Oops... Give Credit Where Credit is Due

After getting the race results for Rumble in the Jungle today via spreadsheet, it would appear that mathematical errors and confusion will make my first place a second place. Apparently, I was mistaken for Julie Busskohl and she for me. As Julie is a few years older than me her time handicap got applied to my time giving me a few more seconds of handicap than I should have. Thus making it so I was 5.5 seconds behind the ZLAC rower.

A bit of a letdown but I'll certainly make up for it the next time I race! That being said--I'm removing my medal smiling picture!
I'll try and get one at a later date : )

Rumble in the Jungle!

It was my first real race in my single and my first row in my single not on Tempe Town Lake. I think it turned out quite well. The weather was perfect and I had some good results. The first race I did was the Women's 1x Open. That means all age groups and the gal that won was 16 years old. However, she's been rowing for awhile and rowed in Sweden. I finished a distant 2nd to her. My traveling sculler, Julie B put in a good effort and we shared some somewhat scary moments while discovering that we were maybe a bit to far into the ocean on our way from the LMU dock to the UCLA boathouse. Needlesss to say we handled some much bigger waves and I don't think we'll complain about waves on Tempe Town Lake any longer! Below are some of the race pictures. For a few more pictures CLICK HERE.


Julie and I leaving the LMU dock to head to the race spot on Ballona Creek and the UCLA dock.

Rowing by the marina area to the race. On the way back I was accompanied by a seal swimming alongside me. That was really cool!

E races!


Towards the end of the masters race.

Here's Julie B. racing.

By the way, everyone knew I was from Arizona with the Arizona Outlaws garb on. I had nice conversations with lots of California rowers. My first interests in the sport came when Matt and I stayed at a condo on Pacific Beach. In the morning the rowers from ZLAC were out in the bay. I told Matt that I thought it was a really cool sport and wouldn't it be nice to live by water to row. After discovering Tempe Town Lake and the City of Tempe rowing program--it was kind of nice that the person that finished 1st in my 2nd place race result was a ZLAC rower.

LMU Boathouse, Marina Del Rey

Matt and I are in Marina Del Rey--not far from LA as you'll notice by the early morning haze in these pictures. We went to the LMU boathouse with Julie Busskohl and her husband Craig, to see if we could figure out the logistics of getting our shells where they needed to be by racetime. Julie had bought a used set of oars back in February from Patrick Kelly who happened to be the contact person for the event. He was very nice to us, allowing us to store our shells on 2 open rack spaces inside the LMU boathouse. We'll row from their dock down to the UCLA boathouse in the morning for our first race at 8:14 a.m.


We were waiting to talk to Patrick at the boathouse and I snapped a picture of Matt watching the scullers and rowers on the water.


Matt noticed a familiar name on the LMU rowers board. His brother Dan's friend, Frank Kennedy rowed for LMU for 4 years.


Julie cartopped our shells (which I'm so grateful for). Julie and Craig prepping before we took our boats into the boathouse.


Julie checking out the race schedule and notes.

My Oars Get Personalized

My sculling oars were a sparkling orange color, however, the sparkle was fading fast with all the time in the water. I decided to make my next paint job a bit more personal. Although, admittedly, I took a shortcut to have my oars nice and fresh for my Regatta this weekend (At Marina del Rey, CA). I had my design made into a vinyl decal and they got put on today. Then I put a coat of clear acrylic paint of paint over them so hopefully they will stay around for awhile. The design is on the front and back of the oars. More on the Regatta after this weekend!

Dan & Matt Sr's Helicopter Debut

Today Matt spent the day taking pictures and video taping the big helicopter debut. Dan and Matt Sr's helicopter had it first start up after almost 2 years of repair. Pretty soon they'll be flying around giving traffic reports... To bad there's already a "Detour Dan" in town with that job.

There's many more pictures and video. You can see more pictures on my iWeb photo page. Or click here to view the movie of the actual start up.

You'll see no Matt Sr. pictures--he's off on a Cruise to Russia, Finland and more...

I've Just Got To Say Something...

I try to keep my blogs on the positive side, however, I've just got to say something about this...
I've had a subscription to Woman's Day Magazine for quite awhile. I've never cancelled it because every now and then there's a good recipe or crafty project to keep my interest and I've always recycled it to my neighbor, Jan. So what's my beef?

This month's edition had a piece on 4 or 5 different women getting a makeover before their class reunions. In the old Woman's Day Magazines that might have included a snappy new haircut/hairdo, some make-up and some snazzy outfits. Pretty harmless stuff. And who doesn't want that killer outfit that makes you look 10lbs thinner! Well times have certainly changed... now these "makeovers" include Botox, Restalyn and some lip plumping with collagen. I think that's just WRONG to start pimping invasive procedures (yes, getting fluids inserted under your skin is invasive) to solve all your beauty woes. They even have the nerve to tell you how much the procedure cost as if $350 for some Botox is a drop in the bucket. AND does anybody truly know what happens to all that stuff they're injecting? I still find it hard to believe that women are that insecure as to liposuction, inject & implant themselves for a brief moment of vanity. I say "brief" because it seems that those women always find something else that needs fixing and a new beauty deadline to meet.

To each his own... I'm lucky the gals I choose to hang out with and who I call friends--have beauty from within. Their inner beauty translates to outer beauty and they are inspiring to me. Those are the women I want to read about.

I've passed the magazine onto Jan, who I'm sure will find a nice place for it in the trash where it belongs.

40th Birthday Las Vegas Style

My Michigan friend, Audrey, turned 40 this past weekend. She got a surprise plane ticket, Celine Dion show tickets from her spouse Collin, sister Bonnie, brother Gary and Dad. I chipped in with a stay at the Venetian (We stayed in the Venezia Tower). We had a great time. Of course with everything new to Audrey (It was her first time there) we couldn't see everything. Guess we'll have to do this trip again. Below is Audrey in Las Vegas' Paris.



The cool glass ceiling in the Wynn Hotel or maybe it was the Bellagio... I can't quite remember.


We had a pedicure and manicure at the Canyon Ranch Spa at the Venetian. We had very happy and pretty toes afterwards. Here is Audrey relaxing in the massaging pedicure chair.


Audrey with her Celine Dion ticket before the show. By the way, I'm not much of a Celine Dion fan but I have to admit, she puts on a great show!

Mother's Day

We had Mother's Day dinner at Karen & Dan's house. I got the Mom-Son's photo with a little work. There was the "pull-my-finger" photo before this... Needless to say, Moms are always Moms especially when their kids refuse to grow up! Thank you Karen for all the prep & tasty wok'd green beans. Thank you Wanda for being an excellent Mom. I reap the benefits of a well raised son everyday.

Our New Car

We got a call from Bell Honda that our Honda Fit was here and ready to be picked up. We were actually dreading going in to the dealership... we thought for sure they were going to present us with numbers that were way above what we wanted to pay. It turned out they were pretty close. I think it's the fastest car deal we've ever made. With the Element already sold we were able to write a check and drive away in an hour. I wasn't quite sure if the color would be a wierd orange color--but it turned out to be more copper colored than orange. I like it!

Time Goes By...

It's hard to believe that it will be a year tomorrow since my grandfather, Tom Jackson, passed away. I certainly have missed him. I was lucky enough to collect pictures from my Mom, Aunt's and Uncles--so I have a nice collection of images on my computer. I chose this one to honor his memory a year later. My grandparents loved to sail out on Lake Michigan and we all enjoyed spending time with them at Sutton's Bay.

Pinnacle Peak

I took the day off from rowing and went for a hike with Matt instead. We hiked Pinnacle Peak. The cactus are blooming and the Ocotillo's are all green. I took my camera today to fullfill a panorama photo assignment. I think I had a bit to much light but nonetheless I think I demostrated my ability to meet the assignment.

Stumptuous!

Today I had a sculling meeting with a new club that I joined. I was given a sample training calendar and grimaced at the 3 days listed "Weights". Sure, I definitely know the benefits. Afterall, I was the thinnest, strongest and most healthy when I pumped iron at the MSU weight club many moons ago. But as the years went by, my weight training regime became obsolete. I do know that I need to get back to weights if I want to become a better sculler. One of the girls mentioned the website Stumptuous.com . I've been sitting here reading it and it is refreshing, funny and motivating. This chick (Kristi) cuts right to chase. I especially love her "crap list". Girlfriends--give this site a read. If anything it is funny--and maybe it will give you that motivation you're looking for to do what we all know will make us stronger now and as we creep into our golden years!

Rowing the New Boat

Matt went with me to Tempe Town Lake to check out my new sculling shell. He snapped a few pictures for my blog. I’ve decided on a boat name and am going to get it printed on vinyl sometime soon. I’ll let you know what it is after it’s on my boat. I’m really enjoying sculling on my schedule and in my own boat. When you’re concentrating on each stroke, all the little worries of the day disappear.

A New Home for the Element

Our Honda Element was getting sad and lonely sitting covered in our driveway. We seem to always be driving the Insight around town as it gets great gas mileage. The Element did pretty well for a small SUV but we felt another car would be more practical. A nice, young, hardworking couple with a little boy purchased it. We met them at their bank and exchanged title for funds. I think they are quite happy with getting a like new vehicle that will get much better mileage than the vehicle they had.

On the way home, we stopped and put a deposit down on a Honda Fit. They've been around in Europe as the Honda Jazz. Honda just "rolled them out" yesterday. Of course, the dealerships only have one or two and not with what we want on it. So we just test drove one and left a deposit. We should see our new Fit sometime mid-May.

It was kind of sad to drive away from our Honda Element. I really liked it. However, selling it to nice people made me feel better.

Spring in the Desert

This is the time of year where the cactus are blooming and it's starting to warm up.** Our winter visitors leave town, we start to set our alarms clocks to get up before the sun and put the sunscreens back on the windows. We'll start getting phone calls from our friends in cooler places who think we must be sooooooooo hot. It's the same cycle every year. To be honest--I have to say that I've really enjoyed the great weather we had all winter long and am looking forward to staying inside and focusing on some work projects this summer. I'll still be outside but very early in the morning and in the evenings. I'm also looking forward to early morning rows at Tempe Town lake ( I get my new sculling shell this Tuesday).

I've had my Aunt Jill & Uncle Steve in town over the last month. They just left today --but we'll be seeing lots more of them when they come back Arizona in September to move into their new home (they bought a house in Mesa). With them here--I'm sure I'll be seeing more of my cousins and family then in previous years. So here we go into the dry hot summer but in our nice cool house. Hope everyone enjoys their Summer!

**For those of you that think we're hot today-- well, we're not. It's a beautiful 75 degrees with breezes. Sculling on Easter morning was great!

I Need YOUR Creativity!

It's been quite some time since I posted to this blog since I've been posting to So Say We All (There's a cool dolphin photo on that blog). I'll try and post to both places just to keep those that have this site bookmarked happy.

This blog is to ask for some creative help. Most of you know that I've been sweep rowing and sculling for over a year now. My favorite is sculling--which brings me to your ideas. This month my NEW sculling shell will arrive at Tempe Town Lake. It's a Maas flyweight and is an open water, racer type shell. While I'm waiting--there's a few things I've been thinking about. First, I opted for a plain white shell so that I could create my own hull and oar design. Second, I'd like to name my boat. That's where I'm stuck. It can't be to "girly" of a name and it should be something to do with being on the water, sculling, and it shouldn't be anything like "sea turtle" as that would imply that it's not a FAST boat! It would also be cool if it was a graphical name. In other words, my hull and oar design could match.

So my friends... got ideas? I'd love to hear them. If I like it and choose yours, there may be a special "Thank You!" gift coming your way.

p.s. "Smoke on the Water" is already taken by one of my sculling instructors. He said it's going to be hard to top that ... I take that as a challenge!

New Kitty Clubhouse

The Diethelm kitties are so spoiled. From the moment “Brown” (a.k.a. UPS) dropped the box off they wanted to know what was inside. Sparky supervised the assembly. Pepper had to climb to the very top pedestal. She’s the Queen, so it’ only appropriate.

Maybe One More...

... blog. The thing I love about working on my Mac is...well, it's a Mac. Apple is always thinking of ways to make technology easy to use. I ordered the new iLife software with iWeb on it and within minutes I've got a new website & blog "So Say We All..." . What's cool about iWeb is that you can easily make a website with a blog AND podcasts if you want.

I plan to use "So Say We All..." (you'll know this saying if you watch Battlestar Galactica) as a travel blog. I'll test it out during our trip to New Zealand. So bookmark it and check for pictures of sheep, Hobits, more sheep, Dwarves, some more sheep and maybe an Elf. Or maybe you'll just see some really nice pictures of a beautiful place!

Cool Way to Find New Music

Matt & I were listening to one of his geeky podcasts Inside the Net on the way home from dinner this weekend and they were talking about Pandora. It's very cool. You basically type in a favorite artist or song and it will give you the opportunity to listen to similar artist and music types in your browser. Many of the artists may be new to you. You can refine your tastes by telling Pandora that you like it or not and build different music lists. You can also just click and buy from iTunes or Amazon etc. Go ahead...try it!

I'm Sold!

I'm in the spring cleaning mode and have decided to go for clutter-free, clean lines, light and bright. I have some odds and end furniture that's a bit chunky and more fitting for the Southwestern, Rustic decor... so today I decided to try Craig's List which is fee free listing site for local areas. I posted a nightstand with pictures and within 15 minutes of posting I had 5 gals that wanted to drive out and get it! So I let the first one that e-mailed me have first dibs. She was at my house in a half hour and she ended up taking the nightstand AND the chair pictured above ( I had listed after the table). I threw in some throw pillows and a lamp.

Also, before listing my nightstand, I responded to a guy that was looking for a nice futon. I sent him a picture of the one I have that is taking up to much space. He is coming by tomorrow. So I'm thinking this is WAY BETTER than a garage sale. People are coming to me and taking my stuff away and paying to do it!

So if you haven't had a chance to check out the Craig's List in your area--I highly recommend it!