getting totally buff

deanna and i worked out together on saturday. we have a membership at the heights for the whole family, but we never go together. as luck would have it, our babysitter could start early enough in the afternoon that we were thinking of bike riding before date night...but the rain and cold put the kaibosh on that. so we went to the gym.

it was actually crowded. i didn't think there would be many people there on a saturday, but then again, i've never been on saturday. deanna and i did some things together, then she went to the cardio machines. i don't really need that kind of cardio, so i just kept with the weights. i've been growning stronger, albeit slowly since i average 1.5 workouts a week. deanna gets to the gym twice a week, and has a really good grip on the exercises that work best for her. getting to ride with me is all extra for her.

i haven't done bench presses in years, but since deanna was going to be a little while, i said what the heck. 100lbs. isn't much, so i started with that. pretty easy. then, 135lbs. that seemed better, and looked better on the bar, since that's a big plate on each side. resisting the urge to look like a real man, i added two more 10's and at 155, it felt heavy. i did 8-8-5 for reps. hmmm, no shoulder pain. looks like i can add the bench to my workout.

but no max attempts. that would be so 80's.

new brakes

when i put mrs k's new OIZ together, i used most of the parts from the rush, including the hope mono mini disc brakes.

i love the hope's. they have such a nice lever feel and look so trick. but i must say they require a LOT of love when setting them up. i got a little spoiled by the avid ulitmates that i put on my own OIZ. so, i ebayed the hope brakes (why did an english guy pay good money for brakes made in england from a guy in the US??) and bought some juicy 7's for her bike. now we share lots of things in common: frames, forks, sram shifting, avid brakes. my ultimates came with a 140mm rear rotor, her juicy's came with 160's, but that's a small detail. it's nice to have the commonality in our bikes so that at any given time it's only a short swap over to make a ride happen when disaster strikes.

the only thing is, the more i look at her '07, the more i like it. mine is an '06 with the orbea team colors. the blue on her bike (and the kaiser's) is just stunning. i'd have to say that she's lucky her's is a 17", or she may be a victim of a secret swap..."no honey, you're bike has ALWAYS been that color, really. MY BIKE has always been blue".........

poops has learned to wave!

it's so cute watching them learn little things like waving and patty cake. he hasn't quite gotten the hang of rocking back and forth on this stylish little rocking horse, but that could be next.

he's also grown pretty fond of grown up food. tonight was a bit of lasagna, last night it was a bit of broccoli soup. and cheerios. he eats up cheerios like nobody's business. so did hanna and tyson. i have some paper photos of hanna with a dozen cheerios stuck to her face.

brotherly love

it's pretty rare that these two lay together. deanna pointed out to me a few minutes ago that they were sharing a bed. and they still are. maybe they're cold? rosco usually just jumps up on the bed or couch and tunnels in under a blanket or something. poops is very fussy this morning, so maybe they are seeking refuge from his racket, and misery loves company.

mommy and poops playing ball

mommy, in her ever-stylish leopard slippers and life is good pants, is showing poops the finer points of playing ball. he gets excited to play. he doesn't get the 'roll it back to mommy' part very well yet, though.

mountain biking

i was able to get out on the mountain bike one last time before this crazy freezing rain stuff came along. thursday morning i loaded up the impossibly small mustang with all my cycling stuff and drove out to lost valley.

i parked at the lot just past the mound. johan told me that this was a good way to jump straight into the trail rather than parking at the traditional lost valley parking lot and having to ride all the boring gravel trails. right out of the parking lot, it's only 50 yards to the steep downhill into the lost valley trail. at the bottom, it meets the regular trail and i was in business.

there was some soft stuff...well really, everything was soft but there was minimal mud. the technical single track stuff was stellar. i made it a point to mainly ride the fun stuff back and forth, but i did hit the center gravel road so i could climb. and of course, getting back to the car meant climbing the super steep section that dropped me into the trail, so that was good.

Check the links

New cool shoes. Get 'em delivered to your door. No need to get fondled by some creepy shoe store guy!

mechanical failure

from time to time, i get requests from people to help them out with a car problem. it's not like i am a great mechanic or anthing, but i have been under the hood and under the floor pans of several cars in my life, so i guess calling on me to work on your car is better than calling rosco.

my nephew Brett has an older acura that just up and quit the other night. he and my brother had figured out that it is probably the distributor. after fooling with it a bit, they didn't want to throw anymore money at it without getting another opinion. if i'm worth anything, i'm worth a rather opinionated opinion. so i loaded up the clan and drove down to kimswick to the sprawling mansion they have in the hills. (hey, it's sprawling to me, ok?)

i took one look under the hood of that there foreign job and figured i may as well get greasy so i could fool my brother and nephew into thinking that they had done the right thing by calling me. after smearing a bit of motor oil on my hands and a bit across the forhead, i spoke in a very commanding, reassuring voice..."yep, it's busted."

i really did try to figure out if they were right in their diagnosis. figuring that no spark to the plugs could only mean a faulty coil, and that the coil is indeed integrated into the distributor, i feel semi-confident that they need a new one. really, i felt quite bad. i hate to cost people money by telling them to buy something, but i lack the knowledge to make a detailed diagnosis, especially when that includes electronics/computer controlled devices. i'm much more at home when i can fix it with a wrench.

the ups and downs of daily life

random shot of cute toddler

after taking out a second mortgage to have all three dogs groomed and shots for rocky, we were hit with another financially devastating vet bill for rudy's teeth. rudy loves to eat and loves to sleep, but he doesn't enjoy chewing so much. chewing is one of those things that helps keep a dog's teeth healthy. so it didn't come as too much of a surprise that rudy needed serious dental work. after president bush agreed to a kakouris family bailout, we were able to pay for two teeth to be extracted as well as antibiotics for the little butter ball. he's home and happy now, having participated in the hijacking of a loaf of bunny bread from the counter.

the beautiful mrs k has been on "vacation" this week. no, she didn't fly off to any exotic land to get away from the circus, but she has been working out, getting messages, manicures, pedicures, and shopping at target. in other word's, heaven on earth.

tyson and elijah both had doctor visits this week. elijah had a general checkup, and tyson had another glowing review from his dentist. tyson has a bit of ocd when it comes to his teeth. we took he and hanna to a little show at the zoo last winter, one that featured the tooth guy and all of his wacky, obsessive-compulsive tooth cleaning procedures. tyson has taken that stuff to a new level, and we usually have to physically halt him from brushing his teeth into a fine powder in the bathroom sink. clean teeth, though.

hanna got her report card this week, and it's very good once again. very soon, we will start applying to grad schools and masters programs. ok, soon, not very soon. she will need to enroll in clutter control classes to ensure she will actually make it to college age.

life of a dog

i caught rudy napping in the beautiful mrs k's pile of dry cleaning.

meanwhile rosco was in his usual spot. he lives like a king because he can jump onto most furniture in the house.

detroit auto show

some things that caught my eye from the detroit auto show. first, the chevy volt. electric car and sexy CAN be used in the same sentence.

and who can resist a jaguar? this is the cxf concept. meow.

meow. meow. jaguars, however good or bad, always get me going. it's like the old saying...it's better to look marvelous than to feel marvelous. let's hope there's more feeling marvelous to go along with all of this looking marvelous in the future, eh??

a station wagon for me

this is a precursor to the new dodge magnum wagon, in srt-8, 6.1 hemi form. it's a mild update to the current magnum, but i think it addresses a couple of the styling miscues from the current model, such as the nose and the interior.

i test drove a plebian magnum before buying the mustang...a 3.5 v6. what the hell i was doing behind the wheel of a v6 station wagon, i don't know. i must say i was impressed with the power, but i felt like i was driving a car meant for my dad. the dark, drab interior did nothing to excite me, and it didn't help that it was refrigerator white. so i dismissed it and went on to buy the convertible.

i should have driven a 5.7 hemi version of the magnum. on second thought, maybe it's best that i didn't. i would've tired of that old man's interior. this way, when i test drive a new one with a hemi AND the newer, cooler interior, i can make an informed decision. and, i'm pretty sure i could talk the kaiser into helping me out once i dive under the hood of one...right marty??

i don't think there is an 6.1 srt-8 in my future though. a standard issue 5.7 hemi will probably suit me juuuuuust fine.

new kits

we got the new ghisallo team kits in last week. none too soon, i might add. i've been riding with gold card's medium jersey...does the word corset bring any visuals up? the new stuff is killer looking hincapie custom. you won't be able to miss me, no matter how far back in the pack i am, when i'm rollin' in the bumble bee kit!

wiiiiiiiindy!

brrrr, it's windy outside this morning. i just couldn't stomach the trainer, so i braved the blustery weather and broke out the homegrown. even though i was dressed quite well, the wind was biting through my clothes, but the only things that made me miserable were my hands. i had on good gloves, too. my hands are just hopeless, even worse than my feet.

i got in an hour before the pain in my fingers put a halt to the "fun."

weekend rides

i was able to get on the bike for about 30 miles on saturday. i was super-psyched to get outside so i could try out the power tap. i did the tapawingo loop, with an added loop through the golf course itself. that was a fair amount of climbing. since deanna got out on her bike before i did, i knew i was going to have to finish up in the dark.

my handlebars resembled some kind of control center. i had a cateye LED light, a power tap, and a polar hrm. what's amazing about the power tap is how little i really know about power output. it's crazy to be pedaling so softly, yet see 150 watts...conversely, it's odd to look down while really hammering and only see 275, or to pedal briskly out of a corner and see 600! i'm learning as i go along, and i hope i can get the hang of it and use the information for some good gains.

all said and done, i averaged 239 watts at 156 average heart rate. is that good? bad? i'll find out.

sunday was a trainer only day. i wanted to go easier than saturday, but still get a worthwhile ride in. i lasted an hour, which is all i can stand indoors. much more mild...199 average watts at 136 bpm.