Palmarés Sunday

There is a German word Drahtesel which is a colloquialism for a bicycle.  It literally means "wire donkey" and today is a day we celebrate the importance of the donkey.  For you see, without the lowly donkey a very important event would have been very different. 

Today is Palm Sunday and in the gospels (found in Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:28-44; and John 12:12-19) we are told that Jesus made his triumphal entrance into Jerusalem while riding on a borrowed donkey as the residents covered his path with palm fronds.   Although we ourselves didn't live back then (that would put us somewhere around the lower back of the dachsund of time);

(Right in front of the rear "hips" would be the famous procession)

Thanks to the imagination of Andrew Lloyd Weber we can see what it might have been given a driving rock musical accompaniment;

How can you possibly feel threatened by guys with open shirts and REALLY tall fur hats?

Despite the heavy metal celebration of the day, devout Christians across the world attend church services and Catholics in particular celebrate by receiving palm fronds during mass.  As I live across the street from  St. Philip Neri in Northport, I tend to find a lot of aforementioned fronds in my front lawn, deposited there by our younger celebrants.  However many of the older devout, not content to leave them in their natural state, turn them into something more by engaging in Palm Sunday folk art from the simple;

to a bit more complex;

A little more complex version of the fish;

To highly intricate and beautiful works of art created out of a simple palm frond;

And if you have followed my blog for any time at all you know that I have problems drawing simple stick figures, much less creating something as beautiful and intricate as that!

Of course, if you are a cycling fan (as I unabashedly am) you will also realize that today (for some) is a day to make collecting palmarés an art form.  What's that you say?  What are palmarés?  Well, its not an Italian dessert.  Nor is it a Tex-Mex side dish or an Andulacian delicacy.  Its the term given by cyclists to honors won while racing and today brought us the Tour of Flanders known to the Dutch as the Ronde van Vlaanderen.  Its held in the Flanders region of Belgium and this year was won by the local favorite Tom Boonen (pronounced "Bone-in") in an exciting fashion and in the process becoming one of only four people ever to win it three times.  Despite his reputation as a bad boy of cycling, when you are Belgian and you win one of the great classic races on home turf, the people are willing to forgive you almost anything, especially when you win like this (sorry, I can't tell you what the commentators are saying, I think its all in Flemish);



Now I myself also rode today but I have to admit I did not earn any palmarés (or Tex-Mex for that matter) but I did manage to spend a large part of  my Sunday morning hauling my ass (I mean that of course in the Drahtesel sense) over various roads of Long Island.  Now you have to realize I was riding with a competetive speed skater who just placed 9th at the World Championships in his age class and a former track racer so the fact I was able to stay within 100 meters of these guys throughout the ride was a palmaré all to itself for me - even if I did have my donkey handed to me on a silver platter;

Nevertheless, I made it back and with the miles I put in getting to Mike's house and back, I had put in 30.2 miles at an average of 18.2 mph (I really gunned it heading home) and still had some energy to spend with the kids.

First I took a little trip to Dunkin' Donuts here in Northport (a favorite haunt of ours) with James to rehydrate and get some carbs in my system.  It was fun hanging out with my little man since he and I don't get to hang out as much or as often as I do with the other two.  William was on a play date and Sarah was hanging out with her friend Cedar so James was by his lonesome.  I just took it as a great opportunity for the two of us to hang and to laugh and enjoy each other's company - gee, all this male bonding in one day!

After I picked up William and brought him home (a chore in itself, he was ensconced at his friend Jake's house with a computer game) we worked on his catching skills.  Apparently on his Little League team he is going to be doing a lot of catching this season so we went out yesterday and bought him some shin protectors.  Today I took him out back and threw some pitches to him so he could get used to the feeling of the shin guards.  I purposefully threw some off target to him to get him used to the idea of reaching and watching the ball all the way into the glove.  The only problem being we got him the smallest youth shin guards they had in the store and they still come all the way up his thighs.  He has now assumed a new secret hero identity - Lobster Man!  and this is what he looks like;

(Beware of large pots of melted butter!!!!)

Okay no, but very, very close.  Here is the actual photo of my little baseballing cherubim;

(They Call me "Catch"!)

Of course I would be remiss if I didn't relay some of what I did yesterday.  The first thing was I entered the Bicycling Magazine's "Win Any Bike" contest. I won't bore you with the rules (you can click the link on the left) but here's the photo I sent;

(ahh, my noble Drahtesel!)

and here is the text I sent them as my entry;

“This is it, end of the line.”  This thought spun through my head as I lay there waiting to be tossed into the back of a trash truck.  I’d outlived my usefulness and was now destined to be left rusting in a dump.  And then this guy stopped his car.  Could it be?  Would he?  He did!  He took me home, he stripped me down ( a little embarrassing!), and painstakingly rebuilt me.  Over the years we’ve traveled many miles together to raise money for cancer charities (over $20,000).  But it’s our next ride I’m worried about, cross country to raise money to send eight kids with cancer to a summer camp.  I’m not sure my old bones will make it.  I wish for my rider to have someone younger to take with him, someone who’ll last.  He’s been so good to me, can you be good to him?

Now I was limited to only 150 words and the theme was "a picture is worth a thousand words - if your bike could talk".  I'm hoping it is quirky enough for someone to them to perhaps see that I'm worthy of a new bike to help haul my donkey (euphemism for body part) across the country this summer!

The other big thing that happened yesterday is I finally heard some great news from the Northport Fire Department that I've been hoping to hear for a long time!  Back in the summer I had put in an application to become an EMT and had my initial interview.  It was then that I was told it might be a while because they had to wait on approval for new hires and that it might take a while.  I am so incredibly excited to say that yesterday I received a phone call telling me that the approval has come through and if all goes well with my background check and interviews, I will be sworn in as a member of the Northport Fire Department on June 7th (a week before we leave for San Diego) and I will start training in September!!!!!  With any luck they'll let me join the bicycle EMT Corps and really combine my passions!

And finally, a musical video (or two) for your entertainment and edification.

Recently a lot of hoopla (the technical term for hula hooping and yelling excitedly at the top of your lungs at the same time) has been made about a drunk Canadian singing Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" and the video has gone viral;



Now I'm not sure what is more disturbing, that he can render it word-for-word while drunk, or that Canadians can sing (Rush not withstanding, of course there is Bryan Adams, but don't get me started on Celine Dion!).  However, with all the hoopla (there's that word again) we're losing sight of the really important issue here - NO ONE DOES IT LIKE FREDDY AND THE BOYS! 

So to bring us all back to reality and remind us of why we love this song in the first place, I bring you Queen;



Well, I don't know about you but I'm going to straddly my Drahtesel, listen to some killer Queen and go for a ride!  Oh, and for those of you starting to keep count - 83 days until the Grand Depart (uh, that's French for big leaving)!

Stay well and I'll see you on the road!

Over the Airwaves Straight to You

(Bicyle Times - A proud sponsor of Connor's Army)

Over the last year we've really been trying to push the presence of Connor's Army as much as we can.  Its hard because there is really only Amy and myself running this group.  Unlike a lot of other charities, we don't have a huge group of people behind us pounding the streets and soliciting donors or sponsors for us.  I really wish we did, it would certainly make all of this much easier and we would probably be close to our goal already.  I was having a "conversation" (I'm really not sure what you call it these days since so much of our communicating gets done cyberly) with Heidi Goodstadt Burian today and I was telling her how difficult it has been for us.  She and a few others (Danielle, Jason, Jamie, Melanie, My Beginning Acting Class, and quite of few of my ACTers current and past) have been helping get the word out and it certainly is reflecting in our numbers.  For instance, if you're reading this right now you have gotten us a step closer to 11,000 views!!!!!!  I'm sorry but that deserves a trumpet fanfare;

	Robert Paterson - Fanfare for Trumpet Sextet .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Okay, so maybe that's a bit of overkill.  And to be honest, I don't know if all of those views are people who actually read much of anything I write since I still only have 53 official followers and no one (except for Jason) ever comments.  But still, 11,000!!!!!!

Anyway, getting back to my conversation with Heidi, its been very discouraging becuase it has just been Amy and I pushing this project along.  We keep hoping and praying that someone will come along and say, "what you're doing is amazing, how can we help you!" and will help us get the sponsors and help us generate the donations that we're hoping to get.  As Heidi said, "just think of yourself as The Little Engine That Could" (WARNING:  THIS IS ONLY PART ONE SO YOU'LL HAVE TO CLICK ON THE LINKS TO WATCH THE WHOLE THING);



Don't get me wrong, we do have some incredible people who support us (Heidi being one of them) and we have some great sponsors.  But times are hard for lots of businesses still and although there are some companies out there that really have the money, we still have yet to find one or two that can help us raise the last $5,000 in sponsorship we think we'll need to make sure we'll be able to fully do this event right.  So we keep plugging along - "I think we can, I think we can, I think we can.......".

We've also not really pushed it too hard on the PR front yet though.  We've been using the social network (mainly facebook) to try to get the word out but as of December 23rd we'll be SIX MONTHS FROM THE START OF CONNOR'S ARMY'S RIDE ACROSS AMERICA or CARAAM as I like to sometimes call it.  So we're going to start sending out releases to papers, tv stations, magazines, everywhere we can get the word out.  For instance, the picture of the magazine cover that starts this blog entry is from the August issue of Bicycle Times.  And in that issue are two articles about Connor's Army.  Of course we were hoping that someone would read one of those articles and be moved to come forward to sponsor us but no dice yet.

That's not to say we haven't had some strong advocates pushing for us.  Jason Lederman has been one of the most "vocal" of our supporters.  Some of it has been in his vlog, "Late Night With Jason Lederman";

Here's one from our Victory ride 2010;




And here's a video that he did for Project for Awesome 2010;




And I try to take advantage of any chance I can to get the word out.  This past summer the family and I took a trip to Mystic Seaport in Mystic, CT and while we were there they had an attraction called "Tall Ships and Tattoos".  It was great time had by the entire family and at the compound was an exhibit about the development of tattoos as a mode of personal expression for sailors.  At the exhibit they were filming people telling the story about their tattoos and since Sarah thinks my "tat" is so cool, she insisted I do the interview;



And of course I couldn't resist the chance to plug Connor's Army.

And two years ago I relied upon the combined talents of Phil Rosenberg, Dan Kahn, and Daniel Incalcaterra (and I think Saleem Gondal may have had a hand in this) to create a video for Bicycling Magazine's "I Need A New Bike" competition.  Basically our whole gist was, I don't need a fancy carbon racer, I just need something that will get me from San Diego to Long Island in one piece without breaking down;




Unfortunately, it didn't win.  Although I have put the offer out to my brother in law that if he can find a way through his connections to convince Giant Bicycles to donate a cyclocross bike (or even a frame and fork combo) for the cross country ride, I would wear a NEW YORK GIANTS logo on my jerseys the entire 3600 mile ride!  Now for a die-hard DALLAS COWBOYS fan, that is a sacrifice but I will do it for the kids!  (Okay, so are there any big wigs out there with some pull that want to see me humiliated for 3600 miles?)

And jus the other day we started our latest barrage of PR work when Jason (and Justin Tasolides for a small while who admitted he loves my blog but it keeps crashing his browser) dropped by for a visit.  At the end of the visit Jason had managed to shoot some new video footage and using the geniurs editing skills that he has been developing while he's been away at Northwestern.  He really worked hard on it and even though we didn't get it in with enough time to really have people vote for it, it gets us out there and it shows what Connor's Army is about and what we're trying to do and every little bit helps;



What I think it all boils down to is that this process of finding people to sponsor us and to donate is a hit or miss process.  We just have to keep putting it out there and hope that someone will feel called in their heart to help us in some financial manner.  Heidi and the Burian clan have been truly financially generous as have many of my other friends and family members.  Syosset High School is starting to help with various fundraisers and with any luck we'll be able to raise $6,000 through the combined efforts of different student groups. That would be enough for ONE CAMPER FOR EIGHT WEEKS!

And my darling, wonderfully giving Sarah has decided that for her 13th birthday (yes, can you believe it, THIRTEEN!) she wants to to do a Mitzvah project even though she's not having a Bat Mitzvah.  And yes, even though her entire life seems to have been one large Mitzvah, she has decided she wants to throw a fund raiser benefit for Sunrise Day Camp and with any luck we'll be able to raise another $3,000.  She continues to amaze and humble me every day.

Jamie Blanch and her friends at UNO Fights Cancer have been incredibly supportive and have done a few bake sales to benefit Connor's Army.  I'm continuing to sell refurbished bicycles through my RECycle for Sunrise project.  I have a student who wants to sell bracelets for Connor's Army - its all adding up slowly but surely and I'm starting to feel hope that this might happen.

But Amy and I can't do it alone, we need help.  And no, this is not for my own narcissistic needs.  Honestly, if there were a way to get publicity about htis without ever mentioning my name I would do it.  If someone would donate the $50,000 to me to do this if I would do it without ever putting my name to it, I would do it.  If you could see what Sunrise means to the kids that attend it you would understand.  Its not about me, its not about you - its about them. 

So, if you've read this far I thank you.  I thank you for being supportive enough to "listen" to what I have to say.  I thank you for being supportive enough to help us get closer to 11,000 views, and I thank you for possibly passing on the idea of Connor's Army to others - who knows your mentioning it to someone else may be the spark that ignites a flame in someone's soul - a burning desire to help us help the kids.

And now, your reward for making it to the end, Freddie Mercury and Queen performing "Bicycle Race";



And there you have it - we're coming over the airwaves and we're after sending eight kids to camp!  Help us if you can.

Stay well and I'll see you on the road!