I had a really nice dinner with my friend Tawnya last night. She has been traveling since July of '05. Along the way she has met a lot of interesting people, some touched her heart more so than others, but ultimately, her travels have given her a lot of insight and clarity about life in general. One thing that we talked about last night was expectations. So many people depend heavily on expectations: expectations about what they think they should do , what they think other people should do, how they think things should go...In the end, when you have expectations, whether they're good or bad, thing usually fall short. We spent a lot of time talking about how if you don't have expectations for a situation or for people and you just go with it, in the end the outcome is generally a lot better because you haven't set it up to be something that it ultimately wasn't.
This is something that has taken me a really long time to understand and figure out, but I think that I've been a lot happier ever since I've tried to remember that developing expectations for something or someone only sets you up to be disappointed! Enjoy life for what it is, it's a lot more fun that way!
Well, anyway, we had a really nice dinner sharing a lot of ideas about a lot of things in life. Seeing the world through different eyes has really had a huge impact on Tawnya, and I'm glad I got to hear about her ideas and thoughts on life and the many different ways to live it!
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
This Week Really Sucks!
The right side, the bad side.
The left side, not as bad. :)
I can't even pretend like I'm having a good week. I killed all of my stem cells again. Yea. Start over and wait 5 weeks again. That's fun. Work sucks, pretty bad. It's a good thing I'm done at the end of December.
To top it all off (and it's only Wednesday!)... My separated shoulder still feels like crap, so I haven't gotten to ride for the past 3.5 weeks. Today I went to try to ride my bike, and it hurt, but I just didn't care, I'm going stir crazy sitting around. I was riding on the pump track at the Fix, and I kept thinking that it was really weird that it sounded like my tire was buzzing something when I would corner really hard. Every once in awhile the tire will buzz my foot in this situation, but that was not the case. I stopped and noticed that my wheel didn't look straight. Hmmm, the QR isn't broken, the dropouts look fine. What could the problem be. Then I looked farther up the fork, and it's EFFING BROKEN! I mean it's really cracked, and almost all the way through on both sides. That's brilliant. I'm pretty psyched about it. I'm glad I noticed and stopped riding before it broke through. Sorry, I'll try to cheer it up after today. :)
To top it all off (and it's only Wednesday!)... My separated shoulder still feels like crap, so I haven't gotten to ride for the past 3.5 weeks. Today I went to try to ride my bike, and it hurt, but I just didn't care, I'm going stir crazy sitting around. I was riding on the pump track at the Fix, and I kept thinking that it was really weird that it sounded like my tire was buzzing something when I would corner really hard. Every once in awhile the tire will buzz my foot in this situation, but that was not the case. I stopped and noticed that my wheel didn't look straight. Hmmm, the QR isn't broken, the dropouts look fine. What could the problem be. Then I looked farther up the fork, and it's EFFING BROKEN! I mean it's really cracked, and almost all the way through on both sides. That's brilliant. I'm pretty psyched about it. I'm glad I noticed and stopped riding before it broke through. Sorry, I'll try to cheer it up after today. :)
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Off to Angel Fire...
for collegiate mountain bike nationals. Hopefully I'll post an update or two while I'm there. Keep your fingers crossed that the headline of the update is: CU crushes FLC in men and women's DH and MX, also beats them in XC and ST to take the overall Division I title! :)
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Chance and the Universe
So, as I was leaving work today, I began to wonder why the Universe seems to make me "bump into" (not literally, of course) people on a fairly regular basis that I would actually rather not see all of the time. I wondered if it was dictated my similar schedules, but it doesn't seem so, or just plain random. Regardless of the causes, I was a little annoyed with the Universe for messing with me. Not 5 minutes later, I'm walking down the bike path and a girl says, "Is your name Neven?" I was a little taken aback, as I didn't recognize her at first, but then I realized that she was someone that I had gone to middle school with. It was good to see her, her husband, and her cute baby, so maybe that was my lesson about not getting annoyed with chance occurrences. You can't predict them, and I would have hated to miss out on running into her, just to not have to run into someone else.
Oh, and often on my way home, I pass this guy walking down the street that I live off of. He wears this hat, kind of one of those fishing hat things. Only, he wears it tilted back with the string cinched under his chin. EVERY time, I think, why is that guy wearing a bonnet?!? Then I get close enough to realize that it's just the fishing hat guy who must be worried that it's going to blow off of his head or something. It makes me laugh, though. :)
Oh, and often on my way home, I pass this guy walking down the street that I live off of. He wears this hat, kind of one of those fishing hat things. Only, he wears it tilted back with the string cinched under his chin. EVERY time, I think, why is that guy wearing a bonnet?!? Then I get close enough to realize that it's just the fishing hat guy who must be worried that it's going to blow off of his head or something. It makes me laugh, though. :)
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Wow, Thanks for Checking Back
So, I have been super slack with my updates, but it's really only because I have been SUPER busy, so I'll give the quick and dirty updates of what's been going on since I last posted. So, sorry for the long, wordy update, there are some pics and a video for your entertainment at the bottom.
Snowmass Nationals- The final Norba National race of the year. MX was disappointing. I qualified 3rd, and then crashed in the finals for 4th. 2nd podium at a national race, so that was good. I ended up 5th overall in the series. DH was slippery in the morning for qualies, and then we had the most fabulous hero dirt for finals. Lisa killed it and was on the podium, giving her 3rd overall for the National series. Jo Jo had a horrible mishap in practice and broke her ankle. She's had surgery and is healing quickly! Oh, yes, then there was the SRAM afterparty. Jeremiah Dylan Dean kept buying more and more and more drinks. We'll leave it at that. :)
SICK SICK SICK- I spent over a week as sick as I have been since I was a kid. That pretty much just sucked!
Keystone Race- I think this was the worst race that I had all year. The only consolation was that I didn't hurt myself. I ended up 2nd overall in the Mountain States Cup series, so that was pretty cool.
Back to grad school- I am very excited about grad school this time. I am doing some really cool research with some cool polymers and stem cells. I'll give a better update later on.
Start of the Collegiate Season- Beaver Meadows, one of my favorite courses. It is so much fun to ride this course. I had a few issues during my race run, including, but not limited to crashing several times and doing some sweet trials moves like track standing to wait for a Men's C rider to get out of my way at a crucially technical part of the track. Oh well, on a much better note. TJ killed it and showed FLC who's going to be on top of the podium at Nationals next month!
MX in Nathrop- CSM put on a race down in Nathrop on my favorite course ever. It was super gusty windy, but we all had a good time anyway. I got my first real win of the season, so that was fun!
Molly's Visit- Molly was in town for almost a week, and boy did we paint the town! The Sun's, sushi, CU Cycling party, hours of darts, lots of good food. Getting to hang out with Molly is too infrequent!
AND THEN...
Final D in Angel Fire- In a few words...Tons of fun, rain, sleet, snow, lots of mud, and quite a bit of drinking for all!
It was rainy and snowy for practice on Friday, but it was a lot of fun to ride the two courses. Saturday we woke up to 3-4" of snow on the top of the course. This made the upper section of the course not quite as fun, okay I'm lying, I was flipping miserable until I got out of the woods, then it was sliding festival 101. Beta course was a bit better. I learned a big lesson at this race. Don't mess with your equipment when it's not really broken. My shoes were soaking wet and miserable and I had another pair of brand new, never used (key here) shoes. I tossed my cleats on my shiny new shoes and headed down for my race run. Funny thing, I couldn't clip in. Hmmm, I ran to borrow Cody's allens and flip the cleats, even though I now they go either way. It didn't help. I did most of my race run not clipped in at all. Oh well, I guess this was the race to learn my lesson at. This just meant that the drinking started that much sooner! Oh and did we have a good time at the costume party!
Brian Buell killed it all day. He raced collegiate and got 2nd to Chris Heath. He also raced Pro Open and killed them all! Then he showed us all how to dance all night at the party.
Snowmass Nationals- The final Norba National race of the year. MX was disappointing. I qualified 3rd, and then crashed in the finals for 4th. 2nd podium at a national race, so that was good. I ended up 5th overall in the series. DH was slippery in the morning for qualies, and then we had the most fabulous hero dirt for finals. Lisa killed it and was on the podium, giving her 3rd overall for the National series. Jo Jo had a horrible mishap in practice and broke her ankle. She's had surgery and is healing quickly! Oh, yes, then there was the SRAM afterparty. Jeremiah Dylan Dean kept buying more and more and more drinks. We'll leave it at that. :)
SICK SICK SICK- I spent over a week as sick as I have been since I was a kid. That pretty much just sucked!
Keystone Race- I think this was the worst race that I had all year. The only consolation was that I didn't hurt myself. I ended up 2nd overall in the Mountain States Cup series, so that was pretty cool.
Back to grad school- I am very excited about grad school this time. I am doing some really cool research with some cool polymers and stem cells. I'll give a better update later on.
Start of the Collegiate Season- Beaver Meadows, one of my favorite courses. It is so much fun to ride this course. I had a few issues during my race run, including, but not limited to crashing several times and doing some sweet trials moves like track standing to wait for a Men's C rider to get out of my way at a crucially technical part of the track. Oh well, on a much better note. TJ killed it and showed FLC who's going to be on top of the podium at Nationals next month!
MX in Nathrop- CSM put on a race down in Nathrop on my favorite course ever. It was super gusty windy, but we all had a good time anyway. I got my first real win of the season, so that was fun!
Molly's Visit- Molly was in town for almost a week, and boy did we paint the town! The Sun's, sushi, CU Cycling party, hours of darts, lots of good food. Getting to hang out with Molly is too infrequent!
AND THEN...
Final D in Angel Fire- In a few words...Tons of fun, rain, sleet, snow, lots of mud, and quite a bit of drinking for all!
It was rainy and snowy for practice on Friday, but it was a lot of fun to ride the two courses. Saturday we woke up to 3-4" of snow on the top of the course. This made the upper section of the course not quite as fun, okay I'm lying, I was flipping miserable until I got out of the woods, then it was sliding festival 101. Beta course was a bit better. I learned a big lesson at this race. Don't mess with your equipment when it's not really broken. My shoes were soaking wet and miserable and I had another pair of brand new, never used (key here) shoes. I tossed my cleats on my shiny new shoes and headed down for my race run. Funny thing, I couldn't clip in. Hmmm, I ran to borrow Cody's allens and flip the cleats, even though I now they go either way. It didn't help. I did most of my race run not clipped in at all. Oh well, I guess this was the race to learn my lesson at. This just meant that the drinking started that much sooner! Oh and did we have a good time at the costume party!
Brian Buell killed it all day. He raced collegiate and got 2nd to Chris Heath. He also raced Pro Open and killed them all! Then he showed us all how to dance all night at the party.
Brian, Caroline, and me Having a Great Time at the Costume Party!
Hugs and Pictures, A Theme for the Night
Classic Caroline!
Phil as Matt Thompson, me as a Fairy, albeit a Drunk One, and TJ as Gangsta Cat in the Hat
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Using My Sick Time at Work Legitimately! :(
Girls Who Play in the Dirt Clean Up Pretty Good, Too!
So, I have been sick, REALLY SICK since last Friday. Lisa, Tammy, and I had a great weekend of staying in the mountains and riding bikes all weekend planned. Well, they got to do all that and had a ton of fun. I got to get super acquainted with the bed in my new bedroom. I really don't have the patience for being sick. I've got stuff to do, you know? I think this might be my body's way of making me let my collar bone and shoulder heal from the crash a couple of week's ago. I think I did a number on it but just wouldn't admit it to myself because I wanted to race so badly at the Snowmass finals.
Anyway, I did join Lisa and Tammy for an exquisite dinner on Saturday night up in Beaver Creek. Great food and wine combined with awesome cool DH girl company made for a great evening! They had a lot of fun riding, too! I wish I could have joined them. :(
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Vegas: Less Than 24 Hour Style
Some Good Pool Lounging Time
Emo Kevin Is Like a Cat...He really Doesn't Like the Water
You'd Think This Was at the End of the Night Considering None of Us Know What We're Doing!?!
Cathy and I had decided to make the 3 hour trip down to Vegas from Brianhead for a night after the race. Fisher, Kevin, and Caroline joined us for the adventure at the Luxor Hotel. It was great fun filled with sitting by the pool, getting dressed up, drinking too much wine, riding roller coasters, running around the strip, and overeating at the breakfast buffet. Vegas was complete sensory overload for me, so it was good to go just for the night and leave the next day!
Fisher's Hair Was Amazing!
Kevin Was Generally Mad As They Kept Putting Him "Timeout" Since He's Not 21 Yet
We Saw Some Amazing Mullets!
Fisher and Cathy Were Determined To Make Big Bucks on Video Poker...Didn't Happen
2:30 a.m. and Still Going Strong!
Brianhead: The Injury Report
Brianhead has it out for me, I've decided. Last year I dislocated my finger and didn't get to race.
This year I had a bad feeling driving up the canyon, but I thought I was just being paranoid. I got through DH practice on Thursday and breathed a sigh of relief. On to DS practice. The course was super fast on top, and I felt like I was riding really well. Joanna and I headed back up to the course for a few extra runs when most people had called it quit for the day. I came up a little short tripling some rollers before this dumb wedge jump, and I bought the superman ticket to the med center. I'm not quite sure what happened, but the next thing I knew I was flying a good ways through the air to a rough landing. I ended up sublexing my collarbone in the front by my neck, and I got some pretty good scrapes on my back, too. When I finally got up and started walking down the hill, I realized that my rear wheel was messed up, either from the crash or as the cause of the crash. Who knows? I ended up trying to race DS after skipping DH practice on Friday. I had been taking Vicodin for the pain, and that was a bad idea to try to race on. I rode horribly and qualified last. This meant that I had to race Melissa Buell first round. I rode a lot better on Saturday even though it hurt like hell, but it wasn't good enough to advance. Oh well. DH didn't happen at all. I can't pick up the front end of my DH bike, so I didn't think it would be wise to try to ride one of the most difficult courses of the year with little to no upper body strength. Also, I really want to do well in MX this weekend at the Snowmass National. Hopefully I'll heal up this week and be able to ride well this weekend at the National Finals.
Last Year's Trip to The Med Center's Pictures
This year I had a bad feeling driving up the canyon, but I thought I was just being paranoid. I got through DH practice on Thursday and breathed a sigh of relief. On to DS practice. The course was super fast on top, and I felt like I was riding really well. Joanna and I headed back up to the course for a few extra runs when most people had called it quit for the day. I came up a little short tripling some rollers before this dumb wedge jump, and I bought the superman ticket to the med center. I'm not quite sure what happened, but the next thing I knew I was flying a good ways through the air to a rough landing. I ended up sublexing my collarbone in the front by my neck, and I got some pretty good scrapes on my back, too. When I finally got up and started walking down the hill, I realized that my rear wheel was messed up, either from the crash or as the cause of the crash. Who knows? I ended up trying to race DS after skipping DH practice on Friday. I had been taking Vicodin for the pain, and that was a bad idea to try to race on. I rode horribly and qualified last. This meant that I had to race Melissa Buell first round. I rode a lot better on Saturday even though it hurt like hell, but it wasn't good enough to advance. Oh well. DH didn't happen at all. I can't pick up the front end of my DH bike, so I didn't think it would be wise to try to ride one of the most difficult courses of the year with little to no upper body strength. Also, I really want to do well in MX this weekend at the Snowmass National. Hopefully I'll heal up this week and be able to ride well this weekend at the National Finals.
It Was Cathy's Birthday so We Had a Little Wine To Celebrate
Fishie's Wine Must Have Gone Straight to His Head at 10,000 ft...Nice Hat!
The Best Monday and Tuesday of My Life
Ahhhh, Mud EVERYWHERE!!
Andre's Personal Slip and Slide
Pretending to Be Hippos in the Mud
We Even Got to Do a Little Rock Climbing
Our Fearless Leader
So, I have met some really great people from riding my bike, and two of those people are Cole and Darryl Bangert. I had the very lucky opportunity to go on a float trip with them last Monday and Tuesday. Cole and Darryl are river kids through and through, so it was awesome to get to spend some time with them. Lisa and I drove through the night from Winter Park and slept in the Starbucks parking lot in Rifle to be able to make it to the put in to meet up with Cole, Darryl, and Andre in time. 9:00 found us shoving off for two amazing days of no agendas, swimming, back flips, cliff jumping and mud baths. I havenÂ’t been on the river in awhile, so it was really nice to get to spend a couple of days soaking up the sun and spending time with 4 really amazing people. Thank you Cole and Darryl for making this trip happen. YouÂ’re the best!
Andre's First Time in a Kayak
Look Closely, There is A Bald Eagle on the Shore Eating a Fish
Perfect Cliff Jumping Location
I was Super Whimpy about Cliff Jumping!
Cole Will Do a Backflip Just About Anywhere!
Cole Will Turn Anything Into an Adventure!
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
A Split Second
Me and Lisa Counting Our Earnings for the Weekend...Lisa KILLED the Rest of the Pro Women's Field!
We had our regional race in Telluride two weekends ago. IÂ’ve never been to Telluride before so it was awesome just to be there. The course is a really cool course with just about everything to offer: jumps, off-camber wooded sections, a good drop, and super high speed stuff at the end. I struggled with the course on Friday, but I really started to have fun on Saturday. It was actually really nice just to have one event to concentrate on this weekend.
Nate Winning $5 From Forest
I spent the weekend with the WP boys, Cody, Nate, and Forest. They always make me laugh, especially when Forest gets rain water dumped all over him in the middle of the night, TWICE! He always seems to have the worst luck! They made the many hour car rides very entertaining, too!
Professional Rain Dodging: Cody and Nate Passing the Time on the Drive Home
And Nate Claims He Doesn't Like Tomatoes...I Don't Believe Him!
So, when it comes to race time, the DH boys are pretty used to finishing within the same second as 1,2, maybe 3 or 4 other guys. It rarely works out that way in our races. This weekend, however, I learned the value of pedaling as hard as you can everywhere you can. I was the lucky one who ended up placing higher in the same second race this weekend. It was extra beneficial because it ended up being the race for 3rd and 4th, the difference between getting some money and not! PEDAL HARD every time that you can!!
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