Military prepares for the Democrats to takeover!!

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This is just one of the many ways thoses suckers will weaken us if they're in the White House.

Now That's a Red Blooded American!

For those that are new, turn the music off at the bottom of the page so you can listen to the clip.

Great Start to 2008

Well I had this grandiose plan to start the New Year with a super positive blog post to get the year started right. You know, list all the resolutions and tell you guys what a great year it's going to be. That plan is ruined and I'm now just pissed.

I went out to the garage yesterday to find that one of my precious ponies had been stolen. Some sucker had the guts to walk into my garage and take it right off the ceiling hooks. Granted I've learned my lesson that I can't leave the garage door open, but this was in the middle of the day.

It gets better....I called the insurance company and they proceed to tell me that it probably doesn't make sense to file the claim because after they depreciate the value of the bike it will be equal to my deductible. Needless to say I was pretty pissed. I've come to realize that insurance is basically a legal scam, you're damned if you have it and really damned if you don't.

I really do hate to start the new year with such a negative vibe but I can't help hoping that whoever is riding my bike falls and breaks their neck. With my luck the criminal will repent in the next few years and won't have to suffer the eternal consequences.

When work gets in the way of Blogging

Typically this time of year is pretty slow for my business, that's not been the case this year. I'm not complaining but it definitely has cut into the more important things in life like maintaining the Harber blog and training.

OK...work has been busy but more than anything there hasn't been a ton to write about. I can sum up the past few weeks pretty quick:

Laura and I had the opportunity to go to the NFR (National Finals Rodeo) twice this year thanks to Mr. Paul Harber. It made me laugh that Laura was so into it; she kept telling me how much she was looking forward to it and was excited to be there the whole time. I thought this year was exceptionally good; those cowboys are amazing athletes. This was also the little buckaroo's first year at the rodeo, from what I hear he enjoyed himself pretty well.

Other than the Rodeo it's been Christmas parties and shopping. I'm very grateful for my sweet wife that takes care of the majority of the shopping. She also gets credit for the holiday decorations around the house. This is another activity that I try and stay out of, but I do enjoy the decorations once everything is up.

We had a great game of Risk with the boys last week. Thanks to the Moodys for introducing me to my new favorite game.

I've been slacking major on the training schedule. After next week I need to get serious and get with the program. The half marathon is a little over a month away, and the half Ironman is only about 3 months away. Jesse's going to be a serious contender at the Buffalo run on Catalina.

Harber weekend in SLC

We spent last weekend in SLC with the Paul and Nola Harber Family. It was a kicked back weekend just to hang out with everyone. We went out to eat, did some serious shopping and checked out the lights at Temple Square. We were lucky enough to get snow for most of the weekend... It definitely helped to get into the holiday season.

The one bummer was that Southwest lost my bag. We were planning on carrying on our bags until we found out one of the traveling family members had to check their bag. Laura and I decided to check ours since we would have to wait at the baggage claim anyways. All bags made it to SLC but mine. The best part is that I still don't have the bag (as of 12/7/07), and Southwest makes you wait 30 days until they reimburse for anything. I didn't realize how much I had in the sucker until I started to itemize the list. The most missed items in the bag are my running shoes and my heart rate monitor. I can't afford to let 30 days slip by without essential training tools, especially while that sucker Anthony is in the middle of his "eye of the tiger training."

Unfortunately I didn't have my camera for the weekend so not many photos until someone emails me some. I did receive one photo that I loved. I gave my nephew a doughnut at breakfast one morning and he had no problem taking care of it.

The Dirty South, Turkey, and Football

We had the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with the Moody's this year in Baton Rouge.

Although the trip was short we did a ton of stuff. First of all the food was great, my favorites were the sweet potatoes and the turkey gumbo. Thanksgiving day we kicked back and then played a game of RISK. Apparently I'm way behind in the times because this was the first time I had played this game. It's probably one of the funnest games I've played. Way better than Monopoly because you attempt to conquer the world instead of just buying properties.



On Friday we went to the LSU game. Most of you know that I'm not a football fan but it was still pretty fun. The LSU fans are crazy for their team; I'm told the tailgating starts the day before the game and they party hard all the way until the game is over. Laura knew that I wasn't super pumped about the game so she said tried to encourage me by telling me that the game would only be a couple of hours long. Just my luck...it went into triple overtime and we were there for almost 5 hours. It did end up being pretty fun overall and even better to watch the fans go nuts; unfortunately LSU lost to Arkansas.

Saturday we checked out the Baton Rouge velodrome that unfortunately had been converted into a BMX park. For those that don't know a velodrome in an oval cycling track with steep banked turns. I thought it was an odd city to have a velodrome built in but I guess it was used for a youth Olympic event. We also visited the State Capital and saw the bullet holes in the granite where Huey Long was shot.

Other misc. activities were trips to Coffee Call for beignets (southern doughnuts...kind of), and a few solid hours logged on the Wii.

Big thanks to the Moody's for the Southern Hospitality and a memorable holiday.

High Altitude Training

OK it was just a mountain bike trip to Brian Head but being at 10,000 feet is definitely different than riding in Vegas.

We were joined by the Stubbs and the Hanson's (aka Team Sabrosa Cycles). We rode the ORIGINAL Brain Head trail "Dark Hollow," little did we know that the trail had been changed. After a couple of miles down hill we realized that we were on a trail that hadn't been ridden for many moons. It actually turned pretty epic, along with a ton of fallen trees there must have been a huge mud slide that wiped out a good portion of the trail. On top of the trail not being in tip top shape Anthony was having a tough weekend. Not only did he burn a hole in his lung on the first climb, but he damn near ripped his derailleur off his bike. Oh yeah and he also had two gnarly wrecks. I started feeling sorry for his new bike, this was only the second outing for the new pony.

We had great food and the ladies must have played 50 games of Mexican Dominoes. Another good weekend; unfortunately I think it'll be the last without snow at Brian Head.