So, what's new???

Lots of stuff, actually. It's been a bit since my last update, but that's mostly because it's been a little busy around the Cook household. With a couple of big WSI projects launching over the past weeks (and coming weeks as well), training continuing for the Lumberjack 100, my team manager duties and spending time with the wife and "kids", seems like it's go, go, go...

WSI Internet Consulting
This week I'm headed to Traverse City to the Great Wolf Lodge to speak on Internet and Web Strategies at the Michigan Banker's Association's Marketing Conference. Seems like it was just yesterday (well, two weeks ago) that I was in Plymouth at the MBA's Operations and Technology Conference, where I had the pleasure of speaking to the group on Search Engine Marketing and Analytics. It was great to be back with many of my banking friends since starting my new business in August. I even got to attend a Tiger's game (which they won against the Twins), courtesy of Bank of America (thanks Chris & Joe) in their box, which gave me even more time to catch up with some of my former colleagues. I'm looking forward to the conversations started at this conference and helping banks in Michigan better leverage the power of the Internet for their organizations.

Lumberjack 100
The training continues for Michigan's only 100-mile mountain bike race on June 14th in the northern hills of the Mainstee National Forrest at the Big M Ski Area. As with prior years, I'm doing the race again in honor of Christi Thomas and am raising money to help support neroblastoma research with the CNCF. Stop by my donation page to contribute if you like and this year I have a cool new Toolbar that you can download and when you search and click on the "sponsored links" on the search results page, Pedaling with a Purpose actually gets a portion of the click-through revenue from our friends at Yahoo! Very cool...

Team Active Racing
I'm pleased to say the team has been doing a great job this year and is representing at races all over the state (and outside of Michigan as well). Be sure to check out the Team Active Racing website for updates on results, sponsor information and upcoming events. The next big event is coming up at Fort Custer on Sunday, May 4th, where I'm contemplating racing Elite, which is four laps (about 8 miles each) and will serve more as a training ride to prepare me for the 100 miles in June. It will make for a long day (and likely will be a faster pace than what I'll keep for the LJ), but will be a good addition to my training schedule and certainly get me some much-needed saddle time on the Rush.

Now that the snow is gone (yes, I said it), I'm looking forward to spending more time on the bike, taking tandem rides with Alicia and walks in the woods with the pooches. While Ally and Ryder likely would prefer to spend their days relaxing all the time, we know the exercise does them good and they just love to run. The other day they "spooked" a wild turkey and decided to chase, until they realized just how big one of those things can be. For house dogs like ours, that was a bit much and it was kind of funny to see their reaction once they realized it wasn't a typical "birdie". What a life...