Family

For some reason blogger isn't letting me load up pictures but I will when it lets me....maybe it is on a coffee break. Well after much pressure from I will not say who I am writing about my recent trip home. I enjoyed being in the great outdoors and breathing clean air...sorry folks from my town...:)
Dad is recovering nicely we think and his levels are lower than they need to be for now so he is still being monitored. At least chemo did it's thing. Mom was good too and a bit busy. She is looking after dad and Joel who was also sick at the time which made it harder for dad. It was great to see Rae again and meet her man Christien. We had lots of free time to just hang out together and that was a real treat.
We had a beauty of a day on Sat before we had to leave and so we spent it at Clear Lake. An awesome spot for a get away if you need to. All in all a fun time and good to reconnect with everyone who was there.
Okay by the time I was done writing blogger came back off coffee break and wa la!

A real Biker!!! - TKP

I now have 2 reasons to consider myself a "real biker".

First, last week I left the safe confines of the city and did my first road trip (until now, I was convinced that my 500 cc bike was too light to be very safe or comfortable on the highway). It was great! Lots of fun! I am looking forward to more highway rides.

More importantly, the second reason, I had a run in with "the law" today! I was leaving the church building when I saw Skip Hill coming down the road. He was pointing like he wanted me to turn around, so I quickly shot down the back alley, through the parking lot and met Skip at the front of the building. Turned out that he needed a key to get in. That is when we saw them - "The Fuzz"!

A cop car sitting in the driveway behind my motorcycle. Skip asked, "What did you do?" and I said, "I don't know. Maybe I did not signal when I turned into the alley". So I went up to them, said "hi" and they asked if that was my bike. I told them that it was and they asked "Do you have a license?" I produced license and registration and they said, "We saw you veer off the road and down the alley when you saw us coming, so we thought that you must be driving an unlicensed bike". Skip and I laughed, told them the real story and they said "Have a nice day".

So there you go - it is true.....

"The Man" is always hassling the innocent, good, nice, "never causing any trouble" biker dudes! :)

On the good side - my "brush with the law" should give me some much needed "street cred" with the Harley boys down the block!!! Now I can put off getting that tattoo for while! :)

Storm chasing - TKP

We had tornado warnings here today as well as a "sighting" out by Torquay - just west of here. So in the grand Pippus tradition of doing things that are just slightly stupid - I threw the kids and Sari in the truck to go and see the storm (one of the three was not as excited about this turn of events as the others - I will leave you to fill in that blank with your own imagination though) :)

I mean - come on - how many times do you get to see a twister in real life??????

Not to worry though - we stayed a long, long way back and in the end..... nothing! No funnel clouds. No flying cows. Hardly a drop of rain. Lots of dark clouds and some good lightening and thunder - but that was it.

Stupid Environment Canada Weather Warnings!! All the interesting weather misses us! :(

(Of course those last two lines are written "tongue in cheek" - I am not actually wishing to be in a tornado, taking them lightly, or trying to call down a curse upon myself - just for the record!)

Planes, Lennys and Automobiles (Part 4) - TKP

For those of you who have been slugging your way through my last 3 postings about Lenny's and my trip to Charlotte and thinking to yourself, "Wow! Am I glad I wasn't there" [That group could include anyone who is either... 1) a "non-racing fan" or 2) those who can imagine what our rental car smelled like after 8 days in 93 degree heat - Whew!!! :) Either way!].... I just wanted to prove to you that Lenny and I are men of broad experience. We not only went to race shops and races at the paved track - we also went to races at the dirt track!!!!!

(Ok - so what did you expect? A posting about how we went and got our nails done at the spa? Actually, Lenny wanted to, but he decided that their red nail polish did not match his skin tone, so he walked right out of there!!) ;)

On Friday night, the top dirt racers in the country - the "World of Outlaws" Sprint cars - were at the dirt track in Charlotte. The track is 4/10 of a mile (Isn't that actually 2/5 - why don't they say that? I don't know) and is basically the same size as the one in Estevan. The cars in Estevan average 80 - 90 mph around our track - these guys were averaging 120 mph+. The Estevan track draws 1 400 people on a good night - these guys had 14 000.

Two pictures - looking each direction from our seats (just to show the numbers of people) and then two videos to show you the cars on the track - three of them flip near the end of the first video - but I missed most of it. The last picture is self-explanatory.

Planes, Lennys and Automobiles (Part 3) - TKP

Here is a short video to show you the view from our seats for the Cup race on Sunday. This is just me, Lenny and 160 000 of our closest friends. :)