Category Archives: stuff
Let the season begin!
Wow, it’s been almost 6 months since my last race. A lot has changed since then, the main thing was moving to a new team – Rocky Mountain Spine & Sport. The main sponsor is a physical therapy clinic, and I go back a few years with the owner. When he called last September and invited me to join the team, I really had to give it some thought. I enjoyed my time with SEAR and made a lot of good friends there. We fought hard together all season long and won the Best All-Around Team competition in our category. With my teammates support, I was able to come in 5th place in the Rocky Mountain Road Cup (points series) despite not competing in a couple of events. But… after going for a couple of rides with the RMSS guys I could tell they had something good going and decided to make the leap. It’s turned out great! They’re a super bunch of guys that are very supportive of one and all. We each have to fulfill a 15 race commitment, so we’re all fairly serious about racing and suffering together. It’s a lot smaller group than my last team (35 vs. 100+). The attitude of the team is outstanding, and it’s really cool to have such close contact with our sponsor – it feels like we can really make a difference for their business. Much different than the faceless corporation that donates a few bucks to geeks on bikes.
Anyway, tomorrow is the first race of the 2006 season. I started my training year on November 1st, and have put in about 2000 miles since then. I’m anxious to put those miles to use…
Goodbye XL
Did some closet cleaning today. Jettisoned 3 HUGE bags of clothes. These were the lawn and leaf size jobs… I had gotten very good at picking up nice shirts on sale/clearance over the past several years and had built up quite a collection. Problem is, they’re all extra large – and I’m wearing mediums now. They’re like circus tents on me – time to go. Kinda sad, but happy at the same time. Oh, well – dangers of the occupation…
P.S. – hit the Goodwill store in Littleton if you’re looking to score some good deals on lightly used, well cared-for, Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren button down XL shirts.
I said fossils, you dig?
During our trip to Utah, we took a side trip waaay of the beaten path to a place called U-DIG Fossils. It was quite a drive to get out there, including 20 miles of dirt road, but the weather was great and the kids were EXCITED.
The travel channel had done a feature on this place that we just happened to see while flipping channels one day. Seemed like a pretty cool concept. Lots of fossil-rich rock, you just need to come split it apart. It wasn’t cheap – $80 for the family to dig for 2 hours (sounds short, but was plenty of time). The memories and fun that the kids had was priceless.
The fossils are mostly trilobites (invertabrate marine animals). No T-Rex’s… The rock was limestone/shale that consisted of several layers. So it was fairly straightforward to split if you hit it just right – then peek to see if there was anything inside. Natalie found several small specimens in the parking lot right after she got out of the van. It was going to be a good day!
It turned out to be some pretty hard labor, chipping rock and hauling it around in 5 gallon buckets – and there were some stretches where it seemed like you weren’t going to find a thing. Then – jackpot! A discovery was made.
In all, we came away with around 5 shopping bags full of fossils. Lots of small, imperfect ones, and a few really nice ones. All the kids were successful in finding a bunch and were very proud of their share.
The drive home had a little bit of drama as we happened upon a Range Rover that had rolled a few times. Turns out a family was going out to dig fossils and their teenage sons were a few miles ahead in the Rover. Going waaay too fast on the dirt road (we had been doing 50-60 ourselves). The parents and rest of the kids were following in a van and had just gotten to the scene a few minutes before we arrived. Thank goodness none of them were hurt very badly. I was pretty scary looking…
The Scene Begins 
