Baby

We are pleased to welcome Samuel Robert Stifler into the world. He was born last night (January 29) at 10.50 PM. He weighed 7 pounds 9 ounces and is 22 inches tall.

He is currently at Kosairs Childrens Hospital due to some complications with his lungs, but he is doing wonderfully and hopefully he will be home soon.

Kate and I are so happy and proud to be parents.

Deem Lake

Today it was a balmy 30 degrees, as compared to the single digit weather that the Ohio Valley had the previous couple of days, but the wind was gusting between 10 and 20 miles an hour, so I decided to ride out at Deem Lake rather than try and tackle a road ride.

Fortunately, I had much better luck today that my last ride out here, as my pedal did not come loose today. I met one of my old teammates in the parking lot and we headed off on the fire roads for about 2 hour ride.

This area must have been hit hard by the remants of Hurricane Ike back in September because there were lots of trees down in the forest. The fire roads that we were riding on follow the ridges of the hills in this area and so we were at the highest points for most of the knobs, and thus the areas that got hit the hardest by the hurricane. There were several trees that we passed that had literally been ripped out of the rock that they were growing in, by the wind. It is something that I have never seen before, unfortunately I did not have my cell phone with me to take some pictures of it. Instead these pictures just come from after the ride, one of a back water of Deem Lake and the other of one of the local fire roads.

Little Treasures

It is sometimes amazing the places that you can pass by and not even know they are there until you really stop and look at them. I found one of those places today, on a stretch of 14 Mile Creek, which is a few miles outside of Charlestown.

There are days that I like to get away from work for awhile and go exploring (even though I know most of the roads in the area from riding), and today was one of those days. It also happened to be a beautiful, though cold and sunny day, which certainly helped.

I was driving along and was actually thinking about stopping to take some pictures of a spot further up the road where it crosses the creek, but then just glanced over and realized that the road was running right along the edge of the river, and figured that I would stop to take a look. I got out, crossed the road, hopped over the safety barrier, and made my way down to the rock ledge, only to realize that I was almost 100 feet above the water.

The sight that I found is one of the coolest I have seen in Indiana, as the creek makes a wide bend, with one side high up and the other forming a flood plan. With the weather we have been having, there is nice edge of ice on the river. My only disappointment is that there was an amazing bowl just to the left of where I was standing that I tried to get a photo of, but my camera phone just didn't take a good enough picture of it.

Beer & Bicycles

So, with winter setting in, and the weather the way it has been, I have not had much of a chance to ride outside lately, so instead it has been a lot of days on the trainer, which is fine for reading, etc, but does not exactly lead to cool pictures or interesting ride reports.

So, instead, here is another Youtube video for Stella Artois beer that Kate and I saw last night when we were watching the Golden Globes.

Baby Pictures

Well, sort of, but here is Kate in all of pregnancy glory with just a few weeks to go. Went to the doctor yesterday and everything is looking good.

As for the bike picture, I swear that it was not my idea, Kate said there should be a bike in one of the pictures.

All Day Ride

With temperatures in the 50s today, and rain forcasted for tomorrow, this Saturday was a perfect time to get out for a ride.

Maybe I should add a warning here that the following is completely boring, but read on if you want.

Originally, I planned to do a ride with some guys from my old team at Deem Lake, which is a state recreation area here in Clark Co. It is a 20 minute drive from Utica, and so I left around 11:30 to get there around noon, when the ride was supposed to start. I pulled into the parking lot and just sat around listening to me book on CD for awhile, but then 12:00 came and went and I began to wonder if anyone else was going to show up. As I was just getting ready to leave, I saw another car go by that had a bike on its roof. I followed it to find the rest of guy at another parking lot, that should have been a sign that things were only going to get worse for me.

We left on the ride a few minutes later, and I only made it about 5 minutes into the ride when I noticed that my left pedal was acting funny. Turns out it was backing itself out of the crank arm, which is something I have never had happen to me before. None of the guys I was with had the tools to fix it and neither did I, so I had to hike it back to the car. Well, really I rode most of the way back, cause I was able to tighten the pedal down a little ways with my fingers. But halfway back to the car, the pedal came out again, and this time I noticed that there were some medal filings with it. By riding the pedal, I had accidently stripped the first few threads of my crank arm. I was kind of worried that I had ruined the crank arm. So anyway, I made it to the car and headed for the bike shop to see if they could help me.

To make a long story short (or at least shorter), yes the bike shop was able to help me and I was reminded yet again of the difference between people who made their living fixing bikes and people who putz around with bikes like me.

I even still got a ride in, which was nice because it gave me a chance to test out some new equipment on my bike, which was a new seat, the cranks that I thought I had ruined, and a carbon fibre fork. I ended up riding at the old River Road Country Club, just doing some laps there and watching all the people who were taking their dogs for walks.

The first picture is one of my favorite spots on the course. At that point, you come down off a small hill, and hit those a slight curve, but I guess maybe I just like the pine trees. The second is obviously my bike with the new stuff on it.