Click here! Because it’s never too early to start Christmas shopping.

And now a picture. It’s of the backside of me and Robbie, because that’s all everyone saw of us at the race this weekend… except Justin Spinelli, because he’s faster than us and won.

What a kick butt weekend. It was quick, but action packed. I flew from the small Manchester Airport (a haven for nose-to-the-grindstone TSA workers) to the significantly smaller Traverse City, MI airport on Friday afternoon. We stayed at our generous team sponsor Bob’s house, which is picturesquely located on the sandy beach of northern Lake Michigan.

Side note: Morgan and I swam in the lake after the race on Saturday afternoon. I consider myself a close cousin of the polar bear, because I’ve recently braved the frigid waters of Nantucket and mid-coast Maine, but HOLY MOLY this water should have had iceburgs floating around in it! The day time high Saturday might have hit 57 degrees, but that’s probably an overestimation. Now back to the story…

Saturday’s race, the Tour of Leelanau, featured a whole slew of teams including: Jittery Joe’s, Toyota, Kelly Benefits, JetFuel, the Mexican National Team, and others. Obviously a certain Tour of Missouri attracted some of the nation’s top notch teams, but the UCI North American ProTour ranking given to Leelanau still brought some top talent. With only 6 riders per team allowed, the race turned into a game of numbers early on. We and Kelly had 4 guys in break which made for an even duel, but after some crafty racing, it was 4 vs 3, then 2 vs 3, then 2 vs 2, then 4 vs 2. In the end, we out foxed them with some impeccable tactical skills which allowed us to nab 3 of the top 5 places, including 1st. Garrett and Scott rode particularly heroically, taking 1st and 3rd, but the whole team rode like rock-stars. This may have been a result of our director telling us that we’re all fired unless we win the race in front of our home-state sponsors. Hey, whatever works, right?!

After a memorable (or forgetful…) party that night, to celebrate the culmination of a successful year of racing, I flew home early Sunday morning. Sadly, it wasn’t early enough to make it home to the Portsmouth Criterium. This race is close to my heart since a) it’s my home race just 20 minutes away from where I sleep each night and b) the King brothers are two time reigning champions, with Robbie topping the podium in 2005 and me in 2006 (here’s a sweet blast from the past!). Alas, last year’s runner up, Mike Cody, dethroned the King brothers with Robbie just inches away in 2nd place. A heroic effort, or so I’m told, so congratulations Robbie on a bittersweet 2nd place.

The best thing that happened between about 7pm and 9pm on Sunday night was when I went to the afterparty and won a raffle for a pair of Oakley Radar glasses. They’re HOT PINK! (click here to see them.) I either have to sell them to T-Mobile or scorch everyones’ eyes who looks in my direction. They’re so rad.

And that, my friends, is an epoch weekend.

Actually, getting on tennis courts is a tough task on the lovely island of Nantucket. After US Pro two weeks ago (which… went. I finished 26th out of 31 finishers out of 120 starters. Decent but plenty of room for improvement. Not much more needs to be said), Mayo and I packed up and shot down to Nantucket for five amazing days and one wedding. It was our first time to the island, and is a stark contrast to Squirrel Island. The list of differences is lengthy, beginning with bicycles being disallowed on Squirrel and finishing with the many stores on Nantucket and lack thereof on Squirrel. They’re both awesome places, though.

The trip was pretty darn amazing. In a nutshell, I saw a ton of Middlebury friends who I hadn’t seen in ages - most of them since I graduated in February ‘06. The weather was perfect, dare I say exciting… See, there was nary a cloud in the sky the entire five days, but there was prevailing 30mph winds for most of the week. That was most exciting during the wedding ceremony itself, which took place on the water.

Other highlights of the weekend include:

-A trip to the never-ending beach. Leland and I took a stroll into the water near to this picture below, and after walking straight out towards the ocean for three straight minutes, the water was still only up to our shins. So I dropped down, swam in the 12 inches of water for two seconds just to say I swam, and then we walked back.
-Super duper location
-Rehearsal dinner of lobbys, steamers, corn, etc.
-Some excellent pastels
-And lots of good friends.

This is a bit of a misnomer of a title since my gripe here is with the airports and not the actual flying, but I liked the catchiness of it. My gripe of the day allowed me a good chuckle when I recently flew down to Greenville, SC for the US Pro championships. I flew from our local New Hampshire airport, which is pleasantly enjoyable because I can go from parking my car to my gate in about 12 minutes, without having to deal with massive lines. Upon arriving at the gate on this particular journey, I sat down with the Boston Globe - my most preferred newspaper, FYI - at a seat near the intense TSA security detail. I did a double take and then had to get my camera out when I saw the first person TSA decided to give the full security run-down to: an 85 year old man! The poor guy is so dang old, he can’t barely raise his arms, much to the chagrin of the hard nosed security officer.
Uh oh, not the shoes! That’s where he keeps the TNT! Gimme a break…

The next person to be searched was another elderly person, this time a woman. I took the first pictures of the elderly gentleman because I got a kick out of the situation and thought there was some entertaining novelty to it… I did not think this was going to be a continuing trend. Mind you, the airport is relatively empty and now the two consecutive people to get the full search (within a 5 minute period) are octogenarians! So not even five minutes later when yet another elderly person is getting harrassed… err, searched rather… I took another picture to see this (roughly) 70 year old woman getting the full treatment.

This poor soul was with a group of four other women her age who obviously had their plot foiled of bringing terror to airtravel. Oh, but be sure not to use the word Terrorism when going through TSA. A family member of mine recently made this mistake and was scolded by TSA for “frightening the other travelers.” Wow. George Bush has clearly made this mistake himself going through security in the past, using the word “Terrorists.” He was corrected of his mistake and soon afterwards his vocabular grew to include the go-to phrase: “Evil Doers.”