Visitors: Curtis and Janine

Last night Curtis and Janine dropped by for a visit. Curtis is my "little older brother" and Janine is his wife. They were in town for a church thing and stopped by in order to crash before returning home to the greater LA area this morning. It was great to have them over since we only see each other a few times a year. They seem to be doing well with the church's website and new television station that they are creating.

Character Building.....

Today was another fine day in Northern California. I think the high temperature was in the low 40's with a lot of rain and a little breeze. Which is a perfect day to lounge by the fireplace and drink a fine Cabernet while nibbling on some creamy brie on sourdough bread. Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) I am still juggling full time Engineering and full time cycling (so does that mean I am giving it 200%?). So I did not have the choice to take a recovery day and wine and dine by the fire. For those familiar with the area, I rode from my house to Occidental and then did the Chileno Valley Grasshopper loop. It was quite the ride cosidering the weather. Fortunately, my Marmot rain pants and Merrell Shell / Jacket kept me nice and toasty for the most part. Up the hills I unzipped the jacket and once at the top I closed down the hatches for decending. 6 hours later, Emily had a beef stew in the crock pot and we shared a couple glasses of local Shiraz (by the fire of course).
The pictures are from the top of the Marshall Road climb. Misty eh?!?

Food Update: Riviera Ristorante

For y'all that are ever visiting Santa Rosa, make sure you go by the Riviera Ristorante. OK, I am a little bias with the place since they sponsored the Norcal team this last year and GP has a habit of dropping me on rides. But still, every time I go there Emily and I order something different, and every time, their interpretation of the dish blows my mind. Last night was a simple Pappardelle with sausage and if it wasn't for Emily sitting next to me and the beautiful ambiance, I'd have licked the plate. Then there was the deserts.... wow.... trippel cholocate mousse and tiramisu.... with coffee... not sure how you could top that!

Cheers to the gang at the Riviera!

MMMM...... MMMMMM...... Tasty! Stout Brothers

I have had a few friends from school visiting me for the past couple days. They are Matt, Emmaly, Toya, and Nick. It has been fun so far. They have been going out and doing the typical San Francisco / Sonoma County touristy stuff during the day and hanging out with us in the evening. Last night, we had a fix'n for some Irish food. So we walked downtown Santa Rosa and found Stout Brothers. It was the kind of tasty that makes you want to go for a 2 hr run after, but man was it wirth it. I had the waiter "Burger me" (TM, Kevin B.) and had a Smithwick's. Although it is a classic, next time it's gonna be a Guinness. Matt had a traditional Shepards Pie... I don't remember the rest, but if you are in the mood for tasty Irish food, a friendly wait staff, andan Irish pub restaraunt, I highly recommend it.

Rid'n the rain

This year's rainy season kicked off with a bang yesterday. JP and I went out in the pouring rain for a 5 hr ride and man-o-man was it wet...and cold... I think John said it was 36 degrese when we started. However I got to tell you, being prepared for the weather was a learning curve for me. Most winters in Nebraska I spent a lot of time with my MTB in the snow on paths well covered by trees. So even though it is cold (let's say 10 degrees F on any given winter day) it was simple to stay dry. Last year I spent all of the rainy weekends up in Tahoe at Royal Gorge, so once again staying warm was easy with the precipitation was snow. But, fortunately I had JP there to push me along. We started the ride at NorCal Bikesport a tad under dressed. But on the way out of town, we turned back to myhouse to get warmer stuff. He headed out again, but by the time we were down the block, my toes were numb again. So we headed back and took a "rain delay." We warmed ourselves by the fireplace and I found the heavy duty cycling gear.

1: Marmot Rain pants
2: Pearl-Izumi Amfib insulated bib pants
3: Smart wool hiking socks
4: Insulated booties
5: Capo Bib Shorts
6: Capo Jersey
7: Capo Thermal Jacket
8: Merrell Soft shell Jacket
9: Craft insulated gloves

That's a lot of stuff to put into the washer after 1 ride... geesh! Oh well..

Any tips on how to train in this cold weather would be welcome. Lemmee know!

P.S. Wilow Creek is beautiful rain or shine.

Herbie Husker strikes at Santa Rosa Cyclocross

Yesterday, I did my first cyclocross race of the season and as expected, it was pretty fun. Here in Cali, CX races have beer flowing, live music, and lots of fun people to hang out with. However I have to respond to the most common question I have gotten about the race, so here it goes.... No, I did not break my new CX bike. I have been riding it a lot lately and enjoying the heck out of it. But I got to tell you, there is a simple pleasure I get out of racing on a SS, out geared, out gunned, and over loaded (with beverage ;-) ) that I cannot get any other way. So for those of you that have wanted to try racing cross but think you need to go out and buy all sorts of fancy stuff to have fun, think again!


Special thanks to Veronika Lenzie for the photos! Did I mention photos make great christmas presents. ;-) She does sell them you know!

Plant Closing

Dear Friends and Family,

Today is an upsetting day for me and my co-worker at 3M in Petaluma. We were gathered today to learn that 3M Petaluma will cease operations in June of 2009. The next 6 months or so will be spent transferring manufacturing lines to other 3M plants around the country. The reason why I am posting this is because I know many very talented people from production workers, maintanence, warehouse, supervisors, engineers, and managers that will be looking for jobs over the next 6 months. So, if you or somebody you know needs good people to work for them, please let me know and I can refer you some top choices. If you know somebody affected by this, please be considerate to them while they work through these tough times.

Thank you

Folks from Petaluma

Look who I bumped into yesterday! I was just minding my own business doing a few intervals up Lynch Creek Road in Petaluma and I ran into some of the stars of the Casa Grande High School MTB gang. I am very impressed with what Colby and Riley are doing to try to share this sport with others. Which reminds me, if any of you have cold weather gear that you no longer use, these guys need it much more then some scumbag on eBay trying to score a bargain. So if you have some stuff (size small to large probably), give me or Yuri a message.