On being a badass.

I had a soy latte this morning. Not because I'm trying to be some supergranolahero about it, but because we are out of skim milk.

Starting to smell a lot like Christmas

Hooper

Noah played his first basketball game ever. Safe to say he was the best bike racer on the court. But they don't put that kind of thing on the scoreboard. He picked up a couple baskets, made a few steals, grabbed some rebounds, and ran back and forth down the court a lot. Mostly, though, their team played well and soundly routed the other team, which happened to be his old school.

No previous organized basketball experience for most of these kids. Further, it was obvious that this was the highest "level" of anything most had competed. It was a blast to watch these kids grow in the matter of four 8 minute quarters.

Reanie, Buddy and "cousin" Anelise were bleacher monkeys, which is part of the fun too. Every once in awhile one of them would pop up, yell "Go Noah", whether he was on the court or not.

Mixed bag

--Chloe and I saw Sarah Brightman Wednesday. A lot of gay people like Sarah Brightman. Made for double the entertaiment. Anyway, in the show there was a computer projected back drop deal. During one of the songs, Sarah was sort of dressed up like a cross between Alice in Wonderland and Little Red Riding Hood. She was on a stationary bike. Playing behind her were some people (computer projected, but life size) on BMX bikes riding behind her doing stunts. They were wearing wolf masks. Hmmm, where have I seen that before? Really, really strange, because I had no idea that it was part of her show. Just coincidence.

--Noah has won a couple cat 4 races on the track against the adults. It helps that he's got some teammates out there.

--While at the grocery store the other day, Reanie grabbed my hand just to hold hands. Not crossing the street. Not a busy crowd. Just holding hands. We just walked around for awhile because I couldn't remember what I was supposed to get for a moment.

--We've opted against speech stuff for Buddy. Instead, he's going to take Mixed Martial Arts. In the long run, it's probably more effective in dealing with people who tease him. Besides, "Yeth, Thirw" sounds cute.

--Noah made the basketball team at school. He seems to be enjoying it except for maybe the being at school at 645am part.

What's a Girl To Do

Bat for Lashes

This has been brought to you by the Bartonville Performing Arts Council.

I'll buy that for a dollar (and get a tote bag too)

Putting on the finishing touches to my new bike. While working on bikes, in order to avoid a nuclear holocaust on anything related or unrelated to bikes, I've found it helps me to have on some classical music. WRR 101.1 is the option in these parts. It's nice.

While trying not to round out a 4mm titanium bolt (again), I heard Mr DJ say, "WRR, classical 101.1, playing the top hits of the last several hundred years."

#2 and #3 isms

Reanie-- we voted in elections at school today
Mama-- Really? Who'd you vote for?
Reanie-- I don't know, but I couldn't tell you anyway.



We usually walk Buddy to and from school. It's a great part of my day, actually. Holding hands walking down the road to/from school, picking up sticks and rocks.

First thing we do is hold hands since it is a road, road, and not a street with a sidewalk. His backpack was full for some reason the other day, so I was taking it from him, and he said, "We need to couple".

Methinks this train thing is getting out of hand.

Buon Compleanno

Cinque anni!

Have you had your Lone Star Works today?

Texas Cup Titles in 2008- 10, including overall rider of the year for the second year in a row
Texas Cup podiums in 2008 (top 3)- 19

In the overall Texas Cup Rider of the Year competition, LSW took the top two spots, with four in the top ten, 5 in the top 20, 6 in the top 25, 7 in the top 30, 10 in the top 40 and 11 in the top 45.

State Championship wins in 2008- 15
State Championship podiums in 2008 (top 3)- 26


Not that anyone is keeping score. It got kind of silly when I figured top 5's, so if you really want to know, think of a silly number. That's probably pretty close.


There's a couple of mtn bike titles and several podiums for the championship series there, too.

A couple of Superdrome Points Series wins and several podiums.
A couple of podiums in the Alkek Series overalls.


http://www.lonestarworks.com/

Photo essay of the weekend at State Track Championships

Warrior getting ready for a battle

Madeline and Noah

How many people in this picture won a Texas Cup this year?










Best dancer at the Track Championships. Often heard saying, "Do you know my brother, Noah?"













There was a lot of this on the weekend










Which resulted in this.

Noah's 9th state title, and Imari's first medal at State Championships.


Good game.

Perspective

It started raining on us when were about 4 miles from the house. Just a couple minutes into the wet, Noah's only complaint was that he didn't bring a cycling cap to keep the spray out of his eyes.

You can't coach that kind of thing.

Um...well...neither can I.

It wasn't the rain, that the bike was getting dirty, that his powermeter stopped working...it wasn't any of that. It was that he forgot a cycling cap to keep the junk out of his eyes, because he was gonna keep going anyway.

Now, it wasn't cold out, but it reminded me of something I heard somewhere once, "Cold, wet days--they're just mine."

updates that aren't connected other than that they are my updates

Kitchen is starting to resemble an actual working kitchen. When we started running out of money for it, Chloe started working double time. She's busting her butt on this thing. I help out minimally. It works out better this way because I'm not in any way thrilled with how this process has been going, and I don't need reminders in my face about the new dishwasher that is in there now after paying guys $60/hr for 4-5 hr to fix the dishwasher they broke in the first place, ruined the floor in getting it out (floor wasn't originally part of the deal), which means the kitchen, dining room and living room are now in the game for new floors, AND THEN we call out an actual repair person, pay him $125 to tell us that it is another $400 for it to be fixed. After that, we dispatched Chloe to the dishwasher store to get a new one. $350 later, we have a new dishwasher. Do we talk about the sink that fell out or the cracked granite counter top yet? Prolly best not, as I might throw a drill or something through your computer screen.

The kids are home from school today. Dorkball coaches don't get Columbus Day off. We have a crappy union, I guess. They are playing it up, though. Noah is throwing Buddy on the swing, Reanie is riding up and down the driveway on her bike, they are chasing chickens, which is a lot harder now that we are down to only 6 or 7.

It's like the plague or something. Or that we were slow to figure out how the raccoons figured out how to get those sitting ducks in the coop at night. We'll get more after we build the new coop and run. If we're going to have so many chickens, we might as well do it right. Our originl coop was designed for about eight, so when a critter gets in there when there are 15, it's like Beaner at Golden Corral with the company credit card.

I did the group ride yesterday and didn't get dropped. First time in forever.

Noah raced the 4's on the track on Friday. Botched the first race badly due to hearing me say "Go Noah" and him thinking that meant, "Go, Noah" and then he solo'd for 6 laps. Unfortunately it was a 7 lap Danish (Win and Out) race. So 2nd, 3rd, 4th...wasn't gonna happen, either. He rallied for the next two races with a 2nd and 1st. This is against the grown ups.

Reanie weighs 50.5 lbs. Buddy weighs 50.0 lbs.


Somehow after I had said, "NO iPHONES! We don't need it. I'm against it. NO!" turned into both Noah and me having one. I admit that they are cool, but I'm scared to answer it when it rings because I might be charged $4.99 or something for answering it. Meanwhile, Noah has his doing his homework for him.


I got a new bike. I took some parts off of it because they were too good for me. But I left enough bad ass on it to force me to get out there and make the bike go like it wants to go.


Back to work for me.


UPDATE-- It was more than fawesome, because we could smell it from the driveway as we rolled up from a ride. It actually took me a moment to realize it was coming from my house, even though there's no other house it could be. First time in 3+ weeks, but Chloe made an honest-to-serious-goodness, real deal meal tonight. We ate at the table and everything. I even teared up. That was damn good.

And to lend weight to the nurture side of the nature v. nurture debate, both Reanie and Noah aced their report cards this first six weeks.

Good. Day.

For the poss2's Grandparents

We went to the pumpkin patch yesterday. Interestingly, there's no actual pumpkins in this picture. Oh well.

Escher video

Our friends Beaner and Mrs Beaner snagged some video at Interbike.

Well I'll be...

On having a 4 year old

He's almost five, but whatever.

His school is .5 mile down the road from us, so we generally walk to and from school.
While walking back today, holding hands, he keeps running and jumping every few steps, saying, "Got you!"

It was keeping us moving along, and I needed to get back to work, so I didn't think anything of it.

As we got close to the house, I realized what he was doing. He was jumping on my shadow. But then I made him cry when I ate his shadow.


*the last part was fiction. no actual shadows were hurt during this story.

Don't worry!

I'm ok. Really. WE WILL BE OK. There's no need to call the Red Cross or send in the National Guard. We really are ok here. Chloe has been cooking for us out on the grill. I even did the dishes with the hose tonight.

Wooombpf 3 years ago today

Noah and I rode by the spot where I was surprised by the sudden closeness of the glove compartment of a certain Camry.

It some ways it seems like it only happened a short time ago, but in others it seems like was a lot longer that 3 years ago. I go by the spot a few times per month, but I don't intentionally avoid it or anything like that.

When I think about it, I can recall the second or so of impact, the going over the car, and then coming to. The most vivid memories are of those next few moments of waking up, everything spinning, and thinking, "ok, this is what dead feels like".

I don't mean to be melodramatic, but that's what I thought right then. Couldn't feel anything, didn't really have my bearings, couldn't hear anything...then the inventory started, and I was not dead.

Today, I brought the camera so we could take a picture of the spot. It's raining some, but not entirely unpleasant. While there, I got kind of queasy and sat down. That's when Noah took a picture. I thought about the friends who came by and the messages I received afterwards. I thought about how difficult it has been to get back on top of riding and racing since then. But where I went weak today was thinking about just how many people don't ever wake up, get up, or much less ride again after being hit.

Keep riding. Enjoy every ride. And take care.

We need do something while Mr. Buckles can still see it.

When Nationals were in Pennsylvania a couple of years ago, Noah, Granddaddy and I made our way home by taking a detour through Washington DC. It was a nice trip with the elder men of our family making something of vacation together.

We mostly visited the memorials there as we could only spend a day, but what struck me was how poorly some (most) of these memorials were maintained. The lawns and parks were overgrown, the trash cans were overflowing (at least people were using them) which meant there was plenty of trash on the ground in all other places.

While I appreciated the memorials there, and we took them in and read the words deliberately if not solemnly, I couldn't help but be dissapointed. For better or worse, I'm apolitical, but that doesn't mean that there is a lack of pride. I expected more.

We made what really only amounts to a token effort, but we picked up some trash around these places with a thought that even one plastic bottle less is better than when we got here.

As an emotional sort, I can get choked up in a good way pretty easily. Where I lost it on this trip was the WWI memorial, though. as far as I know, there isn't a WWI memorial in DC. This one is for those who were from the District of Columbia. Anyway, it made me mad that it was in such disrepair. I wanted to complain to someone. I was willing to scrub with a brush or work with tools or do whatever needed to be done, but when you turn to look around, the grounds, the other memorials...just the wear and tear of everything is plainly evident.

Just read a thing on CNN about Frank Buckles, the last US surviving WWI veteran.

It is worth the read, so please skip on over there.


Thinking about my Grandpa E.P.

Look, Mom! I'm on TV!

Ok, this whole thing isn't about me, but if you watch closely, you can see Noah riding around a bit.

When he asked Ivan, "Do you want to race?" Ivan says, "He's gonna race me."

Ivan starts out with his hands on the tops (easy cruising). Then the next cut away he's on the hoods (cruising). The next cut away he's in the drops (business).

No, I don't really think Noah can beat Ivan Dominguez. I just thought it was funny.

Nobody is making you watch this.

And very seriously, a huge thank you to Noah's teammates: Austin, Royce, Hunter and Imari. We didn't want it set up that Noah rode by himself, but y'all still helped make this thing happen. It was a very early morning to get started on a very busy day as we moved hotels, during a very stressful time--Nationals. I'm proud of all of our boys, and I'm already looking forward to working on the team pursuit for next year.

Buon Compleanno

Phtographic evidence that my Mom is actually older than me. And it just so happens to be her birthday today. If she were running for vice president, surely this would be a scandal.