The Sweating Season

90 degrees today with dewpoints in the lower 60's. Yuck. This Atlanta-type weather I can do without. This year I actually planned ahead and installed the air conditioners before it got too hot. The house was relatively comfortable today when I got home.

I ended up going to both jobs today. I had to run payroll for Jon and Doug and then it was back down to Used Bike World Domination Headquarters to help with the mess down there. Jamie the owner is out of town for two weeks working as a mechanic on RAGBRAI (the ride across Iowa) and then on the Habitat for Humanity 500 mile ride. While he is gone his employees are conspiring to create some order out of the chaos that is Sunrise Cyclery. I sure hope we make some progress.

We're finally a complete family again. KyKy was at her cousin's cabin for 4 days so we had to plod along without her.

TOYH is stressing out a bit about work and stuff. She's been helping out with Gabe's mom's stuff while she's gone in Costa Rica. This helpfulness has been cutting into the paperwork time at her real job. I must say, though, I'm proud of her right now. Normally she overdoes it on the helpfulness front in situations like this and ends up a wreck because she doesn't have enough time in the day for work and helping. This time she's let others carry some of the burden. Now she's only mildly freaked out about how much stuff has to be done. That's real progress.

It looks like Gabe is coming home tomorrow. He's doing well, recovering more sensation and his reflexes are getting stronger. He's got a long road ahead though.

A Bit Of Relaxation

Our neighbor Gabe is making some progress and has moved out of ICU in San Jose. He might be able to come home midweek if the docs think it's o.k. For travel purposes his neck is not the concern, there are titanium plates in it to keep it stable and he only has a soft collar around it. There are other worries for such a long journey. In this type of accident there are always secondary problems - shallow breathing and the risk of pnemonia, fever, no bowel movements. A Caringbridge site has been set up and you can follow his progres here.

TOYH, Madster, 'Nika and I got out of town for a bit yesterday afternoon with some friends. It was nice to get a little physical separation from all the heaviness that's associated with what's going on with Gabe. We're back at it today with a bunch of friends this afternoon. We'll be trying to get Carolyn's house picked up for a possible mid week return. I talked to Matthew, Gabe's dad, on the phone for a bit yesterday. He sounds exhausted. He hasn't been getting very much sleep. I simply can't imagine what they are all going through.

Trying To Figure Out My New Job

This was my first "full" week at the bike shop. First conclusion: I know jack crap about bikes. It's quite intimidating to have a customer come in and ask you specific questions about a bike part and not know what the heck the person is talking about. It's not just intimidating, it's painful. Hopefully this will change with time. Here's an example - just today I had a customer who wanted a tune up on her bike. Miracle of miracles, I actually replaced a brake cable and made her rear brake work. Unfortunately, I told her that we could replace old, cracked, rotting tires on her bike. I took the old tire off and went to search for a new one, a 26 x 1 3/8 tire. I found some new tires that were stamped 26 x 1 3/8 to 26 x 1 1/4. Close enough, I thought. It ought to work on this rim. I installed the first tire. It did not work. The tire would obviously not stay on the rim. I asked a fellow employee about this and he said, "What you need to do is find a tire that fits only to 26 x 1 3/8. If it has an extra dimension stamped on it, it won't work. And by the way, I sold the last new 26 x 1 3/8 specific tire the other day, so go look in the basement for a used tire that only has 26 x 1 3/8 stamped on it." So I go down to the basement of the shop, and I'm amazed to find two tires of the correct size. Triumphantly, I go up to put these used tires on the rims, and I find the same problem I had with the new tires I had tried previously. I go back to said fellow employee and tell him that the 26 x 1 3/8 specific tires are not fitting correctly and would easily come off the rim. "Oh," he said, "You have 26 x 3/8 Schwinn tires that will only fit on Schwinn rims. If you try them on any other type of rim for 26 x 1 3/8 , they won't work." Sigh. Take that particular situation and multiply it by about 1 million and you'll get an idea of the permutations and combinations of bikes, bike parts and the bike business. The nice thing about bike esoterica is that I'm actually interested in this kind of bike minutiae, as opposed to the specifications of a Hewlitt Packard 8720B with options 001 and 1E1 in my previous job. It will take years of observing and experimenting to feel comfortable in the bike biz, but I want to take that plunge.

Can It Get Any Worse? Why Yes It Can.

This morning TOYH went over to Carolyn's to let the dog out and discovered that the house had been burglarized overnight. A first floor window had been left unlocked and that was all that was needed. As far as we can tell, nothing of great monetary value was taken, but a violin with great sentimental value was. I stuck around to walk the cops throught the mess and ended up spending more time on my cell phone today than I have for all the previous months of the year. This whole situation is very, very wearying for me and TOYH. The latest medical reports we have heard are not so encouraging. Matthew is having a very hard time keeping together emotionally down there in C.R. Carolyn just arrived last night and I'm sure she's going through the same thing as Matthew. Then crap like this burglary happens and we end up being involved in trying to sort out the mess. By no means are we the only ones who are doing things in Carolyn's absence. It's just that our proximity to Carolyn and her house put us at ground zero. We're very, very tired.

Today's Drama

Last night we received a call from our neighbor Carolyn telling us that her son Gabe, who we've known since he's been in diapers, was involved in a mishap in Costa Rica. Gabe is spending a month there as an exchange student through AFS. The word last night was that Gabe suffered a concussion in a swimming accident and was being transported to San Jose for treatment. This morning we woke up to the news that Gabe had broken his neck and the doctors had taken some bone from his hip and implanted it in his spine. Not good news. I spent some time with Carolyn this morning and this afternoon trying to help anyway I could. Another friend, Kelly, was spearheading the effort to get Carolyn's passport in order, and get her out of the country to be with her son. As the day wore on, there was no new news on his condition. All we knew was that he had come out of surgery and was awake. Naturally, everyone gravitates to the worst possible scenario. We had heard that Gabe had no feeling in his fingers or toes when he was transported to the hospital, and that the doctors knew that there was swelling around the spinal cord. Conclusion drawn by those of us thousands of miles away? Paralysis. This was driving me crazy. After having worked in an emergency room for two years, I can tell you that jumping to conclusions about the status of a patient is just about the easiest thing in the world to do. I didn't want to tell Carolyn that everything was going to be alright, nor did I want to jump on the doom and gloom bandwagon. The lack of information was excruciating.

We did get some happy news later on tonight. Gabe called his mom and said that he could raise his arm above his head and wiggle his toes. This is good news. But.... just as we shouldn't have jumped to negative conclusions when we first heard about the accident, neither should we conclude from the information we have now that Gabe will make a full recovery. Time will tell and we'll hope and pray for the best outcome.

Of Bike Rides And Bridges

This morning the lovely TOYH and I went for a bike ride to take a look at the new 35W bridge. By the end of this weekend they will probably be finishing up the span across the river, which is utterly remarkable. Believe it or not, I took pictures and they are posted on my Picasa page. I had to fiddle around with some of the images because I'm not a good photographer. It' really hard to capture the immensity of the project and how strange it looks to see two spans of a bridge, unconnected, cantilevered out over the water.

This afternoon we're off to Kent and Ann's for the 4th. Usually we walk all of 4 blocks to Powderhorn Park and catch fireworks there after having cooked out with the neighbors. This year a bunch of neigbors are AWOL so we're going to spend the evening with family. I'm gonna miss the Powderhorn fireworks. It's not that the display is so spectacular, it's because it seems like the whole neighborhood, and this is a fairly diverse neighborhood, is gathered together for an hour or so and is enjoying something in common. It's pretty cool

The Transition Has Begun

Today I went into Test Equipment World Domination Headquarters to officially end my employment there. It amounted to me opening up QuickBooks and entering my termination date. When I put in June 29th as my final day (the last day of my last pay period), QB asked if I was deceased. Well not exactly, so I didn't check that box. I'll still be putting in some hours with Jon, but not as an employee. I am now a highly paid consultant to Northern Test. I'll be coming in to do some mercenary work and leave. Ahhhh the life of an independent contractor.

Monday I went into the bike shop to help Jamie and Jen do inventory. Not much got done. The point of sale software that the shop uses asks for a bunch of information that cannot be transfered from the current program. If we set it up right, it ought to work pretty well, but the initial data entry is going to take a while. Jamie's plan for training me in consists of this - follow him and the other employees around for a couple of weeks. It's actually not a bad plan. There's really no chance of training during off hours. On Mondays the shop is closed (hence the time to do inventory). In the 4 hours I was there for inventory, there were probably a dozen or so people wanting to come in and look around. Eventually I want to be able to get in and keep the shop open on Mondays and extend the hours the rest of the week. The idea of working at this shop has been such a long time coming, it hardly seems real now that it's happening. I really hope it will work out.

I would like to post here more, but since I don't have a job sitting staring at a computer screen all day, it will probably be a bit more difficult to do it as often as I used to. The quality of the posts will suffer too, if that is at all possible.

It's Lonely In Cyberspace

No responses to the previous post. That's what you get when you take a 2 month vacation from blogging.

KyKy and The Madster are on a one week service trip at the Lake Traverse Reservation. It's very odd to have them gone and completely out of touch. No cell phones. No access to computers. Funny how in the last 15 years or so, we've created all these new modes of communication and we use them. I'm not a huge cell phone user or emailer, but these things have generally been at my disposal and I've used them on occasion to communicate with friends near and far. When KyKy was in China this spring she sent some email dispatches and called on her cousin's international cell phone. This week - nothing, and she's just over the border in South Dakota. All we've heard is that they made it there ok. Weird. I guess this means we'll have to sit down face to face and talk to them when they get home. Or they could call from their bedrooms on their cell phones.

Back From Blogging Vacation

After the last comment section smackdown, I lost interest in blogging about stuff. I still don't know whether I'm interested in keeping up with it, since not-blogging is the new blogging. If anyone happens to read this, check in with a comment and prove to me that there is at least someone who looked at this garbage.

Things are winding down for me at Test Equipment World Domination Headquarters. I'm training in Douglas on the job and counting the days until I start working at Sunrise Cyclery. Looks like it will be July 8th or thereabouts. I'm going to start there as a regular employee, with an option to buy into the shop at a later date. I'm excited to start work there, but apprehensive because I won't be making as much money as I am now, not that I'm earning the equivalent of a king's ransome at this job. TOYH has started nursing in earnest and she'll be pulling down a good paycheck, but a sigificant chunk will be eaten up by health insurance and school loan payback. Sigh.

Adventures In Suburbia

Yesterday I brought the car into the shop we've been going to for 18 years, Roseville Auto Repair. When I had it in last, Perry told me that it would need a transmission flush and a brake job, and soon. He estimated $700 and I thought, riiiiight, I'm just ooozing money to spend on a vehicle I'd rather not be driving in the first place. Yesterday I broke down and brought it in. It was good news, bad news, good news. Turns out I didn't need new rotors on the brakes, which lowered the cost significantly. But.... There was a hole in the muffler which I couldn't hear because a heat shield was rattling all the time, covering up the exhaust system noise. Good news again - total cost for brakes, muffler and transmission was less than the original $700 estimate. The boys in the shop were scratching their heads because I put on less than 2500 miles in the 4 plus months since the last time I last had it in. Bikes and buses baby.

In keeping with my theme of life failure, I decided to take the bus to work from the shop. It's 3.8 miles from Roseville Auto to Test Equipment World Domination Headquarters if you take the most direct route by car. Here's what happened. I walked 1 mile from County Rd B to Larpenteur Ave to catch the 61 bus. I waited 20 minutes for the bus since it runs only once an hour, even during rush hour. I get off the bus at Larpenteur and Jackson and walk 3/4 of a mile to TEWDH. Total time: 1 hour and 20 minutes to get 3.8 miles away, walking nearly half of that.

Since it took so long, I had time to think about this situation. Roseville and Maplewood were built for cars and they will probably always be car dependent. How can you encourage suburb to suburb transit use when buses run only once an hour? Not very easily. The population density really isn't there to support more frequent service or more routes on major thoroughfares. There is block after block of big yards with small houses, and very few apartment buildings. The buses that happen to run through these 'burbs are on their way to either of the downtowns. Local service is by chance only. Plus, in Maplewood at least, there are no sidewalks. From the bus stop to work I walked the streets. While I was walking to and from the bus stop I got a few "what-is-that-raving-lunatic-doing-getting-footprints-on-our-precious-asphalt streets?" looks. I must say biking when there isn't snow piled up isn't so bad. The main streets have shoulders to ride on, but the plows tend to leave snow piles in them after a storm.

I got into a rather heated discussion with Jon on a similar topic. I maintain that eventually some of the outlying developments in the metro will become the new "ghettos." People will want to live closer to the core cities and the dream of 5 acres and a mule will die with higher gas prices and the longer and longer commutes by time (as roads get more congested) and distance (since you'll need to go father and farther out to get that "rural" feel). Cheaply built housing will sit empty and be turned in to rentals or be sold for less than what the original market value was. Jon believes that jobs will move out to where the housing is in the far reaches of Wright, Dakota and Scott counties and there will be no flow of people into the core cities and first ring suburbs. We'll see.

Where am I going with all of this? I dunno. We're coming up on our 10 year anniversary on Park Ave, and there were people who thought we were foolish to move into such a marginal neighborhood. Well the neighborhood isn't as marginal as it used to be. If I'm right in my belief about the future, our neighborhood will become more desirable as the years go by not only because we live only 2 miles from downtown, we've got 4 local bus lines that run less than a mile from the house.

More Culture Than A Bucket Of Yogurt - Then We Kick Some Butt

Yes our household is the definition of cultural refinement. KyKy continues her sojourn in Chicago. She has reported back periodically, basically to tell us the other kids she went with are a bunch of idiots. (Note to KyKy, if you want to fit in with this crowd you need to stop acting like a mature 25 year old and start acting like a 15 year old. Yeesh) She comes home late tonight on the train, not soon enough for her I'm sure.

Friday the rest of us went to see Midsummer Night's Dream at the Guthrie. Wow. Just wow. I know nothing about architecture, but in my opinion, this building is pretty cool. We arrived early to poke around the place. This is not your typical theater building. It has 3 different stages, a restaurant and bars and bartenders all over the place. The building, not just the ticket office, is open to the public for long hours every day. If you want to go have lunch there, fine. If you want to go walk out on the "Endless Bridge" (the part of the building that looks like it's sticking its tongue out at SE Minneapolis) during the day, knock yourself out. If you want to go to the 9th floor and get a great view of downtown and the river through yellow tinted windows, go right ahead. I guess Jean Nouvel was trying to create a community gathering place, not just a theater building. Oh yeah, we saw a play there. What can I say. When 10 year old 'Nika is gushing about Shakespeare, something is being done right. Obviously, MND is made for "low" comedy, and Joe Dowling exploited that very well. There was hip-hop music and singing, Irish Dancing, great physical acting and some slapstick. I hadn't read the play for 23 years or so, so I got a little lost with the whole Oberon/Titania thing, but I was able to follow the rest of the plot pretty easily. Our review - 8 thumbs up!

Saturday, TOYH and I went to the MN History Center (on the bus naturally) by ourselves. Madster had too much homework and 'Nika for some strange reason did not want to go. There is an exhibit there called "If These Walls Could Talk." They picked out a house in the working class section of St. Paul and traced its history back 120 years. Absolutely captivating. It was a "house tour" room by room, with each room representing a decade or two of time. German immigrants who built it. Italians who worked in the breweries and rail yards who followed. African Americans and Hmong immigrants who who were not able to find living wage work for themselves. The curators were able to track down families who had lived there from the 1940's onward, and they recorded some oral histories of everyday living. Priceless. Prior to the 40s they were able to find the names of residents and their occupations and fill in some general details of what was going on in the neighborhood. It wasn't a huge exhibit, but took us a couple of hours to get through it.

As for the butt kicking, the girls and I pulled on our "jock" clothes - the girls their karate togs, and me my fruity lycra biking stuff. 'Nika and Madster took part in their first karate tournament and I went on the Ironman Bike Ride. I'm pleased to tell you that Madster kicked and punched her way to 3rd place and 'Nika to 2nd place in their sparring competition and placed 5th in "forms" (think synchronized dance routine except filled with kicks and punches). They came back with trophies and medals. I came back with a certificate stating I hauled my fat butt 62 miles on my bike. I met up with Nerdy Bike Neil, his wife Belinda and some of their Trailhead Cycle friends. It was a great ride with great people. The butt kicking part for my ride comes courtesy of a couple of riders who were all decked out in racing kits, but it doesn't involve fists of fury like the girls. After the 2nd rest stop these gentlemen came buzzing by us on a downhill section. On the ensuing uphill, I sensed that they were not as fit as they appeared when they came flying past us earlier. Since I hate hills with the burning passion of a thousand suns, I attack them just to get them out of the way quicker. Turns out "Lance Armstrong" and "Greg LeMond" were slow on the uphill. Dropped 'em pretty quick. Same thing happens on the next downhill - they zip past us. Going uphill, drop 'em again. They must have gotten tired of having an old fat guy humiliate them on uphills, so they didn't pass us up again for the rest of the ride. At least that's how I remember all this happening, my bike going pocketa-pocketa-pocketa the whole way. (Please see "Secret Life of Walter Mitty" for the pocketa reference) If you want a different version talk to Neil.

Thank You Madster For That Interesting And Informative Post

Now back to the boring stuff. Rain yesterday. Rain today. Possible snowflakes tonight. On the plus side, things are really starting to green up.

Yesterday on the way back home from work I stopped in at the hometown-based ginormous electronics retailer to pick up a digital converter box for the teevee. Since we are the only family on the planet to not subscribe to cable or satellite, I really do appreciate the local stations broadcasting in digital just for us. Anyway, a few months ago I applied for my two $40.00 coupons from the govmint to get converter boxes. The coupons came last week, and I actually showed some fiscal restraint and waited until there was some extra money in the bank to buy one. And one is what I bought. I brought it home and spent a while hooking it up to a teevee that has DVD and VCR (yes TOYH and the kids still borrow video tapes from the library) players plugged into it. Voila! It worked. Now I have 19 local channels, including 7 count 'em 7 local PBS channels. All for one easy payment of $23.00. The reception is great compared to what we have with the old analog broadcast. No watching programs through a snowstorm of static. No horizontal lines endlessly running up the screen. No having to get up and fiddle with the antenna to get certain stations. All is not perfect though. The sound on one of the stations sounds like the treble knob is turned up to 11 so the spoken "s" and cymbals can really get annoying after a while. It always amazed me that we lived in the middle of the metro and our analog teevee reception was utterly craptastic. I suppose that was a function of using rabbit ears antennas and not hooking a huge retro-looking aerial to the chimney. Back tonight to gigantic big box retailer to get the second converter.

On the cultural end of things KyKy apparently made it to Chicago ok. Don't know. Haven't heard from her. The rest of us rubes will be at the brand spanking new Guthrie Theater to see The Bard's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." We got the tickets through a program called Project Success. As a life failure I'd like to take the bus to the play, but I think we'll end up taking Crapmobile instead. Actually, driving around in that thing is only about half a step up from riding the bus.

Geez....

Wow, it's been awhile. Wait, let me rephrase that. It has been EONS. But, back to the reason I'm updating on the old man's blog. Today at school was pretty o.k., except the fact that I had art class. Yeesh... I hate that class so much. She also scares me half to death. I do not understand the way her brain works. She was making us write those stupid plays that are in spanish (fyi, I go to an immersion school) and always telling us to read the play to her and get an automatic B. I swear, everybody in the class knew what she was about to say. Ohh well. Our play sucks anyway. We have to write either on social or political happenings in the US and must be less then 4 minutes. Thanks for the very wide variety and interesting choices. Well, at least tomorrow is Friday, and then we wont have her for another 3 weeks (Yesssss!!!!!). I wonder what would happen then? Only god knows.....

Things Are Worse Than I Thought

People are failing all over the Twin Cities. It's nice to know I have so much company though.

So Long PigBike

At least for this season. I put about 800 miles on the beast since December. I wish the total would have been double that, but I can't control the weather or way the streets are plowed.

I'm ashamed to say I have an abusive relationship with this thing. Last year I dressed it up with a new drive train to make it more appealing. Over the winter I rode it through the slop - snow, sand, salt - and that gunk covered PigBike. Sure I washed it off a few times but never really gave it a deep cleaning. Now that summer is here, PigBike will be ignored in the basement unless I'm going to do a long ride in the rain. Nice dry weather is for SS Deathstar. Come next winter though, I'll be crawling back to PigBike to get me through next year's slop.

This bike will probably be with me for the rest of my life. I bought it back in 1994 I think. Between 1994 and 2006 I probably rode it 150 miles. It sat in garages, basements and storage rooms for most of that time. In August of 2006 I finally got the beast tuned up (at Sunrise Cyclery) and started riding. Was that ever painful. I was fat and out of shape. I would literally turn the cranks about 10 revolutions and have to stop pedaling and coast. I couldn't sit in the saddle very long before my butt hurt. I kept plugging away. I started riding to work. At first my commute consisted of throwing PigBike on the bus rack, taking the bus to downtown St Paul and then huffing up Jackson St to Maplewood. One lovely fall day I mapped out a bike route home on Google and rode it. The bus/bike combo ended shortly after that. In February, of all months, I joined the Twin City Bicycling Club, aka Nerds on Bikes Parade. That showed me that winter riding was possible. A year ago, SS Deathstar showed up and I quickly put 3700 miles on it. Later in the summer I bought a fixed gear to fit in with the cool kids. Somewhere along the line after a combination of a couple of glasses of wine and eBay, I ended up with a single speed mountain bike. I hardly ever ride that thing, but I have big plans for it.

Are there any great lessons to be learned or can I turn this little personal history into some kind of metaphor for life? Naw. I'm still fat, albeit in shape fat. Sadly, I'm not riding as much this year as I did last. I do wish I had more opportunities to bike in groups. Most of my riding right now is solitary, which is fine, but it would be nice to get together with other folks for some rides. There are a few reasons why I don't meet up with others. 1) Family schedule. 2) Lack of TCBC rides starting close to home. 3) My hang-up about throwing my bike on the back of the car to get to a bike ride. It's o.k. to haul it around for vacations or "epic" rides like Ironman, but to do it on a regular basis? That just seems silly to me.

There are two benefits, present and future, I have received from hopping on the bike again. Future benefit? My vocation could be in the bike industry. What Jamie is doing at Sunrise is really cool, and I'd love to be a part of it, if it's viable. I never really imagined myself working in retail, but if you believe in the product, selling stuff doesn't seem so repulsive. Present benefit? Why it's the smug superiority I feel when I tell people I rode my bike to work today.

Earth Day - If Anyone Is Still Reading Hello....hello....hello

Rode the Pig Bike to work today, 9th time this month. I figure I only need to ride two more days in the next week to be able to say I rode to work for half of my commutes in April.

Neil, if you're still reading this, I'll be ready for the 62 miler on Sunday.

Lots and lots of stuff to write about, but I've been too lazy to set fingers to keyboard. Lesseee.... Both 'Nika and The Madster were granted transfers to Seward Montessori in the Minneapolis Public Schools. This is good news, but we're still probably going to send 'Nika to Minnehaha Academy, which I'm ambivalent about. Bottom line - TOYH and I think she would really benefit from the more individualized attention she'll (hopefully) get at M.A.

Minneapolis Public Schools are re-vamping the H.S. programs to try and encourage students to attend their area H.S. KyKy and Madster have a mutual friend from Emerson who is very bright, but unable to get into South High next year. She'll probably end up at Roosevelt, which would be our neighborhood school also. We know very little about Roosevelt, other than it's Jesse Ventura's alma mater (which is a strike against it). We are very pleased with Southwest and KyKy would be allowed to stay there. Rumor has it that sibling preference is still policy, so if Madster wants to go to SW she'll be able to go there. Ahhh rubbing elbows with all those cake-eaters makes me feel all warm inside. Speaking of Southwest, KyKy is heading to Chicago on Thursday by train with the SW Orchestra. 4 fun filled days of concerts, sight seeing and train rides.

I've been in talks with Jamie at Sunrise Cyclery about future employment. Turns out my core competencies align well with the operational deficits to create value-added synergies which in turn would lead to a marginal increase in the bottom line - in certain projections. I'm having my people (Kent) look at some numbers to get a handle on the financial end of things. I'm cautiously optimistic about making this work. There are still a huge number of unknowns at this time, and we're slowly starting to work through them. Jamie's wife Jen is a lawyer who has set up businesses before, which is a huge help. As much as I would love to go into business with them on a handshake, I'd feel much better about signing a business pre-nuptial. We're still in the dating phase right now.

TOYH is still working away at People Inc. Unfortunately, she still isn't up to full time hours yet. They are still dealing with some staffing issues. Hopefully sometime in the next few weeks we'll have a better idea of what her full time work week will look like. Her working only part time has been a mixed blessing. Lord knows we need the money. Bad. On the other hand after 3 1/2 years of an absolutely full schedule of school and work, this bit of a break is really, really nice. We actually get to see each other in the evenings. I can't tell you how nice that is.

More On Politics.....Or Rather The Media

I watched the "debate" last night for a few minutes. Here's what I saw when I turned it on. The moderators Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber were asking about an association Obama had with a former Sixites radical and statements said radical made. Ugh. Turned the channel to PBS for a few minutes. Turned back to the debate for a bit more of the you've-been-in-the-same-room-with-a-person-who-said-stupid things-long-ago-so-why-do-you-hate-America-and-you-don't-wear-a-flag-pin kinda questions. Obama wrapped up this episode of journalistic brilliance with a jab at Clinton for the same type of nonsense (your husband pardoned Sixties radicals so nyah), thereby lowering himself into this stinking sewer we call political discourse. This whole exchange made me want to scream. To be fair, Obama started to take the high road and chastised those bonehead moderators for dwelling on this kind of stuff. On the one hand I wish he had stayed on the high road and not said anything about Clinton's past associations, but on the other I'm thinking, "You've gotta attack, you can't just take a hit like this." Well he attacked, and I felt just a little dirty afterword. Low road.

Can I just say one thing? PLEASE MAKE THIS GUILT BY ASSOCIATION GARBAGE STOP. Guess what? Whoever is elected president will be elected president of all the people, including stupid people who say stupid things. The president has to be able to talk with stupid people. Just because you know somebody, work with them, go their church, or socialize with them doesn't mean you wholly adopt that person's beliefs and you are indistinguishable from that person. Fer cryin out loud, Paul Wellstone and Jesse Helms became good friends in the Senate. Enough of this crap.

I did stay tuned long enough to hear Clinton's response to a question about withdrawing troops from Iraq. I read today on the internets that this was the first question of the evening that actually dealt with a policy issue. It only took 50 minutes of a 90 minute debate to get to a question about something that matters. That. Is. Disgusting. Thank you mainstream media for making a circus out of what could be the most critical election of my lifetime.

Yuck, Yuck, Yuck

These are not the funny yuks. Weather today - yucky, but at least we've been spared from heavy snowfall so far. Woke up this morning (and last night as you shall see) to a coating of slushy wet snow. It's been raining a good part of the morning and we're expecting more precipitation through tomorrow. It could be snow or rain.

Second yuck - TOYH spent the night running back and forth to the toilet to ride the porcelain bus, as it were. She also was very nauseous and felt like she might have to drive the bus too, but managed to stay in the passenger seat.

Third yuck - Stupid, aka Grover the dog, got me up a couple of times last night to ride the doggy version of the porcelain bus. On second thought, maybe he's not so stupid after all, he drove the bus out in the yard and not in the house.

I'm really going through a bus theme here. Hey Francis, do those silly French social critics or Maggie T. have anything to say about the above bus riding?

Hmmmmm

I just ran across this on a local development forum I frequent. It's a quote lifted from a book called Cities in Full:

"show me a man over the age of 30 riding the bus, and I'll show you a life failure."

That's certainly a day brightener for me.

Now Whadda We Do?

'Nika just called from home to tell me that an envelope came in the mail from Minnehaha Academy. I told her to open it, and yes she was accepted. So now both 'Nika and Madster have been accepted at M.A. which TOYH and I have mixed feelings about. Both of 'Nika's teachers this year are excited about the prospect of her going there, which is a comfort for us because we feel bad about pulling her from public schools. With Madster, we're still trying to figure out what to do. Minneapolis Public Schools will release school assignments next week supposedly, so we'll find out if Madster gets into Seward Montessori. TOYH and I were pleased with that school, so if she gets in we'll have a big decision to make. The one great factor in all of this is cost. Tuition and fees for the both of them to go to M.A. would come to about $26,000.00 total, which we obviously don't have. (I guess this is the correct amount, but I really don't like to think about it.) We've sent in our financial aid application and given our income from last year, we ought to qualify for some kind of aid.

I've been able to commute by bike 5 days in a row now. That's 135 miles not driven. I've been riding the winter pig to try and get my legs back under me, and hoo-boy do I dislike pushing that beast to work. I kinda, sorta, have a have a plan to get myself in shape for the 100 mile Ironman ride on the 27th. So far the weather has not been too cooperative. The plan was to ride the pig bike to work during the week as much as possible (it's like running with ankle weights or swimming in a tee-shirt). On the weekends I wanted to take a shortish fixed gear ride Saturday and then a long ride on the SS Deathstar on Sunday. Last Sunday it rained, so no long ride. Tomorrow through Saturday morning there is the possibility of a crapload of snow. Sigh. On Monday morning this week I rode to work in a rain snow mix, and it wasn't too much fun. The temp wasn't so bad, but my glasses kept fogging up and getting water droplets on them so I couldn't see. If this craptastic weather lasts through April 27th I might bail on the big ride. Neil are you listening?

Will It Ever End?

Sigh, there is anywhere from 4-10 inches of snow predicted to fall by tomorrow morning. We've been getting teased by spring for a few weeks now, and this is just the latest setback. I finally got in a 100+ mile week last week on the bikes, but now I'll be driving again for the next couple of days. This is particularly aggravating because the kids have no school this week and biking to work is much easier when there isn't as much running around in the afternoons.

The end is in sight for a couple of other things. I can't say much about this, but it looks like the lawsuit against me and FedEx is finally starting to move along. I met with a new lawyer last week. The old lawyer representing me has retired; I think he had had enough with the foot-dragging by the other side. I will be deposed by the plaintiff's lawyers on May 8th apparently. I'll go back in and talk to my new lawyer the day before. He has been very reassuring. On the whole, this has been rather difficult for me because I'm being asked to relive the accident moment by moment. It's part of the reason I haven't felt like posting here much lately.

It looks like there's one more end coming into focus. Tentatively by July I will no longer be working here at Test Equipment World Domination Headquarters. Simply put, there is not enough work for me to do here. Jon has been kind enough to keep me on full time until a transition can be made, and as TOYH eases her way into full time nursing, I'll be able to work myself out of a job here. Jon has some self-interest in keeping me here for the time being. If I leave, he loses his health insurance, and given his current health status, he's not wanting to lose his coverage. I'll probably be training in Jon's son Douglas to do my job starting in June. That way Douglas can earn money, Jon only has to pay for a part time employee, and the insurance can remain the same. It looks like a win, win, win.

I have had a few preliminary talks with Jamie at Sunrise Cyclery. He hasn't just offered me a position at the shop, but an investment opportunity. This is a small business I can get excited about. Believe me there is a whole lot more money in used test equipment, but I'm really, really, not interested in it. Bikes on the other hand...... Whether this will pay the bills is another question. Mark, Daniel, are there any job openings working at the Convention Center?



The snow is really coming down hard now.

Two Days In A Row

I finally broke the grip of the unholy troika - aching body, schedules and weather - that was conspiring against my riding the winter pig bike to work. By weather I mean snow and/or ice. On the way home last night I was fighting against 20mph winds from the south, so I just thumbed my nose at Mother Nature and pressed on. Today there are west winds at about 15mph. Damn you Mother Nature.

Easter was good. TOYH decided to skip church and perfom a mission of mercy by preparing an Easter meal for the EG and DM. We spent the afternoon over at their place. The EG is making good progress getting around with her new hip. There's still some pain, but she's able to get up and down the short flight of stairs in their house.

Since TOYH and the girls didn't make it to Calvary for Easter service, I suggested we go to my church in the evening. It was very nice. Easter is great and all, but sometimes the attempted spectacle and production values of an Easter church service get to be a bit tiresome. At Mercy Seat Lutheran Kae preached a wonderful sermon and there were four baptisms. If I remember my church history correctly, the ancient church baptized folks on Easter after their instruction in the Catechism. Other than the baptisms, the only thing that was really different in the Easter service was a candle that was brought to the altar during the processional. (The processsional consisted of the two pastors and a 10 year old girl carrying the candle, not a lot of spectacle at my church.) It was the same candle that was taken from the altar at the end of the Good Friday Tennebrae service. I'll let you figure out the symbolism.

At church, TOYH and I proudly sported the hand stamps we received at First Avenue the night before at the Mike Doughty concert. Nothing like spending Holy Saturday in a bar. Doughty actually kind brought that up. He asked "If Jesus died on the cross yesterday and tomorrow he's resurrected, where is he today?" His bass player Scrap said, "He's here at First Avenue." I can live with that answer. But in 1st Peter it says that after the cross, Jesus was preaching to the spirits in prison, or hell I guess. If Scrap and 1st Peter are correct, hell has some pretty fine music.

Moving Day

TOYH and I spent the morning moving stuff out of the Massage Parlour. Some of it came home with us, and a good portion is going to stay on with Jess and her new business. For the better part of 5 years this has been TOYH's home away from home. She has met some really great people because of the business, a few I'm sure we'll maintain contact with. As good as the Massage Parlour has been for her, it was time to move on. Therapeutic massage is hard work. For a while now, TOYH's wrists and shoulders have been giving her trouble. She won't be giving up massage completely, but as of right now, she hasn't scheduled anything beyond next week. Jess is kind enough to let TOYH rent the space back on an hourly basis as needed. This may or may not happen. The only times that she will be able to pick up hours would be on Wednesday and Friday evenings. But I think she'd like to be done with evenings. Between school and massage, she's been gone a lot of evenings in the last 6 years. She's also going to be picking up more hours at her new job, so it's just impractical for her to be working that much every week.

Tonight TOYH and I are treating ourselves to a concert. Mike Doughty and his band are in town promoting his new disc at First Avenue. It's been a loooong time since I've been at a concert that hasn't involved my children, and even longer since I've been to First Avenue. I'll say hi to Prince if I see him there. First Ave calls itself, "Your downtown danceteria since 1970." That's 38 years ago. Last time I was there was probably 1985. If it had been 38 years old in 1985, that would mean it's tagline would have been, "Your downtown danceteria since 1947." That makes me feel old.

Happy Easter

I Apologize For This

I normally try and steer clear of politics on this blog, but I can't help myself. I was sitting at work today reading TPM when it dawned on me that Barack Obama was giving his "race" speech. I was able read a copy of the speech shortly after it was delivered. I thought it was beautiful. Please, please, please read the whole speech or watch it in its entirety on a U Tube link. Don't trust the snippets you get from the teevee, paper or radio. I created a new blog so that you, dear reader, can read the text without getting bogged down in the partisan comments that come with the the text as posted on other political blogs. I really think this speech will be remembered as a great and timely piece of American political rhetoric. It is important because he is dealing directly with the problem of race and its perception in differing communities. He understands that there is racial resentment on all sides and that this resentment has its basis in lived in experience. But he also hopes for the possibility of us being able to transcend racial divisions to tackle problems that are not limited to race - poverty, education, health care. I am also impressed that he is also not completely disassociating himself from his pastor who made the inflammatory remarks - he rejects the remarks yes, but not the person - which is an incredibly brave thing to do given our current level of political discourse. Finally, Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic has reported that Obama wrote the speech himself. No speechwriters, no focus groups, no message testing. Apparently he worked on it for a few days and showed it to some aids shortly before giving it. If this is true, it is all the more impressive. Can you imagine the Current Occupant of the White House coming up with anything 1/100th as eloquent as this speech without help?

Here's the link to the text of his speech.

This link may turn out to be my outlet for politics. This way I can talk about politics and you dear reader can choose to link to it or not link to it. It will be your choice to read my crappy opinions (mostly borrowed from people smarter than me) on politics. Who knows, maybe I'll even give interested parties posting privileges and we can have a free for all.

How Do You Get To Orchestra Hall? Practice. Practice Practice.

I think that old saw is only true for Carnegie Hall. Last night the Madster made her debut at Orchestra Hall without much practice at all. For the past few weeks she's been participating in Viva City, a program in the Minneapolis Public Schools. Last night it was Viva City's dance and choral music night, held at the best music venue in the state. Madster was invited along with 5 or 6 other Emerson middle schoolers to sing in a choir. The choirs are directed by an "artist in residence" who the district hires to work with kids in different schools. Madster's choir director was a visiting scholar at Macalester College in St. Paul, originally from Ghana. He arranged three songs for the kids to sing, and I thought they were the best performers of the whole night. The songs had lovely African sounding melodies, the kids stayed together and to my ear at least, they were in tune. By way of comparison, the high school choir, directed by a professor from Luther College, sang more traditional choral arrangements. They sounded fine, but for the most part choral music just doesn't do it for me. All in all it was a nice evening that included the requsite cuteness of 2nd graders doing a kind of swing dance. The only downside was when the emcee, during a lengthy shuffling of choir members on and off the stage, broke into George Benson/Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love of All." Stupid dreck. Of course children are the future, us old people will be dead in the future. Loving your self is the greatest love of all? Well that just gives me the creeps.

Madster and her friend Charlie were complaining on the way to Orchestra Hall (yes, we took the bus) about how they didn't have enough time to rehearse and that they didn't know some of the words to the songs and chants they were singing. Oh well. They sounded great to me. So yes, you can get to Orchestra Hall without enough practice. Madster is fortunate to have TOYH's most excellent musical abilities. Madster has always had a sweet singing voice. If she was relying on my genes, she never would have been invited to participate.

I wasn't able to bike today. I had my hopes up. Last night when we were coming home from the concert, the streets were clear and the snow had pretty much let up. I watched the weather news and stupid Belinda said that any snow falling overnight would melt and the roads would be clear. Wrong. We ended up with about 3 inches of heavy, wet snow on the ground. On the roads they plowed overnight, the city pushed all the slush into the bike lanes and the unplowed streets were rutted, packed snow and slush. Yuck. The nice thing about this storm is that we should have a Denver type recovery. It should be warm enough that most of the snow should be gone by the end of the week.

Awwwwww Crap

NWS says we could get up to 5 inches of snow by Tuesday. Just when I started to get some miles on the bikes. I've heard predicting snow is the most difficult job in all of weatherdom. The weather dorks have been off all this winter when it comes to snow accumulation predictions for the cities. Here's hoping they're wrong one last time.

In other crappy news, the wipers on Crapmobile are broken again, after spending $190 to get them fixed the first time. They are not stuck in the hillbilly "up" position in the middle of the windshield this time. Remember in the good old days when you turned on your wipers and they would both sweep up going to the left and back down down to the right? GM thought it would be cool if they had the wipers on this piece of garbage work in opposite directions. Driver's side sweeps up to the left, passenger side sweeps up to the right. But what may look cool to GM engineers is not be easy to execute, at least for those morons. TOYH used the wipers the other day and they got caught on each other. This threw them out of synch and the nut holding the driver's side loosened up and the wiper stopped working completely. Simple fix I thought, tighten the nut and we're good to go. Not so easy. As I was trying to get them to work in tandem, they kept getting caught on each other. Finally the passenger side wiper, caught on the driver's side wiper, bent the blade so that the top tip of the blade was touching the windshield, and the top third of the blade was bent in an upside down "U" shape while the bottom two thirds was touching the windshield. This gave me an idea. Why not take the blade and bend it back the other way? Voila. Now we just have a wiper that resembles Dilbert's necktie. And please dear reader, if you happen to meet or know an engineer from GM, please slap them. Hard. Multiple times.

In non-crappy news, last night we dumped the kids off on the Dreadful Man (well that's not entirely true he wants the company as long as Evil Grandmother is rehabbing) and we went to an actual dinner party. The party was thrown by 4 of TOYH's clients in celebration of her getting a new job. Kristi and Jodi hosted the party and Mark and Valerie, who live across the street from K & J provided the food. Well, Mark provided the food. It was delicious. The company was fabulous. It's been a while since I've laughed that hard.

Oh, and the final tally of miles not driven in the car this week.....117.

I Love The Smell Of Self-Righteousness In The Evening

Yup. Between me and the kids, my bike and public transportation, we didn't drive 94 miles this week..... so far.

I also have to say that I'm pretty proud of myself for another reason. This week we crossed over to the darkside computer wise. TOYH's new job has a system of computer/online charting. The system requires Microsoft's Internet Explorer version 6 or later. Microsoft quit updating IE for Macs sometime in 2003 or so. TOYH learned her lesson about having up to date charts on hand a few weeks ago at work when she covered for a nurse who was sick. She only had the paper charts to work with and her client wanted to go over the med list. That was fine, but the paper med charts were not up to date. Long story short, TOYH spent a loooong time trying to figure out what was going on with the meds. She realized then and there she needed to have a computer to do her online charting to keep things current. People Inc will eventually get a computer to her, but it's pretty clear she needs one now. It just so happens that Jon was looking at laptops on eBay and found a local guy who was sells used laptops. For $400 I picked up a used Dell laptop. I brought it home all excited to get it on our network at home. It took a while, but I figured it out. With our other Macs, it has been plug and play to get on our Mac network. I bought my first Mac in 1986, a MacIntosh 512k Enhanced. No hard drive. All the programs were on the 3 1/4 floppies you had to carry around with you. Every Mac I've purchased since then has been pretty simple to work with. I've never had any reason to get a PC. Well it finally happened and I got it to work in our hostile Mac environment.

In other news, EG is out of the hospital in a nursing home for a short stay. Probably just a couple of days. She basically fell behind in her rehab because of the low hemoglobin.

Updates

From the Dreadful Man last evening:

"It was a good night that allowed Phyllis to catch up on her much needed sleep. She has yet to put weight on her new hip, and she says it is slow going, although she is told that things are about normal. The big issue will probably be the stairs; however, today the big issue was her energy level. She had very low hemoglobin and had to have two pints of blood this afternoon. She was getting dizzy when she tried to stand, and because of the energy level, she didn’t gain as much ground as she would have liked. But we all know that she will overcome eventually. We asked about having blood before the surgery and were told that little bleeding occurred and what did was “filtered and recirculated”. Why she needed two units of blood is a mystery. I trust that there are no vampires about."

DM called last night to tell me this, and I was alarmed. 2 units of blood? That seems like a lot. Anyway, TOYH called just a few minutes ago and said that the EG was feeling like a new woman today, full of piss and vinegar or new blood at least.

In other news, KyKy has decided that track and field is not the sport for her. Last night she said to me gravely, "Dad, I need to tell you something."

"Yes?" I say with a bit of apprehension.

"I'm quitting track."

Whew. Not moving in with a newfound boyfriend. Not becoming a Republican. Not wanting me to buy her the complete Brittany Spears on iTunes. I can live with this. I told her that I'd be lying if I said I was disappointed about her quitting. The practices seemed to be a bit too long, ending about sixish. She's got enough to do with homework and viola and Wednesday night church to involve herself in a sport she's only half-way interested in. I've written before about the coolness of being on a team and the camaraderie that comes along with it, but if the rest of your life is misery because you don't have any time on your hands, the team isn't worth it.

This Just In ... Sort Of

From an email I received yesterday and now to be found on the "Yeah, I Started Posting Again" Journal of Medicine:


I know what you are thinking. You are confused by the unfamiliar handwriting. “This is not Phyllis” you say, and you are correct. It is, rather, her husband, Doug if you don’t know me, and if you do, you will just have to learn to live with it. I have been assigned the task of writing the “Hip Chronicles”, and this is the first installment.
Between 0732 and 1009 on the morning of 10 February, 2008, Phyllis was the prominent feature in a skilled medical procedure that had a portion of defective skeletal structure replaced with shiny, exotic and expensive metal: in a word – new hip. Our eldest daughter, Tacy and I anxiously whiled away the hours waiting for the doctor’s report by enjoying a sumptuous (if hospital cafeterias can provide sumptuous) breakfast of eggs, hash browns, sausage and coffee, followed later by juice and more coffee and congenial repartee. Finally, at 1130 the doctor came in to announce that The Phyllis came through with flying colors. He did say that she had one of the most arthritic hips that he had ever seen! The surgery took some time longer because he had to remove some considerable bone growth from around the hip socket. But all was accomplished, and we were visiting with a lucid and happy wife/mother. She had a spinal block plus some damitall to keep her numb and woozy so she did not have to have general anesthesia which would have taken much longer to revive. By 1300 hours, she had been awake a whole day’s worth of hard work, and we left her to rest. She has this afternoon filled with such tasks as dinner, (her first meal since last afternoon) and she must sit up, that is, bend her new hip 90 degrees. Tomorrow the real exercise begins, and I am planning on taking some polka music (45s, naturally) on my visit.
I will keep you all posted anon.
Doug

In other news, I rode my bike in to work today for the first time since February 25th. This despite the fact that my knee is not 100%. That's the difference between me and the EG. She has hip pain and gets a new hip. I have knee pain and ride my bike.

Busy, Busy, Busy

We had a few things going on this weekend.

Saturday was the first time in a long, long time that TOYH didn't spend the first day of a weekend morning at work or school. "So does she stay home and enjoy it?" I ask this knowing that you, dear reader, are already aware of the answer. Of course not. She ran off to an aerobics/workout class that she and some of her church friends had organized. Apparently she felt the burn because she was complaining a bit about being sore yesterday.

Therefore it fell to me to get the younger two to karate for their workouts. Saturday is sparring day, and I have to say that both of them have got that "eye of the tiger" thing going. 'Nika was beating up on sweet little Carla Guillen, and Madster opened up a can of whup ass on some roly-poly teenage boy. I kinda felt sorry for the kid even though he poked Madster in the face (they wear helmets). He did this despite the fact that the kids were told to take no head shots in this session. Madster got her revenge though. When they resumed sparring she got in a couple of kicks to his chest and thus out scored him in their little match. When you're a teenage boy and a girl who is younger and doesn't wear as advanced a belt as you do beats you, it's got to be a tad humiliating. That's why I felt kinda sorry for him.

Later on Saturday afternoon we all piled into Crapmobile and headed up to my ancestral home. It was the weekend to celebrate Oma and Opa's birthdays, since they fall on March 3 and March 4. We had the little wing-ding at Mark and Terri's house and a good time was had by all. Tracy and Jeff weren't able to make it since Caleb had a basketball tournament over the weekend. Click on the links to the left to read about final results. If they haven't posted about it, pester them until they do. Caleb's siblings, Maren and Chase, were there though and they kept everyone entertained.

Sunday saw more extended family activites with us heading up to TOYH's parents place for a late lunch. While I'm writing this, the Evil Grandmother is under the knife for a hip replacement, so she wanted to see us while she was still mobile. I think she also wanted the diversion of company because she was not looking forward to the surgery. The Dreadful Man, while not excited about having his wife laid up in the hospital for a few days, is looking forward to being able to eat as many types of beans he can find and then entertaining himself with the resulting flatulence. This is how he got the name Dreadful Man from his wife.

After we left EG and DM's, I was able to catch up with some of my old FedEx pals Sunday evening. It was really good to see them again.

Today KyKy starts track practice after school. Practice supposedly runs (hehe) until 6:00 or 6:15, which seems a bit excessive to me. More chauffeuring for us I guess, although now it is light enough now that she could take the bus home with no problem. KyKy has also started her behind the wheel instruction for driver's training. Every time we get in the car 'Nika is always asking if KyKy can drive. Not yet, but soon.

It's supposed to warm up nicely this week and it's about damn time. I haven't been on my bike for a while since my knee is still bothering me and the weather has not been cooperating lately. This could be an ugly spring as far as bike commuting goes, too many after school activities and no TOYH to share the burden of driving around since she's got a day job now. Gotta talk to Jon about cutting back hours.

As Atrios Would Say, I Got Nuthin'

As evidenced by my lack of entries. So just click on the links on the left. Oh and Francis, thx for the music. I've got a lot of listening to do.

I Went To Red Wing And All I Got Was This Lousy Sprained Knee

Ok, that's not entirely true, as you will find out. KyKy, 'Nika and I made it to Red Wing on Amtrak without incident. If you want to spend a whole day in RW, and I mean the whole day, the train is the way to go. We met up with TOYH and The Madster at breakfast, and when we were finished eating, we commenced with our wanderings. Highlights of the day included a stop at the Goodhue County Public Library, Lilly's Coffeehouse, assorted antique and specialty stores, dinner at the pub at the St. James Hotel, coffee at a Caribou where there was an "acoustic" singer/guitar player with his amp turned up to 11 (why they called it acoustic when the guy who was performing was playing too loud for us to be able to hold a conversation is beyond me) and lots of walking. RW does have a taxi service that is pretty cheap, so if you take the train down there and want to get to Pottery Place, it can be done easily. And yes, I did sprain my knee. On the way to said Caribou, lugging all our bags and looking like a slightly well dressed homeless family, I slipped on the ice and fell on me bum, giving my left knee a pretty good twist in the process. My butt was ok but I've been hobbling around a bit, especially on the stairs.

Perhaps the most charming part of the trip was waiting for the train to get us back home. Since the Caribou was too loud, we decided to wait it out at the restored RW train depot. As we approached, we started to hear music coming from the inside. (RW apparently doesn't like silence. Everywhere, and I mean everywhere, we went there was either live music, a radio playing, or some kind of pop music, mostly from the 70's and 80's, assaulting us.) The music from the Depot was great though. It was three retirees, one on a tuba, one on a trumpet and one who had tenor, alto and soprano saxes plus a clarinet. They were playing dixieland tunes and old timey popular music - and doing it quite well. They do it just for fun apparently, because they wouldn't fess up to playing paid gigs. The Depot is unlocked at that hour and since no one is there, they use it for rehearsal space.

In one of the antique stores we were in, I found a box with some old road maps. I love to look at maps. I started to rifle through the box and found an old Standard Oil map of the Twin Cities from the early 60's. What I love about that map is that those awful gashes that cut through the cities, also known as Interstate Highways, are pretty much absent. 35W ends at 58th Street in South Minneapolis, the 494/694 loop consists of about a mile and a half of road in South St Paul and 94 only exists in some evil engineer's imagination. When I brought it up to the counter to buy it, the guy in the store asked me if I had seen a particular book he had found hiding in a piece of furniture they had for sale. I hadn't, so he showed it to me. It was a 1902 Hudson's Dictionary of Minneapolis. It had a fold out map of the city as it existed in 1902. I have no idea if the book was worth anything, but I had to have it, so I bought it for what I'm sure is far too much money. The map is not in great shape, it has lots of creases and a big tear, but it would look really cool framed. Among the points of interest on the map is "Lake Mendoza, formerly Lake Calhoun" (and now currently known as Lake Calhoun). In the book, two of the longest entries are for the street car system and, drum roll please, BICYCLING. In 1902, Minneapolis had 50 miles of bicycle paths plus some "good hard" roads that were amenable for bicycling. The entry also contained a list of bicycle routes for out of towners to the city to use, and a map of the paths and roads good for cycling. Also of note, there were no entries for automobiles in the 1902 Dictionary of Minneapolis. It's just so hard imagine the impact car culture has had on our country in the last hundred years. From the enormous amount of wealth created by the automobile and associated industries, to the fractured, ailing central cities which not only have gigantic ditches isolating neighborhoods, but also lost a valuable public good with the demise of mass transit (well at least in Minneapolis).

So in the spirit of non-auto transportation, I spent quite a bit of time on the bus yesterday. I rode the 11, 18, 21, 11 (again) 46, 5, 11 (again), 16, 2, and 5 (again) bus routes. All this to get the girls to two different karate sessions and for me to get to the Boys State Swim Meet. The whole state meet thing was a huge trip down Nostalgia Lane for me. I saw people I hadn't seen in 25 years, and the whole atmosphere of the meet brought back pleasant memories of my high school years. It was really a fun time. On my bus ride to campus, I got a call from Nerdy Bike Neil who was just leaving the Gopher basketball game with his son Owen. We literally crossed paths by the Radisson on Washington Ave. Naturally, Neil told me that my knee would get better if I rode my bike more. I think he's probably right. When I got to the meet the first person I saw was an old college teammate of mine. He's now the Edina girls coach, and we had a nice little chat. Next, I saw a group of Cambridge swimmers, I introduced myself, and told them how pleased I was that the relay record was broken. Unfortunately, none of them in that group were on the relay (those guys were in the water warming up, duh). They pointed me in the direction of the Cambridge fan contingent. By some twist of fate the assigned seats for the Cambridge parents and team members were the best seats in the whole facility. Really. Front row, right in line with the starting blocks. I had a standing room only ticket so I couldn't walk down there and plop on the bench. I caught a glimpse of one of my old H.S. teammates, Jim Berry, whose son Jake is on the relay. Jim and I finally hooked up, and after catching up with each other, Jim proceeded to introduce me not only to the members of the relay, but to parents of the other swimmers, one of whom, Rusty Jacobson was a classmate of mine although an non-swimmer himself. It was nice to be able to congratulate the kids on breaking that musty old record, and as a added bonus, the kids were really nice. Jim couldn't say enough good things about them. Rusty and his wife Char (another classmate of mine) left after the Cambridge boys were done, so Jim and I went and took their places and enjoyed the meet from the best vantage point in the house. We continued to talk old times and watch some pretty incredible swims. I also saw and chatted with Jeff and Deb Edblad, who I haven't seen since H.S. days. All in all, a very pleasant evening.

Well It's About Time

Mom just sent me an email to tell me that the 26 year old Cambridge High School boys 200 Medley Relay record was broken last weekend. So now my name is finally wiped off the record board. I don't know if any of the other guys who were on the relay with me still hold individual records, maybe Brad and Chris do. The new record was set at the Region meet while ours was set at State. We had the luxury of timing our taper for State since we competed in such a crappy Region. Hopefully this year's relay has saved a little bit for State and they'll break the 1:42.00 barrier. That would be smokin'.

I have to say that participating in the prelims at State in 1982 was probably the most fun I've had in an organized sport. We swam at old Cooke Hall on the U campus, and boy was that a wild pool to swim in. I think there was seating for about 1000 people and the footprint of the building was so small that the risers of the "bleachers" felt like they went straight up. Everything was so cramped everywhere, but in a real way I think it added to the tension and the excitement. Even though it was a crummy facility, it never seemed to hinder the swimmers from breaking records. I really believe the cramped, raucous atmosphere was probably good for a few 10ths of a second. I have such fond memories of that old dump, and I think going there year after year was part of the attraction of the U of M for me and the reason I eventually transferred there.

Remembering the State meet reminds me why I like spring so much. After spending the winter in the pool in 2-a-day practices, rarely seeing the sun, feeling your hair freeze when you went outside, it was absolutely the best feeling in the world to emerge from all the hard work and long hours into what felt like a new world. The State meet meant temperatures were warming up. It meant no longer having to get up early for morning practice. It meant being in the best shape of your life. It meant actually seeing the sun again. There was nothing quite like the end of a swim season, and I envy the kids who are finishing up the year right now.

It would be a lot of fun to get myself up to the U to catch the boys State Meet this year, but I don't know if scheduling will allow it. I'll be gone Friday down to Red Wing, and Saturday is karate day. Hopefully the relay will get past prelims into to finals. It must have been about 15 years ago that the U built a new swimming facility. This relay will have the privilege of swimming in one of the better swimming facilities in the country. I saw the NCAA championships there, and the Big 10 championships are held there quite often. I'm sure it will be terribly exciting, but it ain't no Cooke Hall.

The Big Surprise Ruined

It's becoming a tradition in our family for TOYH to take each of the girls on a special trip once she crosses the threshold into adolescence. KyKy went on a little trip to Excelsior for a couple of nights at a B&B and a play at The Old Log Theater. Today was to be the day of Madster's surprise. TOYH had planned a train trip down to Red Wing for a couple of nights stay. Part of the specialness of the event is a missed day of school for Madster, so in preparation TOYH emailed her teachers asking for homework in advance. It so happens that one of Madster's teachers was going through her email with Madster standing by her and the teacher started to read the email out loud. Yup. She read through the part of the email where TOYH said that this day was was going to be a big surprise for her, so keep it under wraps. The teacher felt awful, and the Madster, God bless her, tried to act like she didn't know anything was going on with us. But being who she is, she couldn't help but to ask innocently, "What's happening on Wednesday?" TOYH started to get suspicious and eventually the cat was let out of the bag that, well, the cat was out of the bag. There was a bit of consolation in the fact that Madster didn't know where she was going or what manner of conveyance was being used. So this morning the three of us piled into Crapmobile, Madster not knowing the destination or that there are bags packed to stay somewhere for two nights. I, of course, on the way to the Amtrak station open my big fat mouth and said something about the two of them being gone for a couple of days. Sigh. Now she knows it's not just a day trip. She did get excited when we pulled into the train station, so that part of the plan worked out. But just as we were walking up to the entrance, an Amtrak employee taped a sign on the door stating that the train was running two hours late. Good Lord, adolescence can be so difficult.

TOYH also reserved tickets for the rest of us to take the train down to Red Wing on Friday. I don't know how exciting that will be for Madster, but I'm looking forward to the trip, at least the getting there and coming back. We'll be in Red Wing for about 12 hours without a car, so I guess I better develop a sudden interest in pottery or boot making.

This Is Good News

MnPublius has just reported that the House of Representatives has just overridden the Gov's veto of the transportation bill. Not only will there be money for roads and bridges from the gas tax, the seven county metro will have the authority to add to the sales tax for mass transit. Hopefully there will be some serious money devoted to more light rail and to the building of a commuter rail system for the metro. I've even heard rumblings of spur being built on the Northstar line up to Cambridge. How cool would that be. We could take the train up to visit.

Ahhhh.......

I finally got outside on a bicycle this weekend. Last night, I went to the Nerds on Bikes Parade for a Friday night ride. The ususal suspects showed up. This TCBC ride leaves from Sunrise Cyclery, an establishment I have left plenty of hard earned dollars at. Jamie, the owner, is a really good guy, and he deals more used bikes than most anyone else in the Twin Cities. He is in the process of moving his shop from near 35W and Lake St to the corner of Lake and Bryant. I had arrived to the ride early to chat with him for a bit, but he was out taking care of some moving related business. I ended up standing around outside for about 20 minutes or so in my biking gear. It's really hard to stay warm in bike clothes when your just standing around in 20 degree weather. I ended up being chilled for the whole ride despite the fact that it was relatively mild.

This morning I went out with the boys (plus one girl) from Hiawatha Cyclery. Great group of people to ride and converse with. We ended up at Kramarczuk's Deli, a legendary institution in NE Minneapolis. Had a really cheap, really good breakfast there served up by some young women with heavy Eastern European accents. It's funny, but that was kind of shocking. The accents one hears from non-native speakers in the Twin Cities are normally either Spanish, Southeast Asian or East African. In decades past, that part of NE Mpls was heavily Eastern European. All you have to do is drive up and down the streets and count the churches and fraternal organizations that were started by different Polish, Slav, Croat, or whatever group. I've been Kramarczuk's a couple of times before, and it used to be just a little shop where you could get homemade sausage, kielbasa, pastries and imports from Poland and other European countries. They have expanded and added a huge dining room, cafeteria style. I'll definitely be back there.

When I got home I had to rouse KyKy out of bed. It was 10:40 and she was still dead to the world. She told me the night before that she wanted to go and get her drivers permit today. I agreed to take her, but I made her go on the bus with me, hehehe. It's really not that far to the county service center, just a few blocks, but it's those car trips in particular that make me crazy. If it hadn't been so sloppy and icy, we probably would have walked. If it had been summer, we would have biked. I made sure I pointed out to her that we were taking the bus to get her one step closer to being able to drive a car.

With that out of the way, we came back home, I gathered up 'Nika and The Madster and off we went to Brooklyn Park to get hairs cut by our friend Tanya. We arrived at about 1:15. Presently it's well after 7:00 and TOYH and the younger two are still up there. Tanya does a great job, but it takes forrrrrr-evvvvvv-errrrr to get out of her place. I wasn't getting my hair cut, since I decided to start going to Phil's Barber Shop on Nicollet and Diamond Lake. KyKy and I did not want to spend 8 hours up there sitting around while Tanya futzed with everyone's hair. TOYH had paperwork to take care of and she did not want to spend the whole day up there either. Madster and 'Nika don't mind hanging around there as much since Tanya has kids about their ages, plus a 5 month old baby to pay attention to. This brings me to a painful admission. We drove two cars up there today. There. I said it. Sure we did it for convenience, but in reality, TOYH and I admit to this abomination because we want to keep the crabbiness level down in our house. When we are all up there, all day, it's just not much fun. It's the weekend. This should be a happy time.

Looking Up

Lots of things are looking up. Let's start with the moon. I meant to post about this yesterday, but I didn't. On Wednesday night I went over to Matthew's place for book club. At 9:00 we went out to look at the lunar eclipse. It was stunning. We had a nice clear (and cold) sky. When the moon was fully in the earth's shadow, it had a reddish hue, and the way it was shaded made it look like a real planet. Normally a full moon looks like a plain old dinner plate hanging in the sky. Wednesday it looked like a sphere. It was so vivid, I felt like I could sit back and pretend I was in some kind of science fiction movie looking up at a nearby planet or death star or just a much cooler moon. Hope you all made some time to take a look.

Secondly,tonight and tomorrow might be the first lengthy outdoor bike rides since the beginning of the month. TCBC tonight and Hiawatha Cyclery tomorrow. There have been opportunities earlier, and I would have gone on those rides if it wasn't for those meddling kids. I think I've got them pawned off so I can get out.

Third, the temperature is up.

Fourth, name improvements for the blog.

Things Just Keep Getting Better

It started out cold, really cold, this morning. Walking back from the bus stop, I finally started to take seriously the warnings the weather geeks broadcast - "Exposed flesh can flash freeze in 16 nanoseconds or less," or whatever it is. That wind was brutal walking up the alley back to the house. I didn't have to go straight off to work because I had an appointment with our accountant to get the taxes done. Since I had about an hour and a half to kill, I grabbed another cup of coffee and finished the crossword puzzles from yesterday's paper. Both of them. And without using any words like "surl" to make things fit.

Good news from the accountant, for us at least. Mom and Dad sold off some land a year or so ago with some of the procedes being distributed to the children. Because of the way the money was distributed, this year each of us kids would have to pay the captal gains on the sale, and believe me, there was significant appreciation in the value of the land. I decided to take a risk and use my share of the money to buy stuff, like food, and to also try and pay down some of the massive debt we've incurred while TOYH was in school. It worked out for us. Our household income was so low, and our deductions so numerous, that we are still getting a refund. What a relief. It's nice to get a refund, but I guess I'd rather not be in the position we've been in the last year financially. It's been awful.

When I got to work I had a bunch of stuff waiting for me, including trying to arrange the shipping of some gear purchased from three different military bases across the country. Jon has a penchant for the impulsive buying of used test equipment and he bought a few units from a government liquidator. He gets to click and bid on stuff he's going to play with in his repair shop. I get to fill out form after form and find people to pick it up and ship it to us. It's a gigantic pain in the butt for me. When I got to work today I was able to finalize most of the shipping arrangements for this crap. Gah. I don't understand why Jon buys this stuff in the first place. The last time we bought military surplus, all we got was a pile of garbage and as it turns out, we had to ship some of the garbage back because it wasn't properly decommissioned garbage. At least I've got shipping arranged for this present pile-o-crap and I won't have it hanging over my head.

Today was the first time I looked at this blog in a few days. Apparently only "anonymous" (and I know who you are) is interested in coming up with names. Unfortunately, anon. did not suggest anything useful for me at this time. Then I got to Francis' comment and came up with the current name. F & J, come on up and collect your prize any time. It made me happy to get one more dig in on this movie. And what a dig. This blog better than WC? Bwahahahahahahahaha. All you WC fans send in better names and maybe I'll change it again, if I deem your submission titleworthy. This name won't last if you give me some decent suggestions.

Tonight, Book Club and a total lunar eclipse, if we drag ourselves outside in the cold.

Yup it's shaping up to be a pretty good day.

I Lied

That last post wasn't the last one of the day. Do yourself a favor and read the last two posts. I am particularly proud of my first post of the day today. And no, this isn't just a cheap cynical way to create filler to get me to 200 posts in one year. Plus check out my little sister's blog linked on the left. That is all.

I Promise, This Is The Last Post Of The Day

From my Mother-In-Law otherwise known as E.G. - the Evil Grandmother:

Hi Family -- I just got back from the orthopedist, and have a date scheduled for my hip-joint replacement surgery -- Monday, March 10th. So, since my birthday is coming up on March 30th, I guess that what I get for a present is a new hip prosthesis! I don't mind telling you that I'm scared spitless -- but I do like this doctor very much, and since he does hundreds of these surgeries every year, he should be able to do mine successfully! He is a colleague of my usual orthopedist, and I've switched to him because the other one, Dr. Wicklund, is preparing to retire, and is backing off on his surgical load. He gave me a good report on this Dr. Jay Johnson, and I found today that I like him a lot -- and I appreciated the thorough way he explained things to me. I'll be going to United Hospital in St. Paul -- the surgery is first thing on the Monday morning, the tenth, and I'll be in the hospital until Thursday the 13th, or Friday the 14th. Depending on how well I do in therapy, I'll then go either directly home, or to a rehab facility for several days before going home.
I am very anxious to get rid of this constant pain in my hip, so I'm glad to have it scheduled finally -- however, as I said, I'm frightened at the whole prospect, and have to stifle the urge to run away and hide somewhere! I keep telling myself it can't be any worse than doing chemo, or recovering from childbirth, and I've successfully negotiated both of those, so I can do this, too.
We'll be in touch about this later, but I just wanted to give you the heads-up about it now. Love, Mom/Phyllis

This Craptastic Blog Is One Year Old!

Yup, one year tomorrow. TOYH just handed me a glass of champagne, although not for my blogging. (It was for her inaugural client visits as a real RN. She also got paid today. Woohooo!) I was thinking that for its' one year anniversary, I could rename this piece of crap, thus the new banner. It's time to shake things up a bit. Time for something fresh. Time for something hip. Time for something that says, "This blog is a record of the pointless, public revelation of my incredibly mundane life and a testament to the power of the internet to provide a forum for any delusional egomaniac to broadcast his every thought, no matter how stupid, insipid, puerile or just plain dull it is." Anything besides the pathetic, "white guy pretending to have some street cred," name it had before. I am open to suggestions, maybe even having a contest. Mind you, there would be no prizes for the winning name, just the satisfaction of knowing you have made a lasting contribution to this pile of garbage. Actually, if the coiner of the winning name is local or is passing through town, we could provide a home cooked dinner for you. And your family! Rather, TOYH would provide a home cooked dinner. If I was providing dinner it would consist of microwave burritos and Pop Tarts. On second thought, I don't know if I want to have to choose from the many entries which I'm sure will come pouring in. Maybe I could have a constantly rotating banner name and if your entry is chosen, you get dinner. I realize that as far as "branding" goes, frequent name changes would kill any "buzz" that this stinking effluence might be starting to generate, but hey we're on the edge here.

In other news, Wells Fargo loves us. A couple of weeks ago when TOYH and I went to the bank for a notarized signature and a cashier's check, they asked her if she wanted to upgrade our checking account to "PMA" checking from the basic no frills checking we had. Don't ask me what PMA means, I have no idea. Anyway, I'm finding out that with PMA checking we're getting all kinds of "free" stuff. "Free" electronic Bill Pay. "Free" checks. "Free" enrollment in a rewards program for getting and using a debit card. 100 "free" trades if we open brokerage account. You too can have all this "free" stuff. Here's how. All you need to do is take out a mortgage with Wells Fargo, have a line of credit with Wells Fargo, take out student loans with Wells Fargo and get a credit card with Wells Fargo. It's so simple.

Bus Woes

Yesterday at work I got an hysterical call from The Madster. It turns out that to celebrate Valentines Day a few of the snot-nosed little brats on the girls' bus decided to throw candy, some of it parially chewed. Madster had a sucker stuck in her hair. This along with the swearing, throwing stuff out the window and disrespect for the bus driver put her over the top, again. This isn't the first time kids on the bus have upset her. I called the proper authorites at the district and the school, but I'm not anticipating any real changes. After the first incident, the kids from the bus were sat down and scolded, which worked for a few days. All the crap happening in the bus is taking place in the very back so the driver either isn't paying attention or doesn't care. I doubt that they'll either put another adult on the bus to ride herd on these miscreants, or kick the offenders off the bus.

It's hard to know how bad it really is on the bus. Madster tends to take things a bit too personally and when her sense of what is right or fair has been violated, she has an extreme visceral reaction. I asked her and 'Nika if the half chewed missiles were specifically directed at Madster, and they said no. She was just collateral damage. Because she was so upset, I don't want to tell her to just toughen up. That won't work. But part of life is having annoying things happen and not letting them get you all bent out of shape. On the other hand, bad behavior is bad behavior and these little turds on the bus need to be taught how civilized, socially well adjusted humans should act. But how bad was the stuff going on? I don't know. Back in the day, I remember Mr. "Stingles" warning kids to knock off the monkey-shines. Henry Hanson used to scare the crap out of me with his sullen attitude, long hair, huge presence, army jacket and foul mouth. Waay back in the day, John Larson (was he Hippo or Rhino?) used to torture Bobby Nelson. One day John was pounding the top of Bobby's head with a couple of books, Bobby pulled his jacket over his head to protect himself, John continued pounding, and ended up making Bobby's head bleed by smacking the zipper into his scalp. Was John suspended for that? I don't remember. Thoughts anyone?

Snow, Cold, Snow, Cold, Snow, Cold

3-4 inches of snow predicted overnight tonight. Temps then go waaaay below zero on Friday morning before warming up quite nicely on Saturday. I suppose this is what winter is all about. I've really only been paying attention to whole seasons these last two years since I've been biking. Last year I remember it was a mild December, mild January, cold beginning to February and then lots of snow at the end of February. Other than last year, the only winter season that really sticks out in my mind was in '86 or '87 when there was hardly any snow and it was unusually warm. I really couldn't tell you what a typical winter is all about because frankly I don't think about them in general terms. I can tell you about specific events like the Halloween blizzard of '91, a 12 inch snowfall we got in '85 or a bitter cold snap in '94 but those are all connected to specific memories - digging out ('91), driving a friend up to Brooklyn Park in deep snow ('85) or having to take the battery in from the car to our apartment every night to keep it warm('94). Same thing goes for summer. The only one that really stands out was in '88 when we had a severe drought. We had 10 or so days over 100 degrees and scores of days above 90. I lived in a dump with no air conditioning that summer. So if you ever catch me saying things like, "Back when I was a kid (insert season) was a lot more (insert weather phenomenon)," just tell me to shut up because I don't know what I'm talking about.

For Hours Of Listening Pleasure

If you're using Pandora on the internets to listen to music, plug in these artists to create a station. You will not be disappointed:

Thelonious Monk
Art Tatum
Billie Holiday
Charlie Parker
Coleman Hawkins
Ella Fitzgerald
Fats Navarro
Lester Young

Yeah, I know it's heavy on Be-Bop, but it is soooo cool.

My Pandora station that is contemporary pop/rock is only so-so. It actually got quite annoying. I put in artists like Tom Waits, Mike Doughty, Bruce Cockburn, Dylan, and just for kicks, the Go-Go's. I would hear a string of really cool songs but then it would go on this chick-rock jag and start playing Heart, Pat Benetar, Scandal etc. I added the Go-Go's since they created some of the best pop songs of the 80's but Pandora decided it needed to link me up with that dreck from the above mentioned "artists."

If I ever get tired of my Be-Bop station, maybe I'll try and create an old timey jazz list with Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke and Jelly Roll Morton.

Yet Another Thing I Should Probably Take Credit For

This.

I suppose I should only take partial credit since other people have been pestering her to start her own blog. Personally I think she's doing it to shame me with her superior writing skilz. Sibling rivalry doesn't seem to end, even with our impending dotage. I'll add it to the side links as soon as I remember how.

In other news, I braved the cold yesterday to get TOYH a talking GPS unit for the Crapmobile. Her new job is going to take her out and about, and she claims she has no sense of direction. There is a bit of merit to that, although I wouldn't say it's directional confusedness. Back in the day when I was in school, there were occasions where TOYH would drop me off at Luther before she went on to her appointed rounds. Inevitably when we left home, TOYH would take off to her own destination and forget that she needed to drop me off. I wouldn't say anything. All of a sudden she would realize that she was going the wrong direction if she was to get me to school on time. Then she would get mad at me. Her get mad at me? She was the pilot, the captain of the ship, Master and Commander as it were. I was just the lowly passenger riding shotgun. So lowly, as a matter of fact, that my very existence wasn't even being acknowledged.

Anyway she now has a little box in her car that will tell her to turn right in 300 feet. It's the high tech version of the back seat driver, except this one is welcomed with open arms, and not just welcomed but purchased. I can't say it has much personality though. It would be cool if it would say stuff like, "You just missed your turn you moron." Then marketing geniuses could come up with ladies' versions that would ask, "How was your day?" or "How did that make you feel?" and guy versions that would ask, "How about that local sporting team?" or "Those jokers in Washington are a bunch of clowns aren't they."

Something Else For Which I Feel I Can Take Credit

This

It's Happening Again

The weather yo-yo is about to take another big plunge this weekend. Right now it's in the mid twenties. By Sunday morning, it'll be -13F. Monday we'll be back up to 18F. Looks like no outdoor riding this weekend. I guess I'll have to stick the bike on the trainer and sweat it out in the basement (insert gigantic shudder here).

Related to no outdoor biking, I'm really getting tired of driving. This weekend is shaping up to be a fun-filled car one. On a normal Saturday I make the girls take the bus to karate. They don't really mind, they figure it puts The Old Man in a good mood when he can ride public transit and feel a sense of moral superiority. Tomorrow we're looking at windchills of 20-30 below zero. I suppose we could all stand and wait at the bus stop, but I'm afraid in doing so girls are going to end up resenting me. That resentment will turn to bitterness and the bitterness to rebellion. Rebellion will take the form of them leaving home, moving to Ft. Lauderdale, working at Hooters and driving hunormous SUVs. All because I forced them to take the bus on a cold day. Guess I'll drive. Ahhh parenting. It's all about those little compromises made today to head off a train wreck tomorrow.

Mark This Day On Your Calendars

I called in sick today. I woke up with terrible stomach cramps and rather uhhh loose stools. The cramps were coming in waves and they were just miserable. I called Jon and told him I wasn't coming in to work. I honestly don't remember the last time I told an employer that I wouldn't show up because I was sick. Nearly two years at Test Equipment World Domination Headquarters. A year and a half at Fairview Southdale. 5 Years at FedEx. Prior to that, at Luther's bookstore and at ACR as a Program Counselor, I may have called in, but I don't remember.

What did I do today? I went back to bed. I slept off and on for a while and then threw in the Blockbuster movie that came in the mail yesterday, The Seven Samurai. After watching the movie for a while, I got hungry for rice. That was agreeable with my stomach so I ate some without incident. I hadn't seen Seven Samurai before and I have to admit that on first viewing I didn't understand all the hype about it being the greatest movie ever made. Blockbuster sent the Criterion Collection edition so there is a commentary track with snooty film experts telling me why it was so great. That was pretty cool. I generally watch movies purely for entertainment, so, I miss stuff left and right that snooty film experts know all about. Watching part of the movie again with the commentary track on was enlightening to say the least. Greatest film ever made? I suppose, but I wouldn't be able to tell you. Listen to the snooty film critics.

Caucus Night

I went to my precinct caucus last night. Before I left, I checked the messages on our answering machine. One of our neighbors called last week to see if KyKy could babysit for them while they attended the caucus. Ooops. Too late now. (Note to self: check answering machine more than once every week or so.) KyKy had expressed in interest in coming with me to watch the process. Awesome. She'll get to see democracy in action. When we got there, there was a pretty big crowd. It was fun to see neighbors who I hadn't seen in a few months, since we're all holed up in our homes for the winter. I went to apologize to the neighbors who needed the babysitter for not returning their call, and we ended up sitting next to them. KyKy met Henry, the child in need of the baby sitter, and kept him entertained most of the night. Faux Pax averted.

While it was nice to see so many people show up for caucuses, (over 400) I don't know how instructive it was for KyKy. When you get that many people in a room with bunch of different agendas, it's like herding cats. A good portion of the time we were there was spent wrangling over the delegates who would go on the the district convention. The magic number was 35. If 36 people wanted to be delegates there was the danger of sub-caucusing which would entail lots of jockeying and horse trading of votes and delegates. Thankfully, no one wanted to go through that and the slate of delegates chosen pretty much represented the whole group when it came to the Senate race (about half for Franken and about half for Nelson-Pallmeyer, which is no surpise since he's probably the most liberal of the three running for Senate). After muddling through the choosing of delegates, it was onto resolutions. One of my neighbors told me that in previous years this precinct passed a resolution to secede from the United States. We didn't stick around to see if there were any truly wacko resolutions, but there was one, which was defeated, to require the Hiawatha Light Rail line put in turnstiles at station platforms. (Whoops, look at the time - gotta go home and get the kids to bed.)

While I like the idea of the deliberative nature of the caucus, I'm not sure it is the best way to pick candidates. It's fun to get together with neighbors, but it excludes people who work, who have child care responsibilities etc. Plus we were supposed to get all the business done in 2 hours. Fat chance. If we ran past 9 pm, there would be an extra charge for the room we were using so there was this extra incentive to get it done and get out of there. In reality our time was not really spent in discussion or deliberation, it was mostly parliamentary procedure and bureaucratic housekeeping.

I say have a primary to choose candidates and save the long dull meetings for hammering out a platform. Don't mix the two at this level.

Oh, and Obama beat Hillary 329 to 77 at our caucus.

Torn

My chair in the office at Test Equipment World Domination Headquarters sits right next to a window. I'm looking outside right now watching the snow fall. The National Weather Service says to expect anywhere from 4 to 7 inches by tomorrow morning. Normally I really like to sit inside and watch the snow fall, especially when I have a cup of coffee in hand. It's one of life's little pleasures up here on the tundra. But this pleasurable experience starts to decrease as the winter drags on - December snows are much more enjoyable than late February or March snows.

Since it's the beginning of February, today qualifies as a nice snowfall, BUT Saturday's Stupor Bowl reminded me of how much I miss riding outside on skinny tires, clear streets and in mild temperatures. Since there were more than 300 of us going to 17 stops, we were bound to run across other racers. Occasionally I'd some young whippersnappers put the hammer down and take off on a sprint. Man I love that feeling of a short burst when your legs feel great. I wasn't feeling it on Saturday. I've missed a lot of riding in the past month or so for various reasons, it's too cold, I'm too sick, it's too dangerous, I'm too busy. This week was shaping up to be a week where I could have biked to work quite a few days. Not any more. If we get as much snow as they are predicting, the streets are going to be gummed up for a while. Sigh.

This weekend, I exchanged one ache for some others. For a few days before the race I'd been waking up with a sore achilles tendon. I have no idea why it was sore. I told Kirk I was hesitating about the race, but he would have none of it. He reminded me of the healing powers of biking. He was right, to a point. Sunday I woke up with my achilles feeling great but my knees were all achey. Today I feel pretty good.

I'm not much of a competitor, but it's funny what a race like this does for me. I suppose it's an endorphine rush, but when Kirk and I were out there riding around I had such a sense of well being - that there was no place I would rather be at that moment. Because I used to work for FedEx I'm sure there was not a street on our route I hadn't been on, but that was in a vehicle. Biking on these streets on Saturday felt like I was on them for the first time. Plus, it wasn't a random, leisurely exploration. It had a purpose and we had to push ourselves. It's hard to explain why I felt so good. I just did.