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What I Have Learned Working in The Funeral Service

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       As most of you, but not all of you, know I have worked at a funeral home in York Pennsylvania now for just over 6 years. I started working at the funeral homes in the fall of 2015 and have continued to work and grow with the firms, even to the point that I am currently enrolled at Pittsburg Institute of Mortuary Science in order to work towards earning my Funeral Directors License in Pennsylvania. I know I have not posted on my blog for a while, but I figured I would share my experiences so far and what I have learned (and no I am not going to share any gross or gruesome stories, that’s not what this is about).         How did I end up working at a funeral home? In mid-2015 I was living at an old farmhouse what was also for sale, and one day I just happened to meet the owner of the funeral homes I work at today while he was looking at the property. We began to talk and eventually became friends. As we talked and he learned that I was previously a volunteer firefighter
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Ending the Year with a Bang…or a Snap

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I haven’t been blogging this year for the simple fact I haven’t had much down time.  This past year I have been trying to remain focused and train towards the goal of competing at USAC Mountain Bike XC Nationals.  MTB Nationals moves venues every couple years, and last year and this year it was hosted at Bear Creek Ski resort near Allentown, PA.  When I first learned that nationals was going to be in PA last year I was both excited and nervous because this meant I could easily go race only 2 hours away from home.  When Nationals is out west, which it tends to be, it is hard to try to commit to the time and expense of traveling out there to race….so it was game on!               When I raced at Nationals last year I raced in the Men’s Cat 2 19-29 and I did not have to qualify to go race at nationals.   When I made the decision to upgrade to Cat 1 this year than that meant I now had to qualify for Nationals.   Qualifying wasn’t nearly as difficult as I was expecting and I actual
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Getting my Feet Wet in the Cat 1 Pool

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            At the end of 2013 after a solid year of racing in Cat 2, I made the decision to put in for my Category 1 upgrade through USA Cycling.  For me this was both an exciting and nerve-racking choice for me as I knew I would have to step up the game in my racing.  I was happy though when I received my approval for the upgrade as to me this was a huge achievement to make it to that level.             After I received my 2014 license sporting the new markings of Cat 1 I began to feel the pressure a little especially knowing that XC Nationals was going to be on the east coast again. And this year and I was going to have to qualify my way into Nationals instead of just choosing to go as a Cat 2 racer.  So finally this past weekend I entered into and raced in my first Expert/Cat 1 level race at AFC Sugar Hill in Patapsco state park which is down towards Baltimore, MD.              Leading up to this weekend I have been doing a decent bit of riding and training but didn’t
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Year of Change

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        It has been a while since I have posted a blog post, and that could be partially to blame on all the changes that have happened in the past year. The last time I posted a blog write up was about this time last year and I tell you what…a lot has changed since then. So where did I leave off? Well this time last year I was just starting a new job with Amazon.com working in the security and loss prevention field, started to do some actually training on the bike and trying to find a rhythm in my life. All was going well, was enjoying the job, was getting fast, stronger, and better on the bike bringing home some nice placing, and life was going well! Going into 2013 I didn’t have a ton of cycling goals other than to have fun, race at nationals, mix it up a bit and complete all three Michaux Race Series races in the 20 miler field. I met all those goals and ended up with some good results. I took 5th at Nationals in my category, completed many different races I never been to
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Starting 2013 Off RIght

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                                Well it looks like racing season is upon us already!  This past weekend myself and teammate Chris White headed down to Chesterfield Virginia (outside Richmond) for Monster Cross, a 50 mile cross race.  It looked like a fun pre-season race and the weather looked too good to pass up with a forecast of 59 degrees and sunny….in February!  So we packed up the cross bikes and headed down south for some racin’  This was my first attempt at an endurance cross race and Chris’ second endurance cross race with Iron Cross Race being his first.                  So weather looked great, course looked pretty flat and fun, had the potential of seeing a lot of familiar faces, and I was looking forward to a day of suffering on the bike.  Chris and I both had the attitude that this was a day to ride bikes hard, have fun, and get some good training in…and that’s what we did! (The fact that it was a race was well….not significant).  So a few minutes after
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Tis the Season for Racin!

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I have posted since I raced down in Texas, which I still think was a very cool experience and really had me stoked to get into the racing season this year, so here are a couple updates since then. Since Texas I have volunteered at a few races and raced at a few. With the MASS (Mid Atlantic Super Series) starting back in March and the mountain bike season picking up in general I have been pretty much non-stop every weekend. First was the MACDC (Mid-Atlantic Cycling Development Camp) which as always was fun and a decent amount of work. I helped Zach with this last year and end up being a worker/participant which keeps me busy the entire weekend. I was able to get a good 7 hour day in with some great people on Saturday which completely crushed me but enjoyed every minute of it.           The next weekend was the Tuscarora Mountain Bike Endurance Race which was another one of Zach Races. This was another non stop weekend starting with Friday being us hauling over everything to th
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Racing in the Lone Star State

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     So I came down to Texas to do a bike race and even though at first I was skeptical of the whole idea of traveling that far for a race, in the end it was worth it.  The race was this Sunday and Zach and I drove 26 hours south down from Pennsylvania to Texas to take part in Mellow Johnny’s Classic MTB race just outside of Dripping Springs Texas.  You may ask why the hell drive all the way down to Texas for a bike race?  Well the bike race was an excuse to come down here and gave us a destination, and once we leave he we will continue to travel the gulf coast and slowly take a week to work back up to good ol’ Pennysltucky and see places I have never seen and visit places I would never normally go too so Win-Win!     Yesterday Zach and I got pre-ride the course and check it out, and it was an awesome course!  I have only ridden mountain bike on the east coast and as much as I love it, it was good to see some new type of terrain and trails types.  On the east coast on the Appalachian
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