Categories
Family

Better than any MP3

Yesterday I worked from home so that I could get some things done around that house that needed to be done before I left for the trip (in two days!!!). Well, without my bike ride to work, I felt like I was cheating my training time, so after work I decided I would go on the bike for a little while. Stephanie had been working with Zander all day with the extra task of keeping him quite while I was on the phone for work so to give her a break, I took Zander with me.

Zander was very excited to go on a bike ride with daddy. We went outside and he waited patiently while I put the bike stroller on my bike. He climbed in, carrying his Thomas book and we headed out. At first he asked the common questions you expect from a three year old –

“Are you on your bike, daddy?” — Yes son
“What are you doing?” — Riding my bike, Zander
“Where is mommy?” — At the house, son

After that wore off, he settled in and started ‘reading’ his book. My legs were finally starting to warm up and get used to the extra weight of the stroller and Zander in tow. That’s when he started singing. Zander likes to sing when he is happy and he makes up the songs as he goes along. Often times the song will mimic whatever is going on at the time – “The red light, daddy has to stop, we are driving”. But yesterday he was singing something like this:

Bible, Jesus, I eat my bananas and strawberries, we went on a boat

He went on for a couple of miles. He was finally distracted by the kids playing at the park we past by. Those few miles were the highlight of the ten mile trip. My son singing happily last night sounded better than any MP3 I’ve ever heard.

Categories
Events myThoughts

Dirty Dancing: 20 years

When Johnny Castle said “Nobody puts Baby in a corner” and those girls started screaming, I couldn’t help but laugh.

Stephanie and I were still only dating she told me she had always dreamed of honeymooning at the hotel in the movie Dirty Dancing. That’s exactly where we went: Mountain Lake Resort. I learned a lot about the movie while we were there.

So, when my wife heard they were playing Dirty Dancing on the big screen to celebrate the 20 year anniversary, I knew there was no chance I was going to get out of taking her.

When we got to the theater, the first thing I noticed was the audience was 95% female. The second thing I noticed was that amount of those women that were extremely overweight. I’m not sure what that was about, but I would say about 30% of the women in the crowd were over 100 lbs overweight. I don’t mean to make a BIG deal about it — pun intended — just something I noticed.

Large female crowds aside, I actually had a great time. The movie wasn’t bad – of course I’ve seen it many times; Stephanie quoted the lines with most of the movie. I also learned that there is a live production version of the movie that is playing around the world – if its anywhere near here, I imagine I’ll be taking Stephanie to see that too. The cool part for me was the audience interaction. All those women clapping, laughing, whoa’ing when they saw Patrick Swayze’s naked backside. It was an experience.

Categories
D-Tour 2007: Glendale, AZ to Del Rio, TX

What is going on here?

I rode for 26 miles on Friday and then for 30 on Saturday. I intended to ride on Sunday but with church and family functions I never got out there. Monday I wasn’t feeling well and I was actually going to call off work, but I had just too much to get done before my vacation starting this weekend, so I worked from home: translation – no bike ride. Yesterday I had to go to another building several miles from my normal work place, so riding the bike was out of the question. So, although I had intended to ride my bike for four days this week with at least 20 miles a day – I haven’t been on the bike yet. So today was going to be different. I went to bed early last night, I got up on time to ride the entire way to work without having to catch the bus, I got dressed and headed to the garage to get on the bike… WAIT FOR IT…. That’s right – I have a flat tire. Arrgghhhh!!!!

If I’m going to ride 1000 miles in less than six weeks, I need all the training I can get!