So tonight was holdens first trick of treating escapade. I’m not 100% sure he understood what was going on, but he sure as hell got the trick or treat line down pat. Which is good because we had been working on it for a week now. We just did the blocks imediate to our house. Like every year trick or treating in my neighborhood is both enlighting and fun. First of all most of my “real” neighbors sit outside on their stoop and pass out candy. I say “real” because for the most part the yuppies who moved here to drink and fuck, and who dont talk to me to begin with, dont bother with the whole trick or treat thing either. Then you have the neighborhood kids who you expect to see, then you have kids who come out of the wood works who you have no idea where they came from, then you have allot of kids who come from neighborhoods farther north and east who know that for the most part our neighborhood is pretty safe, and populated w/ houses who hand out the good stuff. One house we went to was giving out full size hershey bars. Then you have the last minute kids, I say kids loosely because some had full facial har and children of their own, who come around near the end of the evening w/ little or no costumes. I usually dont care, because hell every one loves candy, why would we need an excuse.

so yah in short, holden had fun, got lots of candy, most of which contains peanuts which he sadly cant eat. He said trick or treat… or really more like “tick tet” at least 80% of the time, and every so offten you could get him to respond with “arrrrrrr” when asked “what do pirates say”. Halloween w/ a kid so much funer than before.

give me candy

post tick tet

cherokee’s fine design

1 Comment || Topcs: General, parenting

Friday evening brought some culture to our lives. We took advantage of the Clarice Smith Arts Center to check out a play. Hiroshima Maidens was all puppets about some pretty heavy stuff. It was 45 minutes of total puppet awesomeness. Unfortunately the play was 90 minutes long.

Saturday was an awesome day of riding, prepping the cue sheet for the ride of the living dead. THen we finished cleaning for our pumpkin carving party. The party was cool. a great time was had by all, then we went out for indian at udupi palace with the people who stayed later. Everyone’s pumpin looked rad. Jen’s especially.

Today was hectic. The ride started at 2:30 but the weird thing was that a lot of people showed up on time or early so there was a lot of hanging around before the ride. The group was split between some full on novices, some roadies on titanium hot bikes, some normal rider types, and the BMX bandit posse from the shop. There were quite a few mechanical problems all around and because I was the organizer, I felt like I had to take care of everyone. For this reason, I rode the whole course back and forth a million times.

Secret Lives are a great band and I really want to thank them for playing the show afterwards.

downsides:
broken crank on BMX bandit #1.
Super flat on BMX bandit #2.
Huge ass piece of glass on Pink FLoyd jersey guy
Mike messing up his cranks (again!)
No one participated in the pull-up contest t the fitness trail that was supposed to take place along the ride.
No one participated in the ride up the hill in your lowest gear race that was supposed to end the ride.
Very few costumes.

Even with all the downsides, it was still a really great day. Organizing a ride is way more stressful than booking a show. I must remember this.

6 Comments || Topcs: General, punk, bikes

So, some goodies came into the shop and I feel the need to explain my upcoming and already completed bike mods.

the surly will be set up in one of the following ways (it will be an easy switch back and forth now)

Singlespeed 48×16 or fixie with same ratio.
OR
48 tooth up front single ring with a 53 as a chain guard and an 8 speed 105 cassette in the back. This will be connected to ONE right side downtube mounted shift lever.

On “trigger”:
I ordered a set of profile stoker bars but forgot to measure and guessed. I guessed wrong and ordered the way wrong size (44cm wide, it feels like a damn mtn bike). I had to put a new stem (deda, quilled stem with a double bolt front faceplate) . That make it much easier to just start putting all kinds of random bars on. and the final winner was a set of OLD SCHOOL scott aero tri bars (probably from 1987) and then they got chopped. It looks pretty good and I think I like the way it rides. Pics will follow.

No Comments || Topcs: bikes

so the city paper has been running an occasional interview by bret maccabe where he interviews actors from the wire. As some of you know, I think this is by far one of the best shows ever put on tv. Ive had a couple interactions w/ some of the actors, but this article makes it feel more like a home town show then ever. Dude bunk eats crabs from chris’ seafood, geekpunks official crabs of choice… and im not just biased because i can walk there or nothing.

No Comments || Topcs: General

so i have found jens next knitting project

knitt your own dna … link via make blog

1 Comment || Topcs: General

yeah. so I’ve watched some movies lately. I feel compelled to fill you in on them:

Messenger: This came free from Puma. Puma is becoming the unofficial corporate sponsor of fixed gear riding. I have absolutely no opinion on this. I think puma shoes look cool, but they are expensive and I am not a snappy enough dresser to pull them off. I got this DVD from pumaville. It’s a little cheesy at times, but for a free DVD with some cool riding footage, I say thumbs up. YOu can still get one from the site. Its a short doc about a messenger in NYC.

Karma: This is definitely a new idea in climbing films. It is WAY more about Nepal than bouldering. It’s pretty cool. It doesn’t make me get all fired up to go and crush projects, but held my interest. Some boulderers go to Nepal and go climbing with some child porters. I think I favored the documentary aspect about Porters’Progress more than the climbing, but it made me think that Nepal looks awesome and I may put it on the big list of future destinations that I will probably never go to.

Ong Bak the Thai Warrior Everybody raved about this movie. It was OK, Tony Jaa is potentially the next Jackie Chan from a physical aspect. But the other thing about Jackie Chan is that he can act, direct and is funny as hell.

Crash: I lose my indie art points if I say I didn’t like this. It was really well done and I think I did like it, but don’t watch it. It will bum you out and leave you wanting more. I like paintings and sculptures that hit you really hard, but I think that’s because you don’t invest 2 hours into appreciating them. Films that beat you up are a bit much for me. See also: Happiness, A Simple Plan

1 Comment || Topcs: General

so one of my co workers today showed me that if you go to google, and type in “failure” and click “im feeling lucky” , it takes you to the white house page…

1 Comment || Topcs: General

Holden’s vocabulary has been growing exponentially over the past few weeks. Before, he was on the standards…Dog, Da-da, turtle. Then, you be looking at flashcards with pictures and when you ask him to point to a specific picture, he would, for the most part, pick the right one. Now, when you go through a book, he’ll point to the picture and say what it is, for example, he would point to a bouquet and say “flower”. I think the coolest thing is that his words are now starting to make sense and he’s learning to understand what it is he’s saying. I realize that this is just the beginning, and perhaps in a few months, I won’t be speaking as fondly about his use of language (or too much use of it). However, I think the language development thing is amazing and I can’t wait to have a good conversation with him.

9 Comments || Topcs: General

I know I post a lot of knitting links, but this one can’t be missed: ZOMBIES.

I’ve been whining of late about not being creative enough, but I’ve been inspired by a lot of the sites that I’ve run across lately. Maybe I’ll give toy knitting a try.

2 Comments || Topcs: General

I love the fall. I specifically love halloween. When we are lucky enough to own a house, I will be the crazy guy that decks the house out all crazy and scares the piss out of all the children. Here are my plans for the upcoming weekend:

Friday night. go see a scary looking puppet play about WWII Hiroshima survivors (not halloween related but the puppets look scary)

Saturday Daytime : The first annual jen and jim pumpkin carving fest!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday Daytime: I’m organizing a ride/show. People at the shop were interested in doing a show for halloween, and it kinda ended up being my thing, come out if you’re interested.

5 Comments || Topcs: General, bikes