if

you see one movie this year (since 2005 is almost over, we'll say this post is for 2006) make it Crash.

It might be the most powerful movie I have ever seen...now if only I can figure out what it means to me...

A little freezin' in December

Rode about 40 miles with another guy this afternoon.
Weather wasn't too bad...mid-30s with a nasty, but not as nasty as the other day, cold wind. Did a couple loops of the Apple Cup course.

He put me in the pain box a couple days ago, today wasn't as bad. Almost visited the pain box once, but could have handled a little more. The scales just said I weight 206, I expected a little closer to 200 because of how good I felt on the bike. Much better than my first couple rides since taking some time off.

That's it for now....gots to find a job...or start pawning stuff off like Nell did.
F'n hire me people...I've got numbchuck skills and "i'm good with computers"(that ones for you scott, if you remember when we heard that said over and over again years ago)

music

some music is hard to stop listening to

check it.... Ne-Yo "So sick"

Yeah...books

As long as Ronnell answers the doorbell I'll have three new books arriving at the house today.
Postsecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives
The Rose That Grew From the Concrete - 2Pac
Found : The Best Lost, Tossed, and Forgotten Items from Around the World

Should be quite the exciting evening. Actually if Ronnell doesn't feel like being a lazy bum all evening then we'll go play ball after I get off work at 9...then took at the books for a few minutes before putting them in my "to read" pile.

My teeth are killing me right now. Actually it's just one wisdom tooth that's doing it. If this continues I'm going to have to find some industrial strength pain killers.

Speaking of books...I'll have another post soon related to books...

So...

its been a while since I've done any blogging. My bad.

Last weeks was very hectic, as I had one huge project for a class due (about 75% of the grade in the class) and one unit plan and a paper revision due in another.
Stayed up all night one day last week, and got lots done...just went through the next day in a daze. Which was ok, 'cause that's the last day of class for me.

Finals week is this week, but I've got none..so it's just work and finding a job. Got an application for the hospital Ronnell works at with good possibilities of work.

Went on my second bike ride since MTB Nationals and Ben put me in the pain box. Not a fun place to visit. (Note to self: avoid pain box)

Obviously lots has happened since the last time I posted...as I remember I might just post it up.

Oh, sold my mountainbike...so i've got a little more money to help pay off credit cards, just no more mountainbike.
Fire up your little violins and play a little tune for me (if you don't know me you have no idea what this means...so sorry)


I'm out like a fat kid in dodgeball

F'n CompUSA

Way too many f'n people at CompUSA at midnight. Scott and I drove by there cause he was thinking about getting some stuff but the line was from the door, along the front, along the side, and clear to the back.

In other news, I read some article in a magazine the other day that said saying "f'n" or other derivatives isn't cool. I disagree, and therefore shall continue to use it.


Happy late Thanksgiving to you. Mine was good. Thanksgiving lunch at Uncle Jim's was great. Couldn't get anyone to go with me to the plaza lighting (thanks a lot for beeing oversees booger :) so I simmered at scotts. Just now realized why I've been snacking so much the past 4 hours....no dinner. So I shall drink some more caffeine, eat a not so much frozen anymore pizza, and watch a movie with scott downstairs.

snow

I want snow.

lots of it.

If it's going to be chilly, there should be snow. Pennsylvania spoiled me.

A little better

Looks like I'm probably going to be able to student teach next August. The Associate Dean in the College of Ed and an advisor allowing me to take one class while I'm student teaching.

While it is great that I'll be done earlier, next fall will probably be my roughest semester yet. I also hate thinking about not being able to race mountainbikes with the team, but I doubt I'll have time to train like I'd need to. And no time for working either. So no money, so by the end of that semester will I even have any bikes?? hmmm...

Overwhelmed

Feeling a bit overwhelmed right about now.

$ - don't have any. Credit card companies call at least once a day (4 companies each day, around 5 or 6 calls per day).
Mostly worried about Thanksgiving and Christmas break. The only chance I have of financially surviving the breaks is finding a job. But how do I find one that will allow me to work just a few weeks?

School - if I could get one class created for me next semester I could student teach next Fall and be done in December. If my advisor would have made it clear to me that I needed to take it this semester this wouldn't be a problem, but she made it sound like it would be good to take it, not that it would save thousands of dollars.

So now do i become a part time student next semester (only have one education class schduled unless I can get the other one added, in which case I would have a full load) and figure out the financial consequeces of it, or add classes I don't really need and stay a full time student?

The College of Education can suck it.

Long ago

Haven't posted in a while. If you can read dates you already know this (if you can't read dates so well then listen up. Just above the title is the date this post was made. If you look back you can see on what date the last post was made. A little subtraction and you've got how long ago my last post was. TA-DA...you be a genius now)

Going out of town can really zap your energy. When I came back from Pennsylvania I was tired from the trip and what I had to do to get back on track, but also from being sick.
So basically that week was just spent trying to feel better and sleeping as much as possible.
So last week was spent trying to catch up some more, and feeling better.

Now I need to get started on a project for a class that I should've started on a few weeks ago. Not due for a few more weeks, but it should take a while to piece all of it together. At the same time I've got plenty of non-school related stuff I should be doing. Making sure the Cannondale (my mountainbike) is in good working order so I can sell it. Finding someone to buy an almost fully built computer (or figuring out if the motherboard is what's making it not work, getting a new one, and selling a working computer) and so on.
I need money, I've got stuff I can get rid of to get money, just haven't made the time...

Da Vinci Code

I'm trying to finish up The Da Vinci Code.

Got it here at work with me. I've decided to keep it in my bag until it's finished. Otherwise, I'll never finish it. I've only been reading it for 5-6 months.

I really like some of the ideas in the book. It's supposedly based on facts also. I almost wish I hadn't found a little film about called something like "The Real Da Vinci Code" which shows the foundations for a couple of the main ideas of the book (such as there being a bloodline from Jesus) were based upon lies.

Back to the whole book reading taking forever thing. It kinda ticks me off. I start a book. Then I start another one, and then another one. (And I've got about 8 more at home that I plan on reading) That's why I've been reading this book for so long.

Should you care? Not really...but you already read it so HA!

Useless

Feeling pretty useless this week.

Drag myself around the reflector for as many hours as I'm schedule to, then come home and basically get in bed. This wouldn't be a terrible thing if I got back out of bed and got some work done, but I don't.

Damn you sickness, damm you

suck

work really really sucks.
If only I could afford to take a day off and be miserable at home instead of extra miserable at work.

Collegiate MTB Nationals 2005

**Wrote this while I was in Pennsylvania because I knew if I didn't I wouldn't write anything for a while. It will be revised and prettied up later with some pictures added**
I feel pretty crappy now. Got a nice cold and feel like I've got a bunch of stuff I should be doing.
Gonna try to take 2 or 3 weeks off the bike to recharge, and then I'll be back to it again.


Thursday:
Got into 7 Springs at around 9am. Parked at the main resort and tried to get ourselves situated a bit. Went ahead and ate breakfast in a little diner in the main building. Steve got a haircut, and we peer-pressured him into dying his hair, we went to pick up our registration packets, and headed over to meet Michigan Tech at our condo (they had room to spare and didn’t mind the help in paying for it).

We got situated a bit, changed and Chad, Steve, Jon, and myself rode over to our courses to practice. Those guys practiced the mountain-cross track
and I rode further up the mountain to the short track/start of the cross-country course. Did a couple laps of the STXC course and then rode one lap of the cross-country course. Nice a painful….the course was made up of snow and mud. My toes were numb a good ¾ of the ride. It sucked…enough said.

Met up with Chad at the bottom of the hill, and we rode back to our condo. Nobody was there, door was locked, we were real happy. Eventually Brady and a couple dudes from Michigan Tech showed up and let us in. Brady made dinner, some people drank and played some games, and some just went to bed. After not sleeping but a couple hours during the drive, and driving from around midnight until around 4, I crashed around 9.


Friday:
Got up around 8. Brady made French toast like a nice housewife, then decided to run up to the Short Track Course (a good couple miles) in shorts, shoes, and a hat. It was cold outside.
The rest of us got geared up and I dropped Chad, Jon, and Steve off at the mountain-cross course and pick Brady up, and we headed up to the short track course.

I rode a whole two laps, and then about 8 of us got pulled. Some Colorado guys (CU, Fort Lewis, etc) set a crazy fast pace on the mostly uphill course and a majority of the 60 something riders were pulled fairly early into the 30 minute race.

My toes were frozen after those two laps, my face covered in mud, so Brady and I headed down the mountain and up and down back to our condo to change (brady had shorts, a shirt, hat, and shoes at this point…I was chilly in shoes, socks, a long underwear layers on bottom, with shorts and leg warmers over it, 2 shirts and a thermal jacket on top)

We changed and headed back to watch the guys qualify for mountain-cross (4 people riding down a course at a time). Only 32 guys (out of around 60) were able to qualify for the finals, and chad, who didn’t fall a single time practicing, fell twice in his qualifying run and finished 2 places out of the top 32. He was disappointed to say the least, considering a top 10 finish was basically expected. The other guys fell a bit, had some bike problems, and finished a little bit behind Chad.

Steve, Chad, and Jon

We found out they didn’t make the cut, went back to the condo so they could change, and went back to the course to watch the mountain-cross carnage.

That finished up at 3-something and we headed back to the condo, then to the bike shop down the road, the grocery store, and back to the condo for the evening. Steve and I cooked up a batch of pasta with meat sauce, green beans mixed with peas, and some Italian bread for dinner, and we ate up. Little bit of drinking, little bit of poker, and plenty of sleep.

Saturday:

Got up at the crack of 9am. Race started at 11:30. Overall it was fun. Could only use my largest chainring, and there was a couple huge climbs at the end (went from the bottom of a mountain to the top, with just a few twists) so I was doing the hike-a-bike for a good while. On my third lap I flatted about half way through and rode and hiked the bike in.

Walked the downhill course with brady…parts of it were crazy. Just before Brady and I got to the course Steve came walking towards us with his bike in three parts.
Broke the frame in two places. Then Chad and Jon did a run to see themselves for the race tomorrow.



Had an awards ceremony/all-you-can-eat buffet at 6:30, came back to the condo for a little while, then to the naked crit at 10pm.



Back side of mountain on Sunday

Cycling team in local paper

http://digmo.com/sports/story.php?ID=16727

Mullet time

No more shaved head. Thought about doing it one more time for this weekend, but I'll already be cold enough.

So the question is? Should I participate in the mullet movement?

Yes, sounds enticing doesn't it?
The best part....i could do it on my own!

Rec Center

I stepped foot in the rec center for the second time all semester tonight (and the first time was just cleaning out my locker the first day of the semester). After work I decided I needed to get some exercise, so I came home, changed, grabbed Ronnell and we headed to the rec.
For not having shot a ball since sometime around June/July I played pretty well. Ronnell could have used some work :)
I also got a nice cut on the top of my head from some dude that thought his elbow belonged there. Kinda like what happened to my eye brow in high school, only in a different spot by a dude 3/4 the size.

My body will dislike me in the morning. A bunch of different muscles are used to play ball that are used while cycling. Cardio system held up very well....much more than Ronnell could say

Goodnight

Fast fact...maybe

During our ride back onto campus last Friday Brady said William Jewell, the namesake of William Jewell College in Libery, is buried in the small graveyard right beside Providence road. There are some famous names in there, so I'll have to investigate sometime where he really is in there or not.

Don't ask me why i remembered that right now....

Postsecret and not enough money

Click on the title to check out, and preorder the new postsecret book.

I'm definately not going to have enough money to pay rent this month. Which means I won't next month either, and the next. What to do? Hopefully I can sell my mountainbike quickly after Nationals, and get as much as I hope to for it...that'll take care of the problem for a while. Looks like working more next semester is the only other answer I'll have.

real good

Had a real good conversation with dad a minute ago.
Why do I feel the need to post it up here? Because I don't feel like we've done much talking before. I'm not blaming this on him, nor am I putting all the blame on myself. (The answer to that is one of those questions like I mention below) So when you get around to reading this...thanks dad, it was great talking with you.

It also raises a bunch of questions in my mind. Questions I'd like an answer to, but some of them are kind tricky and the responses may be the kind that a quick answer won't really get it done. Maybe it's more of a question to get the other person to think about it themselves.

What to do...

Just saw this...had to post it

Mountainbiking...about as much fun as you can have with your clothes on

Created a discussion board for the cycling team. I'm really proud of it, even though it pretty much installed itself. I just had to make changes (stayed up 'till 8am yesterday morning doing it) and get it set up.
You can check it out, but can't see a lot unless you register
(off-limits are: General Discussion, Phone List...hmm..guess that's it. So most is on-limits. Just can't post unless you register.)

http://students.missouri.edu/~murace/forum/

No creative title for this one

This week went by quick. Class, work and a little bit of riding kept me busy.

Went on a nice 3 hour ride yesterday with a guy from Minnesota that might come to school here next year. Apparantly it's flat in the Minnesota, so the hills around Columbia put a beating down on him.

Went and saw Waiting last night. Ryan Reynolds is in it, it's about a restaurant. It was hilarious! Quotes will be coming out of my mouth from this movie for a while.

National Championships are coming up. I'm starting to get really excited....how many people can say there were in the National Championships of anything? That's right, not that many.

MTB National Championships

We'll be leaving in just over a week. Seems like thats way too quick.
There are 4 of us racing. Looks like I'm the only one suffering through the endurance races. The rest of the guys have a good shot at placing well in the gravity events. I honestly believe Chad has what it takes to be on the podium Saturday or Sunday in both gravity events.


I don't really feel like being on the bike right now either. Lately they've both seemed too small. (This doesn't mean I won't be on them...just that I won't enjoy being on them as I usually do)
I'm pretty sure I'm going to sell my mountainbike in the next month and try to find an equal that is a little bit bigger.

Will be leaving town Wednesday the 26th and getting back Sunday the 30th I believe. Then the very next week I'll be out of town part of Thursday and Friday for the MSTA State Convention in St. Louis.
Good stuff

Casino

5 of us from the cycling team went to the casino (in Booneville) last night. Left here about 11pm and got back into town at 3am.
It was sweet. The nickel slots were good to me, then the quarter slots slapped me in the face.
And the Long Island's were tasty

Michigan Tech weekend (last weekend)

So the long awaited post is here. Brace yourself...

We were extremely lucky to have Kyle's dad and Steve's parents willing to drive their RV's to the North for us. They got into Columbia (both drove from home, Liberty, MO)at about 9pm Thursday. We were also very lucky that the insurance policy Kyle's dad has with his RV covers any trailer that is attached, therefore we were able to use Walt's old Long John Silvers Cycling team bike trailer.
We got everything loaded up and headed out of Columbia sometime around 9:30pm. I believe we stopped somewhere in Illinois around midnight or 1am for the night. In between 9:30 and 1am the 21 year old RV (youngins were in the larger RV) commenced to drink (not just alcohol, but...yeah...mostly alcohol), play cards, watch a DVD, and study a bit.
We got up around 7am, having a breakfast (muffins, pastries, etc provided by Steve's parents) in the RV's. Got on the road again shortly after.
Drove a long long time, playing more card games, sleeping, watching movies, playing XBOX, studying, and so on until we got to our RV campground in Michigan around 8 or 9pm. Jim used his goverment cheese (read: Food stamps) to buy lots of snacks for the trip. So lunch during the trip was pb&j, ham sandwhiches, and other various foods.
After we got the RV's parked in their sports a few of us took the Suburban to WalMart and got a couple things. Then we attempted to find the race sites for the next day. This took a while, and when we finally got back to the camp site at 11-something pm Steve's mom had a huge thing of pasta ready for us. (In the end, turns out both race sites were not more than 5 minutes away from our campsite)
We ate, watched some tv in the big rv and people started heading to bed shortly after midnight.

( NOW IS A GOOD TIME TO TAKE A BREAK. )

Got up at 6am Saturday. Loaded up the bikes, Kyle's RV, the suburban, and headed to the ski slopes. Dual slalom qualifying started at something like 9, so we had plenty of time to take practice runs. We all qualified and soon after the ski lift started operating and we took it up to practice the downhill course.
(What is dual slalom: two people race down a course with jumps, berms, and the first one to the finish line wins.
What is qualifying: everyone goes down one time by theirself to get a place in the bracket. Later in the day the bracket is worked out and the races happen)
Ski lift was sweet. Never been on one that big before, it was kind of a bummer to look down part way up the hill and see a huge wreath and cross on a tree. I was also nursing a large gash in my right shin and a swollen left shin courtesy of the dual slalom course. (I am bad at landing jumps. Even small ones. If you look in Parker's pictures the first set in the "crashes" page is mine. My pedals madly abused both my shins.) I immediately saw the gash in my right shin, and had the medics put a wrap on it. About 15 minutes later I was waiting for them to let us jump on the ski lift when I noticed my left shin was a lot wider than my right shin, and my right shin had a wrap on it. I pulled up my leg warmer and realized that my shin had grown huge sometime in the past few minutes. Went and found another medic and we found some ice and wrapped it on there.

My ice and I then went up the ski lift and did one run of the downhill course. It was sweet, would have been even sweeter if I was using a downhill bike on it.
Put my bike back in the trailer and hopped back in the RV to lay down and ice my shin. The other guys finished up in the next hour or so and we headed across town to the XC (cross-country) race site.
Our C riders took off, followed 10 minutes later by our B riders. I kept the ice on my shin for a while until the other A riders started getting ready. We went out and rode a little bit of the course, and got ready to race.
The race was long and bumpy. I didn't cramp up like I had been lately, which was good. But I also didn't place very well. Chad did very well, and John and I finished together a bit later (which was very good for him, his first A race of the year. Had done B races all year). Lou flatted on the last lap and came in not long after John and I. Steve came in not long after Lou.

We headed back to the campsite and we grabbed our bags and the suburban headed over to Michigan Tech's rec center for a shower. They had old-school-everyone-showers-together showers, so we all got clean together. (campground turned out not to have working showers, so Foosh talked to the Michigan Tech peeps and got us the use of their showers. Actually we were in their XC skiing locker room. There was a Michigan Tech ice hockey game going on in the same building.

After the showers we headed back to the RV's and Steve's dad was working on grilling burgers for us. Had burgers, pasta from the night before, and beans, and watched My Name is Earl.
Headed to bed around midnight again I think.

Got up around 6am, and got the trailers ready. We were taking both to the ski resort so we could leave straight from their after the races were over.

Got the bikes out, and we headed up the ski lift for the start of the downhill race. I was the third racer to go, the first Mizzou. It was a huge rush, but you only get one run at it, which kind of sucks. My legs were shaking after my run for about 10 minutes because I still had the adrenaline in me.
All the downhill runs finished and they opened up the Dual Slalom course for a little bit of practice before the race.
Eventually the A's races started. Then the B's went, which consisted of 5 Mizzou riders, and 1 Michigan Tech rider. I was the one that got to race the Michigan Tech rider and I got spanked. I blame it on no jumping ability and a lack of a jumping bike :)

Lou won the B's race, Chad won the A's in high-flying fashion (he also won the Downhill even earlier in the day).

Shortly after the DS races the Short track started. C's went, then B's, then A's. Course sucked. Lots of grass climbing, then not much downhill (yeah, what goes up must come down. But if some of it is going sideways then it doesn't seem like much). A's race was brutal. Chad flatted in the first few laps (he probably reached back and cut his own wheel to relieve the pain), John and I pulled ourselves a few laps later. Steve did the same a few laps after us, and then Lou eventually did.

We got our stuff loaded up, and waited for the conference director to tally the results and hand out trophys. Due to our great showing at this race we moved into the 1st place spot among Division I teams in our conference. So we got a nice trophy and a team invitation to Nationals. Chad and John also got awards for finishing 1st and 3rd in the season in gravity events. (DS and Downhill=gravity)(XC and STXC=endurance)

We got back on the rode from the ski resort at 4pm. Many miles, lots of snacks, a hamburger and chicken sandwhich from a convenience store, and lots of water later we got back into Columbia shortly after 7am. Actually Steve's RV was about an hour and a half later than ours because they like to travel a little slower in their beast of an RV.

That's it.

Pictures are here. Not organized at all. I may organize them and re-upload later sometime. Enjoy!

Got some money? Give it to me. Please....?

The Mizzou Cycling team took 1st place among Division 1 schools in the Midwest Collegiate Cycling Conference. That means we're going to Nationals in Pennsylvania.

But it's gonna cost a buttload per person. We're talking upwards of $250 each.

So if you feel like giving me any money to race against the best in the country let me know and I'll be glad to accept your charity. :)


A bigger post will come this weekend about how last weekend went and so on....

Get lost alot? Have iPod photo/nano?

http://ipodiway.com/

Too much due this week. I'll post a blurb tonight about how the weekend went and why there's an icepack on my left leg (and a large bandage on my right leg that you can't see. Hint: see Parker's "crash" section) on one of Parker's ski lift pictures

Michigan

Just got back home from Michigan.
Awesome trip. Will write much more later


Parker's Pictures

Apple Butter Day pics

Cycling road pics from last semester

Road pictures taken last semester for Alumni magazine article

12 Hour Race pics

Good weekend

This past weekend was applebutter day at Grandma's. It was great, and I'll have a bunch of pictures to put up in the next couple days, as soon as I find time.

Classes are busy. One group presentation coming up this week, another one next week. Also have a research paper due next week. I want to write it over the school funding formula but I don't know that I'll have the time to research it enough to write a decent paper...so that's got to be figured out in the next 7 hours here at work.

Went on a 2 1/2 hour ride yesterday. Was a little sore 'cause I haven't ridden in a few days. We'll see how I feel after the ride tomorrow.
The cycling team has a big 13 hour drive this weekend to the U.P. of Michigan. It's gonna be a really long weekend if my legs don't get back into the groove of cycling.
Then at the end of this month is Nationals in Seven Springs, Pennsylvania. We aren't guaranteed to go yet, but its what we've been working for, and all expect to happen.

more than 12 hours of pain

I have mixed feelings about the 12 hour race this past weekend. The atmosphere was great, as was the shirt, and prizes we got for second place.

However, the tendons or whatever are on the back of my knees are still tight as a mofo. Quads are still tight also.
Basically spend all of Sunday afternoon/evening laying down in my bed trying to ease the pain.

During the race my left knee was bothering me. It's been happening during most of the collegiate races so I've got an appointment set up to have it looked at later this week. E-mailed a local cyclists thats a nutritionist also so hopefully they'll refer me to someone I can talk to about setting up some kind of nutrution plan.

Dad gave me a cd of pictures he took, so I'll put some of them up this evening.
Thanks Em, Scott, Tracy, snickers, mom and dad for coming out and supporting our team at the race. Mom, your lasagna will be forever remembered by those that had some.

Last thought for now: riding at night is a blast! (unless your legs, toes, fingers, and other various muscles are cramping up constantly)

too slow

so I'm new to this being tagged thing. Sorry Erica.

Seven Things I Plan to Do Before I Die:

• Teach


• Take my family to every state in the U.S.


• Travel somewhere oversees


• Snowboard in Colorado


• Learn how to surf


• Buy a bike frame and build the thing up myself


• ???

Seven Things I Can Do:

• Ride a bike for at least 6 hours without stopping


• Remember how to get most places after one trip


• Listen. Well.


• Grill up a mean bbq pork steak


• Stay open-minded about almost anything


• Create a webpage


• figure out what's wrong with gadgets (like all the new electronics Ronnell buys)

Seven Things I Can't Do:

• Ride a wheelie


• Distinguish between different food seasonings


• Eat hot(spicy) foods


• Pay bills on time (see next bullet)


• Manage money


• Sing along to the radio/cd's when others are in the car


• Figure out a way to learn a foreign language without paying a lot of money for it or receiving a grade

Seven Things That Attract Me to Women:

• realness (as opposed to the many young females out there that act "fake")


• a sense of humor


• a great smile


• a sunny disposition


• a caring personality


• confidence


• convictions

Seven Things I Say the Most (Recently):

• Dammit


• I'm going for a ride


• I'll be back late


• please get more syrup


• Thank you


• I'm going to get lunch real quick


• That's ok

Seven Celebrities I Dream About:
Gotta skip this part. I'm don't dream about actresses, or find them particularly dreamy, or have them appear in my dream.

this week

This week, as most have this semester, has gone by quickly.

My schedule is sort of set up so that weeks fly by. Beginning of the week is full with work and class, and the end of it is filled with cycling and trying to get homework, etc done.

Tuesday night worlds was good this week. There were just 3 of us last week, so I was kind of worried that I may be riding by myself. No problem, it's just nice to ride with others. There were a good 7 of us there, and it was a good workout. Not as fast as it was in the summer, but still kept an above 20mph average.
Its like the fact that a couple of the fast guys in town have taken the Columbia Bike Team juniors under their wing and ride with them regularly. I wish I had the opportunity they do right now. But at least I'm able to get into it now while I'm still somewhat young.
There's one of the juniors that I've become friends with and we've done some riding together. It's cool to be in a position to be a positive influence on his life.

Wedneday was a normal day. Work was a little slow. Class was a little long. Then I stayed up way too late playing Madden 2005. (Mom: I haven't played the XBOX in a long time :)

Got up at the crack of 11 this morning. Made some pancakes and decided to skip the ride I normally do on Thursdays in order to finish putting my old mountainbike together. I put a little blurb in the stlbiking discussion board, so hopefully someone will give it a good home. We've been through a lot together and I wish I could keep it, but that's not such an economically fiesable plan.

Today is basically over. Might play some tennis after I get off work at 10 for a cardio workout. That or I'll force myself to throw the road bike on the trainer for an hour or so.

Tomorrow is going to be a road ride for a good couple hours and a work meeting. Then its time to head home and get psyched up for the 12 hour race starting saturday morning. Can't wait!

it's a small world

So it seems that a new friend of mine has had a few conversations with North Carolina coach Roy Williams.
Turns out a guy that is new to the cycling team, from Poplar Bluff (southern mo), is the brother of Tyler Hansbrough, the best basketball player missouri has producted in a long time. (Who has a younger brother that could contend for the MO player of the year this coming year)

Also had a past Olympic cyclist tell me this week that I have a strong sprint. This is something I kind of know, but not something I would except to hear from someone who has sprinted with the best in the world.

Murray State weekend (warning...this is a long post!)

Alright..so the post you've all been waiting for. The Murray State race weekend.

As usual it took the team a while to get our crap packed into the 3 vehicles we were taking. Left town about 4:30pm Friday.
My car was loaded down with 3 bikes on top and 3 bikes on a trunk rack on back along with 4 of us inside. We'll just say my car isn't meant for that much weight and we had climbed up some hills at slower-than-tractor-trailer pace. Can't wait to have a car that still has some power with that amount of weight attached/inside.

Got to our beautiful Super 7 motel in Cadiz (I think that's the name of the town), Kentucky at 10 (ok, I don't really remember what time it was...so I just made that up). Normally one car goes inside and checks in and then we all go into the rooms. That way we can be charged for a couple rooms with a 2 people in each, as opposed to 3 rooms with 4 people each. Well that plan didn't work out so well as the Super 7 didn't have anywhere for the other two cars to hide out of sight. So we parked in a corner and took off a few bikes and started messing around. All in all, we had to get one extra room and were charged for 4 people to a room, paying about double what we thought we were going to be able to pay.

Got up around 7 Saturday morning and loaded up the bikes and headed to a McDonalds about 50 feet from the motel. Had a delightful breakfast (Deluxe breakfast with pancakes, eggs, sasuage...mmmm :) and headed about 15 minutes down the road to a really nice park.
Unloaded the bikes and then just messed around for a while. The A's race is always the last to go so we just goofed off for a while and cheered for the C's and B's. Mizzou represented well. Took 1st and 2nd in the C's. Also took a couple of the top 10 positions in the B's. As for the A's...we all finished. Chad broke his bike a couple times and came in with Lou. I felt like crap from the beginning. Had a great start as usual, until I encountered a bump in the grass that I didn't see and it almost threw me from my bike. Luckly my right hand and right knee saved me. Right hand was fine but right knee got a nice cut (and a nice bruise that's coming in as we speak) on it. I wasn't climbing worth crap, and you can only make up so much time on the downhills and flat ground. I was about 5 minutes back on Chad and Lou when I came through at the end of the second lap (9.5 mile laps, A's do 3 laps) when the conference director decided to have mercy on me and said, "if you want to stop now i'll place you". (For you non bike speaking readers, that means I still got points for the race, as opposed to DNF'ing, but didn't have to do the last lap) His words were music to my ears. My reply, "hell yeah! Thanks!"
Part of my climbing problem is that the seatpost I have now can't go up as high as I need it...so i'll throw the old one back on it and let the climbing commence.
I didn't check to see what places we all took...so I'll find that out when they go online in about a week.

After Chad and Lou came in we packed up the vehicles and went out in search of food. We found it in the form of a all-you-can-eat pizza buffet. We ate a lot..it was good. Then two of the cars went back to the park to practice the dual slalom course and my car went back to the motel for some relaxation.
That's about it for Saturday. Lou and I walked across the highway to get a Wendy's frosty, and then I walked back over about 3 hours later with some other guys for another frosty...which my stomach told me later was way too much frosty.

Sunday we got up at 6am and had convenience store breakfast (this is where we all go into a convenience store and choose breakfast in whatever form we see fit). Headed over to the park so the dual slalom guys could practice a little before the course was supposed to close at 8am for qualifying.
The guys, and girl, qualified and the short track races started. Our B riders did well. Lou and I did well. I took 9th and he took somewhere between 15th and 18th.

Then the dual slalom finals took up the next couple hours. Our boys did super-great and we packed up and headed home.
End of story.

The next collegiate race we're going to is in Michigan in a few week, something like a 13 1/2 hour drive. So if you know anyone that wants to donate a large truck (to haul the bikes) and a large passenger van we'd be glad to use it!

Brown v. Board

Got a link to this website in class last week.
Really interesting info

Click on the title above or here

One of the instructors for the class I got this from when to a conference that Cheryl Brown Henderson spoke (daughter of "BROWN v. ...")

1. The case is misunderstood, the media wrote the history
2. Brown was teh 12th school segregation case in the state of Kansas
3. One reason for the Brown decision was how the U.S. was viewed by other world powers (i.e. USSR). Claimed the U.S. had no moral authority since they oppressed blacks within their own country
4. Rev. Oliver Brown was the tenth person recruited to created the case, he was the only male in the suit, hence the name "Brown v. Board of Ed"
5. And most interesting to me: The school environments in Topeka were equal. Schools were just as nice, the faculty at the black school had more degrees

Kentucky

races this weekend went well. I'll post about it tomorrow.
Highlight of the weekend: took 9th in the Short Track
Lowlight of the weekend: sucked terribly in the cross country

Parker, a photo-j major went with us and took some awesome pics. Check them out at http://www.missouri.edu/~pje5f9/murraystate/

News

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

MS150

I think next year I'll start doing the MS150 again. Get to break out the "Lifetime Rider" jersey again :)
(random thought after reading discussions about this years ride)

Neverending bicycling tales

Had a good recovery ride bright and early yesterday with a guy thats new to the cycling club, or actually isn't a member of the cycling club yet.

This afternoon after class is the Tuesday Night World ride as usual. I'm pretty sure I haven't missed the ride yet since it started this summer.

This weekend it looks like about 13 of us will be heading to Murray, Kentucky for Murray State's race. Course sounds tough, but a few less miles than our race last weekend.

The following weekend I'll be doing a 12 hour race with a couple guys from Illinois at Landahl park, just outside of Blue Springs. It'll be my first 12 hour race, so i'm pretty excited about trying it out. Hopefully I can convince a few other Mizzou riders to put together a team.

I'm a little behind on reading for my class at 3 today, and we're supposed to teach what we read to someone else in the class...so I should get on that.
Classes are going well. Got a group project coming up and plenty of reading to do. Just have to make time to do it between riding the bikes, messing with the bikes, learning how to mess with the bikes, and work.

Have a great day

exhausting

This weekend was an exhausting one.

Saturday I pushed my body to its limit in the mountainbike race here in Columbia, and still finished in the back of the pack. Not the best feeling to pain yourself that much only to finish near the back, but me finishing the race does give our team a good number of points.
Got lapped by another racer on my second to last lap. It was about 28 (of 30) miles into the race for this guy and he was moving like he had just started. I couldn't hold his wheel (stay right behind him for you non-bike language speaking folks) for more than a minute.
I can handle 30 miles in a road race (that was the distance of both road races I did this year), but it's much different on a mountainbike. The last lap (30 mile race. 6 five mile laps.) was probably the least amount of fun I've ever had on a bike...or had while holding a bike. When I was a junior there was a race that I got a flat but wanted to finish so I could get the points, so I walked the last few miles of the race. That was much more fun than the 5th lap yesterday!
Toes were cramping, at times it was hard to hold the handlebars because my knuckles would cramp up, my legs were cramping. The worst part was being lightheaded for the last 5-8 miles.
Huge difference between the guy that took 1st in the race and me. HUGE DIFFERENCE.


I'm tired and I'm supposed to meet a new Mizzou rider on campus at 7-freakin thirty for an introduction to the Big Tree loop. (For the record all I normally do on Mondays is work 2-10. That means waking up no earlier than 9 or 10.)
So goodnight it is.

Thanks Scott and Tracy for coming to see the race yesterday!

Tire & Garage Pics

My beautiful garage




What I did to my tires at the Purdue race


And the other tire

If you noticed plenty of the knobs are ripped completely from the tire. With the second tire picture a better resolution would show a nice path in the middle of the tire with knobs completely ripped off and some just worn all the way down

bam

It's about 2am and I just finished up homework for the night.

I've actually really like the homework we've done so far in T315: Teaching Reading in content areas
All my classes have been going pretty well. Just wish the 4 hour class I have every Wednesday wasn't so long. My body doesn't agree with 4 hours in a chair (well maybe a recliner after a long bike ride...but that's not quite the same as what we've got in class)

Chad's birthday party was a great time last night. Played some games, watched some downhill mountainbike riding DVD's, watched many people get drunk, and then Brady and I took Chad downtown shortly after midnight for some drinking.
To spare the details, Chad drank a lot and shortly after we got him back home he was throwing it back up. Maybe that's why I've never been drunk. If it hurt that much to watch him, its got to be even worse to be him at that point.

He did survive though, with not a lot of moving around today, and tomorrow (technically today) we're gonna get him back on the bike and ride over through Ashland around noon.

The bike races here at Mizzou are coming right up. Should be an exciting weekend.

In other exciting news I might have the chance to get some experience in a bike shop. A new one just opened up in town with basically just the owner working by himself. He seems real nice and after going in there and buying a couple parts to rebuild my old bike to be sold I asked him if he might like some help, whether its paid or not. Told him that I basically just wanted to learn as much as I could about bikes. He thought it sounded great, just gotta give him a couple weeks as he just opened up and still is trying to get settled a bit.
We'll see what happens!

A September weekend

Rolled into Odessa Friday evening. Erin Stein came by and received the grand tour of the house, including the part Andy was a terribly cute little boy/something went terribly wrong during these years picture tour. We went to see 40 Year Old Virgin in Independence. I loved it. Erin on the other hand probably cried all the way from mom and dad's place to her parents place. We'll just say it wasn't exactly her type of humor.

Got to Scott's place about 1am and played a game of Madden and then went to bed. Got up at the crack of 8:30am and met up with dad and a friend around 10 to head to the Mizzou-Ark. State game at Arrowhead. Tickets were crazy high, I think dad paid around $80 for us all to get in. Thanks again dad!
Game was good, we spanked them. Fumbled too much, top receiver dislocated his shoulder, and our new offensive schemes didn't impress me too much (I can see tougher teams tearing it up), but it was a good time...my first time being in Arrowhead.

Was going to go riding at Landahl after the game but was worn out enough that I decided just to head back home. So I took 24 Hwy to Marshall and I-70 the rest of the way.

Sunday I did a butt-load of mowing on the short track course, and then rode it for 12 minutes. It completely sucks (in a good, but very painful way). The race this coming sunday will be 30 minutes. Ouch!

Monday was a practice race out at Cosmo park, where the cross-country race will be this Saturday. I got a flat tire during the pre-ride and met up with the guys before the start of the practice race. My rear wheel was out of true and the tire was actually rubbing against the frame almost every revolution, so the practice race wasn't exactly at race speed and only did 1 lap as opposed to the 5 that I'll be doing this Saturday.


Today looks like this:
Work- now-3
Class- 3:30-4:45
Bike to bike store- 4:45-5
Tuesday Night Worlds- 5:30-7'ish
Chad's 21st birthday celebration bbq type thing- ~midnight

Definately real

Erica, it's real. No fake tatoo's on me in the past 15-18 years.
Am I addicted? I would say no. A few, to me, doesn't seem like an addiction. I do have in mind at least one more I'll be getting eventually, but the majority of my body will have no ink on it.


I'm not at work yet so I can't post about what I was up to this weekend. Simmer for a few hours and click that refresh button.

New

This coming weekend is Mizzou's mountainbike race. Rode the course today with some of the guys and found that I need to tune the bike up a bit more before this weekend. The week should fly by. Class, work, and riding every day. Oh yeah, and homework.

Good stuff.

During work tomorrow I'll post about what I was up to this past weekend.

Writing

Sitting here at work writing my first reflection paper of the year (there will be many more to come as the COE's philosophy of education is based on reflection, hence the name of the lab I work in "The Reflector".)

The name of the assignment is My Life in Schools, Communities, and Society. 5-10 pages about me.

Basically I felt like posting something up because my first real paragraph (yep, the into paragraph is officially not a real one) is about family. Can't really talk about the other stuff until my family is mentioned.

But more specifically my parents. Even more specifically a conversation we had downstairs towards the end of my junior year of high school. I told them I was through with basketball. I don't remember if they were suprised or not. I imagine they sort of knew what kind of a physical beating I took in practice nearly every day ,thanks Scott. They didn't tell me it was a stupid idea. They didn't tell me it was a great idea. They just wanted me to give it some thought.

Where would I be now if I had quit that year? Probably wouldn't have the best friend that I have now. Wouldn't know many people here in Columbia. Hmmmm....

thanks mom and dad

Favorite

Current songs:
"Feel It In The Air" Beanie Sigel ft. Melissa
"Stop the Music" P Money ft. Scribe
"You Already Know" 112 ft. Foxy Brown



It's hard to believe what's happening in Louisiana right now. Seems to me like its a country away.
Gas prices going through the roof, winds/rain tearing part of our country apart, and me sitting here at the University of Missouri almost immune to all of it

Purdue (cont.)

After checking out the course we settled down a bit in the rooms and studied/tinkered with our bikes/did homework/watched tv. Headed to bed around midnight.

Got up at 7am Sunday. Another waffle and two doughnuts for me. My race wasn't until 11:40 (supposedly) so I had to eat enough to hold me over.
Packed up some of our stuff, got the bikes put back on the vehicles, and headed down across town to the BMX PARK

Brady helped the race promoter create the short track course around, across, and through the bmx track. It wasn't done as early as they hoped so things were pushed back. My 11:40 race started at 12:40.

The DUAL SLALOM guys did a great job. Nobody ate it (except for Steve taco'ing a wheel in practice) and they all looked pretty good out there. I'd like to have a jumping bike some day so I can learn that stuff.

Foosh, John, and Mike did a great job in the B's short track.
It was only Lou and I in the A's since Brady was out with his dislocated shoulder and Chad is our champion dual slalom rider (he placed 15th at nationals last year).

It was an extremely fast race, supposed to be 40 minutes plus 2 laps with lapped riders being pulled. There just happened to be 3 riders that were much faster than everyone and about 12 minutes into the race more than half the field was lapped. So Lou and I were pulled and spared a great deal of pain.
Lapping in a short track race doesn't happen all that often, but this course was an extremely short one. In those 12 minutes we did 8 or 9 laps

Lou and I pedaled acoss the way and showered at a campgrounds showers and as we got back to his Jeep the rest of the crew showed up from grabbing the stuff that was left at the hotel (we expected to have time to go back and shower there after our race. Wasn't possible since things were running late.)
Headed home with a few stops for gas and some nutritions delicious McDonalds
Got back into Columbia at 10:30, unloaded the vehicles and headed back to my place.

Purdue

The race weekend was good

Got to the hotel in Indiana about 1:30am Saturday. Got some sleep and was back up shortly after 8am to eat a continental breakfast and get ready for the races. (on a side note..we had 2 rooms reserved for 12 people...and it worked out fine)

It was decided that I would race A's to get us more points. (A not so great finish in A's can be more points than a great finish in B's). This didn't work out so well as I was using tires that were made specifically for mud and there was no mud. So while I'll have a great picture up here in the next couple of days of some thrashed tires, the race sucked. Midway through the second lap (10 mile laps, supposed to do 3 of them) my handlebars came loose and when I'd hit bump, jump, or other obstacle they'd move and make it hard to ride. The combination of that and the tires caused me to stop after the second lap. I think I've only DNF'd maybe one other time in all the races I've done, but with a new bike and a carbon fiber handlebar that I didn't care to ruin after one race it wasn't worth continuing.
Also in the XC race on Saturday Brady, last year's team president and the fastest XC rider we have now, dislocated his shoulder so he's out for a while.

After the races we headed back to the hotel, showered up and went across the road to eat.
Some of us went to the local bike store afterwards and then went to check out the course for Sunday's Dual Slalom and Short-track course.

Pic of the XC start on Saturday

Frustration

Got the new mountainbike yesterday. Was super duper happy, even though I had just gotten spanked at Tuesday Night Worlds.

Stayed up 'till 3am messing with it trying to replace the chain, shifters, adjust the brakes, switch cassettes, and so on. Forgot that I would need new cables to make the switches..so when I stopped at 3am the bike was missing:
- chain
- rear derailleur
- both shifters
All thing you might consider pretty important to the bike being rideable (if you don't see the sarcasm here you need to go try and ride a bike missing these things)(and you singlespeeders don't count..you still can't ride without the chain..unless its downhill..but that doesn't last forever)

Went to CycleX this morning and was there for almost an hour and didn't get much done. Too busy and not enough people (hmmm..if the biatches would have hired me maybe that could have changed).
Basically set up an appointment for the brakes to be bled Thursday as well as the wheels being trued. Paid way too much for cables and housing and came here to work about 15 minutes late.

Starting to feel like I'm not going to have the loan money left over that I need. Guess we'll find out.

So today will include: work, class, cycling meeting, work on the Cannondale until it's rideable.

Here's the bike in my garage before I started tearing it and the Giant up

tried

sushi for the first time a minute ago. Homemade Korean style sushi at that. Thanks Moon.
I expected it to be much worse, so maybe I'll try it again sometime. Maybe there's a reason I know so many people who like it.

My first class starts today. Then I have to grab my bike out of a closet here in the Reflector and get out to my car to get over to Two Mile Prairie for Worlds.

It looks like my biggest problem of the semester might be eating. If I'm not able to prepare meals ahead of time and pack them for lunch I'm going to spend lots of money on fast food. Not eating will not work with the riding I'll be working into my schedule.

Over and over again

This week should be quite the week. A huge change from the past few weeks where all I really needed to do each day was ride my bike.

Work most of the day today.
Tuesday I'll get my new mountainbike in and ride Tuesday Night Worlds at 5:30. So basically ride Worlds than pick up the mountainbike from UPS on the way back into town (no I'm not going to carry a huge box containing a bike while riding my bike..I'll have to drive)
So Tuesday night will be spent tinkering with it and whatnot.
Wednesday is hopefully going to be the first ride with the new bike and the first cycling meeting of the semester
Thursday I have won an office party at Deja Vu
Friday I'll be leaving for the first collegiate race at Purdue

Of course a few classes will be spread out in here also.

On another note I've been very very happy with how I've been riding the bike. The show-me state games went really well and if I wouldn't snapped my chain in the first mile this past weekend in St. Jo I'm pretty sure first place wouldn't have been out of the question. So basically I have more confidence now than I've every had before on the mountainbike.

Been a while

Its been a while since I've posted so I'll do a little overviewing:
Week of 7-13: went home on Wednesday and did some mountainbiking at Landahl park just north of Blue Springs. Rode some really technical sections and then went out to ride a part that I used to ride and collected a hundred and something spider webs on my face and forearms. Definately won't be riding that part of the park again.

Thursday I was supposed to do some clothes shopping with mom. We're having breakfast at IHOP and she gets a call saying she was supposed to be at school an hour ago for meetings. She leaves and I scout out the deal at the mall for an hour or more then head back to Scott's.
Meet back up with her at 4 and do some hardcore shopping...good stuff.
Met up with Erin from high school a little bit later in Liberty and had a great time eating and playing sand volleyball at William Jewell.
Don't remember what I did Friday.
Saturday I got sick at Scott's.
Sunday was a meal at church and booger gave a nice presentation about her trip to Nicaragua or however it's spelled.

Monday (we're up to the 15th if I've lost you) I went on a Ashland loop ride by myself. It was terribly slow as I still hadn't eaten much all weekend and wasn't fully recovered from being sick Saturday night.
Tuesday I got shelled at the Tuesday Night Worlds ride. Terrible.
Wednesday I did some intervals with Ben (a junior rider on the Columbia Cycling Team...which I'll join now that I have the cash to) and had a good time. I imagine as he grows he'll become much much faster than me.
Thursday was another ride with Ben. Went out in the heat and humidity at 3pm and rode for something like an hour and a half.
Friday was a mountainbike ride with Foosh, the new Mizzou cycling president. He did plenty of road riding this summer in St.L and Oklahoma but zero mountainbike riding as his mountainbike was here in Columbia and he wasn't. It was good until I flatted.
Saturday mom and dad brough up their old refrigerator for us to use. Then I met up with mrs. stein at the state fair and learned a lot about hogs and rode some rides with 3 adorable little girls.
Sunday was a mountainbike race in St. Joseph. Started well but less than a mile into it I snapped my brand new chain...so race over for me.
Not my happiest moment. Picked up Steve on the way up there in Liberty and Craig showed up also. So 3 Mizzou guys representing. Good times

In between all this stuff I got a Razor phone, bought a mountainbike on ebay, made at least 3 trips to Cyclextreme for things like shoes, pedals, seatpost, chain, cassette, and built up a little worshop in my garage for biking.
And in approximately 6 1/2 hours the new semester will start. No class for me though, just work on monday from 2-10

This coming weekend is our first collegiate race at Purdue Univserity. I've been riding very well and the new bike will hopefully be in commission so this should be a good one!

Pictures posted

At Scott's for the night. Laptop has been on my lap for too long so its time to go. Click on the title of this post for a link to some new cycling pictures

hurtin legs

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

State Games

Took 3rd today in the mountainbike race, Sport Men 19-29 division. There were 5 of us Mizzou guys in that division. Chad, myself, and Steve were at the front for the first two laps. Then Steve dropped off and a Chad and I started talking about who was going to take first and who was going to take second. Then we look back and see another guy in our class coming up behind us..so the race was on with a couple miles left. (since the start we hadn't seen anyone in our division other than the three of us Mizzou guys...so we were 20 miles into the race when we finally saw someone) Chad has the energy and power to hold him off, I didn't. Still couldn't be much happier than getting third place.
Last year this race was my first mountainbike race in a long time and I rode in the beginner category. After one lap I bonked, finishing pretty close to last place. So third place in the Sport category is a big step up. The collegiate races should be exciting.

Had a great time eating at CiCi's with the guys after the race...now its time for some relaxation and healing.

Also forgot to mention at the basketball games yesterday we had a NBA player in the house. Tyronn Lue showed up (he's originally from Raytown and became somewhat famous for pretty much shutting down Allen Iverson a couple years ago in the NBA Finals. He's got a couple NBA Championship rings from his time with the Lakers)

Worn

out

Not sure if its more physically or mentally.
Rode 30 miles this morning before I'm usually even awake.
Then played a game of basketball in the Show-Me State games with a cousin of Ronnell's and some other guys. I sucked. (For the record...cycling in now way improves your basketball skills. Me playing well the other night was a fluke it seems.)

Haven't really eaten anything yet today so I'm abouts to eat then back to the Rec around 4 for the next game. Hopefully I won't suck as bad.
Tomorrow is the Show-Me State games mountainbike race. We'll see how that goes.

tired..gotta eat...bye

biking recently

this summer hasn't gone quite like I planned.
the past few days though have gone pretty well as far as biking is concerned

Friday afternoon/evening was a road ride with Dan. Total trip was a little more than 30 miles for me.

Saturday morning was mountainbiking with Steve, Doza, and Steve's roommate, whose name I can't remember, over by Ashland. It was decent...a good part of the trail was overgrown which normally pisses me off, and there was some technical stuff so the speeds weren't all that fast.

Saturday evening was a road ride with Doza and Steve's roommate. Overall it hurt. My butt hurt. Legs weren't much better. Total ride was something like 30 miles.
Sunday afternoon was a mountainbike ride at Rock Bridge. Was going to ride what I assume will be the Show-Me State Games course again until I met up with Chris and his ex-roommate on the trail. Followed them for a while and did another quick loop by myself after they were done.

This evening I'll probably head over to the hill in Sapp and do some repeats.

Some races coming up I really want to do. Will probably come down to how much money I can spare.
August 7 - ShowMe State Games Mountainbike race
August 13-14 - Tour of KC races
August 21 - Krug Park Mountainbike race in St. Joe
August 28 - Mountainbike races in Springfield or Cape Girardeau

Then in September the Collegiate series starts with the race Mizzou hosts

IT

hurts to hear people you care about cry. And there's nothing you can really do about it.

Need

I need a change

Finally Friday

Sheriece won an office party last night..so The Vu was the place to be. Buzz was hilarous, and the long islands perfect.

Today the plan is to work until 4, ride the bike or play ball for an hour then go see dad since at the church choir (some acronym that I can't remember) conference thing in Jeff City.
This weekend will be all about biking seeing as how I've done so poorly the past couple weeks riding before work at noon.

not much

not much to say

Got some more pictures posted on flickr (there's now a link to my flickr page added to my "links" section on the right). I'm really starting to like that site. I imagine once I get a camera I'll like it even more

Rode for a couple hours this past Sunday and about passed out after I got back home. Temperature on my bike computer thermometer during the ride said 101 degrees...too damn hot!

Tuesday Night Worlds last night was good. Was able to hand onto a breakaway group until I decided I'd worked enough for the evening and it was time to ride back in town to campus.

Also got some quality time with NCAA Football 2006. I'm now the coach at Mizzou (didn't know that did ya) and have been doing a really good job of recruiting high school guys. (Finishing second in the Heisman race your junior year of college helps)

Eminem and his ties to Odessa

"Eminem show goes on despite bus crash

Published Friday, July 15, 2005

ODESSA (AP) - Rap star Eminem planned to put on a show in Denver last night even though three members of his entourage were among 11 people injured when his tour bus crashed on a Missouri interstate.

The crash happened Wednesday night on Interstate 70 near Odessa, 25 miles east of Kansas City. Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Mathers III, was not on the bus, publicist Dennis Dennehy said.

At least seven people on the Anger Management Tour were sent to the hospital, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said.

The report listed four other people, three on motorcycles, who also went to the hospital.

Among those injured was Eminem’s DJ Alan Maman, also known as Alchemist. The 27-year-old was listed in good condition yesterday, officials at St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City said.

Stanley Benton, 26, a rapper who goes by the name Stat Quo and is considered one of Eminem’s proteges, was treated at Independence Regional Health Center and released, hospital officials said. He was scheduled to perform yesterday in Denver, a show that featured Eminem, 50 Cent, G-Unit, Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz, D-12 and Obie Trice.

The state patrol said the bus was headed to Denver after a Monday night performance in Chicago."

Where the Red Fern Grows

rented it the other day and just got done watching it here at work.
Why'd I rent it? It was one of my favorite books back in the day.

All the way through the movie I wonder how "Will Coleman", the main character's dad, looks just like Dave Matthews. So I go ahead and decide to let it run through the cast, and there next to "Will Coleman" is Dave Matthews name.

hmmmmm....

NCAA Football and sitting in a cop car

Picked up NCAA Football 2006 right after midnight last night/this morning. On the way home I got to sit in a cop car for the first time.

(it would be fun to leave this post at that so you could wonder why I was in a cop car...but i'm not going to)

Seems that some time very recently my right front headlight must have went out. So it was the front seat I was sitting in, not the back, and the officer just told me to get it fixed. (And while he doesn't care much for football video games he does like driving ones)

Played the game until around 3am. Also played it for a couple hours this morning before work. Overall I think I'll like it better than last years.

Also, got some more pictures on flicker from a mountainbike race a couple months ago.

Got some

new pictures uploaded.

Check them out @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/92468988@N00/

Tuesday Night Worlds yesterday was tough. Rode with the faster guys to see if my riding lately has helped. Stayed with them longer than ever. We ended up doing just 2 laps as we rode extremely hard the whole time. Then rode back into town. Got home and saw that my average for the day (including the ride out and back in) was higher than what I had in the crit and close to the road race. Hmmmm.

Got some ribs I'm gonna throw in the oven tonight...found some honey baked ribs type recipe online that I'm gonna try out. We'll see what happens.

Thanks Columbia Missourian

4th of July and pace car driving

I sucked at the crit today. Enough said. I'd like to blame it on the race yesterday, but I'm not so sure it was the problem.

The day got much better though when i got to drive the pace car (a truck borrowed from a local dealership..click on me to see what it looked like. That thing could corner like a beast...trust me) for the CAT 3/4 race. Pictures will be posted sometime, assuming Dan got some good ones.

Had planned on being at the lake for the 4th. Didn't happen. Decided that wasn't the best place for me to be so I came back home and am at Scott's now.

Apple Cup

Race this morning was great!

Started at 9:45. Course was just over 10 miles..almost no flat ground, mostly rollers (up and down...up and down)

Basically stayed in the top 10 for 95% of the race. With about a mile to the end of the first lap some guys went down..one guy over his bars and i heard he was hurt pretty bad. I was in the front and looked back very briefly and just saw one guy on the ground and another guy about to get throw off his bike.

With two miles left in the 30 mile race I went off the front (aka attacked, aka tried to leave the group) and stayed away for just a little bit. The pack caught up with me and I basically had nothing left...finished in the back of the pack.

Couldn't be happier. (Last road race I did I only lasted 15 of 30 miles before falling off the back of the pack....finishing at least 10 minutes after the group did) Felt good after the race....like I could have done another lap without too much trouble.

Tonight at 7 are the street sprints downtown...so I'm gonna go watch those with some guys. Then tomorrow morning is the crit through downtown...we'll see what happens.

Food and I

Food and I have quite the relationship.

I have to eat a lot of it to keep me going. Eating costs money, so eating a lot can cost a lot of money.

For instance: a bowl of fresh fruit at Gerbes this morning cost me $9. Yes mom, I could have bought a whole watermelon, pineapple, a thing of strawberries, a cantelope, honeydew, and made my own hugemongous fruit bowl...but that would have taken a heck of a lot more time and I would have to have a place to fit all those things. One refrigerator (for 3 people) is not enough for that. (I realize you could do it...but I refuse to abuse my refrigerator as you do yours :)

My little box here at work (meant for the boss to deliver papers, etc)almost always has food in it. When it doesn't it at least has napkins, forks, or spoons waiting in anticipation of food.

My relationship with food is also going to hurt me on the bike for a while. Why? Because I always run my system out of it. I burn calories pretty damn fast, and can only eat so much before a ride. So I've got to figure out a way to balance what I need to consume with what I can afford, have time to throw together, and so on.

We'll see what happens

Today for lunch (that I just ate):
Roast from crockpot
Rice (some type of packaged deal I've had in my cupboard forever)
Corn
Mixed fruit
(and didn't eat some mashed potatoes I brought..not enough room on my plate, so they'll be here for me tomorrow)


Went on a short ride this morning. While I was riding I was thinking about what I might post, and it occurred to me that while 20-something miles is considered short to me now, a little more than a year ago it probably wasn't.
The other day on the ride out to Tuesday Night Worlds Andy kind of told me where the road race was this Saturday. It's actually fairly close to my place (as opposed to Froze Toes starting at 2 Mile Prairie across town) but I'm not sure of a couple of the roads. I do know KK though, and he mentioned the short steep climb and the longer climb at the end..so I rode that way to get myself psyched up a little. I suppose tomorrow after work I'll head out that way, hopefully with the full course in my head, to give it a go before the race starts at 9am on Saturday.

That's it. And today I got two free Honey Buns (images of our house being built always come to mind when honey buns are mentioned, seen, and/or eaten)and a Duncin Stick that a group left at our front desk for us.

Good/bad

Good: When I got on the scales last night before bed they said 193lbs
Bad: 185lbs would be a whole lot better for biking (though 193 is lighter than I expected)

Good: I got paid last night
Bad: It will all be gone once I pay bills..which I've brought to work with me because I never seem to get them done when I'm home

Good: Columbia Cup races are this weekend
Bad: I ride regularly with 3 of the guys I'll be racing (they all ride more mountain than road, so while they're in the Expert category in mountainbiking they're a CAT 5 on the road). So I'll either get my butt kicked, or throw my body into a very painful state only to still not do so well.

Good: Last week I brought in my portable hard drive and did some editing of some music videos I wanted to put on a dvd
Bad: Looks like the computer here at work I was using isn't fast enough because all of the clips have audio that is out of sync with the video

Good: Booger got me a present when she was galavanting through Europe
Bad: I won't know what it is for a couple weeks

Bad: wasn't in a good mood up until a few minute ago after waiting on the phone for 25 minutes to pay my cable bill and then figuring up my other bills
Good: this website made me happy again before i head home in a little while

His clothing line is fairly crappy...but

George Hincapie is one of my favorite riders. Most people don't know that as juniors he and Lance were training together in the USA cycling program. Most people probably also don't have any idea how much team work is involved in a race. Basically without someone of Hincapie's ability Lance wouldn't be the famous racer he is.

(I say his clothing line is kind of crappy because that's what Mizzou cycling uses and it's not holding up quite as well as I hoped for what it costs, even at the discounted prices we had)

This is a pretty random post just because I was looking through an ESPN: The Magazine article featuring Hincapie.
And it mentioned he was 6'3 and 164lbs. So he's my height, which I like...but has a 36lb weight advantage on me.

Work's almost done for today, then Tuesday Night Worlds, then a baseball game.

miles and tennis

Tennis is a lot harder than it looks. Or maybe, playing decent tennis is harder than it looks. Played with Ryan from work the other day (he played in high school) and he taught me a lot. How to hold the raquet, where to stand, how to serve, and so on.

I'm not too terribly bad for only playing 3 times.

Sunday I had a nice 68 mile ride. Rode 30-something miles of the Ashland loop then headed down Z Hwy and happened to ride by Anna (Mizzou rider that does endurance, like over 200 miles, type events). So we rode into town together, got more water in our bottles, and rode until the sun started to leave us.
Probably the best (besides last week's Tuesday Night Worlds) ride I've had in a long while. Felt great, except near the end when all I could think about was Pepsi and steak. Mmmmm.

Got to sit down with Erica today at the Artisan. It was great to see her...it's been a while. Talked about camp a bit and now i definately feel like I need to volunteer for a session this summer.

Work is boring today. Registered for Fall classes and looked into my loan options.

Sold my Logitech Harmony remote on ebay....will ship it off as soon as I can find the USB cable. A sad day for Andrew's home audio/video components.

Guess not

Doesn't look like the race Sunday is going to work out.
Staying here will save me gas money, give me plenty of time to get miles in on the road bike, and maybe take the time to put together a computer that I've had half put-together for about 6 months, which I can hopefully get rid of for some money.

Plus I've thought about selling my mountain bike lately. Why? It's way too damn small for me. I'm not sure how much I could get for it since it has some dings in it, and really needs an overhaul...but maybe I'll find out sometime. I've mostly been riding the road bike anyway. The mountainbike has about 4 rides in it so far this year.

I have thought about trying to get enough loan money this coming semester to get a new bike (hadn't decided if it would be a road or mountain), a laptop, and recently I've realized that I should have a camera...so a digital camera also (though nothing in the range of the Digital Rebel I had). The first to drop out of that list would have to be the laptop, as thats more of a "its a good idea to have one but it's not a must". Then the camera, then the bike.
Maybe the used road bike I've been looking at will still be around in a couple months. Then I could grab it. Sell my current road bike, and gain back 1/2 to 3/4 of what I paid for the new (used) road bike or keep it as money for a future new mountain bike.


Oh yeah, and my car has been giving me signs that it's tired of me. Just came back from the shop and it doesn't seem as powerful as it was when I left it there...and once again I couldn't put it into gear without turning it off first (but then it worked fine).
Another reason that makes me want a full-time job as opposed to more school. I could get a car that's more my size...what would mom and dad say (kind of ironic that now they might actually read this so this really isn't the hypothetical question it would be if I had written it the other times I've though about it) about me using student loans to pay off a new (used) car?

Sometimes its hard for me to guess the way they would answer questions like this. Sometimes they completely suprise me with what they think of things. Other times their response is pretty much on with what I expect.
With this one I'd would guess that dad would tell me flat out "no", or ask what's wrong with me or my car.
Mom would probably ask what's wrong with what I've got now, and tell me that a car can wait, and something about only taking money that I really need.
hmmmm

I'm 23. I wish I could make decisions like this myself. I feel like I should be able to. Maybe thats because years ago (high school age) when counselors ask you about where you imagine yourself in 5/10 years I imagined about now I would be making some decent money (my idea of decent money would be about $25k...a realistic number for a beginning teacher. Scott stop laughing...you're a lucky money snatching biatch) and unloading the college car for something a little nicer.

WHAT???!!!

Men's Health (August 2005) - 64 : Percentage of Americans who don't believe obese people are to blame for their weight

How....what...why?

I understand that obesity has reflections of socio-economic status...but I highly doubt the people that responded to this question were thinking about that.

Who you gonna blame? McDonalds. Yep that's right, they force you to go to their building and eat their mcNasty's and mcGreasy's.

Dammit people, it's supply and demand. They've got so many damn restaurants because billions of people eat up their food, not because they've got nothing better to do than finding genetically altered chicken (note: now is a good time for you to read "Fast Food Nation")
People stop eating there, they quit making money..something they enjoy doing, and by-by goes the restaurant. (The only unfortunate thing about this is that it would take something terribly drastic to influence billions of people.)

If it can't be the restaurants then who is to blame?

My response: a whole lot of different things, including the obese themselves
Start with the government letting lobbying organizations basically create the food pyramid. How are people going to know what's good for them if the govt. isn't even putting the FULL truth out there?

That's enough for now...the blame continues but my writing doesn't. Back to the magazine I go.

HOT Hot hot

I hate coming in to work all hot and sticky.
It's not that I mind being all hot and sticky...I just don't want to sit that way for 8 hours. This morning I purposefully made myself hot and sticky, taking what's left of my mountainbike to Rock Bridge park for a ride.

Thinking about racing in Blue Springs this Sunday. I don't really care to drive home again so I'm trying to find a ride.

Got back, showered up and went outside and almost instantly started sweating again (but without the dirt and mud on my legs this time). Took my road tires/rims to CycleX cause they're both out of true. Unfortunately I don't have the know-how, or the appliances needed to get the know-how, to fix them...yet.
Being heavier than the average cyclist (maybe I should say heavier than the average racing-type cyclist) definately has its disadvantages. Either my wheels are much suckier than I think or they just don't like me sitting on them for lengths of time and get bent out of shape so that they can rest in a bike shop for a day.


In better news, I washed my staff shirt for the first time this summer. Smelled it last night when I was taking it off and decided it was definately time for a washing. Much better now.

The Year 2056

Seeing as how

the last post has drained me...this one will be short

My day was great.
Work went by fairly quick...only 4 hours of it.
The ride out to Two Mile Prairie was good.
The actual Tuesday Night ride was by far the best I've ever had. Went out with the first group (the slower of the two) and pulled a good portion of both laps I did with them. It was basically a great warm up (heart rate in the 170's rage) until the second group caught up with us on the 3rd lap. Jumped on with them and actually made a few moves with them. Helped chase down a breakaway and sat in basically the whole way back. Heart rate even got up to 195 (may have been a tad higher when I wasn't looking). Basically...I've never had as much fun on a road ride.

Then Brady and I picked up a couple of his friends and went to watch our Cardinals team play at a local park. Something like 12 and 13 year olds sponsored by a local construction company. Played the optomists tonight and got spanked. There's no scoreboard but by our count it was something like 16-4.
Joseph came in to relieve in the last few innings...and didn't fare so well...just not enough control.
The 6 of us guys were by far the loudest there (and no...we don't know any of the kids on the team...)
After the game one lady (who was a Cardinals fan also) came up and asked us if we knew any of the boys on the team. We of course said no. "We just chose at team to root for". Her - "I think that's just great. Guys like you out here, these boys need that" and she was being serious too. She was glad we came out and cheered for her team.

( side notes:
1.the cardinals were wearing cubs hats. this was a bit confusing...like they didn't realize that although a "c" on a hat could stand for "cardinals"...they were wearing cubs hats
2. anyone could steal any base at any time. One kid that walked onto first actually got to second base before the pitcher ever threw a pitch to the next batter. And I'm pretty sure the pitcher had no idea that he was stealing a base at the time. The kid then proceeds to stand halfway between 2nd and 3rd..right in front of the shortstop basically, when the pitcher looked back and realized there was a person on 2nd. So the crafty baserunner took a few steps towards 2nd.
3. on the other field was a team with some pretty cool uniforms...I let the other guys know that we shoul have chosen them as our team (I'm pretty sure they won their game). So much for Brady looking at a list of teams and choose the best named team.
4. most cardinals players had their first name on the back of their uniform, so it was easy to yell for them. Some didn't...but brady was remarkably good at remembering their names

end of side note)

Then I got a ride back to my car, came in the door...talked on the phone with mom for about 15-20 minutes...and now its time to shower and eat dinner.

I'm exhausted....both from biking, cheering, and typing.
Goodnight

Mom

(NOTE: This post is intended for mom. Yes, you can read it..but its not for you. Yes, I could send her an e-mail but since I just found out she reads my blog I feel like putting it on here)

I don't know where to start. I wish my gratitude, love, respect, and so on showed through my actions/words more than it does. I feel it inside, but unfortunately don't think that's so easily visible on the outside.

You have always been the image of perfection in my eyes (despite the hair in the 1981 Odessan, which was before my time anyway :)
(I wish I knew more about you actually....as in I love hearing you tell stories about yourself, you and dad, etc.)
But what kind of standard is set for a miscevious boy when he hears that his mother basically never did anything bad growing up (that may have sounded odd..cause i don't exactly remember the story you told about stealing(?) one item from someone but having to return it later. But basically the point was that you did do a bunch of bad things.)
Obviously, this didn't click until a certain age. I really have no idea why. It's not like I said "hey, I just got kicked out of a store for trying to steal some cards...guess that's bad and I won't do that again". Nope, more like "well I'm lucky he didn't call the cops like he said he could have, mom and dad are gonna be pissed".
But somewhere along the way it obviously did click.

I've written a few papers about role models in my life. I know an early one was about your dad and another one was about you.

I'm sort of getting lost with my thoughts here so you can just read them and organize them yourself.

1. It almost hurts inside sometimes to see what you put yourself through to help the ones you love.
I would have to say that at least once a day I look around at what I've got (I'm talking just about the stuff I've got here in my room) and it hits me that other people don't have it this good.

We talked about how I always work more hours than the other students I work with. Maybe you can see where I get this from? (HINT: You)
I don't want you to run yourself ragged all the time because I'm here in Columbia and I need money to pay my ultilies or get new tired for my bike.(I would like to point out that I do realize that me saying that isn't going to stop you from working the way you do)
I guess the point of that is to let you know that while it's unfortunate that it doesn't show so much, what you do is appreciated by me in a way that I don't have the words to describe.



I'll probably read over this in an hour or so and find a few of the mistakes I made, or the things that made no sense at all and do some fixing up and adding to.

(A little bit later)
I was reading over this and actually considered deleting everything I'd written and just putting in one paragraph...instead I'll just add the paragraph and leave the rest.

I do a lot of stupid things. Obviously I'm good at using up money. But I'd like you to know that after I do these stupid things, and in fact realize that they were stupid...its like a reflex that causes me to look back at it and think something like, "mom would be disappointed in me for...", or "why in the hell did i just do that. I wasn't raised that way" or something along these lines.

I think a huge number of people are not raised this way. They can't look back and wonder what caused them to do this because they don't realize that what they did was bad enough that they should be looking back at it.

And along the lines of disappointment...leisha's birthday balloons are a pretty good example of what disappointing you actually does to me. You didn't get me to cry because you looked mad...you had me crying because you were sincere when you said I disappointed you. (And for the record...when you told me the other week that that was one of the two times you've been disappointed in me recently I cringed...)

I was trying to think of what I would say if someone told me I could say one last thing to you. I wouldn't know what to say. I think so highly of you, the way you help others, and on and on.
But that's not what I would say.
(Being that I'm not a parent I don't know what would mean the most coming from my child)
So I'll just say that I can only hope that someday my kids feel about me the way that I feel about you.

Sorry I don't say it enough, but I love you mom
(and if dad would ever happen to read this you can let me know and I'll write to him some things I've thought about writing before)

Last thing (sorry...came to me in the shower)..many people "talk the talk". Few "walk the walk". You do both...and maybe that's why much of the words above are written.

Great Pictures

I love these pictures


And google has closer images of home than it used to

and my other home


Looking forward to some pain starting in about an hour. I have my bike with me here at work, so I'll change and ride out to Two Mile Prairie. Then after Tuesday Night Worlds i'll join Brady in cheering on his adopted baseball team...some construcion company sponsored Cardinal's team. (its supposed to be a good time as this is the first year these guys have played non-coach pitch baseball)

Good Fathers Day

The weekend turned out to be pretty good.
Stayed up 'till 4 playing xbox on scott's projector.
Rolled out of bed around 10 and mowed scott's lawn. Then headed home.

Grilled chicken, round steaks, polish sasuages, and hamburgers for the family. Mom made some awesome stuffed baked potatoes and a great salad and so on.

Helped dad pick up a mower and refrigerator from grandma and grandpa's old house and then headed back to columbia around 9:30pm.

Here's a tip for you grillers out there: if a polish sasuage (or any other meat) is rolling (ok...so only round-ish meat will roll...) off the grill and is covered in bbq sauce don't grab it and throw it back on the grill. The bbq sauce will be very hot and it will burn you.
Yes, my pinkie was nice and bubbly.


In other news, I'm giving Flickr.com a try.
Here's what I've got so far Andrew's Flickr

KC

got to Odessa around 6pm and realized that mom and dad weren't there because they had a wedding to attend. So I went for a drive.

Somehow I ended up around Parkville and then talked to Travis and headed his way. Decided to jump on 69 highway to see where it went. Ended up in Roeland Park. Drove around a bit to see if I could find a house I visited long ago. Don't think I ever found it.
Eventually got to Travis' and hung out for a while. Watched some Chapelle's Show season 2 (gotta love the appearances by Anthony Hamilton and Kanye/Common)and then headed to Scott's where I'm at now.

I still feel lost when I'm around in the Odessa/Independence/KC area....and it has nothing to do with the roads I'm on

On a side note, driving through some places I've never been through downtown today kinda makes me want to find a job for a while that has me working in the inner-city of some large city (don't think KC would work because of the whole lost thing). I think something like that might satisfy me.

That's what I don't have a lot of right now I guess. I'm not worried about the whole happiness thing, that comes and goes. And thats just fine if you're satisfied with what you're doing. I'm not...and don't know when I will.

Happy Fathers Day dad...even though you don't read this.

Worn out

I'm finally getting tired of being here all the time.
Well, maybe its not that I'm at work all the time but it's that I have so much crap I should be doing at home.

And I don't get my first paycheck of the summer for a week and a half.
And for the second friday in a row McDonalds gave me 2 sasuage mcmuffins with egg that just happened to not have the egg on them. Almost took them back today. Next week (if I happen to have enough money to buy breakfast) I'll check before I leave the place.

In better news. I actually woke up for a while at 5. Thought about a 6-8 ride this morning rather than after work so I could get some things done at home after work. Then some good country song came on the radio and I drifted back to sleep listening to it.


And I hate it when I'm grumpy but am not sure why. Mom would say it's because I didn't get enough sleep (though I think she would use that reason for about anything, not just grumpyness), but mom is wrong this time. I got enough sleep.


Hilarious poll (makes more sense if you read the article that it goes with)

A couple links for you

It hurts to read this. Why? Because I have the model that's one down from this and I need to put it on ebay cause I'm past broke.

Follow the link and choose the "Boston Runners" link. These guys know how to work the streets.

Listen to these samples (or if you have a full cd give it to me...please)


I'm holding your car hostage booger. If you ever want it back then bring me back something cool from Europe

Yes, yes I am, and thanks

Erica: yes I am in Columbia all summer. And yes, if you're in town I'd better be seeing you.

Booger: I already realized I was a butthead (but this butthead was talking to his parents instead of you :). Thanks for the reinforcement though.

Anonymous: thanks for the comment to the post the other day.


Today got an early early start. Met up with Brady (past MU cycling prez) at 7 AM (that comes before 8, 9, and my usual wake-up time of 10!) for a ride. We put in 55.6 miles, the first 3/4 with a pretty decent tempo then relaxed a bit towards the end. We were both hurting by that time.
Got back home around 10:20 and cleaned up and grabbed some Nothing But Noodles for lunch. 3 Cheese Macaroni w/ chicken... mmmm good.

Now its time to sit on the floor and do some stretching and resume my internet browsing here at work.


Also this just in: you can get fired for blogging
My response: no $hit. You can get fired for much less with the way some business are run
(Note: usatoday must not be all that quick because this was more of a hot topic in the past year when a couple people got fired for it.)