Many of you have heard me talk about training for this team triathlon that I participated in on Saturday. If you were to ask any of my close friends, you’ll hear that I had days where I didn’t want to do it and there were days when I was genuinely excited. So here’s the re-cap…

The Night Before
Chad and I left immediately from The Global Leadership Summit to go pick up Faith, Betsy, and Jessie and made pretty good time as we drove down I-65 towards Columbus, IN. We made it in time for a pre-race festival which included picking up our team packets, a cookout, music, and a couple of guys who were tuning up bikes. When we were done with that, we checked into the hotel and went to run some errands.

Our first stop was Wal-Mart because Betsy needed a water bottle for the race. Little did I know how much fun we would have in the Columbus Wal-Mart. We found a water bottle for Betsy, but we found so much more… including hula hoops! That’s right ladies and gentlemen, for the next ten minutes or more, we had a hula hoop contest in the middle of Wally World.

Faith discovered that she was better at it than she thought, while Jessie learned that she could hula multiple hoops at one time, and that Betsy flaps her arms like a chicken when trying to hula hoop. Ha ha!

From there we went to Applebee’s, which is one thing Chad is trying to make into an annual tradition. Once we had that settled, we went back to the hotel and headed straight for bed.

Race Day
If you were to ask me how I was feeling race morning, I was fairly impartial. I didn’t feel great, but I didn’t feel bad either. After taking in a pre-race breakfast, we headed for the triathlon course. We made it just in time for Betsy and I to put our bikes on the rack and to head down to the water for our pre-race meeting. There was nothing too special about the meeting which only lasted about ten minutes.

After the meeting was when I began getting the pre-race jitters. This was my first bicycle race and in addition to the typical pre-race jitters, my anxiety started to creep up on me. When I’m super anxious, the last thing I need are people all up in my space in their Speedo gear and swim caps, so as people headed toward the water for the first wave of swimmers, I went off to somewhere quiet to calm my nerves.

As I started to feel better, I headed to the transition area to meet up with Betsy and wait for Chad and Faith to finish their leg of the triathlon. I really started to get anxious and told Betsy that I really wanted to back out because I knew that would ease the anxiety I was feeling (not because I didn’t think I wouldn’t survive the bike ride). Fortunately I got up enough nerve as Chad crossed the timing pad and unstrapped the timing chip from his ankle. I strapped on the timing chip and chased after Betsy who had a few second head start on me.

Once I was out of the transition area and on my way, my nerves eased up quite a bit. Betsy and I had a good pace going and within the first couple of miles we went down a hill that had us going around 30 mph, which was AWESOME! At first I thought Betsy was sticking with me to be nice, but it turns out that we were equally paired up: sometimes she’d have the energy to lead, sometimes I’d take the lead. Everyone that we rode with was so nice and courteous and we even had people along the bike route to cheer us on, including the police department (thanks guys!).

We had to push ourselves going up numerous hills, but we still had fun. There was even a dog running alongside the bicyclists for a while which made me laugh. As we went over the final hill, I gathered up my last burst of energy and headed for the home stretch. As we got close to the timing pad, they instructed us to jump off our bikes and run over the pad so that it could read the timing chip. Betsy got a head start on me, but somehow I kind of knocked her off-course and I went over the pad first. 17.5 completed.

Andrew and Jessie did the last leg of the race, which was running around a three mile course. Those two really didn’t train a lot and I think they were more concerned about having a good time. This led Andrew to run like a raptor during part of the race (see video on left), which actually drained more of his energy rather than helping him.

They stuck together during the entire race and like true Taylor University grads running (or walking) any type of loop, they crossed the finish line holding hands.

So how did we end up in The Pioneer Women versus The Pioneer Studs? Not surprisingly, we tied at 1:54:27. This didn’t surprise us since we stayed together at each leg of the race. The official standings show that the girls beat us by 1/100th of a second, the guys are fine with that, it was a good race!

Celebrate Good Times, Come On!
To celebrate, we went to a Columbus landmark called Zaharakos Ice Cream Parlor for lunch. The food was okay, but dessert and the atmosphere was pretty sweet! If you’re in Columbus, you should check it out!

So there you have it friends, my first team triathlon. I think I’ll remember it for all the training I put in, all the complaining I did to Faith and Betsy about not wanting to do it, and just the overall satisfaction of completing with a decent time (Betsy and I completed the biking portion in 59 minutes). Overall, I’m glad I did it and really enjoyed biking through the countryside, even with those **bleeping** hills. Ha ha! Below are just a handful of pictures we took. Enjoy!

Saturday was pretty sweet too. Went down to The Jazz Kitchen to see a friend, Sarah Scharbrough play. She did an excellent job! It was such a nice atmosphere and had some great company, it was a really good time! Since I love jazz, I’d have to say that The Jazz Kitchen was my favorite part of the weekend.

On Sunday I got to go to the Indianapolis Indians game, thanks to Amy and her friends from Common Ground. The game itself wasn’t too exciting, the Indians lost. But it was such a beautiful day for baseball and I had a great time. Anyway, hope you enjoy pictures from the weekend!

Lemonade Stand on the iPhone

I’m sure that many of you may not know about this game. But back in the Apple II days, this game was used in a lot of classrooms. I remember spending a lot of time in the computer lab at St. Luke’s playing this game, it was simple, yet also presented challenges. As soon as I found this game on the iTunes Store, I looked for Oregon Trail… Oh Oregon Trail… if that was on the iPhone, I’d be a happy man!

Picture Frames

I was shopping at World Market the other week when I came across these boxed frames. Essentially they have three panes of glass: the front pane, middle pane, and back pane. I was able to come up with some pictures to put in these frames and I’m pretty happy with it.

Christmas is Coming!

Christmas is by far, the best of all the holidays. So please don’t judge me for the fact that I found holiday cookies on sale at Target…

Straight No Chaser makes it into iTunes!

I was pretty excited to log into iTunes and find that in the “Holiday” section, that Straight No Chaser‘s album is featured on that page. Woo hoo!

So overall, it hasn’t been a bad weekend. I got the apartment cleaned, went and saw my friend Clayton while he changed the oil in my car, watched Elf with Chad and then watched Kung Fu Panda with some other friends. I’m hoping that I’ll have time to take off towards the end of the week to relax. I have a few things due this week, so it’ll be nice to relax after I’m done writing those papers.

As for next semester, need to decide what I want to do, since the college isn’t offering anything that will really help my degree. I’m considering going to Ivy Tech for the semester to get some classes out of the way. Well, that’s all for now!

As for Sunday? I was supposed to go down to Brown County with some other friends and go hiking, have lunch in Nashville, IN, and go to Oliver Winery. But my stupid allergies acted up and kept me stuck in the apartment all day. So I spent the day cleaning and watching videos on Hulu. In fact, here’s a clip from SNL mocking the Vice Presidential Debate… made me laugh. Tina Fey makes an excellent Sarah Palin.

Well, I guess that’s all for now! Have a semi-busy week ahead, but looking forward to a four-day weekend (for me, the rest of you only get two days… ha ha!).

But I walked into my office the other day and realized that I need to design a creative space to work in! I spent last night checking out bookshelves at IKEA, looking for prints at AllPosters.com, and checking out paint sites to get an idea of cool colors for my office. I was getting kind of bummed because I couldn’t find anything that fit my style.

So with some motivation, I hopped on my bike and rode down to the Carmel International Arts Festival (www.carmelartsfestival.org). I was looking from tent to tent looking for stuff and then I came across Trudy’s booth. I was so excited to see some of her work because to me, it inspires creativity, fun, and the casual look I was going for. Here are the three prints I bought.

I’m thinking I may have to go see her for more prints, but for now, those were the three that I really loved. To see more of her work and to order, you can visit her on the web at www.TruDysigns.com. She has drawings of your favorite college campuses (IU, PU, Notre Dame), places around Indianapolis, and so much more.

Now if I can only figure out what colors to paint my office… sigh… Oh well, my jambalaya is ready to be consumed and it’s a beautiful day, so I’ll worry about my office later.

Many of you already keep up with me, so it’s not hard to figure out what’s going on when I have a lack of posts. Truth is, I’ve been keeping busy! I have some big projects coming up at work, school started last week, and I’ve been trying to get some time for myself squeezed in there.

In my free time I’ve been playing with my new camera, which has been a joy. I really forgot how much I enjoyed photography and how inadequate my old camera was. It was a good “point-and-shoot” camera, but for the more advanced stuff that I like to do, it just didn’t measure up. I have even created a section on here called “Photography by Kiel” which I hope to start working on soon. I took some good pictures at the Indy Air Show this weekend and hoping to post some of those.

This past weekend was filled with joy and sadness. The sad part? I had to get rid of my faithful 1995 Geo Prizm LSi. I’m pretty grateful that it has held up for so long… we even drove through the mountains of Tennessee together. Fortunately the car didn’t break down on me while up in Chicago. The joyful part is that I got a 2004 Chevy Impala LS… which I’m loving! My most favorite thing about it (apart from the stereo sounding good) is that it has cupholders! That’s right… it’s the little things. My old Prizm was supposed to be a “luxury” model (if there is such a thing with the Geo) and it didn’t even have cupholders! The only downside is that my new car doesn’t get as good of gas mileage as the Geo or the other car I was looking at (Honda Civic), but I will survive.

In my personal life I have been doing alright. I have had to learn to say “no” to people and to create some distance so that I can have some time for myself. It has been through that time that I’ve been able to connect closer with God, spend some time searching myself, and I feel so much better. So that can probably explain the lack in blog posts. HOPEFULLY, I will start posting more now that my mind is a little more free. We shall see!

Here are some pictures and a few videos for all of you, enjoy!

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As you can see below, I originally just used the closet to store my trash can, paint, and bottled water. But now, voila! With the help of a $25 wire rack from Target, I’m a poster child of efficiency, turning that maintenance closet into some valuable storage space. SWEET.

You can’t really see it, but at the bottom-left of the shelf is a gas line… so I had a really tight squeeze to fit that shelf in… but it worked! Woo hoo! Now I can use my hall closet for other things besides cleaning supplies, bird food, tools, etc.

Before

After

So after putting that shelf together (which wasn’t hard), I can now relax. I’m feeling better, but still a little dizzy (one of my symptoms). I’m looking forward to wrapping up school and enjoying summer!

Here are a few pictures:

Before	After

Before	After

It’s a beautiful day today, so I think I’m going to check out the park next door which has a couple of trails that circle the park and a small pond. I’m excited to take my bike out and check it out. Hope all of you are doing well!

I kid you not, this salesman was like, “here’s a couch that looks like leather, but it’s not.” Honestly… either you like leather or you don’t… and if you like leather, you’d be pretty disappointed to sit down on a couch that looked like leather, but was micro-fiber.

So I went over to Kittle’s Rooms Express and found a glass kitchen table I like with four chairs… which is pretty sweet. I ended up going back to Kittle’s for my couches too since I couldn’t find anything good at the other stores. I ended up spending more than I wanted, but if I pay it off before January, I don’t incur any interest…. sweet.

Milo has been busy getting used to his new surroundings (which will change in a week anyways). I cover him up at night, but in the morning when I get up, I place him by the window and he chirps very happily to greet the day. He does this (much to my brothers’ dislike) for about 5 minutes. I have taught him to perch on my finger and pretty much nothing else. He has gotten brave enough to fly, but ended up running into the refrigerator and also pooping himself in the process… Milo has learned that the refrigerator is not your friend (if you’re a bird anyways).

I’m looking forward to next week, I’ll be working Monday through Wednesday, while taking Thursday and Friday off. I don’t have a ton of stuff and fortunately, Kittle’s is going to deliver my furniture. I thought about bringing the U-Haul by their warehouse to save money, but in the end, I’m too lazy to carry all that furniture upstairs.

Well, that’s all for now. I hope everyone is doing well!