I was slumped over the conference table at the monthly employee meeting, mulling the hierarchy of the day's headlines, when my boss announced to the entire newsroom that I had been chosen for the monthly $50 employee appreciation award. This is like winning employee of the month, but instead of a plaque (and the inevitable magic-marker mustache), I get $50. Huzzah!
Back at my desk and checking my e-mails, I discovered that my Anchorage friends, Eric and Brij, both won the Anchorage Daily News video contest. Eric won the grand prize of a 50" plasma-screen TV, and Brij gets the first-prize video camera. Brij will probably use it to make more movies about slobbering grizzly bears. Eric plans to sell that monster TV to fund a monster mountaineering trip at the end of the month. Thank you to all who took the time to vote. Huzzah!
Somewhere in the midst of all that prize-snatching madness - 3:02 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time, to be more exact - Dave Harris rolled into Grand Junction, Colo., a little less than three days after he left. In those three days, he rode a mountain bike 350 miles over a remote and dusty trail, climbing a total of nearly 50,000 feet in the midst of desert heat and soul-crushing loneliness. The few who attempt the course call it the Grand Loop, and Dave rode it faster than anyone ever has. I'm not clear on how extensive his obliteration of the old record was. It's at least five hours.
"Dave was in the zone feeling no pain," his friend and teammate, Lynda, wrote upon serendipitously running into him on the river at a 3 a.m. bridge crossing. "Steve described him as giddy and jubilant. He only stopped for about 5 minutes and spent most of it stuffing his face. Looks like all systems were working. He was giving off incredible energy!
"... and then he was gone. As we watched him ride off into the moonlight goose bumps stood up on my arms and I was flooded with a mix of awe and envy. I told Steve I had goose bumps and he said he did too. He said we just witnessed something special."
(photo by Mike C.)
Congratulations, Dave. We have a winner.
It's great to have something go right every now and then, eh? I had one of those days when my new camera, the Fat Cyclist jersey, Matisse and Jack's energy bar mix and Banjo Brother's bag came in all in the same day.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to recall what you thought of a 50" plasma tv a couple of weeks ago...."obnoxious" was it ???......regardless, congrats to your friends...glad we could help.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your award too....( got $50 I can borrow or better yet....have ??)
Terrific blog J
Congrats on the award! If your work at the paper approaches the excellence you show in your blog, the $50 would have been x 1000. Love your photos and love your commentaries.
ReplyDeleteI rode my granny bike last week for the first time this spring a whole five miles around the neighborhood and thought of you... you're doing your share of inspiring.
Thanks for a great lift every day!
Cynthia
http://cynwrites.blogspot.com
Vivid descriptions and beautiful pictures of the stunning Alaska landscape.
ReplyDeleteMust get my bike out of the shed!
I just don't get you guy's. Within a week and a half of joining www.sexsearch.com I was meeting women left and right. It just sounds like to me you guys would have trouble getting laid at the Playboy Mansion even if you were the only guys there.
ReplyDeleteJill,
ReplyDeleteSeems like good vibes all around yesterday! Congratulations! I lost my cell phone yesterday while gassing up my truck, but fortunately I noticed it a short time later. I went flying back to the gas station only to find my cell phone on the ground in front of the pump!
Have a great day:-)
AMG in Texas