We have a Sailor to see!

Yesterday found us leaving Seattle on a 4 hour flight to Chicago. For those of you not familiar with our current adventure, our eldest son left for Navy Basic Training at the end of April. We have stayed updated about his activities via several phone calls and his propensity to provide much detail in his letters. To keep herself informed, comforted, and well connected, my wife has frequented a web site called Navy For Moms or N4M for short. Did you even know that there was such a site? Or that there is now one for dads too?

We arrived in Chicago and made our way north to Great Lakes Naval Training Center here in Great Lakes, IL. We are staying at very convenient and pleasant place called Navy Lodge.




This is particularly nice as we are less than a mile across the base from where we will be attending Pass In Review tomorrow (6/27). Needless to say we are very proud and excited as we had received a call earlier this week with "Mom, I'm am now a sailor!" Since we arrived early, we had made plans to attend a Chicago Cubs game at the historic Wrigley field. We had a great time riding a series of trains for just over an hour south towards downtown.


What a beautiful day to spend at the ball park. It was festive and our seats were perfectly positioned just up and slightly left of home plate. I was particularly intrigued by the bleacher seating on the rooftops of buildings just across the streets along the ivy covered outfield walls.

Following the game, we hopped back on the trains and headed back to the base. This evening we had a wonderful time over dinner with many of the parents of other sailors also graduating this week. It's getting late, so I must hit the "rack"...wakeup at 0500!

Good Morning America adventure

Yesterday morning I was minding my own business and getting stuff done at the office when I received an interesting phone call at 9:30. It was a producer with Good Morning America and she wondered if was willing to be interviewed about my alternate form of commuting to save money. After asking me a few questions she wanted to know if I could meet with a film crew later in the day. WOW, talk about a scramble! I had not ridden my bike yesterday as I had some errands to run later in the day. Since they were really hoping to interview and film me in my biking gear, I agreed to go retrieve it from home...18 miles and 35 minutes back north.

Now properly attired and looking the part, I met the crew (well, just 3 people) at Riverfront Park. The following 3 hours were quite fun and interesting. Jim (the cameraman) fitted me first with a helmet cam while Robin handled sound stuff and other details. They are a great freelance team called PEAK Video Productions and do various shoots for GMA in this region as well as other exciting and informative productions. After that we moved the camera to a short mast above me, then to my front fork, and finally to a variety of panning shots that they thought would be visually appealing. My biggest oops was when they told me to hold the view at certain positions for at least 10 seconds. When you do that for 10 seconds on a bike... well...uh...unanticipated things can happen; like wall and flexible pylon encounters. Toddlers too!


Later, after the interview with Tamara from The Inlander, and some additional filming, we drove over to the big hill above the Spokane River along N. Pettet Drive. Anyone who knows Spokane knows what that is...DOOMSDAY HILL, the infamous incline known to cause cramps and heat exhaustion for runners and cyclists alike. Earlier, Jim had assured me that if they were going to do any video there the work would be easy and they would just do short segments. Well, on the way over, they got a call from the producers in New York asking them if they could feed the video by 4:00... this was shortly after 3:00. We quickly got set up and I followed them down the hill with Jim hanging out the back of their Yukon. Then we turned around and headed up...ALL the way UP... in 78 degree heat! Jim encouraged me the entire way; much like a personal trainer would. I want them along on every ride now!

The segment appeared on GMA this morning around 17 minutes in. You can see me in several parts as well as a section from my interview. One brief shot is from the helmet cam. Several show me riding at various locations. Too bad they can't capture the smell of sweat. I think I look good in bike shorts!

Another great adventure... blew Monday.

Just over a week ago I heard about the first annual Bike To Work Week here in Spokane. "Wow" I thought; certainly I could do that...I hope. So the night before last, I was prepping my bike for yesterday's commute. I had covered every contingency...so I thought. As I was pumping up my rear tire, I accidentally sheared the presta valve. WHOOOSH! The children quickly vacated the area as Dad was not terribly happy. My backup bike was in the shop. No spare tube; and it's Sunday night. My lovely wife so sweetly offered her bike. Yikes! After cranking the seat as high as possible it was still a tight fit. Felt like I was a size 10 foot going into a size 9 shoe. Oh, she has not gone clipless yet. Yes, I mashed all 14 miles. I felt like I was crawling through mud. At mile 6 I had to pull over and...well...um...heave. Rehydrated and back on my way, finished in downtown feeling pretty good about my accomplishment. The breakfast was great and turnout was amazing!


They had a bike corral and STA was showing how to load a bike on the front of their buses. I even saw some folks I know.

I'm doing it again on Wednesday...on MY bike! I was so beat that I may have cheated slightly. I dropped $1 and rode the STA bus using my new found skill in loading a bike. Rode as far north as I could get and then biked DOWN HILL 6 miles back to my car. It felt good to get home last night, but what a fun day. If you live and work in this area maybe you could try this at least once before the week is over.

By-the-way...did you know? The League of American Bicyclists organized the first Bike to Work Day in 1956. Thats 52 years!!!

Showdown at the Suncrest Corral...aka Suncrest Fitness Center

Background: Back in February our remote outpost of Spokane (Nine Mile Falls) was rewarded (or cursed depending upon your outlook and predisposition to exercise) by the opening of a new fitness center called Suncrest Fitness This spurred me to a new level of exercise and conditioning that has made huge difference for me. During this time I met with a personal trainer and set up a vigorous schedule of weight training and cardio conditioning. After all, rowing season is coming up... that's another story for later. Imagine me, the guy who has been in a gym all of 3 times in his life, being surrounded by the modern equivalent of instruments of torture.

The Showdown - One of these machines in the far corner of the gym is called a Jacobs Ladder. This machine has to be one of the toughest cardio workouts you could imagine. Many people only last 5 to 10 minutes. A few hardier souls manage to endure up to 20 to 30 minutes. Crazy me... I decided to push to 30 minutes about a month ago. Almost had to be medevaced out...well, not quite. This set a new club record and the gauntlet had been laid. Soon some teenage boy came in and decided to best me. Not to be outdone by some young lad, I recently pushed to 45 minutes...Ah Hah! New club record. Then about a week ago I received a voice message from my trainer. Being only a week younger than me and quite competitive, he had gone to 1 hour! So much for those youngsters; us 40ish guys run real risks doing this stuff. The ladies all say we're out of control. Hmm...could it be true? He also was so bold as to claim he would manage 2 hours by this Friday. Yikes! I need to keep an eye on this.


"Is he working... or did he seize up?"

Ted, I'll see your 2 hours (or whatever) and raise you an additional 15%

Your Nemesis

Message from the field

I figured out how to use my mobile phone to post things remotely when I can't get a connection for the laptop. This should come in handy when I go to the State Republican Convention at the end of May. Who knows? Perhaps I'll find good reason to test this out between now and then. Any ideas from my loyal readers?

What got this started?

Some time back good friends of ours moved to Mexico to become long term missionaries in the Oaxaca region. Their journey has been described in their own blog that I encourage you to visit.

From this, I realized that blogging is a great venue for communicating views, ideas, opinions, accomplishments, and the assorted what-not you are busting a seam to share with everyone you know and many you don't. At the same that I began pondering how to go about it... or for that matter, what to even write about; I was approached by a local retiree who dabbles in every aspect of our community and county. He pressed me to pursue election to a yet-to-be-formed board for a new park district tentatively being created in lower Stevens County, WA. I will save that story for another post. Flash forward a few weeks to last Saturday when the Stevens County Republican Convention was held at the AG & Trade Center in Colville, WA. I had been selected as a delegate to this convention and became part of the 120 strong delegation from various areas in the county. Little did I realize what would unfold that day! I will share what happened and my thoughts on that shortly. In closing , and as a teaser, I will be going to the 2008 Washington State Republican Party State Convention at the end of May and hope to provide you with a real time glimpse at the proceedings and items of interest along the way. Stay tuned and be sure to support Dino Rossi in his run for the rightful position of Governor of Washington State.