Poop

I filled my truck with gas on Thursday. Exactly 53 days since the last time I filled the tank. On the day Hurricane Katrina hit I cruised to the local hadji-mart and paid $2.52 per. By the end of that week it was $3.39 per. When I filled my tank on Thursday it was $2.46 per. I gleefully missed all the gouging that took place. Nice.

My first ‘cross race was last Saturday. Also my first B race. It went well. 9th place. I suffered like a dog for the first couple laps. Just didn’t feel great at all. The start was a gradual rise on a dirt/stone road that got steeper about a minute into it. I started in the back. No bigggie only about 25 on line. I’m amazed at the gears some people choose to leave the line in. Regardless of where I start, but especially if I’m starting in the back, I want a gear that will get me haulin ass in a hurry. I use a 46-21 on starts and shift to the 19 pretty quick and go from there. So, about 20 seconds into it, I was hovering around 10th. That’s pretty much where I stayed. Some came back from the front and some went to the front from behind. I raced with a couple dudes but one in particular, who finished just ahead of me, I spent the entire race back and forth with. He was terrible in technical stuff. The barriers, cornering, single track stuff through the woods. I was faster in those spots. But this dude was strong as a mule on straights and the dirt road stuff. His strength was my weakness and vice versa. In the end I was pretty happy with a top ten. The winner was two minutes in front of me. Not bad. My next race will be Lower Allen. 2.5 miles from my humble abode. It’s where do my ‘cross workouts. I’d like to do well. It’s a MAC race so I’ll be racing 60 other ‘crossers instead of 25. Can’t wait.

Coach Hebe crossing the line

This dude was strong where he needed to be

Inflicting pain on eventual 4th place racer

Big Hink is getting married next Saturday. Of all the friends I have in this world, Mark has been there the longest. When I moved to East Berlin way back in second grade my mom rented a house from Mark’s parents. His parents also had a service station/garage behind the house so Mark and I would do what little boys do at that age. Terrorize the next-door neighbor. We called him Mr. Meanie. He would bitch at us if we set on toe nail on his yard. Hell, we had baseballs, kickballs, footballs, any ball you can think of in his yard at any given time. It was a real sense of adventure getting our stuff back. Anyway, good to see Mark and Phylis getting married. The “bach party will be a round of golf at the Dauphin Highlands across the river. Nice joint. I played there once. I haven’t “swung a club in anger” in two years. It will be fun to see how it goes. Hebe, I think you should come out of retirement and dust off your clubs.

It’s now, in my own mind, officially ri-god-damn-diculous how fast years are ticking off. I swear it was only a month ago that spring arrived. Now everything is dying and it’s getting cold again. Next week we turn the clocks back already. Shit. The winter blues won’t be far behind.
No mas.

Ramblings

Wow, Fall has arrived! It rained like hell the past two days. Today I rode to work in a pouring 67degree rain, doing a few hard seated efforts along the way. I’d rather do that than ride indoors. Nothing drives me up the wall and kills my spirit more than setting up indoors on a trainer. By the time 5pm rolled around it was still pouring but the temp dropped to 53degrees. The Legend offered to give me a ride home, (Thanks again for the offer, Coach) but, there is just something exhilarating about riding in weather that makes people question my sanity, or for that matter, my intelligence. Either way, the ride home was a great time.

Tonight we went in to NewCumb to Erin’s parents to watch a highly overrated Ohio State lose to an even more ridiculously overrated Penn State. Big Eleven football rots. No bigger collection of mediocre football teams that get more unwarranted pub and respect has ever been assembled. Needless to say, I despise PSU and root every week for the team playing PSU.

Once again, I know I’m in the vast minority in voicing my love for Hockey, but isn’t it great to have the NHL back. Seems to be a lot more goals being scored and ties have been eliminated. Gotta win in OT or a shootout now. Long overdue rule change IMHO.

My first ‘cross race will be next Saturday at Carlisle. It will be nice to “turn the pedals in anger” as Mrs. Legend’s favorite cycling announcer of all time would say. Should be a fairly low key event to shake out the cobwebs a bit. Perfect. I was talking to Coach Hebe earlier this week about training. In my mind after taking a week+1 off totally from exercising I feel like I’m waaay behind. Especially cardio. Tomorrow I will head over to the park for a structured workout. I can’t wait to see how I feel during and after.

GOODNIGHTNOW!

Showtime

Erin’s sis Emily dropped us off at HIA at 5AM. What a joy to not have to drive down to BWI. Not that BWI is a shitty airport but if I can be at HIA in less than 15min for a few $$ more. Why not? We landed in LV around 11AM/PST and was greeted by a taxi line of about 9000 people. I just about had a meltdown but the line moved quickly and we were at our hotel pretty quick.

I had slept about 3 hours the night before our flight mainly because I stayed up to watch the Phillies lose 6-5 after leading 5-2 in the 8th. Aholes. Put me in a grumpy mood. Cost them a trip to the playoffs. At any rate, when we got to the hotel I was spent. I wanted to go check things out but I had to take a nap. So I did. We stayed at Circus, Circus the first two nights. Not a bad place. More on that later.
The main mission on day two of the Las Vegas trip was to hit Interbike in search of cool schwag and to see new goodies. It did not disappoint. I could have spent at least another half day at the show. More crap on display than I expected. We chatted with Phil about Harrisburg/Hershey which he remembered from the Tour DuPont days. Got an autograph from him on a couple copies of Mike & The Bike. We also got Magnus Backstedt to sign a poster and pose for a pic. He’s tall but not as huge as I expected. I guess he is a roadie after all. Not like he could be as big as Shaq-Fu. Erin also got Levi Leipheimer and Gord Fraser to sign some goods while I was off on shop business. I think Erin had more fun than I did. She had a blast.

Thursday morning we picked up our rental car first thing and hit the high desert road in the direction of Sunny San Diego. I love SD. I always wanted to drive through the desert southwest. Now that I’ve done it I can say without a doubt that I never want to do it again. It only took us 4½hrs to get to SD. Roughly 335 miles in 270 minutes. Do the math. But the first 2½hrs were brutally tedious. Mentally exhausting. If you look at the picture you can see the road in front of you and swear that you’d crest a mountain or pass a town, all in plain view right in front of you, and it would take forever to actually crest that mountain or pass that town. After hours of that I was gassed. And the road signs were telling me I still had over 100 miles to SD. Admittedly the scenery got a little better once we blew through Riverside, CA and further south into SD County. By that point I could already taste the fish tacos or the carne asada.

We hit SD and immediately went to Ocean Beach for some grub. Then cruised over to Coronado and hooked up with our gracious and terminally hyper host, Glen, at the Island Saloon for a couple Pacificos. Then back to his crib where his wonderful wife, Lupe, had more food for us. Steak, taties, and corn. Mmmmm. I couldn’t finish it but it was tastey.
Friday in SD. Back to Coronado for breakfast and then a ferry ride across SD Bay to the USS Midway, A monster aircraft carrier that has be decommissioned and turned into a floating museum. This was one of the things I definitely wanted to do on our trip. We spent 3hrs checking it out. I’m amazed at the sheer mass of this ship. How small the sleeping quarters/bunks are. The tiny little rooms here and there. No wasted space anywhere. 4500 Navy personnel called it home at any given time. Erin’s dad spent time on a ship during the Vietnam War. I think we both took something from our tour of the Midway. The deck was full of jets, planes, and choppers from its era. Pretty cool. I was fascinated by the ridiculous amount of trust a pilot had to have on his own skills and instincts as well as a number of other people on the flight deck just to land. Nutty stuff.
Friday night back to Coronado to the Hotel Del Coronado for dinner. Top shelf stuff here, friends. Maybe next time I’ll spend a weeks pay just to spend the night there but this time dinner would have to do. The marine layer hanging over the coast all day crept inland as the sun was going down. Basically it was sunny in SD but as soon as we crossed the bridge into Coronado halfway down Orange Ave we drove into a thick bank of fog. It would have been nice to see the sun set over the Pacific but we had a nice time anyway.

Saturday we had breakfast in Pacific Beach. Best breakfast of the trip. I had an omelet with all sorts of wonderful veggies and meats. Then we hit OB again for an afternoon sunning at the beach. We took a swim. The water was a bit chilly but saltwater does seem to have a therapeutic nature t it. Then I proceeded to burn the hell out of my pastey belly which doesn’t get sun while I ride all summer. The main event Saturday eve was a trip to Petco Park downtown for a Padres game. Dinner at Chuey’s in Barrio Logan and then a quick trolley ride to the ballpark. What a beautiful stadium. Padres lost but they did have a killer 20 minute fireworks display after the game.

Sunday morning after thanking Glen for putting up with us we were on our way back to LV. 335miles in 255 minutes on our return trip. Good stuff. Once back in LV we checked into Excalibur which is on the opposite end of The Strip. What a HUGE difference. Not that I minded Circus, Circus but on the south end it’s a completely different cookie. You’ll spend a little more but you can see where that extra moola goes. We had lunch in the Luxor(where Mr &Mrs Legend hang) which is connected too and situated between Excalibur and Mandalay Bay. Nice. Luxor is the one shaped like a pyramid. If I ever do go to LV again I will stay there. After lunch we cruised The Strip to do some sightseeing and some shopping. I saw Elvis but he wasn’t signing autographs. Weird thing was it was a skinny Elvis in the fat Elvis get-up.


Back to the hotel for a short nap before a 3:30AM trip to the airport. Monday was spent either in a plane or in an airport. Home by 7:00PM. Long day in the saddle. In summary. LV was exactly what I thought it would be. It didn’t exceed nor did it fall short of my expectations. I’d go back. The Wifey would have to know ahead of time that I’d spend an ENTIRE day in one of the casinos sportsbook. A sports junkies heaven. SD was fun as it always is. I’m never disappointed there. Other than the fog bank we drove into we had great weather the whole trip. And after the fact I realized that Erin and I were never separated the entire trip with the exception of approx 30 minutes. We really had a great time.

Erin double-fisting $8 a cone ice cream at the Billagio. It was damn good ice cream.

More later

Just one of a few celebs we saw from the cycling industry. Phil is a friendly dude. Nice guy. Despite what Mrs Legend says.

Quick Update

What a great time The Wifey and I had out West. Lots of sun and fun. I’ll post a couple pics and a full summary shortly. When I feel less lazy. I didn’t exercise for 8 DAYS! That was the only sucky thing about the trip. I guess we did walk miles every day but that doesn’t count, does it? My heart rate never left double digits. Now it’s back to the drawing board.

It felt strange getting on my bike Tuesday morning to ride to work. After a couple days now I feel my legs coming back. I got out this morning and felt good. Fairly easy ride but I was comfortable. This weekend I’ll step it up another notch.

Flyers lost last night. Aholes. Just prolonging the sting of the Phillies missing the playoffs by one game.

Domestic chores/scams

As it is my day off and I have a small list of chores from The Wifey to get done, I am reminded again of the complete and utter stupidness of a dishwasher. What follows is an excerpt from an email sent to me this morning by the lovely and beautiful Wifey. “Also could you load the dishes, scrub off the grime first andclean the beasts box, thanks I love you have a good day! love, wifey” OK, two things here. First, before I get to the dishwasher, let me explain “the beast” The Beast is only one of our terms of affection for little Elwood. He also responds to Elmer, El, Ebert, Rodent……and The Beast. Or if he’s hungry, which seems to be all the time, he’ll respond to really anything you want to call him. He’s a good little animal. I advocate owning a cat. Lotsa fun.

Now, on to the dishwasher foolishness. I again refer to the The Wifey’s email. Load the dishes, scrub off the grime first. ????? Am I the only one who doesn’t get it? As I’m loading the dishes I’m instructed to clean them first BEFORE inserting. What’s the point? I found myself cleaning them but stopping just short of totally clean just so I could still load a dirty dish. If you can’t load a dirty dish into the dishwasher without some “pre”cleaning, why bother? Just spend the extra two seconds and just totally clean the dish and be done. I’ll never get it. Scholars have tried to explain it to me but I’m too Dunce to comprehend. Sorta like straightening your bed after you sleep in it. If you’re just going to sleep in it again the following evening, again, what’s the point? Funny thing about that is BedSheet scientists have discovered that those little bed critters that feast on your dead skin while you sleep become MORE prevalent when you DO straighten the bed. And yet, the beat goes on.

Makes you want to launder the bed sheets, huh?

Ass Monkeys

I just got finished with today’s workout. Today I finally did a ‘cross specific workout. I had the Giant in full race trim and rode over to the LA Park to do some hard lap intervals. I did 1 hard then 1 easy, 4 times. I felt sorta crappy but I rode the course as close to last years race as possible. Lap times were consistent, about 8 minutes per-including starts each time. I was encouraged mainly because I think it’s a little faster than last year and I’ve only really started to do specific training 2½ weeks ago. Hopefully I can knock a little more off those lap times. I felt crappy probably because my average heart rate per lap was 95% of my max. The course itself was VERY dry(fast!). And I was riding it alone. What to make of it all?

Vegas/San Diego in less than two weeks! Wow, that’s soon. I can’t wait. I’ve made a few appointments with some of our bike reps to go through the ’06 bikes. Should be fun.

I’m fully aware that approx 5 people read this blog, but is it asking too much to tell me who you are when you leave a comment? Or at least start your own damn blog and let me comment anonymously. Now I know by saying that, all 5 of you will leave anonymous comments. I just need to figure out who says what. Clowns!

Hello Wilbur

For lack of nothing else exciting happening other than a fantastically unmotivated yet very productive training ride today maybe I should ramble about nonsensical crap. I briefly caught a few minutes of a travel program on PBS-HD tonight. It’s a cool show on every night at 7:30pm and deals only with travel in Europe. Every night a different small region of any given country. Spain, Italy, Switzerland, France, Croatia. Croatia?? Yep. Tonight’s show was on Croatia. I must confess my thoughts of Croatia before watching tonight’s program was a Croats v Serbs Holy War-torn hole-in-the-ground. What I saw was beautiful coastal towns and islands from a country I would never have given a second thought. Tons of tourists visit this place. It’s just across the Adriatic from Italy. A country I’d love to visit. I’m not saying Croatia would be second on my list. I guess my point is How big/small is this world we live. How many people don’t leave York County, PA? Ever. Or don’t cross state lines, in their entire life? I’ve always loved the idea of traveling. Even if I never seem to do it. I think hoping in a jet and landing 6hrs later on the west coast is fascinating. Isn’t it crazy to think, in the grand scale of time, it was only roughly 100 years ago that the airplane was invented? As Uncle Jack would say, “I got socks older than that!”

So I think of all the places I’ve dreamed of going. And why I haven’t been there or what’s holding me back now. Mexico. Central America-Costa Rica, Belize. South America-Brazil, Argentina, Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego(the end of the road). Europe(see above)-Portugal, Germany, Belgium. Why not Asia too? Nepal, Japan, Hong Kong. Not to mention Australia & New Zealand. Fiji. Tahiti. PNG. The funny thing about all those places is I haven’t even mentioned Alaska, PacNorWest, Montana, NoCal, AZ, TX, CO, WY……blah, blah, blah. The list goes on. That’s a lot of travel. How could I possibly see all that? I only get two weeks vacation a year. Maybe I’ll just become a slacker and not work anymore. Give up my cushy bike job and travel the world. The Wifey can support my trips, eh Wifey? Didn’t think so. I want to take her along. So I’m back to my quandary. Old people travel. Not all, but some. Do I need to wait ‘til I’m old? Will I ever make it to old? Existentialism at work. Do I just need to watch PBS-HD and pretend I’m there? Maybe lottery tickets should be a part of my life. Maybe I’ll just take baby steps and travel to Carlisle Sunday to partake in some good ‘cross practice.

As nice as today was I could not get my ass in gear and start my ride. 30 minutes in I still felt uninterested. So I started a 20 minute “interval” and felt really good while doing it. Pushed it harder than Coach told me to, even after he told me to resist the temptation to do so. 10 minutes rest was actually 6(shh…don’t tell Mike) and another 22 minute “interval” pushed harder than prescribed. Mind you, we’re not talking fullgas here but I was 7-10bpm off of race pace and felt great doing it. 41 miles in total today after not having the motivation to even get started. Not a bad day, I guess.

Raiders are on. Losing but not looking terrible doing it. Football on the double nickel. Phillies are tanking, again. Penn State barely gets over on South Florida?? I root for whoever plays PSU. Hockey less than a month away. ‘Cross in less than 3 weeks. Fall is here.

GoodNightNow! ‘Sup Josh?

Birthday party throwdown

Sunday afternoon we cruised over to Mike & Amy’s for a birthday party/crabfeast. Those little buggers are tastey. Shame they’re such a pain in the ass to eat. Steve made some of the famous pinwheels. Awesome. Pasta salad was yummy. Beer was great.

Later we had a DQ Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard ice cream cake. Wow! The thing weighed 19 pounds. My piece alone, that is.

In between crabs and cake we had a croquet smackdown. I DOMINATED the action from the start with a ridiculous display of talent and skill. I’m sure backyard croquet has rarely seen such a high level of performance, if ever. However, in games of chance, where the brightest star doesn’t always finish first, an unfortunate act of cowardice won the event. Very similar to winning The Singlespeed Worlds race but losing the silly go-cart thing afterwards, I was left an empty and broken warrior with nothing. I sucked on my sour grapes and refused to play game two. It was as much fun to watch. Mike’s neighbor Bob took my place and was launching people to the moon.

That’s Mike after Bob sent him halfway to Goldsboro. Funniest thing I saw all night.
Group photo of the croquet smackdown. The big man(Steve) in the center with the white t-shirt and the skirt won using questionable girlie-man-run-and-hide tactics. Despicable!
Lead play-by-play commentator and gracious host of the day’s events. Mrs. Legend.

In the end, a super fun afternoon/evening. Thanks Mike & Amy and happy b-day to Mike(38?!) and The Wifey(27).

Surprise! err...

And for the big surprise. Erin's b-day gift. A glass cook-top range. She never expected this at all. Although she did mess up my plans a little by coming home from work early on Friday. I was walking circles in the yard mowing the grass and never saw her pull in the driveway and go inside the house. So I missed her reaction to her new toy, but she loved it anyway. I'm sure I'll use it a bunch too.

Happy Birthday to you.....

Erin turns 27 next Monday. She has NO idea what I bought her. I won’t give her any hints either. She’s going to love it though. No doubt in my mind. Can’ wait.

Glen and Lupe

Erin and I cruised down to York last night to hang with Glen and Lupe. Glen married off his daughter Sunday without a hitch. He wanted to get some hardshell crabs to stuff himself with. Can’t get those Maryland blue crabs in San Diego. We went to a place called Kelly’s. OK place. The rest of Glen’s family was there. His Dad, Bro, Sis and their families. They’re all from SD so it was kind of a last night in PA celebration. Or a thank god we’re going back to SD celebration more like it. We had a lot of fun and a lot of laughs. Glen is as funny as always. You can tell being married to Lupe has affected him in all the right ways. Lupe is a class act and a tough chick to settle his ass down. Love ‘em both. Can’t wait to see that whole gang again in a few weeks. We didn’t have any crabs because this Sunday we’re scheduled to power some hardshells down at Mike & Amy’s. I don’t want to ruin my appetite for the little fellas.

Sano como un Caballo

Last Thursday I made a visit to the doctor’s office for a routine physical, my first in17yrs(half my life ago). I wanted to get my cholesterol checked as well as blood sugar and homocysteine levels looked at. Cholesterol is obvious. Are my arteries clogged? Is my heart going to explode? The blood sugar test would tell me if I’m at risk for diabetes. That would suck. Homocysteine is an amino acid in the blood which, if levels are high, can lead to coronary disease or stroke. Both of which also would suck.

First thing I did was stop eating the night before the visit. Fasting. That sucked. I don’t get home from work until 8:15. I couldn’t eat after 9pm. So I crammed down my usual post work snack goodies quick and drank a bunch of water after 9. I couldn’t eat breakfast the next morning either. So I get to the office and the doc wants to weigh and measure my height. 147lbs and 5’7”. You read that right. Five feet, seven inches! Insert smart-ass remarks at your leisure.

Then the doc sits me down and asks me why I’m there. Huh? I was a bit confused but she explained that men my age don’t just walk into the doc’s office unless something is wrong. Otherwise, they just don’t come in. Made sense. Afterall, without the nagging of my beautiful wife, Erin, I wouldn’t have been there. Once my intentions were clear Doc took my pulse, listened to my heart, poked and prodded a bit and that was that. She split, the nurse came in and took my blood and I was out the door. 30 minute ordeal. Easy stuff.

Today I got the results from the tests in the mail. Seems as though all is well. A chart to make sense of all these numbers http://wellness.byu.edu/screenings/cholesterol.php . Total cholesterol is 166. Over 200 is bad. Under 150 is supergood. HDL was 55. Below 45 is bad. Above 60 is phenomenal. LDL is 88. Above 130 is bad. Under 100 is mucho grande. I aced the LDL’s. Triglycerides was 113. Above 150 is bad. Below 100 is fantastic. Blood sugar was 75. Normal range is 70 to 100. Over 100 is considered prediabetic. Over 125 and you are diabetic. Looks like I aced this one too. Last but not least. Homocysteine was 6.9. Over 10 is not good. Over 12 is bad. Sweet. Looks like no worries.
I eat pretty well. Usually a couple bowls of Total in the AM. Red or green tea when I get to work. A yogurt. Sometimes an apple. Always a banana with kiwi and mango all diced up in the afternoon. The guys at work are probably sick of my daily fruit rituals. A little later I’ll have a Hershey’s chocolate bar and a handful of cashews. Love cashews. Chocolate makes ‘em taste even better. Usually dinner(lunch?) is a veggie burger and a can of baked beans. Somedays I’ll get sick of eating this suff all the time but for now all this stuff tastes so good. I can’t stop eating it. I eat like crap when I get home but I’ve eaten so well up to that point that I reward myself with pretzels or chips/salsa and sometimes cookies & cream sneaks in there. Italian ice. Aaaahh. Now it’s Erin’s turn to get her blood tested. My turn to nag. Speaking of which. Erin is up to 739 miles for the year on her road sled. We rode together Sunday for 30 miles and I must say I was impressed. She’s definitely getting faster.

Monday, August 22nd

For those of us who like to look at local cycling results, did you ever notice that some promoters get stuff up real quick and others take days. With today’s cutting edge tech why should it take any more than a few hours. Just a peeve.

I bought little DJ a new bike a couple days ago and gave it to him last night. He’s 7yrs old now. Hard to believe. He’s on a 20” bmx bike now. He wanted to do tricks and jumps so he’s got the right rig for it now. He seems to have pretty good balance for a little punk. Maybe a future ‘crosser. I’ll work on that.

I went shopping Saturday night with Erin after work. I’ve been wanting a new cell phone. Picked up a Motorola V551. Nice little phone. It’s a flipper w/ a built in camera. I gave Erin my old Nokia because she hated her Sony Ericsson. Too small and hard to navigate it’s features. Now everyone seems to be happy.
I rode about 100minutes yesterday in the morning while it was still warm and humid. By the afternoon it cleared out nicely but still hot. No humidity though. Just in time for me to mow the yard. Joy. Made a huge difference. The rest of the week looks awesome. Maybe drive-ins this weekend?

mmmmmmm....Beeer

Nate has a blog he put together some time ago. He’s over in Spain so it’s really the only way to see what’s happening over in his neck of the woods. Check out his blog http://thenateblog.blogspot.com/. He found a picture of Bohemia Beer. Mexican’s can really make a fine beer. All of them are NOT named Corona. Most of my visits to MX have been to the northern parts of Baja while out visiting SD. I did go to Puerto Vallarta for our honeymoon. So, keeping in mind my exposure to this matter is somewhat limited, I’ve noticed that Mexicans don’t even drink Corona. Sure they’ll sell it to us gringos but you won’t catch them drinking that crap. Find yourself a Pacifico or a SOL or the aforementioned Bohemia. All stellar choices. My fave is Pacifico. Bohemia is tough to find in the US.
Speaking of Puerto Vallarta(PV). If your ever down in those parts do yourself a favor and forego the big fancy all-inclusive resort type joints and find a B&B. erin and I stayed in a place called Casa Amorita. Centrally located in the downtown or oldtown area of PV. I imagine most people who visit PV stay in a big resort north of town and never get to see the cobblestone streets and eat in the many neighborhood bars or family owned restaurants. What a beautiful part of the world. Check out the B&B http://www.casaamorita.com/. The place is run by a 50ish woman named Rita Love(wonder where she came up with naming her place Amorita?) who was super friendly. I’d enjoy visiting PV again someday.

Therapy

There is just something soothing about a rainy cool morning. Perhaps it’s knowing I don’t feel as though I MUST go out and ride an hour before work. Two more weeks and we cut our hours at work back to 7pm closing time. It’s only an hour but it makes a huge difference.

I may be one of a dozen or so people to truly be excited by this but Hockey got their act together and will start a new season October 5th. The Flyers have made some pretty nice moves to put themselves in a great position to dominate. Although anyone who knows anything about Philly sports knows that you can’t celebrate BEFORE the season starts. Phillies, Flyers, Sixers, Eagles. In fact the reason I’m a Raiders fan today is because way back in 1980 the Eagles went to the Super Bowl to take on the mighty Raiders. I was in 4th grade and loved the Eagles. The freakin Raiders crushed them poor little Eagles. I was devastated. I went to bed and cried. I swore I’d never let a team let me down like that again. So at that point in time, my only logical course of action was to root for the champs, The Raiders. Not that they accomplished a whole hell of a lot since then either. Anyway, hockey. Mark it on your calender. 10/5/05. Flyers v. Rangers. HiDef.

Priceless

Moss admits smoking marijuana since entering NFL
Associated Press
NEW YORK -- Oakland Raiders receiver Randy Moss admits he has used marijuana since entering the NFL seven years ago and still smokes it "every blue moon."

As a Raider fan, I can't wait for this season to get underway. It should be a helluva year with this clown on the feild. And by clown, I mean an incredible football player and an even better entertainer.

Little did we know......

Another funny old pic. Halloween 2000. Me, Mike, Amy, and The Future Mrs. Kessel. She didn't know it yet, but she would marry me 2 1/2 years later. My magic was working well that night. Check out Ragedy Ann & Andy.

New Holmes Unis

Way back in the beginning of the year I started the task of creating a new Holmes’ Cycling jersey and short for the masses to wear. We used Garneau for the actual garments which turned out fantastic. My original plan was to approach the local Market Street businesses to see about logo placement/sponsorship type stuff but not a single one was interested. We weren’t even asking for a big commitment. Losers. So plan B was customers with business and that worked much better. We signed up an eye doctor, a realtor, and EDS. Along with them we got Giant, Trek, and Serotta on board as well. The end result is a pretty sharp jersey. Orange and navy blue. Bibshorts kick ass. I’d especially like to thank TeamPete/ReMAX for stepping up big time to buy the prime sleeves/ass logo spots which are primo. Although he’ll have to forgive me for cutting the sleeves out of my jersey. Just too damn hot this summer for sleeves. I’ll wear sleeves this Fall. Look for the Holmes team uni at the rear of a ‘cross field near you shortly.

Which brings me to my gripe of the day. Hebe called me yesterday to inform me that I will NOT be racing 35+ this fall. The way age is calculated was changed from last year. Now my race age as of January 1st 2006 is what I go by. Which means I’m no longer 35. I’m 34. No biggie.
Today was such a beautiful day. 85 and low humidity. Not much wind. I put in almost 3hrs. mostly flat stuff but I did do the Whiskey Springs climb which is always a good time. Now I feel as though I need to lay down in the hammock and nap. Later.

Old Pics

Flaze, Eric, Me, Mike, Steve

Mike, Eric, Me, Steve

Years ago we gathered at Mike and Eric's mom's place for July 4th festivities. To add to the fun we worked a theme into the mix a couple of the years. These pictures are the incriminating evidence.