Anyone who follows Le Tour is probably smoking mad  at the doping scandal that has hit cycling ... yet again!

For Christ's sake, these guys are riding the race we all wish we could ride and someone decides to pull this shit.

And the doping is not some foreign super molecule, it is injecting yourself with someone else's blood!  My God.

Look, until we have the "death penalty" in cycling, where if you get caught cheating you cannot compete again,

and until the team money is not tied to winning (um, that's difficult) then the sport will always reward performance

over integrity.

Good job to the Tour for kicking out the whole team and the Astana Team for suspending Vino.

Also, props to German TV and the T-Mobile squad to question their sponsorship of these teams and pull

the whole plug when the hard questions hit the fan. 

Please, put this all behind you and ride your bike with careless joy and abandon!!!

Why does Willy Nelson's music

move at that beautiful

                                    slow rambling pace?

Why does the lake side Vineyard

sing "til we raise a glass again?"

And do all my soulful journeys

end with sunlight streaming 

through the window

                                of your eyes?

Light through the windows, offset from the center line of the chandlier, reflects off of the entrenceway solarium.
 

The Engagement has happened.  The event wonderful and something we will remember for all of our days.

Now the planning begins ...

The above phrase should be written in a bloody font, one right out of a classic 'B' movie where the letters bleed down the screen and a scream of horror arises in our throats.  It is as if my fiance and I have broken down by the side of the road, the road to bliss, and it is raining; the only castle in sight one run by the Wedding Industry .... aaaahhhhhh!

We have already been horrified to be told our wedding was not "big" enough by a sweet sounding ghoul ... so much for an intimate and personal affair.

The saga will continue.  We are united,holding hands with heads held high.  This, as with everything, will be shouldered by both of us.  We will enjoy it, love it and have fun through it all.

Now, where is that florist?  Down at the Little Shop of Horrors?  Ieeeyaaaaaa!!!!!

What would you do if you were extremely happy.

No, I don't mean some sort of extreme ecstasy,

but the self satisfied happiness of fulfillment.

What would you do?

I would just sit back and enjoy it.  Well, maybe

not sit back.  I would thank the world that I

had the opportunity to realize how happy

I am and try to help others realize their

happiness.

Live, love and be free  

After seven inches of rain in 48 hours the river climbed the bank and looked over the lip at me.  Its Spring so it must be flooding on the Merrimac.  Last year it took three straight weeks of rain to get the river this high.  Now it was two acts of man not nature that brought us  to this point; the Lowell damn held up opening the flood gates because they were trying to sand bag some streets, and New Hampshire had to breech a damn to keep it from rupturing.

Here is January and April - no this is not a photo trick.

And now lets see what a N'or Easter can do ...

Isn't it pleasant and bright in January in New England ....

Spring can be a bit of a bitch though

Didn't we have a drought a few years ago?!?!?!?!

The Lamb and the Lion are retired,

comings in and goings out of months

seems quaint and cliche in the teeth

of a harsh northerly April wind.

The buds on the trees waiting,

another day watches nothing grey

happening at the glacial flow of

streams before the melting snow.

What if heaven ended here?  What if the end of days was a trip, not across the river Styx, but down the canals of post industrial cities?

What is the light at the end of the canal ...?

Tomorrow it arrives.  The N'or Easter that shouldn't be and shouldn't be arriving on April 15th will definitely arrive.

With four to five inches of rain, temperatures in the lower forties and wind speeds as much, this storm looks like it may derail the Marathon on Monday.

Carol and I look forward to volunteering for the Marathon every year.  It is truly a great event; from elite runners finishing the course at an average speed around 12 1/2 mph. to the guy who hauls his butt over the finish line in four and a half hours they are all champions for just having the temerity to start the race.  On Monday it might not happen.  On Monday it shouldn't happen.  There will be too many without the right gear and too many unprepared for what can, could, will happen to them.  Constantly wet and with a strong and constant headwind hypothermia will set in within the hour if you are not prepared.  The extremities are the parts that will loose heat first and fastest.  Head, hands and feet.  If we were hiking in the White mountains in conditions like these we would have full headgear, waterproof jacket and pants, hiking boots and gloves.  Do you think anyone who can run 26 miles would be wearing that kind of stuff?  Hmm?  (As an aside there is a troop of Army guys that does the race in full pack every year; I wonder how they will handle the race this year?)

Let's hope the officials come to there senses and call this off.  If it runs, lets hope the smarter ones will not run and the truly unprepared stay home.  I hold little hope that officials who put so much of their ego and name in to one event, and all the money spent advertising and preparing, will allow good judgement to could their thinking.  As for the unwary runner ... god help them all.

We have a flood watch in effect from noon Sunday through noon Monday; we'll have to see how the river rises ...

This is the song I spoke to Carol on the night I asked her to Marry Me.

What are you doing the rest of your life?

North and south and east and west of your life?

I have only one request of your life

That you spend it all with me.

All the seasons and the times of your days.

All the nickels and the dimes of your days.

Let the reasons and the rhymes of your days.

All begin and end with me.

I want to see your face,

In every kind of light,

In fields of gold and

Forests of the night;

And when you stand before

The candles on a cake.

Oh let me be the one to hear

The silent wish you make.

Those tomorrows waiting deep in your eyes

In the world of love you keep in your eyes,

I'll awaken what's asleep in your eyes,

It may take a kiss or two.

Through all of my life..

Summer, winter, spring and fall of my life,

All i ever will recall of my life

Is all of my life with you.