Yep, 2008 was the best year ever.  No doubt about it. I don’t know how it happens, but somehow each year has been better than the last, since I was born.  Seriously, I’m not bullshitting.  Every year I look back and go “whew, does it get any better??”  Sometimes some key aspect of my life goes to crap, but then, that just sets up something else.  I knew it would happen again this year and it did.  Not everything went perfect. There were some financial stresses, vehicles that got wrecked or broke down, races I blew, disagreements from time to time, jobs that never got done, friends or family that got seriously ill, and a few that passed on.  But if you look at the list, it’s all stuff that no family on earth avoids.  Try it, check the list.  You probably had 80% of them too. It’s life. Otherwise it was the best year ever. 

My bike racing performance was below average, and only a second place at the Velo stage race crit to smile about. But I learned that I could still hang out with friends and a few beers, get up the next morning and race hung over, and still have a fun day, it hurt more, but still fun. Lots of times that great day simply meant finishing at the back but having a great time watching the chaos, or working with a teammate.  It was all good. I also realized that if I could stay with the pack completely hung over, maybe I might actually win something if I focused a bit.  The Devon GP was another success, and we made some mistakes but they forced a whole new approach to the race organization, and the GP will be even bigger and better in 2009.

The kids were even more fun than ever as they grow and change.  They still live life like a bomb going off.  But one day this summer, Cassidy came up and said, out of the blue, “You know, I love my life.  I love everything about it.  My friends, my family, all the fun things I get to do, my school, my cousins. It’s so great! I just love it.”  That right there, pretty much made my year.

 
At work, we’ve had a lot of challenges, and some really hard moments, but every time we get through it, every time we or I screw up and have to unravel a big mess, it’s like this intense MBA crash course.  I have to make some adjustments to how I work to balance overtime, but I have a plan, and that’s half the battle.
We got lots to be thankful for; there’s a lot of war in the world, but I get to stay home with family; the economy is sideways but my company is gonna be ok; the housing market is a bear but we bought years before it hit; my kids are healthy and happy. 

 
Cindy had a great year, establishing her training pattern, xc skiing with the club, doing more cyclo-cross.  She continued to remove walls with the axe. She got her work schedule changed to fit our lives better.  She was the rock that got all 200+ volunteers going the right directions for the biking club. She experimented with some dietary changes and it’s really working.  She’s a machine; nothing stops her, she just keeps motoring along, game for anything. 

The great part is that if I look at all the things I want to improve, they all seem to be symptoms of one issue, which means making a plan for 2009 to be the best year ever will be easier than I thought:  I have to simplify.  I let life get too complicated.  Too many projects, too many activities jammed in.  Too much clutter.

The Devon GP could be simplified to require less volunteers even with the same # of events.  I have already thrown out a lot of half-done projects from the garage: Better to reap the satisfaction of the ones that will become something, than forever trip over the “someday-I–should’s”. I finally got in touch with a few old friends this year, people I used to be in contact with daily, that I haven’t spoken to in years.  I gotta simplify my schedule, call people and get together, rather than saying “hey let’s get together”, and then it never happens.

There’s a lot of freedom in simplification.  I got rid of my bike computer and it was like taking off leg shackles.  I don’t need a computer to tell me that I pushed too hard…usually I just barf, and I see the chunks on my legs, and that’s my sign.

 
Simplify.

 
Yep, 2009 is gonna be the best year ever.

Just finished watching Rocky IV…how can you not want to go train old school chopping wood and stuff after watching that…seriously.   But the best of all is the short talk he gets from his (formerly Apollo Creed’s) coach, just before he starts training.  I need a mp3 of it to listen to every day before training…

“Apollo was like my son.
 I raised him.
 When he died, a part of me died.
 But now you're the one.
 You're the one that's going  to keep his spirit alive.
 You're the one that's going  to make sure he didn't die for nothing.
 You'll have to go through hell...
 worse than any nightmare  you ever dreamed.
 But in the end...
 I know you'll be the one standing.
 You know what you have to do.
 Do it.
 DO IT.”

ooooo ya ya ya I gotta go do hill repeats now!!!!  Woooohooooo!

Last night I got home from Cold Lake and I was tired and I told the girls it was because I can’t sleep on the road because I miss my girls. 

Dani (4 yrs) says to me: “Dad, it’s because of all the work things and sad things in your brain!  Your brain is full up of things that are bad and you have to clean it out!  You have to put happy things in there so your brain isn’t hurting”  I said: “like what?”  And her answer was “well, like happy things.  Sometimes I think of skating, or snowmen, or candy…and then your brain feels better and you can fall asleep.”

And to think people buy books written by psychologists to tell us pretty much the same thing…

The kids decided ‘Blaster” is a good name for the Master Deluxe.  Maybe because that’s the noise it makes, and with all the smoke.  A 67 year old straight six doesn’t exactly purr the first time it’s started.  Anyway, I figure it’s a good name, and better than some of thier other choices like “flower” or “kitty”.  We got Blaster going last week, and it was actually really cool – I was jumping around like a moron..who wouldn’t!!  A $600 car from 1941 and it started…seriously, who’d a thunk it.  It caught on fire a couple times in the garage from the gas I spilled working on the carb, and one electrical fire…but nothing serious.  It definitely tells a story about the times: there are about 15 ashtrays!  There is an ashtray on every surface.  Now the real work starts..the stuff I need to do for it to be road worthy: brakes, clutch, lights.  The interior will be (according to the kids, to whom I promised the colour choice) black and purple, which actually is gonna be good. (They coulda said pink and orange so i should be glad).  They want to chop the top off, but I vetoed that since we don’t live in california. Some projects end up taking so much time and work that it’s only fun when they’re done, but something about this one has been fun since the beginning, and the fact that both kids sometimes draw pictures of it with thier latest paint job idea, means that it actually will be a family project, which was the point from the start.

But we still gotta convince cindy it was a good idea…

I think it’s time to go somewhere. 

We used to travel alot, Cindy and I, and we kinda stopped when the kids arrived, but they’re travel-ready. I grew up travelling: heck I pretty much lived on my own in a foreign country from about the age of 15.  I’m in Cold Lake for work, and I wish Cin and the kids were here.  It’s a cool place so far.  I wouldn’t want to live here, but that’s what all trips are, somewhere away from home for a bit.  It really hit me yesterday, I was standing on the pier at the lake, and it could’ve been Holland.  It felt like home.  Holland is my childhood/youth home really, since I was there for a long time during the years I grew up (about 16 – 25).  But it would’ve been better if the 3 girls were here.  When I get home, I’m planning a trip…because I miss home…does that make sense?  I think travelling makes home that much better, and that’s part of what makes travelling cool.  And I gotta take the kids to Holland, see where daddy “grew up”…or maybe just to Cold Lake, it’s a cheaper facsimile…

Got to spend the day with Cassidy at Kindergarten as part of her “Star of the week”.  It was the best ever.  We did crafts and words and the 5 senses and show-and-tell and all sorts of stuff.  

One thing I learned: the kids are 100 times smarter than I expected.  They are doing stuff I didn’t do until grade 3 I’m sure.  They actually understand how molecules line up in iron to create magnetism!  Crazy.  But they’re still kids, and we had a blast goofing off.  I can relate to kindergarten age. 

 At lunch we had Macaroni & Cheese and I pretended my noodles were sailors and piled them on my bun, which was a ship, and then I was a giant shark and I bit half off and ate it real noisy and messy like a shark, and then the rest of the sailors were diving off and screaming.  The kids at my table really dug that, and pretty soon lunch was getting outta control so we had to settle down.  Then I did some magic tricks and that got a good laugh. 

Recess was super-fun, we played hide-and-seek, dug for dinosaurs, fought with the “big kids” for the playground. 

Recess at a K to 9 school is like a history-of-Europe-from-1910-to-1946 condensed into 15 minutes!  From the moment they get out the door, there are little alliances, skirmishes, wars, truces, new alliances, spying, land claims, betrayals, and deals going on everywhere. 

Just one little episode I witnessed (before I had to help a kid who peed her pants): First the grade 2’s and 1’s took control of the tower and slides.  Then the kindergarten boys, plus Cassidy, stomped up there to demand access. Then the 2’s got greedy and kicked out the 1’s too, who shifted allegiance to the K’s.  That worked for a while until the K’s noticed somebody digging in “their” dinosaur pit, and the battle shifted to the eastern front. 

I was gassing out, and they took it so seriously.  I won’t forget little Ethan trying to explain to me:

“You don’t get it!  They TOOK the top slide.  It’s THIERS.  We can’t get it back” He explained. 

“Why not?”  I asked.  Then Cassidy and another kid piped in:  “Because!  Just because! They took it, it’s THIERS now. That’s it.  Nothing we can do.” 

Then the K-boys stormed the slide from the bottom and the war was on…

We’re making a movie. 

It started pretty innocently, but like everything in our house, it went out of control pretty quick.

Just after supper the girls said that they wanted to make a play, and mom and I would be the audience.  Then they said “let’s film it.”  I told that if you film a play, it’s a movie.  Well, that set it off the rails. They lost their minds. “A movie!  Yaa!! Let’s make a movie!!”

For the rest of the night, they jumped and ran and acted and screamed and argued around the living room while I wrote it all down.  It’s all their ideas, 100%.  I just asked stuff like; “What kind of story? (Pirate/Princess/super-hero/scary/sports?) Who is in it? Why are they good/bad? Do they have any special skills or powers? Where did they get their super-power?  Why do they do that? Who will play them?”  They just kept going on and on.  I can’t wait to start. We’ve got it all mapped out, we just need to do the dialogue and make the costumes and set.  Even if it take forever, I think the process will be the fun part.  They get to paint the background and sets, make the costumes etc.  They’re excited about that.

Here’s the story so far:

A good wizard is dying, and he knows that an evil mad scientist is going to try something.  In his dying moments, the good wizard transfers all his powers to a group of kids who are having a dance party.  They don’t realize it so they discover their new powers by accident, and each only gets one or two of the powers, each something different, stuff like; the power to turn invisible, turn into various animals, become Bruce Lee (seriously – my daughter loves his movies), shoot lasers, etc. When the evil scientist poisons all the food in the world, the kids decide they are going to find a way to save everyone.  They go on a quest to find the evil scientist and along the way they have all kinds of adventures and meet; a dragon, a robot, two aliens, a pirate, a witch, and a few others…I couldn’t write fast enough, they had so many ideas.

This is gonna be the funnest project ever…woohooo!!! 

Overheard during a training ride involving sprints from a pack with the juniors this week (I think it was Le Arsonist David):

“Aw man this is the sketchiest pack I’ve ever ridden in; a bunch of Juniors, a chick, and two dads on ‘cross bikes”

I just happened to talk to a guy here at work  that has been arrow hunting and guiding for decades, and he happens to have a pyro/explosives fanatic brother, so anyway if we can find the location, and get the permits and stuff, he will hook up the bow and arrows – he said he’s got tons of old ones we can toast.  Also, he said he’ll mention it to his brother, who spent his youth making his own bombs, blowing up neighbors’ garbage cans and mailboxes, and he can rig something up to explode when the arrow hits. 

How diggable will the kids find that!!!!

Oh man oh man oh man I can’t wait I can’t wait I can’t wait I can’t wait  

Flaming arrows original idea: http://timbrewster.wordpress.com/2008/03/20/before-you-die/ 

Holy bonus day!!!  My cruiser bike parts arrived by UPS last week!   I’m building a couple of cruiser bikes, mostly out of bits and pieces from the garage, but some small stuff I had to order like single speed freewheels and big wide handlebars.  (Plus I got Cin a really long low stretch frame for like 50 bucks) The rest I got at the recycle depot or I found (like the Banana seat I found at a yard sale!!!)  In the end it might cost me maybe $100 per bike, for Cin and I to have comfy cruisers to pull the kids around Devon, go shopping (we always walk or ride, one less car.)  Then I just have to weld a tow bar to pull the kids around in the custom wagon I made out of one chair and two BMX bikes.  We gonna be like Ramone and Flo, cruizin’ low and slow baby, low and slow.