pedalbrakepedal. it would be much more daunting if it weren't for a few things.

first, i did keep good records. second, most of the information i need is stored on the web. and third, it's a pretty straightforward business. money comes in electronically, and goes out via credit card or handwritten check. not many other avenues to get fouled up with.

the only issues i really have are deciding where to put what expense. i'm figuring it out, but it will probably take another couple of evenings to get it all straight.

one day, when it becomes a huge empire (!!!!), i will hire someone to do all of this for me!

more christmas photos

i love this smile.
and this one, too. hanna gets a microscope.
tyson looks a lot older here.
you think this little guy is happy??
wow, man, what was in those brownies?
mmmmm, comfy.
he looks like he is laughing really hard at my wrapping job.
what the heck is in this thing?
oh, tyson i love you so much!!!
i love this look.
me and the squirts again.
tyson and eli, down for the count in our bed.