March was a crazy month....

Back to California...

This time to bury my grandfather. My grandfather was 87 years old and he passed on Feb 17th in his sleep. He lived a rough hard life and even though he was not as involved in our lives as we would have liked we (the family) and I still loved and respected the hell out of him.

So March started out with a trip down to see my best friend Julian Chocholak, mountain bike, and see the North American Handmade Bike show (see post below for details!!). When I got home I immediately had a major anatomy and phisology exam which I had orginally planned to have completed before my trip down to CA and due to some delays in the class it got pushed back to Monday the day I was getting back from CA. Mr Gong my instructor allowed me to take the test on tuesday and I kinda struggled through it as I was coming down with the crud and I hadn't had the time to study properly. I passed but the 71 I got brought down my overall class score sharply.

On the 10th of March I had my first oral board interview with Seattle fire Department in this latest round of testing and hiring. I felt like the interview went well I finished within the 20 minute time limit and didn't rush through the final few questions. UPDATE: I passed the first oral board and I have a second oral board interview on May 2nd to determine my placing on the hiring list! That night we dropped Abigael off at our old friends and neighbors, Kyle, Layla, and Alexx's house and Christie and I attended the Marymoor Velodrome Association's annual fundraising auction on Mercer Island. Frankie Andrau, a former pro cyclist and 9 time Tour de France rider, was the guest speaker and we ate heartily and enjoyed ourselves in the company of adults and friends!! Sunday the 11th was Abigael and I went to the annual Seattle Bike Expo and walked around taking in the sights.

The next week Christie, Abigael and myself all traveled down to CA to goto my grandfather, M.C.'s memorial. Despite the sad circumstances for the trip it was a joyous reunion of the Lockwood clan. In attendance were my uncle Wayne and aunt Mary, cousins Jeff and Chris, flying in from Japan!, their mom Berta, Jeff's daughter Lindzee, my mom and dad, my sister Gabbi and brother-in-law Dan Whittington, their two kids my niece Emma and nephew Matthew. We stayed in a hotel in Sacramento not far from Mary's mom, Elenor's, house. My dad and uncles second cousin Chris Tarkington and his wife also came up for the memorial it had been almost 20 years since I had last met them and it was a good reuninion. The memorial at the Veteran's home in Yountville was very dignified and honorable. Afterwards we had a short graveside service for family and a few friends. We all had lunch at the golf club house resturant and took lots of family photo's.

We got to spend lots of time visiting and the kids got to play and get to know each other again. On Saturday, St. Patty's day, our family went up to Chico to visit my grandmother (mom's) on her 93rd!! birthday. She is in a skilled nursing facility due to a serious fall and broken hip in December. The visit was pleseant and my uncle David (mom's brother) and his wife was also there so the visit was very good. Unfortunately over the weekend my dad came down with"THE sickness" and we weren't feeling great coughing ridiculously in the car as we travelled from place to place. Abigael came down with the sickness as we flew home and by Monday all three of us were very ill. Unfortunately this all happened in the last week of school and I got back in time to start my final exams. Christie ended up becoming really sick still vomiting from "morning" sickness and having problems with her breathing! In any case the baby is very healthy and all ultrasounds show the baby is doing great!! We had our 20 week ultra sound on Tuesday April 10th and the baby is alive a kick'n!!

I got my grades over the spring break. I ended up with a 3.9 in Mat 098 Intermediate Algebra, 3.7 in Chem 101 Inorganic Chemistry, and a sad 2.8 in ANP 214 Anatomy & Phisiology not doing very great on the final, 74, continued to bring down my overall grade. This quarter I am taking Bio 280 Microbiology and Psy 206 Develomental Psychology. I was going to re-take Human Nutrition online but decided I was busy enough with just two classes. I also found out the first day of class that I did not get any worker retraining funding due to them running out of funds, oh well!! I am doing pretty good in school right now but very busy with an 8am class every day during the week and working a few more hours at Fleetfoot Messengers as the "mechanic" on Wednesdays.

I had an Ortho Dr.s appt on Wed. April 11th with good results. The x-rays continue to show bone calcification although there is one area where the bone continues to regenerate slower than the rest of the grafting area. The doc and I decided to maintain status quo and I will see her in three months again. She says that one of my options to help jump start the regrowth process is to replace the "nail" or rod in my tibia, but that is kind of a last resort invasive step. So we'll see where we sit in three more months that will put my ONE year from my last surgery (July 6th 2006).

My weekend away in San Jose (and the North American Handmade Bicycle Show)

So last weekend I went down to San Jose/Sunnyvale to visit my best friend Julian Chocholak and his girlfriend Jen. I also went down to goto the North American Handmade Bicycle Show and take in a few beautifully built hand crafted bicycles. The show was bicycle overload!! I had a great time and I posted tons of pictures on my flickr account!

I also got to go mountain biking with my best friend Julian. On friday after I got in we went up to the Skyline Highway and rode in the Russian Ridge openspace! The weather was amazing and we got about two solid hours of riding in that late afternoon. And then during the show on Saturday I bumped into a couple guys from the SoCal area that reconized my bike from MTBR.com and they said that a bunch of MTBR.com guys were getting together on Sunday to go ride down in the UC Santa Cruz area.

On Sunday about ten of us met at 9am and rode some SWEET singletrack in the Santa Cruz mountains for a total of about 18 miles and 4 plus hours at a very physical yet social pace. Most of the attendees were riding 29er's with the exception of Julian on his Santa Cruz Blur LT and two other guys on 26er singlespeeds. I had a few mechanicals like a flat tire and a broken chain and then proceeded to crash about three quarters of the way into the ride and taco my front wheel. MY LEG WAS SAFE THE ENTIRE TIME (MOM). Banged up my right shoulder though, sore as hell now!! I bent the wheel back to sort of round and rode it out, singletrack and all no prob. I just need to replace the rim (Stan's ZTR Flow rims?) and she's good as new! The guys (Jeff) at Industry Nine have been SUPER helpful!!