21 Years Ago

21 Years Ago, I was 21. Happy second 21st birthday to me.

Happy Birthday to my big brother and to Kim too!

Special Delivery

From the great state of Wisconsin: Fat Squirrel and Spotted Cow from New Glarus.



New Glarus meet New Belgium and vice versa. Play nice together boys.



Where to begin????

You Might Be From South Dakota IF....

...you are in a blizzard warning and a tornado watch at the same time. Right when I thought I had witnessed it all in this crazy state.



Issued by The National Weather Service
Aberdeen, SD
11:46 am CDT, Mon., Mar. 23, 2009

... BLIZZARD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM CDT /MIDNIGHT MDT/ TO 7 PM CDT /6 PM MDT/ TUESDAY...

A BLIZZARD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM CDT /MIDNIGHT MDT/ TO 7 PM CDT /6 PM MDT/ TUESDAY.

Issued by The National Weather Service
Aberdeen, SD
3:55 pm CDT, Mon., Mar. 23, 2009

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED TORNADO WATCH 55 UNTIL 10 PM CDT THIS EVENING WHICH REPLACES A PORTION OF TORNADO WATCH 53. THE NEW WATCH IS VALID FOR THE FOLLOWING AREAS

IN SOUTH DAKOTA THE NEW WATCH INCLUDES 5 COUNTIES

IN CENTRAL SOUTH DAKOTA

BUFFALO HAND HUGHES HYDE LYMAN

THIS INCLUDES THE CITIES OF... FORT THOMPSON... HIGHMORE... MILLER... PIERRE AND PRESHO.

Week of Riding Recap

March can be such a bad month for training due to it's varying temps and conditions, but for at least one week, the weather was pretty stellar. To cap off the week we had eight rollers on Saturday leave for a 50+ miler. Ride Vermillion, Cactus-Eyed Joe, Cindy L., Evie J., Reid R., David R., myself along with Kwen S. (for a short while) left Latte Da after a quick caffination process was complete. I was very pleased for such an early season ride. Granted one was back from Rapid City and another will be leaving us for the summer, but it was still a great turnout and gives me hope that group rides are making a comeback with the Lane Hogs!

Saturday we rolled to Elk Point and then on to Jefferson and looped back around. The wind was steady but we have definitely ridden in worse in South Dakota. It sure was fun once we made the turn and had it at our backs for the way home.



Overall I topped out at a little over 173 miles for the week as training for the 2009 Hwy 212 Gut Check begins in earnest!

Deeohgee

Stray pets seem to always find us. A week ago Friday a little Yorkie showed up in our yard and we ended up keeping him overnight after calling the local animal control to see if anybody was missing it and nobody had called yet. Saturday morning we called the vet clinic and nobody had reported one missing. Finally we decided to call the police about 11:00 and somebody had just called. They came over to pick up their dog and the kids were a little heart broken.

Fast forward to the following Friday. I get a call about 11:15 on my cell phone from Laura. I'm thinking that she's going to meet a few of us going out for lunch. Instead I get a "The kids and I are going to go down to the Humane Society in Sioux City". As I rolled my eyes into the air as if Laura could see, I said "Have fun" knowing good and well a trip to the humane society meant a 97.897% chance of a dog coming home.

Without further ado, I give you a wonder mutt named Deeohgee -- pronounced D.O.G. In case you are wondering, or if you've just lost count which is easy to do, the Brady household is now: People 5 - Pets 5 (unless you count the three fish, then pets win).

Bike vs Car Report: Mar 1-15

Driving percentage took a spike this period as I had some family things to tend to. The roads were somewhat bad on these trips so I volunteered to drive -- that makes sense, let the non-driver drive when conditions are bad. I am still pretty sure that most people still can't say that they have only driven a little over 5% of the days of the year though.

Cat Chatter

I haven't posted in a week. There are reasons that some know and some don't. If you don't, you probably didn't need to know in the first place.

Now on to something much funnier. We knew that our one new kitten, Tic Tac (white one), would do this weird little cackle/chatter thing when she would see a squirrel or something outside. This morning I was messing with my Garmin and the reflection got them BOTH going. Can't say I have ever seen anything like it in my life. Without further ado, my first YouTube posting.

Marissa's Birthday Surprise

Marissa turned 11 yesterday and it ended up being a very exciting day for her as she also won the D.A.R.E. essay competition and gave her speech in front of all fifth graders and their parents. She's pretty proud of her bling she got for her winning essay too. Congratulations Marissa, we are proud of you!

Milestones

Many milestones are coming together at the same time for me. Today marked my 500th straight day of biking to work. I'm proud of the streak for its simple longevity although I've always stated it isn't too hard to bike .92 miles. It's not an extreme commute by any stretch of the imagination. But I do it every day without fail. In the course of 500 straight days, I've braved some pretty wicked conditions that I'm sure I wouldn't have if the commute was much longer.

Milestone number two is that on the March 5th it will be two calendar years since I DIDN'T ride my bike to work. That day I actually caught a ride to work after a pretty good blizzard. I was all ready to bike when I got a call and I accepted the ride. Otherwise the streak would have about another 80 days added on.

Milestone number three is coming up on March 8th. That will mark one year since we became a one car family. I am proud to say that even though I have access to a vehicle, I RARELY use it. Truthfully, there have been less than a handful of times that we could have used two vehicles in the last year. The unfortunate part of selling the car was that I sold it to a friend and it promptly caught fire less than a month later (on April Fool's Day even).

I get comments from all sides on my choice of sustainable lifestyle. I get the "I'm proud of what you are doing" to the "How can you do this all year" and of course "WHY?!?!?!" I do it for many reasons. I do it for a healthy lifestyle. I do it to prove it can be done without giving up much of anything. I do it to be a positive role model. Am I accomplishing that? I don't know. If I did what everybody else does, that wouldn't accomplish anything now would it? Hopefully I make people at least THINK about their constant use of vehicles. That, more than anything, is my wish: To make people think about alternative transportation choices.

Your turn to comment. Do you ever stop to think about alternative transportation? Not driving so much?

Great West Conference Indoor Track

University of South Dakota Men and Women both won their respective indoor track titles in their first Division I Indoor Track and Field Great West Conference Championships. There were some great races and the men definitely had their hands full to the end of the meet. The women, on the other hand, cruised to the title.



Above is Tyler Williamson of USD holding off a Texas Pan American runner and letting everybody in attendance that victory in the 4 x 400 relay and the overall meet was ours.

Final Women’s Team Scores:
1. South Dakota 271.00
2. Utah Valley 135.00
3. Texas-Pan American 87.00
4. North Dakota 77.00
5. Houston Baptist 69.00
6. New Jersey Inst. of Technology- 8.00
7. Chicago State 6.00

Final Men’s Team Scores:
1. South Dakota- 178.00
2. Utah Valley- 146.50
3. Texas-Pan American- 106.00
4. North Dakota- 86.50
5. Houston Baptist- 74.00
6. Chicago State- 32.00
7. New Jersey Institute of Technology- 30.00

Bike vs Car Report: Feb 15-28

Nothing too amazing to report for this stretch other than my streak of not driving now stretches since January 6th when, at taxpayers expense, I drove to Sioux Falls to deliver/setup computers for my job. It appears that this upcoming Wednesday work may get in the way again as I have to go to USD Med School in Yankton to set a few things up as well. I guess I could hook that server on my back and ride over. Hmmmmm

I'd also like to give a shout out to Snakebite and the rest of the F.A.S.T./FAB group that put on the bike swap meet. Well done indeed.