Say What?

For our getaway this summer we headed for the Black Hills of South Dakota. Tammy and I have been there twice together and we thought Rachel would enjoy the trip as well. We left Toby and Allie in the loving care of Jackie and Jerry’s family. I’m always a bit concerned when I pick them up after they’ve been at Jerry and Jackie’s for several days because I think they enjoy their house more. You can’t beat having a fenced-in backyard to run free in if you’re a dog. At our home, they can only sit by the back sliding door and dream of being outside. Maybe we should consider an invisible fence. On our way out of town, we stopped by Mom’s to show her the van we rented. Her flowers are looking very beautiful this year if you haven’t had a chance to see them. We were on our way a little after 1:00pm and had a reservation at the Radisson in Sioux Falls. Rachel makes some very cool lanyards from the array of threads she has. She’ll have us pick out a few colors and in no time she’s showing ...

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...