Ah, riding the road bike OUTSIDE

Although I have ridden my mountain bike outdoors at least once a week for weeks on end now, I have only ridden my road bike indoors since the middle of December.  But, this last week has been too muddy to ride off road.  Imagine my happiness whilst taking the old Fastback off of the trainer and hitting the road yesterday!

Great ride.  I really wanted to go for an easy spin, but it ended up much harder than it should have been.  To top it off, while doing a lap of Jefferson Barracks, I had to put the B's on somebody.  I had just swiftly passed a group of riders (waving as I went by) and one guy returned the favor by drafting me down a hill and attacking me up the next!  Awwww, Hail Naw!  I turned on the old man afterburners and put that to rest.  So much for an easy spin.

I also took a quick lap through the cemetery.  I can never remember the street nor the plot where my dad is, so I just made the most of it and enjoyed the view of the cobalt blue Mississippi.

What a great day.

Pile of Rosco Hair

Sometimes I give Rosco a hair cut.  I just can't stand to see him run around looking like a homeless dog.  I had enough this morning and went to work with some scissors and this is what came of it.  It feels like it weighs several ounces...it's a big pile and it's DENSE!

He looks like a new dog, but he will probably sleep the rest of the day.  He gets pissed over things like this.

Sorry, dude.  You really needed it.  You'll thank me tomorrow.

Hanna is closing in on 12 years old

 Hanna turns 12 in a few days, and as a special treat, we asked her to vacuum the living room!  Ok, not really.  But she is a very good housekeeper. 

 Like in past years, we got together with the Buck family to celebrate because cousin Max's birthday is within days of Hanna's.  And all the cousins get together and play stuff.

 Eli can have fun with anyone, anywhere, anytime.  Here, he just finished tormenting one of Max's friends.

 I took six or seven photos where Hanna's eyes were closed.  I just decided to go ahead and use this one.  Hey, nice coat!

 Deanna made sure her eyes were WIDE open for this one!

 Ah, finally a photo of Hanna with her eyes open!  And, I think Max's eyes are open, but it's hard to see with the abundance of hair.

Max had no trouble blowing his candles out.  Hanna tried multiple times.  Maybe they were trick candles?  Happy birthday kids.

100 Bike Parts for 100 Days of School

Eli has a project at school that involves 100 of something.  On Friday, it is the 100th day of school for him, so the project can be anything that represents 100.

It was a pretty easy concept for me to wrap my head around.  Eli is always riffling through my parts and tools while I'm working downstairs, and I'm painfully aware while I clean up after him that there are hundreds of small parts and pieces that I currently have little or no use for.

So here it is.  100 individual bike parts, bolted together in a small work of art.  Eli was so proud of it.  It was very exciting for him to go through the counting process, as well as figuring out ways to put them together.

If you look closely, you can see chainrings, bottom brackets, cranks, chainring bolts, headset top caps, star nuts, brake shoes, brake calipers, cables, suspension remote lockout switches, XTR pedals, XTR skewers, headset spacers....it was actually really fun.

I hope it's at least unique.  It is to us.

Happy 13th Birthday Rosco P Coletrain!

This is the killa.....

January 16th, 1999.  That's when it all started.  Rosco P Coletrain was born on that day.  He came home to my house on my birthday a few weeks later with his angry little face, his huge gremlin ears, and his mean little bark.  Through the years he has held such a special place in my life.  He and his brother Rudy changed my life forever. It would have been hard for my selfish heart to have learned anything about love or sacrifice without them.

Happy Birthday, Rosco.  I love you.

It's January 16th....

...and I had the top down.  It may be dirty, but dammit, I had the top down and my hair blowin'....what little there is to blow.  I washed it on the way home tonight, by the way.

Ice Skating with a BFF

Eli is always bored and looking for fun when his older siblings are not around.  Thus, he called his BFF Sydney to go ice skating with us at Webster.

Sydney and Eli were chomping at the bit to get onto the ice.  In the meantime, we watched the Zamboni machine.

With his walker...er...ice walker in hand, eli blasted around the rink.  He was doing quite well.

I was standing next to the glass and this came up.

The beautiful Mrs K was tearing the ice up.  Here she was helping Sydney with her...er...ice walker.

The rink became rather crowded and the ice walkers became quite the rage.  If you didn't keep your eye on your ice walker, it would be gone.

I have no idea what Eli is doing here.  Can you tell he's wearing Tyson's gloves?  We left soon after this because the kids were so darn tired.  Apparently it's hard to skate around with those walkers.

New bed, maybe a good night's sleep??

Neither the Beautiful Mrs K nor myself have slept very well in the last 6 years.  That's because we made a poor decision when we bought our last mattress.  Well, the mattress, kids, dogs...you know, they all conspire to make sleep a elusive pleasure.

Maybe that changes after today.  We bought a new mattress, a memory foam thing.  She researched it to the Nth degree, as she does everything, and I have high hopes.

If I no longer have bags under my eyes the next time you see me, it's probably because of the new bedding.

A Bad Blogger's Look Back at 2011

I keep saying that I am glad that 2011 is over.  So far, 2012 is looking pretty darn good, even if judged simply by weather standards.

2011, The Good
The kids are growing like weeds, and each started new grades in school.  For Eli, it was his first year of school, as he started Kindergarten.  Tyson and Hanna started 5th and 6th grades, respectively.  And just like every good parent, I tell everyone how smart they are. 

Deanna started with US Bank and is going along very well.  She says I can't have a Lamborghini just yet but I'm holding out for early retirement.

I was graciously tasked with the position of Manager at Big Shark's new West location in Chesterfield Valley.  It has been the best work experience of my life and I'm thankful for that opportunity.  I can see big things for the store in the near future...hopefully very near because, as stated above, retirement should be just around the corner!  

2011, The Bad
The year started out pretty badly with both the beautiful Mrs. K and I having medical issues.  For me they are ongoing and I pretty much struggle every day with stomach issues.  I feel petty complaining about it, because I know so many more people that live with so much worse.  Nonetheless, it's made for a very challenging year.

We lost our wonderful friend, Rocky.  He's been a huge part of our family, and it's still tough.  At the same time that Rocky became ill, Rosco began having stomach trouble, probably sympathy pains for me.  He still struggles with bladder problems, but we have requisitioned  Grandma's dog Carmel to keep Rosco (and us all) company.

Going Forward
We have a lot to look forward to this year.  Hanna is on a select volleyball team, Tyson is playing basketball and will play baseball in the spring as well as do a few mountain bike races.  Eli...well, Eli has nothing but good things ahead.  Deanna is doing a half marathon in April, and she and I are going to France for a week long riding tour of the Tour de France bicycle race.

....and, I hope to be a better blogger, whatever that means.