Bear Encounter

Growing up, I enjoyed watching nature shows on TV. Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom was a staple of Saturday evenings at our house along with Nature, Nova, and other shows. Plus, our family had a subscription to National Geographic for many years.

One thing I learned was that baby bears are always accompanied by their mother. I was reminded of this when I was out mountain biking in Flagstaff.

Here is the story, I went up to the Flagstaff Nordic Center to get some trail riding in. I needed to ride at altitude in preparation for the Fat Tire Ride and thought this would be a good venue to do so. All my friends who I could go with bailed on me so I went up there alone. I figured there would be other riders up there and riding alone would not be an issue.

This was almost a really big mistake on my part.

I figured if I could get about 20-25 km of riding in at elevation, it would be a good ride. So I start riding and there aren't any other riders on the trail... No big deal, I keep riding. Then after about half an hour I see something cross the trail in front of me...


I stopped, then I saw another one. Then I remembered about baby bears from all those nature shows. My mind immediately started wondering, where is the mama bear...

Oh s*** she is about 50m in front of me, and she is standing up!

Time to turn around NOW and pedal in the opposite direction as fast as I can. I won't be completing this part of the loop. Forget about the extra 4-5km, I don't want to be a bear's lunch!

After pedaling quickly for a while, I looked back, and kept pedaling. I was alone on my bike in the boonies with only a Swiss Army Knife as a potential weapon. After a while my heart rate came down to normal range and I kept riding.

Then I ran into a bunch of deer...

This was a ride chock full of nature, thankfully as the ride progressed the danger level of the critters I encountered lessened considerably.

Eventually I got int just under 20km, but I broke two spokes on my rear wheel. No matter, I got done before it started raining and kept a bear family at a safe distance. All in all, a good ride.

Word to the wise, don't ride your mountain bike alone, especially if you are not equipped to deal with bears.

Posting Binge?

I have been thinking about doing a bunch of postings, mostly to get things off of my mind. One of the key tenants of GTD is getting things out of your mind and into a trusted system. This blog would constitute a trusted system.

There is much to tell that I have not told. Things just get in the way, and the vivid memory fade a little bit. So here is what you can expect in the near future.

The Fat Tire Ride
Bear Encounter
20-Year High School Reunion
Minnesota Musings
New Site!
USMS Nationals in Seattle
Why I dig Scrum
...and many more

The goal of this blog remains the same as it was, talk about matters that are important to me. On the surface that sounds selfish, but my primary goal with the blog is to share. That means stories, thoughts, memories, opinions, and the like. You may not always agree with them but hopefully my random musings will give you some insight into what is going on in my life.

Look at it another way, you are being spared a bunch of SPAM in your inbox!

See, I am helping you out because I care. You can thank me later...

Right now duty beckons so I need to take care of some revenue-generating activities. That said, stay tuned because I will post more information here in the coming days and weeks. Who knows, some people may even read what I have to say.

Imagine that!

MotoGP Brno

Quick posting about the MotoGP race at Brno.

It is certainly Stoner's title to loose right now. He looks unstoppable and neither Rossi nor Pedrosa have an answer for him. The Suzuki bikes looked good again (will Biaggi come back next year with his WSBK team on Suzuki?) which causes me to wonder why Hopkins would leave them for Kawasaki.

When was the last time Kawasaki won a MotoGP/500 race?

Back to Brno, the factory Honda team is getting better but it is too late. Both of their riders struggled with the new bike and even though they are at least consistent right now, they won't challenge for anything.

Against all expectations, Ducati has produced a bike that can take it to the (massively funded) Japanese teams and put a young rider on it who has everything going for him. Looks like we will have another Australian bike champion soon...

New Marine Habitat

I have been slacking on my posts, please forgive me for doing so. Here is how I will make it up to you...



Looks like there is some new marine habitat off the coast of Australia now.

Plus, the old Aardvark (that's F-111 to you and me) is still handy with laser-guided bombs! Good to know that even though it is no longer in US service, our friends Down Under still put them to good use.

Oi!

Ctrl+Alt+Del

Ok, why does this make me laugh?

Will the Ctrl+Alt+Del keys now need to be placed on F1 steering wheels?