Friday, January 26, 2007

A brief respite from winter

The weather tomorrow looks to be pretty incredible, so get out and do something active outdoors! I for one, will be going for my longest ride of the year. I need extra hours in the day or something, but it doesn't seem to be happening. Golden says I over commit myself; that I'm too optimistic about how much time things will take to get done. I like to think of myself as a renaissance man, dabbling in a bit of this and a bit of that. Wrapping up the loose ends seems to be the real stumbling block...

Finished up my programming workshop today. I've got a cool program started and I just need to make it more "elegant" as the instructor said. Okay, so the program is only cool if you're a middle school math teacher and you want to have your kids calculate the intersection points of two graphed lines, but I don't ever expect to be fully appreciated in my lifetime.

I don't know about you, but I'm getting so excited about 'cross worlds this weekend, I can hardly stand it. Howard sent me a cool link to US National Cyclocross team member Tristan Schouten's blog. He is gearing up for Sunday's festivities and is blogging from Belgium about his experiences. The guy is so excited, you can see the giddiness in his writing! He has two great video's of the tv commercials that are running to advertise the race.

After all is said and done, all the arguments and legal wranglings, cycling is far and away one of the most beautiful sports on Earth. The power of the mind to wring every drop of power available in muscle, bone and sinew against all of the warnings signals inherent in the feedback of pain in the effort, is truly awe inspiring. I hope that my comments about the current drug scandals reflect a passion for our sport and not the chest-thumping, finger pointing that so many seem to engage in with their pronouncements of "guilty!" or "not guilty!". At the end of the day, professional cycling inhabits a gray nether region that most of us will never see. What is legal and not legal are not definable by the clear black and white dilineations that we assume, or hope, that they would. Instead, a never ending series of judgement call by both the peloton and the governing bodies has led us to the point of professional cycling as we know it, trying to carry on with the Sword of Damocles hanging precariously above it. I'm ready for the season to begin, so I can watch bikes being raced by the best in the world and saddened by the idea that not all of them will be there...

Enough soapbox. In preparation for 'cross worlds, we have a weekend of Belgian cuisine ahead of us. Tonight was Roast Pork Loin with turnips and scallions. Tomorrow night, Jeff and Shelly are coming over for Chicken with Gin and Juniper Berries, Stoemp mit Prei (Potatoes with Leeks) and Flemish style Brussel Sprouts. Plus, we will be cracking open the Magnum of Duvel that Rob Dacus gave us for xmas! If the weather does what it is supposed too, Sunday will see me staying indoors to watch 'cross and then maybe sneak in a mtn. bike ride for good measure!

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