A Disappointment

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bring It On

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

It Is Finished

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

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

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

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

Effin' a right.

Still No Biking

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

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

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

I'm Getting Grumpy

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

Back By Popular Demand

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

Thanksgiving was very nice.

The Last Meet And A Halloween Story

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

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

It Was Five Years Ago Today.....

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

I want to leave you with two things.

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

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

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

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

Worst. Commute. Ever

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

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

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

They Lost In A Heartbreaker

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

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

This Weather Is Getting Depressing

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

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

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

Aaaand They're Off

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

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

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

Still Don't Feel The Need To Get A Gun

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

You Can Just Call Me The Angel Of Death

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

Monday Nights Are Done

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This Makes Me Angry

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

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

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

OK end of rambling rant.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

School

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

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

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

Sigh....Again

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

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

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

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

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

Upcoming: More exciting home improvement updates!

Finally, Some Sleep

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

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

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

Why I Don't Like The State Fair

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

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

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

That is all.

17 Years Plus One Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Big Meet

KyKy had her first meet as a Southwest Laker swimmer last night. The Madster, 'Nika and I trekked out to Edina to see the Hornets beat up on Southwest. The Edina coach is an old teammate of mine from St. Cloud State, and I talked to him for a while. I haven't seen Jeff in more than 20 years. He was saying that the team was down this year. For Edina that means they won't be vying for a State Championship. The last time they won state was 2004. Last year they finished (gasp!) 8th. Art Downey is still helping out with the Edina team. I think he has been coaching since our ancestors stopped swimming and crawled out of the primordial soup eons ago. Probably what makes him a good coach.

KyKy did a great job. Mercifully, the coach put her in the 50 free and the 200 free relay for her first swims. She's only been practicing for a week, and she hasn't been swimming seriously for a couple of years so they didn't stick her in the 500 or 100 fly. I think she swam about a 34 second 50 free and took 2nd in the J.V. race. She forgot to hit the touchpad at the end of the race, so her time didn't register on the scoreboard. She anchored a J.V. 200 free relay and her split was 33.2. It'll be a big day when she breaks that 30 second barrier.

Tonight TOYH and I leave for the thriving metropolis of Peterson, MN for our 17th Anniversary weekend. I feel like I want to just sleep for 36 hours.

Bleh

I've been inexplicably tired this past week and I don't know why. The weather has been dreary, so maybe that's part of it. Because of all the family obligations, I haven't been able to bike to work much, and even when I did, it didn't get me out of the doldrums.

The Madster was pretty happy with the birthday haul yesterday. A couple of stuffed animals, and then some techy stuff. We got her a cell phone. Sigh. I suppose we could do without them, but with our crazy schedules, we want to have at least one of our kids per school to have one. Obviously the kids don't carry them around in class, but it sure is nice to be able to leave text messages for them when plans change (which they always do). There are now 4 cell phones in the family, but you'd never know it. None of us are sitting around gabbing in public places or at home for that matter. Because of work, TOYH gets the most calls by far, but she rarely picks up calls when they come to her phone. It's more of a messaging service for her. This will all change when 'Nika, aka "The Phone Vulture," gets a cell phone. She loves to answer the phone and she loves to talk with friends and family on the phone. I will give you all advanced notice when she gets one so you can buy your Verizon stock, or whatever carrier we will be using in the future.

We also got The Madster Sims 2 Pets for the computer. We had gone back and forth about getting her what she really wanted - plain old Sims 2. They seemed to have ratcheted up the hanky-panky quotient from Sims 1, so TOYH picked up Sims 2 Pets instead. All was well until I read on the Sims 2 Pets box that the Sims 2 game was required to use Pets. Crimeny. Now we've got to decide what to do again. Anyone familiar with Sims 2? It's rated Teen, so The Madster will probably....Wait, this just in. The Madster called me from her new cell phone saying they made the exchange for Sims 2 and she's having trouble installing it. I guess I know what I'm doing this evening. BTW, what ever happened to Sim City? Francis? Anyone?

This Is Why I Am An Idiot

Last night TOYH and I went to a booster meeting for the Minneapolis Southwest Swim Team. I must say that this crowd of parents is different from the parents we encounter at Emerson. We were probably the only folks there last night that shop at thrift stores because we want to, not because we like the "shabby chic" look. All the parents last night spoke English as their first language and none of the moms had shaved heads. The coach made it sound like the team could be pretty good this year, yet this group of folks didn't seem like it was filled with "hockey parents" who were going to demand that their daughter swim varsity or else.

I had forgotten what kind of commitment it takes to be a high school athlete. KyKy is coming home exhausted, mostly because she hasn't swum that much in the past few years. But there are morning practices, weight lifting, Saturday practices, practices before meets. The coach mentioned that the varsity would be swimming up to 8000 yards a day. I'm thinking that has got to be accomplished in 2 practices. I don't remember swimming 8000 yards in one practice in H.S. I probably did it in college, but that seems like a pretty tall order for a two hour H.S. practice. Coach Pam allows for very few absences from practice - injury/illness, religious (KyKy might convert to Judaism so she can get Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippor off) or freshman orientation. I suppose there might be a couple of other reasons, but you get the point.

I don't recall ever skipping any practices in my freshman through senior years in H.S. I wonder how many thousands of hours I spent in the pool or on the field in those years. I was totally dedicated to sport in H.S., and my grades reflected that. If I had been as dedicated to school work as I had been to sport, I probably would have done better than "above average" in school. I don't think KyKy will slough off school like I did, but she might burn out, which I never did. I didn't care about school as much as I should have.

That being said, I'm so pleased she's on the team. She's going to make friends, have fun and accomplish things with them that she'll look back on fondly later. Being on a team, whether you are a successful athlete or not is simply a good thing. There might be times when you want to quit because of all the hard work, but because you have friends on the team, you stick it out. I'm hoping the team gets her in their clutches.

The team captains pick out the design of the suits the girls will wear in the meets. The suits don't have any purple in them partly because the team is combined with Washburn H.S., so finding a purple and white, blue and orange suit off the shelf is probably impossible. What's cool about the suits is that they have 612 emblazoned on them. Why? That's the area code for Minneapolis (and Richfield too I think) and there are only a few H.S. swim teams left in 612, so when Soutwest goes to regions with all the 952 suburban powerhouses, they're goin' to represent.

Word.

I Know You're All Waiting With Baited Breath....

But no, I did not win the All City Championship. I did have a blast doing though. Kirk and a friend of Kirk's, Peter, and I did the race as a threesome. We didn't take it too seriously, mostly because we are pretty much noobs at this and we just wanted to get as many stops done as we could in the 3 hour time limit. We made 12 of the 20 stops which ranged from Univ and Snelling in St Paul, to the Lake Harriet Bandshell, to W. Broadway in North Minneapolis, to Grumpy's Bar in Nordeast. We skipped the St Paul stop cuz we didn't have time. It rained pretty much the whole 3 hours and poured on us for about 15 minutes. They had prizes at some of the stops and I picked up a patch, pair of biking socks and a derailleur cable set. The rain slowed everyone down, but it also helped in a way because the paths around the Lakes area were not filled with dog-walkers or in-line skaters. Only one person finished all the stops, how I'll never know. It was probably a combination of him being an experienced bike courier who knew how to set up the route efficiently, being very fast on his bike, and not stopping to chat with workers at certain stops. Or drinking a beer at his last stop like we did. Kirk, Peter and I competed in the Masters category since we are over 36 years old. The guy who won the Masters had 15 stops, so he pretty much whupped us. I don't know what place we finished exactly, they haven't posted that yet.

The family made it to all the appointments on Saturday morning, plus the piano was delivered. The Madster and 'Nika have practiced more in the last 48 hours than in the past 2 weeks. We'll see how long that lasts.

TOYH and I may be spending our Anniversary cleaning up flood debris. The B&B we have reservations at is in Peterson, MN which is about 3 miles from Rushford, MN which was hit pretty hard by the floods this weekend. See how the weather always works against me?

The Madster gets to celebrate her birthday one day early this year. Wednesday nights are usually booked pretty solid at the Massage Parlour, so we are going to Annie's Parlor (a restaurant, not a competing massage shop) for dinner again on Tuesday. I can feel my arteries clogging up already.

Untitled - Because I Couldn't Think Of One

Here's some bits and pieces for you faithful reader(s).

Tomorrow we get a piano. Our erstwhile next door neighbors Sue and Sherry are giving us a piano for free, and it's only going to cost $90, proving the old saying that there's no such thing as a free lunch. S & S are giving it to us, no strings attached, but I am of the age and lacking in the motivation to move it from the second floor of their duplex, across a very small yard into the front room our house. I will gladly pay $90 to have the piano movers move it 70 feet to the south and 20 feet total ascent and descent. A dollar a foot, I guess. Mark, (you know who you are) be glad that I am sticking a crowbar into my wallet and not calling in the favor from 20 years ago when you and Lance and I moved that ancient, ginormous upright down a flight and a half of stairs. That was truly painful.

The piano movers are coming between 9 and 10 tomorrow morning. I agreed to that time not thinking about the concequences. TOYH has a massage at 8. KyKy has swim practice at 8 (the 2nd generation of swimmers has come of age, thanks alot Terr-Bear). The Madster and 'Nika have karate at 9:45. (Side note: KyKy just told me, "I'm going to take a shower, I'm all itchy." Teeheehee, welcome to the word of chlorine.) I think we've got it all worked out and everyone will be where they need to be at the right time, probably early.

The depressing news from this week is that one of the two remaining Middle School teachers at Emerson has transfered to South High, and the last teacher is trying to get out. Thank you very much, and bravo Minneapolis Public Schools for dismantling arguably the best team of Middle School teacher in the city. Clap....Clap.....Clap..... If the schools in Minneapolis are failing, you jerks in administration shall be accorded ALL the responsibility in my book. The decisions you have made in the past few years are killing the schools. Since this is a family blog (mostly) I am going to refrain from using the four letter words I would really like to use.

The weather of late is making me question my belief in a benevolent God. My planned trip to Mt. Carmel was cancelled. Yesterday, headwind on my commmute to work, and then the wind changed direction during the day and I had a headwind on the way home. Tomorrow - rain, possibly all day. Tomorrow I was planning on doing the first bike race I've done in 23 years when I did a time trial in a pair of cut off jeans. I was hoping to take part in the All City Championship, an alleycat race. Alleycats were invented by bike messengers, you know those insane people dodging traffic in busy downtowns on their bikes. The races consist of getting a manifest of stops (many times bars), planning a route, executing the route and then partying after the race is done. Whoever gets the most stops done in the appointed amount of time wins. In many races there are prizes for the person who drinks the most alcohol at the stops or there is the poker "race" where you are given a playing card at certain stops and who ever has the best hand at the end of the night wins. My friend and old roommate Kirk and I were planning to do the race without all the drinking, well at least without most of it. We were hoping to meet more people from the bike forum we inhabit in the flesh. I was planning on doing it on my fixed gear bike along with Kirk, the fixed gear evangelist, which would be true to the messenger origins of the race. Maybe the weather will clear and restore my faith.

We've got big week coming up. The 22nd is The Madster's 12th birthday, and the 25th is our 17th anniversary. TOYH and I have planned to get out of town and go down to Lanesboro with our bikes. Neil, quit hyperventilating and don't get your undies in a bundle. I'm going to bring my fixie and TOYH is probably only good for 30 to 40 miles, so there is NO WAY we will be doing the Preston Century with you. I'll do century with you another week, I promise. It'll probably rain though.

I'll Huff and I'll Puff, and I'll Make a Bunch of Unsubstantiated Claims: Paul Douglas.

No our house did not blow down in the storm last night. I did call Opa to find out what happened up in Springvale. Power went out at the old place, but nothing terrible. So anyway, Paul Douglas, a local weather god, interrupts Letterman to tell us how apocalyptic this storm is, and how we need to build an ark, or move into waterproof concrete bunkers yada, yada, yada. I stayed up to monitor what was happening, just in case we needed to head to the basement. No doubt the storm was severe, but come on. He kept spouting off about how there were "radar indicated" winds of 100mph in the north metro. 100. Miles. Per. Hour. What a load of crap. You would think that the next day we would see widespread damage from these incredible winds. Nope. I saw a report of a tree down on Arcade St in St. Paul, but nothing in the north metro. Not only was he wrong about the winds, there was "radar indicated" hail up to 1.5 inches in diameter covering South Minneapolis. I walked over to the window just to see if there was 1.5 inch diameter hail falling on my house since I live in S Mpls. Nope. No hail at all. Just rain. Why oh why would Paul report these "radar indicated" events without corroboration? Hmmm. I don't know. Could it be that he has made millions of dollars selling weather related computer software to teevee stations as a side business, so computers are always right? Could be. What gets me is that weather dorks complain how people do not take them seriously when there is a severe weather outbreak. What do you expect you morons, you tell me it's hailing on my house and I look out my window and see nothing but rain, yeah I'm not going to take you seriously.

In any case, it was a pretty impressive storm. If you've ever been within a few miles of an airport and heard the rumble of a jet as it takes off, this is what we heard for about 5 minutes straight at one point. There was so much lightning that the thunder was a low grade rumble that literally did not stop for 5 minutes. It was a very impressive lightning show too. Hail, no. 100mph winds, no. Severe storm, yes. Was I more apprehensive about this storm than I should have been, yes. Did it keep me from enjoying it more than I could have, yes. Thank you Paul and all of your cohort.

This was the second outbreak of severe weather the metro has experienced since we came back from vacation. Over the weekend there were storms that ripped through St. Paul and toppled hundreds of large trees on the State Fairgrounds and around Como Park. On my bike commute, I ride through the storm damaged area, and along Wheelock Parkway there are dozens and dozens of trees and branches down. I saw a bunch of 6 inch diameter trees snapped in two. There were branches on top of houses, car windows smashed, and one house had a porch roof destroyed by a fallen tree.

On a non-weather related note, our next door neighbors, Sue and Sherry have sold their house and are moving out. Totally bums me out. They are very dear to us, and we shared a lot of laughs. Unfortunately, they were just not able to manage home ownership and they had to sell out. Although they bought their house after we bought ours, they've been living on the block longer than we have been here. They rented from Crazy Carol, who lives down the block, for years before they bought the house next door to us. Who knows if the new buyer is going to be a good neighbor or not. We'll see. I get sad looking at their house knowing that S&S aren't there anymore. Sigh.

Of Birthdays And Centuries

It's been a busy couple of days. Yesterday, I did my second 100 mile bike ride (101.7 to be exact). I did it with some folks from from the bike forum that I keep up on. The people who post on the forum generally skew to the young, drunk, fixed-gear, anarchist crowd. It was only because my old rommate Kirk was going on this ride that I participated. Kirk has become a fixed gear convert without becoming an anarchist. We had a lot of fun with a few of the younger kids, and we didn't stop at one bar the whole way through. Interestingly enough, the big rest stop was at Marine on the St Croix, the same place where Neil and I stopped on my first century. We had a lot of fun, and this one was a bit easier than the first one because our average speed was about 1 mph slower. Kirk snapped this https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8t8_sOEGK2I4Azf9bjFHFc2xExS1OXS3DBwCT8oaV1gUmb69Kdfb_HRBreGkVNMQDEA9IJ5VtjyH_eFArv5qS4j_zI_RXs-lCQwIZeM3xsDyJqQGui19hKnYLsYab3TZT4Af6JO3wHpUx/s1600-h/Scott.jpg If you want to look at it, you'll have to cut and paste the address into your browser cuz I don't know how to create cool links.

This morning I met John-Boy for breakfast. He really hasn't changed at all. I went up to his hotel room and the first thing he did was give me some of his food. He opened up a box of granola bars and started handing them over to me. He is genetically predisposed to be generous. He can't help it. We had a nice breakfast at Al's, and for those of you who have never been to that legendary Dinkytown establishment, I'm sorry. The food is as good as ever and the staff is just as smart-alecky.

As much as I like vacations, I dislike coming back to the crapload of work that awaits me. It was there. We sold a bunch of stuff, Jon bought a couple of things when he got back, and lots-o-emails to go through. Had to harrass non-paying eBayers. Had to track down shipments. Had to ship some stuff. Blah, blah, blah.

After work it was PARTY TIME. 'Nika turned 10 today. TOYH took the kids to that new animated Rat movie, the one where the rat is a chef or something. Afterwards, they picked me up and it was off to Annie's Parlor for my second greasy meal in Dinkytown today. 'Nika got one jaw-dropping present, a Nintendo DS or some such thing. She opened it up and her mouth opened and her tongue hung out. It's a tiny little video game player. She got the electronic dog game. Named the dog Linus and proceded to teach him to respond to his name and sit on command, all on the first day!

I gotta sign off. We're going to get clobbered by a big thunderstorm I guess. I'll report on that tomorrow.

If You'll Allow Me To Ramble. . . .

I'm writing this sitting on the porch after a perfectly lovely thunderstorm. This is the second one we've had in the past 24 hours, and I'm sure that we've received more than an inch of rain total. The problem is, who cares if it rains in the city? The only thing it does is keep the lawns pretty, which if you remind me, I'll rant about some other time. On the way up to Alex, I can't tell you how depressing it was to see mile after mile of curled up, dried out, worthless corn. People's work for this year down the drain, and therefore yet another year of borrowing to make up for the lost income. Ugh. I could never be a farmer. Aside from the fact that I inherited absolutely no skills from my farming mother and grandfather, I would worry myself into the grave in years like this. Forget the overall wearing, salt-of-the-earth, plain spoken crap of the popular imagination. Farmers are the smartest, most multi-talented, resilient, hard working people on the face of the planet. It's too bad that they're all being forced out by economies of scale and corporatization. We're eliminating a whole class of working heros.

So yes, the oars did make it home, as did all the kids (eventually) and the dogs. We have a routine when we go on vacation where we drop the canines off at Opa and Oma's for their doggy vacation. This year there was an added wrinkle in that our nephew Douglas stayed with us at Mt. Carmel. Added to that, on the way home, he, KyKy, and the Madster were to be dropped off in Roseville for a Saturday at the Evil Grandmother's for a photo safari involving the St. Paul Camera Club. We don't have enough room for six people plus all our junk, plus rowboat oars in the crapmobile, so we farmed things out. One neighbor took 'Nika home. Another neighbor took home some of the stuff we couldn't fit in the crapmobile. TOYH, KyKy, The Madster, Douglas and I, took the crapmobile back to hillbilly land (Springvale Township) where I had left the Taurus. When we got to Oma and Opa's, I took the mutts home in the Taurus and TOYH dropped the kids off at the EG's before finally making it back to our humble abode. Got that? Just be assured that everyone made it back in one piece.

I was the first one home Friday night, then 'Nika was dropped off, then TOYH showed up with the detritus from our vacation. When I got home, there were 13 new messages on the answering machine. Half of those messages were from an old college roommate of mine who is in town. His name is John Lulewicz. The only reason I am telling you his full name is that I lived with him for 4 years. And for 4 years I heard him spell his name to people over the phone, "L-U-L-E-W-I-C-Z." (pronounced lu-lev-ich). After having that drilled into my head, I have to take any opportunity I am given to repeat it. When I moved in with him I was 20 and he was 30 at the time. A 30 year old seemed like a grandparent to me. John proved me wrong. His nickname in the house we lived in was "John-Boy." Everyone, including his girlfriend at the time called him John-Boy. Why? Because he never acted his age. He was the most care-free 30 year old who has ever lived in the history of the planet. Don't get me wrong. He was not irresponsible. He was not wasting his life away, he was working on his Masters of Public Health. He is one of two people I have ever known in my life of whom I can say "In him there is no guile." (J & F, the other is Russ L.) What you see is what you get, and as an added bonus, he'll give you the shirt off his back. I could tell John-Boy stories all night, so when things are getting really dull on this blog, ask for a John-Boy story.

Unfortunately, John-Boy is in town because of the bridge collapse. He works for OSHA in Milwaukee and he is, as he told me, "Making sure nobody steps on any nails," during the recovery and clean-up. This is a step away from his Master's Degree research, which was lust. I guess I should say L.U.S.T. - Leaking Underground Storage Tanks - LUST. You know, tanks burried in the ground holding potentially toxic chemicals i.e. gas station tanks. You know, lust. In true John-Boy fashion, he volunteered to work the graveyard shift in this 24 hour a day operation. That means he is working midnight to 8am and probably sleeping only a few hours a day at his hotel. It just so happens that I reconnected with another former roommate of ours, Kirk, and when we got together a couple of weeks ago, we talked about John-Boy. Sadly, I don't think we'll all be able to get together because John-Boy's last shift ends at 8am on Monday. He and I are going out for breakfast (sorry Jon, I'll be late for work) and then I'm sure he'll get a couple of hours sleep and then head home to his family. It occurred to me that as an OSHA employee, JB should not be driving from Mpls to Milwaukee sleep deprived. I think I'll bring this up at breakfast. Oh, and Jan Marie, if TOYH and I come to visit in Chicago, we will be delayed cuz we're stopping in Milwaukee. Guaranteed.

Riding Makes Everything Better. Except When It Doesn't

I was feeling kinda crappy the past couple of days. Not enough sleep, probably eating too much. I forced myself to go into town to meet up for the group ride leaving from the bike shop. I am so glad I did it. Really fun ride, really nice people, really nice weather. It was only 31 miles, but we averaged 18mph. I felt so much better when I got done. Really.

Eventually there will be a few more vacation pics posted, but I don't want to take the time now.

All of you who've seen the crapmobile know that it is not the most spacious minivan on the road. Well today TOYH went into town with her sister-in-law Anne to look for antiquey items for The Madster's room re-decoration. You have to understand that whenever we leave for a week's vacation anywhere, the crapmobile is packed so full with our junk that it is not very comfortable travelling. So I get into the van so I can go into town for my bike ride, and there are oars in the van. Rowboat oars. And a lamp. And some other stuff. The Madster wants a northwoods theme to her bedroom, so we're carting this crap back from our vacation. I guess this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for decorations so they must come home. We might have to leave a kid behind.

Reporting From Mt Carmel

Mom told me to blog about what we're doing this week, so here it goes. It's been a typical week up here. The days consist of a morning session where we listen to a speaker, afternoons of free time, and usually some type of activity in the evening. All of these things are optional, so we've been kind of in and out of the camp. The morning speaker's name is Paul Zahl, and he is very good. I won't go into detail about his talks, but in short, though he is an Episcopalian priest, he's very, very Lutheran in his outlook. The kids are having a great time here, as always. We have a bunch of friends who come up here and spend the week, so the kids are on vacation with friends and family. The camp sits on Lake Carlos, which is a fairly large lake. The Alexandria area has not become an overrun tourist town like Brainerd. There are a few resorts and golf courses around here but the lake is essentially devoid of boaters, even on the weekends. TOYH's brother Ross and his wife Anne are up in the area this week also. Anne's parents have a lake home on Carlos, so at least one day a week for the past couple of years, Ross comes over with the boat and we have an impromptu family gathering back at Anne's parents place. We did that on Tuesday afternoon. This year EG and DM were there along with Jon and Clary and their family. The kids went tubing and played on the beach all afternoon yesterday. We ended the day with smores around a beach campfire. Everyone was exhausted by the end of the day. We all got together on Monday evening also. We met at a local winery, yes they grow grapes up here on the tundra, to sample some of their goods, and we ended up at a local resort for dinner.

I brought the SS Deathstar up here even though I didn't make the ride from St Joseph to Alex. Not riding on Saturday was a good decision. There were no violent thunderstorms on the way up, but it was rainy and quite windy. It would not have been fun. On Monday I went out for a ride, but had to cut it short because my rear wheel went all wobbly. I limped back to the camp where one of the staff had a repair stand and some tools. There were a lot of very loose spokes, so we tightend them up, but neither of us has the expertise to get the wheel back into true. I took it into the only shop in town and they fixed me up good. It's a very nice shop, and they said there was group ride leaving at 6pm on Thursday. Hmmmmm. I'm going to try and make that one I think. I'm going to get some of the pictures posted over on Picassa so just click on the link on the left side of the page. Ciao.

Vacation

Finally, a week off. Since it's just Jon and myself at Test Equipment World Domination Headquarters, we don't take too many whole weeks off. As a matter of fact, it's been more than a year since I've been gone from work for a whole week. I am ready. Right now it's all bridge collapse all the time, and I am truly weary of all of this. Don't get me wrong, this is, to quote our Governor "a catastrophe of historic proportions for Minnesota," but fer cryin' out loud people, we're going to survive. This is not 9/11. This is not Katrina. Not even close, though I've seen them mentioned in the same breath already. Sure, there are many lives and families that are affected, but this is not something that changes a whole city forever, leaving massive physical damage or deep psychological scars. The media in particular seems hell bent on trying to convince us that we are so wounded as a community that we must reach deep within ourselves to find the strength to overcome this tragic event. Look at us! Look at us! Pity us! We are hurt! Pfffft. We need to take care of the true victims, and frankly that doesn't need to be done through the media. I've long had a problem with media making a public spectacle of people's personal grief. I wish that in an event like this when the teevee, radio or newspaper comes to interview families about their loss, the families would just tell the media to go to hell. Our grief is not to be used to make you money. Maybe the best plea I've heard in the past few days, other than the request to give blood, was Mayor Rybak stating that if you want show compassion and do something about this situation, turn to your co-workers or neighbors and figure out how to carpool to work. Brilliant. Seriously. For the next 2 to 3 years our biggest challenge will be to figure out how we're going to get along without this bridge. 140,000 vehicles a day crossed over it. Supposedly, downtown businesses are stepping up to the plate by staggering start times, deliveries and offering transit passes to employees. I hope that's true. Now can we reach deep within ourselves and find the strength to ride with another human being in a bus or car to work.

Enough of the rant already. I do want to say that I am extremely proud of this city's response to a disaster like this. By all accounts, the first responders, medical personnel and plain old citizens were stellar in their response. No chaos, triage set up on site, command centers set up and functioning, plenty of ambulances from around the metro, people running off the street to pull victims off the slabs and out of the river. My friend and old boss Matthew, who works in the Emergency Department at Fairview Southdale Hospital, was called back into work on that night and he said that when he got there, there were 25 people who came in on their day off or came down from other departments and were milling around, waiting to jump into action. Luckily, they weren't needed. County and University were able to handle all the injured.

Oh, yeah. Vacation. Once again, God is messing with me. Since March, I've been planning with my friend Matthew to ride from St. Joseph to Alexandria. Alex is where we are spending our vacation and I was going to meet the family up there where we stay at a family camp. If you've got nothing else to do, go to the National Weather Service web site and poke around till you find information on drought conditions. The Twin Cities and surrounding areas are in "Severe Drought." Weather forcast for tomorrow: 60% chance of thunderstorms. Not just rain, which I would ride in, but thunderstorms. To the south and west of where we would be riding, an increased risk of tornados. Figures. We've had 2 thunderstorms this summer and the 3rd will probably come on the day that I've been wanting nice weather. I called Matthew and cancelled. I just don't want to deal with the logistics of this with the added weather messiness. I'll just bring my bike up there and ride around during the week.

Breaking news...after the weather report (confirming my not being able to ride tomorrow), the pompous ass Don Shelby came on camera, in his pin-stripe suit looking very important and full of gravitas, and told us that "Success has many fathers and failure is an orphan." Some person or people are responsible for this disaster and "I want to know who knew what, when." Yeah Don. A couple of people are responsible for this. String 'em up Don. It's not a procedural failure. It's not a lack of knowledge about what happens to materials in our extreme weather conditions. It's criminal. There is a cover-up. People were aware that this was about to happen and did nothing about it. Better yet, these awful people can see into the future and laugh maniacally as they foresee the bridge falling down. Wait, I know, it's probably a couple of penny-pinching bureaucrats who have no concern for public safety, hate their jobs and humanity, and are just working toward their gov'mint pension. They just don't care. Human life means nothing to them. Yeah, that's it. Again Don, shut up.

I've Been Across That Bridge Thousands Of Times

As you have probably seen in media reports (more on that later), a major bridge in Minneapolis collapsed yesterday. Many people are injured and the fatality count varies. When I worked at FedEx, I crossed that bridge every work day, twice a day. When we head up to Evil Grandmother & Dreadful Man's or Oma & Opa's, that's the bridge we cross. I found out about the collapse from Oma, who I'm sure spent a few anxious moments wondering about us, when she called us at home. Let me back up. After work, I went to EG & DM's to pick up the girls plus 2 of their cousins Jessie and Emma. I don't think that car has ever had so much estrogen in it. So I'm heading down 35W toward said bridge when the traffic starts to back up. They have been working on resurfacing the road and the bridge now for a few weeks. I took the Stinson exit and wind my way through the U of M campus and cross the river on the Washington Ave. We get home and Emma and Jessie's mom is waiting for them and KyKy, who was going to spend the night at their house. We send them off, TOYH shows up and we order Chinese, because it's been that kind of week. Oma called during dinner to confirm that we were all ok because she knows that we use that bridge frequently. I flipped the channel on the teevee and sure enough, there were pictures of the carnage. I figure if I had stayed on 35W, we would have crossed the bridge 10-15 minutes before it fell. After I hung up, it was our turn to be a little anxious. Ann had left with the girls, and we didn't know where they were going, couldn't remember what time they left etc. It was highly unlikely they would have been going that direction, but there is still that slightly panicked feeling when you can't reach Ann or KyKy by mobile phone. All the circuits were tied up and calls and texts were not going through. KyKy eventually got back to us and we were able to relax.

On my commute to work by bike, if I just look up while crossing the Stone Arch bridge downtown, I would be looking directly at the 35W bridge. It was nothing special. In fact, it was rather utilitarian and ugly. This morning I went up to the Stone Arch to cross the river, but they've temporarily closed it. I looked down river all the way to the 10th Ave bridge. There were no green trusses blocking my view. Very strange. As I continue on in my bike commute, I cross 35W on a pedestrian/bike bridge about 4 blocks north of the river bridge. When I cross that bridge, I want to sneer at the drivers stuck in their cars (ok I want to flip 'em the bird) but I don't because it would be terribly hypocritical, since I have to drive that highway myself sometimes. Today I crossed the bridge and it was quiet. No traffic. I looked south to see the one section of the river bridge slanted up like a ramp to nowhere, dotted with abandoned cars. Very strange. I can't imagine the horror or terror those people felt seeing the traffic in front of them disappear off the face of the earth.

Lately I've been annoyed on my bike commute because 10th Ave SE has been busier. The traffic increased because of the road construction on 35W, people were trying to avoid the tie-ups on the Interstate so they were taking the back roads. Yesterday there could have been people who avoided the collapse because they were avoiding the traffic. Just like me. Time to stop being annoyed. Someone pointed out that because there were two lanes closed on the bridge for resurfacing, it probably minimized the casualties since there was less traffic using the bridge. It occurred to me that the slow speeds on the bridge probably saved some lives too. Imagine if that school bus with 60 kids was hurtling along at 50mph when the bridge fell. I'd rather not think about it myself.

Local media coverage varied in quality. Channel 5 was the best that I saw. They were careful and they kept their speculation to a minimum. Channel 4 was ok, except for that pompous ass Don Shelby reading bridge inspection reports off the MDOT website on live teevee, trying to find a smoking gun. Ummm Don, your're not an engineer or a bridge inspector, so shut up until you find somebody who knows what they're talking, about preferrably someone who was involved in the inspection of the bridge itself. The Big Stupid Award goes to Channel 9 (Fox Newz!) of course. They had an eyewitness claim he/she saw explosions before the collapse. Oooooh parrot that back right on live teevee with no corroboration. Then we can play up the terrorism angle. Morons. Also heard on Channel 9, "We don't know how many pedestrians were on that bridge when it fell." Robyne honey, there were no pedestrians. It was an Interstate Highway. Construction workers yes. Pedestrians no. But hey that means they cans speculate about a higher body count. Stupid, stupid, stupid. This is what we get with live teevee running uninterrupted reports for hours at a time. Filling up the airwaves with stupid.