The Beauty of Little People

I usually cannot stand "fwd" emails, so I hit delete. For some reason I opened this one and ended up keeping the video on my desktop.

March Madness

I have completed my first bracket, ever. This guy had a great bracket to complete.

At this point, the three Cinderella schools through a wrench in my numbers, especially with my final four having Connecticut. We are watching the games with me yelling as the scores go up and down.

I just looked at my bracket for the umpteenth time and I have a typo! While watching the Wisconsin game, I had them winning the first round but not winning the second round. But who they loose to is wrong on my bracket as USC lost to Kansas State. I guess I want Kansas St to win the second round as I have them listed to play Davidson/Georgetown. Oh, but it doesn't matter as I have Gonzaga in the third round. Grrrr.

I was hoping to do well without knowing much about the sport let alone about the teams. We shall see when it comes down to the Final Two-my picks: Louisville vs Texas.

Frida Kahlo - Philadelphia Art Museum

As we waited to wait in line for the exhibition two weeks ago, we walked around the museum checking out other works of art. Of course the first painting I noticed is of a bike race! Antonio Ruiz, 1987-1964, Mexican Bike Race. A beautiful ceramic fireplace - I want to say from France. Once our time slot opened, we entered the Frida exhibition. Brad lasted three minutes as there were too many people in one space. He was having issues all day as he was breaking museum rules left and right. (No umbrellas, cannot talk on the cell phone, no sitting on the step-ledge...) I tried to be creative by starting in the middle of the exhibition but it didn't really work. I eventually went back to the beginning and tried to do a power preview of the artwork. The first part were original photographs rarely displayed of Frida's early life with family. The later rooms mingled photographs with Frida's paintings.

Happy Birthday

After I did the hot tub last night trying to soak away all the stiffness, I ended staying up too late reading blogs.

I was overheated after the hot tub and showering so I finished a History Channel program. While I watched tv, I read about people doing hill repeats, riding forever and having a great time, lifting, spinning, eating gobbs of hard boiled eggs while trying to complete a cleansing diet, ...

I threw the lights on the bike and went out again for a two hour ride to keep up with the Jones. Ha! One of our strong men in Lancaster has his birthday today (Happy B-day Stick!). Just ride the bike. Use big gears, ride hard, just ride the bike.

He will be riding 61 miles today as I chug my tea missing his morning ride. I will saddle up again to catch the afternoon ride. Cheers to those of us that love the bike, in all its forms.

New Teammates

It's like being in love, you do stupid things like ride for 5 hours in the wind. I cracked the last hour so silly 70s music filled my head. "Oooo. You wait a long time for me. Oooo, you wait a long time."

Distraction in the Western Atlantic Sector of the Southern Ocean

One of my bike racing buddies is off in the Southern Ocean researching and possibly pedaling an ancient exercise bike on the boat. I requested pictures of the bike and stories about the food.

http://duck-rabbit.ldeo.columbia.edu/so_gasex/blog/?p=54

DQ & I'm Not Talking About Ice Cream

We raced the 60 mile, Fork Shoals Road Race on March 1st in Greenville, SC. It was a great, 15 mile, rolling course with some windy sections.

Basically, I got popped so I got ready to video the finish of Brad's race. It came down to a group finish with Brad winning. As we waited for an hour for the results to be posted we found out that Brad and the second place finisher, Mac Cannon, got DQ'd! Yellow Line rule.

I think it all went down at the final left turn to the finish. Mac was off the front, and as the pack made the left Brad attacked at the top, and I assume the both must have cut the turn by a few feet to make the turn.

Oh well, I guess that is the luck of the draw. Most of the race, the pack took all the turns by crossing over the yellow line to make the turns safely and it was not big deal. The officials did relegate guys that crossed the yellow line on the straight aways but did not DQ them. I guess it was tough for the officials to "relegate" Mac and Brad in the final stretch to the finish; "Beep, beep!! Hey, go to the back of the screaming-mad-pack of sprinting men because you crossed the yellow line." would not have gone over well and could have been very dangerous.

I harassed Brad enough on our ten hour drive from the race that there was no stopping for ice cream at a DQ and thank goodness. I just googled the vanilla milk shake I had last week; f*ck! Large vanilla milk shake, calories-1130 calories from fat-260. Damn. I had malted milk powder so that probably added another 100 calories and I didn't share much of it, either.