Last Post of 2019 - 2020 Will be a Great Year

Seems like a tragedy to ruin a great end-of-year blog post with a photo of  a grilled cheese sandwich.  But, quite the contrary.  This grilled cheese has salami on it, which makes it a super special grilled cheese sandwich.  And that's my metaphor for 2019...it was super special.  Not any one thing made it that way.  The culmination of so many things going right for Deanna and I make 2019 the best year of my life, of our lives.  And I get grilled cheese with salami so there.

What was I thankful for at Christmas?  Everything.  I don't need gifts.  I just need people that care.  And I have so many of those.  I did get a keyless garage door opener, though.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any better, I got socks.  Not just any socks.  THESE SOCKS!  I won't tell you about the truly wonderful things that our family gave to us, because it's mostly stuff that didn't go under a tree anyway.  We are loved, and no one let's us forget that.

We went out.  We traveled.  We laughed. We cried.  We struggled.  We triumphed.  We aged.  We acted like children.  Bratty ones.  We worked. We played.  We adulted, probably too much, probably not when we needed to, but we adulted and I'd like to think we made our parents proud.

Best of all, we did it together.  We are not great as loners.  We do our best work when we work for something, for each other, with each other.  Forget about that time we almost killed ourselves with the extension ladder.  There are no photos of that so we're probably good.  Next year, we're going to live the same way, hopefully better.  Whatever happens, it will happen.  Mostly, we just care that we're doing it together.

Rex - On Being Rex

Our lovable mutt is pretty predictable.  If I come home and he doesn't greet me at the door, I know why.  It's because he's enjoying a particularly wonderful nap....in someone's bed.  On this occasion, it was in Hanna's bed, with just the right amount of sunlight warming his nose.  He didn't wake up when I walked in to take this photo.

If the beautiful Mrs K is working on her computer in our room, there is absolutely no doubt where Rex is.  Yep.  He's doing his best, imitating me, in my spot, on my pillow, in my bed, right next to her.  Nope, didn't wake up for this photo, either.

When it snows, there's a fantastic chance that Eli will be throwing snowballs for Rex to catch with his mouth.  This is a bad capture from a video that I took after last week's snow.

When Mrs K and I stretch or do planks on the bedroom floor, there is a 100% chance that he is trying to lay on top of her.  If she doesn't let him lay on her head, he will whine and moan like he's been left out in the rain.

Christmas morning, he was the one waking us up for presents, not the kids. He got some squeaky toys and a rope.  Mostly demolished, mostly on my bedroom floor.

Rex, in his favorite place during his favorite time of the day.  

Do these lights make my Xmas Tree look fat?

Before I get to the xmas light drama, I have to tell you how much fun I've been having riding the longer travel mountain bikes.  We got a Trek EX8 for Deanna a couple of months ago.  She really loves it.  I finally took it for a couple of rides myself at Greensfelder and WOW!  I may just lay waste to 30 years of cross country experience by saying that these new generation of long travel bikes are just better bikes.  I had so much fun at Greensfelder and could have ridden much longer if I had the time.

The beautiful Mrs K insisted that I give her bike back.  So I did.  But I was able to borrow a demo EX and we rode at Cliff Cave...each of us on our long travel bikes.  I proceeded to mop up my own fastest time on the Bluff Loop.  I'm sold!  Now I just have to get one of my own.

Now to the interesting part.  This large bundle of wire and lights were the xmas lights that we used on our tree last year.  And this year....one half of one strand worked.  The others were dead as a door nail!  Bizarre! So, so wasteful.  But never fear....

We had bought a few strands of indoor-outdoor lights to put up on the exterior of the house.  And our "exterior light" child procrastinated when asked to do his job and put them up.  And procrastinated.  No exterior lights.  How fortunate.  We repurposed them for the tree.  Now, it might be just me, but our tree kinda looks like an exploding star in our living room. We will see how long this lasts.

Wisconsin, Margaritas, Cliff Cave, and Greensfelder

I have an extremely blessed life.  You'd never know it if you listened to me complain.  But I do.  This past week, I spent most of my time in Madison with my fellow Trek-ites.  Notice I didn't call them Trekkies because that name is taken.  The convention hall was stunning, right on Lake Monona. We were there for some learnin' and some teachin' and some good times.

I didn't sleep well while I was there.  I usually don't when I'm out of town.  Missing my honey accounts for some of my sleeplessness.  I'm trying to justify this amazing breakfast of Monster and donuts, so roll with it.

One of the nights, I strolled past the capital building and found Ian's pizza.  I remember eating here when I lived in Madison in 1994.  Good pizza.  They had Cherry Pepsi in a coke cup, too.

 I drank some water, too.

However good one's travels may be, there is no place like home.  The beautiful Mrs K picked me up at the airport and promptly drove us to Creve Coeur where we rode mountain bikes.  She had packed it all up for us and it was glorious.  We also celebrated my return home with some margaritas.  Some is a vague term.

Still full of margaritas, we joined some of the GORC crew for some finishing touches on a new section of trail at Cliff Cave.  Trail building can be tough work.  Just look at this guy.  He looks like an old man.  Wait.  That's me. I'm still standing like that.  My back hurts.

 The family that builds trails together is cooler than most.

To make all of our backs feel better, and to celebrate the new switchbacks on the Overlook Trail, we all ate sandwiches and basked in the glory of a 59 degree sunny day.  So happy we were finally able to give a little help to the wonderful trail builders at GORC.

After the trail build, I felt it was an appropriate time to take out Mrs K's awesome, long-er travel mountain bike.  I have always been against such things.  But times change and so does my spinal column, so I tweaked a few things and hit Greensfelder.  Trail was in great shape and I must say I am a huge fan of the Fuel EX.  She says she wants the bike back, though.

Huge shout out to Dan B for the ride-along at Greenselder.  Way more fun than riding solo!

Winter is Settling In

Even though it comes every year, pretty much around the same time, I always hope that winter will skip us.  I know it's kind of childish, but I can't stand cold weather.  Can't stand being stuck inside.  I really hate scraping ice off of my car, too.  My hopes have already been dashed, of course, since we have seen snow, sleet, and even temps in the teens already.  Too early if you ask me.

So as winter settles in and mocks me for yet another year, the beautiful Mrs K and I have struggled to make the most of it.  We've bundled up a few times already, sometimes even at night, and braved the elements.  Just last night, I set my bike up on the trainer for a workout and she ran on the treadmill.  Not a bad set up, but I was hoping until at least January before we had to resort to actual indoor training.

Today really got to me.  Really high winds, temps in the 30's, plus snow flurries and even some sleet was crushing my soul.  But Mrs K and I suited up (she got some awesome winter cycling shoes on sale!) and rode our gravel bikes over to Dogtown to do some South City hills.  Just as we got over to Southwest, she ditched me.  I kinda expected it, 'cause it was pretty brutal.  Turns out, she was the smart one.  I forged ahead, did my US RDA of hills and motored home.  My hands were frozen, as usual.  Can't keep them warm for nuttin'.

We did warm up enough to head out to a family birthday dinner for Gus.  And we got a good photo of us as a bonus.

Friendsgiving

When the beautiful Mrs K and I agreed to host Friendsgiving for Eli and his buddies, it seemed like a good idea.  I mean...it sounded like something I'd want to do when I was 13.  Eight 13-year-olds in a modest sized house.  So fun.  So.  Fun.  Wait.  We agreed to this??

The Good and The Bad Sunday

Starting off the day, I was able to put my handyman hat on and get to the task of replacing the front porch light.  The globe had broken on it some time ago so it was really, really sad looking.  14 years, I guess it put in it's time.  Good riddance to it and it's normal light bulbs.

We replaced it with an LED light fixture.  Not expensive, plenty of light, and no more bulbs.  To me, it's a win-win.

 Later in the day, the beautiful Mrs K and I drove all the way the hell up to Fort Bella Fountaine for a cyclocross race.  Now...I had done this course before.  Twice.  And both times I was sorry I did it because it was a power course and that's just not my style. Pretty proud of my slow start, letting 5-6 guys lead the way.  Not so proud of my slow middle and end, which wasn't a part of the plan.

Mrs K cheered and heckled me, but that only helps so much when you're just plain slow.  I managed to hold a couple of fast guys back, but mostly I rode the race by myself, close to the back of the A race.  I've struggled with racing the Masters race versus racing the A race.  I don't feel like I belong in the Masters race, so I've taken my beatings this year in the A's and it has taken a toll on me.

Onward and upward, as I always say.

Happy Birthday to the Beautiful Mrs K

It's wonderful when you can plan a weekend around your loved one's birthday.  We thought we'd done a good job of it, but the night time mountain bike race we had planned was cancelled.  We had other options, though.  Loading our mountain bikes up for an afternoon of riding trails was a good one, but what you can't see inside the hatch of the furious Focus is the Beautiful Mrs K's cyclocross bike.

Faust Park has never been one of my favorite cross race courses.  But that didn't deter Deanna from going all in and doing the A/B women's race there.  It was a long course, with lots of pedaling and a fair amount of up and down...a power course, which is why I shy away from it.

She was riding strong and we were very proud that all of her mountain biking has helped her skills so much.  I got a nice workout riding along the course heckling her.  Not really heckling.  I offered to get her ice cream when she was done and she snarled at me like a rabid raccoon.

45 minutes at full gas is hard for seasoned crossers, so you can imagine that she was pretty chapped by the last lap.  She got second, just in front of an old friend.  They were both knackered but seemed glad that they did the big girls race.  After the finish, we loaded up and drove to Greensfelder and did some mountain biking.

When we got home, we both swore we were done for the day but it was only 6pm.  So we decided to go to the Chocolate Bar and ate big ass brownies and drank some wine.  Isn't she just a hunka burnin' love?

Not to leave well enough alone, we packed up early Sunday morning for some good ol' Cliff Cave riding.  The trails were primo, and we took it easy to enjoy the wonderful weather. 

 We took a few minutes to pause and take selfies before I headed off to work.  It was just that kind of day outside.

While I worked, Deanna slaved away, making her own birthday dinner.  It was like some kind of cooking show, topped off with Grandma and Grandpa bringing Ted Drewes frozen custard to compliment the home made carrot cake that Eli made for his momma.

Another weekend goes by, and Eli has no choice but to again have his mind blown by how awesome and active his parents are.

Some days you bite the bear, other days the bear bites....

Cyclocross racing, or "extreme masochistic behavior" as I like to call it, is a funny sport. And 23 guys showed up to race the "A" race today.  Many of them brought their "A" game, too.

I'm guessing I didn't bring a good game today.  I may have brought Twister or Scrabble or Uno.  But I didn't bring my cyclocross game today.  I started fast, big surprise.  And I kept getting passed with no answer.  Pity, since if the ground had been totally dry, it would have been a very technical course.  Mountain-bike-ish, maybe.

 Alas, it was a bit soft, which added to my misery.  I must praise the layout, nonetheless. 

 I kept trying, heart rate pegged, seeing cross-eyed.  And kept getting passed.

I look like I'm hauling ass here, but I'm really just encouraging riders to pass me.  I must have had a big sign on my back that said "pass me, go ahead, it's easy!"

When I wasn't getting passed, I was riding pretty well.  I feel like my bike handling was doing me proud.

By the end, I was getting pretty lonely.  11 people in front, 11 people behind.  I pushed to the finish line like it meant something, because that's just what we are supposed to do.  So I did. 12th place, I think.

Insult to injury, in the first 1.5 seconds of the race, just as I was producing 1.21 gigawatts off the line, my inner thigh clipped the empty cable guide on my China-carbon frame and produced a rift in my epidermis. I couldn't stop to look at it, as I had a lot of getting passed to do, so I didn't quite get how much of a rift it was.  Turns out, it's quite a rift.

Onward and upward, I say.

Stranger Things... or Mrs K Goes Cyclocross Racing

It had to happen sooner or later.  The beautiful Mrs K finally pinned on a number and raced the Cyclocross race at Creve Coeur today.  It has been a long time coming.

There were extenuating circumstances, of course.  Every time we show up to races, she gets encouraged to race by our friends and racing buddies. Old Man Tom in the left of this picture finally got the ball rolling when he accepted Deanna's challenge that she would race if he would race with her wearing a dress.  Done and done!  Thanks Tom!

She took the course like a champ.  And Tom looked great in his fashionable clothing.  It was a tough course, too.  Slow grass, technical switchbacks.  And elevation, oh was there elevation!

Three laps of the course was pretty grueling.  But I guess our mountain biking and working out has paid off.  Our whole house has been sick, including her, but she didn't let it stop the good times from rolling.  And she didn't let the fact that her cyclocross bike is actually a mountain bike with road handlebars.  Hey, we are nothing if not resourceful!

 Well, she did have a few choice words to go along with this grimace in the last lap!  

While she didn't raise her arms like a professional cyclist does when she crossed the line, it was a big win for us.  It's been 9 years (and a lot of physical struggles!) since she last raced a road bike, which is quite different than cross or mountain bike racing.  Tough woman right here!

(Eli's reaction to Mom's race quite literally blew his hair up)