new addition to the family.......

i had been thinking about getting another husky for some time now. i wanted to get a puppy, but the thought of going through raising a puppy wasn't too appealing. i had been searching online for some and i decided to do my part and adopt one instead. i found a 10 month old red/white husky in indianapolis. he looked very cute and after talking with stephanie, "grippo's" foster mom, i was reassured he was what i was looking for. he was partially trained, still a pup, and he looked good. i couldn't understand why someone would surrender him unless they just couldn't deal with a husky. on thursday i loaded up the muts and drove to indy, my old stomping ground where i lived for eight years. i met her at the eagle creek dog park, where i'd been a few times, but it was at least six or seven years since i'd been there. i got lost, but finally did make it there. it was pretty damn cold, but there were people there and i saw grips running around with the other dogs. i brought skates and bailey. there wasn't really much of an introduction, but i did notice grips follow skates a few times. skates seemed to be pretty indifferent to him though. he seemed like a good dog so i paid his adoption fees and we were off back to st. louis.

the drive home was pretty uneventful, just a few nips and growls of testosterone between the two huskies. i couldn't see calling him grips, grippo, or even g-man, what stephanie was calling him. it would be too confusing to yell gee to g-man. i'm training them to be sled dogs and gee is a commonly used term to turn right, so no g-man. his new name had to be something with hockey. i narrowed it to tuuk, which is the name of the bladeholder on hockey skates or teemu. teemu(taymoo) is after teemu selanne, the hockey player, the finish flash. i decided on teemu. he did good in the crate and he seemed to be housebroken. his only accident was the next morning when i took him out of the crate and he dribbled right by the front door. the same thing skates used to do when he was learning to hold his bladder. he was also a little agressive when i tried to take his rawhide away so i put him right on his back. he's a little food aggressive, but i've been able to put my hand in his bowl now. i feel a little more comfortable doing that then i did that the first night.

yesterday was our first full day together and i brought them all to the park for little sled dog training. i didn't know how he'd do. skates and bailey did really did a good job pulling the tire around the park. there weren't many people there and it was great. teemu took to the harness without any problems. i wasn't going to hook him up to it, but he started pulling when i had it on his collar so i hooked it up to the back of the harness. i think he's gonna be a natural. he made it around the whole loop. he did exceptional for his first time. he didn't even get scared that i was on rollerblades. no biking for me this weekend, i haven't ridden the trainer or done any spin classes. may get on the trainer later this afternoon though.

winter update.....training, biking, my new hobby, bikejoring

it's been a while since i've last posted anything on here. my last race of the season was way back in september. i did the gateway cup and then the following week a race out at castlewood. my form was pretty decent back then as i got a late start in training last year. this winter i'm not playing hockey. i thought i'd concentrate on more cycling and just try to be in top shape for the spring road races. i was able to get out about once or twice a week in november, but recently, the weather has not been cooperative and i've either been stuck on the trainer or doing spin classes. i did get a new bike for next season though, a trek madone 5.2 with full campy. i've also been taking up a new hobby and the beneficiaries are my two dogs.

i've decided to train my dogs to be sled dogs, even though one already should be a sled dog. we don't have consistent snowfall here so i've just decided to try bikejoring and skatejoring. basically, you put a harness on your dog or dogs and let them pull you around. i already did that in rough form with my husky, but it wasn't exactly true to form and far from the sport of bikejoring. he would always run behind me or to the side of me, rarely in front, and rarely pulling. he did get in a workout though. he was also in a cheap glorified petsmart harness which isn't exactly made for pulling. my lab would just run off leash following us. well, i bought the correct harnesses for them along with the correct tow lines. getting involved in this i've really learned a lot about sled dogs and the training involved. so, right now the biggest problem i've got is trying to get my husky to pull since everything i taught him before was to stop pulling. it's definetly not as easy as one would think. i've also got a whole slew of terms to teach them. my lab, who's rarely ever been in a harness, and who's always ran free, now has to be contained. i'm sure she's going through a major change having all these lines and harness on her, let alone have to pull something. their training has started with them pulling a motorcycle tire. they're a long way from being sled dogs, but they've shown improvement just about every time i've taken them out. skates has even learned what gee means!!!

oh cyrstal ball, oh crystal ball.....

tell me what the future holds in store. unless you haven't heard, american ailines has decided to pull out their hub here in st. louis. that is about 90% of our business here in st. louis. working as a regional airline we are at the mercy of the mainline, american. with them moving all these flights up to chicago, it doesn't leave us with much work here in st. louis. we've already been notified that we will either shut down our operation here in st. louis or possibly maintain a smaller version of our current operation to do maintenance. that hinges on our other mainlines(cont, usair, delta, frontier, midwest) bringing in a few more flights. either way, we will more then likely still have layoffs. i'd like to say i'd be safe being one of two supervisors, but i'm not counting on anything. going strictly on seniority i'm right on the bubble. if i had to relocate, i've been told milwaukee, kansas city, columbus, oh, or possibly back to indianapolis may all be open to relocation. denver might even be another possibility since we bought frontier airlines. it's only a matter of time before we start opening maintenance positions there. I would think we would bring in more of a presence with frontier to to give southwest a run for their money, that's just my opinion. ain a market like st. louis how could you not bring them in. another low cost carrier here is just what we need. My goal however is to stay here in st. louis and not have to worry about any of that. taking a layoff right now is certainly not in the cards for me.

i just got a new cross bike a couple weeks ago and have since have decided to sell it. as much as i want to keep it i can't justify several uses when i've got all this going on with my job. i also got a new trek madone 5.2. it's got all ultegra sl that i'm getting ready to strip and sell. i'll be putting on all my campy stuff. i tried the ultegra, but i just can't get comfortable with it. something about that cable sticking out of the shifter and the way it shifts, preference i guess.

Castlewood XC race....

I hadn't planned on racing this weekend until somebody mentioned the race at Castlewood this Saturday. I thought about taking off the next couple weeks after Gateway and then start concentrating on Cross. In fact I was going to skip the first cross race in Alton, but then the CW race won out.

I rode part of the course on Friday just to get acquainted with the dirt again. It didn't help much as I really didn't have a great day resultwise. First, I thought I'd do the expert race, but with the later start I just decided to go with marathon race which started two hours earlier. I didn't get off to a very good start. On the first lap I rode the wheels of Mitch and Jeremy until getting a rear flat about midway through. I got it changed pretty quick and then got back in the race. During the second lap I thought my front tire was going flat so I took the rooty and rocky sections with caution. When I got to the feed area I dismounted and filled up both tires with co2. I rode lap three without any problems, but then at the end of lap four I came up to some other racers and they took a wrong turn where somebody tore down the markers. Myself and a couple other riders followed before we realized it. Some riders kept going, but myself and two other riders turned around. That propably cost me about another five minutes or so, not that it mattered. On the fifth lap my lower back was killing me and my knees were starting to hurt, so by the end of that lap I called it quits.

I only road 10 miles off road yesterday and today I woke up a little sore, I can't wait for tomorrow morning......which comes in about six hours.

All in all I had a good time. It was my kind of course with lots of climbs and technical stuff, but I certainly need to ride more dirt to be competitive. It was a good time and saw some old faces I hadn't seen in a while, noot a bad way to spend a Saturday.

Now ready for cross!!!

After years of racing mt. bikes and roadbikes, and even bmx when I was a young lad, I'm ready to try my hand at a little cyclocross. I'm looking forward to it, but first gotta get through this little race called the Gateway Cup.