SuperMario rides...

Yesterday there was speculation a previous world champion might be retiring from the professional peleton. Mario Cipollini, also know as the Lion King and Super Mario for his sprinting prowess over the past 15 years had called a new conference and people were speculating he was going to retire. But, no, Cipo will ride for another year, this time with an outfit named Liquigas Sport. Mario is a previous World Champ and also holds the record for crossing the line first the most times at the Giro, 42 times!

Read the article

My beautiful wife with the Mokaluas. Hey get your mind outta the gutter, I'm talking about the land masses in the background, those are the Moks.

Also taken on Christmas morning silghtly before sunrise. The land in the back ground is part of Kanehoe military something or other, maybe I'll look it up later and repost.

The sunrise on Christmas day on Lanikai beach, one year voted the most beautiful beach in the world. Those are the Mokaluas off Lanikai. They look far away but are actually less than a mile away.

As well as a week in Waikiki, we also spent a week here, in Lanikai.

We did alot of this over the Christmas vacation. This is on Waikiki beach.

The Christmas tree inside the entry way of the Moana.

A picture I didn't take of Waikiki, Kapiolani Park, and hotel (at the left) on the Gold Coast area below Diamond Head, where this picture is taken from.

The Moana in gingerbread and icing. Note the nutcrackers in front.

This is one of our favorite Hotels to stay at in Waikiki, the Moana Surfrider. Note the Nutcracker at each of the two outer columns.

Another Day...

Well, I suppose since I don't have any pictures to post from our Disneyland adventure weekend, I'll instead post picture from our previous Christmas vacation to Hawaii.

Also, in my life...

We are having a Halloween pary on Saturday with many outta town guests. It should be fun as we will be having a keg, some jungle juice concoction (discovered during a previous party), pizza toward the end of the night, a little music and dancing, costume contest, and other Halloween fun and games devised by my wife, Oscar winner, Karin Williams! We are going as Oscar winners and each have our own engraved Oscar. Karin will wear one of her wedding dresses and I shall wear a tux. It's going to be our first Halloween party and we are currently setting up, we see how it goes!

In other news...

The ASO or Amaury Sport Organisation, the organisation which puts on the Tour de France yesterday announced the 2005 race route. They say that, once again this year, it will be tough for Lance to win, as they have created a route that favors his competitors. What's new! As well, Lance is keeping everyone guessing by saying he is 50/50 on whether he will ride this year or not. It was mentioned months ago that he was interested in riding in the Giro d' Italia which would make riding the Tour afterward very difficult (especially if you plan to win) but now there is this whole issue with the carabinieri (Italian police). The issue is whether Lance harassed a witness in an ongoing doping case. The odd thing about all this is that the incident in question occured during a stage of the Tour. Read here for the entire story.

So, if you are interested here are some current articles about the route and Lance's chances:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2005/tour05/index.php?id=default
http://sports.yahoo.com/sc/news;_ylc=X3oDMTBpcWU3ZWcyBF9TAzk1OTEyNTc0BHNlYwN0aA--?slug=reu-tourdc&prov=reuters&type=lgns
http://pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=2670 <-- PEZ #1 they rule!

In other sports news...

Baseball is over, Boston RedSox are 2004 World Series Champs. Good for them, now we can get on to basketball. Gooooo Kings!

In personal news...

I am currently in part two of being a fat ass. Earlier in the year I wasn't exercising much while occasionally riding a century or metric century. On July 4th, after a day of much drink and food, I decided to see exactly how fat I had gotten. Boy what a suprise! I weighted in at a portly 193 lbs., damn. So, realizing I had scheduled a 100 miler with some friends about 7 weeks later I thought it was time to kick training and dieting into high gear. Eliminating all alcohol and any food that wasn't chicken, turkey, rice, pasta, or a veggie from my diet was the beginning. Then I also promised myself to ride everyday until the century. I did have some vacation days in there where I wasn't able to ride but other than about 10 days, I rode each and every day. There were some bumbs in the road though. Right in the beginning I twisted my ankle badly when it buckled during a sprint on the bike. I rode through the pain for about 2 weeks before taking some time off, but even afterward the ankle hurt. Anyway, I was able to arrive at the ride about 23 lbs. lighter and in much better condition. I was able to ride the same pace as my cohorts and even push the pace occasionally. So, back to part two of being fat. After the century, I continued riding but much less frequently and told myself it was a little rest after two hard months of training. But that little rest has now lapsed into a total lack of riding. Obviously, I've put on a couple of lbs. and my composition has changes for the worse. I now am owning up to the fact that I can't continue like I did during those two months without some sort of motivation. So, I'm planning to begin training again with a planned schedule which will having me arriving in condition for a 100 miler on Super Bowl Sunday. I think I need to have a current goal to stay on track and that ride will suffice until I have others planned. There, I said it and now must live up to it!

On that note here is a tentitive schedule of rides I'd like to do next year:

Paskenta Century End of January
Rice Valley Tandem Rally Middle of February
Tour of the Unknown Valley Beginning of March
Wildflower Century End of April and a home town ride in and around Chico
Tour of the Unknown Coast Beginning of May
Americas' Most Beautiful Bike Ride, Lake Tahoe Beginning of June and the birthday ride

Beyond that I don't have any cycling plans but have a couple centuries in mind.

Well, Happy Day!

Here is the route for the 2005 Tour de France as mentioned in the above post.

Post Disneyland post...

Disneyland is still pretty cool, even if you are 34. We had a great time up until we lost the camera. I'm not so bummed about losing a $400 camera as much as all the picture on the memory card. The camera was mediocre, but the pictures were priceless. We think that it fell out of the bag it was in while on the Big Mountain Railroad ride, but it's hard to say. The sad part was that we lost the camera at the end of the day, after taking many fine pictures I was hoping to share. Instead, we have a characture of Karin and I. I've always wanted one of those and now finally have one. We are going to put it up near our wedding pictures in the hallway.

So, the rides weren't as fun as I remember and a bunch of rides were closed for remodeling. I guesss that next April or so is the 50th anniversary of the Disneyland opening, so they are trying to spruce things up a bit. Space Mountain, The Materhorn, Small World were all closed, but I had a great time on Indiana Jones and Star Tours.

So, in terms of the goals I had set for myself on this trip, many were acomplished to some degree. I was able to replace my Pooh Bear that was stolen on a previous trip 20-something years ago, took good pictures but lost the camera, ran to a ride, but didn't get any cotton candy. So, it was a good trip.

Mother Hips DVD is released...

Well, the best band to ever come outta Chico has a new DVD out. This was done up by up by Bill Deblonk. Read the article in the Chico News & Review. Being a huge fan, I had to run out and buy it. It was worth every penny to just to see the old footage, boy did that bring back memories.

As well, while surfing their site, Motherhips.com, I noticed they also have another DVD out, entitled "the stories we could tell." Gonna have to get that one too!

Another thing I noticed were the new tour dates for the MH. They have shows in SoCal this weekend and then Salt Lake City next weekend. I'm hoping for some shows around Chico that I might get to see. That would be too sweet. I'm wonder what the line up will be, if Hofer will still be on drums (probably) and will Hoaglin be on bass? I'll have to go and check it out I suppose. There is a Sacramento show on the 30th, but we are having a Halloween party, so thems are the breaks.

Anyway, I'm glad they are playin shows again, it just ain't the same without the MH.

Pre-Disneyland post

So we are going to Disneyland on Saturday. It will be the first time I've been there since January 1990 and about the same for my wife. The trip was supposed to be a suprise for her father because he has never been, but some how he guess we were going. I suppose it might not be difficult to figure out when your getting flown to LA. I'm flying down Friday night and Karin is leaving with her Dad from Oakland so that we can meet at the same time. I'm hoping that Karin gets a towncar or a limo to take us to the hotel, she said a cab was pretty expensive so why not spring for the rest to go in comfort. My goals for the trip are to take some good pictures, run to a ride, eat some cotton candy and buy a whinny the pooh stuffed animal that some one took out of our hotel room one time we went when I was a kid. Damn it! This is going to be fun, I'm out.

Like I said in an earlier post, I like shots from planes. So, here is another. The big cone is called Koko Head and the bay you see is Hanauma Bay. Hanauma Bay is something you want to see if you are ever in O'aho, it's got some pretty good snorkling as well. Just make sure to go out at high tide because there is a reef about 30 maybe 40 yards off shore that will not treat you nicely if swam over during low tide.

This is lovely Pt. Reyes taken from the airplane ride from Chico to SFO. The sun was just rising making for a beautiful sight, the picture only partial dipects said beauty. But I love pictures from airplanes.

Here Karin and I pose in front of our personal twin-prop, before flying away to Hawaii for Christmas vacation. I'm not sure whom all those other people are and why they are getting on my plane. Probably hijackers, better check them for toenail clippers.

See that guy in yellow, that's Lance Armstrong. Actually, these are two of the many street performers on Kalakaua Ave, the main drag through Waikiki.

Well, it is getting to be that time of year again. I'm excited about getting a Christmas tree and we should be able to get one in about 4 weeks or so. I'd like to have it right around Thanksgiving but probably the weekend afterward so that it lasts through the New Year. Anyway, about the picture, this is last years tree. It's hard to see all of the ribbon so it looks a little bare and there aren't too many presents because we spent two weeks around the holiday in Waikiki and Lanikai, on O'ahu. Karin's company had their work Christmas party at our house while we were gone, so at least someone got to enjoy it.

This picture was taken at the 50th wedding anniversary and vow renewal of my father-in-law's cousin, Dorothy Jean and her husband Frank. Frank and Dorothy live in Rye, Colorado, south of Pueblo. Also in the picture are my father-in-law, John, at the far right with Kristin, my sister-in-law, my wife and myself. That was a short but very fun time we spent in Colorado visiting family.

This is a black and white (duh) taken by Kevin Lahey literally moments after we were married. It's taken in our front rock garden where we enjoyed a quick bite to eat and a few glasses of bubbly before greeting our guests.

One of the many different colors of roses we have in the yard. This one just happens to be my favorite.

We live in a neighborhood where a creek goes through our yard accompanied by wild life, of course. So, amongst other, larger creatures you might find in the yard are these delicate little ducklings. As you can see there are 10 and a mother. I followed them around the yard, up and down the creek until I got this shot. Ever year it seems we have a new batch of ducklings as well as a few hangers on from the previous year. Can’t wait to see what happens next spring.

Skinny, probably keeping an eye on Velo because he likes to sneek up on you and attack. Skinny is our outside cat. She joined the family back in June of 2001 when she wandered into the yard from the back property. She was really skinny at the time, but has put on a few pounds since then.

This is a picture from the day I found Velo. It's a popular one with my wife and myself as my wife sent it into the humane society and it made their calendar. He sure was cute and small back then, now he’s a cold blooded killer. You'd never know by those innocent eyes.

One word... vibrant. You wouldn't believe how tiny these flower were. I'll have to look out in the yard to see if you have any growing currently. Probably not, as there is much that is blooming right now.

Me with Diamond Head in the back ground.

A sunset shot from Waikiki.

This one is too cute not to post. It's a picture of Velo at about 4 to 5 weeks old. This was taken either the day I found him or the day after. He's enjoying a little R & R in the napkin basket, which moments later became a make shift catbox. Time for a new napkin holder!

Asilomar Beach

A couple of deer eating off the golf course. Hey put my ball down!

This is the light house on the 17 mile drive in Monterey. I was in Monterey for a work conference the week of September 20th and did a little cycling around the area. I even took a few pics.

Here, Karin rests with Velo before her very important "hair shoot" photo session. I'm not sure who has the better looking hair do in this shot.

I do believe this bed will suffice!

Ah, the beautiful Florida sunrise. You can't tell in the picture, but the wind is blowing about 25 MPH. Fontainebleau Hilton Resort, where we stayed, was well sheltered from the winds by the lovely palm trees which lined the beach.

Hey, it's one of the few pictures taken on this trip where I wasn't holding the camera. So that's what I look like. Miami Beach is a fun place to hand out and party, but it's no Waikiki.

Here is a picture of my wife and professional water slider, Karin, doing the two fisted WOOT WOOT upon entry. This pic is from our trip to South Beach in October. Lucky for us and Miami in general, the storms of 2004 never landed nearby.

King of the couch, Velo.