Unexpected Opportunities

Now, before anybody starts to worry or hope, we have no intentions of going anywhere for the time being. But, we have learned of a few opportunities that we weren't expecting.

In a conversation with Ronda Myers we learned that Hanfield's Worship Arts Pastor resigned. I don't know the situation, but we've had a few email exchanges with friends where they've let us know they'd love for us to consider staying when we come back for Rachel's wedding in a few weeks. Obviously, we are flattered and we would love to serve alongside our friends and Hanfield family again, but I don't sense any strong move in that direction.

Another interesting thing came up this week. We had applied for a job in Hastings, Nebraska two summers ago and were only about two weeks away from making a trip there for an interview weekend when I sensed the Lord telling us that we weren't supposed to go. Now, whether the Lord was saying, "No" or "Not at this time" I am not sure, but I had a call from Randy, the Senior Pastor, the other night asking if we would consider discussing and praying about the position again.

The situation is that the church is running about 500-600 in attendance and needs someone to lead the existing worship ministry (primarily a blended style) as well as helping to found and facilitate an alternative worship service. They never did call anyone to that position as they really want to find someone with the right mix of gifts and experience. Again, we're flattered that our conversations with Randy and other staff nearly 18 months ago left enough of an impression that they would still be thinking about us, but we're not sensing a strong pull away from Sioux Falls at this time.

At the same time, I did tell Randy that we would discuss it and pray about it. When we were called from Hanfield, I was very clear through prayer that I was willing to go anywhere God wanted me to go and do anything He wanted me to do. At the time, that was fueled by a great deal of restlessness and a desire for change. If I still believe that I would go anywhere and do anything the Lord asks then I need to be open to His leading when I am comfortable and settled as well.

Randy and I agreed to speak again after the first of the year to see whether to continue the conversation or not.

Again, nobody freak out. We're not planning on going anywhere for the time being, but want to continue to practice listening to the leading of God rather than simply making gut level, hasty decisions without talking to Him about it. We love Sioux Falls and proximity to family. Amy's home and USF studios are doing well. Xander loves his school and is making friends. I'm enjoying my job (most days). We love our home. We love our church (as challenging and hard as it is sometimes). There are a lot of things pointing to us staying, but we need to see what God has to say about it.

A New (Used) Trainer

I am happy to announce the retirement of the late '80's model Supergo wind trainer that I have used as my bike trainer for the better part of 20 years. I had the chance to upgrade to a CycleOps Fluid 2 trainer that I bought from Bryan at work. Bryan upgraded to a spin bike that Mike, our store manager, upgraded from after one year of use.

My Supergo was great for me, but was way too loud to use in the house that we're in now. Before I could always put it in the basement, but here I was stuck putting it in the garage which is about the last place that I want to spend time riding a bike both aesthetically and from a comfort/temperature standpoint.

I rode the new trainer yesterday morning in the family room right next to the bedroom and Amy said that it didn't bother her. The nice thing was that I was able to watch tv while on the trainer for the first time since Colorado. I selected the 2005 Tour for my viewing pleasure and spun for a half hour or so. Not a huge effort, but it has given me hope that it will be a better off season on the bike than I've probably ever had.

As for the outdoor scene, I ordered some studded tires for the mountain bike for riding in the snow and ice when other weather permits. I'll need to wait to pick them up for awhile yet, but hope that if the forecast looks good I might even be able to take a bike to Indiana with me when we go for Rachel's wedding in a few weeks. I'm crossing my fingers as I would love to ride some while we're back.

D Street House Going Back On the Market

Anybody want to buy a house? I got in touch with Sally, our realtor, in Marion to officially put the house back on the market. We had taken it off the market and looked at rent to own possibilities and the possibility of selling it ourselves to a friend, but nothing has panned out to this point.

We have rented the place since summer, but managing a property from a thousand miles away isn't something we want to do for any longer than necessary. With any luck, we'll be back on the market by the end of the month and will finally see the place sell in the new year.

Trek back in the pro tour

When the Discovery Channel Team's management announced that they were ending operations after the 2007 season in August, Trek bikes was left without a top level professional team and Trek dealers (myself included) began to wonder whether anyone would be riding the bikes we're selling next season.

I started to suspect that they might be a match for the Astana team after BMC Bikes dumped the team late in the summer due to the doping scandals that hit the team during and shortly following this year's Tour de France. There were very few other teams at that level that didn't already have a bike supplier and Trek's options seemed pretty slim. Shortly after that, Johan Bruyneel (former director for US Postal/Discovery Channel) took on responsibilities for Astana and the possibility of Trek becoming the official bike supplier seemed a much better prospect.

That possibility finally became reality with the announcement of the partnership last night. Astana (including last year's Tour champ Alberto Contador and podium finisher Levi Leipheimer) will be perched atop the all new Trek Madone 6.9 Pro model and Trek dealers everywhere can look forward to having the bikes represented at the biggest races in the world. Trek will also be the clothing supplier which hopefully means that their clothing line will step up in a big way after being pretty lackluster in terms of quality up to this point.

Now let's just hope that no further drug scandals crop up for the team or the sponsor...

Rest, Weariness and Worship

I actually had a full day yesterday where I didn't have any obligations. No work, no rehearsals, no product meetings... I still had coffee with Aaron, lunch with the girls and did my general "Dad" stuff, but I was happy to not have the extras. It seems like those days come less and less frequently.

On a related note, a topic of conversation with Shel in terms of worship leading is how often I express weariness during the course of congregational worship. I didn't realize how often I was exploring that theme and I think he was right to call me on it. In the past, my weariness was less frequent, so when I was tired and acknowledged it in corporate worship it was a way of not only asking for God's strength, but also to let the congregation know that it is still possible to worship powerfully out of emptiness. Because I find myself in that place more often though, it needs to be a theme worn less on my sleeve.

So, I'm working on leading with joy and energy as I seek to be the kind of leader the congregation needs at this point in time. Add to that the challenge to lead more charismatically and there's a lot that I'm learning about worship leading right now.

On the charismatic end of things, the last few Sundays that we've led have been some of the more powerful Sundays in terms of an obvious anointing of the Holy Spirit. I think that we've had a few breakthrough moments as leaders that have helped the congregation begin to understand the dynamic of worship in a way that is bringing freedom in our corporate expression. Hopefully it is a trend that continues and our best days of congregational worship are still ahead.

A quick 4:30am rant

I've been up for about three hours already and I'm afraid I'm in it for the long haul, so may as well write something that's been on my mind for weeks.

When shopping this holiday season, be a servant to those who are trying to scrape together a living and find ways to make their jobs easier instead of harder. If you try on a coat, zip it up. If you try on some gloves or a hat, put them back where you found them.

I've been dealing with cold weather clothing for three months solid now and am constantly amazed that people will come into a store, destroy the place and leave with a "Well, they're paid to clean up after me" mentality. From snow pants left half inside out in the middle of the floor to hats that are left laying at the bottom of the shelf instead of being rehung, I spend a large part of my day cleaning up. Before I leave at the end of a closing shift, the shops have to all be cleaned and straightened for the next day's business which means that I am usually there for almost a half hour longer than I would be during bike season and have to shift my attention from selling to cleaning about one hour before my shift ends instead of focusing on helping customers if I hope to get home to spend time with Amy.

I'm not paid to clean up after people at the store. I'm paid to sell stuff. If the shop I'm selling in is a mess, it makes the shop less appealing to shop in and makes items harder to find. So guess what? I wind up having to clean it up. While I am cleaning it up, I am less able to assist customers and sell less. And when I sell less, I make less.

Yes you can certainly make the argument that in a sense I am paid to clean up after people, but pretend you're a guest in their home and don't take advantage of a retailer's hospitality.

Thanks for indulging me.

Post-Thanksgiving weekend and an unexpected conversation

I have officially survived my first post-Thanksgiving weekend in sales and I have to say that I expected a lot more. Friday was a busy day, but no more so than a hopping day in the middle of bike season for me, only I didn't get to sell as many bikes (or much else that is as much fun). Saturday was much slower and Sunday slower yet, so instead of reaping huge sales, I wound up spending the weekend thinking about how much I hate working weekends (which is pretty status quo).

Wednesday was probably my favorite day at work this week. I was fairly relaxed, knowing I'd have to spend most of the day prepping my shops for Friday's onslaught and had an unexpected visit from my friend Tory Larson. Tory and I worked at Citibank together, both with shared ministry background, growing interest in the emerging church and a hope that we'd be able to escape Citi soon. I escaped about four months before Tory and his family moved to Illinois.

We've traded a few messages in the last 18 months and it was great to get to carve some time out of the day to catch up a bit. I think Tory's experiencing a lot of what we've felt over the last three years in terms of a vague sense of calling, a search for meaningful ministry and the hope for purposeful vocation that feeds instead of drains us. I think I've at least found a place that I can grow from in balancing ministry and vocation. I'm praying that Tory will find his niche and that God will unlock the gifts he has and give him greater joy as he discovers what God has been preparing him for.

I got pulled over on the way home from the bar last night

Okay, before anyone overreacts, I was at Nutty's North (a local bar and live music hot spot) for a service that Mercy Church started recently that meets every other Sunday night, so I was not at the bar for ill purposes. More about the service later, but first: the drive home.

I headed out shortly after 8:00 hoping to make it home in time to help Amy put Xander to bed. Nutty's is on a frontage road and I had a stop sign with a quick left turn followed immediately by another stop sign with a right turn to get onto the main thoroughfare. I will readily admit that I made a pretty poor attempt at stopping at the first sign and did much better at the second sign, since I saw the police car. I made my turn onto the main road and immediately the lights came on.

I figured he probably saw me come out of Nutty's and wants to make sure I haven't been drinking. I was hoping for a quick breathalyzer which I would ace since I didn't have anything to drink and then to be on my way. It turns out he wasn't too pleased with my disregard of the first stop sign and asked me why I ran it while I sat in the car next to him. I had no response. He looked up my info and said, "I'm going to give you a warning. Tell Amy and Xander 'Hi' for me." It turns out that the officer was the father of one of Xander's classmates. Embarrassing to be sure, but... Am I lucky or what?

So, back to the service. I ran sound for the service which had about 15 people in attendance and hopefully will grow into the vision of an outreach service that we all have for it. It started with a couple of songs with Bobbi, Nich, Corey and Mike (all regulars on our worship team) followed by a testimony from Bobbi, short message from Shel, an open mic discussion time on the topic (forgiveness) and a few closing songs. This was only the second run at the Nutty's service, but we're hoping to fine tune some things before advertising it on a broader basis. I think it has a lot of potential and it will be interesting to see where it goes.

Xander's Birthday

Today is Xander's eighth birthday. It's been a fun day with him. He's been in a great mood all day and I was able to surprise him by showing him the Gameboy that he lost back in August that I found this afternoon. He's also got the day off from school tomorrow, so we're letting him stay up late while we watch Spiderman 3. I hope all of his birthdays can be this good!

God is good (and then some)

Yesterday was a great day of blessing. I had just had my third day of good sales in a row at work when I got the word that Sanford Hospital decided to forgive the over $13,000 bill from my appendectomy in August. God answers prayer!

Church Merger Vote

We are about to set out into some territory that none of us has ever experienced before at Mercy Church. We have been in discussions for almost a year with Good Shepherd Community Church (where Mercy Church meets) about the possibility of merging the churches in an effort to enrich the ministries of both congregations. Good Shepherd is an older congregation, traditional in worship style and Mennonite by denomination. Mercy is a younger congregation (in terms of existence and average age), very progressive in worship style and a part of the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination.

We had our vote on Sunday and Mercy passed the merger with 83 percent of the vote while Good Shepherd passed it with 60 percent of the vote. There was some question as to whether a simple majority was enough at Good Shepherd or if they needed two thirds majority to pass, but after much discussion, consultation of the church's constitution and getting feedback from the moderator for the process, it was decided that simple majority was enough.

It was no surprise that the vote at Good Shepherd was that close. They own the land, have over 50 years of history as a congregation and will become the minority in this partnership. Giving up control and trusting a baby congregation to help you move forward into future ministry had to be a very difficult decision to wrestle through.

We will keep two distinctly different worship styles and become dually affiliated with both denominations. There are a lot of other things that we will need to work through, but we'll figure it out along the way. I will admit that it would have been easier and probably far less messy had the merger not passed, but as it has, I think we have a great opportunity to break down walls between communities, denominations and generations as we seek to serve together.

More on this to come as we forge ahead.

Trip to the Farm

We managed to escape Sioux Falls on Friday night to head to Mom and Dad's for a Friday-Saturday stay. We also managed to see my grandparents as they came from Fort Dodge to help us celebrate Xander's birthday. As always, we had good food, lots of conversation and even had a chance to check on the progress of the conversion of the old chicken coop as it is transformed into an art studio. There's still a lot of work to be done, but a new roof, windows and exterior work are coming nicely. New electrical, interior work and a new furnace are coming up and should make it a really great studio space.

I did take the opportunity to get a ride in. I took the Rig out for some gravel road riding in sub 40 degree temps for about 17 miles. I didn't necessarily intend to go that far, but the extra miles allowed me to see a few deer and a red tailed hawk that shot out of the long grass at the roadside about ten feet away from me. The single speed is a good ride for around there as there are some hills going in and out of the valley surrounding Waterman Creek, but nothing extreme.

I love riding in the valleys around there. There's a beauty to the type of rolling, grassy hills that's hard to explain. It's not like the majestic, overpowering beauty of the mountains, but a more subtle, soothing beauty that eases the spirit and encourages peace. The valley serves as home to a variety of wildlife and provides a sheltered resting place for hawks, eagles, herons and a great number of other birds that visit the many feeders at the house.

After lunch we had presents and cake for Xander, more conversation, a quick nap and I spent some time tuning up Mom and Dad's bikes. We headed home after putting the kids in their pajamas so that we'd be home in time for a good night's sleep before church in the morning.

Too quick a trip, but hopefully it won't take us as long to make it back for another visit.

So, where have I been?

Holy crap it's been a long time! Some of my absence may be explained by hyperscheduling and general busyness, but I've had times where I've thought about writing and just haven't managed to get it done.

A brief recap of the month: I have been working a lot, am fully recovered from my late August appendectomy, have ridden the bike a little and have decided to work a little harder at getting in a little better shape. For starters, work has been a bit crazy. Not only have I been working to keep up with my youth coldweather shop where stuff just seems to keep coming in, but I had to take some time to put together my 2008 bike program which meant a lot of extra time put in over the last few weeks. I wrapped up the bike program last Monday (on my day off) and left the next day for "Fitness University" for the store (aka "Exercise University") at our corporate headquarters in Fargo. Overall, it was a good three days in Fargo where I learned more about the exercise products we'll be carrying but also learned more about selling fitness as a consultant rather than just selling as a salesman. It's probably not interesting to most, so if you are interested, let me know and I'll explain fuller.

It was a good follow up to a commitment I made a few weeks ago to get in a little better shape as I had the chance to demo some products to see what I could be doing to supplement my bike riding and lose a few more pounds. The idea was birthed on a bike ride where I realized that Rachel Vetor's wedding in January in Indiana was the perfect motivator for me to stave off my usual end of the year slide into hibernation when cycling season ends. My hope is that I'll go back to Indiana looking better than I ever did while we lived there. I'm not far off it now, but am hoping that a little strength training with a healthy dose of cardio will make it even better. My larger reason for wanting to do this (beyond vanity) is that I'm hoping to stay in relatively good health through the off season so that I don't waste the first two months of my season just trying to get some kind of conditioning like I did this year.

Amy decided that if I was going to try to look better, that meant she needed to. Of course, she never has as far to go as I do and has been doing yoga, step aerobics and other things and looks fantastic already. I only have a handful of bike rides, the workout sessions at fitness university and a mild workout this morning in my favor. I'm going to have to pick it up if I want to keep pace.

On the plus side, I was given a heart rate monitor at university and used it for the first time on my ride today. It's really going to change the way I train. I used it today to go fairly hard and had a target zone of 148-165 beats per minute (bpm). If I went above or below that rate, the watch beeped at me to let me know to pick it up, or take it easier. It was a great ride and I was in my target zone most of the ride. It told me several times to work harder and several times to slow down (usually on hills where there was no way I was easing up). I will be looking at new computers for the bike next season with heart rate though as the watch is not the most convenient way to track the info. It was nice at the end of the ride to be able to look at my max heart rate (183), calories burned (approximately 1300), percentage of calories that were fat calories (30%) and the amount of time that I spent in my target zone (about 80% of the ride). As I learn more about using heart rate to achieve goals, I hope to be burning more fat calories and using the monitor to chip away at the goal.

Before university, I took the single speed mountain bike and went riding at Union Grove State Park about 45 minutes south of Sioux Falls. It was the day before I left for Fargo and I had a pretty tight window of opportunity, but I'd heard good things about the prospects of riding single speed there and decided I needed to check it out. When I arrived at the park entrance, I saw a sign that more or less said, "Attention park visitors: there is an active hunting season taking place in this park." My heart kind of sank because I didn't know if I'd be able to ride. For those not from this area, hunting in South Dakota is sort of a big deal. People travel from all over the country to slay the wildlife of South Dakota and South Dakotans are more than willing to kill all the animals as well. Okay, I don't really have an issue with hunting, but I also fail to see the appeal. I am more of a gatherer by nature and have other people kill my animals for me.

So, anyway, since it was early afternoon (after most hunters have already gone home, showered and had a six pack) and I didn't want to miss out on a ride, I decided to see how many people were in the park. I only saw a couple of cars at the main building and decided I'd take my chances. The riding was great, but hard. There were no water bars, steps or other obstacles to overcome like I had encountered at Beaver Creek. Instead, I found winding horse trails that work well as single track for a mountain bike with a good deal of uphill and downhill sections. Several of the uphills are very long and difficult to gut out on a single speed, but I managed to make the first lap without having to get off the bike.

Each lap is about 4.1 miles if you take the outermost sections and do a full lap of the park, so I stopped to eat an energy bar and grab some water before heading out for another lap. Because of the time crunch, I only had time for one more lap which proved really difficult. I was wheezing pretty hard on a couple of the climbs, but was able to stay upright and on the bike until the final, extended climb. I finally had a mental moment where the lights went out and I had to get off about 75% of the way up the climb. On that kind of hill, on a single speed, there was no option but to walk the bike up. I wouldn't have been able to start again even if I'd wanted to. I finished the lap well and headed for home. I'm hoping to do more with the mountain bike next season as the effort and recovery that it requires is much different than on a road bike. I think both disciplines aid each other well and provides some variety throughout the season.

I have had other, deeper thoughts in the last month or so and wouldn't mind fleshing some of these out, but probably not tonight. Hopefully they will add up to a few more super-sized posts in the next few weeks.

I am not a real mountain biker

I have had a hard time getting miles on the bike the last few months. When school starts, our schedules kick into overdrive and even commuting to work becomes difficult at best. Add an apendecomy to the mix and I have been slowed down greatly since mid-August.

I have had a few road rides to test the waters including a 40 mile jaunt on Thursday that was very good. I felt sluggish out of the gate and didn't have a lot of power in the last few miles, but I did 40 miles with an 18.3 mph average (not far off of where my peak in season speed is) where I was able to hit a rhythm and stay in it even though I didn't feel the strongest.

Today, I figured I would grab a ride in the afternoon after doing church stuff all morning. The only problem was that I wasn't all that interested in riding with temps in the upper 80's with winds in the upper 20's. On the way home from church it dawned on me that this might be the perfect scenerio for hitting one of the local state parks where I might finally be able to get the Rig (the Gary Fisher single-speed mountain bike that I bought in April) some off road action.

I looked up the info online to see about fees, trail set up, hours and such for a few of the parks and opted for Beaver Creek which is only about 10 miles east of town. I probably would have hit Newton Hills which is a hotter destination for my friends that ride, but they were having an event there this afternoon that would have made riding an impossibility. So I packed up the bike, hit the road and made my way to Beaver Creek.

Having never been to Beaver Creek, I knew that this would be nothing much more than a scouting expedition where I would get to know the lay of the land and would have to be fairly conservative. The only problem with being conservative on a single-speed is that any momentum you lose by taking it slow means you will not have the speed to go uphill or over obstacles and will probably either walk or crash. Add to that the fact that we had a lot of rain last night and there were leaves all over the trail thanks to recent rain and wind and the conditions were not ideal for my first off roading venture.

I would not have impressed anybody with my skills as I did a fair amount of walking, took a couple of spills and generally rode like a novice. In my defense, I did get better as the day went on and I got to know the loop better. I began to anticipate the terrain much better and made better decisions earlier than in previous laps. I did draw some blood early and know that I'll feel the effort tomorrow in different ways than I would with a road ride.

While I hope to spend a lot more time off road next season, I have a long way to go before anyone will acuse me of being a mountain biker. I did have fun (bumps and bruises not withstanding) and hope to even get out a few more times before it snows.

Late Response to the Landis Ruling

I know that the decision in the Floyd Landis doping case was handed down at the end of last week (14 months after he tested positive at the Tour de France), but I figure posting my reaction four days later is just sort of par for the course the way things have gone. Was I surprised? No. Do I believe he doped? Yes, although I don't want to believe it. His team did a pretty good job of discrediting the lab that handled the samples and the way this whole thing was carried out bordered on the ridiculous, but when the arbitration panel roundly criticized the lab and still found him guilty it became pretty hard for me to believe that Floyd was totally clean.

That may be more of a response to the general state of pro cycling which has done a lot to clean up, but has so much farther to go, which makes it hard to believe that anyone that has a positive A and B sample in a doping investigation has any credibility no matter how hard they protest their innocence. I've had several favorite riders over the last few years test positive and say they were clean. It's becoming harder to believe any of them.

So where does that leave the 2006 Tour de France? With Oscar Pereiro as the official winner, a winner who is one of the least deserving Tour champs in the history of the event. Had he not been given a half hour gift as a part of a breakaway in the middle of the race he wouldn't have finished in the top 10. His lackluster showing this year is more on par with his quality as a Tour contender. No offense to Pereiro as he is an excellent pro cyclist, but he didn't deserve the '06 Tour win and will never finish near the podium again.

As to the historical significance, it has widely been reported that Landis is the first Tour champ to have his title stripped. This is not entirely true. At the beginning of the summer, 1996 champ Bjarne Riis confessed to doping during the '96 Tour and was voluntarily stripped of his title. I had also read on cyclingnews.com at some point in the last year about one of the early Tours where the champ was stripped of the race win due to cheating, although I'm going to have to hunt for awhile to find the article. I'll try to do some follow up if I find time.

Regardless, American cycling is at a crossroads with the general sporting public cynical about the sport, the biggest and most successful team disbanding and now a fallen Tour champ. There's still a lot to love about the sport, but it's going to take something special to put cycling back on a positive track in the US.

Weariness and new beginnings

The last month has been all about changing gears and trying to settle into a new rhythm at home, at church, at work, at school and with health. Weariness has run rampant as I've tried to adapt and recover from surgery a couple of weeks ago. Finding a groove that isn't accompanied by fatigue has proven difficult and the increase in commitments at church and new commitments at work have only fueled weariness. I did have a good day yesterday where I felt I was better able to pace my efforts and stay engaged in what I was doing, but today I feel tired and lethargic and haven't even really begun to dig into the things that I need to take care of for this weekend.

On a more positive note, I'm excited about restarting ministry stuff this fall. I've been looking forward to the end of summer (from a ministry standpoint) since it will give us a chance to revamp, restart and reinvest in a way that you just can't do in the summer due to scheduling and consistency issues that always seem to come up from June through August.

I'm taking part in Mercy's Alpha course this fall which is an introductory level look at Christianity and a foundational part of Mercy's discipleship efforts. We had our first meeting last night and I'm looking forward to spending the next few months with this group. After this session of Alpha is over, I'm planning on starting a small group exploring issues of art and faith. Hopefully, there will be much more on that topic to come.

I also got an email earlier from a worship team member about a desire to do more spiritual and musical development as a team, complete with some possible ideas to implement. Bobbi has been talking with Nich and Corey about this topic and all three seem to be desiring to see this happen. I've been sort of waiting for something like this to happen for awhile now but wanted to see a desire for it from within the team before pushing it. It will be interesting to see what shape this takes and how it is embraced once we begin down that road.

Back to the Fray

I'm recovering pretty well from last week's trip to the hospital. I spent most of last week on the couch or asleep and have still been feeling a bit sluggish the last few days. I go see the doc for a follow up in the morning and will hopefully receive a clean bill of health.

Saturday we hit LifeLight for a bit. LifeLight is a huge Christian music festival in Sioux Falls that reportedly had over 300,000 in attendance over the weekend. I admit coming into it with a bias. My only other large, outdoor Christian event was Passion's OneDay event in 2000 which was a life altering, intense, dedicated time of worship, prayer and word. This was Christian entertainment and I found myself wishing that there was more depth to what I witnessed.

Granted, I only went for about five hours on Saturday afternoon and had to miss several of the artists that I would have probably resonated with and where the crowds were certainly larger and more engaged. I also was dragging like crazy and probably wasn't in the right frame of mind. We saw Desperation Band (which was okay), Angel Dean (who one of our guitar players plays for), Derek Webb (who was his usual prophetic, fabulous self) and heard from Craig Gross, founder of XXXchurch.com (which was excellent). Each set was only about 25-30 minutes in length, which made the five hours seem even longer. We'll see how compelling next year looks before determining whether we'll venture back or not.

The last two days have been spent at cold weather university for the store where we get to listen to industry reps from companies like The North Face, Mountain Hardware and Columbia talk about their products and technologies for hours on end. It's been good info and I've picked up a few cool things (swag) and great deals on some coats (which I desperately need). My last day is tomorrow before I finally get to go back to work at the store on Friday. It will be good to get back to a routine that resembles normal.

What a way to start the week

The good news: I get the week off from work.

The bad news: it required uninsured surgery to get the week off from work.

I got to make a trip to the hospital yesterday morning with severe abdominal pain which turned out to be appendicitis. Things started out with just a bloated, gassy feeling on Sunday morning which I treated with Pepto, Alka Seltzer, Gas-X and tried to coax along with coffee and carbonated drinks all to no avail. The day went on without getting more uncomfortable until about 6:00 that night when the lower right side of my abdomen started feeling tender. By the time Amy got home from Bible study, I was feeling quite a bit more discomfort but decided to try to wait it out.

I tried going to sleep, but could find very few positions that offered any comfort. I wound up sleeping on the floor of the family room so Amy wouldn't have to deal with me tossing and turning. By about midnight, the pain was getting fairly intense, but I still wasn't running a fever so I would alternate between five or ten minute increments of sleep, tossing and turning and tryin to use the bathroom hoping that a good b.m. would bring some relief. Finally, about 3:30 a.m. I threw up which helped ease the pain for about 20 minutes before I was back into the same state I was in before. I may have gotten an hour and a half of sleep, but probably not quite that much.

I got up around 7:00 and went to lay in bed once Amy was up and getting Xander ready for school. Shortly after she left the house, the pain intensified quite a bit. I rolled myself out of bed, called work and then called Amy to let her know that we were going to need to take a trip to the emergency room. I then got Maia up so she'd be ready to leave the house when Amy got back.

Maia was not the least bit sympathetic. She sprang up the stairs, climbed into her chair and yelled, "Daddy, I'm hungry." She told me this probably three times as I crawled up the stairs and said, "I know baby. I'm coming." I told her she needed to eat fast because Daddy wasn't feeling very good and we were going to have to go to the hospital. After she ate, I told her to use the bathroom. She wanted to use the bathroom upstairs, but I figured she would need help and didn't treasure the thought of crawling more stairs, so I told her to use the one off of the piano room. Of course, she still needed help turning the light on. I started to crawl across the room. Maia watched and said, "Get up!" as though I was crawling as a stall tactic.

Amy got home and I hauled myself out to the car while she got a bag put together for Maia to keep her entertained for the day. By this point, every breath was an exercise in pain and I was fairly convinced that we were dealing with appendicitis. Every bump in the road between the house and the hospital was a challenge for Amy to negotiate between keeping the ride smooth yet fast. We finally arrived at the hospital at about 8:30 a.m. and I hauled myself into the ER, wincing with every breath and slumped over step.

By now you may be wondering why we waited so long to get to the hospital. A lot of it came down to money. We've been uninsured since I left Citibank almost a year and a half ago simply because we couldn't afford insurance. When I started in the bike shop, the insurance plan through the store would have cost us over one third of my monthly income, and as that was our only income at the time, I didn't have much choice but to go without coverage. Rent, house payments on the Indiana house (which we still own) and deferred student loans meant that we couldn't take on any more at the time. When the end of the year rolled around last year and I had the chance to sign up for the program again, we were doing a little better, but I was still working in the shop and our income wasn't enough to take on the insurance. Two months later I was starting in sales with better income and could actually take on the insurance premiums, but I have to wait until the end of the year to get on the program. So, needless to say, we wanted to be certain that a trip to the hospital was necessary before throwing our money away.

I don't know how many doctors, nurses and other hospital staff we met over the next few hours, but all were very gracious, helpful, professional and understanding when it came to keeping costs down and helping us get the best care without unnecessary expense. Early on, the ER nurses were thinking either appendicitis or kidney stones. The docs narrowed it down to appendicitis pretty quick but because it is more common before age 30, they wanted to do a cat scan to be certain. We played the uninsured card again and after consulting, they let us skip the scan and proceeded to set me up with a lap-appy (laparoscopic appendectomy).

The pain had subsided a bit as I waited in a prep room in a prone position over the next few hours and I even managed a little more sleep. By about 11:00 they finally gave me something for the pain. They continued giving me meds as they moved me to a pre-op room and went over medical history for what seemed like the fifth or sixth time that morning. They then wheeled me out and the girls went to the waiting room while I went in for surgery.

The appendix didn't burst but did finally perforate when the doc went to retrieve it, so they did have to irrigate a little bit and I'm on a pretty healthy dose of antibiotics. Apparently, the appendix is usually about three and a half inches long and not very wide. Mine was over five inches long and huge by the time they took it out. I've got a picture of it after the surgery and it looks like a the front half of a bald rat. Pretty gross. I thought about posting the pic, but probably won't.

I don't remember much after going into the operating room, but woke up some time later in a large recovery room, still pretty well out of it. About the only thing I do remember from recovery is getting some ice chips which I appreciated a great deal.

They then wheeled me to a private recovery room where I met up with the girls again, had some toast and water and generally felt a whole lot better. They wanted me to eat something without incident and go for a walk without dizziness before they would let me go. As it turned out, I was able to leave at about 4:30 p.m. which was a bit surprising to me. I thought they'd keep me until later in the evening with the goal of getting me out before they would have to charge us for another day's stay.

The girls were great. Amy was on top of handling the paper work, making sure to keep costs down and providing prayer and comfort. Maia played very well, colored and covered herself in stickers which she then insisted on sharing with Amy. I hated to make them waste a day at the hospital, but was glad they were there. Xander went home from school with Isaac and got to hang out at his place until about 8:00, so I think he had a pretty good day too.

When we got home, I put in a DVD of the 2005 Tour and fell asleep for a few hours. Marilyn came to help out with the kids while Amy went to a meeting and I finally got myself up at about 7:30 to have something to eat and to be sociable.

After a good night's sleep and a restful day, I'm feeling pretty good. A little sore and sluggish, but nothing really to complain about. I'm taking a week off from work (thanks to vacation and sick days that were sitting there) and am hoping to get a good deal of rest, have a birthday and maybe take in some of LifeLight this weekend.

Prayer request

I always find it hard to ask for prayer for myself. Whether it's the male ego or what, I don't know, but I recognize that I need prayer now. Amy and I have been leading worship at Mercy Church here in town since November. We've talked with Shel (our Lead Pastor) about needing to press more into charismatic expressions of corporate worship for several months now as a growth area for us personally. I have tried to be open to it and have looked at it as an opportunity to grow in the calling that God gave me as a worship leader, but it doesn't seem as though anything is happening.

Shel has been supportive and has even arranged for us to have some Sundays off to visit other congregations with more charismatic worship being done well in order for us to better understand what he's asking of us. This weekend will be the first time we visit somewhere else in order to take advantage of the opportunity, but ultimately I know that only one thing is going to help us get past this barrier and that is the power of the Holy Spirit.

I had the opportunity to worship by myself at the house tonight and found myself asking what happened to the guy that I was just two or three years ago that seemed so in tune with what God was doing and had no trouble pushing into those freer spaces in worship. I don't have any answers, but I know that without the anointing of the Holy Spirit, any attempts I make are going to fall flat. I also recognize that if I can't grow into this area, Mercy will need someone else to lead worship who can.

I feel myself battling fear, self consciousness and depression and ask for prayer that these voices would be silenced and that God would grow me in whatever ways He wants to so that I can do whatever it is He calls me to.

There's a lot bubbling under the surface for me, personally, and I haven't quite got a grip on everything that is going on in my spirit, but I do ask that you pray that the Spirit work in me in ways that are indisputably His own and that I would glorify God regardless of where this all goes.

"Disco" is Dead

I'm a little late in responding to the news, but the greatest cycling team of the last ten years, Discovery Channel (formerly US Postal Service), who saw Lance Armstrong to a record seven Tour de France wins, has decided to call it quits. Sponsorship was set to change after this season anyway since the Discovery Channel had only signed on for three years as title sponsor, but the current climate of cycling proved to not be conducive for the management team to continue on.

I had posted after the Tour that it's really terrible that a team that wins the Tour, puts two riders on the final podium, wins the young rider and team competitions and gets a stage win would have more trouble finding a sponsor after the Tour than before it, but the severity of the fallout from failed drug tests and other allegations against some notable riders was huge.

This hits a little close to home for me because I also sell Trek bikes. Now Trek is left without a team in the top tier of professional road cycling. Granted, there is time for them to set something up with another team to carry sponsorship over to next year, but I'm not sure that I see a likely candidate in the pro peleton.

It also hits home because I've been a fan and close follower of the sport for over 20 years and during that time my favorite teams have been 7-11, Motorola, US Postal and Discovery; teams that all share DNA, a lot of riders and even some support staff and management. I don't see a likely team to absorb enough of the current Disco riders to make me feel like the torch has been passed. Where will favorites like George Hincapie, Levi Leipheimer and Tour champ Alberto Contador end up (Georgie's already rumored to have been signed by T-Mobile)? Will team Slipstream become the new, most prominent US based team? Will Lance ever be affiliated with a team again as closely as he has been with this one even since retirement?

Time will tell, but for now, the bell tolls for the most successful team in the history of US cycling.

More Emergent Conversations

I had a chance to talk with Hal for awhile last night when we got together with his family at the park near our new house for a little picnic, conversation and play. They had just returned from doing their own elementary church camp for New Hope which they had some great stories about. As always with us, the subjects of worship and art came up and I discovered that he's been spending more time in studying the emerging church movement recently. You can go back to the first year of posts on this blog to get an idea of some of my early travels down that same road that mirror a lot of what I was hearing from Hal last night.

One thing that I find interesting about the whole topic is how many established churches are scared of the emerging church movement and are actively seeking to discredit it. That mistrust is not new to me. I grew up and currently live in the upper midwest where social shifts generally happen gradually with a great deal of difficulty.

Hal and Martha were telling of one church that they know that has more or less gone on the record as saying they want nothing to do with the emerging church and seems to discredit anything and anybody associated with it. I agree that there is much in the emerging church that needs to be sifted out, but I believe that there is much of value that churches need to come to grips with if we are to engage post modern America with the Gospel of Jesus.

The emerging church has not (in most cases) set itself as the best new model for ministry. It generally recognizes that our culture demands a different approach to ministry and is wading into those waters to see what that might look like. It values the local church community and generally recognizes that each community is unique and will require unique approaches to ministry.

I hope for more conversation on this topic with Hal and with our folks at Mercy since emergent thought is a part of what is shaping us.

Vacation

After years of traveling to visit family on every bit of time off we had we finally took our first ever full family vacation last weekend. We headed up to the Minneapolis/St. Paul area on Thursday and drove back on Monday. Amy had taken on travel agent duties and managed to pick a weekend where the weather was perfect, chose activities that elicited no complaining and managed to keep us from blowing the budget.

Thursday's drive was fairly uneventful, but somewhat nostalgic for me. I hadn't been to the Twin Cities since 1994 when Amy was doing shows at Valley Fair and some of the roads we were on were familiar friends from countless trips to the North Shore and Grandpa and Grandma's cabin in Canada. I kept thinking about those trips as much as I was thinking about the one we were on.

We arrived late in the afternoon and had time to get settled in at the hotel and have some supper before a swim at the pool. When we hit the pool, we discovered that we would be sharing the weekend with at least two, maybe three pre-pubescent girls softball teams who were in town for a tournament. Needless to say, the pool was not a quiet place of recreation nor was the hot tub a place of quiet retreat. The sheer numbers of kids in the pool at times was well beyond the printed capacity on the pool rules sign and the volume produced nearly required the use of hearing protection. Of course, pre-teen girls are known to scream at the slightest opportunity and can raise their normal speaking voices a full octave and about 40 decibels when trying to speak to one another in a hot tub in an already sonically cluttered space. This was to be our swimming experience our first three nights at the hotel.

Their last night was Saturday and it was the worst of the bunch. All of the coaches and parents that were in town for the tournament were at the hotel as well as the kids. All of the kids were in the pool. All of the adults were on the deck, bottled beverage of choice in hand. I looked around at one point and estimated that there were sixty kids in the pool area and Amy and I were the only adults. Absolutely ridiculous.

After being in the pool for an hour or so on Thursday we headed back to the room to recover our hearing and slow down a bit. Shrek the Third was on pay-per-view so we went ahead and ordered it and hung out in the room for the rest of the night.

Friday, we slept in, hit the pool for awhile (with less kids) and then headed out for the day's activities at the Mall of America. Our primary objective for the MOA was the Lego Activity Center since that is Mecca to a certain seven year old boy that resides with us. Xander was in heaven as he looked at all of the cool displays and saw everything that was for sale there. We had budgeted for some personal spending, so we gave him his spending limit and the freedom to decide what he wanted to get. He made out like a bandit and was chomping at the bit by the end of the day to get back to the hotel so he could start building.

We hit a few more stores and looked for lunch before hitting the rest of the mall. Amy picked up a dress and Maia picked up a couple of princess dolls at the Disney Store (which she held onto for the remainder of the day) before we hit Underwater Adventures aquarium. My Dad had told me we had to check it out and it was very cool. It's an underground aquarium with freshwater and saltwater portions where you are walking through a tunnel with aquatic life swimming next to and over you.

One final stop at the bookstore for me and we were on our way back to the hotel. I picked up and devoured Michael Berry's Inside the Postal Bus which is a book about the 2004 season of the US Postal Cycling Team's season from the perspective of one of the riders. It was a fun read and I finished it before we got home.

Saturday's itinerary was to sleep in late, eat breakfast, hit the pool and then head to the Minnesota Children's Museum in St. Paul. They had a lot of great exhibits for the kiddos which made for a pretty full day. Xander's favorites were a block assembly, conveyor belt set up in the Curious George exhibit and some of the waterworks displays. I'm not sure of Maia's favorites, but the one she spent the most time engaged with was a painting on rocks exhibit on the roof of the building where a small stream flowed and the kids could wet their brushes and "paint" designs on the rocks with water. They would evaporate shortly, leaving a clean canvas for more creativity.

The one downside of the museum was that they didn't really have anything to eat there, so we had to venture out for lunch midway through the day. We hit a restaurant with some outdoor seating and people watched in this little town squaresque setting. We started the meal with a good amount of shade from buildings and trees, but the longer our food took to arrive, the more sun we were taking on. By the time the food arrived, we were completely in the sun and melting. Thankfully, we were able to secure an umbrella from the table and finished things out fairly comfortably. Then it was back to the museum followed by a trip back to the hotel for food and swimming.

Sunday varied a little from the other days in the morning routine as we slept in late, ate breakfast and then skipped the pool routine to head to church. We went to Spirit Garage which is an emergent, highly aesthetic, artist friendly church that meets in The Music Box Theater in downtown Minneapolis. The environment was pretty cool, the people were friendly and I can now say that I've been to church where dog owners are free to bring their pets as we saw two dogs in the service who were purely ornamental and served no discernible service such as being a guide dog (although there was one blind guy there as well).

After church, we grabbed some lunch at Pottbelly's before heading for our afternoon destination at Cascade Bay waterpark. Cascade Bay is in Eagan and is essentially an overblown municipal pool with several water slides, a lazy river, mini golf and other features. It was the one day of our trip that was over 90 degrees and the water felt great. We hung out for four hours or so taking everything in. Amy and I enjoyed the slides and took turns watching the kids so that we could ride them. We spent some time on the lazy river where Xander made laps as fast as he could while the rest of us enjoyed the lazy aspect of the river. The only way we knew what time it was is that they clear the pool for five minutes every hour for a "safety break". It got to the point where I was pretty dialed in on when these were going to happen and we managed to spend two of the breaks on the lazy river which they keep operating at all times. It was a good place to hang out for the day and meant we did not have to spend the evening in the hotel pool.

Monday morning we slept in late, ate breakfast (seeing a trend yet?) and then went down for a final swim in the pool. The hot tub was closed for treatment, but the water temp in the pool was very warm, so we didn't mind. We had the place to ourselves for the better part of an hour since all the softballers had gone home and enjoyed the much more relaxing atmosphere. We wound up hanging in the pool until 10:30 or so and then headed up to the room to clean, pack and check out.

The drive home was leisurely. We ate at Emma Krumbee's Restaurant in Belle Plaine which I remember from so many drives through the area and managed to make it home around 5:00. We had a chance to unpack and reacclimate before turning in for the night.

All told, I think our travel agent deserves big kudos for planning a good mix of activity and downtime that we could all enjoy, choosing a time when the weather was neither too hot or stormy and preparing and keeping us on budget. Hopefully it will be the first of many family vacations to come.

For photos & Amy's take on vacation, click here.

Post Tour Thoughts

I know that I have been strangely silent when it comes to the Tour de France this year. It certainly has not been that I haven't been following it or that it hasn't been newsworthy. Time has been an issue between selling bikes, riding bikes, ministry and a seven year old who spends more time on the computer than the rest of the family combined (when does school start again?) leaving me a bit stretched when it comes to writing.

So, the Tour... As a fan of the Discovery Channel team I couldn't help but be happy with two of three podium placings in Paris including the overall winner, best young rider and best overall team classification win. It definitely is a top finish for the team in terms of combined accolades. If only we weren't left with what ifs.

What if Rabobank didn't pull Rasmussen? Would he have held off Contador for the win? His performance in the mid-race time trail was remarkable for him and a similar performance would have kept him in the lead. Of course, his performance in that time trial is very suspect, especially after his team fires him for missing out of competition doping controls and lying about his whereabouts to doping authorities who need to know where he is in order to carry out said controls. It's not like he was just out to eat or visiting neighbors when they didn't know where he was really at either. He wasn't even on the same side of the Atlantic as where he was supposed to be. He told authorities that he'd be in Mexico (where his wife is from) when he was really in Italy. Rumors fly as to what he was doing there, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that when a guy who has never ridden a decent time trial in his life puts in the kind of performance that he did ten days ago it may have been more than a case of him having a really good day.

What if Vino hadn't tested positive? Would Discovery have been able to overtake the Astana team in the team classification? Not likely, but the exclusion of Vinokurov would probably have put Disco in front (I haven't crunched the numbers), but once the rest of the Astana team was asked to withdraw, Disco was set up for the win. Now news is that Astana is suspending all activities for the month of August to assess where they go from here and BMC, their bike sponser is pulling the plug immediately. BMC suffered through Floyd Landis' positive testing after last year's Tour and now has this to deal with and is sick of the whole thing. So, even if Astana decides to resume racing in September (in time for the Vuelta a Espana, Tour of Spain) they may be scrambling to piece together bikes for the team.

Most importantly, what if the Tour hadn't had any doping issues this year? Discovery is in search of a new title sponsor and it is hard for me to believe that a team could win the overall, place another rider in third, win the team classification and actually have more difficulty securing a title sponsor than before the race began. Unfortunately, that's the position the team is in. This is a touchy time of year to still be talking sponsorship issues as well. Riders are signing contracts for next season and the riders that are currently under contract with the team will need to know that they have employment for next year or they will have little choice but to begin talking to other teams. If Johan and Lance can't figure something out soon, they run the risk of losing key guys and may not be able to build on this year's success. I'm still fairly certain that something will come through, but they're cutting it awfully close.

The last week of the Tour I actually found myself saying, "Thank God for Michael Vick, crooked NBA refs and Barry Bonds and his drug induced home run race. At least it's taking some of the focus off of cycling's problems."

July, so far

It's amazing how long a move can put you out of commission. We moved a few weeks ago from our two bed duplex abode to a much larger three bed duplex abode that Jim and Marilyn bought recently and have been slowly chipping away at painting, unpacking and adapting to life as property managers. We've got easily 2.5 times the space of the last place and are no longer always in each others' way. Life is much more peaceful now as the kids disappear into their rooms or their shared play area downstairs. It's an interesting home design with piano room, kitchen/dining and garage on the main level, two beds, bath and shared space downstairs and family room and master bed/bath upstairs. It's almost like having a master suite for us with a good amount of privacy once the kiddos are in bed.

The other unit is a two bedroom with a young couple in it who we've met but haven't really had a chance to get to know as yet. They seem really nice and it's a totally different vibe than our last place where Alisa had the upstairs and we heard her all the time overhead and shared a basement. We never hear these guys other than when the garage door opens (their garage is right under our bedroom).

It's been an odd July in the biking category for me. I haven't been riding nearly as much as the last two months with moving, work, church, life..., but I have been commuting a lot more. We're just a drop down the hill from the bike trail and yesterday was the first time since we'd moved in that I didn't ride my bike to work. It winds up being five miles each way which is a little farther than we were from the old house, but I don't deal with nearly the traffic and stop/starts that I did before, so it's a much more enjoyable commute. I was able to hit some hills around Yankton last weekend, so I haven't totally lost my legs yet.

The Tour is in full swing and it's amazing that I haven't written a word about it yet this year. Things are shaping up for an interesting final week with a couple Discovery Channel guys in the thick of it. Saturday's time trial should really begin to sort things out, but they still have a few mountain stages and another time trial next week to shape the race even further. Even the typically uneventful stages have proved decisive with crashes hindering major players and unexpected gaps in the peleton forming on what should have been easy, boring stages. I still wish I could watch the Tour, but no cable or satellite means I have to settle for reading the live race updates on cyclingnews.com to get any of the nuance of what's going on.

Even though I've been bemoaning not getting to watch the Tour, our home entertainment options improved last week with the purchase of our first TV in eleven years. We sold a bunch of stuff before moving in and used the money to purchase a 26" LCD HDTV which tripled the number of stations that we receive and gives us high def picture quality making a lot of the channels that we already could watch crystal clear. I was watching Nature on PBS on Sunday night and drooling at the showroom quality picture that I was getting through our rabbit ear antennae. I love technology.

Things at Mercy keep plugging along. We're still growing into the roles that we are in at the church and are really pushing in ways new to us in free worship. The advantage of having a lead pastor with Pentecostal background and a young church still forging an identity is that we have a lot of freedom in worship expression. It has been a challenge for me to grow into some of that as a leader since I haven't really been able to do much more than scratch the surface of that kind of expression in the past. We're also looking to hire someone part-time for Children's Ministry, so we've been doing a lot more with Children's Worship over the summer. I get my first crack at it this weekend, so it should be interesting.

I had coffee with Aaron this morning at Caribou and we had some great conversation about life at Mercy, where the Worship Ministry is going and other general life topics. It still amazes me how much more creative my thinking is because of these kinds of conversations. I shouldn't be surprised that creativity would be birthed out of relationship since I've seen it in my time with Christer, Keith, Kyle, Erik and others over the years, but I think after being shut out of those kinds of relationships for a season that my conversations with Aaron are reawakening a creative drive in me that will hopefully lead to new expressions of worship and more creative efforts on my part.

I've said it before, but I believe that we are in a real season of blessing. Ministry is exciting, we have a new home, our jobs are providing more income and enjoyment than they have over the last two years, we're healthy and we're being challenged to grow. God is good and I can't wait to see what He's going to do next.

Moving

I don't know that I've written much about our big news, but we will be trading our two bedroom duplex dwelling for a three bedroom duplex setting next week. We had looked at some three bedroom places last summer with our same property managers, but couldn't quite swing it at the time. A few additional jobs and a promotion later, we're in a much better position now.

To make matters even better, Jim and Marilyn decided to look into purchasing a duplex in Sioux Falls as an investment property. It just so happens that we were to be the initial tenants, so we got to help in the house hunting and found a duplex with a three bedroom unit and a two bedroom unit which has over twice the square footage of our current residence. We will manage the property for them and benefit from the additional space.

The kids have done a good job of sharing a room for the last two years, but I'm looking forward to seeing them in their own rooms. For one, more of their stuff will be in their rooms instead of spread all over their room, the bathroom and the basement. The place also has two and a half baths, which makes this the first place we've lived that has more than one. The kids will have their own bathroom near their bedrooms in the downstairs.

The main floor has a family space that we'll use as a piano studio for Amy as well as a dinette/kitchen area, half bath and some storage. Upstairs will be a family room where we'll have our main living space and the master bed and bath. There's also a huge walk in closet off of the bedroom, so we should have plenty of room and even a bit of privacy compared to the last two years.

We've been blessed to have the place we've been in. We've learned that we can live with a lot less than we thought we could. We've learned to be patient with one another in close quarters. Hopefully, we don't lose the lessons learned, but we're thankful that we're only a week away from being able to start the next chapter.

Hello Old Friend -or- Revenge of the Bike

Our team's efforts in our Race Across America fell well short after Josiah had to bow out with a knee injury, so on Monday I returned the 2007 Trek Madone 5.0 that I had been using to the store where we'll sell it as a demo bike. I had a few weeks to look into buying the bike, but decided that the deal wasn't sweet enough to pursue it.

So, I'm back on the LeMond Zurich that I picked up last summer. Still a great bike, but I wouldn't have minded trading up. I hit the road with it on Tuesday and the bike messed with me some to let me know that it didn't appreciate being left alone for six weeks. I had loaned the bike to Dave in the bike shop who rode it once (on a ride with me), but apparently that wasn't enough.

I started by spending a good five minutes on the bike trail messing with the saddle height and pitch before finding a position I felt I could live with for the full ride. The bike was also rattling in a way that was driving me nuts. It sounded like the chain or a cable slapping against something, but I couldn't pinpoint it. I started to wonder if Dave had put a ball bearing in the frame just to mess with me. I finally figured out that I had a loose bolt on my bottle cage. A quick adjustment and I was back in business.

I had originally planned to do about 30 miles, but about 15 in I realized that I was starting to lose air pressure, so I started nursing the bike home in order to avoid having to change a tube on the road. As I got closer to home, I got slower and slower. The pressure was dropping and I knew that I was running the risk of damaging the rim if I hit a bump too hard or rolled the tire off the rim on a corner, so I eased it home. I normally run my tire pressure at about 110 psi. By the time I got home I was at 20 psi. Not optimal at all.

Hopefully, the bike will treat me kinder on the next ride (which I'm planning for Saturday). In the meantime, I've been getting reacquainted with my Gary Fisher Rig that I got in April. I had only ridden it once during the Race Across America, so I did the work commute yesterday and rode it to coffee with Aaron this morning. I'll probably look to get out on some decent trails at Newton Hills or Beaver Creek with it soon and test my off road abilities in the next few weeks, but probably not until after our move next week.

Conversations

I've been lamenting lately how I only seem to have enough time and energy to write quick updates on recent events. It's not like I don't still think about things of more substance, I just can't seem to get past issues like schedule and weariness to dive into subjects that require a bit more effort to dive into.

That's why a day like today is such a blessing. I started out with a 30 mile ride where I had some time to think about how different an experience leadership at Mercy is than it was at Hanfield. At Hanfield, I had the luxury of having my vocation and ministry as one entity which gave me a singular focus that probably helped me more than I realized in growing as a leader and worshipper. The challenge with Mercy has been taking a somewhat segmented life where work, ministry and family don't flow as seemlessly and translate it into a cohesive approach to living a life of worship.

The challenge has been good for me in a lot of respects. I have a better appreciation for the challenges that our volunteers face in juggling their commitments. I also have more contact with unchurched people than I ever did at Hanfield. Unfortunately, some of the challenges also become more amplified in my current circumstances. The one that's been the hardest is that I'm not able to hang out with people and foster one on one relationships like I could at Hanfield. With one exception: Aaron.

After my ride, Aaron and I got together for coffee at Caribou Coffee. We've been getting together for the last few months and it's been a return to somthing that I've lacked since we moved from Marion. There, guys like Keith, Tim Lehrian, Ryan, Tim Tedder, Jason and others were a regular part of my schedule. I'd get together with them to talk about things, process thoughts and (most importantly) grow relationships. Here, I've not really had that same relational dynamic until now.

Aaron is one of our guitar players, works for one of the colleges in town and is someone that I've just clicked with. He's encouraging, challenging and exactly who I've needed to help unlock some thoughts. Today's coffee was good with a lot of conversation about worship, church and leadership. I'm recognizing that after ten years of leading worship that there are still a lot of areas where I need to grow. We talked about some of the unique challenges that we face at Mercy and in worship in particular. It was good stuff to process through.

About ten minutes after I got home, I got a call from Christer Lagerkvist who is a great friend and brother from Hanfield who I miss a lot. He had emailed yesterday and called to chat a bit. He's working on a masters in ministry at Indiana Wesleyan and was interested in my take on what happened at Hanfield between 2001 and 2005 as the church grew, stagnated and started to shrink. He's studying the tri-generational church and wondered what role the worldview differences between generations may have had in some of the population loss that Hanfield experienced.

It was an interesting conversation and played nicely off of some of what Aaron and I had talked about earlier. I think a lot of the population loss among the 20's and early 30's congregation reflected some of the restlessness that I was feeling at the time, so hopefully some of what I had to share was of some use to Christer. It was also another chance for me to look at where I am and where I've been in order to see where it is that I'm going.

I feel like I had two therapy sessions in one day with guys that I really trust and whose insights I appreciate a great deal.

Tour de Kota wrap up

Two more days on the TdK this year with the 100(+) miles yesterday from Lennox to Dell Rapids and another 50 today from Dell Rapids to Madison. I had originally hoped to ride tomorrow's leg to DeSmet, but have to work instead.

Our original gameplan had been to camp with the kiddos in Lennox and Dell Rapids, but a combination of things conspired against us. First, Maia had a bout of dehydration from spending her birthday in Mitchell with 90+ degree heat for several hours and woke up throwing up on Monday. She bounced back quick, but we didn't feel that camping was going to be the most conducive way for her to recover. Second, the weather has been hot and windy which made us think that sleep would be scarce in a tent with four people. Third, we hate camping.

So, at 5:00 am, I woke up, had breakfast, loaded up the bike and drove to Lennox to register. Folks were already rolling out of town as I arrived and I was on the road myself at about 6:30. Shortly before leaving town, I rolled up behind a guy in a University of Okoboji ride shirt who turned out to be Tim from Terrell, Iowa who we met on the first year of the TdK two years ago. We rode together for about the first 20 miles and caught up a bit. He had ridden to the start of the ride in Vermillion (139 miles) over the weekend with 100 lbs of gear strapped on the bike. He had a few war stories to share and we had great conversation until he needed to take a break. He's a bit of a lone wolf on the bike and I had a rendezvous scheduled with Amy and the kids up the road, so we said our goodbyes for the time being and I headed down the road.

At about 40 miles, I stopped at a gas station in Humboldt to wait for the fam. I was a little ahead of schedule, but Amy had texted me from the home computer because she couldn't find her phone earlier and we were unable to communicate. I had been at the gas station about 15 minutes when our next door neighbor Dick rolled up to the station. I decided to roll out with him and his group about 10 minutes later hoping to catch up with Amy later.

Our group was probably about 15 strong as we headed north and started in on the loop that would help extend the ride to 100 miles. The temp by this point was over 90 degrees and the wind was blowing at 20 mph out of the southeast, so we knew that we'd pay for our life of ease in a bit.

We turned west on the loop and Dick and I moved to the front with Dave Braley (who we went to church with at New Hope Family) to set pace for awhile. Before we knew it, the three of us were on our own. I guess our pace was a little ambitious for the rest of the group. When we hit the turn to head back into the wind the fun began. We immediately slowed to 14 mph and slugged it out for several miles until we reached Montrose. At that point, we saw my co-worker Jeffrey at a rest stop and invited him along for the next leg east.

We rode about seven miles back when I saw a familiar vehicle at an intersection. We had finally found Amy and the kids, so we holed up for a few minutes while I got some food and freshened my bottles. The stop was a bit abbreviated because I didn't want to hold up the other guys and we headed on to Hartford.

Once we turned south again, the carnage really began. First, we lost Jeffrey as the headwind proved a bit much for him. We didn't really want to slow down and prolong the agony, so Dick, Dave and I kept on. I started feeling like I was going to pop, but met the others pedal stroke for pedal stroke as we plowed along.

Pretty soon, something entirely unpredictable happened, Dick started cramping and fell off the pace. Now, Dick rides a lot. He's done an Ironman event, the Triple Bypass ride in Colorado on multiple occasions and often logs 100 mile days. He was among those that about put me in the ground on the group ride in March, so I really didn't expect to see him hit the wall before I did. Luckily, we only had a few miles to go to Hartford, so Dave and I pulled him in. We stopped at a convenience store with a bunch of other riders and Dick called it a day. He thought briefly about just riding home (about another 20 miles), but had Mary come to pick him up instead.

After a lengthy stay during which Jeffrey and most of our other pack riders met up with us, we headed back out. We had a stretch with a tailwind which helped put some wind in the sails again, but unfortunately, as soon as we turned east again, the pain resurfaced. It wasn't long before Dave and I found ourselves alone again and we just fought our way through the wind as best as we could. I really had to dig deep to make the next turn without blowing up, but we had another four or five mile reprieve before turning toward Baltic.

The stretch into Baltic was the longest stretch of the day for me. I didn't feel good at all and could only use Dave's presence as motivation to plod on. There was no power left in my legs and it was becoming obvious that the ride organizers had underestimated the total distance and we would be going into overtime. Dave knew that I was struggling and had pity on me allowing me to take what shelter I could behind him until we finally rolled into Baltic. We stopped at the fire station for water and met up again with Jeffrey and a few others.

While at the fire station I had a blast from my past when a guy came rolling up on an old Schwinn Circuit just like the one that I had in high school. I loved that bike but sold it so that I could buy a better trumpet (a fact I have lamented on more than one occassion). It was nice to revisit some memories, but I wasn't about to trade the Madone for the Circuit on a day like that.

We had about a two mile stretch back east before making the final turn for the tailwind run into Dell Rapids. Once we hit the corner, we flew. By the time we rolled into the park in Dell Rapids, Amy and the kids were there and we had covered 105.6 miles at 17.2 mph. Amy drove me over the the Catholic school where I hit the showers before we headed back to camp for lunch.

I love the TdK; the community, the challenge, the experience... But I really love the fact that it gives me an excuse to eat about anything I set my eyes on. I dove into a chili cheese dog and a "taco in a bucket" before eating what was left of Xander's ice cream. It was glorious.

The kiddos played a little and I found a patch of grass to call my own for a little bit. Finally, Maia decided to go into complete melt down and we had to take off. We got to walk all the way across the campground to the car with Maia trailing about 15 steps behind Amy absolutely screaming and throwing a tantrum like we had just killed her puppy. Between the kicking and screaming, we managed to get her in the car where she fell asleep within two miles but kept up the "sleep sobs" for the next 45 minutes. We drove to Lennox, picked up our other car and headed home.

After a relaxing evening at home (compared to the ride anyway), we got up this morning and did it all again.

Today's ride went from Dell Rapids to Madison which was an accurately predicted 50 miles. The one thing that I didn't count on (somehow) was that it was downpouring when I left the house this morning. I went out to load the bike in the car and was completely soaked in my gear for the day and I hadn't even left yet. I came back into the house to grab a towel and my arm warmers (since it was only in the 60's) and drove back to Dell Rapids.

It's always hard to tell how many folks have left camp when you show up like I did today, but I hit the road at about 6:30 again expecting that there would be at least 100 riders ahead of me. I think I passed 12 all day. The wind was still out of the southeast which would help us for all but the first little stretch. I headed the first seven miles east into the wind and into a downpour. It wasn't horribly cold, but the rain bit into my legs as though each drop contained a small metal shard. Thankfully, I love riding in the rain (with no lightning) and did my best to see through my fogged, wet Oakleys and keep it on the road. My feet felt like they were underwater as my shoes channeled not only the rain from above, but the streams of water that I was kicking up from below.

When I turned north, I got my first taste of how different today would be than yesterday.The rain hadn't given up, but the wind was a welcome friend instead of vengeful adversary. I flew along on cracked chip and seal roads (not my favorite riding surface) with visions of Paris Roubaix and some of the Belgian spring classic races in my head. I hit the town of Trent at 17 miles and saw what was to be my last rider of the day as he pulled into a rest stop for breakfast.

About two miles farther down the road I started wondering what my average speed was. I took a quick peak and saw that I was just a shade under 19 mph, not bad for riding solo and having done the first seven miles into the wind. My plan had been to ride straight through today as I'm used to doing 50 mile rides and had more than enough food and drink to get me to Madison. Now my plan included seeing how close I could push my average to 20 mph.

Things were going smoothly enough with the road surface as my only adversary, but when I hit Lake County, the surface turned to fairly new, smooth blacktop and I really took off. I started wondering if I was the first rider on the road and found myself looking back every once in awhile to see if anyone was coming with me.

Things continued this way until I hit Lake Madison. I know the area a little from doing a few deliveries out that way and knew that the ride was supposed to keep us on the south side of the lake. Usually there are pink signs with arrows at intersections telling us whether to turn or go straight. I saw no such arrows and the map that I carried (in a plastic back) was not detailed enough to tell me exactly what roads I was supposed to take. I realized shortly that I was not on the prescribed route and doubled back the 500 yards or so that I'd gone to grab the road that I thought I was supposed to be on. I kept thinking I would begin to see signs of some sort, but none were forthcoming. I knew that if I kept going straight, I would eventually hit highway 19 and could head north to get myself to Madison.

It turned out that for the last 15 miles, I had to go forward with no idea whether I was on the route or not. The map showed that I was to follow 19 to 34 and follow that into Madison. This I did. Then, I had to improvise. I rode into town not knowing where the camp was supposed to be. I called Amy to see if she had the details in the stuff the Argus sent me, but the info she had didn't shed much light on things.

The map I had included a couple of contact numbers for sag support for the ride, so I tried calling one of them to see if they could tell me where I was going, but the number that I had was for someone that apparently wasn't doing support that day, so he gave me another number. The next number was helping with the ride that day, but they were back in Trent where I had seen my last bike rider and started trying to give me instructions based on local landmarks. This proved less than helpful as I have never been in the town of Madison in my life. She finally told me to go to a convenience store to ask for directions. I stopped at the nearest one I could find, but the lady behind the counter didn't have the slightest idea of where to send me. I rode another three blocks to the Shell station and finally got detailed instructions only to discover that I had almost been in the right place when I called Amy.

I talked to Amy to let her know where I had arrived at and discovered from the plentiful volunteers standing around waiting for things to begin that I was, in fact, the first rider to arrive. My 20.4 mph average had been fast enough so that my slight detours and destinational confusion were unable to keep me from arriving first.

I got to mingle with the volunteers for a bit since I wasn't hungry yet and needed Amy to arrive with clothes before I could shower. Riders began to filter in about 45 minutes later and I had a chance to hang with a few of them for a bit before Amy and the kiddos rolled in. I loaded the bike up and hit the showers before downing a chili cheese baked potato, slice of pepperoni pizza and a Rockstar energy drink for an early lunch.

We were just about to head out when my friend Tim rolled in. He seemed in a rather jovial mood and we chatted for about ten minutes. I was glad to get to bookend my two days of the TdK with conversations with Tim. It reminded me of the circumstances that Amy and I found ourselves in when we met Tim having just moved back from Indiana with a vague sense of God's leading and no idea what we were doing or what the next two years were going to hold. I love the position that we find ourselves in now and have said on more than one occasion that I believe we are in a season of blessing.

The day concluded with a trip back to Dell Rapids to pick up the car before heading home. I finally got a nap in this afternoon and should return to work tomorrow without being too worn out but with a few more stories to tell.

I wonder where the TdK will go next year.

Long Ride and Race Update

I hit the road for 82 miles this morning for my first really long ride of the year. I'm doing the 100 mile day of the Tour de Kota on Tuesday, so I figured I'd best test myself and see how close I am to being ready. I did the first 40 into the wind (which was blowing pretty consistently at around 20 mph) and had it blow me home. If the 100 mile ride had been today, we'd have had a tail wind for all but about 20 miles of it. Hope next week is kind.

Our team is struggling along in the store's "Race Across America". We had one guy come up short on miles last week and another way short on miles and needing to be replaced due to a knee injury. We're currently sitting in 8th place and I'm wishing that I could log more miles to help bridge the gap, but I'm at my maximum allowable input. Looks like I probably won't be winning a bike (not the end of the world) or the accessories (only two of which I plan to keep anyway). I'm still enjoying riding borrowed stuff.

Our rehearsal for tonight got derailed as we had a couple of guys that couldn't make it. Problem is, the time they can do it is Saturday when I'm not available. We opted to have the core of the band at rehearsal rather than me this time around as we've got a new song that we're learning and extra songs to practice for a gig in Mitchell on Sunday afternoon. I'm sure we'll be fine, but scheduling has become somewhat of a headache of late.

Church Outdoors

Yesterday we had a combined service between Mercy and our host church, Good Shephard Community, in conjunction with a German food festival with inflatables for the kids and concerts for the afternoon. The weather in the days leading up had been rainy and the forecast for Sunday wasn't much better, but we had a sunny morning and the weather held pretty well until about 1:30. Thankfully, we had already finished the service, food, the concert by our guest group and the kids had had plenty of time to play. Our band was the only thing to suffer the effects of the weather.

Our guest group was Freedom's Call, a group of young ladies from Bemidji, MN who played guitars, mandolins, fiddles and sang (all of the girls played more than one instrument) and did primarily old-timey music (see "O Brother Where Art Thou"). The girls are younger teenagers and are very good at what they do. They weren't necessarily a professional quality group, but if they stay together, I think they have the potential to get there. Amy and I both agreed that the experience they're getting now will help them be able to do a wide range of things musically down the road because they are learning multiple instruments and have great voices and the ability to sing harmony very well.

After Freedom's Call, we started to set up. We knew it was going to rain, but we were under a tent and had a few folks that had come out just to hear us, so we plugged ahead. I figured, if nothing else, we'd get a chance to practice a couple of songs that we might do in Mitchell next week at Casey's church. Maia was distraught because the inflatables were coming down which made it hard for us to decide what to do as a family. I suggested to Amy that she take the kids home and we'd just do a few songs that didn't require keys, so she headed out. The band only wound up doing three songs, but two of them are songs we're still getting a feel for together, so it wasn't totally a wasted experience. We lucked out and the rain let up while we tore down and either took things inside or loaded them on the truck.

I was surprised to be home by 3:00 and we just hung out the rest of the day. The service was well attended (at least 175 people including numerous first time visitors) and the food was fantastic (especially if you love kraut). We've got a few more months before our next big to-do outdoors. Hopefully the weather will be as kind as it was yesterday morning.

Race Update and other events

After week 2 of our Race Across America, we're back in the running. Josiah logged 243 miles last week to make up for the miles that he missed the previous week due to participating in the Fargo Marathon. Jeffrey and I logged our standard 125 and Torey waited for better weather that never came and finished with 102 for the week. That means he's got 148 to log this week to put us back on track. I think he hates road cycling and may never touch a roadie again, even if he wins one.

I've already done three rides this week for about 90 of my maximum allowable 125 miles and have felt pretty good. I rode with Jeffrey on Monday morning and Tuesday morning and with Dave from the shop tonight for about 30 miles. Dave is borrowing my LeMond Zurich while I'm riding the bike they gave me for the race. I thought Dave was going to kill me he started so fast. We were cruising through town at 25 mph and once we hit the open road outside of town he was pulling me along at 32 mph (with the wind). I was thinking, "We've got 20 miles to go and I'm going to completely blow up soon."

Thankfully, we hit the hills pretty soon. I was in the front for the first hills and rode them pretty aggressively. I was hurting, but I felt like I was climbing stronger than I have all year. These hills were the same ones that Bryan, Dick and the boys destroyed me on a few months back. When we hit the end of the first rolling section, I could tell Dave was a bit tired. After we turned and hit a few more hills, he had hit the wall. Thankfully, the pace slowed at that point as we had about 12 miles into the wind to do from there. Dave recovered pretty well by the time we were back in town and we got back to the house at about 8:00.

We changed clothes and headed to Bob's Diner for dinner. Bob's is a great, lunch counter joint that I love and don't get to experience all that often. We closed Bob's down and now I've got the rest of the night to myself.

Amy and the kids are in Yankton for the night. I'll get together with Aaron for coffee in the morning, do a light 35 mile ride to finish my required miles for the week and maybe do a little songwriting and planning for Sunday's outdoor bash at church. I'm looking forward to having the day off and have this weekend off as well. A little time off will be much appreciated.

Race Update and doping scandal(s)

I hit my 125 mile contribution to the team's weekly goal for the Race Across America yesterday morning after a 53 mile ride and three mile commute for my noon-9pm shift. Jeffrey finished his miles on Thursday night and Torey didn't have far to go this weekend to finish up. Josiah, after his marathon last weekend, had 243 miles to log this week. He was making good headway through the week, but still had 100+ to do this weekend to finish up. The fact that it was windy today couldn't have helped him, but I'm sure he'll get us back up to the front of the race.

The other big news in cycling has been the continued revelations of doping among the T-Mobile (Telekom) team of the '90's. It has recently come to light that team doctors had been administering doping products to riders on a regular basis and it took on a new dimension when former team riders started coming forward to confess participation. Rolf Aldag and Erik Zabel (who currently rides for team Milram) spoke of their involvement mid-week which was a huge revelation and to top it off, Bjarne Riis, the 1996 Tour de France champ confessed to doping during the Tour he won and more or less offered to forfeit his Tour win.

What makes Riis' confession more important for today is that he is the Director of the CSC team which is currently the top team in the world. Tyler Hamilton tested positive while on the team and Ivan Basso apparently at least pursued doping while on CSC. Riis' admission could prove problematic for the future of his team, but I do applaud any rider that comes clean as my hope is that it will usher in a new era in pro cycling where we don't have the "I hope he was clean" though every time that a rider wins a race. I am all for a clean sport and believe that the sport provides enough drama without the over the top performances brought on by performance enhancers.

Now we just wait to see how Floyd's case goes...

Race Across America Update

After week 1, our team is a little bit behind. Three of our four team members logged the maximum amount allowed, but our fourth member ran a marathon on Saturday and needed to focus on the requirements of that effort in order to have a successful race. Thankfully, the race regulations stipulate that he'll be able to make up the missed miles this week. He was only able to get 7 of his 125 last week which means he'll need 243 this week to keep us at the front of the race. It will be a hard week, but the dude's in shape. He just ran a marathon.

I'll be getting together with Jeffrey in the morning again to kick off week two and will aim for 40-50 miles in the morning before I go to work at noon. The weather is supposed to be less than ideal with a chance of storms and winds at 20+mph, so we'll see how well I do. I only have to do 125 a week, but that still takes a bit of planning with a full time job, a part time job and the fam, so I can't afford to miss too many opportunities. I won't start worrying about our team's chances until later this week.

Race Across America

Well, the store's virtual "Race Across America" started the other day. This is the ride where each store, represented by a four person team will log miles on bikes provided by the store and Trek or Specialized (depending on which brand the individual store carries) with the winning team being awarded with the bikes.

I kicked things off the other morning by getting together with Jeffrey (another rider from the store) and logging about 20 miles on the bike path. It was a good chance to spend a little time getting to know him and teaching him a little about drafting as the wind was a solid 20-25mph throughout the ride.

After parting ways, I headed out of town for an additional 30 miles to finish with a total of 51. Each of us are only allowed to log 125 miles per week, so I did another 30 this morning leaving me with 45 miles to ride before work on Monday. I'm hoping to get to ride at Mom and Dad's this weekend and shouldn't have too much trouble with the remaining miles.

Jeffrey called me last night at work to check in and had already done 133 in the first two days of the ride. Let's just say he's one committed individual. He's a former pro boxer who fought Sugar Ray Leonard and is in phenomenal physical condition. I don't know another team with a rider near his age and I think he could bury most of the guys on the other teams. Glad he's on mine. He's also about the most gracious guy you could hope to know and it's been a joy getting to spend time with him at work and around the bike.

The pics are of the Trek Madone 5.0 that I am sharing with Josiah (another team member and the manager for bike accessories at the store). We're also sharing a LeMond Versailles which Josiah is currently riding. We'll trade in a few weeks and I'll have some pics of that one as well. We're going to have to flip a coin if we end up winning or buying the bikes to see who gets which one.

About the Madone... I love it. I love my current bike, but have noticed that this one accelerates faster, climbs a bit easier and I can carry larger gears with less effort. I'm actually toying with the idea of selling the Zurich and which ever one of the team bikes I might end up with and buying something even a step up. My only complaints about the Madone 5.0 is that the wheel set is a step down from my Zurich as are the stem and handlebar. The wheels and stem aren't a huge deal, but the handlebar is a constant frustration for me. I'm used to a Bontrager Race Lite and this one is a Bontrager Race, the biggest difference being that the Race Lite has some ergonomic design that provides a flat spot in the drops right below the brakes while the Race is a curved bar all the way through. I ride in the drops quite a bit and need as many hand positions as I can get because of numbness in my hands that I've experienced for the last year. Sometimes it's better than others, but I've noticed it is much harder to find relief on the Madone. If I were to keep this bike, I would change the bar in a heartbeat, but probably not much else.

I'll keep updating on mileage over the next six weeks (the approximate length of the race) and hope to enjoy getting to ride borrowed bikes for awhile.