Wednesday Skiing

Well as Cubed posted, he, TB (the gal from work. TB now stands for Trouble for Buggy) and my son all went with me skiing last night. Again it was a very entertaining evening. Living in Colorado the season is coming to an end. Most of the boats at the marina are now being pulled out so it looks a little vacant there. I was able to move the boat to a new slot near some other boats so it will not be lonely at the end by himself. That and now it is easier to carry fuel to the boat.

When I worked on the boat over last weekend and then told TB and Cubed they could go again you should have seen the gleam of light their eyes portrayed at the opportunity to go again. Then when we started to head out on the boat it seemed a bit cold blooded and didn’t want to shift into gear at the dock. Although, I never looked back at them I could tell they were in a disappointed mood in wondering if the boat would run. It finally warmed up and we headed out.
I think they both thought that okay they got up last time and this time it should be a snap. Cubed was a blast to watch in his failed attempts. As I pointed out to TB during the ride each time Cubed fell over you could see him like slap the water in frustration. It was like a small kid smacking the toy that kept him from having fun. We also noticed that Cubed moved his tongue in his mouth to push hard against his cheek when he was in deep concentration. In the end Cubed got up a few times and really enjoyed skiing.

TB got up and even pulled out a near fall with a bit of determination to actually get up. It was definitely the start of the day. She had a couple of great runs and I think really was enjoying the evening. She seemed to think I was missing a bit of my saintliness as I pushed her in the lake a couple times. Of course Cubed pushed her in also. But you get on a boat with me expect to see a little water. She also seems to be a bit of a speedaholic and enjoyed a bit of just riding the boat on speed with some turns.

My son had a great night of skiing and has really come on strong. He is now starting to jump and last night both he and I kicked off a ski and did a bit of slalom skiing. What a blast that is to balance on 1 ski and the feel is a lot different. My son as you might expect is a 16 year old boy and his quick talent to pick up skiing as bee great. Took him a bit to get up the first time but now looks like a pro. Now he needs to learn the knee and wake board. That will come soon.

TB made another observation as she said that my son and I were fun to watch ski and Cubed was fun to watch fall. She also mentioned she wants to be able to do what my son and I do. As soon as we are up we ski with one hand and then adjust our swim suits and make ourselves look better. Personally I don’t like my swim trucks hiked up so I pull them down.In the end it was a fun night of boating and skiing. I might, just might try for another night next week. I talked with my sister and she told me to swing by and get her skis since the boots on mine ripped last night. That is what happens when your skis are almost older then the people you’re taking skiing.

Obese Comments

Since I am reading about food and trying to change my diet some Cubed’s post on overweight made me decide to add my own post with some information. I have been reading about how foods have changed based on reports and marketing is using it to sell their food to us.

What I have read is if you go back about 15 years ago they decided that the fat in our food was what was causing our obesity rates to rise. The FDA issued a report on this and the people grabbed the idea. What happened is people quit eating fat foods. The companies selling food saw a decline in their sales and rushed to market fat free foods. The problem was that these fat free foods tasted like crap so to get flavor back then put in a bunch of sugar. WALA. The problem is people thought they could eat as much as they wanted and in the end ate a lot of sugar calories.

There is one more switch that happened like this with cholesterol and carbohydrates being the villains. The food market again made changes and again added sugars for flavor. This is just a very short synopsis of what has been happening.

To get the details and read more on this more in a book called The Abs Diet. As I found more information on this the book tries to sound like it is new and will help you. It really is not a diet but rather a book of information that tries to let you know what foods have in them and what you want to focus on for better health. The book does give some sample meal plans but only for a starting point. It is more about learning that we need to reduce trans fatty items and eat a healthy mixture of carbs, protein, fat, as they all play an important role in our health.

I will say I was listed and if you ran the numbers considered Obese. Then I started running 2 years ago and now I am still overweight but I am much happier. Exercise to me is the most important thing you can do to lose the weight. Now I am trying to get my eating habits under more control to maintain or even cut a few more pounds to in the end live a longer and healthier life.

Update if the clouds move on and it is not raining or lighting I will be taking Cubed, TB and my son out boating and skiing tonight. J

Misc Well Wishes

I have a few things to address so thought I would put out a quick post.

Smarter I hope that the Mrs. continues to get better. As you know my niece went though this twice and it took a week of pain and she was in the hospital for part of it. We all wish her a speedy recovery.

Bunny I have to agree with Early. Who would ever think of driving a YELLOW Hummer thought Mexico and not think they were going to draw some attention. Then add a blond woman and a couple dogs and the mix is just yelling for the corrupt police to come and take your money. For your next trip I recommend a Yellow and White Toyota FJ. Lol. Just giving you all a hard time, you can’t expect any less from us can you? We all wish you much safety in your vacation and travel and enjoy your posts of the trip. Keep us updated often.

Also Bunny asked when I know the results of the race to let you all know. Well we ended up being the winners in the Helter Skelter class. We all had an excellent time and are already talking about defending our title now.

As for running I have ended up hurting my left knee. I think it is muscle issues pulling on the knee. I am taking a week or so off and then going to start trying to get back. I have a couple races I would like to do and need to get heeled soon.

Gator I wish you had that picture of you and your sis when you were young. We would all love to see your smiling face. Keep looking. Also Smarter and I was talking this morning that we will be posting some comments to HRR’s sight soon. Watch for them and then let’s initiate the guest blogger into the fold. Also Gator we have our pre-Vegas party tonight. Only 4 more weeks till the sex pool begins. J Keep holding out for the post.

Ridiculous Chick we all hope your vacation is going well also. I know that I personally am a bit upset though that you didn’t take a laptop to keep us up to date like Bunny and Early. If they can keep connections and updates going from South America on the road I would have like to heard of your trip as well. We will let you off the hook though and just pray for your safe return. Ohh and if we pick on your guest blogger for a bit we just wanted her to feel our friendships. JFor boating I tried to take my kids out this last week again. We got to the boat and the first thing I noticed was it was again all tied up wrong just like when I took TB and Smarter. After again fixing all the ropes I uncovered the boat and then noticed the radio was on. The kid that used it before ran the battery down. My son searched around and found another battery and we tried it. It started the boat and we headed into the lake. My son was up skiing when the boat decided to die. I don’t’ know what is happening yet but the battery he found must have only had 1 start left in it. Yep, here I sit in the middle of the lake with 3 kids. Another boater saw us and came to pull us back to the marina. He didn’t pull us all the way and we ended up rowing for 30 minutes to put it away. What a night. I have not talked to my sister yet to see if they have it fixed but I hope they do soon as the kids are still begging to go skiing. And so is Smarter and TB also asking and wanting to go again. J

I did get the buggy running last night after 6 weeks of being broken. Some fun still to happen before summer ends.

Skiing Update

I noticed in Smarter’s post he relieved his bladder in the lake. That was a joke on the boat as I told him it was about in that part of the lake I had done that a week before. Shortly after that he is laughing as he said “It is easier to get out of the water once you relieve your bladder.” Let it be known I think but am not positive but I think I saw TB smiling at one point just before she got out of the water on her first pull. Makes me wonder if Smarter was right in his quote? I will ask TB if her smiling face was her becoming lighter and let you know in upcoming posts. Lol.

Let it also be noted that TB said in the boat while I was making yet another circle to give Smarter another try that I was either very patient or a Saint. I want to believe it is the later. No comments Gator or Bunny!

The Rest of the Sking Story

At our company picnic this last Sunday a co-worker of mine happened to be talking to my wife. Water Skiing came up in the conversation. She asked me where I would recommend her to go to be able to try to water ski. I said I could take her out one evening after work. I talked to her on Monday about it and she was anxious to do it.

I then decided that since we need at least 3 people to go out skiing that maybe Smarter would like to go along. He said sure and that of the days I could do it Wednesday was the best day. Wednesday came and we all had our gear to go. At 2pm a storm rolled through and it was raining and lightning out. I could see the disappointment in their eyes. We waited though and by the time we went it was the normal nice evening.

We drove to the lake and prepared the boat. Neither of my 2 co-workers had ever skied before, Smarter and the gal we will call TB, so I knew I was in for a lot of waiting and I turned my patience on. First up was Smarter. I told him the proper way to enter the water was to dive in. He didn’t he held his nose and hesitantly jumped in the lake. After circling and many humorous attempts to pull him up on skies he turned it over to TB. TB took the water and she attempted to ski for without a whole lot of success.

I then was prepared to ski a little and with practically no boats on the lake I felt safe letting Smarter take the throttle and drive. He practice for about 1 minute and TOTALLY freaked out and back out of driving. TB had to learn and though was a little jumpy at first smoothed out by the end of the night and did a pretty good job as I skied a bit.

Smarter tried again and though he was able to get out of the water he never sustained a long pull. I am confident though that the next time he goes he will do just fine and will enjoy skiing. TB though did manage to get out of the water and did have a couple of good pulls. She never ventured out into the open water outside the wake but she will the next time and I would bet really enjoy boating.

Both of them gave me some enjoyment in watching them fall over. I also have some fun stuff to hold against them here at work for humorous falls in the water. TB had some red arms from the life vest as well. I would call it a successful night for all parties. Especially since all of us had some soreness which translates to we all had some fun.

Good Job Smarter and TB!

Is it really Cheating if your honest?

I received this email from our team’s race captain.

Well, gang, by now we're all aware that we "gained" some time in the Relay due to unexpected events and that we had to shuffle our roster around in both vans. The Race Director sent out a message asking the Captains to report if that happened, so I let him know (he invoked the "honor system" and I caved!). That means that we changed from the "Open" division to the "Helter Skelter" division. No, I am NOT making this up! The Helter-Skelter division is basically "anything goes" and includes teams that don't follow their order. We were definitely Helter-Skelter material!
The good news is that, unless another faster team does the same, we just WON the "Helter-Skelter" division!! Essentially, we moved from fourth in the Open to first in Helter-Skelter. We'll know for sure when they post the official results.
Life is strange....

When I shared this with my daughter she said “so dad you cheated and you won?” My reply was we didn’t really cheat. We never really expected to win we were just racing for our own times because we like running and competing. I think she bought that don’t you?

WWR

What an awesome race to be a part of when you have a great group of people to race it with. Here is how the weekend and the race turned out.

Friday I worked half a day and then went to help pack our vans for the race. We loaded up and headed to the start line. Some teams started as early at 5:30am and the last teams started at 2pm. We were towards the end of the times. I had the first leg and started out on our race. I ran my first leg within 9 seconds of what I turned in for a time last year. A bit disappointing but I was okay with it considering last year we started earlier and this year it was 90+ and 90+ humidity. It was HOT out.

We were all hot running and our 4th leg person missed a turn with another team. When he didn’t check in at the check point and was not in sight down the road we got worried and headed off to find him. He had missed a turn and ended up running over 6 miles further then needed. For a 4.3 mile leg he ended up and near 11 miles and put us about 1:15 behind in the race. This group of people though never wavered in spirit though and we kept on going. We figured out how to help him recover and the rest of us kept running. We were Van 1 and we finished and handed off to Van 2 and went to try and recover for 3 hours before we had to take on running again.

I was absolutely upset when I got to my next leg. It was suppose to be 4.9 miles and is for the most part straight up the side of a mountain. They changed the exchange point and I now had an extra 5 mile to run and now an hour behind as well meant running in the dark up the hill. I did my run though ending right when it was really just plain dark outside. I handed off the baton and the rest of my van had to run in the dark through the woods. It was eerie and we soon found out we were the LAST team on the course. There was a Budget Rental truck that kept passing us and waiting for us at each sign. As we passed the sign or the next check point they would pick up the signs and move on. It was like the grim reaper was on us. We kept running though trying to get away from the grim reaper and handed off the duties again to Van 2 around 3am Saturday.

Saturday morning Van 2 put up exceptional numbers. They truly are a van of running stallions. They started our catch up mode and we began to pick off racers ahead of us. I left on my last leg around 7am and by mid morning we were catching more and more runners. This kind of a race has a lot of comrade among the racers. People talk at every exchange and tell stories. Other teams were now shocked to see our van pull in and then be leaving before they were.
At the end of the race we were waiting for our last runner to come in and I heard that over half the teams had not checked in yet. This meant that we went from being the last team on the course that night to being in the middle of the pack. Now remember lots of teams started before us and the race is based on time. We finished 12 minutes slower than we did last year. We also suffered that missed turn which means we really put up about an hour shorter run this year than last. We have not seen the official times yet but it is going to be interesting to see where we really ended up.

This was again another awesome race with superior people on my team. I am honored to know and race with these people. Being that I am the slowest person on the team they never quit encouraging and promoting a great run. The run what you feel like and do your best attitude can’t be beat.

Right here I need to post a great big THANKS to my team members and to the other supportive people we met along the race.

Dave

I need to write this down to hopefully help me get through this.
I have this awesome friend for the last 10 years. I bought a Sea Doo jet ski in 1996 and as a result I met Dave. Dave and I decided to try a small camping trip and so we loaded the skis, we call them bikes, and headed went to Pueblo Reservoir. We launched our bikes and headed out onto the lake. Now here is the secret to our friendship with bikes, and water. We do on occasion spin and jump our bikes in the lake but as a whole we like to cruise ride and look at the shore. We left the ramp at 7am and didn’t return till 3pm that day when we were out of fuel. Some people on the shore were like WOW you have been gone all day.
The next year we decided to go on the camping biking trip again. We were set to go to Pueblo again but the night before Dave heard of a huge lake in Wyoming to go to, Glendo. Thus everything we ever knew changed forever. We went and rode the huge lake of Glendo and the second day since we had already paid for the parks pass decided to go to another lake in the area called Guernsey. We had limited fuel that day but we dropped in the lake and soon found a boat floating. We talked to the people and they said ohh with a jet ski you can get all the way to Glendo. We headed up the channel and discovered river riding.
The next year we went back to figure out this river riding. We started by modifying our bikes to hold more fuel. They have a standard 9 gallon fuel tank. We made and changed the front part of our bikes and added the capacity to now carry 16 gallons of fuel. We headed to the river. We learned to ride rapids, Kayak courses, and navigate through areas of only a foot of water.
We returned on this annual pilgrimage every almost every year for a weekend. We ended up riding Seminole Reservoir, and then from Casper, to Wallen damn of the North Platte River. We were sitting in a small park in Douglas Wyoming one afternoon when the local cop stopped by. He talked to us for a bit about our riding the bikes in the river. Then he said he had been patrolling there for 15 years and we were the first people he had ever seen ride into town on jet skis. There are tons of stories we lived through over the years that maybe someday I will have to write them all down.
Now to why I am sad and the reason for this post. Last November Dave had serious back pain. He went to the doctor and they found he had cancer in his spine. It is colon cancer that has erupted into his body that had he been checked a year earlier they might have found and he would not be in this fight today. Last night he and I got together and went out on a local lake on my sister’s boat. He and I rode around, then sat and talked then rode some more. Once it got dark we put the boat away and then got in the truck to drive home. But, instead of driving home we ended up cruising all the camp sites remembering our times and making plans to camp again with the bikes.
His cancer right now is holding. The tumors are not growing but not shrinking. They hope to maintain now and then learn how to gain on them while some new drugs are soon to be released. I pray he continues to fight as I already miss our trip and last Sunday when I went out jet skiing on the lake all I could think of was swishing he was there.
So I think I am being a bit selfish, sad, grumpy and a bit pissed at the world today. I want my river riding buddy again.