Racing 2008

A few of you have asked (OK, just one person, and they're family but I still feel special) what team I'll be riding for next year:

http://www.teambobs-bicycles.com/

I don't think they'll have anything posted until our big team camp/photo shoot in mid-February. Should be a good setup. Racing starts in about three weeks at a small event in Western Oregon...

http://www.willamettevalleycycling.com/cherry_pie/cherry_pie.html

More details to follow. The race is about 77 miles from the current residence of my aunt and uncle, so I hope to turn the race trip into a good visit. Thoughts?

Olde Poste - 13 Days Back

Welcome to Wisconsin.

Here for work, just for a few days, and darn glad about both of those facts. The work trip is fantastic in terms of personal growth, career development, and so forth, but Wisconsin in the dead of winter (I'm beginning to learn) is not conducive to enjoying one's self in anything extra-curricular. It's four degrees F outside at this moment. I would give anything to go work out, even a nice little jog somewhere, but this Best Western is not equipped with a cardio room and outdoor exercise in this temperature would count as reverse-training.

Plus, I'm actually on a conference call this very moment, listening in to a group of our employees sprinkled around the USA and China. Eighty percent of the conversation does not apply to me but I'm keyed in to respond to anything that crosses into my realm of importance. An international conference call is worth experiencing: lots of people speaking over one another, each individual's voice either amplified or insulated by respective personal surroundings, glitches in language translations, and random connection/disconnection noise sprinkled on like allergen frosting, all adding to the frenzy. One of our marketing guys sounds like he's in a WalMart bathroom (think massive echoing resonance and an assemblage of background voices of all pitch and age); a boss is apparently driving in a car as evidenced by sporadic honks and shouts; one gent is speaking so quietly I am unsure he even wants to be heard; yet another speaking so loudly he may have ingested the microphone itself. There is an incessant pinging that symbolizes persons joining or leaving the call.

Work here is awesome, however. We flew out for a brief two-day visit with an industry expert in gear design, touching down yesterday evening in St Paul, Minnesota and driving 100 miles NE into this Mac 'n Cheese state of Wisconsin. It is a visit that had me preparing with nervous anxiety for the last two weeks; the guy is a guru and I wanted to be educated and braced to answer any question presented. This stage of our design requires a great deal of technical input, but we are also struggling with substantial project and process management issues so I am getting some experience in that as well. I realize I am not being very specific, but those are the details I am privy to share and will have to suffice. Regardless, the point is I am being pushed in technical abilities, project management skills, and interpersonal skills all at once and not doing too badly (as far as I know). Don't ask anyone else, just take this as gospel.

I was actually hoping that I could ramble out a few hundreds words before latching on to a thought worth pursuing literally, but it has not happened so I will now bow out of this one-sided conversation. Enjoy whatever your eyes find next in this wide world of waste. I'll let you know if anything crazy happens here in Siren, Wisconsin.

OK, Ok. Back in the airport, currently physically pointing North East but soon to fly South West back to the heartland (joke ha ha). The trip is drawing to a close and only 2.5 hours of plane-ride-time remain. Today's schedule went well and our meetings cut short, so we managed to bump the return flight up by four hours... yeah! With any luck I'll be able to return home, visit with the ol' lady for some time, and maybe get in some form of exercise before it is time to get some shut-eye. Overall I am so so pleased with the trip and feel like I've gained some credibility with my boss and clients.

Credibility? An explanation: You know that feeling you have for the first few days/weeks of a new job, knowing your true worth but also knowing you are being watched and scrutinized by those who hired you? Normally that feeling is fleeting and consumed by one's latent self-confidence in capabilities, proportional decrease in paranoia, and resultant sense of job security. Whereas this feeling, for most, attenuates and disappears after a fortnight I tend to carry the burden of “measuring up” for a couple months at least. This time around the feeling is more persistent than ever due to the elite/genius workforce and my comparatively limited real-world experience. In a nutshell free of such prolix explanation: I am an overachiever with low self esteem. Sha la la la, at least it is on the mend and changing for the better.

So yes, I did well. There may be an eminent trip to China looming, where I will meet directly with motor/gear/transmission manufacturers as a company representative. Holy cow! This is great and I never expected such opportunity so early on. I'll still need some hand-holding of course and can't be trusted alone with the Chinese, huh-huh, but it is another step up the long ladder of my career development and I am excited. This airport terminal is intumescing with fellow travelers so I'll likely cut this short (mostly because I look like a dork when blogging [see prior blog entry when I couldn't get past my own reflection on the laptop screen]). Not sure why you made it to this point in reading, but I hope you enjoyed.

Stimuli (current):

1. Smells: Overwhelming odor of cheap lotion (St. Ives, perhaps), stale air from above head-vent, Whopper from approx. 12-foot distance, personal slight body odor (sharp yet subtle) from overheated conference rooms and 100-mile heat-coffin-car ride. Onion breath from super lunch salad.

2. Noise: Blips and pings from cells, PDAs, and security scan-ins, though not ever-present; numerous children gobbling mumbling hoo-diddly squawking all blended together into a base noise suchlike a farmhouse chicken coop; hiss of aforementioned ceiling vent; lower frequency ubiquitous grumble from outdoor taxiing 74x's; (2) distinct individuals with wicked chest colds causing intermittent coughs, sniffs, and lung-scraping expellings (eh?).

3. Sights: all cast in yellow-curd shade from low-quality neon tube-lights and intruding (overcast sky) grayness from outside; once blue now gray short-nap carpeting underfoot and midway up surrounding walls blanketed with some sort of stick and bird pattern in darker gray; 40+ passengers, most well-bundled in thick yet comfy puff jackets, sweat pants, scarves and beanies awaiting their boarding opportunity; patience yet lethargy;

4. Sense: no more feeling in my backside due to absence of chair cushion, excessive ambient temperatures for this techy jacket I've donned, and slight pain due to oniony super-solid lunch from item number one, above.