End of a crazy year…looking forward to 2011

 

Symbolic of new horizons for 2011.

 

Well, I’m continuing to fail at my attempt to keep my blog up to date with at least one post per month. Would love to shoot for one a week but we’ll take twelve over fifty-two and see where that goes first.

In any case. I just wanted to take a bit of your time and mine to point out a few things about 2010 (both good and bad) as well as a few hopes for 2011.

From beginning to end as best as I can remember.

1st Quarter of the year….

Kera having fun... Antman is somewhere else.

Had a great visit from our buddy Anthony where we had a bit of outdoor fun.

Kera in the worlds largest salt lake.

We went to South America, had a great time and managed to precede any of the many disasters there. An amazing place that we’d both like to revisit some day (maybe starting in Chile and heading south from there).

Only back a week or so and then Kera was off traveling for most of a couple of months. It was interesting being alone that much after being together so much for our first 5+ years together. Yes, we definitely missed each other but we survived.

2nd Quarter -

Work, work, work….. for both of us.

Me racing in München

Did the München City Bike Marathon per each year…. singlespeeded a 95 km course and enjoyed almost every bit of it.

Me racing in Finale Ligure, Italy

Kera and I in the Italian part of Switzerland

 

Off to Finale Ligure for the 24 Hour race and then a week of vacation in Italy and Switzerland. Who knew that in parts of Switzerland they don’t speak German?

Also, broke my first frame of the year at Finale.

Went in and added yet another bit of tattoo work to my small but growing collection.

3rd Quarter -

Mother-in-laws jump in Austria

Went for an amazing week long hut-to-hut hiking trip around Dachstein in Austria. We’ll be doing a lot more in 2011.

Avoided death and paralysis when my bike broke in two and I smashed my face into the ground while racing. Spent the next 6+ weeks in the hospital and then recuperating at home. Really glad to be in an amazing German hospital.

Kera… continued to work, work and work.

While recuperating I started to take on some of the hat construction that Kera had previously done on her own (outside of color combo recommendations from me).

After constant prodding from many friends we went to SiS (Schlaflos im Sattel) which is a yearly destination. I was awarded the #1 number plate for life and a lifetime entry.

Discovered that in spite of my sarcasm and cynicism I have an amazing group of family & friends in the U.S., here in Europe and other places worldwide.

4th Quarter -

The new Indy Fab

Received my new Independent Fabrications Ti Deluxe 29′er and started riding again.

Switched from my old job to full-time teacher trainer within the same company for many reasons.

Kera received her Niederlassungserlaubnis (a long word for Permanent Residency) and I received the ability to work anywhere doing anything I want.

Back to working a lot for both of us. Sadly, that means that working out and riding suffered also (tends to make me REALLY grumpy as a side-effect).

Two new Mexican restaurants (Wahaka & Milagros) opened in München which help fill a HUGE void in our dietary needs. Believe it or not… they are both REALLY great!

Our new (to us) car

We bought our first car in Europe. Freedom….FINALLY!

Went snowshoeing a couple of times in the large amounts of snow that we received in December (record amounts, by the way).

Had a great Christmas seeing friends before and after as well as hanging out with Kera for both Christmas and New Years.

Now… on to 2011.

Plans and wishes

London (my first trip) this coming week.

Much more hiking

Much more cycling and at least working out in preparation for 2012 (planning to do a HUGE race for my 50th)

Much more sewing and creation

Maybe starting a couple of small companies (depends on how the German government takes it). Only time will tell.

Ireland for Single Speed World Championships 2011

Possibility of us moving out to the country, closer to the mountains, at some point if we can work out Keras commute situation (again…super tentative and a big wish).

Kera is going to do a fair amount of traveling in the first quarter again.

….Some other things up our sleeves too.

The main plan is for us to stay healthy and happy.

It’s been ages… or literally months…

Sorry friendly readers… I/we aren’t dead and didn’t fall off the face of the planet. I just haven’t really had much to tell other than the million things running through the gourd on top of my shoulders. Normally, it just spews from my mouth (often without a filter) and you take it in or don’t. As you can decide whether to read this or not, I realize that you don’t really care about my every waking thought or whim. Thus, I’ll shorten this to the Readers Digest (are they still in business) version.

Kera on the Salt Flats

Us... hanging out on the Salt Flats of Bolivia

Kera helped a couple of these ladies by buying lots of yarn

Machu Picchu before the landslides

My guinea pig dinner. Fit for a King!

First… Kera and I hit Peru, Bolivia & a very small slice of Chile (maybe our next big vacation). We had a great time, saw amazingly beautiful things, met some really cool people and discovered a place that we didn’t have any idea was so cool and beautiful. If… when we go back, we’ve decided that to make the trip all it could be, we need to know a reasonable amount of Spanish so it might be a couple of years before we can swing that.

We seemingly preceeded a number of natural disasters as we travelled. First, El Nino has hit South America hard this year and it’s to blame for a lot of things. However, we were in and out of Macchu Pichu just before the landslides and then we left Santiago just a few days before the earthquake that rocked the city. Are we bad luck? Maybe you shouldn’t answer that.

Our tour guide Shirley was awesome! She took care of our little group like a mother. She really tried to help us have the best time possible and answered our every question. Our co-travelers were a very diverse group from Ireland, Korea & Canada. We really enjoyed meeting all of them and they all really added to the enjoyment of the trip as well. We hope to see all of them at some point in the future.

Peru photos click here

Bolivia photos click here

Kera took some beautiful shots that are still yet to be posted and there are some great ones from Chile yet to be posted as well. I’ll update the links as soon as I do it.

Cheese! Don't get bugs in your teeth.

Kera has been working like a slave lately. The last few months she’s been in either or both Zürich or London seemingly once a week. As I write this, she’s in the U.S. on business which was preceded by a few weeks in Australia. She also has to go to Canada and may have to head back south of the Equator before she lands back on European soil. Her business trip might be as short as a month and as long as 1.5 months. That’s the longest, by far, that we’ve been apart in almost 6 years together. Weird… we’ll have been married 5 years this year. Hmmm!

My job is going pretty well. The trainers/teachers that I work with are a really diverse and interesting group of people. Most have travelled the world, done things that many people only dream of and make me jealous on a regular basis in those terms. The people that I teach also teach me many different things about finance, banking, Real Estate, IT, fund & asset management and so much more. I work hard, like the people that I work with but really, really wish that I got paid significantly more money. For the amount of stress and number of decisions that I am asked to make daily, I feel like I’m way undervalued. For the most part, I can’t complain about too much more though. Our office is on Viktualienmarkt (the big fruit & veggie market next to Marienplatz) and I get to get out of the office for lunch daily.

I did my first race of the year yesterday. Last year when I did the City Bike Marathon I believe that I mentioned that I would probably never do it on a singlespeed again. Well, it seems that I’m now a liar! Sorry gang… guess it was only a matter of time. I debated all last week; gears…. singlespeed…. gears….. singlespeed. In the end, my love toward singlespeeding won out. I finished 125th overall but I believe that I was the first place singlespeeder! Woohoo! I suppose that since there were 1500 people in the “race” my placing isn’t too shabby. I’ll post pics as soon as they are available. A few more pics of me here.

I’m about to finish building a really nice set of wheels to ride and race. They are White Indus. M16 hubs laced to FRM/Bor XMD 388 rims. They’ll be tubeless and light. Zoom!

That’s it  for now. Tschüss!