The Second Half

Storm into the New Year like my name is El Nino……January features a new hotel management software installation that invariably brings a bucket load of issues due to human error. Our “owner’s weekend” is on the 23^rd and 24^th – where I get to pontificate, insinuate, and proliferate Don King-style the plusses and minuses of a tumultuous year where everyone’s profits are……..surprise! down. I can’t wait for that speech. I’ll need a 3” thick layer of Right Guard so I don’t pit out my pretty-boy Banana Republic shirt, which by the way will be selected based on the need to impress and intimidate, with of course cool undertones to calm the group. So corporate, so staged, so….. I sure hope it goes well.

11 days until the mountain bike state series starts and I still haven’t ridden in over a month. You can always pick out the Flagstaff riders in the crowd. We have white legs, white faces, no fitness, and most importantly – no expectations. We take our respective place at the starting line…by securing a back row spot, and once the gun goes off we race too hard trying to be competitive, then cramp up mid-way, and then gimp back to the finish well out of contention. You have to have a hole in your head to want to do this through March when you actually start competing.

I hate our state series because it’s geared towards desert dwellers. Of course when there are 3 million people in Phoenix and 1 million in Tucson versus 50,000 in Flagstaff….that’s what you get. In every other state series – the playing field is level because the climate is the same across the state. ‘Sconsin features the best series out there that starts in May and ends in October. Everyone trains in the Spring (well, those that want to win), and they all hit the start line with the same training opportunities. Ah well, time to shut up and ride.

I just booked a ski vacation for President’s Day Weekend in Durango, CO. It’ll be the first time I get Lyza in ski school for two straight days and I hope the sport consumes her. She, like most kids, wants to start on a snowboard, but I’m being the A-hole Dad and making her start on skis. That’s how I learned dammit, so that’s how she’ll learn. Nice – I sound like a workaholic, alcoholic, stuck in my ways, flat-top sportin’, black socks when I mow the lawn wearin’, American car drivin’ 1960’s dad.