Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Thanks alot Stace!

I've been tagged by Booger Dawn herself. Here goes. .

8 various things

8 favorite TV shows (I'm just going to list shows that I've actually seen, which isn't many)
The Office
Arrested Development
SNL
The Biggest Loser

Sorry, I guess I don't even have 8 of those, maybe I'll do better on the next list.

8 things I did yesterday:
employee reviews
taught spin class
went to school
Didn't turn in my paper that was due
Facebook
unpacked from Moab
Shopped for spook a boo stuff
lifted weights

Whew, at least I did 8 things yesterday.

8 things I look forward to:
Cyclocross this weekend
Wine this weekend
Hanging with Kara this weekend (are you noticing a theme here?)
Finishing my employee reviews
Getting to eat again tomorrow (I'm out of calories today)
Summer
Having a new neice
Being done with school in two weeks!!!!!!!

8 favorite restaurants:
Tsunami
Zupas
California Pizza Kitchen
Red Rock
Thai Delight Cafe

Crap, not only do I need to watch more TV I need to eat out more too!

8 things on my wish list:
A new mountain bike (I broke mine in Moab)
A new road bike (just because)
Someone would pay off my student loans
Someone would go fold all my laundry
I didn't have a yard
I was going to Moab again this weekend
My employee reviews were done

8 People to tag
Amy
Shannon
Lacey
Kris (sorry Kris- I suck)
BG

Those are the only people that might actually do it.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Moab Mountain Bike Special Olympics. . .

Okay, not really. But if they did have a special olympics I would have taken Gold in both the One Legged Pedal Race and the Uphill Seated Track Stance.

The bike problems really began when I loaded up my old Schwinn Moab and noticed that the front tire was missing several of its knobbies. I think it was jealous of the road bike and thought it might get more ride time if it had smoother tires. No worries, there are plenty of bike shops in Moab.

My teammate that had invited me to Moab got really sick and so I picked up a gal I met last week at cross and we headed to Moab. There we joined the rest of our group of people that I either didn't know at all or barely knew. Turns out there were two condos full of friends of friends but it didn't matter we were all family bound by a single love of singletrack. Friday night was a great night of sipping wine, sharing stories and getting to know each other.

Saturday I had my choice of two groups to ride with. Group A was heading out for a road ride. Since I only had my mountain bike and I had put knobby tires on the night before, that didn't seem like a good choice. Group B contained a nice mix of mountain bike guides and world class mountain bike racers that were planning something "epic". Hmmmm. . . maybe not a good fit for me either. So I decided to do my own ride.

I opted for Klondike Bluffs. I chose Klondike Bluffs because some of the roadies were thinking about riding a trail later and I wanted to have something left. Klondike is a fun little climb with a fun descent but not so technically difficult that I was likely to injure myself and have to limp out. It was a gorgeous day and I kept a good pace up the climb trying to catch people in front of me. At the top I admired the view then headed down to be back in time for lunch. I had barely gotten onto the slickrock section of the trail when I stuck my front tire into a crevice in the rocks and did a weird slow motion endo. Instead of flipping all the way over (the proper way to endo) I got my back tire up as high as it would go and then fell onto my right side. The rock was hard but no injuries so I hopped back on my bike.

I noticed as I was riding that my cleat felt loose so I stopped again to tighten it. I twisted my foot to get my shoe out of the pedal and my shoe stayed stuck to the pedal but the pedal came right out of the bike. Somehow my dumb endo had managed to strip the pedal from the crank and the inside of the crank was no longer threaded. I waited for McGyver to show up and I thought about trying to use Gu as an adhesive but neither of those ideas panned out.

With my right pedal in my back pocket, I hopped onto the saddle and clipped in my left foot. I bounced down the slick rock stopping often to dismount and walk the more rugged sections. I was jarred enough that at the bottom I was happy to be back onto the jeep road. However, I still had a long ways to go and by now I was fed up and hungry and getting a huge blister on my foot. So I pedaled with only my left leg while my right leg hung out like dead weight. A few people passed me and asked if I needed help but most tried not to look at me. Like if they don't mention my handicap it is like it doesn't exist.

The rest of the day was great. I did a little wine tasting and then enjoyed an amazing dinner with my new friends. We had great conversation and all of the other tables were envious of us. I'm sure they were staring at us because we were so glamourous. . not because we were loud (I love the effects of a good red wine). After dinner it was time for the annual Moab Halloween Party.

If you've never been to the Moab Halloween party you are missing out. People take their costumes at this event very seriously. Sexy, raunchy, bizarre, weird and disgusting costumes were there but none were boring. Mine might have been the lamest costume since I went as a French Maid. I spent some of the night dancing with one of my new friends who had dressed up as a Hooters girl. He looked great although I was a little uncomfortable with him constantly pushing his breasts into my back.

I also spent much of the night dancing with Bob. Bob was wearing a bright read wig in a pixie cut and aviator sunglasses. Bob from Sedona introduced himself and I told him I was Shanna from Salt Lake. Some more dancing then "Dana?" I corrected him, nothing new it takes a while to get my name right. Then he asked "what do you do in Reno?" I told him I don't do anything in Reno. More dancing then, "do you get up to Tahoe much?" I informed him that I'd never been to Tahoe. He found that very hard to believe since I live in Reno. More dancing then again, "what is it you do?" I told him I was a maid. Then we made out on the deck. What the heck, that is what Dana the maid from Reno would do!

Today I woke up to a screaming headache and blue skies. The weather was too nice to waste so I rented a bike and deciced to make myself suffer by climbing Amasa Back. I've done Amasa a few times before and I think it is my favorite trail. I rode with my roomie to the trail head and we were off. Well kind of. We hiked down the "step" section and onto the trail. I had noticed at the shop the pedals were a bit tight but I wasn't worried. By the time I had hiked through the fine Moab sand to the rideable part of the trail, it was taking a ton of force to get in and out of the pedals. Of course I had tools in my saddle bag, the problem was that my saddle bag was on my bike.

I rode down the first rocky section and managed to get clipped in at the bottom. I started climbing the next section and ran out of steam (sram shifters, I was always in the wrong gear). Unable to clip out, I balanced as long as I could, then fell over onto my side. This patterned continued with me falling on both sides fairly equally for maybe a mile before, covered in dust and scraped up, I said "no more". We rode for another hour or so towards Hurrah Pass before deciding that it was too lame and we were too hungry. We turned in our rentals and headed home.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

I love the weekends

I love the weekends. I just can't figure out where they go. Here it is Sunday night and I haven't written my psychology paper yet or done any laundry. Obviously I'm still not working on either. But oh well, the weekend was so much fun that I don't even care.

I left work early on Friday and went to see an old friend. We used to work together and went through our divorces together. We drank mojitos, ate bundt cake and watched Sex in the City. I managed to blow 2 weeks of dieting all in a single evening but I had a blast doing it.

Saturday morning I was not at all in race shape thanks to a nice little hang over. I raced terribly but made myself not quit since I deserved the punishment. It was still fun - plus I won a brand new pair of mountain bike shoes! Kara was racing so well. Her and Tayler were way off the front duking it out but Kara flatted and was forced out of the race. She'll be back next week though and watch out! I'm sure she'll be in the A's before we know it. Margaret also tried her second ever cross race by borrowing my bike. She also had to borrow my shoes and I had to show her how to get in and out of the SPDs. She has no skills over the barriers but tons of fitness and speed on the bike. Next week she'll be back on a borrowed bike to give B flight a shot.

Saturday night I revisted my youth by getting together with an old high school friend. I can't believe it's been 20 years! I don't feel that old!

Today I went for a nice 45 miler with teammates. The weather was perfect! Even arm warmers were too much for temperature. Now it is back to the grind of school, work and the gym but hopefully there is a trip to Moab in my near future!

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Update

Not that you care what is up with me but I just manage to have one of those lives that is well let's just say- never dull.

I figured out the porn music! I was playing around and put a bike game widget way down at the bottom of my blog. I'm not sure why the bike game had porn music in it but some of us cyclists might like porn with bikes in it.

While we're on the Sex subject I'd just like to let everyone know that I am straight. Don't get me wrong I like women, just not to sleep with. While I have lots of friends of varied sexual orientations I am an old fashioned girl and I like boys- usually the wrong ones. It just seems like I've been asked my preference a lot lately. I've also been sent invitation to a lesbian bike tour and been put on some Facebook list of people that I might "like" that are all women. Maybe this is all just an indication that I need to wear make up and do my hair more often.

In other news my 14 year old daughter is mad at me because I wont let her go see Panic!at the disco with some sister of an ex friend of her brother's that got kicked out of her house. She thinks my whole goal in life is to torment her. I took her to Body Worlds. She really enjoyed it but by the time we hit the genito/urinary part of the tour she said, "Mom, I don't want to see anymore penises!" (I really do hope she'll feel that way for the next 10 years!)

Actually it is the other way around- the 14 year old lives to torment me. She has begun wearing all of the same clothes that I wore in Jr. High. Right now she is wearing "skinny jeans", a purple tie and suspenders.(She still hasn't figured out why I keep calling her Cindy Lauper). She has also agreed to babysit my ex-husband's sister's Sugarglider. I call it "the rodent". I thought my dog killed it when he stuck his big nose up to the cage and "Ringo" the sugarglider flew across the cage slamming into the other side.

Recently I've seen pictures of myself. I'm not sure when I grew this spare tire around my middle so now I am on a diet. This seems to make me have less love for people and much less tolerance for them. In spin class this morning I was a tad grouchy with the talkers in class. I said something to the effect that if you got out of bed to come to the gym at 5:30 you should make it productive by burning some calories and moving your legs more than your mouth. I guess it doesn't matter because they weren't listening anyway. It didn't help my attitude that the main yapper had on a UCA Cheerleader shirt.

I was pretty excited today though when my boss told me she'd throw me a party once I finished this class and got my degree. Yeah!A party! Not a promotion, not a raise so I can pay back my Federal Student Loans- A party!!!

Crap, I'm out of calories for the day. I guess I'll go to bed so I can start dreaming about breakfast.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Spooky!

Somehow I have music on my blog. I didn't put it there. It kind of sounds like 70's porn music. Very strange. I will have to figure out how to put better tunes on there- when I'm not at work. But for now boom chick a wow wow. . . .

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Cross Rocks!

Heber cross was so fun yesterday. I didn't do very well but my bike worked great! I just need to work on my barriers. I can't believe how slow I am over them. I don't think I was this slow last year. . . but I'm still getting to know my new bike. And now that my new bike feels completely different than last week we have to get to know each other all over again. I guess I was getting used to having really crappy brakes because I found myself not pedaling way before the barriers and then coming to nearly a complete stop way before the barriers. But on the bike I felt great! Amazing what a new bottom bracket will do! So this week I'll get out and practice my barriers some more. I'm sure I'll have it by the end of the season :).

Friday, October 10, 2008

Pimp my ride

I think I might be grateful that I stopped myself from throwing my cross bike into traffic last week. Scottie got a sweet new cassette, derailluer, chain, bottom bracket, cables, seat post, stem and pedals. I quite possibly sold my soul to the devil to do it but it is worth it! I am looking forward to a very cold race tomorrow with the added benefit of shifting and braking that I so missed last week. It should be fun! I've got to go pack. . .

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Happy Birthday Dad!



Happy Birthday Dad! What can I say that Stacey hasn't already said on her blog? Dad really is the most genuine, caring, loving, generous, hard working, kind hearted man on the planet.

Love you Dad!

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Frightmares!

Well, lesson learned. Three glasses of wine last night, followed by three consecutive trips on the Wicked and lunch is not going to stay down.

Today I took my daughter her friend and my son's girlfriend to Frightmares. Every year my son works there. In the past he has even been "actor of the year". Today was family appreciation day so we got in for $10 a piece. It was a perfect day!

We got there as it opened, parked 5 rows from the front and felt like we had the park to ourselves. There were no lines so we just got right on everything. The Wicked was so fun we got right back on again and again. I now appreciate the downtime of standing in line. However, the 14 and 18 year olds seemed to have no problem tackling 12 rides in an hour and a half. After the Wicked I took it much slower and made sure to stay off any spinning rides.

Later in the day we marched through the haunted houses. I thought I'd be deaf from girls screaming in my ear but I can't complain too much because I did my share of screaming. (I don't know why they made the old lady go first!) In the last haunted house "Fun House of Fear" my son chased us out the exit with a chainsaw. I think he was enjoying that a bit too much!

UCA Party



Good times with my bike family!

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Well that sucked!

First cross race of the season and I sucked. My warm up sucked. . . . my big mouth sucks. . .being over emotional sucks. . . my brakes sucked. . . taking out the pole because I couldn't make a turn sucked. . . switching to my mountain bike with the seat waaaaay too low sucked. . . not being able to clip out of my mountain bike sucked. . . being unprepared in just about every way for this race ensured that I sucked.

Before I left James asked me if I was going to race Heber next week. Of course I am! I got all of the crap out of the way today so I am going to have a terrific rest of the season!

Did I hear that there's a cash bar at the UCA party tonight!?

Friday, October 3, 2008

The Sandbagging bug is contagious!

Looks like the cyclocross women have caught the sandbagging bug too. If you were forced to upgrade to A flight last year, probably because you were reapeatedly lapping me in B flight, shouldn't you race A flight again this year? Or maybe it seems okay to race B again because there is now a Women's C flight? Does that mean I'm supposed to downgrade to C? That would be great. . I could probably kick my 14 year old daughter's butt in that group. That would make me feel good.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

I've finally lost it

I guess it was only a matter of time before my insane schedule caught up with me and made me insane. Last night I finally lost it. First let me give you a little background for those of you that don't know how things "run" at the Heath/Matheson household. Austin is 19 works 2 jobs and goes to school full time. Ashley is 14, gets almost straight A's in school, is on the dance company, basketball team and races cyclocross in the fall. Me, I also work two jobs, go to school and race my bike.

Usually we manage to keep track of each other through text messages and phone calls. Well yesterday Ashley got her phone taken away at school. She was good though and fessed up by calling me from a friend's phone. Last night was one of those nights where I get home from work about 5, throw on my gym clothes and go teach 2 classes. I miss seeing Ashley because she doesn't get home from dance until about 5:40.

So after stopping for milk I headed home from the gym. The house was dark and quiet. I had only one message on my phone from Austin saying he'd be at work until 11:00 but no message from Ash so I started to get worried. Ash knows to be home by dark and to always let me know where she is. I tried not to panic and checked all her friend's houses that were close. I called Mom to see if she had heard from her. Then I started going to all of her friend's houses and calling the entire West Lake dance co. By 9:30 I was really panicking. My brother came over (he's a police officer) and offered comfort but said they wouldn't put out an alert for her until she'd been missing longer or if we knew she was in serious danger.

Of course by this time my imagination had got the best of me. I was sure someone had picked her up or she'd got into some trouble. I didn't know if I'd ground her for life or just be so grateful to have her back. About 10:00 my ex-brother in-law pulled up. He was worried since the cops were at my house but he had my daughter in tow. He had picked her up to babysit for him. She had told me about it but I completely forgot. What with the wedding and funeral she was also going to this week I had brain overload.

So I'm sorry to everyone that I called and harrassed and got worked up. I'm going today to pick up a giant calendar so we can write everything down and maybe I can keep some sanity!