Ike/ the moment every parent fears

Before.


After.

What'd you do during tropical storm Ike? I raced MTB's. This was a four lap race, each lap ~7.5miles (~32min). Laps 1 and 2 was were under perfect trail conditions, damp enough to be tacky and fast. Lap 3 it started pouring rain, turning the trail to ice riding. It got tough to keep it upright, so i just settled in to a slow(er) pace to not crash. 4th lap the course turned to chunky soup, it was just riding through puddle after puddle and running water on the trail. By the fourth lap I could only ride hard enough to get my heart rate around 130-150 because if I went any faster I'd surely go down. So I just threw in the towel and finished w/out getting hurt. Well, not hurt from crashing. My glasses were so covered in mud, etc I had to take them off. I ended up having to grab up a water bottle (rather than a GU2O [sports drink]) bottle so I could spray out my eyes every 10 or so minutes. I had so much mud flung up into my eyes I could see hardly anything. Lindsay had to drive home because a) I couldn't see well and b) I was wiping gunk out of my eyes the whole way. It was rough; I stood in under the shower water w/ my eyes opened for, like, a minute. It helped.
Anywho, I spent about .5hr cleaning my bike this morning to get to the "after" picture above. I went completely through my brake pads due to the sand in the dirt at town Run park, so I still have work to do before my MTB is functional.
-The Moment Every Parent Fears-
I'm not a parent, but still...when a cop is banging on your door at 2:30am, it is un-nerving.
Saturday night (Sunday morn, really) I awoke to pounding on the front door. i went to it and it was a Bloomington PD officer. I opened the door and he shined his light toward the street asked "are you missing your mailbox?" I looked out at the empty post and replied "it appears I am." He went on to tell me he and another officer observed some drunk teens walking down a street w/ a mailbox in hand and stopped them. They ran, but the cops got them and returned the box to the address on it. I told him I wasn't interested in pressing any charges, and asked him they had left a beer for me inside it. He said they hadn't, and they would be taken "down town" for being drunk and stealing personal property (it turns out if it had had mail in it, it would have been a federal offense), but their parents would have to come them and stuff.
Both of the officers I dealt w/ were very nice and friendly, willing to joke around w/ me (like asking they left me a beer in the box) and were very apologetic for having to wake me up.
I guess I'm glad it wasn't something major.