i can feel myself getting the urge to build an igloo

i had to put an end to war
it didn't make much sense to shoot at myself.

i believe there's a question

last night i took some time to clean up the tarmac since i am trading it in. it is too large for me. when we ordered it off the 'blem' site it said it was a 54, it isn't. it is a 56 as far as i know. too long in the top tubular area for me. instead i will be cruising on an allez whenever it shows up. hopefully. last night while i was cleaning i decided to take some pictures of the tarmac, just so i could play with the white balance settings on my camera. no photoshop for the images here, just a canon, a beer, and some spare time.

boneless chicken ranch

some stickers came in the mail from http://www.hkfixed.com/ and in return they asked that i send an image of my bike. i wanted to wait and send a picture of this one and my other one, but i didn't really feel like waiting so i just sent them the above full bike image. i think it is on their site by now. the other image was too large to include in the email so i just put it here. you can thank me later.

ok, last post for the day.

until next time...

eco-friendly

green dog

boob radio

i don't know what you're insinuating

j.r.a. this morning on my way to work. i think it was in the 40's.

black friday

shea had left for work, which left me kicking around the house with the dogs. still somewhat full from the previous days binge i popped the cork on the half bottle of wine we still had. red and room temperature. i poured a small bit into a coffee mug and sipped.

the days activities had not been laid out for me, i was left to plan and decided and change my mind all i wanted. so, i sat on the back steps basking in the sun and sipping my wine. i contemplated taking the dogs out to the trails for a ride. or maybe going for a quick road ride and then coming home and doing some chores? i even briefly thought about just staying home and finishing off the wine and watching television, but really it was too nice outside for that idea to gain a real foot-hold in my brain. mable and sawyer waited patiently for me to devise a game plan.

then the dogs alerted me to a possible intruder. someone was at my front door. i gathered myself and got to the door just in time to see the mail carrier stepping back into his mail truck. or van. or whatever they are. mail vehicle just doesn't sound right.

most of what had been delivered was trash. wasted paper printed with wasted ink destined for nothing more than becoming something worthwhile after recycling, hopefully. i really just don't need coupons for checks with kittens and butterflies on them. amid the junk mail there was one thing. a diamond in the rough. my new copy of dirt rag.

i refilled my coffee mug with wine and took my new issue to the back stairs to have a drink, a smoke, and peruse. at first i was just excited, then i thought, "this is a sign. i should go ride the trails." i figured i would first finish flipping through the new issue and then go. maybe.

i got to their product review section of the magazine and my mind went into overload. it was a sign. two singlespeed reviews. the trek 69'er and a moots singlespeed. i felt like ace of base because i had seen the sign, and it opened up my eyes. or however that song goes.

i downed the rest of my wine, threw the magazine on the counter, and changed into some riding gear in what seemed like one motion. i loaded up my bike and the dogs and was off.

a little while later i arrived at the trails and got going. i have a fairly usual loop that i ride out there. but for some reason i neglected it and took a totally different route and rode some trails i had not ridden in quite some time. the trails were sticky from a recent rain and were in great shape. it was a blast. the dogs had a blast and didn't really want to come back home, neither did i really, but it was getting late and the sun had started drifting westward behind some trees.

i got home and made a promise to mabes and sawyer that we would go again on saturday, and we did. saturday's ride threw a couple mechanical issues at me, but who cares, my ride on black friday is what it was all about.

thanks dirt rag for giving me the kick in the pants that i needed to get up and go, even if it was fueled by half a bottle of leftover red wine.

today..

..i wish you a happy stanksgiving.

bigger than just a smashed truck

see if that gets rid of them

oak mountain over the weekend. it was beautiful with all of the colors. the weather was pretty much perfect too. rode fixed and brakeless on the trails. it was slow going, but fun. the trails were in such good shape and i wish i could have stayed longer than a night. good times.

who's it gonna be

gallery night friday night. it was kind of cold. afterwards we came home and i got my stuff packed up for my trip to birmingham and we drank some wine. it was good stuff but i can't remember the name of it.

i've got some rope

who needs suspension seatposts? i've got a floating concor superleggera now.

we've just been going in circles

don't tase me bro.

that is what my printer at work told me the other day. i get no respect i tell ya.

and number two, it's nobody we know

jacob and i drove to baton rouge, la bright and early yesterday morning to recreate at the velodrome facility over there. we actually arrived a little early so we had some time to eat some fried chicken and go for a quick spin around the area. it was pretty nice. we came back as jacob wanted to make a gearing change and run a fourteen tooth cog instead of the sixteen or seventeen he had on his wheel already. we made adjustments, watched some six year old and eight year old class bmx races that were going as well and then the attendant showed up at let us in.

about ten minutes later was when i gained a hole new respect for people who race, or ride, track on a regular basis. it takes a lot of physical stamina to keep up a continuous cadence to maintain a speed high enough to stick to the angles of the velodrome.

the baton rouge track is smaller than the one in trexlertown, pa. i think. it looked smaller anyway. it also looked considerably steeper as well. it was a little intimidating at first, but once you got low into the drops you could actually really fly around that thing.

it really makes me re-evaluate my view on nascar. sort of. for the longest time i always considered nascar to be quite boring. i mean really, you go fast and turn left. well, you do the same at the velodrome. i know you don't reach speeds nearing the 200mph mark and nothing catches on fire when you crash on a veldrome, but still, the principles are about the same. my new viewpoint is that i dislike the fans of nascar. i know, its a huge and probably very inappropriate generalization, but still it is true, for the most part. imagine if track racing became as popular as nascar. then think about the impact it would have just getting more people riding bikes. i've done a little research and bicycles are a little more affordable than a race car. everyone would want to go fast on bikes. then where would the world be?

anyway, just thinking out loud.

on our way back to pen-suck-cola we stopped in gautier to refill the car and get some food. i forget the name of the place we stopped, but they had po-boys. i got b-b-q beef. and it was well worth the five dollars i had to fork over to get it.

all in all it was good trip to a good place and on occasions like that it makes me hate pensacola even more than i usually do. i'm glad to be going out of town again this coming weekend too.

the only bad thing is that i wish shea's work schedule was different and i could drag her along with me. damn it.

mafioso types

i hope this thing rides as nice as it looks.

save the entire town

picked up my non-suspension seatpost for the jamis yesterday, also got my truvativ team carbon seatpost for my khs. jacob also dropped off todd's old khs so it can be reconfigured, cleaned up, and brought to todd next weekend. that squishy red fork in the picture will be coming off in favor of something a little stiffer.

offering milk & cookies to the accursed

hungry & mad

put the thirteen things in the background in the mail this morning. the ones in the front are still awaiting postage.

i love this stuff.

you said you had one in the oven

let's take a look at you

got word last night that the baton rouge velodrome is open on sundays to ride. all of the info i could find said it was open for skateboarding. apparently there is a velodrome with a skatepark in the infield and on sundays you just have to watch out for skate rats and projectile boards.

for my first velodrome expereience, other than visiting trexlertown for pictures and watching the videos on youtube, this seems like it could be fun. we're leaving about six-thirty or seven on sunday morning.

i've already wrapped and installed my nitto track drops on the fuji and swapped out my MKS clips and straps for some eggbeaters.

tethercat

had a mellow weekend. i rode the trails on saturday morning with the k-9's and had a blast. so did they. rode to the arts festival and decided not to hang out so i went to end of the line and ate a quiet lunch in their back courtyard area. it was good. went home and napped on the couch with the cat for a bit as well.

i was supposed to ride to ft. pickens sunday morning with the guys from the shop but everyone backed out at the last minute. this gave me a chance to catch up on some chores and painting and things like that.

plant todd's bike got stolen out of the back of his truck on friday night. that's crap. i have offered him my KHS to keep him rolling on the trails if he feels so inclined.

that is about it for now.