Weekend Recap

Whew, judging by the number of people that swung by yesterday looking for something new, I probably better get off my ass and put something together! Yes, I'm one of those incessant people that actually looks at statcounter just to see if anyone has the slightest bit of interest in what I'm saying. Funny enough, a few people do, so who am I to disappoint you.

Actually, it's not for lack of activity that I haven't put anything down. Somewhat to the contrary and add in a day that mentally tried to kick my ass yesterday and it just wasn't a good combination. In any case, its all good.

Saturday I was really trying hard to put together a group to hit Climb Iowa. Miranda had bought me an all day pass including some lessons, gear, and the whole shebang. I figured I might as well put it to good use on a day that would make most people huddle for warmth inside rather than attempting to get some time in on my back. Funny enough, everyone seemed to be in a pretty quiet state this weekend so I found the Livestrong event at Jordan Creek. 3 hours of grinding it out on my trainer with a bunch of like minded people, what could be better?! Actually, I had about as good a time as you can when perched on your bike going nowhere, yet sweating buckets for 3 solid hours. I picked a nice spot out by the ropes so I could keep an eye on the onlookers to make sure I wasn't going to be rushed by some hot mom that was so turned on by spandex and leg fur she couldn't resist throwing me down and having her way with me right there... OK so maybe I'm exaggerating just a teensy bit. Actually, I figured it would give me easy access to the outside world if I needed a short break and would let me watch the people wondering just what kind of crazy soul would torment themselves with this kind of idiocy.

Funny enough, there were plenty of fellow idiots, err cyclists, just like me willing to sit and sweat for 3 hours. By all appearances there were 60+ of us packed in like sardines. The PRC girls were well represented and set up camp next to me which gave me some good conversation. It would seem I was the only guy racking the Death Squad Jersey, but at least we had someone there putting on a spectacle. I did manage just shy of 3 hours total time spent including a pretty killer 2 hour set followed up with a 1 hour zone 4 interval set. Ughh, I was definitely feeling cooked by the time I got done. A bottle of Heed, a couple hammer gels, and copious amounts of water barely covered the energy expenditure considering I skipped lunch due to the noon start time. Soon enough though we were done and loading back up. A good way to get a nice block of training time in for sure. It beat the hell out of forcing myself into the basement for yet another spin and netted me almost 60 miles as well.

Sunday was forecast to be another cold one and I really wasn't feeling the bike after Saturday. So, I hooked up with Pete for an hour jaunt through Raccoon River Park. We started off working the deepest snow we could find along the hiking trails. Luckily they were punctuated with a sweet fluffy layer of 3" powder from the night before and we weren't having to look too hard for resistance. On our first pass we joked a bit about walking out on the lake and Pete was pretty adamant about being able to do without that particular feat. Seems he's not the most comfortable on frozen water. I can't say as I blame him, but years of ice fishing must have tempered my fear a bit and I'm relatively comfortable on it. Even more so when we've had the temps as low as they've been lately and for most of the season. On the second pass we ventured out on the ice and captured some of the best powder, resistance, and pictures of our journey.

A couple hearty souls enjoying 8 degrees and -1 windchills!

Look ma, I'm standing on ice!

What, me worry?

We hit it relatively good for a solid hour before having to part ways. I had a driveway still calling my name while Pete was off to church. I bogged out on doing anymore workouts the rest of the weekend and carried that process right through yesterday. I did make it into the gym this morning, but yoga tonight is getting cut with nobody to watch little one. I should still get an hour+ on the bike tonight though after she hits the sack.

I'm off to land of northeast Iowa tomorrow (Dubuque) for work again and I hope I'll be back in time to keep up with my planned outdoor ride. At least the weather doesn't appear it will be working against me. Here's hoping.

Sledding the Den'

With forecast highs in the 400+ degree range, who could resist getting out for some action yesterday. Certainly not this cat or his family for that matter. We all ready had a jam packed afternoon/evening with tumbling class going on, but what's cramming another activity in?!

We decided to get out and do a little sledding with Corley before the days of spring and summer fade away this whitewash we've got on the ground. Borrowing a spot scoped out earlier in the season by the Pottorrf's, we headed over to the levee trail next to Denman's. Funny, I was just complaining that they never plowed that trail and now that they have, I was back to wishing it was snow covered so I could pull little one all the way down to the sledding spot. Guess you just can't please some people.

She was pretty excited to be going down the big hill since her only other experience was just a little sidehill action in her aunt's yard. I took her for the maiden run in her new sled and she was squealing with delight. Pulling her back up the hill was a bit of fun, but we made it and then Miranda and I alternated for a few more rides down the hill. Corley tired of sledding pretty quickly which was ok by me as we didn't have to lug her back up the hill every time now. We had a little bit of time left so I headed us over to the Denmans entrance as neither of my ladies had been there before. It was time to show them at least a little bit of the trail we all love so much.





It was starting to get towards dusk and we still had tumbling class to run off to so we only went back to the first logover. Both of them had a great time and it gave me a chance to show off a little bit of why I love riding my bike out on the trails. Gotta get them back out for a hike through once the snow is gone and the sun is shining though. So much to see and love in the woods!

The rest of the night was a blur with tumbling class for little one, rushing home to grab a late dinner (we paid for that mistake), and I still managed to catch 45 minutes on the trainer. I bailed on the gym this morning though planning to hit Climb Iowa tomorrow. I thought it might be best to avoid a heavy leg workout right before trying my hand at rock climbing for the first time. Then I noticed this little post about a little indoor spin going on at the mall tomorrow with PRC. Hmm, sounds like a lot of fun and I could always use more time on my bike. Sheesh, what to do. It doesn't sound like I've got anyone really interested in going climbing and I was hoping to do that with some friends so I'm going to bail on that for now and save the gift certificate I have for another ugly day with no other prospects. See you guys spinning tomorrow!

Viva la taco ride

Long live the Taco Ride! Even if we can't hit the dirt, Gif's still serves up tacos every Wednesday night. Fuller and I met up for a couple hours of black label last night. I took off a bit early and scouted Denman's in hopes that the temps and people had collaborated to make a rideable trail. It was "rideable", but not what I'd call pleasurable by any means. It was in similar shape to the Big Creek snowmobile trails. You could move and get up on it, but resistance was huge and you'd better put your pressures way down to add some float. Considering we'd still be riding some pavement, airing down that low wasn't going to be much of an option so I bailed a few hundred yards in.

Rolled up the trail to meet Fuller at the junction of Clive and Windsor Heights greenbelt trails. We opted to roll down Clive way thinking/hoping the glare ice sheets would be mostly gone. It didn't matter much to me rolling on studs, but Steve on fat tires would probably be happier if we had a bit less ice. Ran into Kent coming back the other way and chatted with him a bit. He said that RRVT was snowed in so we probably wouldn't be heading that way even if we wanted. Little did he know that I (mostly) and Fuller are pretty pig headed when trying to get from point A to B. The connector portion from the greenbelt to RRVT was indeed snowed in and hadn't been plowed all season from the looks of it. We busted some trail and tried to dodge frozen footsteps by riding the deep powder on the sides of the trail. Eventually we ground our way up to the main trail only to find 1 short section had been plowed for a couple blocks and then it was back to nothing. At that point we threw in the towel and hit the road.

We opted to head through Country Club and follow the back end of my old west side road loop to hook back up with WDM trails over by the other bike shop on the west side. Fuller must've been going for some heroics as he opted to head back towards Rassy's where I parked in lieu of heading towards home at this point. Somewhere rolling along EP True I felt the need for some refreshment. Apparently we were sharing a similar thought and we headed to Gif's for tacos and beer. We capped off the evening with a couple other taco riders that showed up (albeit NOT on bike) in the form of Al and Hal. After drying our sweaty selves out for near an hour, we headed back to the shop and Fuller continued on home. A better way to kill 2 hours, I can't think of.

What to do?

Well, with the snowshoe bug having bitten pretty hard I started scouring the net to feed a possible addiction in its infancy. Luckily for me, there are no shortages of places that sell sweet snowshoes on the net. Now the problem was lack of fundalation. Solution: sell shit I don't need. Mission accomplished as I quickly sold a race car bucket seat that I'd bought way back in a former life when I had visions of tearing up the asphalt in my gas powered beast.

So, flush with a little cash, I'm now left in a bit of a conundrum. Do I go ahead and buy the shoes, assuming that I'll be able to get a bit more use yet this season and then hang them up until next year? Or, do I hold the cash for another purchase I've been eyeballing/needing for the upcoming MTB season? I'm sure I could rent or borrow some snowshoes to get me through a couple more outings this year, but I'm the type that prefers having my own equipment once I'm pretty certain that I be using it more than once or twice. I'm thinking I probably should grab onto the new bike shoes (I'll need them this year for sure) and wait until the snowshoes hopefully go on clearance at the end of the season and get them at that point where I'd be closer to paying for both with the proceeds from just the seat. Hmm, decisions decisions. So what are your opinions?

A night at the theater

A night at the theater, originally uploaded by Buckshot77.

Watching Spring Awakening at the Civic Center. Can't beat free tickets. Funny, my boss could barely give these away. I took them just to make sure they both didn't go to waste. I still couldn't find a taker for the other so I'm enjoying the theater alone.

Review:

Wow, I really wasn't sure what to expect from the show. I read the online description of the show being about teen angst and the changes/challenges that teens go through set in 19th century Germany with a rock musical score. What's not to love about that? It definitely sounded quirky if not interesting.

I was just blown away by the time the show was over. I've seen my share of musicals/opera- Rent, Phantom, etc and this one definitely had equal staying power in my book. The musical scores and songs were awesome and even have me looking to see if I can download a few onto the IPOD. How can you go wrong with a song entitled "Totally Fucked"?! I think anyone who's ever been alive has been to the point where they just know they're in that exact spot. Beyond that, they explored such controversial topics such as teen suicide, pregnancy, sex, and the trials of school. Somehow it all just worked and was polished perfectly. Even without the free tickets, having seen it, I'd recommend buying a ticket to go see it.

The cast included some powerhouse voices (duh, it was a musical), but I was truly enchanted by the power of some of them. One gal in particular was a recent high school grad and playing the character of Martha, had one of those voices that just penetrates to your core and leaves you wishing she had more solos. Hopefully, she'll eventually put something out on her own, but wow, what a voice.

That's about it. If you're into musicals or looking for a sweet night out, go see it.

Biking/Hiking/Snowshoeing

After enduring almost a week of super crappy temps and conditions, I think everyone must have been a bit stir crazy this weekend. There were no shortages of choice rides or activities to engage in.

Friday night I ended up staying at work until damn near 9 which sucked, but at least there was beer. Wow, amazing that Bud heavy will hit as hard as it does when you've been laying back just a little. I got home as the lingerie party was winding down and the ladies were all finished up. From all accounts it was a nice start to things and we'll see how the next real party goes since this was mostly a tester to get things straightened out. There's still time to get in on the next party for those interested, plus we're having a sale on a number of items including Valentine's stuff. Shoot us an email Miranda@thepossibilitiesroom.com if you're interested in coming or just want to check out the specials we've got going on. Most of our stuff is in stock so you can take it home or get it in just a day or two.

Saturday morning there was a group headed out to test the snowmobile trails at Big Creek. This seemed like a pretty good time from the other reports I'd seen so I headed out to meet up with the group at 9. Wait, scratch that, 10 AM was the new start time, but neither Sumpter or I had gotten the message. Ahh well, we pedalled off to find our own way around and got in close to an hour before the other guys started showing up. The first trail we hit started out as some steep ups and downs and I voted to bag it and head the other way thinking this couldn't possibly be right after climbing about the 3rd hill in a row. We headed to the east side of the lake and found some rideable trail over there. However, it wasn't long until we turned back west in an open section and were hit with major wind gusts and an open stretch that was drifted in. Scott was on a borrowed Pugsley and could only ride a portion, my skinny tires meant I was working on the hike a bike skill portion of snow biking. We pushed on for about a half mile or maybe more before I said screw it and headed back to meet the others at the truck. Scott turned back with me and was still riding much more than walking.

A few more showed up at 10, but the balance were running even later so the first group hit the trails, back into the hills. The downhills were a white knuckle blast, but walking up still sucked. They soon flattened out and I rode about 95% from here on out. I don't think the other guys fared as well since the discussion about bagging the trails got brought up pretty quickly. Fuller, Sumpter and I forged ahead of the main pack and made our way out onto the lake thinking we might ride across (my dumbass idea).

I smile because I have no clue...

Fuller and Sumpter wondering WTF am I thinking

I finally called it and decided it was time to turn back since I would have close to 2 hours by the time I got back and I had places to be. The tailwind once I turned south was pretty sweet, but even the upped pace still netted me an average of 6.2 mph for the ride! Talk about resistance work.

Tailwind riding on the way back was much more fun!

Sunday I had the idea to try out snowshoeing for the first time. Pete was gracious enough to let me borrow his spare pair. A couple other guys thought we might be onto something so 4 of us plus one happy little boy (Tank) took off for 45 minutes through Denman's. Talk about having a good time romping through the woods with 4 other guys and blazing your own trail. Man, I was having a blast. All too soon we headed back to the cars as some had church and others thought better of keeping little one's out much longer (definitely a good bet).

Denmans with Pete, Squirrel, and Marco w/Tank

Hmm, this is some fun shit!

Squirrel and I weren't ready to throw in the towel yet so we dropped Bianchi off at his place, reloaded on some water and headed off towards Brown's woods. I hadn't been through Brown's before so I was pretty stoked. We hiked a few hills and were thoroughly off the beaten path as we made our way to the river. We tromped around a bit and then headed back to the truck with another 45 minutes or so under our belts. What a killer way to get your morning workout.

Bigfoot!
Hiked back to the Raccoon River through Brown's Woods.

My legs aren't feeling too bad today. My calves are definitely the sorest, but nothing bad. I'm also feeling my hip flexors as well, but then again I topped things off with an hour on the trainer last night and hit the gym this morning too. I can definitely see some appeal for snowshoeing as a great alternate winter activity. You could definitely go shoeing in conditions that wouldn't be fit for biking (by most accounts). I'm all ready tossing the idea around of looking for a possible pair to pick up. I guess I need to unload some of my extra gear first to free up a little cash for that though. Anyone need a race car seat?

Bling for your ding

Well, the afternoon away from work was supposed to be spent working remotely from home. Ya, that didn't happen... Oops, sorry boss. I will be playing a little catch up later tonight and kicking some butt tomorrow though. The day definitely wasn't a waste though. I spent a bit of time playing in the garage making bling for your ding! Don't believe me, check it out.




These are a little project I've had cooking in my head for quite some time. They'll be going in our store soon and better still available to check out in person at our home parties. Yup, look for the Possibilities Room coming to a home near you! Actually, Miranda is just getting started with doing home parties and is hosting her first one at our place tomorrow (1/15) night. If any of you ladies would like to come or guys send your wives or significant others, shoot me an email- buckshot77@msn.com or post a comment here and I'll make sure to get you all the info. She'll have all sorts of food, spirits, games, and of course lingerie and toys to get the ladies prepped for a certain upcoming holiday. Of course there will be stuff available for guys as well (such as the above items), but she'll have to do the picking out as its ladies only.

Of course all this means I'm a man without a home for most of tomorrow night. Anyone up for an evening ride and or catching a good meal? I'm in the mood for some sushi actually. I did manage to get a few other small things taken care of today other than the bling. I actually have heat again in my truck which kicks all sorts of ass. Driving too and from work this morning with NO heat really sucked quite badly. Luckily it was just a slightly plugged heater core that needed a little flushing with the air hose. Beyond that I got our drive and walk blown off in preparation for company tomorrow night. I even got the hot tub chemicals adjusted.

Damn, I guess I was productive today! Ouch, I think I just pulled something patting myself on the back. Back to the grind tomorrow. I'm assuming they have the heat fixed, but I guess I'll find out in the AM. I need to hit the gym too as it should be my 3rd time for the week.

Its @#$%$&^ cold!

And not just outside. Check the shot of the hinge on my back door this morning.


Yup, that's a nice layer of frost. Never seen it quite that thick before. So, I jump in the truck and no heat for me! Yup, the heater core that's been giving me fits really doesn't work in -15 temps. Cold ride in, but at least I've got a warm office to relax in once I get there.
Oh wait, the fucking furnace is out at the office and the current temp is reading a balmy 45 degrees INSIDE the office.

Ya, I'm about ready to say screw it and head home for the day. I may or may not try to log in and work from home...

Got 2 hours on the trainer last night over at Pete's place (thanks man), but that seems a bit inconsequential right now.

I call bullshit

Wow, that was a completely and wholly unsatisfying experience. I'm in desparate need of some new boots this winter. Literally, my current boots are disintegrating as I wear them. The hard rubberized sole has completely pealed off the cushion foam layer underneath that it's not made to be walked on. So, every time I have to go out and snowblow or do something similar, the boots go on and I return with a little less soul (or is that sole)?!

I headed up to Sportsman's warehouse in Ankeny over my lunch. Considering they're about tied with Scheel's for having the biggest hunting gear selection in the metro, I figured it would be a safe bet they'd have not only some boots, but probably some decent closeout pricing. Wow, I'd have lost that bet. The salesman straight up told me that they had VERY few boots left in the sizes I was looking for. I'm not exactly Sasquatch at size 11-12, but too have about 4 total styles (of 40+ on the display wall) of my size is a pretty piss poor way to control inventory in my book. He said they got picked over pretty good during the holidays, but really couldn't give me a good reason as to why they didn't have any new stock.

Guess I'm off to the mart of wal, Scheel's, or some other place now to see what I can find. I don't need top of the line, but I wear them often enough in the winter that I'd like a good mid-range pair that's going to last me for a while and I don't see myself finding that type of boot at the majority of the big box stores.

Health and wellness

I finally drug my ass back out of bed in time to go to the gym this morning. It was a back, bicep, and leg day according to the calendar in my head. Actually, at this point, I went so infrequently last week, it really didn't matter what I did as long as I was there. I really want to get in 3 workouts per week- back, bicep, and leg as one workout, chest, triceps, and shoulder as another workout, and then depending on the week a full body or a repeat of one of the first two as my third workout. Add in an evening yoga class one night a week and a minimum of 3-4 times on the bike and it's a pretty decent training schedule I think.

I've been working on logging my exercise, activities, and food intake the last week on Fitday. So far I'm seeing a decent trend. For the most part as long as I'm exercising that day, I'm burning 400 or so more calories than I take in. Last week was a pretty laid back week and I still managed to shed about half a pound over the course of a week even though I fluctuated over a 3 pound spread throughout the course of the week. In reviewing my food log it really showed me that I need to lower my fat intake, my carbs are about right, and I'm doing pretty good on getting protein in my diet. I think a few more fruits and veggies mixed in will probably help the fat intake as long as I use them to replace a few fatty snacks. One really surprising thing for me was one of the worst foods I ate last week. Squirrel made up a roast last week that I'd provided for a dinner. That thing was packed with a huge amount of calories and fat per serving. According to their pre-entered information a 10 oz portion has 756 calories and 49 grams of fat! Holy shit! For reference a Wendy's classic double cheese burger has 747 calories and 44 grams of fat. Damn, I could've eaten a cheeseburger and been better off. I guess that's what the food log is for: learning what foods are good or bad.

On the other side of the coin, we had black bean and zucchini quesadillas last night. Damn they were good with just a little sour cream, salsa, and shredded cheese added in. A full on serving that left me full had a whopping 400 calories and about 10 grams of fat. Definitely the way to go, not just for me personally, but as a family and probably nation. I saw a news report last night that for the first time the percentage of people labelled "obese" is higher than that of people labelled "overweight". It's hardly any wonder that our health costs are skyrocketing. We're eating ourselves to death literally. The total number of people either overweight or obese was now at 66% of the population. That's just sad.

I consider myself pretty lucky that I decided enough a couple years ago and have dropped almost 30 pounds from where I was. I have no doubt that if I hadn't jumped whole hearted into biking, I'd probably be pushing over 190 by now if not closer to 200. Even at 183 I think I was getting pretty chunky so I can't imagine what another 10-20 pounds would have looked like. It's an amazing thing what a little exercise will do. I dropped 25 pounds just through exercise. I really haven't even been watching what I eat until recently. Fast food was an almost daily occurrence and (bad) snacks were plentiful. Really, my goal now is just to drop a few more pounds and turn the remaining fat into some lean muscle. That's where the new way of eating (not a diet) and adding in some more focused exercise should come in handy. Hopefully a few of you will be keeping pace with me.

A line in the sand (err snow)

So many possible titles for this and so little time. Yesterday was finally time to draw a line in the snow and show someone who's boss. That particular someone is our favorite trail we love to hate because it acts like a rebellious teen during the winter- Denman's. This year and last as soon as it was decently rideable we got ice on the trails and they pretty much become impossible to ride. That's been the case for over a month now.

I was fed up with not being able to ride since the trails had been basically a sheet of glare ice. The 6" of snow we received Saturday gave me some hope. Apparently, nobody else shared my optimism though as Sunday rolled around to find me heading out for some solo miles. I knew I was in for a treat when just riding the paved levee trail from Railroad brought me down into the little ring. I slowly made my way to the back entrance while wistfully looking at the cross country ski tracks paralleling the trail. All good so far. I dropped off the trail down towards the entrance. Glare ice under 6" of snow does not make a rideable surface when it's on any type of slant! I quickly realized this as I slid and crawled my way past the culvert to the edge of the woods. I was determined one of us was going to cry uncle and give up the ghost today.

Exit from Denmans to Dirty Express (I rode backwards)


I finally started crawling my way through the woods. Resistance and stability were the game today. Little ring up front and damn near the granny in the back as I spun along at 3-5 MPH for the most part. In the spots where I was riding just the snow, it was great. However, there were a ton of spots where it was still crunchy and chunky underneath along with the icy layer. Those spots really drug on. I quickly mastered getting a push off and jamming on the pedals to keep my momentum going to start back up after I'd ground to a stop. That is to say, I was stopped on a pretty regular basis. One of the bigger problems I had was out in the flats where the trail and surrounding forest floor were equally coated. I couldn't pick out the line and managed to get off course a few times.

Blank slate, which way to go?


Sometimes it was a bit more obvious where to go.


You could take a run at most little pitches, but ended up walking them anyway.


Hike a bike was pretty regular today.


The skinny is looking a bit lonely.


Happy camper out on the trail.


I kept upright more often than not though I did have a couple ugly spots. I fell over in one spot and caught my lower leg between a log and the bike. That one will definitely leave a mark for a bit. Other than that, the worst spot on the whole trail was the gully crossing just before you get to Little Italy (if you're riding forward). The ice jam backup a couple weeks back pushed chunks up in this area and left some on the downhill slope. I fell on my face several times trying to crawl up it and push my bike up as well. Add in that there are decent sized holes in between the chunks and it's all covered in 6" of snow and it's a recipe for crashing and broken ankles. Be careful!

Finally, I rolled to the end of the trail. Almost an hour down to get from one end to the other, but I made it and was still smiling. Not to mention I captured one of my favorite shots.

Favorite.


The ass-kickin' machine.


Damn that was fun?!


I crab walked my way up to the top of the levee and found the worst trail conditions yet! I gave up and walked the last 50 or so yards out to Valley Drive as I rolled over to Squirrel's place for a quick warm up. He was just getting ready to head out for some gravelly goodness so we rolled down Railroad together.



I hear his knee was bugging him from running the other day so he had to bail on the ride. That sucks! Get some rest and ibuprofen on it man and hit it hard later this week. Sounds like we're in for some wild weather again.

All in all (not calculating today's snow), I'd say Denman's is rideable, but you're going to have to walk a decent amount and work on your handling like crazy. I have my computer set to not record any movement under 2.5 MPH and stopped to try and rest it half-way through yesterday since it was not recording in a number of spots. I was actually still riding those spots, but moving that slow! I think if we got about a half dozen or so more tracks through there it would created a packed track with a lot more traction. However, getting those tracks through there will probably suck mostly beyond belief. Hope to see some guys out there soon. Oh ya, I know I was off course a few times so feel free to ignore my line in those spots.

Tumbling through life

Friday commenced with the ball busting again at work. Up, out the door, and on the road at 5 to head up to the land of ringing bells and buzzers otherwise known as a casino again. I'm not really excited about digging into the 2nd one in a row for me. They're a bit of a drag in terms of how quickly they want/need stuff done, so it's almost always guaranteed to be a testicle squisher. I finally wandered back home at 5 last night which was luckily before any of the weather started coming in so thank goodness for small favors.

Thursday night on the other hand was a complete opposite. It must have been a helluva good time because 2 guys that like nothing more than to snap pictures of their activities and ladies didn't manage to get a single pic taken all night. We boogied over to see the Pottorff's for some killer home cooked roast beef and fixins. Damn was that tasty (my part of the equation was pretty easy). The girls got a chance to get reacquainted and were palling around before long at all.

We all shot the breeze for a bit and then it was off for tumble tots. Basically you get a bunch of toddlers, add some gym mats, a few fun and goofy activities and play for a half hour. Pretty good stuff in my book. The girls had so much fun the weren't quite ready for the night to end and I was definitely agreeable with that. So we stopped back by for them to help wear each other out a bit more and finished off a killer evening. You just can't ask for much more.

Pushing lead

I bolted out of work like a shot last night at 4 bells straight up. The bike was all ready in the truck and I was dressed for riding. I guess you could say I was a bit anxious to actually ride my bike and make forward progress. I guess hours on a trainer does that to a guy.

I met up with Squirrel, Conlan, and Gov'ner to get the show on the road. We got moving somewhere around a quarter to 5 and headed off towards the WDM trail system. No real plan was laid on where we were going or how we'd loop back, we all just wanted the same thing: time on the bike outside. As I'd actually ridden the trails most recently, I proposed we head off towards the Windsor Heights trail system and on towards Douglas.

As luck or timing would have it, we met up with Fuller and Kent just as they were attempting to figure out where we were.
(Photo stolen from Squirrel)


They'd just ridden through the icy death trap further up the trail (and the direction we were headed). Fuller was obviously traumatized from this experience and opted to take surface streets around to the other side of the ice rink we were about to encounter. I can't say as I blame him one little bit and might even have joined him with the exception that I was riding studs and would forever have been labelled a wuss of epic proportions... The only mishap came as Gov'ner wiped out on a sheet of ice a bit further up the trail. A quick pee break just after crossing I-80 led to a break up in the group when our fearless leader failed to realize that a few guys were taking a bit more time with their urine slinging. As we rolled south on 128th, it was down to Squirrel and I as Fuller bailed towards home and Kent had bid adieu before that. Conlan and Gov didn't see us make the turn and decided to tour through some of the more grandiose neighborhoods just north of Hickman.

Unfortunately, we didn't realize this was their plan until we'd all ready climbed the grade from Hickman south towards University. A quick call and we headed back down the hill to pick up the other two guys before heading back up again. It was time to stretch my legs a bit going up the hill and I just held a nice strong gear and pushed up. I was winded as we crested the top, but not dying by any means and actually felt better the 2nd time up the hill. Maybe this training stuff actually works?! Who knew?

After that it was turn tail and set sail towards home with a nice cross tail wind out of the northwest most of the way. We struck back on the black label as soon as we could and pulled it clear down to Valley Junction. Squirrel peeled off leaving the 3 of us heading back to Conlan's. We hit the hill climb back up to Polk Blvd and I held the pedal to the metal again and grunted my way up to the top. Considering I'm hauling a metric shitload of extra weight with the heavy studded knobbies that roll slow plus tubes over my summer setup on the bike, damn that was a good grunt.

A killed off the night with a big ole bowl of homemade chili, a well earned beer, and even a nice soak in the hot tub for a bit. Of course all that lead to a later than anticipated bed time and me opting out of the call of the gym this morning. I guess you can't win them all!

Happy Birthday!

To my awesome wife. I hope your day is great. Can't wait to spend some time with you tonight. Love you!


And lest I forget, happy birthday to the other's celebrating today- my big brother, our good friend's twin girls, and last but not least Elvis. Hope you all have a great day too. Well, at least everyone but Elvis as I don't think his days vary too much, that is, unless he's really not dead... HMMMM

Introducing toes to fingers

Another session of yoga down last night. I actually worked up a sweat this time. I don't know that the moves/poses were any harder this week versus last, but I tried harder to keep my core under tension plus I was just coming off 50 minutes on the bike so it helped to keep the blood pumping a bit more.

I noticed a couple things. My hamstring flexibility is all ready getting better. I'm sure it doesn't hurt that I've been making sure to stretch them good after cycling plus the yoga. So, I can touch my toes without straining and actually start to get my fingers down on the floor. My eventual goal would be to put my palms on the floor, but I think that's a ways off yet. Other than that, I noted my right hip flexor and IT band are pretty dang tight. So tight in fact that anything involving both legs showed the right leg sitting significantly higher off the floor than the left. I got a few stretch recommendations from the instructor after class to help with that range of motion too.

While I don't think I'm quite hooked to the point of buying my own yoga mat, it's been fun and I'm planning on keeping up with it. Miranda and I also designated it as our joint night at the gym. While we didn't get to the gym to do anything before class, it was still nice having an hour to stretch and just be by each other. Truly the class length and interest level is about perfect considering I didn't look at the clock and wonder when we'd be done until our hour had actually passed.

The plan is to catch a couple hours outside on the bike tonight. I'm REALLY looking forward to being outside. Sure sweating away on a trainer hasn't become complete hell yet, but actual movement is nice, plus I can switch up bikes too. I'm excited to see how the fitting on the mountain bike goes this Saturday. I've changed just a few basic things since buying it, but I'm toying with the idea of flipping the stem back to a more aggressive stance. As long as I'm talking fitting, thus far, the fit has been pretty good on the road bike. I think I might tweak the saddle tilt a shade to bring the nose up a hair more as I notice I'm sliding forward slightly. I'm also planning to talk to Adam about my right hamstring feeling a little tight now compared to the left one. Might need a minor cleat adjustment.

Power

I've actually been on my bike lately, I just haven't felt much like writing about it over the holidays. Actually, I was asked politely last night by my darling wife if I was becoming obsessive about exercise/biking. I don't' think she understands quite yet that I'm actually just trying to ramp things up to the point where I'm close to the recommended training hours from the various plans I've looked at. Most of the guys I ride with hit anywhere around 10-15 hours on the bike plus workouts on top of that. I'm sitting right at 6 hours on the bike with a few workouts sprinkled in. I think it's mostly just an adjustment period in lieu of seeing my laid out on the couch with a beer watching the game to sweating my butt off sitting on a chunk of carbon fiber and vinyl.

Back to New Year's Day. The Nth degree ride was a pretty good time. Temps were conducive to getting not only a decent amount of mileage in, but also to enjoy the ride. The winds were a bit breezy and chased us from tail, to cross, to head as we transversed our way up to Granger and back. 26 miles in total with some nice hard efforts sprinkled in on my part. I helped push the pace up a bit on the way back with just 3 or 4 of us hanging out up front for the most part as we got into Grimes and stopped for a quick regroup. After that it was the last little push back into Johnston and time for me to head out. The few efforts felt pretty good with having had some time on the trainer to keep my legs in shape.

Most of the group descended upon Casey's in Granger:


The rest of the day was spent chasing the idea of going ice fishing, but due to a certain lack of planning, we never made it out. Hopefully I'll get out once this year as I don't think I even made it out on the ice (at least to fish) at all last winter.

Friday had me back at work and I self prescribed a rest day before Saturday's effort rolled around. I packed up my road bike, gear, and headed off to the shop for my fit. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting other than I wanted to hopefully gain a bit more power and stability on the bike. Donny had fit me well over a year ago on that bike and I really hadn't made any changes since. Adam ran me through the gamut of tests for flexibility , leg length, and a ton of different information to plug into the computer. After that it was off to the races with doing some changes in my footbeds, cleat placement, wedges, and shims. According to the original model, I really wasn't that far off so fear not, Donny did a good job on my fit. Adam just has the tools to take it to the next level and that's what we did.

We moved my seat position up about 1 cm and forward about 1.5 cm. Beyond that, we maintained stem length and height so no further aggressiveness was dialed into my position. The main issue I've got is that while I have some flexibility, I am on a bike with more relaxed geometry so it doesn't necessarily take to being in an aggressive stance. Kind of like bolting a huge wing on your Yugo. Might look interesting, but that's about where the advantages stop. One of the things I wanted to do was a power test checking out before and after fitting measurements. We didn't make this happen, but I did get the after test done.

The power test consisted of a warm-up, then steady state intervals at 80-95 RPM, with a 4 minute window to hold the power, 1 minute recovery, and then upping the wattage to the next level. Rinse and repeat until you can't maintain the wattage/RPM for the 4 minutes and then take your information and plug it into this chart. While I was hoping for better, I can't really complain about the outcome being at the very beginning of actual training. According to the chart, my power to weight ratio is 3.8watts/kg. With the handy dandy little comparative chart, this plunks me right in the middle of what is supposed to be Cat 4's. Not too shabby, but I've got a long ways to go. Of course as Donny posted up when doing similar test on the PRC ladies last winter, it's just a number. Your goal through training is to increase that number, but in regards to actual race performance it means less than zero. It only shows how well you do on the test. In any case, I got what I wanted which is a base number to start from. In addition, it gave Adam a chance to learn more about the computrainer in the shop so hopefully he can start offering a few more expanded services to go along with his fittings. One final bit of info I found interesting was that I was able to push my heart rate to 195 during the test. Previously, I'd only managed low 180's as my max indoors. I definitely felt like I was at the beginning of the puke zone when we got done.

I spun things out Saturday night for an hour and then hit Lou's power house on Sunday morning for another hour and a half sweat fest along with another hour last night. I finally got some entertainment set up in the basement in the form of a DVD player and what a difference that makes. Sure the IPOD is great, but you can only listen to it and the sound of your heart pounding for so long before it becomes too monotonous. I flipped on Walk the Line and watched the first hour of it last night, much better!

I've been neutered (the other ball dropped)

Or at the very least I've lost my balls for the time being. I've had a sneaking suspicion this was going to happen for a while. My fast living and hard drinking were bound to catch up with. I'd been one-balling it for quite some time, but little did I know that I'd end up completely ball-less yesterday. Yup, you guessed it, the second ball on my beloved nipple ring finally fell off and I'm assuming rolled down the drain. Drat, now I've got to go pick up a new one.

For those of you with body jewelry, I'm sure you understand my pain. It's not just a simple choice. You've got to head to a number of different stores, check out all the latest and greatest items, see how many different colors are available, and then agonize over how you want to accessorize your body. So, it's off to the mall and time to start checking over selections lest the entire bar drop out and then I'm really hosed.

One good thing is that with the popularity of body piercing (I had mine before it was cool dammit) I can go to no less than 5 or 10 different places in most shopping malls and have a pretty decent selection to browse through. Any of you have some input on what types of jewelry you like?

Stiff as a board, light as a tank

Isn't that the name of the old game we played as kids? If not, it's close enough for me. That's pretty much how I felt during my first yoga class in years and years last night. I have roughly the flexibility of a geriatric patient that's been strapped to a back board. We did some poses and moves last night that roughly resembled me trying to stick my head up my own ass. I had about the same success level in either case.

On the plus side, I drug Miranda along with me and we're designating Tuesday as our gym night together and planning on keeping up with the yoga as well. It's actually offered 2 nights a week, but for the time being, we've all ready got plans for the other night with Corley starting in on tumbling class. Actually, I rather enjoyed the stretching and most of the moves. Due to my bad knees and lack of range of motion, there were definitely some painful spots, but nothing too bad. I got about the same feeling when done as a deep tissue massage- slightly beat up, but all worked out. Now we just have to see how it helps out with my core and flexibility.

Score one for me on making good on my self promise to work harder on staying in shape this winter. I've been on the bike twice this week and in the gym three times all ready. I'm actually a bit sad I won't make it out on the bike tonight for my standing Wednesday night ride. I do plan to hit the Nth degree ride that DMCC is putting on for New Years Day. See Lou's post for more details on the when and where.

Saturday I'm planning on doing the first of three bike fits (redo the road bike, MTB, and cross bike) with Adam at Rassy's. The plan (in my head) is to do something of a two pronged approach to the fitting. Adam seems pretty eager to get more information and more experience and I'm looking for some baselines in various areas. My thought is to go do a heart rate and wattage test using their computrainer before the fitting. Then we'll proceed with the fitting since I won't need any real power to do my pedalling there, it's mostly a form issue. Then, when we get to the next fitting, I'll bring my road bike in again and redo the power test. Hopefully we'll be able to analyze and see some true gains from the fitting. Since I'm scheduling the fits only a week apart, I don't think my training will really affect the overall numbers as long as I take a rest day before the fit/test.

Overall, I'm pretty excited in regards to some personal life plans I've got for this year. Work still isn't making me all tingly, but then again, that's why it's called work. I wish all of you (still reading at this point) a Happy New Year and I'll see you on the flip side.

Christmas Recap

First off, I hope you all had a great Christmas and got to enjoy the time with family, friends, or however you wanted. I'd say we had a pretty fulfilling year for our family.

Things really started rolling Wednesday around noon. I boogied out of the office early and headed home to put the ham in the oven and grab a few supplies before taking off for the shop's low key party. There was a ton of food, good beer, and good friends. I sharpened my pool game up just a little against Squirrel and Conlan. We shot the breeze and had a great time. All too soon, I had to get headed out though as we had family coming over for Christmas Eve celebrating.

I jumped in and helped Miranda and my brother finish cleaning things up and then started setting up the table. While the basement isn't the greatest place in the world for a dining room and family room, our remodel efforts from last year make it pretty inviting when it's all set up.


Even Corley was dressed to the nines for the occasion.


With both our families gathered round, we enjoyed a great meal and then swamped Corley with presents. Fortunately, both our families listened pretty well this year and didn't buy a ton of stuff and mostly bought things that she could use or were learning toys of some sort. We try hard to keep the Grandparents in check when it comes to buying superfluous crap (toys) that serve no purpose and are forgotten almost immediately. They did a pretty fine job this year. Corley was definitely into opening presents more this year and is beginning to be more aware that its a festive celebration. We wrapped things up relatively early, but Corley didn't go down until well after 9 due to being so hyped up, but she did put out cookies and milk for Santa.

After she bedded down, I had a couple presents left to wrap and engaged in the age old dad's pastime of assembling things on Christmas Eve. At least this year it was just a simple bookshelf and done in half an hour. Last year it was a full on play kitchen that took a couple hours (I know how you feel Squirrel). After that it was on to bed after scarfing down the cookies and milk of course!

Christmas morning was pretty low key. Corley slept in until after 9 and we followed suit. Soon enough I'm sure we'll be doing the buttcrack of dawn deal. We had some breakfast and then it was time for more presents. Obviously Corley scored the most as we have tried to get away from buying much for each other. Miranda hand made a ton of things for Corley this year; everything from felt play food (a hole picnic setup) to a full on chef's outfit with hat, apron, and gloves. Corley absolutely loved them and wanted to go play as soon as they were opened even though she had more left. She also got a fairy dress for her pretend play that was pretty darn cute.


I scored pretty well with the things I received. Miranda got me an IPOD Nano which will help on my trainer rides, a gift certificate for a full day of climbing and gear rental at Climb Iowa (big surprise on that one), and a few small things. My bike lights I bought earlier were also a chunk of my gifts as well. Miranda got a new sewing machine to replace her death rattling old one, the first 2 seasons of Heroes, and some other odds and ends. All in all a good haul for everyone! We snapped a great picture to celebrate before settling down to relax away the rest of the day.


Friday Corley and I headed over to do some sledding at her aunt's house in the morning and played with some cousins.






Conlan, Gov'ner and I got out in the late afternoon for a slush filled ride as the day turned into a soupy mess on the trails. At least they were rideable! We finished off with some hills and site seeing back south of Grand until John blew out a tire. None of us had patches or a spare tube so I headed off to grab my truck while they started hoofing it towards his place. Not the greatest end, but still a nice ride for almost 2 hours. Saturday and Sunday were pretty much lazy days though I did manage to get some more bike time in on the trainer. Now its back to work for a few days and then off for a day before finishing out the week. Fun fun!

Black death

Or maybe not... I used to view ice as a waiting death trap. After quickly finding out how easily a bicycle loses traction and crashes on ice last year, I gained a healthy, if not a bit fearful respect for the black death. Low tire pressures, puckered cheeks, and smooth steady pedal strokes were the remedies of choice for me. I still managed to wipe out more times than I care to remember last winter.

Last night I just had to answer the call to get back outside. In a feat of hopelessness, I first tried to check out Denman's. The levee trail was a mess of frozen icy tracks that were basically unridable so I peered over the edge to the entrance line close to the creek. Hmm, I saw a solitary track through the snow that looked like it might be rideable. I plunged over the edge and immediately began a slide for life down the frozen crust of the levee hillside while still partially clipped in to my bike. If it weren't for blind luck and my bike staying something upright and slowed down by breaking through the crust at random points, I'd have ended the ride quicker and much wetter after crawling out of the creek. I quickly deduced that the track I was seeing had been ridden in above freezing temps and now was again unusable. Back to the drawing board.

I figured if nothing else, the black label might be interested to check out and see how bad it truly was. After our heatwave on Friday and plowing 2" of slush for most of the way, I figured they'd be frozen over and as ugly as the levee trail. Thankfully I was pretty much wrong. I opted to head up into the Windsor Heights trail system and ended up north of Douglas before turning back as I was headed further into unfamiliar neighborhood trails at night and didn't want to force having to ride roads to get back home. The trails were an eclectic mix of perfectly dry trail sprinkled with slush, glare ice, packed ice, and snow sprinkled ice. Notice a theme here? Actually, the ice was only truly bad in a few spots where it covered the trail for extended sections.

I turned back and opted to get a few more miles in by heading out on the Clive Greenbelt. Courtney and I were the only two bike tracks on the trail. Once I got about a mile in, I knew why. There was an extended section of the slush that had indeed frozen into a sheet of glare ice with ridges. This sent me just squirrely enough on the bike that I decided I'd pressed my luck enough for one evening and turned back. All in all an hour and fifteen on the bike with around 15 miles on the meter. Not the greatest, but I'll take what I can get for being outside in this weather. What we need is a nice 2-3" slightly tacky snow that can be packed down over this ice and for the weather to stay cold. I think that would give us back some of the trails for sure.

So how did I do on the ice you ask? The new studded tires are the cat's meow and then some. While I still treated some of the extended ice spots with reverence, I blew through most of it with nary a thought other than whee, I'm riding like its dry pavement over stuff that could potentially slam me to the ground and splatter my brains out like a week old stew. Actually, it was pretty fun and a great feeling to be back to only respecting the ice in lieu of fearing it.

Hitting the mark

Well, it's not exactly the mark I'd hoped for when I began this season, but I'll take what I can get. I cleared 3,000 miles on my log last night. Granted, I was on the trainer at the time, but as I said, whatever I can get. In reality, I was shooting for something closer to 4,000 miles this year considering I was over 3,000 in 2007 with only 8 months of riding on the books. 4 full months to hit another 800 miles should have been pretty easy, but alas, it wasn't to be.

I really didn't get any long mileage in on a regular basis and that really hurt. I think my average ride this year is probably around 20 miles where last year it was well over 30. I'm sure riding my mountain bike a lot more definitely put the average miles in a major state of decline as it's tougher to get 30 miles on a mountain bike doing singletrack than it is to head out for some nice paved road riding. Makes me wonder what 2009 will bring in terms of mileage. I'm thinking I'll focus even further on mountain biking so it's going to take some pretty serious efforts to maintain that many miles.

On the plus side, my focus is starting to get my motivation going as well. I turned in about 5 total hours on the bike last week and started things off with another 1.25 on the trainer last night. I also made it to the gym for the first time this morning. I won't lie. It was damn ugly in regards to the lack of strength I've got. I was doing some 1 legged pedalling exercises last night and really got a first hand glimpse at how weak my core is. Time to work on that. I really want to check out some yoga, so I'll have to see if I can make it to some classes at the gym. It appears they're mostly later in the evenings so that should work out decently for me.

I'll get to the holidays in another post.

Not a good way to start Christmas Eve

An open head wound is not the best way to start of any morning, let alone Christmas Eve. Ask me how I know. Go ahead, just ask. I was getting ready to head out the door this morning and thought I'd be nice enough to fill our kittie's food bowls so they don't pounce on my wife and devour her while she sleeps (hey you never know). As I stood up to fill the water bowl, bam! I bounced my head off the corner of the open kitchen cabinet. Fuckin oww, I slammed my fist against the open door causing various glasses to come flying off the shelf and the aforementioned wife to come flying out of her bed.

At this point I wasn't sure how wounded I was other than my head hurt like a mofo. A quick press of the fingers to the head confirmed I had at the very least drawn blood and now it was attempting to run south for the winter. Luckily it was a mere flesh wound and some light pressure stemmed the flow pretty quickly. Now I'm just nursing a weepy wound and a bit of a headache. Merry F'in Christmas!

Oh ya, I'm not the one who left the cabinet open either... As long as I'm going to jump on this train, since I was kind enough to not say a word about it to my darling wife this morning, I might as well go whole hog. I'm just about fed up to my boiling point with one of her ingrained behaviors. Her current line of thinking is that she needs to get more organized around the house. At first glance, I thought this was the case as well. She has stuff here, there, and everywhere. Now I've come to realize it's not a case of being organized at all. It's a case of being a bit of a slob. Normally I'd be sure our 2 year old is most responsible for making a mess of our house, but I'd be wrong. We make her pick up her toys at night before she goes to bed. My wife could use a serious lesson in being treated like a 2 year old. Holy hell, how much stuff can you spread out throughout the day only to not pick it up?! Shit piles on top of shit and before long it's running over onto any surrounding flat surface that wasn't previously occupied by another pile of stuff that hasn't been picked up. I just cleaned the entire kitchen Sunday afternoon. I pleaded with her to keep it clean. By the time I got home Monday night there were 2-3 piles of junk all ready on the table. I implored her to pick it back up. Last night there were even more piles and dishes were piling back up again. Fuck it, it's her mess and we've got company coming tonight. I'll let her figure out how to get it all cleaned back up.

Red box review

Hopping back to Saturday night we found ourselves kid free thanks to grandma. We hit one of our perennial favorite restaurants, Mezzodi's. You can barely go wrong with anything on the menu and that meal was no exception. We split a steak de burgo along with an appetizer and desert to try and cut out a few calories. Of course, topping off with 2 Fat tire's probably didn't help me out any at all, but dammit it was worth it. After dinner we were slated for a night of sweaty adult goodness, but our indulgence seemed to have wained our lust for a bit. Instead we opted to try out the miracle of the Red Box.

Being the late adopters we our, we don't have a netflix account and hadn't even given Red Box a shot yet. The gentleman I am let my lovely wife pick out the movie. Of course this also meant that she was the one shivering in below zero weather while I was snug and warm in our car... Our first choice was out so we ended up watching something that I don't even remember now. How's that, the experience of renting a movie for a buck outlasted the memory of what we even watched. The movie was decent, but obviously immediately forgettable. On the other hand renting a movie for a 1/4 of what Blockbuster charges- priceless. I'm sure it's just as much of a pain in the ass if you're looking for new releases as renting from the other places, but if you're in the mood for something that has been out for a bit, you're probably in decent luck. I'm sure we'll be hitting more of the Red Box the next time the move bug strikes.

Oh, and for those keeping score, the amore was back in full swing by the time we hit the door and movie watching was put off until after we were sweaty and exhausted ;)

Lazy

I had every intention of getting up and working out yesterday morning. I made it as far as my alarm clock before hitting the snooze button and crawling my lazy butt right back where I started. I think I need a workout partner or some other reason beyond my own ambition to crawl out of bed at the buttcrack of dawn (5 AM) and slog through the cold the 1/2 mile to the gym. Any of you southsiders a member of Aspen and want to join in suffering a couple times a week early in the morning?

On Sunday Lou recommended I check out Training Peaks and pick out a pre-made plan to jump start my training this winter. I looked through them and figured out that if I'm about to drop $80-100 on a training plan I better be willing to go through with it. Most of them require anywhere from 10-15 hours per week of dedicated time as well. Add in a meal plan to some of them and it's a recipe for success or in my case for looking at and thinking that's a lot of work... Hence the reason I am lazy!

Actually, I think I'm revelling in the hangover from the long hours and efforts spent making it through my work schedule for the past 6 months. Throw in that I'm typically unmotivated to do much more than eat, drink, and be melancholy through most of the holiday season and it's a recipe for getting jack done whether it be at work or home. I am happy to report that I was able to get most of my presents wrapped last night though I still have a couple that haven't shown up yet (grr). UPS reported them out for delivery yesterday at 5 AM, but as of 11 last night, they hadn't shown up yet, so I'm assuming they will come today. At least it's nothing major, but still.

We have our holiday lunch slash bonus check party at work today. I'm really hoping for something quite spectacular in the envelope. I really can't complain about anything I've gotten the past few years, but for some reason I've got it in my head that I worked harder and produced better results than in previous years even though I'm not entirely sure that's reality. I know I pushed a little harder to get a bit more in my bonus so today should show what they value will be. Then on the flip side of the coin, I was talking to Miranda the other day and realized, I'm pretty damn lucky to be where I am. Add in the current economic crunch and I should probably be thanking anyone I can that I'm not only employed, but getting anything above and beyond what I'm contractually due. Either way, I'm thankful so I hope it really doesn't come across as being greedy. I just think that the future is so uncertain that I need to do everything in my power to lobby for myself and my family to be in a position that we can ride out an eventual wave of less than stellar economics.

Crunchy, drippy, and chewy

Sounds like a sure fire recipe to head to the urologist, doesn't it? Hey doc, I've got this thing, it's crunchy, drippy, and (according to my SO) just a bit chewy... OK, now that I've ruined your mental imagery for the day, how about a true description for each.

Crunchy describes the ride on Saturday. I stopped to pick up my new studs Friday night at the shop. Mine is on the bottom in this photo.

Innova steel studded 26er tires in the center flanked by my Nokians.

At $110/ea suggested retail these things should not only mount themselves (or at least come with their own lube), but pedal the bike, and have the ability to leap tall buildings with a single bound. Alas, they did none of the above. Saturday's ride was not good. I could get plenty of traction, but that really didn't do much for me when I'd break through the top crunchy layer and almost come to a complete stop roughly every 15 feet. The trail to Denman's entrance wasn't ridable so I walked back thinking the singletrack might be in better shape due to runners beating a path down, not to be. I turned back less than 100 yards in and decided to go for black label. Kudos to the City of WDM for plowing their bike paths at the same time as or before their roads. That kicks ass! Clive Greenbelt on the other hand sucked. It had the same crunchy layer, but with the hardpack underneath it was at least semi-passable. I got a mile or two down the trail before a long stretch of breaking through the crust had me turning back. I logged less than 10 miles and all in all about 45 minutes trying to work it out. Not a good day for riding.

Drippy was the name of the game for Sunday AM. With subzero highs for the day and the afore mentioned crappy trail conditions, it was time to break out the trainers for a group sweat at Lou's house of cycling. Lou, Pete, Steve, and myself indulged in some early coffee and then headed over to the garage for a couple hours of suffering and sweating with friends. Actually, not much suffering was done, just a good sweaty drip. I finally got to try out my new trainer and was pretty happy with the performance for the cost ($75 used). Much better and more tolerable than the rollers I tried last year. After logging close to 2 hours, it was time to head back home and work around the house for most of the morning.

Sunday afternoon plans for a fun day with friends fell through as Squirrel was hacking phlegm in about every direction so opted out of bringing the germs to the party(thanks, but you guys were missed), Kent apparently thought being their for his wife to go into labor was more important (you're probably right...), and Hansers were inundated by family coming to town. That left just Corley and I to break in a new tradition of making Santa Cookies. We definitely made the most of it though and had a great time just dad and daughter.




We iced, sprinkled, and even sampled a couple. Great activity. After that it was hanging out for the rest of the day and catching a few ball games on the tube. Definitely a good way to kill off the weekend.

The cops are coming for me

Had a weird occurrence this morning at work that necessitated calling the police. A guy stopped in roughly 7:15 to work and said his car broke down on our street. Not a big deal, but then he asked to use our restroom as well as the phone. Again, not a big deal. Really, nothing other than the guy being a bit nervous about everything really stood out until about a half hour after he left.

I stopped in to the restroom and noticed someone (assuming he did it) attempted to flush a handful of paper towels down the toilet. Not wishing to repeat my stint as janitor I donned a rubber glove and fished them out tossed them in the trash. There I noted something odd in the trash can. Someone had tossed a red negligee and empty (mood altering) medication bottle in the trash. Add in that the sopping mess of paper towels appeared to have some sort of red stain on them, the general attitude of the guy, and the fact that his story switched around several times before he just vanished, and we decided it was best to call the cops after talking to a couple co-workers about the weirdness.

so now the cops are coming for me, yippee!

My shit stinks

What a title. How about this for a rant. My shit stinks. Your shit stinks. Hell, all of us from the biggest greasiest trucker to the most dainty of women and babies can fill the air with paint peeling stench from time to time. It's nature. Apparently, a number of people are offended by the smell of nature. If they weren't we wouldn't have a billion different scented sprays, cover ups, and various other air fresheners.

But please, I implore you, don't fucking plug in some damned airwick coat the room in damned perfume room "deodorizer" because you had to expel the remnants of last nights cheap beer, bean, and taco laden fest. Now we not only have to deal with the smell of fresh feces, but it's coated in a sickly sweet oil that covers you as you emerge from the 4 x 8 closet they call a bathroom here at work. I'm not opposed to a quick shot of febreeze or some of the other less noxious fumigation techniques, but damn that other stuff makes the baby Jesus cry!

So take this as my public service announcement for the day. If you take a dump, it's going to stink. We all do it and know it stinks. There's no need for you to try to sugar coat it and in turn make the rest of us retch becuase of the even worse foul smell you've unleashed. Drop the bomb, wipe, flush, and leave the fan on. Thankyouverymuch.

Ice Ice Baby

No pictures from last night considering all my attention was focused on staying upright. Cam's warning that Denman's was a sheet of ice under the snow was certainly true. It's not quite as bad yet as some of the crap we hit last year, but with today's forecast for ice and sleet, I'm sure it will get that way quick. The nice snow pack looked really inviting as I turned in to start the trail, but pretty quickly it was apparent that careful pedal strokes and a puckered ass were going to be required to keep things on the up and up.

I passed on pretty much all the logs, but did manage to make it up all the little ups that it looked like a few other people had spun out on. I did leave my impression in one snow bank as I hit a bit of off camber and both wheels took off in a separate direction from where I wanted to go. I think I could have just about ridden without a seat last night and set on the post I was so tensed up. Right about halfway through I ran into Conlon coming the other way and we made a collective decision to get out on the black label. We didn't even bother riding back out and just hiked straight over to the levee trail.

Funny, the black label was in way better shape than the offroad stuff. We road through WDM and out into Clive Greenbelt before turning back. Who else should we see crazy enough to be out, but Cam. Stopped and talked for a few minutes with him and then headed back to the truck. Just over an hour of riding in, but at least I'm still out there. I'm hoping the studded tires show up before the weekend and I can get out and test them.

I quickly succumbed to the debate on studded tires yesterday after remembering the number of times I went down and how I was pretty lucky to not have seriously damaged myself in the process. Figuring the cost of regular tires, studs aren't that much more and I'll probably get at least 2-3 seasons out of the higher end set that I went with. Pretty cheap in comparison to breaking or spraining pretty much anything. I'll let you all know how it goes.

Cheap stuff for sale!

We all like stuff. Cheap stuff even better. Chances are if you're following this blog you like bike stuff too so here is my attempt to divest myself of various items I've collected in a short period of time and have either replaced with newer stuff or decided I really didn't need.

Buckshots for sale blog

I'll keep adding stuff on a regular basis as I've got a bunch that I'd like to get rid of and would rather it go locally.

To stud or not to stud

That is the question. As I shot out my ride reminder this morning and looked forward to some fun times on snow covered goodness that we know as Denman's, I was bitch slapped by a cold hard fact (thanks Cam). Our 2" of new powdery goodness belies the fact that there is icy hard death waiting underneath it. OK, so maybe death is a bit dramatic, but after falling numerous times, you might wish you were dead.

So, with the rest of the season looking to get no better (just see tomorrow's forecast if you don't believe me) in regards to ice covered trails, it's time to seriously evaluate going studded. Doing a quick search it looks like the best option for riding singletrack is going to be the Nokian Gazza Extreme 294. How could you possibly go wrong with a name like that? Hell, it sounds like you should be able to ride up the side of a glacier (or at the very least Hillside) with nary a care in the world and a hooker draped across your lap. What, a hooker, you say? Hey, we can all have dreams, right?!

So, are studs overkill and should I just suck it up or will the last season of ice and what appears to be another coming this year make studs the choice of even the manliest of men (Squirrel not included cuz that guy's got mad ninja bike balance skillz yo)? Just for a quick recap, I had a number of mishaps last year due to ice. Thankfully no broken bones, but damn did I fall a lot.

I'm not a computer guy

Not that I'm complaining mind you, but sometimes it might be helpful in this computer driven world. Actually, I'm not afraid to dig in and give things a try, but often that leads to things like your hard drive being reformatted and all the spectacular issues that go right along with it.

That being said, our laptop mysteriously seized up a month back. I tried rebooting a few times and kept getting kicked right back out of windows for some unknown error. Finally, it stopped long enough that I could read the error message and google it using our home computer. Well, I figured out what needed to be done and proceeded to start messing with various systems on the laptop. I'm sure you can see what's coming. Yup, the damn thing said fuckit and went into and endless loop of rebooting itself and going nowhere.

Fast forward to last night and I was determined that either I was going to get it fixed or have to break down and pay someone to get it up and running again. I managed to get into the recovery console, ran check disk which fixed some problem (don't ask me what), and bam I was back to a point where the machine would at least boot up. Now I was back to the original problem. I rebooted and somehow the damn thing worked itself out. Fuck if I know what I did or didn't do, but now it was running. So I bust out virus scans and spyware scans and get medieval on it's ass. A few hours later and the thing is humming along normally (for now).

I have no clue what I did. I know I fixed it somehow or at least allowed it to fix itself, but damn, I wish it was a little more than dumb luck. Oh well, tis the season of Christmas miracles and I'll chalk this one up.

Gifting etiquette?

In the past week I've had a couple odd experiences with gift giving. First off I broke a cardinal rule and bought my wife a household appliance for Christmas. Actually, I'm not even sure you can consider these appliances anymore as I can't think of too many things around our house that have actually been subjected to it's purpose. I bought her a sewing machine. Yup, I still have my balls fully attached too, thankyouverymuch. Actually, it was a good purchase considering how much she's gotten into sewing and crafting over the past year or two and her old machine was a hand-me-down from her aunt that left her in fits more often than not.

The etiquette part comes in how I gave it to her. I had it delivered to my work so I could surprise her with it. Well, after a few more late night rants against her old machine, I could tell she really could use it sooner rather than later. So, I brought it home while she was out late one night and left it with a bow on it setting on her sewing table. She is/was very appreciative, but said that she'd have rather me given it to her in person rather than leaving it for her to find. Hmm, maybe I missed out on a BJ of gratitude or something?! Ahh well, I figure it was best to give it to her when I could since it would be several days before I could have wrapped it up and personally gifted it. Did I commit a present faux-pas by just leaving it for her?

The second etiquette question I had came over the weekend. The boys at Rassy's have treated me well this year and I want to show a bit of appreciation (not mention replenish some stock) so I bought a case of 12 oz happiness and dropped it off in the shop fridge with a bow on it. That was a pretty simple decision. Now comes the question. While buying said case o beverage, I was/still am contemplating buying a couple 6ers for some certain friends. I know times are a bit tough right now for a number of people though so while I know the brews would always be appreciated, I worry about people feeling they need to give a reciprocal gift. So there's the conundrum, do you give a gift and hope the person doesn't feel the need to reciprocate or do you just avoid gifting all together?

We have a similar issue with our parents. A couple years back, Miranda and I decided it was getting a bit silly to try to get gifts for all of our family members and friends. So, we told all family that gifts were to be limited to just the kids and we wouldn't be exchanging with them unless they wanted to do a dinner or some other event to just enjoy the season together. Well, that worked fine for us, but we still receive gifts from our parents and while we greatly appreciate the gifts and thoughtfulness, we realize that it has to put them out financially to give the gifts they do. Kind of puts a damper on the spirit, but should it?

So there you go. What is the gifting etiquette? Should you just say screw it and buy/receive gifts without looking at anything beyond face value of the joy of giving or should you give it some introspection and possibly alter your gift giving habits?

Shameless self promotion

It's that time of the season. Time for shamelessly plugging our website in case you need some special gift for the naughty people on your list. The Possibilities Room is the place to go. As a bonus for reading my mind numbing site, type the word "blog" into the coupon code area and you'll score 15% off the order.

So, there you go. Be good by being naughty!

A couple milestones

At least milestones (most) are better than other types of stones. Of course there was that saying about those who live in glass houses shouldn't pass kidney stones or something like that, but anyway that's neither here nor there. I actually passed a couple cool milestones.

First off I hit over 150 posts on this blog. Damn. Of course most of it is just the usual drivel, but occasionally I seem to come up with something good. So I suggest going back and checking all 150+ posts just to see if you've missed any nuggets... Why the hell do I hear crickets all of a sudden?!

The second milestone was actually cooler than the first. What, you say how can I possibly top that? Well kiddies, gather round and let me tell you a tale. There once was a man from Nantucket, oh shit, can't do that one. Actually, I'll just skip to the good stuff. Since I'm an anally retentive type of guy and a number crunching fool to boot, I just have to keep track of all the various stats of my rides. Funny enough, I actually have been that less and less as I get further into riding just to ride. Sure, the stats are always interesting to gaze at every now and then when there's no paint to watch dry... Thanks in no small part to making an attempt on the coveted Cup O' Dirt and laps upon laps of Hillside, I cleared 100,000 feet of climbing this year.

So, does that translate into the ability to leap over tall buildings in a single bound, do I have quads the size of tree trunks, can I squat a dump truck? Hell no. I climb like a fucking turtle. Apparently this turtle just likes to climb. I actually did think it was pretty cool to see that I'd ridden the equivalent to almost 20 miles straight up though. I know it damn sure felt like it when I was huffing it through the beginner course at Boone, struggling to keep moving on the 4th lap of the Dirty Du, or pedalling into a headwind on the last gravel hundy attempt. I think one of my goals for next year is to see if I can break my climbing from this year.

So that brings me to a question. Do any of you set silly goals at the end of the year? Anything concrete specific or just things like get my ass on the bike more this year? I hope the upcoming year for me holds a few things:
1) Develop more mad skillz yo on the mountain bike. Now that I've got a bike worth developing some skillz on I should probably think about nutting up and becoming much less of a hack. If I don't I'll probably end up sawing through multiple logovers with my big ring while riding Denman's...
2) Climb more/climb like a goat. OK, so maybe the second part is overstating a bit, but I'd just like to climb better and faster than I do now. A little concentrated work and I think it'll happen. I know I can't really go much slower, so I've always got that to fall back on!
3) Ride more than I did this year. That shouldn't be too hard unless work really screws me over again. I started off strong the first part of last year, but the last 6 months held little to no mileage and didn't do much for me in the way of keeping my bike fitness up.
4) Race more. I'm eyeballing the IMBCS series pretty heavily as something I want to focus on doing next year. It should be a good time riding, scraping my face against trails, and keeping bears from eating me (I may be exaggerating a bit on the last point).

That's it in a nutshell from this nutcase.

Gettin' worked

Ahh, so much to do, so little time. I just figured out that I'm getting worked over in multiple ways. At least one of them is by my own doing, so I guess it's not all bad. I hit the trails Wednesday night for some snowy fun. Almost 20 miles in a couple hours was more than enough for this guy. At least I had some good company with Conlon, Govner, Jed, and Cam at various points. I did get to lay the only set of tracks through Rhythm which was pretty cool. Going down trying to cross an icy log in Squirrel's next- not so cool. Nothing hurt though, so I kept on trucking. Everything went pretty well until I rode the levee back to the shop. Damn, that was the final nail in the coffin as it was work pushing through even though there were a couple tracks all ready there.

Now for the really big worked over part. Work is going to suck for the next few months again. I was just breathing easy after my casino was done (they even opened up yesterday). My boss waffled a bit in handing out the next casino between myself and another co-worker. Well, she ended up being too busy so I got it handed to me roughly 2-3 weeks later that I should have. We're still putting together our shop drawings, but I all ready had to go to site to take measurements so we can start building things. What does this all mean?! Yup, I'm back to evenings and weekends at work for the foreseeable future. Color me less than excited.

Now for the question on whether or not I'll get worked over at the company Christmas party tonight. Typically our bonuses are handed out a day or two before Christmas, but with this being the official party, I'm wondering if they'll be handed out tonight. I'm guessing not, but it would be cool if they did. Here's hoping.

How hard..

Is it to make something that actually lasts if you use it for it's intended purpose? With the bit of snow we've gotten, I broke out the trusty shovel to hopefully avoid any lawsuits or attempts to break my own neck by shoveling off the deck leading to our back door. First thing I noted was the metal edge of the shovel was worn down to nothing. Really, that wouldn't be so bad, except that it's only worn out in the dead center of the shovel. The rest pretty much looks like new?! Add in that I purposely spent the money when I bought it to get a better shovel that included a heavy duty handle, etc, etc, and I was a bit pissed.

Why does every fucking thing in our society have to be disposable? Wow, I feel like I'm an old man bitching about things being different back in my day. But seriously, everything has planned obsolescence built into it anymore. Take my shovel. A bit heavy gauge steel and a little more quality control (in not making it wear out in one spot first) and I bet it would surely lasted 8-10 years or better. Nope, a couple years in and now I'm scouring stores for a suitable replacement. Sure I could go with an aluminum grain scoop, but it's not the shovel type I'm looking for. However, everything else is as cheap or more cheaply built as the current POS I've all ready got.

So, what am I planning to do about it? Well, as soon as I get a minute or two, I'll be breaking out the tools and replacing the cutting edge with something a bit more "hefty". Sure it won't look all nice and pretty like something I got from the store, but you can bet your ass it'll last a helluva lot longer. There's just a huge disconnect in our society that takes things being disposable as the only way to do business. I can only do so much personally and there's much more I could do, but dammit I'm lazy and like to bitch so I'll just take the cream off the top. However, there's way too many people that don't even do the easy things.

/Rant off