Sick.....

Well, I ended up hitting after hours care at Hy-Vee last night after work. I started coughing Tuesday afternoon and as the day progressed yesterday it was getting worse. I do not have influenza-A like two of the four people in our company that are out sick with. I have either a different flu or a viral thing. So now I have cough syrup with Codene and some over the counter meds all in all it should make work fun today!

Body count today: One of the sickies is back to work, three are still out and the boss has yet to show.

Bugs

The flu bug is hitting our company hard. We are small anyway but today we are REALLY SMALL. Both shop guys are out sick. Our hardware guy is out sick and so is the other lady in the office that does some bidding and billing. That leaves me and the boss and he is not here yet this morning. UGH...Since I am acting boss this morning I am going to give myself a raise and more vacation time....what do you think?

Jurrasic fart

It's official

I finally joined the Falls Area Bicycle Club! (FAB)

Beer, Spaghetti and BUSY!

Well the weekend went off pretty much as planned. Nothing to wild. We did hit Monk's on Friday night after the Skyforce game. I had a Nogne-O Brown Ale that was pretty good but was a bit to cold to begin with. Saturday night we ended up cooking a big VAT of spaghetti sauce so we stayed at the house, ate, had some wine and just BS'd. We had five people eating supper and still froze 6 quart bags of sauce..YUM! We also tried whole wheat pasta - angel hair, it was very good and of course the roomie made beer bread which was also great!

Church was PACKED at the 9:45 service. We ended up out in one of the wings at First Lutheran and sneaked out before the end of the final hymn so we could make out brunch reservations. Braco had some great food for brunch. The Ahi Tuna was excellent on their buffet.

Sorted through a bunch of CRAP in the den and I mean to tell you it was CRAP! Still not close to being done and organizing things. It will take a bit of time so good thing we are starting NOW!


I can not believe HOW BUSY work is with bidding. I am going to be swamped the next three weeks. I feel overtime or comp time is going to be in order to get it all done. I also have my first responders coninuing education stuff starting this week and that will take up a few Fridays (6:30-9:30pm) and Saturdays (8:00a-1:30p) until mid April or end of April. UGH....Oh well good to get refreshed with all that first aide stuff and CPR. Not sure I need to be at all the class for the whole time as there is lecture and then lab time but we will see.


Slept for crap last night or should I say this morning. I was tired last night and took a nice hot bath then read a bit (28-days behind bars-about biking from Seatle to New York) and then turned off the TV. Woke up at 4:00am. Turned on the TV as I was tossing and turning then shut it off at 4:55am then of course the radio started playing at 5:00am and then I feel asleep again to wake at 6:00 to turn the TV back on then fell asleep AGAIN to wake at 7:20am. UGH...hurried and hit the shower and then to work by 8:00am...well...8:03am. I am sure it is going to be an EARLY NIGHT FOR ME! --- I am guessing I was thinking of ALL the things I need to do in the next few weeks so my brain was in overdrive and that was what woke me up! I guess it is better than dreaming about the spanish mafia trying to kill me...this was the Saturday night dream..very bizzare but I am know for very bizzare dreams!


Hope everyone out there has a great week!

Weekend plans

Heading to the Skyforce game tonight with some friends. Roomies sister won four tickets for a game and she gave them to us so we will hit a local establishment to have some beverages and food before the game. Tomorrow evening we are taking the roomies nephew out for supper and movie. He is a poor college kid and needs to be treated! Not sure where we are eating or what movie yet but it should be fun. Easter Sunday there will be church and a brunch with the roomies family at Bracco. Should be a good time also. The remainder of the weekend will be filled with cleaning and sorting in the den. We purchased a new computer earlier this week (delivery around April 7-9) so we want to get our computer desk fixed up. I bought some old desk parts are an antique store last summer and I am getting a wood door from work to lay across them. There will be some modifications to the wood door but will need to see how everything all lays out once we get our new computer all set up. The roomie is going to be having some up coming surgery and so we want to get it all put together for her to mess around with while she recovers. Exciting times at the old homestead!

To all of you out there reading this wacky blog of mine....HAPPY EASTER and travel safe!

NCAA and some bike stuff

I had one wrong from my NCAA picks last night...not so bad, I guess at this point...Duke almost put me in a real bad way but they pulled it out!

Picked-up the roomies bike (Gary Fisher - Napa-comfort bike) from LBS and man does it look NASTY...in a good way. It looks like it is ready for commuting! She had new serfas tires (inverted tread) and black planet bike fenders installed plus a tune-up. Once we got it home I put on her bar-ends, headlight and taillight. I tried to get her seat on but needed help...UGH...the bolt was on there so TIGHT that I could not get it loose. I did everything but stand on my head to try and get it loose. So, I loaded up the seat with seat post still attached and headed to Scheels as I knew they would have a mechanic there at that time of the evening. He ended up taking a HAMMER to it to ge it loosened. As we walked out the wind caught my coat and blew it up against the seat tube and so now I have grease all over it...DANG IT! It is that nasty green sticky yucky grease that is on the seatpost-shock. We headed home and got the seat all installed and she is almost ready to roll! I think she still wants a rear rack and trunk for it yet. I have some work on my old Gary Fisher HK-ll to do yet but it is minor, pump up the tires and put on the headlight and taillight.

I bought a Terry Liberator seat and I am still deciding on what bike I should put it on yet. I have a nice gel seat on my GF but on my Cannondale (road bike) I have a Avocet VERY old gel seat. I am going to ride my Cannondale in the MS150 so that is what I am thinking about putting the Terry on. The only issue I will have is that I will mainly ride my GF around town and not so much my road bike so in order to break in that saddle I am thinking of putting it on the GF and then changing it over later to get a few miles in on my road bike. Any suggestion?

NCAA Picks

Ok, so I have UCLA and Kansas in the Championship game with Kansas winning!....I also fill out a bracket for my roomie and that bracket has UCLA and UNC with UNC winning! Stay tuned to see how I did!...DISCLAIMER-this pool is all done in FUN and NO MONEY changes hands!

March Madness

First off, March Madness has a new meaning this year. Work has been silly crazy which is good but yet not so good as it is hard to get caught up. Oh well, I guess it is a good thing and I will survive. I have my arm floatation devices on to keep me above water!

Second, not sure if you get into the real March Madness hoop-la. We do in our office in fact there is usually a TV going at some point during the games. Some of them are very exciting. Not sure who I am cheering for this year. It is mid-morning and I have not even filled out my bracket yet. Yes, I am one that gets in an office pool and the funny thing is that it is with our competitor in town along with reps and various friends that also join in.

How do you pick you bracket? Do you agonize over the data and look at the records or do you do what me and another friend did one year and that was look at the mascots and picked what mascot would beat the other mascot. Now that was fun!...Yes, we lost and were out of the pool pretty darn early but it made for some fun at the time. I do not have a scientific way to pick teams. I usually look at their record and go with my gut.

To all you March Madness junkies out there......GOOD LUCK!

Weekend recap

Had a great weekend but not so good for the diet! Started out by hitting the Keg (chicken place) for some Rockets (beer vessels) and food (of course chicken) Friday night. Met a bunch of friends there and of course we always have laughter involved.

Saturday hit Dino's for breakfast and yes, I got talked into having a green beer with breakfast. It was ok and to be honest...this was the first ever green beer for me. Took the roomies bike to LBS and having it worked over. Two new tires, tune -up and two fenders. She will be already for commuting! We ventured down to the grocery store after the bike shop. A few weeks ago we had purchased the recycling bags from Wally World and decided we wanted to try and use them instead of using plastic or paper bags. We had our Wally World bags along (four of them) and got a 20 cent discount! I was pretty pumped about that. So nine more trips to the grocery store and the bags are paid for! We also noticed a bunch of other people starting to carry their own bags to reuse. VERY COOL! We did a few more things around the house on Saturday and then headed to Brandon. Met some friends for supper at the Brandon Steakhouse (this was a dumb- s*%t moment for me. I had said we will meet at the Tea Steakhouse in Brandon. Well, it is the Brandon Steakhouse in Brandon and the Tea Steakhouse is in Tea - Go Figure!) Good supper. Then headed to the Brandon Golf Course for a St Patty's Day party. It was very interesting. Seemed to be mostly a few of the workers family but it was still fun. I had a couple of drinks then they came around with jell-o shots and of course we had to have two of them that evening. I can't imagine what their family reunions are like. At one point they had a Lucky Charms and Green Beer contest. Yes GREEN BEER instead of milk in the Lucky Charms. OH MY...it was nasty looking! I guess they have family get-to-gethers like this all the time. They sure know how to have a fun time!

Sunday was pretty mellow. Fixed breakfast and then did some work stuff. We did grill out for supper and had cheddar burgers, baked beans, potato salad and chips....YUM!

This morning we were blanketed with fresh snow (very heavy-heart attack type). We have about 4 inches on the ground now and more to come today. Maybe as much as 8 total...we will see. Mother Nature's last winter hurrah.....I HOPE!

HAPPY ST PATTY'S DAY -----

Friday afternoon - silliness

Looking a bit different?

I decided to change things up a bit. Hope you like it! I might still change things a bit more...we will see! Yes, I did take the picture in the title. It is a picture of one of the many wonderful sunsets on the Bahamas cruise.

Friday Misc.

So, this morning I step on the scale and I am down 18 pounds! This is pretty exciting. This means I have lost about 7% of my body weight! I think the roomie is still stuck at 20-21 pound loss which is 9-10% loss of body weight. She is still doing great also! GO TEAM!

Last year a couple friends had asked our group of friends about hitting the LPGA tourney in MPLS this year. Me and the roomie decided at that point we would drive up there and spend the weekend and not go to the golf event and get hooked up with roomies nephew, hit Kierens Irish Pub (bring on the Guinness-they have the perfect poor there) and now we decided to take in a Twins game. All the ressies have been made and tickets purchased. I will be looking forward to that in June. I have never been to the Metro-dome to see a game and this will be my 3rd baseball stadium to watched a game in. The others are Wrigley (4-times) and Coors Field in Denver. I am excited as our tickets are in home run alley. We are staying out by the Mall of America and taking the Lightrail into downtown so no driving will be needed once we are there!

We are taking the roomies bike in to the LBS to have it tuned up and new tires put on it. We are getting excited for the warmer weather and commuting to our jobs via 2 wheels. I think we even have some other friends into doing the same this summer.

Bought a 5 gallon gas container last night and plan on filling it up along with my other smaller container for mowing this summer. That should almost last the whole summer....I HOPE! If the gas hits $4.00 a gallon like they are saying it is best to buy at $3.09 now.

Well, hey...HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYONE!

Darn, You Tube

Some of you have already seen the BLUNDER and some have no idea what I am talking about. Seems that last week I tried to do a couple of post to my blog from You Tube and they never showed up...well you know me, the one that has the patiants of some biblical charactor, had to keep trying to get the video to post to my blog. It seems that I had quite a few of the little vidoes on my blog by late morning today..even though the date they say they arrived was yesterday. Not sure what was going on but I had started to try and post them last week so ignore the titles to the blog entries...I do know what day it is! By deleting some of the videos I ended up deleting one of the kErnEls replies....sorry dude! I think I got everything all fixed up....unless more start to post to it again...not sure how many times I tried to post these darn little videos...so you better enjoy them!

Monday afternoon silliness

Friday - Silliness!

Be careful out there................

This is very sad....I read my niece's blog this morning (she is a wild cyclecross person in California) Her blog had a link to this story. She did know of the bikers involved but didn't know them personally. You can read about the story here

Super Hero

:
You are Superman

Superman 80% Green Lantern 75% The Flash 70% Iron Man 70% Supergirl 65% Robin 65% Wonder Woman 55% Spider-Man 50% Batman 50% Catwoman 50% Hulk 45%

You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

Super Villian

Your results:
You are Dr. Doom

Dr. Doom 62% Apocalypse 59% Magneto 55% Poison Ivy 55% Kingpin 53% Juggernaut 52% Venom 51% Lex Luthor 49% Mr. Freeze 47% The Joker 45% Two-Face 44% Dark Phoenix 43% Catwoman 41% Mystique 40% Riddler 36% Green Goblin 36%

Blessed with smarts and power but burdened by vanity.

Click here to take the Supervillain Personality Quiz

Weekend recap

Had a great time this past weekend in Bridge City! We got to Yankton and hit Charlie's Pizza....YUM! Had Three Stoogies (cheeseburger pizza) James Dean (I think) (Chicken, garlic and tomatoes) and Rose had a Marilyn Mermaid (Crab, Shrimp, green olive and black olive) I of course had to try them all and they were GREAT...and then washed them down with a South Dakota Martini. (tomato beer)

Saturday was spend reorganizing at the clubhouse. Cleaned out the freezer moved some books from the second floor to the basement and organized the laundry room storage area. Looks pretty nice. Still have what is left of mom's clothes in her closet. Can't seem to do anything with the yet. I opened the closet door looked at them and starting thinking about the last time I had seem mom wear a particular item so I closed the door and will try and get through that another time. That is very hard.

We drove out to the lake and only saw one bald eagle and a HUGE flock of wild turkeys! We lost count but there had to be at least 20 or more! On the way to Yankton we saw a heard of deer (nine). So we did see some wildlife!

Saturday late afternoon we fired up the grill and had steaks, potatoes on the grill and then I threw some french bread on there and then had to wash it down with a nice bottle of wine....OH MAN IT WAS GOOD! We headed out to pick up our tickets for the play, Beauty and the Beast and then paid for our season tickets. Headed to Ben's Brewing Company for a glass of wine before the play. Ben's has remodeled since the last time we had been there. They took out a wall and then made the bar longer. It has to be 25-30 feet long now. It was a good change to see! We drank our wine then headed to the play. The play was put on by the Children's Theater. Let me tell you they had 120 kids they had to try and coral...what an undertaking for the directors and other volunteers! The play was really pretty good. We were laughing at some of the little ones. They might have been in the 4 year old range that were just bouncing around on stage. Pretty funny! All in all if you have a chance go see the play...."be our guest, be out guest".......(For those non Disney people out there this is a snippet of one of the songs that is sung) The other great thing is that with a play that involves so many people the theater main floor was FULL and they had people in the balcony! This was great to see also!

Made back to Sioux Falls in decent time but feeling the affects of not being able to sleep in and the time change....UGH......

This weeks plans...try and get the bikes in to the shop to have them tuned up and ready to roll!

Bike races!

Don't forget to watch VERSUS on Sunday for the Bike race coverage!

Season Tickets and a Good Book

Yesterday I called the Dakota Theater in Yankton. Me and the roomie are now season pass holders for the Lewis and Clark Theater Company! We went to a few plays last year and really enjoyed the productions so decide that with the up coming GREAT productions they have scheduled it would a be a great thing to do. We are heading to Bridge City tonight to hit Charlie's for PLL(pizza, libations and laughter). Tomorrow it will be taking down some of the winter decorations at the Clubhouse and then hitting the play Beauty and the Beast Saturday night. Should be a great weekend!

I am also reading a NEW book...yes this is book number two of the year! The book is 28 Days Behind Bars by Harold Waggner. It is pretty good so far. I just finished day 6 of his 28 day adventure. I get a kick out of his humor...like the girl that had a tube top on but didn't have tubes to go in it and also the seasons in Wisconsin...early winter, mid winter, late winter and next winter! That is how it feels here today....UGH...below zero AGAIN! REALLY DONE WITH THIS! Anyway it is a good read so far!

Seafood

Hit Joey's Seafood place last night. I had the fish and chips with of course malt vinegar and let me tell you it is a lot of food! I ordered an extra filet for left overs and I have two HUGE filets left (counting my extra)! It was good although the fish and chips are still better at the Rose and Crown in the UK at EPCOT but these were good also....ahhh more left overs!

Sign it!

Here is a site that has a petition (www.petitiononline.com/bikether/petition.html). It is for google maps to add a "Bike There" and "Take Public Transit" options. It would show actual bicycle lanes from the city being mapped and would automatically plan your route and might also have an option to show the most direct route or the most bike friendly (safest) route. Currently byCycle.org has these features for two cities - Portland Oregon and Madison Wisconsin.

Now if our city only had biking lanes that would be GREAT!

SNOW and CERT

It snowed last night! Not much but DANG IT! I am so VERY READY FOR SPRING! I was sitting in my CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) meeting last night and we looked out the window and saw it snowing. The streets were greasy last night and on the drive to work this morning. CERT was good and we have our usual city events that we help out with every year but I did bring up a few more events like for some of the area bike rides to help out with and I think our leader is going to check into that. I also have re-certification for being a first responder expiring the end of this year. They were going to do a few education sessions with our monthly meetings but now they have a first responders class starting up the end of the month that we can audit (sit in on for free and get our credits needed). This will be good review but will mess up a lot of up coming weekends. It is all good though!

Weighing in:
The roomie is stuck at around 20 pounds and I actually moved a bit and am now down 17.2 pounds.

Cool idea!

There is a little liberal arts college in Wisconsin, Ripon College, that is going to give FREE bikes to freshman (incoming) as long as they do not bring a car on campus for a year! What a great idea!...so do you think they will be Wisconsin make Treks?

Weekend recap.......

Not sure what got into me but WOW....I started cleaning out the kitchen cupboards! I am about 2/3 done and have a few garbage bags amass for my efforts full of expired or best if used by boxes or cans of food. VERY Sad and nothing but a waste (money and food wise). Well, now that it is cleaned out I feel the need to make sure this does not happen AGAIN! We have both decided that it is best to eat more at home (except this weekend was not a good start) as it is healthier and less expensive. I am sure we will get right on that after we eat all of our leftovers from dining out this past weekend!

Hit a few bike shops this weekend to find a trunk and rack for the roomies bike. I think we found one but just not sure yet on size. I guess it depends on what all she wants to use it for and that has yet to be decided. Saw some very cool bikes but man some of the are very spendy but they are still very fun to look at! I would have to win the lotto to justify buying a $5,000.00 bike.

Went to the home show on Friday night. Kind of boring. There were some cool things but we were not all that impressed with the show in general. Maybe it was the fact that we were both very tired. The roomies back was sore and my ankle was not doing all that well. It sure was a hit the bed early night for me!

From other blogs I have read it sounds like the South Dakota Bicycle Summit was a success! Way to go dudes!

Friday afternoon silliness...........

Thank GOD it is FRIDAY!

Wow, this has been a LONG WEEK it seems! Not sure why as I have been busy but it sure has taken a long time for Friday to get here so HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYONE!

Had fun last night and hit Spezia's with some friends for a birthday celebration (Happy Birthday Mackie!). I had the Lamb and it was good. We also shared a bottle of Chianti which was also good. Then on to Monks for more wine! Three of us shared a bottle f DaVinci Chianti and it was also good! We tried to solve the worlds problems, what our goals are for the summer and what if gas becomes $4.00 a gallon. We decided that the world's problems would never be solved, goals were for some of us to bicycle more and others it was to golf and ride horse more. Then came the $4.00 a gallon of gas issue. UGH...actually each of us thinks that maybe we do need to get out the Ol'bicycle and ride to work when the weather gets nicer (nicer= no ice and a bit warmer). In the long run it would save all of us money and help us get into better shape. It would force us to pack our lunches instead of running home for lunch or going out for lunch (I would still need to ride home to get ABEZILLA at lunchtime but I think I can do that)....resulting in a healthier meal and also helping the environment. It all sounds GOOD! We will see how well we do!

This weekend is going to be spent doing house stuff. Raking the roof to get snow off it. Finish painting the hall outside the bathroom, hitting the home show to DREAM and then need time to relaxing a bit.

Book counts....Ok, so, some of you know that I am not a huge book reader and more of a magazine gal but last year I started reading a bit more. I read 7-books in 2007. I have read one book already this year (Into the Wild) and have started reading another book called 28 Days Behind Bars....can you guess what the book is about?......It is about a guy who is biking from the west coast to the east coast. Not the bars you were thinking was it!? So far it is good. I think my reading goal this year is 8 books in 2008...we will see!

All of those people traveling to the South Dakota Bike Summit this and friends traveling out of town this weekend.....TRAVEL SAFE!

Aerotrike at 2008 Tour of California Prologue

Gas prices on the rise....UGH

I heard on the news today that they are talking $4.00 a gallon gas this summer! I might have to become a bike commuter! The problem is that Abe (my dog) comes to work with me in the afternoons so I will have to get the Nashbar kid trailer (buggy to Abe) outfitted so he can still go to work with me. This would also mean riding the bike home for lunch to get him. I am maybe 2 miles from home so I think it should work. We will have to see. Of course I would have to drive the Sidekick on Wednesdays as that is golf night in Brandon. Still have to do some thinking and planning on this! Occasionally I have to go to a contractors office or architects office to pick things up so that could create a bit of an issue also....more pondering is needed!

Tour of Cali, new purchases and Tez 1 snowblower 1

Good job, Levi Leipheimer, winning the Tour of California. His team worked very well to give him the victory but the deciding factor in my mind was the KICK A$@ time trial Levi did. He was smokin' fast! WOW! Kudos to team Slipstream also for winning the team title! I am sure they will get an invite to all the big races! Astana is making waves and proving they should have the invites to the big races also. I hope they will get an invite. If you have not signed the Let Levi Ride petition....GET IT DONE!

Friday night I got on-line and purchased a few new things for biking. New bike gloves, Terry Liberator saddle, C02 pump, and front and rear lights for the bike. I think I am pretty well set but still have rainpants to order. Hard to know what size with the weight loss so going to hold off a bit on those. I went through all my bike gear stuff yesterday to see what I had and if I needed anything else yet. I think I will have to get another pair or two of bike shorts sometime soon but I think I am set otherwise. Go the jerseys, shorts and socks out of the bag and washed them to freshen them up a bit.

Got the snowblower out of the garage to try and thaw out the ice that had formed in the auger making it unable to turn. I got my revenge and it is ready to go. The upper 30 degree temps melted it so I started it up and took if for a drive down the driveway and back to the garage. I AM READY! Not happy about the weather today...rain, ice and SNOW! I think we are only suppose to get around 2-3 inches of snow but we are to have ice first...I DO NOT LIKE ICE!

ToC, weekend and MS150

Will the Tour of California be decided by the time trial today? Can Fabian make up 13 seconds on Levi who has the yellow (Lead) jersey? WE WILL SEE! I am excited to listen and HOPEFULLY watch today. The telecast was not great yesterday because the weather was crappy then they had to refuel the airplane that sends the images out which took about an hour!

This weekend hitting breakfast with friends then a little shopping but mostly WORK! Next week is a nasty bid week with a lot of bigger jobs bidding...should be FUN!

Thursday was the Austads warehouse sale. I really didn't see much I needed and I kind of already decided that I want to spend more on my biking stuff this year as I spent a lot on golf equipment last year (2-new pairs of shoes and a push cart OH YA and BALLS!) I am thinking about doing the MS150 this year (Sioux Falls to Vermillion) and so will look at what I need to purchase for that ride and the training rides to get me there. I will keep my road bike (I think-unless I make LOTS of money from my second job!) but I will need a new saddle, pedals, shorts, rain pants, front / back light and a C02 pump. I have a few jerseys already (thanks to Harlan's sale), a good bike jacket, gloves, shorts, computer, helmet, camelbak, bottles, socks and shoes. If you have any other suggestions let me know!

UCI chiming in

The UCI is promising to throw it's weight around! They are behind an effort that would allow Alberto Contador to defend his 2007 TDF title. The UCI president (Pat McQuaid) basically said that the ASO decision was unjust and unjustifible and was made by people who do not understand the sport! YOU GO PATRICK!

Will this shake things up a bit?...I hope so but we will have to "weight" (haha) and see!

Meanwhile Johan (Atana -general) has been meeting with the team sponsors to make sure they are still behind the team and of course they are. They realize how ignorant this stance really is and that it is political and NOT ABOUT THE FACTS! Is it because Astana has a team that could win and the French can not stomach an American on the podium again?......MAYBE or maybe they have a power ego that is fueling this. Come on people...there are plenty of other teams out there that have very tainted past and are still racing! Double standard?

Go Slipstream!

Tyler Farrer (USA-Team Slipstream) is in first place after the stage yesterday by one second!

The race was wild and Tom Boonen won the stage but man it was crazy with the weather (rain), all the teams moving around and the winner of the stage the day before flatting out with two laps to go! Glad no on crashed!....well there was rumor that a couple riders went down early and also a moto-photo-video motorcycle went down but that was all that was said about it by Frankie and Joe (amgen TOC broadcasters).

They think today is the day that Levi Leipheimer will make his move. We will see. There is a pretty good climb in todays race which the GC guys will be all over I am guessing!

I can't wait until it starts today!......

Other noise...it is DAMN COLD this morning 19 below zero with the high today of 5 below zero!...I am REALLY DONE with the up and down temperatures. I guess I need to look to the weekend....which they are saying the highs to be in the 20-30...ABOVE ZERO!

Tour of California - watch it!

If you are into bike racing and like watching and hearing the action then tune into http://www.amgentourofcalifornia.com/ and follow the stages...it's FREE! They are showing video of the race and you can also pick your riders you want to watch and the GPS will follow them on the course map.....well at least that is the idea. Each bike is equipped with a GPS unit (white thin card) under their seat and some have been on the forks. That part worked for a bit yesterday and then it stopped working. There is also a live chat on there that you can sign up and jump in for race comments. Happy Rider from Rapid was on there as we chatted a bit but some of the chat is delayed and gets kind of strange. I was pretty much in Heaven watching it yesterday! VERY COOL!

LET LEVI RIDE CAMPAIGN

Levi Liepheimer has come out with his own campaign called Let Levi Ride. This is a result of the ASO not allowing the team he rides for, Astana, be invited to any of the ASO racing events. This includes the Tour De France. You can go on this website and add your name to the petition list to allow Astana to ride in these events and they will send you an email thanking you for your support but the email also contains the email address for the ASO so you can send a few words to them as to what you think about this mess! http://www.letleviride.com/

ICE...DAMN

Bridge City was great last weekend. Got down there late Friday night. (thanks again Rose for turning up the heat a little earlier so it would be nice and toasty when we got there). The ice was going to be the battle of the weekend. Saturday moring it was getting up and formulating the game plan on how to attack the dreaded ice mess. They designed the eave downspouts not very well so all the water drains out on to the sidewalk and then freezes and makes for a nice ice skating lane to the front door of the clubhouse. (thanks again Rose for trying to get rid of the ice with the the ice melt) Anyway, off to Ace Hardware to get a ice chopper. I am one that does not buy the cheap ones anymore after having purchased a couple of them in the past. They do not last so I was in search of the "MUTT" which is the brand we have at home. Well, it was no good. Could not find that brand but I did find an animal called the "BRUTE" It looked similar to the MUTT but had a longer handle. So I picked it up after tooling around the bike shop at Ace Bike and Fitness at Ace Hardware. (BTW-looked like they had some good prices on Trek road bikes there if anyone is interested) Anyway, got back to the clubhouse and dumped more ice melt on the offending party and let it do its magic while we headed to Wausa NE to pick up more of our beef from the meat locker and also picked up some beef sticks and salomi..YUM! Then it was back to attack the ice. It was decided to make a bit of a holding pound in the grass area for the water to drain into. The neighbor had purchased an extender for his downspout and it didn't fit so he installed it on ours and man this was just the ticket! After chopping and scooping and chopping and scooping I think we have the problem solved for now. Ok, so it had to be tweaked a bit sunday morning when the wind had blew the downspout away from the holding pond. We placed two small bricks one on each side of the downspout to keep it in place. The driveway was almost dry when we came back to the clubhouse later that day! I did complain to the association president about how the driveways and sidewalks are not being cleaned off as nice as they should be but not sure I got any satisfaction from his answer. I guess people were complaining more about them cleaning them off in a timely manner so they can get to work and not about the quality of work they are doing. To me it should be both but I guess I am a minority on this situation.

My Godparents invited all of us out for brunch on Sunday..YUM! Homemade waffles, eggs, bacon..the works. It was wonderful as always. We had a lot of fun sitting around and telling stories about our vacation and of course lots of laughing. It is so good for the soul to feed it with good food, laughter and family!

Astana might have a relaxing time in July!

Astana is not invited. The ASO (owner of the Tour De France) stated today that Astana would not be invited to any ASO event it organizes for the 2008 season. It stated that the "damage caused by this team in the TDF and cycling in general, as much in 2006 as 2007" is the reason. They went on to say that it would be inapropriate to allow the team to compete dispite a complete shake up of the teams management and the squads roster. WHAT? Alexander Vinokourov tested positive for doping during the 2007 tour. He denied doping and retired from the sport. Andrej Kashechkin tested positive during an out of competition testing August 1, 2007 and is not on the team.

ASO is saying that it does recognize the reorganization of the team but the team still needs to prove themselves since the team had been reorganized in 2006. They did however say that basically if Astana can stay out of scandals and suspicions that it would consider a bid from them for future events.......UGH.

Johan Bruyneel was not happy and would not make much of a comment, Levi Leipheimer will not speak about it until the press conference for the Tour of California, Alberto Contador (who has been linked to Operation Puerto but cleared then suspicion then cleared...OH GOD who can keep track of this anymore) heard the news during a race and took off like a so called "bat out of hell" to be later swallowed up by the peloton. He was very upset and shouted at a Spanish TV camera at the finish of the race "Astana, en el Tour!"

I guess time will tell..............again we will have to see how the year unfolds!

Snowblower 1 and Tez 0 and other ramblings

Last night we wanted to finish scooping out the driveway. I had scooped the sidewalk over my lunch so that was done but I had decided to use the snowblower to take care of the driveway. Well that didn't happen. We used the snowblower at the beginning of winter and have not used it since because it is a good workout scooping by hand. If you follow my blog you might have read about the snowblower issue I had a year ago or so. Anyway last night I went out to start the snowblower and got it started as I stood in line with the exhaust that permiated my clothes so that was all I could smell the rest of the night and of course my coat smells like it also so the smell has followed me to work this morning.....anyway I digress.....I go to advance the snowblower out of the garage and start the auger and the engine died. DANG IT...so I got the extention cord out to hook it up to the electric start again and it started off but the same thing happened...it died when I tried to start the auger. I looked to see if anything was impeeding the auger.....of course there was...it was not the shopping news that I ran through it that created problems the last time but this time it was a HUGE chunk of ICE that was keeping the shaft from turning......DAMMMMMMMIIIIIITTTTT............I banged on the ice a bit with the hammer and thought, OH HELL, so me and the roomy SCOOPED the driveway. I guess I have some snowblower work to do but if I wait long enough it will fix itself once the weather is nicer.


Heading to Bridge City this weekend to relax after a WILD work week. Lots of bidding going on for this time of year which is strange and the phones have been nuts so my desk looks like paper EXPLODED all over it! Oh well..it is all GOOD...I guess!


Still fighting a bit of a cold. Little stuffy today more so then the last few days. I think that is kind of odd but I will survive! At least I can blow my nose. My sister had surgery on her sinus a few weeks ago. She had a hole that was leaking spinal fluid into her sinus and then out her nose. She is doing well but they packed it with disolvable packing so she can't blow her nose for a few weeks...UGH...I would be a freaking wreck if I could not blow my nose so I guess I am lucky I can still blow my nose!


Can't wait for supper tonight. We put a pork roast in the crock pot with potatoes, carrots and onions..YUM! Should be a good supper!

My weight lost so far...15.4 pounds since last summer.
Roomies weight lost so far...17 pounds since Thanksgiving...you go girl!

Tour invites.....UGH......here we go!

Seems a lot of riders are a bit on edge waiting for their team invite for the Paris Nice this Wednesday.

Speculation is that teams that are left off the invite list for Paris Nice will be left off the Tour De France invite list but ASO (Amaury Sports Organization) has final say on the berth of teams in the Tour so teams listed can be taken off or teams can be added.

This will be EXTREMELY hard on sponsors as they will have no return on their investments, again creating a mess of the cycling world. Teams have really struggled to secure sponsors for their teams for this year because of all the doping messes. It will be hard on the riders also that have trained hard for this season for naught.

The Giro d'Italia left the following teams off the invite list Astana (Levi Leipheimer, Alberto Contador, Andreas Kloden), High Road (George Hincapie, Mark Canvendish), Credit Agricole (Thor Hushovd) and Bouygues Telecom (Thomas Voekler). This is the first major tour of the season and speculation is that the Tour De France (TDF) will follow lead with the same "uninvited" teams.

I can understand if a rider is still being investigated for doping than leave them off the team roster until their name is cleared but with riders changing teams and different management for teams is it fair to not invite the team because of the bad people from last years team that aren't even there anymore? I don't think so especially when individuals that have messed up are being dealt with or are still being investigated. To me this is just a cop out for the powers that be to basically throw their weight around AGAIN or is it because they do not fully trust their "biological passport" and the testing that is being done? The jury is still out on that one. Truth is that a lot of these teams have put up a LOT of money to make sure that their team is dope free. Is this a slap in that face for the teams that are doing this and they still do not get invited to the Tours? I would think so but again we will find out as the season unfolds. (Keep in mind these are my opinions only!) Nevertheless I am still EXCITED for the racing to begin!

Remember to watch Versus this Sunday for the Tour of California! Can Levi Leipheimer defend his title?

Movie fest

This weekend was all about getting the house and our bodies back to "Normal" after vacation. I am battling a cold so that is not so fun but we did get everything unpacked from vacation finally and still have a couple loads of laundry to do yet. The other good news is that we are back to our pre-vacation weight so it came off quick which is always good.

We watched a lot of movies this weekend. The Lake House (I liked it), The Last King of Scotland (intense), Fantastic 4-Silver Surfer (liked the first one better), Breaking Up (bad movie-Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Anniston), Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Johnny Depp version-he is creepy in this!) and Gameplan (The Rock plays a QB- Good Disney feel good movie).

We also watched Versus on Saturday late afternoon. It was the pre-show to the Tour of California. Should be a great and fun tour to watch (starts next Sunday the 17th). Versus is going to have it on every night of the tour but it will be LATE....I think 10:00pm and then on the weekend it is earlier. It gets a person into the upcoming race watching season! Kind of cool listening to Al Trautwig's voice and the intro music for bike racing that Verses uses during all the bike races! I can't wait to see how things shake out as to what teams will be the power houses. There are some on paper that look great but we will see how they all gel together. Will it be Slipstream,The High Road, Astana or CSC?......stay tuned!

Tour of the Bahamas clip

I got the lead motorcycle then a little pause before another motorcyle and then the peloton. The guys on the scooters behind the peloton were carring the spare tires for the riders. A little different than the Tour De France with team cars!

This clip was from the stage 2 race of the day (Nassau - Feb 2nd) a 42 mile circuit of 7 miles each. The winner of the race was Tyler Farrar from Team Slipstream.

We have returned! (Cruise Recap)

Sorry for the long post but lots to tell!.........

WOW...what a wild time! First off we are all so glad to be ALIVE and also we are very thankful for what we all have.

We hit Florida last wednesday night and got the rental SUV-Toyota Highlander (nice ride) and traveled to Jacksonville. We had reservations at the LaQuinta Inn and of course wanted a no smoking room. Well that didn't happen but they gave us our room for free once we complained about a non-smoking room that was really smokey!

Thursday we drove to Dawn's friends house and met her (Sandy-the travel agent) and her daughter (Shannon). They are really great people and fun to be around. We got on the ship around 1:00pm for our cruise. Of course the boat didn't leave port until 4:00pm. The booze was flowing on the cruise. I could not believe how the wait staff was pushing adult beverages. I had a couple beers but that was it. I have to admit I was a little nervous about drinking and being on the ship. We had a life boat drill then headed off down the river out to sea. We saw dolphins playing along the shore of the river and went under a HUGE bridge that was being worked on. The workers were REALLY HIGH up in the air and were waving at us. Pretty cool. We met a couple guys from Georgia, I think, had fun with them and a iceball (shaved ice from our bucket of beer) The iceball was made and thrown at them and later made the daily cruise video. The first night sleeping was interesting. The ship moves side to side which I was not expecting so I didn't sleep all that well but others in our party slept fine as it rocked them to sleep.

Friday we hit Freeport Bahamas. This is a very industrial port and not much to do unless you take a long cab ride to town. We did see flying fish fly/swim out along side the cruise ship which was cool. We opted for a Jeep Excursion Tour of the island. It was a great way to see the island but our speaker didn't work in the jeep so we had no idea what we were looking at half the time. We decided to make up our own commentary...."and on the right we see a pine tree leaning on a power line"...."and on the left we see more pine trees". We did visit a beach and got into the COLD ocean, had lunch, visited a cave with a scary circular staircase and of course the wonderful driving on the left hand side of the road. Got back to the ship and watched us depart Freeport. Oh ya, it was Gilly's birthday so we had fun telling a lot of people we ran into that it was her birthday.....I think she got tired of it but was a good sport. It was also an adventure finding her birthday cake we had ordered before the cruise that was suppose to be delivered to her room then to our dinner table then we had it poolside later that night.

Saturday we docked in Nassau Bahamas. This is a much nicer port but is about a mile walk to get to the entrance of the town from our dock. We had not really planned anything at this stop except to see the bike race (Tour of the Bahamas). We talked with some lady at the information desk and she got us interested in a taxi tour for 2.5 hours at the cost of $25 / person. This proved to be VERY INTERESTING! We had to wait about 45 minutes for this lady to try and get 2 more people for this tour. We were to the point of asking for our money back and then they got us in the mini-van with two other people. So we had six people in our mini-van plus Joan our driver. Off we went almost taking off two mirrors from other vans in the lot. The Bahamas seem not to believe in traffic signs much. You would pull into an intersection and tap your horn a couple times to let people know you are going through and away you go! Can't tell you how many close calls we had. The tour was funny. We pulled up along a building (sometimes not even stopping), Joan would give her little talk and then we were off. We did see some neat things like Eddy Murphy's private island, Al Capone's house, an old Fort, the Aquarium at Atlantis Resort then the places that "normal" people lived. She showed us the middle class areas and then we went to, what she said we call the HOOD in our country..OH MY GOD! Let me tell you it was a place I didn't really like being and really wanted out of there fast. There were groups of guys standing around that looked suspicious, prostitutes and just very unclean, povertiy stricken areas. There was also the corner hand pump for water. Joan stopped the van right next to this and told us this guy was getting water for his family. The poor guy had his two kids with him and they all starred at us. Talk about uncomfortable. We tried the local beer called Kalik. We had asked if we could have some beer in the mini-van and she said of course but not to buy it at Atlantis. She would stop at a place downtown for us to buy beer. We all kind of forgot about it untill she went zipping around a corner and told us, "GET OUT" we said "WHAT?", and of course she repeated herself "GET OUT", so me, Dawn and Gilly got out and left Kris with the two other traveliers and the driver. Joan told us to get our beer in this building that was not in the best shape. We tried the door and it was locked. You had to RING THE BUZZER TO BE LET INTO THE LIQUOR STORE! We walked in and of course we were the only women except for two behind the counter and we were the only white people in there. I tried not to make eye contact with anyone and headed to the beer cooler and grabbed 4-Kalik Golds and up to the counter we went after one of they guys told us that he was getting his kick and we would also from the beer. We had no idea what he was talking about at the time. We paid and they grabbed our bottles of beer and opened them for us then back to the mini-van. Joan then took us back to the area were we started this adventure....WOW! We walked over to the Duty Free Liquor Store. We found out we were suppose to have our beer bottles in brown paper bags when drinking them in public so they were kind enough to bag our beer. We bought some rum and bought another round of Kalik. We found out that the Kalik Gold was over 7% alcohol ( I guess that was the kick that guy in the liquor store was talking about) and that not many of the locals drink the Gold...we were very proud of ourselves! We went to a place for lunch called the Bahamian Kitchen (Conch bites, Conch salad and Grouper fingers-YUM). The food was great and so were the locals that had bellied up to the bar. We had a good time there. We made two passes through the Straw Market and that was all we could stand of people begging us to buy some of their stuff. Amazing....didn't like that part of our adventure either.

We did get a cabbie talked into taking us out to the bike race after bartering with another cabbie (I had giving up on seeing the race at that point) This guys seemed nice but they want to get you in the cab and then talk price later. We didn't fall for that and worked out the price to start with. On the way to the race he stopped to get gas. You have to pre-pay for gas then a guy comes out and unlocks the chain holding the gas nozzles securely to the pumps. $4.70 / gallon for gas...OUCH! We got to the area where the bikers were racing. What a cool thing. I will post the video sometime soon that I took. They are something to watch but went much to fast to see who the people were so that is way we took video. We only watched 2 of the seven laps as we had to get back soon with the taxi guy. Ends up as we were heading back to the mini-van there were a couple of racers that wanted a ride back to their hotel and asked if they could hitch a ride. They had finished their race before the pros started and were pretty tired. They were very nice people from Maryland. David and Cheryl Osborne and raced for the Artemis team. Very neat to talk with them. He road a Giant carbon fiber and she had a CSK. I had never heard of that brand bike before but it looked pretty cool. Of course they both had the carbon fiber wheelsets.....very nice!

We headed back to the ship, had supper in the dining room and then out to the back deck of the ship to watch it take off. It sure is amazing how they can move the big ship and ours by no means was BIG like some of them! Ours looked like the S.S. Minow compared to the four other ships docked at port that day.

We had a day at sea to play and do whatever. We watched the hairy chest competition and as stiff as the drinks were I could have entered but I refrained. It was won by a 70-something guy from Minnestota with his six chest hairs. I think the thing that won it was his pick up line. All the guys had to give the judges their best pick up line and his was..."I would like to check you for ticks!" OH MY GOD. We were laughing so hard. He was having a good time. We went to the super bowl party that evening and it was ok. Not much of a fun party. Then it was back to the room to load up the suitecases. You had to have your luggage outside of your room door by midnight so they could put them in the cargo hold. If you didn't do this you had to lug your luggage and it would not have been fun with all the stairs and you would have waited forever for the elevator.

So we made it through customs and headed to Disney for a short stay. We stayed at the All-Star Sports resort (value resort) It was fine and I would have to say if it were the only way I could afford Disney I would do it again but the rooms are smaller and the travel distance from the parks to the resort is longer. We didn't eat there so have no idea about the food.

We had supper on Monday night at the California Grill at the Contemporary Resort and watched the fireworks over Magic Kingdom from there. Amazing how far back the fireworks actually are from the castle when you see them from that angle. It was a late night and we could not believe how may kids were still up and eating at that time of night (9:10pm reservations). Tuesday we spend all day at EPCOT and had a great time. Ate sushi at the newly redone Japanese restaurant. Then we went to Fulton's Crab House for supper (YUM!-Crab legs and Milk Chocolate Creme Brule!) Wednesday morning we checked out and hit Wolfgang Pucks at Downtown Disney for lunch before heading back to Sanford to catch Allegiant Air back to Sioux Falls.

All in all like I said, I am greatful for what I have in my life, the cruiseline was a fun time and of course you can never go wrong with Disney.....the down side.....with all the food and beverages consumed me and Kris gained 5 pounds each even though we didn't eat that much bad food and didn't partake in the beverages all that much. We did walk a lot so that was good. The Disney EPCOT day we walked almost 8 miles! Can't imagine what the weight gain would have been if we had not walked!

Here's to getting my land legs back SOON!

BBBrrrrr

I woke up a few times last night thinking there was a new train track outside my window! The wind was terrible last night and has continued today with a wonderful 30 below windchill!..UGH..vacation can't come soon enough. It will be about a 70 degree swing from what the temps are now compared to Florida...I can handle that!

My boss keeps asking me what I am most looking forward to on my trip. I finally told him just time to recharge, get recentered and of course the Tour of the Bahamas..Oh ya and driving the boat! I have told my friends that is what I want to do. Not sure this will happen...but we will see. Anyway I am so looking forward to just hanging out and seeing the blue water of the Bahamas. Little nervous about being on the boat and out in the ocean but I am sure I will be fine as long as we do not watch Titanic on the flight down to Florida. I might have to sleep with inflatable life ring! I am sure I will be fine as my Godmother gave me great advice last night..."Don't fall off the boat!" Seems pretty logical!

Tonight is CERT (community emergency response team) meeting with first responder training also. Should be a short meeting and training because of the weather per our organizer...we will see.

Have a few more things to get done before we head out on vacation but it is getting right down there. I think I have my underwear, socks and swimsuit pack so what more do I need?....Well, ok, I will pack clothes also. I have to iron a few shirts them pack them up and should be ready to go.

Work of course has been WILD so have to get a few more things done before I am officially on VACATION....but it will happen soon.

Will give a FULL report when we get back!....heading into the warm sun of Florida / Bahamas will be great!

It's DONE!

We finished inventory at a record pace today..YEAH!...I am exhausted and dirty. Our hardware room does not stay all the clean with the grinders in the back flinging metal dust all over the place. I have a couple more projects to work hard on this weekend so I feel better when I am gone. Yes, I am the type that does her work before she goes on vacation which I am glad I have a job that I can do that.

Hitting the tanning bed tomorrow and Harlan's Bike and Tours one day sale plus running some errands as to last minute things we need for the cruise yet.

I looked at the entry list for the Tour of the Bahamas bike race and there are now 60 pro riders cat 1 and cat 2. This is going to be fun to watch. The course is a 7 mile loop they will ride 6 times I think. I also noticed that the Bahamas beer company Kalik is not so far from the start finish line of the race....hmmm....are you thinking what I am thinking?....It would be fun to see if they have tours or a tasting room there....we will see.

Thursday Blitz

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9........UGH! We are doing inventory today and tomorrow here at work. I HATE IT! I am so swamped with work. I have five projects bidding in two days..yes during inventory! Oh well. It is late Thursday night as I am sending out quotes on a nice sized project. I guess that is why I make the BIG BUCKS...hahaha...NOT! Oh, well by tomorrow it will be over but I have more projects bidding in the next few weeks that are good sized also....more comp time?...YES!

My sister had surgery at Mayo today. She had a leaking brain....haha.....no, she had a hole in her sinus that was leaking spinal fluid out her nose. Not a good deal since this will be the second repair. The first one was done in Des Moines but 2 years after her patching (they patched it with a chunk of fat and glue..I asked if there is a high demand for this as I would gladly be a donor!) it failed and so she decided to go to Minnie-sota don't ya know then there. Anyway, the surgery was to be 1.5 hours and ended up lasting 3 hours. It now has 3 layers of patches and a chunk of bone taken from behind her ear plugging it. She was very drugged when I talked with her late this afternoon. They said that maybe if things go ok that she will be out of the hospital tomorrow some time...AMAZING. I hope it works this time!

This weekend we will be getting things in line for the cruise..Oh ya plus more work for me! I hope after all this working the boat has enough booze on it to get me centered again! I might just have to have a drink with one of those frilly umbrellas in it....kongaloosch!

Tez weight loss tally 12.4 pounds! (since summer)

Kris's weight loss tally 17 pounds! (since November) YOU GO GIRL!..PROUD OF YOU!

Abe's (dog) weight loss....gain.....unknown...lardy furry pants!

Wrig's (bird) weight loss....gain....maintain!

Weekend Re-cap

Hit Bridge City (Yankton) this past weekend and had a great time. Stopped in at Charlie's on Friday night for great pizza and beer. Came back to the Clubhouse to fine someone parked in our driveway as a surprise! That was pretty cool. Dawn made the trip down to Yankton Friday night instead of Saturday so that was cool. Saturday we went shopping and of course there were all sorts of strange things that found their way into Gilly's cart for the up coming cruise. Pretty funny! I still think the purse and high heeled snow boots would look nice on you! Saturday night it was off to Rose's for a great Italian feast, wine and cream puffs for desert that my Godmother made. It was all very fun. After supper we sat around and tried to solve the worlds problems and tell stories. I had to tell a good one on me. I was in the OLD Scheels store (maybe this is why they moved...) Anyway we were looking at stuff and all of a sudden I felt my GUTS PERCOLATING! I had some serious things going on in intestinalville. All I could think of was to find a place were no one was at and expel my air so I turned to Kris and said..."Don't follow me!" all she heard was, "follow me!" As I walked to an area where no customers were around I let out my rumbling air........little did I know was the Kris was right behind me and all of a sudden I heard "OH MY GOD!" As I turned around Kris was standing in a GIANT green cloud of very nasty stench. I then told her she was not suppose to follow me and of course she in turn told me what she had heard.....OH MY...I think that is why the sweat pants in that area were on sale that following week......MY OH MY it was a very nasty stench. Anyway all of us got a good laugh out of that one. There were many other stories and memories that were shared. I could not help but think mom was there laughing along with us! I so do value these times together.

Sunday we got packed up and Kris and I headed out to the lake. We had not driven out there in a long time. This time of year there are bald eagles that nest along the open water in Yankton and it is always so very cool to see them. We spotted five this trip. We have seen as much as 11 a couple years ago. It was so cold out I am sure some were hunkered down someplace warmer.

Got back to Sioux Falls before the snow started and watched football....pretty exciting!

This weeks cycling news....

I kind of got a bit carried away with the up coming vacation that I have not blogged about any new cycling news lately. I am sure some of you are VERY ok with that and others are biting their nails wondering if anything is happening in the world of cycling...hahaha.
Here is the latest scoop of news:

First off some sad news. The Scottish time trial champion was killed while on a training ride. Jason MacIntyre, 34, was struck by a transit van while out on a training ride January 15 and passed away later in the hospital. He won the Road Time Trial Council national 25 mile championship in 2006, 2007, the British time trial championship in 2006 and was ahead of David Millar during the 2007 British time trial championship until he had a flat. He was being considered for the British Olympic squad in Beijing. He leaves behind twin eight year old daughters. One daughter has had some very serious health issues and MacIntyre had been her full time caregiver. There has been a fund set up in his name to help fund a caregiver for his daughter for the next two years.

New blood bank scandal...here we go again...seems a blood bank in Vienna, Austria is the latest source in a blood doping scandal. They are saying that two thirds of the bank's 30 customers come from Germany and include cross-country skiers and biathletes along with some cyclist. Some of the bank customers are said to be George Totsching, Dennis Menchov, Michael Boogerd and Michael Rasmussen. Of course most everyone is saying they do not know anything about it or they have never been there. What will shake out this mess? This all came from a German TV station but then they later retracted their charges.....GO FIGURE.

The Tour of California host city for stage 5, Solvang, is trying to raise some money to defray tour cost for being a host city. They are touting 20 qualified amateur cyclist to ride the "Race of Truth". They will be able to ride stage 5 of the individual time trial one hour prior to the pros riding it on February 22. The riders will get 45 minutes to ride the 15 mile course. The entry fee is $1000 or $1500 depending on options taken. Pocket change for an amateur cyclist, don't you think?

Some of the cycling teams are being VERY SMART with all the blood scandals out there. The big cycling teams, CSC, Astana, Slipstream and Team Highroad will have independent testing done as well as being 100% fully integrated with the UCI's biological passports. It cost the teams a lot of money to do their own blood testing but it is just another check in the system to make sure their riders are clean. Kudos to those teams monitoring their own riders!

Lance Armstrong will run the Boston marathon April 21. He qualified for the event by finishing the New York marathon under the qualifying time of 3:15 (he ran it in 2:46 min) for his age (35-39 years old) category. He will race to raise money for the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

This weekend

It is suppose to be very cold this weekend with lows in the 10 below zero area Friday and Saturday night! That is FREEZE YOUR BUTT off weather!

(the caption got blurry so here is what the couple across the street are saying..

"And I thought that was a figure of speech!")

Panic?.......

Ok, so if you read this blog you know we are going on a cruise. I tell you I am in a panic! It is the fear of the unknown I guess. I am worried about having all the right paperwork along, the right clothes, not getting ripped off by the locals, wearing the right clothes to functions, you know the little things. Then there are the hidden charges for, gratuity, beverages, towel service or whatever!....UGH! The one thing I know is that I have packed all my socks already and so when I am sporting my bikini on the cruise ship or the lovely white sand beaches of the Bahamas I will be able to have my scar covered (see lobster goddess posting)....and if you believe I will be sporting a bikini on this trip then I have some ocean front property to sell you in South Dakota!

To top it off I am getting slammed at work and we have inventory next week (Thursday and Friday) when I have five jobs bidding in two days! (I am an estimator in the construction industry) I usually like to go out in the hardware room to clean things up a bit and organize before we do inventory. This makes it so much easier but I am pretty sure that is not going to happen this year. The fun never ends! Seems like I take two or three steps forward and then four back...just can't get ahead. Looks like some overtime is coming!

On a good note. I have lost 11.4 pounds since I purchased my new scale this past summer. It is one of those digital scales that has hydration and fat percentage....we will not talk about the fat percent. It does a lot of things. You have to enter in you height, age, and goal if you have one then it keeps track of it all. I am just so glad it is not a talking scale as I am sure I would be hearing "TILT, TILT" or "GET OFF ME LARDY PANTS!" It is kind of fun and I find it very humorous to weigh myself and then go and take care of some bodily functions and then weigh myself again....pretty amazing how much we can store up or hoard (sometimes) in our bodies! Kris the roomy has lost over 13 pounds and is doing great. We have not been exercising only backing away from the table or splitting a meal if we go out to eat. One of our favs is at Granite City. Smoked turkey Reuben and the Asian chicken salad. We split both entries. THEY ARE GREAT! We have also cut back ......at times......the beverage consumption which leads us back to the upcoming cruise. The goal is to NOT GAIN on this vacation but MAINTAIN!...we will see...I plan to hit the sushi trolley on our ship for some meals and snacks....YUM!

I am sure we will be walking around enough that it will not make a difference what we eat or drink. I know on our Disney trips we have a big breakfast and maybe an afternoon snack and a nice sit down supper complete with wine and desert and manage to never gain weight when we are there....I am hoping this will be the case!

Things will all come together at some point...maybe when I board the plane?...or the ship?......

Lobster Goddess

Ok, so I decided to do a little tanning before our trip to the Bahamas. Yes, I know (Joan) it is not the best thing to do because of the risk. Anyway I went for my first tanning which I got a little red and then went for another and I really got nothing so we decided to up the minutes that I was in the coffin. This time I got really RED! I am telling you that if we left that day all the lobsters would be following me around thinking I am their GODDESS......."She is our savior and Goddess, we must follow her and sacrifice ourselves for her!".....well, since then it has tamed down..thank GOD and I skipped a few days before I went back. Hit the place last night and got a little on my back side but nothing bad.

There is another funny thing that has happened also. I had my gallbladder removed a few years ago before they did this as a scope type surgery so I have this 10 inch diagonal scar that goes from just under my rib cage and angles to my side to about 2 inches lower than my belly button. Anyway the first time I went I had not thought about it the scar and of course it got pink. I decided that maybe it needed to be covered so I do not have any skin break down issues on it. So the next time in I was going to place a towel over it. I got in the room and got undress and FORGOT THE TOWEL! All I could think of without getting completely dressed and going out to get a towel was maybe I should use my ankle high sock. Then reality hit me as to what that would look like.....and the "punny" things I could come up with like..."looks like someone socked you in the stomach!" I decided it was best to go without so as you read earlier not much happened anyway so it was ok. The next time out I remembered the towel which is more like a big wash cloth and placed it over my scar area and of course now I have a square white area on my stomach. It looks VERY FUNNY but the scar is safe. It really looks like some sort of stage for the fat belly follies to preform on and framed by red curtains. I will let you know when the first performance is!.................

Lots to learn!

Man, there is a lot to learn about this cruise stuff. What time to dine, Any shore excursions or what to do at each port, What you can take on the ship and what you can't, going to formal dining night or not, What time can we embark and so on.....We have lots to learn in a short period of time.

We have decided on a shore excursion. We are going to do a guided jeep excursion at Freeport. This is a tour that allows us to drive a jeep (seats 4 people). Sounds like you basically follow the leader (guide) and they take you to areas in a forest, blue hole for swimming and back to the beach for a picnic. Should be fun. It will be for 5 1/2 hours! We thought this was the best way to see a lot of the island in a short period of time. We will make it back to the boat by 5:30 and we leave at 7:00pm so that is good timing I think.

We are not going to do any pay excursion at this point on Naussa because we do have a lot longer time there to meander 8:00am-10:00pm. I am and maybe others are going to go to the bike race for a bit to check that out to see if I can spot the pros which will be very cool. I guess it is a 16 mile taxi ride from our dock to start / finish line of the race. We also want to see the Straw Market and try out the local food so we will do that I am sure through out the day / evening.

We get back to port on a Monday morning and have a few days to kill until we head back. We had looked at so many options out there but came up with nothing really that ALL of us would enjoy so we decided.....WHAT THE HELL!....LET'S GO TO DISNEY! I know this is so very hard for some of you to believe! hahaha....so we are going to stay at a value resort instead of the moderate resort were usually stay at. The value resort was such a better value for staying two days plus it goes along with the theme for doing something different. We have our supper reservations at California Grill (top of the Contemporary Resort) and we have it so our supper will be after Wishes (fireworks at Magic Kingdom). We will have to go up early and sit in the lounge and have sushi and or cocktails before the fireworks. They pipe in the music from the fireworks to the California Grill for us to enjoy also. The next day we will be heading to EPCOT. We thought about doing the Segway tour but decided since I am still having a bit of an ankle issue yet and Dawn is have major foot issues that this could wait until next time. So we will make our way around the World Showcase before heading to Fulton's Crab House in Downtown Disney for supper. Then back to EPCOT for Illuminations. It will be a packed day but fun.

Getting a bit excited. Some of our plans have come together but still a lot to learn and figure out yet. We shopped a bit last night for toiletry items and dug out some of the other things like binocs, cameras, backpack, fanny pack and family radios. We decided to take them along since we will have our cell phones turned off while on the boat. We have shorts pulled out of storage and so it is a matter of trying them on and seeing what we what to take along. We haven't gone through the shirts yet but that is the BIG PLANS for the weekend to get it all done so we can enjoy the Clubhouse next weekend and then the following weekend the roomie works so it would be best to have it all done this weekend!

I do promise a full report when we get back and maybe even some pics!

Recent bike TDF news

Seems that Thor Hushovd is going to concentrate on the Tour De France this year. He won the green jersey (sprinters jersey) in 2005. He also wants to win some stages. Currently Hushovd has been first in five stages. Since the Credit Agricole rider will be training for the TDF he has decided not to race in the Giro d'Italia this year. GO THOR maybe have some lutefisk and lefsa to fuel that big engine for the TDF!

Good Ol'Micheal Boogerd "the Boogie Man" or Mr Teeth will remain associated with the Robobank team. Robobank will have him doing promotions for the bank and at some capacity with the race team. They have not decided what that will be yet as it is still being determined. Sounds like he will go through some training and they will see where he fits in with the teams needs. In other Robobank news it seems that Denny Menchov will be the go to guy. He is setting his sights on the TDF. The Russian seems to be always up there trying to battle a stage win but the Micheal Rassmuson era changed that for Mr Menchov. Now it is time for us to see what Menchov can do.

Monk's...be there!

the_kernel wants to get everyone that is an area cyclist / blogger and ones that only comment on blogs to maybe meet at Monk's House of Ale Repute this Wednesday (1-9-08) night for some socializing. I would say as far as time maybe 5:30-ish. The earlier the better so that maybe Biking Brady can also join the group if he is going to be in town on Wednesday. Why does it feel like I am doing the_kernels dirty work?.......

Monks

We hit Monk's Friday night after supper at Sanaa's. First off supper was good but I think I would rather eat Indian food as I like the spice blend better but I was the only one out of our group that went for round two of the Turkish coffee! It has cardamon in it and it really has a different flavor but I liked it. I think the issue with some of the friends was the sludge in the bottom of the thimble size cup. I just swirled it around and downed it!....Then it was on to Monk's which is just across the street. We found a place by the cozy fireplace and pulled up the leather chairs closer to the couch so we could talk and then took a load off. Very cool place. If you are going there to drink Miller Lite, Budlite you will have issues. I think the only generic type beer they had was Coors and PBR both in bottle form. We ventured into BEER territory trying different beers (which we love doing) in fact one I tried I had seen at Hy-Vee and almost purchased. It was ok. For the life of me I can not remember the name of if but I know it was a Brune Ale. Newcastle is still better. Then I tried the Nostradamus. It has I think port wine in it. It was good when it was a little on the cool side but then it had a different taste to it when it warmed up which was NOT long sitting by the fireplace (note to self - it gets warm over there!). I think the others tried St Bernard's, Monk's Holy Grail, Newcastle and of course my roomie had to have a glass of wine...but it was a very nice glass of Chalone Pinot Noir. All in all it was a good time and we will be back to experiment more with the beers also if the women's bathroom is not being used you have to check out the toilet and the faucet! It was a first time for me to use square toilet!..very retro!

New CPU on the market

I need one of these at work!
(Look close it is a CPU for a computer!)

Going on a CRUISE BABY!

We found out we are going on a CRUISE! Me, my roomie and a couple friends (Dawn and Christi) are going. We are virgins on the ship cruising thing so this will be interesting. Our ports will be Freeport and Nassau. It is just a four night 5 day thing so not so long if we don't like it.

Here is the REAL cool thing. I remembered there is a BIKE RACE in Nassau called Tour of the Bahamas which will be running when we are there. David Zabriskie and Christian Vande Velde will be riding for team Slipstream in the race! What a chance to see someone in person that has worn the yellow jersey in the TDF (Tour de France for all you non tour following people). I am jazzed about this and realize a person could just ride in RAGBRAI (again for all you non-bikers this stands for the Registers Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa) and see Lance which would be cool also but to see the boys race would be VERY COOL!

Here is the kicker....we are such planners when it comes to vacations. We usually know where we are going what day and where we are having supper at that night so this has not given us much time to plan not to mention enough time for me to get information together for my famous laminated travel information sheets! Not that we plan every second of the day but we like to have it planned so we know what we are doing at least. I guess this all started with playing softball and taking care of some of the team hotel and supper reservations and also with our trips to Disney! Now if we do not have a plan we feel lost....UGH!.STRESS!

We have LOTS OF PLANNING to do before any decisions are made as to what we are doing for sure! I "conch" do it....little island humor there....YES, we can do this!...Never say "Conch"!

Dog update

I have had a lot of people ask about the dog that was hit by the car last week. I had not seen the neighbors outside to ask them how it was doing but over my VERY late lunch today I got the update. They ended up putting it down. I guess the hip area was messed up along with broken ribs and other injuries guessing internal organ issues. It is a sad thing. The owner said when they went in to have the dog put to sleep you could see the red area across its ribs where there car ran over him. The dog was 8 year old white poodle. The other dog that was running with the dog that was hit has been really confused and scared to go outside. I am sure it was traumatic for it also. The good news is the white poodle is now well and not in pain......the other good news is the owners chin is healing and she didn't need stitches.

New pub in town!

There is a new libations station in town called Monk's House of Ale Repute. The place opened in December in downtown (420 E. 8th Street) Sioux Falls. I have not been there yet but might have to make a stop SOOOOON! They claim to have 70 types of bottled beer, 12 beers on tap and 24 types of wine for the wine-os (yes, you know who you are!). They are specializing in imports with a few micro-brews tossed in. I hear they have a fireplace for those cold South Dakota nights and to give it that special ambiance. They also sport art on the walls and tables. The owner is an artist that had an artisan business (Craftsman Creek) in the same building before turning it into a pub. They are going to open the kitchen to serve food the end of this month. Not sure if it will be the standard bar fare or not but I can't wait to try it out...OH YES, the best part is that it is a SMOKE FREE PUB and that ROCKS and plus you just have to LOVE THE NAME!

Movies, Food, Beer and Cycling

MOVIES:
It was a MOVIE fest this past holiday! We watched Ghost Rider (I liked it), The Kingdom (good but very intense), The Prestige (good but creepy), Madagascar (ok-not even close to good Pixar movie), Harry Potter - Order of the Phoenix (ok but I still like the first one better), Ratatouille (had seen it in the theater but still amazing that it is all CG!).

FOOD:
Not much else new. We were at the clubhouse in Yankton part of the weekend and got some of the Christmas decorations taken down. Hit Charlies for pizza Friday night and Murdo's (Nebraska side of the big MO) for walleye for supper Saturday night.

BEER:
I did have something interesting at Murdo's. It was a 16 oz can of Budlight that had clamato juice in it all prepackaged. Clamato is clam juice and tomato juice. It was not bad but tasted more like V8 with Budlight. I was surprised that it had a little spice to it. We have looked for it here in Sioux Falls but it must be a Nebraska thing. If you are looking for it I think they called it Chelada not to be confused with a Machelada that the Mexican places serve. This past weekend I also tried a Norwegian Brown Ale "O". It was good. Make sure you do not drink it when it is to cold. I found that it was better a little warmer. It has a lot more coffee flavor to it then Newcastle which is my favorite and my base as to how all other beers are compared.

CYCLING:
Not much news on the cycling front. I see that David Zabriskie and Christian Vande Valde are scheduled to race in the Tour of the Bahama's the end of this month in Nassau. Jan Ullrich might be stripped of his gold (road race) and silver (time trial) medal from the 2000 Olympic games. The statue of limitations has not run out yet so the IOC is looking at Ullrich for possible doping during that time period.