Sunday, July 30, 2006

Cockfighting

Right now, i don't have the energy to comment properly about this piece, so i'll leave you with my favorite quotes...

"If i didn't have my roosters, i don't know what i would do with the rest of my life."

"This is what i live for every day. ... This is what keeps me going. I'm serious."

"If i get to heaven, i sure hope cockfighting is there, because this is what i like."

Anybody who thinks cyclists are strange, needs to read this article.

"Backers of the pasttime contend that roosters are born to fight."

Well for God's sake then, let's tie knives to them!!!

I love it, how many sports failed with the same formula?
Bulls with swords tied to their horns?
Dogs with machine guns on their tails?
Maybe Betta fighting fish with frickin lasers?

Another reason to be proud of our state, commentary off.

Friday, July 28, 2006

must see tivo

The tivo turned up a nice surprise this week called Tabloid Wars on Bravo. Very cool show, an insider look at life at the New York Daily News and it's ongoing competition with the Post. We're hooked, what's cool to see is that reporters report, that's it. They don't write, they report back to their editors and some of them don't even write, i guess they keep writers on staff as well. Reporters read their stories for the first time when they come out. The pace is frenetic to say the least as they seem to work all day and into the night to meet their 10:30 pm deadlines. It's addictive stuff, working for a daily, making news out of maybe what isn't news, just notable. But like the editor said last night, everything is news.

On a similar local note, i talked to an unnamed insider on this story who said that really wasn't the story at all. Basically a granny with a gun had enough with her family and wanted them out, when the police showed up, she was happy to see them and offered them coffee. Pretty funny.

We also caught OLN's coverage of the Captech Classic. This course was a bitch, a crit with a climb in it that was so steep they had a feed zone. Very technical suffer-fest, anyhow the story of the race was 2nd place Sergey Lagutin who evidently missed the start and had to catch the pack from about a minute back. He did that, then went with the winning break. Unbelievable or doping? Tough to tell these days.

In other tivo news, we are completely 100% addicted to Denis Leary's Rescue Me. Thanks Don! I wouldn't be surprised if we rent season 1 soon to catch up.

Last plug, Dave Chappelle's Lost Season, this is too funny.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Post-tour stuff

So the Tour is over and TV and the web just aren't the same, even without the pomp and circumstance that is the Fantasy Tour de France, there's a hole in my collective media sponge where the Tour used to be. I sort of got into a groove of listening to the Eurosport radio while working, then catching the tour on tivo at night.

Anyway, here's some of my favorite memories from last week

When Floyd detonated, i think Cyclingnews said it best when they wrote "He looks bad today, as bad as a David Hasselhoff music video."

Salvatore Commesso got second back on stage 14. I like Salvatore Commesso, he's always in breakaways. But i think i like him the most because he looks more like a USCF cyclist than anyone else in the pro peloton. He always cuts the sleeves of his jersey, and i'm not saying the guy is fat, i'm just saying if the Tour jet were to go down in the Andes, my money is on Salvatore to have dibs on the Chicken's femur, if you know what i mean.

Sager says that one of my favorite cycling names, Ruben Lobato is a doper. I'm not a fan one way or another, i just like to shout out "Domo Oregato Ruben Lobato!" whenever he's on screen. But hey, who isn't doping right? Unemployed Frankie said Lance did (somehow i missed this back in June).

I completely approve of Lance's bash on the French World Cup Soccer team, when he said: "All their players tested positive ... for being assholes." Well played... INTO THE BACK OF THE NET!

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

mad props to the wife

Haven't been able to post too often as of late due to internet troubles at the home base, but i did want to get this out because the link may or may not be there tomorrow. After Floyd went all medieval on everyone on Thursday, Amy pitched the idea of a Floyd profile to her editor and bam, slam, wham it ran in the paper yesterday. I'm proud to say that i'm at least Executive Research Assistant on this piece, as we did legwork over the weekend on it. Can't really say where the obscure Kenesaw Mountain Landis reference comes from, somebody out on the West coast must have thought that was a cool coincidence or something and added it because it just doesn't fit at all. The rest is all Amy.

Monday, July 24, 2006

eye doc


So my eyes have been bothering me a bit, and i scheduled a doctor's appointment. Is it just me or is my doctor's image a little fuzzy? do you think he does that to get new business?

Gotta get ready and desensitize myself from this impending dialog which always makes me laugh.

how bout now?
better or worse?
bout now? and now?
1 or 2?
what about this?
and 1 or 2?
great, first or second?
how about now?
you're doing fine, and now?
and last one now?
what about this?
and now?
and 1 or 2?

You think they learn this in school?

Friday, July 14, 2006

The week that was ...

It's been quite a week, Happy Bastille Day to all those francophiles out there.
To recap briefly some highlights, last weekend we were honored to attend the Robert Tour de France Party which was, in the words of Will Ferrell impersonating Robert Lipton, ... a DELIGHT. Unfortunately though, the performance of the Disco boys rained on everyone's picks, maybe i snuck off with the prognosticator award, getting Rogers in my top 3, have to defer to Jeff on the call there. Photos soon on the Ryan Blog.

Saturday night, we babysat Ryan's girlfriend Sierra, then had supper with Jen and Mike. LPM's apron should have been burning as my menu featured the Cuke, our new favorite, and Adobo. The dessert was also quite nice, though i just assembled it, raspberry sherbet (as in sure bet) topped with blueberries.

Tuesday, i made it to my first training race in 4 weeks or so, with work and vacation getting in the way too much. Luckily, my vacation spent exercising at altitude, served me well with a bit of blood-doping au naturale, and i enjoyed a nice no-chain type training race. It was fun, rolling off the front a bunch with Sebastian and Steve on his tt bike. Also along was Brian "inbetween trips to China" Darby who was really cranking. He and i got way off the front before the left hand turn with Steve, and try as we might, we couldn't talk him into riding the rest of the way with us. From that point, it's probably 5 miles to his house as opposed to 30 roundtrip otherwise. So there we were, me and Brian with a big lead, trying to do our best TTT. On this day it wasn't to be however, as the remainder of the group caught us, after about 7 miles of hard work, with just-back-from-high-altitude-himself Tim D. at the front, in aerobars. It was fun, lots of attacking after that.

The tour has been great to watch, Floyd looks to be the strongest, but who knows this year, there's still a lot of racing to go.

Also, after two attempts to scale this book, i've decided to retire it. Ranked by Outside magazine as one of the top 100 adventure reads of all time, it's pages are perhaps as hard to scale as the mountain itself. Maybe something was lost in the translation, cause Herzog ain't no Krakauer that's for sure. Next up, maybe a reread of Banner, to get ready for our Salt Lake City visit or this Lenny Bruce bio i've been meaning to read.

One other tour note, i've been listening to the eurosport feed on race days and it's pretty nice, good commentators including the smooth brogue of all-time mack Sean Kelly.

To all a good weekend.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

the Col du Marie-Blanque

What did you ride today?
The Lakes
We hit the Loop, you guys?
Up JVC, back on Joe Daniel, bout you?
Woodville with Jackson tacked on
Oh me? i rode over the Col du Marie-Blanque
Damn that sounds better.

Grand Junction




Otter Pop Girl of the Desert



Kokopelli Cruising





Monday, July 10, 2006

Turkey Flats

About 25 miles south of Fruita, above the monument, we had a picnic then rode some cool singletrack. This was Amy's first ride in the dirt and she loved it.




Dinosaur, CO

On the way back, Dad and i hit Dinosaur National Monument which was super cool, a museum built into a cut-away mountain.


Utah Homeys

These are some more photos from the Cabin, below are Sam, cousin Marck and Uncle Bob chillin pre-campfire, then later in our high-stakes poker game with Ted. Uncle Bob aboard my rental and finally me and Annie up on top of Slaters which overlooks the cabin.


Friday, July 07, 2006

Stupid Week

Patrick "Floyd" Q is going to be blogging here about his time at Super Week, no word yet.

Ah Super Week, tough to believe but it's been 10 years since Norm, Trent and i ventured out to Wisconsin to pillage the Cheesehead prizelist. Unfortunately we did no such thing.

The memories come rushing back...

driving, driving, driving
huge fields
Norm slicing his finger open yanking the pump off his Spinergy
two hour crits
Seeing some guy (not me) slide into a big mailbox, helmet first
cytomax and excedrin
Heckling Sven Teutenberg in Milwaukee
buying trispokes at the Motorola garage sale
no breakaways ever working
Preparing meals in the ice bucket of our hotel room
Marcel Wust winning a crit
Getting murdered at Alpine Valley in the rain
Lance coming back from France to win there over Horner
Being asked if we'd been to a "clam bake" after eating sushi
emptying bottles on Trent while he slept

good times, good times

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Late Night Moose Encounter




So what better way to say "Welcome to Utah" than to meet up with a moose while out on a hike. Dad and i ran into this gal by Yellow Lake. I know the photo quality isn't stellar but i was in low light, after adding some brightness to the image i know it looks a bit like the Zapruder film meets Sasquatch footage but, i was happy to get it on film ... err sd card.

Good grief George!

Is this what Eddie B. meant when he said the skin on your legs should be as thin as the skin on the back of your hand?

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

First Vacation Stop - The Cabin


So i flew in to Grand Junction, spent a day with il bambino and the fam, then blammo, Amy's dad and i busted out to Utah to spend a few days working at the Cabin. If memory serves me right, it was built in 1923 by Amy's great grandfather. Since that time it's been added on to and fixed up, primarily by Amy's Uncle Bob. Located high up in the Uintas, it was a real climate shift from desert-like Fruita with much cooler temps and a bit more humidity and as you can see from these photos, it's just down right ugly around there.








more photos to come...

back in the chemical city

Humidity, pollution, bad drivers and rain, welcome back.

A few days ago i was mountain biking in the desert, watching rabbits and prairie dogs run out of my way.

Tonight i ran through a litter filled soccer field, watching fat bayou rabbits watch me.

Great vacation, great times with Amy's folks, Ryan loved every minute of it but now it's time to be back here.

I managed to mountain bike 7 days straight without any serious crashes to note, so maybe i have a future in it. Granted, i was on a pretty sweet full suspension bike with 4 inches of travel fore and aft and disc brakes. Let's just say it made up for operator error on a few occasions. I'm also happy to announce that Amy caught the mountain bike bug, Fruita is a mountain biking Disney World without a doubt. I think a new bike is in her future.

So, what the hell is up with this Tour? First Operation Puerta(?) then no no Vino, then Thor gets the paper cut, Stu cracks his back, Horner dislocates a finger and yesterday with the abandons of Valverde and Dekker, potential stage winners are evaporating quicker than a spilled bottle on River Road. Like some cycling Agatha Christie novel, and then there were 172. I think this is Bruyneel's doing to assure the top 9 spots in Paris.