Anyway

Something passed from father to son. (Written by Kent M. Keith)
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"Anyway"

People are unreasonable, illogical and self centered. Love them anyway.

If you do good people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.

If you are successful you win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for some underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you help them. Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.

Give the world the best you've got,

Anyway

From Sarge to Scott R

First of all I want to say that Sarge was a name given to me by Patrick who unlike me served in the military and flew helicopters. When I first started riding in Carson most of the facility guys were green(so to speak). At first I was just happy to be riding at lunch let alone be riding with a handful of guys that never complained. At certain intervals I would suggest things because I was careful not to come across as some know-it-all-biker idiot. I would suggest that maybe we shouldn't race from the very start of the ride and that maybe if we didn't do that we could ride farther. These suggestions weren't really a conscious thing. It happened over time. I'm no bicycle wizard but I always carried enough stuff to get me home. Some of the guys didn't(in the beginning) so I was quick to help with a flat or broken chain. Eventually I got comfortable with this group of people and started to yell and joke with them about almost anything bicycle related..... and one day...Sarge....When I moved back to Maryland in 2004 I didn't really do a whole lot of riding. I kept in touch with J-Mo almost the entire time and as I was dealing with other things he never stopped riding. He got new Sarges and started riding farther and eventually commuting. I just want to thank him for keeping me in the loop even when I was 2600 miles away and continuing to keep me in the loop when I moved back mid March. I'm now just happy to be one of the pack and I say that with all sincerity. No offense to Patrick but Scott R will be fine if there are more than 1 of us around.

In an effort to be wishy washy this is a pic of my sister Leslie(taken the night before I headed west) who is the most important person on this earth to me. Here are some excerpts from a birthday blog she wrote to me last year concering when we were kids...I suppose Sarge really is buried in there somewhere but I'm happy to let it go...................

He decided to toughen up his little sister and made her do "stuff" that she might not have been exactly ready for. Instance #1--"Les, just ride this skateboard down this big hill (although you don't ride skateboards)...do it.. you can do it!" Les takes her big brother's encouragement, starts down the hill, and doesn't understand why the skateboard is wobbling at a frightful pace the faster she goes.. ..she goes flying off of it and nothing but the pavement and her skin is there to stop her. Scott greets her with happy celebration as he scrapes her off the bloody road.
He eventually started to like his little sister slowly. He met her at another physical challenge telling her to get on a bike and jump a creek. He psychologically prepared her and told her "Mike Siglers little sister would do it". So Leslie got a good running start on the bike, hit the ramp, went over the creek and flew gracefully over the handlebars having them crush her right in the diaphram. She lay on the ground and Scott met her exuberantly as she tried to breathe. He said she did "good" and she was thrilled with his approval as she gasped for air.

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Cheers to friendship, tolerance and understading....As in life, these things are most appreciated in cycling.

Liggettisms

Too much downtime...I thought these quotes from Phil Liggett sum up the pic nicely...Thanks Mike.

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"He's wearing the mask of pain"

"The elastic has snapped."

"... his legs have turned to rubber and his effort reduced to mere survival."

"He's turned himself inside-out!"

Bridge to engine room-more power. There is no more"

Mid April happenings.

4 the 4 1/2 people who read this I thought I'd post a few pics of Lake Tahoe and give a quick update. Ellie was out last week and arrived in one piece after being stuck at DFW for 9 hours. Seems the FAA wants to get back to the business of making sure planes are safe and they've decided to take a hard line approach which means thousands of planes have been grounded for inspections. Whatever keeps me safe in sky I suppose. Anyway, we had a lot of fun exploring the area. Even though I worked in Carson City previously I am not familiar with the bars/restaurants/casinos here so we made a good effort in that regard. I had another pit bull encounter on a short ride we did behind the apts. Same dog but this time he was hiding in the sagebrush and when he jumped from the bush his big head was at my little leg in a nanosecond. It scared me so bad I fell off my bike but I think that satisfied the dog because he didn't attack me. I don't think there was enough meat on my leg for him. I need to find a way to make friends with this dog. Sunday Jeff took me on a ride and I was the slowest person by far but they didn't seem to mind. It will take some time for me to get in shape so I realize the back of the pack is better than what I was doing....which was nothing...We crossed a flock of sheep on the ride(see video) which was cool. Today against my better judgment I decided to ride the motorcycle around Lake Tahoe. This in and of itself isn't a big deal but there was a severe wind warning. I was getting tossed around a bit but nothing that scared me until coming back into Carson. A gust almost blew me off the road. 1st time that's ever happened. I got to see a big coyote pass in front of me too which was cool. As I write this I have my music loud because my dumb ass neighbor has wind chimes. I decided instead of telling her I would play my music loud enough to disturb the person beneath me and cause a chain reaction of apt living grumpiness. Next week I will take a test for a public dispatcher. Imagine calling me and getting my Dave Chappelle voice, 'stay calm bitcccchesss'...That's it in a nutshell You can now go back to your regularly scheduled programming. If your interested in pics look at the albums in picasaweb.