Can It Get Any Worse?

Well yes, it can get much, much worse, but there are a few things piling up that just make life a little less enjoyable.

First, I went to church last night (uhh, that didn't come out right - please don't misunderstand me, church does not make my life less enjoyable) for the first time in quite a while. Sunday nights have been hectic lately, and I just haven't had the gumption to get up and go. When I got there, I looked through the bulletin and found out that the Music Director's position will be cut because of lack of funds. This really, truly bums me out. I should back up a bit. The church I've been attending for nearly 2 years is Mercy Seat Lutheran Church in NE Minneapolis. We meet on Sunday nights because we're using a different congregation's space. Two of the pastors were in school with me when I was at Luther Seminary, an they are really cool people although one of them has since left Mercy Seat on a medical leave. The church is kind of artsy, which normally doesn't do anything for me. What really attracted me to the church was their creation of a jazz liturgy. The soon-to-be-ex-music-director Jon Pemberton is well connected in the local jazz community. Every week he would assemble a remarkable group of musicians that would play anything from Dixieland to Free Jazz. I'll admit that hearing jazz in church was a bit jarring at first, but I've really grown to love the liturgies he wrote. I'm really going to miss the music. There are other great things about the church. Kae and Mark's preaching is consistently thoughtful, poetic, funny, and true to the Lutheran tradition, it always has the euangelion at its center. They claim to be "critically orthodox," which I appreciate very much. This is not a namby-pamby, feel good about yourself church. Nor is it a church that reduces the Gospel to a left wing political agenda. Jesus is not just a nice teacher and example, but the Word Incarnate come to save us from ourselves. I always leave church humbled but feeling well fed and taken care of.

Second, I just discovered that one of my favorite local bloggers, Smithers Minneapolis, is giving up blogging. He wrote about cycling, politics, family and the pumpkin loaf at Starbucks. Very smart and funny. Even the commentators on his posts made me laugh out loud. Sigh, no more. I suppose I'll keep doing it as long as I'm working here and have all this time on my hands, but there is no guarantee that I'll be either smart or funny like Smithers.

Third, on the way to work this morning I noticed that the City of Maplewood has done an utterly craptastic job of plowing the streets. Even worse than Minneapolis. This is the last mile of my commute to work, and the sides of the streets look unridable. It may be a long time before I bike to work again.

In other news, The Madster went to her first karate session with the big folks, 13 years and up. She was the youngest one there, obviously, and the only female. She was quite intimidated and didn't want to mix it up with these guys. I insisted. It was quite an intense workout and there was some practice sparring. She was pooped when she was finished, but she had a big smile on her face.

TOYH has scheduled her nursing boards test and is now busy studying for that. Not much movement on the job front. There is one promising lead right now.

Christmas Is Almost Over Now

One family gathering left to attend. TOYH's family is all getting together tomorrow at EG and DM's place. Kent, Ross and their families are in from Shanghai and Denver respectively.

On Christmas Eve, Evil Grandmother and the Dreadful Man came over for Clam Chowdah, assorted finger foods and conversation. On Christmas day, we spent the early morning opening up presents. Nothing spectacular. Madster and 'Nika got the first two seasons of "I Love Lucy" on DVD. To me, it's more entertaining to watch The Madster watch Lucy than it is to watch Lucy herself. Madster sits on the edge of her seat, mouth open in a smile, nose crinkled up, waiting in eager expectation for Lucy's next pratfall or the denouement of one of her harebrained schemes. Lucy rarely disappoints and Madster ends up cackling at every episode. I received the 1st season of "30 Rock" and end up cackling at that much in the same way Madster laughs at Lucy.

Later on Christmas morning our old next door neighbors, Sue and Sherry, came over for brunch. We spent a few hours catching up and watching a warrant being served on one of the tenants next door in Mabel's old house. Merry Christmas! You're going to jail! I have no idea what he was arrested for, it was not very dramatic. Plainclothes cop comes up and gets no answer at the front door, leaves. Plainclothes comes back with two uniform cops, they collar their man and leave. No beat downs. No weeping and wailing. I felt kinda bad for the cops. I suppose the only thing more depressing than arresting someone on Christmas Day is to be arrested on Christmas Day.

Early in the afternoon we headed up to Cambridge for my family's Christmas celebration, complete with ham and lasagna and borscht. Mmmmm. I spent far too long talking about prostates with Opa. That type of conversation really makes me feel like an old man, although I was talking about other people's prostates, not my own. I can safely say that the conversation did not fill me with Christmas spirit. The Christmas spirit did visit the Holm household though. Last week I read about a play that was being performed somewhere in the metro. It tells the story of the Allied and the German troops laying down their arms on Christmas Day in 1917(?). They visited each others trenches, sang with each other and shared food. For one day, the grunts doing the fighting and dying quit fighting and dying. In the same way, there was no talk of "White Christmas" or "It's a Wonderful Life" the whole time we were up in Cambridge. Our little Christmas miracle.

Yesterday, there was a big sledding, or sliding, or sleigh riding (as the Dreadful Man calls it - must be a Wyoming thing) party with as many of the cousins as we could gather. KyKy skipped out because she looked like death warmed over. We had a lot of fun. We went to Como Park where there are some pretty steep hills in the NW corner. The old farts went down the hill a few times, except for Ross of course, who went down a bunch of times. We tried the mass start with anywhere from 18 to 20 people. Going down single file with each person holding on to the feet of the person behind them didn't really work. But on the last conga line like attempt, the line kept together all the way to the jump that no one wanted to try out. It was very funny watching the whole line of about a dozen or so kids (plus Ross) hit the jump perfectly and wipe out.

Today was the first day back to work for me since last Friday (where did you think I found the time to write this?). We'll leave early for a company lunch, hopefully Famous Dave's. Back to work on Monday for a couple of end-of-year housekeeping things. After New Year's Day it'll be time to hunker down for the winter. We picked up another 4 inches of snow on Christmas day so the streets are pretty sloppy and still not fit for bike commuting for me. Lots of early snow makes things pretty for Christmas, but it also makes winter seem to drag on and on. The one post-holiday consolation for me is that the days are now getting longer.

A Correction

In Sunday's edition of "Whaddup With Us" it was reported that "White Christmas" had won a People's Choice award. This is incorrect. The statement should have read, "'White Christmas' has not been acknowledged by AFI nor has it won any awards, even a crappy People's Choice award." We regret the error.

Socks And Underpants

These were the thoughtful gifts I received from my family. I'm not sure what they are trying to say, but I'm taking it as a general approval of my wardrobe since what they gave to me is covered up by other pieces of clothing. We spent the morning lazing about the house, and then at noon we left to go meet Kent and Anne and the girls at Pepito's for brunch. Ahhh Pepito's Sunday brunch. My arteries clench up just thinking about it. After brunch, we adjourned to K & A's place in St Louise Park for cheesecake. Kent and I sat around watching football while the ladies did, well, whatever ladies do. Kent seemed really interested in watching the Patriots squish the Dolphins. I ever being the polite guest feigned interest in the game. It would have been better if the sound was turned off so I didn't have to constantly be reminded by Jim Nance and Phil Simms that the New England Patriots are truly gods walking among us. We left KyKy and The Madster behind as they were attending the ballet with their cousins. Nutcracker at the State Theater if I'm not mistaken. The rest of us uncultured slobs piled in Crapmobile and fought our way home through the snow. 3-4 inches worth it appears. No work for me tomorrow, so I get to pull out the snowblower and clean up around the place.

People Who Think "White Christmas" Is The Best Christmas Movie Make Me Laugh

You know why? According to my blog it just won the People's Choice award! This movie deservedly takes its place alongside other People's Choice winners such as NSync, Drew Carey, and "Two And A Half Men." I say it fits right in with those winners in terms of quality.

"It's A Wonderful Life" on the other hand is number 20 on the American Film Institute's top 100 films of all time. Let me repeat - OF ALL TIME. It is also number 1, numero uno, top dawg on AFI's list of most inspirational films.

"White Christmas" could not be found on any AFI list, not even the Top 25 Greatest Movie Musicals. It was beat out by such greats as "The Band Wagon" from 1953.

Enjoy your People's Choice award!

Land of Biking Enchantment - Then I Get Crabby

Today was the one Saturday of the month where 'Nika and The Madster did not need to be at karate. This means it's the one Saturday I get to sneak down to the far reaches of S. Mpls to Hiawatha Cyclery to go on their Saturday morning ride. On any given Saturday, the ride is populated by a bunch of middle-aged men (except for Jim T, who hasn't quite met the middle-age threshold) who are witty, wonderful conversationalists that have a love, even a passion, for biking. The rides entail meeting at HC, riding to a coffee shop for treats and conversation, then riding back to the HC - flapping your jaws the whole time. (Neil - Lunatic Biker, VelociPete and of course Mellow Velo were on the ride this a.m.) Anyway, I got up early to be able to get to the ride. The weather dorks had predicted snow overnight, and they didn't lie. There was enough snow so that the plows of Mpls were out scraping the main arteries before I rolled out of bed. I was afraid that the snow would be too deep, and the ride would not happen. I pulled myself out of bed, got dressed and hoped for the best. I was not disappointed. The ride down to Hiawatha Cyclery would fall short of the designation "magical," but it was damn close. When I left home, the snow was not too deep and it was the heavy, wet kind, totaling about an inch or maybe an inch and a half. The winter beater with the studded tires ate that crap up with no problem. What was so enchanting about the ride was the fact that it was early enough for there to be virtually no traffic, all the while the snow was falling in large wet flakes. And it was warm, (right around 32F) with no wind. The combination of no wind and heavy wet snow left the trees and shrubs flocked with a white loveliness. It was a very enjoyable ride down to HC except for the fact that my glasses fogged up and were pelted with snowflakes, so I was reduced to putting my head down and looking over the top of my glasses so I could see where I was going. I'm fairly sure that without my glasses I approach the threshold of legal blindness, so looking over the top of my glasses only gives me a slight advantage to looking through the mess that was on them. I got to the ride early, so I was able to take in the quiet of the snow falling illuminated by the streetlights, which happens to be one of my favorite ways of enjoying a snowfall in the city. The ride itself was nothing special. We decided to simply go to Melo-Glaze, possibly the greatest doughnut place on earth, to drink coffee and eat treats. We did, and afterwards, we made our way back to HC. The ride home from the shop was a bit dicey. The plows had come through, pushing all the slushy snow to the side of the road where bikers ride. I stayed on the bike paths and side streets to avoid the high traffic areas. The temperature had dropped about 8 degrees from the time I had left the house, so the side streets were starting to resemble skating rinks. Blech.

Now the crabby part. 'Nika's cousin Gabby had a birthday party today, and it was celebrated at one of those bear-building stores found in malls all across this land. 'Nika and I left early since I thought that the combination of weather and traffic (this being the last Saturday before X-mas) would slow us down considerably. I was wrong. We were there about 20 minutes before the start of the party, and as it turns out, Auntie Clary was 20 minutes late. Yipeee!!!! I get to spend three quarters of an hour in a temple of consumerism doing absolutely nothing but waiting!!!! Now normally I try to think the best of folks and not judge people by their appearance. But to be perfectly honest, every person I saw today at Rosedale was ugly. Nay fugly. It was all perception and context though. I realize that most of the herd today was out buying X-mas presents for someone other than themselves, but I always associate malls with aimless wandering to spend money on crap that is not really needed. It is a totally selfish, solopsistic purchase. (It occurred to me today that the phrase "That is sooooo cute on you," is uttered dozens, maybe even hundreds of times during the day at any given mall) These benighted consumers are bored and think that the cure for boredom is shopping (Ride your damn bikes and save some money fer crying out loud. What a great way to cure boredom!) and that, in my opinion, makes a person ugly, no matter how physically attractive they may be.

I escaped from the mall, the whole the way home feeling like I need to take a shower because of my presence there. When I get home, TOYH asks if I can run to the store for a couple of things. Grrrrrrr. All I want to do is come home, forget about having been to a mall, and do the crossword puzzle in the paper. But no, TOYH needs a pound and a half of flax seed for Christmas present for Opa. (Ha! Bet you can't figure out what's going on with that) She also needs a bum-jug of burgundy wine. This development, as it turns out, will brighten my day considerably. I set to my appointed tasks, cursing all the way. When I get home, I find out that the wine is for making mulled wine. This, in and of itself, is not significant. But given the recent flame war in the comment section over the superiority of "It's A Wonderful Life" vs. "White Christmas," it becomes crucially important in the game of one-upsmanship I've been playing with my sisters. I am totally vindicated and proven right in the petty, nonsensical, invalid, unprovable argument over which movie is better. The crowning achievement, the piece-de-resistance, the in your face, conclusion to this dispute is that my sister Tracy, who defends "White Christmas," asked TOYH to bring mulled wine to our family Christmas celebration. Mulled wine is what Clarence the Angel in "It's A Wonderful Life" orders at Nick's bar. Ha. She's asking for something that a main character orders and therefore tacitly acknowledges the superiority of my movie. Bwahahahahahaha. I win simply because I make the most ridiculous argument in the history of humankind to win my point.

Merry Christmas

And tomorrow is my birthday.

Edit - If you want to refer to the dispute about Christmas movies and my complete and total victory, see the post "Man It Was Cold"

Bear With Me, This Will Be A Long One

I've been meaning to write about something work related for a while now, but the timing hasn't been right. It's time.

I need another job.

It's not that I don't like my job here at Test Equipment World Domination Headquarters, nor is it that Jon and I don't get along. It's just that there is hardly anything for me to do here anymore.

When this enterprise started up in March of '06, there was plenty to do. Jon and I had to do some remodeling work on the space being leased. We had to go out and purchase equipment, furniture, supplies etc. I had to learn how to use the accounting software for the business. All that was pretty fun for me, especially spending someone elses money on stuff I would be using. Early on after we started up, Jon placed a winning bid on a ton of test equipment from one of the big dealers. Actually, it was probably more than a ton. I do know it was 6 pallets worth of stuff. All of those units needed to be entered kept track of in some way shape or form on the computer. While doing that, I continued to figure out how to use our accounting software - entering in customers and vendors, trying to get a handle on how to do payroll accurately. I also started learning more about selling on eBay, preparing high value shipments for international delivery and getting my head wrapped around a little bit of accounting/bookkeeping. I was usually busy at work.

I suppose it was about a year ago that things started to slow down for me. Transactions became routine. Multiple listings on eBay? No problem. International shipment going to Australia needing a Commercial Invoice and Shipper's Export Declaration? I can do that in my sleep. Work around Quickbooks' stupid design that does not let us prepay for purchases without marking them as received before they physically arrive? Yawn. Things were getting quite easy for me and the amount of real work I was doing every day was gradually decreasing while my time spent reading (and writing) blogs was increasing. Jon's work, on the other hand, was not decreasing. He's in charge of buying, pricing, schmoozing dealers and customers, and fixing broken equipment. I'm here to record his activity.

As time wore on, it was becoming clear to me that I have absolutely no interest in learning the biz of test equipment. None. Zip. I still don't know what Vector Network Analyzers or S-Parameter Test Sets do, nor do I care frankly. Jon knows people who are successful dealers in test equipment who are just as clueless as me, but they know sales and how to work a deal, something else I'm not at all interested in. In the end, it's probably easier for Jon to keep all the wheeling and dealing in his head, rather than running into potential problems where two of us would promise different customers the same unit.

For a few months now I've been mulling over the idea of going down to part time here and picking up another job. I've gone so far as talking to Jamie at Sunrise Cyclery about working for him on a part time basis. Truthfully, I am an anchor on the company bottom line here. I get paid for full time work and the company pays half my health insurance costs. It's not a king's ransom by any stretch of the imagination, but it is certainly enough that I feel pretty guilty drawing this amount of pay and benefits for sitting on my arse. As I envisioned it, I would propose to Jon going down to part time when TOYH got a job with benefits. That way I could get paid for actual work done and not have the company shell out money for my health insurance.

Jon brought this same topic up in a conversation just this week, so we began talking about when and how this could take place. We do have one huge problem to deal with though. Jon has stage IV prostate cancer. He was diagnosed a little over a month ago. He's doing fine now, responding well to early therapy and is now weighing options for more radical treatments. Faced with his own mortality, Jon is re-evaluating what he wants to do with the business. Growing it is pretty much out of the question, not just because of the illness, but because after over 20 years of doing this, Jon is getting tired of it. Maintaining what we're doing now is an option, but it would be good to cut some overhead, namely get me down to part time. A third option would be to shrink it to the size where Jon could run it out of a much smaller space or maybe even his home. Option 3 appears to be unlikely. Here's why. Our company's health insurance plan with Health Partners is set up for small businesses with more than one employee. If the company goes down to one insured employee the policy would be cancelled because it is set up especially for two or more enrollees. What we don't know yet is whether there is portability for Jon to continue with the Health Partners, just under a different plan that he would pay for out of pocket. If Jon can keep getting insurance from HP, then we've got options. If he can't, then I need to keep working here until he hires someone else, or to put it delicately, Jon doesn't need insurance any more. Switching to another insurer would be impossible because of Jon's "pre-existing condition."

Are there really people saying that we still have the best health care in the world? If there are, they are full of shit. Full. Of. It. Not only are there, what, 53 million people without insurance in this country, there are people like me and Jon whose decisions about where they would work are dictated by health insurance. Not pay. Not interest or passion. Not ability. Not location. Fucking health insurance. And all the bastards who make policy decisions about a national health plan or those who decide who is insurable in our screwed up privatized system are never ever faced with these kinds of decisions on a personal level. They will always have plenty of health coverage. And please don't say anything about how awful "socialized medicine" is. If you think it's so horrific, don't you dare sign up for Medicare when you reach that age. Why would you want to stain your golden years by participating in a system that is so ruinous to the American way of life?

Merry Christmas

More Things Fall Apart

The Taurus, not getting as much attention as Crapmobile, decided to make a scene. On my way to work the thumping from the front end got so bad that I just drove to Perry's and left it with him. Took the bus the rest of the way to work. I'm secretly hoping that he'll tell me that it's just not worth it to fix the beast and we should just put a bullet in it. It would be a great excuse to go down to being a one car family.

On a happier note, KyKy's concert last night was excellent. 20 different pieces by 15 different combinations of choirs, wind ensembles and orchestras. It was organized incredibly well so there wasn't much waiting between pieces for the next group to set up. KyKy's orchestra sounded really good playing "Sugar Plum Faries" from Nutcracker. To me though, the highlight of the night was the massed choir singing Leonard Cohen's "Anthem." They printed the lyrics in the program, and it was so fitting, given the times we live in. If I can find that program, I'll post the lyrics. It was a good thing the concert was held in the Basilica, it was filled up front to back. It's not a huge space, but just big enough for this event. All those people never would have fit in Southwest's auditorium. Unfortunately, the accoustics were only ok. We could hear everything, but her earlier concert at SW was much easier to listen to.

Update Perry just called to say that it was the right front bearing and that he fixed it already. Curses. We remain a two car family cuz I'm too chicken to simply do the deed and go down to one.

UPS just delivered a box of shortbread cookies from one of our vendors. It only took $80,000 of purchases on our part to earn this lovely gift.

Things Fall Apart The Center Cannot Hold

TOYH is taking the Crapmobile into Perry's for a going over. What's wrong? Lessee... Windshield wipers stuck in permanent, hillbilly-looking "up" position. Broken tail light lens. (Honestly, this is the third one we've replaced. I really believe there is a minivan tail light vigilante roaming south Mpls. Ours isn't the only one I've seen smashed. I have no other explanation.) Power door locks do not work. Oil needs to be changed. I'm sure there are other things, and when TOYH made the appointment for the repairs, Perry said he'd just write down "crappy van" on the work order. Bingo.

My 10 year old Taurus still runs, but it's making it's cold weather complaints. Some, but not all cold mornings there is a whining belt or something coming from under the hood. It's not an awful screech like you hear on most cars when they start up cold. It's truly a whine that doesn't easily go away even when the engine warms up. The cold weather thumping from the front end has also returned. I first noticed it last winter. It is most pronounced when my foot is off the accelerator and not on the brake. In other words when I'm coasting. As soon as I step on the gas or the brake, the sound pretty much disappears. It quit making the noise over the summer but now it's back. Maybe I should call Car Talk so they can call me a moron for not taking it in to Perry to have it looked at. I really don't like automobiles. I'm glad for the ones we have - they're paid for - but it seems like you either limp along getting nickeled and dimed to keep them running or you spend a ton of money to buy new or almost new.

I find the whole car culture rather depressing. It's like people need a living room on wheels because they spend so much time in their vehicles. I see the traffic reports on the morning news, and I just shudder. Since people have to have their 4 acres and a mule, they live miles and miles away from work and as a result 5 days a week twice a day, they sit in traffic in their $25,000, depreciating-every-day-so-you'll-never-get-your-money-back, living rooms. It doesn't make sense to me. Spend money on a house far away from everything because far away land is more affordable, but then all the money you save is eaten up in having to buy a comfortable vehicle because you live so far away and sitting in traffic to get to your far away home just isn't worth it unless you're sitting in your rolling living room. The money part may end up being a zero sum game, but now it's 10-15 hours a week lost to commuting. Blech.

KyKy has been complaining that her room is cold. Baby. I did take a look at the boiler downstairs and the pressure was pretty low. I called the Dreadful Man, since he has some kind of provisional boiler license to run the boilers at church. He told me to release the pressure valve coming from the overflow tank and then fill the system back up to 20 psi. When I released the pressure valve, I got a few gallons of rusty, nasty smelling runoff from the tank. It kept dripping for an hour or so, so I did it again. Same result. It ended up dripping all night into a bucket since our ancient house does not have a floor drain to run a hose to. It may be that the pressure release valve is gummed up and will not seat properly, thus the drip. I sure hope not. I don't want to call in someone to fix this at great expense, nor do I want to have to empty buckets of nasty smelling water for the rest of my life. Maybe it'll just go away, or maybe my basement is flooded right now. Sigh. The radiators do feel warmer though.

KyKy has a concert tonight. I think they're calling it a Holiday Concert, but it's being held at the Basilica. Wrap your head around that one.

We Broke Out The Bubbly

Hit the 5000 mile mark today. If you're at all interested, see if this address works

2007 Bike Mileage

This is a spreadsheet that I used to keep track of my miles. Is it exact? No. I didn't really start tracking things until February, so January was pretty much a guess. That month included a couple of commutes and a couple of rides with the Nerds on Bikes club, (aka Twin Cities Bicycling Club) so I simply made a guess. So did I really do 5000? Well, there are bunches of little rides that did not get recorded, and if I wanted to be all jerky about it, I could include a couple-o-hundred miles on the bike ride to nowhere, riding on the trainer in the basement. Highlights include July 29th, the day I did my first century ride. That was the ride where I drafted off of Neil most of the way. Thanks again, man. I knew it was going to be close, so I was afraid I was going to have to ride around the block a few times when I got home to make that 100, but my odometer really did read 100 miles when I made it there. The whopping 2.1 miles on December 1 was the truncated TCBC ride during our first snowstorm of the season. April 13 was the day I took delivery on the SS Deathstar and about 3700 of the total were put on that bike. I don't have the exact figures here, but somewhere between 2000 and 2500 miles of the total was my commute to and from work. Basically any time a 27 is entered, that's a commute. That means the Taurus has 171,000 miles on it instead of 173,000. Anyhooo... we had an extra bottle of champagne left over from TOYH's finishing up school, so we popped the cork on it. Okay, okay, it was cheap Asti Spumante and not real champagne. Martini & Rossi anyone? Cheers to me.

I Got Nuthin

I've been preoccupied with the Christmas movie smackdown in the previous thread.

Man Was It Cold

I started the weekend with 4943 miles logged this year. Since commuting is still pretty much out of the question, I'm reduced to being a weekend warrior on the bike. Saturday, I went out on a TCBC club ride. It was slow an cold, about 6 degrees the whole time we were out there. We basically stuck to the paths around Mpls. There was one rider who was very slow, so a couple of us just took off at a whopping 13 mph. After we'd pull way ahead, we'd either double back, find a parking lot to ride in circles, or just stand around and wait. Ended up doing 21 miles that day. When I got home, I hopped in the shower to warm up. I had to hop right out again. My toes were so cold that I couldn't stand in the shower for more than a couple of minutes without excruciating pain. I was wondering if I had frostbite. When I had peeled my socks off, my toes were absolutely pale and numb like each had been shot up with Novocain. When I got out of the shower they were a frighteningly mottled purple. They recovered, but it took me a while to warm up. Sunday was a solo ride, except I rode 31 miles. (Do the math, 5 miles to go until 5000) Greenway to the river, West River Road paths to the lakes, lakes to Hopkins via SW trail, Hopkins back to Mpls via Cedar Lake trail. I probably should have ridden with someone or at least taken my phone with me. It's pretty lonely on the trails west of the city when it's this cold, and there are some stretches where a walk to get help would be quite a hike. At mile 26 my feet were soooo cold and I was sooo tired. Head down, power through. When I got home I was smart enough to take my shoes off and warm my feet up by one of the radiators. Then I hopped in the shower, and stayed in there for quite a while, so long, in fact, that half an hour after I got out, KyKy was asking me why there wasn't any hot water for her bath.

We finally picked up the Christmas tree on Saturday night. Madster was at a sleep over, KyKy was visiting a friend and TOYH was cooking. So it was just the little Christmas elf, 'Nika, and me who went to Home Depot to get the tree. We've been going there for the past few years because they have decent trees for a good price. We got there about 6 o'clock and it must have been about zero degrees, and I was still chilled to the core from my bike ride. Normally picking out trees is an ordeal. We pull one out of the pile, smack it on the ground so the branches fall down in place to see if it is misshapen, and then move on to the next tree. After we pick one out, they kindly cut off a few inches from the trunk, and bale it up in netting to make it easier to carry. Then we tie it to the top of the crapmobile and go on our merry way. It was so cold Saturday night that the branches of all the trees were frozen in the "up" position, so we couldn't see if the tree was nicely shaped or could be used as a stand-in on "A Charlie Brown Christmas." We grabbed one that was the right height, and the guy at the store cut off the bottom few inches of the trunk. There was no need to wrap the thing in netting since it was frozen in place like an unfurled evergreen umbrella. Because it was just the two of us, I shoved the blasted thing inside the van to forgo the 15 minutes of tying down and securing it to the roof. When we got home, I put it on the porch and told the kids if they want it put up that night, they'd have to do it themselves. No takers. It did get put up on Sunday, and it looks pretty nice. Decorations tonight.

Sunday was the last swimming event of the year, the banquet. It was very nice. Lots of people there. TOYH and I ended up sitting with the moms of two of the captains and had a nice little chat with them. The captains gave out goofy awards to all the swimmers. KyKy got the 13 going on 30 award, since she doesn't act like a teenager. Very perceptive on the part of the captains, I thought.

Stoopid Mpls

So on Tuesday, we get about 3 inches of snow, with the threat of a couple more inches on Thursday. The city did not declare a snow emergency Tuesday night, I'm thinking, because they thought they could roll up both snowfalls into one big plowing orgy on Thursday. Well the snow did not really show up for us on Thursday and the city decided not to call a snow emergency. Idiots. Now the bike lanes are not clear, and the side streets are all rutted and half-plowed. This will greatly curtail my bike commuting, since I don't want to navigate this stuff in the dark during rush hour. On a related stupid is as stupid does note, the Minneapolis Park Board apparently is going to charge the users of the off road trails in Theo Wirth Park a $25.00 fee for a yearly pass. These trails have been free up to now. What is annoying the off road community is the fact that it was off road cyclists, with the blessing of the Park Board no less, who created these trails. People had been bombing around the Park, tearing things up willy-nilly until a group of cyclists developed a sustainable trail system (minimizing erosion) and set down some rules for use (don't ride on the trails after a rain when they're muddy). Now in thanks for the thousands of volunteer hours, the Park Board is going to make 'em pay. Morons.

In other news, tonight is TOYH's big night. In an ancient, secretive nursing ritual whose origins are lost in the mists of time, she's going to get poked....er pinned. I'm all excited to see if they learn a secret handshake, and more importantly if she's going to start wearing one of those cute little nursing hats like Dixie did on that old timey teevee show "Emergency!" (Ahh Johnny and Roy, the odd couple of the paramedic world) The whole family is going to the ceremony to whoop it up. They are going to have treats but no beer unfortunately, even though it's a Catholic School. So drop TOYH a line to tell her she did a damn fine job getting through school. Cuz she did. We're all proud of her.

Guess What?

More snow for tomorrow's afternoon commute. 1-3 inches predicted. Jeff, just don't bother going into work, okay? (See previous post comment section) I packed it in at about 4 o'clock yesterday, and just before I left, I took a look at MDOT's metro traffic page. The interstates I use to get home, 35E and 94, looked relatively free-flowing, so I hopped on thinking that I might be home in 45 minutes or an hour tops. Wrong. Stop and go the whole way. 94 the opposite direction was worse, as Jeff can tell you. I heard on the radio that traffic was backed up from Mounds Blvd to Broadway. That means it was jammed up from downtown St. Paul all the way to the north side of Minneapolis. Ish.

Today is clear and bright and cold. Tonight is "Book Club" night, so I'll pedal on over on the winter beater. One day I'm going to try winter riding on the fixie but I'm too lazy to take it off the trainer for right now. Man that's lazy. In the "Club" we've been reading "Christ," by Jack Miles. Miles is a ex-Jesuit, Ancient Near East scholar who has written a couple of books about God by reading the Bible as a literary critic, not as a theologian or biblical scholar. The books are pretty dense, but endlessly fascinating. He doesn't ignore the orthodox Christian understanding of God, it's that he just he leaves those issues in the background to concentrate on how the story is told. It's amazing to me that someone who has been steeped in the traditional ways of understanding the Bible can step back and write about it from a literary perspective. Take, for example, Moses encountering God in the burning bush. Miles' take is that God has yet to name himself to humanity. In meeting Moses in the burning bush God successively tells Moses that He should be called "I am who I am," "I AM," and "Jehovah." (Exodus 3:14,15) Miles doesn't get hung up on where the names come from, the old Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, Priestly debate, or how the editor put these verses together. He is only concerned with the final "edition" of the text. Three names in two verses. I've read that section of scripture probably dozens of times and didn't think twice about the different names. After reading Miles on this passage, it's almost if God is saying something like, "Call me Joseph. Wait, call me Joe. Ahh whatever, just call me Dude." If you are concerned with scriptural inerrancy or are tied to an Augustinian view of God - the timeless deity, unmoved and unchanged and all that - don't bother reading Miles' books. They'll just make you mad, and that's not the point. If you want to see God portrayed in ways that you've never seen before, by all means give his books a try.

More Snow

I get to look out my window at work and see the snow fall. It's purty. They're saying 3-5 more inches, I'm thinking it'll be on the low side of that. The streets are going to continue to be messy, which will curtail my commuting by bike. I just don't feel like riding in the dark on slippery streets alongside drivers who have forgotten how to drive on snow. Since I'm not able to ride outside much lately, I've set the trainer up in the basement. Bleh. No matter how cold it is down there, I end up drenched in sweat after a few minutes of spinning, and I'm not spinning that hard. I hooked up a crappy little odometer and figured I did about 9 miles in half an hour. I'm doing it on the fixed gear, so there's no real rest, just pedalling for however long I can do it without going crazy.

The Christmas decorations are going up in the Stocking household. There has been constant nagging by the younger two to get this done. On Sunday morning, while I was trying to enjoy my coffee and the paper, there was a tremendous scraping noise coming from the basement. It was 'Nika dragging the big plastic bins of Christmas crap across the floor to the stairs. Kinda like the dog smacking his food dish around when we are late feeding him. Soooo, Sunday the decorations started going up, sans tree, since neither TOYH or I felt like driving around in the aftermath of the snowstorm. After today's snow, we're not going out tree-buying tonight either. There was the usual cursing by TOYH because half the lights she has strung on the fake garlands were "burned out." Then they'd pop on. Then they're off. Last year we just had a half-lit garland. Apparently this holiday obscenity will not be repeated this year, and a whole new string of lights has be applied to the garland. Christmas is saved! The girls put up strings of lights in their rooms. KyKy tried to explain to me that her lights were intermittent, and then there were sparks, and then the lights would come on. Turns out one of those little mini-bulbs broke and there were exposed wires arcing. I know because I touched them and got a shock. I told her to keep her lights unplugged until we replace the bulb.

In the past 5 minutes TOYH called from her trek home from Costco and Jon called me from picking up his son at school to tell me that the roads are terrible. I guess I'm going to leave now and sit in stuck traffic all the way home. Woohoo.

A Disappointment

Our foot of snow is ending up to be about half that. That isn't so disappointing, but the attempted bike ride today was. It was incredibly slippery. The winter beater has fat tires with studs on them, but those really don't make any difference. Riding on the street was treacherous, even with only 4 inches of snow. We have a powder on top of a kind of sleety mix, and the combination is pretty awful. You are constantly correcting the for slipping, which can put you in the middle of the street, not a good thing. There are a couple of schools of thought when it comes to riding in snow. Some people ride skinny road bike tires that cut through the snow. The other option is to go with the 4 inch wide tires on a specially built bike (ahem, a Surly Pugsley with Large Marge rims and Endomorph tires for about $1900.00. If you, faithful reader, win the lottery and can waste money on me, I will gladly take your charity). Oh, well. I'll just wait for the City of Minneapolis to plow the streets and go riding when they're done.

It's funny, I really don't feel like I was prepared for snow. Don't get me wrong, I'm not the kind of person who whines about winter (in fact, I hate those complainers, just move the hell away from here if you don't like the weather). To me there is something spiritual about going through the cold death of winter and being revived by the new life of spring. But today, when I look out the window at the white landscape, I feel like I'm looking at something that just doesn't belong. Maybe I'm in denial. I've been riding bike for a year and 4 months, and even though I rode last winter, I guess I just assumed that the white stuff was not going to factor into my little, insular cycling world. Well, it's here and now, and I have to deal with it.

Speaking of dealing, the Xmas season is upon us, and I don't deal too well with Xmas. Here is what I like about Christmas. 1) Getting together with family is by far and away the best part of the season. 2) "A Charlie Brown Christmas," half hour television special and kick-ass soundtrack. 'Nuff said. 3) Time off from work. That pretty much sums it up, the rest is pretty much crap. Oh, wait - 4) The Christmas tree - with the advent of the soft-needled, good-smelling, needle-retaining Frazier Fir, Christmas trees make my list. But the actual celebration of the birth of God Incarnate .... that has been reduced to an irrelevant footnote.

There is a rule that I have laid down in our household - no Xmas music until Thanksgiving has passed. Well, we are past Thanksgiving and now I'm subjected to the seasonal music. Don't get me wrong, there are some lovely Christmas tunes. It's just that they're 300 years old, and every fading pop music luminary has decided that the way to boost sales is to release an Xmas album of crappy rehashes of these songs. That being said, there are some Christmas albums that I do like. The aforementioned Charlie Brown Christmas. I don't know about Vince Guaraldi but I'm glad Charles Schulz picked him to do the music for this teevee special. Bruce Cockburn, "Christmas." If his version of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" doesn't take your breath away, just count yourself as an indifferent agnostic. By the way, Cockburn wrote the best Christmas song of the 20th Century, maybe of all time (even better than "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer"). It's called, "Cry of a Tiny Babe" and you can find it on his "Nothing But a Burning Light" disk. This song packs so much theological meaning into the Christmas story. It brings tears to my eyes to listen to it. Finally, for pure indulgence, listen to Harry Connick Jr. "When My Heart Finds Christmas." He sings more than one verse of "O Holy Night," which you just don't hear from everybody, and which has some great lines. Unfortunately the production is so over-wrought and dramatic, it comes close to to degenerating into schmalzy dreck. Other than that, there is some fun stuff on that disk. The dude has some talent. Unfortunately for me, our iPod Xmas playlist is filled with a whole lot of stuff that I could care less about. Therefore, when I started this post, I was listening to "Nevermind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols."

One last music related item. If you haven't listened to Mike Doughty's "Haughty Melodic," please, please do so. I am obsessed with that album. Favorite line:

My circus train pulls through the night
Full of lions and trapeze artists
I'm done with elephants and clowns
I want to run away and join the office.

Bring It On

Just got back from the grocery store. It was cloudy when we went in, and it was snowing when we got out. The weather dopes are now saying we may get up to a foot of snow. But the larder is full, there is fresh gas for the snowblower and after my bike ride I can sit in my chair and watch the snow fall while I drink coffee. So come on Mother Nature, do you worst. Well except for an ice storm. That can stay in Iowa.

It Is Finished

Well, mostly. Last night was the final class for TOYH. She was scheduled for one more on December 6th, but apparently St Kates is giving the students time off for good behavior. She still has a paper to finish along with some other odds and ends, but her class requirements are over. No more Thursday evenings. No more Tuesday evenings. No more Saturdays. No more Sundays (yes Sundays, at a Catholic institution no less). What. A. Relief. Now she just has to pass the Boards, get a job, and then we can start paying back the thousands we owe. Yep that's right. As poor as we are, the only financial aid we received was the opportunity to go into hock up to our necks in student loans. God bless America. I guess I really should qualify the statement that she is finished with class. She and her classmates are going to meet on December 6th for a bit of carousing in lieu of class. Effin' a right. They are college students you know.

Now for the important news. Yesterday I was bored at work (that's a whole 'nother story for later) so I pulled out the paper and started the crossword puzzles. I'm not really good at crosswords, although I like attempting them. The local fish-wrap has two crosswords, The NY Times and one called TMS. The Times puzzle is fun because it starts the week easy, and it progressively gets harder until the super-mother-bad Times Sunday crossword. TMS is generally easier to complete than most Times puzzles. That doesn't mean I finish them. Like I said, I'm not so good at crosswords. In the past I usually gave up trying to do the Times after the Tuesday edition. I told you, I'm not really good at these. So yesterday in my boredom I sit down to the crosswords and voila! I finish both of them. Okay, okay, I admit to cheating a little bit. I looked up which Atlantic 10 conference team is nicknamed the Rams (University of Rhode Island) and I also looked up a title of a book by C David Heymann (Liz). I was so proud of myself that I cut the section out of the paper and hung it on the wall.

Speaking of words and crosswords, I have two movies to recommend, both documentaries. The first is Wordplay. It's about the national crossword championship and features Will Shortz, editor of the Times crossword and a weekly guest on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday. People in that movie finish Times puzzles in 2 minutes (me 2 hours). The second movie, and probably the most entertaining documentary ever made, is "Spellbound." It's a movie about the National Spelling Bee. "An entertaining movie about spelling?" you ask. Trust me. It is poignant, funny and nerve wracking. Please do yourself a favor and rent it.

The weather dorks are predicting 6 or more inches of snow, to commence falling tomorrow morning. I am determined to get out on my winter beater bike and ride around with the club, sore back or no sore back.

Effin' a right.

Still No Biking

My back is still pretty tender, although the debilitating spasms have gone away. Tonight I'll ride a few blocks to my "Book Club" and hopefully it will feel alright. It's been really annoying to not ride because I'm withing spitting distance of 5000 miles for the year - less than a hundred to go. Also, my winter beater bike is up and running, though I'm not necessarily looking forward to putting lots of miles on that thing. I rode it to work last week and it was a chore. It felt like driving a tank compared to the SS Deathstar. It'll be good for the slow, winter-season group bike rides, but commuting will not be as much fun. It's all moot until the back feels better.

Madster and 'Nika are back kicking and punching at karate after a week layoff. Just before T-giving, they tested and received their green belts. They are now considered intermediate level and can begin sparring with other students. They carry around a big duffel bag full of protective gear, kinda like hockey players except not nearly as stinky. Madster should probably be sparring with the adults, but at this point we're not ready to start hauling kids to 6 different karate sessions a week.

TOYH will be done with classes on December 6th and gets pinned on December 7. Once she's officially graduated she'll be allowed to take the national nursing boards. December 2007 seemed like a long way off when she started school back in August of 2004, but she made it. She's trying to land a job with the MN Visiting Nurses Assn., so we're crossing our fingers about that. Normally they don't hire new grads, they want nurses with some clinical background. Hopefully she can get around that hurdle because this is what she really wants to be doing.

I'm Getting Grumpy

After Thanksgiving dinnner (well it was lunch, really, Tracy had it early which was very nice - no spending all day thinking about the food), I took the girls and the dogs up to Opa and Oma's for the night. Everything was cool until bedtime. I went upstairs to lie down and read at about 9:00 because I was tired. I couldn't go to sleep early cuz I needed make sure 'Nika and The Madster were ready for bed before I went to sleep. When I got back up at 10:00, my back was a bit stiff. I didn't think about it until the next morning when I tried to put my socks on. Spasm city. I made it through the day OK, but when we got back home and I went upstairs to read before bed, I thought I was gonna die. I was getting up to brush my teeth, and in the process of swinging my legs around and rolling out of bed, I ended up squatting next to it unable to move. Trying to straighten out and stand up was so excruciatingly painful that I was frozen there for about half a minute. Visions of my father rushed through my head. I almost yelled out, "Florence!" (all family members can close their eyes and hear that voice) but caught myself. I managed to right myself without any assistance, brush my teeth and get back into bed to get some sleep. I was supremely bummed out about these spasms because I had arranged to get home for the Saturday morning Hiawatha Cyclery ride. I missed that, obviously, and haven't been on a bike since Thursday morning when I went on my annual Ride-Around-Downtown-Minneapolis-When-There-Is-No-Traffic-Thanksgiving-Day-Ride. Saturday was to be extra special because I was to go Hiawatha Cyclery to pick up a prize I had won, a "Banana Bunker" (it's clever little thingy to carry around a banana in your backpack, briefcase, etc. without crushing it - but it looks like something you'd pick up at Sex World). I won it in a baby naming contest. It was the consolation prize so apparently my suggestion of "Thor" for a child whose last name is Thill wasn't exactly what the parents were looking for. When I told TOYH that I had won said BB in a baby naming contest she asked, "Is there something that you're not telling me about?" Well duh, I just told you. I won a Banana Bunker in a baby naming contest.

Back By Popular Demand

So we pile on over to Tracy and Jeff's for T-giving and I was asked why I haven't been blogging. I tried to explain that since I'm so clued into current cultural trends, I have determined that the latest and greatest trend in cyberspace is to quit blogging. Nobody bought it. I then reminded people that there are 4 other contributors to this piece of junk and that they haven't added anything since, oh, say, April. Nobody cared. So I tell everyone I'm lazy, uninspired and insensitive to my reading public. Bingo. Everyone understands. So I decided, for the time being, to crawl out of my self-absorbed reverie, and post something. Here it goes.

Thanksgiving was very nice.

The Last Meet And A Halloween Story

Tonight is KyKy's last swim meet. They are calling it JV sections, but what it really is is the JV City Championship. The section that Southwest is in is filled with suburban powerhouses whose JV teams would probably give SW's Varsity a run for their money. Coach would rather have the girls compete with programs of similar ability, and I agree with her on that. Minneapolis schools are at a huge disadvantage when it comes to facilities. Because South and Southwest share the same pool for practices and home meets and the divers practice in the mornings not allowing the swimmers to swim, Minneapolis teams simply can't get the yards in to field competitive teams. It's pretty sad, but that's just how it is sometimes.

TOYH and Madster and 'Nika trekked up to Vadnais Heights to Trick or Treat with their cousins. Lolls live on a circular road that has plenty of houses, so the kids make one circuit and come back with a bit of candy, but not too much. I stayed at home because KyKy was at Varsity City Championships and needed to be picked up. After I got her home, I went over to my neighbor's for our "book club." I looked across the street at the trick or treaters going up to the big house on the corner. It was lit up with Halloween lights. It also has these big cast aluminum storm doors that are meant to look like big scrolled iron gates. They are pretty stout since the idea is to prevent break ins. Anyway the trick or treaters would go up door, knock on it and the owners would come to the door. Rather than opening up the door for them, the owners would shove the candy out to the kids through the mail slot. Only in the 'hood I guess.

It Was Five Years Ago Today.....

That I was working FedEx route 9 on a dreary, cloudy day in South Minneapolis. I was at Franklin and Blaisdel, when TOYH called me on the phone to say that the plane carrying Paul Wellstone had crashed. I was sick to my stomach. Wellstone was the first politician I gave money to. He was the first politician I put a sign in my yard for. He was and is the only politician that I thought was truly looking out for working schlubs like me. When he died, I honestly felt that the voice that spoke for me and my concerns in the halls of power was lost. No doubt he was a polarizing figure, and his politics turned off many people. But the political was not the personal for Wellstone. He was friends with Jesse Helms, his opposite and nemesis in so many ways.

I want to leave you with two things.

What if there were more pols, Democrat and Republican, like Wellstone who could be passionate advocates for their causes without engaging in the politics of personal destruction and childish, vindictive, obstructive game playing? People hated Wellstone's politics, but they did not hate him. Maybe if they were more civil with each other, government might actually work.

Think about these quotes from his Senate floor speech opposing the authorization to use force in Iraq. This was the speech that would supposedly have cost him the election.

"Of first and greatest concern, obviously, are the questions raised about the possible loss of life that could result from our actions. The United States could send tens of thousands of U.S. troops to fight in Iraq, and in so doing we could risk countless lives, of U.S. soldiers and innocent Iraqis. There are other questions, about the impact of an attack in relation to our economy. The United States could face soaring oil prices and could spend billions both on a war and on a years-long effort to stabilize Iraq after an invasion."

"We have succeeded in destroying some Al Qaida forces, but many of its operatives have scattered, their will to kill Americans still strong. The United States has relied heavily on alliances with nearly 100 countries in a coalition against terror for critical intelligence to protect Americans from possible future attacks. Acting with the support of allies, including hopefully Arab and Muslim allies, would limit possible damage to that coalition and our anti-terrorism efforts. But as General Wes Clark, former Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe has recently noted, a premature go-it-alone invasion of Iraq 'would super-charge recruiting for Al Qaida.'"

Worst. Commute. Ever

Yesterday I had to leave work at 3pm to get home so that we could pick up Madster and 'Nika from their after school programs, go to KyKy's swim meet in New Hope and then to KyKy's first orchestra concert at school. Oh and the gas company needed to get into the house because they were replacing the line from the house to the main line out under the street. Anyhoo... I leave work at 3pm and I had to fight west winds of 30 mph with gusts to 40 mph. I think there were spots where I headed into gusts well over 40 mph. There were tumbleweeds on the transitway. I had grit on my teeth from all the sand being blown around at the Gopher Stadium site. I followed a guy on Portland Ave for a bit and we were both weaving around the bike lane because of the big cross winds. At least it was relatively warm during that mess.

KyKy did OK at her meet. She was under a bit of duress because her genius of a coach put her in 3 events. Here's the deal. KyKy told her coach on Friday that she had a concert that began at 7pm the day of the meet. The meet was in New Hope and started at 5pm. Coach was miffed because KyKy would have to leave the meet early. I, on the other hand, was extremely miffed because: 1) There were no exhibition heats that would use up swimmers to fill race spots 2) It was a 5 lane pool, so Southwest could not put 3 swimmers in every event. Therefore, there should be plenty of swimmers to fill the varsity and jv events, and KyKy would be able to leave early to get ready for her concert. But no, she HAD to be in a jv 200 free relay and thus did not have time to shower after the meet. We also had to stop and get something to eat because the concert would not be over until 8:15. What I don't understand is why coach can't juggle the lineup with 5 days advanced notice, and why there are not accommodations made for school events where participation is actually part of her grade. It sounds like passive-aggressive bullshit to me. Coach rarely pays attention to the jv, and now it's a big hairy deal that KyKy has to leave the meet early. I also feel there is no recourse to complain to coach or to her superior because coach is also KyKy's math teacher. With the level of maturity she's displayed so far, I wouldn't put it past her to knock KyKy down a few notches in school because her parents complain about her coaching. In any case, there is just one more meet and the season is done. If KyKy wants to swim next year that's cool, but it will be her wanting to be on a team. If she wants to improve as a swimmer, she's going to have to join a club to get better coaching.

KyKy's concert was lovely. 3 different ensembles played, and the director chose a few classical pieces and a few by local composers, one of them was a recent Southwest graduate. KyKy's orchestra sounded good, and she was excited to play in a concert with a group as opposed to recitals where she plays alone. A friend and neighbor of ours plays with the Minnesota Orchestra, so I'm hoping to get a few reduced price tickets to see what is by many accounts one of the top 5 orchestras in the world today. There you have it. The Stocking family, slightly more cultured than yogurt.

They Lost In A Heartbreaker

Last night the Southwest and South girls swim teams went head to head for the second time this season. South won the first meeting pretty handily, as they have been doing for the last 25 years or so. Southwest's coach juggled the lineup a bit to try and pull this one off. After the 100 breaststroke, SW was ahead by 2 points. A win in the 400 free relay would guarantee a win, a 2nd and 3rd place finish would result in a tie. Unfortunately SW took 2nd and 4th in the relay and lost the meet by 2 points. There were a few girls crying after the meet. They really thought they could break the streak so this ended up being the biggest meet of the season, and to lose by 2 was a bit much. There was a little bit of gloating on the part of the South fans (the students, not the parents) which was hard to take, but I guess it becomes a lesson in losing gracefully. KyKy split at :29 on her leg of the medley relay, dropped her time about 35 seconds in the 500 to 7:40 and had a 1:12 on her split in the 400 FR. I'm still not sure what to think about the coach and the team. The coaches, in my estimation, haven't been developing their junior varsity swimmers, which if they want to beat South, they're going to have to do at some point. KyKy has 2 weeks until j.v. sections, and then the season is done.

While we were at the meet TOYH called from home to say that her phone had been stolen from her studio while she was working on a client. This is not just a phone, but her calendar, all her contact information, school stuff - a good chunk of her life is on that thing. I've tried backing up her info on the computer, but the software on the two machines doesn't really work together. To lose this thing would be a gigantic pain. As it turns out, there are some teens doing some kind of group therapy in the same building. TOYH went over and told the group leaders what had happened, and they said they would look for her phone. They found it in the stairwell of the building. Someone got bored with it pretty quickly I guess, or else they figured out that she doesn't have any games on it, so it wasn't worth keeping. All is well for now.

This Weather Is Getting Depressing

It seems like it's been cool and rainy for two weeks now. Most importantly, I've missed a couple of days biking because of the weather. Yesterday, however, was glorious. I got up early and hooked up with the gang from Hiawatha Cyclery. I didn't really know what to expect, but it turned out to be a bunch of middle-aged guys riding their bikes and chatting with a stop for coffee at about the midpoint. Really nice, friendly group. I actually met the infamous "Lunatic Biker." He's a local biker/blogger who writes some very amusing (rated R for language) stuff. The ride itself wasn't that great (except for the company of course). It was so laid back and relaxed that at one point I looked down at my heart rate monitor and my pulse was a whopping 69. While riding my bike. I'm in fair shape, but this is really slow. Next time I go with them, I'm riding my fixie because at least when I'm on that, my legs are moving all the time.

Now this morning I went out on a TCBC ride. It kept threatening rain and it would spit on us every once in a while. I like the folks I ride with in the Club but sometimes I don't understand them. I think I was the only rider to actually ride his bike to the start of the ride. Everyone else rolled up in their cars. A couple of them had bikes worth 3 grand or more, and most of them were outfitted in at least $400.00 worth of cool weather/rain gear. I showed up on the cheapest bike (my fixie) and about $100.00 worth of cool weather clothing. Toward the middle of the ride somebody flatted out, so we all stopped until he had it fixed. It was in the mid 40's with a breeze so stopping and starting is a real pain. Until you get moving and warm up, it can be a bit chilly. As we continued on, we reached a point where the ride can be cut short or we can do the whole thing. The rain started dribbling again. Guess who was the only one to complete the whole route? Yup, Mr Cheap Bike wearing jean shorts and walking shoes. Some of them were cold, or didn't want to ride in the "rain" despite the fact that they has spent a lot of money on clothing for just this situation. Sheesh. Now I've spent a lot of money on bike stuff, including clothing, but come on, if you give up when it's 40 outside and you're wearing all this high tech stuff, it seems to me you've just wasted bunch of dough. My goal this winter is to keep riding until the temp drops to zero. We'll see.

Today was the day that all the ladies in the family were to trek up to Brooklyn Park to get their hairs cut by our fabulous hairdresser friend. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, Tanya had to cancel. TOYH had it all worked out so that between multiple trips all of us wouldn't have to spend the whole afternoon and part of the evening at Tanya's. I guess they're going to try again on Thursday. I myself don't have Tanya cut my hairs anymore. It just takes too dang long, although she does a fabulous job. A few weeks ago, I went to Phil's Barber Shop on Nicollet and Diamond Lake Road. (That's spitting distance from Nana's last apartment before she moved to the "home") Phil did a fine job, but I think he needs a hearing aid. When I would make chit chat with him, he wouldn't respond or would ask questions about something I had already told him. Maybe I'll go back or maybe I'll try and find another barbershop. It seems like most of the shops around here cater to African American clientele, so I'm not sure what they'd do with me.

Aaaand They're Off

The Madster had her braces taken off yesterday. Beautiful. She was pretty dilligent about hooking up the rubber bands the last few months which pulled her teeth into place and expedited the whole process. These braces were brought to her at great expense. I believe she has been through 3 dental plans, each one paying progressively less for orthodontic coverage. I used to joke with my old FedEx colleagues that I would stay with the company as long as the kids needed braces because their dental plan covered for half of any orthodontia. Would have saved me a couple of grand if I was able to do so. When I asked her how it felt to have them off her response was, "Slimey." Delicious. Well it's two down and one to go as far as braces go cuz 'Nika is definitely going to need them. Only a couple dozen more trips to Family Orthodontics and the Stocking curse of Hillbilly teeth will be broken.

The daily grind is well, the daily grind. Multiple trips every week to karate, swimming, youth group etc. I have a much greater appreciation for all the trouble Mom went through when we were growing up and needed to be taxied about. I'm beginning to dislike the constant drives to SW High School. There is a freeway and a couple of lakes that stand between us and the school, and it's a pain to get there. When KyKy is done with swimming, she'll be able to take the school bus home - until track starts, which she is threatening to go out for. I'd like to see her bike or take the city bus, but at this point in the school year it' getting a bit cool (and eventually too dark) for her to be riding around.

We're counting the weeks until TOYH is done with school.

Still Don't Feel The Need To Get A Gun

See the October 4 post. Also, last evening 'Nika and I were watching old M*A*S*H re-runs when we heard a pow, pow, pow. It wasn't firecrackers cuz of the way they repeated themselves. It was probably some dimwitted homeboy busting a few caps. Neighbor kid called in a panic, but 'Nika was on the phone and we didn't answer because she didn't click over on call waiting. Cops didn't even respond. I don't even worry about those things anymore. Gunshots have been very infrequent this year in our neighborhood.

You Can Just Call Me The Angel Of Death

So Tuesday afternoon I pick up KyKy from swimming, and as we pull into the garage, the dogs are going nuts in the yard. I'm thinking that they're just excited to see us. This was not the case. They had managed to catch a squirrel and Max was worrying it. The squirrel was squealing, KyKy started yelling at Max, and 'Nika came out and started yelling at the dogs also. Max dropped the squirrel, so Grover picked it up and started shaking it around, more yelling ensued until we got the dogs to leave it alone and get them back in the house. So there is Mr. Squirrel lying in a puddle of mud, twitching. I dispatched it with a couple of blows to the head with a shovel. Yuck. As of today, I still don't feel the need to go out and buy an orange vest and a long gun to reinforce my bona fides as a killer. I guess that means I can cross Blackwater off of my list of potential employers. I do wish the dogs would pursue the mice in our house with the same bloodlust they apparently have for squirrels.

Monday Nights Are Done

TOYH is done with Monday night classes. For the first time in 3 years she'll be down to one class a week. Only three more months until she's finished. Last night she took the practice NCLEX test, which is the test to pass her national boards. (I think) Nursing schools are having their students take this preliminary test to get an idea of where their students are at. TOYH was pretty mum about how she thought the test went. This means she probably did very well on it. Normally after a test, she comes home and feels all depressed because she thinks she did such crappy job. "I'm a failure and a fraud, and I'm going to die homeless and 10 pounds overweight," kinda thing. And she ends up getting an A. Always expect the worst is her motto I think.

She also received a job offer from Abbott Northwestern yesterday. This is a great news, but probably not something she is going to pursue. One of the conclusions she came to on her internship was that working as a floor nurse is not what she'd really like to do. It would have to be a pretty sweet set up for her to take a job there. 6 shifts every two weeks and no evenings. I don't think that'll happen. She's getting her name out with the Minnesota Visiting Nurses Association hoping to land a job in the public health setting. That would be sweet.

The girls spent the weekend with The EG on a photo trip on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Photo ops were pretty slim because it rained quite a bit. They did have an adventure on the way back though. The EG thought she had lost her wallet on the day they were to come back. Luckily they had gassed up the van the day before, so they wouldn't be stuck. As they toddled back home eating grapes and Teddy Grahams and drinking Gatorade, KyKy discovered she had $9. Stopped for ice cream bars, of course. When they were unpacking the van at our place, EG's wallet showed itself in the back of the van. Relief.

'Nika almost didn't go on the trip because she found out on Thursday that she had gotten a D on a test and would have to re-take it on Monday. She was distraught. "I'm a failure and a fraud....." Turns out that she was supposed to make note cards to study for the test. She didn't finish her cards because she was using the dictionary to look things up and it was taking a loooong time. What she didn't realize was that she was to make the cards using the glossary in her textbook. She re-took the test on Monday - B+.

Yesterday we received the results from the MN Comprehensive Assessment (or whatever it's called), the benchmark tests that the kids take in school. I am happy to report that all the kids are meeting or exceeding expectations in math and reading. I am not happy to report that there is an inordinate amount of time spent in the classroom teaching to the test. Thank you No Child Left Behind.

The weather has generally be craptastic for the past 4 days, so not much bike riding. I'm itching to take my fixed gear out for a longer ride. Rob T gave me some bullhorn handlebars that I actually installed myself on the bike. It's not the prettiest job, but not too bad for an amateur.

Even I Haven't Looked At This Stupid Blog For A Week

And it's not because I was mugged while riding my bike. Speaking of cycling, I've passed a few milestones in the past week. SS Deathstar rolled over 3000 miles on the odometer and my yearly total has passed 4000. 5000 here I come, but it may take me the rest of the year. Earlier in the year, I was going on frequent rides with the Twin City Bicycling Club. It was very convenient, because there were a number of rides leaving a mile or two from the house, so I'd just bike over and meet up with the group. Many of those rides have disappeared and my usual Saturday morning ride is a thing of the past since Madster and 'Nika have karate 3 Saturdays a month. I try and commute 3 days a week minimum and I'll get out on my own for rides, but frankly it's much more fun to ride with other people. I did have the opportunity to do that the past two weekends. At the last minute I showed up at the Minneapolis bike tour and rode the 41 mile route. At the start we were reminded that this wasn't a race, and to enjoy the parkways of Minneapolis. Pfffft. I enjoy the parkways all the time, at least as much as possible while dealing with traffic. This was an opportunity to blow doors without having to worry about cars. I worked my way past the recreational riders and fell in with a bunch of riders of similar ability. Fun, fun, fun. I averaged 18 mph over the 41 mile course. It's fun to be a pretend bike racer sometimes. On Sunday Rob T. invited me to go on the Hiawatha Cyclery ride around Lake Pepin. 70 miles of hilly goodness with stunning vistas. During the ride, I had to apologize to my fellow riders for my pathological hatred of hills. When I see a hill I attack it. I want to get it over with and I hate spinning my way up slowly. I have to admit it feels pretty good passing people going uphill, but I always remember there are tons of people who could easily do the same thing to me (I'm looking at you Neil). That mindset of pushing and punishing myself while biking must be leftover from all those years and yards in the pool. It doesn't feel right if it's not painful.

Speaking of pools, last week KyKy said she wanted to quit swimming, but that notion passed in about 12 hours. It would make me sad if she was to quit, not because I think she should be gunning for some scholarship or because of the whole idea of accomplishment, determination, improving times etc. All those are good things. It's being part of a team that's important - having a group of friends that you share your suffering with. Southwest is a pretty big school compared to Emerson, so having people you are connected with makes H.S. much more manageable in my opinion. As of today, she's still having fun.

The Madster is part of an after school activity called GEMS - Girls in Engineering Math and Science. She went to a weekend workshop on robotics, with mixed results. Parts were boring (learning the programming) and parts were fun (problem solving with a partner). I really ought to make her post about it.

'Nika is, well, 'Nika. She's plugging along in school. Hasn't had too many breakdowns about not wanting to go. She is constantly keeping us entertained with her general goofiness. She and Madster are both digging karate. They're really committed.

TOYH's classroom time is winding down, thank God. After this coming Monday, she'll only be in class once a week, on Thursdays. That's not to say she won't have a ton of stuff to do, since she has a preceptorship in public health, but she won't be gone two evenings and every other weekend to class.

If you're frustrated by my lack of posts, tough. I might suggest that you sign up for a RSS feed, just don't ask me how you should do it. I know on my Google homepage, they have a widget called Reader that will connect to a blog and alert you to new posts. If you can't figure out how to set it up on your own homepage, I guess you'll just need to check in here every once in a while, until you finally get frustrated and stop reading this crap altogether.

This Makes Me Angry

http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1423126.html

That was the night I was to go biking with my book-club buddies, and most likely we would have been in the same area as this incident. Any seeming act of random violence seems worse than violence where victim and victimizer knew each other. Add to that the fact that the victim was a cyclist and it happened in my neighborhood, and now I guess I'm supposed to be more vigilant, but it just makes me angry. I'm angry that someone was killed. I'm angry that the perception of my neighborhood is that it is overly dangerous. I'm angry that because this has happened, I'm supposed to be more cautious or that I'm putting my family at risk by living here. (For those of you with sensitive eyes or ears, please stop reading now, you'll be offended.)

Fuck all that. I am not making any drastic changes because of this. We've lived here for 9 years with absolutely no problems at all. I have walked the streets at 1 am and later and have never been bothered. (When I worked at the hospital, I would take the bus home from my evening shift.) I refuse to live in fear. I like my neighborhood. I like the fact that we are centrally located in the city. I like it that many of our friends are living within 4 blocks of us. I suppose if I wanted to live a life with less "risk" I would move out of the city and I would stop riding my bike on any roads I had to share with cars, but I don't want to do either of those things. There is that old saw from FDR's inaugural, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." I'm coming to understand the profundity of that statement more and more. Not only because of where my family lives, but because of the times we all live in. This whole "war on terror" is complete and utter bullshit. Thousands upon thousands of lives lost. Billions and billions of dollars wasted on a senseless war. And for what? What is it that we really fear? Death? Economic hardship? What? Islamic take-over of the country? Loss of our "freedom?" (If freedom is your answer, I hope you have been dead set against the Patriot Act from the beginning.) I am personally sick of being told that everything we know and love is being threatened by an amorphous enemy, but to allay our fears we must declare and sustain a war against a people that never attacked us and never even posed a threat to us. And even if something terrible did happen, would it be our ultimate demise? We survived 9/11 didn't we? What have we got to fear?

OK end of rambling rant.

You Know Something Is Wrong With Me When....

I skip a bike ride. So yesterday I felt pretty miserable all day at work. Stomach cramps and a general malaise is how I would describe it. The Madster had something similar on Tuesday. I was able to bike home from work without any embarrassing gastro-intestinal episodes, and when I got there, I piled the younger two into the car and off we went to KyKy's swim meet. She was in 4 JV races. We missed her anchoring a medley relay, but I think she swam a :33 on her split. Next was 200 free - 2:57. Not a great time, but she's never swum that race before so she doesn't know how to attack it. She swam the 100 in 1:18 and her split on the 400 free relay was 1:16. Not too bad. I wish the coaches would spend more time with the girls on technical stuff - stroke work, starts, turns. It's an easy way to shave time without having to kill the girls with swimming massive amounts of yards. Besides, if they're swimming all these yards and reinforcing bad technique, you've just made your life much more difficult for yourself as a coach. Southwest lost the meet. There were a couple hundred people crammed into the pool for the meet, and at times it was absolutely deafening. It was one of the more exciting dual meets I have ever been to. The two teams have another dual meet again later this season. It will be hard for Southwest to beat South from what I've seen. South has too much depth in the freestyle events for SW to overcome.

After the meet Madster and 'Nika and I were waiting in the hallway for KyKy. We bought some water from the concession stand, and it was very cold, which felt good after spending nearly three hours in the pool. I was feeling ok standing out in the hall, but when we left the building I crashed. It wasn't that cold outside, probably in the low 60's, but that, in combination with the cold water, pushed me over the edge. I felt like I had hypothermia almost immediately upon getting outside. I wasn't shivering, I was shuddering. We got in the car and I cranked the heat up and actually dreaded the walk from the garage to the house because I thought it would be so cold.

Now Wednesdays are my "book club" night. I get together with 3 other friends and we sit around on Matthew's porch and discuss a book we are jointly reading. And drink some wine. We really do discuss the books though. So far we've read all or parts of "God: A Biography" by Jack Miles, "Life Together" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer and "Irresistible Revolution" by Shane Claiborne. I really, really cherish this time with these guys. Often I don't get to bed until 2:30 am because of the intensity of the discussion. So last night we were going to forgo the discussion for a while and go on a little after dark bike ride on the trails around the city. We did this once before, and I was looking forward to last night. Alas, when I got home I called Matthew, told him I wasn't coming because I felt so crappy, and went straight to bed at 9:30, pulling two comforters over myself to warm up. I happened to wake up at 2:45 and I thought, "I've just slept 5 hours more than I normally get on Wednesday night." Still feeling a bit crummy today so I didn't bike, which bums me out because that would have been 4 days in a row of bike commuting - 108 miles not driven.

Yeah, So What If I Haven't Felt Like Writing Anything

Can't tell you why I haven't written anything lately. Well, yes I can. I'm lazy.

Plenty-o-stuff going on. We spent last Saturday down in Mason City for cousin Lise's wedding. It was my favorite kind of wedding - short. No special music. No long vows. No long homily. It was very traditional in that it seemed to follow a script based on the Book of Common Prayer. It was very nice. We adjourned to the Mason City Best Western for the reception and had a chance to catch up with cousins, aunts and uncles. Unfortunately we camped out at tables right under the DJ's speakers, so conversation across the table was sometimes a bit difficult. The last wedding we were at was cousin Trish's which was outdoors, and I don't remember the last time I was at a wedding reception with a DJ. The DJ introduced the wedding party with a very subdued kind of "Let's Get Ready To Ruuuuumble" enthusiasm complete with colorful disco lights. Thank you very much pro sports for making simple introductions into overly done productions. Meh.

KyKy has a big swim meet tonight against arch-rival South. South historically has had a strong program and has beaten up on Southwest for the last 25 years or so. South's coach thinks that this could be the year to break the streak, so it should be an nerve-wracking meet. KyKy will be swimming JV again, although she posted an awesome time in her last meet. She anchored the medley relay and split 30.3 seconds, which was a 4 second drop from the Edina meet. Her split on the 200 free relay was 33 seconds, which kind of surprised me after her first effort. If she can break 30 tonight, I personally think that she should swim a race or two on varsity. We'll see.

All the girls are getting back into the school routine with no major complaints. Homework has been manageable and they like their teachers so far.

I haven't been biking as much as I would like. We've been busy on weekends and schedules are crazy with school, swimming, karate so it is hard to get out and ride. In August, I dropped down from my 600+ mile a month pace to a little over 500. September is shaping up to be another 500 miler, which is ok because I should pass 4000 miles for the year this month and my goal of 5000 looks to be well within reach.

So there you go. Now fill up the comment section with football talk.

School

Everybody but me is back at it this week. KyKy left early today for morning practice before school. The Madster and 'Nika went out to the bus stop at 34th and Columbus we've been going to since 1998. This is the first year since we moved into the house that KyKy isn't climbing on that Emerson bus. She's joined the crowd of kids that have moved on to bigger and better things I guess. In 5 more years there won't be a Stocking at that bus stop anymore.

It'll be interesting to hear what KyKy and Madster's impressions are of their teachers. K is in a whole new school so we don't know any of the teachers, and since all of our friends kids are going to South, we can't get the dish on any of the Southwest bunch. The Madster is getting a whole new batch of teachers who are new to Emerson. They left a good impression on us after we met them at the school open house. We're hoping she has a great year. 'Nika is with some veterans who have been at the school since we started sending the kids there, so she should be fine. This week TOYH starts her final term at St Kates. 3 plus years into this slog and the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel is getting much brighter.

We were able to get stuff done around the house despite all our social engagements. On Sunday, we went to a little get together up in Vadnais Heights for our nephew's birthday. Monday, my sister Terri and her family stopped by with their bikes and a foreign exchange student, so we took a little tour around Lakes Calhoun and Harriet. Lovely day for a ride. In between these things, TOYH finished up the Madster's bedroom. She is now sleeping in a north woods cabin. The Dreadful Man came down, and with the help of The Madster, painted a scene on the one big blank wall of her room. On the one hand, The Madster wanted her room to look like the inside of a cabin. On the other, she wanted wildlife painted on the wall. Her solution? Paint the wall as the inside of cabin where the animals have broken in to eat the food. So there's a black bear and a raccoon munching away at the stores. Pretty clever, I thought. I spent the weekend painting trim on the outside of the house. It was looking pretty raggedy and white trash, so it got a power wash, prime and paint job. This was only the trim on the first floor, mind you. At the upper reaches of the second floor there's some peeling paint that will have to be dealt with eventually. I'm thinking, "Hire somebody." Unless I suddenly get ambitious and rent scaffolding and a truck to transport it, it's just going to have to wait.

Sigh....Again

So, we are well into the Labor Day weekend. Not to diminish the work that I do for Test Equipment World Domination Headquarters, but Labor day just doesn't seem to hold the same cache that it did when I was toiling away as a wage slave, humping packages for FedEx. That was labor, let me tell you. Oh well.

We are trying to make the most of this 3 day weekend. TOYH did not schedule anyone at the Massage Parlour for today, so we had the day to try and get some stuff around the house. After biking with KyKy to her dryland swimming practice (weightlifting), I came back to Casa de Stocking to do some work that has been put off for too long. This weekend, I am borrowing the 2500psi power washer from my father-in-law to peel the paint from some of the crappy looking trim on the house, and also to wash some of the dirt off the siding . So I washed off the siding, and peeled the paint off the offending trim in no time flat. While I was working on that, KyKy called to say practice was over and she wanted me to come back and ride home with her. But this was to be a family affair, so I aired up the tires on the bikes of everyone in the family and we set out to go pick up KyKy. KyKy was feeling adventurous, so she called just before we left and told us to meet her at the Lake Harriet Bandshell. Fair enough. We made it there in one piece, met her, drank down our water bottles and headed back home. On the way home, KyKy was captivated by the buena vista of Lake Harriet, and thus wasn't paying attention to where she was going. She drifted off the bike path and wiped out pretty good. She ended up with some road rash on her elbow and her knee. She was a little weepy about the incident, but I think that was more a matter of injured pride than the actual scrapes and bruises.

After we got home, we regrouped and prepared ourselves for ..... SHOPPING! I had to stop by the hardware store to pick up the paint and supplies for the trim on the house I had just denuded, and we also needed to make a pilgrimage to Costco to get ready for the start of school. Mission Accomplished. We came back and unloaded the booty, and I fired up the grill in the back yard so as to cook up some of the meat we had been storing in our freezer. (Speaking of freezers, TOYH and hauled up our little 3 (?) cubic foot freezer freezer from the basement to defrost it. Took out all the crap (meat) that was in it, brought it outside, set it in the sun, and waited until the ice chunks had melted. Good times.) We ate some grilled salmon and tuna we found in the far reaches of our upstairs freezer and pretty much called it a night.

The sigh in the title of this post comes from me listening to the Gophers football game on the radio. Halftime - Bowling Green 21 Gophers 0. Not encouraging. I'm not a huge football fan, but I want the team from my beloved alma mater to be successful. This year the Gophs have a new coach who apparently is chock full of enthusiasm. I really, really want him to be successful, just like I wanted the U's former coach, Jim "Geezo Beezo" Wacker to be successful. I really like coaches who are barely able to contain their excitemtent about their team. The coach between the current coach and Wacker was Glen Mason, who was a very, very good coach, but he always struck me as bloodless compared to "Wacky" Wacker. I always loved Wacky, he may have not had the chops to coach in the Big 10 but by golly you couldn't help rooting for him. Tim Brewster, the new coach, seems to have an untainted, golly-shucks enthusiasm for the game and for the U of M. More power to him. I really want him to succeed. I hope the Gophs pull it out. All this being said, I must ask if my sister Jen and her husband Francis if they are rooting for Bowling Green, being that they are graduates of that fine institution. American Studies. Storybook romance. Just ask them.

Just as an aside - I miss more than words can express Ray Christiansen broadcasting Gopher football. He has been off the air for a couple of seasons now, but he was the voice of Gopher football and basketball for as long as I can remember. Oh, for the days growing up listening him call a game, and then the post game show with Bill Diehl. Oma always had the radio tuned to WCCO when the Gophs were playing (She had the radio tuned to 'CCO all the time, I mean every waking hour). Ray was such a homer, a graduate of the U who lived and died with the fortunes of the team. He wasn't just a part of my youth, but my adulthood too. I knew nothing other than Ray when it came to Gopher radio broadcasts, and I miss him. Add to that the loss of Herb Carneal, THE ONLY VOICE OF THE MINNESOTA TWINS, who died just before the start of this year's baseball season, and the radio sports mooring of my life has been undone. I guess I'm getting old.

Upcoming: More exciting home improvement updates!

Finally, Some Sleep

We were finally able to get some uninterrupted sleep last night. The previous 2 nights we were awakened by window-rattling thunderstorm between 2am and 3am. While I enjoy a good storm, it was literally tiresome to wake up and wonder if the tree in the front yard was going to topple over on the house. Woke up this morning to glorious weather - cloudless 60 degrees, north breeze and NO HUMIDITY. TOYH has been trying to paint The Madster's room, and the dampness in the air has slowed the process way down. It's supposed to be nice through the long weekend, so hopefully we'll be able to get work done around the house and garden.

The cool, dry mornings are indescribably nice for biking. I felt chilled at the beginning of my commute wearing just a tee-shirt and shorts, but after a few minutes of riding, it felt great. I was able to play good Samaritan this morning on my ride. I try to make it a point to ask any biker who is pulled over if he/she needs any help. Today, I asked a fellow on the Greenway if he needed anything, and he said, "Do you have a pump?" Sure enough I did. We aired up his tire and we were on our way. I thought for sure I heard hissing from his tire, but he said he would be o.k. And he was. He didn't flat out again. I fell in behind him for the rest of the ride on the Greenway and then across the Lake St. Marshall Ave bridge. On the flats, he was booking along at about 20mph and I was able to keep up with him. When we got to the hill on Marshall up from the river bridge he slowed way down. Weird. I probably out weighed him by 50 pounds plus I had a 15 pound pannier on my rack. He was on a stripped down road bike all decked out in racing garb. Being that I was filled with so much goodwill after lending him my pump, I decided not to humiliate him by flying past him up the hill. If he had been a jerk, I would have absolutely no problem moving my old, fat body up a hill faster than a weenie, roadie poseur.

Tonight is the open house for The Madster and 'Nika's school. TOYH and I are very keen on meeting The Madster's new teachers since the exodus of 3 (at least) of the Gang of Four from last spring. I hope they'll be able to pull it together. 7th and 8th grade were so important for KyKy, and we don't want the other two to miss out.

Why I Don't Like The State Fair

1) I have to change my very convenient bike ride to work because of all the traffic. Plus my in-laws live in Roseville 2 miles from the Fairgrounds. Getting to Roseville and back is very annoying this time of year, even moreso with a missing bridge.

2) I am tired of hearing about all the different kinds of food one can "get on a stick." It's not funny or cute anymore.

3) I am tired of turning on the local news and having to watch a bunch of Gomers mugging for the camera in the background so they can go home and say, "Hey maw, I gots myself into that there moving picture box in your living room. Didja see me?"

That is all.

17 Years Plus One Day

We had a lovely time down in Southeastern Minnesota this weekend. We stayed at the Wenneson Inn in Peterson, MN which is between Rushford and Lanesboro. Peterson and Lanesboro were untouched by the floods of last weekend, Rushford was pretty much decimated. Peterson is smack dab in the middle of bluff country. It is very pretty down there. It is also very different down there. Peterson is a town of 269 souls that does not have a convenience store/gas station. It does have a bar, a liquor store (Chiggy Liquors), one restaurant, a feed mill, two B&B's, a combination carwash laundromat, and of course a Lutheran Church. Before you settle into where you're staying in Peterson, make sure you are prepared. If you don't have what you need, you can't get it in town, unless it is alcohol. The go to town for any sundries would be Rushford, but that town will be shut down for a while. The biggest town close by is Winona, which is about 25 miles to the north. The Twin Cities hardly qualify as a 24 hour city, but we've got 24 hour groceries and convenience stores. I have no idea where the closest all night store to Peterson is.

I noticed on the county roads leading to Peterson were filled with friendly drivers. I don't know how many times some stranger in an oncoming vehicle waved to us as we passed them. Either these folks are really friendly or else the most popular people in the county drive a car identical to our Crapmobile. I'm thinking they're just nice. Popular people wouldn't drive a Crapmobile. Or maybe they were being nice because they felt sorry for us.

We arrived at about 8 on Friday night, ate a quick meal and settled in. Saturday we got up and had breakfast with two retirement age couples from Wisconsin, although one of the couples had just relocated to Michigan. For some odd reason, the conversation turned to taxes, and one of the men complained how high the taxes were in Wisconsin, thus they moved to Michigan. He then went on to say that the taxes are so much lower in Minnesota than they are in Wisconsin. Sound familiar Minnesotans? This is the same crap the anti-tax crowd in Minnesota spouts about Wisconsin. Oh! Oh! all our businesses are moving to Wisconsin because the taxes are so much lower. Then he went on to complain about where all the tax money was going. Well in Wisconsin it's going toward keeping the tuition at UW much lower than at the UofM. In Minnesota it's going toward the hundreds of miles of bicycle trails that can be used by anyone for free. (In Wisc. the trails aren't paved and I guess you have to pay to use them.) If you want low tuition, bike trails, bridges not falling down, and help cleaning up after a flood, pay you damn taxes. If you don't want to pay them, shut up and don't expect any help. You can just friggin' lump it. Fortunately, I held my tongue and didn't start spouting off about this stuff.

We (well at least I was) were glad to get away from the table and that conversation. We loaded up the bikes and headed to Lanesboro. The Root River Trail had washed out between Peterson and Lanesboro, so if we wanted to do any kind of riding on the trail, we'd have to drive a bit. On the way out of town we stopped by the town museum. Closed. TOYH got out of the car and crossed the street to see if hours were posted. There was a note saying, "Leave a note," if you want to see the museum. As she was crossing back to get into the car, a local man struck up a conversation about the museum. They got to talking. Turns out the director of the museum has family in Rushford and was understandably busy over there. Don, the man who TOYH was talking to, was spending time at his gas station. "But," I hear you protest, "You said there are no gas stations in Peterson." I will clarify. There are no working gas stations in Peterson. Don had bought this old Mobil Oil station in town, and it was his vacation home. "Some people have a cabin on the lake," he said, "I have this old gas station." He invited us in and showed us his collection of old timey gas pumps and other oil industry memorabilia. He had made it a comfortable space, and was cleaning cobwebs from the basement/grease pit. He showed us the office where the previous owners literally wore half inch divots in the floor with their office chairs. The grease pit had been covered up so he had more living (and less dangerous) space. There was a little stairway leading down to the basement/grease pit. The man who runs the town museum gave Don some pictures. One was of the original owner at the station. Another was of the original owner's son who took over the business. There also was a picture of the owner with his daughter when she was very young, and who is now in her 80's and still lives across the street. Utterly charming. Being in the station took me back to Roger Peterson's Phillips 66 station in Cambridge, and going there with Opa to get gas on Saturdays.

We got to Lanesboro, hopped on our bikes, rode to Preston, had a lemonaide, didn't see Neil on his Preston Century, and biked back to Lanesboro.

After our ride we had a nice lunch and then walked around the town. We ended up at a store that sells wine from the local winery. Mmmm sounds interesting. The vinters there are making wine with different fruits and I was eager to sample some. I am so glad they gave out samples. I was all excited about the rhubarb wine. A man with a bulbous nose passing out the samples (and imbibing quite often himself) showed us the list of wines and said from top to bottom on the list the wines went from dry to sweet. Rhubarb was one notch above the middle, so I'm thinking maybe kind of a sweet dessert wine. Nope. Tasted like the dregs of a pitcher of Kool-Aid that had not been stirred at all. We ended up with a cranberry wine which was supposedly "dry" but is still a sweet dessert wine, and some sort of grape varietal. We stopped at the Lanesboro museum and looked around for about 45 minutes. I find these small town museums fascinating. Every small town has a story to tell, a story it wants others to know about, a story for it's townspeople to hold on to. It is very easy to be engrossed by these stories.

Back to Peterson we drive, taking the indirect route, getting waved at by the locals. When we got back to the B&B I hopped back on my bike for another ride. I took the Root River Trail as far West and as far East as I could go before being turned back by closures. I averaged 4mph faster without TOYH dragging me down. When I got back to the B&B, I found TOYH out on the deck chatting with a couple from Edina, Ron and Margaret. They both grew up in Rushford (met in 7th grade now married 45 years, I think) and were back to help Ron's brother dung out his house in Rushford. We talked and laughed for at least two and a half hours. It was great fun, because we didn't talk about taxes, politics or religion. We retired to our room with some food we picked up at the market in Lanesboro. We skipped eating at the local establishment, Judy's Country Kitchen, because we ate there on Friday night and were getting tired of restaurant food.

When we got up Sunday morning, Pam the proprieter let us in for breakfast early, and we got to chatting. She and her husband Barry have put the Wenneson up for sale, and I was curious about life in such a small town. She ended up telling us about one of the neighbor boys in the town. He's about 14 years old and a hard worker according to Pam. One night Barry was getting home at about 9pm when he noticed that there were 3 teenager types trying to break into Judy's Country Kitchen. Barry thought that one of them was the neigbhor boy, who happens to work at Judy's. Barry chased them away, but wasn't certain that they really were the local boys. So what do you do when you see an attempted burglary in Peterson? You call the Mayor of course. Barry explains the situation to him, and the Mayor takes care of it, apparently giving the neighbor boy a stern talking to. The whole story had a Mayberry-esqueness to it. Local boy (maybe) attempts to break into his place of employment at a very early hour, is seen and most likely recognized by a neighbor who quickly calls the Mayor to straighten the wayward kid out. If it truly was the neighbor boy trying to break in, the Mayor kept it pretty hush-hush. The kid still has his job at Judy's.