Some Pics

Last night we went to the Walt's customer appreciation night at the shop. Good times, Walts knows how to cater their customers for sure. Here is a little bike porn:

The las picture is porn of a different nature: Thomas going to the gun show and loving it. So, what has been going on? Not a lot, the usual, lifting, hanging with Dillon, and work. The snow is starting to gradually go away and I am getting the itch to go out and ride my bike a little bit. It sucks having a new road bike sitting in the basement and not being able to ride it. I have a dandy new phone, a Nokia N80 which I have been fiddling with. It has wifi access so I dont have to use minutes if I have a hot spot available for surfing the net. 3.1 megapixel camers, which you prolly cant tell from the pics above. I had a few beers before I took those, so I wasn't quite steady. What else...I watched "The Devils Rejects" the other day during my commute. Great movie, a totally different movie then "House of 1000 corpses", but good. The ending actually makes me a bit sad. We also watched "V for Vendetta", another good movie. I am in the process of blowing stuff out on ebay still. I have a ton of Oakley glasses to sell, so if you want anything let me know. also, I have a PS3 for sale. Let me know if you want it, it is NIB and I have it here along with games and an extra controller. Seths post got me thinking about some old school music. I have my mp3 player packed with oldschool Minor Threat, DRI, The Cure, Agnostic Front, Black Flag, etc. Actually, I have been listening to the Cramps a lot lately and Southern Culture on the Skids. Good stuff. One final pic: this is the middle finger version of "ET the Extra Terrestrial".

Tech tip

In case you are the proud owner of a Losi Micro-T, you will notice that the steering links are VERY flimsy. Well, my collegue and I came up with a very keen way to fix these broken parts. First, take your garden variety aluminum soda can, we used Diet Dr. Thunder, and cut a strip of aluminu, aboot 7mm wide by about 20ishmm in lengty. Next, mark 2 holes exactly .710 inche (18mm) apart for the screws. Install. No more breakage, cheap fix. Donations can be sent to my paypal address jozenberger@gmail.com By the way, I'm sick again. yay

What I did on Thanksgiving

Well, I got up and made a tasty homemade waffle. Keep in mind that Dillon and Alicia were in Iowa visiting family. I worked for a while putting some stuff up on ebay. I went on a pre-lunch trail ride with Franklin which was fun. Broke out the Litespeed for that. I came home and raked leaves. I decided to finish my car, so after a thouough cleaning, I installed new sparkplugs, new headlights, and built the cover for my amp rack so I can put stuff in my trunt without strapping it down. Also, the stealth look is nice, you cant see any equipment in my trunk anymore. Played a few videogames and drove some of my RC cars. Had leftovers. That is really about it, it was a pretty full day.

Ok

So, yah, it has been a while. Today was the first day that I have ridden since the Leavenworth cross race. Rode with Franklin on the road (for the first time in months), on my new Look. Sweet bike indeed. I was cleaning my cross bike today and I discovered a bunch of flesh stuck to the non-drive side caliper of my rear brake from when I swung my right leg through for a dismount and got it hooked. I left it there, sort of a good luck charn I guess...So, Alicia and Dillon are gone for Thanksgiving, I am home alone. No worries, tho, I went and had Mexican food tonight, plus a Boulevard Wheat, and then I set up a RC course in the living room and messed around. Nice. So, not a lot else going on. Just hanging out, being dad, and working. We are busy at work, it is that time of the year. Everyone wants their movies transferred asap, and we have a lot of new stuff going on. I swear, I have made at least 5 hard drives every day. When I came in on Monday, my 8 shelves were full, and there were orders stacked up on the floor. So, I have been editing film till I am about to pass out. Tomorrow I am riding again, lifting again in my quest to gain huge amounts of weight, replacing the plugs in my car, maybe washing my car, cleaning the lawn, and whatever else comes to mind. Oh yah, I will have a TON of stuff on ebay, I will post a link. Happy Thanksgiving!! Check out my race number in the pic below from Snake Alley 2004...Golden!!

Busy

First thing: I spilled my coffee and milk this morning!! The past few weeks have been pretty busy, so its been a while since I've updated this turd. I have been riding a bit, check out this gayness for proof. I hit Krug and Sunbridge Hills a couple of times, the trails are great, but there was a lot of leaf cover and I had a hard time with some rooty sections. Check out all of the climbing!! We had an ok time in St Joe, Dillon was good for the most part and it was good to get to see family. I decided to get rid of the Rock Lobster single speed cross bike and instead I built up a vintage Litespeed Appalacian. Old school with bar end shifters. It is a sweet ride, and light. So, I rode it Tuesday night for a few minutes to get it dialed, and then went and hit Wednesday night cross practice. Fun times, and I didn't feel too bad but I'm sure Josh was taking it easy on ol'dad. Rode the single speed MTB at cosmo on Thursday, felt ok again. That was a fun ride, it is amazing waht riding a rigid single speed will do for your handling skills. Alicia had an activity planned for Saturday in KC. I had initially decided that I was going to do the Mizzou cross race on campus, but I decided to take Dillon and go with Alicia instead and spend the night with the Schoonbecks and do the cross race in Leavenworth instead. Alicia had to work at Metro North mall, a real stank pit of a mall, Saturday morning from 8 till noon. So dillon and I hung out and walked a lot, he literally wore me out keeping me busy chasing him and playing. The mall is pretty barren, which was good and bad. Good because Dillon was pretty much free to walk with me without putting him in the stroller because of crowds of people. Bad because it was boring with not a whole lot to look at. Saturday night we ate a ton of pizza and hung with the Schoons. Sunday went to the race, it was windy and pretty chilly. I knew it was going to be a painful race, there was a lot of climbing that my 165 pound body didn't agree with. The field was tiny, 10 riders. Boring. Actually the course was fun, really fun and well thought out with a sand pit, singletrack, a stair run up, and a paved climb. I wanted to get in the top three going into the first grass section since there was a short 18 percent climb. I managed to do this and blew sky high. Nice. So I got passed and ended up 8th. I wasn't completely disappointed. I felt like I rode to the best of my fitness and my handling skills were there. Just not too fast. I even lapped a guy (I wont mention his name). So, yah, it was a good time. When we got home, we hit the grocery store and relaxed. Not a lot else going on. Hopefully we will get some down time soon. Oh yah, I hooked up with a Garmin forerunner gps for my bike, so check my motion based page for maps and whatnot. This thing is really fun to play with. I have been anti gadget, I usually dont use a computer or heart rate monitor when I ride. But I got this for a steal and I am having fun with it.

Sweet revenge is mine!!!

A morning is not a morning

Unless I spill my coffee. It happens almost every day. This morning was big time. I sat my coffee on the roof of my car so I could put my stuff in and BOOM!! All of a sudden i had coffee spraying in my face from the impact of the cup hitting the floor in the garage. Nice. I also had it on the steering wheel and inside of the door on my car, not to mention the drivers side was covered too. And it was in the garage. So I have a nice puddle of coffee on the floor. I am glad I wasn't wearing white!!

Bling

Yummy titaniun fork and bars. And Chris King wheels. Lighter than my road bike. Seriously.

Re-gifting?

When we were at the Mizzou homecoming parade last Saturday, they were throwing out tons of candy. I thought it might be a good idea to pick up as much as I could and hand it out on Halloween. Would that be re-gifting? Did you know that a beer belly is also known as a "muffin top"?

I can't win

Yah, I am sick AGAIN! Yep, more chest stuff. Nice. It sucks, I actually got on the bike 2 days in a row, Friday and Saturday. Took big pink out to cosmo on Friday. The leaves were down on the trails so that made for some fun riding. However, I am waaaaaaaayyyyyy out of shape. Fun nonetheless, tho. We had dinner at home that night and went up to campus to check out the homecoming festivities with Dillon. Pretty cool but too many people. We went and watched the homecoming parade Saturday morning, it was cold. The little guy seemed to enjoy it, and we had some good people to stand next to, they kept giving Dillon popcorn and candy. I came home and went for the first ride on my road bike in 2 months. It was cold. I got rained on. Smart move on my part. Short ride, tho, less then an hour. The Kershas came over for tacos last night, it was good to get to hang with them. Props to Alicia for whipping up some tasty tacos. Thanks for the nice spread ;) We watched "Click" with Adam Sandler. It was pretty good, funny, yet the 7 & 8 year old kids cussing were a little much. So now I am sitting in the recliner feeling like total crap again. Just a couple of things...quit running election ads on TV!! Also, I am sick of celebrities adopting kids from third world countries. Adopt Americain! Leave Starvin' Marvin at home. Forget about trying to be a philanthropist, trying to look good in the spotlight like you really care about what happens in other countries. Maddonna, you suck! Angelina Jolie, you really suck! Leave. Anyway, sorry for the semi-negative blog. Have a nice day.

My computer at work is painfully slow

I am sitting here at work waiting for some high def files to index and comform, which takes about a year, so I thought I'd update. I am still slightly ill. Big shocker there, I know. A bit of a cough and whatnot. Saturday Curt and Krista were in town, I rode cx bikes with Curt for a little while. It was good to get to catch up with him. Alicia and I did a lot of work around the house, I installed a new sink, we cleaned up the yard, gutters, repaired a storm window, etc. We had dinner with the Kippenbergers at Flat Branch. Sunday, we went to Lowes and I started doing a little landscaping in the rain. Fun times. Not a lot going on, really. The usual. Dillon is getting big, and smart too. He knows where his belly button is, he knows how to turn off the TV when we tell him to, feeds himself with a fork, and a lot of other stuff. Alicia and I are very proud of him. What else...I am playing Gitaroo Man Lives on the PSP, it is fun. A japanese import, so it is pretty weird. I weigh 165 pounds. Yay, I have been trying to gain weight, so I guess I am succeeding at something. It is raining, and has been for a couple of days. I really want to ride my mountain bike, but I am not going to slop around in the mud. Thats about all for now.

Can you believe this crap, Part 2

So I am sick again. I have been sick since last Tuesday, when I made the mistake of riding out at Rockbridge on the Intense. First off, make sure you check the pressure on your rear shock, mine was way low, low enough that my saddle height didnt feel right because of too much sag. I felt pretty bad during the ride anyway, and at one point I was breaking out in the cold sweats. And I flatted. So, yah, that sucked. Not a lot else last week, Alicia and I did get to go out to eat alone on Friday night, thanks Brian and Lori for watching Dillon. We went to Hu-Hot, which I highly recommend. I pretty much ate nothing but meat there, seafood, pork, you name it. It was very tasty. Saturday was uneventful, we went to some garage sales, I hung up a swing from our tree in the front yard for Dillon. Had mexican for dinner and saw the Buttheads. Sunday I made the mistake of riding again, this time on the singlespeed. I was taking it easy, just wanted to get outside for a few minutes. Of course I felt like poop again. I just cant seem to shake this cold, and I am coughing up some nice clay colored stuff out of my lungs. I dont know why I am at work.

Meanie

So we are in the middle of an October heatwave. Lame. I was hoping to put away the shorts for the season and get into some of my fashionable fall gear. Not yet, I guess. So, what has been going on? More of the usual. I am starting to feel like normal again after my sinus cold. Dillon has been suffering with the same crap, poor little guy. Alicia has been lucky so far and has not caught it. Work is busy as usual, we are still trying to get the kinks worked out of the high definition stuff. I have been riding here and there, some MTB and CX. I am going to hit up rockbridge after work tonight on the Intense. Here is a funny story. First off, I am trying to stop cussing. Ok, so Saturday, Alicia, D, and I head out to Wal Mart for an oil change. We usually go to Jiffy Lube, but the Mart is 5 bucks cheaper. So, we get there and they obviously have some non computer savy, illeterate type checking cars in. After 10 minutes of giving him our info, we are told it is going to take about an hour. So, we walked over to Old Navy to return a couple of things (by the way, their small t-shirts are really not small, they are BIG). Went over to shoe carnival. Did some shopping in Wal Mart. Keep in mind Dillon is with us, so he is getting fussy from being in the stroller. After an hour, we go back to the auto dept thinking our car would be ready. Not so. So, we wait around and A and I are trying to keep the little guy busy by letting him play with the demo car stereos and pushing buttons. Alicia goes up to the counter and asks how much longer and they told her an hour more. Nice! So we decide to get our car back and go to Jiffy Lube. Well, the counter person goes on a quest to get our car, and comes back and tells us she can't find the keys. Moron! By now I am doing a hard boil and getting very angry. About that time, our car is pulled in and hoisted up. So, I guess we are locked into waiting. So, we try to keep Dillon happy. Finally, after about 45 more minutes our car is done. I am so mad I can hardly see straight, so I let Alicia pay because I dont want to verbally bash the person behind the counter. They give us our keys and we go outside to get our car. It is still in the bay. So, we are standing out in the parking lot, waiting again. Finally, I couldnt take anymore. I walked into the bay and asked one of the lackeys to please pull our car out. Nicely. He just ignored me and started doing something else. Bad move. Anger overload. Another worker comes over and I said in a very angry tone to pull our car out right now, I dont mean later, right now. Hurry! He pulls our car out, and I start degrading him and Wal Mart in the lot and the rest of the employees. Well, he goes back in the bay and pulls the yellow chain across the opening. When he did this, he hit the hood of my car with the chain. I freaked. I started going off again and he told me that it didnt do anything, but I kept freaking out on him anyway. Alicia had already buckled D in the car and she was telling me to get in. So I got in, shut my door, only to look out my window and see another employee standing behind the chain, holding a big torque wrench, staring at me and bouncing the wrench in his palm. Like a jack in the box, I jumped out of the car and went over to him and asked him if he had anything he wanted to say to me and asked him if he wanted to come around the chain to say it. Obviously big man with the wrench didnt want any, so I belittled him too all the time trying to get him to cross the chain. Finally, I got back in the car again, unsatisfied with the way it ended. About that time a manager came out and told us never to come back. Nice. We informed her that we wouldnt ever darken their door again, and that they had absolutely no customer service. So yeah, I guess now I should be known as the Wal Mart bully. Moral of the story: dont go to Wal Mart. The bitterness of low quality customer service remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten. Anyway, throughout that whole exchange, I didn't utter a single cuss word. I guess I am not a completely bad person, just 99%.

So what has been going on with me? Well last weekend we went to St. Joe with a side trip to Liberty. Alicia had an appointment, so Dillon and I just wandered around in the town square, which, conviently was having a fall festival. So we were entertained. Got a coffee at the local soda fountain. I highly recommend the Soda Fountain to anyone who is in Liberty. Very nice help, and a great menu. So, we ened up eating in Platte City, and by the time we got to St Joe, it was Dillon's bedtime. It was raining Saturday morning, and I was planning on riding with Lanses, a local. So we postponed the ride till after lunch when things had dried up. It was windy, very windy. And, towards the end of the ride, cold too. I was wishing for my arm warmers. We went to dinner with my grandma that night. Sunday, breakfast and drove home. Dillon is getting pretty good in the car, he isnt fussing much anymore. So, Sunday night I get a call and find out my Great Grandma passed away. She was 99. She took care of me when I was little, I remember going to her house. She always had food, good food, she came from the old school where everything was home made. I would always try to talk her into wrestling with me, and she usually would. She was one of the nicest, coolest people I have known, she never had a bad thing to say about anybody. She and my great grandfather would come and visit us in St Louis when we lived there and stay for a while. So yeah, pretty much a bummer. I drove to St Joe yesterday morning for the funeral, then drove home around lunch. So yah, I am pretty worn out today.

Can you believe this crap?

I am freaking sick. Yah, I went to the doctor this morning and she said I have a viral infection in my throat and sinuses. Great. I am pretty pleased about that. So, what else? Friday afternoon, Alicia, Dillon, and I drove up to KC to stay with the Schoonbecks. We had a good meal, good beer, and had a good time visiting with them. Dilon also had a blast playing with Alison and Erik. Saturday morning, we had breakfast and Mark and I rolled over to Kansas City Kansas for the first cross race of the season. First off, the race was in a tiny "pocket" park kind of in the middle of nowhere. So, that meant limited parking. Very limited. Like maybe 10 cars could fit. There were people parked all along both sides of this 2 lane rolling country road, which was a little dangerous in my opinion. Mark and I found a sneaky back way into the park by rolling on some of the back neighborhoods, so that was good. We rolled up and got our register on. Mark was doing the 3/4's race and he was slated to go off in about an hour, so we got kitted up and went up to the course. I figured I might as well kit up, that way there would be less to worry about later. I prerode the cours a little, interesting. Remember I am on a single speed this year. The start was at the bottom of a log climb, the finish was at the top of that same climb. Basically you start with a long climb, then long descent, then climb back up again, hit a paved bike path. Go thru some swtichbacks while going back down. Then a trip through a mulch play area with a dismount before it. Long climb, more switchback, stairs, fast downhill around a tennis court, then over a hump that I caught air off of just be cool every lap, then to the finish. Whe! A good course, taped the entire way, albeit a little rough due to the many chuckholes in the grass. Mark had a good race with a solid top 10 finish. My race was 60 minutes. Had a pretty bad start, missed my pedal. Nice. Moved up nicely on the climbs, only to fall back a little on the descents. Just picked people off as best I could, and laid down a good attack through the playgroung and hit the gas on the next climb to drop a couple of people. Then I blew up. The big gear was definitely taking its toll on me. But, all in all I am pretty satisfied with the way I rode. It was too hot for cross though, the temp ws in the high 80's. So, we rolled back to Columbia and ate mexican food for dinner. Yesterday was a day that I spen with Dillon alone since Alicia had to be in StL. Good times, we pretty much played all day inside since it was raining, went to the mall, got groceries, etc. He's a great kid, and it was nice to spend some solo time with him. Not a lot else. Oh yeah, I have a set of Campagnolo Record mountain bike cranks I am selling.

This morning

On the way to work, I listened to the King.
There is only one.









And now I am listening to Cradle of Filth.
Not your run of the mill new goth crap. Both of these bands are old school indeed, kind of metal rock-operas where each song tells a story. Definite beatuy.

Bikeling

Yah, I have been riding a bit here and there. In between headaches. I don't know what the problem is, the past week I have had these splitting headaches that won't go away. Case in point: right now, I am hurting quite nicely. Friday I rolled out on the CX bike early, too early. When I got to the park, there was still a ton of dew on the fresh cut grass, so, by the end of the ride, I was covered in wet, nasty grass. So was my bike. Alicia and I ran some errands on friday afternoon, then went with Rachel and her son Elliot to Coopers landing. Not reccommended. They supposedly have good Thai food, but I thought it was mediocre at best. It is a longish drive to get there, and it is in the moddle of nowhere off of some dusty country roads. So, when we got there, I knew it was going to suck. There were a ton of drunk hippies dancing around to a crappy band, most of them were smoking, not a place I wanted to be at or have my son at. Also, they had porta potties for bathrooms. I found out the hard way that I should have just gone into the ditch, I went in there after some stinky hippie who had obviously been in there with a lit cigarette. Also, there was some liquid of unknown origin on the door handle. So yeah, the food was edible, but not worth the hassle. So dont waste your time unless you are a dirty, fould smelling hippy. There are better places in town. Saturday I rolled out the trail with the Dude. Very refreshing. I haven't ridden with that kid for a long time, it was nice to catch up. That night we went over to Kershas for a BBQ. Yum. It was good to hang out with them too, and the dude was there as well!..Morgan was there with his wife and daughter, so Dillon had a playmate. Sunday, I rolled out with Kersha and Morgan and poached into the MS150 ride. Poaching charity rides is my new thing, I can go on the ride, get all of the support and free food and schwag I want, and not pay anything. Just kidding. It was a fun ride, tho, and the longest ride I have done in a while. I felt good. Surprise. It was also fun watching people on wal-mart bikes try to slog up the steep grades around here, or the guy that fell over coming into one of the rest stops in front of 100 people. Or the girl wearing some sort of weird miniskirt/denin/riding shorts thing. Or the guy that boasted to me about how he hit 42 miles per hour down Sapp hill on his hybrid that he was sitting straight up on, with aero bars tilted up ala' Floyd Landis style. I made sure we got as far away as possible from him. Also thanks go out to the guys that would sit in and let me and Kersha pull them around and then ride past us with a king greeting, "Nice pull". If we hadn't had Morgan with us, I would have made sure once these guys got latched onto us, they would have regretted it. But know, we kept it piano, but you could tell these guys were hurting. I was in the dog house when I got home, Alicia didn't expect me to be gone so long. Sorry! Mexican food for dinner. Dillon hasn't been sleeping at all, no naps yesterday, and he woke up around 330 and stayed awake this morning. Alicia got up with him and let me stay in bed but I didn't sleep anymore either. I should have just got up and went to work. One last thing, if anybody reading this uses Accelerade when you ride, does it give you gas? I farted loudly every3 minutes after gettng done riding yesterday. They weren't stinky, just loud and looooooong. It was amusing to me.

These days

You can find me being lazy. Sunday, Alicia, Dillon and I road tripped to St.L to check out the Kippenbergers' new house. Very nice. I would be happy living there. It was good to see them, made me realize that they are really gone from CoMo. They are going to be missed. We rolled over to watch some of the U City crit. Im glad I wasnt racing. Looked painful. Tuesday, back to work. We finally have our network back up, so I had some work to do. Really, not a lot going on around here. I rode my Intense last night at Cosmo. Great bike, it corners superfast. And, its pink. I have some pics I need to post. Soon.

Anyhow

Not a ton going on here. I rode today for the 3rd day in a row, which might be some kind of record lately. So I have a new bike. Again. I am going to sell the Scalpel in case you are interested. Email me for details. So I have an Intense tracer. Very sweet bike, plusher then the Scalpel but not as racy. I like it though, and it is hot pink. That makes 2 pink bikes for me. It is sweet, Avid mechanical discs, Sram 9.0 drivetrain, Sid race, blah blah blah. It is fun to ride, and quite fast indeed. Alicia, Dillon, and I went to Connie and Russel's cabin on the Osage river yesterday. Connie is Alicia's boss. I ate a TON of pork and a few veggies. I mean a ton. Atkins would have proud of my protein consumption. It was fun, it is amazing to see Dillon playing with other kids. He is growing up too fast. Today the Schoonbecks came across from KC. Mark and I rode for about 3.5 hours, the longest i have been on the bike for a while. And, the first time I have ridden on the road for a couple of months. Afterwards, I grilled some kabobs and we chowed. They brought their 2 kids, Alison and Erik. Great kids, and they really hit it off with Dillon. Not a lot else going on, back to work on Tuesday, hopefully our network will be up and running so we wont fall too far behind. We are maybe going to roll to StL for the final crit at the Gayway cup tomorrow, but I dont know. I am feeling like staying home and riding and spending some time with alicia and D, so we will see what happens.

I guess I can go ahead and update this turd. Last week, Alicia and I took Dillon to his Grandma's house and we flew out to Baltimore. She had a conference to attend, so we thought that would be a good chance to get away. I pretty much had my days free since she was working. The first night, we ate at the Hard Rock cafe with the kids we were chaperoning. The food was ok, but that place is a little overated. I also took a long walk while she was working, one of many. I ended up in the hood and about a ton of strip clubs. Nice. We were staying downtown in the inner harbor, a nice ritzy part of town. But the hood was close by, about 7 blocks in any direction would get you there. The hotel we were staying at was posh, every morning we had a good breakfast and free starbucks coffee all day long. Also they had a nioce fitness center that I used a lot in my quest to go to the gunshow and get ripped and shredded :) Walked prolly about 10 miles every day. I checked out Edgar Allen Poe's grave which was very surreal. It was in a cemetary in the middle of the city, an old cemetary dating back to the 1700's. There were also revolutionary was soldiers burried there too. I took some pics, I'll post them later. Spent some time at Barnes and Noble reading. Roamed little Italy. Hit up the Baltimore Tattoo museum. The Baltimore aquarium. Really, I did a lot of stuff. The flights to and from were pretty uneventful. Went to a great Itallian restaurant on my birthday, Friday, and had some of the best service in the world. Also, I ate homade Beet Ravioli. It was so good, I love beets, and they were mixed with cream cheese in a veal reduction sauce with mushrooms. For desert, tiramisu with a b-day candle in it. All 7 of the kids sang happy birthday to me, which was nice. They were a great group of kids, all of them have a strong stance against underage drinking and they really have there stuff together. They ranged in age from 14-17. We had a good time, but it was good to get back home and see Dillon. What else...We are finished moving at work, we are in the new building which is great. No Gayway cup for me this year. Everyone can stop sweating now, I won't be there to take your money.

Today

On the way to work this morning, I was listening to Mancow and he said something that made me think. He mentioned that Las Vegas was trying to pass a law that makes it illegal for a homeless person to set up their living space (sleep) withing 200 feet, I think, of the entrance to a business. There are people in Vegas trying to fight that law, saying that it is unfair. Why? There is nothing I hate more then going downtown, trying to get a cup of coffee, and having some scummy, stinking, homeless piece of crap approach me and my family to try to get money from me. You smell!! F*!k off!! A couple of years ago Alicia and I were at Sams club to get a few odds and ends. The homeless people that used to sit at the south entrance to the parking lot were in there buying a party sized bottle of cheap vodka. One, they obviously had the money to buy a sams membership. Two, they were buying Vodka!! Part of the reason we moved from Kansas City was to get away from this. Anyway, Mancow went on to say that he should have the right to walk out of the door, squirt lighter fluid on any homeless person sitting in his doorway, and throw a match. Sounds good to me. Not a lot going on this weekend. Hit up the mall. Rode with Alicia yesterday, which was nice. Krista kept an eye on Dillon for about an hour and gave us a chance to get in the rare bike ride together. She is still my favorite person to ride with!! I have some new music to listen to today. Old school Stooges. The Cure, Disintegration. Blah blah blah. I might ride again today, who knows???

To whoever rides at Cosmo today

I cleared out all of the spiders for you this morning. I had to stop every 5 minutes to get the webs off my face and to get the spiders that were decending from my helmet off. I ate a couple too.

Prozenberger rode
spiders were across the trail
their webs are binding

Some haiku for you.

What else...obviously I am not going to Downers Grove. I might ride my bike again sometime this weekend. Or not.

To ride or not to ride?!?

Here is today's excuse: my dog ate my bike!! I am going to ride today. Not the Tuesday night ride, though, because it is too far away from the safety of my house and there are too many sketchy riders there. This will be my weekly ride, for the rest of the week I will be too busy worrying about my fitness for the coming winter, when the rides around here get really tough. Yesterday I totally planned on riding, but the roads were just too wet, so I went to Wal-Mart instead. Sunday I was pretty toasted from my weekly ride on Saturday, so I figured I better have a few recovery days so I could really peak for the Sedalia crit that I will not be attending. I had pasta last night, a little carbo-bloating to get the pump primed for todays long ride, you know, less then an hour on the bike really blows out some calories and I don't need to lose any more weight. It seems like I am just wasting away, the riding has been really hard lately. I am sooooo funny, it almost hurts!!!

Joetown

Every time we go home to St Joe, I leave feeling glad that we dont live there anymore. Not because of family or anything, that town is just such a dump. White trash everywhere, everyone seems to just be a couple of steps behing the rest of the world. We left Friday morning to head there. We stopped in Platte City at the PIzza Shoppe for lunch, I had a mini pizza with corned beef on it. Yah, thats right, corned beef!! Hell yes! They now are my favorite pizza place. The crust is just right, not too think or thin, no grease, and crunchy. When we got to St JOe, I took out the rock lobster for a little ridey poo. That is the only bike I brought, just to make sure I wasn't tempte to go to the Tour of KC and waste $70. I rolled around town and rode thru a lot of grass on the parkway and hit a few trails which were spider central since no one rides MTB's around there. I also brought road tires so I could poach in on the group ride the next day. To my dismay, I realized I forgot my pump. So, I made a trip to the local shop and bought a much needed pump. Time to retire my 9 year old wrench force that has been with me for so long. Alicia, Dillon and I went out to Palmas for some tasty mex food, I had the pork chili which was good, but I would pay for it for the rest of the night and the next morning. The group ride was leaving at 8 on Saturday and a 60 mile ride was planned. I flopped my rear wheel around to the fixed side so I could get in a workout. The route was a challenging one, quite hilly indeed. It was nice to catch up with some of the locals. It was a good ride, fast at times, but chill a lot too. There were supported water stops at every 15 miled which was nice since the humidity was 200%. When I got home, I chowed all day, hit the pool, and went out to dinner with my mom. So, not a lot of excitement. My legs are a little sore from spending sooo much time on my fixie. It was good to see so many people riding bikes in st joe. When I lived there, there were only a few people that rode, there were close to 50 riders on Sunday. I got my new kicks from Zappos.com and they are dope. Old school Adidas Superskate hightops. Hot! I think I am going to get on the roadbike a bit this week. It actually rained last night, so the trails will be in better shape, not so dusty, and I am looking forward to taking the scalpel out for a spin too. I have been getting some good PSP time rocking the emulators. My current game is Smash TV on the Super NES emulator. Fun, simple, and challenging, killinghundreds of people per level to win prizes like a sleek 1999 roadster, VCR's, and money. It is like a gameshow, but you go to a room and people just come at you. You have to survive by killing them and picking up new weapons. The PSP is great, I have so many roms on my memory stick, it is hard to decide what to play. All of the NES, Super NES, and Sega games ever made. I am also going to get a game boy emulator so I can get the hook-up there too. Oh yeah, one more thing, I still have my Orbea Pista track bike for sale, if you are interested, email me.

Full weekend

So Friday was a millon years ago and I really dont remember what we did. Saturday morning Alicia, Dillon and I went to a few garage sles. Pretty interesting. We were at a sale over off Chappel Hill at a nice house. I was holding Dillon looking thru the stuff in the garage when this dirty, semi large lady comes walking up with a lit cigarette in her hand. Now, if you know me, there is nothing I hat more then people forcing you to smell their smoke. The people standing outside the entrance to a restaurant, blowing smoke in your face when you pass. So, she walks right in the garage smoking. So big mouth me, I turn and say "Just because you smoke in your own garage doesn't mean the people here want you smoking in theirs". She turns to me, takes a drag off of her cig, and says "F*#@ you, is this your house?" Ok, that pushed the wrong button. Keep in mind I was still holding Dillon, and I don't take too kindly to people cursing to me, especially in front of my son. Me:"why dont you go and ask the homeowner if they want you smoking here?" She walked away, so I said something to the effect of "why dont you take your smoke someone else you dirty skank." Ok, this is no crap, she came swaggering up and got in my face, like nose to nose. I handed off Dilloin to Alicia pronto, and stood there grill to grill trying what to do next. Needless to say, nothing happened, we exchanged a few more words and she went off in a puff of smoke. In the space of 10 seconds though, I had about a hundred different scenarios race thru my mind. Do I hit back if she tries to hit me? Break her arm in front of all of these people? Block and let it go? So many options, I guess instinct would have taken over. Anyway, it was a nice burst of adrenaline to start the day. I rode my singlespeed later since I had decided not to do state crit and do the Rockbridge MTB instead. So, I got tothe race about 1030 on Sunday. Hot already. Registered and hung out talking to Brady and Kevin. Finally got lined up, Kevin and I were totally not paying attention and they said go. So, yah, last into the woods, ni biggie though since I was the only guy on a singlespeed in a field of geared experts. First lap I worked on picking people off on the climbs and recovering on the descents. Not too bad, it hurt but I was rolling. The second lap was tougher. Third lap I was cracking. There was a LOT of climbing and my legs were torked from mashing a big gear. Fourth lap I was cramping but still managed to roll in for third and the bronze medal in the Show Me state games. I have to say I was pretty happy since it was my first SS race and it was hot. Really hot. Kevin won. Nice. We went over to Curt and Kristas for a BBQ later. Good times, drank some beer, didn't eat too much because I was still feeling pretty bad after the 28 mile sufferfest earlier in the day. Congratulations to Brian Dziewa for taking the state jersey at the crit. You deserve it!! Oh yah, thanks to Alicia and Brady for feeding me at the race since I refuse to wear a camelback.

Blast furnace

Yes, I am complaining. It is hot! Was hot. Supposedly it is going to cool off today, but we'll see. Of course columbia missed out on the rain again. Tuesday night Alicia and I went out for beer and desert for our anniversary after we put Dillon to sleep. Thanks Lori for watching him!! Something cool: I have a psp that is somewhat hacked; I have everything that ever came out on the NES and super NES as well as all of the sega master system games. And, I also have a bunch of UMD files of games and whatnot. So, yah, I think I am going to sell some of my older systems, I don't need them anymore. What else...I rode for the first time in a long time yesterday in the 103 degree heat. On the fixie. Fun!! Not a lot else, this weekend is the Jeff city crit. Will I be there? Who knows...

Dis weekend

Holy crap it is hot!! Friday night Alicia's mom and little bro showed up, so we had a little bbq. Good food, I am awesome on the grill, even though it is hard to screw up anything cooked on the grill. Saturday I went on a Rockstar loop ride with Curt and Darby. It would have been an easy ride had I not rode my track bike with 49x14 gearing and no brakes. So, that made for an unpleasant time and my legs are definitely still mad at me for doing that to them. We went and got everything we needed for Dillons b-day party and made a side trip to the mall to kill some time. The mall was dumb crowded, everybody was trying to beat the 100 degree raw temperature by hanging out in the A.C. I fired up the grill for the 2nd time in as many days for dinner. There were quite a few people over at our place, Kershas, Kippenbergers, Schwarz's, family, Darby. I ate a ton of cake, and I do mean a ton. Like half of one of the birthday cakes. I paid the price for it Sunday morning by turning the water a smrf blue in the toilet. Nice!! So, Dillon got a bunch of stuff, thanks to everybody for celebrating with us. He also got his first taste of cake, the little guy was digging it. Sunday was pretty uneventful, cut the grass, went for a walk, groceries, you know the drill. We watched "The Hills Have Eyes" last night, it was prolly the most disturbing movie I have seen in a long time. It was also nice to have a good old horror movie without CG. Much more realistic, IMO.

For Luke

This would look good on your car.

Sore down there

I am sur[rised I didn't have a bit of blood in the chamois after yesterdays time trial. I pretty much removed all of the skin from my sack and taint (scientific terms). State tt did not go great for me. I started off good and had a pretty good time at the turnaround. Then I cracked on the way back. Actually, in hindsight, I was cracking the whole time, just ignoring it. I almost got blown off the road by a tour bus. It passed within a foot of me, I was all the way on the shoulder/gutter, riding the white line. The bus did end up blowing a woman off the road, requiring an ambulance on the course. I talkted to some police afterwards, they actually had the bus pulled over because of the wreck, but I don't think they did anything about it. I went so far as to email the tour company last night, so I guess we will see if anything comes of that. Kersha ended up first in the 30-34, he set a blistering pace. 3rd fastest on the day, good enough to get him 2nd in the pro1/2. Saturday night we went to Buttheads for a party celebrating Kara's graduation. We had a sitter for Dillon so we got to let loose a bit. A lot. After drinking margaritas at dinner, the keg was flowing. As a matter of fact, Curt and I decided to roll up to campus on our banks and climb Jesse auditorium. Nice. We had a garage sale Friday and Saturday, sold some of our crap, made a few bucks, and made fun of all of the slime that accompanies garage sales. Like15 Mexicans piling out of an extended cab truck. Or the 300 pound woman with tonails so nasty that I wanted to yammy. One word: Lamisil. Obviously Digger, the dermatophyte has been doing a number on her feet.

Tugjob

No, not Tugboat, Tyler Hamilton's dog. I am saying tugjob. Some people hand them out on a regular basis. No pun intended. Caution: excuse laden, poor racing performance, my priorities are fucked up for racing, I have a real life off of the bike post ahead. So yah, not too much going on. It is f-ing hot. Work is busy, which is good. I am back working long days, 630-330. Lame, but only 4 days a week. I've been on the Powercranks a lot, fun times. I did not go to Soulard last weekend. It was too hot. My cat threw up on the floor. Dillon has a cold. I didn't feel like driving. The payout was too low. I just cleaned my bike and didn't want to get it all sweaty. I drank too much cheap beer the night before. I am busy trying to peak for the fall BRR ride (bike ride to Rocheport) so I can't be bothered with petty crits. Fair enough. So I am going to state TT this year without my TT bike (I sold it last year). That is pre-race excuse if I ride like shit. I don't have a CBC skinsuit. Another excuse. I also don't have a sperm cap. One more. But, I have a new helmet on the way since my Giro is cracked in 3 places. Oh, I forgot to add, I have been sick this week.

Today

I rode the powercranks for 2 hours with the Dude this morning. I actually got him to get off the trail and ride on the road!!

Yummy

Just sitting here at work eating Egg Foo Young and thought I'd blog. Not a lot going on, just the usual. Dillon walking all around the house and causing trouble, a little riding on the CX bike, Animal Crossing in full effect. Thats about it really. I am going to hit Rickbridge after work today and see how i feel. Holy crap, I cant think about anything else to say. I guess this was the most worthless post ever. Oh yah, we went to Traci and Molly's place Tuesday night and ate food. It was tasty indeed, and nice to get to hang out with the cycling scene. I was planning on doing some of the fourth of july ride, but it was raining and I stayed in bed. Thats how I roll, no getting wet and dirty and slogging around in the rain for me. Also, we had a Dude sighting @ Old navy. I am maybe going to ride with the dude tomorrow, should be interesting. He better bring his A-game.

Remember

What the 4th of July is. Our freedom, liberty, independence. Be thankful that we have people willing to die for our country. A time to be with family, friends, loved ones. Have a good day!!

Who's a girl???

Don't be such a crybaby Ivan. It is just a scrape! Puss....



















This is what happens to a real man:

Poopy pants

So this will be somewhat quick, but I have a bit of free time; my lunch was interupted by a very urgent matter. Thank you antibiotics. So, obviously I haven't been riding. I went back to work on Wednesday after being off for a week and a half. Nothing new, but it was kind of nice to get in the groove a bit. My shoulder has a very nice black scab over the hole now, and the road rash is dry up there too. But, the rach on my hip is still open and wet and messy, making for some fun times at night when I wake up and it is stuck to the sheets. Still sore too. I want to say thanks to everyone who called, came by, or whatever just to make sure I was ok. Props to Greg too, for hooking up a gimpy brother with a twelve of Steel reserve painkiller. So I have been going to the mall a lot, limping about with Alicia and Dillon. Speaking of Dillon, he is now walking for real!! He is going like mad, walking all around the house without any help. It is fun watching him! He is really growing up. I got out and rode for about an hour very easy around town with Franklin this morning. Painful, the scabs on my shoulder are stif and the rubbing of my shorts on my rash sucked. I don't know how some people ride with this crap the day after it happens. I don't mind pain, actually I embrace it, but I like to keep my wounds clean. I am not going to really say anything about the Tour, but I am not surprised. I think Matt Decanio is right about a lot of things. Anyway, I think Chad at work is goind to hook me up with Animal Crossing for the DS tomorrow, which you can play online. It is a social/lifestyle game where you create a character and move into town, shop, work, fish, etc. I had it on the Game Cube. With the DS, you can play online and go to other peoples towns to get rare items, money, etc, and chat. All over the world. So I think I am going to set up 2 accounts, one nice account that I will use to get a huge house with lots of rare stuff and cool furniture, and be a nice guy, and one account that I will use to be a shithead, trashing others towns and whatnot. Fun times, and yes, I am a nerd.So, now it is time for a few pics.

This is Dillon getting in trouble:


This is me with my signature Mick Jagger game face:


This is my Rock Lobster CX bike. Notice it is a singlespeed and has Campy Record MTB cranks:

This is Pinky:

Guess who this is? The caption on the shirt says it all, I am so motherfuckin' hot. Thanks go to Alicia for this pic:

I must have been a bad boy

Someone is punishing me. I just got back from the emergency room here in Columbia. I have a lot of bandages and I don't think I am going to be able to sleep tonight. First off, happy birthday to Alicia! She had her 30th on Friday, and we had a party. Thanks to everyone who came, it was agreat time and good to catch up. So, yah, I was hoping to talk about my new Rock Lobster cross single speed I am rolling, but that will have to wait.

This is what you get when you crash in a bike race. Kind of an anus on your shoulder? I'm not really sure how this massive chunk of shit got torn out of my shoulder, but it sure was nice getting to see the inner workings of the shoulder. This pic was taken after they cleaned all of the rock and dirt out of it without anesthetic. Feels good. Goes nicely with the bad roadrash on my led and arm, the cracked helmet, trashed Mavic Helium rear wheel, destroyed gloves and skinsuit, jacked shoes, and damaged bike. I haven't really assesed all of the damage yet. So yah, I am not too chipper right now. And I probably wont be able to sleep tonight either. On another note:

This is Phom McDaniel, looking fly.

Thanks to everyone that made sure all of our stuff was accounted for after the crash, making sure I was allright, and helping out.

Unless you like overwhelmingly sweet things

Look away.














Also, do not get a hot fudge brownie blast from Sonic unless you like sweet things. It was great, but took me almost 30 minutes to get thru a small. There were a TON of small brownie turds, and the sense of chocolate was overwhelming. Now I am going to go and throw up.

Roof Ornament

Kind of like a hood ornament, you know, the good ol' Caddie' hood ornament made famous by cheesy rappers using them as necklaces. You wouldn't want to use my roof ornament as a neclace, tho,because it was my Cannondale Six13. See, we went to Minneapolis for Micah and Sarah's wedding last Thursday. I brought my bike with plans to ride with Micah and Curt when we got there on Friday, and then a pre-wedding ride on Saturday. And then, race the Stillwater crit on Sunday before coming home. Well, lets just say that the weekend started out like mung. Wed stayed in Des Moines Thursday night since we didn;t leave CoMO till 430. We stopped in Macon for dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Ok, I loaded the car earlier in the day since Alicia was at work. Well, when we got into the restaurant, we discovered that Dilon was quite wet. Wet enough that his colthes were damp. So, we needed to change everything. Well, thats when I discovered that I had left Dillons bag in his room at home. Nice!! So, he had no clothes, toiletries, anything. No PJ's! Fuck!! At least I had bought diapers earlier in the day and left them in the car. So, after waiting for an hour for our food, we were on our way to Dolar General. We made the decision not to roll back to home since that would add another 1.5 hours to an already shitty drive. We made it to Alicias cousins house in Desmoines without incident, except for the fact that D cried a lot. Pleasant. Then he wouldnt sleep when we got there. The roof ornament was covered in bugs. So, I got no sleep that night. Next morning, we roled out around 8, got some coffee (actually I had a depth charge to wake me up). We got to Minn around noonish. Curt and Micah already rode, so I was going to rol around for an hour to chill out a bit. Well, it was a good idea. I brought my frame pump to air up my tubies since they leach air over time. I didn't pump them up before leaving home since I planned on doing it when I got there. Well. my pump was missing an integral part, so it was useless. So, no ride for me that day. We had rehearsal dinner at a realy cool conservation place on a lake. Beer was coinsumed. Then we headed down town to watch the Minneapolis crit in the Nature Valley Grand prix. It started raining fucking buckets on the way down, very hard to drive in. By the time we got there and found a place to park, Micah got the call that the race was called off! Nice. Wasted trip in the rain. So then I had the fun task of driving back to the motel, got lost on the way in the downpour. When we got there, Curt and I went to get beer. Well, Dillon decided he did not want to sleep again and threw a fit for a while. No sleep for us again. Saturday morning, got up ate shitty breakfast. We had to be at the church at 130, and by the time we got around, we decided not to ride. Instead went to Mecca, the Mall of America. A worthy trade off. I love malls. Seriously. Holy crap, there was lots to see. Anyway, if you are up that way, you have to go. So, we came back to Motel Hell and got cleaned up, then Curt and I rolled to the wedding. The ceremony was nice, I videotaped it. Went to the reception where I got first billing on our entrance in the wedding party! I am so pro, holy shit I'm cool. And I make 2000 watts. It of course rained buckets again. Good times. Next day, I decided not to race since it would put us into Columbia too late for my tastes. So yeah, I took my bike almost 1000 miles and didn't ride it. Yesterday I rode my singlespeed at cosmo and had a nice crash. I thought I maybe broke my mp3 player too, I rolled a couple of time and landed on my back, then my bike came next nd I got tangled up in it. But, the mp3 player was ok, the battery cover popped off, thats all. Today I took Franklin out for a Rockstar loop only to receive a call from Alicia mid ride that she was locked out of the house. I didn't hav e my key either. So, when I got home, I had to crawl thru the kitchen window which is about 12 inches tall. I swear, if I could have any more shit happen this week...Friday is Alicias 30th birthday, party at our place at 530. Bring liquor.

Free time

So I am just sitting here rocking down a cold malt liquor and I thought I would post a little something. This past weekend was the state road race/columbia cup crit. All I can say about state road race is that I was hoping I could stay in for 5 or 6 laps. I quit after 2. Yah, I suck. No really, here come the excuses. It was hot. I got mad. It was hot. It was hot. I wasn't having any fun. So I quit. Aside from being hot, I felt ok. Not winning ok, just ok, like maybe riding for a little while and covering a couple of moves, then slowly fading off the back at the halfway point. Heres what happened to make me mad. 2nd lap. Feeling fine. Came thru the little switchback thingy at the intersection of K and KK hwy (that equals KKK for all of you inbreds out there, go figure!!). Actually moved up quite a bit on the short steep hill that follows that intersection. Then got swarmed by a bunch of dudes that put me and the Curtie about 2/3's of the way back. No biggie, but a bunch of attacks went off. Curt and closed some gaps together, we are tight like that. We had one more big gap to close, I pulled, then Curt pulled thru because I was feeling a bit punched. Actually, he pulled for quite a while after that. Then all of a sudden all of these fuckers that were sitting on our wheels came blasting past us to jump across the gap. Faster then I cold jump at the time. I actually envisioned myself throwing fists and elbows and knocking all of them off of their bikes as they went past, and I know that shit doesn't fly in racing (unless you are Jonas Carney). Curt wanted to pull me up to the pack, but my attitude problem was overwhelming and I was seeing red. I figured it would be better to throw out the parachute and roll into the feedzone and quit. I had visions of Steel Reserve in my head anyway. So that was that. Had dinner at Flat Branch during a storm that night. Oh yah, I also worked the corner of Sinclair and Arrowhead lake with Kersha and Jon Bowders. Fun times, I enjoyed stopping all of the construction workers and hicks and telling to watch out for all of the guys in tight fitting, gayly colored spandex clothes on expensive bikes. Sunday was the crit in downtown CoMo. I was on the last corner marshaling it for the first races. Bad move for me, the first race of the day, the first lap, some guy ate total shit going thru my corner. Nice. Made me feel real good about myt race since we would be going faster then anyone else and I am running tubukars that I had never raced in a real crit before. Visions of rolling a tubbie danced through my head like sugarplums. Oh yah, I also moved a bale of hay that was doing absolutely no good in that corner to a nearby light post. Well, in the 3/4 race, TJ stacked it on the last lap and my haybale saved him from hitting the post. Holy shit! I saved the day!! TJ prolly would have won too, he was second wheel coming thru the last corner. That kid is riding like a million bucks, he also took second at the RR the day before. Speaking of riding well, Curt rode like a cham in the crit, covering a shit pile of attacks and taking a beer prime. He doesnt even drink beer!!! So, the crit went well. I rode towards the front part of the race the whole time and felt pretty good, considering I've been putting in 6 hours or less a week on the bike. So I was happy with that. Also, anyone that raced the crit should give a word of thanks to Jon Kersha. He sacrificed racing to watch turn 3 all fucking day. He seriously saved the day, there was some scholar stuff going on on campus, and probably 700 people went through the crosswalk on his corner. He made sure nobody stepped out in front of the race. If he would not have been there, there would have been serious problems. So yeah, buy Kersha a beer or two. He deserves it. Thanks man!!

3 words

Toasted coconut marshmallows. These are definitely made by Satan, they are too good. I think I might just take a baggie full of them for state road race, that way I can stuff my face while getting kicked in the nuts.

So yah, state road race. Saturday. Will definitely be the longest ride of the year if I finish. I am in the process of getting a SS bike going for Alicia, it is going to be boss. What else...I am playing this game on the PS2 called Mad Maestro. It is a rhythm type game, but it is tough. Once again, I get kicked in the nuts every time I play it. It was only 5 bones, tho, so that is a small price to pay for a swift steel toed boot to the scrotum. The other day someone asked meif I ever missed living in Kansas City. I told them that "it is a good place to take a shit, but I dont think I would want to live ther again". So, I went down to the twikligt fest tonigt with Dillon to see Alicia. One thing that really tweaks my testes is all of the stinky hippies down there. As you may or may not know, I hold an intense dislike for hippies. Yesterday as we were heading to Flat Branch, the usual pinko commie hippies were hanging out on the corner of Broadway and Providence protesting the war. I hate that. Even if you dont agree with Bush, support the troops. They are protecting your right to protest. If I didn't have a new kid and wasn't such an old bastard, I would go myself. Anyway, I gave the hippies the finger. So, yeah, some dirty stinking hippie approached me with some flyer stating that we should end our occupation in Iraq. I thought about taking it and wadding it up in her face and then throwing it on the sidewalk, thus killing 2 hippie "birds" with one stone: protesting the war and saving the planet. Yah I am a nice guy. But, I didn't do that. Just ignored her.

Bike for sale.

Title says it all. 950$ and this could be yours. Email me. Also includes a shimano front wheel (not pictured). Orbea Pista 55cm track bike. Deda Spectrum oversized carbon bars. Cinelli Solido stem. Campagnolo chorus integrated headset. FSA Vigorelli track cranks with carbon spider and 49 tooth ring, 167.5mm crankarms. FSA track bottom bracket. 14 tooth cog. Suzue high flange hub, 36 hole, laced to a Mavic MA3 rim. KMC track chain. Ritchey Pro seatpost. Time Milenium carbon fork. Kenda Kaliente tires. Fast and super stiff, with added gussets at the down/head/top tube and gussets on the seatstays. Columbus airplane aluminum tubing, shaped and swagged for maximum efficiency. Fork drilled for front brake. No dents, dings, scratches, anything. This bike has barely been ridden. Included Shimano wheel has been ridden, but it is straight and true and will work fine. And, if you are a complete fashion plate like me, the silver/blue/black of the wheel matches the bike. Also, take note that the lettering on the carbon bars also matches the color scheme asl well as the silver bar tape. Seriously, buy this bike!! Email me with questions.

I want to ride my SS

I decided not to do the mtb race at landahl park in kc today. Good move, it is raining there right now. The rest of this past week has been pretty uneventful. Work was the norm. We had our monthly picnicn and I came away from it with the usual monthly stomach ache. Yah, I thought I wasn't going to make it to the bathroom as soon as the picnic was over. We have 2 bathrooms at work, one upstairs and one downstairs. The upstairs one is cleaner since not a lot of people use it, and warmer too. Downstairs is like a meatlocker, and while not dirty (unlike the crappers at Wal Mart where I have seen things like poo-graffiti on the walls to poop in the urinals), it is used more by the peeps that work down there. So, I ran up the stairs to hit the can, only to find it occupado by someone else whose meal prolly didn't agree. So, back downstairs, urgent pace, thought about undoing my jeans on the way there. What else? Friday night we had mexican food with an unamed party to be disclosed later. Said unnamed party also came over to our house after Dillon went to bed and hung out. Rode yesterday with Kersha. alicia got some good news, she passed her counseling test and now is a for real licensed counselor. I am very proud of her. Dillon is feeling better I think, he is eating some food other then graham crackers and drinking some formula again finaly. Not a lot else.

Fun times indeed.

I had a blog entry on my Treo, but I lost it. Shit! So, we went to St Joe last weekend. Alicia and I drove up separately because I wanted to get the roof rack that was on our Subaru on my car since I had the right clips. Friday night we went to Hoof and Horn, the best steak house in St Joe with my pops and Grandma and Tina (my dads hot girlfriend).

So, Saturday Mark met me and we went out on the road for a few hours. Did my favorite loop, DeKalb via VV and back, pretty tough loop with lots of rollers and wind. Came home and sport ate, then A, D, and I went up to Clarinda for the night. Alicia was having a family reunion on Sunday. Her family watched Dillon while we went out to eat by ourselves for the first time in 4 months. I got up early the next day and rode for about 3 hours. Holy crap, it was windy, we are talking Corpus Christie TX wind, 25-30MPH sustained. Special thanks goes out to my MP3 player, without it I would have cracked. Post ride food at the reunion. Pretty bunk. Went back to StJ and dinner once again with my Grandma, this time at Denny's. Even worse food. Monday, I rolled out early on the SS up to Krug park for some trails. They have cut a TON of new trails, and they are very nice. I actually found myself getting lost a little. The riding there is a lot different, not really and rock, mostly well packed narrow dirt singletrack. Afterwards, things startd going downhill fast. Even tho it was sunny when I left, the skys started to darken. I still had not put the rack on my car yet and I had to change the clips with my limited tool supply in my car, and I had to do it outside. Of course it started raining. So, i got a bit of shelter under a lattice porch that had a piece of plywood on the top of it. OK, just to explain a little, the roof rack was being stored at this guys house that owns a salvage service. Well, his house burned up (fire), so he was not there. My roof rack had been sitting in the elements for a while, and the bolts for the clips were rusted. Next to impossible to get off, and I am getting soaked. Then, I twisted the head off the last bolt. Of course, the new fuckng clips did not have fresh bolts, so I almost abandoned the rack. But I decided to put it on with only the rear load bars connected and drive out to Alicias moms to find a bolt. Also, my air conditioner quit working. Very nice, I am glad I wasted a shower because I am sweating like crazy by now. Luckily, I found a blown fuse under the hood and got it going again. Well, I got the rack installed out at moms house. Then we came home, of course we hit numerous bad storms on the way. Dillon has been sick.

I have problems

So I stayed home from work today due to the fact that I would have had to spend the majority of the time there in the bathroom. So, I called hey! Blake this morning and told him I wouldn't be in. So yesterday. The mountain bike race. Since I was already in the hurt box from my firefighters physical exam I decided not to race the single speed for fear of putting my body in more distress. Ok, flashback to Saturday. I got up and rolled out to the firefighter training center after spending most of the morning in the bathroom. Took the single speed there. So, I passed my test in a time of 4:37 which was not too shabby considering the time cut was 6 minutes. The test was harder then I thought it would be. I had to don full firefighting gear including super heavy pants and fireproof coat, fireproof gloves, firefighters helmet, and an oxygen pack. So, that brought my total body weight from my usual 155 pounds up to 225. First up, I had to climb up a ladder truck with the ladder fully extended at 70 degrees, a height of probably 8 stories. Pretty painfull with all of the extra weight, my legs started burning about 3/4 of the way up. It was already pretty warm outside, so I was already starting to sweat pretty heavy by the time I finished. Next up was a blind crawl through a burned building. 100 feet, hands and knees, wearing an oxygen mask with a blinder on so I couldn't see. I had to hold onto and follow a hose on the floor and navigate around obstacles. Pretty cool, not too tough and it helped me recover a bit. After that, the timed portion started. You are not allowed to run, just walk fast. First up, drag a firehose 75 feet and put it down. The drag on the hose got progressively harder towards the end, but no sweat. Then I had to carry 2 30 pound med packs 75 feet and set them down. Next was a charged (full of water) hose carry for 75 feet. This one was tough, the hose was heavy and got very hard to pull the last 10 feet. Next was a simulated forced entry, basically 10 strikes with overhead blows with a sledgehammer to a target. I did this very quick. Next, I had to shoulder a 50 pound hose pack and carry it up 4 stories in a building and set it down. I had to go down one story after that and hoist a hose up to me, then let it down in a controlled manner. Then back down to the ground to drag a 160 pound dummy holding it under the armpits, walking backwards, for 100 feet. That was the last part. Man, it was tough and I could definitely feel it in my body when I was finished. But, I am pretty happy, there were a lot of people who did not make the time cut. So, next comes part 3, the oral interview. Scary. Ok. After the test, I rode home in my soaked with sweat jeans and t-shirt. We went and had some lunch (after hitting up the bathroom), and we came home and I took a 15 minute nap. Went to the bathroom again, then rode out to Cosmo for a preride of the race course. I crept slow, but still managed to make it around in 30 minutes. So, I knew that we would be turning 20-22 minute laps. Then came home and tried to relax for the rest of the night. Got up Sunday and chilled around the house while Alicia ran the 5k with Dillon. Rode up to the race around 1130 and registered and kind of got my warmup on. There was a pretty good turnout with some guys from StL showing up including Chris Ploch (fast guy). Luke Musselman was there too, so I figured it would be fast since he is rolling good right now. Started out hard, went into the woods in 7th position since I am not a great starter. However, I started picking people off. I only got passed by one guy, and I thought I might catch him again eventually, but I didn't. I felt pretty good, and I was totally happy with the way I rode considering how I felt pre-race. Brady was there too, and looked strong, but double flats took him out of the race. Luke also flatted and pulled the plug. I ended up doing 4 laps for a total of 20 miles in an hour and 37 minutes. I made sure to eat and drink a lot and took a lot of endurolytes too, even tho at the end I was fighting off cramps. So, I finished 6th, in the money, so I made a little cash and I also won a prize in the raffle, a much need mini pump. Yay! So, I came home and spent more time in the bathroom, and then we went to Shakespeares. I have to give props to Dan Clinkenbeard and the rest of CBC for putting on a well run event with lots of prizes. The results were fast, the course was well groomed, and there were t-shirts for entering the race. Also, Clink maintains the trails out at cosmo meticulously. It would suck riding out there without him. So this morning, in between potty breaks, I got out on the singlespeed to spinout my tired legs and hopefully limit the damage to my old tired body. Rolled with Curt and Thomas. So, thats about all I have for now, but this final tidbit: Kersha was not in attendance at the MTB race in his rubber suit. I was very dissappointed.

Ewwww...

Holy crap,. I have some sort of stomach flu or something going on. I wont go into details, but life has been pretty miserable for the past three days. I am going to try and race my mountain bike today, hopefully I wont have a "movement" while I am doing that. Last night we went to the kershas for some bar-be-que picnic. Good times. Jonathan is supposed to make a costumed guest appearance at the race today, that will be worth the price of admission alone. I am still trying to decide whether I want to do the single speed class or the expert class. My back is sore from some strenous activity I did yesterday morning. More on that later, but I can say that I went deep into the hurt box. Should be hot and very humid on the trails today. I'll have a race report later.

Jo Jo's Kiddie Duds

This is a place in Ashland, next to where I work. Co not shop there. I have a real problem with the lady that owns the place, smokey Jo. Today, I was getting ready to go upstairs and warm up my lunch. I walked outside and got ready to go in the door going upstairs when I noticed a baby bird was out of its nest above the door and was on the step in front of the door. About that time one of the guys that works upstairs was coming out, so I told him to be careful not to hurt the bird. The mama bird was up on the wire chirping madly. So, I did not want to go in for fear that I would hurt the baby. Well, ol'boy from upstaris came back out to go in so we made sure he did not hurt the bird. I decided not to warm up my lunch for fear of getting the bird trapped or hurt. So, I ate cold leftover mexican food. Yuck. So, I noticed one of the other guys who has an business down the street getting ready to go in there. He was standing looking at the bird trying to decide what to do when old JoJo comes out and kicks the bird, hard, off the step into the street under a car. Fucking bitch. I am so mad right now I can hardly think straight. So, no more baby bird and the mama is looking all over for it with food in her mouth. Pretty sad. So, don't under any circumstances, shop there. If you find any dead birds, make sure you place them on the steps in front of her business.

What matters

You now, a while back (actually about 10 months), I decided there was a lot more to life then bike racing. You know, every cyclist dreams of becoming a pro, whether it is racing domestically ar going over to Europe and racing there. I had a chance to go to Europe that fell apart before it really materialized, riding for a low budget D3 team a few years ago. Things went south due to loss of sponsorship money for the team because of all of the doping and drug scandals at the time (Cofidis). Looking back, it is probably better that it didn't happen. I could have eaten shit repeatedly, started doping, hated it, or worse loved it and stayed over there. Either way, it may have changed the future and things that are going on now may not have happened. I watched Back to the Future last night. Don't get me wrong, I am still going to race and train and whatnot, but I am not going to beat myself up if life gets in the way. All I am trying to say is don't take yourself too seriously. Have fun. Stay young. Drink pepsi.

This is funny

Here is an example of how attached people are to their cell phones. I won't mention the people that just HAVE to be on the phone while driving, or in the checkout, or while waiting on a table, or having dinner with their family. No, this one takes the cake. Alicia, Dillon, and I were at Hy-Vee having chinese food for lunch (big mistake, I paid for it later and the next day). I had to go to the bathroom (sign of things to come, but it was number one, not a deuce). Anyway, I walk in and there is some dude in the stall dropping a bomb talking on his phone. At first I thought he was talking to himself, maybe coaching himself on getting the most out of his dump. But, lo and behold, he walked out of the stall holding his phone to his ear. To make matters worse, he didn't wash his hands!! How gross is that!! I'm sure he went out into the store and fingered all of the food he could, making sure to spread his funk all over the place. What else? Yesterday was mother's day, we had a pretty chill day and went to the mall, had breakfast and lunch, I grilled some food for dinner, and we just relaxed. The extent of my riding was running errands on Friday. Sounds like Joe martin was a pretty substantial beating, glad I wasn't there. Oh yah, I helped the Dude move into his new house. I figure that was a good workout on Saturday. And sport eating. I did a bit of that over the weekend too. My Orbea is on Ebay along with my D/A wheels. Buy them! I would rather sell them locally.

Who knew May had 111 days?

Zing!!

the Gun Show

So yah, Alicia has been giving me a bit of shit about the fact that I have been working out my upper body a lot this year. It all started before I got the screws (titanium!!) installed in my shoulder. I started lifting at the gym 4 times a week to try to build some extra muscle so I wouldn't completely waste away over my down time while I healed. I just started to get some good muscle for the first time in years, I am usually a skinny little buttfu#k due to lots of time on the bike. So, after surgery, I was inactive for a while. I really got fat, according to the Meathead. Well, after my doc gave me the go-ahead, I started to work out and ride a bit again. But I was a wreck. Out of shape, no muscles, nothing. I started going to the gym again, it was nice because I could take Dillon with me, and he would usually sleep while I lifted. Now, however, the kid likes to play too much to sleep at the gym. So I invested in some of the resistance bands so I could use them at home. First, let me say, they actually work pretty good. Let me just get to the point. Having a resistance band snap is not a good thing. I bought an extra-heavy (yes, thats right) band to replace the heavy band that I snapped the other day. Well, yesterday, I was using it, and lo and behold, the nylon webbing abound the handle ripped while I was using it for curls. The band has a rubber ball on the end that goes into the nylon webbing after pasing through a brass grommet. So, i was left holding the handle in my hand as the ball and grommet rocketed towards my the top of my bare foot at mach 5 speed. You can imagine what happened next. The top of my foot turned black, it bled where the grommet cut me, and I have a lump the size of a golf ball on my foot. I seriously thought I'd broke my foot. I fucking swear, something always happens to my foot at this time of the year. Last year, i stubbed my toes on the couch leg and my foot turned an interesting shade of purple. So yeah, that hurt like a son of a bitch. Other stuff. Not that I give a fuck one way or the other, but to clear up some shit that alicia has been slinging, there were more then 4 people in the MTB race the other day. I rode the mtb yesterday at cosmo, against my better judgement due to all of the rain, but the trails for the most part were ok. A little wet, but not bad. I am selling my track bike. Please buy it, I don't want to put it up on ebay. It is VERY fucking dope, I really don't want to sell it, but a certain Gunnar single speed mountain bike with pink and black flames is calling out to me. It would be more practical anyway, the Orbea has no brakes and I refuse to put them on. I'll prolly rarely, if ever, get to a velodrome. I can use the gunnar to roll around town with Dillon and Alicia, and maybe enter a couple of races on it. I always said singlespeed racing is for people who need excuses for losing races, so now my wife won't be able to blame it on a low field. What else...I am taking the firefighter exam on Saturday. Slightly nervous about that one. I have had some sort of stomach ailment, I dont know whether it is bad food, but not a lot of fun. Ok, now I am tired of typing and my laptop is starting to get warm on my legs. Bye for now. Actually, I should be a cool guy and post some song lyrics here since all of the cool kids are doing it:BLOODHOUND GANG LYRICS

Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo
Vulcanize the whoopee stick
In the ham wallet
Cattle prod the oyster ditch
With the lap rocketBatter dip the cranny ax
In the gut locker
Retrofit the pudding hatch
Ooh la laWith the boink swatter
Marinate the nether rod
In the squish mitten
Power drill the yippee bog
With the dude piston
Pressure wash the quiver bone
In the bitch wrinkle
Cannonball the fiddle cove
Ooh la laWith the pork steeple

Holy crap, I am cool.

"Do you guys have my meat tenderizer??"

That was a quote from Curt earlier this evening while we were grilling at his place. This weekend has been pretty uneventful, except that my wife graduated with her masters degree!!! Congrats to Alicia!!! Dillon, me, her mom Bev(erly), and aunt Sandra went to graduation yesterday. We are very proud of her, especially Dillon. We had lunch at Flat Branch yesterday, big surprise there, and I decided to break my rule and have a beer in the middle of the day. Not a bad idea, but I had a small ride planned for later. No biggie, tho, just a parade loop with some high wattage efforts interspersed in between riding on the path thru MU. Right now, my wife is just on my shitlist. She is talking to Bev(erly) and made a comment aboot me. Anyway, back to the weekend wrap-up. Today I decided to race my mountain bike for the first time in 3.5 years. Interesting. The race was in Marceline, MO on some private land, which, roughly translated, means new trails unpacked in shitty, muddy condition with some lame super deep (up to the calipers on my disc brakes) water crossings, a course in which the conditions only deteriorated over the course of the day. Yah, no fun, I got really dirty (I hate that), my bike is a mess, and I got fourth. Big deal. I did discover, that with the exception of the people from CoMo that I had never really talked to before, most of the guys racing today were dicks. I did get to roll with Andy Schutte, Curt (?) who loaned me a water bottle, and a couple of other people from Columbia who were way cool (sorry, I am bad with names). Anyway, the course was slooooow, soft, and slooooow. There were a ton of things I cold complain about, but oh well. Thats not what I am here for. I am here to entertain you, so here goes. 1. My gas smells like Accelerade. I drank the stuff today, and topped off the tank with accel-gels. 2. I watched Thomas' dog poop tonight and the dig a 3 foot trench around it to cover it up. 3. We went over to Curt and Kristas for a cookout tonight, they are great and I am happy to have them as friends. Also, Curt likes fast corners and his Felt corners super fast!!! Throwback!!! 4. I crashed and hurt my leg today, I think I am going to have to amputate it, maybe we can grill it up and have it with a nice Chianti.

BA Ozenberger

Think A-Team. This is a funny story. Last year when we were in Tucson, Matt Racine (Titus), TJ, and my self decided one night to escape the drama of the 12 man apartment we were staying in and rolled up to Barnes and Noble in the suburban. Little did we know, we were in store for a night of weirdness. We went in and started looking at books and magazines. I was scoping out a book, an autobiography of Boy George to be exact, when this little girl came up to me. Thinking "WTF, kids usually don't like me because I am scary looking", she started talking to me. Sh requested that I read a book about a bunny to her. Feeling a bit weird, but seeing how needy she was, we sat down in the kids section at a wee table with tiny chairs, and I proceded to read to her. Some lady came up, and, thinking she worked there, I told her that I thought this little girl was lost. She didn't work there, but she went to the front of the store and got a worker. In the meantime, Titus and TJ had joined in on the reading session. Then her mother showed up. She was a real piece of work, dirty, smarmy looking and overweight. She started kind of yelling at her kid in front of us, then proceeded to walk away with her without a word of thanks for keeping an eye on her. No biggie. When we left, the "mom" was outside smoking with a bunch of dirty guys while her daughter sat inside alone in the coffee shop. Really mad me mad and I wanted to go over and tell her that she was a bad mother. So we left B & N and started heading back to the apartment. We took Speedway Boulevard which is a 3 lane divided busy street with a 40 MPH speedlimit. We were in the middle lane when some dick in a Ford Lightning SVT flew past us, cut us off, then proceeded to weave in and out of traffic, all going prolly 65 or faster. We ended up stopped at a stoplight next to him. Keep in mind, Titus was driving, TJ was in the back seat, and I was rolling shotgun. So, since I am driving monitor and I have a bad attitude, I rolled down the window and said "Hey man, why don't you learn how to drive that thing?!?" The guy rolled down the window and he looked like this fucking guy, Judge Doom from Roger Rabbit, but after he freaked out and his eyes got all big and red and he had that little bit of blond hair on top of his head.

This guy was also totally ripped with muscles, tan, and probably hopped up on goofballs. Anyway, this dude totally freaked out. When the light turned green, he was swerving towards us all the way down the road, trying to hit us or run us off the road. He was yelling and cussing, fucking going nuts. I look over and Matt is losing it, I am thinking about what might be in the car that I could use to beat this guy with cause I was sure that we would stop at another light and he would get out and I would have to fight him. Now, I am usually not one to back down from a fight, but this guy was out of his mind. I think one of us would have ended up in the hospital at least. TJ is just sitting in the back, looking like he might throw up. So, I am thinking I can call Curt on my cell and just roll to the apartment and maybe this guy will follow and he can have everybody outside waiting. But, to my relief, he finally turned and went on a side street. Matt was like "Holy fuck!! What the fuck just happened???" And I was like, "we almost got killed. Sorry guys, I guess I'll keep my mouth shut next time someone acts like an asshole". The best part, and the tension breaker, is right after that, I cut this huge, long, but unstinky loud fart. At least we had some stories to tell when we got home.

Wow, another update

Have you ever seen "The Toy" with Jackie Gleason and Richard Pryor? Great movie. I have been watching it in my car. Last night was the first Tuesday night race I have been to this year. Pretty fun. Except the fact that when the race started, Jon, Curt and I were waiting a little down the road to get in the ride, of course there were cars coming and there was an SUV behind the field. So we pulled out, chased to the suv. He kept braking, and wouldn't pass the people who had already been dropped from the race. There were some attacks going off, and they were just rolling away becase we were behind this schmoe. Curt rolled up the gutter, which was scary to watch, I wouldn't have taken that chance. Finally the guy goes around, and Kersha and I are left to close a 50 second gap by ourselves. We made it, but holy shit, it was painful. So, then after getting back to the group, I was pretty much fine. I didn't work or anything, just worked on getting a bit comfortable and closing gaps. I wish I would be able to be a geek and report all of my wattage data and how long I stayed in each of my zones, but really, that stuff is for homos. I am old school, I don't use a heart rate monitor, or cyclecomputer. So all I can say is that it was fun. I went around twice, and the Kersha and I rolled back. I even made it home in time to get cleaned up and put the little guy to bed. Yay! So there you go, yesterday in a "ballsack" (kind of like "in a nutshell").

So I guess I'll update this thing. First, I guess I am a fair weather racer. I was looking forward to the Tour of StL this weekend, but the threat of rain kept me away. Yah, thats right, no excuses, just sheer wuss-ness. There will be other races, tho, and actually, we needed to go home and see family anyway. So, a relaxing weekend in st joe. No riding, I was actually going to go out and do some training in the rain, but I woke up Saturday with a cold. Nice. So, I packed my bike and all my gear to st joe for mothing. What else... I am doing a mountain bike race for the first time in years this coming weekend. Dillon is saying dad and daddy, which is pretty cool... fitting, the first time I heard him say it was at the grocery store in the liquor department. I have the new tool album to listen to at work today. I am hoping to get out for a short ride this afternoon before going to a couple of doctor appointments. We had mexican food for 3 mights in a row, that is some kind of record?!? Needless to say, no more latino cuisine for a while. I almost paniced this morning, I couldn't find my phone, I called it and it didn't ring anywhere in the house. I was scared that I had set it on the roof of the car at the grocery store last night, in the hood, I could see some baller walking around with his shiny grill flashing as he called all of his homies on my blinging palm Treo 650. But alas, it turned up in the car in Dillon's stroller. Also would have been bad because I keep my drivers license, debit card, and various other items in my phone case. This is not your run of the mill gaywad strap to your belt I am a stooge construction worker but I am trying to look white collar dork black faux leather belt case that is so popular these days. No, it is a Tumbuk2 Ipod case I custom modded to fit my palm, color coordinating with my man-purse, also Timbuk2. That would have been tragic indeed. What else...woot.com sux, they have been selling lame ass jive turkey junk, except today, they have a 40gig mp3 player for 150 bones. A good deal, but I dont need one unfortunately. Alicia is doing good, this is her last week of clients, finally, so we will be freed up to do some other stuff. Thats all for now. Actually, on a final note, if you have one of those clip to the belt quick draw mcGraw phone holsters so that your smell phone is always at the ready, kind of like a cop with his gun, get rid of it you dork. Get a sense of style or get rid of your phone. You are not a cool guy because you have a phone anymore; people picking up their welfare checks have cell phones (we are paying for them, I'm sure), hide your phone like you do with the salami, people will think you are stealth. Oh yeah, one more thing there Robocop, if you have a bluetooth ear piece, for god's sake, get rid of that retarted thing too. You look like a moron walking around with that thing in your ear and noone thinks you are cool, just a tech geek robot android wannabe who wants to look like they are important half the people I see with them in their ear aren't even talking.

test

this is a test, gaylord

Here is a funny pic...

What a good looking family.

Here is a funny pic...

What a good looking family.

Here is something funny

Too cool for school, eh'? Today I am canadian. Thats what it's all aboot.













Lil' Eric got out on the trails the other day before it rained.























This might offend people, so proceed with caution...





















Have a great day!!

When I woke up, the cats were being tormented by little Eric.

Holy crap!!!! This is what I found when I got home from work. I guess Cartman needs to play in the exersaucer too. Better not let Dillon find out. By the way, I am sitting in the drive thru at Dairy Queen. The line is SICK!!! I wish I was in my car, at least I could be watching movies right now.