Say What?

I went over 7000 miles on my bike this morning before work. I've slacked off some in the last couple months but I had a good week this past week. It was a beautiful day for riding. Most people might call it cool at 45 degrees when I left home but if you've got the proper clothing it's not bad. Anyway, I managed 51 miles this morning to get me to the 7000-mile mark before the month was over and that was my goal. Tammy, Rachel and I are getting psyched to see the David Crowder Band in a few weeks in St. Paul. They came out with a cd last year titled, Illuminate , which was excellent and just a few weeks ago they released another called, A Collision . There's so much good music on it but my favorite song is Do Not Move . It's got a bit of a techno feel to begin which I like but then it really rocks. They're playing with the Robbie Seay band and they too have got a very good cd they're touring with. It should be a lot of fun. Tammy and I are hoping to take ...

I got up early this morning and headed straight for the shower. As I stood there with the water falling over me my mind suddenly turned to New Orleans and for a moment I thought I must've been recalling a bad dream I'd just had. Those thoughts quickly passed and I could feel this pang develop in the pit of my stomach, once again. I don't think any of us who aren't directly involved with the nightmare which is New Orleans can begin to understand what they're living and dying through. I know I can't. The stories are so heartbreaking. I was watching Oprah yesterday and they showed a 25-year-old man hugging his 14-year-old dog and nuzzling its face. He would soon have to board a bus for some faraway place and leave his beloved companion, aged and scared to fend for itself and to say goodbye forever. I had tears in my eyes watching this as other dogs ran in and out of camera view having already been left to themselves. Finally, the producer of the segment interrupt...

What a desperate situation Katrina has created. I'm sure there are some good people who are reaching deep to help their fellow man but the stories which are having the biggest impact on me are the ones of looting and kicking your fellow man when he's down. I'm not referring to the people scrambling to try and feed their families. I'm thinking of people returning to homes to find them not only left in a shambles by Katrina but also picked over by looters. I can't say that this is any sort of low for humanity because it's not. I just need to see some stories which assure me that there is more good than bad occurring there amongst those who remained. Having said all that, the looting is such a minor occurrence in the scope of what the area has to contend with. It's no doubt a sickening response to a tragedy. The larger concerns are how do you reintegrate one million people who until the storm were contributing members of society and are now for the most part ...

I was to do a 200-mile ride with Silver Cyclists on Saturday but it didn't happen. I left home in the dark at 5:30am to make it to some guys home by 6. I found the neighborhood but couldn't find the house. They were leaving at 6 sharp so I decided to soft-pedal it south on Cedar ave and figured they'd eventually catch me. I got to Northfield 25 miles later and hung around at one of the main intersection expecting to see the group. Jeff Thompson showed up 5 minutes after I got there and we headed to the coffee shop expecting them to show up there any minute. 15 minutes later we figured they must've rolled through town and skipped the java knowing that they weren't going to get 200 miles in by sitting in a coffee shop. We headed out with hopes of catching them along the way. An hour later we were in Kenyon where we spoke with a couple other cyclists and they said they saw our group 30 minutes earlier about where I'd expect them to have been. They were probably les...

I've had 3 of the last 5 weeks off from work. It's been nice to be away. Tammy and Rachel were at the Sonshine Music Festival in Willmar, Mn for 3 days last week. I stayed home with the pups and spent some extra time on my bike. I managed to put in over 500 miles last week. I'm on track for 6000 miles by my birthday in late August—that's sort of been my goal—same as last year. I found a wallet on my ride yesterday. I was flying along country rd 46 at about 33 mph when I saw it laying on the shoulder. As I drove by it I could see a driver's license. I put the brakes on and circled back for it and put it in my jersey pocket to check it out when I got home. I had no idea what it contained other than the driver's license. It was loaded with cash—$286 worth as well as a credit card and some other IDs. I'm surprised nobody else had stopped to pick it up as the area was very busy with traffic. It had been run over several times. Tammy gave the owner a call and d...

US intelligence under Clinton was drastically cut. If the intelligence Bush used was bad you can look to Clinton to own a good deal of the blame for that. His administration was more concerned with prosecuting Bill Gates than they were the threats which really mattered to our country. It was also the Clinton administration which made regime change in Iraq a goal. Bush followed through and made that happen and he did it with the best intelligence information he had to work with. If you disagree with our invasion (I prefer to call it liberation) of Iraq for the purposes of regime change, is it also wrong that we had sanctions against Iraq? The sanctions only hurt the little people. Was it wrong for us to put any restrictions on Saddam at all? Did you ever believe there were WMD in Iraq and that more were being assembled? What happened to them? Everyone who was anyone in Washington was saying that Saddam had them and they needed to be taken out of his hands. Would it have been smarter f...

Happy birthday America! I'm back to work after being having a couple weeks off. I love my job and most everything about it but I really needed to spend some time away. We didn't plan any extravagant out of town trips this summer as we indulged ourselves a bit more than we planned on our basement project On my first day off we went to Valley Fair and had a blast. There were very few people there and most rides had little to no waiting. Power Tower here we come! I can't get enough of that ride. Tammy and Rachel love it too so that makes it triple the fun. Rachel brought her friend, Katrina along. Another ride we like a lot is Steel Venum..." steel venom is launching in 3...2...1... Scream!!! " Rachel and I posed for our annual caricature drawings . I think this is the 3rd year we've done this. We all thought hers was the best...very cute. While we were there I had a guy come up to me and ask me if my name was Kevin. I knew right away who it was: Frank Cob...