WBL #4

Sorry these are the only posts I'm making, but with me going to part time at work, I've gotten busier with my training and other things. Regardless, I got a new Canon camera for Christmas, and it takes really nice video with sound which is super easy to upload to the computer, so I may start doing video blogs again. The 4th WBL was the last one of 2008. I was mainly on the recovery for this one, but did a couple shorter pulls. Overall it was a pretty good ride, and there wasn't anything else super-exciting to say about it.

WBL #3

Okay, so this weekend we were SUPPOSED to go kinda northwest from Athens, but the weather wasn't looking to good that way, so we headed south to Greensboro. I did as much work as I felt like without having my SRM with me (left it at home). I had a pretty good ride, and felt like I got some decent pulls in. At the end of the day, we ended up riding 85.5 miles in 3 hours 58 minutes. About a 21.5mph average. Was a pretty fast day!

WBL #2

Today was the Bowman Ball Buster, which is a 4 hour stroll to Bowman and back from Athens. Got some good pulls in, and got to ride will Phil Southerland from Team Type 1. Looking forward to cheering those guys on in this years Tour of California. Good times!

The First WBL!

I went to the WBL this weekend for the inaugural run. I haven’t been to this ride ever I think, as I’ve always been doing a local ride or something that day. The ride was a 3.5 hour one that went through Watkinsville to Statham and back. For most of the ride I was in the top 10-20, with me taking 3-4 pulls. I felt pretty good, but for good reason, since the first ride is always quite docile. A couple of times during the ride the pace would kick up quite nicely, and I kept wondering who was making it do so. After one exceptionally hard pull up a hill, we slowed down, and someone said, “I guess Floyd’s off the front; we slowed down.” I thought for a second and said, “Floyd who?”. They said, “Landis dummy!”. Not until he came back to get into the rotation did I realize I was riding with a past winner (before the doping stuff) of the Tour De France! He was pretty nice, and talked to anyone who wanted to speak with him. Guys like this can completely change your view of them. I’ve been on the fence about Floyd since his suspension, but regardless of what he did, he seems like a fairly nice person, minus a bit of a mouth, lol. It reminds me of everyday instances, where people do stupid things that make people angry. I’ve done some myself in the past, but when things are done to me I try and take into consideration the reasons why someone might have done what they done, and how they react afterwards to the positive, or negative, influence it has on themselves and the people around them.

A Bit of a Pickle

Well, it seems that I’m in a bit of a pickle. The slow economy has finally hit Habersham County, and now I’m left with a job that otherwise would be good, but is now only part time. Yesterday my boss came in my office and said “We need to talk if you have a second.” I was thinking to myself “What in the world does he want? I’ve been doing pretty dang good lately.” He said he wished he didn’t have to, but our slow sales have forced him to push me back to 25 hours a week. If you do the math, that’s about 160 bucks a week less, which of course is about 640 bucks less a month. I told my wife that I think God will take care of us. I might should be worried more than I am. Don’t get me wrong; I’m worried, but I also have a bit of peace about it. I think that the economy may pick up soon and all of this mess will sort itself out. By soon I mean in about six months, though, so until then, I have a lot of things to cut back on, and may have to get another job to supplement. Unfortunately, the first thing to go was my coach. I really dreaded calling him to let him know, and hope he didn’t take it personal, but it had to be done. Today I’m cancelling our Dish Network service, and we’re going to stop eating out. Believe it or not, just those three things left us almost even to where we were. Mainly the eating out part helped, but still. For a week or two I think I’m going to catch up on things needing to be done around the house. I have a personal friend that might can use me 10-ish hours a week, so I may work with him some. I think for many people during this time, the hardest part will be trusting in God to sort things out. It’s easy to stop paying your tithes due to getting less money a month, but that’s not your money to begin with. I think if Hope and I stay faithful and trust that we will be taken care of, we’ll always find a way to weather the storm.

Update

Just to get on here and not let the blog die, I figured I'd update a little. Aaron has a double ear infection, and woke up I THINK around 3-4am this morning crying. We did what we could and he finally went back to sleep, but slept the rest of the night with us. I've been hearing from "Bicycling" subscribers that the issue with me in it is out, and I've been sent a scan of said issue. Looks like it turned out pretty good. The WBL starts Saturday, and I couldn't be more excited! I always look forward to the big group rides the WBL brings to bout those "winter blues" that are quite common from riding so much indoors during the week in the winter. Not much else to say. Christmas is coming!