things i oughta be doing

i should wash my car. it hasn't been washed since june. really. and the interior needs to be sent to a french drug testing lab to see what sort of chemical nightmare has been created by the combination of spilled slushy, crushed donuts, smashed chocolate granola bars, smooshed french fries, and cardboard fragments.
there's a piece of siding that has gone awry on my house. it's right over the garage, so i could climb out a window and shimmy over to it, and perhaps pop it back into place. on second thought, i probably shouldn't shimmy to do anything, much less shimmy to fall to my death.
i need to power wash and seal my deck. i did it two years ago. or was it three? i should remember because i pretty much blasted small holes in the wood every few inches. the power you feel with massive water pressure is addicting. i followed that up by dousing the deck in sealer. it didn't dry for a week.
my gutters need cleaning. they always need cleaning. we have a forest right around the house, and the gutters literally fill with debris within a week of a professional cleaning. that is no joke. so, at $100+ per cleaning, multiply that by 52 weeks a year....yeah, they may just stay clogged.

good thing i can use the excuse that i'm busy working at the business, and have no time for such mundane household chores. i'd look pretty lazy and useless otherwise.

final version, giant tcx 0

so the white tape went south straight away and i couldn't stand the new 6700 ultegra shifters...so vamoose! gone! now we have black tape and good ol' dura ace 7800 and we're good to go. perhaps we'll add tubeless technology into the mix? perhaps. perhaps.

for now, i'm satisfied to roll this beauty into 'cross season.

rock racing bikes

not only does rock racing have a dozen of the world's coolest kits, now they have a couple of the wildest bikes. photo courtesy of cyclingnews.com.

reaction to dad's vintage advertisement

what the???

more vintage frivolity

i think jerry started running this ad in bmx plus in 1983. he also had like a thousand fliers made up to pass out at the races and nationals.

boy, times sure have changed.

gateway cup kids photos

flannery allison always has her camera at the races. these photos of the crazy kids were taken by her at the hill race, and they are wonderful. thank you, flannery!

if anger is a gift, then maynard from tool is rich

sometimes, he makes sense, too.

greensfelder, the short ride

i never get to ride very long. really, my races are longer than i ride, and i do 90 minute races. it just doesn't work out.

like today, for instance. i had to box and ship a couple of bikes as well as some wheels and a frame. that took up a sizable portion of the morning. then the driving around for pickups and some conversations...and it's 2pm. luckily, the fine gentlemen at the hub in webster had some stan's sealant, just what i needed to be un-tubed in the rear of the supafly.

2pm saw the mad dash to install said sealant, the mad dash to clothe myself in lycra, the mad dash to load the car, the mad dash to apply insect repellent, and of course every obstacle on the road that could slow me and the freestyle down. a train. construction. traffic.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh! i just wanted to ride my bike at greensfelder! just for a little while!!

and i did. for a little while. it was rocky, to be expected, but it was also in great condition. the recent rain had settled the trail pretty well and i had fun. i did a preliminary lap, followed by a more serious lap, followed by a pseudo-race lap. just a fraction over 14 minutes for that last one. now, if i can just do that 6 or 7 times sunday, i'll be in business.

did you count that up? 3 laps took less than 55 minutes.

yep, that's about my ride time these days.

office assistant

eli: dad, i need your stamp.
me: no, last time you stamped everything, including my desk and chair.
eli: i really NEED it, dad. you need to give it to me.
me: why do you need it?
eli: it's very important, i need to stamp.
me: here's a piece of paper, you can ONLY stamp on the paper.
eli: ok....

furious stamping, shuffling of paper, a few grunts....

eli: dad, you need a new stamp. this one is old.
me: what?? what did you do to it?
eli: it's not working. where is your tape gun? i need to tape!

affton days parade

affton has a parade every year. this year, the beautiful mrs k was handing out balloons for national city bank and the boys were helping. so i went along, hoping to get a couple photos of some classic cars, which usually drive in parades. this was affton's high school band, i think.
cool first generation firebird. bad choice of wheels, i think.
very cool fire truck that eli was wild about.
some really old car. forgive my ignorance in autombile identification before 1965.
chevelle 454 ss. not a bad looking car.
truck thing that eli was loving.
shriners. what else can i say?
not shriners.
another old car.

palos verdes concours car thing

i perused autoblog tonight and found some lovely photos of some beautiful cars at the palos verdes concours. some gorgeous alfa's.
ah, the beautiful ferrari dino.
my favorite lincoln of all time, the mark II.
odd duck, lamborghini jalpa.
just as odd but with strikingly odd looks, the lamborghini miura.
bitchin' pantera's.
classic pantera.

hermann cyclocross, exhaustive coverarge

hi! i wanted to tell you about the hermann bike race. dad bought a funny looking new bike for a funny kind of bike racing where they make you run. why get off and run if your bike works fine? i know dad's a pretty good mechanic, but he still had to run up some steps and through some sand. beats me.
mom caught dad running right here. he looks very upset. either that, or he has to go potty really bad and there is no time in this weird kind of bike racing to do that.
there were these people there. they seemed nice enough. mom even spent some time talking to them. i spent a lot of time in the field playing with tyson and other kids. i feel i should stay a safe distance from this sort of thing.
again with the funny guy.
meanwhile, back at the race....
cristel and allison were there. cristel can yell very loudly. and a lot. she was yelling at dad a lot and he seemed to go faster when she did. i don't know if it's because he was trying to get away from the noise or it made him more excited to race his funny new bike.
these people yelled a lot, too. they were at the top of the stairs that dad kept running up with his bike. sometimes they threw beer at dad. other times they let off fireworks. i liked that.
i met all kinds of cute new girls. girls love me.
whew! dad was finally done. he finished pretty far back from the winners, but mom said he didn't get lapped, whatever that means.
and here is a good photo of my feet.

hermann cyclocross, brief coverage

the infamous stairs were back!

my family loves hermann missouri. be it for a cyclocross race, a hellish circuit race, or a tour of the winery, it always delivers. today was no exception, as it was time again for the annual hermann cyclocross race under the lights.

last year, the race was held after some brutal rain and it was a muddy mess. even so, i couldn't wait to get back to it. this time, the cyclocross fairies brought us a course that i just fell in love with. fast but super swoopy and NO MUD, it was a course to die for. and then there were the stairs! those lovely 100 year old stairs that put the fear of god into a 'crossers legs. they killed me again this year, but i am fatally attracted to them.

more sparsely attended this year but the competition was still quite fierce. i was never in any danger of placing in the top ten, but i battled it out with a group of five or six guys for 10-15th place for the whole hour event. pedal, pedal, turn, turn, pedal...i'm in love. anyway, it came down to the last lap and i only had enough guts to pedal in the 4th of four guys fighting for some place beyond 10th. it's crazy how hard we were racing, but that's the beauty of 'cross racing.

the beautiful mrs k had a great time catching up with all of our friends. of course, she's always making new ones, too. i think she has caught the 'cross bug now. better find a small 'cross bike, fast! the boys had the best time of all. they found stu's kids and together they terrorized the whole area. the boys were official pig pen poster boys when they piled into the car.

thanks jeff yielding and hermann for another great event!

ZEVMOTO.COM electric motorcycles?

ZEVMOTO Zero X
ZEVMOTO Zero MX

ZEVMOTO Zero S

i've known jim squires for a long time. from biking, mutual friends, etc. ever the entrepreneurial spirit, lately he's keen to run a company called strategic ecommerce solutions. well, besides that, he's also involved in this really interesting venture, electric motorcycles.

they're not toys...nothing like some silly little scooter that runs around annoying people while letting them know how green they are not. nope, these bad boys are for real. they're actually high performance motorcycles, just like they're gas powered predecessors. they're just not noisy!

peruse the site a little. even if you're not keen on moto's or electric anything, they're still interesting as hell. ZEVMOTO.COM

50 years is a long time for car safety technology

take a minute to watch this youtube video posted on autoblog. it shows a 2009 chevy malibu being test crashed with a 1959 chevy bel-air.

2009 versus 1959

yes, the entire area occupied by the driver of the bel-air is eliminated.

cropped photo

sorry, i risk being redundant posting this photo again. but, mr. rines sent the original to me and it's a great photo when it's blown up. it's quite large originally and you can even see the beards myself and fellow old guy john matthews grow on the weekends. i think you might be able to see chest hair. anyway, great photo john, and thanks.

oh, the salsa jersey? mitch the masher himself gave it to me last march when all i brought to a training ride was a long sleeve winter jersey...it was 80 degrees. i hadn't worn it since and i rather like it. i think i need a new helmet.

a few photos of mustangs past

this was my last mustang. it was a 2001 convertible. it was on the tail end of my mustang fanaticism. i didn't have the time for it and it was too hard to get eli into the back seat. sometimes i would drop the top just to put his pumpkin seat in. something had to give.
this was my 98 cobra. it was deeelux. 32 valves and 7000rpm of v8 goodness. 40xxx miles and completely stock. i only had hanna at the time and it was a cinch to get her into the back seat. why did i get rid of that car again?
my 95 gt. it was a 5.0 car, thus simple as legos to work on. of course, i took it a little far and it was quite the bruiser by the time i was done. i loved that car, but i was happy to see it go when the guy handed me the check and drove it away.

my total corral of mustangs over the years:
1965 v8
1966 6cyl
1999 gt
1995 gt
1998 cobra
1999 gt 35th anniversary
1996 cobra convertible
2001 gt convertible

if i had my choice again, i would own a 1995 cobra, a 2001 cobra convertible, and a 2004 mach I. maybe i pick those because i never had them, but there are good reasons for each. the 95 cobra because it's the last of the sn95 mustangs with the hottest stock 5.0. the 01 cobra because it's the last of the non-supercharged 4v cars and it came with an independent rear. and the 04 mach I because it was the hottest 4v ever in the mustang and i'm a sucker for the mach I look.

first day of preschool

today was eli's first day at preschool. he has really been looking forward to it. he loves the idea of school. i guess it gives him a chance to effect more and more people with his charm and destruction, and introduce them to the little general. whatever his reasoning, his backpack was indeed bigger than he. he wore it around all morning until it was time to go.
both of the boys, cheesing on the steps. you would have thought he was going to disney world.