forced

i've come to write a blog here a few times today. each time i've signed off for lack of anything to write about.
i don't really have anything to write about now, but maybe it'll keep me from coming back here just from feeling i need to.
i've caught up with lost and am watching the 4th season as it goes. i much preferred watching the discs but there is no way i could wait til they released the box set.
i can't believe february is over already. i feel like it just started. i can't believe it snowed again this morning and can't believe it will snow all next week.
i mean, i guess i can. i just keep waiting for that break in the weather where there's a tease. a few days at least of about 40s. something to let us know that yes, spring will be here. as much as i hate being teased i do like getting a taste. it excites you in a way. it does for me at least.
yesterday we went to matt's service. it was a wonderful service. he will surely be missed by those who loved him. i only wished i had the privilege of meeting him. he fit a lot in his 29 years. i think being there helped john a lot.
today will end with bmx and who knows for the rest of the weekend.

foo

john and i saw the foo fighters last night. i like dave grohl. always have, even when he was with nirvana.
it was a long night. i felt old. not because of the crowd or anything like that, but because i started to get sleepy standing there at about 10:30. i ended up coming around and screaming my head off. upon leaving my back was so stiff i couldn't even bend down.
the drive to and from was nasty. i'm glad i wasn't driving. the snow was like warp drive or something.
6am came real quick this morning. i would rather not have gotten out of bed that's for sure.

other thoughts

i can't stop thinking about my earlier post. there's a part of me that wishes i were a bit numb to it but glad i'm not.
monday seemed to come quick. i never made it outside today. if i pushed it i'm sure i coulda made it happen, but little things just kept making it a pain in the ass.
john made a run to walgreens, i asked him to pick me up a ding dong. for some reason i had a taste for one. i got a hoho instead. they were out of ding dongs. i ate one and now i feel like shit.
zoe had a late nap so i think its a late night for us. she's currently playing smash up derby with matchbox cars on the dog. sucker. i can't believe he's just sitting there taking it.
she tortured casey so bad earlier that casey surrendered and just want to bed. after zoe snagged a chunk of hair i really don't blame her.
i'm going to try and think green warm happy thoughts.

risks

a guy riding in the tour with john today was hit by a truck and killed.
john said it was the most horrible thing he's ever seen happen. like out of a movie.
it goes without saying that you hate it when you hear about things like this. all the what-ifs that go through your mind.
my heart goes out to matt, his wife, his family and friends. i also feel for the driver of the vehicle and his family. it all just sucks.

two crashes

casey crashed twice last night. she all of a sudden became an aggressive rider. it could've been that we told her for every rider she passed she'd get a buck. morgan was there and it seemed to get her fired up. first time was coming into the last turn before the rhythm section. not sure who was a at fault but casey and a little boy got tangled up. she got up right away but still came to the bench crying. she want right back out. second time came later in the evening. the gate just happened to be all little kids. coming out of the first turn casey cut it a little bit, didn't go up high enough and tangled with another little boy. an older boy got her moving again. her back was pretty scratched up and she wanted to sit out for a bit. she wanted to go home, but we made her go out a couple times so she wasn't afraid, but it was obvious she was super timid in the turns whether there was another rider or not. hopefully next week she'll have her magic back. it was a bummer to see her get her confidence up and ride so tough in the beginning and then have her confidence knocked away so fast. it was as if she went back to day one.
but at the same time she's tough and likes to do it, so this week i'm sure she'll get it back. she likes putting money in her piggy bank and we already owe her $5 just from two runs last night.
nothing going today. i may go check out how snowy/icy the trails are later. clean a little. i think my mom has reese and audrey so we may take the kids for pizza tonight. tomorrow john has the tour. i'm all caught up on lost so i don't even have that. i'm sort of relieved though, as fun as it was, it was taking over for a bit.

friday, bmx and whatever

i wanted to get my eriksen in some sort of order to start working on it, but its just too dirty. this weekend's forecasted 30s will probably feel like spring compared to our sub-zero readings lately. I may have to bust out the hose and do some rinsing.
i'm torn between leaving 25.4 up front or moving on to 31.8. i much prefer the 25.4 and am sorta bummed that everything is 31.8.
i have minor annoying things i have to take care of to finish it up. things i should probably be doing right now.
bmx tonight and who knows for the rest of the weekend.

session 2

one more to go. color. i sat for close to 3 hours yesterday. session 3 is march 11th and then i go in a month later for touch ups.
it's kind of hard to take a self portrait of your arm.



pics don't do it justice. well, my pics anyway.
zoe was up at 4:30 this morning. it's just her, me and tegan and sara right now hanging in the kitchen. luckily thursdays are my days to not deal with this crap.



i have to figure out birthday party plans for casey, trip to AZ and some other things.
my hubs didn't come in yesterday. i did get an email yesterday that i had a package from dt swiss, i was pretty stoked, but it was just the spokes. total let down. apparently my hubs are shipping today, i must've misunderstood in my over excited nerd state when i placed the order. ah well, something to look forward to getting next week. my rims aren't in my hands yet anyway.

03.04.2004

for some reason i don't think this march 4th we'll be out in fleece jackets with no snow.

work

i'm bored. not from lack of anything to do, quite the contrary. i'm feeling a bit burnt out really.

sibling rivalry

zoe, aka the devil, tries to snag casey's ds any chance she gets.



if casey knew zoe had it she definitely wouldn't be smiling.



saturday the girls were at the kitchen table, casey was reading her star wars sticker book. zoe tried grabbing it from her and ripped a page. casey freaked and grabbed her by the neck with both hands and started screaming. they both were screaming. casey let go and continued to read her star wars book. zoe cried. i'm amazed at how early the fighting starts.

precipitation

anyone else freaking out that the amount of rain/snow we are getting won't stop once spring and summer hit? i'm hoping for a normal spring and dry summer. i know its dumb to worry about something we have no control over, but i'm wondering if we'll have to start making north shore-esque trails. not the crazy bridges and stuff but just raised off the ground a touch to avoid the muckiness. i hope not.
we hit bmx practice friday night. casey did the best she's ever done... partly due to her trying to do wheelies up and over every jump which forced her to use her upper body a lot more.
saturday it was her 6th birthday. she told us she was almost 7. woah... let's enjoy 6 first. cake, presents, food and she capped it off by spending the night by her cousin's house.
john and i didn't do anything really. we hung out with casey at my sis' til about 8 and headed home. not much to report on sunday either. i went outsite once to take the garbage out. it was warm and wet. we had a mini lake in our front yard. it was a great sunday morning of just coffee, breakfast, newspaper and the internet. i watched a bit of lost. john napped and played video games. zoe played, danced, fell off chairs and jumped down stairs and off the couch.
i still can't believe how fast february is moving. wednesday i go in for session two- background and shading.

time flies.

i can't believe its february 12th already. this month is flying.
spring will be here before we know it. i do have a feeling its going to be a long time before we are off road.
i've read that palos is flooded with ice. it's good to know the trails there are built really well and should hold up.
i was going to order some hubs today but i believe i left my wallet in the car. i bought a coffee this a.m. and must not have put it back in my bag.
tomorrow for sure.
i saw a new sid team today. a white one. i'm pretty stoked. it looks rad. we will be making multiple decals (all colors will come in the box)so you can switch it up. one of the colors is orange. i've got my bike built for the 08 season in my head already, few details left to figure out, but its gonna be sweet! i should start stripping it. it needs new everything. maybe grab myself a ceramic bb.

no internet

wow! i went through all of saturday and sunday without visiting the internet. never checked mail, no blogs, etc. it was weird to check everything today and see i didn't miss anything.
bmx friday night. casey's heart wasn't in it when we first got there. she ended up finishing the night pedaling all the way through and pumping in the pump track.
saturday brad came over with the kids and we hung out for a bit. sunday i sat on the couch for a lost marathon. last night we were up for over 3 hours with zoe. she was ready to party for some reason. we probably both would've been more sane had one of us just brought her downstairs and rid her of her mysterious energy.
i'm pretty tired today.

work

i'm trying to ignore it and be okay with it. but i'm swamped beyond my control.
i've had high managers approach me and say we know you are dealing with a lot, we are working on a solution. hmmm...
i'm starting to stress and feel burn out approaching.
update: i asked a co-worker to help me out. i feel a lot better. it's nice as a temporary solution. i guess once i get out of this hole, it hopefully won't get this bad again. if it does, i'll take jeremey's advice and watch that star wars video on youtube.
i'm home already. john is home too. we had casey's parent teach conference today. it went really well. we are totally proud of her. although, at the moment she's downstairs crying because she didn't win at wii against josh. and to add insult to injury zoe keeps hitting her with the remote.
bmx tonight. we are going early to get home early.

fresh.... ink

listening to the news on tuesday night i expected to wake up yesterday morning to thick blankets of snow. i laid in bed a bit longer than usual expecting there to be unfathonable amounts of snow on the ground the way they were talking, i was going to be late anyway, so what the heck. instead i looked out the window to rain. more rain.
it was pretty nasty out with low visibility, rain, slush, blah blah blah. i kept hearing on the radio about how bad it was up north. they went on and on about the storm that was to come. i ignored it, there was no way i wasn't going into the city. i had been waiting months for this day.
pulling out of the neighborhood the e slid a bit from previous snow having turned to slush from the rain. half way into work visibility got worse. there were thick lines of slush from tire tracks. switching lanes was something that required concentration.
morning radio shows and thoughts of tattoos made the drive seem super fast.
i walked into work. almost a ghost town. on my side of the building i think there were a whole 5 of us. i sat at my desk antsy. kept looking at the time. i wanted to leave in enough time to grab some lunch and with the weather in the city, who knows. i was a little nervous. i still had yet to see a drawing, what if i hated it? spacegirl, raygun, skulls, stars- how could i hate it, but still.
got in the car. the snow was starting to come down pretty good. i didn't care if it was going to take me 3 hours to get home. i wasn't missing this. made a stop at subway for a turkey sandwich.
found a parking spot around the corner from deluxe, finished up and walked over.
everyone was moving back into their spots. they had just had the floors redone. harlan walked over with his sketchbook and opened it up. WOW. it was just what i wanted.
i made two changes. waited a bit for him to clean up the sketch and got to work. when he was checking out the size of the sketch to my arm to see if he needed to shrink it i was like no way, he's gonna have to shrink it. it looked huge. he put it on my arm and said actually it's perfect. cool.
the only thing i regret is not taking a picture of my arm before he started.
it took an hour and a half to do the outline. two sensitive spots... top of my shoulder (bone) and where my armpit meets my chest (ouch).
i had mentioned that harlan, my tattoo artist, was a mountain biker. it was nice to chat about bikes and riding to keep my mind off of the needle. he prefers palos over kettle. my kind of guy. we agreed palos, peoria and THEN kettle for riding.
two more visits and it'll be done.

umhhh...

yeah. woke up to no snow. more rain. as i got closer to the city it was all slushy. like 2" of slush. nothing my gravis cirques couldn't handle.
apparently all the snow is north. turning on the street towards work, the cars coming from the north had snow on the roofs of the cars and windows. hopefully it takes its sweet time getting down here.

more snow and tv

geez. this is the worst winter ever. actually its raining right now and has pretty much melted the 15" we had... so there are lakes in the lawn. i get irritated when the dog has to pee. he practically requires a bath when he comes back in.
since i'm coming into some extra cash thanks to this guy, i may go get john and i some snow shoes. i almost bought them two weeks ago but couldn't bring myself to admit defeat as far as riding outside is concerned.
since being stuck inside i finally listened to brent and put lost in my netflix and now i'm obsessed. i put the episodes in my queue but after watching the first two discs and freaking out about having to wait days for the next disc... i went to best buy and bought season one. i'm actually watching house now. one of my fave shows, hugh laurie is a total hottie.
i really need it to be spring.

super bowl

best game ever. i went to my aunt's house with the kids. it ended up being giant fans upstairs and new england fans downstairs.
i personally didn't care who won but i'm always a fan of the underdog. so of course i was rooting for the giants. i moreso wanted to see new england lose. i tire of that kind of mega-hype. tom brady this, tom brady that. hell the press had new england super bowl champs before they even played the game. so the upset was that much more fun.
the tv downstairs had a 5 second delay from the one upstairs and we had a good time messing with the pat fans downstairs. it ended up being a great time. everyone talking shit. i didn't think i'd enjoy myself as much as i did.
much better than saturday. i slept all day and my ass hung out with the porcelain god.
more snow tonight. it's to the point now where if i dropped zoe out there she'd disappear.
speaking of all the snow, you know when it snows and they plow all the lots and you get those big ass mounds of snow. it's like my measurement of when spring will start or when the weather will change for the better when they disappear. now it seems so far away. those snow mounds are huge.