Category Archives: Team Kaldis

Shrovetide

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Mardi Gras Mask

Mardi Gras Mask

We needed more coffee. We only had enough beans left to make one more pot of coffee. So as part of my preparatory grocery shop, in honor of winter storm Octavia’s then expected arrival, I turned into the coffee and tea aisle. My basket was already well lardered with the staples required to weather any snowstorm, milk, bread, eggs and beer, but the specter of snowbound starvation pales in comparison to the threat of having no coffee in the house.

We drink Kaldi’s coffee. Kaldi is a local roaster and coffee shop proprietor, who also happens to sponsor our charity MS-150 bicycling team, plus they make darn good coffee. Most of the varieties of Kaldi’s coffee were on special and the selection had already been pretty well picked over. There was a woman standing there, looking over the still available coffee bags. I stood near her, squinting over her shoulder, trying to see which varieties were already ground and which ones were still whole beans. I wanted a bag of whole beans.

At this point, the woman turns to me and asks, “Have you ever tried Kaldi’s coffee before?” I assented and then she asked, “Which one is your favorite then?” I tried saying that I didn’t really have a favorite one and that I liked several of their varieties. Then she asked, “Which one are those?” I was a little surprised by her third-degree, but mostly by her intensity with which she asked these questions. She sounded like she really wanted to hear my thoughts on Kaldi’s coffee. Taken aback, I couldn’t remember any of the cute-little names for the varieties that I drank. I was speechless. My silence occasioned her the opportunity for a little soliloquy, “My friend only likes Birds and Bees. I like it too, but sometimes I would like to try something different. That’s why I was asking what flavors you liked?” I blurted out French roast, but she dismissed the suggestion out of hand, “Too bold.” Then she said thank you and walked away without selecting any coffee, but she was back in a flash and informed me, “You are blessed.” I thanked her.

After she was finally gone, I studied the still available selection of coffee. As it turned out the only variety that was whole bean was Birds and Bees. With 20/20 hindsight I could now see that what she must have really wanted was a bag of ground Birds and Bees. There is a Kaldi’s kiosk on the other side of the store, she could have taken a bag over there and gotten it ground. If I had known, I could have been more helpful.

This Way

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This Way

This Way

Saturday night, at the behest of DJ and Captain Don we attended a trivia night. Trivia night is usually a large group event and this was the largest that I have ever attended, with about 50 tables, and is usually staged to benefit a charitable cause. This one was staged to raise money to pay the medical bills, of a 15 year-old boy who has leukemia. During this trivia night, there were ten rounds of ten questions each. The questions are answered by the different tables; a team typically consisted of eight people who have paid an admission fee to participate ($25 per head). I figure that they must have grossed $10,000 on admissions alone and probably double that what with all of the extras ($10 for Mulligans, which were priceless, $2 for heads and tails, which we both lost quickly in and $20 for the raffle baskets, more on the raffles later). At the end of each round, the teams turn in their answers and judges then calculate the scores. The teams compete against one another with the top teams receiving prizes. Trivia nights are held throughout the United States, but are particularly popular in the Saint Louis, where dozens of different trivia nights occur on any given weekend.

A good night was had by all. Free beer and wine probably helped with that. It probably also helped to loosen our wallets, which was its prime objective anyway. Anne and I have only done a handful of these trivia nights, but we usually do pretty well, generally finishing in the top 25%. This night was a little different. After a slow start, by halftime, we found ourselves in the lead. We spent the remainder of the contest beating back that pesky table #49 and eventually won it all. Anne was a major contributor to this victory, naturally, but DJ’s daughter, Angela, her husband Louis and their friends Eric and Mary were also major contributors too. I did a little bit more good than damage and not the other way around as is usual, but I couldn’t even define the acronym RADAR. In spite of me and not because of me, table #4 really was the home of the alpha geeks! We all received little medals, some gift certificates and were refunded our admission fees. Anne and I donated ours back again to the cause, because by then we were both feeling a bit chagrined. We had by then won five of the raffled gift baskets, not bad for $20. We re-gifted the spa themed basket to Angela, because she had done so much, what with setting up the table’s team and writing down all our correct answers. We kept the juicer and the movie, foodie, coffee and snack themed baskets and headed for home with all our loot.

2014 MS-150 Bike Ride

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Anne and Her Shadow at the Finish Line
I’m Just a Little Black Wall Cloud, Pay No Attention to Me.
Fancy Buggy at the Amish Rest Stop

This was our MS-150 bicycling weekend. To all of our donors, thank you very much! It’s a good cause, a cause that cyclists have helped to raise over $700M since 1946. To all you want-to-be donors it’s not too late. Operators are now standing by here. We left Saint Louis on Friday afternoon, where it hit 100 °F, hopefully for the last time this year. We passed through a small line of thunderstorms just east of Columbia, MO, our destination, and the temperature at the fair grounds when we arrived was only 76 °F and the grass was even still dry, but the weather gods weren’t done with us yet.

Our Friday night dinner had to reconvene from the Team Kaldis tent to the main dining hall. There was no life threatening weather, but I did notice a sign proclaiming a maximum occupancy of 2825, but Anne instructed me that was for the horse arena and not the restrooms. That would have been one crowded tornado shelter. It continued to rain most of the night. We ended up with standing water in our tent. With camping you spend a lot of money buying stuff, just to live like a homeless person. We did save $200 on a hotel room.

Saturday, dawned cool and grey, but dry. We did the usual mass start, which as part of last year’s top fundraising team entitled us to start first. What this really meant was that Anne and I got to be passed by most of the 3,000+ following riders, while we hugged the shoulder. Such is life in the slow lane. Saturday’s weather cleared off and then warmed up to a pleasant 70 °F. We once again visited Amish country and based upon the number of spectators there, I think that they were equally fascinated by the cycling spectacle that we put on. Anne bought a slice of some variant of the pecan pie. It was of course delicious and the supposed variation was so nuanced as to be undetectable by yours truly and all for a buck. When is the last time that you bought a slice of homemade pie for a buck? The Amish are supposed to be good businessmen. I think that their secret is low costs. When you don’t have electricity running to your house, then you don’t need to buy the latest Apple product either. The Amish have a saying, “Never be the first one to adopt something new, but also never be the last one.”

After Amish country, we turned south and the headwind that we had been fighting became a tailwind. I wouldn’t say that we exactly sailed back, but this ride was way more pleasant than last year’s heat, headwind and “Get off my lawn!” We made dinner on Saturday, with an hour to spare. Sunday’s ride was truncated. Last year Sunday was also truncated, but that was because of the rumble of early morning thunderstorms and the day’s continual lightning. Today, the only rumbling came from my snoring, which was the root of our problem. Although, we launched less than an hour later than Saturday’s mass start, we were flagged onto the short route after only ten miles. I guess if you snooze, you lose. We ended up with less than 100 miles, which makes me feel a bit like a 98 pound weakling, but like the guy that camped next to us said afterwards, that’s 98 more miles than most people rode this weekend. We’ve been doing this challenging ride for quite a few years and will be doing it again next year, when the ride moves to Illinois. Anne has already signed us up.

Giro Della Montagna

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Giro Della Montagna

Giro Della Montagna

Giro Della Montagna or Tour of the Hill is the third leg of this holiday weekend’s series of Gateway Cup bicycle races. It is also the oldest of the four legs. In celebration of these races Trailnet sponsored a Fun Club ride this morning also called Giro Della Montagna. We were late getting out of the house and we biked to the venue, which took longer than driving would have, but wait bonus miles. Once on the Hill, it took us a while to find the starting point and we ended up wandering up and down the Hill, more bonus miles, so registration was almost closed when we got there and it was definitely closed by the time that we left. You can have us bright or you can have us early, but you can’t have us bright and early. Because of our late start, we elected to do the middle route, which was a smart move, because halfway through the ride, it turned hot.

Our route took us back and forth across the Southside of Saint Louis and we passed by the other three race venues. We ended up taking a couple of unscheduled rest breaks for crossing trains. The first one was carrying oil and the second one coal. When we made it back to the Hill the bike racing was in full flower. We were both feeling a little crispy by then so ducked into the cool dark recesses of Mama Campisi’s Ristorante. You could still glimpse the racers as they rode by through the open doorway. We each had salads, shared a plate of bruschetta and drank gallons of ice water. After lunch, we were back out on the street feeling almost human again. Anne found a rather tasty gelato place. I got a souvenir t-shirt and a beer. We stayed to watch the above pictured race conclude. Then it was back on our bikes and home again, home again we rode, just not very lickity split.