Archive for April, 2007
Monday, April 30th, 2007
People phone or e-mail me all the time about “going for a ride” with them.
Hey, going for a ride when ever is just not the reality of life right now.
On weekends I ride one of the two days. That’s it. I am on the road by 8am and I try really hard to get back home by 12:30pm so I can spend the rest of the day with Mrs. Smithers and little baby. Once the next little baby shows up riding on the weekends is probably going to go the way of the dodo for the rest of the year.
During the week I attend the Urthel ride on Tuesday nights and I am going to start riding at the velodrome on Thursday nights. The Urthel ride will also evaporate for me once we have the baby. The track will be on hold for a few weeks at least.
So if you really want to ride with me you are going to have to catch up with me during those scheduled outings.
I don’t really mind at all the lack of time spend on the bike. I guess I really don’t see it as time off the bike. It’s more like time with my family. There are plenty of opportunities to get exercise that don’t involve being out of the house for 4 hours. I am already working up my indoor trainer schedule for the summer, if you can believe that.
The most important thing that you find as a new parent is the need to re-balance your life once the baby arrives. I bristle at the idea of having to give anything up, I don’t think it’s necessary. What is necessary is to readjust your goals to synchronize with your new life. My goals are to be a good father and husband, and to remain fit and healthy. If I can squeeze a bike race in there once and a while then all the better, but I am not going to sacrifice the time that I look forward to and enjoy spending with my family in order to go down to Sogn Valley and get my ass handed to me.
Besides, Baby Smithers is really coming into his personality right now. I predict that he will be some kind of comedian or clown when he gets older. A clown that throws the occasional and inconsolable temper tantrum.
Posted by Smithers at 5:03 pm in Family | Permalink | No Comments »
Monday, April 30th, 2007
Who’s doing this? Looks interesting.
Posted by Smithers at 1:04 pm in Local Cycling | Permalink | No Comments »
Monday, April 30th, 2007
Basso is out at Discovery.
Tyler Hamilton and Jorge Jaksche implicated in Puerto, suspended from Tinkoff and won’t race the Giro.
Who is ready for Hamilton to just go away now?
Posted by Smithers at 12:28 pm in Pro Cycling | Permalink | No Comments »
Monday, April 30th, 2007
NRO:
How can the Republican party, headed by a president determined on a war he can’t see an end to, attract the support of a majority of the voters? General Petraeus, in his Pentagon briefing on April 26, reported persuasively that there has been progress, but cautioned, “I want to be very clear that there is vastly more work to be done across the board and in many areas, and again I note that we are really just getting started with the new effort.”
The general makes it a point to steer away from the political implications of the struggle, but this cannot be done in the wider arena. There are grounds for wondering whether the Republican party will survive this dilemma.
There is no reason why we should continue to stay in Iraq. If the GOP wants to defend staying there then they do so at their own peril.
I find it hard to believe that a Republican Presidential candidate will continue to advocate an action that the clear majority of American people now despise.
Posted by Smithers at 10:34 am in Politics | Permalink | No Comments »
Sunday, April 29th, 2007
His blog is way better now days!
Posted by Smithers at 9:50 pm in Local Cycling | Permalink | No Comments »
Sunday, April 29th, 2007
On Fox Sunday morning today Bill Kristol (who has a great record going: wrong about everything. why do they still put this guy on teevee?) was criticizing Senator Obama for stating that his first response to another terror attack in the USA would be one of emergency management rather than a military response. Kristol complimented Senator Clinton for her more millitaristic “tanks and bullets” response.
Let me ask a question. If bin Laden coordinated another attack on US soil, where exactly do we send the tanks and bullets this time?
Posted by Smithers at 10:59 am in Politics | Permalink | No Comments »
Saturday, April 28th, 2007
I joined Billy, Scotty Rob and Dykes for a nice ride in the western suburbs this morning. We all agreed it was good that none of us went down to Sogn Valley as the legs were not really there. Dykes and Scotty Rob pushed the pace a bit around Lake Minnetonka while Billy and I sat on the back. I am having to re-learn the same lesson that I learned last year: Adequate recovery is far more important than the amount of training when an individual is pushing 40 years of age.
On the Greenway path heading back to Minneapolis from Hopkins we came across an accident only a handful of seconds old. Where the path crosses Blake Road it appeared that a recreational cyclist (shorts, shoes, no jersey, no helmet) had been t-boned by a car. He either attempted to escape being hit by the car, or was knocked down the road a bit because he was laying about 5 meters down from where the path crosses. His shattered bike was laying in front of the car, the driver of the car was standing next to the vehicle in an absolutely frantic state. The smashed front windscreen on the car was a testament to the violence of the incident. The cyclist was in bad shape with obvious head trauma. I took a look around and saw numerous people rendering aid to the cyclist, numerous others on mobile phones calling for help, and others (including Billy) attempting to calm down the overheated emotions of the driver as well as witnesses of the accident. So I decided to get the hell out of the way and rolled to the other side of the road. The initial image of blood and brain fluid on the road was plenty enough for me, I had no desire to see more of that.
Within a few minutes 3 Hopkins police squad cars arrived to take control of the scene. There was not much more that could be done so we made the decision to move on. It was not the best way to end what has been a very pleasant ride to that point. I’m left to wonder about the condition of the cyclist, things were not looking too good when we rolled on.
You see all kinds of unfortunate things on the bike if you ride long enough. You just hope not to be on the wrong side of the unfortunate thing.
Be careful out there.
Posted by Smithers at 4:36 pm in Race/Ride Report | Permalink | No Comments »
Friday, April 27th, 2007
No racing for me this weekend. I don’t need to spent 3 hours in the car and pay a bunch of money to get dropped. Another long training ride will do me more good.
For those racing tomorrow I have a prediction: pain.
(sent wireless via Treo 650)
Posted by Smithers at 6:23 pm in Mobile Post | Permalink | No Comments »
Friday, April 27th, 2007
AP:
The country would be safer by only “a small percentage” and would see “a very insignificant increase in safety” if al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was caught because another terrorist would rise to power. “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person,” Romney said.
Hummm. Maybe so. But I wonder the reaction if a Democrat were to come out and state the very same thing.
But we already know the answer to that question.
IOKIYAR
Posted by Smithers at 4:16 pm in Politics | Permalink | No Comments »
Friday, April 27th, 2007
Hey
Originally uploaded by smithersmpls.
Not much to report on today so far.
Baby Smithers got a new playset.
(sent wireless via Treo 650)
Posted by Smithers at 2:02 pm in Mobile Post | Permalink | No Comments »
