Have you seen my keys: Update

Well, about two hours after my last post I got a call from the gym. Some guy brought a set of keys up to the front desk from the "VIP" locker room. He said the keys had been back there for a couple of days and he figured someone would be missing them. So it wasn't a woman and they weren't in a purse. I don't understand how they got in the locker room though. Usually people take the keys off the front desk area when they're leaving. The locker room is back in the gym area. It must have been an old confused man who didn't know if he was coming or going or if he had got his exercise yet or not. I'm just glad to have them back.
Work started yesterday. I was in bed by 8:30 and lights out by 9:00. This will take a little getting used to.
Jason says I need to get a bike. I'm working on it. I may need a donated chamois.

Have you seen my keys?

This post needs no picture. Two days ago I was at the gym. When you walk in there's a place where many people leave their keys. They are just placed in one of two bowls or left just under the bowls on the counter if the bowls are too full. So I leave my keys there along with most everyone else. I don't think I'll be doing that anymore unless I attach a rattlesnake (live) to my key ring. I always check to make sure I get MY keys when I leave. You wouldn't believe how many people there have a Honda. All the key fobs look alike and they all have these giant over sized keys. So you have to be careful. I've actually picked up someone's keys before but since I actually look at the keys carefully before I walk away I correct and get my own. Wouldn't it be great if everyone else did that? I'd sure appreciate it since it's now been two days since I had my keys which include my work keys. Did I mention I go back to work full-time on Monday? Unfortunately, the person who picked up my keys by accident doesn't believe in getting exercise everyday and they have not returned to the gym. What's strange to me and I'm sure you've already thought of this too is that this person with my keys is without theirs. It seems to me they'd get a clue when they can use my keys on their stuff. I also asked the gym staff if any keys had been left. No. So my idea is this: Someone rode to the gym with someone else on their way out they instinctively went to get their keys, picked up mine looking like theirs, got a ride home, left my keys in their bag or whatever, and found theirs at a later point laying on the kitchen counter, and just assumed that's where they put mine when they got home. So my keys are probably resting in purse (yes, I have a feeling a woman did this) somewhere here in town. I can only hope she put my keys in her favorite purse and it gets used in the next couple of hours. I have asked the gym staff to let me know who the person is when my keys come back because I'd really like to talk to the person who need to pay a little more attention to detail. The only positive to this is the lucky fact that just one week before this fiasco started I placed my only remaining spare in one of those magnetic boxes that you attach to the underside of your car. Without that I wouldn't have even been able to get home from the gym without running there or getting a ride- which by the way I had to do the week previous to that when my car key jumped out of my pocket on one of my runs. Yes, keys have been an issue lately.

Dis and Dat

I have to get over this thing where I feel the need to post pictures when I want to blog. There's been lots to blog about: Cross-Country, floating, running, shooting, organizing, etc... But here are more pictures. The above is where we camped on the most recent float trip down on the Current River. As far as I've found, the Current River is the best river to float on if you want good scenery and cold, spring fed water. You'll have to leave your beer bong and jello shots at home for this river though because they are trying to improve the level of enjoyment for everyone on the river. This ain't the party cove after all. Moving on...

This is part of the land I'm getting to develop into a cross-country course behind the high school. Uh... it needs some work. It's been brush-hogged, but it needs to have a path mowed into it, smoothed some, and treated for various blood suckers. We started practice on the 6th and used the land but had to quit using it because the ticks were so bad. So over the next couple of years it should turn into something better. Here's a couple more shots of some of the land. The big loop is 1.7 miles around.

This is actually a good hill with my Element at the bottom. It might even make a good cyclo-cross course someday. It'd be cool if Josh could set up a race there sometime in the future. But like I said, it needs work. That's alright though because the runners do too. One kid got dizzy at practice. After a little questioning I found out she hadn't eaten breakfast or dinner the night before because she was too busy. They'll get there though. I took them to a running clinic and for a visit to Dr. Pam of sports nutrition this week. I think they're getting the picture. Much thanks to Pam and Amy for their time. If you have a catchy phrase to put on the T-shirts for cross-country we're going to get done up for the kids, let me know. I was thinking something like "I'm faster than your mama on her way to bingo night at the VFW". Just let me know if you have any ideas.

What the heck kind of bug is this? They were on one of our trees outside this afternoon. Kind of dangerous looking.

Ziggy (below) and Olivia say hi. They're not so much on this heat. The past couple of weeks have been hard times on outside life. We started CX practice just in time for some good triple digits. Luckily, we've been starting practice at 7:00am when it's only about 85 degrees outside. I think we got Dallas, beat on the heat. I'm getting tired of taking three showers a day.

Here's one kind of flower we have that doesn't seem to mind the heat.

Otherwise things are just cruising along. School starts next week. We'll probably get out early some the first week since some of the buildings don't have AC- although they should in the next couple of years.

I've been shooting my bow a lot since bow season starts in a month. I have big plans for the deer this year- I've been shopping for a deep freeze. I can put 3 of 4 arrows in a three inch circle at 30 yards at this point. That should be deadly enough.

I'm ready to have a bike again. Not sure what I'll do about that, but it's been good to be away from it for a while. I'm predicting to do well at the GatewayCup this year since I'll be riding a Vespa. Should be an easy win everyday.

Intentions #2

The last post you can see on my blog without going back to the older posts page is "Intentions" and at that point I'm about to start summer break. Well, now I'm about to end summer break. It's been a good one. I don't actually start teaching again until the 22nd, but I start Cross-Country practice on the 6th- so that's kind of what I consider going back to work since I'll be there everyday for a couple of hours. I'm excited to get that going.

Another interesting thing this year will be just working in my building where we're going to have about 7 or 8 new teachers because so many left last year for various reasons. I'm going to tell them all I'm their boss and they must do as I say- you know like, "Bring me some coffee!" "Why aren't these papers graded?" "Who forgot to make my copies?" "You there, go get my lunch." "This child isn't behaving, he/she will be in your class from now on." Ah yes, it will be a good year.

Here's a random image for your viewing pleasure.

Chad Vader

Watch Chad I'd be surprised if you haven't heard of or seen this eight episode series. I started watching it this winter and I love it. It's really well done for a spoof video. The link is to the first episode.

Hey All

I haven't had much time to post because I've been doing so much dang dong runnin'! I got 32 miles in this past week. Two of the runs were 5:30am group runs with between 75 to 120 people showing up. Pretty cool to run in such a big group.

I've been watching way too many little snips of "The Ballad of Ricky Bobby". I keep catching it and if it's at a "good" part- I watch. Then I turn if off and go quote it with a heavy accent to my wife who now says she doesn't need to see it because I quoted the whole thing. Well, she doesn't need to see it anyway 'cause it's kind of dumb- but somehow it still kind of makes me chuckle. Speaking of chuckle... look at this...

Isn't that just terrible? Baby Sloth. But you laughed didn't you?

Haven't sold the Element yet. Don't really care one way or the other. We'll see what happens.

I have about three weeks of summer break left and then it's the beginning of Cross-Country practice. I hope the kids are ready to run. If not I'll just have to chase them. Maybe put on a scary mask or something. "Run I said! Run!" I tell you what, I bet they'd run if they saw little Baby Sloth come ridin' his little Superman scooter down the trail. I'd be right there with 'em.

Man in the Box

This is a great "car"!

I have a '05 Honda Element EX AWD. I've had it for almost two years now and I have to say it's the most versitile vehicle I've ever owned. I've slept in it on hunting trips, hauled firewood in it (almost half a cord), carried concrete in it, all the supplies for my back patio project from last summer, lawnmowers, tillers, bikes, camping equipement and campers- everything. It has no carpet so it just wipes down and hoses off. It gets around great in the snow, gets good gas mileage (about 25 on the highway), and it's comfortable. So that's the '05. Right now I'm in the process of trying to get a new '07. It has some nice upgrades from the '05 and I can basically flip cars at little or no extra expense- so why not? I drive about 250 miles per week to work and back so it makes sense to have something that's fun to drive and super functional. Nice stereo too. If and when I get the '07, I'll have to post about it and it's upgrades. Until then you've got to check this out. The one's with the crab are the funniest to me.

Just remembered

So when we were down in Mexico, I played some beach volleyball. This is post edge of death sickness- so I wasn't hittin' on all eight to say the least. I pretty much felt like half or a little less. Nonetheless, I tried. Well, there was this couple there from Texas, more than likely Dallas- westend folk. The guy seemed nice enough- kind of quiet and reserved but having a good time. His wife on the other hand was...hmmm....something else shall we say. She thought and dressed like she was every straight man's fantasy. It was just a little over "over the top". She was yelling at the other guys on her team when they'd miss a bump or spike or whatever and acting like she was ready to knock the ball down my throat. But what really stuck with me and still makes me kind of chuckle to think about today is what she kept yelling at her husband. You need to hear this in your head with a heavy Texan accent and think of an older, not really in shape, scantly clad, leather skinned, half buzzed, half naturally obnoxious "lady". She must have yelled to her quiet, reserved husband at least a dozen times, "SPIKE IT TONY!!!!" Yeah well, Tony was about 5'6" and there weren't gonna be no spikin' on this net ya'll. It was about two feet above regulation and he didn't even have the wind in his favor. But... she kept yellin', "SPIKE IT TONY!!!" I'll leave you with another gem she said when he missed a shot. "Well, guess what you're not getting tonight?"

Here's a photo just because:

This is a resort delivery truck. One more drink and I would have taken off on it and let them chase me.

Rainy Day Post

It was getting kind of brown and dry around here, so I washed my car yesterday. You're welcome Columbia. No joke- the last time it rained here was the last time I washed my car by hand- pretty ironic.
It's been a month since my last post and it's probably be longer before I posted again but after looking at K.A.'s blog a moment ago I thought I better play a little catch-up. So let's see what's happened in the past month: Went to Mexico- good time except for getting very ill and not leaving our room for about 36 hours. I never really quite recovered the rest of the time we were there. I'd feel better- then worse, better- then worse. I think Leslie and I agree that Jamaica was better. Jamaica is just socially warmer.
I've been running a lot. I did part of the MU cross-country camp this week. I only did one of the runs, but it was a really good one out at Rockbridge State Park. We ran about seven miles and I was able to keep up with the halflings (kids half my age). Other than that it was going to talks on running mechanics and whatnot.
This Sunday I'm going on a camping/float trip with longtime friends, Morgan and Mac. We haven't done anything like this together in about 10 years or more. We're heading down to the Jack's Fork river which is spring fed and in big time Deliverance country. I'm sure we'll quote the movie more than once. You know, "Who's playin' that banjo?" "You got a real pretty mouth on ya. Yer gonna do some prayin' for me." "Take them panties off. Take 'em straight off!" Oh what fun we'll have. Kermit will be glad to know the squirrels will be safe. (inside joke)
I almost went out and bought a bike a couple of days ago. I just felt like riding. So I went out for a long run and got over it. Actually, I would like to get a bike just so I could ride if I wanted to. The problem is that I'd have to get a nice one after always having had nice bikes. That's a big investment I'm not sure I want to make today. We'll see what happens.
Let me see if there are any pictures I want to share... no. See you next time.

A new kitchen and new friends

The past 10 days have been way busy. I finally finished the school year and on the last day,which was filled with meetings in the morning and playing poker in the afternoon, I was counted as a "no show" to a meeting while attending another. I don't even know why I'm mentioning it except that it pissed me off to be doing what I should be and having my "boss" think I'm blowing off work. Vel anyvay...

So the new kitchen... here's before sort of. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures before the demo started- but you'll get the idea.

Okay, so let's just add a little...

Bam!

Bam!

Bam!

Bam!Bam!

New quartz countertop, swanstone sink, faucet, under cabinet lighting, "over the sink" light, and a Colorado slate backsplash. Lots of work, work, work- but it was worth it. Leslie designed the backsplash layout and it is very cool with pewter accents. I ran the tile saw, Leslie's mom and step-dad helped out in a huge way doing a little bit of everything.

Like the title said, I made some new friends lately too:

I met this "guy" in my backyard. His name is Butthead. He's about four feet long and hard on mice and small rabbits.

Finally, I met these guys at Leslie's graduation party. Their names are Dino and Swen and they are members of a Swedish rock group called Onyourputer. Very friendly and obviously "artistic". They told me the names of some of their songs and their latest release includes the singles, "Dude", "Play my glockenspheil", "Oh no, it's baby poop", "Can I fix your sink?", "Seven bikes and nowhere to ride" and my favorite "Quit touching me there!"

Another One Bites the Dust

See ya! Jerk!

Intentions

Can we say "single digit days?" Oh yes- nine- count 'em. My plan for my first Monday off from school is simple: I will sit in my driveway, in a comfortable chair, drinking coffee and waving to people driving to work. I suppose I will wave to my wife as well since she will still be working at that point. I'll get her to take a picture before she leaves and post it the same morning. I may as well- it's not like I'll have to go to work.

16.5

After today, which will be over in about 3.25 hours, I will have 16.5 days of school left before I get about three months off. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! At a point, time is worth much more than money.

Things have been really busy. I've been doing lots of yard work and it's paying off. My back yard is starting to look like a golf course. This time last year it kind of looked like a construction site. I'm most proud of my front yard where we have a really nice perenial flower bed that I've been working on since last year when it was pretty much a giant wad of lariope grass. I really need to post some before and after pics of that.

I've been turkey huntingand mushroom hunting.

Zero luck on either, but it's good to get outside in the woods in spring. There's a lot going on out there and it's a shame if you don't take a morning to check it out. I missed out on seeing any of that stuff for all the years I raced bikes. That was fun, but it's a nice change to get up, head out to the woods and watch everything going crazy coming to life. One interesting thing that I found last weekend when I was hunting was the fact that turtles can apparently see pretty well. I was walking kind of underneath this ledge of rock and moss. I got about 10 feet away from it and I could hear something making it's way through the undergrowth. I stopped and waited to see what it would be. Here comes this turtle doing his thing.

He stops and just stands there looking right at me. I wasn't even moving. Then he turned about and started heading away. He stops again and basically looks over his shoulder at me. He kept taking a few steps and looking back. It was weird.

I also thought of Butthead this weekend. I was looking for mushrooms in the woods and a 4.5 foot black snake kind of popped out and surprised me.

I taunted him with a stick for a minute until he looked fully pissed and started rearing up. Speaking of Butthead, I think I saw a photo of him at a race recently. Must be off the diet.

Mid-west culture on the skids

Don't 'cha wish your grandma was hot like me? Don't 'cha wish your grandma could drink the malt liquor like me? Don't 'cha? Don't 'cha? Sorry Jason, I couldn't help it.

Uh... I don't even know. I think we have a "Pat" in Columbia.

One for the good guys AKA: Ah Hell Yeah! Kevin gets his bike back.

So about an hour ago I was driving down a street here in C-town that I had never driven down before. I even mentioned it to Leslie as we drove down the dark street in the rain. Suddenly, I noticed a bike laying in the yard in front of a dumpy duplex on my right. I slowed down and Leslie says, "What are you doing?" "Hold on," I say, "I need to go back and check out that bike." I turn the car around, and I can tell the bike is nice and shouldn't be laying out in the rain. I look closely and I can tell it's a Cannondale. Here's what's weird. Just yesterday I was talking to this guy, Kevin, whose bike had been stolen a few weeks ago. He was telling me the story of how it happened when he had his back turned for just a moment before heading out on a ride. I told him I'd keep an eye out and maybe it would still turn up even though it had been weeks and usually those bikes get sold off pretty quickly after being stolen. But you never know... So I know this is the bike. I call Kevin up at his work, Klunk Bike Shop. He's there and I talk to his boss Karl, who says they'll be right over to meet me. (I was parked up the street like a sting getting ready to go down) After waiting a few minutes and getting really psyched, Kevin shows up. We pull down the street to the place where the bike is. Kevin gets out, looks at the bike, nods that it's his, walks up in the yard and grabs the bike and throws it in the back of his truck. We drive off. That's some sweet action.
It was just crazy. I had never been on that street before, and I had just talked to Kevin the day before about the situation. It was just meant to be. I wish I had had a camera with me.
I can tell you what the kid will say when he comes out and sees his stolen bike gone. "Oh hell no! Well ain't that about a bitch? Someone stole my stolen bike. god damn!"

Strange Days

I'm a firm believer that good blogs have lots of pictures. Lately, I haven't had any good pictures and I think about that every time I have an entry. So here's a random:

This is Ziggy when he was just few weeks old. Here he is now:

He's a sweet boy and a pain in the ass! He's about seven months old (teenager). Yeah, he acts like one too. But things have been better since we got Olivia:

She's a miniature Schnauzer. Lot's of attitude but very sweet. She's about half Ziggy's size, but she handles him just fine. You know, not the dog in the fight, but the fight in the dog.

In other news, Folgers Coffee finally came out with something decent- Gourmet Supreme. It's actually good for cheap coffee. I'm a coffee snob and I wouldn't drink it if it was crap. Try it out.

In music news: check out Lotus if you haven't already. I downloaded "Germination" from Itunes and it's good stuff if you're into instrumental.

Drink Pyramid Thunderbolt IPA if you like hops- lots of hops. It has to be the hoppiest beer ever. 6.7%.

I think my next blog needs to just be about beer. I love beer. Only good beer though.

At the holidays, I find myself drinking beer and eating cookies. That's a personal choice.

Uh... This is from last Labor Day weekend. My first movie premier with none other than the fat man of cycling. Mr. Tim. Who's your daddy?

Just a couple more months and I'll be seeing this down in Mexico. Lesie is just about finished with her Masters in Counseling. She just got her Praxis test results back and she scored REALLY high. About 200 points above what she needed to. Very proud and happy for her. Your kid should be so lucky to have her for their counselor.

Until the time I am in Mexico, not much to do but wait for it to get warm again.

Did I mention it was 18 degrees last night? UG! This too will pass. Happy Easter! Whatever that means to you. To me it means I don't go back to work until Tuesday.

Ring the Alarm

Ooohhhhhhhh...Three hours and 10 minutes until Easter break and a four day weekend that should have been five if it had not been for Old Man Winter rapping on my head with a hickory stick. He's a bastard and he's trying to get back in the door at the moment with a big 'ole snap of cold again. Luckily, he'll be kicked to the curb by Monday and we'll be back to some reasonable temps.
Not that it's related to winter or spring or any other season, but I got an Ipod for Christmas. It sat for a long time and Leslie was beginning to wonder if I was going to use it. I finally started dumping CDs on it and last night I used my Itunes gift card that I also got for a gift(thanks Arnolds). It was actually really cool how obscure of songs you can find on Itunes. I'm pretty pleased with how fast the songs download too. The only thing I don't like about Ipods is all the extras you need to buy: The case, the cords, the headphones for those of us who don't have mammoth ear canals, the armband for the gym. So far I have bought one thing and it's a good one. You know how you can buy a dock for your Ipod that has speakers? If you buy the actual Ipod one, it's about $300.00. I just bought a cord that connects your Ipod to your home tuner/amp. It was only $30.00 and I'm sure I could have found one for even less, but I bought the Monster brand and it does have pretty heavy guage cable- so it's a good deal. My Element also has a port for plugging in Ipods and that been pretty useful lately. So now I can listen to the radio, CDs, XM radio, or the Ipod on my way to and from work. It's a pretty nice drive this time of year less the past couple of days of cold. Overall, it's been a nice spring. It was 80 on Monday. Today it's about 40. Someonesgottodoit

33

Days before summer break begins. Then I'll have about three months to do whatever comes to mind. Like using this:

The one I have looks a little different with the logos. Now we have two black SUVs and a black lawnmower. This is the lawnmower I talked about getting earlier. I don't know why I'm into lawn stuff but my lawn and yard has come a long way since the bought our house about 16 months ago. I should have taken more before and after pictures. I guess I'm into lawnmowers since I spent a lot of summers on the end of one. I used to push mow my parent's acre lawn. That was about three hours of calculating how many more passes it would take to finish the different sides. And of course there's the saga of the Lawn Cheif. That was about four years of do it yourself repairs and rigging. Wheels falling off, deck cracking, tinkering with the fuel/air mix. I was always kind of afraid that the blade was going to fly off and chop me right at the ankles. He's gone now and has either become parts or been reinvented to cut again. He disappeared on trash day before the trash got picked up. I thought I saw him the other day, but it couldn't have been. Now I have the Yard Man. The motto is: "Makes tall grass short" Great. That's pretty much what I was looking for.

Prankster

I recently saw a news report on our local news about a certain local news woman who is known at one of our local stations for pulling lots of pranks. She passed on some extremely valuable information I put to use the very next day. I can't tell you all I learned because you might use it on me, but I can and will tell you that putting scotch tape over the receiver button on a co-workers phone and then going to the other room and calling them is well worth the effort. You call them, they pick up the phone and say, "hello?" and the phone contiunes to ring. In my perticular situation this is even better because we have a brand new phone system and it makes the called person feel like they're doing something wrong. So they start pushing all kinds of buttons on the phone and generally getting really frustrated. The only drawback in my situation is that each phone has caller ID, so once they see the tape on the phone- I'm had.
The next prank I intend to use involves donuts and a certain pickling chemical that resembles powdered sugar. I'll let you know...

One thing leads to another

First I buy some running shoes- start running. Next thing I know- I'm the new head coach for cross-country at the high school. Actually, there's a lot more to it than that, but it did happen pretty fast once it got rolling. I can't remember if it was my first year here or my second, but another teacher and I were talking about the possibility of cross-country racing coming to the district. It was just kind of talk- no planning or asking. I always thought it would be cool to coach cross-country and more interesting to me than football had been. But I was a football coach and we didn't have cross-country. Then there was a track coach clinic in the winter and the possibility of bringing cross-country to our district came up. My name got dropped for the coaching position. More time passes and the position becomes a reality. I apply. I interview with others. I become the coach. I make the paper. I'm famous in a small town. Yeah! Now it's my job to grow the sport locally and start a tradition. Apparently we had cross-country here about 15 or 20 years ago and it just kind of died out. It's kind of exciting to be the guy in charge of trying to bring it back.