Why I Love Mornings

6:00 am – Damn, I don’t want to get out of bed.

6:05 am – When they mean absolutely no absences, do you think they count Wednesday mornings?

6:09 am – OK, lets get moving.

6:22 am – Bike is jammed between the door and the wall because the door won’t open all the way due to Syd’s skateboard propped at the bottom of the stairs. This sucks.

6:32 am – Whew, Starbucks. One coffee, one bagel, one happy Tim.

6:33 am – Really? I left my homework at home?

6:36 am – Why’d I get coffee? I got to ride my bike back home with a coffee?

6:39 am – Man in wheelchair says, “What, you can’t hold the door open for a guy in a wheelchair?” I stand and stare at him. “Looks like you can unlock your bike just fine, why can’t you figure out how to hold a door open?” I stand and stare. I still say nothing. The man starts to shake his head slowly like all that is wrong with the world is bottled up inside of me. But I love people in wheelchairs I want to shout. Too late, he’s scooted away.

6:52 am – Back home. Door won’t open cause Syd has skateboard propped at bottom of stairs.

This is why i love portland! We build sand castles in the city.

Back together

This is what happens when world teach alumni get together... We show each other how cool technology is!

My friend from the marshall islands came and visited me as a surprise! Go hemant! Let the awkward times roll!

You and I

You...
you are nothing but a one-celled ameba,
and I...
I am a soaring eagle.

You...
you are just the kitchen spill,
and I...
I am the prime rib.

You...
you are a rusted tailpipe,
and I...
I am the Corvette.

You...
you are the glint in someone’s eye,
and I...
I am the whole sun.

You...
you are the ink underneath someone’s nails,
and I...
I am the masterpiece.

You...
you are the bad hair day,
and I...
I am the Oscar walk.

You...
you are the wrinkly shirt,
and I...
I am the Italian suit.

You...
you are a scraped knee,
and I...
I am the sweet lay-in.

You...
you are nothing,
and I...
I am something.

“I love you.”

“You do?”

“I love you, yes I do.”

“I love you too.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re not so bad.”

Man, This Monday Sucks

Well, waking up this morning was hell. My feet hurt more than they have ever in my entire life. My left pinkie has lost all feeling for some reason and if I ever am still for more than a few minutes I drift into sleep. But I had to push through it all this morning and turn in a paper. My friend coffee was the only thing to get me through...

Do I regret it? No! I rode 200+ miles yesterday, what did you do?

What was the STP for you?

What was the STP for you?

Your thoughts on STP

We all made it alive! Who wants to join in next year?

Sydney made it! He had to finish on jannet's bike, about two sizes too small but a bike all the same!

Jim made it!

Thomas made to the end alive!

We did it!

Ten miles to go. I am hurting but dan says, when does this thing get hard?

Made it to st helens. Only twenty five to go. Am so tired. Hope i can make it.

Everyone lining up for ride over long view bridge. I am nervous. This is steep.

Life saving.

The hill of death. I made it alive. Sort of. 60 to go.

Start of the second day!

Getting ready for the second day. Oh and mom, you try spelling correctly from a phone?

Just deserts

Nothing like a soak in the tub to wash the miles away.

Here comes janet

Janet made it and beat her time! Guess that snooze in the car did her well.

New arrivals

Jim made it to the halfway mark and according to his pulse he is still alive.

So sleepy

So tired... Also, i lost the bet. After a hundred miles the last thing you want is a helmet on. Oh well...

Halfway home

We made it to centralia. A little sore, a little numb but overall very good. Dan rode next to a cute girlly for ten miles and didnt say a word. Give up your best conversation starters if he rides with her tomorrow. My fave is hey, want to have a squeez of my water bottle? Now off to the beer garden!

Dan is feeling good and we are only ten miles to half way!

All patched up! Now to catch up to the guys.

Flat tire. Bummer.

Hydrate the bike nation!

All you can drink vitamin water. Is this heaven? Gina, you jealous?

Reunited at last!

Well dan, sydney and i got separated for a bit but we are back together! My bum is not feeling so hot. Weather has been great. Cool views of mt rainier throughout. Saw a pretty nasty car crash but dont worry we are being very safe. Sydney and dan have been leading the way but i rule the hills like lance armstrong. Sydney bonded with an austrian over his vintage bike.

First stop.

25 miles down!

Bummer

Technical difficulties with syds bike. Stuck at rest stop.

The start

The start

We are all ready to go!

What happens in seattle...

Dan is applying the anti chaf cream. We are sacred.

Getting ready to go!

3:30 in the am

Rise and shine.

Night One

OK, so Dan and I are here in Seattle. We are getting cozy as we have been pegged to sleep in the same bed. There were a few preliminary questions we had to clear up before we got into bed. 

Can I where my helmet to bed? (Yes) 

Can you help me apply the anti-chafing cream tomorrow morning? (NO!)

Well, it has been fun so far. We have carbed up and we are in the right mind-set. Janet, Jim and my Dad all decided on a 3:30 am wake-up. Now, I can't really say that I am happy about that hour, but when you are with the pack you need to learn how to run. I guess. I am not sure if that made sense.

Highlights from trip so far:

-"Hey Janet, check out Dan's eyes, they're beautiful," I say.

"Oh, let me see Dan!" Janet says.

"Now you got me embarrassed," Dan says.

"They look like universes being born," I say.

"That is ridiculous, and now I am too embarrassed," Dan says.

"Sweet Dan," Janet says.

-We have forgot and had to go-back-and-get/buy one pair of bike shorts, two tennis shoes and a left bike clip-in.

-Burgerville

-Ellie and Mim coming to cheer us on with cookies and signs.

-Janet forcing Thomas to hold her hand.

I feel like a napolean dynamite character

Wearing bike helmet in mall is proving to be awkward.

We have fans!

Wow! Eli and mim came to wish us good luck with cookies and a sign. There is so much love up in this room i am thinking about calling an architect about the structural integrity of this days inn.

The teams^

Here is the whole squad. We are ready to conquer the world tomorrow...

Sound asleep

Janet and most everyone else in the car is getting some valuable Z's before the big race. Drool anyone?

The bet.

Dan bet me that i couldn't wear a helmet the entire two days. He i can i get lompac beer and burger. I think water park and sleeping will be the toughest. People let you on water slides with helmets right? Oh and ben, while a forgot your hair to tape on my handle bar, your spirit will gallop with me like a stallion.

Fuel.

Loading up on carbs

We got spirit. Yes we do.

We are getting pumped up.

All set to go!

We are getting all packed up and ready to go. 7 bikes and 8 people in one car. You do the math but i am sure it will be cozy!

Lets go

Syd getting mentally prepared for STP. Last time sitting down without chafing in a long time.

Tech master

Now i can blog from anywhere because i set it up on my phone. Check here for real time STP updates. With technology like this i will never be out of touch! Scary? Just a little.

Hmmm

OK, I have it all figured out. In the UP lunch area one can buy a bowl of soup for $1.25. Now, if one is smart, one will dig through all of the bowls until one comes across a bowl much bigger than the others. This bowl is christened Bertha. If one is talking about Bertha, one needs to raise hands, palm up, in the direction of the ceiling.

Now, once Bertha is secured from the stack of bowls, one fills Bertha to the brim with whatever tasty soup is on tap. Today's was Bacon, Potato and Broccoli. Delicious.

Next one needs to locate the small plastic tub located somewhere on the sandwich line that contains bread sticks. A general rule is that too many bread sticks taken is too little bread sticks taken. Stash them in pockets, underwear, backpacks and chubby cheeks. Hide them in lamp fixtures, in condiment baskets, behind drinking fountains and atop exit signs.

Eat bread sticks with soup and BOOM, enough food for the whole day.

I own this place.

Well, in other news, my good friend Dan is back in town. I am gearing up for the Seattle to Portland Bike Race and the sun is out and happy. Life is good.

Survive This!

Camping over the weekend was awesome. Tiffany, Abi, Brian and I all got down to the coast around one in the afternoon and I took my cousins on a survival hike where our main objective was to be tougher than Bear Grylls, the host of the Discovery Channel’s show “Man vs. Wild.”

Man, did we succeed.

I took those kids up and down steep, crumbling slopes of sandstone, up perilous rope climes and around the edge of an angry ocean inlet. At one point one of my cousins was flat on his stomach on a steep slope. He hugged the hill so as to not slip down.

“Keep your hips in and roll over to your back!” I yelled to him.

“I’m not rolling,” he screamed, “I already got the front of my shirt dirty, I got to keep the back clean.”

Well, eventually we made it to the end of our journey. It turned out just in time too, because my family was considering calling the Coast Guard, which I think was a joke, but you never can tell.

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I’m pretty sure that doing this grad program and fitting in the other things that I want to do in life like working a part time job and most importantly writing creatively, is possible, but only if I make sure and keep my nose to the grindstone on schedule keeping.

Well, this past weekend I went camping for the entire time and didn’t crack the books as I should have. I am hurting today. My eyes are droopy and I think that at this point there is more caffeine in my bloodstream than blood.

Oh well, this too will pass.

Got to stay awake.

I want to be an Artist

Well, the more and more that I have been thinking about where and what exactly I want to teach the more and more that I am convinced that a perfect situation for me would be to work at an art school. I have not actually spent any time in any art-based charter school, but theoretically, it sounds amazing.

The Tooth Fairy

Whatever happened to the Tooth Fairy? I mean, that was something I was all about. If I had to check pro or con on some kind of survey as to if I supported the Tooth Fairy, I would defiantly check pro. Then I would stand up and leave wherever I was, because that is a strange question to be asking on a survey.

Anyway, that was so awesome back in the day. You would just do all of your normal stuff, eat, play sleep, and then out of nowhere a tooth would fall out and you’d put it under your pillow and then BAM, you got a quarter. Or a dollar if you were that rich kid up the street.

It didn’t matter if the tooth was a little yellowed from that epic Halloween haul of ’93, it didn’t matter that the left front edge was chipped from when you bit into a frozen Big Daddy at a basketball game. A tooth was a tooth, and you got paid.

Now-a-days I never get paid for doing nothing. I am starting to lose hair at an alarming rate, is there a Hair Fairy out there? How about the fact that I am quickly losing my social filter and awkward comments routinely drop out of my mouth, is there a fairy for that? He’d look like Will Ferrell from Old School and always be slightly confused.

One option to keep the spirit of not working but still getting paid alive is to pull what George did on the show Seinfeld. He’d just put everything off and skip happily with his paycheck to the bank. My friend in market research actually manages this no-work=dollar-dollar-bills-y’all quite effectively. He spends most of his workday online reading smut, and well, this blog.

If it weren’t for my ingrained sense of guilt, I’d join George and my friend and never lift a pencil, aside from scratching unreachable places, again. However, that cannot be me. I would stop being able to sleep. I would feel like everyone was suspicious of me. I’d only sit in restaurant seats where my back was against an easily defendable position. Plus I would grow the 'stash and smell terrible because I'd view grooming as one step away from a memo.

I can’t live like that.

I realize that I am not going to lose anymore teeth (hopefully) and that from here on out I need to start actually start putting in the hours. It doesn’t mean I can’t sigh.

*SIGH*

Flakes of peeling, sun burnt skin anyone?