Just sitting here trying to budget my time at work, and by budget, I mean kill. That is to say I’m trying to kill time here because there is pretty much nothing to do. This time of year tends to be slower, but right now I’m averaging 1 call every other shift – 1 call every 48 hours. Sure I have other things I do, I do a lot actually, but not nearly enough to occupy all that time (fortunately).

We need an HDTV at our station here. There goes our mouse friend… He’s like our station mascot. We should kill him, but he’s pretty cute.

Last weekend was crazy busy. That’s how my life seems to go; a couple weeks of inactivity followed by four or five days of craziness. It’s surprising how stressful things can be here sometimes, especially when there are no calls to run, you tend to focus all of your energy to the negative things. Every workplace has it’s bad side. Nothing is ever perfect anywhere and it’s easy for me to loose sight of that. In all reality, being in the situation that I’m in, the position I have here, this is as close to a dream job that I can have right now. No I won’t get rich, no I won’t be here forever, but all things considered, I’m doing pretty well here – just have to keep telling myself that.

I began my 2009 cycling season this week, a few days ago and I’m psyched. I’ve had the last 6 weeks off which, when you’ve been training for 20 hours a week for the last 10 months, can be incredibly stressful. Your body and mind just don’t really know how to cope with the relative inactivity. It’s very much a form of depression in that; you don’t have any outlets for any problems… It’s also really hard to find stuff to do when you don’t have to work everything around a 5 hour training ride…

This season I’ll be working with a personal coach, which will hopefully take a lot of the stress of planning out of my hands. Last season was a constant struggle mentally because I was never 100% sure on what kind of prep I needed to do for what races. When you coach yourself you have to be so acutely aware of yourself, your weaknesses and strengths… It’s often hard to be that honest with yourself. Technology can only give you so much information. Also this will be my first full season competing at the elite level where most everyone in the races I will do are going to be either just as good or better than me, so all the more reason for upping my program.
In other, much more exciting news, it is now T-minus 5 hours or so until Lindsay comes back from her summer job in Idaho!! Score! I traded shifts around so instead of working all night, I worked last night so tonight I get off at 7 which should be perfect timing to meet her at my house, it’s going to be sweet!