Happy Father's Day to Mr. Geek!

We started off celebrating Father's Day the way we always do in the Geek House --- Mr. Geek raced in a Triathlon. The Geeks all waited in the park to cheer him on during the run.

Later, we move on to more traditional cards and presents.

For one present, I compiled pictures of all of Mr. Geeks adventures, so far in 2009.

Happy Father's Day!!!!

Where is Mr. Geek?

This time it is Mr. Geek's turn for and adventure. Today he is riding with Phil Koeghan from The Amazing Race! Seriously! Go to www.philridesacrossamerica.com then click on -Where is Phil Now - That is where Mr. Geek is!!

He met Phil last night and I will post pictures as soon as he gets back.

We have been planning this adventure for awhile. We are both huge Amazing Race fans and when we saw that Phil was planning this ride, well you can imagine the excitement. (Well try to imagine it anyway.) I mean meeting Phil and his dad combined with bike riding, well that is a Perfect Storm for Mr. Geek (in a good way of course).

I was unable to join him because I have my last class this evening. So we worked for days on now to get Mr. Geek to Phil and also how to get him back home. The goal was to be able to ride with Phil for one entire leg - about 100 miles. So when he ends his ride he will be 100 miles from the start and his truck. So we began matching Phil's route to Amtrack, hoping to ride the train back to the beginning. This was not as easy as you might think, or maybe this was not as impossible as you might think depending on your view of Amtrack.

So yesterday, Mr. Geek drove to an Amtrack station in the middle of Illinois. He then rode his bike to the next stop on Phil's route. He stayed overnight in a motel - THE SAME ONE AS PHIL AND CREW!! And today, he is on his was to Chicago.

I really hope he can get through Chicago to the train station and back. But that is why it is called an adventure, right?

How I met Mr. Geek

I thought I would take a trip in the Way-Back machine. Elizabeth started it a while back, when she decided to write a series of how she and her husband met and challenged me to do the same. (Okay, it was less of a challenge and more of a polite, Of course I would LOVE to hear how you and Mr. Geek met, but here it is anyway.) Mr. Geek's and my meeting was not very romantic, but the story amuses us so maybe you will enjoy it also.

Let me set the stage. I was a sophomore in college. My college was a relatively small, highly technical college, and most of the students majored in engineering, computer science or something similar. So now you are probably picturing a place full of geeks and very few women, you are? Good. Well if you have read my profile you know that in this environment, even I can look somewhat cool. And folks let me tell you, my sophomore year I was the coolest I might ever be, and I can say for sure that I was at the top of my most obnoxiousness. In short, my friends and I were having FUN and no one or nothing was getting in our way, unless we decided to use them for our amusement. (Pause while I savor that moment.)

So it was Friday afternoon and getting an engineering degree is hard, hard I tell you, so at the end of the week, it was time for these geeks to relax. And our favorite place for relaxing was a seedy dive called 209. 209 was a bar in a basement of an ancient building, they had cheap draft beer, awesome (and cheap) cheeseburgers, a big jar of pickled eggs on the bar and the best beer drinking music on the Jukebox - Drop Kick me Jesus Through the GoalPosts of Life, and of course , I Like Beer (it makes me a jolly good fellow).

By late afternoon, the place was jam packed and beer and conversations were spilling everywhere. (No this isn't where AbFab and Mr. Geek met- wait for it.) This afternoon another geek (we will call him Unnamed Boy for his own protection) spotted a possible female conquest and moved in with his line, "Would you like to come to my fraternity for dinner tonight?" It was not terribly original, but in college an offer of free food is always difficult to turn down. However the female geek (no, not me) was not terribly impressed by the guy, so she blew him off saying, "No thanks, I am here with my friends." To which the guy overcome with too much beer or maybe the thought of finding more that one girl on campus spoke the now famous words, "Well, why don't you bring them."

I am not terribly proud of this, but we gleefully started passing the word that Unnamed Boy had invited all of us to his fraternity for dinner. A free meal! So all of us paraded to the fraternity house, another good thing about this campus is that everything is within walking distance. And we walked into the kitchen much to the surprise of the rest of the fraternity there. We announced, "Unnamed Boy invited us for dinner and said we should mark up on him." (Mark up is a process where you put a tick mark next to your name for extra incidental charges and then they are added to your house bill at the end of the month.) Yum, we had spaghetti and garlic bread and when the guys asked want if we wanted koolaid or milk to drink, we called out, "BEER, we want beer." We were drunk on, ummmm, power.

After dinner we continued the party. The music was loud and I was talking to one cute boy. I hollered, "What's your name?" To which he replied, " unintelligible unintelligible blah blah, but they call me Shep." I was horrified, "Seriously? I had a dog named Shep! Maybe I don't really want to know how you got that nickname." My school was big on nicknames and most of them had stories behind them, I wasn't sure I wanted to hear about an adventure with a dog, acting like a dog, eating like a dog, etc. "No," he assured me, there was really no story, "It's just short for my name." I was skeptical and finally he had to find a piece of his homework to prove it to me.

And so kids, that is how AbFab and Mr. Geek met.

A Couples MEME

Okay I have been really busy working on something I will tell all of you soon. It has been taking much of my time and all of my concentration.

In the meantime, I stole this MEME from my niece's facebook. I thought it was cute.

All about Mr. Geek and AbFab

♥How long have you been together?25 years married + 2 years dating

♥ How long did you know each other before you started dating? uh, a couple of hours

♥ Who asked who out?Okay I see that I am going to have to explain how we met for these questions. Meanwhile, let's just say me.

♥ How old are each of you?He is 48 and I 46

♥ Whose siblings do/ did you see the most?Mine, his all live out of town

♥ Do you have any children together?3

♥ What about pets? None right now

♥ Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple? Probably working together in the winter when business is slow and cash flow trickles.

♥ Did you go to the same school?College. That is where we met.

♥ Are you from the same home town?no

♥ Who is the smartest?Oh my, well I have the highest GPA.

♥ Who is the most sensitive?Oh Mr. Geek is, he even cries at sad movies.

♥ Where do you eat out most as a couple? It's between a restaurant close to work that we go to for lunch or IHOP. We are party animals.

♥ Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?Canada (another blog entry, remind me of these)

♥ Who has the worst temper?Me, but I prefer to call it passion.

♥ Who does the cooking?Me, but he always cleans up. It works for me.

♥ Who is more social?Me

♥Who is the neat Freak?That is what this marriage needs is a neat freak, or at least a neater freak.

♥ Who is the more stubborn?Okay I will admit it, but I call it tenacity.

♥ Who hogs the bed?Mr. Geek, but he gets us at 4:00 am and then it is mine, mine, mine.

♥ Who wakes up earlier?Mr. Geek (see above) even on vacation.

♥ Where was your first date?Hmm, define date.

♥ Who has the bigger family?Mr. Geek, he has three sisters and one brother.

♥ Do you get steaks often?Yum, Ribeyes from Costco.

♥ How do you spend the holidays?Home with the Little Geeks.

♥ Who is more jealous?Mr. Geek

♥ How long did it take to get serious?About a year. It would have probably been sooner but Mr. Geek was kicked out of school for not making grades and I was having too much fun.

♥ Who eats more?Mr. Geek, no contest.

♥ Who does/ did the laundry?The Geek household has perfected the laundry routine. I put a load in every morning and Mr. Geek puts it in the dryer in the evening. Mostly he folds and I put it away. (We are engineers after all, efficiency is what we are all about.)

♥ Who’s better with the computer?It depends on what you need. I am better with software, but I haven't much patience with hardware at all.

♥ Who drives when you are together?Mr. Geek, he get carsick as a passenger.

Happy Birthday to Mr. Geek!!

As you can see, Mr. Geek started off life as a Junior Geek.

By High School you could almost see a glimmer of the coolness to come.

By college it was apparent - This guy was on his way to be a premiere Geek. This is a picture of our first "formal"date - The Military Ball.

This is our senior year of college it is quite possibly when we reached the very peak of our coolness.

There are some* that say I married Mr. Geek for his body- what do you think?

*Some of course being Mr. Geek.Happy Birthday, Mr. Geek (You big Hunk!)

I Love you tons!!!

Mr. Geek's Nightmare

This is the commercial that is haunting Mr. Geek.



For the record- I did not show it to him, he showed it to me. (I believe he is still shaken.)

Mr. Geek's Triathlon (Part 2)

The Actual Story

See here for Part One - The Background.

(I have been trying to upload some video, that is what has taken me so long. I give up.)

Mr. Geek trains for Triathlons year around. He swims twice a week with the Master's team (This is a dedicated (CRAZY) group of people who swim over 3000 meters starting at 5:30 am!). He rides his bike in the evening when it is light enough and has begun to take spinning classes during the winter. He runs whereever he can fit it in (during the boy's soccer practice, etc.) or when he can talk one of the boys into going for a bike ride (while he runs).

Mr. Geek's Athlete is similarly dedicated ( obsessed). She swims on year around swim team and she run track and field with DASA in the Spring. The team begins training at the beginning of summer.

They start with bike training on mostly level ground. Later they add a short run after the bike. As the race gets closer, they move the bike to hilly neighborhoods to more closely approximate race conditions. The week before the actual Triathalon all the DASA athleetes and their shadows run the entire actual course. This is important, because it is a lake swim and swimming in a lake is much different than swimming laps in a pool. (I will take their word for this)

It was one week before race and word came that Mr. Geek's Athlete would miss the last big practice because she is sick. Later she gets the bad news --- STREP THROAT!! Her mom hopes with enough rest, liquids, and antibiotics, she will not miss the Big Race, but only time will tell.

On the night before the Triathalon, it has still not been decided. Is she strong enough? It is necessary to wait until the last possible moment to decide.


Mr. Geek heads for the Triathlon that morning convinced either he would race or help in the transition area. Middle Geek is tapped as official photographer. (He had a good time, but it started out REALLY early.)

They were calling time for the transition area to be closed and still Mr Geek's Athlete had not arrived. Had she woken up to sick to race, had they had an accident on the way to the race? NO! They were just running late. A did not want to miss the race after training for it all summer. So the team set out, not at 100% physical but with their eye on the prize (finishing).

The swimming and transition went well (I am still trying to get the video uploaded. During the

bike, I am told they hit speeds of over 30 mph (the Tandem is a heavy bike and it flies downhill). Mr. Geek assures me that they were very safe the entire time.

Remember after the biking, you still have a 2 and one half mile run ahead of you. This course is through the neighborhood streets and contains hills. This is the most challenging part of the race. By the end of the run A's head began to ache, either from the fatigue or lingering effects from the strep.

She pushed through it and finished strong.

She finished FIRST in her division, Fifteen minutes ahead of the nearest competitor.

Mr. Geek's Triathlon

Part One --The Background (or the Story behind the Story)



When Mr. Geek had his midlife crisis, he did not find a blond or try to purchase a shiny red sport's car, (thankfully)-- he instead began to run triathlons. (What did I do? Thanks for asking. I joined a Rock Band. But that is a story for another day.)



Another part of his midlife crisis was to question, "what is my purpose here on earth?" and "What is it that God expects me to accomplish in my lifetime?" (hey I never said we were original, just geeky) Mr.Geek and I have often discussed how best to live our lives in a way that will leave the world in a better way than how we found it. Mr. Geek even talked at one time with entering the ministry. (I do believe the possibility of taking Greek might have seemed a bit off putting.) We finally decided that if we tried, we could help people as engineers. (See here all the ways engineers have made the world a better place.) As I stated to Mr. Geek, people are going to be even more receptive to the Good News, if they have running clean water and proper sewage treatment. Oh yes they will and you may quote me.

And in keeping with the overall plan to visit new countries and bring with us running water and sewage treatment (I know we are geeks, haven't I said that already), I have been taking notes and generally being obnoxious asking question after question over at Kash 's (rhymes with mosh) website. Kash has moved to Mali and has been documenting everything from what to pack, to her first meals and grocery shopping and has given us a fabulous house tour. Thanks Kash!



However the reality is right now we are committed to three boys that need routine and a careful diet and a careful watch on their education progress. So what can we do right now and right here.

Another aside (Please bear with me I have trouble telling stories chronologically)-- Mr. Geek has been an active member in DASA for several years as board member and president. For those of you in the St. Louis area DASA is an organization for youth with physical disabilities. The founder is named Kelli, she is a Physical Therapist with oddles of energy. She discovered that in our area there was the Special Olympics for children with mental and physical disabilities but no outlets for children with only physical disabilities. As a problem solver, Kelli jumped in and started getting these kids into everything. She started with track and field and now includes rock climbing, kayaking, swimming, ice hockey and so much more. She is an incredible source of energy and inspiration.


So I had a thought that seems obvious now but at the time seemed genuinely inspired. One of the Triathlons that Mr. Geek races in has a disabled division . DASA athletes participate in this race and each athlete has a "shadow who runs along in case the athletes need help. "Maybe," I commented to Mr. Geek, "they could use another shadow." And as they say, to make a long story longer, began the story that I promise to to tell in Part 2.


Mr Geek was linked with a young athlete (I will call her A for Athlete) that was vision impaired. The first race was done as a team. His Athlete swam and ran and another athlete did the biking portion. We considered trying to get A to use our Trail-a-Bike but although she was not a very tall girl she was too tall for that. So I said maybe we could talk a bike rental place into loaning DASA a tandem bike for the race and then she could do the entire race. DASA was even better than that and found the funding to purchase a used tandem bike to train and race on. (This is a great organization if you are looking for a place to support.)


Remember A was 12 and had never ridden a bike without training wheels . So it took an incredible amount of courage for her to climb on that bike with Mr. Geek (Whom I had given a stern talking to before hand about not going too fast). Last year they completed the entire race and came in first.

What is your Theme song?

Today's Take5 Tuesday has some great subjects. I am not sure which ones I would like to list. These are the choices, and each one could be a posting of its own.

List…
5 of your favorite things.
5 things you wanted to be when you grew up.
5 of the best compliments that you have ever received.
5 songs that you would pick as your theme songs.
5 people that inspire you.

I will pick the easiest first.

5 things you wanted to be when you grew up.

Teacher
Botanist (I had read a biography of Luther Burbank and I wanted to graft new plants)
Writer
Engineer
Astronaut (This is still on my list. My dad made me promise not to go into space while my mom was alive -Hi Mom! )

5 songs that you would pick as your theme songs

Instead of my five songs, since there are five of us in the house I will give each of us a theme song.

Littlest Geek

Middle Geek



College Geek



Mr. Geek



AbFab Geek

So What is Your Theme Song???