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.