The biking continues

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We told him he needed to take a nap if he wanted to go to a BMX track tonight.  It worked. 

Last week I took him without his bike so that we could scope out the competition and find out if he was old enough.  They said three year olds that can ride without training wheels are welcome and that their first time is free.   He met those qualifications and now I’d say he’s hooked. 

Jenny and her mom captured a lot of video footage and this single cut of his 7th and last lap turned out the best.    I think his 3rd lap was his best riding requiring only the slightest push from me.  (see video for what I mean).

Nate’s first BMX practice

I really am hoping to post more entries to this blog soon.  More family updates and some personal stuff.  Stay tuned. 

Look ma, no training wheels

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This past weekend I decided to see how Nate would do if I took off the training wheels on a pedal bike and let him give it a shot.

You see, he’s been riding a balance bike since last October and even though I admit to the typical parental bias, I really do think he has good balance for a kid his age. Of course, I could just be pushing him on all balance related things, which is forcing him to get more “practice” time than most kids his age accumulate. Either way, we found out one thing this weekend. The kid can ride a two wheeler without training wheels and he’s only 2½.

On Sunday Nate rode his bike through our neighborhood to Steve’s house and then made several loops through the north end of the neighborhood putting on more than 2+ miles of biking under his belt. We ate lunch at a park near my work on Tuesday so we could film him riding and share with the family back east. This is some of that footage:

Video of Nate riding a two wheeled bicycle without training wheels
Download (nate-biking.mp4)

The balance bike concept is pretty neat. He likes to rip it up in our back yard with the obstacles, aka jumps that I’m in the process of building for him. Since our backyard is not much more than a bunch of dirt anyway, I figured why not. The more bike handling skill he accumulates the better. I can’t wait to take him out on some mountain biking trails with me some day. Perhaps when he’s three.

Video of Nate riding a balance bike over some ramps in our backyard.

Download (nate-balance-bike.mp4)

Winter Wonderland on Mt. Lemmon

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Even though it was 65° in Tucson on Saturday, we were able to go sled riding by taking a short drive up Mt. Lemmon. This was Nate’s first time experiencing snow and I know I had a blast showing him the fun parts. We’ll tell him about shoveling driveways some other day.

His first time on the sled

Nate's first time on a sled

Where are the wood chips?

Where are the wood chips?

A longer hill and a better reaction.

A longer hill and a better reaction

Video is new for me and I have a lot to learn, but thanks to our Christmas present from Jenny’s parents this year, you might see a few more posts of this sort. What’s that? I haven’t posted anything in over a year? Let’s just ignore that fact for now, I’m still here, this is still my blog, and I will still make use of it and the hosting that I’m paying for.

Is the future of reading really in danger?

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I’m an optimistic person. Especially when it comes to my views on the future.

I’m guessing you’ve heard about the e-book reading device released recently by Amazon called the “Kindle”. Now check out this controversial meta-review of the Kindle. Do you think this is troubling?

One commenter to that post reminded us that this is only DRM in one piece of consumer electronics and not state sponsored censorship. Some might say that corporations are the new state, but again I hold a more optimistic view.

five miles to bliss

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By 2:00pm Nate is really fighting his afternoon nap.  It just so happens that two and a half miles from my house there exists a drive through Dairy Queen.

A routine has emerged.

He always falls asleep before we turn around and as long as I’m successful in transferring him from the car to his crib then I can have my ice cream and eat it too.  So this does not do my waistline good, but the pull of a tearless nap and an oreo blizzard is just too great.

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