Another Test Down

I headed to Vermillion this morning to take the Praxis exam in order to get my teaching certificate. I honestly have no idea how it went. It was a two part test specific to music with the first part being an audio portion where examples were played that we had to identify styles, composers, music theory and other items. The second was a written portion that covered some of the same material but also had a good deal of educational philosophy and music education specific questions.

I have to say that I did not enjoy the questions about the classroom or music education approaches at all. Those were the subjects in college that didn't hold my interest when I was in college and barely registered for me today since I could care less about Orff and Kodaly (no offense). It may be primarily that those questions deal more directly with elementary music education than they do with middle or high school band, but I'm pretty sure I tanked on quite a few of those questions.

One realization was strongest by the time the morning was over: I really am not sure how badly I want to teach. I'd much rather be in a ministry position, even though those positions are not immune to their own issues. We'll have to see what happens. I'm not closing the door to teaching and if the right teaching position comes along, I'm sure I'd be able to do a great job and could be very successful doing it. We'll just take it as it comes.

In the meantime, I finished my first full week in the shop and don't think I messed anything up too bad. I've been building bikes, restringing racquets, filling CO2 cartridges and have even been able to do some more minor repairs for customers and on trade in bikes that we resell. It's been fun, but I've been tired all week. The last bike ride I got to take was on Sunday, so I get to spend a good deal of time around bikes, but wonder what it might be like to ride one. Hopefully I can get some miles in this week.

We leave for Indiana next Saturday and will be in Marion through Mother's Day. It will be great to get caught up with friends and to not have a job interfere with my bike riding for a week. We'll even get to do a meeting with the camp staff for Impact Summit at the end of July while we're there. We haven't seen some of them since we left last summer assuming we were done with camp. I'm excited and have been working on putting the songs together that we'll do. I'm also hoping that I might be able to write some new songs for us to use, but I've been hoping to do so for months and haven't had much of anything happen.

I need to head to bed. A big day tomorrow with leading for services while Hal preaches and a retirement party for Dr. Mitchell in Vermillion. Dr. Mitchell was the head of the Music Department and Director of Bands when Amy and I went to USD. We're hoping to see some familiar faces and do some catching up. It promises to be a fun, but exhausting day.

Hoping to catch my breath

This week has been nuts! I had an interview for a part time, middle school band job followed by a 9+ hour shift at the bike shop on Monday and have been working a little extra to try to hit my goal of 43 hours per week. We also heard back from one of the four churches that we currently have resumes out for wanting me to respond to questions about my testimony, philosophy of ministry and other questions that I couldn't just fire off a quick response to. I chipped away at the questions from Monday night until last night at about 11:30 between normal family life, sending out another resume for a teaching job, a late worship planning meeting, rehearsal and work.

To make life more interesting, I take the teaching exam on Saturday and really haven't had much of a chance to study. I'm hoping to do that over the next few nights between family stuff and a little down time to watch "The Office" and "My Name is Earl."

While I've really enjoyed working at the bike shop, things are going to need to let up or my cycling is going to have to be vicariously done through customers and the other guys in the shop. I've only got half as many miles as I did at this point last year and my ride on Sunday afternoon was horrible. I was sluggish and tired on a day that was not even horribly windy by South Dakota standards. I estimate that I need about another 500 miles in my legs to be ready for the two days of the Tour de Kota that I'm doing this summer which is only about 6 weeks away and I'm not exactly sure where the time is going to come from. I need to establish a new routine, but I haven't settled into my new work schedule yet.

We leave for vacation in Marion, IN in about 9 or 10 days. I need it.

A New Look

The new job at the bike shop meant that I had to shave my goatee. I hated to do it as I've had it for about four years and had been growing it out since October. A final photo and a moment of silence are in order:



Here is the "after" photo:



It had been suggested that I approach Locks of Love to possibly donate the goatee to some poor person who is facially, follicle challenged. In exploring the options though, we discovered a breakthrough in scientific technology that would allow me to keep the goatee by way of having live donors temporarily host the goatee for me. My gracious family said they would be willing to do so in order for me to be able to keep the goatee for days that I do not go to work. Here's how it looks on various temporary hosts:







Needless to say, it works better on some than on others.

A Professional Bike Mechanic

Still seems a bit of a stretch to call myself a "professional bike mechanic" but they intend to pay me for yesterday's work at the new job, so I guess it's official. They started me off with building new bikes that will eventually make their way to the floor. Dave and Lee (the other full timers) were great to work with and incredibly patient with me. I hope their patience continues for at least a few more days.

They had me building bikes for pretty much the whole day. I actually got credit for three of them, but have to admit that the drivetrain was still giving me fits. I feel fairly comfortable with setting up brakes and most of the other stuff that we do is fairly straight ahead. If you're stopping into the store and are worried about buying something that the new guy built, don't worry. Each bike that is built is tested before it hits the floor and retested once it is bought.

There are so many differences between this job and my last one that they probably deserve their own post, but the most immediately felt effect is from standing all day instead of sitting at a desk for a full shift. My back is probably going to suffer a bit in the short term while I adjust to it, but hopefully it won't be too bad.

Now I'm off for day 2.

Bikes on the brain and my last night at the bank

We drove to Jim & Marilyn's in Yankton yesterday which meant I got to start the day with a bike ride on some familiar roads. I was excited because I haven't been able to ride much yet and they live along the Missouri River, so I'd get to do some solid early season riding on some of the better hills in the area.

The weather was rainy, a little windy and only about 50 degrees, in other words, perfect. I love riding when the conditions are less than perfect. I love coming home wet, chilled and tired after a good effort because I really feel like I accomplished something. I did just under 30 miles with three sections of climbing. The first section contained long, steep climbs. Section #2 was long and gradual climbs. Section three was more of the long, steep variety, but not as much climbing as section 1. I felt surprisingly good and was glad to get the chance to work on hard efforts and recovery which will help me out a lot down the road.

Tomorrow I get to begin to spend even more time around bikes as I have orientation for my new job as a bike tech. I had my last night of work at Citibank tonight and was able to go home early by using up the last of my time off. It was hard to say goodbye to people that I genuinely enjoy being around, but the prospect of being able to work in an environment where I get to play with bikes cushions the blow a great deal.

I also had a chance to talk to my good friend David Brown tonight. After giving it a lot of thought, Dave said he'd be willing to play drums for us at camp. I'm excited to get a chance to play together again and hope to round up the rest of the musicians over the next few days. I'm looking forward to it, but will have a hard time waiting for the end of July to actually do it!

More job prospects and a bike tour

I was awake for about four hours in the middle of the night last night and found a few more church jobs in Nebraska to apply for. I applied at a more reasonable hour once the sun was up and one got back to me in about an hour. I haven't heard from the other as yet. We are currently being considered for at least four different churches from North Dakota to Minnesota to Nebraska. I'm still not certain about whether we're supposed to move again or not, but I trust God to fill us in as we consider some of these opportunities.

I'm rapidly approaching my last night at my current job and will have my first day in the bike shop a week from today. I'm looking forward to the change of pace, although I'm growing accustomed to working shorter shifts since I've been using the vacation and holiday time I've accumulated to go home early from work for the last week.


I finally registered for the Tour de Kota this morning and am looking forward to riding again. I'm only able to register for Sunday and Tuesday at this point since I don't know what my work schedule will be exactly, but know I won't have any vacation time to use. The Sunday ride starts and ends in Yankton (our home base last summer) on roads that I know pretty well and will cover about 100 miles. The Wednesday ride will be 67 miles from Garretson (just northeast of Sioux Falls) to Volga. We won't have to travel far to do the two days and I'm pretty optimistic about getting in shape for just two days, especially since I get to rest two days between. Last year I paid a bit with day after day of long effort. I'm sure the ride will still present its own challenges, but I'll probably be a bit more relaxed this year. I need to get back to training!

Morning Ride

Anybody else see a cheetah on their ride this morning? No? Thought not. I hit the bike trail in Sioux Falls for a little spinning and to get some more base miles in my legs so I can get on with some serious riding soon. The trail takes you right along the back side of the zoo where you can get the occasional glimpse of something cool for free. I know that Jamin might have seen a cheetah this morning in Africa, but I doubt that he was on a bike. If he did, it was cooler than my encounter, but I'd just as soon see a caged cheetah if I'm on my bike and my only method of defense is my mini-pump for my tires. I wouldn't provide much more of a chase for a cheetah right now than a zebra with two broken legs carrying a hippo on its back.

I also saw some emu at the zoo and plenty of ducks, geese, pheasant and flickers to make the ride rather enjoyable until I hit the north end of town and had to work my way back home. The wind hit about there and slowed me down quite a bit. I made it home with another 22 miles under my belt, but I'm still not feeling like I'm riding particularly well.

I did make a pleasant discovery last night when I did my ride log. I thought I was way behind last year's pace due to a late start to the season but found I am really only about 10 miles behind. I doubt I'll be able to match last April's output, but it gave me some hope that maybe I'm not as far off as I had feared.

Bikes, jobs and a "sinus hole"

It's been an eventful few days around here. I finally did get the bike mechanic job at a large retailer here in town and will start two weeks from tonight. Unfortunately, I found out what my employee discount will be and may need another job because I may not bring much home from this one. I officially gave my two weeks tonight and was able to come home early after discovering that I had vacation and holiday time off that I had earned by this point in the year that I hadn't used. I still have a bit of it left, so I'll be working a few shorter shifts over the next two weeks.

I hit the road for my first early ride of the year this morning. The temperature when I left was just under 30 degrees even though the high for the day was supposed to top 60. I did about 26 miles and felt good out on the open road, but pretty sluggish in town. I was worshiping as I heard the calls of several different birds and saw deer, pheasant, red tail hawks and enjoyed a beautiful, sunny morning. I'm going to try to go out again in the morning and may just do the bike loop in town just to get a little more conditioning in.

The most frustrating thing about this morning's ride was that I couldn't blow my nose. It's not that I forgot how, but I was diagnosed the other day with a "sinus hole" as a result of getting my wisdom teeth pulled a few weeks ago. Apparently, one tooth was particularly close to my sinus on the left side and left a small hole there. I'll save you the gory details, but the clot that formed to plug the hole did not stay put because I was unaware that I should have exercised more caution in blowing my nose. A week or so ago, I started having this bad taste in my mouth. I came to believe that I had a sinus infection and that it was draining into my mouth, making things rather unpleasant. I figured it would clear up and just tried to cover the taste with mints, drinks and meals, but it kept getting worse. I also noticed that when I would use mouthwash, somehow I was getting some in my nostrils. I finally got concerned enough to head back to the oral surgeon where the sinus hole was diagnosed. I'm now back on antibiotics and antihistemines and am under orders to not blow my nose or exert any extra pressure on my sinuses for at least two weeks in the hope that the hole will heal itself and not require any more third party measures.

Which brings us back to this morning's ride. Like I said, it was cold. Very cold. The nose of the human body in low temperatures is capable of putting out enough liquid in a 26 mile bike ride to fill a 50 gallon drum. I have perfected my technique of clearing said nostrils of oozing substances by plugging one nostril and blowing fiercely through the other to send anything found there to the roadside. This keeps my nostrils clear and helps me keep from getting said substances all over my clothing. This morning, I was unable to use this technique and had no choice but to keep wiping. My gloves and arm warmers looked like they had housed a snail colony by the time I got home with slime trails up and down both arms. I did finally gently blow my nose once I was home to clear things out and was much less runny than I have been over the last several days after that.

Not only am I not to blow my nose, but blowing my trumpet is out of the question as well. Even though I just got a new job, I am still looking at teaching jobs for the fall and was wanting to get my chops back in order so that I don't embarrass myself in front of some fifth grader. I guess I'll have to wait a little longer to get going with that again.

Almost a bike mechanic

Well, I wasn't able to give my two weeks notice today, but it was a successful 2nd interview. I go in again Monday for what should be a meeting about salary and paperwork and should be official in a few weeks unless they change their minds over the weekend.

I can't help but think how crazy all of this is. I'm basically taking a job at 33 years of age that I would have loved in high school or college, but would never have dreamed of doing as the primary source of income for a family of four. Obviously, other job searches will have to continue, but I'm hoping to pick up some skills and maybe even a job that I could continue to do part time if ministry or teaching things became available in the area. For the short term, I'd at least be able to enjoy the employee discount. My biggest problem is that as I looked at the bikes today before my interview, I couldn't decide which one I would want!