Mark's Blog

Last night I was driving home after the nice and WET bike hub ride and something freak happened. I was traveling behind another vehicle going down HWY. 22 just outside of Oconto Falls and minding my own business. All of a sudden I see a giant green rectangle flying through the air towards my car. After that all I heard was a clunk, and I thought, “shit, not again!” I hit a deer last fall and it took about 2 weeks to get my car back from the damage that was done. So, I slow down and come to a stop and get out to check my car, at least what I can see in the dark. All of a sudden a vehicle comes and parks behind me while I was looking at my car. All of a sudden two fat rednecks in cut-off NASCAR shirts smoking their cigarettes come up and start asking questions. I asked them what the hell flew out of their trailer and come to find out it is a mattress off of a bed. I thought, “shouldn’t you secure that to the trailer so this incident doesn’t have to happen.”

Well, now that I can check my car in the daylight the only thing that is broke is the plastic grill in my car. I was hoping that my bike would have gotten hit so I could get a new one but that didn’t happen.

Other than that I hope I am better prepared than the last race. I actually got to ride the two weeks prior to this race so that should help.

Later

The last week has been busy with a lot of stuff. I got to do the bike hub ride last week after my two week hiatus. It was fun especially the race back towards De Pere from Wrightstown. I almost got dropped but managed to hold on.

Besides subing all week I had to shoot events also, nothing like work for 13 hours. No time to ride the bike.

Saturday, I was dissapointed that the race was called off. I wanted to go and photograph but what are you going to do.

Now it is time to TRY and get ready for Rhinelander.

Later

This is the most 100km rides I have ever had in a season and it is only the beginning of April.  Today, I hit the road with Quentin, Nick, Eric and Matt for a ride.  Matt had to peel off early so he could get to work.  I can tell on these rides that I have a LONG way to go yet to get to race shape.  Nothing like getting your ass kicked to remind you that you have a lot of work to do.  The big area is to drop weight again so I can climb the hills faster talk about the EASIEST part, right?  It was nice to get off of the bike, the quads were burning and it was time to sit on something else than a bike seat.

Hopefully tomorrow after my photo shoot I can get out on the mountain bike for a little bit at the camp.  I hopefully will be racing at Iola, but that isn’t a for sure yet.  I will be racing sport again since the racing is going to be a race by race situation because of my lack of full-time work.  I wanted to do comp but that will have to be another day.  Good luck and thanks to all that are going out to clean the trails tomorrow, it shouldn’t be horrible.

I finally got my umbrella setup today and I am excited to put it to use tomorrow.  I have a lot to learn when it comes to shooting models with artificial light.  My friend Matt gave me a book about some lighting set ups and a little information on how to use various pieces of equipment.

Later

Today I was going through some of my music and found a song that made me think a little bit.  If you want to listen it is Chevelle’s Emotional Drought.

On another note, besides being busy with work I have been trying to read more books.  It has been a while since I have read 1984 and I have been rereading it.  I forgot how much I liked that book, it really makes you think about how bad life could be.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Stalin%27s_Mug_Shot.jpg

The last couple of weeks have been busy for me. Either I am working at one job or another. I am probably done with substitute teaching for now since I have scored the census job for a couple of months. I will see if that is a good thing or not, time will tell.

Other than that nothing much, I am lacking the ambition to ride the trainer. Mainly waiting for it to get nice to ride outside.

Remember that technology=evil most of the time. You don’t need to be “connected” all of the time. I think of this because of all the new and “better” things out there. Think of 1984, if you get my drift.

Today involved 5 people going out and snowshoeing for about 1.75 hours. I am trying to make this a weekly event email me mark@markschindel.com for more info. I will be going out a couple of times this week.  No broken snowshoes and water crossings this week.  The camp is a lot better place than Baird’s is for snowshoeing.  You just have to be careful when crossing the XC skiing trails that they have there.

Other news: I am starting to ride the trainer again, it sucks ad much as I remember. Other wise nothing else is new.

Later

It has been a while since I have posted anything. I have been really busy lately. Working 3 part-time jobs has been interesting in the fact that I have to juggle everything around trying to make sure I am not scheduled to work at different places at once.

One job is the photographer’s hell. Target portrait studio, I can say that is one of the worst jobs I have had in a while. I thoroughly don’t like working there.

Job two is a substitute teaching gig. That one isn’t bad at all. I get to TRY to teach some kids something.

Job three is a free lancing photographer. This is the most enjoyable job that I have because I enjoy going out and photographing different things. The main thing that I have been doing is sports for a local newspaper.

Later