New Home

Hello All-

Just wanted to let you know my blog has recently moved to: www.lindseyrmckissick.com/blog. Same good ramblings, different home.

-Lindsey

NEW SITE

Hello Friends!

I have moved my blog to my portfolio website at: www.lindseyrmckissick.com

See you there!

The Christers of the Road

In Colorado there are the main holidays: Fourth of July, Snowy Halloween, Christmas and Easter. But, Colorado has an extra holiday, right at summer's official beginning. Bike to Work Day.

June is named Colorado's bike to work month and the final Wednesday of June is the big day. Especially in a year when everybody is hyped about the upcoming professional road race in August, there was a lot of build up. Starting in May, I started receiving information about how to get my official t-shirt and where I could stop for free breakfast. People who only break out the two-wheeler once a year to make a show at the office make sure their tires are all pumped up. It was a full 6-weeks of planning, preparing and excitement.

Wait, wait, wait ... this all sounds so familiar. People who claim to have a certain lifestyle, but only decide to act on it when it is most convenient and expected. Ah ... the Christers. You know, the people who only attend church on Christmas and Easter when it is convenient and expected. First off, I'm no saint and often fall into this religious category. But, there are just too many similarities to let this one by.

Christers live up the Christmas season just like everyone else. They go on a shopping marathon from Black Friday to Christmas Eve. They make sure their home is decorated and prepared for the holiday. They dress is the proper attire and look like they fit the part. Then, they make the semi-annual trek to their house of worship. Everyone who needs to see them there does, yes even the man upstairs. Everyone feels better about themselves and vow that this is going to be the year they make a new habit. And, as the story goes, it won't be until Easter until they make their next visit.

That brings us to Bike to Work day. People who live just outside of downtown and those who make their way from the suburbs took to the streets, side roads and bike paths, all excited to stretch their legs, don their spandex and gather complimentary Clif bars.

I commute to my jobs each day. It's just easier. I get a little workout, save money on gas and have door-to-door service never having to hunt for parking downtown. At first I thought, "Bike to Work day. I'm going to have to deal with a bunch of holligans who ride on the sideway and are always in a near collision with a car, another cyclist or themselves (trying to check their smartphone and running their bike off a curb)". But as I watched the people flood into downtown Denver on this Bike to Work day, I saw nothing but giddy smiles on their faces, the same stupid smile I have on my face when I ride in each morning.

I know that on their way home Wednesday night they vowed that commuting by bicycle would be their new habit. And, I know 98% of them drove to work on Thursday. But, at least they rode one day. Just like the way Christers at least make it to church on Christmas and Easter.

I was happy to see you Bike to Work day commuters. Maybe we should do this more often. If not, see you next year.

Wake up and two years gone by

Two days from now, two years ago, two dogs and two states later, 

I made one of those really good life decisions.

My best friend decided he would spend the rest of his mountain-climbing, dog-chasing, people-fixing, bicycle-riding, mac and cheese-eating life with me. Here's to not getting sappy, but geez, our little life is good. People tell us over and over how fast time goes and with age how it continues to speed up. I can attest to that. As kids every single second is spent learning new things, hearing new sounds and gaining new experiences. Though I try to keep this mentality, life gets busy. Two years ago we got hitched as started a self-perpetuating roller coaster with the two of us sitting shotgun, Lyle almost a full year into his physical therapy program and me, well, figuring out where I'm supposed to be in this big writing world. But, amidst the whirlwind of passing one another in the doorway as our opposite schedule collide for just a few minutes at a time, things are working the way we want. In metaphoric terms, we see the light at the end of the tunnel. The past two years have been exciting, full of change and a foundation       whatever decides to come next.   

On the move again

Ah, the joys of moving. Since 2005, I have found myself (and now my little family) in six different residences and now on the verge of the seventh. Ah, the joys of renting.

I've made a reluctant cross-country move just days after graduating high school. To my transitional home in Monument, Colorado, a place that welcomed me back each summer even though I had promised the previous one would be my last.

As a semi-normal college student, I chose the grab-bag of living arrangements over the years: dorm life, sorority house life, living with friends, living with sorority sisters who also no longer belonged to the sorority and finally into an itty-bitty house basement with my soon-to-be husband turned actual husband.

My wheels!

With college life over and a pair of big girl pants waiting for me in Denver, we made another move out from the comforts of Laramie. Into a third story apartment we went. An apartment where we decided it would be okay to welcome another 8-week-old puppy into our lives that we would run up and down the stairs at 3:30 in the morning to potty train (no regrets, Miss Scout).

How Burley and I used to get to work each day.

And now, we prepare to pack our crap, I mean treasures, into boxes yet again. This time we chose not to live on the top floor and not to live underground, finally finding a still itty-bitty duplex which sits firmly on the ground. It has a yard, a big bonus for the two rovers. And, it is under two miles from where I will work all summer. And this revelation is magnificent. I can commute by bicycle ALL SUMMER and possibly into the fall/winter. Lyle too can continue his bicycle commuting ways, which makes for a happy, less-stressed out-physical therapy student, husband. As I renew my lifestyle as a bicycle commuter, I'm sure I will have many posts filled with exuberance and glee.

In the meantime, we will make the move closer the city. A move I'm actually excited to make.

Between the seams

As I sit at my desk at the Post, my heart is torn. It's been torn before. I sit, eating leftover calzone from Old Chicago watching the Cubs/Rockies pregame, torn with my loyalties.

I chose my favorite player, Eric Young, on the sole foundation that he hit the very first Colorado Rockies homerun as the lead-off hitter in the first inning of the inaugural game. "Eric Young began the day as an unknown in Denver and Colorado. But by 3:30 on the afternoon of April 9, 1993, the Rockies second baseman became everybody's hero," Irv Moss wrote in the Denver Post. I was six.

After moving to Chicago and choosing the White Sox for 30 seconds, one of my poorer decisions based only on the fact that my brother picked the Cubbies first. I quickly came to my senses and began to bleed Cubbie blue. I was seven.

A lot happened in my baseball life in just one year. And now, a number of years later, I'm in a dilemma.

From then until moving back West, the Cubs were my one and only. Once or so a year, I went down to Wrigley Field. Once nearly sacrificing my own short-lived ball career. After a white lie to my coach about having to miss a game for a family event, my family traveled to the centerfield bleachers of the Friendly Confines for an afternoon game. All would have been fine except I started getting messages that friends had seen us on WGN. "Coach just saw you on tv," a teammate wrote. "Hope it was worth it." It was. Sure I had a few extra sprints on Monday, but who misses a chance to sit among the vines.

The Cubs are always there, but year in and year out they do their best to wear you down. I sat in the basement with my brother who the man that must not be mentioned (cough BARTMAN cough) took away the last seemingly close chance the Cubs had to the pennant. Not to say the Cubs didn't have their chances to redeem themselves, but that's an entirely different post.

After moving back to Colorado, I caught back up with the Rockies. At first it was relatively cheap, fun entertainment. Then I took a internship/bartender/marketing/grounds keeper position with the Rockies Triple-A affiliate, the Colorado Springs Sky Sox. I interviewed some players and enjoyed watching their move, at times struggle, toward the Big Leagues. Today those players, all grown up, are starting for the Rockies. Ubaldo Jimenez, Seth Smith, Ryan Spilborghs, and Chris Iannetta.

When I sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" at Coors Field, I still sing "Root, Root, Root, for the Cubbies" to my husband's embarrassment and to the memory of Harry Carey. When the season gets started, I still sport my "I Believe" bracelet in Cubbie blue. There is a tradition about being a Cubs fan, part of a group of people who enjoy suffering. The Rockies are a young, homegrown group who have a youthful hope about them. 

I find myself in quite the predicament. I choose both, and I don't feel bad about it. Don't try to make me.

"Too Young"

I was in the office of my teaching establishment today and because I am only there one day a week, I am always looking for someone to let me in to make copies for my classes. Apparently, there is a set of keys for me at a far off destination, too far to visit for my one day a week affair.

Anyhow, I was sitting in the lobby eating some lunch when an instructor bounced into the locked office to get her mail. I saw my opportunity and asked her if I could jump in there to print something out, promising to close the door behind me.

Mature Instructor: "You teach?"
Me: "Yep, I teach public speaking here and at a high school."
Mature Instructor: "You look too young to be teaching."
Me: Smile, trying to look grown up (a daily task).
Mature Instructor: "So how do I know you are really an instructor?"
Me: Puzzled look. Thought bubble "What does she think? Does she think I'm going to hack the computer system to change my grade or something?"
Mature Instructor: "Let's see...pull up something on your computer that will prove to me that you are REALLY an instructor here."
Me: Hmmm. "Okay." I pull up the college website listing me as instructor of a trio of life-changing public speaking courses.
Mature Instructor: "Hmmph. Okay, just close the door when you're done."
Me: Satisfying smile.

I don't care that I look too young to be teaching courses. In fact, I will be mad when someone says that I actually look the appropriate age to be in this profession.