Say What?

Wow, what a trip. In planning for this ride, I figured I’d have only two weekends this summer when our schedules could come together to give it a go. The first of those two times came and went two weeks ago when a steady north wind kept me grounded. There’s no way I could have gone the distance into the wind, and what I was really hoping for was a stiff southwesterly breeze, but that wasn’t in the cards either. After looking at the wind forecast on Wednesday, I told Tammy that it looked as though we were looking at another no-go. I’d been watching the forecast the previous 5 days, and they consistently said to expect a light wind from the southeast. It wouldn’t be a headwind but wouldn’t be much help either. I came home from work on Thursday morning and looked at the forecast again, but it hadn’t changed. I got a couple hours of sleep, then woke up to work in the yard. Then, I decided I wouldn’t let the lack of a tailwind keep me from going…just so long as it wasn’t a headwind. I tol...

My vacation came to an end today. It was so nice to have the time away from work and a bit depressing to be going back but I reminded myself that I’m blessed to have such a good job. Rachel and I went to Valleyfair on Friday. We had a great time. I love that little one so much. It was a bit cool with the temp only in the 60s but that worked to our advantage as we only had to wait 5 minutes at the most for any ride we wanted. That sort of thing is unheard of when you’re talking about the Wild Thing, Power Tower or Steel Venom. We both got a bit creeped out on the red Power Tower. It’s the one which takes you up slowly and locks you in at the top for several seconds before shooting you back down. We’d both been on it at least a dozen times before but as Rachel says…you start to get the what-ifs when you get up there. It didn’t matter though because after a couple times of riding it we were old pros again…letting it all hang out by not hanging on. We did Steel Venom several times as wel...

I saw the movie with my wife tonight. The opening scene of the 2000 presidential election told you pretty much all you needed to know about what you were about to see. Michael Moore has never accepted that Gore lost the election and he will do anything in his power to see that Bush isn’t reelected. I don’t think you could call this a documentary as there is no balance to what you’re seeing. Let’s face it, there’s a whole lot of video of Bush out there and it isn’t very hard to find clips of him over the years which are unbecoming and then show them in a way so as to convey the image of a bumbling idiot. The film does a nice job of that I’ll agree. Moore begins to weave a complicated arrangement between the Saudis and the Bush family which either the president is overseeing or isn’t aware exists. I say that because it’s my understanding from listening to the left all these years that Bush isn’t really all that smart and so I suppose he’s incapable of such tangential thinking, the ki...

We lost our DSL connection at work a couple months ago and it seems my devotion to my blog went with it. Not that I was posting much but it really dried up to nothing. Anyway, I hope to begin writing with some regularity. I've been doing some long-distance riding this year in preparation for a single day ride from Lakeville to Tammy's parent's home in Babbitt, Mn—245 miles away. I've done several rides of 110 miles plus but yesterday I did my longest ride ever at 202 miles. I really didn't plan on going that far but when I reached 150 miles and still had 3 hours of daylight left, I figured, why not. I started out from home at 8:00am and headed out County Rd 5 into Burnsville. It was a beautiful day with a wind out of the southwest at 10 to 15 mph. I headed southwest on Hwy 13, past Valley Fair and into Shakopee. As I was waiting for the light in Shakopee I was thinking about how I love the flags at Perkins restaurants—how they're so majestic and so big. The ...

I got off work two hours early to battle the wind on the road...I won. It slowed me some but I had a blast. I even rode with a 60 year old guy, Cleve Pederson, from Minneapolis who was surprisingly strong. He rides around 11,000 per year which is remarkable when you consider our climate for half the year. I headed south on hwy3 and took that to Fairbault. It was very slow going with the winds at times gusting close to 30mph. I turned around with an average speed of 14.5mph. I turned and headed for home the same way I came. I was flying! I ran my speed up to 35mph at times in the flats and would hold that for half-mile stretches then would back off to about 27 mph, then hit it again. Still, the wind had taken its toll on me and as usual, you never gain as much from it as it takes from you. The day was much like the day 3 years ago when I rode past the turkey farm and hit the dog at around 38 mph. I rode by there today and thought I'd try and put out the same speed as I went by but...

I took yesterday off work. I needed a break. I went for a two-hour ride in the morning and took Rachel to the Mall of America in the afternoon to kick around for a bit. She enjoys going places with me and I feel so blessed that she still sees me as 'okay' to be with. She's nearly 13. She's such a good kid but try telling that to her dad. Actually, I did tell him that last weekend. He was riding her about how she seldom calls him and she was feeling bad about it. In reality, he's the one who could be spending more time with her but doesn't. When she goes to see him on the weekend she says they don't do anything. She watches tv mostly and he doesn't engage her in conversation. In a phone call to her last weekend, he mentioned that maybe he should ground her for not calling him. Yea, that's going to make her respect you. She says it wouldn't matter because she doesn't leave the apartment anyway so it's just like being grounded. As it turne...

Years ago I had a pet Cockatiel named Coocoo. She was a Cockatiel that Noy and I had bought when we first moved to Huron, South Dakota in the summer of 1983. This story takes place a couple years later. It was in April of '85 and one of the first warm days of the year. I was at work when I got a phone call from Noy. She was panicked because she had set the birdcage out on the deck and the wind had knocked it over and Coocoo got out. I raced home to find Coocoo still in the area, perched on a power line by our apartment. There was no way she was going to come back to me. The winds were blowing hard from the south and a cold front was bringing some very strong thunderstorms toward us. I remember seeing her fly from the power line and getting caught up in the winds which quickly took her out of sight. I felt so helpless as I really loved that little bird. I couldn't stand the thought of losing her, especially with the violent weather that was approaching. The storm was so sev...