Pooks Canyon

file photo Good job Joey, and congrats on your cat one upgrade.

I walked Leah and Axel downtown from our Durango vacation rental. The weather is grey and today's race to Silverton was cancelled but we're having fun.

Crazy Cat People - my neighbor asked me how many cats we had. I said, "Two." and he said, "Really? I see tons of cats at your house. " They must know Jon lives here. The third kitty in the pic is our favorite foreigner, Massimo! He is a sweet little guy - possibly still a kitten. Leah and Dara Making Bunny Salads... My Basement Window "Treatment" - if I cleaned the window it might actually look decent.

Peel some baking potatoes and slice into them using the following method: 1.) Place the potato in a large spoon 2.) Make cuts (short way) across the potato - about 1/8 inch apart - stopping only when the knife hits the bottom of the spoon. Now you have a potato ready to accept all the yummy garlic butter you drizzle over it. And don't forget the salt and pepper, too. Bake at 425 for 40 minutes, remove from oven, then sprinkle with bread/cracker crumbs and grated dry cheese (romano, parm etc) and drizzle with a little more garlic butter. Bake for another 20 minutes or until they're so golden you have to take them out and eat them!

High as a kite on his first dart, the lion runs, hoping for a second. Playing his favorite bondage game - anticipating the rubber pellet session to come. This lion is a super-freak. Our 2 year old mountain lion friend returned to the neighborhood where he was found last week , presumably for another tranquilizer fix. A photo of the lion, blacked out on barbiturates, can be seen in my previous post. Clearly he likes it and just keeps coming back for more. This is despite the fact that his pushers, after dosing him up, take him out back and shoot him with rubber pellets. This co-dependent relationship is unhealthy... and now they're strapping a GPS to him; he is no longer his own lion. Come on dude, clean up! Get out into the open space and have a nice deer. Stop lying under people's porches and feeding on raccoons.

We all ran in the fun run today at Leah's school. The kids all got water toys and Axel mixed it up with the big kids.

Meet our new pop-up camper _________________ (insert name here... suggestions welcome). The model is a Coleman Destiny, she weighs 1200 pounds and stands less than 4 feet tall when collapsed. For those of you that don't know, we will spend much of this summer working/racing/riding on the road through California and Oregon. With queen, full, and twin beds, dual Thule Bike Racks, outlets for laptops, awning, and propane stove we'll be styling wherever we choose to stop. With three more bike trays on the Subaru we can bring five bikes. Do you think that will be sufficient? Perhaps it is cutting it close ;)

Two blocks from Leah's old school Dad- wanna offer that mountain lion insurance again? What was the premium, 25 cents?

I spoke with The Beast this evening and he said today's stage was HARD. Apparently there was lots of climbing (10,000 feet) and but no climb exceeded 2 miles in length. So it was basically up and down all day and the front group had whittled down to 35 by the finish. The Beast finished with said group. Tomorrow's stage is a mountaintop finish in which he promises to "go uphill fast at the end of the stage." Always a viable strategy for mountaintop finishes. Hopefully he'll go uphill fast the whole stage. As for the photo, it's what came up when I google'd Tour of Arkansas.

The Bit Bakery We have bought the domain " TheBitBakery.com " and you can hire us by emailing getbits@thebitbakery.com. Tony from Brugge won the contest with his suggestion of "The Bakery"- Tony: email us for your free hour of consulting. Or meet up at a bike race in Flanders next winter and I'll buy you a Hasselt Koffee. Ps. I should probably mention for my Mom that a "bit" is the smallest unit of data on a computer.

Once Leah showed him how to do it he kept saying, "more, more."

The Library is exhibiting some great contemporary art. The medium is blown glass and the name of the exhibit is clever.

...to name the new company. Baker Industries is just silly. Feel free to comment anonymously if you're shy... we really need the help. The new company must be named by Monday! Thoughts? It would ideally be something unique enough that the .com domain is not taken. If your company name is used, you'll win one free hour of consulting from us. Or a cup of coffee. Your choice.

Mr. Pooks and I have gone in to the consulting business together! Do you know anyone who needs help with any of the following? Systems Integration XML, Perl, Java Web Development Database Development Database Administration Database Reporting Yep, that's us. let us know if we can help :)

Have you seen a Google Maps "street view"? I discovered it last night when I Google'd my address and had the map option of street view... surprised to find out my entire street was scanned in at the street level. To up the interest factor here: today I was reading bfisks blog and she has posted a street view in Cleveland where you get to see a person crashing their bike into a driveway. Just click here then click north on the street and use your mouse to look to the right.

The woman in this car, angry because I was riding my bike in the road (I was in the left lane to make a left turn), pulled dangerously close to my rear wheel and honked. She proceeded to swerve to the side of the road, running Jon and Axel in the trailer into the curb. She called the police because Jon called her the B word. I asked her why she was trying to run me down and she said bikes aren't allowed in the roadway. Ha. Jon should've called her something worse. We have a court date May 20th.

Jon and Dad have been playing this game now for 30 minutes... this is the state of play.

Posted by Mr. Pooks Mission: go as slow as possible, without falling outside the time limit. Status: accomplished. Stage 3 was the " Individual Time Trial ". Usually I'd be dreading this stage a bit; 40 minutes of suffering at maximum output. This time, however, a top finish was not the goal, but rather saving energy for a big push on the final stage on Sunday. This made for quite a pleasant ride, just steady so as not to finish with a time > %25 of the winners time, the traditional time cut (which however does not seem to be enforced at the Gila).

Posted by Mr. Pooks The Break: I'm down in Silver City, New Mexico, for the 6th consecutive year, racing in the Tour of the Gila. This is a notoriously mountainous race on the National Racing Calendar; so the field is top-notch. I had targeted the 2nd stage to try something. That "something" wound up being 60 miles spent in a 3-man breakaway. After riding conservatively on the first day; I knew I would have fresh legs for a strong attack today. As it turned out, our break was unfortunately not given a very long leash by the team of the race leader, Tecos. In this type of situation, a group of breakaway riders is sometimes allowed to gain a big lead before being reeled back in by teams wishing to contest the finish. In our case, we had to fight for every second, a nd in the end, we were caught with about 5 miles left to race. The Chase: The next couple of stages, an individual time trial, and a criterium, will be "rest" days for me, since I'm not going after