We're off

Tomorrow we're taking the family to Kodiak to spend 5 days at sea aboard my father-in-law's monster size boat. Can't wait. Michelle's younger sister Sam is coming as well as her other younger sister Jennifer with her husband Brian... We'll eat, drink, and be merry. Games will be played, fish will be caught, and I have a sneaking suspicion that there will be gratuitous amounts of laughter. See you when we get back. Have a great holiday. bosskat.

Weekender

This past weekend we had a great time. One of our friends put together a bicycle scavenger hunt in dowtown Anchorage. We went in teams and my wife was my partner. We met at the west end of the Park Strip and each of the five teams were given an envelope which contained a list of about 70 items/things. The rules were few: we had 2 hours to find as many of the things on the list as possible and were to document the finding of the items with a digital picture with one of the team members in the shot. Items included the old Anchorage Times building, the Oscar Anderson House, Captain Cook, a cat on a leash, Irish Coffee, a red door, Fire Engine 1, and a block of cheese among many others. We shot 42 items before the "camera" we were using (our kids cell phone) ran out of memory.

The most interesting thing on the list for us was a picture of one of the team members inside the F.B.I. building. We arrived and I couldn't see through the tinted glass and I thought I heard the door buzz like someone was buzzing me in. I opened the door with list in hand and stepped inside. The agent standing in front of half a dozen monitors looked at me like I was Osama and when I asked if I could get my picture inside for a scavenger hunt he angrily said, "No!" and took a step toward me as I spun on my heels and jumped on my bike and shouted, "Thanks... now we're gonna lose!". Michelle tried to get the shot off but she was a bit shaken and all that came out was a picture of her pedal.

The event culminated with a "slow" race. The object was to see who could go the slowest over a distance of about 50 yards. You had to keep forward momentum and were not allowed to put your foot down and could not zig-zag. I ended up winning (hooray for me) and after having a few PBR's to celebrate to completion of the scavenger hunt I was a bit pickled and hooted with glee that I had won. I popped a wheelie - promptly flipping my bicycle and landing on my back with my feet still clipped into the pedals and my bike in the air. A patented rookie move that I wish was caught on video tape. I could have added to my 15 minutes of fame and entered it in America's Funniest Home Videos... maybe even won some money. Anyhow, a good laugh was had by all at my expense and it was the proverbial icing on the cake that was another fun day on the bike.

You and your friends should do one in your town.

Windfall

Had the pleasure of seeing Son Volt http://www.sonvolt.net last night with the gentleman that introduced me the music in the summer of '97, I believe it was. The show was in the Discovery Theater at the Performing Arts Center here in Los Anchorage and it was a nice little venue to see such an organic, shredding rock band. They opened with about 5 songs I had never heard before and the fact that the sound man hadn't dialed the front of house sound yet made the vocals a bit muddy and overpowered slightly by the guitar.

As the show went on, the sound got better and they began to play some of their earlier songs that I'm more familiar with and they really started grooving. Their bass player played a traditional finger style and was whaling on his pearl Fender Jazz bass. The sound became more rich and when they would change gears and play a slower acoustic-ish tune, Jay's rich, soulful vocals really stood out. I need to get their new album because the songs they played from it were great.

I enjoyed the show and was thankful that they came all the way up here to treat us to some live music. Alaska surely isn't known for an amazing music scene. During the show I noticed, from our lofty perch in the balcony, that in the third row there was one of those Girdwood-hippy-scooter chick dancers totally ruining the show for the folks in the rows directly behind her. It would have been incredibly difficult for me to not ask her to kindly stop her earth-mama beaver hippy scooter dance if I was sitting behind her. Fortunately, I picked seats that fully complimented The Guru and my persona's: front row aisle of the balcony... low profile with an easy exit.

Kudos to Son Volt for making our Thursday night.

"May the wind take your troubles away,

May the wind take your troubles away -

Both feet on the floor, two hands on the wheel,

May the wind take your troubles away"

To Ponder...

Here I sit in the dining area of the Copper Center Lodge (thanks for rural wireless) enjoying a bowl of beef barley soup and half a chef salad. Today I rented a 2006 Chevy Silverado with my company credit card and headed north to bring the long awaited pool table slate to the Native Village of Kluti-Kaah and to interview some potential employees. As I left Anchorage, it was raining incredibly hard and although I was driving a big, heavy truck, I could feel the powerful wind gusts pushing against the vehicle. During the four hour drive I was once again marveling at the amazing vistas as I climbed above the Matanuska River and somewhere around the third hour I spotted something dark in the bushes along the side of the left side of the road and as I looked in my rearview mirror, a black bear ran across the road. It was a nice surprise and it yanked me out of my introspective daydream.

My thoughts as of late have been jumbled up more than the Beastie Boys remix of Intergalactic. The primary reason is not the fact that my hair is heading south faster than October geese that will never return... It has three letters, starts with a "J", ends with a "B" and has a vowel shaped like a circle in the middle. Anyhow, I had a great summer and with the support of my family I kept myself busy (distracted) riding and racing my bicycle, though the times in between have been a challenge for me. My family is as good as it gets but too many times lately I have a furrowed brow, act like a jackass-jerk and take them for granted - which is the highest crime because they are my life and will always be there for me. I've been having trouble keeping my apparent inability to effectively deal with my personal issues away from how I treat the ones I love. This has to change. I have to change.

This brief time away from my daily routine affords me some perspective and in this public (global) forum, I will say to myself and whoever is reading that I will make an honest effort to learn from mistakes I have made and grow stronger as a husband, father, sibling, and friend. I feel fortunate that I have been the one to call myself on my own bullshit (this time) but I know that the loved ones in my life won't hesitate to provide the proverbial looking glass for me to see the man in the mirror and keep me from steppin' out of line. Now you're in: You catch me assin' out and I'm counting on you to set me straight because sometimes I really need help getting back in line.

TOA

I completed my first Tour of Anchorage on Sunday and it was a fantastic experience. Last Thursday was the first stage up Potter Valley road - it was really windy and after a mediocre performance, I was sitting in 32nd place. Friday evening was the Fort Rich road race and I stayed near the front for the majority of the race and ended up somewhere toward the back of the top 10. Saturday morning was another crit around the last block of the Park Strip. It was a cold, wet August morning but the race kept a fairly high speed throughout. The only really slippery part you had to watch out for was turn 3 with big "turn only" arrows painted on the street. I was able to stay up at the front for that finish as well and was somewhere between 5th and 7th... the Arctic Bicycle Club doesn't have a sweet OLN instant replay of the finish.

Saturday night brought me the most satisfaction. The Moose Run time trial is a race ABC holds roughly each month during the summer up here and it's a 10 mile (5 out and back) course with a few hundred feet of climbing on the way back. In mid June I alerted my vast readership (grin) of a PR that I had set at Moose Run of 25:02. Tony was a great motivator during this tt as he started 30 seconds behind me and caught and passed me within about 8 minutes. But that was really of no consequence to me because I was really focused on racing my own race and in so doing, I was able to knock over a minute off of my previous best and roll in at 23:57.

I did my best to carry that personal excitement over to the final stage which was the Kincaid Loop road race. Each lap was 3.7 miles with a moderate 3/4 mile climb. We were set to do 16 laps (which in the end equaled 3500 feet of climbing over 60 miles) and I was a bit nervous because the last time I raced this course, I stopped racing and limped home after the 8th lap. Thankfully, this day was different for me. I was there at the front for the finish and was narrowly beat by Tony B. and Tony T. to come in 7th at the line.

Overall, I finished in 14th of the 26 that completed all 5 stages and had a great time - it felt good to be back in the mix. Now there's a 6 race cyclocross series coming up and I'm looking forward to some epic autumn mountain bike rides on the Kenai Peninsula. Thanks for reading (Bobby) and perhaps the next post won't be about cycling (right).