1. Geeee-tar

I play the guitar. Over the last 20 years, I’ve played maybe 5 or so Gibson Les Pauls. Every single one I’ve ever played has simply Felt Right. When I was in high school I had the chance to buy a brown one for $350. Kick myself in the nuts every time I think about that one. Add in the fact that I played the same guitar almost 10 years later, only to wish I’d bought it when I had the chance. RIGHT IN THE NUTS!
I later jammed with a guy who owned a number of Les Pauls. Over a couple years, I played his goldtop, his black beauty, and a couple others in full-band jam settings. That guitar just Feels Right.
Well, a buddy and ex co-worker recently let me know that another ex co-worker is selling a ’90 Les Paul Standard. The transaction started a month ago, and in another month or so, I’ll have my own Gibson Les Paul.
Oh shit! That’s AWESOME!

2. More STP crap

When I was growing up in AK, my dad was a teacher. He had summers off. Most of the relatives lived in MI, so to visit them on the cheap, we had a camper for the truck. Double bunk above the cab of the truck. Dining table pops down into a bed. Done deal, we ride!
Being in SE AK, we also had a boat. Double bunk in the V-berth up in the bow. Dining table pops down into a bed. Done deal, we ride!
For the STP thing, Dean borrowed a 20ft towable trailer RV thing. All the cabinetry smelled just like the boat and the camper that I remember from my youth. And it had two couch things that folded down into beds. One for Dean. One for me. Done deal, let’s sleep!
Thing is, those thin foam cushions were fine if you were in middle school and weighed less than 150lbs. I didn’t sleep for shit and my back got PISSED at me. Between that and all the bending down that I did when removing wheels and pumping up tires and everything else, my lumbar region took a major dump on me.
AND I got mosquito bites and spider bits all over my ankles and knees. YUMMY
Oh yeah, AND now I can’t find my glasses. I thought for sure I’d put them (in their case) in my bag during the day, but they ain’t there now. Hmmmm… If they’re still in the RV trailer dealy, they’re an hour away out in the boonies, cuz that’s where the owner lives. BFE. Damn.

3. Website look

I’m getting tired of the look of the site. It’s laid out well, but the blk/gry/wht layout is BS. Too hard to see the links at a glance, and it may be difficult for our colorblind friends to differentiate between some of the text. Using WordPress makes it really easy to change things around, but I’ll have to come up with new header images, because the headers are of different pixel dimensions. End result is that it’s gonna change when I get off my butt and alter some photos into usable headers. Give me a year or so and it’ll get done.

4. Tour de France (whole lotta dopin’ goin’ on)

Where to start on this one…
The night before last year’s Tour, three of the biggest potential winners weren’t allowed to start. Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso were booted because of their possible involvement with a big blood-doping scandal. Alexandre Vinokourov wasn’t implicated, but he wasn’t allowed to start because enough people on his team were booted so that he didn’t have enough teammates to field the minimum number required for a TdF team. OUCH.
Over the course of the last 12 months, Jan Ullrich has retired, Ivan Basso hasn’t been cleared, and Vino has bought his own team and I think he’s PISSED and wants to win big time. In addition, Floyd Landis has been under investigation over his win of last year’s Tour and a number of others have been booted or not allowed in this year’s Tour.
Okay.
So in the bike industry, it’s been a bunch of people arguing that cycling is forever tarnished, and the sport is a joke and they are done with it, and are cancelling their subscriptions to the magazines and blahblahblah.
Eat my shorts!
A recent article in one of the magazines said something to the effect that it shouldn’t be about the individual characters, rather it should be about the jerseys themselves. Don’t cheer the rider, cheer the title that they bear. THAT’S what’s important.
I tend to agree.
I don’t like doping. I think that some individuals will be singularly suited for a particular task, and that, paired with hard work, will see them through to their goals. I don’t like that you can inject a foreign substance and boost performance that you didn’t earn. That doesn’t make for a level playing field. However, I’m not going to give up on the Tour or cycling in general because whether or not you’re juiced, the fact that you’re riding your bike for 2500 miles over 3 weeks with 2 days of rest, well that’s still incredible. The drama isn’t diminished for me.
However, like I said, I DON’T LIKE DOPING. And that’s why this Tour that so many people are giving up on is so great. All these people have been kicked out and now we have a race that in its first week has brought forward many names that we haven’t heard of, and many names that we haven’t payed attention to in the past. Because many of the big names aren’t there running the show and setting the pace, it seems like the various teams aren’t as tight and cohesive as they have been in past years. That may make for a chaotic and haphazard Tour for some, but for me that makes an exciting Tour. Who’s in yellow? Who crashed? Who is attacking? Off the front? Off the back? Oh boy, we got a running of the bulls here, folks.
I could go on further, but watching the Tour is fun. I know what it’s like to think your legs are done, but you have miles to go and another hill to climb. Actually, I wonder how some of them STPers did? Some of them were doomed from the start. Yeeesh…

Popularity: unranked [?]

No, not the motor oil folks.  And not the 90s band with the addict singer.  I’m talking about the Seattle to Portland bike ride.  200 miles of people who shouldn’t be riding it doing just that.  Oh shit…here we go…

It started on Friday the 13th.  No shit, how do you like that?  This weekend is put into perspective now.  Okay, Friday night.  Dean drops me off at home so that I can grab supplies.  We’d gotten a 20ft camper to spend the night in, complete with BBQ supplies.  That in addition to our normal complement of mobile bike repair supplies.   And beer.

So we show up at the camper, which had been parked at the start line for the STP.  The start line was in the parking lot for Husky Stadium and we were to be one of the repair places for last-minute fix-er-uppers before people pedalled their behinds to Portland, OR.  Hey, no problem.  We’ll grill steaks, drink beer, listen to music and make fun of each other until it’s time to sleep and then get up and face the masses.  Which is exactly what we did.

However, we knew not what we were in store for.

4am rolled around pretty early.  At 4am, to be precise, which is pretty early.  Anyway, we got up and expected that from 4 to 5am we would mostly see the folks who were true riders who were prepared because they wanted to do the 200 miles in one day.  Then we might change out some flats and maybe even have to replace a brake pad here or there.  No big deal, the standard last minute crap.  Uh uh.  No, Dean got a wheel with two broken spokes right off the bat.  I got a hub adjustment, and then a fairly serious bottom bracket issue.  Where was Dave?  He had a line forming in front of him 10 deep.  What did those folks need that required a pro level bike mechanic?  Air in their tires.  ???  Yeah, you read that right.  At one point or another, Dave, Dean and I each did about 1000 pushups pumping up the tires of people who couldn’t do it themselves.  I pumped air into tires attached to $50 bikes and $5000 bikes.

Are you serious?  Granted, we can change flats faster than the average rider because we’ve done this for a living, but if you can’t tell the difference between a presta valve and a schrader valve, then folks, we gots problems.

“Can you help me?  I can’t figure out why my tire won’t take air.”

“Well that’s easy.  You’re a fukn moron.  Not only did you not unscrew the top of the presta valve, but you also have deep-dish aero rims, which require at LEAST a 48mm valve while you are using 32mm valves.  Here…” pump up the tires for them “Get outta here.”

I mean come ON!

After it was all over, I spoke to one of the ride organizers.  He said that by 8am, they’d already had 4 people in the hospital.  It was like it was a sponsored ride for blind clowns from the dynamite factory.  Holy shit!

And even as I bitch about how many complete imbeciles we had to deal with (I didn’t mention the lady who showed up in front of us at 11pm the night before, or the idiots with the tandems), I had a great time.  Hanging out with your friends and helping people out who are just there to have fun?  Yeah, sign me up.  Oh, you mean I’m going to blow out my lower back and spend the rest of the weekend catching up on a screwed up sleep schedule?  Yeah, count me in for that shit.

Ride your damn bike.  It loves you.

PS, I don’t know no Woods valve. I call that one a Dunlop valve. Roger that, out.

Popularity: 100% [?]

Rosman has this popping up on his site. I thought I’d check it out, knowing full well that I’m not as nerdy as he is. Here are my results. Take the test if you feel so inclined.

There you go, buddy.  I’m not nearly the geek that you are.  In fact, in the grand scheme of things, I’d say you are either Louis or Gilbert, while I’m clearly Booger.  You’re a nerd because of your brain.  I’m a nerd because I’m gross and nobody wants to hang out with me.

Popularity: unranked [?]

My dad’s Bday was last Friday. I didn’t call. I haven’t called since then. Why am I such an asshole you ask? Because I seem to have lost all contact info for him. I tried calling the two numbers I had from before his last move, and I got two strange voices on answering machines. WTF, mate? I checked my email to see where the last couple emails from him had gone. You know, the ones with the Subject: line of, oh…something like, New Comm Info or something along those lines. Nope. Capn Dingdong here must have erased them thinking that I’d already committed them to the vault.

So. Dad, if you read this, email me or call or something, cuz I have crappy contact info on you.

Oh, and Happy Birthday last Friday. Of course, if this were myspace.com, I’d have put a stupid glittery icon or picture in his comments section and we’d be all good. But it’s not. So I won’t.

Happy Birthday dude, u roxors!!!

Popularity: unranked [?]

Ever since high school, I’ve been hearing of the name Buckethead pop up in guitar magazines, and on the web and whatever… I can’t believe I was in my 30s before I actually heard him. Now he’s in my top-10 all time list. Here’s a little bit of why that is.

Popularity: unranked [?]