Well, well, well… 2008 already. I haven’t written or posted any pictures in a while. My New Years Resolution is to post once a month! Even with my schedule, I can do that… right?

So let me sum up July-December 2007…

Waves-to-Wine Bike Ride

Amazingly, I made it! 155 miles in two days with about 10,000 feet of climbing! I had a big plan to blog my training experience as well as the race weekend. Oh well… Here are my scattered thoughts and tales regarding my training and the 155 mile ride…

• My first bike (a hybrid not a light road bike) almost killed me!
• It has been 4 months since the ride and my ass still hurts!
• On my first training ride with the team, my bike chain snapped 4 miles into a 40 mile ride! Luckily I was 6 blocks away from a bike repair shop!
• On four of the first five training rides, I got lost! The worst part of that is that I rode an extra 5-8 miles each time (after 40-50 miles, that makes a big deal)!
• I LOVE the camel pack (water in a backpack)! Combine that with my iPod and I cold ride all day!
• A real road bike with all the accouterments makes ALL the difference in the world!

Some tidbits from the ride weekend…

• We started at around 7:30am from PacBell Park (alright, it is really AT&T Park now, but I can’t cal it that).
• The first 30 miles had the most climbing, but I was fresh and powered through it.
• I only got 4 hours of sleep the night before the race (we had a pack meeting and couldn’t sleep because I was still wired and had to get up at 4am). Around mile 34 it began to hit me.
• It was a great party, going from rest stop to rest stop every 15-2o miles until… MILE 56!
• FYI there was a woman that rode the ENTIRE 155 miles on a unicycle!

At the rest stop at mile 56, I really didn’t think I was going to make it. I was out of gas. Completely out of gas. I still had 24 miles to go! I sat at the rest stop at mile 56 for 45 minutes. I drank my fortified water, ate oranges and GU (basically sugar with electrolytes and such) and peanut butter on bread. Then, suddenly, I got a second wind! I jumped on my bike and plowed through the rest of the first day!

• The end of the first day was a rush. I had a tent set up for me by some volunteers form Bank of America. They were awesome!
• I ate a good dinner, drank 5 pints of Blue Paddle (the Pislener from the makers of Fat Tire, New Belgium Brewery) and racked out about 8:30pm

The second day was a lot better. It was freaking freezing in the morning. By the afternoon it was warm. Ah, California! The second day was not a bad ride. I was with a friend that was slower than me (if you can believe it). I stayed with him most of the day. That coupled with the fact that there was not too much of a climb made it a fairly “easy” 80 miles.

• It was not until bout 45 miles into the second day that we finally saw grape vines (Waves-to-WINE, remember).
• Over the HUNDREDS of miles I rode when I trained, I got ONE flat tire and that was because I was careless and hit a curb.
• Between mile 55 and 66 on the second day, I blew my tire THREE times (and I only had two spares).
• I was on the side of the road all alone until a few people rode by and gave me spare tires and tire patch kits!
• My buddies came back and I rode my ass off the last 15 or so miles and finished strong! Although, I had been going so slow most of the day riding my another friend of mine, I missed most of the end party!

Jenn, Casey and Quinn were at the end waiting for me! The guy that talked me into it all (John Connolly, an AWESOME guy) stayed with me most of the day. He was an inspiration to me the entire time we trained. Thanks John!

It was a LONG hard ride, but it was worth it. Not only to me personally, but I also raised money for a very worthy cause. Finding a cure for MS is no joke. If I can be part of that it was all worth it.

Finally, thank you to all of my AWESOME donors. Without you, I could not have done it!

Bill Got an iPhone!

Yes, I got an iPhone!!! It could be the greatest piece of personal technology EVER! One of these days I will create a blog post just about the iPhone. I setup a special website that I can send pictures to directly from my iPhone. Check out the link on the left side of this page!

Jenn Goes Back to Work!

Jenn started teaching again. She was hired less than a week before school started!! She is teaching 4th grade at the school Casey and Quinn attend. It has been an adjustment for all of us, but I think we are finally starting to settle into a routine. More importantly, Jenn is finally feeling like she is getting a handle on 4th grade.

Quinn Starts Kindergarten and Casey Starts 2nd Grade

It was a big school year for us. Quinn started kindergarten. It was an emotional day for me. Seeing my little guys growing up. Jenn had to get her own class started, so I took the fellas to their classes. I put pictures in the gallery, if you haven’t seen them yet. They are some really cute ones!

The Holidays Were A Whirlwind…

Halloween came and before I knew it, we were watching the ball drop in Times Square! What the heck happened with the time?

• We had a great Pumpkin Palooza 2007! I took al lot of Halloween pictures with my iPhone. You can see them in my iPhone link.
• Thanksgiving was a good time. Jenn’s parents came up from Palm Desert. We watched football, ate Turkey and played games!
• Christmas was a great time! Jackie and Jonah came out, Jenn’s parents came up and we had a really good time! The only bummer was that Matt and Sanne couldn’t make it out.
• New Years was spent in Massachusetts with my family. It was so awesome to see everyone!

Other Tidbits

Of course there was way more that happened than I have written about. I am having a great time as Cubmaster of Pack 374. I am coaching Quinn’s basketball team and baseball starts in a few weeks, I’ll be coaching Casey’s team.

Well, that is a quick summary of events since July.

Bill

This may sound crazy to many (because it sure does to me), but I will be participating in the Waves to Wine bike tour (San Francisco to Healdsburg). It is a 155 mile bike ride over twodays on Sept 29 & 30. I have not ridden a bike more than 30 miles before (and that was quite some time ago). This ride begins at the AT&T Baseball Park in downtown San Francisco, continues along the San Francisco Bay, over the Golden Gate Bridge, up the scenic coastline of Northern California, and into the Sonoma Wine country.

 

Visit my Waves to Wine Website to see more!

I joined a 12 week training program, but I have missed the first three weeks! I have done a few rides on my own, but I feel very behind. I’ll try to keep things updates to let you all know how I am doing.

I went on a short ride today (about an hour and a half). I haven’t measured the distance of the ride yet, but

I will this week. It had some small hills. It was a hard ride. The rest of my team is riding for 3-4 hours. I am not worried about my conditioning yet, but if I can’t catch up in a week or two, I will start getting concerned.

 

Well, it has been an eventful 2007. There has been a lot that has happened since I wrote my last post (which was much too long ago). I wish that I could say I will post some pictures soon, but to be honest, I do not have a lot of free time these days. I’ll do what I can, when I can. So, let’s see if I can catch you up…

Cub Scouts

Casey has been involved in Cub Scouts for almost a year now. He really enjoys it. I was a Cub Scout and a Boy Scout when I was young. My brother Tom and I both attained the Eagle Scout rank. In fact, I was very involved with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) program for many years as an Assistant Scoutmaster in my troop and on camp staff. So I was VERY happy when Casey showed interest in scouting.

I joined the Cub Scout Pack with Casey last summer. The big leader in a Cub Scout Pack is the Cubmaster. As of last month, I took over as Cubmaster for our pack. It is a lot of responsibility, but I really enjoy doing it!

Sports: Basketball to Baseball

January and February both Casey and Quinn played basketball. I coached both teams. It was a lot of fun and I had great co-coaches and parents on the teams. The people who ran the league were also excellent! I look forward to coaching basketball again next year.

As for baseball, we are now in full swing. I am coaching Quinn’s T-Ball team through the YMCA and Casey’s baseball team in our local Little League affiliate. On top of Cub Scouts, it is a lot of time and effort. Some days I barely have time to eat dinner! It is worth it though. I enjoy working with the kids and being with Casey and Quinn as much as I can. Again, I have excellent parent help and assistant coaches or I would not be able to do it.

Quinn likes T-Ball, but I think he likes basketball more. Casey loves all of the sports he has played, but baseball seems to be his favorite. Well, that is, his favorite next to golf! As much sports knowledge as I can bring my boys, golf is not a sport I can help them with. That one we will have to leave up to Jenn and her side of the family.

New Video Technology

I am playing with new video technology. Windows Media sucks and I’ll only use an .avi if absolutely necessary. For most video I use QuickTime and .mov files. When I post videos on the web, I also use QT. That has worked very well for me, but it does require you to have QT installed. With the spread of the iPod and iTunes in the Windows world, that is not to much to ask. Still, I am always on the lookout for new technology.

I have been playing with converting my videos into .flv the Flash Video format. You can embed these videos quite easily and 99% of web browses have flash installed (especially now that everyone is going YouTube crazy). I have not made any new videos for a while (no time and my seven year old Macintosh is showing its age). I did convert a movie I made of the kids in 2005 just to see how well it works. My movie is not the highest quality video, but that is not a reflection on the FLV format, but on the source quality of the web video that I used. I embedded it right into this post. Let me know what you think.

I have a lot more to post, but I think I better publish this and add more soon. Tom, Colleen and Christian were in Cali visiting us at Easter and I have great pictures and some video clips of their visit. Until then, enjoy!

Bill

I have been a slacker since Thanksgiving! I have a bunch of updates that will happen over the next few weeks. Yes, that includes removing the falling snow and Christmas BatesCentral logo!

Bill

Thanksgiving weekend was a wonderful time at the BatesCentral Compound. It wasn’t the most boisterous Thanksgiving on record, we did not have any visitors from the East Coast and it was not the same without Uncle Tee here, but we still had a great time!

New Turkey Recipe

I tried a new turkey recipe this year. I brined the bird. For those of you who do not know what that means, I soaked the turkey in a salt water solution for about 8 hours. The brine I used was more than just salt water, it was made up of vegetable stock, brown sugar, all spice berries, candied ginger, peppercorns, and plenty of salt (kosher salt to be precise). After you brine the turkey, there is no need to baste the bird, because the juices are locked into the meat.

The funny part of brining the turkey is that you need a non-reactive container large enough to hold the brine and the turkey. We had a 19 pound turkey this year, not the largest one we have cooked (we had a 28 lb. turkey more than once), but it is still a large bird. A five gallon bucket from the Home Depot worked very well!

I thought that the turkey came out very nicely. I wasn’t blown away by the results, but I also made two grave errors. One, I did not realize that I used low sodium vegetable stock, so my brine was not as salty as it should have been and two, I left the turkey in a bit too long. It was not overcooked, but I think I should have taken it out about 20 min earlier. I will try the brining again for Christmas and then make a final decision on whether this will stay part of our tradition.

As for everyone else’s review… they all thought the turkey was good. No one was blown away by the results, but people did say they thought it was juicer than our previous turkeys.

Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving was not as hectic as previous years. We have traditionally spent part of the day making a Christmas themed craft. That worked out well when Jenn’s parents were in charge of dinner, but since the holiday moved to our house, it has been difficult to do! We won’t skip our Christmas crafts, we’ll just do them closer to Christmas.

We watched some football, but the hit of the day was playing hangman with Casey and Quinn. The kids have an art easel/chalkboard/whiteboard that we brought into the living room. We used the whiteboard side and played hangman as a family. It was a lot of fun and even Casey and Quinn were able to play!

While we were at at the dinner table I asked Quinn what he was thankful for. He replied, “I am thankful for all of my family and being together.” Even with family members scattered across the country, it was a good way to sum up the day!

Thanksgiving Weekend

The Friday after Thanksgiving was a very mellow day. We relaxed around the house. I have been working crazy at work lately and Jenn has been doing the same. It was good just to have a break for a day. Than night, Jenn’s parents watched the kids and we went to a movie.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving was a major “let’s eat leftovers” day! Mimi & gramps and Matt & Sanne came back over later in the day to watch the USC vs. Notre Dame football game. We also preformed the traditional ritual of cooking up plenty of bacon to make turkey sandwiches! Three pounds of bacon to be exact!

The other tradition that we have is to decorate the Bates Compound for Christmas the weekend after Thanksgiving. We no longer get a real tree. They are beautiful, but a real pain in the butt to keep up (and clean up after). We found a fake tree a few years ago that looks really good. We only got about 50% of our decorations up, but the tree is done, which is a big project.

The Sunday after Thanksgiving was another semi-rest day. As Quinn and Casey like to say, Sunday is football day! It was a big game this year, Patriots vs. Bears. Wow, the game was sloppy, but the Pats pulled it out! Some say it is a SuperBowl preview, but I don’t think so. No offense to the many Bears fans in my family, but I do not think they will make it past the NFC Championship game (and I have a feeling that they could go out first round). I think the Pats have a shot, but more realistically, it is a Colts year.

Wrap-Up

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone and we managed to have a great time. I did not add any pictures to our online gallery with this post. Honestly, I was so busy all weekend, I only took a couple of pictures.