12/4/05 Ok

12/6/05 Today was race day. I am going to try to not write too much because I am tired. We got up early and headed out. We stopped at a store to get some bread and sandwich meat because we knew that we would be hungry by the end of the day. Konrad and I went shopping while Tim and Jimmie went to Carl’s Jr to get Jimmie some breakfast. Jimmie is the most nervous person I have ever known. If he does not get some breakfast in him he would not be able to ride. Also, if he does not eat it before he starts thinking about the race he would not be able to get it down. Konrad and I made it back to the truck and I went and punched in the door code to Tim’s truck (call me, I will give it to you……Just kidding Tim.) and as I opened the door the alarm went off and scared the heck out of me. Tim was across the parking lot and set it off with the remote control. Thanks Tim. Half way to the track (6min later) he all of the sudden said that’s it and started wrapping up the other half of his breakfast sandwich. He had thought about the race and his appetite was gone. We stopped in front of the Glen Helen sign for a few pics before we went in. As we pulled in, there was a row of RV’s where we normally park but there was one spot on the end. I asked Konrad if we should just pull in and he replied that we should look around. As we passed the sport he remarked that the one we had just passed looked pretty good. That is when the finger pointing and lighthearted arguing began. We unloaded the trailer and we were good to go.

Before the race you are given only on sighting lap to see the course. We all suited up and waited with the other 150 riders to go take a lap. Jimmie became so nervous that he started doing laps around the truck and trailer. We finally took off and did our lap. The track is not nearly as fun as it had been in the past. It was rough and not enough fun jumps. They were either too big of not big enough. There was only one that was just the right size. When we got back, Konrad said he was done and looked to be in pain. He has had a nagging injury that just let go and he could not ride (not that he was that good in the first place). Konrad and Jimmie were signed up to do the team race together. Since Konrad could not ride we were trying to figure out if Jimmie should do the Iron Man or we could split up my three-man team to make two teams. We decided to wait till after the first race to decide. We did head over and use Konrad’s entry to put Tim in a second race besides the team race.

Race time came, Tim, Jimmie, and I suited up and headed out. We took off from the line with the 28 riders in our class and Jimmie rode like our favorite sand bagger. He was gone off the line and was shortly in first place and checked out. Tim was gone also and I was just not in sync with my bike and was riding like crap. There was one particular ridgeline that was a steep drop. It was not nearly as steep as the sides were. I know, I got a good look at them. As I was rounding a corner of this rock hard trail that is about 10ft wide I caught a rock or something and washed my front end out just as the trail started to descend. The bike fell on the right side and I was halfway on it with one arm on the handle bar and the other spread out on the ground. It was like when you fall on a steep ice covered ski slope and I could not stop. My bike and I slid down about 15yrds before I came to a stop. I got up knowing that now I was around a blind corner and did not want anybody to hit me so I jumped up and put my hand up so the two riders coming behind me would see me. I remounted the bike and notice that the edge of this hill which was now about 3ft away was about a 60-degree grade that dropped about 600ft. It did not look like fun. I ~~jumped~~ slowly remounted and headed down the hill. By the time I was done with that race I was exhausted. I was seriously wondering if I was going to be able to do the next race. Jimmie took 1^st in the fire/police class and Tim took 1^st in the civilian class. I took a dismal 9^th.

When Tim pulled in to the pits he asked the same question. “Are you going to do the next race?” I told him I did not think so and asked him if he was going. He said probably not. The next race was already on the line and ready to go. After I caught my breath I watched the first line go. I said forget it and put on my helmet to go. I knew I could not wimp out on a race no matter how tired I was. When Tim saw me put on my helmet he knew what he had to do. He put on his helmet and jumped on his bike. Just as I was about to leaved Jimmie asked me if I had refueled. I said Noooooooo, thanks for reminding me. It is at that point when we realized we had no fuel mixed yet. I took off for the line without fueling. When the flag dropped, Tim got the hole shot and never looked back. He was on fire. I did pretty good and felt much better than the first race. I did my normal fall in a corner once but had gained enough of a gap that nobody passed me. I worked hard for the rest of the race and took a first in my class while Tim took 1^st in his class.

Jimmie was now signed up for the Iron man which is two hours by himself out on the motocross track. Tim and I were paired up with Brandon who is a person that I work with. His parents live down here and his bike is still down here. Jimmie was once again a nervous wreck trying to figure out if he would be able to do two hours on one tank. We all told him he could by looking at how much fuel was still in the tank after his first race. That was not good enough so he called DJ in the 505 to get somebody to agree with him. He decided to fuel mid race. He put some fuel in a large juice jug and then tried to figure out how we would know when to fuel him. After a half hour it was decided. The race started with Jimmie in the last line to leave. Tim, Brandon and Myself were doing two laps apiece. As we sat to wait for the exchange we had a chance to see Jimmie ride. Needless to say he was flying. During the race Konrad wound up using somebody’s pit board and was putting signs line “Lemonade 10cents” and other fun stuff. At one point Tim made the corner grabbed his front break and dropped the clutch showering them with roost. Jimmie rode hard and looked great. At about an hour and twenty minutes into it Jimmie started to look tired. He was still going faster then I ever could. By of the two hours and 15min that we rode Tim and I were tired but nothing compared to how tired Jimmie was. In fact he was so tired he kept calling my by different names none of which were the one my mom had given me. My hat is off to Jimmie, he came in second out of 15 while my team came in 7^th out of 20. After all was said and done we took a vote and decide we were not going riding tomorrow as we had planned. That was the race, So I did write a little more than I was planning. Hope it did not bore you. I will try to write some more tomorrow. Keith

12/5/05 We made it in last night. Jeremy, the person we were staying with was waiting along the freeway for us. As we passed by at 60mph he flew by us at about 85 on the bumper of the car in front of him. Welcome to California! We followed him in and found the house. After some introductions Jeremy decided we should go to the casino. Jimmie had worked the night before and was plenty tired so he went to bed while we went to the casino. Konrad and I work for him once a year when we are in town so we called it our company party. We walked around for a while before we settled in at a bar in the middle. Jeremy was pretty lit and having a good time. Tim sat down at a table and after an hour of play and being up by a bit he left the table even. I was ready to head back but Konrad and Jeremy were not. I was not in the mood to argue so Tim and I took the truck and went home at midnight. I laid down and put my phone by me because I figured they would call me when they wanted to come home. The casino was only a couple of blocks away so those guys decided to walk home. After about 40min of walking Konrad asked Jeremy where they were going since it was only a 15min walk to a house Konrad had never been to before. Jeremy replied "I don't know, I was following you!' Before long I heard a knock at the door so I jumped up real quick so nobody else would wake up and opened the door. I guess I was half asleep because they tell me I yelled at Jeremy to "Shut the hell up" and went back to bed. I don't remember that.

The next morning we got up and needless to say Jeremy and Konrad did not feel much like working. Jimmie and Tim needed coffee so Jeremy gave them the keys to the truck and directions to the 7-11. They came back and we all took off. Jimmie needed breakfast. Tim was driving, I was in front, Konrad, Jeremy, and Jimmie were squeezed in the back seat. As we were driving along we started hearing a horn honking and a black Expedition came along side us and rolled down his window with the look on his face like "who the hell are you?" This guy looked like the kind of guy that you would not want to meet in a dark alley somewhere if you know what I mean. Jeremy has his business name on his back window as well as his pool cleaning supplies in his truck so it is easy to know who's truck it is. Luckily Jeremy stuck his head forward to talk to the guy. After he left it was decided that it was good thing that he did not see the truck when only Tim and Jimmie were in it. We went driving down the road looking for a place to eat. It was remarked by Jeremy how Tim's driving had now changed to California style now that he was not in his own truck. Jeremy was no help finding a restaurant since he never eats breakfast, in fact he never eats lunch either. Usually his dinner consists of a liquid diet. That's Jeremy, what can I say. After breakfast Jeremy decided he was not feeling well and deiced to call in sick to work. Since he is the boss, and Konrad and I are the only employees (that never get paid) we also decide to call in sick. The bad part is that neither of us have benefits such as sick leave.

We headed over to Chaparral where it was turning a kid loose in a candy factory. Tim had already decided that he was buying a new bike after the season and found the bike he was looking for among the hundreds of them on the floor. If it wasn't for the emissions equipment that it has on it (being a California bike) that the New Mexico bikes don't come with we would have left there with a new CRF450X. I We did see one of those new CRF250s with the dual exhaust, pretty crazy looking! We all did some shopping and left with a few items and Tim was already in contact with two dealers in the 505 working a deal on a new 450X. He will have one by the end of the week.

From there we headed over to a local fun park to have a little fun. Go Cart Racing! When we were buying the tickets Tim asked the lady which cart was the fastest. She said the black one, so when Jimmie said he wanted the blue one there was no argument since we all know anything that comes in blue is slow. Tim and I jumped in the two black cars and Jimmie was in the blue one. As we left the line I realized only one of the black ones was the fast one and it was not the one I was riding. Tim and Jimmie broke away from the pack with Jeremy and Konrad behind me. Jimmie and Tim were duking it out up front while Konrad and Jeremy battled behind me. I was alone finding my grove and warming up my tires. Jimmie and Tim made it around to lap us, they got by Konrad and Jeremy and now were behind me. Since Tim is going to be my team mate tomorrow and Jimmie was driving a BLUE car I put a block pass on Jimmie and let Tim go by. After he had pulled a few lengths I let Jimmie go by. Not that my car was fast enough to keep up but when they were trying to pass on the outside I would ride them all the way up in the corner. As the battle between Konrad and Jeremy got up on me, and Konrad had the faster car I put a block on him to let Jeremy by but who knows what Jeremy was doing because Konrad went around both of us. After Jeremy went by I decided to stop and wait for them so I would be at the head of the pack again. Tim came up behind me first but he would have none of my block pass, instead he rammed me causing the kid who was there to monitor all the guys who were each at least double his age to not bump into each other. Yes, the kid who was born after each one of us became of drinking age had to be the mature one. When it was done, we had paid for 10min and had ridden about 20min because he said he was having fun watching us.

Jimmies hollow leg was acting up again by this time so it was time to eat again. We went to In-N-Out for some lunch. It was almost two in the afternoon and the place was packed, don't any one have a job around here! From there we headed home to take care of a few things on the bike before tomorrow. The rest of the day was spent hanging around the house with Jeremy and his family. Since Jeremy is hardly ever at home there was no use in having an apartment so he has moved back home. I was trying to burn a Video CD when his dad asked me a what I was doing. This brought about a discussion of technology. They (including Jeremy) have never owned, much less used a computer. After trying to explain Gigabytes, MP3's, and Ipod to him. He told me that he still hasn't figured out cassette tapes. The player in his truck keeps eating them so he just puts the station to oldies and never changes the station Tim brought in his Ipod and Jerry could not understand how you cold put over five thousand songs on something that small. He said he still dose not understand those "small shiny records" (CDs). When I pulled out my laptop computer to show him some pictures he could not believe this is the same thing as one of other things that take up all that room on a desk. tomorrow is the race so I am off to bed. Talk to you soon, Keith

12/4/05 Ok, here we go. The day starts off like this. On Saturday night the power at my house fluctuated so I was worried that if it did it again I would not wake up on time. I set my alarm clock for 5:15am and also the alarm in my phone as a fail safe. I woke up at 3:20 and could not go back to sleep until about 4:30. At 5:40 the alarm on my phone woke me up. No, the power did not go out at home, rather after setting the time on my alarm I forgot to turn it on. I jumped in the shower and off I went. I stopped at Konrad’s and picked him up. We went to Tim’s house to switch vehicles. We un-hooked the trailer from my truck and hooked to his. Tim was set up to go. His truck is a very nice with wood grain trim and leather seats. It looks like nothing has ever been eaten or drank in there before. The laptop with the GPS was up and running, the whole trip was already input. The 40gig Ipod with integrated FM modulator and over 5 thousand songs. Off we went to Gallup to meet Jimmie. As we were leaving Tim’s house Jimmie called and said he had also gotten a late start because he had been up all night running calls and he was tired. Tim’s wife is a travel agent sot they do quite a bit of traveling. For work he also travels quite a bit. Most all of his travel is done by airplane and he is defiantly not looking forward to a long drive.

I had gotten directions from a coworker on how to get to the main fire station in Gallup where we were going to meet Jimmie. I was told to go down main street turn left on 2^nd street and we would run right into it. Tim is driving and I am being the navigator. I have the computer out and checking the map. We get off the interstate, turn right on main street, then as we get to second street I tell him to turn left, he pulls to the middle of the intersection when I realized it was a one way and we pulled back out to get to the next left we could make. As we were headed up the road my phone rings and it was Jimmie, I could tell from his voice he was running on lack of sleep. He said he was at the corner of 2^nd and Nizohi were he was told that the station was. I told him that we were going up second and were almost at the intersection. He asked me what we were driving. I knew at this point he was not thinking clearly from lack of sleep. I recognized it because I have been there before. I told him we were in Tim’s Ford pulling the big DENCO trailer that he had delivered to me just a week before. After a good laugh at Jimmies expense we met him coming down 2^nd street. We got back to the same intersection where the fire station was supposed to be and Jimmie had just called me from. Sure enough, right on the corner behind the statue of the firefighter was the fire station. I did not know where the parking lot was so I told him to take a right. Half way through the turn I noticed that the entrance to the parking lot was straight ahead and not to the right. I said, no…no….no, go straight. We were already in the turn and Tim just reacted to what I said and started to go straight through the intersection until he realized we were on a green arrow and when he straightened out we were now going through the red light. Back to the right we went and had to make a U turn with Jimmie in tow. We met up at the station and moved Jimmie’s bike (well, it’s a Yamaha) and his gear into the trailer and we were off. Before closing the door Tim remarked that the trailer had never looked that good before. It had three big Honda’s, Tim and I had our Honda pit bikes and Jimmies lone Yamaha. I told them that I arranged the trailer so that if anybody looked in the window of the trailer they would see the Yamaha and figure there was nothing of value in there and they would leave it alone. As we were leaving Jimmie noted how grateful he was to be in Tim’s truck because he and I both have extended cab trucks and it was a lot more comfortable in Tim’s crew cab. It was at that point that we figured out Tim was not too happy we were using his truck because he does not like putting miles on his immaculate truck. In the last 5 years that I have known Tim, this is the third truck he has had and he has never visited a used car lot if you know what I mean. This current truck is two years old and has twelve thousand miles on it. Yes! As in 12,000. Which for a power stroke is still in the break in period. Tim had already calculated how many miles we were going to put on during this trip (1526.8 according to his calculations) and figured he will have to trade it in when we get back. Jimmie asked Tim the same question Konrad and I had asked when we first got in, “Is eating allowed in here?” Tim’s answer is “If you are older than 10 you can eat in here.”. Now he would not clarify if that was a mental age, behavior age, or a true age.

We stopped for fuel and bought a few snack to keep from getting hungry or eating truck stop food. Jimmie who was sitting in the back with Konrad kept making remarks to about the cheetos he was dropping on the floor asking Konrad to just kick them under the seat or to just smash it so it would disappear into the carpet. Finally Tim had to turn around and look to see what he was doing. Jimmie decided to show us how high tech he is and pulled out his portable CD player to which he proudly announced was almost one year old. Tim’s Ipod is playing through the truck stereo so Jimmie puts on his headphones and starts up his CD. As I turn around to look at Jimmie with his big smile and headphones I though I was looking at the brother from “Something about Mary”. I decided I needed to start writing this down and pulled Tim’s computer over and started writing. Every thing I have written so far has been done over the past 100 miles and Jimmie is now getting some much-needed sleep while Tim is disgruntled over the miles he is watching his truck rack up because as he says, there is no scenery along I-40.

We stopped just outside of Kingman to get some fuel. Jimmie wanted to get some powdered doughnuts to make a mess in Tim’s truck with. On the way out there was a guy on a Yamaha quad that was getting off and walking back towards another quad that was parked about 40yrds away. They were going around a barrier that was put there to keep them out. The second guy had gotten stuck. Jimmie said “ I don’t know about you but if it was me I would be riding back instead of walking.” . I asked the guy’s if I even needed to say it. I replied that it was evident that the rider/walker was not that smart by the fact that he was riding a Yamaha. More tomorrow. Keith

11/26/05 Happy black Friday! Were you one of those crazy people out there at 4 in the morning? I was! I was actually working so I got the guys up and we headed over to Wal-Mart being that is the only shopping place in out district. I go more for the amusement than the deals. It is just crazy to see that many people standing in line at 4:59am. At 5am it goes crazy with people snatching and grabbing. People that are normally polite and courteous become wild over something that is half off. Grandma's racing carts down the aisle and bumping into each other. Some people grab things that they don't even want but at that price how could you not. Then there is the guy who shows up at 5:30 after the mad rush is over and asks if they still have the hot electronic that was 80% off and had 40 people trying to get the 6 of them that were available. There was one guy on our crew that did not even want to go. He could not believe we would get up that early to go shopping. When we got to the store Three of us went in and one stayed with the truck. The one that did not want to go was not the one in the truck. He went off in search of something. The other guy went and stood by the TV he wanted and I just cruised around watching the people. After about half an hour and a few things for the kids I climbed back in the truck but there was hardly enough room for me because there was this giant TV box and the guy who did not even want to go had about 6 large bags and a smile. I guess he will be back next year. Enjoy the madness, Keith

11/21/05 My traffic woes continue. The construction zone that I have been battling for the past 10 or so months is finally over with. Construction is done and I am now going to be sailing down the road not having to figure out which lane will be the quickest. I loaded up my bike and headed to work so I could get a ride in before work. Here comes Tramway and traffic is moving at full speed and I am cruizing. Juan Tabo and Screech...... traffic is at a stand still. I decide to stick it out and just go through it rather than bail off and go through the city. An hour later I have made it 3mi to Louisiana. That is it, I get off the interstate and on top of the bridge I can see that I made a bad decision earlier by not getting off then. The stupid radio program that I listen to has been on some stupid subject for the past hour and did not do a traffic report. Those guys are gone too. I end up at work 15min early instead of an hour and a half early and now there is no time to ride. At least I tried. I got on the tread mill instead. At work we have a new probie. He is a young kid that is very worried about doing things right. The shift before he came to us the guys and I decided to play with him a bit. I did not talk to him the firest 24hrs we were there. The guys filled his head of stories of what an a**hole I am and that things better be done my way, not to look me in the eyes, and other horror stories. The next shift when I came in I was mad because of the traffic and as I walked in the bay and was asked if I was going riding, needless to say I said a few cuss words went flying. The probie ducked his head and went looking for a place to hide. After we did some work we took him in the office to let him know that we were just having fun with him. He let us know he had left the station after the last shift and could not think straight making wrong turns and pulling out in front of other cars. Probies are fun to have around. We have a few more tricks lined up for him. See ya on the flip side, Keith

10/28/05 Why is it that flies want to die. I know they have a short life span, but why would you go looking for your own demise before it is time. You know what I am talking about. Here you are at home or in the garage working on your bike and along comes a fly who insists on buzzing around your head so as to irritate you so that you want to kill it. It then will land on your head when your hands are too busy to swat it away. When you get the chance you swat at it and it fly's a short circle and comes back to bother you so that you want to stop what you are doing and find a fly swatter to go kill it. A fly is so small compared to your normal size house or the great outdoors but yet this thing wants to bother you so that you want to kill it. I don't under stand. Over the past couple of months I helped coach my son's football team. At the beginning of each practice and game we have the kids line up and do their warm up exercises so that they will be limber and not get injured. After all they are kids and need to stretch and warm up because they are not in as good of shape or have the ability to recover from injury as quick as someone who has a few years of knowledge under their belt. So here we are the ones with the years of knowledge who teach these young ones, we get up in the morning, go to a meeting, drink coffee or an occasional alcoholic beverage, then jump on a bike or quad and go out and do 40 to 100 miles. The next day we wonder why we get sore. There is only one person out there who I ever see stretching before he goes to ride and the rest of us just follow the rule of "Do as I say, not as I do." I guess it is not for me to understand but to only be a casual observer and don't go bug the guy who could kill me. Keith

10/19/05 I woke up at 6:30am yesterday so I could get my boys to school for their chimes practice. After that I came straight to work so I could get started on my entry for "my race". It was a good thing because like always, I picked the wrong lane through the construction zone and spent alot of time watching the cars in the other lane go speeding by. I made it to work early anyway which was a good thing because I ended up writing a novel. It was noon by the time I was done writing my novel and getting all the pictures put up. At the race my nephew got his first win in the micro mini quad class. Now that was a great race. The track out there was fun but tight. Gabriel lined up in the middle of the other two quads he was racing with. I told him not to be afraid to pass through the bushes and to hold his line off the start. I guess all the parents told their kids that because they all came together and the little guy with the fastest bike and also the most aggressive of them Nate Longley got squeezed out and almost wrecked while Kaleb McRae took the whole shot. Gabriel wound up in a bush and got passed by Nate. Something happened out on the track where Gabriel got back by Nate. Somehow later Kaleb must have got off track because Gabriel came by in first place. Nate was trying hard and throwing dirt on us every time he came around the finish line corner. In the end it was an exciting race and Gabriel got his first win. He asked that since he finally won he could be on a page of the web site. So he and my other nephew Andrew who got second in the 50mini race made the cover. Any way onto my day. Since my probie left the other day we did not have to do things all day to pretend we actually work do work around here and I got to sit down and do nothing for a while. Later in the afternoon we had an EMS call where I wound up riding in with the ambulance and intubated the person twice. Not because I did not do it right the first time but rather because the paramedic from ambulance was not convinced the tube was in the right place. I knew it was but it gave me a chance to do it again and confirm that I am that good. After making it back to the valley we went to get some dinner at KFC/Taco Bell/Pizza Hut. When we got there, there was a lady who was ordering a T-4 meal but wanted to change everything except the size of the soda was trying to order for her family. Couple this with the fact that the girl behind the counter did not speak english and was still learning how to use the register made for a long line. I assumed this is a normal thing for this lady because her husband just sat on the rail patiently waiting for them to figure it out. I have an idea for Taco Bell. Since it is a mexican food place, instead of giving me a number that they will call when my food is ready why dose the computer spit out hispanic names. "Chuey you food is ready", "Beto, three tacos and a tostada". It would go more with the theme. Anyway, after watching a little TV I headed to bed. Just as I was starting to doze off we were called to a mobile home fire out on the mesa. After that was put out and the truck was reloaded with water and hose it is now 5:30am and I have been up for the past 23 hours. I figured it would be a good time to sit down and babble in front of the computer. So now I am off to bed to try to catch a little shut eye before I have to get up. Babble at you soon, Keith

10/10/05 I remember a time when a person could drive down the road and mind their own business. If you were on the interstate in the middle of the night you were the only one out there. Every once in a while you would see a big rig and maybe another car if you were lucky. Nowadays (I think that is one word?) it is not impossible to get stuck behind a car traveling the same speed as the car next to them which is usually 3mph under the speed limit. As it is the speed limit is only a suggestion during the day but completely irrelevant at night. That is why they don't light up the speed limit signs, because they are not in effect at night. Now 90% of the people look over when passing or being passed. You don't want to make and obscene gesture at the person because you never know who is packing. So I guess looking over is kind of half road rage. When you are passing someone you look over to the right to see what kind of idiot would drive that slow and get in your way, expecting to see grandma who can barely see over the steering wheel. If you are the one being passed you look to the left to see what kind of person is driving like a maniac, expecting to see some teenager and all their friends. After looking to the left and not seeing the teenager you say to your self "Well you should have left earlier and you would not be in such a hurry!". When you look to the right you know what that person is thinking so you say to yourself, "I did leave with enough time, but driver's like you have made me late!". This morning after I went riding I was sitting behind this blazer at a stop light. The rain was falling at a decent pace. It was not "big ole fat rain" or "little bitty stingy rain" but enough to cover the windshield at a steady pace. I noticed something move on the side of it one the ground under the drivers door. I was thinking that was kind of weird because we were not moving and it couldn't have run over something. When the light turned green the door opened and the girl stepped out. Of course I through up my hands and said "Of course you had to wait until the light was green". She bent over and picked up her windshield wiper off the ground. It fell off the wiper arm and fell on the ground next to the truck. I did get a good laugh when I figured out what had happened. She jumped back in and off we went. As we got on the freeway we merged with other cars for which I had to turn the wiper on to high from all the water they were kicking up. Sure enough I come up on a person doing less than the speed limit so when I found a spot I merged to the left. As I was going by I was ready to give my mean look to the right when I realized it was the blazer and she could not see very well because her wiper was lying on the seat next to her. OK, you’re forgiven, who's next? After all, I am a racer. Keith

10/3/05 I had to work all week last week, What is up with that? I have plenty of things to do. My wife had been driving my truck because her AC had gone out again. On Saturday we took it to the football games and I heard a grinding sound that started when I stepped on the brakes. As I listened closely and recognized the metal on metal sound that should not be coming from the brakes. My wife then says "Oh yea, that started the other day." Grrrrrrrrrrr, Thanks honey with a forced smile. I gingerly drove home after the games trying not to use the brakes. We parked the truck and jumped in the motor home and headed out. After the race my brother took my bike to his house so I could pick it up from there. On Monday, I worked. I was working with the boss and he wanted to go out cruising, so we went out cruising, after all he is the boss. After wasting half the day we went out on a flight and by the time I knew it, the day was over. Tuesday was back to the fire dept where we were busy all day. Wednesday I was I filled in for someone and spent all day at the airport working again. Thursday was my first day back in two years to my ambulance job. Not that I don't want to work there but I have been busy. Friday I was back at the FD. We worked all day and then I left for a while to go to my kids football practice and then the Manzano HS football game. Saturday was spent all day taking kids to football games. Sunday I was supposed to be at work at 7am. My daughter is a 6yr old cheerleader and Sunday was "Cheeriest" the cheerleader competition. Since my wife had to be in town at 6am to get her ready I took on the chore of taking care of the boys. I woke them up just before 7 and they got dressed. Unlike when mom is home there was no yelling. Mom left some granola bars for them to eat on the way. Yea right. Off to Mickey's. All three boys got a meal and we headed to town. I called work and told them I was running late but to call me if they needed me. By the time we were half way to town both of the older boys were done with there sandwich's and were ready for more. Another Mickey D's stop and they were happy. At the Pit, the boys went with their teams and I went and sat with my wife to watch the performance. Luckily they were the second group. I was out of there by 8:30 and made it to work just as we got a call. What timing! Monday morning is now here and my truck still sits in the driveway with brake pads that are probably welded to the rotor and my bike finally made it home Saturday so it obviously has not been ridden like it needs to be because the next race is less than two weeks away. I guess I will do another month of training next week to be ready to race. Some thing I don't understand. How do people that work all week get anything accomplished? Gotta go, Keith

9/21/05 It has only been 5 days and here I am writing again See how I am! I got my shock back last Friday and put my bike back together so I could get a month worth of training in during the week. The first two days I wrote about in the bench racing page. Yesterday I got off work at 7am and I had an all day meeting to go to at 10am so I figured I would get my third week of training in during the break. I headed out south of the airport and started doing my riding I was doing ok and did wash out my front end once. I was headed down one of my woop trails at about 40mph when the rear tire came around to get a look at what the front tire was doing. When the rear end hit the next woop at the same time the front tire did I knew I was not going to save this one. I was pitched off violently and ducked my head as I saw the ground approaching at a rapid rate. When I hit everything went black but I don't know if it was from me closing my eyes or from the impact of my head hitting the ground. Either way I could hear my bike rev up. When I finished tumbling I looked up to see my bike nose down with the back tire straight up in the air. When it came over it quit revving and died. I quickly ran the 15ft back to her (She had only traveled about 5ft where I had flown about 15 with a 5ft tumble) and picked her out of the dirt. I sat on her, apologized for the crash and just sat to enjoy the morning and the cute birds that were now flying around my head going tweet, tweet, tweet. After I picked up all my marbles I decided it was time to call it a day. I did a few more trails and went back to my truck. This morning was supposed to be my 4th week of training but by the time last night rolled around I was too sore. I took my helmet with me so I could clean it. While I was sitting in my morning traffic still wondering why I could not figure out which is the correct lane to be in I looked over to see the side of my helmet had alot (Yes that word is for you Konrad) of fresh scratches across the entire left side. I was glad I decided not to ride today. I think three weeks of training is good enough to race on, don't you? Keith

9/16/05 Wow, It has been twelve days since I wrote anything. I don't realize how long it has been until I come to this page to write something down and see how long it has been. Well things are on track as normal. I have been too busy to realize how fast the days are going by. Neither of my kids football teams have won a game yet but they are still having fun. I got an e-mail from a person I have never met but we e-mail each other all the time. She sends me enough funny stuff that I never have to go look for things to put on the "Funny Bone" page. She reminds me that I need to enter a new journal when it has been to long. Well here it is one week away from the next race and my training program is right on schedule. I have ridden twice since the last race and one time I did not really even ride hard enough to call it training. After my ride I started thinking about my race program when I realized that my "Race Program" is nothing more than my old bike and my little truck that leaves me stuck on the side of the freeway when it want's. As minimal as it is, it's still mine. I don't know if I mentioned it but I did get a sponsor at the OMG that offered to pay my entry fees for the next year. When I am out riding and realizing how much I suck, I keep thinking either I have to give him his money back or that he sponsors me because of the web site so I need to write more often. Either way when I was done riding I took my bike apart because the rear shock is leaking. I knew it was leaking because I had worked it so hard but it turns out that the seals just dried up from lack of use. I am going to stick with the over worked story. My bike is sitting in the garage with no shock or sub frame, a flat rear tire and broken clutch lever from my last outing. I got the shock back today and I will get the rest fixed tomorrow so that I can start riding Sunday. That will be one week before the race so if I hit it hard I should be ready. See you in Carlsbad. Keith

9/4/05

The ONE complaint I have about the journal is that A LOT is 2 words, TWO words!! My high school English teacher drilled that word and melancholy into our brains so it has almost become a pet peeve of mine. I can’t spell worth a damn but that word is TWO WORDS, TWO WORDS! Thanks for your time.

This is a portion of an e-mail that my brother sent me. I know this teacher because I had the same teacher. I don't remember her name but I do remember that she was about 150yrs old. I high school I got pretty good at cheating on tests. That is what a person would have to do to replace the studying that I should have been doing. I was pretty proficient at writing very small and legible. I would write about 10 lines on a piece of paper about 3/4" X 3/4" and another 10 lines on the back. I would tape one end to the back of my watch so I could flip to both sides with my thumb and if the teacher came by I would just flip my watch over so it looked like I was just keeping track of time. I would also take these small papers and hide them inside a pen, then take them out during the test. This only works if the teacher does not walk around during the exam. In English class we had to recite the Gettysburg address, The is the one time I got out cheated. I could remember the whole speech but this other guy went up there and recited the whole thing. It turns out that he had an ear bud connected to his walkman. He was playing the speech in his ear while reciting it. Damm that was good. Anyway Konrad and I have had the discussion before about the word "alot". Every time I put the word down I think of him but I do like it better as one word. Since I am putting it down I can write it any way I like. Enjoy your day alot.....................Keith

7/31/05 I remember listening to a lady from Wisconsin on the radio, she said there are two seasons up there. Winter and construction. Here it Albuquerque winter is not bad enough to warrant a stop in construction so we are in a state of perpetual road construction. They a week before they finish one project they start another one down the road a bit so that the "freeway" is never free to drive on. There is always a construction zone. Now I am no traffic engineer but it seems to me that the left lane on an interstate has no exits or entrance's so traffic should move at a constant rate. But for some reason that lane is always stopped and moves slower than the right lane. While sitting in traffic in the non moving left lane watching the right lane stop and go I came up with a plan to speed myself through the slow moving construction zone. I figure that as cars exit it causes the right lane to speed up but on the other side of the bridge cars are entering the right lane causing that one to stop or slow. With this deduction I figured that I should ride the right lane, after the exit switch to the left, then after all the cars have entered then move back to the right. The next pass through the construction zone would be the test. It didn't work. It turns out that the second exit I come upon is the one that most people get off of to go to the labs. The other problem that happens is that the car getting on the freeway zips over to the left lane with the idea he is smarter than all of us sitting in traffic and if he just moves over it would be smooth unimpeded sailing. HA, not only is he not moving anywhere but he just put the rest of us who were barely moving to a stop. Now the left lane is stopped again. The one rule of traffic you can count on is the same one you can count on while choosing a line at any store. Which ever one you choose, the other is going to take off like someone opened the flood gate. Now the cars are moving by so fast that you can not get in that lane. After a hundred cars have gone by there is an opening so you jump in. 2 seconds later the line stops and the line you were just in takes off at full speed. Now you tell yourself that "tomorrow I am taking a different route to work" as you sit there watching the car you were in front off disappear out of site. The next day, you see all the same people in the same traffic jam doing the same things. See you tomorrow, Keith

7/21/05 I often think about this journal and my lack of writing. I am actually a pretty boring person and I don't think any of you want to listen to my boring rambling's. That's what my kids are for. The stuff you read here should be funny. Yesterday My wife and I went to Robbie's and Jessica's wedding. To say there were alot of NMDRC'rs there would be and understatement. The ceremony was held on a golf course with nice grass and some small rolling hills. I figured this was done on purpose so that Robbie would be thinking about the hills and riding while standing there and before he knew what happened he would be married. I always tell my wife that I actually asked her to "carry" me and that I was tricked into this marriage thing. She knows that I am just kidding as I am sure Robbie had no intention of riding away without his bride. As we sat on the groom side my wife looked over on the bride side and saw a neighbor of ours who I had never met. They said they only knew one other person there, where we knew most everybody there. Soon after the bar opened the golf carts got locked up. Somebody must have tipped them off that having motorized equipment around that many desert racers would be a bad idea. Grass + hills + sand traps + plus a bunch of off road racer's = racing and damaged equipment. How long of a golf cart race could you get in before the police show up? Keith

7/7/05 OK since the last journal about Texas and a few e-mail both agreeing and disagreeing I made another trip to Texas. I was working a Sunday night trying to get as much sleep as possible because I knew I had a long drive the next day. At 1am we got sent out. Albuquerque to Silver City, to Phoenix, and back home to Albuquerque. I slept for an hour to Silver City, then I had to stay awake to Phoenix. When we got back to the hospital the girl at the airport told us the pilot was sleeping. I calculated up the time and decided to give him another hour so that we got back to Albuquerque right at 7am so we did not have to go anywhere else. As I laid there on a couch at 4:30am I thought to myself, "My wife has no idea where I am." She knows I could be anywhere, but normally I stay in the state, right now I am sleeping on a couch in Phoenix. I made it home about 8am, put the boys in the truck and headed east. We had not made it to Tucumcari when I had to pull over to get a Red Bull out of the cooler. The next 400mi to Wichita Falls was fine. After Amarillo we headed down a road that was not sure whether it was a free way or a country road. It started off as a divided highway but then would turn into a 4 lane divided road narrow down into a city street at 25mph through small towns then work its way back up sometimes turning back into a freeway. It was Texas so I did not even try to understand it. We spent the night in Wichita Falls where the boys did alot of swimming and we had some pizza delivered so we did not have to drive anymore. The next morning we still had another 70mi to go and I wanted to make it home that night so we got up at 6am to head out. Since they are an hour ahead of us that meant it was 5am our time. My 8 and 10 year old boys have been practicing getting up late all summer so this early morning did not bode well with them. We were soon on the road and both boys were asleep. The roads got smaller and soon we were on back roads between little towns. We were headed down to pick up the new (new to us) four wheeler on a family ranch that is 640 acres of rolling hills of green grass with a private lake. We found the ranch and got the four wheeler loaded up. No I have not converted back to the dark side, The four wheeler we were after is a 1957 Massey Harrison Ferguson Tractor that had been parked for the past 20 or so years. We loaded it on the trailer and headed home. After a 1120mi round trip we made it home about 9pm. I did get to see a different side of Texas that I did not know was out there. The towns were nice with some beautiful old buildings, there were some huge ranches, We passed through one small town that had this beautiful GIANT court house. As I turned to look at it I missed the stop sign. Ooops! I got back to work at the FD and things were well. The next morning at 5am we got dispatched to Belen. Not only is that out of our district but also out of our county. I called dispatch and told them there was another unit closer but they were told to send us. I kept looking at my watch all the way down, it had been almost 30 min so I figured they had forgot to cancel us. as we arrived we saw multiple fire engines and ambulance's parked along the street and in the parking lot of an Allsups store. We were met by the guy in charge and were told that somebody had driven through the store and they now had somebody stuck under the car. We walked to the back door and found a car about 6ft from the rear door about 4 feet in the air parked on top of cabinets, and other stuff including a coffee machine which was dripping hot water. They told me there was somebody stuck under there and that they were trying to lift the car to get her out. I climbed down in this hole along side the car were I could see a foot of the person stuck under a cabinet and on could see up to her waist. The rest of her was buried under there but she was calm and talking to us. I had my partner bring me the jaws from the truck. He got them hooked up and I tried to slide them under the cabinet next to her foot. the handle kept hitting the cabinet so I had to use my hands to tear the door off. When I did this a box of straws fell out and now I had plastic straws all over the floor where I was trying to work. The floor where I was working was covered with every thing a convenience store sells including sodas, juice, coffee, syrup from the fountain drink machine and anything else you could think of. I got the jaws under the cabinet and started lifting very slowly. everybody started yelling to stop so I did. I found out later that it was moving the whole car. I started again and moved only about and inch when I saw her foot move. I reached down and pulled her foot out from under the cabinet and it was now free. I called for a wedge of wood to put under the cabinet so I could pull the jaws out of my work space. I put my hands on the ground to move backward when I felt pain and something jab me in the wrist. As I moved my hand and looked down I saw a broken bottle had jabbed me in the wrist. I turned my hand over to see my wrist bleeding. It was bleeding too much to keep working so I got up to move out and my partner dove in the hole to finish the work. I went around the front of the store to get tended to. Around front they had a patient inside an ambulance and a very large hole in the front of the store. I had the ambulance guy get stuff the wrap my wrist. I was getting angry because he was not fast enough and he was getting angry because I was being impatient and not being a good patient. How could I be, there was still work to be done and I was standing out front doing nothing. He finally finished so I headed for the back door. I found they had her out so I only got to help carry her back to the front. We packed up our stuff, took a few pictures and were out of there. Off to the ER for some stitches. I got 4 stitches in my wrist which has hampered my return to riding. The next morning I had all the dinning room chairs pulled out because I was cleaning the table, My two year old came running by, fell and thunk! He got up with a whimper and blood on his forehead, my wife yelled, he yelled, then I yelled at all of them to be quiet. I took a look at it, wrapped it up and took him to the ER were he also got four stitches. Fun times! So the past week I have not even turned on a computer because I have not been at work. Hope your week is going well. Keith

7/20/05

Growing up in Las Cruces, I have always grown up "anti" Texas. Just as those just across the border in El Paso are "anti" New Mexico. Las Cruces does not have its own TV station on any of the major networks. The only news we got was out of El Paso and was always bias’s against New Mexico. The good radio stations were also from El Paso and were always bashing on New Mexico. My philosophy has been that "No self respecting New Mexican should love anything from Texas" That was developed for all the Dallas Cowboy fans of which I am not. Now this philosophy puts me in a quandary since my wife was born in Texas. After she was born she was brought right back home to New Mexico but still has a Texas birth certificate. The other thing is that most Texan's don't claim El Paso either. So is she really a Texan? You be the judge. I have always said that one of the neat things about my job at Lifeguard was that you never know what you are going to do for the day. Some days you can fly all over the state, some days you can do nothing all day. I can be fast asleep in Albuquerque and an hour later be in Artesia or Carlsbad. This morning when I got to work they told me that they had been working on a flight the day before but that it might go today. 10 min later the phone rang and the flight was a go. We went to Roswell to pick up the patient then off to Dallas. The more we descended the more my skin started crawling knowing that soon I would be a New Mexican deep in the heart of Texas. Just before we got to the airport we could see the Texas Motor speedway where thousands of rednecks converge to watch other rednecks make left turns all day. On the other side of the plane was Texas Stadium where that blue and silver team play. When I saw that stadium with its open top I immediately thought of the movie Joe Dirt which I had watched yesterday and the "meteor" he found that turned out to be a frozen "Butt Bomb" that was dumped out of an airplane. Our plane does not have one of those but it does have a "relief tube". It is basically a funnel that drains to the outside. With the pressurized cabin on one side and low atmospheric pressure on the other side it can create quite a vacuum through there that I would not want to get any part of me caught in. I asked the pilot if on the way out we could fly over the stadium so I could make use of the relief tube. After we delivered the patient to the hospital (which by the way was 17 stories tall) we went back to the airport and met up with our pilot and a few of his bosses who are based here in Dallas. They took us out to lunch at the Texas Land Cattle company. I had a rough time not making any Texas wise cracks while hanging out with these three Texans. On the way out of the restaurant I stopped by the restroom, hanging between the men’s and women’s room doors was the Texas state flag. The thoughts that went through my head as to the possibilities I could do with that in the restroom as a parting gift for Texas were endless. I refrained and left without the police escort and chrome jewelry. After we had lifted off and flew for a while the pilot came on the air and said Air Traffic Control did not approve his request to fly over Texas Stadium but did ask why he wanted to pass over it. Oh well maybe next time. Keith

7/9/05 As I sit here watching the "Tour De France" or is it "Le Tour De France" I think of all these people who ride bikes for health and the city's effort to reduce fuel consumption by encouraging people to ride their bikes. Can you imagine how much fuel is used during the tour? If you watch it on TV all of the roads are always lined with cars or RV's to watch the race. There are chase cars, chase motorcycles and lead motorcycles all entwined with the bike riders. All of these vehicles are using fuel. And with all of the vehicles in with the racers burning fuel they are putting off emissions that the riders get to breathe. So much for the health aspect. I think all of these riders need to go desert racing. We get plenty of exercise and don't have all of those chase vehicles to interfere. I don't think there are the same type of sponsorships involved though. On Saturday the 25t of June while in Espanola for the race we had a unplanned pit race break out. Robbie's son asked his dad if he could ride his little quad. He started making circles around the pit marker stakes. before long Tim Dugan's son joined in and them one of my boys. We took a 3ft long 2X6 and laid it across a log that was to be burned later to make a jump for the kids. None of them would try it so I jumped on my little pit bike and started jumping it. Ben even tried it on the unicycle. before long Konrad figured I was jumping well enough that he would lay down and let me jump him. This is where the scary part came in. I had to get enough speed to clear him but still had to hit a piece of wood that was only 5 1/2 inches wide. The first one went OK but I did not get enough air to completely clear him. He had a tire mark across his shirt. After a few more runs I had it down so that if I pre loaded the jump I could clear him without hitting him. On one of the runs the ramp split and only left me about a 3 inch wide start to the ramp. A second person laid down and I was able to hit the ramp and clear both of them. In between jumps Tim pulled out one of his sons PW50s and we would race. At one point DR jumped on my Daughters Disney Princess bicycle with the tassels on the handle bars and baby seat on the back and joined the race. She did not like that very much and inspected it thoroughly for damage when he returned it. I had a third person lined up for jumping but then the ignition switch on my bike went out so I parked it. I jumped on Tim's other PW50 so we could race those. Those little bikes do not have much power so we had to push them up hill and ride them back down the other side. On the lower corner Tim fell so I turned inside him, jumped off the bike and lifted the rear tire so it was barely touching the ground and his the gas so he got a good roost while he was on the ground. On the next lap he cut the course to turn around and give me the same roost treatment. These bike were just too small so we switched bikes. He got on the TTR90 and I got on his wife's XR100 (I could not stand being on a Yamaha any longer) and we raced them. I was doing well and Tim kept trying to take me out in the corners. When my boy came back I tossed him off his bike and gave Tim back the XR. We were both now on XR100s and the race was on. The whole time this was going on there were 3 to 5 kids still riding their bikes which we had to avoid but that was part of the fun. The races were alot of fun and we had drawn quite a crowd. I kept hitting the corner marker and Tim would fall. finally Jeff and Rick showed up and put a stop to the racing. Everybody got quite a laugh, we had a great time. I did not do as well in the Sunday race but I had just as much fun. Keith

6/19/05 It seems that as time goes by it starts moving faster and faster. It just seems like I never have time to sit down and write anymore. In fact I noticed I don't even sit down and watch TV anymore. After July I am moving to a different station and I should have more time to write. But what the new station is lacking, is a riding area. I will be working off of Coors next to the Pajarito Mesa so I am going to have to look for a way up to the desert and then start making myself some track. I have only had a chance to ride a couple of times since the OMG. I found out that a lot of rust can form in only a week and a half. After shaking off the rust I started to find my "MO JO" and did a little better. The second time was not much better. Today is Fathers day. When I got off work this morning I headed down to Belen to meet up the "The Blue MandM" to go for a ride. since I can get a little long winded with my stories I asked him to write up the ride. It was a lot of fun and I got to see some new places. Next weekend is the race. One of the things I have been working on is "Mac Daddy", my new grill. Well actually my old grill resurrected. It will be out at the Rattle Snake so come by and visit. Keith

5/25/05 It seems now a-days that the more I ride the faster I used to be. Every time I ride I remember that I used to be alot faster through sections that now I am slow through. I finally decided that the track must have gotten rougher than it used to be. I also decided to quit riding because I seem to get slower every time I go out. The other day I was going across some woops that were not very big but the bike did a quick swap and I went flying. As the bike turned sideways and pitched me off I was upright in a standing position flying backwards. Sometimes when people crash they say everything happened in slow motion. This is what happened to me, as I was flying backwards I saw my bike flop over on the ground and remember thinking calmly to myself " I am glad I am not wearing my Camelback today, I hope I don't hurt my neck." Then WHAM! I landed flat on my back on the upside of the next woop, my head flung back and struck the ground. I bounced over to my right side and came to a rest between the woops. I must have been going faster than it seems because I flew about 20ft in the air before hitting the ground. I got up and went over to my bike to pick her up and apologize. After I picked her up I said out loud to myself "You're a loser". After checking the back of my helmet where it struck the ground and finding my MP3 player still in one piece, I took my goggles and helmet off and shook out the sand. I went on about my way to finish my ride. You know it is spring because all the little rabbits are out. I saw at least 60 of them out there. It must be instinct for them to cross what ever path is next to them. Yes I know I have talked about this subject before but they have not yet learned to just stay still and I would go right by them without even seeing them. Although I did see one daredevil rabbit out there. I was moving pretty fast down the arroyo and he was slowly scampering across the sand just to tempt me. When I made another pass I saw him again this time he just did a couple of hops along the trail and turned to watch me go by. I could of sworn I saw one of those older rabbits talking on my old cellular phone. I came around one corner and found two rabbits sitting together having a smoke break before they went back to work running across the trail. As they saw me the took off in two different directions. That got me thinking, People talk about the reproduction properties of rabbits but you never see them together. Is there like a rabbit tabloid that they are hiding from? See you at the race, Keith

5/19/05 Last week I had the opportunity to do something that I never had done before. I went riding with my kids out in the desert. They had been asking me to take them to Montessa Park to go riding but I did not want to take them on the weekends when all the crazy people are out there. They had a day off from school last Monday so I decided to take them. There were a couple of other vehicles there, one with a couple of bikes. As I unloaded their bikes, The guys from the other truck came over, It was Brian Lowery and Eric Valdez (I think). They said they were going for a ride but would be back and I could go with them for the next round. I got the kids going on the flat area and they were having a great time. When Brian and Eric were going back out I headed over to go with them. Brian sports the number six and Eric's is number 21. That means as number 362 I was in way over my head. We took off and I followed along until we turned up some trails. That is when they took off. I missed a turn so they did an extra part that I did not do. This put me in the lead. As they went flying past me I realized why they are experts and I am not. After a few stops to wait for me I decided to go back with my kids so they would not have to wait for me and I could catch my breath. After watching the kids ride for a while longer I took them down the big arroyo. The sand is pretty deep and Kevin had some trouble on his XR70 falling a few times. Kyle is on an XR100 so he did OK. We came back along the RR track through all the woops and the kids had a great time. Going out riding with the kids was a new experience that I look forward to again (But without the butt kicking) Keith

5/5/5 My wife had to leave town last Thursday for a family thing down in Las Cruces. Since the kids did not have school on Friday she took them with her. It ended up that she needed to stay until this Thursday so on Sunday we met in TorC so I could get the kids and send them to school all week. You know how mom’s complain about how tough it is to take care of kids and that it is a real job. Well it was my turn to find out. The normal routine at our house is for Kyle the oldest (10yrs) gets up at 06:45 to shower, The other kids shower the night before and get up at 7am. They all go eat cereal when they get up. At about 7:15 my wife starts yelling at them to hurry up so they can go get dressed. At 7:20 she says enough and sends them to get dressed finished or not. At 7:30 she yells at them because they are still not dressed but have had plenty of play time and at least one argument between the boys. At 7:40 she starts combing hair and then yells at them because they are not staying still while she does their hair. At 8am the bus shows up at the end of the driveway and two of them go running out dragging their open back packs while the third one is still putting on his or her shoes before running down the drive. Well this Monday my alarm went off at 6:30 and I knew Kyle would be up soon to shower so I decided to just lay there awhile. I woke up at 7:23 with all the kids in asleep in my bed and Kyle had not showered yet. I woke them all and sent them in different directions. 8am came, everything had been accomplished and the kids were off to school and there was no yelling. The next three days we all got up on time, no yelling, and they were all ready before the bus showed up. Now I am not saying that I am better then her but I did manage to do all the inside chores, the outside chores, and work on a few motorcycles. The kids had clean clothes to wear to school and did not eat dinner at McDonalds once. McDonalds, why is it that the kids learn so early that this is the place they want to go. If you tell a kid to pick up something off the floor they can not find it. You can describe where it is at and even point to it with your finger two inches away and they still are unable to see it. But you can be driving down the road and they can spot a blurry McDonalds sign two miles away that is reflected off a store window, a car mirror and a puddle of water on the side of the road. Once you stop they run off to play while you order the food. When you show up with the food they take a few bites and run off again returning occasionally to grab another bite. An hour later these kids who said they were hungry have only eaten half of their food but you have had all of mickey D's you can handle so you load up and head home. Once home the familiar sound of "Is there anything to eat?" See you in the funny farm. Keith

4/30/05 Why is it that 75% of the people that work in the call in customer service industry were not born in the good ole USofA. Yea, you know what I am talking about. Halow, tank you for calling (insert name here). Haw may I hep you. Last year when I was coming back from Atlanta I got bumped off of two flights. Every time I got bumped off of a flight the person at the desk would give me a pile of ticket things and was told each pile was worth $400 in travel on Delta Air Lines. They are transferable but must be redeemed by calling in to a ticket agent. Why do you have to call in? Because the prices are higher than if you buy them on the internet. The other condition is that they have to be used within a year. I think this a great thing; I now have $800 worth of free flying to do. The bad part turned up after I got home and realized Delta flies about 4 different placed out of Albuquerque and each ticket costs about $600 one way. For a person with a wife and four kids these tickets have become worthless. I found a friend at work that could use them so we worked out a trade. As I was reading through these to figure out how to transfer them out of my name into his I read that I could have been compensated with a “Monetary” value instead of travel vouchers. I called Delta to find out if I could trade these for the monetary equivalent. Halow, tank you for calling Deta airlines, dis is (could not under stand his name) Haw may I hep you. I told him the story and asked him about trading up for some $$. He told me that these are monetary. I tried to explain that monetary means money and these were not money. After two trips to talk to his supervisor he and his supervisor could not figure out that vouchers were not money. I gave up. One last question, “How do I transfer them to my friend’s name?” “Ju con’t transfer dem”. I read them the statement on the voucher that said “The named person or his designee” It turned out he under stands English as well as he speaks it. I wound up going to the airport to talk to a ticket agent. After explaining the whole thing again I was met with a blank stare. Here comes the next person up the food chain who said “I don’t know, I have never even seen all those rules back there.” Can I talk to the supervisor? “Sorry, we don’t have a supervisor, the new one has not been hired yet and the one that we do have is off right now.” I was then given a 1-800 number to call, it cost me a dollar in parking to get the 1-800 number to the guy who can’t speak English. I give up. Keith

4/19/05 It seems that the more time passes, the quicker it goes by. When you are a young kid, A year takes forever to pass. It seems like when the school year starts it is forever before the next summer break starts and Christmas seems to only come around every year or two. Now that I am the adult (You notice I did not say grown up, If you are reading this site you must be one of those who refuses to grow up.) The year flies by and Christmas present buying season seems to come about every three or four months. A friend of mine and I were talking about this one day and it was decided why this phenomenon happens as we get older. When you are a new baby a year is 100% of your life as when you are 10 a year makes up 10% of your life. When you are 30 a year make up only just over 3% of your life. So it is no use the years are just going to start moving faster and faster. I heard a saying the other day that I think fits very well with our life style. "An understanding wife is one that serves dinner in the garage." As far as my bad day goes, I have previously written about my dogs, their travels, and the required bail money to retrieve them from doggy jail. The other day when I was going to the store the dogs wanted to go so I opened the tailgate so they could jump in. Max, (the male dog) jumped in but Nala (The female) did not make it up with her back legs not making it over the tail gate and she slid out of the truck until she was sitting on the ground and just rolled over, got back up and jumped in the truck. I noticed when she got up that her back legs were not operating correctly which has happened before but resolved by its self. Max and Nala are 8 and a half and nine years old. We have had each of them since they were only about 6 weeks old. The life expectancy is about 8 to 10 years for this breed of dog. When we got home from the store the dogs jumped out of the truck and went about their business. The next morning when I got home from work Nala was thrashing around on the ground and I went out to check on her and found that she could not move her back legs. We got in to the vet about 3pm. After checking her out he said there was noting that we could do. I carried her (110lbs) into the office and held her as he gave her a shot, She died in my arms. As much trouble as those dogs have caused me, I went home, told the kids and we all had a good cry. It was a bad day and I think of her often. I am very sad that she is gone but I am happy for the time I had with her. Let's all go have a good and safe race weekend. Keith

4/11/05 I put up a new page on the web site. Every once in a while I get pictures and other stuff that I want to put up but don't really have a place. So I added a page called "Stuff". If you have something you want to share with everybody and don't really know where you want to put it, we can put it on the stuff page. Other than that, today was a bad day. I will write about it later. Keith

4/7/05 Vacation is over and it is time to get back to some riding. The vacation went well except for the fact that 3 days into the 10 day vacation I got sick and it lasted the whole time and then some. It was still fun spending the time with the family. Disneyland had way too many people but we managed to ride everything we wanted to at least once. When we got back I was still sick and had no desire to ride. If I was sick enough that I did not want to ride then I must really be sick and had my wife make me an appointment at the doctor's office for me. I forced myself to not turn on my computer the whole time we were out (which is quite difficult for me) so I had quite a few e-mails' one of which was the flier for the next race. Today I got an e-mail from Rick telling me that their event calendar had been updated. The other day I also got an e-mail that I found to be very interesting.

New Mexico has some of the best off road riding on the planet. As a former NMDRC Overall Champion I am happy to see a new web site. Severe injury forced me to mellow out but I am alive and well . I miss everything about the desert racing . Thanks to all for the cards and letters .ROB LUNDY - #1 -1998 #3- 1999 #3- 2000

I remember Rob to be a very fast expert class racer as well as his son was quite the mini racer. I found his e-mail to be very interesting because it exemplifies the family atmosphere that that is found throughout the NMDRC. The NMDRC.com site has been up for about a year now and has turned into what I wanted it to be thanks to all of you. Now that I have been to the doctor I am feeling better and have the desire to ride again. As a person who visits alot of hospitals and sees alot of sick people, why is it that I never want to go see a doctor. Is it that men in general have a macho ego that going to a doctor would damage. It is like spending all day fixing a plumbing problem that would only take a real plumber 10 min to fix. I am man and I can fix anything! And I don't need no doctor. Instead of feeling better in a day or two, I choose to be sick for the next couple of weeks. See you on the trail, Keith

3/23/05 I am sitting here with nothing to say, I have started a few different ramblings but then erase them because they don't sound any good. I guess I have short timers syndrome. Tomorrow I will go do something that is out of the ordinary for me. Vacation! My wife claims that the only time I take time off of work is to go to a race. Yes she is right. But this time I am going somewhere and not taking my bike or any gear. Although I do keep thinking about my bike and how I can incorporate it in to our plans but nothing has panned out. I do look forward to spending the next week and a half with the family I also look forward to getting back to my bike and putting in some ride time. Hopefully when I get back I will have some fun stories to tell and not any of my bad luck. I don't know if I will get to a computer during the next week and a half so ride safe, have fun, and wish me luck. Keith

I got an e-mail from CrazyYammi who had a similar problem that ended with a blown motor on the snow blower. These pictures are from his house.