An Afternoon at the Ballet

L and I went to M's ballet performance this afternoon. I try to handle my emotions well, and I did this afternoon, but it was very hard. I see M on the stage, so beautiful and composed, and it is hard to believe that she is the same baby girl that was too small for me to hold at one time. It has been a wonderful ride watching her grow into the lovely girl that she is. She is so patient, intelligent, funny, sassy, beautiful and loving. She has a tender soul. We managed to get through the whole dance weekend without any tears. We had the family over for a BBQ after the dance, and it was fun having a house full of family.

Have a good week, I know I will. The last week of school and classes until next fall is this week. Halleluja!

cd

Comin' down the homestretch

My work is done for the semester! I have to practice a seven minute talk five or six times, but otherwise I am done. It took forever. Off to better things.....like staying up late and watching "The Departed". It really is one of the best films I have ever seen. Acting, produciton, writing, directing, music, cinematography are all first class. Scorsese really knows how to make a film. One of my other favorite movies is by him....Goodfellas.

Anyway, tomorrow is filled with ballet and family.

peace

c

One of those days

It's just been one of those days. If I could start it all over again I don't think I would for fear of doing the whole thing over. Work has been bad today, with unfulfilled reagent requests, underlings annoying me, and one of the techs didn't set the voltage back on the power supply and melted my f@)king gel! To top it all off, I showed up for noon basketball for the first time in four months and the gym was filled with tables and chairs....NO BASKETBALL. Instead of feeding people the rock I have to come back HERE! UUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHH! I am sure this mood I am in is because the last week of school is looming. I have everything 95% done, but I just want to be 100% done.

I hear our tax "bribe" rebate checks are coming sooner than we thought. That is great, because the Chinese probably want the money that our country is borrowing from that country to come back soon. The bribe isn't going to stimulate our economy, it will stimulate their economy....kind of a double dipping if you will. We are going to do the all American thing with our check and spend it all....on American products. We have our eyes on a jungle gym for the kids. That will be fun putting it together. Hopefully when I am done, I will still have at least both thumbs and seven of my eight fingers left.

Have a good weekend,

c

Mud

After a pretty productive day at work, I came home thinking that I would have the house to myself and get out for a ride. M and M were at dance and E was supposed to be at Grandpa and Grandma's house. I got home and E was here with grandpa......Change of plans. I will always choose to stay here with E. He is great! We had Cousin's subs for dinner, went for a drive and brought some stuff back to the library. We got home around 7....still time to bang out a ride before it gets dark and I have to hook the lights up. I got dressed in record time and went out for one hour. It was my first ride through the woods this year. I am still hacking up lung nuggets, so I couldn't go that hard, but I am so out of shape that it seemed like I was going up Firetower hill at Chequamegon. There was a lot of mud, and it was unavoidable, and it was GLORIOUS! I think I am a single speeder now. I love the way I feel on the new bike, and the huge (2.4 x 29) wheels hook up on everything. I can climb (pretty flat around here) pretty well with it. I am running a 32x16 on it right now, and I may want to try to go 34x16 on it after I get into shape.

After the ride, I got home and the fam was watching Willy Wonka (the old one). Apparently E has a thing for the oompa loompas and thier songs. Maybe he will go to clown college after all.

cheers

Depression

I am so depressed today! We had a meeting of our clinical group, and though it seemed to go well, I left there depressed as ever about this place. You see, I work for a micro manager. He is a micro manager's micro manager. Every detail, down the the purchase of a jump drive is agonized. I am going to graduate school so I can learn how to run and create companies like this. The meeting today made me realize, more than ever, that I will not be able to work here when I have my masters. If I am going to be put in charge to run a division or project in a company, I want to RUN the division. Give me the goal, budget, and guidelines and then let me execute my procedures to meet said goals. That is the way all technology companies should be run. I don't see that happening here. My boss should be out playing golf or running or painting pottery, but instead he is here making sure that I didn't spell something wrong or that the chair I requested for the laboratory couldn't be purchased somewhere else for $10 less. All of this stress, along with trying to stay ahead of the game at school and wanting to hang with my family has me really down. I think I need to ride when I get home today if that is at all possible. It would do my soul good to go out on the 29er and get it dirty for the first time.

Sorry for the depressing post, next time I will write about something more uplifting, like say.....our current administration.....or......the uplifting nature of songs by The Cure.

cd

Oh what a night

I went for my first night ride this evening. It wasn't much. I took the single 29er out for a quick 45 minute ride to clear the head. I find these rides to be the most rewarding rides. The day was beautiful, but tonight was even nicer. It didn't seem that I would ever get out for a ride today. I was going to take one when e went down for a nap. E didn't nap, there was too much fun to be had outside watching dad cut down a big maple. Every time I would stop cutting he would say "STOP". I don't know if he liked it or if he was scared, but the yard looks nicer without the half dead maple looming over the garden. It was a busy day. L was in zen mode with her leaf blowing. She really likes it, and everything looks better after it is done. We started the day out for breakfast, went to Menard's after that, got the MPV washed and filled up, and then came home and went to work on the yard. Tomorrow I have to plant some more grass seed and lay down some mulch over it, and then water the piss out of it for a week or so. We took a break and had a snack, and then went back for more. By the time i got the tree cut down, it was almost 6:30. We piled into the MPV and got some BK. We ate, got the babies washed, and watched some TV. I went out about 10pm and got back around 11. I have to get up early and go back to work tomorrow, but the bike ride was WORTH IT. It is a total bonus that this happened in April!

cheers

Lack of Motivation

I find that as the closer I get to the end of school, the less motivated I am at work. My major project is complete. The final deliverable has to be proofread and edits made, but other than that I am done (oh yeah, there will be a chance to make yet another ass of myself presenting my portion of the data! FUN!). The motivation is so bad that I am actually blogging in my office, as I am sure many other people do. I used to really care about this place, but now I am kind of just drifting. Last semester, I let my family kind of go by the wayside and my school and work were the priorities. I learned that was STUPID. Never let the family take a back seat to anyone or anything, especially your WIFE! Lesson learned. I slack off at work now and try to be more plugged in at home.

No riding yet to report in my "riding and training" blog. Too sick, too much to do, no time to do it. May 5th I start riding, and losing 40 pounds before I go back to school on September 4th. If those fat asses on Biggest Loser can lose 164 pounds in five months, I think I could lose 40 pounds of fluffiness in one summer of riding and playing and gardening and building projects and hiking and kayaking......you get the point. I am going to always take on at least 40g of whey protein after riding or exercising, eat a low carb diet most of the time, and mess it all up with normal pig out eating on the weekends. It is crazy, and if it works I will publish these blogs, make a million dollars, and slack off on my own time (not work here anymore!).

Cheers

I have never cared at all about Brett Michaels

My wife Anastasia and I had a conversation about Brett Michaels tonight. Back when Poison was big, I was in to Metallica, Anthrax, and whatever else would scare my parents. Don't get me wrong, if I started wearing as much makeup as the "boys" in Poison, my parents would have been plenty scared. Anyways, there is this little guilty pleasure on VH1 called Rock of Love. It is what I like to call "Lowest Common Denominator" TV. There is plenty of that on VH1, and that is why after a long day of doing tasks I don't want to do at work watching LCD tv at night feels kind of right. Brett Michaels picked the woman that we wanted him to pick. I can't even believe that I care, but I do.

My cold is better today. Maybe my bitching about it yesterday shook something loose. I got my last grade in BioOps today.....A . I thought I bombed the paper, but I got a little creative and went past what we were lectured on. I guess that is what the instructors want at UW-Madison. Two and a half weeks and I will be done. Then it is off to building jungle gyms and new entrance stairs around here. It was beautiful when I got home. Anastasia wanted to leaf blow so I got that set up for her. She went about that for about an hour, while I kept an eye on the kids while taking down the rest of the XMAS stuff. After that we polished off our first bottle of wine on the patio. Tomorrow it is supposed to be almost 70 degrees.

skol!

cd

The Winter of my Discontent

I have my fourth cold of the winter. I am tired of being sick. Our daughter, Malefocent, is in school and is bringing EVERYTHING home. I used to never get sick. I have tried everything. Lots of fruit, zinc, psuedofed, not doing anything, misters. IT SUCKS. I wanted to start riding tomorrow, but right now I have two ear infections, unproductive cough, and a stuffed head/sinus. Why must I be punished?

On a better note, I finished my last big assignment for this semester. I have to do a final proofread of the final assembled project and prepare a 7 minute talk, but then I will be done with that class. I cannot wait for the semester to be finished. We have so many plans this summer, both as a family and by myself.

Last year I lost my passion for biking. I "did one" 24 hour race last year. We signed up for the 12 hour duo and I managed one lap before the beer started calling. It just wasn't fun. I have learned that I don't like racing, or anything remotely related to racing. I don't like the attitude, the racing itself, and the atmosphere. I just like to ride. Mountain, road, bike paths. I am totally getting back into it this summer. Once per weekend will be trips to Standing Rocks. I will master that trail before the summer ends. Three to four days per week on the road at work, and an occasional la de da ride at night after the family is in bed. There is something so zen about riding at night. Especially on those humid nights when the moon is still out. Some of my best thoughts and introspections have happened at those times.

The highlight of the summer is my 10 year anniversary of being married to my wife, Anastasia Beverhausen. It has been the best 10 years of my life, and she has given me our beautiful children. I am planning an adventure, but Anastasia will read this so it has to be done in secret.

cheers

cd

I wouldn't really say I was "missing work"

I decided to take the day off tomorrow, in addition to having Friday off. Crunch time is coming with school work and I need an extra day off. This way I can stay home and hang with the family tonight. I cannot wait until the semester is over. I have so much going on at work and with all of this school work hanging over my head I couldn't concentrate at work anyway. I did some instrument maintenance and organization today and that was about it. My head is filled with plans for the summer, plans for the house, plans for the family.

Next week I will start riding on a regular basis. I hope to lose at least 36 pounds this summer. That shouldn't be a problem, as long as I stay active. I will log my poundage each Monday, along with activities.

I let myself go.

I am a dad. In most ways, I am defined by being a dad. I love my kids, and my wife. I would always much rather hang with them than go out and ride, or go the gym, or whatever. This stops now. I am hovering between 280 and 290 lbs now. I would like to get back to around 250 by labor day, and this blog will help me reach this goal. I will also write about other things such as our adminstrations lack of leadership, hope for the future, my family, school, and friends.

Today, I showed Maddy how to use the pneumatic nailer and we made plans to build some bird houses this summer. It should be fun. We will build bluebird birdhouses.

I was going to start riding today, but yardwork and a bad back took care of that. Hopefully this next week I can get out for a couple of hours, and then the week after that a couple more, and so on and so on. I will soon post a picture of myself to slowly track my progress. Wish me luck!