Things went well at race city Wednesday night….The first Wed King of the Hill went off without a hitch. There was a good car count and the weather was perfect and the track was in good shape. There is a noticeable bump in the right lane but it is not a problem for everyone except the fastest cars. The car worked well with no problems….just need some runs to get the hang of the tranny brake. We plan on going down to secret street tonight…..have to put on street slicks and maybe thro on a license plate. The track won’t be prepped but I will just practice cutting lights and shifting with the new reverse pattern.

I must say that I am a little pissed over race city lack of communication with its supporters. We showed up on Friday night for Secret Street and were told that we could not run with slicks….I have no problem with this policy for Friday night but I wish they would have mentioned this somewhere. If it was on their site I missed it because I looked before we went down. I would have put on my street tires and maybe got a couple of shake down runs. Hopefully the weather will be alright for Medicine Hat this weekend. I will just go over the car and hope that everything is good. I hate doing shake down runs 3.5 hrs from home. I’m sure the King of the Hill is canceled for tonight at race city…..it has been raining hard all morning.    

I’m sitting here at Calgary Harley….8:00 in the morning, waiting for them to open. They have this “ride up” option that you don’t have to book your bike in advance. I try to get here by 7:30 to be first in line but today I got here at 7:45 and was still first up….by about 5 minutes ill the next bike got here. They usually open around 8:30 with the mechanics starting around nine. You have to sit for a while but you do get your bike done before noon. To book in your bike it takes 1-3 weeks wait and I have no idea how much riding I will get done in those 3 weeks……either you are way under or over on oil changes and tires….either taking off good rubber or running on chords.

Got some really good riding in this weekend….finally some riding weather and on the May long weekend to boot…Went up to the Kananaskis on Saturday. The gate is still closed for the pass but I rode up to the upper lake and there was no wind and fairly warm. There were surprisingly few people and no other bikes…that is the advantage of going early in the morning….you beat the hoards of people and packs of bikes. I was home by 1:00.

I took a ride out on the prairies on Sunday…..went out thru Drumheller and over the Munson ferries and out the number 9 till I got to Oyen and then cut back thru the back roads (570) back to Drum. I wanted to go on out to Empress and then back on the south side of the river but there as a nasty north wind from Hanna on so I cut the run short and stayed on the north side of the Red Deere river. From Drum to home the wind dropped off and it was a very good run…..especially when it’s the May long weekend. Again there was not a lot of traffic…..the semies were not out and the tourist/campers were not out of bed yet so it was a great ride.

Sheriffs on motorcycles????  I just hauled a load to the dump and on my way home I saw 2 Sheriffs on Harley’s…..They looked just like city cops but had the Sheriff logo on their bikes and uniforms. Looked kind of cool.

This is going to be some kind of weekend…..the forecast is for no snow….I will believe it when I see it. Hope that it is true. I got some much needed yard work done yesterday. It was just a beautiful day and the forecast is for another nice day today. I am going to take a run up Highway 40 and see if the gate is open…..I don’t think they open it till later in the year but I want to check it out. I need to go to work for a while but hope to get out of there by noon and make a run and then back to yard work for late afternoon. That is the problem with this late spring is that when the weather does turn nice you have to do the yard work that you normally have done in April. So it is “crunch” time…..working on the car, doing the yard and trying to get some riding in. Oh yah….and I have to show up at work…..at least for some of the time.

I should give some background on my weight loss surgery…..I won’t give you all the boring details on how I got obese……let me say that there was a lot of vodka and cokes with a lot of chips, and peanuts etc as well as a good amount of cheeseburgers thrown in. You get away with some of this when you’re young but when you get into your 40s and you are not as active the weight just gets out of control.

I tried a lot of different “diets “after I got obese and started eating better….but was unable to get (and keep) much weight off. When I turned 50 years (2004) old I was 340 lbs. I went to my Dr. and asked what could be done…..we had already tried all the conventional “treatments”. Dr. Carson asked me what I knew about WLS. The truth was I knew nothing about it other than I have a niece that had gastric bypass and had great success with losing weight as well as maintaining her goal weight. Dr. Carson then told me about the bariatric clinic in Edmonton and how they had started a lapband program to go with their RNY program. He asked if I wanted for him to put in a referral for me and see what they had to say. I thought that there was no harm in checking it out so I told him to go for it. I heard nothing for close to a year and had pretty well forgotten about it when I got a call from the Royal Alex in Edmonton and was scheduled for my first appointment at the end of August 2005. I went thru the program and had lap-band surgery on August 01 2006. My weight was 300 lbs at surgery. I have lost 60 lbs to a low of 240 at Christmas 06…..and maintained that weight till Christmas 07 when I went on binge and gained 10 lbs and have stayed at 250 lbs since.

The problem that I have with my band is that it does not curb my hunger…..it restricts how much volume I can eat but does not stop me from being hungry. This is not the norm…..most banders feel full when there pouch is full. I can eat till I have to throw up and still feel hungry. But that is for another post. I am working with Dr. Davey and Dr. Birch at the Royal Alex and we are trying to sort this out. I will keep the blog updated if and when there is any change……good or bad.   

I took the Caddy up to Castrol Raceway on Saturday and watched some good racing. There were some 6 sec cars out doing some test and tunes. There were a couple of Calgary cars up for the weekend….I still haven’t got the Firebird going but we are close. With luck we will have it ready for the Calgary season.

It looks like we are finally going to get some warm weather…..it is supposed to get into the 20s for the weekend.

I have been very busy with things and did not get the car ready for the first weekend at Edmonton. I still have to get the fuel system put back together, and I need to wire in the tranny brake. If I get any time at all this week I should make it to Edmonton next weekend. Oh yah…..I need to pull the seat and install a new racing harness. That will take a little time but shouldn’t be a big deal. I haven’t been that excited about racing yet but the season is here so I have to get my butt in gear and get this stuff done.