Well, I just survived the most difficult week of my professional career. I still have a job (for now) and hopefully next week will be better. Times sure are tough with the economy and when I look back, it really puts it into perspective how lucky I’ve been to have such a great job. Hopefully things will keep moving forward, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that no matter how good things are, or how bad things are, they always come to an end eventually.
(Photos to come...)
It’s been an exhausting week so I’m not even going to get into it. I’m just going to ride motorcycles, keep my head down and keep writing stories as long as I keep getting a paycheck. We’ll deal with the next step if and when it comes.
Anyhow, the last blog I did was around X Games time and I had just returned from Michigan with an injured wrist. Since then um... let me think... what have I been doing? Well I got to join my mom and her friends for dinner when Heather was in town. It’s always a treat to see her and it’s interesting to see the parallels our lives have started to draw. We’re both enthusiasts in male-dominated sports, and although there’s not much in common between dirt bikes and horses, we still have a lot in common when it comes to things like traveling the world, constantly needing to prove ourselves, dealing with injuries and disappointments and still finding the motivation to keep moving forward. I’m in media and she’s a competitor, but sometimes she writes for magazines and occasionally I race, so we share really unique perspectives and both take a lot of interest in what the other is up to in life. She stays at my mom’s whenever she’s in town, and we often get to stay up late swapping stories. We have really great conversations so it’s always a treat to see her.
Another recent treat was getting to go down to Matt and Erin’s for Brian’s 10th birthday party. We had chicken divan and chocolate cake and got to spend the evening playing with the 1.6 million kids that always seem to congregate around their house. Every time I show up, it takes me a while to sort out which ones are Matt’s and which ones are the neighbors’. Occasionally one will disappear to the neighbor’s house, or a few will magically appear in Matt and Erin’s back yard. It’s hard to keep up but it seems like they have a good thing going on. Little Travie keeps up pretty well with all the bigger kids, and he’s got a set of pipes that will let you know if anything is wrong if you’re within a mile radius. Sean showed us his brand new Fender Strat and amplifier that he got for his birthday a few days earlier, and we got to watch Brian open up his brand new laptop computer that he got for his birthday! Can’t believe those little monsters are 10 and 12 years old now!
It was good to see the whole crew especially since I didn’t get a chance to make it up to Refugio this year. I had planned on going up for the last weekend of the trip, but ended up having to go to Oklahoma to cover an EnduroCross race. Of course, once again, we had record heat in the area. It was humid and miserable and made me realize why I pay the big bucks to live in the lovely and permanently air-conditioned Orange County.
The day I traveled to Oklahoma City was Mark’s birthday – a day that is obviously an emotional one. Mark and I were both really bad at remembering birthdays, but we ALWAYS knew each others and we always went big on birthday presents. Mark has given me things like a Play Station, an iPod, and I gave him stuff like Crossfire boots (they’re $400 top of the line motocross boots) and a DVD player. It was like we’d try to outdo each other. I always think of what cool thing I would have given him and wonder what he would want me to have on my birthday.
Still, August 13 was a good day for me this year. Even though it was Friday the 13th and I had to get on an airplane. Given my track record for traveling this year, I expected nothing less than disaster, but much to my surprise, it all went extremely well! No delays or truant co-pilots or screaming children. I sat next to a really cool guy on the plane who used to be a pastry chef and we were chatting about being foodies and our conversation turned into discussing the path toward achieving goals. Are we guided by fate or is it through our own drive that we reach our goals? We came to agree on the idea that “once you visualize your goal, the path becomes clear.” It was an interesting conversation. I love how you can sit down with someone and have such a deep conversation about life for a few hours without ever knowing the others’ name, or ever seeing them again. It’s one of life’s random treats (and one of the only good things that ever come from being on an airplane).
Another treat on this trip was that my best friend Laurette was also on it. We went out to dinner at “Earl’s” – a place that we randomly picked from the list of BBQ joints that my GPS gave us. It was this little rib shack in Edmond, Oklahoma that had the BEST ribs I’ve ever had. It was utterly amazing, and the fun part was that since we were in the middle of nowhere, Laurette and I shamelessly dug in, gnawing meat off the bone with BBQ sauce all over our faces and sticky handprints on our beer bottles. “Another round!” Laurette shouted to the waiter with a mouthful of rib meat. We just cracked ourselves up as we pigged out on fried okra, ribs, corn on the cobb and baked potatoes. And then we followed all that with a massive peach cobbler. YUM!!
We were so stuffed that we weren’t hungry until the next afternoon at the races. We both like to make sure we’re coiffed and poised when we’re at industry events, and all the guys treat us like such ladies. We were laughing thinking about what they’d say if they saw us elbow-deep in BBQ sauce stuffing our faces and chugging beer the night before.
The race went awesome. Laurette killed it on the mic (as always) and the story turned out great, although it was hotter than a sauna in the Lazy E Arena.
Not much else has gone on in the last few weeks. My wrist is steadily getting better, and though it’s not back to normal, I’ve discovered I can do a few hours of riding here and there without aggravating it. The following weekend (last weekend) I didn’t have to work, so a group of friends and I went out to Glen Helen for a local race. It’s been a long time since I’ve raced and it felt really good to get back out on the track for some bar-banging. It went really well and I won my race (yay me)! The guys were complaining about how “hot” it was there, but I was like, “Pssh! This is nothing! It’s not Budds Creek, so I have no complaints!”
Like I said earlier, work has been quite a roller coaster ride in the last week or so. So things have been quite stressful, but whatever. It is what it is and I’m just going to ride bikes and write stories. And eat brownies. And hope that next week is better.
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