Sunday, January 3, 2010

Time to Catch Up

I have been lazy about updating this blog - mostly because I have just been lazy, period. Too much watching football and eating, and not enough time on the bike have made it easy to ignore the blog, so I thought that I would catch up today with some random stuff.

Julie and I went to Chicago for our regular trip to the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic the week before Christmas. The convention moved from the Hilton and Towers south to the gigantic McCormack Place convention center. This was good and bad, as there was more room for clinics, concerts, and displays, but made it inconvenient to travel back and forth to the hotels, restaurants and shopping.

The display room in particular was huge:


We attended a great concert by the Chicago Symphony Brass up at Orchestra Hall in the Loop:


One nice thing about the move to this site - it is closer to Chinatown which has fun shopping and some great places to eat:


We still managed to get up to the Magnificent Mile for some shopping. Here are Christmas decorations at Bloomingdale's and at Macy's:


I've always enjoyed the architecture in Chicago, it is a fascinating blend of old and new. Here is a view of the Wrigley building and the Tribune tower with the new Trump tower in the background, and a picture of the buildings along the river taken next to the Trump tower.


After returning, we had our Christmas totally screwed up by the weather. We didn't get to see my wife's new nephew due to their family having to fly back to Arizona before we could get up to Omaha to see them. My son (who is in the Husker marching band) had his trip to San Diego cancelled, only to see his sister (who is in the LSE band) take his place. She missed the family celebrations as we couldn't get up to Omaha to see family until after she had left for San Diego.

My big Christmas present was this Spinervals DVD.


With this weather, it looks like the only group rides in my near future will be with this guy:

This is my first Virtual Reality workout DVD - all of my others feature other cyclists on trainers. I must say it is a little weird when Troy calls "Car up" or scolds me for not staying on his wheel. I am convinced that by the end of winter I will be able to take some pulls, and maybe even drop him.

In other cycling news, the Tour de Nebraska brochure is out - we are heading to south-central Nebraska. Dates are June 23-27, the route runs from Clay Center to Minden to Cambridge to Alma to Red Cloud and back to Clay Center. Day 1 - 57 miles, Day 2 - 65 miles, Day 3 - 60 miles, Day 4 - 73 miles, Day 5 - 54 miles. It will be a counter-clockwise loop, so with a SW wind we should have some kind of tailwind the last two days. Looks pretty easy, should be plenty of time for exploring the towns. Anybody else going to do the tour this summer?

8 comments:

Bruce said...

We're planning on doing TDN, but will only go as far as Alma. Then it's off to Carroll, Iowa for a family wedding Saturday afternoon.

Bob K said...

Looking forward to seeing you guys!

kevin said...

At this point, I'm leaning toward not doing TDN.

nicol said...

Why, Kew? No time? I don't think I am going to be able to because of my upcoming new "schedule" but I want to. I hope I can. It'd be more fun with a lot of friends, but it's a definite time commitment that has to work into the schedule.

kevin said...

Yeah -- time is a big factor. Getting my mileage up takes time. We'll see how it works out.

Bob K said...

Come out to a group ride one weeknight a week and do a longer ride on Saturday or Sunday for a month, and you'll be ready.

kevin said...

Two rides a week, for a MONTH?!

jmesserer said...

Happy New Year Bob.

Angie and I are in.

I look forward to the training and the tour.

Cheers
J