Gearing up.

That's a term for "getting ready to kick some proverbial ass". Even Lance Armstrong started at the same place as everyone else. The Beginning. It takes years of trial and error to find your groove sometimes. The ones you read about succeeding in sports or business at twenty years old are prodigies. The rest of us have to work at it. Tyler has been working on a new thing. The triathalon. Miles of running per week, working out at the gym, swimming and cycling. In his first and only triathalon to date, he came in third. It was a small event, but still quite competitive. Turns out that not everyone is a swimmer, and Tyler was the first one out of the pool in light of the fact that he only has his "floating on my back" certification. But, there he was, out of the pool and onto his WalMart mountain bike. It was flat out sad to see these guys behind him jump on their $2000.00 bikes and take off to catch him. About five miles out in the boonies, Jacob and I spotted two guys coming over the top of the hill and neither was Tyler. To our amazement the next guy to show was Tyler on his mountain bike. The seat had fallen and here he comes with knees 'a pumpin' at right angles to his bike. Looked like a damn sewing machine with determination dressed in a goofy helmet. As we cheered him on he made it back to home base in third place. His back was half dead but as he threw down the bike and took off running, you could see that someone was gonna pay. If he hadn't lost so much time, the afterburners would have smoked these two guys in the lead. One of them told him afterward that when he saw Tyler pass him going the other direction, he was glad that he had gained his lead in cycling or Tyler would him killed him in the running. Well, as the event ended, Tyler came zooming in strong at third place. This week, after much deliberation, Tyler will be getting his first used Triathalon bike from Ebay. That doesn't imply cheap. Just a few bucks off the ridiculous price. Anything that costs that much should have a motor. Gearing up has begun. So time, time will tell. Remember the old addage, "It's not where you start that matters, it's where you finish."

What's that smell?

Every Friday night at the our house, it's "homemade hamburger night", whether we need the cholesterol or not. I'd just as soon eat a good hamburger as a steak. Perhaps it has it's origins in the early years of my life when my mom made ground beef everyday for what seemed like years on end. Well, it didn't hurt me too much, it just gave me roots based in humility. I mean , look at it this way: ground beef ain't exactly steak. It is comprised of many parts of the beef. A mongrel of cuisine if you will...or to make it more palatable, one could say "the quarterhorse of beef cuts". You know, a little of this, a little of that, mixed to perfection. It's interesting that hungry friends of my sons, past and present, seem to show up right as Ma is taking the critters off the grill.

Then there's Hoot Gibson, the famous cowboy, who shows up without a formal invite every Friday. He's always good for "Show and Tell". You should see some of the stuff he brings to dinner. Just ask my son Tyler about his pouch full of jelly beans. Tyler got it as a graduation present and curiously held it up, full multi-colored jelly beans, one Friday nite and said ,"What is it?". "Well", says Hoot, a.k.a. Bob, "it's a bull's pouch, you know? I bought it down at Cowtown Boots. Tourists were snapping them up like hotcakes.... eeer... Bull pouches. You know what I mean?" By the time Tyler finally figured it out what exactly he was waving around, we were all hysterical. A tanned bull's pouch, complete with hair, filled with jelly beans...Oh my God! Ronald Reagan must have been rolling over in his grave.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, there's something that they smell wafting on the breeze when they pass our house. Saute a few sliced jalapenos and onions in olive oil and "voila !" Dinner is ready. I must say that Donnita gets most of the credit as she is the Grilless around these parts. This is just one of the secrets of life. Shhh, don't tell too many people. "Great homemade hamburgers are a part of life. The pouch makes for good conversation and laughs. And the jelly beans? They're for dessert."