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News, commentary and humor about bicycling and other topics of the day

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

One of my friends on my MySpace page -- yes, I have one, but only primarily to bring people to this site (And, no, I am not too old to have a MySpace or Facebook page!) -- encouraged people to stop dwelling on the bad things or things that need improvement and try just being thankful for what you do have and that you are alive.

In addition to being alive, I'm grateful for:

• My family, whom I'll see tomorrow for Thanksgiving and the joint celebrations of my nephew and oldest niece, both of whom turn 17 this year.
• My friends. My odd hours keep me with connecting with you as well as I would like, but be sure you are frequently on my mind.
• My ability to ride a bike.
• My ability to play a leadership role in the Tour de Stooges and the Belleville Area Bicycling and Eating Society.
• My job. Even though the newspaper industry is going through a difficult transition as more people rely on the Internet for news and advertising, it still gives me a lot of satisfaction to design a strong front page that draws people to read our paper.
• My faith, which keeps me anchored when things get a bit crazy.

I'm sure I can think of more if I had time, but I need to get back to work. I wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving!

P.S.: For those of you who live in the St. Louis area, KPLR-TV, Channel 11, will be having a Three Stooges marathon from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. CST Thursday. Thanksgiving is a great day for TV viewing -- if you're a guy!

Labels: family, friends, Thanksgiving, Three Stooges

Roger 0 comments links to this post 6:51 PM

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Just catching up

I know it's been about a week and a half since my last post. I no longer have BubbaFest as an excuse for not posting, so here's some random notes:

Happy Birthdays: My sister Teresa's son, Julius, and my late brother Wes' daughter, Ani, are celebrating their 16th birthdays this weekend. Julius turned 16 on Thanksgiving, while Ani turns 16 today.

After the Thanksgiving meal Thursday, my family got to watch "Tour de Donut: Gluttons for Punishment" for the first time. The film inspired Julius and Teresa to want to come down to Staunton, Ill., next July to give Tour de Donut a try. Julius is convinced he can eat 20 doughnuts, while I think my sister can do well in her age division next year. If Julius would ride and eat well enough to win, it would be the second Tour de Donut on "Old Blue," the blue Cannondale I rode to victory in the 1995 Tour de Donut.

Ani, meanwhile, played for the Belleville West High School junior varsity girls tennis team. She most likely will be on the varsity roster next year, so I'm hoping to see her name in the Belleville News-Democrat often the next two seasons.

Great biking weather: It seems as if I brought some warm temperatures home with me from Florida. The high temperatures in the St. Louis area will be in the 60s this weekend, so I plan to get some miles in today. I should have been biking Friday, but I didn't because I put Christmas lights up for my duplex and because I was fighting a bug that left me tired. I finally turned the corner Friday evening, so there's no excuse for me not to ride today.

I want to get a short ride in Sunday morning before I go to the St. Louis Rams-San Francisco 49ers game with my nephew.

Still thinking about Florida: I hope to post my official account of BubbaFest sometime next week in the main section of the Web site. In the meantime, I'm posting a photo taken by my good friend Doug Kaufman during the trip.

Our buddy, John Chester, needed to get a tire fixed during the course of the ride at the Big Pine Bicycle Center. It turns out that the owner, Marty Baird, may be a bigger Three Stooges nut than I am, if you can imagine that.

Not only does he own the jersey pictured here, he also has 146 Stooges episodes on tape and gobs of Stooges memorabilia. It was only appropriate Marty and I recreate a classic Stooges scene for the cameras. I told him about the Tour de Stooges, but he won't be able to make it up north for the ride because it's his busy season. I will try to make sure he gets a shirt for his collection.

Just starting out: Friend and former News-Democrat colleague Emily Priddy, the hippie of the Red Fork Hippie Chick blog, is writing about her efforts to become a cyclist after finishing two marathons and four half-marathons. She asked me not to laugh at her humble Thanksgiving Day ride.

I'm not laughing.

We've all been in Emily's shoes sometime in our cycling lives, and I applaud her efforts to become a cyclist. In a matter of time, she should be able to cruise her bike up those hills she now walks.

Labels: bicycling, Thanksgiving, Three Stooges, vacation

Roger 1 comments links to this post 12:21 AM