Off the grid....sort of....

Well, Mother's Day brought on the winds in East Tennessee. Unfortunately with the winds, it brought down some huge trees across our power lines and onto our house. I believe Smap and I are two of the luckiest people on this earth. We always seem to have luck in so many ways.

KUB came to our house this morning at 3:30 to "reconnect" our power (still out since Sunday). Not possible....especially at 3:30 in the morning. These trees are so enormous, they will have to be taken out before KUB can even get to our lines. As for our house, it could have been so much worse! The trees took out a corner of our roof, but as far as we can tell did no structural damage to the foundation or brick (except the brick retaining wall holding up our driveway).

I don't mind being without the electricity except I would like it for 3 things...for the hot water heater to take a noncold shower, the dishwasher (ours is very energy and water efficient)...I despise having dishes in my sink, and the washer and dryer (also very energy and water efficient)...I can't stand getting behind on laundry, but luckily I did all of our laundry SUNDAY morning.
We are use to camping, so living out of a cooler is nothing for us. I would like to be able to clean out our fridge though.....ick. Also, we have gas for our stove, so cooking is not a problem....we have been using our camping coffee maker for our coffee addiction, and lastly we have a generator that we finally hooked up briefly last night and this morning. This morning Smap hooked it up to grind our coffee....otherwise we probably would have been okay.

I am an avid reader, so finding time to read has been a lot easier for me. I just wish the damn mosquitos would leave me alone! I also wish I could finish a book and stop starting new ones. I have a horrible reading problem/addiction. I go into book stores and buy more books and borrow more books, and start them all and read them all at the same time. I am so thankful school will be out soon, so I can go sit somewhere and read alone for a LONG LONG TIME. Currently I am really into 4 books....two of which I started reading in my classroom to my kids and never finished. I do this on a regular basis....I start reading novels to my kids just to get them hooked, then they go to the library or go buy the books. This method works great for getting my nonreaders to read.

I bought a lottery ticket last night hoping our luck will change. But I am sure if we were to win the lottery we would still have to deal unlucky circumstances.

Happy Mother's Day!

I need to give a shout out to my mom! Thanks for everything mom!

Happy Mommy's Day! I love you.

What's going on? Anything??? The 20th Dagger Reunion Yesterday

Below are some photos and memories from the Dagger days. Enjoy....

Above, is a overnight trip Smap and myself took on Lake Fontana. Below, I am in the yellow and red composite boat...if you can find me. This was the Ijams Nature Center Adventure race (the one and only one that they ever had). I borrowed a boat from the demo fleet and did pretty good for being so hungover that day (I thought I would be able to celebrate a friend's 40th the night before and still be able to race after drinking all night....lesson learned). It was super hot and there was no water on the 3-mile run...not good for someone who was already dehydrated. I was the 2nd person done with the paddling portion of the race and 4th female overall.

Teri and her "organized" cubicle. Nothing was ever thrown away. Insects were left on her keyboard to surprise her on random mornings. :) Thanks for the laughs MJ and Mark Brown.

MJ and Mark Brown. I think Mark Brown looks a little bit different from the Mark I saw yesterday...
The Customer service/In House Sales crew: Brad Taylor, myself, Teri, Fairan, and Mark Jackson. Fun times....
The photo below is of my and Teri's cubicles. So many times we would email each other instead of turning around to speak to one another. It was pretty histerical. Over the wall sat Woody and Andy G. Every day I would learn new vocabulary from John. When a word interested me, I would run over to ask him the definition. Also, John would cook some amazing food (John we talked about this yesterday at the reunion). Teri and I were always hoping you would share.
Yesterday was a great day. I got to reunite with a lot of my old coworkers from the best job I have ever had. It was my first job as well. It seems like a lifetime ago that I worked at Dagger. I was so young....23 years old. It was the first time I ever had to own up to my own mistakes and the first time I gained any confidence in my own person. I have to credit Teri Lee for most if not all of it. I would ask and ask and ask and ask her so many questions. Finally, she looked at me one day and just said, "Rach, you have got to have some confidence in yourself". I am not sure if she remembers saying this to me, but I remember it every day that I have to make any kind of decision in my life. I never needed anything so badly in my life than Teri saying those few words to me. Thanks Teri Lee!

The reunion took place just half a mile down the road from where Dagger stood in the Roane County Park. I had forgotten how beautiful it was out there. I use to run and run and run around that park. I spent so many lunch hours either running around that park, riding past it, or have a good walk with Teri through there. I also had some fabulous rides everywhere around Roane County during my lunch hours. Being an outsider in Roane County, I still probably knew the town better than anyone who lived there all their lives. The roads and hills out there were some of my best friends.

When I started working at Dagger I had thought I died and gone to heaven. The company was so awesome. My boss, my co-workers, the factory workers. We all got along famously. I had so much fun giving tours to outsiders, helping lay out custom boats, walking up the backside of Dagger to the old R&D building with Teri to check out new boats or just to go see Tony.

***Above is the boat I drew up for Smap (Stephen), my future husband. I even went out and helped lay out the plastic (one of my FAVORITE things to do). Here is also my Outlaw I designed, but later changed the colors to be red, white and blue right after 9/11.***

The trips I got to take with/for Dagger were so memorable too. The Outdoor Retailer shows were the hardest days I probably ever worked in my life, but the most fun as well. The first year I went out there was the tornado. We were not allowed back into the Salt Palace, so we all got to walk around the amazing town of Salt Lake City. I loved getting to meet all my dealers from the west coast and partying with all of our "competition" and other friends of the industry.

The first demo I ever did with Dagger was the "Spring Fling" over at the Nantahala with Chris Hipgrave. He had his cartwheel machine hooked up. I couldn't get enough turns on that machine. He had an Infrared (I think) hooked up to this arm hooked into his truck. I wonder if he still has that thing?

There were also horrible trips too....my infamous trip to Elijay, GA. I went down with Andy G. (pictured above) The demo was for a really annoying dealer, whom I can't even remember the name. I guess they thought that since we worked for Dagger, then we were some hard core partying peeps...which I can/am/have been, but these guys were NASTY. Their house/trailer was grimy and smelled of years and years of animal waste. I couldn't sleep that night due to the owners partying in the room next to my room, which had paper thin walls. I made an executive decision the next day for Andy and me to get a hotel room for the next night. Dagger had a sleep cheap, eat well policy. If we could find a free place to stay, then we took it. I decided Dagger could afford the $35 for Andy and me to get out of the piss house. I remember hardly anyone even showed up for that Demo...I'm not sure if we even got any thanks from them...it was a thankless job at times.

I also had "drawn straws" to work a demo in Huntsville, AL one weekend. I pretty much had to work it because everyone else in CSR and Marketing were working demos that weekend in the SE, or had worked one the previous weekend. I had what was left over of the demo yard (which was about 10 boats). Once I pulled up to the demo, the owner of the shop basically chewed me out for my lack of boats. I tried explaining that he along with half the other dealers in the SE were having demos on that same day and the pickings were slim for demo boats. He was so rude to me and did not even bother to help me unload the boats from my truck.....some were canoes. Luckily I had worked plenty of demos and was well schooled in the art of loading and unloading boats. My fear of heights was put on hold and challenged on a regular basis when I was up on top of those trucks. I also had to use my newly gained confidence in myself for these occasions. It was the challenge though that I loved. That guy didn't thank me either. He didn't have a lot of folk show up for his demo either.

Those were the only two bad demos I think I had to work... The great ones definitely out-numbered the bad ones. My first big demo was the Sea kayak symposium in Charleston, SC. I got to drive over with Oscar. Oscar and I played "punch-bug" all the way over and back. We both had the biggest bruises when it was all said and done. That weekend was my first experience of the "sleep cheap, eat well policy". Luckily Andy-Bob had a good friend living in Charleston, so we only had to sleep one night on the hardwood floor of a cabin. Oscar, A-Bob and I luckily got real beds in a house and got to benefit from eating well in Charleston. Except for the oyster hell-hole we went to....I can't remember the name, but it was a total dive and the guy shoveled oysters on to your table. I think we all got the runs after that dinner. It was memorable though or I wouldn't be writing about it. :)

As Dagger became more entwined with Watermark, we began to be able to afford better sleeping accommodations. I think I liked it better the way we had it in the beginning. Better stories to tell...

It all ended that horrible day we were all called into the new warehouse for a company-wide meeting. We didn't have meetings like these very often, so I had an ominous feeling that something bad was going to happen. When we were told we were being laid off, it was like someone had ripped my heart out. I was so sad not just for losing my own job, but losing such a great family and friends. The last several months at Dagger were horrible. No one was nice to one another, Teri and I didn't speak. It sucked. It was not Dagger though. It was not the company we all signed up to work for.

The Dagger I signed up to work for was the Dagger I saw yesterday. We may have not been in our old building, and I may have not remembered everyone's names (Tom didn't even remember my name), but I did remember the faces, the warm smiles, and all the friendliness I always felt when I went to work everyday for three years. Dagger was back together for a few short hours. The ones that didn't show up were there in our conversations and in spirit. Everyone was mentioned if not in the conversations I was a part of, but most likely in all the others that took place yesterday. We had some great laughs revisiting so many fun times we had together and hilarious incidents that were always taking place. We laughed so much at Dagger.

We laughed, we loved, we lived.

Thank you Dagger for all that you gave me!

(including the very cheap pair of Atlantis's I got off of Woody when the time came to get rid of the Dagger demo fleat as we were closing the doors in Harriman...Smap and myself getting ready for a over night paddling/fly fishing trip up on Fontana Lake).

Another good t-shirt idea....

My latest t-shirt idea isn't actually brand new.  Also, my friend Kimberly helped me come up with it.  We were talking one day while mountain biking about how banged-up our bodies usually are from all the hell we put them through on the trails.  Kim and I both belong to the same gym and we both sometimes feel weird in the locker room with all our bruises.....like, "no, I don't have an abusive husband".  So, I think I need a t-shirt that reads, "My husband doesn't beat me, I am a mountain biker".   I think that should solve the problem.

Maybe?

I need a t-shirt that says....

This morning while riding to school some stupid make-up infested bia decided to pass me just to come to a stop sign. There was absolutely no reason why she needed to pass me especially when there was an on-coming car right there in the area for which she needed to get over, so I was left with barely any room. I rode up next to her at the stop sign (she was 3rd in the row), looked at her in her window, then pulled right in front of her car. I need a t-shirt that says, "If you hit me, you may be killing your kid's teacher). I mean really...

I have some other t-shirt ideas in mind and will post about them as needed.

Sunday fun

I still haven't had the chance to put up photos from the previous two weekends, but I will get them up soon.  Right now would have been an ideal time for me to put them up, but I left the camera in Smap's car.  Anyway, Smap's youngest brother (Alex) and his wife Kate are staying with us for a little while until they get their house fixed up enough to live in while they continue the never ending battle of home renovation.  Alex's mom found a killer house for them in a great location.  The house needs a TON of work, but they couldn't ask for a better piece of land due to the vegetation growing on their acre of land and the seclusion they have from other houses. 

Lucky for all of us, they have a great dog just like us.  Her name is Luna.  The top shot is little Luna. The next one is of my perfect dog, Ippon, and then the last one is of one of my favorite pieces of art I own....Angels on Bikes.  

SO, this weekend I got to ride my beautiful RIG twice at Haw Ridge.  Today, the trails were so perfect.  I enjoyed every last second of my solo ride today.  Friday, I rode with my good friend Jen and our friend Alan.  Saturday was a day for swimming.  I felt pretty decent in the pool.  After swimming I took Kate to Cherokee Blvd to walk our dogs.  She had never been so it was fun introducing her to the dog park.  We ran into an old friend of mine from Dagger.  I haven't seen Brad Taylor since Dagger closed back in 2001.  Gosh, I miss that place so badly.  It was my first adult job.  

More later....

I've been slacking...

Sorry fans, I have been slacking recently due to very nice weather and no inclination to sit on my arse at home after school. I shall be posting photos and other nonsense as soon as I have a rainy day and I am not working another job (bike shop).

I've been riding quite a bit, swimming laps, and hanging with my lovely husband, dog and family.

I promise a good blog soon.
Rach

P.s...I am thinking about changing the name of my blog anyways...