Here is a pic from last nights ride. it is rather hard to see clearly but it is overlooking tucson from Skyline road. Poor picture partly camera phone and partly riding and taking pictures at same time. 

Ride complete! I am tired and going to bed.

Ahhh It is actually nice out right now. About 15 degrees below average. The plans are to go out tonigt and do about a 4 hour ride. I figure that is about all the light I have until the battery dies. I will leave around 7:30 or so.

All is back to normal now. Mom has gone home, Woody is back from vacation and Memorial day is over. Now I can get back to riding and loosing all the weight I put on in the past three weeks. Remember My goal is to be at 195 by the end of July.

I am of for another ride. Tonight will be a shorter ride about 1 1/2 hours and proberly around 22 miles.

Isnt it purty. freshly painted shed. It only took Michelle, Ann, Loran and myself about 10 hours.  

BEES, BEES EVERYWHERE!!! Have you ever seen those cartoons where the swarm of bees comes along and it looks like a dark cloud. Thats not to far off. Michelle and I where painting the shed and we heard all this buzzing(loud). It was a huge swarm of bees and they decided to spend the night out on a tree. They checked out this a.m. and are gone now. Kinda cool looking actually.

Oh yea by the way we hit 500 hits the other day!!

It feels like Florida in july here right now since the humidity is so high from all the thunderstorms that we have had in the past few days. We are closed at the shop tommorow which is a nice break. The fellow picked up his bike (previous post) and realized it is way to small for him, so basicly he did all that for nothing.

I guess this is what smoking a carton of cancer sticks a week buys you after a year or so. A $69.00 p.o.s. Maybe he can sell it for $50 to help pay for the kimo. Oh wait he paid us $65 to build it, nevermind 

Alright ride complete. A little less than I wanted but thats ok. I did about 3 1/4 hours and felt great the whole time. Thats a good start. Better to stop while you still have something left that to go too far and break yourself down.

We were slow at the shop from 9-5 but from 5-6 we rocked. Three bikes and a bunch of parts.

Star Wars was good pretty much what I suspected it would be. I thought if we went on a tuesday night it would be slow but I was wrong. I guess everyone thought that.

Well it is another slow day at the shop and it proberly has something to do with the heat. Although today is not that bad. It is a chilly 101' outside.

Tonight Michelle and I are going to watch StarWars and then I will be on the bike for 3-4 hours.

It was 96' when I left the house this morning at 8:30.

The high was hot. I think once you get over 110 it really does not matter anymore.

Slow at the shop ( Imagine that)

Michelle wants the xm radio. we will see

My ride is still on for tuesday night. After Star Wars.

Yet another record high day here in Tucson. 109' today and thats is actually not to far away from the overall record high of 115'.I will try to be on the bike by 6:00 am tommorow.

I think we might go see the new Star Wars movie tuesday night b-4 my ride. That will give the pavement some time to cool off.

some wheels for the 29er for night rode training. 

Here is the kickstand I was talking about. This is actually in the shade. 

Ok you know it is hot when a bicycle kickstand is sinking into the pavement. I took a pic and will post that soon. I was up and on the bike by 6:30 this am and was able to get in a hour and forty minutes. That was good. I think I will do a long night ride tuesday night. Maybe 4 hours or so we will see how it goes.

108' today, thats 18 over the average! This might be for the best, a quick heat wave to wet the palate and get us use to it.

Great headline "100' :this just might be the day" They were not kidding. 

Well it hit 104' today, yup it is hot, only 5 more months of 100'+. I wonder how it is in Alaska right now?

Someone put some smut on my last post under the comment section so I deleted the whole thing. If you also commented please recomment. I am currently tring to smoke something in the new smoker. Be scared, very scared.

400 posts

Im tired

ahh Starbucks

Im still tired

Rode last night

Starbucks starting to kick in

It is Friday!!

thats it see yaa

Well it is back to work. Mom seemed to have made it home ok and life is back to normal.I did not make it for the ride this am so I will do it tonight instead. I actually prefer the night ride since the az sun is so strong.

I think I proberly put on ten lbs in the past week with all the cake and junk I have been eating not to mention all the dinners out. Oh well it is time to loose it and more.

Man I need a vacation from my vacation. Tommorow is the start of training for the july event and I am in no mood. Oh well I will be up at 5:30 for my ride. Mom is home and I am sure she is a wreck as well. Good thing she took a couple extra days off. I will be at work by nine and I am going to bed now.It is 7:50pm ( is that bad?)

The bird is in the air. Over.

Grill in action . It brings a tear to my eye. 

Burn baby burn!! 

Here is a typical picture of two to many cameras. 

Allright the grill is purchased built and ready to burn. I went the charcoal route and paid a little extra for the cast iron grates. They are seasoning as we speak! Tonight we grill!!

Allright the grill is purchased built and ready to burn. I went the charcoal route and paid a little extra for the cast iron grates. They are seasoning as we speak! Tonight we grill!!

Day six of mothers vacation. Today we went to about 4 stores looking for charcoal grills. They are harder to find now than they used to be. Now they are all gas. I guess we are all getting lazy. I am just as guilty as the rest of us though, my old grill is gas. We also went to the bank to deposit all my birthday loot. Thanks to all.

I think we found one at Lowes but there is a localy owned BBQ store that I will give a shot also since I like to keep my money local.

My brother said that auto cad is the root of all evil, I wonder why?

Tommorow is the day I drop mom off at the airport so she can go home and recover from us running her around for a week. she will need it.

Man it was getting a little warm today about 95' or so. Tommorow is not going to be so hot (around 89'). I figure I will be spending at least one week a month in pine top preparing for the July race. That will give me more time per day to get in the long rides since it is usually 90-110' by 9:00am. Yea welcome to the desert!

We went to Lil' Abners for dinner for my b-day tonight. It is an old place that still cooks outside on an open fire. GOOD FOOD.

Nice one! someone put alot of time into finding this one. 

Just some of the grief turning thirty gets you.Note the black balloons. 

Here is a pic of the Salt River Canyon.  

We are back from Pine top. Ahh what a nice little town to get away to. The temputure was about 70' f and sunny. My poor mother who is from about 10 feet above see level was put on a plane and flown to Tucson at about 2200' and then driven to Pinetop at about 7500'. Yea she had a hard time with the thin air at first. Now we are back and she is fine.

Thursday starts the official training for the 12 hour race in Wisconsin. Long and presice hours on the bike are coming up. I also will be enrolling in Pima Community College for auto cad in the fall. I figure It is about time to get a real job and that seems fun to me.

I will post some pics of the trip soon.

Just to protect my plans of furniture domination I had mom sign a contract that no pictures would be taken of the new furniture. So William and Grandma, dont try anything funny.

The bird is in the cage. Roger that over.

I wonder if she picks up Showtime with that contraption?? 

Due to popular demand (aka harassment from family) here is today's blog.

Michelle and I are purchasing the house we are living in now from her mom and stepfather. For some reason this way harder than it should be. You can go in to a car dealership and buy a new $30,000 car in less than an hour but it takes weeks to buy a house. Oh well I will just muddle threw it.

To all those except my mother: My mom is coming out for a visit on Thursday. That should be exciting. We are planning to take her up to Pine Top for the weekend and possibly Sabino Canyon on Tuesday.

One of our dogs (belle) hurt her foot on the fence and now she has to wear a cone on her head so she does not lick it all day .Kinda funny looking. She is a terror with it on since it hurts when she runs into you.

All is good at the shop it is kinda slowing down some for the summer. Usually June and July are the slowest times of the year.

The new furniture is great everyone should come out and sit on it. I am using this as leverage to get some people to come out for a visit (ie Bill Karen and kids). It may not be enough though and I may have to resort to more drastic measures.

The minute man deal is getting out of control down here but it needs to be done by someone since we know the government cant get anything done. There must be hundreds of them that come up to Tucson for supplies.

Oh well that's enough for tonight!

Happy Mothers Day!

We have officially hit 300 views. I dont know if thats good or bad but it is what it is.

I am getting excited about this race in july. My motivation is really high, higher than it has been about an event in a long time. Hopefully that will stay for the long haul. I have done my homework on the course and it is right up my alley fairly flat and the description (as far as how technical ) reminds me of North Carolina, which is some of the best riding I have seen. I cant wait!!

Alright there is a change in the plans of julys race. If you have been reading this since the first day you will remember the event in northern California (12 hours of humboldt). Cancel that one. I am doing the event in Wausau Wisconsin instead. A guy named Greg I work with is from there and he said this event is awesome. This will also save me alot of cash since Michelle's family is from there also(two birds one stone). We usually go there every other year and this is the year anyway . There are two choices 12 or 24 hour and I will be doing the 12 hour (I figure 12 hours of riding should be plenty).

I have been hitting the gym alot the last couple of weeks and I am trying to become more powerfull on the bike. That means alot of leg work as well as lower back and abs. I am not spending alot of time on the bike right now just for time reasons but I will put a ride schedule together pretty soon.

well we rearranged the whole back half of the house yesterday. We made the master bedroom our room and our old bedroom the work out room and game room. That was alot of work but it was worth it.So now we have a completly different look with the new rooms and furniture.

Our new couch and stuff should be here today. That will be nice to go home and sit on new stuff. I wonder if they will be able to find our house? Today is slow at the shop so I am bored.

Wind!! Oh yea look at that flag. 

Oops he saw me! good thing I am in the house. 

Here is a couple of pics of a couple of havalina in our front yard.They are known to be very aggresive and possible even attack. If you see one keep your distance. 

well the picture is a little blurrry but here it is as promised. one blooming cacti 

AHHHH Starbucks!! I never thought I would be one of those people but It happened. Last winter (or what we call winter) I purchased an almond latte and the rest is history. I have been fine tuning it since then and 6 months later I have all the lingo down like a pro (venti almond latte with extra shot and 2 splendas).Michelle is a mocha person so sub the almond for mocha.

We got a little rain this weekend so I took some pics of cacti blooms and will post those soon. Tommorow is Thursday and I will do about three hours on the mtb bike. I've been riding the new road bike to death so I will jump back on the mtb and do my normal loop. I think I have 278 miles on it in a few weeks which is alot for me considering it is a second bike.

Wednesday is usually a slow day for us at the shop so I will get caught up on some paper work and maybe goof of a little bit.

Well the Jets took a kicker in the first round??? Actually that's not two surprising considering our current kicker blew it in the playoffs last year. We also took a corner, tight end, two safeties and a defensive tackle. I would grade our draft a b+.

We got a little rain today and that will make the weeds worse. We also started painting the shed and finished the porch. We also found a living room set we like. We might pick it up next week.

Well we are one day away from the NFL draft. Tommorow we will see who goes were. The jets are sitting in a pretty good spot over all considering we traded away our #1 pick.We have two second rounders and three third rounders. Will we trade up? Will we get a good player? Or will we fall on our face? hopefully it will be one of the first two.We will have to wait and see.

Michelle had to work on thursday so we did not order the couch. We will look and maybe do something this weekend. I recaulked the tub in the spare bath yesterday (fun fun fun). all thats left is to fix the toilet handle jigle thing thats going on.

Well Michelle and I went couch shopping tonight and we found one we liked. Although it is not the design we were looking for it is the most practical. We will probably order it on Thursday.

I failed to mention the crash that happened on Sundays ride. Two guys went down. Fortunately no one was hurt bad. We were all in a pace line at about 45 miles in and were going threw a small construction zone. Greg clipped a barricade and the guy behind him ran into him. It is surprising that out of 35 riders going 20+ miles per hour, only two went down. They were some of the rabbits that took off early in the ride so they were tired and having trouble keeping pace after 2 1/2 hours.

Work is work and nothing new there. The NFL draft is this weekend. It will be interesting to see who the Jets take. I think either a cornerback and a tight end in the first two rounds,we will see.

Well we did almost 60 miles today on the road bike and it went well overall the pace was a little fast again but I just let them go. As always it is a rabbit and the tortoise story. We caught the group well b-4 the end of the ride.

Well I really have nothing to say but I have not posted in a while and am feeling guilty.It is just another day at work. Saturday is usually a busy day although we are rather slow so far. It will proberly pick up in a little while.

http://www.gizoogle.com/ This website is hilarious it will take any sentence and turn it into ebonics. Also there are horoscopes and other features as well. Check it out!

We officially hit 200 views the other day. I did not think that would happen for a while.

There have been alot of deaths due to motorcycles this month for some reason. I think the toll is at 5 for the month. I better get one.

We are going to look at a few couch stores and see if we can get a deal on one we like since ours is worn out. Maybe tonight or tommorow.

Well the ride did not go as planned. I felt sluggish at best and my legs just did not want to keep a higher cadence. Thats ok though since I already put in about 6 hours this week , 4 of which were pretty high intensity. I will do an easy recovery ride tommorow b-4 work. and take saturday off.

They annonced the 2005 nfl schueduale yesterday and it looks like the Jets are going to have it pretty hard. Third hardest in the league. That shoulld make for some interesting games.

Summer is almost here so it is time to start planning Pinetop trips.

Well it is Wednesday and that means tommorow is a big ride day. Proberly a minimum of three hours. I will ride the new road bike and leave early since it will be 90 degrees by noon.

I think I am going to do well in the may event since I had no problem sticking with the group on sunday without going to far out of my hr zone. Usually I have to work pretty hard to do that. We will see.

Today was a pimpin day at the gym. It was silly busy yo.

I thought I would take up ebonics since it seems to be taking over the tv and everything else.

Yo I had to pimp my ride a little today. note the dual colored bar tape.

The ride today went good, a little faster than expected though. The new bike is a rocket and the 12-27 cassette was unexpectedly awsome. We rode from the new shop down Ina road and jumped on the frontage road heading north,then headed east on Tangerine north on dove (which is an out and back)north on Thornydale east on Moore south on Rancho south on Oracle west on Ina to the shop. About 50 miles and since I rode frome home I got in an extra 5 miles. I felt good although it was way faster of a pace than expected so I just sat in the back and took the draft.


Thanks to all my family who sent Michelle a Birthday card! It means alot since her family treats me so well.

here is Michelle opening a b-day gift. 

This is a pic as we were leaving. our seats were actually right on top of the cubs dugout. 

Here is the new road bike!! I will put it threw the paces on sunday!! 

I went up to phoenix and we took Michelle to a Cubs game at the BOB wenesday night and had great seats( right over the cubs dugout)and then we had a little get together thursday night with her (our now) family.


My new road bike showed today, I will post a pic later. I hope to ride it sunday on the group ride and see how it does.

ahhh glute heaven!!!! 

It gets dark in the desert at night. 

here is a pic from last year of a baby rattler. 

Surley should consider beefing up the spring they use for singulators. Everyone seems to over tighten them and pop the spring. 

Rode today about three and a half hours and the wind was not to bad. It was about 15 miles an hour. It was great all the way to the trail since I had a tail wind.

Michelle is out of town till next sunday at a work conference. The conference is in phoenix and I will be going up on Wednesday or Thursday to hang out.

I took one picture on the trail and will post it later.

I found Sabrett hotdogs in the grocerie store. Oh yea thats the goods.

84 degrees today almost hot, you can tell it is coming(summer). The wind died down finally and I have a monster ride planned out for tomorrow. Taking in alot of fluids today in preperation.The new seat did not show. DHL is that new company simular to ups. Somehow they screwed up again. We are getting one box a day for the next 9 days. I dont know why all boxes were shipped at the same time from the same place.

we had taquitos for dinner, good stuff

Allright I am sick of the wind. It has been windy since wednesday and I am talkin blow you off your bike windy. Saguaro's are fallen over and all the customers hair piece's are blowin out of position(Am I supposed to tell them?).Needless to say I have no motivation to ride in this crap. It could be worse, it could be like 10 degrees outside or pouring rain I guess. This sunday Michelle is going up to pheonix for a week long seminar so I will do a loooonngg ride. The weather should be better by then.I am off to bed for some r and r.

I was watching NFL Network this morning and that loser Clarette said that he was tired after his 2 1/2 hour workout at his "personal" combine. That blowes my mind, he is a (or wants to be)professional athlete. He should not be tired after that. How is he going to play a three hour football game? Even if he was tired he should have said I feel great (with enthusiasm)! Either way he will be paid. Oh well I guess I just don't get it. All I know is that I (just a normal guy) can go do a 5 hour mtb race and I looked better afterwards than he did.

I am riding tonight after work and will be looking for about 1 1/2 hours. Hopefully my new seat is in today, my arse has been getting sore after the 2nd hour. I think the old one just has to many miles on it and has finally broken down to much.