The Think Tank

Joel, Rogan and myself rode in the annual Seattle to Portland bike ride last weekend.  For Joel and I, this was our fifth consecutive year, but it was Rogan’s first.  The weather was sort of funny: on Saturday it was really hot and humid.  It was 77 degrees at 5am on Saturday and near 100 when we arrived in Centralia; But Sunday was cool and it rained on us for about an hour as we were coming in to town.  There was even some thunder and lightning to welcome us home.

As some of you undoubtedly know, Joel was hurt very badly about 7 weeks ago when a board kicked back off his table saw and smashed him in the face.  He suffered multiple face and skull fractures, crushed sinuses and broken orbits.  His doctor told him that he could not do anything strenuous for 6 weeks.  Well, STP was about 6 weeks and a day away, and Joel was determined to complete the ride.  His family and girlfriend weren’t all that crazy about him doing it, but he did, and he made it through like a trooper.

There were sections where he I don’t think he was having much fun, but he pushed through, slow and steady.  I was very proud of him getting through it.  I’m not sure I could have done it.

Kyle, Joel and I are riding in the Seattle to Portland bike ride this weekend. We got to Seattle late last night because Kyle had work calls planned all afternoon, and we thought it would be better to get up here Thursday night so we could get a good nights sleep before the ride.

Of course, that is not how it actually turned out. Our friends Connie and Jennifer were in Seattle on vacation from South Carolina to tend to a few things at Marcie’s house in Seattle, so we stayed with them Thursday night, and there were a few projects that needed taking care Friday after work, so we didn’t get to the camp area (right by the start line) until around 11 o’clock. Mom and Connie dropped Joel off around 8 so he was already in his tent by the time we arrived at 11, coincidentally enough right at the same time as Kyle Boyd, who had spent The day with his family and friends.

About the time I was getting in bed, a fellow biker parked a few cars over from the van came over because he had locked his keys in his car and wondered if we might have something he could use to get in it with. We fished around and came up with some metal skewers and electrical tape, and he set off to his task. A few minutes later we checked in on him and he was still having trouble getting in, so mom and I started helping. Around 12:30 we finally got the car open, thank goodness. So now I am in my tent and going to sleep. We will be getting up at 5am so we can be on the road by six, hopefully.

I’ll try to post some more and maybe a few pics when we get to Centrallia tomorrow.

Joel and are taking part in the Providence Bridge Pedal this morning. More updates to come.

As many of you know because you so generously donated on my behalf, Joel and I took part in Reach the Beach, an annual bike ride fundraiser for the American Lung Association.

This year’s ride caused a bit of a stir and earned some airtime on the local news stations because the police in Amity – the halfway point on the 104 mile ride from Portland – setup a sting operation for bikers who ran a stop sign.  I have definite opinions on that, but I will address those in a bit.

All in all the ride raised more than $600,000 dollars for the ALA, which is a great accomplishment and an event record.  The ride was limited to 3,000 riders and sold out more than two weeks before the deadline.

The ride itself proved to be very pretty and mostly enjoyable, but much more difficult than either Joel or I thought it would be, and I had anticipated it being pretty tough.

Everyone I spoke to about the ride insisted that it was very flat, and indeed there was a significant portion of dead flat land from Newberg to Grand Ronde, but that leaves about 75 miles of climbing.  It wasn’t always super steep, but it was pretty constant.  As is clearly evident in the picture above, I am not a pristine physical specimen, but even still, this was pretty tough.

In fact, it was so hard that neither Joel or I finished.  Joel made it 50 miles and I got as far as 82, but eventually the hills and killer headwind were too much for me.

Click through for the full details.

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** Note: I made several posts about our trip to Florida while it was happening, but those were mostly submitted via my phone and only told a part of the story.  This is meant to provide you with the full story, including some details and funny bits which never made it into the previous posts.  I hope you enjoy it…  **

Joel and I have always wanted to see a Space Shuttle launch.  A couple years ago when NASA announced they would be retiring the Shuttle program, we decided that we were going to go see one of them.  As the remaining missions dwindled, we had yet to follow through on our dream.  But that all changed in the middle of January.

With a mere 5 launches left on the schedule we realized that it was now or never.  We heard from several people that if you could only see one launch in your life it should be a night launch, and the February 9th launch for mission STS-130 was the last night launch on the schedule, so that was our target.

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