Report from kidville

Hey people. The tribe just pulled out for a few days but will be back Sat. Until then I'll basically be welding my butt off, but here's a short report about what's been UP around here.

Sunday spent all day at the bike trail peddling my wares. There was a huge race there CoolTrailBoss Rich presided over-- a very large impressive event-- a very big deal in the MN mtb world. Here are the expert men class taking off. There were numerous waves of different classes of racers, so it went all day long. (You can click any pic to enlarge)

The sport is rather dude-heavy. Here are the expert women taking off. The one on the left is Kyia from St. Cloud, a very cool chick who is a pro (sponsored) racer. She bought a necklace from me, so is now even more cool than she already was. Her racing blog is very well written and exciting if you want to check it out.

The trail has all kinds of opportunity for nutball antics like this-- or if you're one of them, they call it, "showcasing your mad skillz." Seriously, if you get so you can do stuff like this it grabs you time other racers who keep all their wheels on the ground can't take advantage of.

Naturally if there are wild, jumpy, whizzy hills to fly down, there are grueling punishing climbs too.

Sis and the kidlins have been camping out at my place all weekend. Not the usual mode around here but fun. Me and the boy are getting along better this trip. We're a little too much alike sometimes-- both hate being told what to do-- except I've got 40 years on him. That point is irrelevant to him. But we also both like jamming to the same tunes, so that's fun.

Me and Megan have always had a total same page thing going that only gets more fun the older she gets.

There have been very wild games of tag, and one epic water battle.

No holds barred. What a nice aunt-- shooting little kids in the face like that. Oh well, live by the water gun... get wet. Or something.

"My life would become mysterious again, rich and corrupt." Love that line from a Joyce Carol Oates short story collection I'm reading. It has that "adventure just over the next hill" aspect I'm always after. Random, I know. But it is a cool line.

For now I'm in total work mode. There is so much crap going on it isn't even funny-- I got Penny fired up again so trail riding is back on, the tribe is in town, I have tons of art stuff going-- I honestly don't know how I'll get everything done, but have before so I know it's possible. An old friend died last weekend after an almost year long battle with cancer. And summer is slipping away daily. My mind is kind of buzzing.

One thing for sure, no matter how crazy I get with work and everything else, I have to stay connected to my buds, and to myself by getting out in the woods and on the river, on the road too -- blow out my pipes regularly or the wheels will fall off. Connections-- to keep me from spinning off orbitlessly. (I'm making that a word.)

In a day or two go check my ART BLOG for an update about my open house this Sunday. You're all invited of course.

Time to weld the doughnuts. Stay cool people.