Weekend Update

A long time in the works, you never thought it would happen, yet here it is. A blog post that isn't about biking! Well unless you count the fact that I am talking about not talking about biking.

Over the weekend Ky and I packed up Boatie, grabbed some friends and headed out to what has to be one of the most beautiful lakes in the Northwest. Yes that is a huge claim, there are a lot of beautiful lakes up here, but Detroit Lake is pretty incredible. Located up high on the Santiam River, at the foot of Mt Jefferson, the water is crystal and the views are breath taking.

On a beautiful summer weekend with temps in the mid eighties and the shrinkage factor of the water was set to minimal, the lake had somewhat of a party atmosphere. Boats and jet skis were crusin, fish were jumping, children were screaming, music was blasting, oregon was alive.

While it was a great break from the daily grind, it was not without a hitch. Friday afternoon traffic was murder and speaking of murder there are several children fortunate to be alive this Munday morning. While vibing out on the dock Ky was invited by screaming children to play life guard, she declined and the children continued to scream and run around her until she cracked. At this point I was notified that if I didn't come pick her up with the boat in the next 5 minutes, there would be murders. I was quick to respond and return to the dock, thanks to idiot parents, the children were swimming in the docking area and I was forced to try and turn my boat around in shallow water with a bad cross wind.

Guess what, I ran my stern drive into the ground. Not too much damage, just a really ugly looking propeller. Boatie tells me that she is not exactly happy and to punish me, her gas gauge is now malfunctioning. With a malfunctioning gas gauge we ran out of gas in the middle of the lake the next morning. Fortunately a fellow boater towed us back to shore (giving us a very evil sounding laugh while doing so), everything turned out fine.

Aside from some heavy traffic due to construction in Wilsonville, nothing exciting on the way home. Kona was pleased to see us and his house/dog sitter seemed to be at ease. Although he was drinking a beer and he quickly got in his car and left once we returned, maybe we need to ask Kona some questions.

Good Times!

Humpday Update

Happy Wednesday, or for seven Wednesdays of the year, Tabor Race day. Yes the Mt Tabor race is absolutely my favorite bike race, even though it is absolutely not suited for me. Since you already know this, there is no update here.

The update is as follows:

The boat sold and then 24 hrs later was unsold. During those 24 hrs Ky and I experienced some serious sellers remorse, I didn't even know that was possible. So, when the buyer backed out of the deal, we shrugged our collective shoulder and said we would wait to re-post the ad. "Boatie" will continue to occupy my budget and driveway. Kona wagged his tail in appreciation, I think he is the biggest boater of the household.

I am still job hunting, I have put in a few applications with a couple high-techs and the corps of engineers, unfortunately with no real engineering or supervisory experience I am in a bit of a job limbo. In today's market place it's hard to find a perspective employer to take a chance on you when there are so many over qualified candidates looking for work. Good news is that I still have a job and Frontier is acting like thy are going to take care of us. If only I could take their word at face value and trust that everything will be kittens and puppies. So if you know of anyone that is looking to hire a 1st level manager for a technical lead let me know.


There seems to be some interpretation for this banner, it is from a job fair in Germany courtesy of ' jobsintown.de ' a German website similar to jobdango. If you can't read the caption it says, "There are better ways to make career."

Elkhorn: Job Done!

Happy Father's Day!


That being said, I am home from the battle fields of Eastern Oregon, more specifically Baker City. There were no bakeries to be found, so I imagine that the city must be named after some dude named Baker. The 8th annual Elkhorn stage race is complete and I feel quite proud of how I did. Looking at the official results you might get the impression that I am really bad at bike racing, that is an accurate impression, but I still did better than expected.

Most importantly, I had the best criterum (crit for short) results that I have ever had. I took 45 out of 62 races, but most importantly I had held onto the field until almost the end. I was close enough that I wasn't pulled out of the race early. Had I avoided the pile-up a few riders in front of me on four laps remaining I would have finished in the field and score the same time as the top 43 riders. In a crit during a stage race, the only thing that matters is that you finish with the main group, so 43rd was just as good as 1st.


If you are wondering how the rest of the stages went, I survived and did good enough to maintain my bottom of the pack finish. Most importantly, I finished. Now that I am back in Portland and extremely tired, I think I will have a little snack and head to an early bed. Photos can be found here.

Let it Begin

Tuesday: PIR circuit race
Wednesday: Mt Tabor circuit race
Thursday: Rest
Friday: Oregon Trail Road Race
Saturday: Pleasant Valley Time Trial & Gold Rush Criterium
Sunday: Dooley Mountain Road Race

Estimate for the week: 245 miles / 15,500 ft of climbing
Around 14 hrs of riding time


Welcome to my 'Pain Cave', I'll let you know if we will be having a pity party later.

A Sad Day: Boat For Sale

FOR SALE