It's official

It’s been a while, I admit it.  I’d apologize but what good would it do?  I just haven’t been feeling any blogging mojo.  And it’s not like you can’t find narcissistic ramblings anywhere else on the interweb.  Quite frankly, I’m very surprised you’re still hanging around.  Haven’t you got anything else to do?  Well, I don’t feel any remorse for leaving you without your weekly dose of circular logic and nonsensical observations.   Besides, I’ve got a couple of lame, but nonetheless official, excuses…

It all started last autumn when USA Cycling announced it was going to dissolve the semi-pro category.  For 2009, all semi-pros would have the choice of moving up to pro or going back to the expert category (renamed Cat 1).   In other words, USAC told us to choose between being USAC-Sanctioned Sandbaggers or perpetually losing to guys that don’t have real jobs, get paid to ride, have team mechanics and don’t know the value of their equipment because they never buy it for themselves.  Easy choice, right?

For me it was less a decision to turn pro and more of a decision to not go back to Cat 1.  Remember how I worked extra hard last season to upgrade to semi-pro?   OK, it wasn’t that much work, but it did require a trip to Phoenix and lots of riding in circles.  This time around my upgrade came not from my own effort, discipline, hard work, sacrifice, training, sweat, etc.  This upgrade came my way via the action of a faceless bureaucracy. 

To make it official, this arrived in the mail earlier this spring:

The best part is that it says while I may be good enough to ride pro in the dirt, at least according to USA Cycling, I’m still a beginner (Cat 5) on a road bike.  Yeah, that seems about right, although others might argue with that statement. 

So with a bona fide professional license in hand and in need of a healthy dose of reality, I set out for San Diego in early April for race number 3 of the Kenda Cup West Series where I finished a respectable 19th in the Sage Brush Safari.  Respectable yes, but there were only 34 starters. This pro racing game, I realized, is going to take a bit more effort.  

So that’s what I set out to do—try harder.  Maybe I’d even learn to ride downhill.  But that’s when my academic life reared its ugly head, in the form of a macroeconomics class.  I’d been cruising along in an MBA program for over 3 years, and now, suddenly, I was expected to put forth a lot more effort.   It was like riding in the foothills all day then, when you think you’re almost done, the road turns up a canyon and you have 3,000 more feet to climb.   

Anyway, several thousand IS/LM curves later, I finished, and a couple of weeks ago I made it official:

So now I have two masters degrees but not enough work experience, a pro license but no winnings to speak of, and I still can’t ride downhill. 

I officially need to come up some new excuses. 

Sasquatch. Yeti. Red Beard. Cro-Magnon.

Sasquatch. Yeti. Red Beard. Cro-Magnon.  These were all names I was called at the
Desert Rampage in St. George two Saturdays ago. 
It seems I had forgotten to shave my face while shaving my legs in preparation for the first race of the 2009 season. 

I did finally get around to shaving, but I seem to have
missed a few spots. 

There’s not much more to say about my race.   I prepared the way I usually do,  (by going bowling on the Thursday before),
warmed up on the morning of the race, then relaxed until just before the start.  I raced well and finished 12th out
of 27 pros and quasi-pros like me.  I was
happy that I finished strong, my lap time on the fourth lap was only about a 90
seconds slower than my first lap time. 

There are, however, a few things that need to be said about
Mags’ race on the same day.  There were
18 sport women racing against her, and she beat every one of them.  She was nervous at the start, but she has recently renewed her commitment to
the hooptedoodle training plan: ride your bike to work.  She takes the commuter train to O-town every
day, then pedals her very heavy commuter bike from the train station three
miles up to the University where she works. 

So when she gets on her lightweight mountain bike with
hand-me-down, gently worn in, and race proven parts she climbs like gas prices climb
in the summertime.  I like to pretend
that I taught her how to climb, but unfortunately, that would also mean I’ve
taught her how to descend, and that’s like taking ethics lessons from an
Illinois politician. 

Oh, there’s one more thing she’s been doing that helped her climb to the top of the podium.  Remember how I tried to convince
people that you can in fact shop at Costco on your bicycle?   Well, apparently I have at least one
follower. 

Dog days of winter

People have accused me of being a dog hater.  It’s not true, but much of the time perception is stronger than reality .  Truthfully, I’m not a dog hater, but I’m not a dog lover either.  I will admit that I hate interacting with unleashed dogs that I don’t know, especially when I’m approaching them rapidly on my bike or skis.  I think I’m pretty justified in this hatred.  Ryan is too.  

To prove I’m not a dog hater, or maybe because my therapist says I’ve got to make peace with the canine species, I did something Saturday morning that I never thought I’d do. 

I went Skijoring.  

More specifically, I participated in a Skijoring race.  The race was put on by Racer and his wife, Maren.  They told me I could borrow a dog and all the equipment I’d need.  Maren also promised to give me a dog that knew what he was doing, to make up for my not having a clue. 

So Mags and I waxed up our skis and made the drive to Park City Saturday morning.  We quickly met Amy and her two Malamute puppies, Wilson and Brutus.  Here’s a picture of Mags with eight-month-old Wilson.  I think Wilson outweighs Mags.

Mags and I spent about an hour trying to get Wilson and Brutus to pull us around, and had the most success when Amy ran in front of them.  Maren said I could use a second dog during the race that should work well with Brutus. 

Meanwhile, Aaron and I got interviewed by a reporter from Park City TV.  I think he was a bit disappointed when we told him this was our first experience skijoring.  I also doubt that clip will ever make it over to YouTube. 

One minute before the race started I was introduced to Zilla, my second and supposedly well trained dog.  We hitched her up alongside Brutus and they immediately started to wrestle.  They were more interested in playing than in pulling me around the two mile course. 

After about five minutes of trying to cajole them into working, I finally gave up on Brutus and sent him back to Amy.  Zilla and I then took off up the hill.  Zilla was a good worker as long as she didn’t get distracted, which initially was every 30 seconds. 

Eventually Zilla got the message and we started passing people.  She pulled us all the way into fourth place—good enough to win me a pair of socks. 

After the race, Zilla and I went out for another lap, just the two of us.  You might say we bonded. 

Bicycle transit center open house

This short article inviting public comment on a proposed bicycle transit center was in the Salt Lake Tribune today:

I will be at the open house tomorrow night, not because I support the idea of a bicycle transit center, but because I want to find out just what a bicycle transit center is.  The article mentions a facility for rental and storage of bicycles at the downtown transit hub, but I’ve also heard talk of showers, a bike shop and an information center. 

Those all seem like reasonable ideas, but I can assure you this bicycle commuter is not going to reroute his commute just to pass through the transit center.  And who’s going to want to take a shower at what is essentially Salt Lake City’s Grand Central Station [which is just around the corner from the Salt Lake City Mission]?  I think the money would be better spent retrofitting TRAX cars to accommodate bikes, putting more bike racks on buses and making more room for bikes on FrontRunner.   

I really want to know what kind of commuter the proposed transit center would serve. 

A first time for everything

I've been called lots of things, from Hippie to Elitist, and almost everything in between, but nobody has ever accused me of being a roadie...

 

Maria's final entry

I'm almost ready to show you the final post in Maria's diary, in her own handwriting, but first I want to propose a hypothetical question. 

Suppose, hypothetically, you knew a way to contact one of the people we've been reading about in Maria's diary.  Let's just say it's her boyfriend, Jorge.  Further, let's suppose you happen to know where he works, and that perhaps you have a phone number for his place of employment, and that you know he still works there. 

Now for the hypothetical question:  If this purely hypothetical situation were actually true, would you try to call Jorge and see what happened between him and Maria? 

And if you would try to call him, assuming you could actually find a phone number for him, which I never actually said I had--this is a hypothetical scenario, remember--what would you say to him? 

Would it go something like this?

Jorge:  Hello.

Hypothetical Me:  Hi, I'm a nosey voyeur and I found your girlfriend's diary. 

Jorge:  Huh?  What the...

Hypothetical Me:  I'm calling because I want to know the rest of the story.  What happened between you and her?  I assume you never proposed to her on the beach in Hawaii.  And what about... 

Jorge:  You bastard.  I'm coming to get you. 

Hypothetical Me:  [click]

That doesn't seem like it would go very well.  So what would you say?   Please send me a comment with your better idea.  The best idea wins a Pepsi t-shirt that I can't seem to get rid of in any other way. 

OK, now for Maria's final entry (you may need to click on the photo to read it clearly):

 

Hiatus over (maybe)

There is a two month break between entries in Maria’s diary.  Even longer than the break between this and my last post.  While we may never know what was going on between Maria and Jorge in that time, I will tell you that I have been putting in a lot of hours on my skinny skis, with trips to Pinedale, Wyoming (all the civilization you need) and Cedar Breaks, Utah (skate skiing at 10,000 feet is really hard) in addition to skating all the local trails.  Oh, and there was a bit of extreme tubing too:

As I said, we don’t know what Maria and Jorge were doing during Maria’s two month hiatus from journal writing, but it is safe to assume that the tension between them that Maria wrote about was thickening.  It’s also interesting that there are 28 blank pages between these entries.  Was Maria planning to go back and fill in those pages with what really happened?  Or was it too emotional/powerful/beautiful/ugly/heartbreaking/nauseating to be written down?  Oh, how I wish I could ask Maria a few questions.  

In this entry we finally get a hint about Maria’s age.  She mentions that she had a bartending job in the past, so she must be over 21.  She picks up right were she left off—responding to the tension in Jorge.  

December 12

I realize finally that my getting upset with Jorge for not coming immediately home after checkout is not his fault.  He is doing nothing wrong, he has every right after a hard night of work to sit down, relax, socialize with friends and have a couple drinks if he wants to, just because I didn’t used to socialize and drink after my last bar tending job doesn’t mean he can’t.  I think what was really upsetting me about this whole this (sic) was that when we first started dating, he would come over around 11pm and tell me that before he met me he would always hang out after work and drink with his friends/co-workers but since he met me all he wants to do is come right over after his checkout to be with me.  So when he started staying later and later at the bar after work I started feeling like he didn’t feel the same for me anymore and I felt like he was having a better time there than with me.  

Can you blame him?

Probably because of all the times I felt that way, he sensed that I was unhappy with the situation and it made him not want to come home and deal with me. 

Umm, no kidding!?!  Next is one of my all-time favorite run-on sentences.  I wouldn’t want to deal with Maria either if she speaks in the same manner that she writes:  

I just wish he could understand that I look forward to spending time with him when he gets home and when he comes home really late I get tired and what he doesn’t realize is that sometimes I have been up since really early in the morning and have to get up early again so I need to go to bed and it sucks because I start getting upset because he doesn’t think about that, because he has no concept of time. 

To make this work with these different jobs and different schedules, we both need to respect and be considerate of the other person’s needs and wants.  Communication without attitude, without being defensive, just really listening and understanding and compromising.

Coming soon! (I promise) The exciting conclusion of Maria's saga.  It's a real cliffhanger.  Just let me warn you that it will leave you asking more questions than it answers.