Cat Scratch Fever.

Ok, I don't have a fever, but I did get a pretty good cat scratch. One of our cats was being particularly squirrelly and playing around under the bed, so I batted at the sheets hanging down from the sides. Well of course she thought this was plenty fun and batted back. Well, all it took was one instance of both of us batting at the same time to end the game. She won by drawing blood. It could have been a lot of blood if the sheets were thinner. My defeat was a nice gash on my middle finger. So I went to my trusty standby for a cure. (I was going to upload a pic of said product, but teh bloggzors is acting weird)

This stuff is amazing. I don't remember which race it was, but a couple years ago I got this mini-grab bag of body care stuff from their company. It's called Zip's Natural Sport. They have just a few products such as the Scab Dab stuff I use often, some muscle rub for alleviating aches, soap, and for the runners - Nip Stick(which I think is just chapstick for your nipples). I've never experienced it, but apparently some runners have issues with their nips while running. Bryan or Brady, could you explain this one?

So anyway, I can see that this gash from my cat's claw is kinda deep. So I immediately wash it pretty good with anti-bacterial soap, dab on some of this Scab Dab, then cover with a band-aid. The gash was almost too long for my band-aids, but it worked. The scratch originally occured on Monday night, and today, I have no need for a band-aid. This stuff has some weird natural super healing powers. It somehow really aids in healing, unlike Neosporin, which is mainly used to over-disinfect. Before, when I'd use Neosporin it would take a long time for scrapes and scratches to heal. This Scab Dab stuff is really nice. Once i run out of the little .25 oz sample/travel version, I'm going to order the larger 1.5 oz tin for $9.00. Trust me, it's well worth it.

Gotta love the little things that cycling helps in every day life.

Stolen

This clip stolen from CVO, who in turn stole it from Pinch Flat news.

Shabbos + 1 anyone?

Not much to report in my world, hence the same pic of Mr. Liggett up top for quite a while.

My plans for this weekend are: ride my mtb Saturday morning and hopefully do a group ride Sunday morning. Anyone can tag along if they want to respond and discuss when/where these 2 major events should happen. My loosely made plans right now are riding the mtb probably at either Swanson or Lake Manawa, or maybe even the Wabash, or maybe Tranquility, or, well that's about it. Time? Um somewhere in the 8-ish to noonish area. I have a strict schedule as you can see.

Sunday, well, meet somewhere along the Keystone sometime in the morning. Again a strict schedule. I will need to be home by 11:30am though, so no century for me this weekend...ctm. (chortles to myself, kinda like lol).

So, anyone got any feedback?

Suitcase full of courage!

So what would you pay for a "Suitcase full of Courage"?



The boys from Pacific think it's worth $10,000.00!

Inspiration

So on the Breast Cancer Awareness ride, I volunteered my time to be at the turn around for the 25 mile ride. I drove the High Gear Van down to Capehart Rd and setup shop with bananas, apples, and water. Most of the people came rolling in as one large group, but didn't stay for too long since they probably didn't want to get too cool. Then, after a while another group came and went, then finally the sweepers, Troy and Charlie, followed the last group in. This group consisted of an 82 year old guy from Kansas City who was riding with his daughter, her husband, and her friend.

I chatted with the KC guy for a while as he was refueling and he was, truly, where I want to be when I grow up. At 82, he either rode his bike, took a walk, or both almost every day. He went on bike trips when he had the chance and just enjoyed life. He said he lived alone in KC (my guess is his wife passed away some time ago), so he could "go riding whenever (he) liked."

Sure he could only ride at an 8 mph pace, but he's 82!! To be in that good of shape at that age is, what I believe, cycling's biggest benefit. My Uncle, who is getting up there in age and is retired, leads bike tours as a way to have fun while earning a little bit of mullah. I wish I could do that right now. That would be so much fun!

So some people hate getting older. I say, there's plenty to look forward to, so enjoy the process, and get out there and ride!

Shabbos +1

It looks like rain. Awesome. If it's raining when you wake up, or if the radar will be covering Omaha with a big dose of green soon, stay home.

Otherwise:
Crane Coffee on the Keystone (78th/Cass)
8 a.m.

Exposing my..

soul to all. There's nothing going on here at work. Nada. So I'm gonna tell a little story bout myself and I hope to get some responses of similar fashion. Sometime, whenever, just write about your experience in reference to:

Music. Bryan's post got me thinking about music and how people come upon their musical identity. Why do some people listen to purely country music and think that hip hop can't even be considered music? What influences a person to start listening to their type of music. How do people know what "everything" is when they say they listen to "everything"?

Here's my back ground. I grew up with my mom playing piano for me and my two brothers. That was great entertainment. We'd dance around while she would play Gershwin, Bach, Chopin, and many others that I can't remember now. That tied in well with Bugs Bunny cartoons since the background music was usually played by orchestras and sounded like classical music. Then when I got old enough, 2nd grade, I started taking piano lessons. About the same time, my big brother, who's older than me by 3 years, started listening to pop music. This is me bearing my soul just so everyone know's where I'm coming from. My early favorite songs were all the hits from the early 80s: from Pink Cadillac, by Natalie Cole, to Duran Duran. 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade were all pop hits for me, courtesy of me blindly following my older brother. My first tape was Michael Jackson's Bad. So yes, it was that bad.

In 5th grade, my friends changed a little. I started hanging out with kids who had long hair. I, myself started to grow a flop since that is what skaters did, and I was now officially a skateboarder.

I started listening to early Metallica, Megadeath, and found my new TV love: Headbangers Ball. Every Saturday night I was up till all hours of the night just reveling in the massive sounding aggressive music. At first I hated the glam-rock, but after seeing how many women loved their music, which at that time of life started to become really important, I changed my mind. So that was 5th through 7th grade. My tastes in rock did eventually morph to a more funky sound. Primus, Suicidal Tendencies, and other bass guitar heavy rock started to mold my listening preferences. I started playing bass in orchestra in 6th grade along with my piano lessons, so I wanted to hear music that had lots of bass in it. Anthrax had some great bass lines and had some decent messages in their music. It wasn't dark like the death metal, but it wasn't glitz and glam of the hair bands. They eventually did "Bring the Noise" with Public Enemy. That was pretty much it afterwards.

In Jr. High, my school was pretty ghetto. So since most of the girls liked hip hop and RnB, guess what I started liking? Yes ganster rap was in full effect at that time and being that I came from the extreme of rock with speed metal, I had to go to the extreme with rap. It's fun to, every now and then, break out the old Spice 1, Comptons Most Wanted, or South Central Cartel cds. Yes, they were all real rappers. I grew tired of the severely modified songs they put out on the radio though. I guess playing just beeps every other word isn't great music, huh? Eventually my tastes grew up a little and I wanted to find hip hop that was fun, not gangster. That was a challenge, but when I found great artists, I bought everything I could from them. A Tribe Called Quest is probably my favorite group ever. Most people will never know of College Boys, Masta Ace, Rahzel, or any of the other positive hip hop acts that were once out there. Luckily, people like Common (who, when I first heard him in '94, was Common Sense), Wyclef Jean, Digital Underground, Outkast, and a few others could break into the limelight and show that hip hop doesn't all have to be about guns and money.

So hip hop and RnB was my music of choice until college. I went to school in Kearney, NE and was deftly afraid that my roommate was going to be some Country loving, rap hating hick. My first conversation with my freshman year roommate was funny because this very topic came up. He was just like me!! He hated country and loved rap. Granted it was only West coast stuff for him. Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, and others like that. So we shared our versions of good hip hop and grew from it. He learned about Wu-Tang Clan from me, and I learned that Ice-Cube became somewhat of a militant version of Public Enemy. It was great.

Also at that time I decided I was going to major in music. This meant I could link all those years of playing classical music on the piano and bass in orchestra to the theory behind music. This made pop and rock music really boring to me. I began to recognize when rock musicians really knew music or if they were just playing power chords and getting rich off of catchy choruses. I started really getting into "modern" classical music. Stuff from the Romantic era to this century (1815 - 2000) . Later Beethoven had some great angsty sounds, Prokofiev and Shostakovich had been through the world wars so their music was heavily influenced by pain. The sound of classical became more and more strident until things became experimental. Listen: Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima by Krzysztof Penderecki Some of the really modern stuff is just random like Cage's 4'33" which is a guy sitting at a piano for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. The idea is that the "music" is all the ambient noise of the theater and that there is really no true silence until death. In other classes I learned about world music and found that there's a lot of different sounds out there to experience. So when people say, "Oh I listen to everything," I feel like asking, "So what is your favorite Gamelan orchestra?"

Nowadays, good music is hard to find for me. And it's not because my favorite band grew up and got old, it's because I'm looking for something totally new to me. Not another rock band that sounds something like blank, mixed with a little blank. Just something completely different. Good hip hop to me has to use different sounds and beats to catch my interest. Missy Elliot with Timbaland is a good example of this. Every couple years, Timbaland reinvents his sound and others play catch up. Pharrell with Star Trak music had a whole new soundscape that many pop artists paid him to create for them. Most of the new stuff is just bland. I understand how people like new rap, which all sounds the same to me, because I went through that when I was first discovering hip hop.

On the rock side of things, Coheed and Cambria was the last band that I really got excited about and they're kind of underground. They have real musical talent and I had never heard of a story going throughout entire albums, sometimes called Progressive Rock. I understand now that Pink Floyd did this and so did a few others. I've tried and tried to get into most classic rock and I just can't do it. That includes heavier rock, hippie rock, folksy stuff, etc. The lead singers voice has a big part in this. If I don't like the singers voice, I'm never going to get into their music. Most of the major players of classic rock just don't work for me. The Beatles, The Who, AC/DC, Bob Dylan (so yes Bryan, when you did play Dylan, I was offended...(just kidding)), Led Zeppelin, etc. are all ingrained in the musical fabric of rock, but it's just not something I like to hear. I say this about country, mariachi music, and many other kinds of music: I respect the musicians and what they can do, it just doesn't sound good to me. I'm sure this is the same way most people feel about hip hop and pop music. Except about the being musically talented part.

Most new stuff I find interesting is usually electronic. Postal Service, Dntel, Royksopp, Sigur Roos, Eberhard Weber, Gary Burton, and all kinds of weird ambient music is just "new" music to my ears. I like variation. Something could have a wailing guitar, violins in the background, and a crazy phat bass beat and I'd be a happy camper. Especially if I liked the lead singers voice and the lyrics made sense or told a story. Or even if there wasn't a singer, music can be just as good. A classical bassist named Edgar Meyer created his own sound. He was influenced by jazz and bluegrass so he wrote his own music that is just different. I love stuff like that.

So now you know what I listen to. I have 400 cds of classical, rock, techno, pop, hip hop, RnB, world, showtunes, videogame music, anime soundtrack music, movie soundtrack music, etc. If I had all kinds of money, I'd need many terabytes of hard-drive space to download music from the internets. That's what was so great about the hayday of Napster. You could easily find new music for free. Not just sample it, but have it. It was always fun to look at peoples playlists when you found a song you wanted to download from them. Needless to say, I usually found a few people like me who had similar random tastes in music like I do.

So....that's all I gotta say bout that. Let me know either a short or long version of your musical history on a reply here, or on your own blog. Expose yourself. It feels good.

On Ebay.

So I sold some stuff on ebay recently. I got my tri-spokes, a pair of road shoes, pair of mtb shoes, and the Speedplay X-1 pedals that Peter sold to me at the beginning of this year. Total take home is around $1100!! So I'm ok with that. Time to pay down some debt.

I feel a little guilty about getting $140 0ut of the Speedplay pedals since Peter sold them to me for $70. Hey Petey, you want an extra $35? Show up to a ride sometime and I'll pony up the mullah. That's PAF. Peter getting paid to go on a group ride.

The Word on Shabbos +1

Looks like there might be rain or storms for Sunday morning. Let's plan for 8 am at Aksarben and decide from there. Please respond if you're planning on attending and/or would like to change meeting time/location. If it looks like lightning, just assume that I'm sleeping in instead. Or, if no one responds and there's no lightning, I'll show up and ride by myself if need be.

Shabbos: The word

Saturday: 7:45 a.m.
Place: Scooter's Coffeehouse on 120th and Blondo (SE corner of intersection)
Departure from Scooter's: 8:15 a.m.
Destination: Bike Masters group ride at 8:30. From there, lord knows where we're going.
Speed: As always, quick social

See you there.

Jon -- do you want to meet at Scooters or meet on Maple and ride down together?

Shabbos

No, not Shabbos +1. Shabbos. I'm going to be gone on Shabbos +1, but really want to ride on Shabbos.

I'm thinking 8 a.m. for a three-hour ride or so. Sean, one my teammates, will be in town and is down for anything. Though he does need a bike. Anybody got a moderately fast 55 or 56cm bike available for the morning?

But where shall we convene? Crane Coffee on the Keystone seems like the easy choice. There's also the Bike Masters ride at 8:30, which really wouldn't make it Shabbos.

Let's figure some stuff out.

Better news

In a few weeks, like maybe two or three, we'll be able to return to the former Caribou Coffee for a European coffee experience. The dude who owns Omaha's Taco Del Mar stores is going to lease the Caribou spaces for his own joint.

But does that mean we all have to get white bar tape, wear white shoes and carry a baguette in our seat pack?

Bad bad bad bad news (confirmed)

All Omaha Caribou Coffee locations have closed. The 156th and Maple one is gone, and the store finder on the company's web site says there are no locations within 50 miles.

Shabbos +1 is now homeless.

look here.