What a loaded title. At first I felt a little pride in the cunning of the words and there meaning but today it doesn’t seem to feel as smart. I also thought this would be a long post but I think its getting shorter by the minute. But I will get to the point since a lot has happened since my last entry (a full two weeks ago).
Gateway Cup
This was supposed to be a success I was to go and finish all the races and take the next step to racing at this level. It’s amazing that the steps that you think will be impossible you can achieve and the steps that you think achievable the impossible. At.Gateway there was 4 days of racing and I’ll give the overview of each for me and the team:
Friday, August 29, 2008 - Lafayette Square
This race I was a little nervous for. It is a night time crit and a straight up 4 corner crit 0.9 miles and 140 rider (maxed out) field. Well I got to the line up front (maybe in the 3rd row which was up front). We started out and a crash in front of me not 15 feet into the race. I got back into the field and about 5-6 laps in another crash in the center of the road going into the start finish. Well we were going all out the 5-6 laps prior to the crash and then having to go another all out effort to catch back on after being held up by the crash – I didn’t have it. I chased for a while and then was chased for a while. After being caught and passed I sat on the back for the most of the rest of the race. BTW there was another crash on the last lap that I got caught behind. Chad was pulling out the stops on the race and got 6th in the sprint.
Saturday, August 30, 2008 – Downtown Criterium
This race was hard with what seemed like 3/4th’s of the course going uphill. Unfortunately it was just too hard for me. I had bad positioning from the beginning and could never move up really well. Again Chad pulled it out with 4th on the day.
Sunday, August 31, 2008 – The Hill
This was one of the coolest races that I have done this year. The crowds were great and I managed to get good positioning in the beginning and keep it. I could see all of my teammates were I was sitting in the field. The temps were real high and we were all cooking. I went to unzip my jersey and ran over a hard cut in the road which knocked my remaining hand off of the handlebars and down I went at 30 mph. I got up and got back into the race but didn’t last but another 20 minutes as my hip was really bothering me and in pain. Chad and the team finished out the race and again Chad pulled in another 4th.
Monday, September 1, 2008 – U-City
After yesterday’s crash I needed to get back on the horse so to speak and trust me that’s not always easy. I didn’t feel great, to begin with my hip still hurt. Once racing I was too tense and with every jolt I just remembered the prior day. I tried to get over this but even with mental fortitude my hip and glut had pain every time we went up the hill. I hung on through the pain as long as I could and was done. Shortly after I came off so did Bill and Kolt. Chad was still fighting though and pulled out a weekend best 2nd on the day clinching 3rd for the weekend.
The weekend for the Team was good but for me not so well. I hope that next year I’ll be there with Matt, Bill, and Kolt; if I’m lucky in a few years maybe up there with Chad.
Gustuv
Almost 3 years to the day after Katrina, Gustuv ripped through Louisiana. New Orleans seemed to be spared for the most part but maybe only because of a mandatory evacuation that had close to 2 million people leave in preparations for the storm. We have widespread power outages that is quite possibly the worst ever encountered in LA. I would love to see a satellite photo or aerial shot of the week before Gustuv and the day afterwards. From New Orleans to Alexandria power was out for a majority of people. Fortunately I didn’t per say evacuate sine I was going to be out of town anyway but I was forced to leave nonetheless. Even more importantly I was left in St. Louis with no immediate home to return to and really no place to go. I met up with Jessica P. when she evacuated up to St. Louis (Jessica went to the University of Washington in St. Louis for her masters and thus had friends there). I met up with Jessica at my race on Sunday and she was watching when I crashed. Monday after racing we met up and she took me to Ted Drew‘s which I was told was going to be the highpoint of my trip. As instructed I got the Great Pumpkin Custard and it was good. The next day we met up and went to the zoo and accompanying museums that were all free. I met a poor (intellectually poor) guy at Chipotle that thought we were still evacuated from Katrina. Tuesday night I stayed with Jessica’s friends Jill and Wayne who were great hosts. We decided Tuesday afternoon to make the trip back to New Orleans. The reports were that the city would open up to people at 12:01 am on Thurs. morning. I was hoping to get there around 11:00 pm and hope that they would le us in being so close to the re-entry. We were trying to avoid the traffic of 2 million evacuees.
We ended up getting back to New Orleans at 12:10 am Thursday morning. They actually started letting people re-enter earlier in the day although it didn’t seem like it. The streets were that of ghost towns; the only life on the streets were camouflaged figures carrying M-16’s. My power was out so I once again met up with Jessica and we again found ourselves staying together.
Grandma
On Thursday morning after a couple hours cleaning debris off of the road in front of my condo I got 8-9 missed phone calls and messages from my mom the one of which caught me the most was 911! I thought Mr. Wayne may be hurt or having trouble without electricity. I called her back and in tears she told me that grandma had fell sometime during the night and my uncle found her early Thursday morning, she was unconscious, not responding but said she had a strong HR. I tried to calm my mom down telling her that we would have to wait and see what the doctors said and that it was early to get all upset about it yet; we would have to wait and see. The next time I spoke to my mom about 2 hours later she told me that after running some tests that grandma was considered brain dead and that they were going to pull the breathing machine off of her; she told e they didn’t know whether it would be hours or days that she had left. I told her that we would leave soon to try to see grandma. I left my condo shortly after that and was driving back to Jessica’s when I got another phone call not 15 minutes after the first call. Grandma had passed.
I’m now sitting in the funeral home while the wake is just getting underway. I’m supposed to be typing up obituary that my mom has been slaving over the past few days, but I just can’t bring myself to write it just now. I loved my grandma, she was a friend, a protector and a mother to me in addition to being a grandma. Last night we were going through some stuff to get things together for today such as pictures and such. With every box that I opened there was a picture of me as a boy or something I had given her. When we moved to Louisiana and experienced Mardi Gras we brought her some beads to show her what a small part of Mardi Gras was like. After that, she would ask us for new pretty beads when we came to visit. In her closet she must have had every bead we had ever given her; I found toys of mine from when I lived with my grandparents; just like I left them. I loved my grandmother. This is the wake for my Grandma; tomorrow will be the services and the burial. Grandma always did have good timing; tomorrow is her and my Grandpa’s wedding anniversary; Nearly 10 years after he passed she’ll be re-joining him. This is the grandmother I will remember – a picture taken only 3 months ago.
