KTM One Year Anniversary

Believe it or not, I celebrated my one-year anniversary at KTM. And, what a year it's been. From making the decision to move to Ohio, to making that decision all over again when I was relocated to California. Tracy and I have been presented with a lot of stressful decisions during my time at KTM, but we are glad we have made the ones we have.

In the last year, we went from hardly seeing each other to living together. What a difference a year makes. Living together is neat.

During that year, I've learned a lot at my new job regarding marketing strategies and keeping yourself valuable during rough economic times. It's been quite the year. I could have never imagined that my house would STILL be on the market right now too! Oh well, I'm scraping along and times will get better. I keep telling myself my house will sell ... just a matter of time. That hour glass will have to run out eventually.

KTM has been a great opportunity and it's a really fun company to work for. Everyone is passionate about the industry at KTM and we don't just work in the industry we live it. As an example, after racing last weekend and riding at a media event in the mountains on Wednesday this week on an ATV, today I hit up the motocross track and spun some laps on two wheels for a change. We are always living the sport out here, and it's much better than Ohio. The nice weather doesn't hurt either.

On Sunday Tracy gets to meet her friend Amber who is in town for dinner while I head up to Glen Helen for the opening ATV National race to represent KTM. Race weekends will start to slow down soon, just in time for Katie and John's visit and Tracy's family for Easter weekend!

I'll Take The WORCS

I'm pumped up for this weekend. I should be because I've been preparing for it for more than a week. Last weekend I took a KTM 450 XC ATV with our 540cc big bore kit to Lake Elsinore MX to train for Round 2 of WORCS racing.

Lake Elsinore lived up to its name, that much is for sure. The track is located on a dried up lake bed that holds some water after heavy rains such as the ones we've had recently. The track was choppy and several sections were so sloppy that at least 60 pounds of cement-mix, super sticky mud built up on the machine each moto, wearing me out quickly. This isn't an exageration. It took me 2 hours to get that orange beaut looking new again! I put in a 20-minute moto to wear a line in on the track and had to stop and scrape off the mud to avoid carrying too much weight over the bigger jumps.

The good news is apparently Californian riders are too soft for mud riding so I had the track to myself. You don't get that opportunity every day. Once I wore in a line it was actually a really fun and challenging track. I rode four motos and put in more than an hour of training for this weekend's WORCS National race.

I'm still not sure what class I want to enter. I've never raced a WORCS event, so I'm thinking I'll check out the Open B class to see how I stack up. Open A riders will be on the track at the same time so it will be a good gauge of my skills. The race is 50 minutes that combines both cross country racing and motocross disciplines. There's also tractor tires and telephone pole obstacles to conquer and climb over, but I have no doubt the KTM can handle the job. The question is, can I?

Tomorrow I'll spend time prepping the machine for Friday practice. I'm expecting a really rough course as the dirt bike riders hit the same track this past weekend. And, from a few co-worker reports, expect blisters. I'll take a before and after picture of my hands just to see how soft I've gotten being a desk jokey.

Top 5 Things I Hate To Clean

1. White blinds. Is there anything worse than cleaning blinds? Today we cleaned the blinds in our bedroom and I couldn't wait for it to be finished. We live in the desert, so dusting a lot is a must. I imagine cleaning blinds is worse than cleaning a newborn's bottom.

2. Shower surrounds. There's something about cleaning shower surrounds that aggravates me. Thankfully, Tracy cleaned our two surrounds yesterday. I feel like you scrub and scrub and never make any progress and the chemical smells overwhelm you. At least I'm not that hairy like the pube brothers (Who found a pube in their toaster of all places). You know who you are. Not being real hairy makes it a little easier to clean the shower at least.

3. Ovens. That self-cleaning function is a joke. You put it on self-clean, it stinks up your entire house and there's still crusty stuff you have to clean out. As a bonus, I'll add that cleaning under the burners can be painful at times. Kind of like a night being forced to listen to an entire Amy Winehouse album.

4. Refrigerators. It never fails that I spill something in there fumbling around in a hunger haze. Of course, I'm too worried about my next snack so I don't clean it up immediately. And, let's not forget about those new fancy upside down ketchup bottles that always seem to leak in the door. Cleaning the fridge is worse than being forced to watch Dr. Phil and Maury back to back.

5. Ceiling fans. I'd much rather put up a ceiling fan than clean it. There's an inside joke to that one, so if you're not on the inside you're missing out. Today I cleaned our ceiling fan blades and ate dust as it rained down on me. The dust was just a pre-game snack because we're off to In and Out burger for an early dinner ... the first time I've hit it up since I moved here in October and Tracy's first time ever!

In the Sinkhole

Per my usual routine I left the apartment at 6:15 but was shocked to be greeted with a traffic jam on Hancock Road. Usually there's hardly a car in sight when I leave for work. When I got to the first stoplight I was detoured right by a traffic control officer. So much for going west toward work. I busted an illegal U-turn and made it to work just slightly later than my usual 6:30 start time.

When I crossed the 215 I noticed there wasn't any traffic. Something was amiss. Turns out there was a huge sinkhole that closed all the north and south bound lanes and they decided it was a good idea to detour all the traffic past our apartment. I feel so lucky. Nothing like even longer traffic jams in SoCal. If only I had a street bike today, splitting lanes up to stoplights would have saved me 15 minutes in a commute that should only take 8 minutes! On the way home I went 4 miles in 23 minutes. That's not ideal gas mileage in the old Ford.

Incredible Dinner

I had my favorite meal tonight for dinner. I've always loved hamburger and gravy over mashed potatoes. More specifically, I've always loved my mom's hamburger and gravy over mashed potatoes. It's always a meal that reminds me of home and family. My mom sent over her recipe almost a year ago and life got too busy to make the meal. Finally, now that our lives have slowed down a tad, Tracy got the recipe again and we made my favorite meal. Tracy's favorite meal is mashed potatoes and gravy with meatballs ... only real difference is the meat isn't in balls. My mom made this meal for us awhile back and Tracy was hooked just like I am.

Believe it or not, the hamburger and gravy tasted nearly identical to my mom's sauce. It's one thing to get the ingredients, it's another to actually cook it right. The sauce was my responsibility tonight and I guess I actually succeeded. And, for the first time ever, Tracy made mashed potatoes. We've only made the instant potatoes, which really are worthless compared to the real thing. Tracy did a bang up job and the mashed potatoes were really, really good. She added half and half, butter, milk and sour cream and they were delicious! So, I'll perfect the hamburger and gravy and Tracy will perfect the potatoes. Perfect match. Neat. I guess it takes two of us to equal my mom's good cookin', but she does have a few dinners on us!

It's not right to get this excited about dinner, but we were really pumped. Man we love that dinner. Miss you mom it's not the same without sharing it with you and more importantly, Happy Birthday!!