Team Slipstream

Looks like Pro Brad will have some heavy hitters riding with him next year.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2007/jul07/jul30news2

Keep up the good work Brad we are all pulling for you.

Friday Night Beer Ride...Northeast

Cola now has two Beer rides, the one that goes on Downtown through Fort Jackson and back to Bar None and one that starts right in my neighborhood's Town Center at Bambino's pizza. The forecast for Friday was pretty sketchy with rain, hail, lightning, and high winds but I had been planning on this ride all week and was not going to miss it. My lovely wife gave me a little extra incentive with her exclamation that "for the love of Pete, if you can't ride from our house to the Town Center you shouldn't be riding!" It is only about one minute to the Center. So I opted for the ride from our neighborhood. Upon arrival, I checked out the participants...quite a bit of diversity, from Mom and Pops to some seemingly hard core racers. I felt like I was being sized up with many glances wondering who the hell is this big oaf on the huge bike sporting his OCC team kit. Well boy's I didn't disappoint. I hung out in the back of the pack for the first several miles until I felt comfortable with the group and of course my poor pack riding skills. But it came back to me with ease. Many nervous moments with riders who need lots of practice in a pace line however. I made my way to the front slowly feeling out the riders who knew how to ride and quickly found a friend who is about three inches taller than me with legs the size of tree trunks. We were about 8 riders back on this one section when the ride leader took off on a flyer, Patrick looked over at me and said do you want to get him. A quick nod and we were off, thank goodness it was on a flat section. Before too long we had reeled him in doing about 35 mph. That was fun!
Soon after the skies opened up and down came the rain, hard pounding rain! I almost felt childish, like a 10 year old out on his bike splashing through the rain soaked roads with no cares in the world. That was very refreshing, a jump start for my batteries. Heading back in to our neighborhood, Steven the ride leader/Cat something racer indicated this was our sprint section and off we went. Again thankful the road was rather flat, I made my move from about 6 riders back all the while eating the rooster tail spray from the wet tarmac thrown up by the riders in front of me. As I passed this sketchy tri-guy on an old Trek 1000 his frame pump came loose, luckily he was able to grab it before it lodged in his front wheel. I ended up third across the line, I may have been able to take second but the slight hesitation as I watched him juggle his pump was too much. At least he kept it off the tarmac.
All in all a great ride with no drops, good people, and the attitude that hey after a good ride, good food and a cold beer. I look forward to the next ride.

Thanks for reading, Y'all tune in again soon.

Jackson Patrick...sure is growing up!

Had his four month wellness appointment this week and he now weighs 14 pounds 14.75 ounces. He is in the 50th percentile for his weight and 75th percentile for his height. Go figure...He is getting a great little personality, smiling, talking, and he had found his thumb (thanks Charlee Ann)! We fed him his first baby cereal the other night, he did pretty well with it just did not quite know what to think about the whole spoon thing. And wow that boy can take some poops the size of Texas, makes your eyes water.
Jackson is great and so are we. We will be heading back to MO August 7th -14th for a little R&R. Actually it will be a whirlwind trip, trying to see everyone and squeezing in my 20th class reunion. Yes, I am old, but fun! See everyone soon.

Thanks for reading, Y'all tune in again soon.

Carolina in the News

Good news that is, a couple of professional wine tasters were on the Today show a couple of weeks ago conducting a taste test of 12 public drinking water samples from across the nation. The verdict...Columbia SC tied for runner up with Boston for best tasting tap water. Salt Lake took top honors.

So good is our tap water, and I must say it is really good, that the Pepsi Co purchases millions of gallons annually to use as their Aquafina product. That is right, every time I turn on the tap out flows Aquafina...at a lot better price! Now I am sure they put the water through some super secret filtering process but it is still our tap water.

If you haven't already, check out the latest edition of Bicycling. Cola made the 8 great rides feature with our now famous Friday Night Beer ride, I will be there tonight. Details later.

Thanks for reading, Y'all tune in again soon!

...again more photos...

These are from the neighborhood pool, Edventure Kids Museum, and haning out at the house. The kids really had a great time together.

Come back soon!

Thanks for reading, Y'all tune in again soon.

More photos

Second round of Julie's trip to Cola, these are taken at the Zoo. Pretty cool Zoo! Fun for all. By the way, anyone in to Tears for Fears? Great songs just came on the Retro-active channel, Everybody wants to Rule the World...Now Haircut One Hundred...Maybe some of you older guy's out there. Also, The Cure is playing in Charlotte during their American Tour, may try to make that show, or a guy by the name of Matt Kearney, he is playing a local gig here in Cola. Check him out if you are not familar, really good sounds. http://www.matkearney.com/

Anyway, back to the story....easily distracted.

Catching up

Life has been pretty crazy here in Cola for the last couple of weeks, in a good way. We had our great friend Julie and her boy's in for a weeks vacation with the Inmon clan. It was really great to see and spend some quality time with her and the boy's. For those of you that don't know her, you should, she is truly a great person, and a damn fine veterinarian I might add. If you are in need of a quality, talented, professional vet with a great bedside manner, and sense of humor who is a Mizzou grad, she is the one for you! You and your animals will appreciate her. Just go to Banfield Pet Hospital (?) next to Petsmart on Glenstone and tell her Steve sent you. She would love to see you and your babies. She took great care of all our family animals.

I have some pics for you to enjoy of their trip and the shenanigans we had here in Cola as well, of course, new photos of our Jackson. The photos at the top are of from their time spent in Mytrle Beach at Ripley's Aquarium, and finally their arrival home in Cola. The boy's are beat from a long day at the beach, water parks, and finally the aquarium. Some times the pictures are worth more than my senseless ramblings, so enjoy.

Thanks for reading, Y'all tune in again soon.

Vino...Say it isn't so!

I can't believe it, this Tour has been incredible, and now the big bomb explodes! What next?

http://www.velonews.com/tour2007/details/articles/12910.0.html

Thanks for reading, Y'all tune in again soon.

Cale Mac...help!

Alright Cale, I have an idea...instead of dressing up in all your camo, trying to find the perfect spot for your tree stand, fighting the weather, and getting up before dawn, why don't you come on down to Cola. You can set up post on our back deck have some coffee and wait for the deer to show up on our backyard. No muss no fuss! They enjoy eating our flowers, hostas, and the final straw is that they are nudging our bird feeder to get out the seed. I couldn't figure out how the birds were going through it that fast. Now I know! Too slow with the camera to catch them in the act.

Also, I did not want you to feel like you were the only one who's WT roots run deep. How about the race at Daytona Saturday night!

Another couple of thoughts and pictures...sunrise in our neighborhood last Saturday morning as I was riding my bike. And could not leave out the pics of Jackson before we took him for a walk Sunday morning sporting his new baby shades.

Thanks for reading, Y'all tune in again soon.

Week in Review

Last week brought a holiday midweek to celebrate the birth of the USA. We had a great day starting with coffee, breakfast, the paper, and of course playing with Jackson. After breakfast we hooked up Jackson's bike trailer to the "Big Rolling Turd", and with a few modifications were able to secure his car seat to the safety straps in the trailer. We then suited up and headed out for his first bike/trailer ride around the neighborhood. Good news, he loved it! And quite a workout pulling him up the hills I might add. From there we got in a little pool time, trip to the grocery for beverages and supplies for the cook out with the neighbors. We had a great time, good company, great food, cold beer, and fun fireworks. Terri made the best looking dessert ever, pretty tasty too. By the way, Jackson says "I'm too sexy for my shirt"!

Friday I took after Scotty and worked from my office at home, very productive, two windows, one monitor, but no pics. Too messy.

I would also like to say a special hello to some new readers. Patty, Penny, Deb, Janice, and Judy. Girlfriends of my Mom. Great news Patty, good to hear you are "normal"! We will keep you in our prayers.

Thanks for reading, Y'all tune in again soon.