Sunday mixed bag

My girlfriend left for home last night and I took my daughter to her mom's today until next week, so today meant returning to being Sologuy again. This morning was spent with my daughter and breakfast at IHOP. After I took her back to her "other home" (as she always calls it), I shaved my furry legs and drug my fat ass out for the first ride in two weeks since the Lake Mead ride during Outdoor Demo. Between the show itself and then the follow-up afterwards, the past two weeks meant no riding... and I can feel it. Now that the show is over and I don't have any travel for a few weeks, I'm looking forward to riding as much as possible between now and Outdoor Demo East.

This is why people move to San Diego; beautiful blue skies and warm weather in October.

The Shadow rides with me all the time. He likes the new Scandium frame as much as I do too...

Downtown San Diego from across the bay, coming back from Point Loma.

The two weeks off the bike have not made me any fitter or any thinner- that's for sure- but it still felt great to get out for a short ride and loosen the legs up a little. My flexibility in my back is really terrible right now, as I really need to see a chiropractor now that my neck is healed up enough. My neck is sore lately too, so I need to work on regaining range of motion there as well. The plus is that my knee doesn't hurt at all when I ride. My legs seem to be recovering better than I feared- it's the rest of my body that appears to be taking longer. All in all though, I'm ahead of the schedule as far as riding goes and need to just relax a little and let the healing continue without pushing myself to "train" through the winter to be ready to race again in January. I mean... I'm lucky to be alive and not paralyzed from the crash that only happened on April 29th. I need to relax and just let my body do its thing. Really... I do.

Ok, time to hop on my SoulVille and get my grocery shopping done so I can cook my dinner. I'll be back with more Virtual Tradeshow and more random pics from Interbike.

Tim

Little things...

I'm thankful for lots of things, but my kids are the biggest thing I am thankful for.


My dinner date tonight... they made my day, for sure.


My co-pilot on my drive to work yesterday; meet Li-li (pronounced "lie-lie"). I don't know about you, but I felt safer.

I guess I'm actually pretty thankful for potato chips too, especially ones with my name on the bag.

Tim

More news and whatnot...

Let me see- where did I leave off? Hmmm...

Friday was my big day with my GP Doc to discuss moving forward with my injuries and treatment, etc. 1st topic was my blood test results from Thursday; my "INR" (a test to see how long it takes your blood to form a clot) readings are targeted to be between 2 and 3. My test results came back as a little over a 4... meaning that my blood is currently too thin to form a clot in a reasonable amount of time. It also means that I get bruises by even thinking about bumping something- I now have a slight black eye again on the left because I was rubbing my eye after getting something in it. Great! So with that news, we lowered my medication amount a lot (like I didn't take any for two days) and I'll be getting tested again soon. Oh yeah- and I'm supposed to keep an eye on any unusual bleeding... um... yeah.

2nd order of business was the whole orthopedic doctor nightmare. Once again, I was being told I should just go back to the original surgeon, but that would end up taking me longer to get treatment (ie removal of the pin in my thumb), so my Doc got me a referral that day to another ortho (who, as I later found out when I got home and tried to get an appointment, is leaving on vacation for 2 weeks). BUT... the ball is at least finally rolling. FINALLY. But it does sound like the other possible ortho option might work and I should be able to get the pin removed soon... hopefully.

Best news of all though; my Doc told me to just go buy a soft collar, rather than waiting for the approval to show up in the mail. So I did! Mom went out and got me a new soft neck collar and I am now no longer suffering with the hard plastic cervical collar that was giving me such terrible headaches from the the plastic in the back rubbing my head all day long. This also means that I can now legally drive again! And... I DID! Today, after my family get-together, I drove my sister's car home with her. I now have a slight headache from wearing the new collar all day today, but this is from the fact I haven't been using the muscles in my neck to support my head for the past 6 weeks. The muscles are sore, but they'll get better. And in another 2-3 weeks, I won't need a collar at all. YAY!

So now, I am hopefully just one appointment away from getting the pin in my thumb removed and having some more x-rays/ MRI's done on my knee and elbow. This might finally represent a great step towards moving forward with my life. Monday, when I return to the office, I'll actually be able to drive my own car. It's not like riding one of my many wonderful bikes, but it is one really huge step towards recovery... and I'm very excited.

Today was another fun day for me because it was the birthday for two of my nephews; my two sisters had their sons on the same day, just one year apart. Today Jack is 2 and Gianluca is 1. Masidaughter and I went off to my sister Sara's house for a great day by the pool- filled with sun, food and fun. With the past few weeks I've had- today was a welcome event.

Masidaughter in her birthday party dress...

Gianluca- 1yr old today.

Jackson- 2yrs old today.

Masidaughter- out of the pool just long enough to experience a birthday cake sugar high.

Happiness is a pool full of happy children!

We had an excellent day today. The nephews were quite happy and the pool was always full of laughter... exactly the kind of day I needed.

Tim

Easter Goodness...

Today was Easter, if you were not aware. I'm not a particularly "religious" man, not in the traditional sense at least, but I do give thanks on days like today; the weather was beautiful, I was with my daughter, we went for a bike ride, I spent time with my family, I gave thanks for love, I took my first ride in my new team clothing and I ate some very delicious foods (which meant I took a second ride on my rollers this evening to burn some calories). All in all, if there truly is a God- he smiled on me and my family today. For that, I am beyond thankful.

Masidaughter posing happily with her favorite new friend... which makes Masidad exceedingly happy!

Oh yeah... super cool new team kit for the year! A very big kudos to the Blue Squirrel for another fantastic kit design. It's a kick ass kit and I hope to get fit enough to make it go fast this year.

A nice cool pic of the two of us in the middle of downtown San Diego. I asked Masidaughter if she wanted to go home, or if she wanted to head through downtown and keep riding... she opted to keep riding. My heart is still skipping...

It was a really beautiful day today and the Bay was the perfect backdrop for the cutest co-pilot in town.

It's a good thing she has a sense of humor- she'll need it with me as her father.

I just had to do the generic team rider shot... I couldn't pass it up. Dig the kickass team cap too!

There was an Easter egg hunt for the kids...

... and one of the kids got older...

... but he can still blow out candles!

In the end, it was a great day.

I hope that your Easter/ Sunday/ weekend was equally enjoyable and that you had a little something to be happy about too.

Tim