Vegas, the journey to here.

So it was a pretty eventful day yesterday. I made it to Vegas with really no problems.

View from my room.

To get here was a fun time. I left Memphis a little before lunch and put the hammer down on the interstate. It was clear, dry, sunny, and awesome. I did run into a ton of police officers so I couldn't drive 90 or anything but still made good time. On the way to my friend's house to park for free, I was slightly misguided and drove a little more than I needed to. Oh well. At the airport the lady at the xray machine chewed me out for not sending my computer through solo but I smiled, apologized, and proceeded on about my ways. I get to the gate and the only spot with open seats has some crazy Mennonite family who is crunching pretzels into the floor and running around barefoot. (They might have not been Mennonite, but they were extremely religious and crazy.) The kids were jumping on the seats and causing a huge ruckus. One little boy had three fingers stuck in his mouth drooling and having a huge coughing fit. I generally don't mind kids but this was more of a total family creep-out.The mom was giving me funny looks, the dad kept talking about how one time a gander of geese was caught in an airplane engine. I wanted to stick a writing pen through my gauged ear and tell the kids that tattoos are rad.

I flew into Denver chasing a 2 inch strip of sunset and amazed at the cool sight of the moon rising over the cloud cover. It was a cool site. I chatted with a nice guy on my flight from Denver to Vegas and arrived unscathed. I chatted it up with a lady who works for Saris on my walk/train ride from my terminal to the baggage claim. My friends picked me up at the baggage claim and we headed to the strip. I was completely overwhelmed and was asked "is there anything you have wanted to do?" and my answer was "You just plucked me out of Tipton County and dropped me on the Vegas strip".

Besides being completely dazzled, seeing two weddings after midnight, and realizing that this trip was pretty awesome already. I crawled into bed at 1am Vegas time, which is 3am Memphis time, which is officially 5 hours past my bed time.

prelude to interbike

On my side of things lately I have been mingling the line between hectic and lazy. There are a ton of new cool things going on in my little corner of the world. I will begin at the beginning: I moved into a house where I am really close to our Cordova location of work. My dog has a yard to play in, other dogs to play with, and a pair of cats that terrorize him and try to burn up his seemingly unlimited supply of energy.

The weather has been great and the weather has been much more agreeable over the last two weeks, you can actually go for a ride without dripping sweat from every square of your body in the first 2 miles. I have converted my mountain bike back to a regular handlebar, single speed mountain bike. The Cannondale CAAD10 has been proving to be a great bike for the road, but only when I ride it.

This year a friend offered me the great opportunity to join him and his lovely lady at Interbike to help with their booth. This is what I will be hustling and bustling all week long, shaking hands, hustling shirts, serving booze, giving people an idea of how amazing the one off skinsuit from FUCancer looks, and generally just enjoying myself.

We will be hanging out at Booth #1048 and having a good time. Want to stop by? Please do. Remember a ton of this merchandise goes to helping more people. Soft shirts, good causes, and great style. That's right, I'll see you there.

Do you dare?

My Month of July

I am going to try to summarize my months of June & July into just a few words. Long, full, and tiring. I had been living in Midtown in the same apartment for the last two years. I had graduated from the UofM and was moving on to things like working in a bike shop. The area wasn't great for riding my bike from, the rent was a little steep to swing by myself, and with student loan repayment beginning I decided to seek shelter in the upstairs of a friends home. I spent most of June trying to ride a little bit and pack up my apartment. This was the first time of moving as an adult and I had accumulated a ton of crap.

When I began my push to move I decided to make a few piles of stuff that would help me move more efficiently. The piles included Trash, Donate, Sell, Treasure.

I threw away a lot of stuff mercilessly. There were things I just didn't need. Things I didn't want. Things I had no use for. I donated some stuff to the goodwill that was useable but not worth keeping around because I didn't see myself using it again. I had some stuff good enbough to sell but wouldn't be used again, and a few items I absolutely treasured.

Once I knew I was moving I began moving stuff pretty regularly between my days off and evenings. I began situating things before I moved in and tried to stay tidy. Rather than completely piling it all in at once I would take boxes over, unpack them, and then take those boxes back to the apartment to start over. That worked great until the last big dig and I had to pile it up anyways. Here we are 5 weeks later and some boxes are still just sitting idly.

I did sell some things that I wanted to get ride of in order to make space and money. It was refreshing and labor intensive.

I had house sat here a good bit over the last year or so and Marley was well accustomed to the other animals and the yard situation. I can say overall I think Marley is excited about having a yard to play in. He has also made good friends with one of the cats and they will fight and play. Marley has even nearly taught the big dog Turbo how to play tug o war with a rope.

The moral of the story is things have been going well, just busy. I have been working a good bit in order to help keep things at working rolling smoothly and evenly. I have been trying hard to ride more (which is still hit n miss). I am pretty fired up about cyclocross season and looking forward to seeing Cross Vegas while out at Interbike. More on Interbike to come tomorrow after the store meeting.

Long time no blob.

Yes blob. Because a real blog would be updated regularly and have good content. I have neither of those things so I have a blob. A splotch of unidentifiable garbage on the internet, much akin to an electronic booger.

Just the tip.

SALE SALE SALE!!!!

54cm Alum/Carbon Frame, Carbon fork - $300

54cm Ti, made in 'Merica! Full Dura-Ace 10spd. 1'' steerer tube fork - $1200

Aliante Saddle - straight rails and only one tiny wear spot on nose

$25 or trade for a racier saddle, Arione or SLR type.

Renn Multisport 650c rear wheel, clincher, skewer included.

Shimano freehub, one lil ding at the end of my finger. $250

Dude, give me a break.

Over the last few months I have been learning a lot about living. Think strippers, blow, and a wild car ride with a guy duct taped in the trunk. . . wait. Scratch that. My life isn't a Three-6 song. I have been making bicycles work, riding my bike more than ever, racing it a little bit, and trying to make it.

Speaking of making it. At the end of July I will be moving out of my apartment that I have lived in for a little over two years. It is odd to try and imagine packing my life into boxes and squeeze into the upstairs of an ever so generous couple, Ryan and Andrea. I often wonder what the place will be called. I have referred to it as a compound a few times and think the name could stick. I often daydream about an every man(and woman) for him(or her)self attempt to get out the door to ride, battling one another with embrocation to the eyes and fighting over the air pump, finding cleat covers tubular cemented into place. . . all for the town line sprint championships.

Over the last 12 months I have had loads of envy. I previously thought that everyone else got all the cool opportunities. People were getting off easy. Or some people are just lucky. But then I decided to make myself the lucky one. I have realized that life is what you make it, for the most part.

Today I was riding my rollers, clicking along, and I got the first double drip. When sweat drips off your nose and is quickly followed by another drip. It is almost an out-of-rhythm drip. This is pretty uncommon for me. I don't know if I am just not a heavy sweater, possibly I am not fully hydrated, or something. Anyways, I started really sweating, pretty early into my "easy" ride. I immediately thought of a guy on MB/BPC team Joe. Joe has been a pretty big motivating factor for me wanting to get fast. He is fast. He can make people hurt. He is able to ride with Bryant Funston and have fun. I was standing around after Joe raced a crit one day and Aaron Parker says "I wish I was fast still, I just don't have the time to train". Joe's jaw dropped. He was still standing over his bike and his son was saying "hey daddy" and trying to use the downtube as a step to climb up to Joe. Joe looked at Aaron, said "Dude give me a break" and that was that.

What is the moral of this whole post, what is it all about? My roller workout today was boss. Over the last few months riding more consistently (even still shoddy consistency, but more steady on the bike) I have had a ton of more fun riding my bike. Being faster is addictive. 3 months ago I was saying I wanted to be as fast as people X,Y,Z. I have realized it isn't about being faster than someone else really. I need to ride until I am as fast as I can be.

Not What You Were Expecting

Rewind a year and I had a girlfriend who lived with me. Everything was peachy and great and sometimes we cooked breakfast together and shared cinnamon rolls. Today I was cooking some cinnamon rolls. I realized that there was no one to share them with. NO ONE TO SHARE THEM WITH!!!!111!

So I decided to eat the whole pan like a boss.

Happy Friday everybody.