NonSensical Gibberish

Boy still has some problems pronouncing his “V”’s.  So you get bideo, tee-bee, and moo-bies.  Funniest thing?  Instead of Spongebob, he says, “Spun-bodge”.

From one of Jen’s emails today:

Connor just came into the office with a picture that was taken of you before we were married. He said, “Is that my Dad? Is that my Dad?”. I said yes, it’s Daddy. He said, “Oh, I love my Dad. He’s awesome.” Then, he hugged the picture. 

Then, he saw a picture of you and Scott, where you have long hair. He asked if that was me, and I said, “No. It’s Daddy.” He said, “He was born like a mama.” *grin* Too funny!

As of today (4/6/09), I’ve logged 350 miles running & cycling (27 of which are running) this year!  And that’s through part the winter months.  Hopefully I’ll start logging even more miles as the weather gets nicer.

Also starting up the one hundred pushups regime again - I made it to week 3 before I stopped.  Giving it another shot.  Just finished week 2 and will start week 3 this week.

P.S. I will leave this entry at the top of my blog as a reminder of this cause!  So look for any new entries I write following this one.

Blogs come and go, but one of the most entertaining and heartfelt bloggers that I’ve discovered this past year is FatCyclist.com.  One reason that I find him so captivating is that he writes about cycling, something that I can relate to.  Through his entries, I can live vicariously as he writes up his Leadville 100 experiences, or his annual trips out to Moab National Park.  I can relate to him when he writes about the idiot drivers that scream at cyclists for no good reason.  His entries are interesting, sometimes humorous, and sometimes even inspiring.

However, he has also touched my heart in his fight against cancer.  His wife, Susan, was diagnosed with breast cancer approximately 5 years ago, and although she battled it into remission, it has come back within the last year.  Fatty (as he refers to himself) has been working with and being supported by the Lance Armstrong Foundation in battling this terrible disease.

For 2009, he has created Team Fat Cyclist: Fighting for Susan for the LIVESTRONG Challenge.   His goal is to get more people involved in raising money for the LIVESTRONG Challenge than ever before, and to shatter the previous total amount collected by a single team.

I’ve joined Team Fat Cyclist - Austin and will be participating in the LIVESTRONG Challenge to benefit the Lance Armstrong Foundation.  If I can raise a minimum of $250, I will consider riding in the LIVESTRONG Challenge in Austin on October 23, 2009.  I hope to be able to raise even more than that.  Considering that Braden sold over $1500 worth of popcorn for his cub scout fundraiser in a little over two weeks, I should be able to beat that amount over 10 months, right?

Although there is no cure, progress has been made and it is vital that we continue to work, to fight, toward beating this disease. It is time that we make a commitment to close the gap between what we know and what we do.

My goal is not just to participate in the LIVESTRONG Challenge, but to raise $2,000 to help further the Lance Armstrong Foundation’s mission of inspiring and empowering people affected by cancer. To reach this goal, I need your help.

If you have been affected by cancer, or you care about this cause, please consider donating toward my fundraising goal. You can donate online at http://austin09.livestrong.org/siradinar. You may also make a contribution via check. Please visit my site and print a copy of the Offline Donation Form (a link to the form is located directly under the thermometer on my page) and mail your check and donation form to the address on the form.

Thank you in advance for your support. Together, we can make a difference in the fight against cancer.

What do I get out of it?  I get the satisfaction of participating in a worthy cause that we all should be concerned about.  Plus FatCyclist will be holding frequent raffles for Team Fatty members, and the more an individual has raised, the better the chance that individual has at winning cool bike schwag.

SRSLY, folks - donate $5, $10, or even $50.  If you can’t donate today, this will be available nearly ALL YEAR, so come back & donate when you can.  Also if you’ve already donated, please don’t hesitate to come back and donate more.  I will be trying to donate throughout the year as well, I give you that promise.  Skip that next trip to McDonalds and pledge that money towards the fight against cancer.  Tell your friends and your family, and together, we can make a difference.

Again, Follow This Link to visit my personal web page and help me in my efforts to support Lance Armstrong Foundation.

If you decide that you want to do more than just donate, and become a Team FatCyclist member with the chance of winning cool bike schwag yourself, you can read how to do so here.

Coolest hat ever - Jayne Cobb knitted hat!

Esp. for Firefly fans…from the episode The Message.

The title of the blog will make sense later. The questions below are some that we often may wonder, but what better way to answer them then with music.Here are the Rules-

1. Put Your iTunes, Windows Media Player, MP3 Player, or whatever on Shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. You must write down the name of the song no matter how silly it sounds!
4. Put any comments in brackets after the song name.

If someone says, “Is this okay?” “Sing a Sad Song” - Merle Haggard
How would you describe yourself? “The Unforgiven” - Metallica
What do you like in a guy/girl? “When You Come Back to Me” - World Party
How do you feel today? “Are You Missing Me?” - Jim & Jesse
What is your life’s purpose? “Industrial Strength Tranquilizer” - Austin Lounge Lizards
What is your motto? “Record Lady” - Lyle Lovett
What do your friends think of you? “Rock of My Soul” - Rodney Crowell
What do you think of your parents? “Complicated” - Avril Lavigne
What do you think about very often? “Sure Feels Like Love” - Larry Gatlin & the Gatlin Bros
What is 2 + 2? “Holy Water” - Bad Company
What do you think of your best friend? “Poem for Carlita” - Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Mark O’Connor
What do you think of the person you love? “Rock Bottom” - Kiss
What is your life story? “My Insatiable One” - Suede
What do you want to be when you grow up? “The Eyes of a Woman” - Journey
What do you think of when you see the person you like? “Sweet Becky Walker” - Larry Gatlin & the Gatlin Bros
What will you dance to at your wedding? “A Mind of Her Own” - John Berry
What will they play at your funeral? “My Baby Won’t Tolerate” - Lyle Lovett
What is your hobby/interest? “Yukon Railroad” - Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
What is your biggest fear? “When He Returns” - Bob Dylan
What is your biggest secret? “Tales of Brave Ulysses” - Cream
What do you think of your friends? “Nothin’ To Lose” - Kiss
What will you post this as? “Murrell’s” - Trout Fishing in America

Approx. 42 miles of flat-water kayaking, mountain biking, treking/climbing over some pretty steep terrain over approx. 11 hours and what did I get?  3rd place in the solo division and a 12-pack of Fat Tire amber ale!!  Race report to come later…

The only thing better than taking a day off work to watch the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament (also referred to as “March Madness”) is taking a day off work to watch the tournament LIVE in person!! It’s a dream come true. In approximately 2 hours, I will be attending what will be the start of an all day session of March Madness at Alltel Arena in North Little Rock. Four 1st round basketball games, with my alma mater (U. Texas @ Austin, the 2nd seed in the South) playing Austin Peay in the 2nd game! And then the winners on Sunday.

Those of you who know me know how much I LOVE The Tourney ™, and the chance to see it live plus support MY school is totally a dream come true. I was a huge doofus and didn’t get any tickets when they were available a year ago. Luckily, one of my co-workers had a friend of a friend who couldn’t go and were selling their tickets, and I totally lucked out. Even better, they were nice enough to sell them to me for face value!

Yesterday was a practice day for all the teams which was free to the public. I attended the session where Texas was practicing and got to scope out our seats in advance.

We’re WAAAY up there, but it’s still not too bad. Definitely look for us on TV!! (Section 202, Row 11, 2nd to last row!)

And here’s the view from the seats:

Jen will be going with me to session 1 (St. Marys vs Miami (FL) and UT vs. Austin Peay), a friend from church will be going to the 2nd session (Miss St vs Oregon and Memphis vs UT-Arlington). A co-worker of mine will be going with me to Sunday’s session which will pit the winners of today’s games against each other.

T-minus an hour or so to go before we leave! It’s gonna be an awesome day!!

Everyone, please say hi to our new puppy, “She-Who-Is-Yet-To-Be-Named”.

She’s a 12-week old Siberian Husky/Shar-Pei mix. We officially adopted her on Saturday, December 15th from Arkansas Southern Dog Rescue. Ariel & I went to the Petco in N. Little Rock to do some Christmas shopping for the cats and took her home with us instead! Yep, you read that right. We got our cats a DOG for Christmas!!

Apparently she was abandoned about 4 weeks ago at the Petco in N. Little Rock. A family came in with their kids and the puppy, left her in the women’s restroom, and left the store. One of the employees heard her crying, found her, and called the rescue organization. She’s been staying in a foster home ever since and had been given a temporary name of “Holly”. She is sweet and cute as can be, and MJ has already sort of befriended her.

We haven’t come up with a name for her yet - still looking for ideas! So far the list includes: Akala, Akasha, Cinnamon, Cassia (a relative of the cinnamon plant, pronounced Kasha), Arwen, Lyra, and Keesha. Ginger has also been a widely suggested name.

More pics of the darling sweet pup can be found on my Flickr page!

Due to the generosity of my friends, they have given me permission to host the photos they took during Raid the Rock 2007.  I sure appreciate and am grateful for the time and effort they spent in capturing priceless memories of the race for all of us.

Raid the Rock 2007 Collection

Some photos of us can be seen on the 614Photography site - a professional photographer that was hired to shoot the race.

614Photography RtR photos

Click on the link where it says “Click here to order”, select Raid the Rock, and click “View Pictures”. We show up in Frames 26-27 on page 1, and Frames 473-497 on page 12 & 13.
I have a ton of other photos taken by various family & friends - once I get permission to post those, I will.

Also - we did finish officially in 5th place, just a little over an hour behind the 3rd place team, Bikes Plus, who have won several Raid the Rocks in the past. And to our delight & utter surprise, I found out yesterday that we qualified to race at the National Championship should we choose to attend. Unfortunately, Nationals is this Friday, and not only will we have recovered enough to race then (it’s a 18-30 hour race), but we don’t have the funds to cover the $900/team entry fee. Still, it means something that we qualified!

More tomorrow…