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.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Monday, August 13, 2007
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.
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.
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.
Monday, August 06, 2007
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
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.
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."
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."
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