me and my dog

look, i caught a ferocious, man-eating beast!

camera shy

are you going to take my picture?
listen, i just woke up. take that thing outta here. seriously, i'm not kidding! i haven't had my morning formula and my hair is all over my head. and quit using that flash!!

busy weekend

i heard something funny on a sitcom this week. something about being cuter than a duck with a hat on. i really cracked up. it just struck a chord with me. when looking for a really funny image of a duck with a hat on, i came up with this one. not as funny as i thought.

we're going to have guests from out of town this weekend. my sister and her husband are going to stay with us. i told them they could use elijah's bedroom, but under no circumstances are they to sleep in his crib. out of the question.

hanna has been staying with us this week. three kids in the house is sort of like a herd of elephants chasing their tails. hanna changes clothes every hour or so. then she changes back. laundry is a dirty, dirty word here in our household. when someone mentions laundry, i feel like curly and the words 'niagra falls'....slowly i turned, step by step, inch by inch...

the rush is 90% finished. i have to hook a longer brakeline up for the rear brake and i'm set. woo hoo, that thing is going to be fun!

elijah has decided that crying is much more important than anything else. so he does it all the time. i wonder when it is a person finally decides that crying, although quite fun, isn't as fun as doing something else, say, eating, sleeping, laughing, playing, etc? i for one, would like this to be learned quite quickly. perhaps today. tomorrow would be good, too.

tuesday night worlds

yuck!

hard race at matson

i knew matson was going to be a hard mtn bike race, but daaaaaaaaaaaaaammmn. it was tough. my lungs are still burning from that crazy gravel road leadout. i thought i was going to slow to a complete stop before the top. plochmeister pretty much waved bye-bye at the base, and i thought i was clear once we hit the asphalt road at the top, but not really. i did hit the single track in 2nd, though.

i fought off the charge of whacko's behind me while i was hacking up peices of lung and other vital organ tissue. the first half-lap at matson is down-ish hill, so of course i wasn't going to get too far away. but what goes down has to go up, right? once the course turned upward, in it's grueling, twisting, unrelenting way, i went clear of the pack. i fought pretty hard, but plochmeister still put 5 minutes into my aging, wrinkling, coughing body. i ended up 1:30 ahead of second and third. i even enjoyed the course by the end, and being 1/2 lighter by the end from ejecting flegm is an added bonus, i guess.

kaiser looked good as he came by at the finish. he was the only ultra geezer out there today, as the rest have either catted down to sport or just stopped showing up. maybe the all-ages expert field is not such a good idea, eh??

poor clyde frog

before rosco got to him, clyde frog was a happy, healthy stuffed animal, and pretty much minded his own business.
afterward, not so much.

just a couple pictures of chubby

a little stroll around matson hill

i first rode matson hill back in 2001, i think. i didn't like it very much. pretty choppy and just not very rewarding. i rode it again in 2002, maybe a couple of times, and came away with the same feeling. yuck.

the kaiser and i met up out at matson today. i would've never gone, except we're supposed to have a race their saturday. we parked at the parking lot on the katy trail, and we were of course the only people there. i've never seen another soul out at matson, which never shocked me because, well, it sucked.

kaiser and i pedaled slowly up the gravel road toward the trail head. he had never been there, so i was sort of giving him the scoop about the course as the road steepened into an impossibly steep wall, then leveled out.

"this'll be a great warmup, eh?" i asked. he agreed, and we both bitched and moaned a little about this gravel road being the lead-out train for the actual race on saturday, too. ug. then, a short jaunt on a perfectly paved road, and we reached the trail head.

we zipped around the trail at a leasurely pace, and i was really amazed at the difference. it was no longer choppy. it had the same g-outs and creak beds to jam through, but somehow it was much nicer than i remember. i also like the clockwise direction that we did, which is the direction the race is supposed to go, too. we finished our first lap, and it only took 20 minutes or so. i was up for another lap, but kaiser sat it out. he was still a little pekid from last weekends 28 mile romp around castlewood.

i went faster this time, and finished up in about 17 minutes, still not taxing myself. it's looking like a race loop will be 15 minutes or so. did i mention that i was having fun? i was. i'm glad i revisited matson. i don't think it's a good race course (too narrow, no spectator area, too short) but it's a fun place to ride.

kaiser and i coasted down the big hill to our cars. it's much more fun going down than it was going up.

here she is

kinder grad

i loaded up the family last night to drive down to hanna's town. we were excited to watch our little girl graduate from kindergarten. it was awesome to see all the little people in their hats with tassles and all. they did a cute little program with lots of songs and different costumes. hanna's letter was "L" which stood for liberty, so she had on a crown and gown and held a torch like lady liberty. i was so proud. i took lots of pictures but have not downloaded them yet.

we didn't "graduate" from kindergarten when i was little. i also know that i couldn't read and write nearly as well as hanna can at that age. i guess kids are smarter now (at least smarter than me!).

what excuse when there is no excuse?

i wish i had a way to make an excuse for my performance at the state championships yesterday. my tire pressure was wrong (thanks foo!). my energy drink was spiked. my shorts were too tight. i'm a pisces and the race was definately not fortold in the stars....

it doesn't work for me. i hate excuses. any excuse i come up with is, well, just an excuse. i'm better than what my results show. at least i believe that i am. i have been working harder this year than in recent years to get fit, and my races so far this year have shown that i'm on the right track. even my road season has been looking pretty bright.

i don't downhill as well as i used to. too scared, too many trips to the emergency room, too many people depending on me. i have a lot of responsibilities, i eat like crap, the baby keeps me up at night, i have mom's estate to worry about, i have lots of pressure to keep my household going.

so what? i know my limitations, i'm faced with them every day. and, knowing those limitations, i still went into saturday's race believing i was better than i actually am. i know the lay of the land, i know the battlefield, i know the history, i know the score. i still was prepared to be better.

bad day? no. i didn't feel like i was going slow. course not to my liking? everybody had the same course. did i have fun? yeah, i guess i did. if i did that race in a vacuum, without regard to my placing, i would have to say it was a good race. only when i look at the results do i scratch my head and wonder what the hell i am doing in 9th place.

if i hated excuses before saturday, i hate them more now. i don't want a do-over. i want more. i want to go forward and improve upon my weaknesses and shore up my strengths....because anything worth doing is worth doing to my own expectations, however misguided they may be.

i'm a month old

would you believe that i'm a month old? i can hardly believe it myself.

i went to the doctors yesterday and i weighed in at a scale-busting 11 pounds. that's 4 pounds more than when i was born. yeesh, i better lay off the snacks!

i could use a healthier lifestyle. i mean, all i really do these days is eat, sleep, and keep diaper companies in business. and i don't sleep at night when most people are sleeping. i like sleeping during the day. it's so much nicer 'cause it's so bright outside and the light sorta hurts my eyes. so, i just sleep while the sun is out, and i keep mom and dad company at night. dad gets really crabby about 2 or 3 o'clock. i can't tell time, but i know when it's 2:30 'cause dad says "jeez, kid, it's 2:30 in the morning!!!" sometimes it's 2, though. or 3.

i've been spending a lot of time at grandma's while mom and dad are at work. she's always happy to see me and i'm starting to hear about being spoiled already, but i don't know what that is. it's usually more fun at grandma's 'cause there are always lots of kids there, but i'm always happy to hear mom's voice when she comes to pick me up.

i'm looking forward to my second month already!

up to something

doesn't she look like she's up to something in this photo? you'd never know that she actually had a princess dress on and was carrying around a majic wand.

yyyyaaaaaawwwwwn

a glimpse of normality

the beautiful mrs. and i stole an opportunity to ride our bikes again saturday. in grandma's capable hands, the fiesty elijah would be out of our hair, er, i mean, well taken care of for a while. we rode down to the start of grants trail and took it the entire length. at grant's farm, we got back on the road and headed home. the hills were a little tough on the way to the trail, but everything else was gravy. we had a great time, just like last summer when we seemed to have lots of opportunities to ride together. after the ride (and showers!) we jammed over to pueblo salis for guacamole and enchalladas. mmmm. a day to remember all the fun things we like to do.