Minnesota Twins baseball

Twins clinch playoff berth! How cool is that...? it's not the same energy here in Oregon, but I'm happy for them. Now it's time to kick some yankee ass in October. The twins have always been right there. They were beat by the yankees in 03 and 04, but each of those series could have gone the other way.

Hopefully they can stick it to them this year!!!

Update from Paraguay!

Laurie is in Paraguay, and she sent an update! Sounds like she's having a good time, and busy! Here's the update:

From: Laurie
Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2006
Subject: hola
hello all, well i made it to paraguay friday eve around 6pm a day and a half after my bend departure, a long journey! i don´t think a few of you know i am on a volunteer trip with operation smile. we are staying at a nice hotel outside of town. the hospital is a military hospital that is vacant. i had a tour today and worked a little, we are pretty much set to go for the week. we are planning to operate on 150 children. it is a bit overwhelming at times, emotions etc., amazing how this all works. i guess there were over 400 people who came to the hospital for the screening, and there is only room for aprox. 150 mainly children some young adults and adults. we will have 3 or rooms 2 tables in two of the rooms, 1 in the last. we are preparing for many people in the or rooms. ie. news, students, dr.´s etc. quite different than home!! it is a privilage to be here people very hospitible. i am looking forward to the work week, lack of sleep and veggie food!! but it is so worth it. i will send another note if i can. sorry for any mis spellings yikes i am terrible and spell heck ... .not so good here
hugs,
laurie

So she's in Paraguay, doing some critical deeds, and I'm here running pilot butte and selling stuff on ebay.

Thats all today. Hope you are well.

It was fun while it lasted

Today we said goodbye to the Van.


It had a good run. Ironically we owned it exactly one year minus one day. I was thinking it might have been about a year, and then I checked the records, and it was a day short of a year. Also, we got just shy of what we paid for it. The couple that bought it is great, and they'll really enjoy it.

Now we are going to experiment with DITDOC (double income two dogs one car - yea i just made it up). Well it shouldn't be too bad since I work from home. We'll see how long it takes before I have to bike somewhere in the snow, or how about bike to the red cross for a blood donation? That ride home might be exciting!

Laurie made it to Santiago, and by now she's probably in Paraguay. The dogs are waiting for her, and well, they have a long wait.

bye

Thrilla in the milla

Raced in the 2nd installment of the weekly September cyclocross series the Thrilla in the Milla. It is a pretty sweet little bike race where you're supposed to ride a bike that's in between a road bike and a mountain bike. I ride a full on mountian bike though, because I don't have a CX bike. There's usually a few obsticles where you are required to get off the bike and jump over them. So it's not easy.

I haven't been training hard or training to race lately, so I knew I would be hurting through this one. It started out fast and I was pegged way too early and by that time, I just tried to maintain position. Last year I was pretty strong in the B race, so either the Bs are stronger or I'm slower, and I'm thinking that the weekly trips to the red cross have just a little bit to do with it.

No worries though it was still fun, and I got to suffer a little bit. The weather is supposed to be changing here at least for a couple days, and this time of year, in this area that could mean that either fall is going to happen, or winter. But then we could get more summer in a couple weeks too.

Laurie leaves for a couple weeks tomorrow for Paraguay, on a mission trip with Operation Smile. Should be a great experience for her. She's going to stay a couple extra days to travel a bit. So I'm flying solo, party at my house!

Smith rock time trial this weekend. stay tuned...

Back from Minnesota

For the past week I was back in Minnesota for some work, and also visiting friends and family. It was a fabulous weekend. I really miss going 'up to the lake' in Minnesota, so when I do get the chance to go up there now, it's pretty nice.

It was a real good trip. I even did a mountain bike race. Highlight is below (yea that's me on a borrowed schwinn homegrown singlespeed, and no, I wasn't hurt.) I went to the Laddies Loppet mountain bike race at Maplelag up in northern minnesota. It was super fun, and pretty hard too. There was alot of singletrack on trails that didn't produce any dust! Imagine that! This photo ended up on skinny ski dot com.

skinnyski.com photo

I took a ton of photos, but I have some major computer problems before I can get them organized and uploaded. So you'll just have to hold on!

also, I drained pint #13 today. And I only have 2 more to go to have put 1 gallon into the blood bank at the red cross. They're happy, and hopefully some people who need it are getting my O neg blood.

bye