Help save some great buildings!

Do your part and help save history! They are on the list as one of the 11 most endangered historic places!

Don't let our state destroy these wonderful buildings! These are amazing structures in Yankton and once they are gone they are gone. Help save history and sign the petition on the link to Governor Rounds to save the buildings at the Human Services Center!

Sick of the flu..........

Ok, is anyone else tired of hearing about the swine flu? I know I am!

I realize that any bug like this is serious when it can spread fast but does the news media need to sensationalize the whole thing, making a lot of people panic about this?

A SIMPLE and EASY solution to reduce your risk for
catching any "bug": PEOPLE, WASH YOUR HANDS!

Does the media sensationalize about the 36,000 people that die from the "regular" flu or complications of the flu each year in the United States? Does the media sensationalize about the 1,500 people that die each day in the United States from cancer? Does the media sensationalize that 3,400 people each day are diagnosed with cancer in the United States? Heck, did you know that 1.2 million people die from bike related accidents world wide each year? Do we see HUGE breaking news crawls or hour long news specials about any one of these tragic things? NOPE.

Mrs Dude's Boob Fund!

Check this out and donate to Mrs Dude's Boob Fund! (This is not a joke!)

Weekend recap........

Had a great weekend but lots of windshield time. I found out on Thursday I was going to head to Minneapolis on Friday to receive some continuing education credits, basic electricity for door hardware, from our DHI-North Central Chapter. With heading to the Mpls area, I knew there are always bike races in the area so I contacted a few people to let them know I was going to be in the area and would like to "shadow" another official if it would be ok. They had a big race going on in Cannon Falls, MN called the Ken Wood Memorial Road Race, University of Minnesota-NCCC (North Central Cycling Championship). 340 riders and 70 collegiate riders for the race. The weather was to be crappy, rain, cold, wind, so I was prepared with all sorts of layers. I was paired up with Emily another official. She had never done the road racing commissaire part of the race before and since I had, we were a team. We followed the Cat 3 men (3-laps on a 21 mile course) for the race in the morning. Pretty "cushy" job, not that officiating is a cushy job, but since the wind was a bit cool and the threat of rain loomed all morning, it was good to be in a car. I even got to do my first call out of a race, meaning calling the group and going over some of the rules before leading them out on the course. In the afternoon, I did the Junior (1-lap on the 21 mile course)race and road with one of the parents, Bob, nice guy and good conversation was had. Good to see the parents involved and doing stuff with their kids! The race was also good just meeting other officials and and experiencing how bigger races are run.

This event also featured a "chip" system. This means that the racers have to rent or buy a "chip" about the size of a quarter, that is on a velco ankle strap. At registration the riders are given their chip. The chip has a number that is entered into the computer with the riders name. When a rider goes across the finish line the chip is triggered by a series of wires on the pavement which go to a computer and is plugged into the software system. This places the riders as to their finish. We do still keep track of the riders manually also and then everything is double checked from the officials manually scoring to the chip read-out sheets. Since technology is not 100% fool-proof and then if there are any DQ-d (disqualified) riders, the computer can't tell that, so it can be taken care of at that point. Once the finish is agreed upon then the results are printed and posted. Pretty cool system! Thanks again to all the officials, Matt, Bill, Bruce, Jeff, Steve, Emily, Larry, and two others that I can't remember their names (SORRY!) that helped me learn a bit more about officiating. Also thanks to all the corner marshalls braving the wind out on the corners to keep everyone safe during the race! One older lady who was a corner marshall in teh morning, was from Des Moines, and was there to see her granddaughter race for the U of M. How cool is that to say your grandmother was out there as a corner marshall! She did a heck of a job out there also!

I left Sioux Falls around 8:30am on Friday morning and made it back to Sioux Falls 8:30 pm Saturday night. Long couple of days and lots of miles, but it was worth it.

Don't forget your blinky and headlight for evening riding!

Last night we had put aside to roam the bike trail on the bipeds. Of course I decided I needed to get a haircut so that put us on the trail later than we had expected but nonetheless in good season. We headed out into the wind like any good bikers rule of thumb, go into the wind and return with the wind at your back, and are just cruising along at an easy pace when we see Cycle SD. He turned around and joined Kris and myself. I felt bad as we were not going very fast at all but I rode along side him and we talked as Kris drafted off Cream Puff. Good conversation was had. We stopped, refueled and let Cycle SD go on his way. We took off again heading east in the curvy part of the bike trail just past Minnesota Ave when a fella came up behind Kris and was following her. I thought he didn't want to pass on the curvy area but then we thought he should have passed and blown by us, the fella leisurely pedals along side us. It was Irish from Harlan's Bike and Tour. So we pedaled and chatted with Irish for a bit until we got to the Cliff Ave area. Then we noticed Cycle SD was at the convenience store and joined our group again. It was fun but I am sure we slowed them down a bit, but still fun for us. We turned around between 26th street and Cherry Rock and decided that since it looked like the sun was fading fast we needed to get going back to our starting point, Orion Foods. Headlight and blinky light lighting up the night we headed south and then west, and of course north stopping a few times and also enjoying the bats eating all the those darn little BUGS. Then mother nature joined in and decided to shine a little light. This got us a bit nervous as we were in a section where there really was not a lot of cover but a few miles and a few sprinkles later we were loading up and heading home.

When all was said and done we rode 21.07 miles. Not at a record pace but it was not about that. It was about building some base miles for Kris and myself. I am so proud of her! I told her as we were on the home stretch, "Do you realize that last year in August was your FIRST ever 20 mile bike ride?" she replied, "Yup!" and I went on to say, "That it is April and you put in your FIRST 20 miler of the year, almost 3 1/2 months earlier than last year! That is truly awesome!" and of course she totally agreed.

Here is the funny part of this. Most people from the outside looking at people riding bicycles would say, I have no desire to ride a bike 20 miles. There is just no way I could do something like that and yes, biking is not for everyone, but I am here to say Kris was kind of like that when she first started riding. She is not an athletic sort of person but when she started riding, became more confident in her riding skills she has ridden 20 mile rides, a 30 mile ride and now looks back and says, "it is really not all that bad, at all!" Here is the kicker to this. She has also said that it is really quite fun but is not really interested in riding 50 miles on a bike. How funny it is that the mileage number, just a few years a go was 20-30 miles and is getting longer every year! Kongalooosh Kristine!

By the way there were other FAB-ulous people sightings out there on the trail last night. Amy and Mrs H were seen pedaling around! I am sure there were others also I just do not know them yet!

Off to a meeting in Minneapolis Friday, so everyone have a great weekend! I know Abe will. His stitches come out Saturday! Way to go Abester for leaving them alone so you didn't have to wear the lovely lamp shade (e-collar).

The Recap......

What a wonderful night it was on, Friday night. We sat on the patio, at the Clubhouse with the tiki torches lit and just enjoying the night. It was so nice out there, I hated to go inside but after a long week at work the bed was calling me by 10:30pm.

Saturday we were up semi early to get the rainy day going. Yup, rain. Good thing we enjoyed the patio on Friday night! We had a few projects we needed to get done after breakfast of course! We wanted to get the garage cleaned out and also reorganize a closet that has been a hazard for some time. After errands to local box store, grocery store and a convenience store to haul beer (New Belgium-Abby, Mothership Wit and Trippel - have not tried them yet) over the state line we started in on our jobs. We cleaned out said closet and put together a small shelving unit for misc. games and shoes on the bottom shelf. Of course cleaning this closet out meant a trip to Goodwill with mom's shoes. That was hard to do but I got it done and it was something that needed to be done. We relaxed for a bit before we met up with our friends the Lanehogs, well, some of them anyway, at The Pit in Wakonda for supper. YUMMY food as always, good conversations and good friends! We truly have been blessed meeting some great people through biking! My Godparents, Joan and Luther, even showed up! I took Joan into the men's bathroom to see the throne. It is a one of a kind. She laughed at it and proceeded to say that, "Luther would fall off that thing!" We had a table that we filled with 10 people and boy we had fun. Cathy & Charlie, Melissa & Nick, Ed & Pat, Luther & Joan, and Me & Kris. We had permission from Biking Brady and Ride Vermillion to go ahead with our supper at the Pit since they were going to have their own fun on the LBL (lincoln, beatrice, lincoln) ride. I so, enjoy our Pitt meetings! Dawn & Christi had a Storm game so they could attend this time around either. Maybe the next time we will have our whole crew there!

Sunday, I cleaned out the garage so it is ready for the summer then it was on to brunch followed by a LONG NAP! I woke up a little before 6pm! We still had to load up and head to Obert to the cemetery to take the Christmas wreaths off the graves and put new flowers in the vases. Boy, winter is hard on a cemetery. Seems there is a lot of cleaning up to do there this year. Needless to say we got home around 9:30pm last night and I fell asleep soon after we got the truck unloaded.

Now, it is Monday afternoon. A fun busy week is planned with work and a at least two bike rides need to happen this week. Kris is teaching the USD PT class tonight here in Sioux Falls from 5p-8p, so I get stuck with laundry from the weekend. That is fine. With it being so WINDY out today the bike does not temp me at all but they are not happy since they traveled to Yankton then Obert and back to Sioux Falls without being ridden and we all know an unhappy bike will get even at some point with it's owner!

The weekends go way tooooooo fast!

Procedure, the Pitt and Pandemonium

Good afternoon, kiddos!

Where did the week go? I feel like all my blog entries have been repeats of each other lately! Not all that much to blog about but work is busy, been busy with bike stuff and someone is having some sort of procedure at our house.

I had four projects bidding this past week, FAB board meeting on Tuesday night, and Abe had a procedure to removed a mass from his snout which we found out today is not cancer. It was a histiocytoma. He has been good with leaving it alone and not scratching it at all.

This weekend we are heading to the clubhouse in Bridge City to get it ready for spring and summer. The patio furniture will go out, once I get the patio cleaned off and the garage will be cleaned out. We also want to get a bike ride in and then there is also supper at the PIT in Wakonda with Cycling Cathy, Charlie, Sieversma, Nick (I think), Ed and Pat from the wonderful metropolis of Burbank and of course me and Kris on Saturday night. A few of our other Pit friends are headed to NE for the LBL (Lincoln, Beatrice, Lincoln) ride and a couple others have a Storm game to attend, so they will miss out on the PIT fun! Not sure what else the weekend has in store for us. I guess we will play it by ear.

Next week will be more pandemonium! The shampoo saga, you know, wash and repeat (same as other weeks).....except, NO, planned procedures!

Have a great weekend everyone and safe travels if you are on the road!

Abe is having surgery today!

Poor Abe is having surgery today. He sprouted a mole/wort like thing on the side of his snout in Feb. As one of our friends said it looked like a wood tick. When we went to DC the beginning of March we had the vet look at it and it was determined through testing that it was not cancer. They suggested having it taken off sometime this summer when he comes in for a teeth cleaning.

So, we decided that was the plan until this weekend. Poor guy was scratching at it, it got irritated and now it looks bigger so we decided it needed to come off sooner rather than later.

Laser surgery it is and when he is done he will be sporting bright white buckers and will also have some sort of incision on the side of his snout. Just can't wait to get him home! Unfortunately I have a couple bike related meetings tonight, so I will not be there to comfort the little guy. Kris will have to take care of that part. I am sure she will do a great job!

Great weekend-the recap!

HAPPY MONDAY, blog readers!

Had a great weekend. I hope all of you did as well.

Friday night we started off with supper at Johnny Carino's. Had great food and then headed over to Stubbies, a local non-smoking establishment. We wanted to watch the Twins play, but little did we know it would end up being retro-beer night for me. I started off with a Schlitz. Not sure what my dad saw in that beer. WOW. It is really carbonated tasting. Then it was Hamm's followed by PBR, followed by Busch lite, followed by Labatte blue followed by Grain Belt. In there we also ordered a couple orders of, REALLY GOOD, tator tot baskets. It was fun. I think the most fun was tweeting to people what we were doing.

Saturday we hit The Diner for breakfast then the grocery store, with everyone else. Got home and loaded up the bikes and hit the bike trail. Since it was kind of windy, we opted to stay in the more protected part of the trail, which as many of you know is usually the busiest and it was not to disappoint in that aspect. I am beginning to HATE ipods! Ok, let me rephrase that. People with ipods that do not stay to the right on the trail and walk down the center of the trail. I am also amazed at how some of the dog owners out there are not responsible. There was one place were there was dog droppings and another were a dog was off leash that was wondering all over the trail in front of it's owners. Have you ever tried to out guess which way a dog is going? UGH! Ok, enough of the rant. Kris and I did have fun. We road from Cherry Rock over to Western. In between 26th and Cliff there was a Roadlegs sighting with his kiddos. He looked to be having fun teaching his kids how to ride on the trail, wish more parents would do that. I didn't know it was him until we were almost past him and he shouted out, "Hey, Tez, looks like you were having fun with the beer last night!" Seems he was following the tweets from Stubbies, Friday night, also! It was funny. Kris and I were on a mission so we didn't stop to chat, which I feel bad about...SORRY ROAD LEGS! We made it to Western and Kris was done. She didn't want to over do her first ride of the year so she headed back and I decided to ride to 49th street then to 41st street. I turned around there and headed back to Cherry Rock. Once at Cherry Rock I met a VERY HANDSOME GUY! His name, Sampson. He is a 3 year old Newfoundland. What a sweetheart he is! Of course, I had to stop and talk to the owner since Abe is part Newfie. Seems Sampson loves everyone but the mailman!

We got home and did the first grilling of the summer! filet mignon, brussel sprouts, ass-per-gas (as my dad called it) and also new potatoes with garlic! The filet mignon had a porchini mushroom, gorgonzola sauce on it (recipe is here). YUMMY! Abe, even helped himself to one of the small filets from the counter! YUP, first time that has ever happened. It was part my fault also but he was in the dog house all evening. Poor guy. I felt bad. All I have to do is raise my voice and he is a puddle. He stuck to Kris pretty much the rest of the evening although she was not happy with him either. We have a rule that no matter what, the slate is wiped clean the next day and it was.

Sunday we hit 8:15am church at First Lutheran, while the Paris-Roubaix was going on. It was hard for me not to watch the twitter feeds, but I resisted. When we got home, I watched the end of the race on the computer before we went to brunch at Grille 26. Brunch was ok. Still not up to Minerva's standards yet, but I am sure they will get there. Once home we blanched some green beans, brussel sprouts and asparagus and threw them in the freezer just in time to watch the whole P-R bike race on Versus!

It was a good weekend.

SD rides and a Crit!

First off, there is a new blog site for rides in SD! Check it out here! (great job and great idea putting this together Biking Brady!)

First Spoke N Sport criterium race of 2009 was held in Sioux Falls last night. A lot of people braved the cold, windy conditions to cheer on 23 riders riding the .7 mile loop. For some not only was it the first race of the season but for others, it was the official start of the officiating season. It was good to see all of us that took the USA Cycling officials class in Feb. there to lend a hand. We even had a few others helping us out, thanks Sprocket, Life with Tony, Kris and of course Dustin the race director! I think the races went well and we will only get better the more we officiate. Now nothing left but some paperwork!

If you have never been to a bike race before this is a fun one to watch. The course is a loop so you can see pretty much all but one corner depending on where you stand plus the riders go fast which seems to be what a lot of people like to see. You can find information for future races here. The best part of watching these races is that you get to meet new people, cheer on the local racing talent and of course it is FREE to spectators!

Ready for spring and bike races!

Life has been busy, but boring as of late and of course with a few drops or so of stress added in, just for fun!

Busy with work, busy with bike (non-riding) stuff, bored from the last snow fall and only hoping and needing SPRING to break me out of this funk.

Tonight it will be another night of sweeping the criterium course for the races tomorrow night. I should not complain. I helped for a little over an hour last night sweeping the finishing stretch and it was not so bad. Tonight we have one last corner to sweep. It is actually the cleanest of the corners but still not good. The corners have been described as sweeping a gravel road and on some of the corners it is the truth! As I was sweeping last night, a few cars drove past me and were looking at me strangely. I am guessing they thought I was out fulfilling my community service obligations even though I made a point not to wear an orange jumpsuit or anything with black and white stripes. Still I had very interesting looks. I have to admit, I would look at someone strangely also that was sweeping a road out north east of Sioux Falls in an industrial park area. There is a purpose to all this. You see, gravel is a nasty evil with road bike tires and gravel combined with a corner is the ultimate nasty combo. You can crash in a hurry so it is necessary to sweep to make the course as safe as possible. The CPC guys have been working hard to get the area ready for the race and it is looking pretty good., just a little more housekeeping and it will be ready!

Now comes the stress part. A few of us will be there for the races in our "official" officiating attire. We have a lot to learn and I hope people are patient with all of us. We will get the process down but it might take a few races. I am pretty sure all of us will be REALLY GOOD by the end of the season and will have learned a lot! I am a bit nervous about it so I am going to re-read rules and the manual again before the race tomorrow night.

Scored a Borah neon yellow vest over lunch on the clearance rack at Harlan's Bike and Tour. They have some nice new products at their place so stop in and check them out! New bike shorts, arm warmers and a trigger point ball should be delivered to the house by the time I get home tonight. I hope this will get me out of my funk, SOON, if not, at least I stimulated the economy a bit!

Smatterings and get our letter of concern sent!

Happy Friday everyone! Not much going on but the up coming snow storm heading our way. Somewhere between 4-12 inches is what I have heard but who knows anymore. The only good thing is whatever we get will be gone in a short amount of time. So light is at the end of the tunnel as far as spring goes, kiddos!

The weekend plans are to get taxes and laundry done. I was going to go out and take some pics around the community but with the crappy weather coming in that would not be so fun. Kris has to work the weekend and carry the pager at night so whatever the plans end up being they will be VERY low key! I also need to get those pedals, from Ride Vermillion, on my the road bike....I AM JUST LAZY, I guess!

I do have some New Glarus - Stout and Stone Soup beer to try out. Might just have to get that in the fridge for a sampling sometime this weekend.

Feeling not all that great today. Kind of congested and a headache. Took sinus stuff at lunch to see if it will help. In general just tired! Seems we have had a lot of go, go, go and added stress in our lives this month. Time to step back a bit and relax!

Hope you all have a great weekend and hope the snow doesn't get to deep in your area!

P.S - If you use the Sioux Falls "greenway" trail and you have not written your letter to the city about concerns during and about the levee changes, get on it! They need them by noon Monday, April 6th! Read the FAB forum and what people are saying here! These are all very valid concerns that all of us have talked about. We need to let our city know how we feel about this! It is possible to have a voice in making our "greenway" a better and SAFER place for ALL of us to enjoy! No matter what or how you ride or even if you do not ride and use the trail for walking this affects all of us. It even affects drivers as you will need to be aware of where there will be additional pedestrian and pedal traffic. Proposed trail re-routing can be seen here.

24 years ago today

Twenty four years ago today we were in the hospital at Avera Mckennan unplugging my dad from the respirator. He had two strokes in three days and was brain dead. Nothing to be done. He lived 52 years and that was it, lights out. Pretty sad and way to young.

I have lived almost half my life without my dad. I was thinking about this the other day. That is truly crazy. Am I sad? Well, I will say I do miss him. I know he is very proud of all that his family has accomplished. My dad was a lot of fun and loved a good joke or pulling a prank on people. I do have a bit of him in me, maybe.... : )

If your parents are still alive treat them extra special! I know at times it can be a trial with any body but think about how lucky you are to still have them and share things with them! Don't just take them for granted. You never know when they will be plucked from your life. Tell them you love them or give them a hug when you see them, you will not regret it!