This is a joke right?

The picture of the chipmunk was taken at about 1:00 PM today. The following was taken at 7:15 PM. What is up with that cat? Apparently she does feel the need to eat her prey. Chipmunks just aren't her thing I guess. She actually looked visibly upset when I took this thing away. She sat in the spot where it last lay, looking around, looking ticked.




Yep, those are bird guts.

The Game of Golf

I decided to pick up golf over the past couple of weeks. You know, with having won that race at the track and everything, I feel like I am pretty much as good as I am going to get at bike racing. So, look out Tiger.

Seriously, ever since dental school started I have been putting off golf because it seems like such a yuppy old man's sport. Doesn't it? Well, I put it off as long as I could. The senior golf outing (kind of a big deal) is coming up in September. So, I figured rather than completely embarrass myself, I should put a little bit of time into figuring this thing out. After all, I wouldn't want to disgrace the family name.

Oops, too late!

Thanks Giselle!

Increasing the body count. She apparently no longer has the urge to eat or mutilate her victims. So, that's kinda nice.

Just peed my pants

#1

I won a race last night. It really happened. Looking back, I don't think I have won a competitive sporting event since high school... so... 10 years ago. It's been a tough 10 years, a bit of a drought I guess you could say, and I am glad its over. Maybe my parents will love me again?

Tuesday Nights at the Track

Racing under the lights at Kenosha's Washington Park Velodrome is one of the most fun things I have done this summer. Last night I was fortunate enough to have my numero uno fan there to take some nice photos of the event.


I raced at Kenosha last night, for my 3rd straight week of track racing. The 1st race I did was an 8 lap "scratch" race. Meaning you just ride for 8 laps and whoever is ahead at the end of the 8th wins. Sounds straightforward enough. Well, with 3 or 4 laps to go I launched an attack off the front of the field. This is tactically stupid because everyone can see you and you have no slipstream to launch out of. But I am racing in the Cat 4/5 races, so I like to mix it up anyway. I launched pretty well though and got a little distance on the main group. I was hoping one of the faster riders would bridge up and then we could work together and get 1st and second. Instead, I looked back and the oldest fattest guy out there had followed me out. I knew there was no way I was going to make it with just him, so I decided to sit up and rejoin the pack. In the background I could hear the track announcer saying something like "I don't really understand that move by Rauch!" Well, guess what, I wasn't going to pull old fatty around the track while the rest of the strong riders sat in the group and saved energy just to beat me at the end. Anyway, we sprinted it out with about 2/3 of a lap to go, I hung in the front and ended up 4th overall out of about 20 guys.

Here we are hanging on to the fence getting ready to start

The first lap is a neutral lap, to allow everyone to get clipped into their pedals and ready to go

Here we are around the half way point, things are starting to heat up a bit

This is the moment I realized I wasn't going to get any help at all in my breakaway attempt.
As a side note, the big fella is riding on a $1500 set of carbon wheels... nice. Worth more than all 4 of my bikes combined.


Here are the four leaders going into the final turn of the last lap. With me bringing up the rear.

Grinding it out to the end. Sara wishes my head was up so she could have caught my "pain face"

Crossing the line with one eye over my shoulder to watch for late breakers, not tonight.

My other race for the night was a "Miss Out" race. In this style of racing the person who finishes in last at the end of each lap has to leave the track. So, the field is whittled down till the final three riders and then those three race each other for 1 final lap to determine 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. I got 5th in this race, but it left me a little bummed because I got nosed out at the line by a skinny little girl. Also, in this race a guy bounced into my back wheel, I heard the sound of metal hitting the track and I looked back and saw a guy laying on the track. He turned out to be okay, but he went down pretty hard after bouncing off me. I am glad I stayed upright, I was on my friend's nice track bike. That could have been bad.

Overall it was a great night. At the end we had to leave a bit early to get our unborn child home to rest.

A Comment on Cooking

Tomatoes from my very garden.

On Thursday night I had a craving for some baked goods. So, like any good American, I decided to bake myself a batch of 3 dozen Snicker Doodles. I started to work my way through them as they came out of the oven. I probably ate about 6 before I realized I had no limit to the amount of cookies I could eat. So, rather than eat all 36 cookies on my own, I decided to seal up 24 of them into a ziploc bag to take to school with me the next day to share with the rest of Clinic A. Well the first four or five people to partake of my cookies made sure to come by to tell me "Hey, say thanks to Sara for the cookies, they were great." I just rolled my eyes and said sure, even though I had announced to everyone beforehand that I had cooked them and not Sara. Oh well, I came home and told Sara "thanks" anyway.

To spice things up once in a while I like to take Sara back to her Italian roots. I plucked a delicious yellow squash from my container garden this afternoon. I whipped up a rustic style homemade pizza. I paired the dish with a 2009 vintage OceanSpray Cranberry Grape 100% Juice. It adds a delicate compliment to the meal, enhancing the natural flavors while clearing the palate.

The final product was so good.

Ironically, I ate this dinner alone. Well, Dirk was there... barking at the people walking on the sidewalk in front of our house.

More Giselle, some biking and Airplanes

This mouse has a 0% chance of survival.

I caught Giselle in the middle of a hunt. This mouse wasn't found till two days after this picture though.




Lately I have been taking up new forms of bike racing. One being track racing, the other being mountain bike racing. I have actually raced on the track twice now, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I have only mountain bike raced one time, and it didn't turn out so well. The mountain bike race was at crystal ridge, I crashed over 10 times, with 4 of those being crashes that sent me over the handlebars. Most of my crashes were just my shoulders hitting trees very hard and knocking me down though. It's now 3 days after the mountain bike race and I still have very little skin on my shoulders. The track racing is fun because the races are really short, about 3-10 minutes long. This is great for me because I have no endurance whatsoever. Last fall I tried a cyclocross race, which I am thinking I want to try again this year. So, now I have competed in mountain, cyclocross, road and track cycling races. As for now, I would say track is my favorite.




Today I went to the EAA Airventure in Oshkosh. It was amazing. I got really stoked checking out the general aviation and sticking my nose in some 500K-3M dollar private planes. I also really enojoyed the Warbirds area, which was filled with P-51's and had a smattering of other older planes. We saw the White Knight II taxiing down the runway (Virgin Galactic).



While climbing into the cabin of a Cirrus, my friend Matt asked the man from Cirrus what the list price was on the plane. He said, "3.5-4 million." So, with a straight face (with a handlebar mustache) and wearing tattered shorts and tennis shoes, I asked the guy if he will take a check. And he looks at me with a slightly dirty look and says "wire transfers only, son."

I don't even know how to do a wire transfer.

Here is the Cirrus below and me digging through my wallet for the the 1.5 million dollar deposit. I was a few dollars short, otherwise I would have flown that thing right home.


The flying car was another of my favorite attractions. The sign says, "transition driving to flying in just 5 minutes, plus walk around." I am confused though, do you walk around while you are driving or flying?



Here is a Russian Mig 21. Not quite the same one that Maverick flipped off in Top Gun, but very similar.


I will soon post an update with my veggies. Hold on to your hats.