Senior Olympian Sprinter

I am in Tulsa, OK this week and guess what?  It is windy!  The wind is a constant in this part of the world.  We had some decent weather today and I headed to the Memorial High School field in Tulsa for some running on their 6 lane track.   Decent weather here  is 15 to 18 MPH wind, 11% humidity and 60 degrees at 4:00 PM.    The wind on this track is typically right down the front stretch, which is also shady.  To stay as warm as possible, I do my work in the sun on the back stretch.  Today I worked on 100 meters repeats on the synthetic turf into the wind.  I brought my parachute, but it was not needed.   I ran four 100 meter repeats  into the wind and after getting some pretty good work, I got out my stopwatch and timed two 100 meters into the wind--15.94 and 15.90 were the times.   I then ran two sets with the wind  with similar effort and  that was different....

Last weekend Linda and I made it to Vegas for a quick two nights to celebrate her 16th 39th birthday.  It was as advertised and we had a great time and were just exhausted when we made it home for the Super Bowl  game.     I napped into the second quarter. The reason for this trip was Van Morrison.  He is a bucket list show for us and he did a couple shows at Caesars Palace and we scored some tickets last July.   The fact that the show was the day after Linda's birthday just made the show that much sweeter.  Van delivered with a 100 minute show with great sound and the band and vocals were really entertaining. His show is a very bluesy.  This bucket list item did not disappoint.  FYI-- the Faith Hill song lyrics echoed thru my head all weekend. "Hey baby, let's go to Vegas, bet on love and let it ride,...." We stayed at the Venetian, which is a very large suite hotel right on the str...

I travel Internationally for work  at least annually and the chance of something going berserk is pretty darn good.   Last week I was in Puerto Vallarta for a sales meeting and I got the 'call'.  Linda was just ready to leave the house and heard a very disturbing 'boom' and then water blasting out of the wall from behind the toilet!  What??? Yes, a water line exploded and water was literally gushing out of the wall. Of course, I was in a meeting with my phone off, what kind of husband am I?    Linda was not able to find the water cut off valve to the entire house--because the valve is in a horrible location for access.  So water was just gushing into the bathroom.  Linda was able to get the neighbor on the phone and he found the shut off valve and got the gusher stopped. Thanks John. She also diverted the water from the rest of the house with some towels to the drain in the floor of the bathroom area--it is a stone flo...

  This picture of June  just makes Christmas worth all the effort.   All the wonder is rolled up into this shot with Rudolf and the tree.   June  will be going through her first Holiday Season and I hope she has a blast just like the rest of us.  The dress she is wearing was used for her baptism a couple weeks ago.  She will be our star this season!!  Josh Simon married Betty and Linsi and also did the baptism.  I would say this is the first fruit of his marriage ceremonies.... Josh is finally graduated from school and is now ordained and will  start building his flock in Vermont very soon.  He is a great person and we wish him the best of luck. He is one of Betty's friends from high school who would occasionally hang around our farm house with the other kids.  What a great story!  Josh is batting 1.000...... This next photo is an absolute classic.  While waiting to see S...

If the Canyon was not enough torture I ran a 5K on Thanksgiving morning.    I run this race every year to support the local charity --Graceworks and to remind myself of why I am a sprinter.   I am a sprinter because I cannot get enough air into my system to do longer distances....period.  This year we did run the complete 5.0K course and I finished in 30:56, which was 13 of 43 in my age group.  I have always be trying for beating 30 minutes but I have too many excuses this year, and they do not matter because they are just excuses.  Last year they cut off a section because the lead out people screwed up badly.   We ran a 4.45 K last year and I was really fast in comparison!  The weather was substantially cooler this year with a race time temperature( 8:00 AM)  of 30 degrees and clear. There was over 3000 that started the race and it grows a little bigger each year.   The event is well organized and is easy...

https://youtu.be/OyK1yZz56zg This YouTube link is to a 10 minute video of our group finishing the Rim to Rim hike.   I was wearing my GoPro on my head and tried to give a flavor of the scenery and the physical nature of the hike.  The person behind me is Patrick Church our guide and we were yapping about various stuff as we finished up.   https://youtu.be/z4qB0ZA5G14 This link is for the trip to Plateau Point and Colorado River view Enjoy

I just finished a fantastic adventure when a family group hiked the Grand Canyon from the North Rim to the South Rim.  The group was 7 hikers and two guides.  The guides Chad Teerink and Patrick Church were fantastic hosts and a lot of fun to boot.   Good Morning at Phantom Ranch The hikers were my daughter Rosemary, step son Aaron, brother in law Buck (aka Glen) and his daughter (Heather) and her friend (Leslie). Emily was also added to group and she fit in very quickly to the quirky fun.   Emily was trying to go on another trip but her tent mate was having a melt down and just could not make it and she jumped in with our group because she was serious about getting to see the Canyon.    The actual hiking is done over a four day period and is a great way to see the Canyon.   We used Just Roughing It outfitters from Phoenix to guide our trip.  In the past we had stayed at the Phantom Ranch near the ...