so on wed. I went out mountain biking at schaeffer farms. I went with some other people. Generally, I ride by myself or with people that ride less than I do. These people ride a lot more than I do, and jee-zus, they smoked me. on the ride over, one of them is like: well, you guys have to go slow, I haven’t been on a mountain bike in about 2 years. Everyone agrees to go slow. I’m happy because I know beforehand that it’s going to be rough on me. we get out, get on the bikes (me on a single speed, another single speed, and a front and full suspension). 2 seconds later everyone is ripping off down this trail jumping over stuff and flying like crazy. I’m in the back gingerly tiptoeing over roots and such. \

It was a really fun day, I was playing catch up the whole time, but had a rad time. I went over the bars once and had a few more mishaps. I’m starting to dig this whole mountain bike thing.

1 Comment || Topcs: General, bikes

how about you come hang out w/ us at a free show / pot luck

5 Comments || Topcs: General, south carey

Competition has it’s way of bringing you down.
Always being number one, robs the music of it’s fun,
Ego trips get in the way of the goals we set.

so I’ve been on a few memorable rides since last posting.

cabin john regional park: this started as a dirt experiment on the surly. It rode pretty well, but I could tell pretty quickly that I was biting off more than I could chew, so I hit tuckerman lane and did a longer road ride. This was a very nice diversion from getting jen’s car worked on at the dealership.

fairland park on the singlespeed: It never ceases to amaze me how hard mountain biking is. Just a few miles and I felt cooked! definitely a good time though. I am going to try and get out on dirt more often. It’s hilarious to me though because I can tell when I;m on these trails that they are totally not a big deal for regular mountain bike types, but to me they are brutal.

hains point and around NOVA with jen on trigger the fixie. I would like to point out that I used to ride fixed with jen because it was more of a challenge when she wasn’t riding as fast on her MTB. It’s now at the point that I am putting the hammer down to keep up with her on her old school roadie. I’m also convinced that I can climb the slab of the sculpture’s bicep, hug the forearm and dyno to the finger.

today, after the tour finished, I rolled out to greenbelt park. I was going to do the agricultural loop again, but we had some other things we wanted to do, so I went for the quicker option. I’ve never seen another cyclist there (I’ve never gone to one of the wed night crit races). I also thought it would be good for me because I feel like I need to work on my cornering and descending (I sketch out when I hit a certain speed and hit the brakes unnecessarily) and greenbelt park allows for this. So, I’m going down hill and a guy whips by me. like I’m standing still. This should not bother me but it does. I’m used to mediocrity in running, swimming and climbing, but I used to be a relatively strong cyclist when I was a young buck. our laps weren’t the same route, but intersected. But I kept trying to chase this guy down when I saw him. I ended up catching him on a hill but that’s because he was ccoling down going to his car.

For the tri-stuff, I am THAT into the “race” component of it, I just like having things to train for. But I am thinking about entering some bike races and pulling some respectable dfl’s. maybe some cyclocross races in the fall, and I’m really intrigued by all these wacky mountain bike races where you don’t have to “win” to win. They seem a lot more like climbing competitions (big parties that happen to have climbing during the daytime).

3 Comments || Topcs: General, bikes

so this weekend while seeing some old friends we were discussing the concept of what you have learned being a parent, and I said “accepting lower standards”, not so much lowered standards in what you should do for the boy or being a parents, but lower standards as in what your willing to accept about the niceties of life. A little messy here, sure why not, a little filth there, I guess we gotta. No bath right now, accepting the toy filled living room. They are not things were proud of but more something you really dont have a choice about. Of course there are positives to this, realizing in many cases your previous expectations were pretty silly to begind with.

so this leeds me to a tech issue. I think poorly written software and shotty hardware has taught us to have lowered expectations. Like a child you have adjusted to, to get done what you need to, but not necessarily how you want to, or when you want to, or to the extent that you want to. For example, how many times do we deal w/ crappy windows xp or what ever wndows varrient you are forced to deal with. Going from linux / mac to windows, I have had to lower my uptime / consitancy / personal effeciency expectations. Not because I want to, but because I have no choice. Same goes for cell phones, we all just accept that like a child who you love, but flips out at resturaunts, you might not be able to use your cell phone for more than 10 minutes w/ out a tantrum/cell outage.

Im not trying to make light of the changes of being a parent, but more so wondering why we all put up w/ crappy poorly implemented and tested tech.

7 Comments || Topcs: General, geek, parenting

so ive been working on these lyrics for a while now… its for a new south carey song im tentativly calling “talking to the taxman about running numbers” , its mostly about my grandmother, but in a more general sence is a little vinete about the destruction of the idea of job security.

Talking to the tax man about running number
she came down from the mountains of green
down to the city of greed
she had her tools in hand
she got a job working for the man
she worked day in she worked day out
documenting the rights we never got

she bounched me on her kneee
whispering to me
just like kenedy and camelot
this too will pass

3 Comments || Topcs: General, punk, south carey

I’m backlogged on blog posts that I haven’t had time to put up, but I have to post the conversation I just had in the library bathroom:

Woman (wearing a winter coat, shorts over her pants and searching through several plastic bags in an agitated way): mumble… mumble…gotcha…mumble…urgh!

Me: Ma’am? Are you ok?

Woman (glaring at me): mumble…mumble…missy!

Me (confused): Are you all right? Do you need some help?

Woman (walking to the door): Eep urp blurble squeak. Eep urp blurble squeak. Don’t you speak English? Do you know what that means? No?

She wandered off, leaving behind copious body odor, before I could tell her that there is cheap good food at the Coop. I haven’t met any other homeless folks in the library, but I get the impression she may be here regularly.

2 Comments || Topcs: General

I’ve been on vacation for about a week. Unfortunately, mike couldn’t take off with me, but it meant some quality time with the boo. I purposely had something to do every day so that we didn’t just end up cooped up in the house laying around (ok, I would be laying around).

Monday, we went to the Science museum with my friend Jen and her kids. Tuesday, we went to the mother goose event at the canton library and hung out with my friend Lynn visiting from california. Wednesday we went to get the oil change for the prius, got bubble tea at montgomery mall and had lunch with mike and his mom at hard times in bethesda. Thursday, I went to work for half a day and got my hair did. Today, we went to White Marsh mall, holden was actually tolerant of my shopping, we found out that there is bubble tea at white marsh (though I controlled myself and didn’t get it), he got a nemo balloon, his latest obsession, and another thomas the engine train, and he chowed down on some noodles for lunch. Darby also went to get his hair did today, though I wonder whether they acutally cleaned him or not. I also checked out Fashion Attic, which was pretty interesting and reasonable. Its definitely pricier than value village or good will but everything is clean and very lightly used. Not too much vintage stuff, though, but had enough stuff I was willing to try on, even a suit that was 50% off. Also, ever since 4th of July, Holden has watched Finding Nemo every day.

So I guess the point of this is that even though I had spent 2 months home with Holden, I still couldn’t imagine staying home with him every day. I know Mike did it for a year, and I still give him props for that because it is a tough job. I had fun this week, but at times it does take a toll. Thankfully there was only one difficult moment. Patience was the key. Mike is so much better at dealing with those times.

However, I wish I did spend more time with him at home. This past week, I’ve heard him say “duck”, discovered that he does hum, and that he can help me get him dressed. It’s all been very awesome!

No Comments || Topcs: General

I’ve graded some pretty terrible papers, and I know that it can be hard to find something positive to say. But I’ve never sunk this low: In the margins of one of my undergrad papers that I found in the basement, a proff I hated wrote, “Excellent typing throughout.”

No Comments || Topcs: General

so for the past week holden has been sick w/ an ear infection. He has been pretty prown to these, but this one has been less than fun. Normally the day he gets antibiotics he’s better, well that was tuesday and today is thursday and he woke again w/ a fever. Me and cherokee have been tag teaming staying home with him, and today is one of my days. We took him to the doc and got him some new meds, so we’ll see how that goes.

Not working today has put me smack dab in the middle of terroist coverage of the bombings in london. Watching / listening to it all has made me pretty upset on a couple levels. 1) Why do people w/ agendas target the wrong people. Working people just trying to survive are not the targets. These people were just trying to get to work to make it through another day , they died just trying to survive, just like so many people around the world. 2) as cherokee said to me earlier, were all so lucky here, and in london, so many people around the world have to think when they leave home for the day “will I die today”. This is tragic, all acts of violence are tragic, but the reality is in the western world, were lucky its so rare and isolated 3) daily life is a very fragile thing. How hard would it be for some one who hates me to sit out in front of my door w/ a gun, how hard would it be for some one who hates where I live or work to roll up dressed as a bike curier w/ a bag full of explosives and say bye bye to us all.

Its really easy for me to be upset that holdens sick and I cant help him as much as I wish, and that our schedules have been disrupted, and make a selfish meaningless comparison to life being fragile, but the reality is my worries / problems are a joke.

pic from the flickr london bombing pool

1 Comment || Topcs: General

this is the word that jen came up with the other day. She was referring to the OLN tour coverage and the commercials that mentioned (insert dramatic voice) “The Cyclism!”

BUT, jen often forgets what things are called and gets seeming unlike things confused (Gary Coleman vs. Gary Oldman).

As a result, she asked “Is OLN going to be doing those dumb ass TOURGASM commercials again?”

“Tourgasm” is an infinitely better word than “Cyclism”. I’m actually very excited for the Evil Cycling tour coverage because it will probably be way funnier and have far more drug jokes.

1 Comment || Topcs: bikes