The tree and Mama at Rockefeller Center. The tree was big, but the Texan in me thought, "It's big and all, but there's bigger at home." Hanging out here was neat, but also somewhat anti-climatic, as the area was more touristy than holiday-ey. 

It looks like Positano's was bright, but it wasn't. Just crummy photogrpahy from a camera phone. But the company was outstanding. the food very good, and the service was like restaurants in Italy. We had a couple of Chiantis here that were the best I've ever had. We ate and ate and ate... 

They may or may not treat you like you are famous here. They may or may not take your picture with the owner. The customers there may or may not "recognize" you, and when you tell them your name, they may or may not say, "I knew it! I knew I recognized you!" It is still a good stop for espresso (or a few) and a canoli after eating at Positanos. 

Here's out pasture this morning. The snow is sticking to our track we made for running and riding. Colder here today than it was in NYC. 

Hard to get good help these days

The Beaner is here. Photographic proof.

Contributing to the Deliquency of Grown Ups Since 2000

Mama is bottling up the Christmas Limoncello. Have you been on Santa's "Good" list?

In case you didn't know

Reanie: We're jumping on the bed!
Mama: No more monkeys jumping on the bed.

Reanie: (continuing to jump)

Mama: What did I say?
Reanie: (continuing to jump) I'm not a monkey.

Hooky

Had to pick up Buddy early from school today since he's not feeling so good. My buddy JR says to check out this site: www.buddyleeguidancecounselor.com

I crashed this morning

Took the kids to school in the trailer. It has been chilly this morning, but we can bundle them up well in the trailer, so even though I'm shivering, they are cozy.

My fitness is quite lacking, so most of the riding is in the easier gears, such as 39x16-23. But that's ok...baby steps and all that. There and back gets me an hour or so of in-the-saddle time, counting the time I'm riding but out of the saddle too, of course.

I'd worked up a decent sweat, so once home, I unhooked the trailer so I could go ride a bit more. My first two pedal strokes sent me into a wheelie, where I promptly dumped it back and to the left, making sure the driveway was there to keep me from falling in the dirt. Good thing I had tights, jacket, gloves and such, because those high speed spills will rip the skin right off of you.

When returning with the trailer, I was in my easiest gear, so when I started, not only was there no resistance behind me of trailer or trailer and kids, I was also lacking resistance in gearing. Blooop, right on my rear end. Good thing we live where we do so nobody could see me do that.

Or, I have so much power in my legs and brute upper body strength that I nearly went into orbit. Yeah...I nearly went into orbit. And I have lots of girlfriends in Canada.

My Full Potential on the Bike Will Never Be Realized

Reanie put on her leotard first thing this morning. Then she asked me if I wanted her to "ballellet." Of course I do.

She then said, "I do arabesque." And then she demonstrated the best arabesque ever done by a three year old. Her leg was extended and her hands out...I can't recall ever seeing a three year old do one, but I'm certain that this was the best.

Then she said, "I plie." And then she did, with arms extended over her head and the whole bit. I instantly understood why parents can endure a dance recital for two and a half hours of beginning ballet dancers to see their child do two 2-miute routines.

Her last demonstration was called a "rainbow." Though I don't recall this as a proper dance term, it could well be. Afterall, she's been to more ballet classes than I have. Reanie extended both arms above her head then dipped down low, reaching as far and as low as she could to her right. She then made the arc of a Rainbow as big as her body would allow, stretching as far above her head as she could, even with standing on her tip toes, continuing to complete the rainbow to her left.

I almost ate her up in one bite.

In all the pictures I've posted to this silly blog, the one time I know it would have been worth seeing, I didn't snap a shot. Didn't even think of it until now.

But then again, I saw her do it, and that really is good enough for me.

The Last Several Days Around Here

the formatting for this update is whacked. I've spent 30 min trying to fix it, but I don't have enough meds to make it any further. If it bothers you, NOBODY IS MAKING YOU...

Reanie and I squeezed in some Daddy-His Little Girl time with a trip to the grocery store last night. She picked out the meat for the burgers, the fruit, the milk, and she determinedly tried to get me to recognize that there was a candy aisle.

The highlight of that trip, though, was the drive there. She told me that"Santa lives in Nemberpore," and that he was making presents. She also pointed out that "I been sweet sometimes." I just about bought her a pony right then and there.


Let's back up a few days first. We had borrowed an eight foot trailer (four foot wide and tall) from my Father-in-Law when we moved out here. So we've had it awhile. When we emptied the garage of The Texas Racing Post and The Racing Post stuff, it went into this trailer until we could deal with it later. We filled it all the way up too, so we weren't too fired up to ever deal with it later.

Well, later came when my Father-in-Law needed the trailer back over Thanksgiving. Good thing we had our indentured servant with us to empty it.

Noah took the 10's of thousands of leftover newspapers from as far back as July of 2001 (I wrote some really stupid stuff in those pages sometimes. Some of it was readable, but those aren't the ones I seem to remember as a flipped through some old copies, though).

We haven't had rain here in a couple of months, so we couldn't burn this stuff outside. Our garbage pick up only leaves us with one bin thing, and they only come once a week at that, so that wasn't an option at all. Forutnately the weather cooled off enough to warrant using the fire place for the burn.

Thousands of newspapers and hundreds of boxes have been burned. After two full days of burning, this picture shows most of what is left still needing to be burned. We've had 25-30 mph sustained winds the last couple of days, so there are lots of newspapers all over our yard and the pasture too. Which reminds me, I need to go pick up Noah. Be back in a bit.

Back. Quick, eh?

Not the best of pictures, but I snapped this one to show that the Fall colors are coming in in these parts.

Noah and I went out on the dirt bikes a couple times to a local trail called Knob Hill. The trail is all single track and about 5 miles long. There's a couple technical spots, but most of it is

beginner/intermediate, which is perfect for us right now.

Besides the trail itself, another cool thing about this place is that we can ride to it from our house. It's just 3 miles from our door to the trail. We ride there, do the trail, ride the trail back, and head home for a nice 1.5-2 hr of getting dirty (dusty, anyway).

On Saturday night, we broke from our tradition and went to a regular tree lot here in Flower Mound. Our tradition has been to buy a live tree and plant it after Christmas, or we'll go to a tree farm and cut one down. This year, we caved in to a bit of consumerism and went to the tree lot that doubles as the local pumpkin patch as well.

This place goes all out. They have bouncy houses and bouncy slides. They also have a bouncy obstacle course. And yes, I even got hurt on it. Amen.

Noah and I were racing through the course, and as we hit the climbing wall portion, he lost his grip and footing and fell, all 102 lbs of him, right on my thigh.

I knew it was just a case of getting dead-legged, but that still feels like a broken femur. I was pissed, and bless his heart, Noah thought I was pissed at him (and I wasn't at all). My pissedoffedness was due to knowing that I'm losing even more training time. For a second there, I just felt like giving it all up. Part of my pissedoffedness was because I could have beaten him on the course.

We did end up picking out a tree. A very nice one, too. We loaded it and the five of us in the truck and rolled home. Got the tree put up, and Mama even made some wreathes out of Christmas tree trimmings.

Here's one of the wreath things Mama made.

I woke up Sunday morning with plans to get in some extra miles with Robbie before the Sunday ride. Glen was supposed to join us, but neither of them showed. I'm trying not to take it personally.

Since I felt like my oldest son had landed on my leg from a four foot drop, I decided to ride the trainer a bit to see if I should bother suiting up for the Sunday Ride. After 30 minutes of that, I chose to save my remaining brain cell and go ride with the group.

Hooked up with The Assassin and Troy and we made our way to ride with four decent riders and 30 f'n douchebags. It just sucks to ride when I suck. In a few weeks I won't have to deal with the douchebags anymore.

Troy was kickin' is strong, though. The Assassin sat up to help a turtle cross the road or something, so he rode in with my dropped ass.

That brings us to today, where I've spent most of it ready to run for the bathroom safter having eaten a muffin that I was proud to make that was all organic and no preservatives and stuff. Maybe it should have had one or two preservatives.

Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving, Y'all!

Denton 'Cross Race, November 20

Noah's cheering section.

Noah at staging for the Junior/Youth race.

About to blast down after climbing the dam.

Is this the kid who is USCF ranked #1 in the Nation for 10 year olds? Yes, indeed.

Noah took the win in the 10-14 year olds at the race. We are so proud of you, Big Boy!

Buddy got kicked out of school

Ballet school, that is.

We have Reanie and Budrick in ballet class at their school on Mondays. Reanie loves it. Wants to put on her ballerina outfit all the time. Budrick, not so much.

When Mama picked them up from school the other day, she was informed that Buddy needed to take some time off from the class and perhaps try again later.

Our visions of Billy Elliot will have to wait until he's 3 years old, I guess.

Blackmail

Camp T-shirt

GSTz Training Camp #1

Noah is up there near the front.


I had to get another shot of ROF May's new and improved smaller butt.


When we finally slowed down enough to take a picture...no wonder most of the shots from the ride are from the back.

I took a shortcut so I could get a shot of the team from the front. But I also had to be quick, because I 'm not strong enough to catch up. The result is the pic above.

The Beaner assumes his camp pose Saturday evening.

Hide the Beer and Chips (and bread and ice cream and...)

Beaner is here getting ready for training camp.

A blast from the past--Mama's T'Cup

The subject of Mama's Texas Cup title came up while riding today with one of the LSW charges. There's a bunch of cool things about this picture. The one you can't see in the shot is that Mama was pregnant with Reanie. Oh, and believe it or not, Mama didn't hit the deck or even put a foot down in that water.

Taking #2 and #3 to school.

Things are healing up on my person enough to throw the POSS2 in the trailer for a ride to their place of bidness. They make good training buddies too. It has been a gray and chilly morning, but we spoke Flemish the entire way, so it's all good. Despite what the picture looks like, they do actually enjoy the rides in the trailer. Their expressions in this shot are as such because the only time I normally stop and turn around to them on rides is to say, "Hey, get your finger out of her eye" or "Stop pouring milk on his head!" So they had the "Uh oh" expression, and I'm sure they were wondering what they did. The next shot I took they were laughing, but I deleted it instead of saving it, and by then I was tired of standing on the side of the road.

For the iDiots, Maigh, Bubu...

...and anyone else who can get away from work for 30 seconds in the afternoon.

Heeeeyyyeee

It's NOT a moped

So we'd just finished up a motorpacing session. Mark rolled the stop sign at the Bartonville store. I pretty much rolled it, but I did put my feet down.

Since we were done with the ride, I told Mark that I'd motor ahead to turn on the (insert sound of trumpets) coffee machine. Just as I slam the scooter into second gear I hear the siren, which makes me look in the mirror to see the lights. I was already a good something yards ahead of Mark, and the Sheriff was stopping behind him. Figuring I was being pulled over too, I went on up to the next driveway, as there was no shoulder and no real good way to move over and submit to the Popo. And I was sort of hoping that he was just pulling over Mark, because I did put my feet down.

Mark kisses ass. Gets a warning. The Sheriff tells him that he could write his friend on the moped a ticket too.

It's NOT a moped.

Kid #1 Getting After It

Here's my training partner. He's cranking up the Jeterberg getting ready for the 2006 season.

For JR

Hair of the dog, as it were. It isn't an inside joke if you go to the "Driftwood" link to the right.

Just like wine

Grandaddy shot a 69 today. His best round ever.

I need to get me one of those panty hose head cover things

Suited up and ready to ride. It is Saturday, so we're going long. Long for me right now is 20 miles. How sad is that?

I went for the hills. I rode in the big ring most of the ride to make me feel good about myself. 15-16 mph sounds more impressive when done in the big ring. I hope.

Rode the back roads and waived to all of the neon yellow jersey wearing team in training folks. Can't make fun of their outfits as I was wearing bright red knee warmers.

Through Argyle, over Hickory Hill and then Hilltop. At Four Corners I saw two riders pacing together over the hill there going to 407. By the time the four-way stop cleared, they were over the hill.

And I was going to catch them.

16 mph felt hard riding into the breeze, and for a second there, I thought about using the camera phone thing to show the progress of catching the breakaway. But I decided against it because gaining ground on them was too hard earned to throw any of it away turning this thing into more of a photoblog than it already is.

But I was catching them. Had they known I was coming after them, they would have been scared.

As I came up behind them, I tried to manipulate my wheezing to sound something like comfortable breathing. As I blasted by the camelback wearing, saggy pocketed, floppy saddle bagged duo, I gave a nod and a cool, but friendly, "What's up," and blew by them at 17 mph.

They had no chance to get on.

After rolling (just a little) the stop sign at Bartonville, I saw another pair riding towards the McMakin Hill. I was already in the little ring to roll in easy, but that Team in Training couple needed to be learned.

I rolled by the woman and said, "Howdy," and she responded with, "Oh, Hi!" That's right...she was surprised at not only my speed, but that I could talk casually while carrying it.

then I caught the guy who is probably her husband or boyfriend. I gave him a "Howdy" as well, but you could tell he was embarassed that I was showing him up with such ease. Heck, she probably was already fantasizing about me.

As Goins would say, "Don't hate me cuz you ain't me."

Hmph. Shewt, I was riding my heavy wheels too.

Costumes?

Nah, they have to wear uniforms to school.

Kid #2 woke up smiley, happy, cute...I wish I could have bottled it up, because she was like we think of little ones before we have one or before you've been puked on.

Kid #3 was challenging this morning. Not bad, but maybe a little sour. He was up at 2am, sort of went back down. Up again at 4am, and sort of went down. When I say, "he went down," what I mean was that he went back to sleep, but he kept kicking me in the ribs (still tender), face, jewels, wherever...while he slept.

I wanted to be mad at him, but he was sleeping. Right?

Man, I don't know anymore.

He was up for good at 4:30a-ish, so I got up, put in a Winnie the Pooh DVD for him, and tried to sleep in the chair next to the TV while he watched. The whole time, from 2am on, he really wasn't grouchy, fussy or anything (except for the kicking me part, but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt). He was just, up.

Mama took off for work, and I got the kids ready to go. Kid #1 was pretty much up already, since he had some school work to get done, so all that was really left was getting some clothes on #2 and #3. The clothes they were to wear (set out by Mama) are the ones pictured above.

Maybe it was because he was tired, or maybe it was because he saw his outfit, but #3 got grumpy. Real grumpy. He took a cup away from #2. He would sit down if I told/asked him to "come here." When I told him I needed to brush his hair, he swatted the brush away.

He wasn't having a good morning. And #2 was having a great morning, so they evidently got their roles reversed from the usual.

I can't remember what triggered it, and it was probably just a combination of all of #3's sourness, but I ended up giving him a swat on the BT. Not the kind that is a beating (so don't call CPS or anything). I mean, this was a swat with him wearing a diaper and leather (his outfit...easy Enak) shorts.

Normally just raising our voice will get him to almost tear up (whereas Reanie will breakdown if you tell her she might stand in the corner at some point in her life), but not this time.

After swatting Buddy, he looked at me in the eye, furrowed his brow, and made Clint Eastwood eyes at me. For a split second, I actually got scared. I'm not ready to throw down with him just yet. I mean, he's only been two for a couple of days, and I didn't start whupping Noah's ass until he was 3 and 1/2 or so.

I did get them all in the car, eventually. We even got #1 to school on time. (yes, I'm mixing it up by calling them by name, then going back to the #'s. Oh well. Good literature it ain't.)

Buddy fell asleep in the car on the way to the ne-no shop. He was pretty cute, so I wasn't mad anymore. However, I didn't mind that after Reanie ate her donuts, she ate his too.

That's right, the new threat around here is, "Don't you look at me like that, Boy, or I'll let your sister eat your donuts." Show him who's boss. gyeah.

Cabrito. No? Ovejas.

Our neighbors have goats. Every morning, as I take the POSS2 or POSS3 to school, we discuss the goats in the car. They typical conversation involves Reanie saying, "Goat," followed by "Neyeyeyey."

Then Budifer will say, "Sheep."

Reanie and/or Noah (and me until I caught on) will say, "No. GOAT."

Then Budrick says, "Sheep."

Reanie will say, "No, Buddy. GOAT!"

Then Bude says, "Sheep."

Reanie responds, "No, Buddy. That's a goat. Goats go 'neyeyeye." Sheeps's go 'baaaaaaah.'"

Then Christian says, "Goat."

Today, Reanie responded, "NO, BUDDY. THAT'S A SHEEP!"


Women.


Now look at the picture of the kid below, and tell me he's not doing that to her on purpose.

Buon Compleanno

Hey, I'm two!

Budreaux's Birthday Party!

The truck full of straw bales before we made the fort/castle.

Lawson was King of the fort/castle.

I can stand on the chair because it is my party.

Mmmm. Cake.

Yeehaw! (look closely at Anelise coming down the slide)

Busted.

Bude and his buddy Zachary partied until they dropped.

Whupped.

as always, if you want a better look at the picture, just click on it.

Uh oh...

...guess who got a cell phone that takes pictures.



First picture I took.

OK, that's not true, but Mama wouldn't let me post the first picture I took. Now this blog has upgraded to being like every other blog.

I'm so technologically behind the times. I bet nobody has Intellivision anymore.

Good thing I got dressed for work today

Some guy pulled up in our drive way a little bit ago. Had a bike on his car, and he was all decked out in cycling gear. Complete with yellow Team Discovery commemorative jersey.

Not recognizing the person, I opened the window, asked in a friendly way, "What's up?" and waited for a response.

He gave me a little head nod that told me "yo, what's up with you" or maybe it was a head nod with a little shake telling me, "What do you think I'm doing?"

Not satisfied with the exchange, I simply kept looking at him with my head out of the window from my office (no screen). After not even getting further acknowledgement from him, I quickly went to the computer to see if I had some meeting with someone today, perhaps explaining our visitor.

Nothing on the plan for today involving riding with the yellow jersey type.

So I went downstairs and outside to get a closer look. Turns out that this guy thought it was OK (it is, really) to park in our driveway because he's seen lots of cyclists here leaving for rides.

I explained the situation and told him that he could park here anyway, but I guess he was a little struck by it all. He apologized ("Sorry, my bad"), got in his car, and started to drive off. By the time he was at the end of the driveway, I pulled his bike from the grass to the driveway so he could see it...

He drove back up to me, got out of the car, shook his head, and without saying a word, put his bike back on the trunk rack and drove away. Without securing the bike to the rack.

When he hit the gravel transition from our driveway to the road, the bike hopped off one of the arms of the rack. He stopped, got out of the car, put it back on the rack (without securing it again), and drove off.

I'm trying to get back to work, but I keep getting stuck thinking about this strange occurance. Which ranks, in strangeness, higher than ranger humming "Girls just wanna have fun."

If this doesn't clean me out, nothing can

Budrick crawled into our bed too early and too late last night/this morning. Too early to really get up myself, but too late to put him back in his bed and think I could get more sleep.

So I made myself useful by throwing lunch together for Mama and Big Boy. Made some smoothies for everyone (once it was time for everyone to get up anyway, since the blender doesn't have a 'snooze' feature). But mio sforzo migliore came from the oat bran muffins I made.

Of course these are made from scratch. Do you think Chloe keeps a mix in her pantry?

OK, now I'll ge tback to work

When I get geeked on Italy stuff, guys like the Beaner roll their eyes or call BS on me. But here's a map of one of the most beautiful places in the world.

There, in the upper right, you can see Taceno and Cortenova, and a little southwest of there is a place called Esino Lario (which is usually part of the Giro di Lombardia route). Well, the cabin that Nuccia left Chloe is on the road between those two places. Now look across the lake at the tip there. What do you see? Bellagio. That's right. A little south of there? Madonna di Ghisallo.

Need help with the scale of the map? It is about 10K from the left edge of the map to the right.

Here's something more for the bike geeks. Third picture from the bottom...the one of the lake...that's the lake separating Bellagio and Esino Lario. On just the other side of the mountain is the cabin.

OK, sorry. Just got all "homesick" there for a moment. I'll eat some pasta and be alright.

So, who wants to go?

Angel Fire crew...do you remember?

I almost sort of do. Anyway, I got the iTunes spitting songs as I work. The Divinyls I Touch Myself is playing. Good trip. Good times. We owned that place, eh Brad?

Working the fields

We had all of the kids working the field the other day. Before the POSS2 got home with Mama, Noah and I were out in the pasture working on the 400m track we're building for running and riding ove rthe fall/winter.

It is pretty well cut in now. We're hoping for some rain to help the good grass take and finish off the goat head/sticker burrs for good, but in the meantime, we keep plugging away at it.

On Monday, I was ready to give it another cutting, but since we were expecting some rain, I wanted to clear the cow crap off of the trail. Make for better walking and running when out there in the dark.

So, Noah and I were shoveling the crap into the wheel barrrow. He was working pretty hard. Had to remind him that the faster we got it done, the less time we were working with shit, but we got it done.

When we got to the last 100m, I hollered to him, "Are you having fun?" He couldn't hear me since he had his playstation thing headphones on (he can listen to music with it--he was listening to Beastie Boys). He took out the headphones, asked "What?" and I repeated. His response was, "Well, I'm not having fun, but I'm doing OK."

Just as we finished the shovel work, Mama arrived with the POSS2, and they got on the lawn tractor with me, and we got to work cutting the track even closer to the ground. They helped drive.

The track is just about 400m long. 100m is a down slope, and about 50m-ish is flat, and the rest is uphill-ish. But really, it is all pretty flat. Just feels more uphill when you are out there. I've ridden my road bike out there and not picked up anything in the tires, so I think we've got it cleaned pretty good. It is about 8.5 feet wide all the way around.

We'll have some sort of play/training out there in the coming months.

Do you remember your first real bike ride?

I remember riding with Matt McCullough at SWT and we got excited about doing rides that seemed so far to us.

Anyway, Noah and I went out for 13.5 miles today. He's been off the bike, and I've been off the bike even more. But we knocked it out.

I've felt less fatigue after doing 120 mile rides before. Long, long way to go.

Hold Your Line (and nobody is wearing a helmet)

About 3 min of pure entertainment.. Work safe, too.

Must eat

To continue on this narcissistic theme, I am so frikkin' hungry to be a bike racer again. I'm chomping at the bit to get to training. But I catch myself when I realize I'm going to be doing 15-20 mile rides for awhile, and those will make me tired.

Long way to go.

For Crying Out Loud

I'm so done with The Racing Post. Not that anybody really cares, but dang, I just don't want to be in those pages anymore.

Why?

Doesn't really matter, but it is safe to say that even if I do still own the thing, I definitely can't control what is printed in its pages. Not even when it is my own damn column.

Gump says, "And that's all I got to say about that."

Uh oh

Upon waking from her afternoon nap, Reanie told me, "Santa is making my presents."