Get your clicking hand ready

Voting begins June 30.
Unless you are voting for someone other than Noah. In that case, I believe voting starts in November or something.

http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/promos/props/

"I guess, you're right", I said.

We saw a few of these signs on an easy ride yesterday. Noah says, "that's weird." But I wasn't really paying attention to him. 15-20 minutes later he says, "That sign isn't right." But I still wasn't listening all that much. Maybe another 10 minutes later, he says, "They should put something else on that sign."

"What?" I ask.

"There aren't any seesaws on any of those playgrounds," says Noah.

Chicken Dinner

Totals for the weekend from Master's Track Regionals (30+ category):

1st Points Race

2nd Team Pursuit

2nd Kilometer Time Trial

1st Individual Pursuit

3rd Match Sprints

? Team Sprint (didn't wait around to see how we placed. it was out of the medals)

Got up Saturday morning and went for an easy 20 with Noah. Packed the car with stuff, Chloe and the kids and went back to the track for day 2. The afternoon session was the first round of sprints, the kilo and the pursuit.

Since we were already down to 4 riders in the sprints, we all had a bye to the semis. Nobody announced anything, so we'd all left our bikes ready for the sprints, but needed to get the aero bars on for the kilo.

Anyway, I bolted those things on, and with a few laps around the staging circle, declared them "ready" and went up to race. I posted a mediocre time with 1:12 or 1:13. It was 2 sec off of the winning time and about 3 seconds ahead of 3rd. Solidly 2nd. changed out bars.

Then went to the semis and raced against a very good sprinter who only does the sprint stuff. Even though my 200tt was .1 faster than his, he had the edge on "craft" of this game. Even so, I did everything right until I didn't. I had the perfect run, but checked myself at a crucial moment. That hesitation was all it took. With a one-ride semi, that put me in the finals racing for 3rd. Fug.

The next event was the pursuit. Changed out bars. There were several guys there just to do the pursuit, so they had fresh legs. But in doing inventory of the infield and pit, and being able to go last, I only did what I needed to do to win the thing. 3:56ish. That ended the afternoon session.

One second later the evening session started. Changed out bars and ran the first of best 2 of 3 for 3rd and 4th in the finals sprint round. My head wasn't in it, the guy got a good jump and I just watched him. took what seemed like forever to snap out of it, but I did run him down and get him at the line. In our second sprint, I simply had more fitness than he did. The cumultive affect of the two days of racing was evident on everyone, but when he stood to jump and didn't accelerate much, I just sat on his wheel for half a lap until I felt him fade. 3rd in match sprints.

Got another cobbled together team for the Team Sprint. Technically we should have been DQd since I went through the exchange zone waaay ahead of our 3rd rider (I went second), but I didn't stay long enough to find out what our placing was. Of the 5 teams, only one actually did the exchange per the rules anyway.

* * * * * * * * * *

Noah raced the Matrix Challenge Criterium on Sunday. He wanted to put a good race out there since his State Championship race a week earlier didn't go as well as he'd normally make it. He also didn't like some of the trash talking and attitudes he's experienced. We have talked about the fact that he's won a lot of races, and some folks will respond to that in different ways.

We've sensed that there are some racers who only aim to beat Noah and care less about the overall. There was no way to prove this, of course, and sorting out the tactics of junior racers is difficult as is, so we've taken the approach of just racing as hard as he can and sorting out what is left at the end.

At the criterium yesterday, it was obvious not only in the way the competition was racing, but in what they were actually saying out loud.

The 10-14 race was combined with the Junior Open because of low numbers in the Junior Open. A 17 or 18 year old on one team decided that he'd help his teammates in the 10-14 beat Noah. For the record, I think that is pretty cool that they'd work together like that. Also for the record, I'd have respect for the plan if they were trying to win the race and not just beat one particular rider.

The race was only 30 minutes long, so that didn't leave much in the way of using fitness to get ahead. Royce and Hunter couldn't make this race, so GS Tenzing was represented by just Noah.

Long story short...Noah figured out what was going on, let a couple riders up the road, isolated others, and then just rode his heart out. He solo'd in for the win.

While cooling down, he said, "I couldn't really hear you out there (I was hollering a lot). I heard you say 'no' when I was about to pull a rider back, but I saw why I shouldn't right then. Other than that, I just figured you were telling me that the older junior was working for the younger ones, but I was already trying to split them up. During the race they kept talking about covering me and blocking me. Once I got tired of thinking about it because it was too stressful, I just went as hard as I could and that did it." That's 56 for Noah.

Then we loaded up, head over to Cozymels, at lunch, and I celebrated the weekend and Father's Day with a couple margaritas. Even had a strawberry one, just so I wouldn't get too cocky.

the gas station in Gutherie is kinda scary

We covered some ground yesterday.

Noah woke up feeling sick. Seems he caught a stomach bug I had earlier in the week. He slept in a bit, skipping breakfast, then suited up and went on the ride at camp. When we stopped to sort out the workout for the day (warm up out to the place, stop, then workout), he got in the follow car and alternatively slept and listened to war stories from David Mayer-Oaks.















The morning, and final workout of camp was a sprint workout. From there we went to see the Stubb's statue at the location of the original Stubb's Barbeque.

After we got back to the dorm, we made quick to get showered, eat lunch, load up the car, and then blaze east to get to the track in time for Master's Regionals. Noah and Royce slept a good chunk of the way, and there wasn't much talking--the were whupped.

Rob met us there, bringing me some water (thank you) helped get my bike ready while I collected my track stuff. He then took them to dinner while I got in a good 15 minute warm up, complete with one half lap sprint.

The first event for me was the 200m TT, which is used to set the pairings for the match sprints. Not my event at all (is there one?). Still running the same gear that I used the last time I did a 200m TT, and still too small, it turned out pretty good, getting 2nd. Even with a better gear for me, I couldn't have bested the winner's time. He's wicked fast. Happy with the 2nd, though.

The next event was the 50 lap points race. Turnout for these championships has been light, but you can only race those who show up, and State Championships are on the line! Our race was combined with the 40+, which makes for some interesting tactics. Anyway, I kept an eye on my competition and let the rest of the race develop, which it did in less than two laps. Step on the gas, make the break, lap the field...it was over pretty quick, but it still sort of took the wind out of me to see that we had 34 laps to go at that point. From then on it was just an exercise in making sure I didn't get into trouble. 109 and a State Championship.

The last event of the night was the team pursuit. Disappointingly, there were only two teams signed up, and even ours was thrown together via email and txt msgs in the 24 hours before the event. Mike Owens, Kevin Hill, Mark Griffen and I (thanks guys!) picked up some valuable Texas Cup points and a silver medal. We made a firm run at it, but mostly used it as experience. My legs felt way better after that pursuit than they did the points race, so that was an added bonus.

Noah and I got home about 11:00pm. He unloaded the car, and I checked on Mama, the kids, the chickens, and the garden. And then I ate a pizza.

We slept in until 7 this morning. About to head out for an easy spin, then this afternoon we'll bake in the convection oven that is sometimes referred to as the Superdrome for the remaining events of Master's Regionals.

Ozzy says...

Mama, I'm coming home.

First I have to do a workout with the Junior Camp, then we'll grab lunch quickly, load up the car, drive from Lubbock to Frisco, hopefully getting there in time for me to race Master's Regionals, and then...Stella Sola!

Who's that sleeping in my bed?

Noah and I (and Royce) are in Lubbock with the USA Cycling Regional Camp for juniors. I never thought about that I could be working a camp he's attending, but here we are. It's blazing hot and windy, but we're in Texas, so duh.

We'll be headed home on Friday, after a quick stop at the track (if we can make it in time) for Master's Regional Championships.

Noah has had a heckuva run. At summer camp for 5 days, picked up that last night, headed to Copperas Cove, grabbed a motel, raced the State Championships (4th), then we went home for the night, had Lisa, Scott, Annelise, Rob and Royce over for breakfast on Sunday, then Royce, Noah and I drove out to Lubbock. We've been riding and testing every day. The boys are tired, but they are both doing very, very well.

Homesick. And I'm not just saying that because I'm staying in a dorm with a bunch of kids.

Lots of drive time lately has given me lots of time to think about things. Without going all Hallmark on you, even though Nobody is Making You Read This, I just wanted to say that I'm a lucky guy.

today's happenings

Reanie spent more time in Kindergarten at her school than anyone else. Why? Because I didn't realize that they got out of school today at 1pm. I knew they got out at 1pm on the last day of school, but I thought tomorrow was that day. At 130pm, my phone rings..."Mr Williams, Reanie is incredibly sweet, but we wanted to let you know that school got out at 1pm today. Reanie is here in the office."

Picking her up, and realizing that my daughter isn't in kindergarten anymore choked me up a bit. But she still makes the "s" in Williams backwards sometimes, so I'm good for awhile, especially since we can't really afford private school.

* * * * *

Buddy has been spending some time with our friend, Becky, lately. He's become quite the chatter box in the last week, giving evidence in the whole nature vs nurture debate. One thing he said to me today was, "Daddy, Reanie is tattling."

Reanie Wanted To Blog About The First Picks Of This Year's Garden

Reanie next to the squash and zucchini












Children of the corn





Quick! Take a picture of Buddy while he has some clothes on!

"Take our picture next to the baby figs!"











Behind them is where we get most of our sage and rosemary. The bushes in the background are pomegranate. There are even a few fruit showing this year!


Both of these kids agree that fried sage sounds like a good treat for today. In case anyone reading this was wondering.

More of the Noah Channel

4min3sec of 6th graders making noise by banging things. Check your Clocks. It'll be worth it.

Even Buddy Can Pretty Much Wipe His Own Butt

If you don't mind humoring me, please read this with a David Duffield or Phil Ligget accent.


Noah and I rolling with the local madness today. No real attacks, but it was still a tough pace. For the first part of the ride there were about 30-40 people with about 4-5 of them doing the pace making. Noah was one of them.

Now and again someone would get in the pace line, let Noah take his pull, but then not come through. It's frustrating, but not maddening, since there's no category requirement or obligation to do any work. heck, I've had plenty of days where I just sat on the back of these things and rolled in. just wanted company or something. But when you see your 12year old get stuck on the front when racer types are sitting in behind him, it feels good on one hand and makes me think about just how sissy some bike riders/racers can be. I'm not worried about that with Noah at all.

He got caught out of position when we went into a cross wind. The whole group was on the yellow line or over, and Noah went into the left lane with 6 or 7 other folks. I let him do it for about 3/4 of a second before I barked at him.

I did a pretty good job of keeping him in my pocket and not losing much ground on the group for this few mile stretch. Noah pulled through to help me out. This is a milestone, I think, because now I'm not just pacing and pushing him, but we're working it together.

He pulled through, and the guy behind him, who'd we'd been pulling along for about 3 miles, tried to jump across to the leaders. The guy behind him wouldn't come through and stuck Noah on the front and me behind. Ugh. I came around and took up the pace. Told Noah to just sit on. We no longer have to discuss what is going to happen next, because whenever someone jumps Noah after sitting on his wheel, we're going to drop them. No matter what.

So we did.

With some luck (train crossing) we caught the leaders. Noah worked his way back to 3rd or 4th in line and held his spot well. We stayed with things until Hilltop, picking up some riders along the way who either shortcutted or were just out riding and jumped in with us. Unfortunately, two of those guys were in front of Noah and were gapped by the group on the steepest part of the hill.

We tried and tried to fight back to the leaders. I'd pull as long as I could, and then I'd give Noah all the shove I had to see if he couldn't get close enough to finish it by himself.

He'd get really close, fade, then blow. I'd catch back up and we'd do it again. And again. And again. And again. We were fighting for it. No talking at all, just doing everything we could to get back with the leaders. Being dropped isn't fun, but we hadn't given up, and the fight was fun.

Meanwhile, I've got three jokers sitting on my wheel through all of this. I shove Noah, come to a near standstill, and the guy behind me says, "Whoa!". He's right. I didn't even check to see if anyone was there. But from that point on, I'm sprinting to catch Noah, pacing him for 30seconds or so, and then shoving him again. And again. And again (I know, we've covered this). And these guys are sitting on my wheel through all the surges and everything.

During this, one guy keeps saying, "Me next." "Me next." "Me next." He was referring to getting a shove. First of all, ask. Second of all, if you are really concerned, how about helping out a little? Third, don't fuggin grab my jersey pocket. And certainly don't do it and stop pedaling. "Me next" was only funny the first time you said it, and at that, it was only a little funny. When you grabbed my jersey, this very nearly became a blog about my second fight in two weeks, but I don't feel like reading on TXBRA about I now have anger management issues. that's why you could chew your lunch normally today. The TXBRA forum saved your life.

Trying to find my inner nice guy, I conceed and give this guy a shove too. I'm thinking that he's hanging on and maybe if I can help him a little more (as if pulling him for the last 10 miles wasn't enough), maybe we can catch the leaders. So I give him a shove. he stops pedaling while I'm accelerating. Then he...grabs his brakes!

Noah is up the road fading. I've got hardly anything in the tank, and now I have this. So I try again thinking that maybe he was just a little freaked by the acceleration. He starts coasting again, as if I'm going to push him all the way up to the leaders. Frustrated, I just shove him forward anyway with all I have. full gym rat grunt and the whole bit. He bridges up to Noah. And then attacks around him. He almost got across to the group.

One of the jokers left behind me jumps and tries to get across. Then another follows him. I sprained my neck shaking my head.

When I caught up to Noah, I told him that we were going to beat these guys (the finish line was about 6 miles away at this point). He asked "why" and I told him I'd explain later.

I set the pace. about a minute later Noah started to come around. I told him it wasn't necessary and that I wanted him to sit on and that I'd time it for the sprint.

Well, that didn't work. About a mile later we come to the Old Alton Hill and had caught these guys already. Noah attacked. they brought him back. He attacked again. They brought him back again. He attacked again. This went on until 2 miles to go. at that point Noah attacked and they cracked. There was a guy up the road dropped from the leaders and Noah caught up to him. They worked together. I just barely got across to them.

Noah and this guy were trading grown up pulls. Noah didn't even hesitate to slide in front of me, letting me sit out the rotation.

With 400m, Noah attacked again and stayed away across the line.

Noah is off to Pine Cove tomorrow for summer camp. that'll give some of these guys a week off from being pounded by a 12 year old.

Bedtime Stories With Buddy

Pretty often we'll tell the kids bedtime stories that involve characters with the names of "Muddy", "Leanie", and "Boa". Sometimes we're just too tired to come up with anything, so we'll ask them to tell us their bedtime story.

Last night, Buddy's story was about animals in the ocean.

"...and Buddy was swimming with the animals in the ocean. The dolphins, the fishes, the sharks, the octopusses, and the donkeys eating ice cream."

I'm sick, can't sleep, raced, and had a GREAT day

106, 107, 108, if I count just the 30+, which is all I was racing, so that's what I'm doing.

Noah took 51 and 52.

I'd better get to work or he's gonna catch me.

I didn't even have any pizza for him to knock out of my hand

Noah and I had finished up a local group ride, I'd ridden with him over to Lisa's, and I was...

...I was going up the hill on Shiloh. Hate that road, but it was the most direct route home. A convertible Mustang comes up next to me. Two guys in front. Two girls in the back. One other guy in the back. The guys all yell the usual stuff. I didn't wave or middle finger or anything. I really didn't care, except that when they sped by and away, a car was coming in the other lane, so they swerved back into the lane, just missing me. I went off the road, but only a little. It peeved me, for sure, as I was on a Zipp wheel that I just frickin bought, and I really, really didn't feel like taking that Vittoria through the junk.

Anyway, there's a stop sign not too far up from there, and sure enough, they are sitting two cars back when I roll up (not even chasing).

I ask, "Really? Was it worth it?"
The two guys in the front are doing a pretty good job of saying "We screwed up" and acting like it too. The guy in back was talking the talk. A lot.

Not sure why I even bothered, as I'm not one to wave or otherwise try to engage these kinds of folks, but I said, "Why don't we talk about it over here", pointing to just around the corner of the stop sign.

Before the car even stops, the guy in the back seat jumps out, taking a step on the trunk. I get a foot out and on the ground, but he catches me pretty square in the cheekbone/temple. My helmet goes all askew, but other than that, I realize I just took his best shot, while clipped in and with a cycling shoe on the ground...

What would you do?

I laughed. It was probably more of a smirk, actually. I put my bike down and gave him a shove to get him off of the road. Once on the grass in the ditch I felt like I'd evened it up a bit. He went to swinging, and for a moment I was trying to remember which hole on the Peter Pan puttputt course in Austin has the windmill.

I caught him square on the nose with the first punch. When he backed up a step and stood more upright after that, I got him right in his buck teeth. Now I got a stupid mark from those teeth on the back of my hand. He turned away for a second, and I shoved him into the ranch fence.

My intent was to just hold him there until he calmed down, but he kept fighting back, so I kept shoving his face into the mesh of the fence.

I ain't gonna lie--I was having fun.

They probably think they are the only ones who ever goofed yelled at a cyclist, and meanwhile, I've got several years of guys like them built up. Besides, do you know how expensive Vittorias are?

I wasn't restraining him as well as I'd hoped, and he was starting to squirm around (I had just ridden 50 miles), so I put him on the ground. I got hit from behind, but I couldn't tell if it was his foot kicking me or if I was now on the wrong end of a tag-team match with my only partners, Glen Dyson, 540 miles away trying to pick out the right color speedo, and Burke, who may or may not be in the country. I hit him with the best shot I got in for the entire scuffle, and not .5 second later, I was tackled harder than I'd ever been tackled before (and I was on the meat squad for the best defense in Texas in 1987).

Seems that the folks in the Mustang were convoying with another car with two guys in it, and those two guys were either jumping in or breaking it up. either way, my bell was ringing.

I'm not real good at math, but there's now 5 guys and me. the two girls got out of the car, but were standing next to it. One of the guys was picking up my bike. At this point, my mind is racing, "Are these two breaking it up or jumping me? Is that guy moving my bike off the road or taking it?"

Two guys, at least, are holding me. The guy who was swinging is getting up. People are yelling "The cops are right down the road!". the guy who hit me originally comes at me, and I don't know what they were all thinking, but it isn't like I'm going to just let them hold me while this guy tees off. Kids watch too much tv these days. Part of me thought it would be bad ass to just take his punches and laugh some more, but then I remembered I'm getting slower to heal.

I shook the two guys off, and the guy who was coming at me backed up. From then on I knew I wasn't going to fight anymore.

It felt good to hit him. It felt good to be hit. But I didn't care about him enough one way or the other to keep going. Besides, it was all happening really fast, and I was pretty sure then that if I did start pummeling him that I'd be dealing with a few other guys. One of them, though, kept shoving me. I turned to look at him, and he said "You don't want any of this."

I don't know why I'm wired like this, but I took a step towards him. He's a fast runner. And I'm not running anywhere in my cycling shoes. They all kept yelling about the cops. They all ran to their cars. They all took off.

I checked my helmet and my pockets for my sunglasses, and for a second I got REALLY pissed, because they are the white MFrames, and I don't know that I could get another pair. But they were fine. Just sitting in the ditch.

Just in case, I texted the license plate # to Robbie, whose number was last on my text dial thing. Breathing hard, I picked up the bike and rode home. The more time that went by, the more I was ticked with myself for not teeing off more on him.

But now, as I sit here with a sore neck and back (already), he's having to come up with his story about how he kicked the cyclist's ass. He's got to spin it well, too, because he had lots of friends there to see it, and at some point, someone will ask, "So, a cyclist picked a fight with you? How does that happen? Did he get into the car with you or what? Did he threaten you while you were in the car?" Or I'm just too optimistic that he hangs out with anyone that bright.

Noah got second on that group ride.

The Noah Channel

You are probably busy. This is the short version. Vote for Noah Williams! http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/promos/props/

For those of you who don't want to get back to work...

The Cartoon Network recently put together a video about Noah for their program Props. This is a program that showcases 20 kids across the country and their particular sport or talent. Noah and the other kids are singled out because of their level of achievement and dedication.

For those of you who don't know Noah, he's a straight A student, he plays the drums in band, he pretty much keeps his room cleaned, and he works his tail off to be the best bike racer he can be. In the last two years, Noah has won five Texas Cup titles, including overall Texas Bicycle Racer of the Year, seven State Championships, and four medals at the National Championships. He also says "Please" and "Thank you" and his good with his little brother and sisters. He'll even clean out the chicken coop without being asked after only asking him once.

This is ultimately a competition among the 20 kids with the winners being determined by a vote on the Cartoon Network website: http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/promos/props/ . I'm not sure when the voting will happen, but I'm told that (ahem) we can vote as often as we wish. Please keep in mind that it was 37 degrees and raining when they came out to film Noah riding around and for part of the interview.

*voting begins June 30, I believe

The New Classic Old Spice Original

I'm not a fancy guy. In fact, my aftershave is downright Walgreens, and it bothers me not at all. Splash a little in the palm of my hand, make my face sting a little, and it's a good start to the day or evening.

The last bottle of this I bought gave me pause. It said "original" on it. to my thinking, the original of anything doesn't need to say "original". It just is. That said, it would be contradictory to be an Old Spice snob, so I let it go. In fact, I forgot about the "original" on the bottle after awhile.

I appreciate the heft of the glass/ceramic buoy-shaped bottle that hasn't changed since the 1940's. In the mid-90's I notices that the boat had changed on the bottle, but at the time I thought I was mistaken. Why would the old ship be changed on something like this?

But it was a change. And then "orginal" was added, presumably to help Proctor & Gamble execs distinguish between the old standard and the new "sport" line.

Now, though, it's come to an end. While I was dismayed at the other changes, the last is the end for me. It is still a buoy-shaped bottle, but it is now plastic. That ruins it for me. To start my day by picking up a plastic bottle of "classic" Old Spice? I'd rather splash with straight alcohol.

And it says "classic" and "classique" on the bottle as well, as if putting something french on a bottle of Old Spice will make it high end. It's Old Spice for heaven's sake. I don't mind being unrefined or low class, but I'm not going to be cheap.

Damn.

hand to hand combat with a snake

Was working on a singlespeed road bike I'm putting together. Got frustrated with a bit on it so decided to do something otherwise productive, and went to the garden. I started tilling with our 6hp monster truck thing, but the dust was too much. I was surprised at how dry the ground was, actually. After watering what we'd already planted and then the rest of the plot, that took care of the dust, and the rest was just wrestling the tiller. Good stuff. Manly. Shaved legs, crocs and all.

After that I decided to water the new fruit trees. I guess I missed a watering day or something, what with the garden being dry as well as the new trees. Good workout for the arms yesterday. An hour with the tiller, and then several trips carrying 5gallon buckets of water. Sure, I could string up more and more hoses, but carrying buckets is fun. Ok, it's fun when Noah does it. It was work when I did it, but it was less work than rolling up hoses. I hate that.

Nobody had collected the eggs yet, so after watering, I went to do that. We have one lady who lays in a different spot than the rest, so I grabbed that one first. Went to the coop/nesting boxes, and when I opened the lid, I was greeted by a snake in one of the nests trying to wrap it's head around one of the eggs.

I don't like snakes to begin with, and I don't care if they are non-poisonous or not. I don't care if they help control the mice or not. A snake, to me, is a snake. My favorite kinds are the dead ones. But this one, taking one of my eggs.

It's dead now. I think I'm supposed to exaggerate how big it is like a fish tale, but I don't know what the proper ratio is. The thing was 2.5 foot long before I cut its head off. I'm not sure what that is in snake tales.

There it was, eating one of my eggs, and it had the audacity to make that pain face silent scream look as I hacked at it with a shovel. In my bike dork tshirt, shaved legs, cargo shorts and crocs. Listen snakes, stay away from the eggs, and I won't chop you to pieces. Now you may be perfectly safe to be around and handle, but I'm not going to take the time to look it up in a book or on the web to see if the black ringed pattern is on the outside or inside of the brown ones. If you are eating an egg and not a mouse, you are gone.

However, if I see you working on a mouse, we can talk about it. I might name you and keep you. Might. Your cousin or brother or someone who looks like you was eating one my eggs, so your family is going to pay for awhile.

That's the deal.

Buon Compleanno

tick tock you don't stop

3:57am wake up. look at clock. damn.
4:00am alarm goes off.
4:10am making "Belgian" breakfast
4:30am Noah wakes up and comes downstairs and we eat.
4:50am put bikes on the rack (one is already inside the jeep) and head over to Rob and Royce's
5:35am find their street
5:43am Noah is walking up and down the street looking above the doors for the correct address
5:48am found it.
5:55am put our stuff in Rob's car.
6:08am heading south towards Houston for the Coldsprings RR
9:12am stop and mcD's for breakfast some more
9:50am arrive at road race and register, get number pinned on and such
10:22am start warming up
11:00am race supposed to start. staged.
11:25am race actually starts
11:28am get mad because both gas stations in Coldspring are out of regular and wonder why Coldsprings hates America
12:08pm Noah finishes 2nd in his race
1:03pm Royce wins his race
1:05pm Reanie scores a goal, but I missed it since I was at the bike races.
1:45pm Tracie (team LoneStarWorks.com) wins her race
1:49pm head towards Alkek for the evening races.
2:41pm Whataburger for lunch. New girl on the register pauses when the bill is $96. Yes, darling, that's probably a mistake.
3:00pm back on the road
4:39pm stop to use a real restroom before getting to the track.
5:02pm arrive at Alkek. unload all of our stuff.
5:31pm Noah's cog comes off as he rolls into the pit. You probably heard me cussing but weren't sure why. that's why.
5:33pm I'm now fully Mackey Sasser about working on bikes.
5:47pm I finally get on the track to warm up
6:10pm track racing begins


It would get even sillier to chronolog the times of the actual races, but the fact is that I stopped looking at a clock because I knew it would be a long night. Time trials tend to be a beating not just in the effort of doing them all in one night, but also because it is the longest night of racing on the track, period. We didn't even start the last round of racing until after 10pm.

Royce rode very strong. Noah only had two races, was riding ok, which was great, all things considerd. Gutted it out for wins in both events. Was a little put out with me for not signing him for the junior open as well. So he made up for it by playing a game of hop scotch that had 369 squares. Rob looked really good on the track, but the long day was really taking a toll. Finished 6th and 7th in his events.

I knew in warm up that I needed a bigger gear. I was afraid to change it out, especially with no more time to warm up on it. Seriously, this has become a problem. Rode that gear for all of the events anyway. #103, 104, and 105.

12:08am We're celebrating at Waffle House. Yeah, I got some prize money, but the SCORE came in getting a Waffle House mug!















12:38am heading to Dallas
2:25am I just can't drive anymore. Stop for gas and Rob takes the wheel.
2:28am I'm sleeping with my mouth open, drool running down my face, and I don't care one bit.
3:00am I wake up. back to sleep. wake up. back to sleep. keep doing that until we're about 20 miles from Dallas.
4:51am pull up in front of Rob's house, unload car, load jeep, say "good game", and head home.
6:10am pull up in our driveway, go let the chickens out, and go take a shower. Noah skips the shower and goes to bed.
7:55am eat breakfast with Chloe, Nono, Reanie and Buddy.
9:03am fall asleep and don't wake up until 11:40 when Noah says, "you need to take me to Mom's". I say, "ok", but Chloe ends up taking him because I'm sleeping.
12.35pm edging, trimming, brush cutting, working in the garden, etc
4:25pm (or something like that) collect seven eggs. Maximum production from our ladies! Say "Howdy" to Robbie when he stops by on a ride. keep working on stuff outside.
7:30pm eat dinner in the back yard.
8:40pm kids to bed
8:45pm work on work
11:00pm take a break to blog about the weekend.
11:18pm hit "publish post"
11:19pm still haven't unloaded the jeep

On being a Daddy vs Father

Reanie developed an ear ache Wednesday night. Took a look inside her ear, couldn't see much, but put in some homeopathic ear drop stuff thinking that because we bought it at Whole Foods, it probably won't hurt her if it wasn't the right thing. It was still bothering her, but she seemed a little better Thursday morning, and she wanted to go to school. So she did.

The school nurse called around 12:30 letting me know that Reanie was in her office and had a touch of fever and that she definitely had an ear infection.

She looked like she was hurting, and she was not nearly as chipper as normal. When we were getting in the jeep to head home, she asked if we could go to Daveed's office. It was that random. It was that sweet.

When we got home I looked in her ear and saw that there was a lot of gunk. Her ear was very obviously infected and it needed to be cleaned out. She was going along with me just fine, but she was understandably concerned that I was about to put a sticky pointy thing in her ear that was already hurting. With the sweetest and worriedest and almost scardiest eyes, she sat there and leaned over so I could get the gunk out.

She winced as I put the instrument close to her ear, even without touching. We tried a few things to calm her. We talked about the difference between feeling pain, being hurt, and discomfort, and that while this might be unpleasant for just a bit, she would actually feel a lot better when we were done. She trusted me to go on, which is a powerful thing.

The wincing continued, and we got more gunk than I thought was possible for someone to have in such little ears. I considered stopping, because the anxiety was still there, and every touch had her jump a little, and we'd clearly made a lot of progress.

But I made one more effort, and the ensuing jump that followed touching (I wasn't digging or scraping) an infected and inflamed part caused me to catch her in just the wrong way, and her ear started to bleed. I hurt her. She didn't throw a fit or scream (she never has), but the tears were flowing freely, and she was whimpering, and she was scared. Really scared. And she was hurting.

She told me she was done and that she was ready to take a nap. She was ready to go outside and play. She wanted to do her homework. She wanted to be anywhere but on that bathroom counter. And now I had to convince her to let me work even more on her ear to stop the bleeding and clean it up.

The pieces of my broken heart could be swept up off of the tile floor. She was fighting with herself to let me fix it, to trust me, but also by being scared and by being in pain. I would have done anything to take the pain away from her and carry it myself.

It was getting to the point where I really needed to leave to pick up Buddy from school, but Reanie's ear was still bleeding. I tried to reason with her that I was only using cotton to clean up, but at that point, no amount of reason or promise of pink yogurt covered pretzels was going to trump that something just got stuck in my ear and it hurt when you said it wouldn't.

She wasn't mad. I think I would have felt better if she were. Having had to hold my kid down for medicine or to clean a wound is not on the top ten list of "Cool things you get to do when you are a parent", and I did not want this to be a trauma thing. Anymore than it already had been.

We did get her ear cleaned out and treated. She did stop crying. I did not have to hold her down. When I told her that we needed to go get Buddy, she said she wanted to stay at home. She's 5yr old, and even though I'm only walking a few minutes down the road and we are in a very safe area, I wasn't keen on leaving her at home alone, no matter what Barbie Princess dvd was playing. She insisted, though. Really insisted.

I was already 5 minutes late, and I refuse to drive the half mile down the road to pick him up, so I told her to look out the window and watch me. She'd be able to see me for all but about 8 minutes of the round trip.

When I got home, she was crying, hard and loud, and sitting in a corner with her knees up to her chest. Peter Damian suddenly seemed like he had it correctly figured out.

I picked her up and held her in a way I haven't held her in years, aside from carrying her from the car to bed after a trip when she was asleep. I put together the kids' snack while holding her and she fell asleep. When I put her down on the bed, she reached up, still with her eyes closed, to be held some more, so I held her some more.

My concern beyond the obvious was that maybe it really was time to go to the doctor or even hospital. I initially took on treating her not because I think I know more about treating her than a doctor, but because we don't have insurance and the thought of taking her in to pay the nurses to clean out her ear seemed rather ridiculous. But I'd just made her ear bleed and caused her even more pain while trying to help her, which is ridiculous in its own right.

Buddy called out from the table to tell me that he was being sweet and sitting at the table to eat snack. that doesn't seem like it fits, but it really does, because it was his way to show that he was helping.

I carried Reanie back into the dining room to tell Buddy "thank you", and Reanie told Buddy, "Daddy cleaned my ear. It was hurting but it is starting to feel better." And then she asked me if she could take a nap in my bed on my pillow. "Of course you can", I said.

She slept for the next 3 hours, and I stayed there with her, just watching her sleep.

With some trepidation, she let me check her ear again before bed. This morning she was happy and bouncing and said that her ear felt better and that "it only hurts when you touch it here." It's about noon as I post this, and I haven't had a call from the school or CPS yet.

this is how we roll