If I'm not carefull I'll develop a reputation

I had a couple of interesting complements at work over the weekend that I thought were rather humorous. The first one is not so uncommon, but the enthusiasm with which it was delivered made it so. I had a junior high kid ask where the skateboard stuff was and after I gave him directions he said (again, enthusiastically), "You rock, dude!".

So, let it be known that I, indeed, rock.

The same day there was a lady in looking to buy a heavy bag (punching bag) and a pair of gloves. She was buying them for her place of employment where, apparently, several women work who carry a fair amount of tension. The customer was buying the bag so that when one of her coworkers needs to let off some steam, they can throw on the gloves, give the bag a beating and go about their business.

When she first arrived in the store, she got a little short with the manager who first tried to help assist her because he didn't look directly at her and she is somewhat hearing impaired and reads lips. I made a point of maintaining eye contact and took a little extra time making sure that communication was happening because it didn't seem like it would take much to piss her off. I think she appreciated it and I was the only one she communicated with that she didn't seem to get at least a little put out with.

I hooked her up with a 70 pound heavy bag and a pair of gloves and after I loaded it into the car she said (I kid you not), "You have pleased many women."

So, let it be know that I have pleased many women.

Wait, I don't think that came out quite right...

I wish I could say I was surprised

I know it's a few days late, but I wanted to comment on the positive drug tests of Ricardo Ricco and the subsequent firing and confession of his teamate Leonardo Piepoli. I expressed my disgust about the arrogance of Ricco last week on the blog and censored myself from saying that I wished he would just test positive so that he'd go away. Unfortunately, I got my wish.

I really was hoping that any doping reports from this year's race would be from domestiques who rarely showed their faces at the front of the race. While Ricco testing positive isn't quite as bad as Rasmussen being removed from the race while in the yellow jersey, you hate to see a stage winner (much less a multiple stage winner) cast such a shadow over the race. The fact that Piepoli (who won a stage the day after Ricco's second win) has confessed to it as well means that we now have three stages of this year's race that were won by riders who I hope never ride a bike again professionally.

If there is any positive from this situation it's the fact that a test was in place for a relatively new drug. When I heard Ricco had tested positive for a very specific form of EPO it left very little doubt as to his guilt. After all, he has stated that he has a naturally high hemocrit level which is often an indicator of performance enhancing and because of that naturally high level, a positive test based on hemocrit levels without the presence of a specific drug would put the testing in doubt. The collaborative effort between drug manufacturers and drug testers to develop a conclusive test so quickly after a drug's introduction to market is something that the cycling community should hail as the sport continues to try to change its culture into one of clean sport.

I think David Millar from the Garmin-Chipotle team put it well when he stated that it will take years to reach a point where there are no positive tests that come from a high profile race like the Tour de France and that we need to take the long view. My hope is that we're working toward a day where we can begin to believe again in all of the performances that we see play out in France in July and I think this was an important step toward that dream. The fact this incident took out an arrogant, obnoxious jerk (it's times like this that I wish I was capable of stronger language) is merely a consolation to the shadow that Ricco and those like him have cast on the Tour.

I will go on record as saying that I hope that Ricco owns up to what he's done, serves out his (assumed) suspension and returns to cycling with the resolve that David Millar showed after getting caught several years ago. Ricco is a talented, young rider with a lot of career in front of him and I would love to see him come back more humble and an advocate for clean sport.

Running, running, running...

Amy and the kids were gone for the weekend for Amy's 18th class reunion and I was overbooked and am exhausted. I think I slept for about five minutes this afternoon, but I think it will take a good night's sleep or two to recover from the weekend. I was stuck working 12-9 pm both Friday and Saturday or I would have gone with Amy. Throw in a trip to The Dark Knight, an extra rehearsal with Mike our drummer and a long morning at church and you have the perfect recipe for me running on fumes.

I can't really complain though. I have been looking forward to The Dark Knight since I first heard about it, not just since Heath Ledger's unfortunate death or since the glowing reviews started coming in. Since the opportunity presented itself, I decided to go on Friday night after work. I don't think there's anything else I can say that hasn't already been said, but it was an amazing movie that lives up to the hype and is of rare quality for a July release. It is a dramatic re-imagining of The Joker from performance to appearance to motivation and immediately places this incarnation of the character among the greatest movie villains ever. An immensely dark movie that easily should have earned an R rating and that I will not let Xander watch for several more years.

I had originally intended to check out Jazz Fest after work on Saturday, but I was already running on fumes and decided to save my energy for Sunday morning instead. With as much time as I spent at work Friday and Saturday I was pleased to have good days in sales to make it worth my while since I missed seeing so many of my friends at Amy's reunion. I'm really bummed to have missed John, but will probably give him a call soon just to reconnect.

With as hectic as the weekend was and as many extra things that I had to do for this morning's services, things went okay. We had some technical issues and I'm thinking I need to take a more active role in training our video volunteers, but in spite of a few hiccups, people seemed to connect through worship and that's what we should be concerned with. I keep hoping that we'll hit a stretch where everything just clicks and I place the blame primarily on myself. Full time ministry definitely makes for better focus and I need to figure out what I can do differently to make sure that ministry isn't just getting what's left of my time and attention after taking into account my full time job, family and hobbies. I may not have more time to give to my responsibilities in ministry, but I have to find ways to more effectively use what I have. I feel like I'm ready for a breakthrough. Hopefully, there will be more to come on this topic.

As for the full time gig, things continue to plug along well. This week will begin the transition from our summer seasons to winter seasons, so we will begin to see less bikes and begin resetting my youth cold weather shop. "What?!!," you say. "It's still July!" Yes, I know, but back to school is almost upon us and we need to get things rolling. I'll spend some time reacquainting myself with Columbia, North Face, Burton and others as we start the process that will carry us through until next March. Nothing like eight months of zipping coats to make you long for the beginning of the next bike season.

Getting back into playing shape

As we start to stare the end of summer in the face, I begin my annual "will I/won't I" ritual where the trumpet is concerned. Usually I spend a little time tryin to get into playing shape only to discover that I don't have any students to teach at USF which allows me to slide back into brass hibernation. I haven't taught in a year and a half and haven't played with any organized group for more than a song on a Sunday morning since 1999, so I flirt with the instrument and begin to reestablish some conditioning all in vain.

This year is a little different though. There are rumored to be two trumpet majors coming to USF (time will tell) which means I should get to teach and there is a faculty recital at the end of October where I will be performing a piece on recital for the first time since my Master's Recital in 1997. I'm planning on doing Enesco's "Legend" which is short, expressive and fairly technical, so I won't be able to fake my way through it. Amy is accompanying me and is ready to begin practicing together. I am not, though I hope to be able to begin working together by the end of the month. She's also preparing for a September voice recital and has been doing great work, so she's inspiring me to get my butt in gear and get down to business.

I have to admit that the recital is good motivation since my philosophy for lessons has been that I only need to play just a little bit better than my students. With everything else that I have going on I simply can't devote the time to the instrument that I would need in order to be proficient, but I keep working to improve in the time I have. Thankfully, I also can teach without having to demonstrate much. Past experience has shown me that I can pull a lot from a student without having to play much, but I would still like to be able to do duets and sightread together which will be a bigger challenge for me this year as I sold my B-flat trumpet and purchased a C trumpet as my only teaching instrument. This means I will have to sight transpose with students and play things in a key other than what I see on the page. I did this a lot in grad school, but that was two lifetimes ago.

On a side note, I did finally finish paying off the trumpet that I bought in March and now I can begin to focus my energies on saving for either another guitar (since Nich moved my guitar playing is having to take on a new importance) or a new bike. I figure I'll save awhile and see what direction I want to take, but I am thrilled that I've got the trumpet payed for without a penny of interest!

Interesting Tour

This year's Tour de France has been fairly interesting to this point and still has many strong contenders in most of the competitions (the overall race win is just one of the awards at stake). Kim Kirchen's race lead has been a surprise to say the least, but he's always been a decent rider and could surprise and hold on for a podium spot by the time all is said and done. You do have to wonder how so much time defending the race lead will effect him and how much it will wear on his team. It's times like that Columbia has to be happy to have a guy like George Hincapie who knows a thing or two about working for the Tour leader (seven times for Lance and last year for Alberto Contador).

On that note, for the first time we have two U.S. registered teams in the Tour. Columbia Sportswear and Garmin-Chipotle are serving as title sponsors for teams that started the year as Team Highroad and Slipstream powered by Chipotle. Both teams were essentially competing under the names of the teams' management companies before new sponsors were announced in June.

Both teams have had a fair amount of success to this point. Columbia not only has Kirchen in the race lead and points lead (a competition that generally awards the most consistent finisher on each day's racing) but they have two stage wins with sprinter Mark Cavendish and had several days with Thomas Lovkvist as the best young rider. Garmin-Chipotle currently has American Christian Vande Velde in third place and actually led the team classification for most of the first week.

It always seems like there is one guy that wins that I just flat out can't stand. Usually it's Robbie McEwen, but he's been out of the picture with his entire team devoting their efforts to helping Cadel Evans win the overall race. Instead it's been Italian climber Ricardo Ricco who has been the most obnoxious winner taking both Thursday's and today's stages. He's a phenomenal climber in the mold of the late, great Marco Pantani who just flies up hills and makes everybody else look like me when the road turns upward (only they're much, much better than I am).

Ricco is a rider that has a tendency to say what's on his mind, for better or for worse, and has managed to alienate a good portion of the pro cycling world. His attitude is arrogant as evidenced by his post race comments from today: "I was impressive, I went very fast [on the final climb]. My directeur sportif was impressed with my power output the last three kilometres of the climb." That sound you hear is me puking. Yes it was impressive, but what a schmuck.

I would say there are maybe a half dozen guys capable of winning the whole thing, but there's a lot of racing left and just about anything can happen. It should be fun.

2 down, 1 to go

In January I set a goal to ride to each of our parent's houses or home towns from Sioux Falls by the end of the year. Last month, Mitchell hosted the Tour de Kota which proved a perfect opportunity to knock that one off the list. On Wednesday, I added Yankton to the list.

Wednesday was my day off and I wasn't due to the store until noon on Thursday, so we decided to take the day to head to visit Jim and Marilyn and spend the night. I kept an eye on the weather and planned to ride there if it would cooperate. It turned out to be almost ideal. I rolled out of the driveway at 5:30 am with no wind at all and headed southwest for what I assumed was to be between 80 and 90 miles.

I rolled through Tea, Lennox and Centerville before the wind started to come up a bit out of the west. Not bad, but just enough to remind me that the day wasn't going to be a total gimme. I stopped off in Irene after 53 miles to get some more gatorade, a couple of nutty bars, a to go pack of Corn Pops and a Starbucks Frappuccino. One of the things I love about longer rides is being able to eat a good amount knowing that I'll still burn more than I take in.

I hit the road again and texted Amy to let her know where I was. It turns out she was probably within a mile of me when I set out again. I headed south to Volin and hit some roads that I got to know fairly well when we lived in Yankton while we made the move from Indiana to South Dakota three years ago.

Once I turned west, the wind was in my face the rest of the way. It still wasn't bad, but I knew I'd have it for 15-20 miles and I was starting to get a little tired. I rolled into Yankton still going strong but still had to head out west of town to the far side of Lewis and Clark Park. By the time I hit the horse camp at the far side of the park I had logged 86.6 miles and was feeling pretty well ready to be done. Amy drove down the hill from the house to pick me up rather than have me ride the last half mile of steep, gravel road where I almost certainly would have had to walk or risk falling down.

The great thing was, I made it in under five hours leaving a good amount of time for hanging out on the boat which is where we spent most of the afternoon and early evening. We then headed back to the house where we lit up the chiminea and watched the stars come out.

Now the only big ride I have left on the radar is the ride to Mom and Dad's south of Hartley. I expect it to be the longest of the three rides at around 95 miles, but it will have the most familiar roads since I started riding some of them over 20 years ago. I'm not exactly sure when I'll get the ride scheduled, but I suppose it had best be soon or I'll have the logistical nightmare of having to work around school schedules.

End of an era for Delirious

I received a press release via email today that Delirious is taking a break from recording and performing after 2009. Whether that break is permanent or not only time will tell, but it does close a chapter on one of my favorite bands and one of the most important groups in the development of modern worship.

Their influence on other artists can't really be estimated as they blazed a trail that so many others have followed. Their live shows were always an interesting mix of artistry, reverential worship and rock and roll energy. Their recordings always sought to be sonically creative and true to what they were hearing and feeling to the point that some listeners tuned them out for not simply producing a career full of "I Could Sing of Your Love Forever" and "Deeper" knock offs.

I had the pleasure of attending a Worship Together conference that they were a part of in Nashville several years ago and still am amazed by the ability of each band member to offer insightful, thoughtful, prayerful commentary on everything from basic musical considerations and worship planning to cultural and theological topics.

My prayer is that God will continue to bless them as they move into other pursuits to spread the Kingdom of God and I thank Martin, Stu G, Tim, Jon and Stew Smith for inspiring and leading me in the worship of my God.

How long has it been?

I finally managed to find a few minutes to write without having to kick Xander off the computer and where my work, rehearsal, riding schedule isn't getting in the way.

Lots of things going on right now. We're a couple of weeks into our "post-Nich" team setting at church where I am now not only lead worshipper, but also lead guitar. Obviously, I cannot replace Nich (now pursuing his music career in L.A.), but I'm doing my best to balance the dual roles that I have within the team. I'm going to need more time to practice and will have to make decisions in corporate worship much faster in order to keep things cohesive. Unfortunately, I'm also beginning to put together a new wish list of gear to help me be able to have all the tools that I need as a guitar player.

I've been riding a decent amount lately both on and off road. I've hit two state parks with the mountain bike that I had never been to before this year and have managed to log my first few "strong" road rides of the year. I still don't feel like I've hit a stride this season, but I'm finding myself riding more for the joy of riding than because of any goals I have set for myself this year.

At work things have been going well. Bikes have been hot between higher gas prices, government stimulus checks and a favorable recreational climate in Sioux Falls for cyclists. We have sold way more bikes by this point than I thought we would and are already having to order mostly 2009 models because 2008 models are out of stock (this didn't happen with much frequency last year at all). I also found out recently that I get to make another trip to Wisconsin to the Trek mothership where I will get to be a part of their "backstage" portion of the annual Trek World dealer show. I'll get first peaks at some of the new product, learn the tech and get to demo ride with dealers from around the country and a few professional riders. Chris Horner and Travis Brown are the early rumored riders, but you never know who else might show up (last year Lance made an appearance).

We're hoping to make a quick trip to Yankton sometime this week to hit the lake with Jim and Marilyn. If the weather is favorable, I might even ride down there from SF and just nap on the boat in the afternoon. Otherwise, we're probably not going much of anywhere for a vacation this year. Time, money and gas are all conspiring to keep us very close to home but by the time you mix in summer day camps, swim lessons and stays at the grandparents, the kiddos should have plenty of memories from this summer.

About the only travel on our minds right now is the trip to Cancun that I am on track to earn from the store for next March. After this past cold weather season, I'm not only looking forward to it for the break from the South Dakota winter, but also because it will be an entire week where I don't have to zip up a coat at the store. I know that seems like something that would be a long way away, but I will start to set my youth cold weather shop in 16 days for back to school ads. Thus will begin the eight months of having coats to sell, restock, mark down, reorder and generally bury myself in. Fun right?