Upgrade!

We had a busy, fun weekend back in ND. Visited with the family, made a buttload of lefse, watched movies (Christmas Story!), played a bunch of card games, visited the gang at the bike shop and the Hub, etc. We got some really cool gifts as well. Tonia and Trent were excellent hosts, putting up with all of us and our dogs. As always, the trip seemed to go by much too quickly and before I knew it I was back at work on Wed. Only three days of work and then back on the road, heading to Michigan for our 2nd Xmas celebration. Craziness.

A few weeks ago I submitted my request to upgrade categories for road racing. I received an email a couple days ago saying that my request had been approved. So I am now a Cat 3 roadie! Yippee. I'm not sure how I'll do, but if anything the longer distance races will be good training for the mtb racing scene. Should be fun.
The Green Team had the week off for Xmas, and I will miss the game this upcoming Sunday since we will be out of town. I'll have hockey withdrawals by the time I play again. Stupid WI being too warm to have decent outdoor ice! :)

Random Notes

Not much new to talk about. I was going to do a season recap this week...but that can wait until later. Heather and I take off for ND tomorrow after work to celebrate Xmas with the Abraham family. I'm looking forward to that! Then the following week we are traveling to MI to visit the Josef family over New Year's. Good times.

Dave posted a humorous elf-themed video of the Team Brown Bear group from 24-9 this year. If you haven't seen it yet, go HERE to enjoy it. Nice job, Vino!

Not a good game on Sunday for the Green Team. Or, I should rephrase that...not a good game for the goalie for the Green Team. Goalies rotate in our league...there are 6 goalies and 6 teams and the goalies rotate around so that no team has an advantage over the others. Well, we got stuck with the same goalie as last week, and he played even worse.
Of the 20-25 shots that he faced, he let in 12 goals. Yes, I said 12. So we ended up losing to the last-place Team Grey, 12-5. I seriously think that we could have strapped the goalie pads on Foxy and he would have only let in 3 or 4 goals. I chipped in with 2 goals (both on the same shift) and 1 assist. Hopefully we can snap our 2-game losing streak after the holiday break.

Has anyone ever tried Xango, a juice from the mangosteen fruit? It is a supplement beverage...you're supposed to drink 1 oz. of it a day. It is $40 for a 25oz bottle.
Evidently they sponsor a bike team, and they had the Project One guys here at work design their team bike, so they sent a case to us to sample. I'm a little scared to try it, but I guess it tastes pretty good. I'll have to give it a whirl.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

London

Heather and I had a relaxing weekend at home. We got done with most of our Xmas shopping and just hung out. We also started cleaning out our basement. Just going through our pile of crap and throwing garbage out, donating some stuff to Goodwill, and organizing things on shelves. We've been getting a ton of snow in the last week or so...hopefully I can get out snowboarding sometime soon.

The Green Team took on Team White on Sunday and we lost 6-3. We battled back though after letting them get out to a 4-0 lead in the first period. Our goalie didn't have the best game and I didn't play that well either, getting no points. I think they passed us in the standings with that win, so we are now in 2nd place, but only one point behind them.

Led Zeppelin had a reunion concert in London on Monday night. Evidently 20 million people tried to get tickets for the 20k seat arena. That's insane. Here's some youtube highlights:

Whole Lotta Love
Stairway to Heaven
Kashmir
Good Times, Bad Times
The Song Remains the Same

Time for Rest

Hello all. So the big WI State Champ cross race was this weekend...and I didn't go. I woke up on Sunday morning to 6 inches of new snow, a driveway to shovel, and a forecast of rain for the day. So I decided not to go, I really wasn't in the mood to drive to Milwaukee and get myself and my bike covered in grossness. So that's that, my bike racing season is over. Last year I posted a recap of my season at the end of the year, maybe I'll do that again in the next week sometime.

Heather's parents came to visit us this past weekend. We had a good time...put some plastic up on the windows and cut down a Xmas tree. Heather has a nice post, as well as a bunch of pics from the weekend, up on her blog.

Here is Joyce, Vontoux, and I playing some cards. Vontoux is quite good at picking the high card from a random set of 3...Joyce loved it.
The Green Team took on Team Orange on Sunday night. They are the only team to have beaten us so far, and we managed to avenge that loss by beating them 5-1. I got one assist on the night and clanged a nice shot off the post in the 2nd period. We are now in 1st place and we play the 2nd place Team White next.

Heather started her job at Trek on Monday, so she is now official. I just hope that she doesn't crimp my style too much with all my work girlfriends. :)