Nothing new

So I am sitting here at 9:30 on a Friday night typing this on my new Dell XPS m1210. Very hot new laptop, running both Windows and Ubuntu Linux. So, what has been going on? Actually, not too much. Work, no riding, some gaming on my XBOX 360, actually I have been playing Dead Rising. Very fun, if you like just mowing down zombies with anything you find be it swords, knives, cd's, plates, benches, etc, you can use it as a weapon. Pretty fun.

Now I am typing this on Sunday evening. I ran out of time the other night, so I'll finish up now. Not a lot new. This weekend has been pretty uneventful. Last night Alicia and I got to go out for dinner by ourselves, we had a sitter for Dillon. We went to Addison's downtown. Good food, and good beer too. I had some New Belgium 1554 black ale, tasty. Don't tell my team!! today was laid back, rode my rollers for a bit, my first ride in a while. I finally got my new tattoo finished up mostly, i have a 1/3 sleeve on my right arm now. I'll post some pics soon. We ran into Brian Dziewa's sister Anne out at the mall today, she said he is heading out to California. Lucky kid!! I am looking forward to riding my bike, just not in this freezing temperature. Dillon is doing good, growing like crazy (isn't that what kids are supposed to do?). Alicia is doing well too, se has been running a ton and is getting into good shape, prolly better shape then me. I she is planning another half marathon in April, I'm sure she will do good with as much as she is running. I still have a bunch of pics I need to post. I'll do that soon. What else...I have been running my rc cars some, they are fun to tinker with, I've been changing a lot of stuff around motor wise with them and doing some tweaking getting them to run faster. Thats about all I have for now. Bye!!

Sorry

Yah, it has been a long time since I posted. Sorry. Lots have been going on, so here is a quick recap. Christmas was good, even with all of the traveling. Dillon was a blast, it was fun watching him open all of his presents. We had way too much stuff to bring home from our travels. Alicia and I were both on vacation the week of Christmas, so that was nice getting to hang out together. I also rode a little too. Before Christmas, I went wto the Boulevard Brewery for KCOI's end of year party. I went to meet some of my future teammates, I am riding with them this year. Should be fun. They are a great bunch of guys, so I am really looking forward to that. I have been lifting a lot, actually I have been doing that since last September so I'll need to see a plumber because my pipes are bursting ;) New Years eve the Kippenbergers came and stayed with us. We watched Jackass2. quite funny. What else...actually not a lot. Just the usual, work, dad, etc. I have a bunch of pics to post in the next couple of days so stay tuned.

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.