Things that sound good in theory

Before I get to the meat of the post, I thought I'd post one of my favorite pictures I've taken lately. It was Sunday morning's mountain bike excursion. If this doesn't look close to perfection to you, I suggest you need a new outlook on things!



Now for the rest of the story. I broke free from work a shade after 4 hell bent on making it down to PRC's last Ritual Ride of the year. I'd also made up my mind to head from the end of that ride down to Giff's in Valley Junction to meet the guys for tacos and beer. After that, I'd saunter my way back home for a shower and passing out in bed. It sounded like a great plan. Actually in most ways it was. However, I learned a good lesson that things don't always go together no matter how good they might be individually.

The Ritual Ride was good and 1 loop was plenty for this out of shape guy. I hooked up with Lou for an extra mile in Water Works on the way out which put us about a 1/2 mile behind the main pack as we hit the road. Of course it was no issue for him to bridge the gap, but it took me about half the lap before I could latch back on. We worked some hills and I got a chance to chat with Kelli about her mountain bike aspirations... I split off as we hit 63rd and made my way towards sweet refreshment in the form of cheap tacos and beer.

My gluttony got the best of me as I ordered 2 tacos and washed them down with a couple tall boys of Old Style. All told, I was still out of there for $10. I hung out with the muddy yet happy taco riders and sat in on the CITA meeting. At this point I was fat and happy, but I still had 8 miles to roll back home in the dark. We left as a group, but split up shortly after hitting Grand leaving me to wind my way home alone. No biggie as I was outfitted with a blinky and headlight.

After hitting the Grand hill and trying to keep the pace a little above a slog, my stomach and legs started to rebell. I eased my way on home which involved a couple more decent climbs, but thankfully some descent as well. Once home, I pretty much lapsed into a lactic coma as I collapsed on the couch for a bit. I headed to the showers where my dinner choices began to make me rethink my decision of going for a 1 to 1 ratio of tacos to beer. I opted to head to bed as quickly as possible to hopefully avoid any more discomfort by sleeping it off.

My lovely wife comes home and finds me in bed and decides to proposition me. As my grumblings hadn't passed quite yet, we opted for door number 2 which was to see if she could arouse me out of a sound sleep when she was ready to come to bed. Somewhere around the stroke of midnight, I was awakened in what can only be described as the best way possible. However, I was still suffering somewhat so I soldiered on the best I could. What's a guy to do?! After fulfilling my "obligation" I was back to bed.

So to recap- Ritual Riding- good, Tacos and Beer- good (in moderation), being woken up to perform sexual acrobatics at midnight- good. Toss everything together and mix them up and you've got a recipe for feeling out of it, seating through the night, and the expected result of eating tacos and drinking cheap beer... Not quite the perfect mix of activities, but I'd still rate the night a success.

Doubling up

Disclaimer: if you don't want to read about my sex life stop here.

OK, that's out of the way so on to the good stuff. I never thought I'd be tired of or too tired to really enjoy sex. It's an amazing thing when your body basically just says fuck it and you're only going through the motions to get done in a timely fashion so you can get back to sleep.

We've been trying something new lately. The idea was spawned over a topic that made it's way onto one of the morning news shows, Today, Good Morning America, or something. In any case, it was about a couple that made up their mind to go something like 100 days in a row with being intimate with each other. The topic popped up on one of the forums we're on and they were discussing the merits. Much to my aplomb and whole hearted agreement, my beautiful wife suggested that maybe we try to make sure we have some intimacy every day as a trial run. Damn, you could've scraped my jaw off the floor. How often do you get a gorgeous gal to tell you she wants to F you every day for a 2 week period just to see what it's like?!

Damn, it's tough work. Life most definitely will conspire to kick your ass when you think you're going to pull one over on it. Of course you've all read my bitching about work sucking lately and so on and so forth. Well, couple that up with the mandatory early morning rising, wanting to ride my bike, the need to have some family time, and it's tough finding time for nooky. Let alone finding time for it on a daily basis. So, ya, we've skipped a couple days in there, but last night was the first actual attempt that fizzled out. The idea sounded great, but the action definitely wasn't the hot, sweaty, bang my head against the wall shit that fuels you up for the next time. Hell, it wasn't even the let me look soulfully into your eyes and feel our bodies intertwine sex. Nope, this was the ok lets put tab A into slot B, push it in, pull it out, rinse and repeat. Yup, we pulled the plug on that shit once we both fully accepted it wasn't going to get any better. Surprisingly enough, I really didn't care that we stopped in the middle.

Overall though, with the exception of making my sleeping hours even shorter, it's been a damn fun ride. I'm hoping we make the effort to keep it up even after our 2 weeks are up. We've had some fun and I think we're shooting to put some variation into our routine as well which would be a huge shot in the arm in my humble opinion.

Color me red

Well, for several reasons the title of this post is appropo. I haven't written for over a week, last night was the first time I rode in a week, the last ride I did was through a place call Red Rock Canyon, and I also managed to get my first sunburn of the year on the last ride.

With our trip to Vegas, there hasn't been a lot of time to write. We spent an awesome four days in Vegas at the International Lingerie Show. We usually hit this show every year as it's the best way to see the new lines, explore for new vendors, and get some face time with existing vendors. This show proved to be no exception. We went out in search of expanding our selection for our mens line and our plus size line. We found some great vendors for both items and have new products coming to review.

We also had some face time with our favorite vendor of lotions, candles, and oils. This company kicks some serious ass in the quality of their product. We actually talked to them about doing some private labelling and becoming a distributor. The buy in amount is quite a bit larger than what we currently work with, but we'll get the advantage of buying at an even lower cost and having our name on the label. It's a definite risk, but we feel like this is one set of products we can really get behind and sell. We're going to start targeting some of the local businesses to see if they're interested in carrying them. Another bonus with our name on the label, it helps to advertise for us as well.

We had some seriously good eats while in Vegas. I think it's pretty hard not to find good food out there as long as you're willing to pay the price. Sunday was a BBQ joint in the Rio called RUB, Monday was mexican at Isla at TI, and Tuesday was Tao at the Venetian. Wednesday was the only letdown as we went for cheap on a friend's recommendation and headed off the strip to Ellis Island which is home to the steak and eggs combo. Definitely cheap food considering the most expensive thing was $11, but the food left a lot to be desired as it wasn't much beyond what you'd expect at a typically greasy spoon diner. Definitely a you get what you pay for place.

We did our typical walk the strip, wander through a few hotels, and gamble a little here and there. We typically like to spend a couple hours in O'Sheas casino as our favorite little dive to gamble in. Our luck was definitely off this time though as we shelled out around $150 in way less than an hour on the tables so we headed out fairly quickly. We wandered through the sister property to the Venetian, but I'll be damned if I can remember the name of it. It's just another rediculously huge and ornate over the top Vegas embellishment, but still cool to walk through and envision the cost of such a spectacle. We wandered through the stores and fingered many things that were way beyond our meager means. Damn, I can't see how they can get those prices even in Vegas.

We did get our gamble on back at our home hotel which was the Gold Coast. Great place to stay as the rooms are cheap at $60, it's across the street from our convention at the Rio, the have a free strip shuttle bus, and the rooms are pretty decent as well. This was our 3rd time there and we'll definitely be back again. We really hadn't gambled much there putting our preference on our strip favorite. This time we had some luck though with Miranda nailing $100 profit on the roulette table (her favorite) and me playing for 3 hours at blackjack and still walking away ahead a meager $20. Of course we only play for entertainment, so any money we actually win is just a double bonus.

Beyond that, we got some much needed time alone together. Of course we called and checked on the little one several times every day, but hey, we still had Vegas all to ourselves. The boost of one on one time definitely helped to recharge the sex life. We even had a chance to check out a new set of very light bondage cuffs given to us by a rep from Fun Factory. It's a new line they're coming out with to expand upon their all ready great toy line. They were fun while they lasted for all of about 5 minutes. The first minor pull against the cuffs sent the chain whipping past her head as it pulled through the silicone tab. Ah well, just a hiccup in the process and didn't slow us down much.

That about sums up Vegas. Sex, excess, and some indulgence. A great way to spend a few days. I'll catch you up on the next installment with my ride through Red Rock Canyon and some other fun things.

More catch up please

Since you all asked so nicely, oh hell, who am I kidding, nobody asked, but I'll tell you anyways. Here's yet another post dedicated to sitting back in the old easy chair regailing you with tails of my past two years. Let's see, thus far I've covered family and cars so that leaves business and biking. Can I get a woohoo? No? How about a, oh hell, let's just start.

I posted a hint back when I first started this blog about going into an adult industry business. We threw around a bunch of different ideas and even went so far as to look at a few rental spaces. As we guessed, most shut us down before we got past the words "adult oriented". Considering our friends in LA had trouble finding a space, we weren't too convinced that we'd ever find anything here. So, scratch that idea and let's look at something else.

We now were considering doing home parties. Hmm, sex toy parties for couples? What's not to love. Well, other than the fact that we pitched it to various friends and most thought it was an ok idea, we'd be jumping right into competing with some various other established home parties that were catering to similar crowds. Albeit, these other companies target strictly women, we weren't so sure about following this line of thinking.

Now we were starting to get a bit daunted by this task. We were just so enamored with the way our friends set up this awesome business and seemed to enjoy all the freedoms and interests we could see ourselves enjoying as well, we knew we had to find our niche. As luck would have it, we were soon to find that niche. During a visit to our friends in LA, they invited us to attend a lingerie trade show in Vegas with them. From there, an idea was hatched. Why couldn't we do for lingerie what they were doing for sex toys: find quality pieces, give them a personal review and stamp of approval, price them reasonably, and most of all have fun with the process.

We were sure we'd have people beating their way to our webstore in no time flat. Heh, those are the dreams that launch and fail countless businesses. We did some homework, put together a loose plan of attack, and jumped in head first. We went to Vegas on our own, bought a number of pieces for review, met manufacturers, and picked out some product. That's the easy part. We didn't figure that learning how to build a webstore would be the equivalent of setting up a colony on the moon. With neither of us having any real experience with website building, e-commerce, or anything much more advanced than using email or posting pictures on an internet forum, it's been a struggle.

We enlisted the help of some friends and I dug in to do our research on e-commerce. After what seemed like an eternity, we pieced together what we felt was a good start to a website and a fair e-commerce store. We modeled it loosely after our friends site with the store being secondary to the main page of reviews. I'm still not sure if this was a good idea or not, but it's up and running. We did a soft launch in January of 2007 in hopes of hitting the Valentines Day rush. Alas, our dreams of orders flowing through the door as soon as we hit the "open store" button were quickly dimmed. We're still plugging away though and working to make our store a success. We think the idea is the right way to go and eventually we're hoping to build a loyal base of customers along with a rock solid reputation built on quality, fast shipment, and excellent customer service.

Our future plans do include hosting some parties locally and a revamp of the store to make it fit better with our overall theme for the rest of the site. We even have a few ideas up our sleeves for some private label products. So, if you're still reading this and want to peruse the site, store, or even purchase something check out The Possibilities Room. I'll even throw in a bonus here. Use the word "blog" in the coupon code area when you check out and it will save you 15%.

Business Time

Oh ya, somewhere in all of this fun and frivality it was time to get busy. No, really, it was "business time"

Some guys at the local bike shop were listening to this one day when I stopped by. It wouldn't be nearly as funny if it didn't apply to so many people including myself at times. It's amazing we've managed to shorten and put so little effort into one of the things that should really be a focal point of relationships and something to really look forward to. There is an appalling lack of effort put in for so many reasons. I should know, I'm way too guilty of using them myself (when I get the chance). I can't even begin to count the times I've had the conversation in my head about knowing how I should be giving her a long hot massage, covering her body with kisses, or even just looking into her eyes more, only to have it replaced by a desire to get in, get off (both of us thank you very much, I'm not that cruel), and get to bed or busy doing all the other things that seem so damned important in life.

Wow, so this thing has taken on a totally different direction than I was thinking. As long as I'm ranting, I'm may as well keep right on going with the flow. Now something that gets me crazy is hearing about all sorts of ED problems, women in their 30's and older having all sorts of sexual revelations, complaining how their husbands no longer satisfy them, and how I think this all ties together. My theory is that guys tend to go through their mid to late 20's and 30's mostly in long term relationships. As such, we've all heard and I'm guessing at least a number have experienced the beg for sex routine. I think we tend to become so used to being shot down all the time, we accept it, and move on to other activities. I don't think there would be nearly as many middle aged guys doing so many other activities besides being a good partner if we'd just get sex without begging. Now to tie this whole idea together, since we don't get sex and turn our attention elsewhere, the women now feel like we're neglecting their needs since we're no longer begging for it. Then they hit that turning point in their life where they decide it's not time to play games anymore and actually want to have sex with us. Woohoo! Of course, our libido has been run over by the repeated bashings we've taken throughout our early years and now we're being asked to perform like an 18 year old porn star. It ain't gonna happen. Cue the ad for the side by side bath tubs and getting cock blocked by a surprise party. Bingo we have the perfect recipe for needing ED drugs.

So that's my crazy ass theory about why ED drugs, begging for sex, and long term relationships are all conspiring against us. It's a viscious circle I tell you. So recapping- ladies: say no a little less, guys: don't stop asking and pay a little more attention when it does happen. There's my public service announcment for the day. Oh and if you're looking for anything to spice up your love lives, check out the two stores I've listed on the left hand column. Freddy and Eddy are some good friends of ours and The Possibilities Room is owned by us. We actually set up our store after being inspired by our friends at F&E and to act as a compliment to the products they all ready offered.

The tradeoff?

It seems that there is always a tradeoff. In this case it happens to be my sex life for time spent working on my car. It never seems to fail, if I spend more than a weekend or two in a row and any time during the week working in the garage or more specifically on my car, the frequency of my sex life plummets.

I know there is at least one issue with not being able to spend time together during the time I'm spending working on other things, but I tend to wonder if there isn't underlying jealousy of some sort as well. To give you a bit of history, I'm a recovering car junkie! LOL, well at least that's how I like to put it. Let's just say that I spent a good deal of the first couple years of our marriage under the hood of a car and not under the hood of my wife. I learned the hard way that tends to lead to very bad issues with wandering wives. I am happy to say that it took us about a year to get things worked out, but once we moved past it, our lives were much more fulfilling.

The problem now is that there comes a point in time where I must invest certain amounts of time working on my car or cars in general as I have a side business that includes me building engines and modifying parts for cars. A couple of times a year I have some big shows, races, etc that I go to and that's usually preceded by some frantic rush for 2-3 weeks of working on finishing things up whether it be on my car or stuff I'm doing for other people. This flurry of activity usually hinders our time spent together and also the aforementioned sex life.

I guess I'm mainly just complaining because I can, but I don't see why the two have to always be connected. I really long for my wife to be a part of this hobby/business that is so important to me. Unfortunately I have yet to find a way to pique her interest in this subject. She will attend events with me and look at some of the nice vehicles or watch the races for a short amount of time, but she has no real interest in cars other than just to view them. Other than that, she stands around bored while I'm engrossed in talking to different people. Often it does involve technical subjects that I don't expect her to appreciate, but with some basic knowledge I know she could have a lot more fun at these events.

I'm pretty well resigned to the fact that I won't ever have her interested in cars other than keeping on me to get her classic mustang out and running. I really do plan to make the time to work on her car soon, but with everything else going on, I find it harder and harder to get additional time. I wonder if I'd suffer the same penalty of sex for working on her "fun" car? Hmm, I see a possible experiment coming. If I spend a copious amount of time on her car, is it still "car time" or does it count as "us time" since I'm working on something for her? I'll try to remember this and keep you guys updated.

Speaking of you guys, is there anyone out there? I haven't seen a single response yet. Not that I'm seeking to be blog of the year or anything like that, but it would be nice to know if there is anyone at least browsing occasionally. I might have to bug one of my blogger buddies and find out how to do a number tracker. Well, I suppose I've bored you enough for one huge post.

Cars and Sex

Could anything go more perfectly hand in hand? As promised I'll go a little bit into something my wife and I are looking at for a business opportunity. We've met up with a wonderful couple that have an online site and just recently opened a store that sells high end sex toys, massage oils, and various other enhancements to a healthy sex life. Unlike the typical "sex shop" this place is run by an awesome couple who do the best job at promoting healthy sexual relationships between partners that we've ever come across. In turn, their store has inspired us to try to partner up with them to some degree and look into the possibility of opening a similar shop in our city that is definitely lacking something like this. We want to create an atmosphere where all adults are welcome to come and seek both new and exciting things to try, but also to get advice, insite, and learn as well.

So while my lovely wife gets the opportunity to play with all of these great toys and of course share them with me, I get to help out in the behind the scenes. I'm very excited about the opportunities that abound and hopefully as things progress we'll get our own web site started and go from there with a store opening in the next 6-12 months if all works out.

I know that this may cut severely into my car hobbies, but at the same time it's going to also make sure that I need to turn more of the money I make from building motors and various modifications into this venture. I can't wait to see what we can come up with. Just for anyone that happens to be viewing my blog (I'm not sure if there is anyone even looking) I'll even post up a picture of my first foray into combining these two great things. Here is a toy that I've taken and I feel made better by powdercoating it:

It went from a polished stainless ring to this awesome shade of blue with just a little work. It's a bit odd taking orders from various people you've never met to customize what's basically a sex toy, but I guess it's all part of the business. For those who are wondering what this particular item is, it's a metal cock ring made by Gear, personalized by yours truly, and sold by our friends at Freddy and Eddy.

Let's hope this works. I'm very new at all of the html and other programming needed to make a fun blog! I really hope as time goes on I can learn more about making webpages and in turn make this site more visually stimulating as well.