Diet Tip No. 2: Collecting a TON of Walnuts

As some of you know, do I live in a house with a big yard and mature trees.
I love the house and the trees for one "tiny" exception": the WALNUTS.

What you see in these pictures was the "harvest" from just one day.
But I have been doing this daily for the last week if I skip a day (because I paint the garage),
I end up with TWO wheelbarrows full of those suckers...
Some of them have the size of granny smith apples and you don't want to get hit by them.

I have to collect them, because they start rotting and "burning" wholes in the grass.

Oh, and have I told you that I DO NOT LIKE WALNUT?
I don't like to eat them. I am allergic to them and I hate them falling on me, my house, my plants,...

I wonder, how many nuts, I had in this load???

Sometime, I like to throw one or two across the street (there are no houses), but Mr. Whiskers brings them dutifully back....grrrrrr.

I don't hand-pick them because the rotted ones stain your hands. I used to rake them, the first year, we moved here, until I ended up in the emergency room with a bulged disk: OUCH!!!

Now, I am using a "pooper-scooper" and pick them up, 5 or 6 at a time....

Once, I have a filled load, I haul it over to the bank of the river and pile them up for the critters.

No complaints from any squirrels in my neighborhood please!

Diet Tip No. 1: Paint for 8 hours

Martin has been building new shelves for the garages. I have helped putting them up. Mr. Whiskers tested them...

my new potting station

two coats of paint on the garagw door

Martin's new work bench

my potting station after I painted it

Shelves for Bike Stuff, etc...

So, we put a coat of primer on all the wood yesterday.
Today, we painted all the walls white and did the garage door (twice), then Marin taped and I started painting the wooden shelves in the same brown that we have on the exterior of the house.
After he got done taping, he painted as well...and we painted and painted and painted...FOR HOURS.
Some of the shelves will need some touch-up tomorrow, but for the most part are they done and so are we.
We are beat!
Now that's a good work out. I bet we burnt a few calories today...good panting diet:D

VeloCC's Diet TIPS

Well, it is NO secret,
that I have lost 20 lbs over the summer and "shrunk" quite a bit :)

Yes, I have mentioned before that I have lost weight and I am doing it again, because I am proud of it and I am writing about it to maybe motivate some people to go out and change some things towards a healthier life style and loose some pounds on the way.

I think to start off, I show you some before pictures:

These pictures were all taken in the early season.

Then I saw these pictures and noticed a difference. Do you?






Good thing that bike clothes come in spandex:) At least those still fit me....

But back to start of my post.
I changed a lot of things this year about my diet and the way I exercise.
But it has been a great and fun journey so far and besides all the medals that I can show off, I can share a bit of my knowledge and motivation.

And it would be wonderful, If I could make a difference in your life!
I am not a super athlete and I am not a spring chicken, but with a good work ethic and the right diet(=healthy), you can achieve a lot of things!!!
I will write some more about details in the coming days.
Feel free to ask questions:)

The Bixby Project

I thought this needed some extra mentioning.
That 12hours race on Saturday was Martin and my first race that we did as a team:)
And I think, we did really well.
On my part, I messed up the food planning. I should have brought more food but as nice as the MTB family is, I got a banana there and a cookie here...
I also didn't bring the right cold weather clothes. I brought some, but they turned out to be unpractical, plus I had to learn, that my leg- and knee warmers have gotten too big over the summer (I will dedicate another post to that...)
But other then that, Martin and I had a good race going and had a great time.

And well, of course, Mr. Whiskers was part of it as well!

Translation and Language Services 4U

I am proud to announce the birth of a .... no, not what you think.... no, it is "just" a BLOG!!

Translation and Language Services 4U
It's not all worked out yet, but the basic structure is up.

I wan to use it to make some advertisement for my translation business and I am hoping with the power of Google and Co., that some folks might find my blog through searches for a translator.

So, if you need a translator, preferably English to German or need/want some German lessons, please feel free to contact me.

I am trying to build this up into a business that I could live off. I have fun doing it and the $$ isn't too bad either:)

I also decided to try myself in keeping a German online diary/blog Maisfelder in Nebraska
but I am not sure, where that one will take me and sorry, but I will write in German. I'd like to see, who is out there responding to that and I need to practice my German....

Tübingen, the town I went to Law School at....good times:)

impressions

12 hours are half a day of racing....

...holy crap, someone should have told me that, before I signed up.

Well, Martin said, this is all about fun and we are just treating it as a long (a$$) ride... yeah right.

The race started at 10 am and Martin did the first lap.
One of the challenges today was, to stay warm, on the bike and even more so, off the bike and since I had made up my mind literally last second (minutes would have given me more time to pack) did I forgot to bring some essential warm clothes (it was in the lower 40ies, when we started) and since I have never done such a long race, did I not bring enough clothes to change into.
Someone loaned me a long-sleeve under-shirt and I do believe it gave me magic powers, because I rode so much more and stronger than I ever thought possible. Thanks Bill!!
Another bad prep was the lack of food. I didn't bring enough food and went hungry for most of the day. Another good soul , Steve Dickey, shared a sandwich with me and that pushed me at least through two more laps.

In the beginning, Martin and I took turns every other lap, but after a while, we figured, it is actually better to do two laps at a time. It keeps the flow going and gives the other one a better break.

So, we kept plugging away, and I was amazed, when I hit my fourth or fifth lap. I have to add, that I have never done, more than two, maybe two and a half laps out there at Manawa...
Five laps and still going pretty strong...
Would we be able to ride till 10pm? I wasn't sure, plus I was worried about Martin's shoulder, but I thought, we just keep riding, one lap at a time....
And that's what we did.


I was so mad with myself because, I has left my Heart Rate Monitor at home. So besides having no data to log onto my work out log (Marc, I can still reconstruct the distance and the average time per lap) , I never knew what time it was...on the other hand, it was a relaxing way to ride and take it easy.
Around 7.30pm the sun went down and it was time to put on lights.
Riding with lights is a whole different ball game. I LOVE IT! It makes you a better rider, because it forces you to keep your head up and look ahead (what you should always do), because if you don't, you can't see NOTHING...and you realize, your "flow", the line of your riding gets better, because of that, since your bike goes, wherever you look.
Now, I have gotten better about this and do it also "during the day" :) and that's why I love riding at Manawa. I lot of people had run in with trees out there, because there are some tight turns and twisty sections, but with enough concentration and your head up and your eyes where you WANT to go, you are golden!
I also ride now almost all the technical features at Manawa and that is a personal victory for me. There are a lot of log-crossings and other little surprises that mix things up a bit....


Anyway, in the end I finished after 9 laps!!! Martin had done 9 laps by that time and he put two more on top, so we ended up doing 20.
That put is in 5th place, which am really happy about. I didn't ride all that much in the last few weeks and Martin, due to Doctor's orders hadn't touched his bike in three weeks prior to the race.
If we would have done the 2-lap/2-lap strategy from the beginning, I am sure, we could have squeezed out a few more more, but then again...we had fun and it wasn't about racing, RIGHT?!

By the way, each lap was 6.2 miles, so Martin did 68.2 miles.
I did 9 laps, which added up to 55.8 miles. (which is 89 km, for my metric ego:)

So, together, we pedaled out: 124 miles...yeah!!!!

Thank you Martin for doing this with me!! This was a lot of fun.

Thanks to the organizers for a FUN event and thanks to Trek and Highgear for all the cool goodies:)


Last but not least, it showed me that I am right in my wishing to do more endurance racing next year.
I love the different pace you go about these events and the vibe they have. It is more a riding together than riding against each other, even though you still compete.

Now, I know, what to work for over the winter months......

12HOURS OF MANAWA

Yes, you are reading right. I decided last minute to join into the fun at the 12hour race.
Well, Martin talked me into to it (kinda). He wanted to do it and said, let's do it as a team.....OK....

I love to ride that trail. It's flat, fast and for parts very technical (twisty enough to keep your concentration up, logs that raises your adrenalin, at least mine,...) and fast, BUT, we try not to treat it as a race but rather as a long ride.

We are going out there to have fun!!

Well, let's see how much fun we will.....to be continued:)

P.S. Did I mention, that it is 47F right now? Where is all my cold weather gear????

Due Diligence Report

You don't know what that is? Well, I didn't until I worked on this translation and now I know:)

Due Diligence is pretty much an investigation that one company does on another one before they go ahead to buy them...and they want to know EVERYTHING.

How many different taxes there are, how many different types of stock, assets, contracts, agreements, policies, arrangements, terms, regulations, commitment, liability, warranty, joint venture, franchise, alliance, ...
Claims, notices, citations, filings, audits, decrees, judgments, orders, writs, injunctions,...

Confused yet?

Well, that iswhy I was hiding for three days in front of this translation.
I got it done, but I had to work on it until 6 am this morning in order to get it off in time....

WEIRD.......

Those Mums are actually last years. I am waiting for them to bloom again:)

I can't even come up with a title for my post tonight. I can't find the right word.
Maybe you can find one for me!?!

Remember yesterday my big frustration with this translation company? (Well, I do, but that was yesterdays news)
Today, I have a phone call on my answering machine from another translation company, that I had signed up A YEAR AGO with and they asked me to do a translation from English to German???????????????????????????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????
Can you imagine my expression, when I listened to that message?
It was not the same company. It is actually a local company here, so I called and talked to them.
They pay more and I have a written contract and until I was writing this, I was sitting over a German translation.

HOW WEIRD IS THAT?????

A year ago, I signed up with a few places and now, out of the blue, or wherever from, they call me.
First time, was a bad experience, this time seems to be much better. Better pay, plus a rush fee for me, because it has to be done in a certain time...yipeee:)))

I still had to sneak in my bike ride before I started tonight. The weather today was so gorgeous. We had some rain last night and the temperatures weren't too hot.
I couldn't go MTB, but I found this really nice ride on the road. I go south on 36th Street and then go west on Platteview Rd. It beats riding on the Keystone all the time and I have some real Nebraskan countryside, with corn, soy beans and a few cows:) And some good rolling hills!

Only bummer is, that I have MY room, that I want to make into my library, finally almost empty. All the time, since we moved here four years ago, did I stuff everything that needed to be out of sight in there. Well, now, a lot of things are sorted, thrown out and IN SIGHT again, but the job is more important.
I did find a lot of treasure though:)
I gotta scan some pictures and show you some of them....

Squirrels be VERY afraid!!!

the therapeutical effects if cycling

Sounds very scientific, doesn't it:)

I could have also said: freaking mad before the bike ride and much calmer afterwards....

But, I should tell the the story from the beginning.

Last Friday, did I receive a phone call from a translation service company, where I had put my name down for English to German translations, I don't know how long ago, with my specialty in law, since I went to German Law School.
Anyway, this girl asked me if I wanted to translate a legal document and I said sure. She said, well, let me email it to you, so you can look at it to make sure you can do it until Thursday and we talked about the pay.
They pay per word and I am telling you, the pay isn't bad!
So, I got the document, looked through it and wondered, if I should handle out higher price per word, talked to Martin about it and called her back to let her know, that would do it....only to have her tell me that she just placed the job....f%&*!!!
OK, I was disappointed, but this was my first time in this business and next time I gotta be faster (and I only lost about $700).

I thought about it for a bit more and decided that I need to register with more companies like that. Maybe I can make some money on the side.

Well, today, THURSDAY, I get TWO very upset sounding phone calls and emails from that same company...asking where the due translation is?????WTF?????

I call that chick back and she doesn't remember at all, what she told me on the phone on Friday....well, how convenient for her, since she can make it look like I messed the whole thing up and not her.....OHHHHH, I WAS SOOOOOOOOOOO MAAAAAD!!!!!!!
And I can't do anything to defend myself, because it is my word against hers, so I am screwed!!

So, I threw on my bike gear and went on a bike ride and pedaled out some freaking frustration and madness....

...an felt much better afterwards...

Wilderness in Lincoln

To take a break from various home improvement projects (putting shelves in the garages, replacing some of the wood siding on the house, gardening(planting mums), redoing my room. OK some of those, I just assist, but I still put some labor into it like painting and such...) and to follow a "call" from my team, did I go down to Lincoln tonight to do the Tuesday Night Monkey Wrench Ride to Wilderness Park.
It was a lot of fun!!! I had never been to that place and it is FUUUUUN:D

It felt like playing one of these computer games, where you drive a race car and you have to keep it on track, not knowing what is coming up, going as fast as possible...
It's a very flat, tight single track course that keeps constantly twisting and turning and not knowing the trail, you have to concentrate 100 % on what is coming up.


That is something, I love about MTB anyway. Beside the physical work-out, it seems to give me always a "mental" work-out. Sometime, it's a course, where I have to get over a log that scares me, this time, it took my whole mind off everything else and that is for me a way to relax.

(pictures takes by my team members: sea of green or see you green)

After about an hour of riding a few riders took off and I realized that I should have gone with them since I didn't bring my lights and I still had to get back to my car down-town, so Janna was so nice to take me to the bench and point me in the right direction.

I worked my way up north on the bike path and everything worked fine until I hit a bigger intersection and I literally lost the trail..upsi.
Well, I knew, I had to go east, so I kept going that way and asked two girls (college?) for directions for P-Street. They told me, where to go and asked me, if they could take a picture of me??? OK!?! WHY??? Because, I am wearing this "funny" outfit? ( I didn't ask that)
Well, the girl explained, that she is taking a class for photo journalism and most people don't let her take pictures. And I guess, she doesn't run into lost MTB in downtown Lincoln too often...lol
After my short photo-shoot (maybe I will be famous one day..), I got back on track and made it back to the car and back to Omaha.

Thanks guys, for a fun ride!! I always enjoy coming down south:)

Baby Wipe Warmers and German Rieβling

Manawa needs THOR, well at least someone with a chain saw. There is one tree down...
Besides that, one really muddy spot and a few feisty weeds, the trail is in GREAT condition.

I went out there today by myself since Martin is still not allowed to ride because of his shoulder and pretty much everybody is out of town.
It was a gorgeous ride, beside those two idiots that had to ride backwards and almost ran into me...
The temperature was perfect and since I was by myself, I could go my own tempo and just enjoy the ride. I was amazed at how many leaves already came down.
Is Fall already here?
I rode two laps and I could have gone easily for another one but I had to go to a baby shower and so I had to rush home, clean up and go to Target and find a present.
I have never done this gift registration thing. It's an American thing and so I print out the list and went to find the stuff on the list...
Oh, I forget to tell that I was in rush too, because I had another invitation after the baby shower, so, I was standing there, looking at all the baby stuff, having no clue, how to find, what I want, or not want, there is nobody around to ask and needless to say, I was hungry from my ride (= cranky).
So, the only item that I found, is a freaking baby wipe warmer and since I didn't have the time, nor the nerve to look any longer, did I get that thing, even though, I can't believe that one needs something like that.....??????????
Then, I was thinking, maybe they make one with a car outlet and I could use it for after race clean-up. Just imaging, instead of COLD nasty wipes, you have warm, yummy wipes!!

Well, I hope it will make the baby and the Mom happy....

After the baby shower, I went to my next party.
I was invited to a German party:) A few months ago, Martin and I met a couple at L&C. Katja and Joe. She is from Germany and told me that they have a group of Germans that meets once every month.
It was a lot of fun to get to know all these folks and to use my German for once:)

I took a bottle of German wine and I hit the jack-pot, because the wine was made in one of the ladies' hometowns. Talking about coincidence:)