So I was at this graduation party the other night and I saw this:

Well actually, I added the knife part, but then I walked over to the bookcase and saw something that caught my eye.  Could it be?  It was a copy of Catch-22.  Where are the snowdens of yesteryear anyhow?  (I added the anyhow for dramatic effect).

Oh, so that's where it went.  Hmm.  Then a few days later I had strawberry sherbet for lunch.

So yeah, I can ride tomorrow at 6.  Sounds good.   Hey do you guys know this Rafal Doloto fellow.  He was facebooking about a ride tomorrow morning.

Maybe I'll take up Hard Liquor

Yeah, yeah, it's been a while. What's the old saying? "If you don't have anything nice to say, don'tsay anything at all." Yeah.

Aside from the once easy but now more difficult 3 mile commute to and from work, riding has been on the back burner. Even with all this nice weather.

I have ridden from work to the bike building job for Trek Papio a couple times. But I've been zonked after that, so I fear what a Wednesday Night Worlds or fast weekend ride could bring.

So to get away from the epic pasttime of video games, I wanted to try something new. I also needed a new belt for work as my current one is somehow shrinking. What?

I picked up a basic leather working kit from Tandy Leather. I had tried leather working when I was much younger without great results. Now that I'm more patient (maybe less ADD?) I can put in the time to get good at the stamping, carving, tooling, etc of fancy leather working. Besides, my work belt is just too tight even with the added hole on the end. What?

Would it be cheaper and healthier to eat smarter and exercise more? Well yes. But that would take time away from leather working and drinking beer and Playstation and ....

So anyway....

My big bro and a few other people I know have posted requests on Facebook and gotten great results. Need a cheap beater car to get you through the year? Someone on Facebook might have one. Need baby stuff because you have no money at age 19 and work at a restaurant? A well-to-do couple might have loads of things they'll never need again since all their babies are in school now.

I ask for a simple slate of steel or smooth rock for my leather working hobby on Facebook and get this:

friend 1: Only if you build me a leather mask....

friend 2: can you make me a nice Brooks saddle?

friend 3: Check any counter top company like Martins or Universal. They have remnants laying around I think you could pick up pretty cheap.

friend 4: Stupid granite taking up all that counter space.

friend 5: I have a big piece of concrete in my backyard, I will check the dimensions for ya. It is a little jagged around the edges, however.

Three comedians and a couple helpful responses. Alas, I guess that's the way most internet posts go. Thank you friends, for the suggestions and laughs.

I asked around at work too and found out that my boss used to do leather working as a serious hobby/extra income. He has a ton of tools and books about it. He also brought in a couple slates of granite for me to have. Awesome!

Not awesome was lugging it home in a messenger bag on the bike. I came home and had to know how much I was toting:

Along with that, I had some books. I'm guessing I had a loaded road bike in my messenger bag. I survived, but was worried about tipping over at stops.

So, I'm gonna put together a couple items to get some leather working in. Then I'll get my belt all fancy and nice lookin.

Then I might combine all my new trades and make this:

Anyone know of a good cheap vodka?

Cue the comedians!!!!

Yay new year!

It's 2012 and according to some, we won't be around this time next year. Meh, whatevs.

My last post stated that I was riding more and such and so on, but that has waned. It's tough to stay motivated and ride solo which means on the trainer for those that work till it gets dark. And the group rides sometimes are demoralizing since others can hold a conversation at their easy pace going uphill while I'm above LT and drifting off the back.

Meh. MEH I SAY!!!

I need to lose 10-20 lbs. If only I could go on a bike ride without my bike. That would drop the weight right there!!! I tried to cut out breakfast to reduce caloric intake, but after a few weeks of that, I saw no change in weight. If anything it crept up a pound or so. I think I snacked more in the evening after starving all morning. So that didn't work.

Now I'm going to try to change my liquid consumption. I've tried it before, but I think I really want to cut out beer and coffee. I know that's lunacy to most cyclists if not most the population, but I'm tired of spending the extra mullah on beer and always needing an extra boost in the morning from coffee. I've been off the beer for a week. Yesterday afternoon was rough as I was really craving one, but I made it through with a few tall glasses of water. Now I just have to cut out the morning joe without going into convulsions due to a caffeine headache. I have titrated down to 1 cup each morning this week and will try to be done with it over the weekend. Well, "cup" meaning 16oz or so, not the 8 ouch cup of coffee that doesn't exist anymore. I know beer has a bit of calories, but the way I drink coffee - with cream and sugar - is part of what's keeping me plump. I recently read somewhere that the caffeine in coffee transports sugars to your body quicker. Since I don't burn those sugars while I'm at work, I store them as fat. I know I could just go with black coffee, but doctoring it up makes it barely palatable as it is now, so I don't think I could go that route. Besides, if I want to feel some actual jolt from coffee I have to down half a pot now. I miss the days when one cup made me feel like a meth head. Not that I know what a meth head feels, but I remember first trying coffee and feeling like I could see into the future.

I never remember seeing past 2012 though. Hmmmmm......

Fire in my belly

I just had a great weekend of riding with good buddies.

On Saturday, E.O'B., Bryan, Brady, and I did a fun little loop to downtown, up Hickory hill for the coming weekend's Hickory Hill Climb Challenge (which I'm not going to do very well at), the hit up good ol' Bellevue Blvd before catching the tailwing express home. Good times.

Then on Sunday, all 4 of us met up again at Seymore Smith park for some CX action. It was tons of fun lawn racin' as Shim calls it. On a side note, anytime I partake in CX anything, I keep thinking of this video:

I have never mastered the flying leap remount so I always have to do the "Step N Hop" remount. Not graceful at all.

Anyway, back to the fire in my belly. After all that cycling goodness over the weekend, I got up early (thanks in part to going back to standard time) and went to the gym to get some non-cycling specific stuff worked on.

So now, it's Monday, I've come off a few days of some great workouts, and I feel this heat radiating inside me. It's like I have this anger and rage. I feel like The Hulk. Well, ok, maybe not as enraged as The Hulk. But at least half as much. Ok, maybe a third.

Hopefully I can keep this fire stoked and shed some of the flub that I've amassed over the last couple years of little to no riding.

Then, maybe I can get fast on the bike again.

Then, maybe I can learn a flying leap remount.

I hate commercials

One of my main motivators for getting rid of cable was the commercials. The never ending price hikes didn't help either, but really, I just couldn't stand commercial breaks. I could never watch one thing. As soon as a commercial came up, my very dexterous thumb would go to work on the remote finding other content to watch. I'd fly through the channels I mostly watch until I found something on that wasn't a commercial. Some times, I'd have to fly through the channels multiple times since EVERY ONE had a commercial going.

I loved Hulu when it first came out because, guess what, no commercials. Then they added commercials, unless you paid for it, then you'd just get less commercials or something. I haven't been on that site in a year because of this.

Now people are harping on Netflix for the price hike. It was eleven freakin dollars to get one dvd at a time and stream everything they had. Now it's a "shocking" 60% hike up to a staggering $16.

Really? That horrible huh?

Can you think of any other bill that's only $16 a month? Digital HD Cable with internet is something like $120 a month for most people. I pay $50 just for internet from Cox Cable alone, which again creeps up a couple dollars every year.

People complain that there's nothing on the streaming services of Netflix. But how many times have you heard the same about television programming?

So give Netflix a break. Otherwise they'll have to start feeding us commercials somehow.

If that happens, I'm going off the grid, for reals.

Lurking in the Shadows

I pulled a Fred. I haven't blogged since a serious climate change. Shame on me.

My blog used to be used as a ride organizer, but now there's this. It get's used almost weekly, however, I know there's way more impromptu rides going on. So, how does that work?

Well there's this new fangled thing called social media. These continuously updating sites let you post a little, but not a lot, on what's happening. I belong to them about as much as I belong to Husker Nation. I reside there, will watch what's going on with some interest, but rarely partake in any involvement.

I can never fit what I want to say into a meaningful Facebook post. And Twitter doesn't even let me begin a thought. If you'll notice, my blog text area is most of the page, or widescreen. I did this because I'm awfully wordy and didn't want my ramblings to take numerous scrollings like some people. (Sorry Brady, your's was the best example I could find. Please, keep up the entertaining posts. Love them.) Also, I figured most people would be posting widescreen youtube videos in the future. But then a weird thing happened.

"In the future" became social media where links are used rather than thoughts, and smaller is better. Even the screens used to view social media are smaller. Did the cell phone help create social media, or did social media push cell phone's into what they've become? Either way, I'm not sure I'm on board.

Bryan was recently faced with the question of how important social media is to him. He went with a pretty sensible phone by today's standards. I had mentioned in a response to an earlier post, if he wanted to avoid Android, he could go with a Blackberry via Virgin Mobile. I figured he'd like the idea of saving money monthly. I really don't know his situation, so I probably assumed wrong, but I like VMs prices - $25 a month (plus tax, so $27) for unlimited web/text and 300 minutes a month. When I got a bonus from work, I tried out their LG Optimus and tried to like it. Well, aside from liking the name a whole bunch, the battery lasted maybe 2 days. That was with turning everything off (GPS, Gmail Sync, Wifi, etc) aside from regular cell phone reception. I know this because there was an app that let me see all the currently running processes. Kinda cool, but worthless when you find out that searching for cell towers and running your OS only nets you 40 hours of battery life. So that went back to the store and I used the bonus to pay down some debt.

Maybe if I could afford any of it, I'd be singing a different tune. As it stands now, I'm almost offended at the idea of spending $70+ a month on a data enabled phone just to stay connected when most people have perfectly fine computers at their job and/or home. If interesting things happen between your job and your home, you can easily use your large screen and large keyboard to write a very well thought out blog posting.

I know I'm being particularly "fist shaky" about this subject (a term I learned from Miah in a Facebook conversation about fireworks) but I don't think I'll ever be a frequent poster to the social media anytime soon, if ever. So I have a jump start on being uncool to my kids, if I have any.

So, I am around, lurking in the shadows, following what's going on, but usually not commenting on (or "liking") it. Hopefully I'll pick up riding more sometime soon since I recently got a slight promotion at work and don't have to work weird hours anymore. I'm done by 4:30pm almost every day. Now I just have to remember how to ride fast. I rode with Mr. Miles this last weekend and was shown how utterly long it's been since I've ridden with any speed. Who know's maybe I'll show up to a WNW ride and ride with the C group. C group being me, by myself, just getting to Ft. Calhoun while others are getting back to the store.

Progress

I'm happy to announce there's been some progress.

Riding home today, a car passed me on Leavenworth's left lane (I, of course in the right 3rd of the right lane) which contained a passenger that rolled down the window in rainy weather to yell, "Side Streets, BITCH!"

So yeah, significant progress.

1. The argumentative passenger was in a vehicle that was kind enough to make a full lane change to get around me. I've found most people do this nowadays. It also helps that I do take up a 3rd of the lane. There's not enough room to allow a cyclist and a car in 1 lane on Leavenworth (or many of Omaha's streets) so I take enough of the lane to require a full lane change to pass me. This is safer for all involved.

2. As the one sided argument went, I should seek out, and travel on side streets. This is a somewhat valid point. The side streets are probably significantly safer than the main streets, albeit substantially hillier. However, I was 4 blocks from joining Leavenworth's bike lane, and there's no real side street route to get to said bike lane. This argument is a huge upgrade from the old, "get on the sidewalk," or, "get off the road" admonishments. Had the conversation been 2 sided in a more relaxed situation, it might have went,

"I ride a bike to work."

"Oh really? I accept that riding a bike is a viable means of transportation, I only request that you stick to the side streets so the faster moving, heavier traffic could move along more expeditiously. Have a good day."

Well I can dream, can't I?