Apparently I’m addicted to golf lately. Maybe it has something to do with Tiger Woods being at the top of his game and making it fun to watch.
Anyway, it’s been a while since I’ve written anything and though I’ve had a real desire to post for some time now I have no idea what to write about.
So I think I’ll just leave this short and sweet for now, maybe I’ll have something to write in another day or so.
Goodbye for now, world.
I’ve written a lot about cycling because it’s something I do and it’s something that I’m passionate about. I’ve also written a lot about MonteSano and Bankhead Pkwy in particular. In 2003 when things weren’t going so well in my life and I wasn’t really happy, Bankhead was the place I would go ride to clear my head. I’ve also written a lot about pain having that effect. During that summer and park of the winter I lost a ton of weight, I was down to 255 lbs and I was getting pretty fast on my bike, but Bankhead still exacted a heavy toll on my body. I think no matter how strong you are there’s just something about pulling that kind of weight up nearly 900 vertical feet in 4 miles.
I remember a long time ago back in 2000 when I was trying to train for Bike South 2000 I would get Joan to meet me at the top of the Mountain, she was always proud that I could ride to the top, but during that time I was never actually able to ride the entire climb without putting my foot down.
In 2003 when I got down to 255 I was actually able to climb the entire lenght of bankhead without stopping.
After things settled down in 2003 and life got back to normal I started gaining weight again and I got back out of shape. At the time of Sarah and my wedding last year I was back up to 286 just 10 lbs shy of my all time high. It would be 2005 before I was able to come close to climbing Bankhead again, but I couldn’t do it. I would ride most of it but I would turn around shy of the top telling myself that I would not allow myself the fun of the descent if I had to put my foot down and catch my breath.
I work my ass off over the winter, literally and figuratively and by Christmas I was back down to 266. I struggled to maintain that weight as I changed my body. I climbed Bankhead again for the first time early this spring and it felt pretty good but it was a matter of finally being back to the form that I had in 2003.
Today, I broke a barrier that I never thought would be possible. I climbed Bankhead, I staid in control and probably climbed it as fast as I’ve ever climbed it. I road down to the bottom and then here’s where the barrier broke, I turned around and did it again. In 2000 I couldn’t climb Bankhead without stopping, today I did it twice!
I don’t know why this is such a big deal, but it is. How much time does a motorist lose by having to pass a cyclist? 10 secs? 30 secs? Can that time be made up? Is that time essentially negated because you’re going to get stopped at the light anyway?
People are in such a hurry to do everything these days that they are the ones that put people at risk, they are the ones that endanger cyclists, runners, walkers anyone on the side of the road trying to improve their health.
On the other side of the coin, why must cyclists antagonize the already upset motorist? People that ride two abreast on a 2-lane road are giving cyclist a bad name. They’re doing it in the name of sharing the road, but is that really sharing the road.
Don’t be in such a hurry and be considerate of others. Why is that so hard?
Well, here’s what’s going on.
Spending my last week ever in Pasadena. Unless I have to come out here for an actual design review meeting, I don’t see me ever coming back out here. There will be someone in this position for 120 days starting next week and then the permanent guy will be out here after that. Too bad I could be paid what they’re paying him. This position is a GS-14 position. To give you an idea, I’m a GS-12 currently and there is about $10k per year per grade difference. In other words I should have been making some extra coin while I was out here. Alas, I just take home per diem. That said I’m using that per diem to make my life a little less boring while I’m waiting to leave tonight. (Opie, this one’s for you. I’ll explain later.) Anyway, I bought a ticket to go watch the L.A. Kings play the Dallas Stars tonight. Since my plane doesn’t leave until 11:55, I’ve already checked out of the hotel and I have to (Oh I’ll be so sad to leave this office) leave the office at 5:00 I needed something to do to kill time. I could have gone to a nice restaurant and had dinner, but for the cost of a nice meal I got a ticket to tonights game. A little extra, well maybe a lot extra, and I’ll have a couple of hot dogs and watch the Stars pound the Kings. That said while I’m enjoying eating my dogs and watching the Stars pound the Kings, I’ll have to keep my trap shut since I’ll be cheering against the home team. Should be fun and a nice waste of time.
So, why is it that my plane leaves at 11:55 P.M.? Well, there’s this Red Headed Opie Looking MF with Facial Hair (RHOLMFw/FH) who’s getting married to his Red Headed Opie’s Wife Looking Woman (RHOWLW) this weekend. Since I was honored by being asked to be in the wedding between the RHOLMFw/FH and the RHOWLW I am required to be at the wedding rehearsal to be held Friday evening. When I was asked to travel to L.A. for the week, I knew that I would be able to fly home on Friday and I knew there was a flight that left LAX at 6:00 A.M. and would get me back to Huntsvegas at about 3:00 leaving me plenty of time to pick up the tux and head towards lovely Corner, AL (Yes! You read that right. Corner, AL) for the rehearsal. However, since the Project Manager waited until the last minute to ask me to go and then waited even longer to get the orders process, all the flights were sold out. The only flight they could get me on was one that put me back in Huntsville at 9:00 P.M. on Friday. While I’m sure the RHOLMFw/FH would totally understand this problem, I’m thinking that the RHOWLW would take serious offense to be not being at the rehearsal. So in an effort to not have my nuts in a sling (beware the wrath of a red headed woman) I decided to take the red-eye. I may not look so hot in the pictures, but atleast I won’t screw anything up!
And now on to the more embarrasing side of my life:
So, as I’ve said before I’m training for several triathlon and cycling events. The first of which is in May the week before Sarah and my first wedding anniversary. It’s a 100+ mile bike ride that goes through three states and over three mountains. While this would be an awesome accomplishment, I’ve got my heart set on completing an olympic distance triathlon in July. Since I’m away from my bike and I need to keep excercising I decided to bring my running shows with me to lovely warm CA.
Time to back track a little. Last week, I started getting back into the full swing of things. I swam over a mile and a half, I jogged about 5 miles and I rode my bike a total of 61 miles. One unfortunate side effect of being back outside jogging and Riding is the fact that my chest (the skin on my chest) is not used to having the wind blowing my wet shirt around. This causes chaffing. So after all that excercise my nipples ( yes, I said it, my nipples) were rather raw. Sarah suggests that I start wearing band-aids over my nipples to keep from chaffing, but I’m a man, how dumb does it look to have band-aids covering your nipples.
Fast forward, Monday I took off to run for about 30 minutes or so. It’s been very cold by SoCal standards and what happens to nipples when they’re cold? Well, I didn’t really think anything about it because they didn’t hurt. However, there was some chaffing that I wasn’t really aware of.
Last night I decided it was time for another jog. This time the jog would be much longer. I jogged 2.9 miles on Monday, on Wednesday I jogged 4.8 miles. About 3 miles in I notice that my chest is getting sore. What am I going to do, if I stop I’ll get cold (by now my shirt is soaked and it’s in the 50’s) so I keep jogging. When I got back to the hotel I looked in the mirror and noticed two little red spots on my shirt where my nipples are supposed to be. I take off that shirt to reveal my undershirt that has two 2″ diameter red circles on it. I think to myself, I’ve chaffed my nipples off. O-F-F off!
Actually they’re still there, but today, I’m wearing band-aids. Go ahead! Laugh, you know you want to!
It’s amazing how isolated one can feel sitting in the middle of 15 million people. As I look out the window at the palm trees and the incessant traffic on the freeways I realize just how glad I am to be a resident of the Huntsville Metropolitan area (pop. piddley squat). L.A. has its upside, the weather is nice the terrain is beautiful but the more I come here the more I want to live in the country, away from everything and everyone. That feeling could also be related to some of my frustrations with work, but I keep thinking it would be nice to live in the woods somewhere on the side of a mountain.
This is in response to a comment left regarding You don’t get it…. Let’s say that I work as a brick layer or carpenter building houses. I work very hard; all of the people I work with say I’m the hardest worker there. But, I’m also extremely intelligent. When I graduated high school I could have gone to college and in fact I was offered scholarships to several schools. I decided not to go because I didn’t feel like it. So instead of using my brain to do something that could benefit mankind, my country, my family and my self, I decided to become a framer. What does that make me?
This started off as more of joke than any kind of reality, but I’m starting to feel more and more that I want to be involved in politics.
I know the last post was long, but if you read it, it very briefly described a gap that is developing in the ambition/motivation of American people vs. the rest of the world. I think there are a lot of drivers to this, but fundamentally this one is squezing us from both sides. Our parents have told us that we can do whatever we want to do. They’ve told us that they’ve worked really hard so we wouldn’t have to. As a result of this we don’t feel like we have to work anymore we’re already there and no-one seems to realize that you have to work to stay at the top. Actually you have to work harder to stay at the top than you do to get there.
Several months ago the ASCE at UAH had an alumnus come in and talk about his years as a member of the ASCE and also the company that he started after working for NASA for several years. One of the things that has stuck with me from his talk was the statement he made about other schools and their dislike for UAH. He said something along the lines of, “Other schools hate UAH because we’re so much better than them. They can’t figure out why we keep beating them. They think it’s all given to us but they just don’t get it! They’ll never know why we beat them, they don’t get it!” The reason UAH was so dominant in the past is not because we were any smart or any better. The reason is because we decided that we wanted to win and we out WORKED everyone! If they were sleeping we were working. If it was raining and cold and they didn’t want to practice, we did! The reason we won is because we worked when other schools wouldn’t!
So, we went to North Carolina to celebrate my Dad’s birthday with him and on Saturday we drove up to The Great Smokey Mountains National Park. Sarah liked this picture.
Sarah was reading an article on newsweek the other evening and she said she had to look at the author to make sure that it wasn’t me. Apparently someone had written an article in which they stated that someone had asked them what their foreign policy would be. Their answer was that their foreign policy would be something that didn’t seem like foreign policy at all. They would implement an energy plan that emphasized the use of alternative forms of clean energy that reduced dependance on foreign sources of oil. The reason being is that eleminating our countries dependance on the rest of the world would be the single most empowering thing an administration could do for our country.
Think about how many hundreds of millions of dollars we send to the middle east each year for oil. Think about what our current trade deficit is. Simply eliminating oil consumption would wipe out our trade deficit.
Just a thought. I’m not saying that you need to sell your car and ride your bike every day, but I am saying that we should ALL start doing something to reduce the amount of energy we consume.
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