The beginning of spring fever

Its been a long fun winter, but I decided it was time to get my bike out of storage and see what king of shape both of us were in. I had to replace a tube that refused to hold air for more than ten minutes. I was able to cycle through all the gears easily. Then after taking a rag and removing a winters worth of dust the bike was looking pretty darn good. I lubed the chain and she was ready to go.

On the other hand it was a little harder to discern what kind of shape I was in. Since I stopped riding last October I have gained 5 or 10 lbs and was unable to find a proper winter substitute for my most difficult summer hobby. I decided I would go on a few bike rides around the neighborhood prior to my first off-road excursion of the year. After a week or so of neighborhood riding I would be ready to test my might. (an old mortal combat reference)

I was sitting at my desk at work unable to ignore the beautiful rays of sunshine that demanded my attention. I felt like a kid at school waiting for the end of the school day on a sunny Friday afternoon. I couldn't concentrate, for the better part of the last two hours of the work day I stared at my work unable to make sense of the numbers and graphs I was trying to analyze. It was useless, I was powerless with five minutes left work I ducked out a little early, feeling confident no one would notice. A side note, my boss was taking a sick day and I couldn't help but think of him basking in the sun with a smirk on his face knowing I was working while he was lounging.

I walked home quicker than usual and arrived home about ten minutes ahead of schedule. Upon entering the house I noticed my newly tuned bike, and I knew, I had to go for a ride, but a day suck as this required I go off the street and hit a dirt trail. Fearing my lack, or abundance, of shape may hinder the experience I opted for a shorter trail that was guaranteed to be free of snow.

I hit the trail and rode 3 miles in and 3 miles out. I fared better than expected and was giddy about being speckled with mud from head to toe as there were a couple of puddles that spanned the width of the trail. Upon completion a bit of the mud fell off the bike but if you look close you can see the remainder of the mud that was.

Currently in the area there are only a couple of ridable trails until the snow melts but I'll take what I can get.

What's your Life Story?

I met up with some old friends of mine a couple weeks ago. I know many other people have had similar experiences, or have they?

The night started out same as usual, casual greeting and meeting while partaking of delicious food from an old restaurant favorite that has a tendency to put everyone in a nostalgic state of mind. After a quick tell everybody what your doing now a days ect, ect, ect. We began to really get down to business. When I mean business I refer to people testing my memory of events in years past that may or may not have occurred. I consider myself to have a fairly decent memory, but when remembering happenings of 4-8 years ago the details tend to get a little fuzzy for me and I have a hard time believing others remember then so clearly. Many of things I had a vague recollection of or I did not remember at all. There were a few that I remembered clearly but the memories I chose to remember are completely different than that of my friends.

It made me wish that I had done a better job recording my own thoughts and perspectives on certain issues so I could have some hard facts on how things really were instead of just taking other people's word for the things that I did.

Could you imagine if you let other people write your life story for you on a day by day basis? Think about it. Would you trust them to be accurate without adding their own bias into the picture? More importantly would they be able to capture and accurately represent your view points and thoughts? What kind of person could you trust with that type of responsibility? Could you find people to show your true colors, whether sassy, sophisticated, suave, sarcastic, humorous, intelligent, stubborn, stupid, or just plain dazzling.

How different do you think your past might become if you had to take someone else's word, whether you could remember what really happened or not.

I guess it's kind of the same thing as being able to see how you look through other people's eyes. I guess if you got to be the guest scribe for someone else you might really get a chance to take a walk in their shoes.

As I visited with friends I was reminded of my past by several different people. Some tell stories better than other. Some, in my own opinion, tell more accurate accounts of what really happened than others. Some stories were funny and others were serious stories that make you grateful that you made it through.

All in all if your life had many different authors a bystander could probably really tell what kind of affect you had on different people at the same or different stages in your life. You could understand what areas of your life you could improve on.

Anyway, that's just a little something that I have thought about a little over the last couple of weeks. If you think about it, tt might just blow your mind, or make you wish you hadn't spent time reading this.

Arena Football

I was fortunate enough to attend the season opening game of the Utah Blaze. The picture in this post along with my entrance ticket, not to mention great company were provided my good friends TJ & Kim.

This picture shows almost the entire field and the game between downs. Not pictured are the eccentric fans who came in attire reserved for true fans. Which includes their favorite players jersey, black and orange face paint, and orange hair dye. Kim was in charge of the camera so also not pictured are the Harley Davidson Blaze Dancers. I tip my hat to any person who chooses to who has that level of dedication to any sports team. The Blaze ended up loosing the game by one point and I think I saw I like face paint start to run on a couple of fanatic faces. I dared not point it out because any one of the aforementioned could have killed me without much effort.

There are several people who have watched more football than I but since your reading my blog I'm going to give you my opinion of Arena football. I'm not going to lie I like to watch football, it entertains me. The prospect of a group of guys banding together in the quest of greatness. In the NFL it takes 11 people simultaneously working together to make a big play, whether the play be on offense or defense. In the AFL there are several big offensive plays but defensive plays seem to be few and far between.

In Arena football there are so many touchdowns that the excitement spawned by a touchdown quickly looses its flavor. If a team doesn't score at least 50 points they are pretty much guaranteed to loose.

To me Arena football is like real footballs little brother. The players are smaller and have changed a few of the rules. From a distance you may think the only difference is one is played outside while the other is played inside. However, you will quickly realize that even though the basic concepts are the same there are several noticeable differences.

In the future I may watch more Arena football, but I don't ever think it will entertain me to the same extent as real football.