One week to go

With one week to go until I leave, I'm starting to get more and more excited about my trip. After decades of dreaming about this, years of planning, and months of training, I only have to wait another 7 days and then I get to go. I won't be sorry to say goodbye to all this training, I can tell you that.

As I sit here writing, it's just before 6AM on Saturday morning and I'm checking the radar on the Weather Network to see how wet I'm going to get today on my ride. Hopefully, I'll be riding with some guys today and hopefully it won't rain too much. I'm just waiting to get a message from my wife's trainer Kimchan to see if his group is a "go" for our Saturday morning ride. I've done 90% of my training alone, and I can tell you the training miles pass more quickly (and easily) when you ride in a group.

Kudos go to Lara and Peter's daughters Kailee and Nicole Kaufman and their classmates for raising close to $700 in a school bake sale for Team Lara. Kailee and Nicole win the "best fundraisers – Junior Division Award" bestowed on, well, the best junior fundraisers, I guess. Way to go Kailee and Nicole!

Lastly, I want to also thank everyone in my office and my clients who contributed to the "send-off" video that they showed me on Thursday. It was very touching and funny and everyone's good wishes mean so much to me. Here's a link if you'd like to see it and have a laugh:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2542055/Stone_Canoe/The-Office_Edit_June_9.mp4