A New Start

Well....I am back. After several failed attempts to log into my old Blog, I am starting a new. I tried to go down the path to retrieve my old information...you know the part where they ask you for all your secret password junk. Well, I could never get past the final question...."What is your secret word"? Wow...I can't beleive I even selected this as a question. What is my secret word??? Who the heck knows. One guy does not know...and that is the fellow who is typing right now. So if you want to read any of my old stuff...I added the link --> JD Hogg Old.

I plan to post at least once a week. I will of-course post my bike tours etc....but also plan on sharing some "observations" I run across every now and then. I am a people watcher. I love DMV's, malls, sporting events, church congregation and most of all the airport. The airport is one place where you see a number of life events play right before your eyes. Families waiting for their loved ones while a few feet away a family is saying good-bye to a loved one. It gets me every time. Most of us are in too big of a hurry to even notice while at the airport....but next time you are there....look around you. Notice the Mother with her kids....they are either waiting for Dad or Grandma and Grandpa. If I have a layover, I like to guess and would place a bet it is Daddy they are waiting for. Notice the thick feeling of "Anticipation" when you walk past that area of the airport where everybody waits. It's really thick when you are traveling international. You can imagine folks waiting for somebody they have not seen in years. I don't mind anybody not waiting for me. In fact, it almost would be a distraction if somebody was at the airport for me...I want to watch what is going on. Now...let me be clear...I do have a life and I am no stalker by any sorts of the imagination. I observe as I walk to my gate....sometimes run. On my last trip across the pond, I found myself in Dublin for the day. As I waited in line to get my passport stamped...these were the folks standing around me:

* 4 individuals who had just arrived from the overnight out of Boston. I could tell there was a couple. The girl was close to 20 years old and clearly a girlfriend of one the guys. The other guy seemed to be a good friend of his buddy and would have been a third wheel had it not been for the other girl who was also taggin along. I watched the "buddy" make conversation with the other girl who was perhaps 18 and could tell this was the first time he would be hangin out with her with questions such as ..." Did you sleep at all on the flight?"......"have you been to Europe before"....stuff like that...Stuff that would have been covered in past conversations had they known each other before the trip. I could see in his eyes that he was hoping this trip would possibly spark a bit of romance between the two of them. She was as cool as any cat could be. As our lines snaked back and forth, I wondered what would become of this "odd" couple. Would there be a default hook-up. Would it turn into something more....Or would he out of the gate...after one too many Guinness (what is the plural for Guinness..Guinni??) make a fool of himself and ruin his chance to find a girlfriend. hmmm who knows....these were just observations I had as I stood in line to claim nothing.

Note to the reader...not all my observations and thoughts will be about complete strangers. I will try to keep it in the family as I would expect one day my kids will be reading this and want to know what I thought of them when they did something that made me think. They always do.

A ton of things have happened since I last posted. I will to catch of the readers as soon as possible. I need to post about my STP experience. Can you imagine the number of observations I had riding for 13 hours with 9000 people. All I can say for now was I loved every minute of it and I could not thank the Beecher family enough for having as hang with them for 10 days. What a great trip... Definitely will need it's own post for this.

I am also staring to get back on the bike for the Tour De Tucson in Nov. For some odd reason I have been doing more running then biking lately. Either way...it is kickin my butt. I will keep you all posted....

Here are some random pics to bridge from my last post.......

Epic Climb


Epic Ride


Epic People Watching...(Hyde Park)