Steve's Getting Fit Blog Site

Time to give the knee a break

2011-07-06T07:59:00.000-07:00

I have doing pretty well with the exercise the last week with over 100 miles the bike. My knee has been feelingthe affects of the increased workouts. It has been swollen since my excursion up the stairs and hasn't gone down since. Yesterday I did 25 min on the elliptical followed by a 1 mile speed walk and 20 miles on the bile. Today I am taking a break to give the knee a chance to recover. It may end up being a 3day break which I hate but would rather do to keep it fresh for next weeks Tdy.

First official day of my fitness journey.

2011-07-01T20:18:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day I started my journey to getting back in shape. My starting weight is 203.6. My goal is 185. I started the day off with a breakfast of a two egg omelet with green peppers onions and cheese. For lunch I went with turkey wrapped around a cheese stick. Supper was whole wheat pasta with chicken and veggies and a spinach salad. I did cheat with a 64 calorie beer and a small bowl of Ice
cream. I waxed the car which hopefully burned enough calories to make up for the beer and ice cream. I did a 45 minute interval workout. I didn' t have alot of time and it was getting late so I rode to high school and did .4 mile loops around the parking lot. The first four laps were easy warmup. The first four intervals were progressive. First 20 mph second 21 then 22 and 23With an easy lap between. After a few easy laps I completed four hard laps with no break. Finally I did four all out intervals. When I got home
I did 50 pushups with my perfect push-ups and 50 sit-ups.

My knee is still a little swollen so I am keeping it wrapped and icing it. I hope I can keep up the exercise. The knee feels pretty good when I walk on it. So far the hip has been fine. It sucks to get old.

First ride back at normal altitude.

2011-06-30T18:41:00.000-07:00

We made it back from our Colorado and Midland Tx vacation
Around 4:30. I decided to see how my lungs
Would respond to a ride back at a normal altitude. When I rode in Colorado,
My lungs would give in before my legs. Tonight my lungs were great so I
Was able to push my legs. I did a 16 mile ride with a 18.4 mph average. My knee was a
Little stiff but felt pretty good.

The journey back to being fit

2011-06-29T20:25:00.000-07:00

It has been over a year since I posted on this blog. If you look through my older posts and pics you will see l used to be in pretty good shape. After a year of enjoying alot of shiner bock, riding my motorcycle, advanced arthritis in my hip and knees, and knee surgery; I find myself in the worst shape I have been in. My six pack is now a keg. My legs that took me around oahu at 20+ miles per hour fatigue after 20 miles at 14 miles per hour. My weight has gone from 177 to over 200. My waist from 32 in to 37.

The knees and hip are going to be a major challenge. I can't run which was the easiest way to get in shape. I am hoping I can use my bike as the primary mode of exercise. I also want to lift weights and do my physical therapy exercises to supplement

I spent the last week in Colorado. The thin air really made me feel I was out of shape. I did get four rides in with some serious climbing. Hopefully I will be able to reep the benefits when get back to San Antonio. I also climbed the Manito Springs stairway to heaven. http://www.cospringstrails.com/hikes/incline.html I did pretty good but the way down took its toll on my knee. Luckily a wrap and ice pack seemed to help get the swelling down.

I am officially going to start my diet and exercise plan Friday 1 July. I
Have to take my pt test next month and my goal is a 90. I plan to use the blog to track my progress. Wish me luck.

First Nice Ride

2010-04-18T19:46:00.000-07:00

Today I managed to get a nice ride in. I headed out and started seeing alot of other riders. It took me a little while to figure out that I was riding the same route as the Fiesta century. Unfortunately I didn't have the legs or the time to do the entire 100 miles but I did get a nice quarter century in. The riding here is a little different than Hawaii. The scenery is alot different and there is a heck of a lot less traffic. The roads are a mixture of semi-smooth to rough chip seal. I did find an interesting creek.

Getting back in shape

2010-04-16T19:54:00.000-07:00

A year ago I was in the best shape of my life. That is me in the middle of the picture. Unfortunately, this year the run of Holiday and Promotion Parties followed by the move and resulting month of fast food eating, added about 20 lbs back on as well as made me lose the fitness that lead to two state cycling champainships. Now that we are starting to get settled in our new house, I am going to try to get back in shape.

The last couple of weeks we started back on a variation of the South Beach Diet. Unfortunately, I was in a class this week that offered cookies on our breaks which I didn't do a very good job avoiding. I also had pizza and beer tonight. Tomorrow though I am going to tighten up the diet, give up beer for at least a week and start cycling again. I will try to keep this updated as I go through this journey.

New Job, new state, new house, maybe it is time for a blog update

2010-04-11T17:46:00.000-07:00

Since the advent of my facebook account, I have been very delinquent on updating my Blog. I am not sure if there are any readers out there who happen still to follow the blog, but alot has gone on in my life since my last entry. In November, I found out that I did make Chief.

Since then there has been a whirlwind of activity. The promotion put me in the unique situation of being an overage in the Air Force's eyes so I had to find a new job. The list of options came out towards the end of November. My choices were Minot or Grand Forks North Dakota, Colorado Springs, Fort Walton Beach Florida and San Antonio. I applied for the positions in San Antonio and Colorado Springs. Both the position and location appealed to me for SA and the CS offered the best location. I lucked out and got my first choice with an original report date of 11 Feb 10 which I was able to move back to mid March.

Heather made it to Hawaii for one last visit for Christmas. We had our final Christmas Beach visit. We completed the Holiday with my promotion/New Years Party. January flew by. I attended a week long Chief's Orientation Course where I learned about everything from how to tell which water glass is yours at a formal dinner to how to manage your assignments. My parents, sisters, nieces, and Stephanie all flew out for the Chief Induction Ceremony. This was probably the coolest military ceremony I have had the privilege to attend.

February's activities focused on tying loose ends at work and getting ready for our move. We started March with the packing out of all our worldly possessions and cleaning our our house before turning it back over to the housing office. I was able to squeeze in a few rounds of golf and a bike ride or two. We left Hawaii, on the 12th and landed in LA where we rented a car and drove to Oakland to visit my sister Gina and pick up the Escape for our drive to SA.

We spent the first week looking for a house before I started the job. We purchased our first new construction home out side of Cibolo. Courtney wanted us to move to Cibolo so she could go to the High School "Steele High School" due to the name of course and their outstanding band. Right now we have moved into the house but are living with out furniture except for a few folding lawn chairs and air matrices.

I can't believe how fast these last months have flown by. I am really looking forward to the challenges of the new job and enjoying living here. I made it out for my first ride and can't wait to get back into riding. Hopefully I can be better about updating this blog.

Summer 2009

2009-09-20T07:41:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time since I updated this thing. I am sure the few of you who read it are suprised that I am updating it now. I am flying to San Antonio Texas and can't sleep so I Am using my iPhone to type this up then I will transfer it to the blog.

My last post was in may so I guess I should cover the summer. Heather graduated in may so we all flew home to illinois. It is hard to believe I have two done with college. While we were home we traveled to Missouri to attend a dedication of the ROTC lounge at Rolla to my brother Josh.

June was also a busy month. One weekend chris and I were on the big
Island for a bike race while Courtney was on Maui with the girls scouts. The race was a stage race made up of 3 seperate races. I ended up with a first second and third taking the overall first for my catagory. Later in the month chris and I went to San Antonio for a conference while Courtney went to ca to visit my sister Gina. San Antonio was great we got to spend time with our friends Rose and Tony.

Heather came home for a visit in July. We always have a lot of fun at the beach and on the bikes. We even trieD paddle surfing. I also won the cat 4/5 state crit for the masters division.

I started august by traveling to japan. This time I went to Okinawa and I didn't see any snow but I did sweat a lot. My buddy curt came out for a week. The last weekend of the month my buddy john and i were riding on the windward side when a truck crossed in front of us. John wasn't able to stop and ran into the side of the truck breaking his collarbone, 3 ribs, and 3 vertabre. He will be off the bike for 3 months.

The highlight for Labor say weekend was the dick Evans round the island race. One of my goals for this year was a top 20 finish. I didn't think I had a shot but some how I pulled off a 17th place finish.

I also tested for chief on 10 sept. I had deci ded this would be the last time. If I don't make I will retire next summer. I felt pretty good about the test I just have to wait until November to find out.

Finally I decided to purchase a new car. I had planned on buying a vette then a mustang convertible but I ended up buying a ford escape....four cylinder. A little bit of a diversion from the powerful cars I started looking at. I think. My buddy Ron was a bit disappointed but I decided to go with something more practical that could hall Ginger and the bikes. It does have a 5-speed manual transmission so it is fun to drive and it gets good mileage. Maybe the muscle cars will come when we get back to the mainland.

First time mtn biking after 6 months Time to get a new Helmet

2009-05-05T11:17:00.000-07:00

Sunday I decided to go for a nice mtn bike ride at Royal Summit. I was suprised when I got there because there were a ton of riders. Come to find out, there was a race. I would have liked to have done race but I had to get back by 1200 to pick up Courtney and I didn't have $10 on me. I had a nice ride to the top then road around for a while before stopping to watch the racers. The course was kind of cool. It started at the top and went down the singletrack then carved back up the hill on more single track. After watching for a while I decided to give the singletrack climb a try. I made it up pretty until I attempted to adjust the volume on my IPOD. The next think I knew I was planting my forhead into the ground. Another Rudy Project helmet bit the dust leaving a nice mark on my forhead.

After I got home, I cleaned up the garage.

Hiking Up Biking Up

2009-05-02T21:13:00.001-07:00

Last Sunday, Courtney and I joined my wife's cousin Paul for a hike. We started out hiking the Judd Trail which is a nice easy trail just off the Pali Hwy in Honolulu. The hike is very popular as well as having areas that were used during the filming of the series "LOST", http://www.lostvirtualtour.com/lost/filming_locations/juddtrail/index.html As we hiked we intersected the Nuuana trial which headed up the ridge.

We decided to take the high road and climb. The trail switchbacked up until it intersected Tantalus Drive at the top. We kept climbing until we were on top then stopped to rest and take in the great views of Honolulu and the pacific ocean.

On the way down we stopped at a very popular swimming hole. The water was a little murky and it was kind of chili so we just relaxed abit and didn't take a dip.

This morning I finally made it up to Scholfield for the Saturday HACC ride.
We had a very good turn out and for the first time I remember, we all wore the same HACC Jersey. Today was a climbers ride as we climbed Koli Koli, Pupakea and Pinneapple twice. I felt very strong and managed to be the first to the top of each hill.

Tonight I finished the day with a great Steak, Sweet Potato and corn.

Tomorrow I am going to give mtn biking a try.

North Shore Beach

2009-04-25T22:23:00.000-07:00

This morning I overslept so I missed the HACC North Shore ride. Instead, I settled for 40 miles of intervals on Hickam. Not a great trade off but pretty good training. After I got home, I woke Courtney up for some homemade Blueberry Banana Pancakes. This weekend and next, it is just the two of us as the rest of the family are in Iowa watching Heather Play softball and enjoying that fine Midwest Spring weather, temps in the 50's and thunderstorms. After we finished our Brunch we took the cans and bottles to the recycle place then I drove to the bike shop on Dillingham. The shop catered mainly to the beach cruiser and singlespeed crowd but it did have 3 tandem bikes that were very reasonable.
When I finished at the shop, Courtney and I headed up to Wiamea Bay. It was kind of late when we got there but the parking lot was still full so I had to park at the botanical garden on the other side of the Kam. The park closed at 5 pm so we had to cut our time at the beach a little short. The water was not to bad but the air temp was starting to cool so you got pretty cold quickly after getting out of the water.

After we finished at the beach we headed to Halewa for shaved ice and ice cream.

We stopped and picked up an order Chris made from JC Pennys that had a new dress for Courtney. She really looked nice in it.

Catching up the Blog

2009-04-19T12:24:00.000-07:00

I have been real bad about keeping the Blog up to date. Sometimes you get so busy it is hard to find time to post.

One Weekend, Two Tired Legs and Three Race Numbers

Two weekends ago, I had the crazy Idea that I could do a 10K run/race on Saturday, a time trial up Tantalus Sunday morning and finish it off with a crit Sunday afternoon. I mentioned it to Bryant and he was game for doing the same so I was locked in. Saturday morning Chris and I got up to head to Ford Island for the run. We were running a little late so I went straight to the start line failing to pick up my chip. I guess I should have read the flier so I would have known they were using chip timing. Oh well I was able to keep time on my my trusty Timex Ironman. Chris's Cousin Paul and His wife Mel were supposed to do the run. Unfortunately they were runing late as well and werent able to find a parking spot so they gave up and headed home.
I made some gateraid before the race to help with my hydration and energy. Unfortunately it didn't settle too well and my stomach bothered me most of the race. I started out with a couple of sub 7 min miles but slowed down each mile after the first. My final time was 45:19 pace 7:31, about 10 seconds off my Aloha run time.

Sunday morning we got up early and headed to tantlus. I could already feel the fatigue in my legs before i got on the bike. All the way up I kept telling myself, "why did you do the run". My time was in the mid 23 min range, the say as my training ride the week before and still 2 min faster than last year. I wonder how I would have done with fresh legs.
The afternoon crit was my best race. My goal was to avoid getting dropped. I finished with the 3rd chase group in 10th place. I am glad I took on all three races even though I probably would have done better in each had I not tried to do them all in one weekend.

Holy Week

Our family tradition has always been to attend all the Holy Week Services culminationg with Easter Vigil. This year was special because good friends of ours were completing thier faith journey and asked us to be sponcers. Courtney served at the massWe had the luck this year to have the Bishop visit us during Holy Week so the Confirmation Mass was Easter Sunday. We finished the weekend by having dinner at our Friend's house. It was a very nice time.

Around the Island Ride

Chris flew to Iowa on Wednesday so she could spend some time with Heather before she graduates and see some of her Softball games. I was going to try to do a 10 K run at Kbay on Saturday and follow it up with some mtn biking but then Shannon emailed about plans to do a alternate route around the Island Ride so I changed my plans. We met at the Shoppette at 6:15 and headed to the Pali. I had my first and our only flat heading down the Kailua side at about 40 mph. Luckily it was a slow leak and didn't give completely out until i got to the stoplight at the bottom. It is an eary feeling riding on a low rear tire. The weather was perfect and we kept a nice pace only stopping a couple of times to refill our water bottles and empty our bladders. Shannon showed me a great route from Kunia to the bike path avoiding much of the traffic and stoplights that area is known for. I hope I can figure it out next time I head that way.

After we finished up the 86 mile ride, the girls and I grabbed a pizza and headed for the Kam beach with Ginger. She really enjoys it out there running around and playing with the other dogs.

Well I caught up on the blog finally. There are probably a ton of spelling and grammer errors because Chris isn't hear to proof my posts. Hopefully I will do better at keeping it up todate.

Three Busy Weekends

2009-04-05T16:09:00.000-07:00

Things didn't slow down for us after we returned from the Big Island. Courtney's school hosted the last practice for the Honor band on Friday and hosted the honor band concert on Saturday. As president of the booster club, I was pretty busy helping out. The Sunday after I returned, I competed in the Momentum Crit. This time I decided to try my luck with the big boys and race in the expert class. Luckily a couple of the strongest riders were not racing. I managed to stay with the front group and was in pretty good shape for the final sprint. I finished 7th.

The next weekend I competed in the State Championship Team Time Trial with Bryant, Steve C. and Shannon. I knew we would have a pretty strong team. The race went very well, we worked together and came across the line fast enough to win the overall Mixed title and were the 6th fastest team.

There weren't any races the next weekend so I was able to spend some quality time with Chris. Friday night we went to JR Rockers and listened to the band. The band was very good and played a nice mix of classic rock and more modern stuff.

Saturday morning we ran some errands and decided to stop and test drive a couple of cars. I have been getting the hankering for a sports car. I have always loved Corvettes and told myself that if I make chief next fall I am going to get one. However, a couple of other cars have caught my eye since, the saturn sky and nissan 350z, so we decided to check them out. Both were fun to drive. The z had more power but the sky was a convertable. Chris had me stop so she could take my pic.

What do you think?

Saturday night we decided to check out the Country Bar on Pearl Harbor. Stephanie decided to join us. It was nice not being the oldest or the youngest people in the club. It had been a long time since Chris and I attempted to 2 step and attempt we did. We still haven't mastered it but I was able to do the electric slide with Stephanie. My only complaint about the club was the lack of Draft beer. I thought it was kind of silly since they brewed their own beer on the other side of the building. I guess they figured folks at a country bar would prefer longnecks of Bud Light or MDG not a tall glass of a micro brew.

Sunday was very relaxing. We took Ginger out to the Beach by the old Kam housing and let her run on the sand bar. She seemed to have a good time and got some much needed exercise. However, she ended up hurting one of her front paws and was limping for the next couple of days. She is fine now but we were quite concerned for awhile.

Publish Post

More Pics from the Big Island

2009-03-25T02:17:00.001-07:00

The Offutt Seven takes on the Big Island

2009-03-24T14:50:00.001-07:00

After 6 years of talk and 2 years of planning the day arrived when 5 of my friends arrived for our Offutt AFB Nutritional Medicine Reunion. The cast of characters included Ron, Tony, Rose, Zamy and Zamy's wife Avi. Ron and I were in brother flights in Basic Training. Rose and Tony were in our tech school class and we all were assigned to Offutt AFB Nebraska together were Zamy was stationed. We were all stationed together starting in 1986 until1993 when Rose and Tony moved to Mississippi, 1995 when i moved to CA and 1998 when Ron and Zamy moved to Florida where Zamy met the newest member to our group, his wife, Avi. Ron, Zamy and I got together in 2002 when I was at the SNCO academy and we started talking about a reunion. When Rose found out we were moving to Hawaii, she arranged to trade a couple of her timeshares for 2 units on the Big Island. I suggested that everyone fly into Honolulu and spend a few days at our house before we all flew to Kona.

Every one arrived 3 March. We got up early on the 4th (my 42nd BDay) and went to the Arizona Memorial, the USS Missouri battleship and toured Hickam. That night Ben came over and we cooked out for my birthday.

The next day we went to Punchbowl Cemetery, drove around the south eastern corner of the island and went to a Luau. Everyone enjoyed the Luau and Ron found himself a Hawaiian Girl.

The next day we got up and flew to Kona. I couldn't believe the stark contrast between the Big Island and Oahu. The big Island had wide open spaces and beautiful roads. We saw over 50 whales breaching along the North Kona Coast, visited Hilo, the volcano national park, Parker Ranch and many other sights around the Island. We ended up putting over 600 miles on the rental. I took my bike and did a couple of rides including a 75 miler. The best part of the trip was the time we spent with our friends. Even though it had been over 15 years since we were all together, it was like we had seen each other every day. We had a great time. Here are some pics of the big Island

Back to the Races

2009-02-24T23:51:00.001-08:00

After my little vacation in Alabama, I went back to Hawaii. Wow that sounds weird, most people would think the opposite. Back to where I was going. After doing the Aloha run I jumped back on the bike the next day for the normal Tuesday ride of terror. I was able to hang with the front group although Steve C was riding much stronger than before I left. We used to mix it up pretty much but now i was struggling just to hang on his wheel. I know he is a strong rider but to comeback from almost having his leg cut in two during knee surgery to where he is now is pretty amazing.

Sunday morning marked my second race of the year. This time instead of a mass start crit, I competed in a 20 K Time Trial. I took off and was going about 29 right away. It didn't feel too bad so I kept it between 26 and 30 the entire way out. As I neared the turn around cones I was confused because there wasn't any signs stating to turn around. There were also some riders coming back from beyond the turn so I kept riding. Luckily I heard a policeman say to turn around so I only went about 50 meters beyond the turn around but still lost at least 10 seconds if not a few more. Unfortunately, I forgot to reset my computer so I didn't get a good time and had no idea how I finished until they announced the results. I placed 3rd but am still waiting for my actual time to compare it to the two guys ahead of me. Two races, two podium finishes is a pretty good way to start the racing season.

Seeing the Nieces and Nephew;Old Friends and the Aloha Run

2009-02-18T00:04:00.000-08:00

One of the nice things about going TDY to the mainland is the opportunity to visit family without having to cough up the cost of a plane ticket. The first weekend I rented a car and headed to Atlanta to visit Chris's brother Craig's family. Craig has two children Conner 6 and Tori 3. It had been quite a while since I seen them and they had really grown. Tori is very talkative and was happy to see me when I woke up the first day. Conner is a little more shy but he enjoyed playing football outside. I had a very fun time visiting with them. On Sunday before the super bowl, Craig and I went for a run with a couple of his friends. I ended up running over 7 miles with them which was a great way to prepare to pig out for the super bowl. Craig had several of his Friends over for a party. I had a great time until the Steelers were down in the bottom of the 4th with time running out. Luckily they pulled it out and I ended up winning the pool to top it off.

On the next weekend I headed to southern Illinois to meet my mom, Lucy and the girls. Lucy's youngest Daisy was born in September and I hadn't seen her yet. She was an incredibly good baby. She let me hold her and just smiled and cooed on my lap. Abby still hasn't quite taken to her uncle Steve. She would give me an occasional hug and would tease me but she is definitely a Mommy's girl. I had a great time visiting with them.

After being in the AF for as long as I have, you tend to know someone everywhere you go TDY. This time was no different. My buddy John who was stationed with me in CA and Germany. I spent alot of time at his house while in Alabama. I also got to have lunch with my supervisor from when I cross-trained into manpower. He retired and is working in contracting. It was nice getting to see him.

I came home to a very busy weekend culminating with the Great Aloha run on Monday. I decided to run the race when we met up with Paul and Mel, Chris's cousins and they were running the race so I signed up. I talked to Ben and he said he would run with me as well.
I was surprised how easy of a time I had finding Mel and Paul in a crowd of 20000 but I found them right a way. Paul and I started out together but then he told me to run ahead after the first mile I felt pretty strong the second mile i ran a 645 minute mile. the third mile was right at 7 min so i decided to shoot for a sub hour time. Chris was surprised how soon I passed her. She didn't even have the camera ready. I kept my strong pace but when I crossed the finish time my watch read 1 hour 2 seconds. However, when the official times were posted based on the timing chip my time was 59:50 37th of 868 in my category. My pace was a 7.21 minute mile. Not bad considering I hadn't really trained.

Mtn Biking Alabama Style

2009-02-03T17:32:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning John and I got up early and headed to the swayback trail on lake Jordan about 45 minutes from Montgomery. The lake had a nice network of trails providing a fun way to get some exercise. It was a bit colder than I was used to but luckily I brought my tights and long sleeve Jersey. I haven't ridden with John since we were stationed at Beale. He still has an aversion to everything spandex. We had a great time. I did manage to crash a couple of times. The second one I landed on a branch and thought I messed up my knee but it was fine after a it loosened back up. John warned me about a real steep section and was curious to see if I could ride it. I gave it 4 hard tries but gave up when I couldn't get over the apex of the steepest section. There was one section that had a nice jump. Since I love to Jump I had to give it a try. Luckily I managed to keep from killing myself.

1st Race, 1st Win

2009-01-19T00:20:00.001-08:00

This morning Momentum sponsored the first of 4 crit races at the Marine base. I was looking forward to this race because I knew I had been riding pretty strong and I wanted to see how I would do. We had a great turnout from the HACC and there were 37 total racers in the senior category. Bryant, John, and I talked about the race during the ride Saturday and we decided we would try to stay up front and keep the pace hard from the start to hopefully narrow the pack. The first lap was neutral. The three of us managed to stay in front so we could take off hard right at the start of the second lap. Bryant took off and I stayed on his wheel. John would then come around. We managed to stay up front and control the pace for most of the race. If the three of us would fall back, Steve Lindsey and Jon Lorian would whip around and take a strong pull. I heard some of the riders talking about how the couldn't believe how many HACCers were riding up the front.

I was able to stay in the front 4 or 5 riders and each time someone would try to take a sprint, I would pick up the pace and catch their wheel. I kept watching my heart rate so that I wouldn't burn out the wick before the end of the race. There was a couple of times when I chased a few breaks down that I was afraid I had overdone it. Luckily, that wasn't the case. With about 4 laps left, Spence, the captain of the Armed Forces Triathalon team took off. I worked so hard to catch his wheel that I was again afraid I may have over done it and wasn't going to have enough to finish strong. Luckily, when I caught his wheel he slowed enough that I could catch my breath a little. With 2 laps left, Jon and Steve both took strong pulls which were perfect as I was able to catch their wheels and stay out front. I think there were two riders ahead of me as we rounded the curve at the end of the back stretch. I amped it up a bit into the end of the curve then started my sprint. I almost lost it as my wheel started to slide but I caught traction and put the hammer down. I crossed the line a couple of bike lengths ahead throwing my arms up in a Tour De France style finish.

The rest of the HACC did very well. Bryant finished 5th in our race. John Girmsey finished 3rd in the Master's category . Kelly did exceptionally well finishing first in the women's category and 4th overall in the public race. Ed finished third in the public race as well. We were complemented for our great turn out. I know I wouldn't have done as well without the hard pulls by Bryant, John, Jon, and Steve. Too bad I will miss the next race which will be in February, due to my TDY. When we race in March, I am going to race in the Expert category which may be tough since I have a 3 week TDY and 1 1/2 week vacation between now and then.

More Bad News

2009-01-16T01:51:00.001-08:00

This has been quite a week. Today I learned of the passing of one of my old bosses, Lt Col Bob Lester, retired. Lt Col Lester and I served together both at Beale and at Offutt. He always thought very highly of me and was very instrumental in me cross-training into manpower. He was always willing to set down and talk to his people. Sometimes maybe a little more than we really wanted spend. He flew 130's and also had a law degree. He would do anything for his people and treated us much better than some of his bosses treated him. He will be missed.

Sad News

2009-01-13T01:07:00.001-08:00

Today I found out that a good friend of mine,CMSgt Denise Mikolajczyk, passed away suddenly. while TDY to Offutt AFB. Denise and I were stationed together for 3 years in Germany. She was a great person who was a hell of alot of fun to be around. Luckily I got to spend a week last fall with her and Curt Marshall at our training conference in Mississippi. We had a great time, golfing, drinking and reminissing. I had hoped we would get the chance to do it again soon. I had even invited her to come for a visit in Hawaii. I hope she had a chance to try Sam Adams light as I suggested. She will be missed by all who knew her.

Beauty in our own backyard

2009-01-11T23:55:00.001-08:00

Living in paradise gives us the opportunity to take pictures of many different beautiful areas all over the Island. However we often over look the great beauty that exists on Hickam. We have always taken sunset pics at Sunset Beach on the North Shore. After living on Hickam for almost 1.5 years we discovered that the oceanfront next to the Fort Kamehameha Housing makes an excellent setting for taking pictures of the sunset. Fort Kamehameha Historic Housing is a section of base housing on the south end of the base that was there before WWII. They recently moved all the families out because the structures were getting pretty old and required significant upgrades to meet the Housing Standards. It is a shame because although they were substandard, they had Million Dollar views of the ocean and are the only houses on Hickam that actually sit next to the Pacific Ocean. Chris and the girls headed out about 5 pm and I rode my bike out to meet them after work. We took a bunch of pics of the beach, Ginger and the sunset. We were even treated to a helicopter fly by.

Last April we moved into a brand new house on base. The house is great, plenty of room, a garage, all new appliances. The only problem is the location. From our lanai you can see the AAFES warehouse, the federal detention center and the base recycling center. We are also next to the Airport so you can see and hear planes taking off and landing 24/7. The only reminder of the fact that we are in Hawaii is the one lone palm tree sitting between two telephone poles. Sometimes I like to sit on the lanai with a beer and a cigar and relax while watching my lone palm tree sway in the wind.

Then and Now only 1 year apart

2009-01-09T22:25:00.000-08:00

Christmas 2008

Christmas 2007

I was looking through some old blog posts and found a couple of pics of me playing football on the beach with the girls Christmas 07 when i was pushing 200. I notices some contrast to the ones we took last month. I guess the south beach diet and many many miles on my bike did some good.

Then and Now

2009-01-09T20:18:00.000-08:00

May 1985

Today

Chris was cleaning out some old pics and I ran across this one that was taken the day I Graduated HS. I thought it might be kind of neat to take a similar pose just to see the changes. The Hair is much shorter thanks to the AF. I have also taken to adding gray highlights. The face has a few more lines due to years of playing in the sun. I think I could probably fit in to the same shirt although the pants would probably be a little tight. Back then I could run a 2 minute half mile, today I can't but could still do a 6 minute mile if I had too. I guess the past 22 years haven't been too bad to this old boy.

Kailua Beach Ride

2009-01-03T00:48:00.000-08:00

Last summer Heather and I joined the HACC for a long ride. The longest ride Heather had done before was about 30 miles. We ended up riding 80 and she did great. One of the first things she mentioned doing while home for her Christmas break was to do another long ride. Since today was a family day and late in her break we chose to do the ride. I sent out an invite to the HACC and had a great response. I got up at 0600 happy to hear silence from outside meaning that it wasn't raining. After getting dressed and having a cup of coffee, I woke up Heather. She was less than thrilled with getting up that early but she got up and got dressed. I opened the door and looked out at a grey sky and wet pavement but at least it wasn't raining. We headed to the gym to meet the rest of the gang, actually making it there right at 0700. As we headed out the gate the rain started and the rooster tails of water rising up from everyone's tires really made me wish I had brought my fendered bike. Nimitz provided the worst of the rain and traffic and once we got to Waikiki it had pretty much stopped. Luckily the traffic through Honolulu was pretty light and we made pretty good time. Everyone stayed together pretty well even up the hill past Hanauma Bay. We stopped at Makapuu for some pictures and to fix the first flat of the day.

The group got a little broken up on the Wiamanalo bypass but we got back together as we entered Kailua. We stopped at the Green Market coffee shop to down some nutrition and java before heading back. On the way back due to flats and folks needing to get home, the group broke into 3 groups. Heather and I stopped at Makapuu so I could ride up to the lighthouse. John helped Jeff fix two flats so they were a little behind us and the rest of the group headed back to base. Heather was doing great and talked about trying to extend the ride to 100 miles. We decided to stop at Momentum so I could pick up some chain lube. John and Jeff apparently passed us as they were already at Momentum picking up tubes for Jeff. The four of us rode back to base together. Heather and I did a couple of laps around the block so we could finish with 80 miles. Heather has ridden over 200 miles since she arrived earlier in December. The pic of her computer was taken at Makapuu with over 30 miles left in the ride. Due to it being late, we decided to forgo the extra miles happy with our 80 mile ride. Even though the weather and conditions were less than perfect, we still had a great ride.

After we got back, we went to Pearl Ridge for some shopping with Courtney and Chris and took in the new movie Marley and Me. It was a great story that every dog owner will love.

Hello 2009

2009-01-01T20:23:00.000-08:00

It is hard to believe we are bringing in another year. As we get older time sure seams to fly. Last year was great. We celebrated Stephanie's Bachelors Degree and my Masters Degree as well as Courtney's 8th grade graduation and Confirmation. 2009 will see us celebrating Heathers graduation and her entering her graduate Physical Therapy Program. Before we know it we will be referring to her as Dr. Steele.

This year we brought in the new year at a neighborhood block party. Think I found the perfect bike. It is small enough to pack and take about any where and it gives a hell of a workout. I am not sure though if I would be able to do any around the Island rides. Riding it 100 feet was tough enough. I planned on doing a early morning ride to kick of the New Year but the rain put the kabosh on those plans. Heather, Jim and I did set out on a nice easy paced 2 hr ride covering Hickam, Pearl and Ford Island. On Pearl we stopped to see a memorial that described all the ships that were involved in the Dec 7 1941 attack and what damage they sustained. It is hard to believe that some of the ships that sank were actually put back into service a few months after the attack. I took an neat picture of one of the discriptions capturing Jim riding behind it as well as one of the ships in port. After we got back, Chris joined us for a ride around the neighbor hood. GOALS FOR 2009

I don't do New Years Resolutions because they tend to be short lived. Instead I have a list of goals that I hope to achieve. The list is fairly long so that hopefully I have some goals that I can achieve to make up for the ones I don't.

1. Get more sleep
2. Drink more water and less soda and beer
3. Maintain and improve my fitness level
4. Achieve a sub 60 minute time in the 40k TT ( 1:03:10.0 last year)
5. Place in the top 20 in the Dick Evans Memorial Race (27th last year)
6. Run Hickam 1/2 marathon
7. Run Honolulu Marathon
8. Be more organized and productive at work
9. Make Chief
10. Save more money
11. Have alot of fun

Family Pics

2008-12-28T21:57:00.000-08:00

Today we went to the beach to try out the new Camera. Here are some of the pics but in much lower resolution than the originals.

Today we went to the beach to try out the new Camera. Here are some of the pics but in much lower resolution than the originals.

Mtn Bike on the Windward Side

2008-12-28T19:58:00.000-08:00

Friday Morning Heather and I got up early and headed to the east side of the island to go mtn biking with John, Jon, Jim, and Cory. We arrived about 10 minutes late and Heather had a mechanical right from the start. The Windward side of the island gets alot more rain than the Leaward side and the trails were pretty muddy. We started out on a pretty sketchy trail with some steep descents. After about 10 minutes we decided to cut our losses and head back to the Maunawillie Ditch trail. This trail is mostly double track that twists back and forth. When it is dry, you can really hammer but this day that wasn't the case. I started out trying to take pictures of Heather riding ahead of me. After a couple of near slips, I put the camera away to keep both hands on the bars. The trail is an out and back and on the way back, Heather and I fell back from the rest of the riders. We decided to turn right at the end of the trail and check out the views from above. Jon caught up with us and told us the rest of the riders were waiting at the car. I called John and let him know we were going to check out the top trail. He was going to join us after he fixed his tire. However, Jim ran into some bad luck and ripped the derailler off his bike. John gave him a ride back to Bellows. Jon L. had also had a flat. After he changed it, we kept riding up until we came to the trail head for the Maunawillie Demonstration trail. This trail had some sweet single track that ran along the ridge. We rode it quite a ways then turned around for a nice descent. When we were done, we were covered in mud. Heather and I took the long way home and stopped at Momentum where she test rode a nice bike which may make a good graduation present.

A very picture centered Christmas

2008-12-27T22:35:00.000-08:00

This year Chris and I had kind of a unintentional themed Christmas. The Theme was pictures. I got her a Kodak Photo Printer and she got me a Panasonic Digital Camera. We also used some money and bought a new Pentax DSLR camera. One might wonder why we needed so many new camera's. The SLR takes outstanding pictures but it can be difficult to take on the bike or hiking. Our older digital camera was starting to show the effects of many rough rides on the bike and drops to the floor. Stephanie got a PS2 from Santa, Heather some new running shoes and a pair of Oakley's and Courtney an IPOD Nano and Ginger got a new chew toy. There were alos alot of other things for each of us under the tree.

TheEnd of a 10 yr Drought and the Steeles Were There

2008-12-25T00:31:00.000-08:00

I have always been a Notre Dame Fan. I remember as a young boy watching the games with my Dad who is also a lifelong Irish Fan. I passed the love of Notre Dame down to my children. When Courtney was less than 2 she used to cheer "Go Notre Dame, Go Notre Dame" while we watched the games. This year we were thrilled to find out they were coming to Hawaii for the Sheritan Hawaii Bowl. Last year we were able to recieve free tickets to the game but this year the free tickets were gone in less than an hour and I had to pony up $200.00 for us to go. We arrived at the stadium a couple hours early prepared to do some tail gating. We ate our wraps, chips and had a few cold ones before making our way to the stadium. We were the only people with Notre Dame shirts on but all the Hawaii Fans were very friendly.

We headed to our seats around 230 stopping to pick up a couple of shirts for the girls. The tickets I ordered where supposed to be the best available but we were one row from the top of the stadium and there were a lot of open seats below us. It didn't bother me as it gave me an opportunity to try out the new digital SLR camera we bought with some Christmas Money from my Parents.I haven't figured out all the settings yet but i did manage to get some pretty good shots. I used the 300 mm lens from our film SLR and was able to get some great close ups of the players on the field. I did find out however that 10 MP pics are huge and take forever to download so I think i will keep it on a lower setting from now on. The game was pretty anti-climatic as Notre Dame managed to beat Hawaii pretty handily. It still was a great game and I am glad we got to watch it as a family. What a way to start off Christmas Eve. Tonight we are going to Midnight Mass as we always do. Courtney is Serving and Steph is ushering so it will just be Chris, Heather and I in the pews.

Biking, Surfing and Golf with Heather

2008-12-21T00:54:00.000-08:00

It is always nice to have Heather back for a visit as she is willing to do stuff with her Dad that the other girls don't always enjoy doing. This weekend I took full advantage of her being home. We started off Friday night with a round of golf at the lighted Par 3 Course on Hickam.
Our round started off kind of slow with both of us getting our money's worth as far as the number of strokes we were taking. I couldn't put to save my life and Heather was having trouble getting any distance off the tee. Heather's luck changed on the 7th and 8th hole where she par 'd both holes. I finished up with my only Par on the 9th hole. Chris walked along with us keeping score and making sure that every stroke was counted. I am not sure what we would have done with out her there :) Well, we probably would have taken a few more mulligans.

Heather has been wanting to try surfing since we moved to Hawaii and I finally agreed to take her. One of my co-workers told me about taking her boys to White Plains beach near Barber's Point. This is a navy beach that rents surf boards. Most people take a lesson before they attempt to surf or at least get some advise from an experienced surfer, but Heather and I decided to see if we could teach ourselves. We weren't very successful. I did learn why surfers wear shirts as I managed to make my chest look and feel like someone drug me across an artificial turf football field on my chest. I also managed to tear up my feet on some coral. I also learned that surfing takes patience, balance and skill none of which are my strong suits. It still was alot of fun and I am sure I will try it again. Heather and I also spent some time playing catch with a football. After surfing, we hurried home so we could get ready to go on the annual Honolulu Lights Bike Ride.

We met with several cyclist from clubs all around Oahu at the Bike Shop on King Street. Several of riders were really dressed for the season including HACC DADDY, John Girmsey, who dressed as St. Nick. We also had elves, Rudolf and a variety of other's dressed with lights, trees and bells on their Bikes. I did manage to put some battery operated lights on my bike but didn't have time to do anything else because we got back late from the Beach. We still had a great time. Chris and the rest of the family met us at Ward Center for Starbucks then we drove down past the lights so they could see them.

Fall and Winter in 10 days

2008-11-23T15:26:00.000-08:00

A week ago Friday I left the land of endless Summer and headed to the land of the rising sun to do an IG inspection on Misawa AB in Northern Japan. This was my second trip to Japan but my first to Misawa. Misawa sits in the northern Japan. It is an area known for its harsh snowfalls. We flew on a military tanker which was nice because 1. ) I had never flown MilAir before and 2) we were able to fly direct saving about 5 hours in transit time. We left on a Friday but crossed the international date line so we arrived about 1 pm Saturday. It was a beautiful fall day. The temps were in the 60's and there were still some colorful leaves on the trees. The fall weather lasted until the middle of the week when winter hit. It snowed Wednesday - Saturday. Luckily it was still pretty warm so the snow didn't accumulate as much as it could have. I guess I missed some pretty rainy weather on Oahu, which was nice since the 12 hr mtn bike race was postponed so hopefully I will get to do the race later.

Riding the Leeward Coast

2008-11-09T15:04:00.000-08:00

This Saturday, the HACC broke with tradition and rode the leeward coast from Kapolea to the end of the pavement on the Farrington HWY. This is the area of Oahu that most tourist and many residents never see. The area has reputation as being the depressed area of the island with high crime and rough characters. It lacks the greenery of the Windward side due to a more arid climate. However, if you overlook the clutter, it has a distinct beauty similar to the South West in the continental US.

We met at Kapolea at 0630 and mounted up. I got my stuff together and noticed that my tires needed some air. I had my pump so I pulled my keys out of the plastic case that I placed my cell phone, ID and credit card. I pumped up the tire and locked up the jeep. About 3 miles into the ride, I felt my pockets and realised the case wasn't there. I thought about riding back but knew I wouldn't beable to catch up and didn't really want to ride that area alone. I told myself that surely I set it in the jeep before I locked it up and it would be there when I returned. I kept it in the back of my mind but didn't want to dwell on it being lost so I could enjoy the ride.

We hoped off Farrington and road up one of the canyons to some Navy property. The area was desolate and very different from the Waikiki area that people think of when they think of Hawaii. We road through a housing area where most of the people lived in military tin quansant huts. We also road past many of the beach dwellings scattered along the beaches.
We climbed on Canyon road up to some public hunting land. Bryant and I decided to give the steep paved road a try to see how far it would take us. We climbed until we hit a great spot for a picture.
We plan on going back sometime with mtn bikes and exploring the trails in that area. After we reached the turnaround and headed back, we saw a school of dolphins swimming about 100 yrds off shore. Unfortunately they were out of photo range but still very cool to watch. We reached Waianea in time to ride along with there Veterans Day parade. With our Red, White, and Blue kits we fit right in.

I skipped the detour through Koalina so I could get back and hopefully find my missing case with phone, ID and credit card. When I got back to the Jeep, I found it setting on the roof where I must have set it when I opened my hatch to grab the pump. Luckily I put the stuff in the case as if it had been my wallet, I don't think it would have stayed there for 4 hrs. Finding my stuff where I left it capped off a great ride. For more photos, check out: http://www.flickr.com/photos/steelesc/sets/72157608794299624/

Busy weekend and the Beer Ride

2008-10-13T23:44:00.000-07:00

This weekend was a three day weekend. I started Saturday with a ride up on the northshore. I got going a little late and arrived just as the group of one was taking off. Apparently I wasn't the only one who was having a hard time getting started 6 other riders showed up after me. We took a shorter route hitting Kole Kole and Dillingham Airfield before heading up Pineapple. The group split into two groups between Dillingham and Pineapple hill. I was in the second group and John was in the first. I was determined to try to catch him on the climb or at least keep him in sight. I thought I could see him a ways up the hill so I kept the Hammer down. After a while I lost sight of what I thought was him and figured he just too wide of a gap. I expected to see him coming down the hill but I made it up to the bus stop with out seeing John. I turned around a rode down to join some of the riders coming up. I saw John making his way up. Apparently he went around the circle instead of starting when he got to the hill so we could ride up together but it took longer to get around the circle than it he thought it would so he started behind me.

After I got home, my ankle was bothering me so I kept icing it and wrapping it, hoping it would feel better before Monday. It has been bothering me for a couple of weeks but not enough to stay off of it. It felt better Sunday except for a couple of times when I step on it wrong while washing cars at the Knights of Columbus Car wash. It felt much better Monday and didn't bother me at all during the ride.

Courtney had a very busy Saturday. She spent 11 hrs at the school practicing for her marching band then went to an all night lockin with the youth group at school. I think she had fun at both activities but she was very worn out.

Chris and I checked out the new Whole Foods in Honolulu. It was much smaller than the one in Omaha but what it lacked in size it made up for in High Prices. Milk was $10.00 a gallon. We did find a couple of items that were pretty decently priced. They had their store brand whole wheat pasta which was very good and only ran $2.00 and their red peppers were less than the commissary. Other than those items, I don't think we will be doing much shopping there.

Monday morning was the HACC annual Yard House ride. Yard House is a restaurant in Honolulu that has over 100 beers on tap. We met at the Gym and rode down Nimitz. We weaved through Honolulu to ride up Tantlus. I hadn't ridden up tantlus since I did the time trial back in April. I decided to see if I could beat my TT time. I was very pleased to ride a 24:56 which was over a minute faster than my TT time. We headed down Round Top which had recently had the top 1/4 refinished making for a very smooth decent. We stopped half way at the lookout for some pictures. Check out Jeff Adkins pics for some great views of the rain falling on the city: http://picasaweb.google.com/jdabama13/HACCOctoBEERfest# or Jon Laurions: http://gallery.me.com/jonlaurion#100206 . Chris and Courtney met us a the Yard House and we enjoyed a great meal with the group.

September ,a month in review

2008-09-30T21:25:00.000-07:00

It is hard to believe that another month is done. September was pretty busy for me starting with the 24 hr race the first full weekend of the month. This year the HACC fielded two teams. Both teams focused on having fun verse trying to win. John Girmsey decided to give the solo event a go. Chris and Courtney took advantage of the opportunity to camp at Koaloa ranch and spent the night with me. The first few laps went pretty well. I was managing to clear all the obstacles and stay in my pedals. Unfortunately on my 3rd lap, i misjudged a drop and endo'd hitting pretty hard. After that, it rained off and on and I spent more time walking over the technical sections than I did riding them. I still managed most of my laps under 30 minutes and really enjoyed the race.

The next weekend, I headed to Mississippi for a conference. Several of my friends from Germany were at the conference and we had a great time drinking beer and talking about how much we missed Deutchland. My buddy Ron is stationed in Mississippi. Ron and I came into the AF on the same day, were in brother flights in Basic and went through tech school and our first base for 9.5 yrs. I probably spent more time with Ron than I did my wife and kids during those years. Ron picked me up at the Airport and took me to Hooters for Lunch. We spent most of the next Friday drinking beer, smoking cigars and talking about the good old days and all the characters we worked with. It was great getting to see him.

Curt, Denise and I played a lot of golf while we were in Mississippi. I started to get the golf bug and was playing some of the best golf I ever had. I have been trying to get out the Par 3 course since I got back but haven't had a chance. I even started to look at buying some new clubs.

Courtney's band has made great progress. Last year the HS band only marched in one game and look pretty bad doing it. This year they practiced all summer and really looked and sounded very impressive.

24 Hour Race

2008-09-10T01:09:00.000-07:00

Here are some clips from this years race

Aug 2008

2008-09-01T23:23:00.000-07:00

If you are a regular reader of my blog (that is if I have any regular readers left) you may have noticed a lack of blog entries. August was an extremely busy month for the Steele family.

The first weekend, I put aside the road bike and competed in a mountain bike race at Koaloa ranch. Koaloa ranch is a very popular tourist destination on the Windward side of Oahu where they have filmed several movies and TV shoes including Lost and Jurassic Park. It is nestled in a beautiful valley . The race included significant climbing on Jeep roads followed by some technical single track. This year my fitness level is definitely on track but all of my bike miles have been on the road bike. I started the race in the front of the pack climbing the hills feeling pretty strong. That all changed when we left the hills for the single track. I was definitely a fish out of water. When we lived in CA I was the King of the Single track riding the most technical trails with no problem. Not now. I was timid. I kept telling myself the advice I used to tell my friends "momentum is your friend" but couldn't force myself to listen to it. I kept stopping to walk over the technical sections. Needless to say the guys I left in the dust on the climbs did the same to me on the single track. Each lap I would pass a bunch of guys on the climbs only to have them pass me on the single track. I ended up in 9th place overall and 3rd in my age group.

The week of 10 -16 Aug was full of activity. At work we held our annual Manpower Conference which my office was responsible for setting up and at home, Stephanie had her College Graduation at HPU. Normally I wouldn't have been that excited by the conference by one of my best friends Curt was attending as our Career Field functional Manager. Curt arrived on the 10th. I picked him up at the airport and had him come over for supper. Ben graciously let me borrow his mtn bike and golf clubs for Curt to use. We were able to play golf and work in a bike ride between the conference.

Mom and Gina arrived on Wednesday for Stephanie's graduation. Stephanie really appreciated them coming since her graduation was kind of short notice. She originally planed on finishing in January but she was able to squeeze in a few more classes so she could walk in August. It was so great to see her walk across the stage. You could tell she was proud of herself as we were proud of her. The ceremony was held in the Waikiki shell, which was a beautiful. It was too late after the ceremony so we decided to have the traditional graduation dinner Saturday at the Hale Koa after going to the outdoor Mass.

To close out the month, I competed in the Annual Dick Evans Memorial Race. This ride has been going on since 1983 to remember a Cycling Ledgand who was killed while riding his bike in Honolulu. The race circles the island for 112 miles. We lined up in Hawaii Kai at 0545 and started with a police escorted trip across Honolulu. the first 30 miles was considered neutral as we tooled along at 20 miles per hour. It was great rolling through the stop lights. It took only 20 minutes to get from Ward Center to the Kuntz gate turn off. It can take as long as 90 minutes in a car. Once we got to Kunia road, the real race started as we climbed the hill. I kept telling myself what John Girmsey said about keeping with the lead group up the hill and was able to hold on. I was so glad I listened to John as I was able to recover as the lead pack dropped the tempo after the climb. I was feeling pretty good on the flat part of Kam Highway and decided to stay in the front of the pack. This was not good strategy as I used way too much energy. I was towards the back of the pack at the last water station and failed to make the break as the group attacked up the hill. I stayed in the chase group and we were able to catch up just as we hit the second long climb between Koneohe and Kailua. That is where I fell off for good. My legs were cramping and I barely made it up the hill. Luckily Casey came up behind me and he, I and another guy traded pulls until we almost caught the chase group just as they headed up another hilly section. Casey ended up getting a flat so I had to solo it into Wiamanolo until Shanon and another rider caught up with me. I stayed on their wheels until we hit the Makupu climb where my cramps started up again. I managed to ride all the way up the hill but couldn't keep Shanon's wheel. I was able to finish but had both legs literally freeze up with cramps after I crossed the finish line. My original goal was top 25. I finished 26th or 27th depending on where you look. Next year I may not be as strong but at least I will be much smarter.

I guess it is about time for a new post

2008-07-27T15:52:00.000-07:00

My cousin Marci, her Husband Joel and her boys came for a visit last week. We had a great time introducing them to the pleasure of Island Life and the Tour De France. Marci has two boys Avery and Chanse. Avery is 15 and Chanse will be 8 on Marci and My Mom's (twins) birthday9 Aug 08. The boys really enjoyed the Beaches. We visited the Hickam Beach several times and also spent time on Sunset, Waikiki, and Kailua. I tried to convince Chanse that the Tour De France was the best thing on TV but he still preferred Sponge bob.

The Friday after they arrived, they went to the Hickam Beach in the afternoon while I was at work. The Top 3 club was hosting a party at the Beach so we decided to go to it. Part of the entertainment was a jousting stage. Joel, Avery and I signed up. I got beat in the 1st round by Avery then they needed another competitor so they let me joust against Joel. I won that one and had to take on Avery. By this time I was starting to figure the trick was to push instead of hit. I was able to beat Avery the second time but he landed one hit squarely on my shoulder which I injured in may. I was able to continue to joust and won an ipod shuffle. Marci and Chris both won $25.00 gift certificates and we all ate for free. I guess I got my $10.00 annual dues worth.

I took Monday and Tuesday off and we went all over Oahu. We found a nice hike through the rain forest while driving around on Saturday. We went back and hiked it Monday. Afterwards we drove to Tantalus Lookout and to punchbowl national cemetery. They also squeezed in a Luau, a trip to the Arizona Memorial and a shopping excursion to Waikiki. We hated to see them go on Thursday as we had a great time during their visit.

Yesterday, I raced in the Boca Stage Race road race. Courtney's Birthday is today so i didn't race in the other stages. I have had a cold coming on the last few days so I wasn't sure how I would do. The course was a 3.5 mile loop that started with a decent then had 3 climbs on the back side, the last leading towards the finish. My goal was to stay in the lead group as long as I could. The first lap was neutral then the pace picked up. Each lap we would hit it hard on the uphills and rest on the decent. There were 10-12 of us in the front group. On one of the Middle loops I gunned it on the last climb and got about a 100 meter gap on the rest of the lead group. I held it through the decent but slowed abit because I didn't want to fight the wind alone. I was hoping to break up the group up a bit as they accelerated to catch me. On they next uphill section, a couple of guys made a break for it. I bridged up and brought another rider with me. We stayed ahead again but were caught on the decent. The breakaway and bridge took it's toll as I could tell my legs were sore on the uphill section. I was able to hang on with the front which slowly started to chip away riders. The bell lap we were down to 5 riders. I took a pull on the section leading up to the last climb but was passed on the climb by 3 riders. I hang on for 4th place out of a field of 35 riders. I felt pretty happy with my results. After the race, I went to Momentum and had the bike tuned then headed home. We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping for Courtney's Birthday. Courtney had 5 girls over for a party and 3 stayed the night. I think they had a great time because they were up until 430 in the morning. Today we are going to celebrate her birthday with just the family.

Would ah, Could ah, Should ah: DIDN'T: Kalaeloa Crit

2008-07-14T23:06:00.000-07:00

Sunday's Kalaeloa Crit was my best opportunity this year for a win. The course was perfectly suited to my riding. The short straights kept the pace to a level where I could hold on to the front and still keep a little reserved for the final sprint. Unfortunately, I let myself get boxed in on the back stretch had to wait too long to start my sprint. At the Hickam Crit, I needed the finish line to be about 10 yrds closer, for Kalaeloa I needed it to be about 10 yrds farther. I placed 5th overall in the 4/5 race and recieved my 3rd, 2nd place State Medal for the 4/5 41-45 yr olds. I also placed 7th in the miss and out race, 2 laps short of a prize.

This was the most enjoyable race of the season so far. There were alot of families watching giving it a real family atmosphere. The Cambrio team bbqed some hot dogs and great burgers and were sharing with all the teams. Thanks to all the HACC volunteers and John for making it happen.

Check out Bennie's great pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/gadawgs05/HickamAreaCylingClubCrit

It is the Most Wonderful Time of The Year

2008-07-11T19:55:00.000-07:00

Some folks can't wait for the 4th of July weekend because of the fireworks, picnics and parades. Although I enjoy these things, the 4th of July Weekend starts for me the best three weeks of television of the year. There is something special about being able to turn the
TV to Verses almost any time of the day and watch cycling. I get up in the morning and get to listen to Phil Liggett for the beginning of the day's stage. At lunch, I get to catch the finish again with Phil. When I get home, I get to listen to Bob (Bobke) Roll cover the race. If I miss any of it, I can catch it again before I go to bed. That is the way TV was meant to be./

Fourth of July Weekend

2008-07-07T19:53:00.000-07:00

After the 80 miler on Thursday, we took the 4th off from the bikes. I slept in until 0800 then we all headed to Wright Bro's for breakfast. After Breakfast, Heather, Chris and I took Ginger on a nice walk along Pearl Harbor. We had tickets for Bay Fest so we cooked out in the afternoon. Bayfest was a blast. I really enjoyed the Little Big Town concert. I have always enjoyed their music I just didn't realize how many good song they released. I think I knew the words to everyone of the songs they played.

Rodney Adkins was the main act. We got to see him last year at the College World Series. I enjoyed the show. My only complaint was that he played almost the same set as he did last year. I guess when you are a new singer, you only have so many songs you can play. After the concern, we watched a great fire works display.

Saturday morning Heather and I did a 30 mile ride around Hickam, Pearl and Ford Island.

When we got to Ford, I did some 30 second intervals while Heather rode around at a moderate pace. My goal was to lap her in 20 minutes of intervals. Luckily she started to get board and slowed down so I caught her on the final interval. On the way home, my blue tooth head set fell out of my ear. Several cars passed us and the last nudged it into the other lane. Luckily it still worked.

Later in the afternoon, Chris, Heather and I headed to the northshore to sunset beach. The surf was pretty strong which made me regret not bringing a boogy board. I did get to do some snorkeling and swimming and had a good time playing in the waves. The whole family went to JR Rockers for supper.

After Church on Sunday We ventured out west and hiked to kaena point. Most tourist don't venture out that way due to the rough nature of the area. I find it to be one of the most beautiful areas of the island. The hike wasn't too bad until we got to a section where the old road was washed out and we had to scale a cliff using a nylon rope. Chris and Ginger were both pretty exhausted for the return so Courtney, Heather and I ran back and got the Jeep. It was nice getting to do a little four wheeling. I haven't had it off road since last summer on my dads farm.

We got home around 6 tired and hungry. I cooked some ribs out on the grill and we ate around 8. Heather had to do most of her packing. It was after midnight when I went to bed and I didn't want to go to work at all. Most of all we were pretty sad today because Heather headed back to Illinois. She wanted to get back before the rest of the student's returned so she could find a job on campus. The worst part of being here is the fact that we don't get to see much of her. At least when she is here we make the most of it.

Ride to Kailua and Back

2008-07-03T20:45:00.000-07:00

This morning Heather and I got up early to join the HACC for the initial part of the Scott Kimsey going away round the island ride. We were running a little late so everyone was eager to go when we arrived. I was surprised that so many people showed up for the ride. Unfortunately the guest of honor wasn't one of them. His new job plans got shifted to the fall and he had to take care of some personal business. Fortunately for us, he will be able to do a few more HACC rides before he heads to the mainland.

The traffic was pretty heavy on Nimitz until we passed the sand island turn off. Marianne ended up getting a Flat at the same spot that Jim Phillips did on my birthday ride. It looked like a NASCAR pit crew as several pitched in to fix her flat. We were quickly We fixed her flat.

The traffic lighten up has we headed down Waikiki and up around diamond head. We added some miles by going through Portlock and taking the Waimanalo bi-pass. As we headed into Kialua we had to stop for some road construction. Unfortunately a couple of the riders got tangled up and hit the pavement damaging their wheels. Luckily no one was hurt too bad and a few calls to spouses were made for pickups. We refueled at the little market/coffee stop on Kailua Beach then Heather, Marianne and I headed back the way we came from. The ride back was very nice. It is a little easier to navigate with 3 riders than it is with the large group. Heather did amazingly well considering she has ridden less than 100 miles prior to this ride in the last year. Traffic picked up and Nimitz was kind of hairy but we made it back all in one piece with 81 miles under our belt. After words Ben brought his puppy by and Ginger and her had fun playing. We went to the Hickam beach then we are heading out for Pizza. Not too bad for a family day.

State Champianship Road Race

2008-07-01T00:56:00.001-07:00

Here is a great Picture Ben took of our family at my Graduation

Sunday Morning Heather and I got up at 0530 to head to the North Shore for the Pineapple Hill Hawaii State Road Championship. The HACC had to provide a wheel truck and Heather volunteered to drive. Unfortunately she drove for the 123 race and didn't get to see me race.
The first part of the race is a down hill section that we ride every Saturday called Snake hill. I was glad to have the experience with the road as we were headed down it in a tight pack going 35 + miles per hour. It was nice knowing were all the bad spots were in the road. At one point I looked down at my computer and I was going 47 mph. My strategy was to hang in the middle of the pack during the down hill and conserve for the climb. When we got to the bottom of Pineapple Road it went up to the front and did a hard pull. I knew I couldn't hold the pace for too long so I eased back as a group of riders passed. I was able to hold on with the front group of 15 or so riders. Bryant and I were the only HACCers in the front pack. Luckily the pace slowed as we road at the top of pineapple through to the feed zone. It was nice being down to only 10 riders for the fast decent. At the bottom of Pineapple Hill, one of the riders took off, Bryant and 2 others were able to keep his wheel and the rest of the pack split off the back. Unfortunately I was in the back of the pack with the split happened and couldn't get up to the front group. I joined up with 5 other riders and formed a chase group. We worked very well together but couldn't catch the front group. We stayed together for the final climb until we turned off on snake road. A couple of riders took off. I was able to catch their wheel and tried to sprint around them hoping to out sprint the group. As I tried to sprint, my legs turned to jello and 3 of the riders passed me. Bryant placed 2nd and I ended up getting 8th in the 4/5 race, but 2nd in my age category for my 3rd State championship medal which unfortunately I managed to lose between the race and my house. Not to bad for my first year or racing on the island. John Girmsey won the gold master's race by quite a margin. Shannon Cutting placed second in the Women's race. Again the HACC did very well.
The new bike was great. It was so nice having crisp shifting. I put new Keo pedals and was having some pain in my left knee. Heather and I rode down to Momentum and Biz tweaked the fit a little which seemed to take care of it as the knee didn't bother me at all during the race.

Heather has been doing a pretty intense workout for her softball off season. The workout involves sprinting, jumping and an occasional 1.5 mile run. She runs her 1.5 in the 11 minute range but hasn't tried any longer runs. We decided to see how far she could run at a 10 minute pace. We started running laps at the track so we could watch our pace. After 6 laps we were getting board so we decided to do the big loop. After the big loop we finished with a 9 minute mile on the track. I was very impressed that someone who hasn't ran more than 1.5 miles at a time could knock out a nice 4 + mile run finishing with a faster mile than her first. After her college softball career is over, she is going to make a heck of an aerobic athlete. I am sending her my old road bike so she can ride it at school.

Busy Weekend

2008-06-24T01:23:00.000-07:00

This was one of the most fun weekends I have had in quite a while, which is saying alot since I usually have pretty fun weekends. I took a day off Friday to spend with my sister and to start celebrating Chris's Birthday. We went to the north shore and spent some time hiking at the Audubon park at Wiamea Bay. We took the easy paved path to the falls and spent some time enjoying the view. On the way back we decided to try a little more difficult hike on the way back which was a single track that went up and down some steep hills with a few loose rocks to make it interesting. I stayed back to help Chris navagate a tricky section when we heard Gina, Heather and Courtney Scream. Apparently a wild bore ran out in front of them. Needless to say, we headed back to the paved path. We headed over to the ocean for a swim. Unfortunately we forgot our snorkeling gear but I was able to work on my swimming using the book Full Immersion Swimming. I think i need to work on it in the pool as I swallowed a bunch of salt water.

After Swimming we went Cholo's Mexican Restaurant in Halewa for some great Mexican Food. We have been wanting to go there for several months and were not disappointed.

Chris's Birthday was Saturday. We went to Waikiki to the outdoor Mass at the Hale Koa. It is a beautiful Mass but a bit hard to concentrate with the great views and the people walking by.

Afterwards we went to our favorite Italian place Auntie Pastas for another great meal.

Sunday I got up early and headed to the Race. It was a perfect race. Check out Dev's Blog for a complete run down and great pictures: http://devsfitnessjourney.blogspot.com/

I rushed to my graduation at the O Club. It was a nice ceremony that Ben, Chris, the girls Gina and My boss Linda and her Husband attended. It was great having a cheering section as I walked across the stage.

Afterwards, I was treated to a nice surprise thanks to Mom and Dad with some help from the rest of the family, including Ben.

One Year Later

2008-06-18T09:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday marked the 1 year anniversary of my brothers death. It is hard to believe it has been a year since the army staff car arrived at my parents farm to deliver the news that Josh was killed in Afghanistan. We all miss him so much.

Heather's Home and Courney is in High School

2008-06-08T16:43:00.000-07:00

Monday afternoon Heather flew in from Illinois for her summer break. This year she is just staying with us until the 2nd week of July so she can try to get a job for the school year. I am trying to convince her to race in the Hickam Crit but she doesn't seem to think it would be much fun. Hopefully I can get her to do a couple of weekday HACC rides. She enjoys riding but my bike doesn't fit her the best and she is not used to road gearing and shifting.

Courtney's 8th grade promotion party was Tuesday. I can't believe she is going to be in High School. It seams like yesterday when she was 11 months old and we were PCSing from Offutt to California.

Friday night, Ben and Casey came over for supper. We got out the poker chips and played some high stakes poker. I was making Margarita's until I ran out of tequila and had to make them with rum and whiskey. They didn't taste the best but they had a bit of a punch.

Taken a Break from the Bike

2008-06-02T00:09:00.000-07:00

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Today is my 23rd anniversary. Two of the last 3 anniversaries have been over shadowed by PCS moves so we decided to do something special and stay at the Hale Koa in Waikiki Saturday night. I was still planning on riding Saturday morning but when I woke up after 6 am I figured I would just get some more sleep as both of the rides had already started. We checked in around 3 pm before going to Mass at the Fort DeRusey Chapel. We were a little disappointed in our room as it was one of the children rooms with a pretty uncomfortable full size bed and thin walls. But still it was nice to be down in Wiakiki so we couldn't complain too much. After mass we headed to our favorite Italian place on the Island: Anti Pasta's. Getting there before 6 was great as we got right in. I had the chicken cachatorie and Chris had the Egg Plant Parmesan. After dinner we walked along the beach and the stores. There was a Pan Pacific Islander Festival going on with a great band. We set and listened until they completed their set. We walked back to the hotel doing some window shoping along the way. When we finally got back to the room we were bushed but the people in the next room were talking so loud that we had a heck of a time sleeping. This morning we had breakfast then headed out to the beach. It was a great day for sitting on the beach. I tired to swim but my shoulder still is bothering me. We had to check out at noon so we headed back to the base. We stopped at McCully bicycle store just to check it out since I didn't have much time the last time I was there. They have pretty decent prices but I couldn't find anything that I couldn't live with out. After we got home and had some lunch, we decided to take a drive to the Windward side and do some hiking. Chris wanted to see if she could make it all the way to the Light house which se did sucessfully. We could tell the exercise was really helping her get in shape as last time she had a hard time getting half way up.

Busy Weekend

2008-05-28T00:44:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was one of those rare weekends when I got 4 days off in a row. I tried to squeeze as much as possible into it to make the most of it. I started Friday by sleeping until 11am, something I haven't done in forever. When we finally got up, we decided to go to Best Buy to look at TVs. I picked out a couple of Sharp TVs but wanted to wait until I shopped around. Chris really like the Samsung but the one in our price range was too wide for our wall unit. Later Friday we went to the NEX to look at their selection. They had the same TV as one of the Sharps I saw at Best Buy. It was $100.00 more than Best Buy but I thought if I could price match, I would save the sales tax. Unfortunately, when they called Best Buy the sales clerk said that they didn't have any in stock, even though I knew they had two when we were there earlier.
Later Friday, Courtney had an end of year ceremony for her Girl Scout Troop. The girls had fun showing off their accomplishments for the year.

Saturday morning I got up early and headed to Schofield to ride. My goal was to keep both wheels on the ground and avoid any accidents or mechanicals. Something I hadn't been too successful at during the last few rides. We had a nice easy ride, saving energy for Sunday's State Championship 40 K Time Trial. My shoulder felt pretty good for the entire ride so I knew I would be ready for the TT. We finished early so I stopped at the other Best Buy to look at TVs. I thought they had a Samsung in our price range that would fit so I grabbed it. Unfortunately, I looked at the wrong tag for the dimensions and when I got it home, I figured out it was too big for our cabinet. Luckily, I was able to slide the doors all the way forward and get it to fit. Unfortunately we aren't able to push them back like we used to but it looks pretty good.

After we got the TV set up we headed to Kaneohe to my friend Robert's for a pool party. I over ate and drank a few too many which was probably not the smartest thing to do before the race on Sunday. We had a great time and decided to get together with them again on Monday.

Sunday morning, I woke up at 0400 not feeling the best from the night before. I filled up the jeep (not much fun with $4.00 gas and a 20 gal tank) and headed up to the northern most tip of the island. Most of the HACCers were already warming up when I got there. I got my number and free socks and started warming up on the trainer. I wasn't feeling too bad by the time I was at the starting line. The first half (12miles) of the race was into a pretty stiff wind. I was able to keep it at about 22 mph telling myself I would pick it up on the way back. When I was about 2/3rds of the way to the turn around, I started passing racers. I figured it was a pretty good sign. When I turned around, I kicked it up to 26 mph and kept passing more riders. I miscalculated where the finish line was and picked it up a little too early. I still finished pretty strong. I had to leave early so I missed the awards ceremony. John called me after church and let me know that I finished 2nd in my category. Now I have a 1st place state championship medal from the team time trial and a 2nd place from the individual tt. Ben finished first in our category beating me by a little under a minute. Casey finished 1st in his category, John 2nd in his. I invited Ben and Casey over for supper Sunday night and we celebrated with Beer and Steaks.

Monday started as a lazy day. We slept in until 10 then headed back to Roberts in the afternoon. This time Courtney and Ginger joined us. Ginger loved the pool. She swam all over. Marty had a kids inflatable vest that we put on Ginger so she wouldn't have to work so hard. She looked ridiculous but that didn't seem to bother her. She also enjoyed sitting on the floaties.

On a somber note, this is the first memorial day since my brother was killed in Afghanistan. My sister and Mom went to DC for a ceremony for the families of the fallen. It is hard to believe that it has been almost a year. I still expect to see him driving his truck up to my house.

Crash

2008-05-22T19:26:00.000-07:00

My riding luck hasn't been going too well. Saturday I suffered a major mechanical which disrupted my weekend riding. I was really looking forward to a good Tuesday ride. I managed to leave the office pretty early so I could start with the group. We had a record 26 riders. Ben and Casey took off during the housing warm-up. I stayed back with the peleton until Scott passed me and picked up the pace to about 26. A couple of the new guys also came around so I picked up the pace to stay with them. We slowed as we rode through the traffic circle then we picked it up to try to catch Ben and Casey. Unfortunately I forgot about the big bump in the road and I hit it square on making me lose control. The next thing I knewI was sliding across the pavement. My head hit the curb but luckily the helmet absorbed the impact. It felt like my head was hitting a pillow. I slowly got up and felt around for the typical injuries: broken collar bone, bleeding, concussion. Everything checked out except my shoulder was a little sore. I check the bike which surprisingly suffered very little damage except for the rear dérailleur cable stretching which I didn't notice until I started to ride. I got back on the bike and proceeded with the ride. Everything seemed fine until I tried to lift my left arm to signal a turn. I felt a sharp shooting pain and wasn't able to lift the arm. I went back to work and called Chris. She told me she was coming to take me to the ER. 3 hours later I found out that I strained my rotator cuff. Not a real serious injury, just a painful one. Luckily I should be able to ride in the 40 K TT. My Helmet didn't make out so well. Hopefully Rudy Project will be sympathetic and send me a new one.

Bike to Work, Mechanicals and a Computer Virus

2008-05-19T09:13:00.001-07:00

I started Friday morning off with a nice bike ride to downtown Honolulu to the Bike to Work rally. Friday was the official Bike to Work day and the Hawaiian Bicycle League held a rally to kick it off. There were about 10 of us from the base that rode down Nimitz with rush hour traffic for a free cup of coffee and to meet with other riders from accross the island. Lt Governor "Duke" Aiona (green shirt below) rode his vintage "old" fuji from Makakilo to the ralley and spoke to the crowd. He took time to talk to alot of us and took a picture with the HACC.

I finished the workday off Friday with a round of golf at the Par 3. I putted pretty well but could not get any good shots off the tee.

Saturday morning I woke early and headed to Schofield for the north shore ride. I was really looking forward to a nice ride with some hard efforts to prepare for next weeks State TT. We were just starting to climb Koli Koli pass when I shifted into the small ring. Some how I threw the chain off and the torque pulled my derailleur hanger off the frame ending my ride prematurely. Luckily we weren't far from the car and Jon L who wasn't planning a hard ride to save his legs for Sunday's tri rode back got his Exterraand gave me a ride back to the jeep. I spent the better part of the morning cannibalizing old parts and was able to get the bike back running with out spending any money. I still need to tap out a some threads for one screw but I think I will be ok for Sunday's TT.

Saturday evening we picked up a virus on the computer. I tried to download a spyware program but found out it did more harm than good. Luckily with patients I was able to get the computer back up on Sunday.

Northshore Hammer Fest

2008-05-04T09:09:00.000-07:00

I finally had a weekend where I could have a long Saturday ride so I headed up to Schofield Barracks to do the HACC North Shore ride. John had originally planned on riding up Pupekea instead of going out to Dillingham then doing 3 pineapple hill climbs. Some of the other guys who were doing Tri training wanted to go to Dillingham then up to Turtle Bay. I didn' t have a preference so I suggested that we do Dillingham then Pupekea which would stretch the ride out to about 65 miles. One of my German riding buddies used to say, "If you don't ride 100 K, you might as well stay home. "

I couldn't believe how light it was when I left the house at 0545. I was a beautiful morning but a little chilly "68 degrees" when we started. I took it easy climbing Kole Kole but decided to give it all I had heading out to Dillingham. I wanted to see if I could do a breakaway and make it to the beach park before everyone else. When we turned on to Snake Road, I picked it up to about 27 and made my break. I was able to make keep the gap. After a short rest at the "most picturesk Beach Park in Hawaii" We headed towards Pupekea. One the way, we saw Bryant sitting on at the Church. We thought he was waiting for Mary Ann so we just waved and road by. Come to find out, He had blown his tire out and needed help. Sorry about that Bryant.

I tried my damnest to keep up with John going up Pupekea and was able to hang on through the switchbacks but He stood up and gunned it and I fell back. I was able to keep him in sight but could never close the gap. I thought I would do better on Pineapple but my muscles were not recovered from the hard efforts out to Dillingham and Pupekea.

After the ride I met Chris and Courtney at the Outlet Mall. I forgot to bring any clothes to change into so I was shopping in my HACC kit to include the socks and my birkenstock sandals. I don't think Courtney was too happy walking around the Mall with me but she didn't seem to mind me using my credit card.

It is easy when the food tastes great.

2008-05-03T01:23:00.001-07:00

Since starting our diet Chris has been doing all the cooking so I could work on the paper. Not that I turned it in it was my turn to cook supper. We talked about going out to eat but decided since we had just spent a ton of money on groceries we should eat at home. Our menu plan for tonight was a dish called Big Easy Shrimp. It was basically Shrimp Creole or gumbo. I had chopped onions, bell peppers, celery and diced tomatoes. It also called for 1tsp of hot sauce (Tabasco). It ended up being a little hot so I added a couple of small cans of tomato juice. It still had a little zing but with a glass of skim milk, it went down pretty well. I cooked some brown rice to give it a little more fiber.

Tomorrow I am going to ride at the North shore. It has been over a month so I am looking forward to a great ride.

Master's paper complete. Now back to the fun.

2008-05-02T00:40:00.000-07:00

For the last week, i have been sequestered at this computer completing the last requirement for my master's degree, A research project on opening a bike shop near my home town in Galesburg Illinois. This morning I emailed the paper to my professor hoping that I did well enough to pass so I can graduate in June. I don't mind writing; if I did, I probably wouldn't do this Blog, but I hate the anticipation of hoping that my writing is well enough to pass. When it comes to math or taking tests, I always strive for an A but when it comes to writing simply passing is good enough. By the looks of my computer nook, you can see that I am not the most organized person and I put the project off until the last minute as I tend to have to be under pressure before I can get the words to paper.

Now that I am done with the paper, I can delve into organizing the house we moved into last month. I am currently working on turning the garage into my "man-cave". I just picked up a nice blue Craftsman tool cabinet. I still need to clean and organize all the bikes so I can have room to work on bikes. I have managed to keep enough room to drive the car in which has been so nice since, it used to get covered with dust from all the construction in the old house.

Two weeks ago, I competed with Ben, Casey and Steve Chirco in the Hawaii State Team Time Trail Championship. We were a very well matched team. Steve is an animal and was willing to take long pulls keeping our average speed over 25 mph. The rest of us would give it all we had for as long as we could. The combination worked superb as we won our category and had the 6th fastest time of the 30 plus teams.

Two weeks ago, Chris and I started doing the South Beach Diet. This time Chris took care of the cooking and menu planning which made a huge difference. I tend to half-ass it when it comes to the cooking taking short cuts and trying the easy meals like grilled chix breast and green beans. Chris has turned it into a gourmet cooking competition. The meals have been great and I am shedding the lbs. I am down to 184 which I haven't been at in over 10 years. I was a little concerned that the lack of Carbs would hurt the bike but it hasn't. I seem to be a lot stronger on the hills and as strong on the flats. I have been supplementing with some carbs but only complex ones with lots of fiber. I had even gone for almost 2 weeks with out a beer but broke down and had one tonight.

Last weekend I took the entire weekend off from the bike. This weekend I am heading up to the northshore for a nice ride with the HACC. I love the northsore rides but haven't been able to ride up there for over a month due to other conflicts. Next week I start training hard for the 40 k TT. I hope for a top 5 finish. We will see how many pro triathletes show up to rain on my parade.

My Parents Visit

2008-04-23T10:39:00.000-07:00

My Parents joined us for Courtney's Confirmation. They came 3 Apr and left on the 15th. During their visit we packed a ton of activities into a short period of time. We covered the main attractions: Waikiki, North Shore, Arizona, Punchbowl Cemetery, and a luau. We also moved fr

from our old rundown house to a brand new house. The highlight of the trip was a course courtney's confirmation where she became an adult in the Catholic Church.

Finally a new post

2008-04-23T09:39:00.000-07:00

There has been a whirlwind of activity in the Steele house during the last half of March and all of April. In March my grandfather passed away and I flew home for his funeral. Although a funeral is a sad occastion, for someone who lived such a long life, it is also a celebration of his life.

I was very impressed with how well my 92 yr old grandmother was doing. she really seemed to like having all the company. I know she missed Red but she realized that he was in a better place. I enjoyed seeing the family even met a couple of 1st cousins from Alaska that I had never met. We even had time for family game of poker that lasted until 2 am.

Less than a week after I returned, my parents arrived for a great visit. I will post a longer Blog on thier visit and our move to the new house ASAP.

True Sport Utility Vehicle

2008-04-06T19:15:00.000-07:00

The Bx had 24 oz bottles of Sam Adams on sale for $.99 each. So Dad and I bought a case and loaded them all on the Jake. Not only did I get a great deal on beer, I also saved gas.

Back in the Midwest

2008-03-29T19:56:00.000-07:00

I flew to Ohio on Monday to go to my Grandfather's Funeral. I landed Tuesday morning in Columbus, rented a car and headed north. On the way I stopped at an old friend Esther's house to take a shower and change clothes for the visitation. She was at work so I didn't get to see her but her daughter let me in. While I was there my friend Clay (Esther's Ex) called. He lived about 20 minutes south of her house. I still had some time so I drove down for a visit. It was nice seeing him after so many years. We reminised about the crazy things we did as kids. I took a picture of him and his new wife:

Ohio is such a contrast to Hawaii. There are tons of lightly traveled roads running through acreas of farm land. I snapped pictures of the towns and farms along the way.

Sad News

2008-03-23T15:15:00.000-07:00

At 5 am Friday I received a call from my parents informing me that my Grandfather "Red" passed away. I always enjoyed spending time with Red because he loved the outdoors. He was an avid hunter and fisherman. He had a great collection of guns. He gave me my first air rifle, target rifle, deer rifle and slug gun. We went walleye fishing on Lake Erie and pheasant hunting in South Dakota. Red was a man of many talents. With only an 8th grade education he survived the great depression, served in the Navy during WWII, built a successful business and raised 4 extremely successful children. An electrician by trade, he also mastered watch making and wood working. He could take a block of wood and and create an intricately carved gun stock. He was one of those people who could accomplish anything he wanted too.

Growing up, we never call him grandpa, he was always "Red". I am not sure if the Red came from his red hair or his hot temper but it fit him either way.

The Hawaiians would say he could really "Talk Story" as he was very good at telling stories from his past. I remember listening to his vivid descriptions of WWII serving as a SEA BEE in the Pacific. I wish he could have come for a visit while we were stationed here so he could tell us about Pearl Harbor where he served shortly after the bombing.

On Monday, I head to Ohio for the funeral. I am going to wear my uniform as I know he would have liked that. It will be nice seeing all my relatives again. Unfortunately as with most families, the only time we get together is for funerals.

10000 feet of climbing

2008-03-22T20:45:00.000-07:00

Thursday 20 Mar 08, the HACC took its annual pilgrimage to Maui to climb Haleakula. http://www.nps.gov/hale/ Haleakula is a dormant volcano that extends from sea level to 10000 ft elevation in 36 miles. It is probably one fo the very few places in the World with climbs of this magnitude. We got up at 4 am and headed to the Honolulu Airport with our bikes wrapped up for the 37 minute flight to Maui.

Once we arrived at Maui, we changed in the Airport, unwrapped our bikes and

headed out about 0730. Ben met us at the Airport with a van full of water, Gatorade, cookies and sandwiches to give us the energy for the climb. We tooled out for a 10 mile gently rising cruise to a little town where we stopped to refuel. There was a sharp climb out of the town then a unmarked right turn. As I started up the hill, I realized my rear tire was low so I turned around and replaced the tube. Jim Cain and his friend were also experiencing mechanical difficulties as bolt holding his friends seat on broke. I fixed the flat and headed up the hill. I road right through the turn and kept climbing until the road came to a dead end 7 miles and 2000 feet of altitude gain later. Luckily I had a cell phone signal and was able to call John for help. He had Ben head my way to meet me and bring me back to the group. By the time we caught up, the group had spread out. I rode with Jim Phillips until we got to the ranger station where we met up with Gil. The three of headed up together. We stayed together until the 9000 ft mark where Jim we spread out. Grampa Gil showed us young whippersnappers up as he completed the climb about 200 yrds ahead of me. Jim was pretty close behind me. The big thing is we all made it to the top. We stayed up top for about 40 minutes, changed in to warm clothing as it was in the 40's before heading back down. The down hill started out quite fun as John, Bryant and myself flew down the hill about 40 plus mph. about 8000 ft we hit fog and rain which lasted for the next 3000 ft of decent. We flew the rest of the way down averaging over 45 mph. We were rewarded at the bottom at a really nice Italian restaurant.

I replenished my glycogen stores with chicken Parmigiana and a cold Kona Pale ale. We stopped for Krispy Creme donut which I brought home for the family. We arrived back home about 9pm then I headed to church for eucharistic adoration from 11pm-12am. I was sooo tired. Check out Ben's Blog for more pics: http://bensambrano.blogspot.com/

Sunday night in the Islands

2008-03-17T01:03:00.001-07:00

Tonight we headed west with Ben to the Ko'olina Resort where Ben's Aunt was singing at one of the outside Bars. It was the second time I had been in the area and the first for Chris. The area is beautiful. It is a very fancy resort area that doesn't have the crowds like Waikiki. Our table faced west so we got to watch a beautiful sunset behind where Ben's Aunt was singing. It was kind of funny because Ben's mom and a few of her friends were also there as well as Ben's cousin who was visiting from San Diego.

The kids: Ben, his cousin, Chris and I sat at one table while Ben's Mom's friends sat at the big table. We enjoyed listening to Ben's aunt and talking about everything from kids to guitar hero. I think I will try to talk my folks into swapping one of their time shares for a week at Ko'olina.

New Wheelset

2008-03-14T00:35:00.000-07:00

Today my new wheels came in. I did a lot of research on wheels and found these to be the best deal for the money. I added the ceramic bearings but they haven't arrived yet. Even with out the better bearings, these wheels are so smooth. Look out Ben and Casey, I am coming for you. You can check out the specks at http://www.neuvationcycling.com/wheel/r28sl3/r28sl3.html I will let you know how they perform for me.

Google Analytics, Beer, Nacho's, Skinsuits and My Hero Ben Sambrano.

2008-03-13T00:06:00.000-07:00

The Great Sambrano in his skinsuit

I installed Google Analytics on my blog to track how many people read my blog. Unfortunately, my readership has been well below that of the Great Sambrano's. In an effort to increase readership I have decided to jazz it up a bit with some spicier subject areas. This is my first attempt. Hopefully when all of Ben's fan club catches wind of this, my stats will hit the roof.

Nacho and Beer Night at Jr Rockers

Casey and Ben sharing a warm embrace. Aren't they cute.

Courtney's Band Concerts

2008-03-09T00:22:00.000-08:00

Courtney has had two Band Concerts the last two weekends. The first was at Moanalua HS. It featured the High School and Jr High bands from 3 of the local schools. All the bands were very impressive. Courtney's Jr High Band sounded better than many High School bands. The Moanalua High School Band was extremely good. Courtney said she had heard they were one of the top 10 bands in the US. I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

Tonight Courtney participated in the Honor Band Concert. This Concert featured the best 7th, 8th and HS musicians from all over west central Oahu. They have been practicing since January. The concert featured guest conductors from the UH and University of Washington. I thought the 8th graders sounded as good as the High School. We are very proud of Courtney's musical talent.

119 miles, 19 mph avg speed, 6 1/2 hrs riding time, Not bad for a 41 yr old

2008-03-04T23:11:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, I started the tradition of taking my birthday off and spending the day riding. One year I rode from Ramstein Germany to the French Border, another year I rode every bike path in Omaha for a 75 mile ride. This year, I decided I wanted to try to ride a loop around Oahu. My past rides had been solo as it is hard to find folks willing taking vacation time to spend the day riding in Omaha or Germany in early March. This year I invited anyone who was interested from the HACC to join me. Steve Lindsey and John Girmsey were ready from the get to. Jim Philips was interested but not sure if he would be ready for the long ride but he decided to give it a try. Scott Kimsey had his flying schedule changes the last minute and was able to join us.

We met at the Shoppette and hit the road at 0700. We had the pleasure of passing cars who were tied to the morning gridlock. We made pretty good time from Hickam to Honolulu until Jim got the first of the 4 flats. We changed his tire, Indy style and were back on the road. We spun through Waikiki and headed to Hawaii Kai. We took a detour to avoid traffic and take in some more scenery then Steve had the second flat.

We road up by Hanauma bay through Kailua where we decided to stop for a cup of coffee. We enjoyed the beautiful scenery on Kam Hawaii where John got the third flat and me the forth and final. Wen, from Momentum Multi-Sport, our new team sponsor, caught up with us in Kanohea and road the rest of the route with us. We managed to avoid any more flats but Scott broke his chain on Kania road. Luckily we were able to fix it and make it back to Hickam.

No injuries, only minor machanicals, all and all my best birthday ride yet.

After I got home, I opened my presents. Chris got me a hawaian dirt shirt I have been wanting since I moved here. She also got me a cool biking t-shirt and a poster from the 2004 Tour. The last tour, I was able to got to before we left Europe. We went to the gym then to JR Rockers for Supper where Ben and Casey joined us. It was a great Birthday.

Pizza, Beer, 80's trivia and a Suprise Birthday Party

2008-03-01T17:25:00.000-08:00

An email went out to the HACC stating that there was going to be a Critical Mass ride Friday night . Critical Mass rides are demonstration rides where cyclist purposely block traffic. The point is to increase awareness of cyclist on the road but they often have have a negative effect. As we tossed around emails about why the HACC shouldn't participate, Habi mention that he would be drinking beer and eating Pizza instead. Ben emailed him back and asked where, then I emailed as suggested we meet at my house. That started the wheels a turning for a fun night.

Ben arrived first bring a "secret" Desert. Habi and his family arrived shortly afterwards with lots of soda. We ordered Pizza and got down to drinking some beer. After a while I decided to pull out the 80's trivial pursuit cards out. Ben and Chris both graduated in 84, I in 85, Habi in 87 and Habi's wife Theresa in 88. Casey and my daughter Steph were both born in 85 . We also had my daughter Courtney and Habi's son Brit who are both in 8th grade. They seemed to enjoy reading the questions and watching us reminisce as we explained 80's terms and activities to the youngsters in the audience.

Casey had just got off a long shift at work. He was a little off his A-game when it came to 80's trivia.

Ben brought some desert. I couldn't understand why he insisted I didn't look at the desert until it was served. I thought he brought another hi cal desert like the pecan pie he brought last time. I was surprised when he brought out a Birthday Cake, as well as a present, a new bike helmet. It was great. I brought out my bottle of Irish Whiskey. Ben and I had a couple mixed with diet coke. It went down very smooth. The next morning when I got up to ride with Ben, the Irish whiskey was setting pretty hard in my gut. It took two tower laps to sweat it out and a good Wright Bro's Breakfast to make me feel pretty good. This was probably not the best way to prep for the time trial.

We rapped it up around 10 pm. I guess when you get old, you don't party until the wee hours. The aftermath of the

Makaha Time Trial : 6th place.

2008-02-26T23:32:00.000-08:00

Appearantly after cleaning up from the race, the missing sheet containing the lost times was discovered. I ended up placing 6th of 23 in the 4/5 class. Not too bad for my first race. Today I had a great lunchtime ride doing 2 hard intervals. I can't wait until the race next Sunday.

Makaha Time Trial Result: No Time

2008-02-24T21:20:00.000-08:00

Today I competed in my first Road Race on US soil. The Race was a time trial which started on the southwestern corner of Oahu. I have never been a strong Time Trialist because I either start out too hard and bonk before the finish or I conserve too much. Plus I have never really trained for a time trial. This year I was going to try to do better. I have been doing some longer intervals and have pretty much figured out what I can keep my heart rate at to maximize my speed through out the 20-30 race. I also have been trying to keep my self hydrated through out the weekend so that I would be primed for the race. Last night I went to bed around 11 pm and fell right to sleep. Unfortunately my prehydration backfired as I woke up 6 times to go pee negating any decent sleep. I woke up around 0515 to get ready. I had a little time so I ate a nice bowl of oatmeal. I should have checked my email because Ben sent me a message telling me to bring a skewer ( the part that holds your front wheel in place. ) Ben and Casey arrived at 0600 and we loaded up the car and headed out. Ben loaned me one of his racing wheel sets so he told me to leave my front wheel at home. After a 45 min drive through some area's of the Island that you won't find on a tourist brochure. We unloaded the car. Ben asked me if I read his email and brought a skewer. Casey had one for a rear wheel but it was too long. Luckily, Ben knew everyone at the race so he was able to find one from a friend. Crisis diverted. I brought my old and new jersey figuring I would wear the old one if it was raining and the new one if it was dry. It was dry so I put on the new one. After our warm up we looked to the west and watched as a dark wall of clouds headed our way. I hoped that it would not hit until after the start but that wasn't the case. Just as I took off the rain dumped on us. The first 4 miles were in a strong down pour. I didn't realize the wind changed directions when the rain hit. When we drove in, the wind was coming from the east so we would have a head wind at the start and a tail wind on the return. The ideal. Heading out, I started at 28 mph feeling pretty good. I kept the rider who started before me in my sights and was slowing gaining. I was well above my target heart rate and was starting to taste my oatmeal again. about 3/4s of the way into the first leg I heard a familiar voice as Casey flew by me. I knew he was faster than me, just didn't realize how much. I kept him in sight until the turn around then he was out of sight. I kept gaining on my target and caught him and passed him on the first climb. Unfortunately he caught back up with me on the next climb but i was able to pull away before the finish. I forgot to look at my clock so I couldn't wait until they posted my time. I was quite disappointed when I didn't see a time next to my name and hoped they would straighten it out by the time the announced the finishers. I knew I wouldn't make the podium but I wanted to know where I stood. As they went through the classes, they mentioned that some of the riders didn't get their times captured. Unfortunately I was one of those riders. Luckily they agreed to repay our entry fees and I have another chance to race next weekend. All and all I feel pretty good about my ride but know I need to improve my strength if am going to be competitive. Casey and John both won their categories and Ben placed second.

After I got home, I watched the Tour of California's final stage. They also were riding in strong rains. The finish was great. One of my favorite riders: George Hincapie pulled out the stage victory and Levi Liepheimer won the overall race.

Afterwards I talked Chris into going to Momentum Multisport the new HACC sponsor shop. The shop was great. The workers were super friendly and helpful. I made the mistake of checking out their bikes and fell in love with a 2007 Fuji RC team http://www.fujibikes.com/2007/bikes.asp?id=266&subcat=# they had marked down from $3800 to $2500. I was so cold from the race that I put jeans on with my Birkenstocks. They insisted that I take the bike for a spin. Even with the lack of proper cycling clothes, the bike rode like a dream. I even managed to out run a dog up a short steep climb. Now I just have to figure out how to convince the wife and come up with the money to get the bike. I teased Ben yesterday that I could still blame my equipment for my lack of performance. If I got that bike, I wouldn't be able to do that anymore.

Chocolate Chip Scone

2008-02-19T23:43:00.000-08:00

A special thank you to Sonya L. for the great Chocolate Chip Scone she gave me after the wet ride up Tantalus. It was great.

Watchen Whales

2008-02-18T22:11:00.000-08:00

Chris made me promise her that I would take her to see whales before I went to ride Haleakila. Our origanal plan was to do the Super Ferry trip to Maui from MWR. Unfortunately, the trip was quite expensive and the Superferry's debut has been pretty sketchy with several cancellations. I decided to give one of the whale excursions on Oahu a shot so I booked an afternoon cruise for President's day. The trip guaranteed you would see whales or they would provide a free cruise. I guess they figured most of the guest would be tourist so they wouldn't be able to take advantage of the free cruise. Living on the Island, I figured we would be OK, but I had my fingers crossed that we would see some so I could head to Maui to ride Haleakala 20 March. We headed out towards Diamond head. Courtney and I walked to the front of the boat. The Captain said to look straight ahead for some activity. Courtney caught a glimpse but I didn't see anything. I thought o well I guessed I missed it. Earlier I tried to take a picture of Waikiki but I forgot my memory card in the computer. Luckily Stephanie brought her camera or I would have been in the dog house yet again. We kept heading towards Diamond Head. All of a sudden I saw a splash. We got a little closer.

There was a whale calf that was putting on a show. It breached the water several times. It even made a beeline towards the boat runing right next to it. That allowed Steph to get a good picture. Finally the momma whale came up and carroled the calf out away from the boat.

We followed for a while then headed back out to Diamond head. We spotted several more whales yet non as spectatular as the little calf. We really enjoyed the trip.

Its about time: a new post

2008-02-17T10:18:00.000-08:00

When I first started the Blog, I was doing an update about every day or two. I have recently slacked off to about every other week or two. I guess I have been avoiding the computer because I know I should be working on my Master's Project. Even my wife has been telling me I need to keep it up to date. So here goes.

This week our new order of HACC cycling clothing came in. Saturday Morning's ride started out we most people wearing their new gear.

We had a nice ride that included a ride up Pupukea is a long steep climb on the north shore. I haven't quite mastered the climb. I tend to get pretty strung out on the first few steep sections then have to hang on to the end.

The surf was pretty decent. I caught a guy trying to surf. I was surprised there weren't more as he had the swells to himself.

After the ride, Ben rushed me home so I could help Chris take pizza's to Courtney's Band practice. Later in the afternoon we headed to our favorite beach: Kailua to meet our friends Marty and Robert and their dogs. Unfortunately Marty had a project so she stayed back. We decided to lug the boogie board to the beach so we could ride the waves. When we arrived we found the surf extremely calm. Instead we decided to play a little catch with the football and use the boogie board as tables to keep the stuff from getting sandy. After we tired of throwing the football we decided to set back and drink a few adult beverages. It was such a beautiful night and the dogs were having such fun chasing and sniffing all the other dogs that passed by. As the sun started to set we gathered our stuff and headed home. I had the bright Idea about renting a movie so we watched Licence to Wed. It was not the best but did have some funny scenes. I think I would have been better off going to bed early.

Greetings from the land of the rising sun and falling snow

2008-02-03T04:59:00.000-08:00

It is hard to believe that it has been a week since I arrived at Yokota AFB Japan. It was a very busy week of inspecting. The weather was alot different from what I left in Hawaii. The first few days the highs were in the 40's and the low's in the 20's. Not bad by midwest standards but compared to Hawaii, they were a shock to the system. Luckily I remembered my gloves. Yokota sits in the central part of the western edge of the country. It is bordered on the east by the foothills which lead up to Mt Fuji. On a clear day from the roof parking lot at the commisary, you can see the mtn in all its splender. Luckily we were able to have one of those days and I was able to get the picture.

Unfortunately, I was bikeless so I had to resort to the stationary bike at the gym. My knee has been bothering since I completed my fitness test a couple of weeks ago, so I didn't do any weight lifting or running. I started the week off eating very carefully and managed to lose a couple of pounds but that changed mid week and I had a few drinks as well as some big meals so all progress was lost.

Friday night we finished our inspecting and were able to go off base. We had dinner in a 5 story shopping center. The meal wasn't too bad. It had a large window with a nice view. I took a couple of pictures of the KFC and the street. After dinner, we headed to the bar district. There must have been a hundred bars about the size of a living room. The drinks were quite expensive averaging 7 US $'s. The Bar area became off-limits after 0100 so we headed back to the club on base for some better priced drinks. Saturday there was a Jazz band at the club so I enjoyed the concert with a couple of the other inspectors. On the way home, we noticed it was spitting some snow. I didn't think anything of it until I woke up Sunday to about 3 inches on the ground.

I walked to church and ran into one of my old co-workers and his wife. They offered to take me off base for lunch. We went to a great "truck stop" which served a variety of stir fried items as well as Japanese style egg rolls called gyoza . They were very good. I brought 4 extra's home. Even in my refridgerator, they smelled up the room. Not sure if I will eat them or not. Afterwards we did what military do when the visit another base, checked out the Bx annex. I went home and finished packing then headed for the gym for an hour on the exercise bike. I pushed it pretty hard and my knee felt pretty good. I hope it is on the road to recovery but I am still going to have it looked out when i get home. Tomorrow, I am going to get up early and watch the Superbowl before heading back to Hawaii. It is still snowing so hopefully that won't affect our trip out.

The should have rode Northshore, ride

2008-01-19T16:45:00.001-08:00

You know it is going to be a rough ride when you get up and start to get ready and you can't find your ID card. That is the way today started for me. After looking for a while are realizing it was futile, I gave up and headed to pick up Steve L. I had planned on stopping at the shoppette for coffee and Gatorade on the way but without an Id card I ended up filling my water bottles at the outdoor fountain by the baseball field behind the gym. It was not the most pleasant of waters.

Five of us headed to the Punchbowl cemetery to ride 2 to 3 loops up mt tantalus. My left knee was very stiff from yesterday's pt test so I took it very easy on the way up averaging 8.5 mph. We started to head down Round top into a pretty chilly wind. After about a 1/4 the way down the sky cut loose drenching us the rest of the way down. I haven't been that cold on a bike since Germany. I found a banyan tree for some protection until the rain let up. We coasted the rest of the way down, luckily there was some sun to provide a slight bit of warmth.

I decided to push it on the way up the second time. I managed to average 10 mph which was .5 mph higher than last time. I think that was the one bright spot of the ride. We headed back down tantalus hitting all the pot holes and tight switchbacks my triceps could handle. It was unanimous that 2 loops was all that we were going to do so we headed to starbucks.

I am still looking for my Id. That will really suck if i can't find it before the end of the weekend. Not sure what the plans are for the rest of the weekend. Hopefully catch up on my sleep and rest some. This was a very light cycling week with only 75 miles ridden. I head to Japan next Friday for 10 days which is going to keep me off the bike. I may have to settle for a spin class. :(

The 1st two Saturday rides of the New Year and the Flying Bentani!

2008-01-13T20:57:00.000-08:00

My wife actually scolded me for not updating my blog. I guess I had it coming since I have been known to complain to my other blogger Friends when they have gone a few days between entries. Heather had to take her GRE the 1st Saturday of the New Year. I was supposed to have Class but I didn't end of having to go so I volunteered to take her. I emailed Ben to see if He was interested in riding Tantalus. He said he was up to it so we dropped Heather off, hit Starbucks then headed for the hill. We did two loops. Ben said the winners from last years time trial averaged 12 mph. The second loop I decided I would see what I could do. I pushed it but only averaged 9.5mph. I guess I need some work. I think I will try to do it a couple of times a month to see if I can get it a little faster.

Heather headed back to the mainland on Tuesday. I am really going to miss her enthusiasm for Hawaii. She seems to be the only one who enjoys it here as much as I do.

Friday night, Chris and I tried a Italian restaurant called Auntie Pasta's. It took us 1.5 hrs to get there due to traffic and not knowing exactly where it was. However once we got there, it was great.

This Saturday, I finally made it up to the North shore for a ride. I forgot how much I enjoy that ride. The weather was beautiful, although a little chilly at first. I warmed up as I climbed Kolekole although it got a bit nipply on the way down. I brought my new tripod that wraps around the handlebars. I was able to snap a few nice shots of the clear sky and the pack. I even was able to catch the flying Bentani in action.

I felt very strong the entire ride until I attempted a second climb up pineapple hill. I new I was going to have problems when I felt my hamstrings start to tighten while flying down Snake hill. I stayed with Steve L and John up the first steep section then I started to fall back. It didn't take me long to figure that the oatmeal and granola bar was totally gone from my system. I bonked hard. All I could think about was food as I slowly climbed the hill. I finally made it back to the parking area. Ben and Casey had already changed and made a Jamba Juice run. Luckily they picked one up for me. I think I appreciated it as much as Casey did the Jersey Ben gave him for Christmas. I would have given them my bike and first born if they would have offered me it on the way up Pineapple hill.

After riding and having lunch, the entire family went to the gym. I decided to do lunge walking around 3 laps of the aerobic room. My legs may never be the same. We also went to the gym on Sunday but I took it easy and did some yoga and stretching.

Girl Scout Cookies

Girl Scout Cookies are the perfect energy food for cycling. See review of Girlscout Cookie Ice Cream on http://bensambrano.blogspot.com/ If anyone is interested in purchasing the real thing, my daughter Courtney is selling them. Just email Steelesc@gimail.af.mil if you would like to order any.

Ringing in the New Year

2008-01-02T21:08:00.000-08:00

We got up early New Years Eve and headed to the beach for some 6 person canoe paddling. Steph and Courtney chose to sleep in, Surprise Surprise. Chris when along to be the photographer and Heather, Gina and I paddled. There was a pretty good turnout so we took out both boats. Coach Howard began with a on beach lesson for the new bees. Then we headed out to the water for a pretty tough workout. We paddled for almost 90 minutes. The competitive nature of the two groups was evident as we

After paddling, Gina took us out for some great hamburgers at a cool restaurant called Islanders in the Mall. The girls shopped while I walked around the mall and people watched. They were finally done shopping around 430 so we headed home and lounged. We were finally getting hungry around 9pm so I cooked some brats on the grill. Gina and the girls went and picked up some stuff from the shoppette to make frozen drinks. We went out on the lanai and played games and rung in the New Year. The neighbor's were having a party so I wondered over there a few times. We hit the bed around 230 in the morning and I got up at 6 am for a bike ride with Ben. After I got home we went to Church. When we got home, Ben had left a message inviting us to come over to watch the Sugar Bowl. Hawaii got beat pretty handily. I tried doing the really hat but it didn't seem to have any affect. Ben tried it too but as soon as he did, Hawaii threw an interception so he quickly switched it back.

Today, I took Gina to the Airport at 6 am then went back to work. It was kind of hard after so long off. I was able to get in a ride tonight which about killed me. It is tough trying to keep up with the young ens.

Operation Fatten the Competion Backfires

2007-12-30T23:25:00.000-08:00

Thursday night we were in the Navy Commissary and they had a special on some nice thick steaks so I grabbed several packages. On the way home I thought of a plan to ensure I would continue hold my own against the former Coast Guard Athlete of the Year, so I invited him over for dinner Friday night. He graciously accepted but he offered to pickup some desert. I figured I was safe thinking he would bring some Healthy Low Cal, Low carb desert he concocted in his blender. Something like pureed peach and pea custard or something to that effect. Unfortunately, he picked my weakness, pecan pie. That delicious mixture of butter, syrup, sugar, nuts, shortening, flour, and more sugar. I don't think there is a higher calorie per bite food on the planet. Damn it was good. We had a nice dinner and great conversation. I offered to let him take the remaining pie home but he told me to keep it so I had a piece for breakfast and another for lunch.

My sister Gina enjoyed herself so much at thanksgiving that she decided to come back. She even bought me a new pair of Oakleys for Christmas to replace the pair that I lost at the beach when she was her last time. I wonder if I lose my Jeep while she is her, if she will get me a new Wrangler next year for Christmas. Saturday we went hiking near Dillingham Air Station on the northwestern most section of the Island. The weather was perfect. We had great views of the ocean and gliders flying over the Wiainea range.

After we got done hiking, we went downtown and met one of Gina's co-workers who was also in town visiting her parents. She gave us a great tour of the major historic and government buildings and provided some of the History behind the different places.

Christmas Hawaiian Style

2007-12-27T23:30:00.001-08:00

This was our 1st Hawaiian Christmas. We broke a few holiday traditions and started a new one. Normally we go to Midnight Mass but this year Courtney was scheduled to serve so we went on Christmas Morning. There was hardly anyone in the Church. Heather commented that it was like going to Grandma and Grandpa's Church. Father had a very funny homily. He had all the little kids come up to the alter and quizzed them on what was the perfect gift for the baby Jesus. He produced some example gifts to include one he referred as Holy Water: A bottle of Crown Royal. After Mass we went home and opened the rest of our presents. We all loved our gifts. Chris gave me the perfect Blogger's gift; a mount anywhere tripod for my camera. It will work perfectly on my handle bars so I can start producing exciting action shot and video's of my biking.

After unwrapping presents we changed and headed to the beach. Someone had put a tree up on the beach so we had to pose for a picture on it. Ginger enjoyed boogie boarding again.

We got home from the beach around 4 pm and all worked together to turn out a great meal.

Heather and I went hiking on the day after Christmas at Aiea Heights. This is normally a very easy 4.5 mile hike but that day the trail was covered with mud. Heather wore her brand new sandals she got for Christmas. The mud was so thick that sucked them off her feet a couple places. Luckily the mud rinsed off pretty easily.

I finally finished the Jake. Jim Phillips let me borrow his derailleur hanger alignment tool. It worked great. I was surprised how far off both the Jake and the Cube's hangers were off. I think I will finally have smooth shifts on the Cube which hasn't shifted very well since I arrived on the island.

Hawaii Bowl 2007, Worth the Price of Admission

2007-12-23T23:27:00.001-08:00

Being in the military as given me the opportunity to attend many sporting and entertainment events due to the geographic locations I have been stationed. While I was stationed in Europe, I watched several stages of the Tour de France. One stage I was even able to ride my bike too. In Omaha, I went to the College World Series. I have also seen many free concerts such as Montgomery Gentry, Clint Black, and Toby Keith. Today I attended my first bowl game, the Hawaii Bowl. I received 4 free tickets on the 5 yard line that were donated to the Military. Courtney wasn't interested in going so Chris, Steph, Heather and I went. The game was between Eastern Carolina and Boise State. I didn't have a real favorite although I liked Boise State because they are in the WAC but as a Notre Dame Fan, I couldn't help but be in favor of Lou Holtz's son's team ECU. We were on the ECU side of the field which was nice because the ECU cheerleaders:

were much better looking

than the BS cheerleaders

The game kicked off with a pretty cool Chinook Helicopter fly over right before the coin toss.

ECU drew first blood with a field goal on their first drive. BSU jumped right back when they ran the kick off back for a TD. However ECU dominated the first half and scored several more times. BCU almost completed a Hail Mary pass right as the 1st half drew to a close. It looked like ECU was going to run away with the game. During Halftime, we were treated to a Hawaiian dance review. We had perfect seats for watching a beautiful sunset during the 3rd quarter.

ECU scored pretty quickly in the 3rd quarter and appeared to have the game locked up. BSU came alive in the 4th and brought it to with in a td. They looked like they were going to tie the game up when they turned it over with a little over 1 min left in the game. ECU chose to run the ball hoping to burn up the clock. On their third down they were running a sweep when their back coughed up the ball. BSU scooped it up and ran it back 50 yrds tying the game. All BCU had to do was hold ECU and the game would go to OT. ECU had been stopped every time they got the ball in the 4th quarter. Until this time. They took the kick off up the field to the their 40 yard line. BSU held them for the first couple of downs then a 3rd down pass was completed and the back ran the ball to the BSU 25 yrd line. ECU ran the ball to the 15 yrd line and got it placed in the middle of the field. They kicked the game winning field goal as time ran out. It was a very good spectator's game with almost 80 points. ECU 41, BSU 38.

Christmas Spirit in Hawaii

2007-12-23T01:30:00.000-08:00

I have lived over 30 of my 40 years in the Midwest. Midwestern Christmases mean cold weather, early darkness and occasionally snow. This year is our 1st Christmas in Hawaii which means temps in the low 80's and an occasional rain shower. Initially I found it kind of difficult to get into the Christmas spirit. I don't think it was the lack of snow, we had several years without white Christmases. I think it was the lack of change. Normally I am used to 4 distinct seasons. With Fall marking the football season and preparing us for Christmas. This year with out a calender, I couldn't tell it was almost that time of year.

One thing that does bring home the fact that it is almost Christmas is the light displays. I remember climbing up a latter on the days following Thanksgiving and trying to string lights in 20 degree weather. Not a lot of fun. Here that isn't an issue and people take full advantage of the fact. The light displays around base housing are quite interesting.

Even the bases get in the swing of it. Trippler lights up the hospital.

Hickam Lights up the Water Tower so that it looks like a giant Christmas Tree.

The tower has an interesting history. It stored the water for the base before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Luckily the Japanese thought it was a church and didn't attack it saving over 55,000 gallons of fresh water for the base.

The granddaddy of light displays is the Honolulu City lights: http://www.honolulu.gov/csd/citylights/ Tonight the HACC Daddy set up a ride with several other clubs to ride past the city lights. We met at the Bike Shop and rode along the city streets taking in the lights at the water works as well as the city hall. Afterwards we stopped for coffee at Starbucks. Heather and I did the ride then Chris, Steph and Heather met us for coffee. Some of the riders went way out with decorating themselves and bikes. HACC daddy dressed as Santa.

We had Rudolph as well as several other reindeers.

It was a great time. I even won a prize by decorating my bike with the centerpiece I won at our Christmas Party last night

Week in review and lessons learned about wet pavement

2007-12-22T11:09:00.000-08:00

Wow this week flew by. It is hard to believe that Tuesday is Christmas. Still haven't finished the Jake, sorry Jim. Hopefully I will this week and take it out for a Tuesday ride after the 1st of the year. One of my roles at work as the senior enlisted person is to try to keep up morale by coming up with team building activities. On Wednesday our team building activity was 6 person outrigger canoeing at the Hickam Beach. Last time we tried this only myself, My Boss and one other person showed up. this time we had 9 people so we used both boats. We started with some lessons on proper technique with the boats on shore then we paddled around the harbor. Not a bad way to start a Wednesday.

Friday morning my office met at the Wright bro's cafe along the mouth of Pearl Harbor for breakfast and a holiday staff meeting. While we eating a couple of HACCrs rode by at a snail,s pace. It was falsely reported in http://bensambrano.blogspot.com/ that I was seen eating a high fat high carb breakfast. This simply was not the case. I had a very healthy, nourishing breakfast that any self respecting cyclist would appreciate. An omelet, WW toast and about 6 cups of coffee. After the breakfast we went back to the office and played a round of hallway golf, ate Christmas Cookies, fudge and were released at 1200. Not too bad of a day. Heather and I played a round of golf at the par 3 course in the afternoon. That makes for 2 rounds of golf in a week not including the round of hallway golf. Maybe I will give up cycling and take up golf. Both let you wear colorful clothing and are popular on the Island. Golf doesn't allow you to enjoy the feeling of maxing your heart rate up pineapple hill only to be passed by Bryant. I think I will stick with cycling and only play golf when I need and opportunity to play sport while drinking a beer and smoking a good cigar. Two pleasures that don't mix with cycling very well unless you are riding along the hickam bike path on Pearl Harbor at a snail's pace.

I knew I wouldn't have time to do the full Saturday ride and when Ben said he didn't either I suggested we ride from Hickam. Word got out and we had 6 riders show up to ride today: Ben, Corey, Cassey, Jim, Steve L, Slider and Slider 2 (me, explain later). We started with out Tuesday route out to the tower. The pace was pretty mild until Steve L pushed it to the front by the sea breeze. I caught his wheel and we pushed a 24 mph pace out to the tower. On the way back Steve sprinted at the overpass and stayed out front until he made a pit stop at the beach for some bladder relief. We headed out to Lagoon Drive. Cassey took off on lagoon. I pushed it to catch his wheel and we did a strong run to the parking lot at the end of the road. I could tell Cassey was feeling his week of hard riding as I was able to catch his wheel. We headed up to AMR to do a couple little climbing. The small hill killed me on the first pass but I recovered and felt pretty good on the big climb. I was in the lead coming down the hill and feeling kind of cocky. That feeling ended abruptly as I leaned into the turn by the gate. I didn't even think about the wet pavement until the bike slid out from under me and proceeded to slide across the road. The wet pavement was a bit of a blessing though the water offered a buffer saving my shorts and bike and only costing me some skin on my hip and elbow. Luckily my cell phone was in the opposite pocket and I didn't bring the camera or the crash would have been more costly and probably more painful. The Dog seemed quite concerned however. I am also experimenting with a new hair style, something that makes a statement yet is easy to maintain.

My wife Chris had a tough week. On Monday she woke up with a stiff back and when she bent over to put on her pants her back spasmed. It pretty much kept her down all week which was tough with everything required to getting ready for Christmas. She did manage to go to my Directorate Christmas Party but ended up leaving shortly after the meal missing me doing the Cha Cha slide with our div chief. Hopefully no one got pictures.

Football on the Beach and Jake part 2

2007-12-16T23:29:00.001-08:00

One of the things Heather wanted to do when she came home from school was take Ginger to the Beach. For some reason the beach appealed to her. It must have something to do with spending the last week of school dealing with 12 inches of fresh snow. We were going to go on Saturday but Friday night, Ginger got into a bag of flour eating most of it. She wasn't feeling too well on Saturday so we decided to wait and go Sunday after Church. We went to our favorite beach, Kailua. It was pretty windy so there were many kite surfers decorating the skyline. After doing a little bogey boarding, we decided to have a football game with Steph and I taking on Heather and Courtney. Ginger also decided to play mainly for Heather's team. The game was pretty close but Steph and I won by 1 touchdown. We played for almost an hour stopping when Heather got stung by a jelly fish.

I was able to squeeze in some time to work on the Jake, I installed all the cables, fenders, and new bar tape. I just need to add the new chain and the cassette then adjust everything and cut the cables. I think it looks much better although the job I did on the bar tape isn't going to win me any style awards.

Overhauling the Jake Part 1

2007-12-13T21:42:00.000-08:00

While I was stationed in Germany I bought 3 bikes. The most practical of these bikes is my Kona Jake the Snake Cross-Bike. I bought it because I can ride it any where except for very technical single track. Originally I equipped it with a rack, panniers, and full fenders. The Jake has been my utility bike and has not received a lot of TLC. It is 5 years old and still has the original cables, bar tape, cassette and chain. The Chain has some of the worst stretch ever.

The Bar tape was scraped up shortly after I bought it when i tried to lean into a sharp turn on a 30 degree day on a wet road. A few weeks ago I made a performance order for new fenders, new chain, and cassette. I already had the cables and bar tape. The box has been sitting on my Lanai while I devoted my free time finishing up my online class. Last night I submitted my paper so now i can work on bringing the bike back to life.

Honolulu Marathon Wheel Chair Race

2007-12-09T11:05:00.000-08:00

This morning 6 of us HACCer's: Jim, John, Habi, Mariane, Bryant and myself; got up before 3 AM and headed to Wikiki to provide an escort for the wheel chair racers in the Honolulu Marathon. The early morning weather on Hickam was warm and dry. I almost left my vest and armwarmers in the house before I headed to the shopette to catch a ride with Jim and Habi. I figured it was going to be a nice dry ride much like we experienced yesterday. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. As we got out of the car by diamond head, the sky broke loose with a drenching rain. It wasn't long before we were drenched and I was very happy to have those extra layers.

The rain subsided a bit as we made our way to the start line. However, 5 minutes before the start it let loose again and kept raining for the first few minutes of the race.
We split into groups. My group of 6 started in a v formation at the front of the leaders. The lead athletic quickly broke away from the pack. Two of our riders slid back to help with the following riders. I slid behind the lead rider, last years winner Masazumi Soejima, and stayed on his tail for the entire ride. Man was that guy strong. He would run up to 22 mph on the flats and didn't slow much below 15 on the climbs and sped up to 25ish on the downhills. I thought he would slow down a the end. He never did and finished 5 minutes ahead of second place. After the race we loaded up the bikes and headed for coffee. I made it home by 830.

The hills were alive with the sound of my heavy breathing

2007-12-08T12:50:00.001-08:00

After a week of rain kept us on the flat roads of Hickam, I suggested an optional Saturday ride to include the climbs at Camp Smith and Aiea Heights. Not sure what I was thinking. I rode my old faithful Bianchi complete with fenders. I figured we would be getting wet. The weather turned out to be beautiful making me wish I would have ridden the much lighter Cube especially on the steep section of Aeia Heights. My original plan also included a climb of royal summit but few objected to the suggestion of doing the flat Ford Island to scope out a potential crit course.

While riding around Ford Island I took the opportunity to snap a quick picture of the battle ship Missouri which sits as a museum just off the Island. A base cop saw me snap the picture and stopped me. Apparently they are very particular of where you take pictures of Pearl Harbor. He was very nice about it as he asked to review my pictures. I was a little concerned that he would have to look at each of the over 300 pics I currently have stored on the camera. Luckily he just scrolled through the first couple of Pics and said they were fine.

On the way back to Hickam we went past the Healing Field. The Healing Field is a next to the Arizona monument where the American Legion placed and American Flag for every one lost during the bombing of Pearl Harbor. We stopped for pictures before heading back to Hickam via Pearl Harbor.

66th Anniversary of the Bombing of Oahu

2007-12-08T00:13:00.000-08:00

Today marked the the 66th Anniversary of the Japanese bombing of the Island of Oahu. Most people refer to it as the Bombing of Pearl Harbor because of the extensive damage to the Pacific Fleet that was docked there. However, the Japanese didn't only bomb the Navy Base but also bombed the Army Air Force bases of Hickam, Wheeler, and Bellows . Hickam sits right besides Pearl Harbor and was a primary target of the Japanese. The building I currently work in which houses the PACAF HQ was at the time the largest barracks in the Army. It was attacked and over 50 airman were killed. The building still contains scares from bullets that were strafed across it's facade. A monument in the Courtyard of Hero's commemerates the sacrifices of the men who were killed here.

Today a ceremony was held to mark the anniversary of the attack. Attending the ceremony were some of the remaining survivors of the attack. Unfortunately the numbers of survivors has decreased over the years. In a few years there will not be any of these brave men left. My wife and I's grandfathers were both in the Navy during WWII serving in the pacific. My grandfather was a Sea be and was sent to Pearl after the attack to help with the restoration. Chris's Grandfather spent time in port on Pearl during the war. Today made me wish I would have been stationed here at the beginning of my career when they would have been able to visit and see the bases. My Grandfather is still alive but his health is very poor. Chris's died a few years ago. The last few times I visited my grandfather, most of his conversations were about the war and the places he served in the Pacific. The memorial at Punch Bowl Cemetery traces the path of the Pacific Battles. I was able to follow along with the places my grandfather who we always called "Red", served. As a Sea Be, he was one of the first to land in such places as Guam, and Wake Island. Had it not been for the dropping of the Bomb bring the end of the War, he would have been landing on Japanese soil and it is hard to tell if he would have survived and if our country would have survived as well.

Today's ceremony also made me reflect the sacrifice my brother made for our freedom. At the end of the ceremony, taps was played, a 21 gun salute was fired and Amazing Grace was played on the bag pipes just like it was done at Josh's funeral. I can't think of anything more appropriate than the playing of Amazing Grace on the Bag Pipes to commemorate the death of someone who died for our country.

Some of my favorite cycling websites

2007-12-05T20:41:00.000-08:00

The Internet contains a plethora of cycling related websites. Here are a three of my favorite;

http://www.bikesatwork.com/

This is the website for a company that builds bike trailers for moving stuff. Not the small trailers you use to haul the kiddies or camping supplies but trailers for carrying groceries or furniture. The website provides advise on a variety of business adventures that involve biking.

http://roadbikerider.com/

Roadbikerider.com produces a weekly newsletter full of good articles on road biking. I have subscribed to the newsletter for several years. The newsletter is free. They also have a premium service that has additional information. Being cheep I find the free site contains all I need. The site is ran by a couple of riders that are in their 60s and still going strong.

http://mtbr.com/

This site has reviews for everything from bottom brackets to trails in Alaska. I use it anytime I am thinking about purchasing bike stuff.

Civilized Saturday Morning Ride Sans Ben

2007-12-01T15:11:00.000-08:00

I have ridden in December before, but usually it entailed many layers of fleece, Lycra and wool. Not today. The weather was perfect. However, the fear of rain must have dampened the enthusiasm for riding as we had one of the lowest turn outs for a Saturday morning ride that we have had since I started riding with the HACC. John, Jim, Bryant, Marianne, Habi, Steve L. and I arrived at parking area with about every form of road bike manufactured today. John had is touring bike with full finders, Jim his cross bike, Bryant his tri/timetrial ride and the rest of us on traditional road bikes, mine with bolt on aero bars. The weather turned out to be perfect. It was clear at the parking lot but as we climbed KoleKole pass a blanket of fog rolled keeping the road nice and damp for the decent.

We kept a very civilized pace as we road up Kam highway. Almost berried on in a deep ditch on the side of the road was a car. After we passed the car we decided that we should go back to make sure no one was trapped in the car. We turned around and stopped at the car. On closer inspection we noticed the purple mustang was missing it's wheels and tires. Either the folks who slid into the ditch blew all four tires and took them off with the hope of getting them patched or the car was placed in the ditch by after it had been stripped for the used parts business. The car wasn't the only vehicle on the road to experience problems with it's tires. Bryant experienced a flat at Dillingham field. Unfortunately his spare tube fared no better than the original as the CO2 from his quick pump froze the stem as it leaked out of the hole in the his spare tube. Luckily Habi had 2 tubes and loaned Bryant one. This was especially luck as Habi also experienced a flat on the ride. We stopped at the lovely Mokuleia beach park. This hidden gem is not found on many travel brochures. It is a traditional watering hole for our Saturday rides. The shower stand is the always a hub of activity. Today we were entertained by some kids having more fun that should be allowed while washing dishes.

Due to the popularity of data mining and graphs in our circle of blogs, we decided to track our caffeine levels for this ride. Here is the graph.

To boost the levels we stopped at the Coffee Gallery in Haleiwa.

After a cup of Jo we headed up Pineapple hill then back to Schofield keeping a mild pace and enjoying the scenery and the conversation. MII (Missing in Inaction) were Ben, Casey, Scott, Aaron, Amy, Julie, Dave and a few others of our regular riders who must of decided that the comfort of their beds was more important than riding on the 1st of December. Unfortunately for them, they missed a great ride.

Hello Kailua Beach, Goodbye Oakleys

2007-11-25T11:09:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, we decided to take my sister to our favorite beach in Kailua HI. This beach has been ranked in the top 10 beaches in the world and it is about a 20 minute drive from our house. The weather was perfect and there were nice waves for boogie boarding. Anxious to get started in threw my hat and shirt off and jumped into the water with my board. The first wave I caught was great as it pushed me to the shore. The next wave was also great except I slid off the board and got caught in the current. I forgot I slid my prized Oakley sunglasses on the top of my head when I took off my shirt. The current pulled them off before I could grab them. Unfortunately the current was also mixing up the the sand so you couldn't see. I walked around in the general area that they fell but couldn't find them. It kind of dampened my enthusiasm for a while but it didnt' take long before I was back in the water. Our Dog Ginger loves the beach. She likes to follow us out and ride the waves while we boogie board. The only problem is she tries to climb up you scratching the heck out of your back. To fix this we put her on top of the boogie board and let her ride. We stayed on the beach for about 3 hours then headed back to meet up with some people we knew from Beale to go out for Chinese food. It was a lot of fun.

Thanksgiving Meal

2007-11-24T12:36:00.000-08:00

I got home from my ride around 9 am. Everyone else was still asleep. After I rousted the troops, I checked the Turkey. Our goal was to get it done around 1200 to free up the oven for the rest of the meal so we could eat around 2. I checked the turkey expecting it to be slowly reaching doneness. However, since I was cooking it in a roasting pan and had the oven set at 350 instead of 325, the turkey was almost done and it was only 945. We had to kick the meal into overdrive. Luckily, Chris prepared many of the items on Wednesday so it wasn't too bad. Everyone kicked in to help.

We had everything finished and started eating by 12. It was the earliest Thanksgiving meal I have ever eaten. It was kind of nice getting done so early as we were able to go down to Waikiki and take in some of the sites including a nice sunset at Ala Moana beach and the Christmas lights.

Thanksgiving Ride.

2007-11-22T11:01:00.000-08:00

Some people relate Thanksgiving to Turkey, Pumpkin Pie, Football but members of the Hickam Area Cycling Club relate it to the annual Thanksgiving Day Ride. The Ride kicked off at 0630. Some of us used a variety of approaches to get a Thanksgiving Day Kitchen Pass, one person whose name will remain anonymous used the excuse that he bought a car on base and drove it home yesterday leaving his other car on base. He just had to ride back to the base to pick it up. My approach was a little different. I volunteered to get up at 545 prepare the turkey and put it in the oven. The timing was perfect as I was able to accomplish this and get to the gym just as they were getting ready to leave. There were 15 or 16 riders who showed up including one who was visiting his son for the holiday and brought his bike. We rode to the control tower then off base to the road that runs along the Airport. We also rode to AMR and through Pearl Harbor. The ride was pretty tame except for a couple of sprints at the end. I was able to take a few good pictures of the sun raising over Diamond Head and Honolulu.

Gina's First Full Day.

2007-11-21T21:38:00.000-08:00

As I said earlier, I promised to keep Gina entertained while she was visiting. The first thing we had planned was to ride bikes to the beach and go outrigger canoeing. It took a little while to get going so we decided to forgo the bike ride and drive out to the beach. We arrived at 0830 to meet up with Howard the canoeing coach. Unfortunately we were the only ones to show up and you can't very easily row a 6 person canoe with only 2 people so we had to settle for a nice conversation with Howard who told us about his 20 year AF career and his canoe coaching while we waited for anyone else to show. No one showed so we settled for eating breakfast outside along Pearl Harbor at the Wright Brother's Cafe. After Breakfast, we picked Courtney up from School and headed up with Ginger to Aiea Heights for a hike. The Aiea Height's loop is a 4.5 mile hike along the ridge that overlooks Hickam and Pearl Harbor. It has a few scenic overlooks of the ocean and the H3 hwy. The trail is pretty easy to walk or run. We chose to walk and finished in 2 hours.

We hurried home to eat some lunch so we could head up to the north shore to check out the waves. Unfortunately we didn't leave quite early enough and we hit some of the early rush hour western bound traffic.

It wasn't too bad. I decided to take them up to the same route of my Saturday morning bike rides. We headed out past Dillingham Air Field to as far as the paved road goes on the north west side of the island. I was able to capture some of the waves on film.

We headed back northwest to Halewa. Halewa, is the famous North Shore village that hosts many surfing competitions and whose culture hasn't changed much since the 60's we shopped around a little bit and had a shaved ice then we headed up the road a bit to a place where the sea turtles rest on the beach. I wasn't sure if we would see any now as the surf was up quite a bit. However, there was one turtle sleeping on the beach. I took a few pictures of the turtle as well as a nice sunset picture.

Our final north shore destination was Sunset Beach. This is our favorite beach. In the summer the ocean is very calm. There is a reef about 20 yards out that I like to snorkel along. We also like to take our bogey boards and ride the small waves. Today there was no snorkeling or bogey boarding as the waves were crashing in. Courtney and I got a little daring and would stand at the edge of the beach letting the waves run up too us. We ended up getting soaked but had a great time.

Unfortunately we didn't have any towels so we kind of got the seats in the car soaked on the way home. The Gate guard looked at me funny when I drove up with no shirt on . Since the temps drooped to a frigid 75 degrees, we decided to have chili for supper. Gina and Steph ran to the store to get some tennis balls so we could attempt to play after supper if we aren't too tired. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. We don't have any other plans except to eat, watch football and I may possibly sneak in an early morning bike ride with the HACC.