Happy Birthday, Little Jake....

Jackal helping Jake pack his parachute....
High in the sky....

Blue leading the Tour de Readlyn....

Relaxed pace....

Almost to the finish line....

3 wheels....

So, there I was....

Adjusting Jake's new helmet....

Freedom on his new bike....

The Queen of Cross....

I dig this 2 wheeled business....

Cutting the cake....

Eating the cake....

Presents....

Where'd I put the keys?

Little Jake turned 5 on Friday. The party was Saturday evening in Readlyn. It was good! Jake was one happy little dude!

Tornado in the area today. It is being called an F5 and it took out a good chunk of Parkersburg, New Hartford, and Hazleton. Did some damage at my father in law's place and all down the road he lives on. Left debris in Eric's yard up in Readlyn. People 100 miles away in Wisconsin are finding debris from Parkersburg and Waverly. They are saying that there were 5 dead in P'burg and 2 in New Hartford. Nasty business.... We were under a tornado warning here but it passed a few miles north. Wicked.

That's it for now.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Farmer's Market....

Quite a few people. No fresh produce.....
Rollin' home with my goodies....

Lots of people on the trail this morning....

Grocery go-getter....

I got up ths morning and said good-bye to Judy as she headed out the door to go to work at the Credit Union. I then checked my e-mail, took a shower, and headed out the door with the Surly for the farmer's market in Cedar Falls. The rear brake was making a very annoying noise as I pedaled along so I decided that I would have The Thin Man check it out after I'd gotten a few items at the market. I was going to stop and see what he had as far as a rear rack anyway, so I'd kill two birds with the proverbial single stone....

I got to the farmer's market over on Third between Franklin and Clay at Overman Park and who do you 'spose the first people I see were? Jackal and Moo with The Queen of Cross. I went over to say "hi" and Rhea leaned toward me, apparently to give me a hug, and reached up to snap the buckle on my helmet. Hmmmmm...... Too cute. I'd just unsnapped it when I rolled into the market and got off my bike. Little Miss Safety got me. It's a good thing that she can't write tickets for things like that because I'm sure I wouldn't have gotten away with just a warning. (I did get a hug, btw....)

I told Jackal that I was planning to stop by The Shop after I finished shopping and see about a rear rack and asked if he had any suggestions. I wanted something that was easy to install and remove and that wouldn't interfere with my fenders when I have them on the bike. He said to get a messenger bag. Hmmmm.... Good idea!

I bought a loaf of peppered parmesan bread and a jar of apple cinnamon jelly and put them in my shopping bag. No one had any asparagus or radishes so I headed to the shop to talk to Brent. Must be a little early for fresh produce around these parts and apparently no one is growing in greenhouses this year. Oh well....

The Thin Man and I looked through the catalog for a rack but we didn't find anything that I liked. He had a silver and red Timbuktu messenger bag that I did like, so I bought that and transferred my bread and jelly to it and rolled down the trail after he'd found and fixed the problem with my brake. Thanks Brent!

We have a graduation open house to attend for the son of one of my co-workers this afternoon then we'll head north to Readlyn for Little Jake's birthday party. He's 5 today! Woohoo!!!! It's gonna be fun!

The forecast for the rest of the weekend is calling for rain. I hope I can get some miles in on the road bike between rain showers.

I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day weekend. Give some thought to our troops, past and present. They are, after all, the reason for this long weekend.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Busy weekend....

The Depot in Boone....

Our Dining Car.... The locomotive....

Jackal and Moo....

Delicious....

What's left of my salmon and rice pilaf. The steamed veggies were good too....

We went looking for Herman but he wasn't home. Couldn't even find 1313....

Eagle Center with a tailwind....

Ahhhhhhhhh..........

Back into Waterloo via the Riverwalk....

The Queen of Cross cheesin....

Inside the tube....

Running in the grass....

Let's see.... I did yardwork yesterday morning rather than go for a ride. It was a beautiful day but the work had to be done. About 1 p.m. Judy and I headed south to Boone with Carl and Amy to have dinner on the Boone and Scenic Valley Railroad's dinner train. Jackal is a train nut and it was a surprise for him. It was also a combination Mother's Day/Fathers Day gift for Judy and I. It was SUPER! I think that Jackal was duly impressed and everyone enjoyed themselves. They brought broccolli with Judy's veggies so I asked if she was going to eat it.... Ha! I knew she wouldn't, so I got some extras! I had shrimp cocktail as an appetizer and the other 3 had a fresh fruit cup. I wasn't so lucky in scoring cantalope as I was with the broccolli. The desert was an absolutely delicious cheesecake with chocolate and caramel topping. Probably about 2 million calories. Thanks for the gift, Amy! Most excellent!

The wind was out of the almost dead north this morning when I took off on the Colnago heading toward La Porte. The trip south was pretty easy with the 25 mph tailwinds but the stretches to the east were brootal, making it difficult just to keep the bike on the road. I made the 32 mile trip through Hudson and Eagle Center in about an hour and 29 minutes. I tooled around La Porte for about 20 minutes then stopped and bought a Coke at the local Fareway. I drank that in about 30 seconds, ate a granola bar, and headed north on the bike path to Waterloo. I had hoped that the trees along the trail would give me some shelter from the wind but they didn't give me much relief on the almost 22 mile trip home. It was all I could do to maintain 16 mph on the trail and when I got to Evansdale it kicked my ass to maintain 15 along the dike into Waterloo. All I could think of was that this ride was taking care of the cheesecake issue from last night. When I got back to the Cattle Congress grounds I saw that the Fed still has the bike trail that runs behind the fairgrounds blocked off with big concrete barriers. How much ya wanna bet there's gonna be another "raid" in the next few days?

Anyway, I met jackal and Moo while coming down Rainbow about a block from home. They turned around and came back and waited while I showered, then we went to lunch. We went to Island Park afterwards and let Rhea run wild and play on the slides. She had a blast!

After the park we came home and I turned on the Flyers-Penguins game and watched my boys get their asses handed to them. Oh well, there's always next year. Chalk one up for The Fat Cat!

I was flipping back and forth and watching the Giro also. What a finish! Daniele Bennati edged Paolo Bettini at the line by about 2 inches in a wicked sprint. Go Liquigas!!! Awesome!

Rossi put the hurt on the rest of the field at Le Mans today to take over the lead in Moto GP. Yamaha took the top 3 spots today and were looking very strong. Way to go!

I just heard from Fat Albert. He survived another killer gravel grinder today. I think he'll do just fine at Dirty Kanza....

That's it for now.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Happy Friday....

Going to Hudson....
Back into Waterloo....

Homeland Security. Keeping you safe.

This morning on my way to work....

The Flyers won last night! Woohoo! Darien Hatcher didn't get a penalty that resulted in a goal against his team in this game. That's a plus.

Quick ride to Hudson and back last night. Just spinning and enjoying the scenery. Came back on Ho Chi Minh and didn't get passed by a single car. That was pretty nice. No traffic is always good.

Nice outside this morning and it looks to be a beautiful day on tap. The weekend looks good too. I'll take it!

Liquigas looks good in the Giro. Sweet!

Gotta get coffee....

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Thursday....

I had planned on being out of the office at 4:30 sharp yesterday so I could get a good ride in. As often happens, one of our accountants walks in at 4:25 and has an issue that takes until 5:15 to clear up. I think he does it on purpose.

Anyway.... I was on the road by 6 and made a quick spin down to Hudson and back. It was a nice ride! When I got back Brother of Jackal was working on his motorcycle in the drive and asked when I usually ride. He knows when I ride but he wanted to start a conversation to let me know that starting on Monday he will be back on first shift and I'll have a regular riding partner again. Cool! I'm looking forward to that.

Our local fairground is filled with the Department of Homeland Security and their minions holding 400 or so illegals that they took from a meat processing plant up in Postville. It's been the talk of the town since Monday. (It pretty much decimated the town of Postville..) They took the fairgrounds over a week or so ago and made the raid and arrests on Monday of this week. A bunch of jack-booted and body armored feds with automatic weapons all over the place. They were holding "Federal Court" in the old ballroom until midnite last night. They'll all be gone to jails around Iowa by later today. Do ya' suppose there will be another raid this week? They have the fairgrounds leased for another 10 days..... We'll see.

A chilly 41 F this morning with fog rolling off the river. It'll get up into the upper sixties by this afternoon. I love it!

Dallas beat the Redwings last night and looked fairly good while doing it. That makes it a 3 games to 1 series in the Wings favor in the Western Conference finals. The Eastern finals continue tonight with the Penguins holding a 3-zipp lead in the series. Can the Flyers come back to whip up on the Pens and give us a Flyers/Stars cup? Wouldn't that be COOL? FLYERS WIN!!!! FLYERS WIN!!!! Whatever.... There's always next year.

That's about it for now. Have a great day!

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Windy....

Rhea says "where's my lunch?"....
Fat Albert getting back from a very long gravel grinder....

West toward New Hartford....

Looks like some planting is getting done....

Into New Hartford....

Not open on Sunday? Hmmmmm....

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there! Where would we be without you gals?

Lunch at Toad's with Jackal, Moo, and The Queen of Cross. Yummy! I ran into an old friend and co-worker down there whom I hadn't seen in awhile. He was in town from Grundy Center with his wife and family for Mother's Day.

I took off about 5 to ride to New Hartford and ran into Fat Albert on the trail as I was heading over to Cedar Falls. He was just getting back from a gravel grinder that made my entire body hurt just hearing about it. The wind today is a sustained 25-30 out of he NNW and he rode about 40 miles straight into it. I probably would have gone north to start and rode back with the tailwind but he's an animal and wanted to do "the ridge" down by Traer. Gotta go south to get there! Good seeing you, Buddy!

I took the Trail to downtown Cedar Falls then headed out 2nd Street and eventually Union Road to Beaver Valley Road. The wind was KILLER!!!! I had to pedal HARD to get 15 mph on the downhill after the viaduct by the Retreat House. Wicked! I always laugh when I get to Beaver Valley Road because the sign says "New Hartford 4". Well, it's 5 1/2 miles to the top of the hill by the cemetary and nearly another mile into New Hartford. That sign has said 4 miles for as long as I can remember, and it's always been nearly 6 1/2 miles. Even when I was a kid. Perhaps it's a state sanctioned joke? Anyway.... Like I said, the wind was out of the NNW so the major issue going west was keeping the bike straight on the road. I was really looking forward to the trip from New Hartford to 27th Street! It's 4 1/2 mles of rollers and it went by in a snap! Woohoo!

The 9 miles from the end of 27th to the Dome flew by also. Kat passed me in her Mercury Lincoln and slowed down to say "hi" and snap a pic of the "Bob Roll look-alike" cruising into town. Good seeing you, Kat!

It ended up being a touch over 38 miles today bringing the weekend total to about 94. I'm still about 700 miles behind where I was at this time last year but I'm feeling pretty good. Just need to get rid of some of this fat! :)

No near altercations with cars today. Sweet!

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

All wet....

The Cedar Valley Railway station in Gilbertvlle....

The elevator....

Rollin'....

Sharing the trail....

Old railroad bridge over Wolf Creek....

Nice day....

Welcome to La Porte....

Main Street....

"You can trust your car to the man who wears the star...."

Out of La Porte....

Eagle Center....

Hudson....

The forecast was calling for the "possibility" of showers. It was 49F and it wasn't raining (yet) so I took off for La Porte City on the C50. About 15 minutes into my ride it started sprinkling but it didn't feel bad at all, so I kept riding through downtown Waterloo to points south. It never really stopped until I got to Hudson, which was 45 miles later. It was a good ride! 54 total in about 3 hours and 15 minutes. The first thing I did when I got home was to clean and dry my chain then take a hot shower. Yeah, baby!

To the BUTT-MUNCH in the baby- shit yellow PT Cruiser on Dysart road.... Yeah, you. The jackass who wouldn't move over while passing me even though there wasn't another car on the road anywhere within sight. You gave me a good 12 inches clearance. You did it on purpose. You should've stopped when I invited you to. We could've danced and whispered sweet-nothings to each other. It would've been sooooooo much fun. You're a menial minded mental midget incapable of original or complex thought.

The forecast for tomorrow is crap. The Surly doesn't mind getting wet. I have fenders for that one! We'll see.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Thursday....

We've had a lot of rain lately....

Orange school....

It was a beautiful day yesterday! Rode out to Orange then over to Hudson and back home for 30 miles in the saddle. I don't have many miles in yet this year so I spun a medium gear for the entire ride to get the legs and ass in a little better shape. 15 mph average. Nothing serious, but it was good.

You can see by the first picture that we've had a little bit of rain around here. I suspect that the damage to the trail came from the 5" of rain that we received in about 4 hours the other night. When we were in Missouri and Kansas the other day you could see that the weather hadn't been so bad down there since their corn had been planted and was coming out of the ground. I think that the planting around here stands at about 17% right now. It would be about 60% planted in a "normal" year. Rain in the forecast through the weekend. Probably drought this summer. Gotta love it! Woohoo!

NOTE: People driving cars with their cell phone sticking out of their ear piss me off. They are paying so much attention to their conversation that they forget how to drive. Scary. We'll get a whole new batch of 16 year olds with driver licenses in a couple of weeks and they all have cell phones. Does that scare you like it scares me? And you thought drunks were dangerous behind the wheel....

Fat Albert....

I talked to Ashley at lunch today. A very enlightening conversation. Just thought you'd want to know.

That's it for now. Have a great Friday!

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Travel plans....

The new plane....
My boss. President of Operations. He's an accountant, if you can believe that crap.
He's also tighter than a frog's ass in water....
:)

I'm supposed to be flying to Joplin, Missouri at this very moment but apparently Joplin is experiencing some severe thunderstorms right now, so we're waiting an hour or so. It's my first trip in our new plane so I'm kinda excited.

The MTB racing at Camp Ingawanis last weekend was great! The weather was absolutely perfect! Congrats to all the racers for surviving the demanding course that the guys set up this year! Wow! It was great! Kudos to Casey, Jeremy, The Cap'n, and all who helped put together another awesome venue!

Update:

We made it to Joplin, rented a car, and drove to Kansas. We looked at some equipment then headed into the "business district" of the thriving metropolis of Columbus, Kansas for lunch at the Lighthouse Cafe. If you've ever eaten lunch in a midwest farming community cafe, you know exactly what it looked like. Except for the lighthouse motif that was everywhere inside. And the fishermen statuary. A little out of place in Kansas but, like most small town cafes, the food was excellent and the service was, well, typical small town. Mid 20's, smart assed girls. Excellent. I told our waitress that my boss was actually my father. I had her believing that. At least she had me believing that she was believing me. (he's like 8 years older than I am....) It was good.

The new plane is very nice. Looks very much the same on the outside but much nicer on the inside. And faster. Glass cockpit. The instrumentation that I became familiar with when learning to fly (about a hundred years ago) apparently doesn't exist anymore. Computer screens on the instrument panel instead of real guages and instruments. Kinda freaky. When we bought our first jet the owner of our company called me and our pilot together and told us both, in no uncertain terms, that I was not to be allowed to fly the plane. Ever. Bad things would happen to both of us if that ever occured. Really bad, from a continuing employment perspective. I still ended up getting quite a lot of right seat time over the years and nothing bad ever happened to either of us. We went to a 2 pilot operation about a year ago, so those days are gone.... Oh well. My license is for a single engine airplane and I haven't been current in a very long time. :) It's probably for the best.

That's it for now.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

GO FLYERS!!!!!!!!!

The Flyers dominated the Canadiens in the semi-final round of the Eastern Conference Playoffs, winning 4 games to 1. Now they will face the winner of the Pittsburgh-New York Rangers series. Sould be good hockey! The Flyers have been "my team" since they came into the league 40 odd years ago. I can definitely relate to all of you Cubs fans out there. It's been 33 years since the Flyers won Lord Stanley's Cup. Will this be the year? Could it be? We'll see. They are playing very well right now. Of course, they've played well in previous years, too. They've come close.... They've gotten me high and then broken my heart. We're a family of Flyers fans. Well, all of us but Jackal and Eric. Eric is a die hard Redwings fan. Jackal is all about the Stars.

Back up to the Ingawanis Boy Scout Camp this morning for MTB racing. Time trials yesterday. The weather is perfect this year. More later, along with pics.

Gotta go! Jackal will pick me up soon.

Ride Safe.

Peace out, yo!