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...