i love red

in my cars, bikes and women.

today's red rage came in the form of Fulcrum Racing 0 wheels. i have never seen these up close, and man, are they red!! beautiful, just beautiful. imagine mavic ksyrium wheels taken to another level of hotness, and you have the idea.

cookies

we made some cookies the other night. we didn't eat them, so i put them in a little glad container. the next morning, we couldn't find them. deanna accused me of eating them, which, if i had, i would've readily admited. so we figured the dogs got to 'em. but we hadn't found the container.

at church sunday, there was a bake sale. hot dog, here was the chance to replace those lost cookies. there were nice warm zip lock bags of chocolate chip reeses peices cookies. we bought some (i won't say how many) and i am happy to say i have eaten them all.

and what did i find in hanna's room this evening? the glad container of cookies, still intact, however chewed the lid may have been. the dogs just couldn't get in that thing!

i'm thinking they are still good. a little dog slobber on the outside of the container can't hurt anything.

brrrrrr

sunday's weather was really a lot nicer than saturday. that's pretty easy, though, since saturday was horrible. it was still cold and blustery, but no rain. i don't remember a froze toes race ever being canceled, but it was. not that i was going to do it, anyway.

so instead, i rode the trainer after church. i'm still having a hard time breathing, and it seems to be worse inside. i actually had less trouble the last few days riding outside.

afterward, the beautiful mrs k, poops and i went to the mall to get the shuffle fixed. it seems to have cashed it in already. we signed up to talk to the mac genius, then went to eat something. it seems poops really likes icecream. i know it shouldn't come as a shock to anyone, but he really, really likes icecream! it's so much fun to feed it to him. he gets this funny little grin and giggles a little with every bite.

i'm wondering if the mac genius might be called mac guy instead. that's because our genius told us he just had to reload the software and it was all good. i'm staring at it right now, in the box and still not working. i think the mac guy may have been new, perhaps not yet acheiving genius status.

when we got home, the mrs did a trainer workout, too. she's just started running again, working her way up to my biathlon partner and eventually to do the kansas city marathon. chicago was the preferred race, since she has done that one before, but it seems there is a wedding to attend to on that day......

soccer night

saturday night we took tyson and his cousin gus to play soccer. they are on the same team. in their last game, they won 9 to 0. pretty impressive for a bunch of twerps, huh?

this time, the tables were reversed a bit. the other team seemed to be pretty darn good, and although it took a while for anyone to score, they scored big. i think the final score was 0 to 5. you could tell the little guys were tired, and they were short a couple of kids so the kids that were on our side played a heck of a lot more than the full team of the other side.

oh, well, they seemed to enjoy it anyway.

hot, hot saturday in stl

the beautiful mrs k and i have decided that we may as well make our saturday dates workout dates instead of going-out-to-dinner-and-eating-until-we-pop dates. we really enjoy doing active things together, so we started saturday.

first, we got a sitter so we could go to the gym. we were going to go riding, but anyone in the metro area that rode in saturday's blinding rain storm needs to have their head examined. we lifted and deanna did some cardio on the eliptical while i read popular mechanics lightly pedaling on a recumbant cycle. i got bored, but i waited for her to finish. we ate lunch at einstein's and headed over to our second destination....

ever hear of bikram yoga? i think ep's wife mentioned it to me a couple of years ago, and i thought it was nuts. the short explanation: 90 degree room, plus yoga. the long explanation: 90 degree room, plus yoga, equals torture. no way, no how, no way no how!! will i ever, ever, ever ever never never do it again. i was pouring sweat just standing there, whilst scarcely clad men and women moved mechanically to the drill sergents commands. did i mention it was 90 minutes? i thought i was going to be cooked alive. every once in a while the drill sergent would bark something over my way about my form or whatever. i thought about leaping, no staggering, over to her and throttling her with my bare hands, but it would've embarrassed deanna so i just stood/sat/crumpled there in a heap of my own sweat and bile.

walking out into the blustery rain almost felt good. i cursed bikram yoga and whoever made it up. during my misery, i surmised that it must be some kook who thought normal yoga wasn't hard enough, so he turned up the thermostat and got giddy over the extra sweat. i swore that if i ever found myself in the same position, i would march over to the HVAC system and turn the A/C on full blast and watch the horror on all of the somber, sweaty faces as they realized their precious toaster oven of a room had just been liberated, and they would have to go back to doing plain, old, boring, easy yoga. on second thought, it might not even bother them, being in the zone and all. it sure would make me feel better, though.

vacation day

i took a vacation day friday so i could

a) ride
b) clean house

i picked friday because, from the viewpoint of the weather forcast, it was supposed to be the pick weather day of the week. i have quite a few vacation days, and figured i really can't take big chunks at a time (i fancy myself important at work and don't want to miss out...) so i figured taking days off to ride at key times would be great.

i picked sort of wrong, i think.

it wasn't cold, really, but the wind was even worse than thursday. brutal at times, really. i started out a familiar path from home...pardee, eddie and park, robin, up weber hill road (one of my favorite hills) and down gravois. this is where i made a key decision. i had wanted to avoid most hills and just do some moderate stuff, but jefferson county beckoned. i turned left on 141 and then turned right into the maze of retail to reach saline. saline has some killer hills on it, some super steep and twisty. i had a smile on my face as i passed some of the familiar dumps along the way. after descending the cork screw down, i hung a left to stay on saline and set up to ascend "trailer park" hill. when i lived just a few blocks away, trailer park hill was a killer way to reach home. only about 100 yards long, it's super steep and overlooks a massive trailer park. i zipped up it, and down to meet romaine creek. i took that out to 141 again, and, after nearly getting hit by a dump truck, i took tesson ferry over the meramec to hegemann, and down to meramec bottom road. i took wells road out of there, which has a killer climb, just to get back up to tesson. i was knackered by then, so i just cruised in on tesson.

it was only a little over 2 hours. but, the wind was killing me. i celebrated by doing housework for another 3 hours when i got home.

3 kids, a station wagon, housework on vacation days...i'm so domesticated, aren't i??

riding, man, riding!

to continue my rise to the top, i rode thursday morning before work. i drove the ft out to eureka and parked along the outer road of 44 so i could do the fox creek, bouquet, melrose, 109, alt, meramec blvd, outer road loop again. i really like it, as i only see a few cars the whole way, and i get to do some of my favorite roads. all this and only 22 miles!

the weather was good, but the wind was pretty bad. it was quite nice to be back in the woods, but pretty trecherous on the outer road and on some of the downhills.

wow, they do WHAT with bikes?

i hope this link stays active. there are some crazy uses for bicycles around the world. my father in law sent this link to me. these bundles of trash have to weigh a ton!!

http://aistigave.hit.bg/Logistics/

may as well make it long, right?

with my riding success on tuesday, i figured i'd keep it going by riding to work on wednesday. the morning was chilly, but the forcast was for a warm afternoon.

i piled everything i had on my weakened body and set out for chesterfield. i was cold at first, but i warmed up and really never got cold again. there are tons of ways to get to chesterfield from south city, none of them straight but most of them nice rides. 23 miles, 1 hour, 25 minutes.

the quandry going home was twofold: i was going to hit darkness, hopefully later than sooner, and what to wear? i stripped a layer off for the ride home, since it was 59 instead of 39. again, a little chilly starting, but my rapid (relative) pace was keeping me warm. i pedaled with the seriousness of a cat 5 on friel's training program. of course, traffic dictated a different route home, and the sun rapidly ran to the other side of the world as i pedaled.

by the time i got to webster, it was pretty dark, but i had the lights on and it's easy to tuck into side streets to escape any bufoons in pickups or angry soccer mom's.

very glad to get nearly 3 hours of riding in. i was pooped when i got home, but mrs k, tysnon, and poops were happy to see me so i felt great.

back in the saddle

an this ain't no country western, neither!

i had begun riding the trainer last saturday. my cough had subsided and i figured i needed to get my butt in gear.

trainer saturday, sunday, even a little monday morning....so by tuesday, i'd had enough! i broke out the homegrown and rode grants trail to the end in kirkwood and back west adams. ok, not bad. i hacked and coughed like a life-long smoker, but i was back, dammit!

oooh, sweet!

as attractive as the original 'family truckster' is, i have to say i like my ft better. i think maybe it's because the faux wood paneling is so out of vogue here in the 21st century.

eagle eyed readers will notice that the orginal ft is actually a ford/mercury station wagon, made to look as deliciously bad as possible.

wacko hairdo

i think poops hair was so crazy because of the hood on his coat. i kept laughing every time i looked at it.

it doesn't come off, kid

rocky patrols the dinner table to catch any droppings. it isn't without it's hazards, though. get to close to poops, and he can make things interesting. rocky wasn't budging though, even with poops tugging hard on his right ear.

skiing in st.louis

this motley little crew of twerps had a fantastic time on the slopes yesterday at hidden valley. the warm temps and recent snows added to the fake snow made for some good times. the beautiful mrs k loves to ski, so she and uncle kev spent the whole day teaching the little ones.

tuna salad

the beautiful mrs k made tuna salad tonight. not the famous stuff that i have written about in the past. more simple, and man, was it good. i just took the bowl and ate it like that. no bread. yes, i am a closet redneck, and i loves me some tuna salad!

where'd the weekend go?

having all of the kids for a weekend really does me in. i'm more tired from the running around than if i'd ridden all weekend.

i got hanna a day early, picked her up in the FT (family truckster, for you 'Vacation' fans), and she was pretty excited about it. we spent most of saturday running around, tyson's soccer game, shopping, eating, etc. it was so nice not to have to worry about room in the car.

we went bowling last night. hanna and tyson love it. they had so much fun. i found out that the beautiful mrs k is better than me at bowling. i'm not sure if she isn't better at everything except cycling, really, so it's no big surprise. i didn't crack 100, but i did get a spare and a strike on the last frame which gave me hope. poops was cheering us on. it's so cute to see him clap.

today is the big winter outing for the kids. uncle kev and mrs k (being off work) are taking them to play in the snow. pure pandamonium.

it's official

i'm a family man. it's time to start acting like it. if that means having a Family Truckster, then so be it.

some things that i have done for the last time:

1. put poops into the convertible, ducking under the top while holding the pumpkin seat.
2. changed clothes in the front of the mustang, and feeling like a sardine.
3. filled up with premium gas.
4. drive a manual transmission, while in rush hour traffic, on hwy 40, on friday, on a holiday weekend.
5. fail to transport a small cardboard box because, well, it isn't small enough to fit in the 'trunk'.
6. get stuck on a 10'x10' patch of ice, on flat ground, in a gas station parking lot.
7. miss work because of weather, while co-workers ridicule me from cell phones driving gas-guzzing suv's.
8. sustain back injuries driving over bumpy pavement.

funny thing. when i was leaving the lot with my new car, i was parked next to what was my mustang...i was 10 miles down the road before i realized i never even looked back at it when i left.

seperated at birth?

subaru tribeca....

ford edsel.

if at first you don't succeed

after first bridging the gap from the couch to the highchair, rosco set about finding the food left by the little guy in the seat.

somehow, he thought there would be more.

i wonder

what he did to be on the ground laughing like that? it looks like he's about to get it. i thought it was cute.

cute little grins

it looks to me like he's saying..."huh, ain't that somethin'?"

happy boy. these photos courtesy of kevin using grandpa's camera.

a living disaster area

while this little squirt may look cute sitting here in his high chair eating bits of cereal bar, you don't know his true nature.

beneath this huggable, although sticky, exterior is a living, breathing human cyclone. want proof? soon after this photo, this 25lb boy pulled over a very heavy, expensive lamp. all six glass globes and all six bulbs shattered on the livingroom floor. thousands upon thousands of tiny glass shards surrounded him and everything else.

all in a days work, mom and dad...all in a days work.

oh boy

i didn't really sleep last night. i dozed off a few times between coughing fits, but that's not what i call sleep. it's not bad enough that i regularly don't sleep much, but to cut out virtyally all of it is not acceptable.

i had to abandon work today about half way through. too tired. luckily we weren't busy and i had done most of my ordering by noon or so.

look on the bright side: i probably won't have another cold until this time next year!

he's a predator

i caught rosco crouching down on the deck, stalking his prey. he was like this for quite a while, only his ears moving, radar like, very slowly. it appears as though he had his eye on a squirrel just off to the left of the photo. i got distracted so i didn't get to see the ensuing chase.

beautiful aston

ford is selling off the most beautiful car line in the world, aston martin. it's not necessarily a good fit for ford, but most wish jaguar would've gone away, being such a money pit. no matter. aston will hopefully end up in the hands of those who intend to keep it beautiful.

A little more objectivity, Dick!

IOC reprimands Pound for Armstrong remarks
By Susan Westemeyer

The International Olympic Committee has reprimanded World Anti-Doping Agency head Richard Pound for comments he made suggesting that Lance Armstrong had used doping products, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Pound publicly suggested in 2005 that Armstrong had "very likely" used EPO during the 1999 Tour de France. The cyclist subsequently filed a complaint with the IOC's Ethics Commission.

The IOC upheld the Commission's finding that the remarks "could have been regarded as likely to impugn the probity" of Armstrong, and went against the Olympic goal of "a spirit of friendshp, solidarity and fair play".

The Ethics Commission had released its recommendation on February 2, saying that the IOC should "remind (Pound) of the obligatin to exercise greater prudence ... when making public pronouncements that may affect the reputations of others."

....this exerpt was taken from cyclingnews.com this morning. i have said all along that the powers that be in the battle against doping are not impartial. they have loose lips. they are cinical and crass. is that how cycling wants it? do we want the future of cycling to be in the hands of spoiled children like Pound? apparently the IOC agrees with me.

that's good marker

we caught elijah chewing on the end of something. it was a non-toxic, washable crayon marker. i took this pic before we got it out of his mouth.

this is the happy little guy after deanna took it out of his greedy little mouth. i don't know if you can see it here, but his entire mouth is black inside, and his hands are covered in black.

probably not something we want him eating again in the future, right??

new stuff

since i can't ride today, the beautiful mrs k and i decided it was time to spend the home depot gift card that we got for christmas. we knew that we wanted to spend it on a ladder, so that was tops on the list.

but, when you're going to any home improvement store, there is always more to buy. deanna told me we needed a clothes rod for eli's clothes. check. oh, and i broke the push broom last week sweeping snow. check. i needed zip ties, too. check. ooooh, a full set of drill attachments on sale....check!

we got the big honkin' ladder. big to me. 8 foot, so i can change bulbs in the garage and in our stairway, and maybe even get the leaves out of the lower gutters. deanna also wants to paint hanna's room, so pooper and i looked at all the ladders while she checked out the paint section.

bored? go buy stuff. it's the american way. at least i'm paying with cash (and gift cards!) and not running up credit bills. i'm proud to announce that we are credit card debt free....and no, we didn't consolidate, we just didn't run up much on them and paid off what little we had.

it's official

i've got a cough and a cold. that means no riding for me. i'm sure i've spent a total of a year of my life with a horrible cough. last year, at this very time, we were in san diego and i stayed up an entire night, no sleep, just coughing. that cough lasted 2 weeks. i'm not going through that again.

what a shame. the race season is so close, my training is abysmal, and i have a cold. it's a long season i guess.

rosco position #821

remember when you were little and your mom would pile a bunch of guests coats on a bed in another room? it was so fun to go jump into the big pile of them. rosco does that pretty much all the time, only it's with our coats that we lazily throw onto a chair.

didn't ride

i didn't ride off-road yesterday like i had planned. i felt a cold coming on, and i was tired. excuses excuses.

i do plan to go to the 'wood in the morn. it's cold, but i plan to do some serious hill climbing, so maybe it will keep me warm. we'll see.

Tyler's back?

in today's cycling news, it appears as though Tyler Hamilton will be back. that makes me very happy, as i don't give a rat's ass what he did or didn't do. they hypocrites inside and outside the pro peleton should focus their rage somewhere else.

(further down the page, read about the tour of Missouri, and a quote from our own Dan Schmatz)

mmmm lunch

another satisfying banquet frozen meal down the hatch

no riding

at least not outdoors. i missed the 'nice' weather we had yesterday because i was working. i'm not sure you can catagorize a 44 degree day bracketed by 20 degree days as an opportunity to ride, though.

i'm going mountain biking tomorrow, i think. the ground should be frozen, the snow is pretty much gone...i can't really think of anything that would stop me, except...oh yeah, that fact that it will only be 20 degrees might deter me.

it's hard to believe that the racing season will be upon us in just a couple of weeks. i don't traditionally do froze toes anymore, so i probably have another weeks reprieve. i'm in no way ready to race. eli is still giving us no sleep, the weather is not cooperating...i guess i could go on and on about the reasons. it doesn't make me feel any better about it.

on the bike front, i have them pretty well sorted. the Oiz is all good, and the Opal finally got a set of race wheels. i'm really pleased with both, which will leave me no excuses later. i'm fine with that.

Pontiac's G8

GM is getting it together faster than Ford. They are figuring out how to differentiate their divisions and give them unique profiles. Pontiac, the 'excitement' division, is reaping the rewards of this. Cowabunga, man.

growing!

we need help!

'utes!

Holden HSV Thunder

Falcon XR6

Falcon XR8

Holden (GM Austraillia) and FOA (Ford of Austraillia) still have versions of what we 'mericans know as El Camino's and Ranchero's. If only ours had been this good. They feature luxury interiors much like the high end sedans, and rugged exteriors and short pick-up like beds.

....ok, maybe i do like 'em.

Aussie's have all the fun

it seems the horsepower war has been going on in austraillia for a long, long time. and they don't seem to conerned about it, continually pumping out hi-po versions of mundane family sedans and coupes alike. not so sure i'm a big fan of the 'utes, but people there love 'em.

party #2, hanna and max

a pile of presents for the princess. we do spoil her, i know.

patiently waiting while max opens some of his stuff.

neat cake for both of them.

the crazy kids, as we sung happy birthday to them.

for the show topper, hanna and tyson did their rendition of 'best of both worlds' by hannah montana. tyson rocked on the guitar, while hanna was on lead vocals. she even did some dance moves for us, including the splits. we all aplauded and they had a good time. she asked on the way home why guys always cringe when she does the splits. i told her she would understand when she got older.

slumber party

part one of hanna's birthday party here was a slumber party with some of her st.louis girlfriends. here, the boys join them for a little music searching on the web.

then it's on to the entertainment, 'high school musical'. they were riveted. it's a feel good musical with a lot of good messages for kids.

this was the start of the bedtime proceedure. it took a long time to settle everyone down for bed. the boys had to go upstairs to their room, while the girls got the cool eddie bauer air mattress for their 'camping out' experience.

the beautiful mrs k

my beautiful wife asks me frequently why she isn't in the blog very often. hmmm.

for one thing, she rarely likes any of the pictures i take of her, and i like to have pictures to go along with the words. like a magazine. for my readers who don't like to read.

but i've decided to change that. if there are going to be good and bad things in here, then by god, there are going to be pictures and things that she doesn't like. it's my journalistic integrity at stake, right?

here, we see her working the 2nd party of the weekend, a joint party for hanna and max, since they have birthdays so close together. even though she is tired, she still looks good, doesn't she?

party at our place

hanna has hair decoration...either that, or she is trying out for the part of "shaneequa" soon. such a pretty birthday girl.

blurry camera syndrome again. i don't know what's up with the indoor pics lately, but i think you can get the picture here. flaming birthday cake, or in this case, flaming cookie cake. the girls are staying over for a slumber party. it's crazy around here.

rudy's at it again

i sat the groceries down today and rootin' rudy rooted around in a bag until his head got stuck again. no food this time, chubby guy.

those crazy kids

here, hanna and tyson are jammin' in hanna's room. they both have ipod's to play with now. i guess i'm going to have to make sure they don't blow their eardrums to smitherines.

i dragged them all out to the shop this morning. h and t were doing some inventory while poops and i checked out the bikes. we had to vacate the house while the beautiful mrs k cleaned the house for tonights festivities.

listen to your mom

princess hanna is here with us this weekend to celebrate her birthday with us. we've got all kinds of events planned out for her and the kids. parties, parties, parties! and not one has to do with a superbowl!

she was born on superbowl sunday, 2000. the day the rams won. we had to shut off the tv at half-time because it was time to push this little girl out. i'm not a football fan, really, but like most we had watched and hoped along with the rams all year long. it wasn't until after all the birthing proceedures were over that we learned the rams had won. when hanna was born, the nurses gave us little 'rams cheerleader' shirts for the babies born on that day. i wonder where that thing is now?

she was 7lbs, 12 ounces and she was 20 inches long...a lot like eli. i changed her first diaper, which coincidentally was my very first diaper change, too. she had thick black hair that curled up like shirley temple when it got wet. she had blue green eyes, just like her mom and i have. everyone argued about who she looked like, of course, and it made me proud to hear she looked like me. it seems like such a long time ago now. from diapers and barney and bottles and formula and sippy cups and the wiggles to ipods and cool shoes and homework and hannah montana and talk about boys.

i never really wanted kids until hanna came along. it was a very hard adjustment for me, being such a selfish, self-centered person. it took a long time before i realized what sort of gift i had been given.

i'll never forget what my mom told me just a short time after hanna was born:

'son, you're going to be sorry if you miss these early years, because you can't get them back, and they are gone before you know it. there just isn't anything in this life that is worth missing this.'

1996 Grand Sport

the earlier corvette posting got me to thinking about my favorite 'vette, the 1996 grand sport. i remember reading about it in the pages of car & driver. the last hurrah for the C4, the GS harkened back to chevy's racing heritage (the 1963 GS corvettes, in particular), and put some extra spice on an already hot car. there were 1000 of them produced, with unique vin numbers ranging from, yes, #0001 to #1000.

the C4 cars were a creaky, squeaky bunch, starting with model year 1984 and ending in this model year, 1996. the car improved by leaps and bounds over it's production run, from a wheezy emissions-era L83 350 with 205 horsepower, rock hard suspension, and horrid interior. The L98 350 grew in power, from 230 to 250, then gave way to the popular LT1 motor with 300 hp, then finally the slick revving LT4 found in the Grand Sport, sporting 330 horses. (the Lotus-designed, Mercury Marine-built LT5 DOHC V8 in the 1990 to 1995 ZR-1 corvette is another car altogether) Besides the engine, the suspension was constantly upgraded, always using the unique transverse leaf spring design. the interior improved as well, but didn't really get good until the C5 models came along. the horrible 4+3 manual transmissions gave way to 6-speeds.

things at work today

the kaiser brought his baby by today, and of course, it didn't disappoint. custom sid world cup, I9 wheels, extralite cranks, 8-speed X0 drivetrain, xtr discs with a stan's front rotor, that devilish speed needle saddle. it needs a bit of love in the bottom bracket department, but otherwise it's race ready. wanna know what it weighs?

it's blurry, yes. but look closely. yes, baby, that says 20.37 pounds. it's light and it's bad.

and then we had time to do some new displays. there is nothing like hanging up a bunch of expensive stuff just to see how it looks....and it looked cool. we eventually did this whole wall. we saw, and it was indeed good.

Fellows Special Edition Corvette

I'm a closet Corvette fan. Mostly because I can't afford one, and partly because they still have a reputation for being the car for the gold-chain set. The rep is an undeserved one, as the 'vette has morphed into a world class sports car over the last 10 years. Actually, I'd really like to have a '96 Gran Sport, complete with stripes and all. But, I'm sure I would consider others, this special edition included.

Thank Autoblog for the fine pics.