Wow,it's been a very long time since the last blog. A lot has happened in the last few months, but I guess I haven't been all that motivated to write for some reason. Work has been very stressful to say the least. I guess that's probably why I haven't blogged. I'm more inclined to write when I'm in a good mood and lately I've been comming home from work so burned out that all I want to do is...well...nothing. I'm writing now because I'm not training, due to a sore back. It usually goes away with a couple of days of inactivity and some stretching, so I'll be back at it soon enough. Anyway, here is a rundown of what I've been doing since you last heard from me.
My last post was about my first triathlon. I have since completed 3 more. I am seeing steady improvement in my times in all three disciplines. I really am enjoying the training and the actual events. There is a whole community of people that do these, and most of them are just regular people such as myself. I have met people online and have gone to some of the group training get togethers that are organized there. We get together at Island Lake recreation area and swim 1400 meters annd then do a 12 mile bike ride. I think we are done for the season with the swimming. I have also done a few running events over the summer. 2 8K's and a 5K race. I usually can be found near the back of the pack, but I am finishing, and getting faster with each event.
Tracey, Kelly and I went down to Florida the week of the 4'th of July. We went to visit Tracey's Mom, but we did manage to sneak in a day at Epcot center. Epcot is my favorite Disney park, I love the world showcase. We have a ritual of eating something from every country there. While visiting Tracey's Mom, we also got to visit her brother Howard and meet his new girlfriend Linda. I was also able to get a few things fixed around Hazels house. I even managed to get a little surf fishing in at the beach. Speaking of beach, Siesta key beach is the most awsome beach in Florida. The sand there is very white and powdery, it doesn't burn your feet at all. The water was over 90 degrees also. Florida was great.
We took a weekend to camp in Harrisville this summer and spent Labor Day weekend at my parents up north home in Reed City. That was all the fishing I got to do this summer until about 3 weeks ago. With Tracey's work schedule, and the kids all doing their own thing, if I wanted to take a week off and go camping, I had to do it myself, so that's exactly what I did. I combined my last Triathlon in Tawas, with a Salmon fishing week. The Tawas Triathlon was a cool event, we swam in the harbor there, then biked inland, and then ran along the shorline. The rain held off until my run portion, which was perfect, because the rain cooled me off. I beat my first Triathlon time, which was the same distance, by over 12 minutes. I drove from Tawas all the way to Ludington in order to get in on a fishing contest that was taking place off the pier there. The contest wound up being called due to weather. That was a longer drive than I expected, it just seemed to take forever to get there. I probably won't do that again. I wound up camping at Ludington State Park until the following Friday. Ludington State Park is now my new favorite place to camp, I highly reccomend it if you are into camping. It is situated right on Lake michigan and has over 20 miles of undeveloped beach. There are three campgrounds and 20 miles of hiking trails there. I was driving 7 miles to the pier in Ludington to fish until I saw some guys fishing in the surf right in the park. I got all the ins and outs about surf fishing from a couple of guys there and decided to give it a try. They were all using chest waders, but I didn't have any, but I did have a wet suit that I used in the triathlon. So I trotted out there in that and gave it a try. I didn't catch any that night, but I could see where it is a fun way to fish. Its a very visceral and manly way to wage war against the mighty salmon. I eventually went and got some neoprene waders like the other guys had, because the wet suit was still too cold when the wind blew hard. I learned a lot of hard lessons on how to properly dress to surf fish, but it was worth it in the end, because I managed to catch 7 of them over the week. They aren't really running strong at that time of year, so that wasn't bad. One of them was estimated to be over 16 pounds by some guys at the cleaning station. I also did a lot of hiking, snorkeling and bike riding while I was there. I like to play hard on my vacations, that's how I de-stress. I didn't spend much time at my campsite, because it was too lonely there. Overall, I liked the "by myself" vacation. I didn't have to worry about playing and not spending time with Tracey or the kids. That being said, I still prefer to vacation with my family. The toughest part of the whole trip was being at the campsite and remembering all the great times I have had with my family camping. I hope that we can camp at Ludington this summer, I'm sure they would love it.
Well, I guess that takes me up to the present time. Look for some big news regarding Heaven Sown in the near future, there is a possibility of a big gig for us that would get us some great exposure. We have one more song to record on the Shout project and then we do a full court press to try to find a permanent drummer. There are a lot of things to look forward to and do, so I'll try to be more frequent in my posts.
