The century

For those of you who know me, know that I'm a huge lance Armstrong fan. His story is almost unbelievable, to battle back from near death to winning the Tour De France 7 years in a row! Lance's story inspired me to ride a road bike. I've been a mountain bike guy all of these years. When my father in-law offered us a deal on his barely used road bike, I jumped on it. So now I have a great road bike, now all I need is a great ride to take it on. Enter the Tour De Villes in Janesville on July 29th. My first century, that sounds cool right? I have plenty of time to train adequately so I'm going for it!

Packers

I wish Brett Favre would make up his damn mind already! He can't hold the Green Bay Packers hostage forever, can he? Does he expect us not to waste another first round pick on a quarterback? I won't blame the team for drafting another quarterback high in the draft. Brett says he is waiting to see if the team will get better through free agency. If you were a free agent would you want to play for the packers not knowing if Favre will even be around 1 more year? The answer is I don't think so, had Favre already committed to 1 more year I feel Lavar Arrington might not have signed with another team. Charles Woodson is probably dragging his feet to sign with the team because he knows the Pack has an ice cubes chance in hell without Favre. Those 2 players formally listed would be huge additions to any team, I blame Favre for scaring them away! I know Favre returned the Packers to greatness but what has he done for us lately? Favre is a living legend and a sure fire hall of famer but I feel he is hurting the team by contemplating his retirement for 4 months now.

Push reel mower

In honor of Earth Day I finally went out and bought a push reel mower. That's right, I won't be burning gas while I cut my lawn anymore. The only fuel I need is what's in my stomach at the time. Lawn mowers are horrible machines, 1 hour of cutting your grass emits enough emissions as a 100 mile car ride! Each weekend over 54 million Americans mow their lawn consuming 800 million gallons of gas each year! The noise pollution is another turn off, most lawn mowers run at 75-80 decibels. Prolonged exposure to 75-80 decibels will damage your hearing. Another down side to gas mowers is the upkeep, changing the oil, filters, spark plugs, winterizing and de-winterizing. The push reel takes much less upkeep, sharpening the blades and lube the bearings in the wheels. The blades need to be sharpened once a year. Americans need to be less dependent on fossil fuels, this is one way to lessen the dependence on foreign oil.

Tortuga

This is my first blog, so here it goes.....

Tortuga.

Spanish for turtle or tortoise. For those who don't know me, one of my favorite marine animals is the sea turtle, you know the dudes from Finding Nemo. I don't know why but I love them. I have always liked turtles; as a kid we found one and kept it for a couple of days until my parents made us release it back to it's home by the creek by their house. A little over a year ago while my wife and I were on a cruise for her grandparents 50th wedding anniversary, one of our ports of call was Grand Cayman. Well Cayman has a very large sea turtle farm were the hatch and release turtles back into the wild. We had a very rushed visit, we ran short on time before our ship left port, but we had a good half hour of turtle time. I got to pick up a few and got some cuuuuute pictures with them.

So that brings us to Tortuga, a dive site off the Yucatan Peninsula. I had another sea turtle experience. First let me bring you up to speed, Nikki and I were on another 50th anniversary vacation this time for her other grandparents. Her grandparents brought 12 people to Playa Del Carmen for 5 days of fun and celebration. How lucky are we? Moon, my unofficial step father-in-law, offered to pay for me to scuba dive, if I was up for it. Of course my answer was yes, so I went through 2 hours of training through the PADI system. It's a quick crash course scuba diving skills lesson with instructor lead dives. I was so pumped to get to sea and see what's out there. The Yucatan Peninsula is home to the world's 2nd largest coral reef, besides the Great Barrier Reef. On the boat ride to the reef I was very nervous stomach, the choppy water didn't help either. Once I jumped in a calmness took over and then I was sure I would have the time of my life. Our first dive was at 35-40 feet; there was very pretty coral with caverns and hundreds of fish. We saw 2 puffer fish, 2 rock or coral fish, the ones that look exactly like the coral. We also saw one very large lobster, but he tucked himself away in a cavern as soon as he saw us coming. Our first dive lasted 30 minutes, I wish I could have stretched out my air longer but I knew we had 1 more dive later that day. I couldn't get past how clear the water is, even at 40 feet you could see the bottom from the boat. The hurricane damaged some of the reef, but it was still very pretty. Another thing I have since pondered is water covers 70.8% of the earth. I guess I didn't really ever think about that until I was at the bottom of the Sea feeling as small as the algae floating by in the vast sea of blue. The dive instructor said that I did a great job and he told our next dive instructor not to worry about me, that I would do fine. So instead of another 35-40 foot dive, we were upgraded to an intermediate dive of 80-90 feet. The dive site was called Tortuga, it's a feeding site for sea turtles. The turtles love a type of sponge that grows there on the coral. I was excited about seeing turtles but nervous about the depth. I wasn't sure if I was ready but I couldn't miss the opportunity to see some dudes. So after a light lunch Moon and I headed back for more. I had another case of the nervous stomach, but again once I hit the water I knew that I was going to have an awesome time. After a long descent to the bottom, we came upon turtle after turtle, some didn't care we were there, others made it a point to break camp as soon as they spotted us. We came upon 2 turtles eating some sponges, they didn't seem to mind our intrusion, so we got some great pictures and film of them eating. I lost track of how many turtles we saw after 7, but I don't think is was much more than 10. The 30 minutes flew by way too fast and before I knew our time was up in the underwater world. The memories will last a life time. Thanks again Moon, for the chance to see some things most people will never see. I also want to urge anyone who has never scuba dived before to go ASAP. SCUBA diving is very addicting, it's all I've been thinking about ever since the my last dive. I can't wait to go back and dive again.