Doc's Advice

What a doll

2009-08-31T13:25:00.000-05:00

I haven't blogged much cuz I'm stupid busy with life, and besides, would you rather post blogs or play with this doll?

Duh-oh

Misc

2009-08-10T23:06:00.000-05:00

Katie samples a little refreshment from the Lil' Tykes lagoon, demonstrates her fearlessness for any and all playground equipment, and receives enthusiastic adulation from her secret admirer, Milo.

Katie Greets You

2009-07-31T09:08:00.003-05:00

Soulmate got a fancy MacBook for her birthday, and Katie doesn't know it has a built-in camera. The paparazzi triumph over the diva again!

Katie Up Nort'

2009-07-29T22:14:00.004-05:00

Half the family went to the BWCA yesterday for 5 days of canoeing and portaging, but the smart half stayed at the lake: Grandma, Katie, Soulmate, and yours truly. I finally got out on the MTB today to start the payback on a lot of good eating. We do not starve here--it's one of the most important camp rules at the cabin. In fact, it's the only rule, and the corollary is written on a sign on Grandma's kitchen: "Free Food: Fix it Yourself".

Which directive I take seriously. While waiting for the girls who were shopping at the Jenny Shop in the metrop (Grand Rapids), I scored a copy of "A Man, A Can, and A Grill", the sequel to the scintillating "A Man, A Can, and a Plan". These are serious reads for serious (male) foodies, written by Mens' Health mag. "MCP" was a best seller for good reason: lots of pix, simple and simply delicious recipes, and no putzy purees, hollandaise, bernaise, or any other -aise (except mayonaise, of course).

"MCG" is at least as good, and since it's summer, even more apropos, since no self-respecting Y chromosome wants to spend a minute more indoors than necessary, and a grill hearkens back to the days of men with spears taking down the mastodon and banging rocks together to start the bonfire.

Last night I grilled up some pollo mole, which was delicious in spite of my substituting chocolate chips for cocoa powder, which my nephew had used up making a yummy cooked pudding (male cooking seems to run in the family). Maybe it was delicious BECAUSE I had to use the choco chips...

Tonight I grilled up pretty much the best burgers I've ever had, using my Mom's sloppy joe sauce, tabasco, green chilis, diced cooked tomatoes, an egg, and 1 lb of ground beef. Patted 'em up into 5 burgers, grilled 'em to medium, toasted the buns, and slathered more manly sauce onto the steaming patties, and got all hotted up inside. Mmmmmm.

Tomorrow, who knows? But it'll be grilled. Maybe "Poultry with Polenta Pucks". Good thing the 4 wheelers have been busy around here--I've got a lot of MTB payback to go.

Speaking of 4 wheelers, here's Katie at the end of her first ride. It was pretty tame, so I skipped the whole helmet thing. Can't recommend it, never miss it on the bike, but there it is--caught on tape. Kids: do as I say, not as I do.

Soulmate has a Birthday

2009-07-25T22:12:00.004-05:00

I won't tell you which one, since they're all just anniversaries of her 29th birthday anyway. Katie and I took her to the megamall last Sunday, and while the two of us (me & Katie) whooped it up on the Nickelodeon rides, SM hit the Apple store to pick out her sparkly new MacBookPro. Good thing she teaches the MC kids at our church, since they threw me a bone and gave her the educator's discount (and a free iTouch for Katie and I to boot!). She loves her first ever Mac (she's a graphic designer and has lusted after a Mac for years, but has always had to put up with my castoff office PCs).

Katie is Two

2009-07-01T23:25:00.006-05:00

Katie had a big party at Riverside Park with her playgroup friends this morning, then Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt Sue, Uncle Jeff, Cousins Jenny and Josh, and friends and neighbors descended upon us for cake and ice cream this evening.

Katie got lots of stuff, but liked Daddy's present best: a combined water and sand box for the deck, which of course I had to stay up late into the night assembling last night. The video shows that it was certainly worth the effort.

All in all, it was a wonderful day. The whole birthday concept is just beginning to dawn on Katie, so I'm sure next year will be a whole different experience. For now, the innocent and ignorant approach is just fine.

1st Adoption Anniversary

2009-06-24T20:47:00.004-05:00

Katie, you came to us a year ago yesterday in Nanning, China ("Gotcha Day"), and became ours a year ago today. Happy 1st adoption anniversary, sweetheart. You have so changed, and so changed us in a single year, that we cannot remember life before you. When we do vaguely recall some previous activity or pleasure, we wonder why we thought it was important or rich or substantial.

Now I hurry home from work, which isn't easy right now, hoping I haven't missed too much of the fun. Your bedtime comes much too soon, and when you decide to sleep in, or I have an especially early morning start, I feel like there's something wrong all day long.

Tonight we celebrated by dressing you in your Chinese silk dress and going to our favorite little Chinese restaurant, The Golden Dragon. The two couples who run the restaurant doted on you as always, saying funny little things to you in Cantonese and Mandarin, and laughed as you showed off and strutted around. Then we came home and watched all the videos we took of your first and second days with us a year ago. You laughed, pointed, and snuggled with us as if to say, "I remember that, and I'm so glad I came home with you."

Here's that very first look we got of you on that wonderful day a year ago when we became a real family. You came home a little baby; now you're a little girl. Either way, you're our real live China Doll.

Lame Update

2009-06-14T21:41:00.004-05:00

Worked my butt off the past couple of weeks. I set some records for stuff that I really never thought anyone would keep track of, but they do. All it means is that I've been at the office longer than I should be and not doing everything else as much as I'd like. For instance:

I ate supper somewhere other than my house every night this past week until Saturday, and even then, dinner started at around 9pm. Katie was really cranky all week because she didn't get her "comfort object" (me) much at all.

I sat on my road bike for the first time since I got knocked into the ditch 2 weeks ago in the East Union circuit race. Big Jim took me for our 4 hour, 6 hill hammerfest, and we did 82 miles and 4000 feet of climbing in 3:58. Today I didn't feel like riding at all.

I feel like my margin is all used up right now, but things are changing for the better. We have a new partner coming for the office, so schedules should be better by August. I don't plan to set any more records for the rest of my working life.

Katie is a joy and a challenge, but much more joy than challenge. She's been in "swimming school" as Soulmate calls it (Katie loves anything associated with "school") Mon-Thur last week, and 4 days this coming week as well. I took her to the pool yesterday so she could show Daddy how she was doing, and she was ecstatic to be there. We paddled around and played with an Ariel beach ball until she was shivering almost uncontrollably, and even then she cried her eyes out when I announced our imminent departure.

Today was hot enough that we went to the local splash pad to get wet. Katie was quite excited until the moment came to actually get wet, and then she lost her nerve. She finally managed to get somewhat wet, but we bailed and went on the swings and slides instead. Oh, and she hung out in the "fire truck" previously mentioned, but someone had ripped the steering wheels out so she was disappointed not to be able to steer it.

Next week I hope to eat a couple dinners at home, get wet at the splash pad, and race a road race. Then it's my first official Father's Day with Katie (last year we were still waiting to fly to China). I wonder what she'll give me...

Katie, Camping, and Karma

2009-05-31T22:02:00.004-05:00

Katie: adorable as usual, very busy, into everything. Loves daddy & mommy, camping, and blueberries in that order (I hope). Also loves her Cozy Coupe (see photo). She found her dream home in my sister-in-law's back yard (see other photo).

Camping: another weekend of family fun in the Katiemobile. We spent Friday night in the camper in the driveway of sis-in-law's house so we could make an early exit for my bike race 10 miles away in the metrop of East Union. When you're camping in the Katiemobile, a driveway is just as good as a KOA. After the race, we hung out at their house and jumped on the trampoline for hours.

Karma: bad for me at the race. Everything pointed to a top 5 finish: short (27 miles), flat as a pancake, and fast--the finish line was 500 yards after the last turn into a howling tailwind of 30mph. Needless to say, this was the race where somebody had to bump me hard at 25mph while I was riding right next to the shoulder, which was deep gravel, which pulled me into the ditch, which was at least 10 feet deep and steep. By the time I screeched to a stop, ran my bike up the ditch and hopped on, the peloton was 200 yards ahead and going gangbusters. I chased for half an hour at TT+ pace, but only passed the stragglers who popped off the back of the peloton. At least I didn't end up DFL.

Katie's Kozy Koupe

2009-05-27T23:24:00.003-05:00

Thanks to Ashton's mom, Katie is the proud new owner of a gently used, low-mileage kiddie car. Thanks, Jessica!

Do it Myself!

2009-05-22T00:20:00.003-05:00

We're all scurrying around packing the Katiemobile so we can leave tomorrow around noon, so we can get to Duluth in time for my time trial start. Energy and anxiety is high around here.

To lighten the mood a little, I gave Katie a spoon and a cup of yogurt to try by herself, since she wasn't in the mood to take any of the foods I was offering. Soulmate and I did a little reverse psychology on Katie, saying "I don't know if Katie is big enough to eat yogurt with her own spoon." Beth then said, "yes, I think she can" and sure enough, she started scooping up spoonfuls of yogurt and using a variety of interesting approaches to get the yogurt mostly in her mouth. Here's a sample:

TT Troubles

2009-05-17T21:17:00.003-05:00

I skipped the Synergy TT yesterday but did the Charity TT on Black Dog Road this afternoon. I think I did pretty well, running the 7 mile pothole rally in 15:34, which was good enough for a tie for 5th place. Trouble is, the judges had me down for 19:04 (good for 19th place) because they say I missed my start time. I say I didn't, and have the proof.

Nobody likes a whiner, so I'll take my lumps, even though I could have used the points for the Rider of the Year competition. Is it just me, or does it seem ironic that every one of the 4 road races so far this year have run a half hour late (and with 9am starts, that means 30 minutes spent shivering in 40 degree weather). Now, with the first nice day for a race (and a 12:15 start), they decide to start 5 minutes early.

Start times for TTs aren't that hard: today's race had the first rider go off at 12:15:00, the second one at 12:15:30, and so on every 30 seconds. I was given number 34, which means I was to start 34 riders, or 17 minutes, after the first rider. My math puts that at 12:32:00. I showed up at the start line at 12:30:00 by my watch (correct time, BTW), and even asked one of the judges what time it was. He agreed it was 12:30.

Trouble was, they were sending rider #41 off at that point, so I had "missed" my start time by 3.5 minutes already! Then they were going to hold me up for even longer since they had just sent a rider off, but I took off like my hair was on fire and almost blew up in the first mile before I dialed back a notch and grimly rode on for personal satisfaction.

I haven't ridden a TT on the Dog in 4 years, and I can safely say the road conditions have definitely deteriorated. I spent the entire 15 minutes hanging on to my aero bars for dear life over "repaired" potholes and frost heaves so numerous I couldn't tell what was original and what was repair. If they had thrown a little more tar out of the truck, they would have repaved it.

OK, enough grousing. I was pleasantly surprised by my time (and my would-be place). I've never been good at TTs, and I'm not sure why I'm so fascinated by them, but after Jacobs and I won the Henderson two-man last fall, I've been more motivated to work at it. At least in this shorter distance, it looks like it has paid off.

We'll see next Friday in Duluth where I have a 16 mile TT to kick off a 4-day, 4-race Memorial Day weekend.

Just for fun, here's an update on the Highway 23 bridge just upriver from us:

Food for a 2 year old

2009-05-14T23:34:00.004-05:00

Peanut butter--nothing better, whether you're eating it or wearing it.

Katie got a new Lil' Tikes kitchen from Auntie Sue and cousin Jenny on Mother's Day. She loves it a lot:

More Crazy Stuff from Kooza2

2009-05-11T22:38:00.002-05:00

My nephew is "Elastaboy". Check this vid out.

BTW, he just won a gold and two silver medals in his region (5 regions in the country) in gymnastics competition. He switched this year from standard gymnastics (think Olympics) to T & T (tumbling and trampoline), and scored a gold and two silvers in his first attempt!

He has been accepted to the National Circus School's 2 week elite summer circus camp. It is in Montreal, across the street from the Cirque du Soliel's international headquarters. His ultimate goal is to be a Cirque du Soliel performer. I think he'll make it, don't you?

Sibley County RR Recap

2009-05-09T20:36:00.003-05:00

Pretty short recap: felt good, found out I can climb OK, got boxed in on the uphill finish but got out, ended up 4th behind Mliner, Coyle, and Binkowski who just squeezed his tire tread over the line ahead of me. As usual, Bell pounded out the entire race either on the front or in a 2nd lap break with Pete Hanna and a Flanders guy that didn't quite stick.

The teams that didn't have anyone in the break worked like mad for most of a lap to reel them in. Big Jim then calmly went to the front again and took control of the last lap to make sure nobody escaped, and then set the pace up the final climb. After the melee for the sprint started, he sat up and watched it all go by.

My legs felt fantastic the last two races, and I'm not sure why. I've put on way fewer miles this winter, and I only train Tuesday nights and race on the weekend. Must be all that hanging around with Big Jim. It rubs off.

In the Pro/1/2 race, Doug Swanson won the field sprint, but 7 guys were already up the road in a race-long breakaway won by GrandStay's own enfant terrible Jens Brabbit, a 21 year old cycling and X/C ski phenom. Good job, Jens!

Katie and Soulmate went shopping instead of spectating at the race, since it was only 46 degrees at race time, and 20 mph winds from the NW. Tomorrow is mother's day, so we're off to Roseville to the in-laws after church. Next Sunday is the Charity TT on the Black Dog TT course. The asphalt is said to be in pretty sketchy condition, but hopefully I will be able to dodge the potholes and put in a good time.

Outdoors Girl

2009-05-06T09:35:00.002-05:00

Katie has discovered Riverside park. It has a fire truck. I can't get her out of the driver's seat. She sat here for an hour on Sunday, and then the babysitter took her there Monday and she "drove" for another hour or so.

I can't wait until the splash pad opens. After another barnburner Tuesday night ride driven by Big Jim, I need some hydrotherapy on my legs.

Race Report: Marty RR

2009-05-02T22:55:00.003-05:00

Katie looks a little dazed (and maybe I do too) because we just got back from a day of playing outside in and around beautiful Marty, MN. I use the term "playing" loosely since Katie and Soulmate spent the day alternately snacking, napping, and walking around intently studying sticks.

I, on the other hand, spent the morning chasing a couple of southerners around a very windy "Sprinters' Classic" roadrace course. We failed to reel them in, so I had to settle for sprinting for 3rd place, which I also failed to acheive. It wasn't a total failure though.

First the recap: in the Pro/1/2s, ho hum, Doug Swanson again delivers a stunning sprint to win and draw the first blood toward qualifying GrandStay for the Nature Valley Grand Prix pro stage race in June. The Qualifier Events are:

May 2 - Gluek Road Race, Marty, MN
May 20 - Black Dog TT, Burnsville, MN
May 30 - East Union Circuit Race, East Union, MN
June 2 - State Fair Criterium, St. Paul, MN.

In the Master 35+, a couple of ringers drove up from KC or Iowa or somewhere and went off the front in the 3rd of 4 laps to go 1 & 2. I started the tailwind, slightly downhill sprint early, maybe at 350 yards, thinking I could catch the other sprinters off guard and still hang on, but it wasn't to be. I did get a big gap right away, but Donimator came around me with 50 yards to go, about the time my thighs were cramping up, and he pulled 3 other guys up to me who got past me as I faded.

7th out of 50 starters isn't too bad, but they only paid to 5th place, so I was out of the money. I was disappointed, but Big Jim pointed out that I made the front group when more than half the field got shelled. Now that I think of it, I remember a couple guys trying to bridge up to the remnants of a strong break at the beginning of the 3rd lap, and Jim told me to chase down a GS guy who was bridging up.

I put my head down and hit the gas, and thought I'd bridged up by myself, only to look back and see guys behind me. I thought I had towed the entire peloton back to the break, but apparently only ten guys made it, leaving the rest of the field shattered in little groups. Some of the favorites had picked that point to lounge in the back of the peloton, and skinny Chad and Mliner in particular spent the rest of the race trying and failing to time trial up to our group.

Mind you, I had no idea that this was happening; I was just trying to follow wheels and stay out of the wind and out of trouble. I guess I need to work on race awareness a little. Anyway, when Big Jim cranked it up over the last mile of the finishing straight, I got twitchy and pulled the trigger too soon, with the above mentioned result. Oh well, you live and learn.

What I did learn was that my new training technique is doing wonders for my racing legs. Get your notebooks out, I'm spilling secrets here: I race hard on Saturday, ride the Tuesday night Rev/GCC hammerfest, and commute 30 minutes a day on my Bianchi Cafe Racer. That's it. On breakthrough weeks I add a Dairy Queen run towing Katie in the Chariot.

Best of all, the Katiemobile is working to perfection. Well, there have been a few bumps in the road, mostly related to the ephemistically termed "black water tank", which hasn't been flushing perfectly, and the first time I tried to dump it, the 3" hose literally flew into my hands after it broke off of its internal moorings. Fortunately I hadn't pulled the gate valve or I would have had had more than just a broken hose on my hands. 'Nuf said.

In all, a good day was had by all, and now it's (long past) time for bed. G'night John Boy...

Owwww

2009-04-28T22:35:00.002-05:00

You guys who raced Opus tonight got off easy. At most, you had 45 minutes of pain.

Big Jim took 20 of us out for a good ol' fashion 3 hour leg rippin' lactic acid fest. It ended with a 30mph rampage back into Waite Park that dropped everyone but Charlie Schad and me (and I would have been the next one to fall if they hadn't sat up).

We previewed the "Sprinters' Classic" course for Saturday's race. After tonight's ride, that race is going to be a picnic.

OK, maybe not.

Fun with Katie

2009-04-27T13:20:00.003-05:00

When I'm not at work or hanging out with the boys in Spandex, this is my world. I wouldn't trade it for Bill Gates' billions or Doug Swanson's sprint.

KWMRR

2009-04-25T22:33:00.002-05:00

The short version: Ray: 4th, Jim 6th, Charlie 12th, me 17th of 34 in the Masters 35+ field.

In the Pro/1/2 elite field, surprise, surprise, Doug Swanson crossed first. Last week it was crushing the field in the final sprint; today he roared across a gap that Daniel Casper had opened on a solo break, then won the breakaway sprint handily.

The long version: sorry, I'm too blame tired for any play-by-play. Kudos to Chad Macy (NOT Fat Chad this year) who showed a clean pair of wheels to the rest of the 35+ field, though Mark Mliner wasn't far behind. The two of them snuck in behind Ray who wasn't able to anticpate their sprint, but still did very well for the team.

I felt great all race, knowing that I wouldn't be likely to contest the sprint a mile after the big hill. I was right, but I surprised myself by chasing down attacks, spent a fair amount of time at the front trading pulls with Mark from GS and Goblirsh from LSC, and even went on a flyer with Goblirsh and 2 others that stayed away for half a lap before Mliner and GS finally pulled us back.

Big Jim proved that he can stay off the bike all winter and still put us all in the hurt locker. He went away on a solo attack that stuck for half a lap or so. Charlie worked like a dog throughout the race to chase erstwhile breakaways.

Next week is the "Sprinters' Classic" right here in my back yard. It has one good hill that's several miles from the finish, and a looooong straight slightly downhill finish. I have a fair chance for a good finish there. Big Jim and I (and maybe Charlie) will ride it Tuesday night to figure out the timing for a good ending.

Tossin' a bone...

2009-04-20T22:51:00.003-05:00

...to you Katie junkies: here she is hamming it up at Grandma's place yesterday. She also spent an hour at Great Aunt Ardele's nursing home entertaining the entire wing of residents. She had every little old lady and man chasing her around at full speed, waving both hands madly and yelling "hi there, cutie!"

I thought that one tiny little Japanese lady was going to wisk her away to her room and keep her there. Both Katie and the Japanese lady thought the other one was the cutest thing they'd ever seen. I thought that they both were.

She got ahold of a yellow "Caution: wet floor" stand-up sign and pushed and pulled it around the dining room, even though the sign was taller (and maybe heavier) than herself. I made the mistake of trying to hide it, but prevented a full-on meltdown by hastily producing it again. Several residents followed her around the dining room trying to get her to let them give her a hug, but no go.

No physical therapist or speech clinician could have done so much rehab in so little time for so many cute little old ladies and guys. Hmm, maybe I should rent her out. But then I'd be bored to tears, since she's my main form of entertainment these days.

Durand

2009-04-19T23:31:00.003-05:00

First race of the season--Durand, Wisconsin. Also the first win of the season for Doug Swanson and Grandstay. When I looked down the hill to the beginning of the sprint zone, all I saw were green, orange, and white jerseys spread across the road. By the 50 meter point, Doug was so far ahead, Gregg Brandt and Adam Bergman didn't have a chance. Here's the finish, complete with yours truly cheering:

My race (Masters 35+) ended a lap early, when Charlie and I (of Team Sparky fame) traded hard pulls to (mostly) reel in Mike Johnson and Guy Alvarez on the back side of the 3rd lap, just before one of the leg benders. Charlie popped, and I did one more pull to the bottom of the hill, figuring that our man Ray could easily pick the pair off by the top of the hill. Which he did.

Unfortunately, he got boxed in during the sprint and had no chance to finish it off. Hats off to Mark Mliner, who you never see for the whole race until the last 100 meters. A man after my own heart, except faster. Anyway, I got a great 3-lap workout to get me a little further along in my fitness. I should be ready for crit season.

The real fun for the weekend came in camping with Soulmate and Katie in the Katiemobile. We stayed in the Durand city park, which I can highly recommend for any of you RVers out there. The 'mobile worked perfectly, and we all 3 slept like babies and woke up to the birds singing. Then we drove back to St. Paul to drop Katie off with the grandparents and Soulmate and I went to Kinkaid's (from gatoraid to poached halibut, the ridiculous to the sublime) and then to the opera. We stayed overnight at the grandparents' and just got back this evening. We're all tired but looking forward to next weekend in Cannon Falls.

The Katiemobile is up to the camping part; we'll see if my legs are up to all 3 laps of the KWMRR.

Happy Easter--He is Risen!

2009-04-12T22:03:00.004-05:00

Happy Resurrection Day--He is risen indeed!

We had a lovely Easter service this morning, followed by an Easter feast at our house. Soulmate's parents and sister and family came bearing dish after dish of delicious dinner fare. Soulmate prepared the Easter ham with help from our ancient edition of "Joy of Cooking".

Katie was quite pleased with her pink Easter dress, and sashay'd around church like a princess (when she wasn't disrupting the service by squealing loudly or stuffing her face with fruit snacks).

Soulmate's dad and brother-in-law helped me figure out a couple of key items on the Katiemobile. The awning is very nice, and will come in handy for race warm-ups this summer. I think I have all the water, electrical, and propane systems figured out, now I just have to de-winterize the water system so it's ready for this weekend.

We plan to camp in Durand, Wisconsin Friday night so we can drive to the race there Saturday morning. This will be our first try at RV camping, so I think I'll have the RV to the local dealer to have it checked out this week. I want them to drain the anti-freeze out of the water system so nobody gets poisoned, and to make sure I know how to avoid Robin Williams' dumping downer in the movie "RV".

If I can get done with work in time on Tuesday, I hope to make it down to Plymouth for the first "Tuesday Night Worlds" at Opus. I'm pretty sure I'll get dropped quickly, given my lack of training this winter and early spring, but who knows. If I don't make it down, I'll go riding with Soulmate and Katie. Same diff.

Day of Darkness

2009-04-10T08:53:00.001-05:00

Gospel
Jn 18:1—19:42

Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley
to where there was a garden,
into which he and his disciples entered.
Judas his betrayer also knew the place,
because Jesus had often met there with his disciples.
So Judas got a band of soldiers and guards
from the chief priests and the Pharisees
and went there with lanterns, torches, and weapons.
Jesus, knowing everything that was going to happen to him,
went out and said to them, "Whom are you looking for?"
They answered him, "Jesus the Nazorean."
He said to them, "I AM."
Judas his betrayer was also with them.
When he said to them, "I AM,"
they turned away and fell to the ground.
So he again asked them,
"Whom are you looking for?"
They said, "Jesus the Nazorean."
Jesus answered,
"I told you that I AM.
So if you are looking for me, let these men go."
This was to fulfill what he had said,
"I have not lost any of those you gave me."
Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it,
struck the high priest's slave, and cut off his right ear.
The slave's name was Malchus.
Jesus said to Peter,
"Put your sword into its scabbard.
Shall I not drink the cup that the Father gave me?"

So the band of soldiers, the tribune, and the Jewish guards seized Jesus,
bound him, and brought him to Annas first.
He was the father-in-law of Caiaphas,
who was high priest that year.
It was Caiaphas who had counseled the Jews
that it was better that one man should die rather than the people.

Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus.
Now the other disciple was known to the high priest,
and he entered the courtyard of the high priest with Jesus.
But Peter stood at the gate outside.
So the other disciple, the acquaintance of the high priest,
went out and spoke to the gatekeeper and brought Peter in.
Then the maid who was the gatekeeper said to Peter,
"You are not one of this man's disciples, are you?"
He said, "I am not."
Now the slaves and the guards were standing around a charcoal fire
that they had made, because it was cold,
and were warming themselves.
Peter was also standing there keeping warm.

The high priest questioned Jesus
about his disciples and about his doctrine.
Jesus answered him,
"I have spoken publicly to the world.
I have always taught in a synagogue
or in the temple area where all the Jews gather,
and in secret I have said nothing. Why ask me?
Ask those who heard me what I said to them.
They know what I said."
When he had said this,
one of the temple guards standing there struck Jesus and said,
"Is this the way you answer the high priest?"
Jesus answered him,
"If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong;
but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?"
Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.

Now Simon Peter was standing there keeping warm.
And they said to him,
"You are not one of his disciples, are you?"
He denied it and said,
"I am not."
One of the slaves of the high priest,
a relative of the one whose ear Peter had cut off, said,
"Didn't I see you in the garden with him?"
Again Peter denied it.
And immediately the cock crowed.

Then they brought Jesus from Caiaphas to the praetorium.
It was morning.
And they themselves did not enter the praetorium,
in order not to be defiled so that they could eat the Passover.
So Pilate came out to them and said,
"What charge do you bring against this man?"
They answered and said to him,
"If he were not a criminal,
we would not have handed him over to you."
At this, Pilate said to them,
"Take him yourselves, and judge him according to your law."
The Jews answered him,
"We do not have the right to execute anyone,"
in order that the word of Jesus might be fulfilled
that he said indicating the kind of death he would die.
So Pilate went back into the praetorium
and summoned Jesus and said to him,
"Are you the King of the Jews?"
Jesus answered,
"Do you say this on your own
or have others told you about me?"
Pilate answered,
"I am not a Jew, am I?
Your own nation and the chief priests handed you over to me.
What have you done?"
Jesus answered,
"My kingdom does not belong to this world.
If my kingdom did belong to this world,
my attendants would be fighting
to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.
But as it is, my kingdom is not here."
So Pilate said to him,
"Then you are a king?"
Jesus answered,
"You say I am a king.
For this I was born and for this I came into the world,
to testify to the truth.
Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."
Pilate said to him, "What is truth?"

When he had said this,
he again went out to the Jews and said to them,
"I find no guilt in him.
But you have a custom that I release one prisoner to you at Passover.
Do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?"
They cried out again,
"Not this one but Barabbas!"
Now Barabbas was a revolutionary.

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him scourged.
And the soldiers wove a crown out of thorns and placed it on his head,
and clothed him in a purple cloak,
and they came to him and said,
"Hail, King of the Jews!"
And they struck him repeatedly.
Once more Pilate went out and said to them,
"Look, I am bringing him out to you,
so that you may know that I find no guilt in him."
So Jesus came out,
wearing the crown of thorns and the purple cloak.
And he said to them, "Behold, the man!"
When the chief priests and the guards saw him they cried out,
"Crucify him, crucify him!"

Pilate said to them,
"Take him yourselves and crucify him.
I find no guilt in him."
The Jews answered,
"We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die,
because he made himself the Son of God."
Now when Pilate heard this statement,
he became even more afraid,
and went back into the praetorium and said to Jesus,
"Where are you from?"
Jesus did not answer him.
So Pilate said to him,
"Do you not speak to me?
Do you not know that I have power to release you
and I have power to crucify you?"
Jesus answered him,
"You would have no power over me
if it had not been given to you from above.
For this reason the one who handed me over to you
has the greater sin."
Consequently, Pilate tried to release him; but the Jews cried out,
"If you release him, you are not a Friend of Caesar.
Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar."

When Pilate heard these words he brought Jesus out
and seated him on the judge's bench
in the place called Stone Pavement, in Hebrew, Gabbatha.
It was preparation day for Passover, and it was about noon.
And he said to the Jews,
"Behold, your king!"
They cried out,
"Take him away, take him away! Crucify him!"
Pilate said to them,
"Shall I crucify your king?"
The chief priests answered,
"We have no king but Caesar."
Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.

So they took Jesus, and, carrying the cross himself,
he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull,
in Hebrew, Golgotha.
There they crucified him, and with him two others,
one on either side, with Jesus in the middle.
Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross.
It read,
"Jesus the Nazorean, the King of the Jews."
Now many of the Jews read this inscription,
because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city;
and it was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.
So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate,
"Do not write 'The King of the Jews,'
but that he said, 'I am the King of the Jews.'"
Pilate answered,
"What I have written, I have written."

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus,
they took his clothes and divided them into four shares,
a share for each soldier.
They also took his tunic, but the tunic was seamless,
woven in one piece from the top down.
So they said to one another,
"Let's not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it will be,"
in order that the passage of Scripture might be fulfilled that says:
They divided my garments among them,
and for my vesture they cast lots.
This is what the soldiers did.
Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother
and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas,
and Mary of Magdala.
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved
he said to his mother, "Woman, behold, your son."
Then he said to the disciple,
"Behold, your mother."
And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.

After this, aware that everything was now finished,
in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled,
Jesus said, "I thirst."
There was a vessel filled with common wine.
So they put a sponge soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop
and put it up to his mouth.
When Jesus had taken the wine, he said,
"It is finished."
And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit.

Here all kneel and pause for a short time.

Now since it was preparation day,
in order that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the sabbath,
for the sabbath day of that week was a solemn one,
the Jews asked Pilate that their legs be broken
and that they be taken down.
So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first
and then of the other one who was crucified with Jesus.
But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead,
they did not break his legs,
but one soldier thrust his lance into his side,
and immediately blood and water flowed out.
An eyewitness has testified, and his testimony is true;
he knows that he is speaking the truth,
so that you also may come to believe.
For this happened so that the Scripture passage might be fulfilled:
Not a bone of it will be broken.
And again another passage says:
They will look upon him whom they have pierced.

After this, Joseph of Arimathea,
secretly a disciple of Jesus for fear of the Jews,
asked Pilate if he could remove the body of Jesus.
And Pilate permitted it.
So he came and took his body.
Nicodemus, the one who had first come to him at night,
also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes
weighing about one hundred pounds.
They took the body of Jesus
and bound it with burial cloths along with the spices,
according to the Jewish burial custom.
Now in the place where he had been crucified there was a garden,
and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been buried.
So they laid Jesus there because of the Jewish preparation day;
for the tomb was close by.

Top Secret Training Camp

2009-04-05T21:36:00.004-05:00

I smuggled these photos back from GrandStay's top secret training camp this weekend. All in all, it was pretty painful (for me, at least).

Daniel Casper missed, but he phoned in to say he was keeping up by training a minimum of 8 hours a day out west. Jim Bell worked a full day and THEN rode 8 hours a day back in Lake Wobegon.

Dougo missed with some lame excuse named Stella (around 8 pounds, born Friday night at 2am, says brother Dan). Anne and Stella are doing fine, Doug snapped somewhere 'round midnight apparently. Congrats, and don't worry--sleep deprivation doesn't affect your racing in the least. I think it just affects your memory. I forget.

We didn't just hammer the hills all weekend; we relaxed as well. Nothing funnier than watching bike racers play pickup basketball (I can laugh because I didn't play).

What??!! A Revolution SPY??? Don't worry--we dropped him every time we started any super-secret training exercises. Oh, and I stayed back with him just to make sure he didn't see anything sensitive.

OK, so I got dropped more than Schlicht. C'mon, I'm twice his age!

A Weekend For Everyone

2009-03-27T21:31:00.006-05:00

Soulmate is off to a hermitage for the weekend, and you'll see why in this video:

She is a gentle and quiet soul who craves only silence and asks only for enough time to contemplate life a little. What she gets is a noisy and demanding toddler and a noisy and demanding husband too. I thrive on noise and chaos, and Katie seems to be following in my footsteps, not Soulmate's. She loves music (hooray!) and is really into singing and dancing (or at least dancing while mommy or daddy sings). She has started to find all sorts of things screamingly funny, such as "Row Your Boat" at variable speed:

Actually, the weekend is shaping up well for all 3 of us. Soulmate gets all weekend to sleep in, sit quietly and read, think, and pray to her heart's content. Katie gets most of the weekend with me, running errands, going to "Run and Read" at the ECFE school Saturday am, church Sunday, and lots of time poking around the backyard looking at stuff (her new passion is going up and down the 4 stone steps from the patio to the goldfish pond).

I get to entertain Katie and do all the other fun Daddy stuff, AND ride with Big Jim and the young punks on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Katie's favorite babysitter will be over both days to spot me while Big Jim puts the hurt on. Plan is for the same 4 hour 5 climb marathon we've done the past 2 Saturdays. I haven't ridden since Sunday, so we'll see how the climbing goes.

We need to get some decent riding in soon, since training camp is next Thursday through Sunday, and I doubt my younger Cat 1,2 teammates will want to wait around for an old geezer like me to catch up after a hard climb or tempo effort. This is usually when I make big gains in my fitness, since I'm running at a very high intensity level just to keep up with my teammates' moderate ones. Oh well, that's what happens in races too, so I might as well get used to it in training.

I'm psyched for training camp for another reason: the reigning state TT champ is on our team, and he's going to dish on a bunch of training secrets, as well as help us dial in our TT bike fits. I hope a whole bunch of talent rubs off on me in a hurry. I'd love to make some big gains in my TT speed before the age curve catches up to me fully. TT bike and equipement: check. Training secrets and bike fit: check. Winning my age group category at the state TT: jury's still out.

Biking AND Katie

2009-03-18T22:41:00.004-05:00

This blog started out as a biking blog, trumpeting my bike racing success. That didn't last long, since I haven't had that much success. Last year before we adopted Katie, I added her to my blog subtitle, and have actually attracted a fair number of viewers. I guess a cute little girl trumps athletic (non)prowess anyday.

Fortunately the two topics sometimes converge, like yesterday when Katie tried on my racing cap and took her first ride of the year on the trike.

We haven't hooked up the Chariot yet, but that's soon to come.

Thrashed

2009-03-16T09:28:00.003-05:00

Big Jim took me out for a good 'ol fashioned 4.5 hour 5 hill thrashin'. I pounded the alp, almost conquered farming hill, and begged for mercy on old shep, tower, and some horrific unnamed final punishment. I don't remember ever bonking that badly. Jim flew over all of them like he was coasting downhill.

For those of you in the 35+ who are hoping that Big Jim has gone to seed with all his home remodeling over the winter, forget it. He's gonna spank you at Durand. And every other race this year. My condolences.

At least you don't have to train with him...

2.5 @ 40

2009-03-14T21:09:00.003-05:00

The fixie patrol prowled the roads of Stearns county today. Big Jim and I rode 2 1/2 hours and had a blast. It's so good to feel the road under my wheels instead of a little metal cylinder attached to my trainer.

Oh, and it was above freezing for the first time in close to a year. OK, maybe for the first time this year. 40 today, 50 tomorrow. Nice start to my real bike season.

Itsy Bitsy Song

2009-03-14T08:46:00.003-05:00

Katie has learned a new song. Betcha remember this one. C'mon, sing along with Katie!

Ride 'em cowgirl!

2009-03-13T22:34:00.002-05:00

Here's Katie riding her rocking horse. No offense Andy, but I hope she never trades the stuffed one in for the real thing. Baby poop is one thing, but horse poop is something else. I know, I'm a doctor, but even when the dogs have an accident, Soulmate usually has cleanup duty. Sorry.

A Useful Waste of Time

2009-03-02T14:42:00.005-06:00

My big training weekend to southern Missouri got cancelled on account of a 6" snowfall and high winds in MN. So I bagged biking and engaged in idle chatter and other time wasters with Katie and Soulmate. In the past, I would have been in trouble for slothfulness, but now, it's OK: it's called fatherhood.

2009-02-28T23:44:00.003-06:00

Katie is tempting fate and testing the law of gravity again. She has shown a great deal of interest lately in the stairs going to the second floor, both up and down. We've tried to teach her to crawl up and down with her tummy against the stairs, but to no avail: she wants to walk up while holding the handrail which is much too high for her, and to slid down on her butt:

Wicked

2009-02-17T21:33:00.005-06:00

Doc is wearing his glasses more these days for whatever reason, and Katie has discovered them. She loves to put her tiny little fingerprints all over them, though she doesn't do it for spite like my brothers used to when we were growing up. She just likes to monkey with stuff.

Seeing my distress (one of my pettest pet peeves is streaks on my glasses), Soulmate sprung into action, quickly finding the pair of green glasses I brought home from the musical "Wicked" that I saw in Chicago last September. Here we are, showing off our "four eyes" in style.

Since Katie is playing the part of the "Green Witch", I guess that makes me "Glenda the Good Witch", who in the musical at least is a ditzie blond. If the shoe fits...

MN creativity

2009-01-29T22:36:00.003-06:00

A disproportionate amount of the world's creativity resides in Minnesota, and our household is no exception. The state has given birth to more edible snacks on a stick than the rest of the world combined, and there are more hotdish recipes in MN than there are Johnsons (and the 2000 census folk gave up trying to count 'em all).

Soulmate is 100% Minnesotan (and 50% Johnson), so creativity oozes from her every pore. We were reading Parent Power! and got an idea to help Katie ease into bedtime a little easier by making her a going-to-bed book.

First, our rationale for the book: since Katie came to us after 11 months in a Chinese orphanage, we had decided up front to cuddle her and spoil her just a little for our first 6 months together. We rocked her to sleep every night, and if she woke up, we got up and rocked her again until she went back to sleep.

I made a goal of beginning her transition to going to sleep on her own starting when she turned 18 months old on Jan 1. Soulmate couldn't bear the thought, though, so we shelved the idea for a few weeks. Last week's trip to Rochester ended with Katie sleeping really well on the way home, so when we arrived at 9pm, she wasn't the least bit sleepy. Two and a half hours later, mommy had back spasms from rocking, and daddy got hornswaggled into playing the sandman.

A half hour of fruitless rocking led to a bit of an epiphany, and I laid Katie in her crib, kissed her and patted her tummy, said "it's time for night-night now", and left the room. 20 minutes of blood-curdling screams continued non-stop from the closed door, and I almost expected Jason or Freddie Kruger to burst out of the bedroom, but instead the screams stopped abruptly.

I waited a minute or two, but fearing for her life, I cautiously crept into the room and used my cellphone to illuminate my way. Lo and behold, Katie was asleep near the head of the crib, with one leg partially out and one hand still clutching one of the bars. I think she stood and cried until she lost consciousness, then slid slowly down the bar into a piteous crumpled pile of tears and blanket sleeper. If Soulmate had seen it, the experiment would have been terminated immediately.

We bought Katie a small aquarium the next day, and filled it with water, plastic plants, and 4 baby goldfish, offspring from our goldfish pond this summer. We leave a little nightlight on behind it so she has something to look at while she's falling asleep (or screaming bloody murder as the case may be). Katie is trying really hard to fit in with the new ritual: when we tell her it's time for night-night, she squinches her eyes shut hard and pretends to be asleep in the sweetest way.

When it comes time for the real deal, she still screams when we get up to leave the room, but it doesn't last as long as before. So, in order to ease her progress toward somnolence without hysteria, Soulmate made her a book, using all her Minnesota Johnson creativity. Here's a video tour of the newest parenting best-seller:

Miscellany

2009-01-25T00:26:00.005-06:00

Katie got a new hat from our friend and gardener extraodinaire Chris Z. When she's not coaxing beautiful things to grow in our zone 3 climate (like now when it's 20 below zero), she is knitting cute caps for preemies at the NICU. Here she has knit a perfectly delightful cream cap with a pink stripe (hard to see the pink in this crummy cellphone pic) to keep Katie's head warm in this beastly cold. Katie, in turn, seems delighted to be wearing it.

Over on the left coast, this sort of accessory is all the rage for its aesthetic value, but here in the heartland it's all about warding off frostbite. That being said, we don't all dress like the sheriff in Fargo (or talk like that either, yah sure you betcha).

We took the Katiemobile on a trial run down to Soulmate's cousin in Rochester, and it was a complete success in every way. Easy to drive, decent gas mileage (15mph give or take), and a perfect napping location while mommy visited the famous Mayo brothers for a checkup. Katie scored a 3 hour marathon nap on Wednesday, lulled apparently by the propane furnace (which belted out perfectly toasty air) and the generator, which supplies an almost imperceptible vibration that added an additional soporific effect.

Here's Katie playing with her cousins' toys. She especially took to the Minnie Mouse ears that matched her outfit.

Big Jim says he's giving up bike racing in order to spend all his time remodeling the house next door. I don't believe it for a minute, although right now he seems to be addicted to breaking down plaster and lath walls. For all you competitors who hope he's out of shape with lungs full of construction dust: don't count on it. I hope to borrow the Katiemobile for a trip south in February to find some real hills to hammer. By April he'll be hurting you all like usual.

Katiemobile is Ready for Action!

2009-01-18T14:08:00.004-06:00

First a caveat: I have never in all my 48 years wished to own an RV. I will admit to riding in one a couple of times, and even having a pretty good time on the road, but I've never actually slept in one. I've always been a silent sport type guy, except for football, which involves a lot of grunting and crashing. Motors have never held much allure for me.

My father-in-law has always been a little disappointed in me whenever the snowmobile and 4-wheeler are out, because I've never really been into driving them. He, on the other hand, has always enjoyed motorized toys, especially motorcross bikes, snowmobiles, 4 wheelers, and boats. And Soulmate inherited his love of motors.

I will confess right now that in shop class in 9th grade, I was not able to tear down the lawnmower engine and get it running again. Soulmate, on the other hand, was able to tear down her Kawasaki 175 and put it back together again (at least that's how I heard her story). Anyway, she always loved RVing in their little Cortez, which was one of the first mini-motorhomes ever made.

I'm getting a little loquacious at this point (when am I not?), so I'll shorten it. Since Katie has arrived on the scene, we have curtailed our travel to some extent, not wanting to coop her up in a child seat or on an airplane. So last fall, as we began to plan for the spring, Soulmate brought up the idea of a mini-motorhome to get out camping. Given my anti-RV bias, I was naturally a little cool to the idea.

Then Soulmate made the fateful promise that started it all: "if we got a little RV, Katie and I would go to more of your bike races."

I only needed to hear it once, and immediately threw myself into researching our options. Fortunately, my father in law had already done most of the research, having looked at almost all the "class B" (conversion van) RVs available. He had come this close to buying a Roadtrek, then decided on a pull trailer instead, since he already has a nice Dodge Ram pickup (yes, I know I've ranted about pickup drivers in previous posts, but several of my friends and family have them, and I've come to terms with that now.

Anyway, after pricing new Roadtreks, I realized that they were pretty much out of our budget, so I started tracking used ones on eBay motors and on other RV websites. I almost bought a 1997 model for a steal on eBay, but the sellers pulled it after 1 day, probably because someone told them they were way underpriced.

Then I saw a posting on an RV bulletin board for a 2002 model located in West Fargo, ND. Most of the RVs I've researched are in AZ, FL, and CA, so I read this ad with interest. The price was in budget, so I called Todd and checked it out. Soulmate and I studied the pictures Todd posted on PhotoBucket and decided on the spot to buy it. Since I'm on call this weekend, Todd volunteered to drive it down with his wife for one last road trip, pulling their Pacifica on a trailer so they could drive back.

After lunch with Todd and Darcy at our favorite Chinese buffet, we had a short shakedown ride and a full orientation tour to discover all the goodies this baby offers. I was pretty sure this was the one, so I had a cashier's check ready, and off they went back to West Fargo. Soulmate has spent the weekend shopping and collecting stuff from around the house to stock the new MMH (mini-motor home).

We have a shake-down ride planned tomorrow night: after I get back from my clinic in Alexandria, we're leaving for Rochester, a 3 hour drive. Soulmate has some appointments at the famous Mayo Brothers place on Tuesday and Wednesday, so we'll stay with her cousin and family on Monday and Tuesday night, and drive back Wednesday evening.

We hope to do some weekend camping this summer, and I'll try to steer us close to my bike races when possible, since it's an ideal staging vehicle for getting ready for races and for cleaning up afterwards. Cost to GrandStay riders using the facilities: $0. Value of watching other teams eat their heart out waiting with 250 other racers to use the portapotty: priceless.

For you Katie junkies who made it this far hoping for a glimpse, here here she is wearing my new waterproof gloves:

Ho hum

2009-01-13T10:33:00.003-06:00

I have nothing to report.

OK, just to make you southerners happy, it's currently 10:35am in MN, and the actual temperature is minus 17 degrees F. Today's high just might rise above minus 10 F. We have gotten several feet of snow this winter, and almost all of it is still sitting on the ground.

I plan to take my next bike ride when the temp reaches 10 degrees above zero, which may come by this weekend. Until then, I'll be watching a lot of movies on my trainer downstairs. Thank goodness the new season of "24" has started. It looks to be another good one.

How long 'til spring?

Katie Goes Sledding

2009-01-04T00:49:00.003-06:00

And daddy gets some really good aerobic exercise. I blew off my bike workouts (sorry coach!) for most of the week, opting for a huge amount of year-end work at the clinic and in surgery until New Year's eve, then we headed up to the cabin for more family time.

Here's Katie's first tobogan run with daddy steering the two of us down the hill and onto the frozen lake. Auntie Sue is filming, and cousins Joshua and Jenny are assisting. We've had a ton of snow this December, and the sledding, skiing, and snowshoeing is fantastic. Now if I could just find some time to do anything during daylight hours...

Katie's First Christmas

2008-12-25T20:08:00.005-06:00

We drove to Grandma and Grandpa's house for Christmas eve and day. It was a quiet affair, with Christmas eve supper and early bed to wait for Santa's arrival, and plenty of sleep-in time Christmas morning. Beth's aunt Ardelle joined us from the nursing home for Christmas dinner, then we finally sat down to open presents. Katie got the lion's share, as befits a princess. She especially likes her doll and stroller, as you can see from the videos and pictures.

Just before we started opening Christmas presents, Grandpa read the Christmas story from Luke chapter 2 in the Bible, when God gave the greatest Christmas gift of all.

The Gift of the Magi

2008-12-25T08:37:00.002-06:00

Merry Christmas, everyone! Most of you have read this, one of my all-time favorite Christmas stories. For those of you who measure Christmas spirit by Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", here's my entry: "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry:

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.
There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.
In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young."
The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.
Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling--something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.
There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pierglass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.
Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.
Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.
So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.
On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.
Where she stopped the sign read: "Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie."
"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.
"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it."
Down rippled the brown cascade.
"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.
"Give it to me quick," said Della.
Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.
She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation--as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value--the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.
When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends--a mammoth task.
Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.
"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do--oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?"
At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.
Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please God, make him think I am still pretty."
The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two--and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.
Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.
Della wriggled off the table and went for him."
Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again--you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice-- what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."
"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.
"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"
Jim looked about the room curiously.
"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.
"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"
Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.
Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.
"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first.
"White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.For there lay The Combs--the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.
But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"
And then Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"
Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.
"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."
Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.
"Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."
The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

Ho ho ho...

2008-12-24T11:36:00.004-06:00

Katie met Santa last week, and she apparently wasn't all that impressed. We managed a picture, but only after I snuck up to Santa backwards and plopped Katie on his lap before she could figure out what was happening. OK, so report me to Child Protection Services, but at least we got a decent picture of her first visit from Santa.

Merry Christmas, everyone! May God's peace rest on each of you as we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the source of true peace.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

2008-12-23T19:29:00.003-06:00

I haven't actually seen my driveway for several weeks now. I can never get the snow off the driveway before people use it to make a U-turn after ignoring the "Dead End" sign a block earlier. Some vehicles with wider tires (envision a red pickup with loud pipes) prefer to use my yard to make their U-turn. Sometimes I can't push away the recurrent dreams of land mines & IEDs that come with these tire tracks.

Then I remember that my best friend and fellow cyclist Big Jim drives a pickup. I guess they're not all driven by hoodlums and deadbeats.

Anyway, your dreams might run more towards a white Christmas, so here's to all of you having a brown one:

Christmas is Coming, the Goose is Getting Fat...

2008-12-21T13:12:00.005-06:00

...put some money in the old man's hat. Food and charity--I guess that really is a big part of Christmas spirit, when you get down to it.

Yes, my training year started December 1st, and it's going very well as far as that goes--I'm back on the bike, and after getting the TT bike dialed in by my new coach, Larry Foss of The Fix Studio, I am riding it a little bit each week. I'm also riding the spin bike and arc trainer, lifting twice a week, and today (after 6 inches of snow yesterday) I'm fixing to glide around the frozen tundra on XC skis.

I pulled Katie around the neighborhood on her saucer sled during the heaviest snowfall yesterday as well. Here she is before sledding. I call this her "Randy" suit after Ralphie's kid brother in "A Christmas Story" since she is just as immobilized in this snowsuit as Randy was in the movie. I would give a very gentle tug on the rope, and Katie would pitch over backwards, head dragging in the snowy wake of the saucer. Next time we'll try the kneeboard position, I think.

None of this frenetic activity has even begun to make a dent in my weight at this point, though. Maybe it's because we keep getting delicious treats from our friends as Christmas presents. Here I'm drinking some decidedly un-lowfat hot chocolate, into which I added some espresso powder and some Newman's Own Sweet Dark Espresso chocolate (thus the almost black appearance of the Chocolat Chaud). Add to that a box of Fannie May "Chicago Collection" bonbons and my laptop computer, and you have a fattening afternoon activity.

Fortunately, my solution is close at hand: Katie is getting very mobile, and I now spend most of the weekend chasing her around and listening to her chatter on. She has discovered how to use her Fisher-Price pushcart as a battering ram to run Buddy the troll out of her path. He's getting more exercise than he's used to lately as well. Here's a video account for you Katie groupies:

Christmas Party Weekend

2008-12-15T23:19:00.005-06:00

Last Saturday we had my office Christmas party in the evening, and a party for the kids (and grandkids) of the clinic employees in the morning. Katie loves parties, and this one was no exception. The U of M raptor center staff visited us, and brought some owls, hawks, and the biggest bald eagle I've ever seen.

Katie was appreciative, but kept her distance from the "birdies".

She was less appreciative when the old bearded elf himself made an appearance. St. Nick showed up all red and bewhiskered, jingling bells and crying "Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas!". Katie took one look, gave a blood-curdling scream, and buried her head in my leg. No amount of coaxing or cooing brought her out of her nightmare. I had to back up to Santa's lap without her seeing him, and then I plopped her on his lap and the photographer snapped the quickest picture on earth.

Once she looked over and saw who it was, the blood-curdling started all over again. Poor Santa, our clinic will probably have to donate some hearing aids to correct his noise-related hearing loss. Those photos aren't available yet, but when they are, I'll post them.

The picture at the top is Katie in Grandma's snow suit, getting ready to go out in the -30 degree weather. This one is of Katie in her party clothes from the morning (she loves her red outfit!) and me dressed to the nines for our evening soiree. Mommy was still doing her hair, so she missed the photo op.

She's Walking! Really!

2008-12-11T13:22:00.000-06:00

Katie has taken one small step for girl and one giant step for girlkind today. This morning I was sitting at the kitchen table having coffee with Soulmate and our friend Pastor Andy, and lo and behold, Katie started walking!

True, she has been taking a few steps and falling on her diaper side, but it really isn't walking when you stand swaying in the breeze and accidentally put one foot in front of the other twice while you're toppling over. Today, everything changed--and I mean everything. Nothing will be safe from the peripatetic pre-schooler bent on mayhem.

Look out Buddy--you are not getting any faster at age 16 (112 in dog years), and keeping your canine carcass away from the little pedestrian will get harder and harder.

She is also getting more and more independent and willing to go to friends and family. Sorry clan, she wasn't quite ready during the reunion in Houston over Thanksgiving week, but now she's busting out all over in extroverted exuberance.

This is all good, since she's also eating like a horse and growing like a weed. My old beat-up shoulders can't take too much more full-time baby portage. Anyway, enjoy the videos of Katie impersonating a drunken sailor minus the bad breath:

Houston, We Have No Problem

2008-11-23T12:05:00.004-06:00

Katie, Soulmate and I headed to Houston for the holiday week to have a big family reunion. Nobody on my side of the family has seen Katie until yesterday when we arrived. Two of my three brothers are here with their families (one lives here, so they didn't have to travel), and the last one is coming later this week with his wife and son.

My Houston brother just bought a new, beautiful house in Missouri City south of Houston, and they've been in it less than a month. I think they're nuts to host a reunion so soon after moving--maybe their real intent is to enlist the whole gang to paint or install doorknobs or whatever.

Anyway, Katie has figured out how to use a spoon to eat her yogurt. I knew you'd like to see it, so here's a video.

Where I'm Headed

2008-11-20T22:46:00.004-06:00

This is where I'm at right now as far as TT form--it's not all bad, since Charles Jacobs and I won the 2-man TT at Henderson in September. Riding with Charles was a bit of an epiphany, since I had never TT'd above 25mph, let alone averaged 27.4mph for 15 miles. I caught the bug then and there, and I plan to use the winter to really dial in my aero position and develop the fitness to ride a fast TT next year. I also upgraded to the newest Gyro TT helmet.

Here's my reference point: my teammate Ian Stanford, the reigning MN State TT champ for at least 2 years running, who just missed the podium for the Elite Nats TT this year. He drills a 40K TT in 52 minutes or less--25 miles at 29mph. He is a certified rocket. I realize that a lot of it is genes, but not all. I've bumped up the technology piece, and saw good results from that at Henderson, but just compare the photos: Ian looks wicked fast; I don't.

Now I'm going to try to dial in a more aggressive aero position over the winter, and do more TT specific work in the early spring. I might risk taking the edge off my sprint, but the years are doing that anyway. My fast twitchers just don't twitch quite as fast as when I ran the 220 in 1979. The only thing I can do better now than I did when I was 18 is suffer. So there.

Ian, no matter what I do, you've got nothing to fear from me, so thanks for the tips and the image of sheer speed. I'm dreaming every night of FAST.

I'm Feeling a Little Lonely...

2008-11-19T00:08:00.002-06:00

Gentle reader, this is the time of year when we all tend to return to our blogging, the weather being too unpleasant or at least unpredictable to spend a lot of time out of doors. So, if you are just now catching up on all my posts for the last few months, or even if you've already read yesterday's post, you'll notice a new widget on the sidebar to the left called "followers". All you have to do is click on the link and follow the directions, and you too will be a follower of Doc's Advice Blog. C'mon, don't be shy, you know you love to get your cool picture posted on other peoples' blogs.

You'd make me feel ever so much better to know that someone out there is actually reading my humble posts, or at least hoping to catch a glimpse of Katie's newest cute trick, or maybe just fishing for more readers for your own blog. Whatever your reason for joining, you get your own place on the sidebar to proudly proclaim your support of Doc, Soulmate, Katie, and the rest of the cast of characters that populates this part of the blogosphere.

And most importantly, you'll ease my loneliness just a little bit.

More Breaking News

2008-11-17T22:23:00.003-06:00

Jimmer C is moving to Flanders. Now he'll be even easier to pick out in Red. Not that you could miss him in Loon Blue. Or Camoflage. He's that big. Kudos and good luck with the big boys next season. It's always a treat when you're in the race, and you're in almost all of them.

Not to be Indelicate, but...

2008-11-17T20:18:00.007-06:00

I had a colonoscopy today, so be nice to me, OK? I'm not the type to trot out all my ailments and drag complete strangers through a grand tour, so don't expect a blow-by-blow account (I guess I forgot about the rotator cuff thing--maybe I am a bit of a hypochondriac). Anyway, you don't need to hear about mine, since Dave Barry has already described my procedure in one of his books, which I've taken the liberty to completely plaigerize and publish below.

Suffice it to say that I sit on a bike seat for a fair number of hours each week, and while I've never been afflicted with--ahem--numbness, I have experienced other untoward effects of prolonged sitting. The thing is, bike seats don't allow the use of those little donut shaped pillows to ease the pain. Bike racers are addicted to pain, so that part has never been an issue for me, I just live with it.

But bike racers are also very concerned about keeping as much oxygen around as possible, and I have less of it available than many of my beanpole comrades, so when I started noticing what seemed to be large amounts of my red cells floating in the commode, I was galvanized into action.

Fortunately, Dr. Gut tells me after the fact that I have a few innocuous vessels up in there that should respond to more fiber in my diet. Of course, I didn't tell him that I had already diagnosed my colon tumor and was drafting my deathbed speech, so I didn't catch right away that my digestive organs actually passed with flying colors.

It was sort of disconcerting, in a good way. I am elated to find out that everything is A-OK back there, and I don't have to think about it again for a number of years. Still, it was a sobering reminder of my mortality (I've had several this year), and if you're my age but possess the body of a 25 year old, your innards are still 50ish and you need to let Dr. Gut have a go at them.

Anyway, because I couldn't have said it better, here is Dave Barry describing my procedure (I got this from an email claiming Barry wrote it, but caveat emptor since email is the most efficient rumor mill and source of urban legends ever known to mankind):

DAVE BARRY'S COLONOSCOPY

I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy. A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis. Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner. I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, quote, 'HE'S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!'

I left Andy's office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called 'MoviPrep,' which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America 's enemies.

I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous. Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn't eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor.

Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons.) Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind - like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon.

The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, 'a loose, watery bowel movement may result.' This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground. MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graphic, here, but: Have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.

After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep. The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, 'What if I spurt on Andy?' How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough.

At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked.

Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep. At first I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house.

When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point.

Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand. There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song was 'Dancing Queen' by ABBA. I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this particular procedure, 'Dancing Queen' had to be the least appropriate.'You want me to turn it up?' said Andy, from somewhere behind me. 'Ha ha,'I said.

And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade. If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like.

I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, ABBA was yelling 'Dancing Queen, feel the beat of the tambourine,' and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood. Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt. I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that It was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ.

Thanks for the email, Pat. Sorry for not asking permission to publish this, Dave. Tell you what, I'll share half of all the revenue generated by this post. 50% of zero is...

On the Road Again & Way Hip

2008-11-16T22:56:00.004-06:00

Big Jim and I celebrated his State CX Championship by going out for an easy 2 hour spin on our fixies. We had the best time, especially since I haven't ridden outside for 2 months except to commute to work and back about 4 days a week. The weather behaved just enough, with temps hovering at the freezing mark and intermittent snow flurries that reminded us of what's to come.

Anyway, true to form it was a typical "easy" spin for us: Big Jim cruised along just barely in his recovery heart rate, and I averaged 148bpm for the entire ride, just below my tempo pace. I didn't feel it a bit, though--riding a fixie you tend to forget that you're pedaling at all, and you just feel yourself floating over the road. We've decided to make fixed-gear riding a staple of our winter training program. No deraileur to dirty, and lots of strength training going up the hills at 50rpms. And total hipness to boot.

BTW, I updated Saturday's post with new pictures and more accurate info. Fair and Balanced, as always...

Epic Mac

2008-11-15T23:26:00.002-06:00

Here's Katie's most recent food adventure. She loves mac & cheese, but I'm not exactly sure what she loves to do with it most. I think the winner at the end of the day is Buddy the dog.

Breaking News

2008-11-15T19:09:00.008-06:00

Item #1: Nooksack 39, Forks 14. Nephew Caleb's Pioneers got behind 14 zip in the first half, allowing Forks' 1,700 yard rusher a 63 yard gallop for a touchdown. Then they allowed him 11 more yards for the entire second half, almost keeping him under 100 yards for the only time this season. Oh, and they scored 39 unanswered points to win their opening round at the state tournament. Here, Caleb has just finished putting the big hurt on the Forks' kick returner, a hit so savage it got the crowd and his teammates in a frenzy.

Item #2: Big Jim took the State CX title for the 45+ category in cyclocross in Crystal this morning. He bridged up to 2 star single-speeders (they combined the all-ages single speed CX race with the 45+ race and the 55+ race as well) and stayed away from the rest of the field for the second half of the race. It's a well-deserved win for a selfless racer with an engine that just won't quit. This picture is copped of off Robbie Halvorson's Flickr site.

It's in the Genes I Guess...

2008-11-13T00:14:00.004-06:00

My nephew Caleb is a sophomore starting at safety for Nooksack Valley, WA varsity football. The Pioneers are 8-1, won their conference championship, and are headed to the state tournament. It's only fitting, since Grandpa was an old footballer in eastern PA, Uncle Dave and the Hudson Pirates won the 1975 Iowa 2A title, I went to state with the same school in 1978, and Uncle Scott made the final game of the 1979 and 1980 state tourney with the Pirates as well.

Caleb's dad, Jon, was more of a basketball sort, being 5 inches taller than the other 3 of us, so he didn't see much action his junior year (even though they made state that year too). It's true in this case that the apple didn't fall far from the family tree. Here's a link to clips from every game they played this year. Caleb is #26 in the white jersey, and #22 in the purple.

http://www.nvfootball.com/htms/pioneertv.htm

Turns out their defensive front is so spectacular, he rarely gets to make tackles, but he's snared some INTs. They begin their run to the state title this weekend, I believe, or maybe next weekend. I'll post more as I hear.

Keeping the Mother-In-Law Happy

2008-11-11T19:02:00.004-06:00

One of the most important marital activities a husband can participate in is to placate his Mother-In-Law. They say that the big three challenges in marriage are money, sex, and in-laws; your wife's thinking about all three are usually shaped at least in part by her mother. So, as I said, it's important to keep your mother-in-law happy.

One sure-fire way to do this is to publish a picture of the cutest princess in the world wearing something new that M-I-L bought. Here it is:

Way to go, mom!

BTW, to Katie, purple is the new black.

Back in Print

2008-11-11T17:27:00.002-06:00

I shot my rave on the recent hit-and-run to the op/ed editor at our local paper, and he must have liked what he wrote, because it ran Sunday morning bottom center of the Op/Ed page of the Sunday Times. He only took out a couple of colorful words like "stinking" coward and "cowards are always losers".

Here's the link:

http://www.sctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008111090046

BTW, take the time to read the online comments--I'm always amazed and amused by the obtuseness of some readers, and the acuteness of others. The best non-sequiturs are always in the comments. It's a little discouraging to realize that these folk are the ones who are actually reading the newspaper. I shudder to think about the ones who don't read at all. Mr. (or Ms.) Hit-And-Run is most likely the latter, so my rant probably didn't reach them. It's possible it will reach their co-worker, spouse, friend, or neighbor, so maybe it'll root them out after all.

Me? I'll keep wearing my rear-view mirror.

An Antivenom

2008-11-06T22:50:00.003-06:00

My last few posts have been uncharacteristically venomous, and I feel a need to rebalance things a little. It's not that I am retracting anything I wrote previously, it's just that I don't want to become an angry young man. Never mind that I'm not particularly young anyway.

One character trait of angry young men that I've never been at all fond of is taking oneself too seriously. This reached epidemic proportions over the last few months as the election approached, around the water cooler, in attack ads, on Fox News and CNN, and especially in the blogosphere. I don't care if you ARE right, you have no right to be a self-satisfied bore in public.

So, to counteract any tendency in myself to become boorish or boring, I submit a nosegay of a video of little Katie perambulating around the kitchen with the help of Fisher-Price. I just got home from work to find Jazlyn (our faithful babysitter) playing with Katie, and I grabbed the camcorder when she started reaching for this toy:

It's Official

2008-11-04T22:56:00.005-06:00

Pinch Flat News has officially been removed from my list of blogs I read.

What started as light, agreeable, off-kilter cycling fluff has death-spiraled into a suffocating political diatribe full of ad hominem attacks, sycophantic fawning megaditto comments, and endless tedious stream-of-consciousness writing.

Oh, and did I mention that Pinchie accused me of being "a goddamn racist"? All because I commented on the 1999 NYT article about the Clinton administration and Fannie Mae, noting that the Clinton administration pushed FNMA to begin guaranteeing the riskier sub-prime loans that they had heretofor avoided with good reason, all because Clinton wanted to see more low-income households achieve the American Dream of homeownership.

My father-in-law corrected me though: the Clinton administration wasn't the first to pressure FNMA to take on riskier loans. It was actually the Carter administration that started that push. Clinton managed to succeed to a much greater level.

I'm not exactly sure how it's "racist" to point out poor judgment and failed policies in a series of administrations. Guaranteeing loans to poor risk households is bad business as we've found out recently. It doesn't matter what color the households are, if they're saddled with more debt than they can afford, the house of cards will fall.

There's plenty of blame to go around, as I mentioned in a previous post. Probably least to blame are the homeowners who were sweet-talked into abysmally bad loan structures to take on more debt than they could handle. Probably most to blame are a series of presidential administrations, including the current one, who interfered with the mortgage and banking industry to advance political aims that were ill-conceived with tragic consequences for the very citizens they were trying to better.

Jimmy Carter had a better plan to create affordable housing for lower income families, and fortunately he pursued Habitat for Humanity instead of manipulating taxpayer-funded juggernauts that have contributed to our beached economy. I've probably donated more money to Carter's Habitat for Humanity this year alone than Pinchie has in his entire sorry life, but in his universe faith-based organizations can never measure up to a really good governmental pork project like forcing FNMA to guarantee sub-prime loans.

Or you can read Pinchie's version in which it's all Bush's fault from start to finish. Pinchie seems pretty ignorant of politics and economics, but he's really handy with ad hominem and strawman arguments, if you like that sort of stuff. As for me, to paraphrase Bethoven's dismissal of Napoleon in the inscription on his Eroica Symphony: "to the memory of a great blog".

Update

2008-11-04T20:31:00.003-06:00

My clinic partner has made an amazing recovery, owing half to pure luck and the other half to being in excellent shape (luck favors the prepared, as the old saw goes). His wrist is sprained but not broken, and he's able to hobble around despite considerable road rash and a broken lower rib (near where it attaches to the vertebra).

One little anecdote that completely captures my partner's personality: he was hospitalized overnight for observation, and when he got up Saturday morning he was bored, so he wheeled his IV down the hall (in his hospital gown, with an extra one on backwards so as not to scare the staff with his rump road rash) to the room of one of his patients, and proceeded to examine them and dictate a progress note on them. When I saw the patient on rounds the next day, he was very impressed by his dedication. I wish the nurses had snapped a cellphone picture of the two of them, doctor and patient, in their gowns and IVs.

The police have narrowed down the hit and run vehicle to a minivan from 1996 to 2000 model years, obviously with a broken off right side-view mirror and missing antenna. As my partner was starting to fly through the air on impact, he thinks he remembers seeing a recessed door handle in dark green, blue, or grey. It's likely they live somewhere between St. Joseph and Sartell, so if anyone spots such a vehicle somewhere in Stearns county, call the cops and report on them. See Ian's comments on my previous post for what can happen if we all keep our eyes open.

As a completely unrelated aside, if you get bored with HBO as the winter indoor training season arrives, check out this list of films with spiritual themes as rated by http://www.artsandfaith.com/:

This link lists the website staff's list of 100 greatest films.

This link lists ratings by website users.

Almost all of the films, even the foreign ones, are available on Netflix. The breadth of films and genre represented is amazing, with something for everyone. I doubt you'll find any Tarantino films here, and you'll be reading a fair amount of English subtitles, but I doubt you'll be disappointed. Some straight-laced folk may be scandalized by "mature elements" from many of these movies (think the bedroom scene from Schindler's List), but all the films on the list that I've actually seen (Babette's Feast, Elephant Man, The Apostle, Dead Man Walking, and a surprising number of others) have gotten me thinking about eternal matters or my own personal spirituality.

Even so, sometimes I still need Bruce Willis to gun down a room full of bad guys just to re-balance the universe. Or at least to offset the effects of a hit and run.

You Stinking Coward

2008-11-02T00:00:00.002-05:00

One of my partners at the clinic was struck by a motorist and seriously injured last night while biking near his house. He was hit from behind by a vehicle at highway speeds on county road 133, which has a wide shoulder and good pavement. The vehicle had to have drifted most of the way onto the shoulder in order to hit him. It was 6pm, with good light and visibility, and my partner had front and rear lights, the bright red blinking kind.

It was a hit-and-run.

My friend was shot through the air still attached to his bike, rolled 2 or 3 times, and slid on the asphalt, finally rolling to a stop in the ditch. He had to crawl out of the ditch and flag down another motorist to get help. He suffered a rib fracture, a possible wrist bone fracture, and lots of road rash. He came close to requiring abdominal surgery. He is 50 but has the body of a 25 year old, and that had to help. His helmet almost certainly saved his life.

The rest of you can go back to reading your gmail or whatever now--I need to have a word with the motorist: you stinking coward, you selfish narcissistic piece of crap. Why didn't you stop? The impact broke your right side mirror into pieces, which the cops have scooped up. Every body shop, parts store, and salvage yard has a description of the make and model of your vehicle, and will turn you in as soon as you show up to buy a replacement. Every cop in the county is looking for your vehicle with a broken mirror, just waiting to slap your fat backside into jail--hit and run is a felony, baby.

Maybe you were drinking at 6pm on Halloween night. Maybe you were texting. Maybe you just finished lighting up a joint. Maybe you were arguing with your girlfriend or boyfriend or ex. Maybe you've had 3 DUIs and thought you were looking at doing time. Maybe your parents didn't raise you right, to admit your faults and take responsibility for your actions. Maybe you're just a lousy excuse for a human being because all you can think about is your own fear, even when another human being lies bleeding and battered in the ditch because of your actions.

Maybe you'll get away with it. OJ did, and he's spent the rest of his life paying for it privately, trying to forget or to medicate the pain or to cut his losses. C'mon, confession is good for the soul. Turn yourself in, take responsibility for your actions for once, and be a man. Or a woman. Thank your lucky stars you're not looking at hit-and-run manslaughter or worse.

I bet it won't happen, because you're a coward, and cowards are always losers. In that case, I hope you are caught, and rot in prison.

I'm glad I got that off my chest, but I'll never be able to stop looking over my shoulder, waiting for you to come up behind me and run me over too. Have a nice life, you stinking coward.

First Trick or Treating in 30 years

2008-10-31T22:05:00.004-05:00

Soulmate and I took Katie out for Trick or Treating tonight. It's the first time ever for little Katie, and the first time in at least 30 years for her parents. Being a little rusty, our neighbors' girls, Maddie and Grace, volunteered to show us the ropes. We got Katie dressed in her blanket sleeper for warmth (it is Minnesota after all) and put her little "lion cub" costume on. Soulmate painted on the "Wizard of Oz" lion face, and we were set to go.

We went around to all the neighbors with lights on in the 2 or 3 blocks directly to our west and south. Most were home, and were delighted to meet the princess cum lion cub, many for the first time. We were equally delighted to see them, many of whom we haven't seen for most of the year or longer, and some of whom are new to the neighborhood.

Everyone seemed to think Katie was so cute that she deserved 3 or 4 pieces of candy. Daddy didn't protest at all, knowing that precious little of what we collected tonight will ever make it into Katie's mouth, and almost all the rest will end up being metabolized by Daddy on the bicycle. I tried to help Katie pick the "best" kinds of candy (i.e. the kinds Daddy likes best), but she ended up choosing her own and putting them into her bag.

Soulmate has already raided the loot and taken all the Sweetarts and other sour candy, which is just fine with me since my tastes run to chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. I've spent precious little time on the bike the past several weeks, and my jeans are getting that uncomfortable feeling in the waist and seat. Hopefully I'll be able to get out tomorrow and burn off some serious calories with Big Jim.

Katie was quite gleeful about the whole experience of Trick or Treating, especially with older friends Maddie and Grace to show her the ropes. She even deigned to allow their Mom, Tami, to hold her for a little while as we trudged around the neighborhood:

Here's a video from today starting with a little breakfast and ending with a tired lion cub about to fall asleep on her feet after a really fun day:

Sweater Weather

2008-10-19T00:10:00.003-05:00

Soulmate's good friend Judy brought a package to church for Katie last Sunday. It contained two sweaters hand-knit by Judy's 95 year old mother. You could only hope to be half as witty and delightful as she if you make it to 95. Anyway, I wanted to immortalize her in my small way by showing off little Katie in one of the sweaters.

Other than that, it was a beautiful Saturday which I idled away with the girls, without accomplishing a single thing. So there.

Oh yeah, and I spun for 2 hours tonight while watching Bruce Willis Die Hard the second time. Did you ever notice that everybody in that movie either misses wildly with 1000 rounds from their Uzzi or Gloc, or else they score about 100 splatter rounds per body. Maybe it's just me.

Throwin' y'all a bone

2008-10-16T23:38:00.003-05:00

I realize I haven't updated much lately; I really have no excuse whatsoever, except maybe that we're having such a good time being a family that I haven't had any time to document us being a real family. Hey, give me a break--Ozzie has an entire film crew hanging around his crib to document his family's dysfunction.

Anyway, here's a bone for you Katie junkies out there. Our friend Donna, who took the pictures of Katie at the church picnic this past summer, took pictures at Katie's dedication service last week. Here are some highlights:

As for you poor slobs who are still looking for scraps of bike blogging, I got nothing. Well almost nothing: I spun for 2 hours tonight (after putting Katie to bed, naturally) while watching Will Smith pulverize mutants (again). No, it wasn't "Independence Day" (one of my all-time favorites), but rather "I Am Legend". Whoa, there's some serious suspense in that one. And some mutants with a very high ick factor. Forget the cure, dude, just keep that M16 handy.

Whaddaya want for nuthin?

2008-10-08T01:13:00.004-05:00

At least it's not a rrrrrrrubber biscuit. Katie demonstrates the proper technique for eating a teething biscuit, and not just any type: a genuine Italian Biscotti Plasmon. Ray from Mi Famiglia restaurant gave them to Katie a while back, but she has shown no interest whatsoever in anything remotely crunchy--until now.

Katie and mommy have been attending a toddler class every Tuesday morning (where the object is for the children to learn how to be toddlers, evidently). The power of peer pressure starts very early, and Katie has been looking around during snack time and figuring out that cheerios and other crunchy things aren't just for feeding to the dogs after all. Though when all is said and done, the leftovers still end up going to the dogs.

Dedication

2008-10-07T00:44:00.006-05:00

We had Katie dedicated at church yesterday. It's kind of like a baptism for Catholics or Lutherans, except the baby stays dry. It's patterned after Samuel in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament, both of which were brought to the temple at a young age, and dedicated to God's service. I don't recall any babies being dunked or sprinkled like some churches do now, but that's up to the theologians to debate. We just go along with the traditions as we understand them.

Anyway, Katie was a little angel during the dedication ceremony, except that she really wanted to take the microphone away from whoever had it, and she really didn't want to wear the cute but useless red headband that matched her little velvet dress/tights outfit. Here are some pictures from the ceremony, and the whole 9 minute video. Warning: there is nothing about bikes or bridges in this entire video.

Hmmmm...

2008-10-03T00:00:00.003-05:00

An alert reader recently sent me a link to a 1999 NYT article that explains why we're in the financial crisis we're trying so hard to legislate away. This article was written 9 years ago to the day that the current administration's fix-it plan was voted down.

NYT September 30, 1999: Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending

Who is to blame: the Clinton administration for forcing Fannie Mae to buy riskier mortgages in an effort to increase minority home ownership? The Bush administration for failing to foresee the unintended consequences and rein it in? The big banks who followed one another like lemmings into ever riskier sub-prime markets? Greedy and shady mortgage brokers and house appraisers who arm-twisted unsuspecting homeowners into ARMs and interest-only mortgages that could only succeed if housing prices continued to climb year after year? Gullible and covetous consumers who knew they couldn't afford that McMansion but bought it anyway because the bank said they could?

My two nearest neighbors have been foreclosed, and their houses sit empty and bedraggled because they got sucked into sub-prime mortgages. We tried to bail them out, but their financial situations were almost cartoonishly impossible. There was no way out for them but to sit idly by and let the bank evict them.

Shame on all of you who let this happen, or made this happen, or could have put a stop to it and didn't. Shame on all of us for wanting more than we can afford, and living above our means just because the credit card company or bank says we can. Shame on you politicians currently making political hay over the heartache and loss of millions of us enmeshed in this travesty. Shame on all you Wall Street types standing hat in hand waiting for the government to bail you out so you can start anew bilking small-time investors out of their hard-earned retirement funds.

I don't know anything about ING Direct, since I don't have any money invested in their company, but they published a full page ad in a bunch of newspapers yesterday (shame on them for trying to get more customers by referring to this crisis!). They have published a declaration of financial independence with 10 points that I have always lived by, and recommend that you do as well.

BTW, don't be fooled by the pols who promise that this $700B bailout will be cheaper than that because some of the toxic investments will actually bring some income back to the taxpayer "investors". The government's accounting system is a giant shell game, and any taxes we pay in whatever form (including those we'll have to pay to make up the $700B bailout) are already spent by our elected officials. Any "payoff" from this cash infusion will inevitably cycle back to somebody's porkbarrel project.

I'm bracing for higher taxes, less services, and no real breakthrough in the credit crunch with this bailout. I no longer look to the government to look out for me and my interests; heck, I've stopped including estimates from social security and medicare when I calculate my retirement needs, because I just don't have faith in those programs or the system that backs them.

Audacious hope? Sorry Barack, I don't think so. If you think a new administration is going to fix any of this, you're worse than Don Quixote: you're tilting at phantom windmills. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Once upon a time I believed that a man or a party could change the world for the better, but I don't anymore. One man's utopia is everybody else's dystopia. Live and let live. Down with government. Long live gridlock. Remember the law of unintended consequences, it works best when the plan is big and complicated. Like the bailout plan.

And I'm usually an optimist...

Progress on the DeSoto

2008-10-01T22:26:00.003-05:00

I haven't had time to upload any more videos of the progress they're making on demolishing the DeSoto Bridge just up river from us. I've taken a few more clips over the past couple weeks, and as you can see, there's been some progress:

Updates from the Princess

2008-09-28T22:02:00.002-05:00

I was in Chicago last week for my specialty's annual meeting and expo, so Soulmate took Katie up north. They hung out at her uncle's dairy farm for the weekend, and Grandpa and Grandma's log "cabin" for the rest of the week. Here is a video of Katie hanging out with her dogs, meeting some baby cows, petting a cat, boating, and eating. She tries her socks out for dessert...

Just Passin' the Time

2008-09-19T22:04:00.004-05:00

I've been off on sabbatical for a couple of weeks, which sounds pretty exotic but it's not. I took September off because my partners are all back from their summer vacations (while I was working my butt off), and the office is a little slow in September, what with kids in school, parents preoccupied with fall activities, and nobody has any tonsil, sinus, or ear infections.

Based on this picture taken by my father-in-law a couple of weeks ago, sabbatical seems to be treating the family pretty well. Soulmate has me home to do stuff and to pick up after myself more than usual; I don't have to go off to work every day (though I love what I do); and Katie gets me 24/7. To say she's a daddy's girl would be the understatement of the year.

I usually use sabbatical to catch up on CME, do projects that I've put off for too long, and get back out on the bike in preparation for cyclocross season in the fall. This one has been a little different, with Katie pretty much dictating most of what I do all day, and Soulmate dictating the rest. It's pretty easy to take, though, since it's all easy stuff except when Katie is crabby and teething. To take some liberty with the old saying: if Katie ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

One thing I knew was coming but had delayed until last week: I give Katie kisses, and she gives me viruses. The first big one hit last week, with both of us out of commission, and Soulmate spared. I'm still nursing a very tender stomach, but the head cold and sore throat are gone.

It's a good thing, since I'm heading for Chicago tomorrow for my national ENT meeting. It should be a good meeting, and I'll catch up on quite a bit of CME because I've signed up for the maximum number of courses and seminars. Now if I can just drink enough coffee to stay awake in those afternoon sessions, it'll all work out.

Whew!

2008-09-13T15:11:00.003-05:00

Brother Dave was able to get a text message that everything is OK with them in Houston. 2 big trees down, parts of the privacy fence destroyed, debris everywhere, but nobody hurt in the entire neighborhood. The nursing home has a backup generator, so Mom can head back there tonight and get back on her schedule again. God is good.

Shwammy update: as I predicted, the rain from a couple days ago mixed with rain at race time to make for a muddy Fat Tire Festival. To no one's surprise, Jonathan Page (picture copped off of Skinnyski.com) pulled away at the end after catching a breakaway Jeff Hall. Our own Doug Swanson got 7th and Ian Stanford 13th.

Big Jim almost pulled off a top 20 (again!) with 25th, and 1st in his age group. Matty got 37th, but got beat by a girl (Lea Davison from VT who rode an amazing 2:19:26 and beat last year's womens' champ Jenna Zander by almost 3 minutes). Couldn't resist, Matt. All in all, GrandStay Hotels had an excellent showing.

Bang! Lights Out...

2008-09-13T10:06:00.003-05:00

I've been calling my brother in Houston all morning, but the cell network is overloaded or down. I texted my nephew since he's the most tech savvy (my brother being a dinosaur and all), but no answer. Weather.com reports 92mph winds in Houston right now, and up to 6" of rainfall. Some highrises have had most of their windows blown out.

We're praying for you guys.

Oh, and it's raining in Hayward, WI. Hope Big Jim remembered his mudders for Shwammy.

Yikes! It's Ike!

2008-09-12T20:17:00.004-05:00

When we Northerners talk about "the big one" we mean 20 inches of snowfall and white-out blizzard conditions. My brother in Houston called me just now, and he's staring down Hurricane Ike, a 250 mile diameter category 2/3 behemoth with 110mph winds, an eye with a 60 mile diameter (the eye alone is 10 times bigger than our biggest thunderstorms), and a 30 foot high wall of water in the storm surge.

He called to assure me that he picked Mom up from the nursing home and took her to his house, where they've bought out Lowe's or Home Depot to be ready for the fury. He bought a Honda generator that would easily power a modest rambler indefinitely, and they've charged up their cell phones (pray that Ike doesn't knock over all the cell towers), and they've headed for the basement...oh that's right, that's what WE do in a storm. In Houston, first of all the basement is the first thing to be flooded since they're about 10 feet above sea level, and second, nobody there has a basement (see #1).

Anyway, they are battened down for the big one.

Katie, on the other hand, is getting ready for a different kind of big event: our church is hosting a baby shower for Katie and Soulmate tomorrow morning. I've been invited too, and I can tell you, I can hardly wait. (Anybody out there who desperately needs to go for a training ride at exactly 11am tomorrow? Call me ASAP!) Seriously, I am one who believes it is possible to tap into the feminine side and actually enjoy 3 hours playing games and opening presents. Possible--unexpected, but possible.

I go on record, however, to reserve the right to decline to participate in any and all diaper games, especially the one where the hostess melts various chocolate candy bars into disposable diapers, and participants try to guess which warm brown pile belongs with which candy wrapper. This is an almost sacrilege to a lover of sweets. What a waste of a perfectly good candy bar.

Katie is trying to figure out what in the world to wear to the shower, a problem she shares almost daily with Soulmate. Here's one possibility:

For a while there, Soulmate let me pick Katie's outfits because I usually get her up when she wakes up in the morning (Katie I mean; I stopped trying to get Soulmate up many years ago after she bought a nightgown that had a picture of a sleeping bear and said "Caution: may bite if awakened early" or something like that). More recently, for reasons undisclosed to me, she has started laying out clothes for Katie the night before. Is it me?

If you've made it this far looking for something bike related, congratulations! I cleaned up my TT bike and road bike and hung them up on the top racks, and installed Maxxis MiMos on my Ksyriums and put them on my Scott Team CX in advance of CX season. Big Jim invited me to plan for an MEA weekend excursion to Maah Daah Hey (Medora) in October, so I am grudgingly starting to pry the mud off of my Giant Anthem Advanced (it's still in the doghouse for bucking me off and precipitating my rotator cuff surgery in February). The trail looks pretty benign, and Big Jim assures me that there's nothing technical about it, just lots of fun MTB riding. Soulmate has given me the tentative thumbs up, but we'll see how I feel on the CX bike first, then decide if I'm going to push my luck on the MTB.

BTW, good luck to all the Fat Tire Racers tomorrow at Shwammy, especially Big Jim, Jeffro, Matt, Ray, and Doug and Ian. Don't let that kid with one gear beat you this time...

Rainy Days and Mondays

2008-09-11T12:51:00.004-05:00

Katie is very generous: she kisses the phone when Grandma calls, kisses photos of herself and her loved ones, gives toys to other children in her playgroup, and gives her cute little cold viruses to daddy. As is the case in the movie "Gremlins", the cute little cuddlies turn into sharp-toothed nasties. Her cute little case of the sniffles has laid me low with a gigantic head cold.

That's OK, since it's been raining all day here, so I'm not tempted to go out in the cold and worsen my malady. It's been a good day to catch up on things. Here's Soulmate reading the paper, and Katie about to make a call on her Ariel "cellphone".

Soulmate was going to host a playgroup event here this morning, but it was cancelled due to rain. My task before the event was to clean up the very messy pile of stuff I stash by my place at the kitchen table. Ouch. I found some stuff in there I didn't expect.

The earliest addition to the pile was from May, and is a request for a charitable donation. We do a lot of that, and probably receive 20 mailings a week from charitables asking for more.

The most important is the packet of post-placement adoption papers that need to be filled out and sent in to the state to "register" our adoption. While Katie could only be taken from us over my dead body, still the wonks in St. Paul need to exert their authority (and extract yet another pound of flesh).

The next most important, I'm embarrassed to say, is a rather sizeable bonus check from my office dated July 21, 2008. I feel a little like Albert Einstein (in behavior, not intelligence), who apparently used paychecks from the government as bookmarks in his many books. He was the original absent-minded professor, much to the chagrin of his heirs, who found the checks much later when going through his estate.

Anyway, with a lot of prodding I have levelled the pile, thrown out a goodly number of outdated papers, and filed away a bunch more. Now my pile is only 2" thick but contains quite a bit of work yet. So why am I blogging instead of beavering away at the pile? Because I'm SICK! Give me a break.

Here's a compilation of the bridge videos I've taken so far. They end with yesterday's update, but with the rain today there hasn't been any sign of the demo crew, and won't be at this rate. It's pouring right now.

Oooo--I think I'll use my camcorder from now on. My cellphone cam is pretty bad at this distance. I'll post better videos whenever it seems like they've made some progress.

DeSoto Bridge Deconstruction

2008-09-09T22:42:00.003-05:00

The DeSoto bridge is the same make and model as the I-35 bridge that collapsed last year in Minneapolis. This spring during "routine" inspection, the DeSoto was condemned and closed due to bent gusset plates, the same condition that has been implicated in the I-35 bridge collapse. I bet they looked closer this time than usual.

I live down the Mississippi from the bridge, and demolition began in earnest in late August. I started keeping video logs every morning as part of my morning routines with Katie. You know, make baby formula for her and daddy formula for me (I prefer a 2 shot hazelnut latte, shaken not stirred), feed the goldfish in the pond, water the deck flowers, swing on the swing, and take pictures of the bridge demolition. Pretty routine.

Here's one clip for your viewing pleasure. Go ahead, it's short. And there's lots of heavy equipment busting stuff up.

Meanwhile, in a post this spring I highlighted my cousin Mark's son Jim Grabowski, a 6'7" 225lb senior forward for Southwest Baptist University. Now he'll be sayin' Erin Go Bragh in the land of leprachans, because he just signed with Dart Killester, a pro B-ball team in Dublin, Ireland. Don't swing those elbows too much when you pull down a rebound, Jim--you don't want to pick a fight with an Irishman on his home turf. Oh, and if you happen to run into Bono and the boys, say hi for me. U2 Go Bragh!

Oh, and Lance has decided to win the Tour de France again next year. Seriously. I might call and see if he needs another geriatric rider to fill out his team. Grey Power!

A Couple of Things

2008-09-08T20:33:00.005-05:00

It got chilly last Tuesday, the day school started. I guess that's appropriate: the last day of summer, Labor Day, was 89 and muggy hot; the next day, the first day of school, cool and dry. Anyway, Katie and I were preparing to go out on our morning ritual of feeding the fish, watering the flowers, and watching the DeSoto bridge demolition. I opened the door to the deck and got chilled by a northwesterly breeze with a real kick, and I realized that Katie didn't have any real cool weather clothes.

See my previous post Feelin' Groovy Fashion Show for some of her summer outfits, but these are a little bit skimpy when the mercury dips below 50 in the morning. So off we went to the local department store where they had lots of fleece pullovers in camo for boys, but absolutely nothing fallish for girls. So then we went to T.J.Maxx where they always have cool stuff, and sure enough, we found some:

Then we headed to a couple of boutiques downtown where we found even more hip pint-sized fall fashions. So Katie is ready for action, and that's what we had today.

Soulmate went to aerobics this morning and Katie power-slept for a 2 plus hour nap. After a quick lunch, we headed to Lake Wobegon itself, Freeport, MN where the women are strong, the men are good looking, and all of the children are above average.

Just north of town you take a right on county road 39 and go a half mile, passing cornfields on the right and left, and suddenly you spot Reindeer and assorted exotic creatures on the right. You have arrived at Hemker Park & Zoo, the best-kept secret in Stearns County. The Hemker family has collected and cared for exotic animals for 35 years, and opened to the public in 1996.

Katie was delighted to pet the rabbits, kudu, Thompson's gazelles, baby Reindeer, red deer, sheep, a little donkey, and a yearling Holstein. She laughed at the capuchin monkeys, the ring-tailed lemurs, and 6 cute raccoons, as well as tropical birds, butterflies, a dromedary camel, a zebra, a wildebeest, kangaroos, and musk ox. The penguins and the ostrich were on loan to another zoo apparently. Here's a slide show of what we saw:

After re-visiting the monkeys and little rabbits (for one final petting of the bunnies), we headed back into Freeport to take in another well-kept secret: Charlie's Cafe. OK, if you've ever driven west of Saint Cloud toward Alexandria, Charlie's is no secret, with a giant billboard and the entire side of a barn painted with their sign.

Word is that Garrison Keillor, host of Prairie Home Companion radio show, lived for a short time in Freeport while getting started as a writer. He used to hang around Charlie's drinking coffee and watching the people. The Chatterbox Cafe is the radio incarnation of Charlie's, and many of the characters in and around Freeport are immortalized in the show's cast of characters.

Anyway, a guy can get a pretty good burger there, and some pretty good pie too. At least we did. Katie charmed everyone, and seemed to enjoy the booster seat like it was an amusement park ride or her blue swing at home.

I promise I'll upload my videos of the DeSoto bridge demolition tomorrow. I know you're breathless.

Pretty in Pink

2008-09-06T23:12:00.007-05:00

My first post today only covered the first half of the day. I came home from the TT win and found the princess in fine form. Soulmate and I have been shopping for Katie clothes lately, and we've found a boatload of cute outfits. Here's what I came home to today:

Pink shirt, pink hoodie sweater, pink corduroy pants, pink socks, and pink shoes (they may look white, but trust me, they're pink).

Oh, and she's still carrying the Arizona Ice Tea bottle cap from dinner Thursday night. I honestly don't know why we buy all the toys and books; her all-time favorite toys are (in order): my blue Pilot G-2 gel pen, the orange lid from a Tetra goldfish food cannister, Soulmate's pastry mixing tool, a scratched up DVD, and the bottle cap. Her least favorites, for the time being, are the assortment of Fisher-Price toys, games, and puzzles.

Just for fun, here's a photo from yesterday. I've been taking photos and short videos of the DeSoto bridge demolition going on this month, and Katie has accompanied me on our treks to look at the bridge. Most of the decking and rails are gone, and I think they'll be floating a crane barge on the river soon, to take down the steel trusses. I'll try to post photos and/or videos soon.

My First Win!

2008-09-06T21:36:00.006-05:00

Charles and I scored a big "W" in the Henderson Two-Man Time Trial this morning. I'll spare you all the details--here are the highlights: Charles, Julie, and their intrepid Welsh terrier Dublin rode down with me in the Pathfinder to Henderson, a delightful little town on the Minnesota River. We registered, warmed up on the trainer (literally, since it was about 55 degrees at 8am), and got to the start line. An assistant held us upright so we could clip both feet in, the starter counted down, and we were off:

Charles led off for the first 3 minutes or so, to set a good pace at about 28mph, then he "hupped" me (see last Saturday's post on Sparky the seal) and I took a pull. I have no idea how long each of his pulls were after that, but I know mine were almost exactly a minute. I tried to hold whatever speed he was going for as long as I could after each switch, and it was usually about 45 seconds. Then my speed would slow a little despite my best effort to keep it up. Then it was time for "hup" and Charles was in front again.

We went out 7.5 miles, bombed a gentle descent at 35mph, and had to almost stop at the bottom to make a U-turn around an orange cone. Then it was back up the hill and back to the start/finish line. I skipped one pull right after a particularly hard effort (a hill or something), because I was just barely holding his pace even though I was the one drafting. I was never more happy to take the final curve and see the finish line. I thought I was spent, but as any self-respecting sprinter knows, there's always 20 seconds of power left for the end of the race. I surged past Charles and sprinted us over the line:

We cooled down for a few minutes on the bikes, then coasted back to the car and some badly needed Gatorade. Unfortunately, my stomach punishes me for hard TT efforts like this one, so I couldn't eat anything for a couple of hours afterwards.

We ran into Linda Sone who said she thought we had won our category, so we walked over to the posted results, and sure enough, there we were at the top of the Masters 35+ list. Granted, the field was small, but we we beat them by a good margin.

This was the first bike race I've won since 1977. True, it was a small field, and true, my partner is one of the top Masters time trial riders in MN. Also true that I've had very good results over the past several years with a number of top 10 finishes. Still, the first win is sweet, and it doesn't hurt that we got to split the $40 prize money. Thanks to Julie and Dublin for the swell pictures.

I would love to see a Wednesday night time trial in the Saint Cloud area next year. It's too far to drive down to Black Dog for a 16 minute race every week, but it would be cool to ride to a local course as a warm-up and blast off on a 7 mile out and back time trial once a week. Bragging rights to the winner. Maybe I'll try to pull something together. All of a sudden I like to ride my rocket bike. I guess winning does that to you. Thanks Charles!

I've decided to try some cyclocross races this fall, starting 4 weeks from today in Orono. In an effort to be green, I'm only doing races close to home (or close to my in-laws). Here's my tentative line-up: Orono on Oct 4; Flanders on Oct 11 (near my sister-in-law's); Ham Lake Oct 18; Roseville Oct 25 (near my parents-in-law); Rum River Nov 2; either NCS on Nov 8 or Lake Rebecca on Nov 9; and the State CX in Crystal on Nov 15 (maybe).

I'm going to line up at the back of the 45+ race for safety's sake, and see who I can pass on the course. I don't feel like rehabbing my shoulder again...

Contre le Montre Pour Deux

2008-08-30T21:44:00.006-05:00

First some eye candy for the Katie groupies: Soulmate has a monkey puppet which Katie has fallen in love with. He appears whenever she is getting fussy (which is rare) or is losing interest in our activities (mostly because we are trying to do grown-up things instead of playing with her).

Here the monkey has been stroking her cheeks with its paw, and Katie has turned her head to plant a big wet one on the monkey's nose. She has taken to kissing Soulmate the same way, but every time I get the cellphone camera out to catch it on film, she stops kissing and lunges for the phone. (I'm doomed--already demanding a cell phone at age 14 months)

On to the title topic: time trial tea for two. Charles and I are the new GrandStay secret weapon going into the Henderson TT next Saturday. We both have gimp shoulders (he broke his right collar bone in June, and I had left rotator cuff surgery in late February). Both of us have only started to do intensity workouts on the bike in the past month or so. Given the myriad of excuses we will have to explain a poor showing, we've decided to pair up for the Masters 35+ two-man category at Henderson. We figured we should practice trading places while riding on the ragged edge, so we hit county road 8 for an out and back.

After a 15 minute warm-up, we drilled it for 15 minutes or so pretty much as hard as we could go, both taking 1 to 2 minute pulls at the front. Our hardest job was to figure out how to let the guy in back know that we'd had enough and it was his turn. We tried different things, but finally settled on a turn of the head and a loud "HUP!" When I said it while redlining in front, it sounded rather like the Como Zoo seal barking ("Good boy, Sparky, have a herring!").

We did pretty well, averaging 24mph into a stiff southerly wind on the way out, and a whopping 29.5mph on the tailwind section, giving us about 26.5mph average for the effort. That's a full 2mph faster than I did the same section by myself on Wednesday. On his best form, Charles can average that for 25 miles by himself (as he did in the state TT in June before his crash). So, I'm actually just a tag-along, but at least I'm not an anchor. We'll see what happens next week.

BTW, Katie is now officially an honorary Italian-American. The honor was bestowed by Ray Cook, full-blooded I-A and owner of Mi Famiglia restaurant. Ray and Jennifer have been friends for several years, and have followed our adoption journey with great interest (and encouragement). We ate at the restaurant Thursday night, and when Ray saw Katie polishing off a large serving of Risotto with garlic, he was impressed. Her breath reeked of garlic for hours, but boy was she happy!

OK, just one freebie, but only if you like watching Gallager or blowing stuff up or launching potato guns into Lake Jessie:

Bedtime Story

2008-08-26T22:21:00.002-05:00

Doc is concentrating on getting all the doggie sounds right from Sandra Boynton's "Doggies" bedtime book. "Woof!" "arf arf" "mmm...mmm...mmm" "yap! yap! yap! yap!" and so on up to ten doggies (and one cat). Or maybe he's just squinting because he left his reading glasses downstairs and is too tired after the State RR to schlep down after them.

Obviously, Katie is delighted with the story, or else she's happy to be dressed for bed in her favorite "little princess" pajamas. Either way, it's an expression we see frequently from our sunny little princess.

Fortunately, she does fuss from time to time: for instance when we forget to feed her anything for 5 or 6 hours because we forget she's a baby. As time goes on and senility sets in, she'll need to be able to fuss fairly assertively.

Katie and Soulmate went to the In-laws' in St. Paul for a family baby shower yesterday, then stayed overnight there. They scored a lot of cool toys, books, and clothes, but I was genuinely lonely at home. I fired up a movie and worked on the power setup of my TT bike, then channel surfed until the wee hours before panicking and diving in bed at 2am. Today was a good but long day in the clinic, and I'm beat right now.

Big Jim emailed to tell me that I should ride the Henderson two man TT with Charles instead of him. Chuck broke his right collarbone at the Stillwater crit in June (somebody slid into him around the final corner at the bottom of the big hill), and is finally back on the bike at the end of the season like me. So we'll have two gimps with bad shoulders (his right, my left) trading pulls in the TT. It's too bad we'll be leaning in opposite directions--we won't be as aero this way. Chuck is a blazing fast time trialist, so I'll either get the best workout of the year, or blow up spectacularly (probably both).

Rocket 1

2008-08-24T21:33:00.002-05:00

I did a basic setup on the Giant Trinity TT, and took it out for a test run today. It is just like getting on those crotchrocket motos: fast and uncomfortable. I kept a 20mph pace with level 1 heart rate for an hour or so on an out and back on Cty 8. I ramped up to 25mph in a pretty stiff headwind, and felt like I could hold that for a good long time.

On the other hand, my left gluteus cramped up after 30 minutes, without going hard at all. Most of that is left over from the effort I put out yesterday at the State RR, but some of it is the position on this TT bike. My back is a lot flatter than on my previous TT bike which was cobbled together from an old LeMond Zurich frame (which is now a sweet Fixie). I'm also a lot more forward over the front wheel, but the ride is very stable despite the short wheelbase.

I found out that the Henderson TT on Sept. 6 has an option for a two-man TT. I'm trying to convince Big Jim to ride it with me, since he is trying to talk me into riding home 80 miles from Henderson after the race. I think he was planning on doing a tempo ride on his stock bike during the TT just to warm up for the big ride home. I, on the other hand, will put heart and soul into the TT, so an 80 mile cool down is pretty much overkill no matter how you look at it, and the inherent mismatch between our TT ability will increase my suffering exponentially on the way home.

A two-man TT with Jim would be fun, though once he ramps it up, I'm not sure I'll be swapping pulls with him much. Then there's my problem of being a lead weight on all the climbs. Still, I would like to be there when he gets to lactate threshold and holds it for half an hour, since he's usually in level 1 or just above on our training rides. I keep telling him he'd be a great time trialist if he put his mind to it. There is one small hitch to the plan: he doesn't even own a TT bike. Hopefully he can borrow Bauerly's or Bagley's and get used to it a little. We'll see.

Spy photos of the Trinity may be coming.

State RR

2008-08-23T22:51:00.002-05:00

Had a great time, went a lap longer than I thought I would (but still a lap shorter than I needed to finish with the group), saw a bunch of friends that I've missed all year, and helped my guy Ray Coyle to win. Downside: my sweet carbon Easton wheels never got in the race, because I couldn't get the rear tubular pumped up, and it deflated instantly when I got any air at all in it. It might be the valve extender that's leaking. Hopefully we'll get it worked out for the Henderson TT.

Speaking of which, the rocket TT bike arrived, and it is sweet. Carbon on top for a smooth ride, alu below for stiffness. I haven't gotten it set up fully yet, that's in the works for tomorrow afternoon while Katie is napping. I bought the newest version of the iBike power meter, called the iAero, so I'll fit that to the TT bike as well. In addition to virtual power numbers, you can get up to speed, then coast for 10 seconds after pushing a button, and it will calculate your CdA frontal surface area. It's a virtual wind tunnel on wheels!

Hopefully I can dial in an aero position on the TT bike that is also reasonably comfortable. I had enough gluteus cramps today going up tower hill 5 times at full power, not to mention spending 15 minutes well above my lactate threshold trying to bridge back up after getting dropped the 4th time up. I got within 50 yards of the group, but couldn't make the bridge, so I ended up doing the whole 4th lap by myself, which was both boring and very painful.

Anyway, I'm officially back. Now, we'll see if cyclo-cross is in the cards. My left shoulder ached pretty badly all day after the race today, and weirdly enough, my left tricep (not the repaired bicep) spasmed for the last lap and a half of the race. What's that about? I'm a little afraid that I'll mess up my shoulder if I do CX, but I guess if I line up at the back of the B race and take it really carefully, I can't do too much wrong, can I?

It's late and Katie is fussy and waking up every hour, so I suspect I'll be having another sleepover in her room tonight. Soulmate had the duty last night, though I was awake several times listening to them in the next room. Last Sunday we accidentally slept through church because we were up most of the night "playing". Tonight we're all business.

She's Walking! Sort Of...

2008-08-21T21:54:00.003-05:00

Saturday morning I line it up at the State Road Race with the best Masters riders Minnesota has to offer. My training regimen this week has been:
Saturday: 3 hour leg buster with Big Jim, Lanny, Ray, and Luke to preview the course and map out our strategy.
Sunday: play with Katie, on call, no time to train.
Monday: play with Katie, too tired from call weekend to train.
Tuesday: play with Katie, sleepover in Katie's room because she wants to. "Sleepover" is a misnomer since very little sleep is actually achieved.
Wednesday: too busy to even play with Katie, business meeting at the clinic lasts until 9:30pm, too tired to train.
Thursday: errands after work, then play with Katie until she goes to bed; catch up on blogging.
Friday: play with Katie, commute to and from work, get fabulous massage from The Fix, and grease the chain.
Saturday: play with Katie, pump up the tires, and line up.

I feel ready; I admit it's not the optimal taper for the big race, but hey, it finishes on a steep hill, so I don't have a snowball's chance to contest the sprint anyway. All I need is about 20 minutes of above-lactate efforts, which I'm sure to get if I chase attacks or drill it on the front for a while, to get ready for Henderson.

The rocket TT bike still hasn't arrived, or at least Luke is holding out on me if it has. I'm ready to mount the secret weapon and get going on dialing in my TT position ASAP, but it can wait until next week I guess. I'm back on call for the Labor Day weekend (Thursday through Monday), so I'll only have time to ride the TT bike for an hour a day, max. That should be enough to get my position right using the secret weapon.

Speaking of playing with Katie:

This and That

2008-08-17T21:22:00.004-05:00

I've been pretty lax in posting lately. I guess it's not really lax if all your time is taken up doing something else. A one-year-old provides all the something else required to take up all my time right now. Any Olympics I've seen has been after the fact on nbc.com, and there hasn't been much of that. Katie really liked the track bicycle racing for some odd reason, especially the Keiren where the moped drives around in front of the racers for a couple of laps, then dives into the infield while the sprinters go crazy for 2 laps.

I got out yesterday with Big Jim, Lanny, Ray, and Luke for a preview of the State road race course north of Avon. It's not my cup of tea, with a 150 foot high climb to the finish up a fairly steep hill. I seem to gas out after about 50 feet vertical (which is basically a power climb for me). Anyway, Ray and Big Jim flew up both of the hills in the race, and then we went back and did the finishing climb 2 more times just for laughs.

I've decided to line it up at the State RR next Saturday, even though my shoulder is only about 75% at this point. I'll try really hard to stay out of trouble, which for me is usually just the last 200 meters during the sprint. With the finish line at the top of a climb, I'll be out of the mix long before anyone starts sprinting. I'll probably go hard the first 2 laps to chase down attacks or whatever, then cruise in.

I'm really training for the last time trial of the year in Henderson on September 6. I'm not that great at TTs, but they're really hard, so I'm highly motivated to train well going into the fall. I've found that I have to trick myself into working out hard, or else I end up just pedaling around without sweating much, or worse yet, I don't get on the bike at all. The first and still most important reason I took up bike racing was to keep my training motivation high through the winter. There's nothing like fear of getting dropped in the first race of the spring to keep you riding and lifting all winter long.

With Katie home, I've been riding with the guys on Saturday mornings, which usually provides me with plenty of hard efforts on the bike, and then I've been riding 2 or 3 nights a week on the trainer after Katie goes to bed. That way I maximize time with her (and earn points with Soulmate), and also get to watch a little of the Olympics "live". It's actually nice to just sit around in this beautiful weather for once, instead of fretting about how I'm going to get a ride in.

Here are some photos from around the house:

This is Katie with her 4 month old cousin Noah. He outweighs her by 5 pounds or so (she is 13 months old now).

Here we are in our love seat swing--lotta luv here!
Katie loves this swing--I have the shoulder bursitis to prove it.

Three generations of July birthdays: Soulmate (July 20), Katie (the 1st), Grandpa (the 28th), and Soulmate's sister Sue (the 5th).

I'm Feeling Guilty...

2008-08-11T21:35:00.007-05:00

I haven't posted in I don't know how long. I'm right in the middle of the rush to see the ENT doc to get the tonsils out before school starts, and at the same time 4 of my 5 partners decided to take a week or two vacation, so I've been either on call, hospital rounds, or in the clinic for the past 2 weeks straight. I know, waa waa waa.

The rest of the time I've been hanging out with Katie and Soulmate. Katie is growing fast: she still has the gooshy sprinter thighs, but she's a lot taller than when we first got her. We've had to adjust the height of the shoulder harnesses in the carseat and the stroller to the next notch up. Same with the Baby Einstein Bouncer Seat.

She is standing with barely any assistance, and taking a few steps while grimly gripping my thumbs like her life depended on it. She still has no interest in crawling, and why should she? The princess gives her royal call and her loyal subjects come running to help her, carrying her wherever she pleases (or at least wherever they please). You have to admit, she's got it pretty good around here.

When Soulmate puts her on her tummy to strengthen her neck and back, and to practice crawling, it goes like this: on her tummy she goes; Soulmate steps back, holds out her arms, and calls "Katie, come here"; Katie then breaks into wails of anguish while pulling herself lamely forward with her elbows. Pippin the hairball stands next to her and licks her on the head. making her cry even harder, and finally, both dogs come and lay down on each side of her and look at Soulmate with the most baleful expressions, as if to say "can't you do something about all this racket? Don't you hear her? You're the one with opposable thumbs--do something!"

I did get out for a spirited 4 hour ride with Matt and Big Jim. I did a hard pull for 10 minutes or so trying to get motivated to do the Henderson TT on September 6. I have my new secret weapon coming, so I'm sure I'll be rocket-fast out there. Meanwhile, I've tentatively decided to line it up at the State Road Race a week from Saturday. It's a course I know well (I rode it on Saturday with Matt and Big Jim), and I figure I'll either drill it for 2 laps chasing attacks for the team, or sit in and wait for the finish and see if I'm ready to duke it out in the sprint yet.

Or maybe I'll just shoot out the back the first time up Tower hill and wander back to the Start/Finish and harrass everyone when they come by each lap. That sounds most likely (and the most fun). With Bagley sightings and Charles out of the sling and back on the bike, we may see the whole GS Masters team together yet this year. See you M35ers at the line.

Parting shot: the girls and I went shopping at the mall, and here's the result: cuteness cubed (as in cubic zirc). We had it done at Claire's, where Soulmate had hers pierced a few years back (quite a few years, actually). It's probably not the last time we'll shop at Claire's (and everywhere else in the mall for that matter). My VISA card is beginning to throb again...

Feelin' Groovy Fashion Show!

2008-08-03T17:19:00.010-05:00

A package arrived from Houston yesterday filled with fashions for Katie. Duchess described the creation of the tie-dyed clothes in her Hobby post from last month. Here they are modeled by the Princess herself. She is enthusiastic about all of them, and actually enjoyed the process of dressing and undressing for each photo. I suppose I should be worried about that somehow.

The non-psychedelic outfits are gifts from my Mom who unfortunately doesn't have access to internet, so I'll print this out and send it to her. Thanks to Duchess, Kooza, Scout, and Pops for the tie-dyes, and to Mom for the cute outfits.

This onesie has a dog and "all-American cutie" on the front. The dog is telling the truth.

Here is a tank top so Katie can fire her guns for us. Impressive pipes for this future Olympian.

Katie's doing aerobics in her jazzy gym shorts.

The hat is cute as heck, but only stayed on for about 5 seconds. This one will take some work I think.

The Country Club requires shirts with collars, but I don't know if the clubbers could tolerate this polo shirt.

Mom's first item is a onesie that says "Lil Sparkler".

This one is all about Monkey Business:

Silly Monkey!

Oh how well this fits the Princess.

Purple shorts: she's always wanted a pair, and she already owns a shirt that coordinates. An outfit--what more could a girl want?

A frilly summer dress, how like Grandma to pick it!

Pooh says "let's go pick something yummy for our picnic". How about tasteless green bean mush? Yum yum!

A Bicycle Built for Three and a Party

2008-08-02T22:17:00.006-05:00

I finally got the Burley Paso Doble freshened up enough to ride. I put brand new tires on it last fall but we never got out to ride it. Since my shoulder surgery in February, I didn't feel confident wrestling with the bike until recently. It really is like driving a semi with no power steering, and a weak shoulder is a real detriment. So, after installing the attachment for Katie's Chariot (for real--that's what her trailer is called) to the rear axle of the tandem, we set out for our first cycling triple threat.

Katie loves cycling (whew! my prayers were answered), so we set her up with her Camelbak (see my previous post with video footage) and some teething rings (3 down, only 17 to go! at least as far as baby teeth are concerned) and set off down the road. Soulmate looked back after a few minutes, and sure enough, Katie was fast asleep, head bobbing side to side with every bump.

We should have turned back after 30 minutes, but she looked so comfortable (if that's possible while sleeping in a semi-seated position with no neck support to speak of) that we pressed on to certain tragedy. Or at least that's what Katie wanted it to sound like when she woke up suddenly after an hour and a half and started crying inconsolably. We still had 30 minutes to go before we got home, so I decided to change my plans.

I had planned to ride leisurely with the family, which I had done up to this point in the ride, then I was going to go back out on my road bike and do 2 short time trial intervals as part of my training for my first (and last) race of the season, a time trial in early September. I finally got the OK from Bones, my orthopod, to race, and I thought I'd ease in with a time trial, which doesn't require riding in the peloton where crashes happen most often.

Back to the tragedy at hand: with Katie in full-throated cry in the Chariot, I worried that the County Child Protection Services people would follow us home and bust us, so I decided to combine my two 5-minute TT intervals into one long one, and get us home ASAP so I didn't lose my hearing and Katie didn't lose her voice. I got in a very good quality 10 minute interval well above my lactate threshold due to the very high motivation I had to finish the ride. Katie and my legs both survived the ordeal, and to celebrate, we attended the first birthday party of Yasmin, the daughter of one of my partners at the clinic.

As an aside, Yasmin's daddy is several years older than me, though her mommy is somewhat younger than Soulmate. As our daughters grow up together, they'll be able to trade stories about how senile their old man is getting. Neither one of us can retire, since the girls will still be in high school when we reach age 65. For all of you at my office who are already sick of me, good luck--you'll be seeing me around for a long, long time.

Anyway, the party was at Lake George's new community center and splash pad, so it was really fun. Katie loves having other kids around, and she really loves Yasmin. They were kissing and hugging each other like they've been girlfriends forever. Here are a couple of photos, more to come:

The "Hello Kitty" party hat is the first head covering of any kind that Katie has allowed on her head for more than 5 seconds. She left it on for the entire party, and looked disappointed when we took it off her head at home. I'm a little worried, because Hello Kitty is not one of my personal favorites as far as designer labels are concerned. I'm absolutely certain that Soulmate doesn't own a single item in that line. Oh well, we didn't have anything in purple or pink for 25 years, and those are the only colors Katie has in her extensive wardrobe. Change is good...

Whip It!

2008-07-27T22:21:00.003-05:00

This post hallmarks yet another gratuitous Cute Baby Video. I'm shameless, I know, but there seem to be a fair number of you out there who are also getting guilty pleasure watching these clips. Everybody has a right to giggle or coo once in a while, even if you're watching this on your iPhone from the cab of your 18-wheeler.

Katie is proving to be a chip off the old block, even if she didn't originate from this old block originally. Our family is known for its sweet tooth, and for good reason. None of us has ever knowingly passed up dessert. Tonight Soulmate and I were finishing the last of some wonderful strawberry shortcake kindly given to us by friends, and I put some extra Reddi-whip on Soulmate's.

Katie immediately demanded her fair share, with the following result:

I swear I'm not coaching her; we offer her a wide array of dining options including organic baby food from the health food aisle. She will eat almost anything you set in front of her (except fruit juice), but by far her favorites are pureed tater tot hotdish (thanks, Alice!) and DQ cookie dough blizzard (thanks, Soulmate!). In a pinch, though, Reddi-whip will do.

We just bought Katie a toothbrush today. It looks like she's going to need it.

Ow! Ooooh! Yowch!

2008-07-26T22:15:00.004-05:00

Here is the route Big Jim took us on today--4 hills, 4 hours, 77 miles, 19.2 mph average speed, max speed 46mph, 3500 feet of climbing, and 5,000 calories burned. I saw my maximum heart rate (181 beats per minute for anyone who cares) on 3 of the 4 hills. Big Jim likes to go uphill really fast. I was pleased that I stayed with the climbers on 3 of the 4 hills (Tower road climb is too long and steep for me, especially after 2 previous hard climbs).

I was even more pleased that Big Jim had invited Larry Foss from THE FIX Active Body Massage to do hour-long sports specific massages after the ride. There is an audible and visible difference between a sports specific massage and a girlie massage: in the latter you may hear oohs and aahs and see eyes gently closed and little smiles playing about the lips of the recipient. In the former you may hear short shrieks of pain or long wails or moans and eyes screwed tightly shut and a risus sardonicus as the therapist grinds out all the tight ligaments and spasmed muscles.

Once Larry was done with my legs I felt like I could go for another 4 hills in 4 hours. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not.

On an entirely different subject, a friend of ours shipped over to "Southwest Asia" a few weeks ago and happened to be posted to one of the bases visited by Senator Obama in his visit there last week. Our friend is in the media center of the base, and is in charge of publicity on the base, so she was integrally involved both in publicizing the Candidate's visit and in enforcing a mandatory ban on non-military press coverage. Yes, she talked to him and shook his hand. I have a picture of it but decided not to post it in the interests of national security.

Attention Katie addicts: we have installed a baby swing under the deck so Soulmate and I can get a backache pushing Katie in it all day long. Of course she loves it, though not as much as being lugged around constantly (she doesn't care for the baby bjorn anymore so it's all the hard way). Our only consolation is that this clingy stage will end as soon as she starts to crawl and walk, so we're making the most of the cuddle time, even if both of my shoulders (operated and unoperated) feel like the ball is out of the socket chronically.

Too Tired to Write

2008-07-25T23:15:00.003-05:00

Big Jim is taking a bunch of us around the 4 hour, 4 climb special tomorrow at 0730, and it's 2315 now, so I have about 8 hours until the pain starts. I haven't ridden seriously on a bike in 3 weeks, so I'll be suffering plenty. I have been bike commuting from home to work, then home for lunch and back, and finally home again for supper. A grand total of 40 minutes cruising the metrop on my Bianchi Cafe Racer. Life is good.

Big Jim has arranged hour-long massages after the big ride tomorrow. The soigneur is a former trainer for some pro cycling teams, so he'll know how to really dig into locked-up calf and thigh muscles. I've had these sweet painfests in France while climbing in the Alps. I can't wait--it hurts so good.

I don't have much for you Katie addicts tonight. I had a 2 hour play session this morning before shipping off to do surgery in the morning and clinic in the afternoon. I did get home for lunch, but the girls had just awakened from a late morning nap, so the mood was subdued or even a little cranky.

Soulmate took Katie to Riverside Park and was about to put her on the swings when Katie basically swooned into an hour-long nap in the grass (well, on the changing pad lying on the grass). I got the call to meet them at the Flower Garden after clinic, so I rode my Bianchi cruiser in my street clothes with my Timbuktoo laptop bag to the Flower park, ate an ice cream bar from the visitors' center (Soulmate fed half of hers to Katie), and walked home, me pushing the Bianchi and Soulmate the stroller.

Here's Katie demonstrating the various features of the Baby Einstein bouncer.

The Soap Opera Continues...

2008-07-23T23:31:00.003-05:00

I've come to understand that there are a certain number of fans of our little soap opera who are becoming impatient at the delay in posting recently. I must admit that work has gotten pretty busy, and when I'm not working I'd rather be playing with Katie and Soulmate than posting to Doc's Advice.

Past posts were easy because I was home (or in China) with Katie full time, so when she napped, I blogged. Now I actually have to ship off to the clinic and participate in a certain amount of professional activity before I get to come home and play, so posting has gone by the wayside.

Sunday was Soulmate's birthday (29th or some anniversary thereof), and when I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, I should have known based on our recent acquisition and passage to parenthood: all she asked for was a nap.

Katie and I did one better: we took her to church, then to the best brunch in town, then home. Leaving her to read the Sunday paper and nap, Katie and I set off on a bike ride. We made it about 10 minutes and Katie was fast asleep, so I took all the low traffic routes I could think of around town and managed an hour and forty minutes on the bike.

When we got back, we were both hot and tired, so we went swimming:

After "swimming" in our $5 Menards baby pool we woke Mommy up from her 3 hour nap and headed to Cold Stone Creamery for a birthday treat. Soulmate has been putting mission critical stuff from her purse into the diaper bag and leaving the purse at home of late. Unfortunately, she left her driver's license at home, or she would have gotten a free birthday concoction. The diaper bag failed us, costing me 5 bucks. I'm gonna stick to $2 blizzards from now on.

We like to hang around on the deck during the summer, since it's so beautiful outside in MN at this time (and so uncomfortable in the winter). We're just hanging out on the deck, but Katie puts on a little show while sitting on the table, then abruptly announces with her thumb that the show's over.

And she's right. See you next time I feel like posting...

Special Delivery

2008-07-18T22:56:00.001-05:00

Our friend Mike Shields has put together a 6 minute video review of Katie's homecoming reception at the airport. I think you'll like it.

That's it for today, because Katie is up and we need to go feed the goldfish...

Katie at the Pool Party

2008-07-17T21:30:00.002-05:00

As previously mentioned, our little Katie is quite the party girl. In addition to private all-nighters with Mommy (who has never been much of a party girl herself), she presided over a large group of admirers at the church picnic last Sunday afternoon. Here is a slide show from that party (thanks Donna M. for the photos):

OK, maybe it looks a little like a private party for Katie and I, but there really were about 200 people there. Donna seems just a captivated with Katie as we are.

This week she has received a number of visitors of all ages, but has definitely favored those of similar size to herself. Savanna and Annika came over yesterday, and Annika (who shares the July 1, 2007 birthdate with Katie) was a favorite. Katie, in a magnanimous show of goodwill and friendship, stuck her finger up Annika's nose, to which Annika resonded by sticking her own finger up the same nostril. As Soulmate and I have recently discovered, sharing mucus is the ultimate form of affection.

This afternoon Katie debued at the annual office pool party at Ron and Miki's house. She had never even seen a pool; she only recently tried 3 inches of water in the bathtub with Mommy. Despite an initial negative response, I used the "frog in a pot" technique to stealthily dip her deeper and deeper in the water until both of us were up to our necks and she was happily floating around:

Last night was another short one for me with 2 trips to the hospital and 3 calls after midnight, so I'm going to turn in early and hope the party girl has had enough for the night.

A Picture's worth a Thousand...

2008-07-16T22:39:00.003-05:00

My first week back has been very busy, and call last night and tonight have not been particularly kind to me. Katie has been waking up around 6 or 6:30 every morning, which is great since she's sleeping through the night now. However, since I was up late on call last night, early up with the earlybird princess, and now up again on call, I'm pretty beat.

My creativity for blogging is suffering under the circumstances, but fortunately, Katie has made blogging very simple. All I do is post a video of her doing something adorable (or not doing anything at all, but still looking adorable), and Voila! instant blog material. Think I'm kidding? This is all you're getting tonight, and you better enjoy it...

Biking for Katie

2008-07-15T23:58:00.004-05:00

My racing year ended in February when I discovered my torn left biceps and rotator cuff. Then I was forced off the bike entirely for 14 weeks after surgery, and finally suited up for my first training ride Memorial Day. What with a little side trip to China and a new hobby of watching Vesuvius erupt, I haven't had much time to train. I think my buddy Big Jim has given up on me entirely. I did promise him that 2009 training would start this Dec 1 as always, so he knows (and I know) that my racing career isn't over just yet.

For now, I have precious little to motivate me to train: if I don't race, I can't get dropped from the group, so what's the point of working so hard now? Still, there is the little problem of Dairy Queen: I'm addicted to the Chocolate X-treme blizzard with added thin mints (don't try it whatever you do or you'll end up spending your last dime on skid row or the equivalent--Cold Stone Creamery). I need something to motivate me to burn off all those empty calories, and I've found it.

I've always tried to bike commute to work when weather permits, and the weather we've had since we got back from China has been mighty fine. So now I ride to work in the morning (12 minutes), ride home for lunch, back to work and finally home in the evening. Sometimes after work Katie and I go through campus and down the trail and back for an extra 40 minute ride. That's almost 90 minutes on the bike!

Granted, I'm not doing lactate threshold intervals and climbing repeats at max heart rate. Most of the time I'm not even sweating, or if I am it's due to the heat and not my exertion level. Still, it's gotta be equivalent to at least a small-sized blizzard, huh? My weight remains 178 lb, which is my usual not-in-training weight, so as long as that doesn't get out of hand, next year's training won't require much catch-up to get back in racing shape.

What is it that so motivates me to ride back and forth for lunch and such? Take a look:

If you had such scintillating amusements every day, you'd ride home for lunch too.

Cute Katie Vids

2008-07-13T21:44:00.008-05:00

It's been a long week trying to help little Katie convert to Central Daylight Time. It really is like a religious conversion: after all the data and personal endorsements, in the end you have to choose what you are going to believe in. As far as CDT goes, Katie is still a skeptic. For now, she's going to sleep grudgingly at 8 or 9pm and waking up 2 or 3 times before she really goes into a deep sleep that lasts until 7am.

She is otherwise doing very well. She is a champion eater with a big appetite and no pickiness at all. Mount Vesuvius erupted a couple times earlier in the week, leaving a big clean up, but that's better than being bound up like she was last week. No fire on the mountain tonight.

Here are a couple of cute videos (I think so anyway). The first one is feedin' time, the second one defies succinct nomenclature, it's just entertaining:

I go back to work tomorrow, and my partners tell me it's hopping around the clinic right now, so I think I'll be hitting the road running. Katie has a little shock coming, since I've basically been in her field of view 24/7 since June 23. Tomorrow morning I have to make rounds at the hospital starting around 7:30, so our usual morning routine will be severely curtailed. I hope to make it home for lunch for a few minutes, and then back to work.

According to Soulmate, Katie will mostly miss the entertainment. Apparently, I'm her first choice for activities, but when it comes to meals or sleep, Soulmate is the choice. I can see her reasoning (if 12 month olds reason): I'm closer to Tigger and Soulmate is closer to Eyore. Soulmate is apparently a little boring during play time (I don't think so), and I'm a little too much at nap time or bedtime. So it goes.

Outside the Spacetime Continuum

2008-07-10T23:08:00.004-05:00

Einstein's 1905 theory of special relativity ushered in the concept of the Spacetime Continuum, that the universe has four dimensions, not three; that time slows down for objects traveling near the speed of light; that time is not constant but variable. I don't profess to understand a word of Einstein's writings, but I do know from recent experience that he was on to something.

Katie's time zone travel and subsequent resistance to a time zone shift represents a sort of time bend for us. Our life has seemed to be traveling near the speed of light ever since we left for China, so I shouldn't be surprised if time slows down on occasion. The source of the slowdown today was our attempt to take matters into our own hands and force poor little Katie to acquiesce to Central Daylight time.

As noted in previous posts, the little party girl has stayed up happily until 3am, smiling, laughing, and generally charming the socks off anything still awake at that hour. Then she sleeps until 1pm to get enough energy up to do it all over again. Soulmate has taken the brunt of these all-night raves, and she is pretty worn out.

So, on the advice of several wise friends, Soulmate got her to go to sleep last night at 1:30 (a minor victory in its own right), and I woke her up at 8am this morning. Then commenced a day of trying to keep her awake until 8pm, which we hope will be her regular bedtime. The first 2 hours were a breeze, but around 11am, she got pretty crabby. By continually altering her activities and keeping her moving, we succeeded in keeping her awake all day except for 2 fairly brief episodes of dozing in her car seat.

Sure enough, she was exhausted by 8 pm, and even a trip to DQ didn't faze her. She got a bath, a bottle, and a kiss and a prayer from daddy, and commenced to fall immediately into a deep sleep. I don't know if we've succeeded in breaking the Spacetime quandry or not, but the evidence so far is promising. The party girl is nowhere to be found.

Speaking of Einstein: it seems like everything written in conjuction with Einstein is confusing. One of our insomnia inducing forays today was to Target to get a sort of personal amusement park, and wouldn't you know it, it's produced (or at least endorsed) by Baby Einstein:

The assembly instructions (written in 3 languages for clarity) reads something like an essay on the theory of relativity. Once an Einstein, always an Einstein I guess.

A Hodgepodge

2008-07-09T00:55:00.006-05:00

I spent the morning trying to organize the photos and videos I took for our China trip to adopt Katie. It's quite a task, maybe a Sisyphean one. In the process, I've unearthed a couple of other pictures and videos from my cell phone that may be of at least passing interest.

Here is a video of the lobby of the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou:

This is a "jade" junk (Chinese sailing vessel), entirely hand carved at about 7 feet long by 6 feet high. I doubt it's actually made of jade, which by our shopping expedition proved it to be a very pricy stone, even for one the size and shape of a lifesaver. In any case, it's beautiful and intricate, and must have taken someone a year to carve.

By the way, a traditional Chinese first birthday gift (which of course we got for Katie) is in fact the above mentioned lifesaver shaped piece of jade. You tie a loop of red thread (red for good luck) around the jade and hang it around your baby's neck as a sign of good luck and long life (pretty much all the gifts given in China signify good luck, long life, and/or prosperity). Of course you take the jade necklace off almost as soon as you tie it on her neck, since a one year old isn't likely to leave such a pricy bauble around her neck for long.

Maybe Katie would though: one thing I've noticed about her is that she has a significant jewelery fetish, starting with the silver bracelet that the orphanage director gave her, and moving on to almost anything Soulmate or I happen to be wearing. I've worn this chain for almost 3 years, with a cross and 2 pendants to remind me of the three people I cherish most: God, Soulmate, and Katie.

Katie has obviously picked up on the meaning, since she can't keep her hands off the chain, even pulling it out of my shirt when she wants to play with it. Or maybe she just wants to add it to her growing collection.

I've noticed with growing discomfort that she is quite happy shopping. Soulmate, Katie, and I were running errands after Katie's doctor visit today, and she was a little fussy in the car seat. But going into Target, the bike shop, and T.J. Maxx she brightened up and began to "talk" a mile a minute. A shopaholic at age one--my VISA card is already throbbing.

Lunchtime is always fun. Today Katie discovered pureed prunes, and took an immediate liking to them, showing her pleasure by spreading them all over my shirt. Privately, I've always enjoyed prunes, but with their, er, reputation, I've never really consumed them publicly, not wanting to appear to have a certain, er, difficulty. Anyway, Katie doesn't have any of the same kind of squeamishness.

Here's Katie in the Chariot. We took our first real bike ride today, going for 40 minutes with nary a whimper. I think she's already dialed in to the whole biking thing, especially when she leaves the sweating to me.

The wind played havoc with the sound on this video (and the sound quality on my cell phone is marginal on a good day, but here we are on the Beaver Islands trail:

A Hard Day's Night

2008-07-07T21:35:00.005-05:00

Soulmate and I have had a shock course in night-time parenting. The ear infection wasn't a big deal, after all, I'm an ENT doc, so we didn't even have to endure a night visit to the ER like so many new parents. Even the teething issue is no big deal; Katie has such a sunny personality that we only deal with short bouts of teeth related crankiness.

No, it's the jet lag that's killing us. Specifically, it's Katie's slow move to Central Daylight Time that is killing us. Last night she finally drifted off at 2am. The night before it wasn't until 7am, and she then slept 10 hours straight. Before that it was 9am and 8 hours of sleep. The trouble is, we don't really know whether a particular sleep session is a nap or the real deal.

So we tend to try to "get stuff done" while she's sleeping, only to have her sleep all day after staying up playing all night. She's a true party girl: she's happy, smiling, and dancing at 3am. All this without any mind-altering drugs. Well, OK, Soulmate's cousin got us on to a homeopathic med for teething that's supposed to help your teething toddler go to her happy place. The thing is, Katie is almost always in her happy place already.

We've tried to heed the advice of other parents to sleep when she sleeps, but the lure of organizing, going riding, or blogging is just too great. Sometimes sleep just overcomes one of us while playing with her or (in this case) just waiting for dinner. The dogs have been angelic since Katie came home. Semper fidelis isn't just for the Marines, you know. Dogs have had it dialed from the first day they were domesticated. Or maybe Buddy and Pippin are just waiting for dinner.

Anyway, as I write this, Katie has been asleep for over an hour. It's now 9:50, so the big question is: nap or the real deal? We don't have anything to do in the morning besides sleep, so if it's just a nap, it'll be party time in another hour or so.

Oops, I hear a little voice over the monitor--guess the party's about to start!

Katie's First Ride

2008-07-05T20:32:00.003-05:00

For you gearheads yearning to hear something about bikes on this purportedly bike-oriented blog, today's your day. Katie experiences her first bike ride, albeit somewhat vicariously since she's happily ensconsed in a Chariot trailer. It didn't last long, partly because the helmet I bought last month is a little too generous in size, basically protecting not only her head, but her eyes, ears, nose, and larynx (almost).

N.B. I always wear a helmet while biking. Always. Except today, in solidarity with Katie. Once she has a good-fitting helmet (like tomorrow), we'll all three wear our helmets every time we ride bikes. It's just good sense. Or do I have to go into the gory details of helmetless bike crashes to convince you?

Oh, and by the way, just for the record: don't ever ride against traffic under any circumstances. I don't care what your Dad and teacher and gym coach said; it's just plain dumb. Oh yeah, also don't blast through stop lights and stop signs without stopping. You make all the road ragin' SUV pilots and glass-piped pickup jockeys turn all blotchy red and start making funny sounds, like they're having trouble breathing, and you make it hard for the rest of the biking world. Suffice it to say that when a pickup and a bike tangle, the bike always loses. 'Nuf said.

Earlier today and yesterday morning I rode with Big Jim, so my legs are a little fried. I was happy enough to take a couple of passes around the block with Katie, and then load her into the stroller for a short walk. She has to get used to all these restraining devices, like trailers, joggers, strollers, car seats, and for Pete's sake those grocery carts with a built-in kiddie seat. I confess I never once noticed them in a store until today, when Soulmate suggested we put Katie in one. We ended up taking her out right away and it just kept us from being able to put stuff in the cart. So much for modern conveniences.

Well, it's 4:30am, and we've been up for 3 or 4 hours. The smallest of the 3 of us is bright-eyed and bushy tailed, the other two are more of the bleary-eyed variety. There doesn't seem to be much movement on the time change thing. She is so cute and playful that it would be a really fun time if we'd slept the night. It's harder to be charmed to death when you're sleep-deprived. We were hoping to make an appearance at church, but it looks like we'll be sleeping in today...