Bachelor Bloem

The most fun part of a friend getting married is the bachelor party. For Michael, I'm sure the wedding will be much more memorable but the rest of us only have small roles in all the wedding festivities. So our big contribution is to have a fun party before the wedding.


On Saturday I organized the always enjoyable bachelor party combo of a golf scramble and camping. We met at Brigadoon to golf, which is a great scramble course because of the large array of gimmick holes and very difficult play. The teams were the 3 Bloems vs. me, Eric, Rob, and Josh.

The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed a very pleasant round. My team was all over the place recording 5 birdies, 5 bogies, and a double bogey to finish +2. Unfortunately it wasn't a very satisfactory finish because we tapped in on the 18th hole to tie the other group. Michael's team had 2 birdies and 4 bogeys to also finish +2.

After golf we had some quick dinner at Wendy's and headed up to the middle of nowhere for camping.
We set up camp, made a fire, and hung out late into the night.

Discussion topics included engineering, Mathematica, politics, home ownership, the stock market, women, Ron Paul, and much more.

Good luck Bloem with all the wedding stuff. We're looking forward to it!

What Summer Should Be

It seems to me that there are a lot of complaints about Michigan weather. I certainly can't complain about the summer weather. A Michigan summer is simply one of the best in the world. Comfortable, sunny, and lakes everywhere.

The last few weekends have been just how I like them, some good time at the cottage. Two weekends ago Erin and I went skiing on Friday, had a quiet day on Saturday, and played a lot of volleyball on Sunday.

This past weekend Erin worked and I got to hang out with Derek and Jason the whole time. We played cards, skied, tubed, played poker, and played volleyball. I attempted and landed the first "superman" tubing trick. For the "superman" I let go of the tube with both hands in the middle of a jump and then grabbed back on before landing. It was pretty cool, and I plan to do more in the future. A well-timed photo of a "superman" will look sweet.

2007 Pickerel Lake Triathlon

The 2007 Pickerel Lake Triathlon (PLT) was another great success. This was the third year of the race and every year has been bigger than the previous. This year's field consisted of 23 participants/teams and as much hype as always.

On Friday night Marv and I used his GPS to set up the buoys for the swimming course while Jason, Darren, Melissa, and Cherie marked the biking and running courses with chalk. They also marked the course with inspirational sayings written on the pavement.

We gathered at 8:00 Saturday morning and made our final preparations. Darren gave the starting instructions but missing from the morning was my dad's pre-race prayer. My dad, an ambassador for the PLT, severely broke his leg earlier in the week and was still in the hospital. We all thought of him as we competed and one of the inspirational sayings written on the pavement was "Do it for Doug!"

The swim is always tough but this year I decided to train hard for it after it killed me last year. I swam laps at a local pool a dozen times before the race and boy did it pay off. I got out of the water 3 minutes faster than last year and wasn't drained either.

Jason had the lead after the 1/3 mile swim, but this year I was only a minute behind the leaders instead of 5.The bike ride is a hilly 9.5 miles with plenty of loose dirt. In an attempt to shave off biking time several of us have turned to road bikes. Unfortunately for Darren, Evan, and Roger the road bike was their downfall. One of the houses along the way put out home made speed bumps which were nothing more than some angle iron. Darren, Evan, and Roger all went over the angle iron with their road bikes and popped their back tire. Jason, Dan, and I were lucky enough to avoid it but the other three had to call it quits.

The unfortunate incident quickly knocked out two top contenders, making it a two man race between me and Jason.

The two of us remained close through the first section of the run but as we made our way around the 5.2 mile run I continued to pull away. I was feeling fantastic and was ultra motivated to win one for the Elenbaases (Marv also couldn't compete because of an injury) because we needed a morale booster.

Here are the final results (bold - course record):

Name	Overall
Randy	1:23:06
Jason	1:27:25
Jake	1:36:41
Paul	1:37:40
Steve	1:43:12
Dan Kuiper	1:44:17
Abby/Kim/Mark	1:50:15
Ben/Lindsay	1:51:26
Dave	1:52:04
Derek	2:01:48
Grace/Elizabeth/Haley/Lydia	2:02:56
Erin	2:09:33
Sam	2:10:26
Seth	2:10:26
Sarah	2:13:01
Melissa Schaaf	2:15:49
Megan	2:15:52
Ken/Jan/Claude	2:19:26
Melissa Tamminga	2:26:55
Mike	2:34:19

With the injuries and bike problems this year the list of lifetime PLT competitors dwindled. The group that has completed all 3 PLTs solo is now me, Jason, Jake, Paul, Steve, and Dan Kuiper.

Name	2005	2006	2007
Randy	1:35:31	1:32:41	1:23:06
Jason	1:35:59	1:24:52	1:27:25
Jake	1:53:58	1:30:38	1:36:41
Paul	1:40:41	1:33:17	1:37:40
Steve	2:02:41	1:53:09	1:43:12
Dan K	1:56:57	1:43:47	1:44:17

Individual leg results:

Name	Swim
Jason	0:11:16
Paul	0:11:54
Darren	0:12:13
Randy	0:12:30
Melissa T	0:12:38
Dan Kuiper	0:13:14
Steve	0:13:18
Abby/Kim/Mark	0:13:31
Evan	0:13:33
Jake	0:13:34
Mike	0:14:29
Ben/Lindsay	0:15:35
Erin	0:15:37
Dave	0:15:44
Seth	0:16:10
Grace/Elizabeth/Haley/Lydia	0:16:53
Sarah	0:16:53
Megan	0:17:05
Sam	0:17:24
Roger/Claire	0:17:40
Melissa Schaaf	0:18:37
Derek	0:20:27
Ken/Jan/Claude	0:23:51

Name	Bike	Bike Pace (mph)
Randy	0:31:46	17.94
Jason	0:33:41	16.92
Dan Kuiper	0:35:36	16.01
Jake	0:39:41	14.36
Steve	0:41:27	13.75
Ben/Lindsay	0:42:25	13.44
Dave	0:42:34	13.39
Derek	0:43:08	13.21
Paul	0:43:51	13.00
Sam	0:45:47	12.45
Seth	0:46:05	12.37
Grace/Elizabeth/Haley/Lydia	0:46:25	12.28
Erin	0:49:35	11.50
Abby/Kim/Mark	0:51:46	11.01
Sarah	0:53:45	10.60
Melissa Schaaf	0:53:50	10.59
Megan	0:55:33	10.26
Melissa T	1:00:00	9.50
Mike	1:03:40	8.95
Ken/Jan/Claude	1:04:35	8.83
Darren	DNF	N/A
Evan	DNF	N/A
Roger/Claire	DNF	N/A

Name	Run	Run Pace (min/mi)
Randy	0:38:50	7:28
Paul	0:41:55	8:04
Jason	0:42:28	8:10
Darren*	0:42:35	8:11
Jake	0:43:26	8:21
Abby/Kim/Mark	0:44:58	8:39
Roger/Claire*	0:47:26	9:07
Steve	0:48:27	9:19
Ken/Jan/Claude	0:51:00	9:48
Ben/Lindsay	0:53:26	10:17
Dave	0:53:46	10:20
Dan Kuiper	0:55:27	10:40
Derek	0:58:13	11:12
Grace/Elizabeth/Haley/Lydia	0:59:38	11:28
Sarah	1:02:23	12:00
Megan	1:03:14	12:10
Melissa Schaaf	1:03:22	12:11
Erin	1:04:21	12:23
Sam	1:07:15	12:56
Seth	1:08:11	13:07
Melissa T	1:14:17	14:17
Mike	1:16:10	14:39

*Ran recreationally after incomplete bike leg.

Erin decided she wanted to complete the triathlon this year to prove she could do it. She did more than that. Erin had a solid swim time, an excellent bike time, and gutted out the run to finish FIRST among the women! Nice work Erin. So it was a very successful athletic day for our little family. 2007 Champs!

On Sunday my siblings and I all drove over to Dearborn to spend the evening with my dad in the hospital. Get well soon dad! We expect you back for the PLT next year.

Delta Deliquency

Two posts ago I referred to the troubles Rob and I had in getting to Portland. We were scheduled to leave from Detroit at 7:02 pm with a layover in Cincinnati. I left Zeeland at 2:30 so that I could pick up Rob by 5 and get to the airport 90 minutes early. Unfortunately, we did not make our flight by 1 minute! One single minute. Here is a list of what could have happened to get us on that flight:

If...

• Delta hadn't delayed our connection and forced us to take an earlier plane - at 6:25.
• I had drove faster from Zeeland, although I was already going uncomfortably fast
• There wasn't construction on US-23, delaying me by 10 minutes
• I hadn't listened to Rob's advice that US23 was faster than 127/94 (it usually is)
• I had gotten off at the right exit on US23
• Rob had told me signs for the Main street exit in Ann Arbor actually said business 23
• I had read Rob's email which specifically said exit 3
• There wasn't construction on 94 heading to the airport
• We had gone to the right terminal first
• The first shuttle we saw to bring us to the right terminal had stopped for us
• The e-ticket machine at the Delta check-in had recognized us and given us our boarding passes
• We didn't have to wait for 5 minutes in line at the Delta counter
• The agent that started helping us wasn't a brand new employee in training and therefore incompetent
• The agent had called the gate as soon as she saw she couldn't print our boarding passes since we weren't 30 minutes early, we were only 29 (by the way, isn't the rule 20 minutes?? that is what I've always heard)
• The gate let us come through when the agent finally called them 10 minutes later to ask
• The agent found that there was an available 7:05 Northwest flight prior to 6:30 (remember, we were at the counter by 5:56)

So we didn't make it by the slimmest of margins. It was comical in the end because at least we didn't miss out on our Mt. Saint Helens hike.