As Phil mentioned, I spent the past week in Birmingham, UK. It was freezing. Rain, wind, and cold every day - okay, so it was a nice break from the heat I guess, but it was seriously freezing. I didn’t take enough warm clothing. Despite the weather I had a great trip - much better than anticipated. My normal group wasn’t attending, but this ended up being a good opportunity to hang out more with some other people. One of the students I met at the 2004 conference and have kept up with since was there; both he and his graduate school mentor are into riding/racing/cross, which made for easy non-science conversations. Together with a larger group of their Canadian colleagues, I’m pretty sure we hit all of the pubs worth going to in Birmingham (note: there is VERY little other to do there). I also spent a fair amount of time with a group from Boston - they had the inside track on the good Indian restaurants in town (YUMMY). There were three main “social” events in the evenings all of which had some sort of an “English flavor” band - lots of Beatles and ABBA. I even got pulled onto the stage one night and they announced my birthday and recent nuptials so for the rest of the week I got a lot of well-wishes!
The meeting was particularly busy because we spent a lot of time with the organizers learning the behind-the-scenes stuff associated with the conference as my boss and I are co-chairs for the same conference in 2010. We are holding it in San Antonio - it’s going to be a huge project, perhaps even large than we anticipated. We are both hoping to fine tune our delegation skills….and fast. yikes!!
Our layover in the airport is quite long and our plane has been delayed. I at least slept on the flight over but my boss didn’t, so she’s exhausted (see below)! 
Now that the wedding is totally said and done, life returns to normal and we get to do other things that we enjoy. For me, this past weekend was Criterium National Championships in a suburb west of Chicago. It’s an annual highlight of the racing season and a win I covet so badly. This year was another memorable edition of the race. The weather was beautiful and our entire team of four made the trip. We all rode well and with the goal of a top 5 result, I did manage a top 10 which given the last few months of detraining I am pretty happy with. The end of the race is always a gamble with riders falling down and off the pace in front of you as you negotiate the tight 8 turn course. The team was fantastic in their own bids for glory. I was elected finisher for the team so I had a comfy ride sitting in until the last manic 30 minutes of the race. We all made it to the finish in one piece and with a respectable team result so life is good. Next weekend I will head up to Wichita Falls, TX for another two-day race that we have had great success at in the past.
Daniele meanwhile is in Birmingham, UK. She’s doing one of her two annual conferences and will be gone for just about a week this time around. Not all of her usual conference buddies will be there so she may actually have some time to sleep, write thank you cards and do a little jogging around the city. I’ll even try to persuade her to post a bit about her trip if she has a moment.
Weather in Austin has taken a much needed turn for the rainy at last. It appears it was about 85 and rainy most of the weekend with today likely following the same script. I am thrilled because with a little more time to pursue interests around the house I can start planting in the backyard again confident that everything will not inevitably meet a sun-crisped fate. I am told that fall is actually the beginning of planting season in central TX with the mild winters and long springs. For once I think Daniele and I will be on the ball and be able to take advantage of all the generous gifts to our local nurseries. Check back in soon.
We had an absolute blast last Saturday night at Zilker Clubhouse and we owe it all to yooooouuuuu! We got some pics from various friends and Daniele’s mom Kathy. Is there anything Kathy doesn’t do?! It was a late night but thanks to those who lended a hand at the end, got out of there in a reasonable hour. It was at least early enough to head over to Barton Springs and ‘cool off.’ Shout out to Bicycle Sport Shop for the large fans which kept us cool as we feasted on cakeism. Yum! Coolers from John Korioth, Andrew Tachovsky, and Big Dille kept the beverages cool and flowing all night to the beat of DJ Kit’s tunes. The Clubhouse made a great venue so maybe next year we’ll give Commons Ford Ranch a shot with it’s TX Hill Country location and swimming pool.
We’re pretty excited to have one last event to celebrate our the beginning of our lives together as the Wikoff’s. We’ll have music spun by DJ Kit K. Beverages provided by John Korioth, proprietor of SIX Lounge as well as other local businesses. We’ll have a very special cake crafted by Teresa Nugent though I’m not going to give any details away here. Things kick off at 7pm at Zilker Clubhouse and we’ll go til it’s no longer Saturday night. We hope to see you there and the view of downtown is complimentary.
www.imagequix.com/photog.php?id=B91CX9N
pswd: phil
Here is one of my many favorites…Phil calls this fish lips:
Official pictures will be ready by this weekend, but here is a teaser sent to me by the Stecker’s - a fun evening shot taken during the toasts. If you have snapshots to share, please email me (dstaskal@gmail.com) and I’ll give you information on how to put them on our picture share site and so we’ve got everything together. Thank you!
What a fantastic weekend! I don’t think we could have imagined that the wedding could have gone any better (other than more time in a day to visit with more people)! Thank you so much to everyone for coming! We will post more about the weekend as soon as we can - we are exhausted! I have some good stats for my drive home as well; I’m too tired to figure out the exact time and mileage, but I do know that I ate four dutch letters, one nachos bel grande, 2 coffees, one soda, 1/2 a bag of carrots, and about 10 pieces of gum…i’ll have to get back to you on the water count. Also, after a full day back at work we have decided we are really ready for the honeymoon! :)
We are in the final days of getting ready for the big party! Here is a shot of Dad trying out the fire pit….
This past Saturday I made the trip from Austin to Mt. Vernon, here are the stats: 1075 miles, 15.75 hrs, 90+ miles of white-knuckle-driving-through-killer lightening, 4 stops (I was REALLY impressed with myself on this one), 2 fast-food meals, 1 starbucks, 1 can of pringles, a bag of licorice, 2 sodas, 5 bottles of water, and who-knows-how-many-cell-phone-minutes, I pulled into the driveway. Amazingly, it wasn’t that bad; hopefully I don’t hit any storms on the way home! Sunday morning I woke up to my uncle Lynn knocking at the door as he was ready to work. My brother, several hours later and much-less-well hydrated showed up to help paint. Despite exposing himself to more fumes than were probably healthy, he worked with Lynn to finish up the painting on the house. And the grass is looking great! You’d never know there was a hole the size of a football field there….
Whew, yeah I’m not going to go into much detail here. If anything, once I get the pics I’ll let them do the talking. There was open water boating, SIX lounge, and probably lots of other things which someone will have to remind me of. A tremendous thanks to my friends Wenger, Steve, Dille, Rode and Pat who made it all happen.
