Up for air

A couple e-mails have rolled in to ask "what gives with the no posts"?

It's kind of hard to admit this. But my non-racing-life seems to have put racing-life completely and totally on the back burner for now. What's going on? New job, new house, new state and the pending new addition to my personal family tree. If you haven't heard I started a new job at a Pharmaceutical company outside Philadelphia. I've moved out of my dirtbag bachelor quarters (aka The Chicken Coop) seen in the photo above and into real grown up living space in center city Philly. The soon to be mother of my child (aka Baby Momma) somehow managed to convince me that her place would represent a better living situation for the child. She didn't buy my argument that lead paint chips and poor insulation build a stronger constitution. Something about being a pediatrician makes her think she knows better.

Adding a degree of difficulty to the mix were a few small items: a car accident, knee surgery and a weekend road trip to Pittsburgh featuring weddings and more weddings. My last day of work at good ole Ma Bell started the way many workdays begin in Northern New Jersey. Calling my boss to tell him I'd be late after a large truck full of lawn care machinery slammed into the back of my formerly shiny new Honda. Nobody was injured but moving sucks when your car trunk is held shut by a c-clamp and a zip-tie. Handy stuff I fished out of the AR gear pile! Follow that up with knee surgery. Again, nothing major, just a clean up of the torn meniscus in my right knee discovered during my June Hospital stay. That stay was to identify why my one leg was suddenly twice the size of the other leg. The eventual answer to which was "we don't know but the antibiotics seemed to have worked". How's that for a warm and fuzzy?

Immediately post-surgery might have been a good time for me to post something. The afternoon of Percocet provided me with enough pain relief that baby momma even managed to sucker me into a baby furniture store. Where I had to help approve the purchase of some sort of super chair capable of rocking-gliding-pivoting and anything else necessary to quiet a howling infant short of sedation. Speaking of which, I didn't need the whole Percocet prescription to manage the pain hmmmm.... Just kidding. Like most things baby related my opinion, relevant or not, was duly noted. However, this time it was whole-hearted approval. I can't wait to steal the thing for NFL football after getting off the spin-trainer this fall.

So, now the big question. How well will I recover after 6 weeks of antibiotics, surgery and not a lick of exercise? Well enough to regain form for a few fall races? Or will I be devoured by the new job, birth and a huge slope of lost fitness to climb back up? Only time will tell.

I hope to be racing but I may get stuck trolling the AR message boards for the saucier stuff like this rabid exchange on the Trailblazers board. If I get really bored I might start hurling some mud myself. Not at any of those folks though, I have my own bones to pick. But I'd have to be seriously bored.