Hanging around

Last night was my first ride since the hilly 50 miler on Saturday. I rode with 6-7 guys from Parkview, since our route south from Spring Mill Park is still flooded. All the guys I ride with are much faster, stronger, and more experienced than I am. This is good! That means I will improve, if I can hang with them for a while. I got dropped at about 8 miles last night.

I could only do 20 miles last night, due to wanting to watch Luke and Ben play softball. I missed their first game but got there for the second. I think the ride turned into about a 40 miler for the other guys. My plan is to ride at least once a week with the fast guys and ride a few times on my own.

Looks like we are in for some bad weather this afternoon and evening. Crazy! I am trying to figure out if I can go to Joplin to help out for a few days. I need to sit down and take a hard look at the scheduled activities for the next few weeks. Today, weather permitting, I hope to help a couple of people locally with their downed trees.

Yesterday's container load was neat. I've had a little time to reflect on it. One of the neat things was the teamwork involved. It was fun! After it was all over, people stayed around. I think everyone was simply enjoying being around each other, feeling a sense of accomplishing something eternally significant.

I think I could start rambling here... Lots of things going on with lots of people. Some good. Some bad. That's life, eh? Luke took off this morning. He will live in Nashville this summer - his first summer to not live at home. I'm OK with that. I want him to become his own guy. He is getting quite involved in Guatemala and hopes to do his senior engineering project there - building a bridge. If he does that, then I want to go down with him to watch construction. We'll see...

Lester has finished his course work at Butler for the most part and is now doing his pharmacy rotations, learning pharmacy in different contexts. He will become a doctor of pharmacy in May of next year.

Rebecca graduates next week and is looking forward to being done with high school. She did not like the first 2-3 years but seems to have enjoyed the last part of high school. She has done really well. Ben is looking forward to the new football coach and the "pukeful" workouts this summer. Part of the last statement is true.

OK, see I did ramble, so now I must Ramble On to something else. Why am I thinking of Led Zep??