Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Oh, okay.

Well, it's been quite a while. Like, a much longer while than any previous whiles. I think I'll start recent and work back. Last night I had Cale snap a picture of Snips and I hanging out in the garage after weightlifting. That is, I was weightlifting. Snips had been licking his butt or chasing lint or whatever it is cats do all day.


I dunno, I've been feeling pretty boring lately. Last night between sets on the lat pull-down machine, I was zoning out, one hand under my chin propping up my head, and someone asked me if I was alright. Yeah buddy, just putting myself to sleep.

A couple of weekends ago, Kat came down and we went to MIAD for the senior thesis gallery night. There were some pret-ty nice exhibits. My favorites were the paintings. I wouldn't go so far as to say I miss painting, but I miss... paintings. It was fun remembering hanging out in the painting studio, being surrounded by talented people and luscious oil paints. Mmm. Ok, maybe I do miss painting a bit. Anyhow, MIAD. It was nice to see some old classmates as well. Below was one of my favorites by Brooklyn Henke.


Well, according to my Flickr, that's about all I've done lately. There's been some working out, some skipping of workouts and some nasty days where I basically skipped life for a few days. This past weekend, for instance, it was nasty, cold and very rainy. Totally worthless! The weekend riding plans went out the window and much moping and reading of books commenced.

Ah, well, I guess you can see why I haven't blogged lately. Yawn.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Hometown Tour of '09

This weekend Cale and I went West, young man, to do a little training. The Hell of the South, or HOTS, is next weekend on the trails around Madison, so for a little prep work we rode the crushed limestone trails around Mineral Point. Specifically, the Cheese Country Trail. They were freshly graded, and some spots were pretty mushy... perfect! Last year for the HOTS (last year, named the H8ter) the trails were similarly saturated and soft, so slogging along the trail yesterday was good preparation for just about anything that might be slung at ussss. SSssss!




But the real and super secret reason for the trip was to drop of my dad's new bike.



When Cale and I got back from our ride, I showed Dad how to use the gears, and I'm confident that one day, he might figure it out. As bikes go, it's nothing too special, but I think it'll be a good bike to start with, and it's got all of the features I was looking for for him; wide tires but not too knobby, step-through-able, upright position. It may not be the cock of the walk, but it'll be a good bike for Dad. As always, the guys at Ben's helped me find something and made it tip-top.

After all this fun and excitement, it was on to the next appointment in the Hometown Tour of '09. My neighbors, Bev and Mike, have a girl who's a talented young artist who's also convinced that she can't make a living by drawing. So we stopped by to give her a little pep talk on our way to the evening appointment. We drove over to my original hometown of Highland, WI (don't worry, no one else has heard of it, either!) to have dinner at my oldest and bestest friend's place with her and her fiancé Ben. Ben's quite the chef, as it turns out, and we spent a nice night catching up.

Just as we were leaving, Abbie got all serious on me, and said she needed to ask me a question. I didn't have to say yes, and it was ok if I said no. Really it was. At this point, I was trying to imagine what on earth she would ask me. I started thinking that when it came down to it, I would gently inform her that I couldn't donate my right arm, or smuggle any weapons to different continents. As luck would have it, I only had to say yes to being a bridesmaid! I think it'll be pretty cool.

This morning we planned on going out to Gunnar's place to help with a few projects, but the weather scared us into running for home instead of heading for Prairie du Chien. We went to church with the parents...



and then hit up the pancake breakfast at another church to support the youth group that I was a part of in my younger, wilder days. It's kind of cool that kids from all of the churches in Mineral Point are in one youth group. MP had it going on with unity- the high school has a few sports teams under the Dodge-Point (Dodgeville and Mineral Point) name, too. Historically huge rivals (we stole their courthouse's cannon in 18-odd-something), Dodgeville and Mineral Point got together to form larger sports teams with more resources.

Well, that concludes this post. The More You Know.

Friday, April 3, 2009

World's Strongest Woman

Married To The Sea
marriedtothesea.com

(Click HERE to see the whole dang thing.)

On the last stages of weight lifting and base miles in my training. I'm feeling pretty buff.