Wasatch Crack Relay: Post 9 of Many

Himene

This is a love story.

As mentioned earlier, my little buddy Hillene likes to run Hills. She's very good at hills. However, running hills is not her first love. Hillene's first love (as far as recreation is concerned) is riding a bike up those hills.

She's very good at hills.

So good at biking hills is she, that our special climber won a little race called the Leadville 100 (in Leadville, Colorado.) By little, I mean it's only 100 miles. Off road. With an elevation gain of 14,000 feet. They call this undertaking The Race Across The Sky. Last year, one Lance Armstrong (maybe you've heard of him) raced the Leadville 100. Took second. Being as Hillene is so very awesome, Lance tracked her down to have a photo with her.

In order for Hillene to race this event each year, she must have a training partner, preferably one who can keep up with her. She must also have a technician, preferably one who knows how she rides and one who knows her bike intimately. Lucky for Hillene, she lives and has children with her training partner and technician.

We call Hillene's eternal training partner and technician, Himene.

Hillene and Himene are two of my very favorite people in the whole wide world. They give. They share. They laugh. They respect. They love.

Two weeks before the Wasatch Crack, Himene and Hillene were riding in the mountains when Himene went over his handlebars and landed on his face. He broke is nose is several places and rearranged his delicate septum. Surgery would be necessary.

A week after the crash, Himene had the septum realigned and was healing nicely.

Two weeks after the crash, Hillene would embark on the Wasatch Crack Relay. At roughly 11:00pm, on the first day of the race, Hillene's phone rang its special ring. You know the ring I'm talking 'bout... that ring you have just especially for your Spouse? Yeah that ring.

Hillene answered that special ring to hear that Himene was right around the corner! He had two bicycles in the van and planned to ride all through the night with us!

And so Himene road one of his bikes along side one of us runners all through the night. Lighting the way with his spotlight, keeping the bears away, fighting off predators, telling us jokes, .... all with a broken nose.

All of us Crackers, even the dudes, agree that we'd grab Himene for our extra spouse - if'n polygamy were to make its way back.

They do share, you know.

Wasatch Crack Relay: Post 8 of Many

Saying "Hey" to Tom Lindsey

It's Great To Be 8!

4th of July Sacrilege

The 4th of July is a great holiday. It's a time for reflection. A time to remember freedom and all who fought for it. It's also a time to commemorate those who currently defend our freedom.

Each year we explain to the Yahoos, in burgeoning language, how the Revolution was about freeing our founding fathers and their posterity from the tyranny of Taxation Without Representation. (We also explain how we're on our way back there... 'cause we're sugary-sweet-stab-'em-with-reality kind of parents.)

The best part of the 4th of July is not the crowded parade, the fun-run or the fireworks. It's not even the barbeques and watermelon. The best, most entertaining, most thrilling, most fulfilling element of The Fourth is the Tour de France.

We celebrate The Fourth by watching the Tour de France. I know. know. It's Sacrilege. Blasphemy. Heresy. Impiety.

Irregardless of my unpatriotic behavior, this year's Tour has many surprises. That clever and conniving Johan Bruyneel has stacked Team Astana with Alberto Contador, Levi Leipheimer, Andreas Kloden, Yaroslav Popovych and that poster child for narcissism, Lance Armstrong. The GC (General Classification) contender for team Astana is still undecided. It's a toss-up between Contador and Armstrong. Both are strong and worthy of that Yellow Jersey in Paris. But again, that cunning Bruyneel won't say who is the team captain. It could also be Leipheimer (who took 3rd in 2007) or Kloden (24th place in 2007) or even Popovych (White Jersey in 2005)!

That team is stacked. Someone from that team will win.

Will Bruyneel let Armstrong and Contador battle it out within the team? Is it another one of his secret weapons... to not tell the press his intentions for the overall winner?

It's a good thing that team isn't full of women. Can you image the drama? The cat fights? I wanna be the GC contender! NO! She's too old and 'sides, she's already won, like, 7 times... IT'S MY TURN TO WIN THE TOUR DE FRANCE THIS YEAR!

Yeah. That kind of Drama.

Another great part of the Tour? The dresses for le Models de Podium. Fantastic! Check out the Polka Dot Jersey dresses for this year:

This isn't the last you'll hear of the Tour. Thanks to that lovely bike race across France, the month of July is the most wonderful time of the year! HOWEVER, as reported previously, the end of le Tour brings with it the doom of P.T.D.F.D. or Post Tour de France Depression.

I will need hugs, kisses and well wishes on July the 27th. You could also take me to lunch or send me music through iTunes.

Mangina

Just now at dinner, the following conversation ensued:

Spouse: WHAT did you just say, son? Did you just say "Mangina"?!

Yahoo #1: No. I said "MADE in China!"

I'd say somebody has Gina Envy, eh?


P.S. Don't google Mangina.

Blinded by the Light

To shake things up a bit, I'm going to ditch that whole Wasatch Crack Relay update for a few days. I'd hate to lose my non-running readership. What shall I talk about today, to keep that non-running readership? Blinds. That's right. Today's hot topic is Blinds (the window coverings, not the makeshift tents for hunting.)

The Bird wrote about blinds today. Specifically, it was a "what do your blinds say about you" kind of post. This post sparked some cerebral movement. Serious. The brain actually started to waltz. Why? Because I love, love, LOVE making rash judgements about myself over insubstantial objects or experiences.

Yes. If I walk into your house, I'm not going to look at the mannerings of your children and make any judgements. I will, however, determine the amount of child abuse you endured with a simple Freudian-style analysis of your coaster selection. What's on your coasters? Pigs, dressed as chefs, complete with puffy-hat toppers? Oh dear! Your mama locked you in a closet and fed you nothing but raw wheat for days. Either that or you don't eat pig. So you're Jewish? That's cool. Love Passover.

See. Judging over nothing. It's a fun game. Good for the imagination.

Now back to the Blinds. Today I will reach inward, beyond the depths of my chi, to psychoanalyze my Blind Habitation. In essence, I am going to tell you what my Blinds say about me.

My Blinds, and the habits therein, reveal, disclose, manifest and typecast me a Sloppy Conservative.

Why sloppy? That's the simple part. I feel cleaning them is an inefficient and/or negative net worthy use of my time. Net Worth = Time - Benefit. If the Net Worth is a negative number, I don't do it. These days, the Yahoos undo everything I do faster than I do it. Spend three hours cleaning the blinds so as the Yahoos can goober 'em up within 20 minutes? Ain't gonna happen. Economists refer to this as Opportunity Cost.

The Conservative part of my Sloppy Conservative persona is a little more complicated and has many entangled and qirky layers. It all began with my Ma doing what she called "Working The Windows". Sounds dirty doesn't? Like selling your services in a window of the red-light district on 45th Street? Sorry, not this time. Ma wasn't into that.

Before air coniditioning was installed at my childhood house, Working The Windows was the term Ma used for keeping the house cool. It was quite the process. In the morning, the east facing windows were closed and blinded while the west facing windows were opened (this means blinds, windows - the whole shebang.) When the sun was directly above, all windows and blinds were opened. When the sun started to veer west, the west windows and blinds were closed while the east windows and blinds were ventilated. Took all damn day. (Mostly because it took all damn day for the sun to run it's course.)

Now, 25 years later, wouldn't you know, that with my new-fangled air-conditioning system, I still Work the Windows. Not only is it vulgar and wasteful to open an east-facing window in the morning hours, it's like burning twenty dollar bills. Like throwing away a rib-eye. Like tossing a pair of shoes after a measly hundred miles.

I have turned this whole Working the Windows thing into a self-made mini-contest. I like to see how long we can go each day before the ol' AC Machine kicks in. (Due to a gadget called The Thermostat, it comes on automatically when the house is hotter than 77. Magic, eh?)

Another conservative blind revealing layer of my window treatment neurosis? I'm paranoid. We walk around in our underwear and we eat live goats and I beat my children and the Klopeks live in the basement. You do not get to watch the happenings beneath the roof of my suburban shanty. Therefore, I keep the front windows closed unless there's something out front worth spying on. The back (east-facing) windows are opened only because we have a fence... and large trees... and a mote.

Sloppy Conservative. That's what I are.

Wasatch Crack Relay: Post 7 of Many

Crack-o-Dawn Exchange

The Crack-o-Dawners Exchange the Bracelet at the Crack-o-Dawn.

Oh how we love symbolism. (Although if it truly is the Crack-o-Dawn, then it isn't a symbol right....? Oh well... I tried.)