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So how is my Labor Day weekend so far?

2009-09-06T13:28:00.000-07:00

My old roommate James was touring SWVA and camping all three nights of his weekend. Amanda and I had plans of catching up with James and camping somewhere around Bath County, VA. While Amanda and I were hanging out last night, I let the dog out, just like I've done probably millions of times since he has been alive. A couple of minutes after I let him out we could hear his tags jingling louder and more frequent than usual. I thought that maybe he was just running through the yard back to the door. I opened up the back door to let him in, just like I've done probably a million times...only this time something was not right.

Pacino darted through the apartment with his head low and his tail tucked. Amanda said, "I think he has something in his mouth." We followed him around for about two seconds when a smell hit my face that took my breath away. I wish I could describe the smell, but words cannot put into context the smell that now overrun our apartment. Pacino had drool coming out of his mouth and he would shake his head and the drool would fly all over the living room and kitchen. Amanda said, "He's been sprayed by a skunk!" And, unfortunately, she was right. While Pacino was running around and we were running him down, we turned on the light to the back patio and there was the skunk, wandering around, sniffing. This guy wasn't very big, probably the size of a short ferret, but definitely a skunk.

I immediately took him upstairs to the shower and started dousing him with water in the tub. While smelling around on him, I noticed that the smell was extremely bad under his chin near his mouth which makes me think that the skunk sprayed him in the mouth and was why he was drooling. And I don't blame him, the smell was very close to what I think tear gas would be. It would make your eyes water.

We had to decide if he was going to sleep in the bedroom with us like he normally does, or sleep downstairs so we wouldn't have to smell him. We opted for the bedroom so he wouldn't sleep on the sofa.

So this morning, we got up, had breakfast (in a house that smells like a mixture of burnt hair, garlic and popcorn) then went on to Pet Smart to get some skunk odor remover. We had rent a carpet cleaner to shampoo the carpets, throw away a bunch of towels, wash a bunch of clothes and wash Pacino one more time with the skunk odor remover. We've treated him kind of like the village leper today. He has been quarantined to the back yard while his odor remover stuff dries. He doesn't smell as bad as he did last night or even this morning, but he still stinks.

Where does James come into this? Well, we didn't get to go camping, instead we had to clean thanks to Pepe LePew and my "cat" chasing, skunk breath dog.

Happy Labor Day!

Nuptials, beer, kayaks and sweaty dudes

2009-09-02T08:27:00.001-07:00

Apparently some people have been taking some shots at me online about not blogging as often as they do, so I thought I'd post something today. I usually don't blog often because I don't normally think I have anything worth blogging about. After reading other blogs, I realize that maybe my life is exciting enough to write about.

As some of you may remember, I wrote about some nice titanium I had purchased a while back, well, last Tuesday (August 25), I put the ti to some use. My fiance Amanda and I got married. We decided that a big wedding just wasn't our style, so we paid a minister (Lora Luce) a small sum of money, made reservations at our favorite Hatteras Island getaway and took a vacation.

The ceremony was small, only Amanda, myself, my parents, my sister and her youngest daughter were in attendance and it was nice. We stayed in Rodanthe but had the ceremony at Jockey's Ridge State Park in Nags Head, an evening wedding on the sound. Usually sunset on the sound is nice, but on our wedding day a nice big cloud was covering the sun. Ah well.

We borrowed a couple of kayaks from a friend to take down to the island and paddle around...17ft kayaks...and now I have nowhere to store them, Amanda is out of town and I didn't want to take them off the car because I thought I would be able to return them while Amanda was gone. I haven't been able to return them, nor can I get them down by myself, so I've been driving around with two 17ft kayaks on top of my car for about a week now. If you see me out and about with those damn things, point and laugh...wait, no, don't point and laugh, help me take them off!

As far as a bachelor party goes, Greg decided to put together a bike ride at Bent Creek in NC. I think about 15 or so showed up to ride. Most guys spend their bachelor parties with some friends, strippers and beer...I spent mine with 15 sweaty dudes in lycra. Strangely enough, I wouldn't have had it any other way. We did have some beers at Papas & Beer, the local Mexican joint just down from the trail head. So, thanks Greg for the party.

Anyway, I'll try to post more often.

EDIT: Please click on the picture. Amanda gets cut out in the body of the text.

Pretty Noose is Pretty Hate

2009-07-13T08:31:00.000-07:00

Ever get a song stuck in your head that you just can't get out? For the past few days it has been Pretty Noose by Soundgarden. Good tune.

I have had lots of people ask me about the IMT 100k on Sunday. Yes I did it, yes I finished and yes it hurt. The first 20ish miles weren't bad, aid stations every 15 miles made it a little more tolerable. The only bad thing is that between aid stations I would be starving, but when arriving at said aid stations I couldn't bare to eat anything, but ate anyway. This, of course, was with exception to the second aid station where I downed some PB&J sammies, chips, squishy orange slice candy and a cup of soda. The rest I was pretty much miserable.

The course was very demanding, either we were climbing the steepest grade known to man or we were descending the steepest grade known to man with very little cruising on rolling terrain. We started out riding through town and picking up the Creeper Trail at its crossing of Hwy 58. I kept a good warm-up pace behind the front group that I was certain would bottleneck at Beech Grove. Sure enough I caught up to a lot of them there while we were hiking our bikes up the trail. The rest of the ride, I don't remember much of. Anet Lamberson caught me at the fireroad going to Jerry's Creek. I had seen her a few times behind me going up climbs and I knew that when she caught me it would be at a climb. She took off well ahead me at the aid station at the bottom of Jerry's Creek. Apparently my cassette lockring came loose during my descent and had to have it fixed at the aid station, thanks Doug! Send my regards to your mustache!

I had Pretty Noose in my head the whole time, but it's strange how your mind wanders on some of these rides. While going through, 'I caught the moon today, pick it up and throw it away alright' I was thinking...Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship...same band members, two completely different bands, remember 'Feed your head'?

Anyway, I met some cool people along the way, the race was very well supported and I finished in just over 8 hours, 7.5 hours of actual ride time. The course ended up being around 55 miles, short of actually being 100k, but I'm not complaining.

Look at that, lunch time...here I come Big Pal!

Healthcare? Psshh!!

2009-07-10T16:14:00.000-07:00

So, I don't normally get on here to complain about anything, I'm a fairly laid back dude. But I have to gripe today. For the past six months or so I've had a back problem, pinched nerve or something. Everytime I go from sitting to standing or walking to running, I get a sharp pain in the lower right part of my back that causes my entire right leg to get a pins and needles sensation along with a slight pain in my leg. Not a fun thing to deal with on a daily basis. So, in January I went to see a doctor about it, they tell me it's sciatica, give me some prednisone and naproxen and send me on my way. The dr. tells me that if it doesn't clear up to come back.

The drugs help a little, but the problem was still there. I tried some yoga stretching thinking that would help, and it did, but for a short period of time, I stay off the bike for a couple of weeks at the doctor's request, which wasn't an easy thing to do and switched to riding with gears.

So, last week I go back to the dr. because the problem has worsened. The dr. orders an MRI on my back for Thursday and says they will look at the results and let me know about it. I get the MRI on Thursday, July 2... today, Friday, July 10 I get a postcard in the mail that says the results of my x-ray were negative. This is not a handwritten postcard, it has checkboxes to place a check by the appropriate box that corresponds with the test I had. All it says is "x-ray of back was negative." At the bottom it says if I have any questions to call the office.

WTF!? Of course I have questions! WTF DO I DO ABOUT MY BACK?! I'm starting to think that they only ordered an MRI to say they ordered an MRI. They don't seem to care that my problem persists, no one called to say "Yo, your MRI (not x-ray) was negative, maybe you should come back in to see what we can do to help you." Instead I get a postcard with some f*^%ing checkboxes! Thanks-a-f*^%in-lot!!

Needless to say I'm going to change doctors because obviously this one doesn't care, which is strange because they have the word 'healthcare' posted everywhere in the building. Quite misleading. I hate that my boss pays for insurance that now has to pay money to this so-called "doctor" and for that I apologize to my boss, money not well spent.

High and Dry

2009-06-29T08:49:00.000-07:00

I realize that I will get the usual "IT LIVES!!" and "Bout time!" types of replies to my all-but-abandoned blog, but I just get in those moods sometimes where I would rather read than write. But I digress.

I am planning to ride the Iron Mountain 100k on July 12 in Damascus. It won't be an easy task and I don't plan for it to be much fun. 62 miles on Iron Mountain is enough to make someone hate a bike for a long time. Hell, I've ridden 10 mile rides up there that make life miserable, but I always go back.

Yesterday, seven of us ventured to parts of the course I had never been, mainly the FR climb from the bottom of Jerry's Creek up to Barton Gap. When I first saw the map of this course and realized that we would be doing most of our climbing on fire roads I didn't think much of it and was quite relieved. My perception of this changed yesterday. We climbed the FR from Jerry's Creek to Barton Gap then to Skulls Gap, all of about 7 miles of it. The course will actually turn onto Skulls Gap trail about a half mile from the top, but it took FOREVER to climb to that point. Sprinkle in my crash into a rocky ravine at mile 5 (of a 25 mile ride) coming down Jerry's Creek that left me barely able to use my left leg from the worst charlie horse I've ever had, along with the flat tire I got before the FR climb that I still had to stop and pump up about every 10-15 mins and my complete disregard for nourishment. I took no food, no gels and no gatorade. All I had was a camelback full of water that I was almost glad to finish off because it was pretty warm near the end of the ride.

As I topped FR84 to descend back down to the main road, Doug, one of the guys that rode with us, was driving his truck up the FR to see if I or Jon wanted a ride back to the cars. I had ridden that far with a partially flat and still deflating tire, no fuel and a bum leg, I'll be damned if I'm not finishing it. So I coasted to the end of the ride in so much pain I was almost in tears.

The 100k is gonna suck much worse than Sunday's ride, but I will have the benefit of rest stops, food, cold water and the same insane determination that got me through Sunday's ride.

Here is the Garmin data for the ride if you care. The elevation will be off because, well, because it always is.

Amanda is starting an eight week running program that gradually builds up her strength and endurance for running. My leg hurts like MOTHERF*&$#ER today, but I'm gonna run with her. I think she will do well!

Not tonight, my friend.

2009-05-08T16:23:00.000-07:00

It seems like this week has lasted forever, but alas, it is the weekend. Amanda and I had plans of camping this weekend with my sister and bro-in-law, but sudden events prevented that. On Monday, Amanda's uncle was admitted to the hospital. He had been in a fight with lung cancer for a couple of years now, but around 9:30 last night, he passed away. Amanda spent everyday since Monday hanging at the hospital to be with her family. I went over fairly often myself, but managed to get some work in as well. I'll miss Alan, he was a good guy. I hated to see him in the condition he was in, but when I think of him, I'll probably only remember the better times. Funny how the brain works that way.

On a much lighter note, Amanda and I made a trip to K-Mart the other night. It's the closest mega-store to us, so we visit it often. Sometimes the K Mart will have bikes on display in the aisles, recently a 3-wheeled beach cruiser type with a basket on the back and a tailgate. I usually hop on one and ride it around the sporting goods department and embarrass Amanda, but the trip on Wednesday night was different. As we walked by electronics a shiny brown bike caught my eye, a beach cruiser. I walked over to it and was diggin' the color. I said, "Oh man, I want this", which is usually what I say when I'm around bikes. Amanda usually replies, "Another friggin' bike?! You are not getting another bike", but Wednesday night she said, "Well, get it". Say what? Oh yeah, she said I could buy it! This doesn't happen often, so I jumped on it. Jumped on it as in buy it, not jump on it ride it.

There are a few things I need for it, a headlight, some sweet mirrors and a rear rack. I hope to be sportin' this lil' lady at the next CRAWL. I'll even give her a name.

Runnin' with the....animals.

2009-05-05T09:25:00.000-07:00

Not much going on early this week, but I do have an update from this past weekend's Animal Chase 5K. I placed 37th out of 94 runners. Better than mid-pack, but it friggin' hurt. I'm not much of a runner, other than the 2-ish miles a few guys and myself run every Wed. during lunch, so I didn't really have high expectations.

I started the run at a pretty brisk pace for my fitness level. I wanted to keep that pace the whole time. First mile down, just at seven minutes. I get not even 1/4 mile past the mile marker and already I see the leaders heading back to the start/finish, so quick oxygen-deprived math says they're doing it in 16 minutes or so. Turns out the 5k was just a warm-up run for these guys for the 10k after. The second half of the run is basically a slow uphill grade that is totally noticeable on the run back, not so much on the first half of the run. I pushed myself as hard as I could. I could feel my abs getting tight, my shoulders were hurting pretty bad and every time I turned my head in any direction, I got really dizzy twisting it back to look ahead. As I approached the finish line, I could hear people behind me panting and stomping their heavy feet and one kid was on the side of the trail, "Go Dad! You got it! You can pass him Dad! Pass him Dad!" I'm not sure if "Dad" was behind me or not, but I was damned if I were going to let him pass me at the finish line, so I did the best version of a sprint to the finish I could muster up...and no one passed me.

At the end, my time was 26 minutes 26 seconds for a 5k. Not too bad.

It was nice to get out and suffer doing something other than riding a bike. I do enjoy bike riding, but a change is good sometimes and I've really taken to this whole running thing. Maybe I'll go get a new pair of runnin' shoes?

Have app, will dupe.

2009-05-01T06:08:00.000-07:00

Is it just me or has it been forever since I've posted anything? It's not that I haven't had content, it's just that I haven't had the time. Lots of stuff has happened since my last post though, but too much time since the events make them completely irrelevant to blog about.

But it's Friday which means that something good should come out of this weekend if all goes right. Nate asked me about a 5K & 10K going on tomorrow morning at the Creeper Trail. I may be down for the 5K. Work has been stupid stressful so I think a good run, possibly in the rain, will be quite refreshing. The only problem is that it starts at 8 a.m., but I think I can swing it.

One complaint today, and actually probably the first complaint I've ever posted here, about Facebook. I dig FB, it's way better than MySpace. MS just seems cluttered and I rarely ever see my public profile, so it never gets updated, and rarely do I go to other peoples' profiles and just browse while muting the seven videos and 12 songs they have playing all at once. Anyway, I digress, FB has these apps, you can grow a virtual garden, pick your favorite rock band, find out your punk rock star equivalent, slice onions and advocate world peace. So daily in my "Notifications" tab, I get requests to join these apps and games of which one of my FB friends invites me to be a part of, but lately it seems like I get a lot of them that mislead me and I'm fairly certain FB adds them to my page and says "*insert friend's name here* has *insert verb here* see what you *insert call to action here*". It is very rare that I click on any of these, but sometimes they trick me. So no more... I will no longer accept any invitations or what look to be invitations, to any app on FB, hell, I may give up FB all together and start devoting more time to my newly created Twitter account. You will be able to get all you Anthony Duncan updates from there. I'll post more about it later, gotta save something for another blog, geez!

Birds, Bees, Blood & Beer

2009-04-01T12:03:00.000-07:00

Been a long couple of weeks lately. I went over to Knoxville to catch a ride of some sort with my brother last weekend. He had to work on Saturday, but I met up with Dave Lane and Doug and we got in a nice 35 miles on the road bikes. It rained on me all the way over on Saturday, but it turned out to be a sunny 70 degrees that afternoon and I was waaaay overdressed on the ride. I sweat enough to fill a couple of buckets I'm sure.

On Sunday, Keith, Dave and I went to Norris to ride. We had planned on a Big South Fork trip, but with the weather and all, we decided to ride trails that would probably hold up to the abuse of a few rainy days and then riding. We had a good ride and I think I've finally started to catch on to this whole gears thing. Since switching over from the singlespeed, I've been having trouble climbing and doing anything uphill for that matter, but I think I finally caught on Sunday. We rode around 15 miles...it was nice. We almost didn't ride because it was so cold when we started, but it turned out to be just the right temperature.

Got the 6 Hours of Warriors Creek this weekend in Wilkesboro, NC. This is my first race of the year and I'm not too concerned about my placement, I just really want to ride for six hours then go get my free roast pig and brews. Should be a fun event and I'm looking forward to camping with my friends and riding...a lot.

Last week I ordered a signed copy of Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse from IDW. It was signed by Ben Templesmith, the artist that drew the comic series. He was also the guy that illustrated the 30 Days of Night graphic novel, for reference, that they made a movie out of. Well, when I got home last night, laying on the coffee table was a package that I just knew had my new piece of Templesmith swag in it.

More next time on my attempt to raise enough money to buy a MacBook. Should be fun!

Les' git this thang on th' show!

2009-03-23T06:40:00.000-07:00

Seriously, that's what the almost-toothless guy next to me said right after Frank Beamer said "Gentlemen, start your engines" on Sunday at the Food City 500 in Bristol. I was fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on your perception of Nascar racing) enough to get tickets to not only Sunday's Food City 500, but also Saturday's Scott's 300.

Friday evening, my twin brother showed up around 8 to stay the night so we could be up early to get to Bristol Motor Speedway for the day's events. I went for a much needed bike ride on Friday after work, so when Aaron arrived, it was time to visit Bella's for some pizza and brews. It was pretty crowded and since there were no places to sit, we opted for a pie to go and a growler of Bourbon Barrel Stout. Tasty stuff.

Saturday morning, it was waffles, shower and off to the track. We navigated traffic all the way to the track where we parked and met up with some of Aaron's buddies who had been camping since Thursday. We actually didn't sit in our assigned seats for the Saturday race since there weren't that many people there. We actually opted to sit with Aaron's buddies at the start/finish line, apparently named the Allison section. The race was pretty good even though I didn't know who all of the drivers were. I know some names, but that's about it.

The next day was another story. My dad pulled up about 10:30 for our trip to the big daddy race, the Food City 500. We got there a bit early, walked about a mile to the track, did some people watching then made our way to our seats. This time, our assigned seats cuz the place was PACKED!

We sat around the usual folks you would find at a Nascar event. Some hardcore, drunk and disorderly. Others not so hardcore, but just as drunk and there were folks like my dad and myself, stone-cold sober. My dad is a preacher, so a lot of the stuff that goes on at events like this, he doesn't agree with and gets aggravated. I laughed mostly at the hardcore drunk folks. Something about those, mainly guys, that just crack me up. They get so fired up and yell and cuss.

A fellow by the name of Kyle Busch won the race, which apparently is NOT a good thing in Bristol. EVERYBODY booed this guy. They HATED him. But, this dude dominated. He lead the majority of the race and took home the win. The best part was at the end when this dominating left-turner made his victory lap around the track. As he pulled out some dude behind us yelled, "F*&^K YOU KYLE BUSCH!!", over and over and over and over....and over again. I knew that it was only a matter of time before my dad would have something to say to this guy. However, instead of saying anything to Mr. Education behind us, he decided to show his disgust to those people around us smoking cigarettes. I'm telling you, it was tough.

Monday, Monday

2009-03-16T12:47:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was unproductive, but productive. No rides at all, mainly because of the weather...it sucked. But, Amanda and I came one step closer to being hitched. We both now have wedding bands that we plan to slide onto our fingers at some point in the near future. And since I don't have a fancy titanium bike, I instead now have a fancy titanium ring that I'm not wearing at the moment. We're scheduled for an ocean-front wedding sometime in early to mid-September, nothing big, just the two of us, a preist/justice of the peace, or whatever and some hermit crabs. Should be nice.

We also saw the Watchmen yesterday. I've read lots of bad reviews about the movie, none of which had any relevant points, but they were bad nonetheless. So Amanda and I decided to catch the matinee on Sunday. I'll warn you, a comic movie it may be, but when they say "graphic" novel, that also makes for some "graphic" images. Not for the kiddies, but I thought it was awesome. Good story, although it doesn't completely follow the novel, just a few details at the end, awesome CGI effects, gore, you name it, but the storyline remained the same. I give it two thumbs up!

I have plans to ride the bike into work a few days this week since it's supposed to be nice. I've been looking forward to riding to work again. I could ride all winter, but the lack of a proper commuter bike keeps me from doing that. I don't really want to take a race-oriented road bike out on days that are too bad, it just wasn't meant for that kind of stuff. This week will be different though and I look forward to it.

Hey, you got some chips?

2009-03-11T08:05:00.000-07:00

So the Salsa project is somewhat complete, so I decided to take her out to ride last weekend. Saturday I pulled up to the trailhead at Warrior's Path ready to ride. I'm always a little nervous about the first ride on a bike that I've put together and Saturday was no different. With my dog in tow, I took off on Darwin's Revenge and 100 yards into the trail my chain breaks. What a way to start a first ride! I pick up my chain and head back to the parking lot to fix it. I get to the car and realize that I don't have my chain tool. Luckily for me, there was a guy parked next to me who just happened to have one along with a quick-link for me to use. I didn't get his name, but I thanked him profusely for his help and headed back into the woods.

I rode the rest of the trails will little incident. I did drop the chain a few times which turned out to be the ONLY problem I had with it on Sunday when I rode with Bob, Rick and Sean after the workday at Bays. It was the first time I had ridden the new trail out there, and I have to admit, it's a good trail. My chain came off about four times during our nine mile ride, so I'll need to do some adjusting soon. I think I just need to space the front ring to be more inline with the smaller gears since that is where I had the most trouble.

One thing is for sure though, riding a bike with gears is waaaaaay tougher than I remember. When I built this bike up, I thought it would be nice to have a bailout gear for those climbs. Instead I found myself being a little lazy, not preparing and maintaining momentum on the short steep stuff and I found it incredibly difficult to keep the front end down on uphill switchbacks. Early on I found myself shifting far too often and getting tired much faster. I hope I get the hang of this soon, it's a little discouraging.

I finally ordered another charger for my camera battery, I think I lost the last one on the beer trip, not quite sure though. Nonetheless, I can now snap a picture of said Salsa Project and post it here.

The Man in the Yellow Hat

2009-03-09T08:54:00.001-07:00

Today's blog isn't mine, but I think you may find it somewhat inspirational. For several months now, I have been signed up to receive emails from Tools to Life. I first heard about this on the Jason Ellis Show on Sirius Radio while he was interviewing the founder of Tools, Devlyn Steele. The guy really made a lot of sense about a lot of things, so I checked out his site. So now I get these "Daily Inspiration" emails with some pretty good advice and a little inspiration. This is the one I got today, it was pretty cool.

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Did curiosity kill the cat? As children, we naturally explore. We wanted to know what everything was and what everything could do. We poked our heads in every nook and cranny we could find. Our parents would say to us, "Be Careful," or "Stay out of that," which only made us more curious. If we were told "Stay out of that," we just had to find out what was there.

Curiosity is how we grew. We enter the world knowing hardly a thing, yet wanting to know everything. As we grow older we become trapped in what we know and often stop being curious. The book and cartoon series Curious George encouraged curiosity in a focused direction. Curious George helped us to be curious about counting, curious about reading, and told children that curiosity was good. It encouraged exploring and learning.

When did we stop being curious? Why did we choose to stop looking around the corner to see what might be there? What would it be like to learn a new language, travel to a new place, or eat a different type of food? What can we learn about ourselves and the world around us if we open ourselves up to exploring? What might we discover that could lead to a new career, a new lifestyle, or a new way of thinking?

Get out of your routine, out of your comfort zone, and reawaken that childlike curiosity inside you by exploring life this week. Talk to new people, go a different way to work, pick up a book you never thought you would read, or change the radio station. Become curious and become curious about change. There is so much to discover and so much to experience. You can find a new way to enjoy your life even in economic hard times by being curious about what new things life can offer you.

Becoming curious will open your life up to new experiences and leave you with a new smile on your face . It will actually not be a new smile, but will be that same baby like smile you had when you naturally sparkled from exploring your curiosity. Your life is limited only by you, and you can change it by exploring your options, not by remaining stuck in your behavior. Become curious and discover new ways to maximize your life.

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Edit: I will have an update tomorrow on the inaugural ride on the Salsa Project this past weekend.

Take over the world....

2009-03-05T12:57:00.001-08:00

It has been a while since my last post I know. However, I try to deliver quality and not quantity, depending on your definition of quality I guess. I've been pretty busy lately at work, with being the head muckity muck of the NTMBA, completing the Salsa project and just plain relaxin'.

For a few years now, Amanda and I have had Sirius radios so we don't normally listen to what's called "terrestrial radio" anymore. We have our favorite stations and about .5% of them play whatever is on the "terrestrial radio", so we don't get to keep up with what's going on in the music world. On Monday I rode with Greg and Melinda to the NTMBA meeting and Greg was telling me about this new cover of Careless Whisper by Wham. He said it was by some rock band and it sounded heavy. I didn't exactly know what song that was right off hand, so Greg proceeded to sing the chorus and once I realized what song it was, I just had to sing along. Kinda gay I guess, but made for a funny moment. So curiosity got the best of me the next morning at work and I searched iTunes for this mystery band covering a totally uncool song. Turns out it was Seether. Never really cared for this band and probably never will and now I have good reason to. I would post a link so you can listen to it, but I don't want to spend any more time on that abomination than I already have, so you'll have to do it on your own time.

In the meantime, you can listen to an ACTUAL metal band, one of my faves, Unearth and one of my fave songs by them called "The Great Dividers". You don't have to listen to them, but it sure does a good job of getting Wham out of your head.

The Salsa project is tentatively complete. It has functional gearing and works, but I'll be needing a bashguard and some trails to ride it on. Hopefully I'll be able to get out on it and try it out soon. This weekend is supposed to be stupid nice so I think I'm going to do a nice long road ride.

Fat Tony is now indeed, fat.

2009-02-25T11:52:00.001-08:00

So this past weekend was the much awaited and anticipated "Beer Trip." Six of us departed on this journey to Western NC to visit some of the finer (or sometimes not-so-fine) establishments, at which our frothy life companion is concocted.

As Rich "Team Dicky" Dillen would say, clicky make biggy. Some of these pictures get severely cut off.

First, let me introduce you to the crew.

First we have the Van, the most important part of the trip. Kudos to the Big Deaner for the van idea. She gained come character by the end of the trip and became one of the family.

Here we have the driver for the trip, Mike, alias, Cheese. This guy deserves a ton of credit and praise. Not only was he our designated driver for the entire tour, but he managed to not drink a drop of brew at any of the stops. Cheers le Fromage!

Next up is his shotgun riding pal, and probably all our favorite for the trip, Gary, alias Frog. We gave Frog a hard time for a lot of the trip, but he's one cool cat and fun to hang out with.

This is Heith, alias, Night Train. Heith and I go way back like babies and pacifiers. Hadn't been on a trip with this cat in a long time, but he sure can order a mean "surprise me" pizza just about anywhere.

Here is my bro-in-law David, alias, Earl. I don't remember calling him Earl the entire trip though, strange. David is a riot to hang with and was the root of a lot of the hard time we gave Frog.

This is the creator of the "Beer Trip" and proprietor of the "MMM....Beer" group on Facebook, John Dean, alias, Big Deaner. Deaner isn't a big fan of stouts and porters, but like a true beer club entrepreneur and beer tripper, he tried them all!

Our first stop on Friday morning, yes morning, was at Pisgah Brewing. This place became the benchmark at which the rest of the breweries would be held. They opened the place an hour early for us, the barkeep/brewer was an uber cool cat, they had 15, yes 15, of their own beers on tap AND all their beers, except for the fruity ones, were completely organic. This place introduced the "flight", the most common phrase of the trip. A flight is five 5 oz. beers, all of which are different..a sampler if you will. So stop one...16 5 oz. beers for me.

Next stop wasn't actually at a brewery, but a local bar...the Town Pump. Pretty cool place with good beers, cool bartender and darts. We ordered one of Night Trains specialty "surprise me" pizzas from the joint across the street and waited for it at the Pump.

The next stop was Highlands Brewing Company. I'm sure that many of you, many meaning two, reading this have tried a Highlands brew or two and have probably come to the same conclusion I had over the years that the place was run by a couple of guys with red hair, red beards and smelly clothes. Instead, we got a warehouse full of people and a Chinese guy owner dressed in a dress shirt, khaki pants and black dress shoes...a far cry from what I expected. This stop was probably the definition of a beer trip for me. I strayed from my original tour group and ended up in, what was described to me as a special tour by the Chinese guy. He wasn't too happy that I was in his group and I could tell. It probably didn't help that I was spilling beer on myself and spattering sentence fragments by this time, but the other places we went would've laughed at it, this guy was not impressed. I'm sure he would be impressed had he known just how much beer I had up to that point and was still walking.

Our final stop on Friday was at Catawba Brewing, the company that makes Firewater IPA for those of you keeping count. This was an alright place. They had good music and videos to go along with it and pool tables. I'm not entirely sure how many beers I had here or what those beers were. I do remember not wanting a Firewater cuz I've had it a thousand times before. Some of the fellas went on a tour of the brewery, but I didn't, though I'm not sure why. I was either at the bar or playing pool. Someone should've put a bell on me.

Saturday we decided to cut out a brewery, the first stop, that was an hour away from us and recommendations from those-who-shall-remain-nameless, *coughs*pisgahbrewingcompanyandeveryehwerelese*coughs*, we decided not to go. Instead, we arrived at Asheville Pizza and Brewery around 10:30 after a Starbucks run. Yeah, I said 10:30, it's a beer trip, remember? No brewery tour here, but it was a cool atmosphere, good food and decent beer. Once again, this one didn't hold a candle to Pisgah, but we still had three more to go, maybe someone could top them.

We left Asheville Pizza and went down the street to Jack of the Wood. This isn't the brewery where Green Man beers are made, but the hub for Green Man beers. Again, a really cool atmosphere, much better beer than Asheville Pizza and they had the previously mentioned flights. The place is right downtown too, so that makes it a cool place to me!

The third stop for Saturday was at one of my favorites, French Broad Brewing Company. I've had a few of their beers before, including the famous 13 Rebels. These guys hold a special place in my heart because; a) they sponsored the 24 Hours of Pisgah, and any brew that sponsors mountain biking has my vote and; b) the second time I saw G Love and Special Sauce at the Orange Peel, I drank only 13 Rebels. I just couldn't resist the jolly roger tap handle. This place had the best tour, the best of the one other I had during the trip. The guy touring us looked the part and knew what he was talking about. They charged us for the tour, but they gave out beer during it and we got lots of stickers. Really liked this place.

The final stop for the day before the trip back to Big Stone was at Wedge Brewing. This place was small and kinda far away from the pulse of Asheville, but worth the drive during warmer months. They had a sweet patio, cool art and a huuuuge parking lot out front with a front deck to chill on. The beer here was good too, no complaints from me about their brew quality.

So, to rank our stops 1 - 7, 1 being the best it would be:

7. Highland Brewing. Just didnt' have that microbrewery feel to it.

6. Asheville Brewery

5. Catawba

4. Wedge

3. Green Man

2. French Broad

1. Pisgah Brewing...no one touched this place or even came close.

They call me Ol' Sudsy

2009-02-19T13:01:00.000-08:00

What am I doing this weekend you ask?

Why touring breweries in Western North Carolina, that's what I'm doing.

During Christmas, Amanda and I stayed at my sister's house for about five days. On one of those day's, my niece's boyfriend and his family came over to the house. While we were sipping some local swill, we all thought it would be cool to tour some breweries in some state.

Several weeks later I get a call from the bro-in-law, "Hey remember when you, me and Big Deaner were talking about touring breweries?" Backstory on "Big Deaner": my niece's boyfriend's name is Tyler Dean...the kids call him Ty, guess it just sounds cool. To make him sound uncool, I started calling him Deaner, thus the pops being Big Deaner. Anyway, I says "Yeah, I remember that." Apparently the Big Deaner had planned the trip. I don't mean he said, hey guys lets go...he friggin' planned it. He had called breweries to schedule tours, got lists of what they made, rented a 12 person van, hired a driver, there wasn't one stone he left unturned. Of course he has everything planned down to the last detail, but when you get a rowdy bunch of guys together to drink...plan? Since when?

So, I'll be departing Bristol after work today to drive to my sister's house to crash for the night and the BeerFest bus will be at the front door to pick up my bro-in-law and me promptly at 9:30 a.m. Friday morning.

When I return, I hope to have some good pictures, great stories and delicious NC swill!

Hope you enjoy your VD...er, I mean Valentine's Day!

2009-02-13T12:14:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I realize that I haven't written in a while, but I've been busy! I had an external hard drive crash at work and I'm pretty sure there is no hope for it now. So, I have spent the last two days taking many steps to recover the files. Quite the time-consuming process.

I wanted to blog about the trip we all took to Wilkesboro to ride last weekend, but it seems like it happened so long ago and I have now lost interest to write anything about it. It's the lazy Fat Tony in me. I did get to ride my bike into work one day this week. It was pretty nice too. It really made me wish for more warmer days so I could get back to riding in three days a week. It started out a little cold and I had to stop to put on the earwarmers because my ears were icicles! I didn't really miss the ride home. The traffic is terrible and it's mostly uphill all the way, but mainly the traffic. You never feel more vulnerable than sitting at a busy 4-way intersection in backed up traffic in all four directions...and you are the only one not enclosed in metal. Hopefully I will be able to ride into work at least one day next week.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. Amanda asked me what I wanted for the occasion. At first I told her that I could use a chain for the geared build I'll be doing, but the more I thought about it, the more that didn't seem like the right thing. Valentine's Day is about spending some time together and showing your appreciation, so I decided to forgo the chain and instead, have Amanda go on a bike ride with me. So tomorrow, we are going to shuttle to White Top and ride the 17ish miles back to Damascus. Every time we have done this ride, it has rained, and with the 60% chance we have for rain tomorrow, tradition may win out.

Have a good weekend!

George Jones - Flame in my heart

2009-02-04T12:11:00.001-08:00

So last night I did it...I spent an entire hour on the bike trainer. I'm not sure how or why, but I actually spent more than a half hour on it. It wasn't too bad though. Amanda was painting and The Biggest Loser was on, so I turned on the iPod, listened to some tunes and watched TBL. For some reason I really like that show, don't ask me why cuz I couldn't tell ya.

I've been thinking for a while now about something Amanda and I can do together. I always try to get her to go bike riding, but she isn't really into it. So, I found this 10k in August in Abingdon, the Christopher Todd Richardson Memorial 10k. I've never done a 10k, I've done an 8k before and it was pretty tough. I'm not a runner and neither is Amanda, so I think we are on more of a level playing field there and have quite a chore ahead of us. When it warms up and we get some sunshine past 6 or so, we will start building up to 10k to be prepared for August.

We're going to NC to ride on Saturday and the only bike I have is my singlespeed. I'm not sure if I should ride it or not, but I'm gonna. Kind of a final farewell to it I guess. I only hope that my back holds up to the ride. It's supposed to be warm so it's gonna be fun regardless.

King Alvarez

2009-02-01T09:59:00.000-08:00

Christians believe that Sunday is a day of rest. Talk to any photographer and they will tell you that the best time to take a picture is when the sky is overcast. Today, I ignored both of those rules. I grabbed my camera and my road bike and did what probably millions of cyclists in the Southeast did today....I went on a bike ride. I couldn't resist with the 60 degree weather and clear skies. A mountain bike ride would've been my ride of choice, but with a newly diagnosed sciatic nerve, mountain biking is out for about another week. I'm not complaining though, just being on a ride, outside nonetheless, not on a trainer is plenty enough for me.

I had plans on 30+ miles, but decided I would just ride a route and whatever the distance turned out to be, that's what it would be. I had no climbing planned, no particular route in mind and very little care for where I went or how I would perform on the bike. Dammit I just wanted to ride.

I've learned, over the few years of road riding, that you should never underestimate the possibility of chaos and randomness when you venture 20 miles away from home on a backroad. I was riding at a pretty good clip, 20 mph or so down a slight downhill. The majority of my ride slices through farming country, so there are cow pastures on either side of me for miles and miles and miles and miles. On this particular section of slight downhill, I had noticed out of the corner of my eye that there was a calf, probably 2 months old, trotting along side of me. Didn't think much about it until he crossed the ditch and ran right out in front of me in the middle of the road. I immediately clinched my butt cheeks so as not to actually crap on myself and then let out a loud stream of cuss words that probably didn't really go together. This cow was outside of the fence and I'm chasing him down a backroad. He must have realized that he was running out of steam, so he darted off the the right, jumped the ditch and practically dove through the barbwire fence back into the pasture. I was impressed by his agility.

The rest of the ride was less eventful, extremely peaceful and fulfilling. I snapped some pictures of my ride to share with you. None of the cow running down the road though, I couldn't get to my camera in time.

I would like to take the opportunity to review a new purchase I made yesterday. I bought one of those water bottles - Insulated Polar Bottle - you can see it in the bottle cage of my roadie. It's supposed to keep your beverage cold regardless of the outside temperature and I have to say, it worked well. I had seen lots of folks riding with them in the Summer and always thought about trying one. I definitely recommend them.

^^ The one-lane backroad. What most of today's ride looks like ^^

^^View at the midway point of my ride^^

BAM!

2009-01-23T08:46:00.001-08:00

It's suppose to be warm today...well 56 degrees and that's warm this time of year isn't it? So, I'm gonna hop on the road bike and go for a spin after work. I haven't had many miles on the bike in the past few weeks because of this back annoyance I've had. No trainer, no mountain bike, no road bike, nothing, so I'm looking forward to a little time in the saddle today.

It sucks that I haven't had much riding time lately since a few of us have the mileage competition in full swing. The person with the most mileage at the end of the year gets a sixer of their favorite brew from each participant. I'm probably the low man on the totem pole right now with right around 70 miles or so for 2009. Hopefully that will change as my back feels better and warmer weather starts showing up. I usually commute by bike to work in the Spring and Summer, so I hope to make up some ground there.

As far as a decision on a mountain bike frame with gears, I have yet to make a decision. I've found some good deals online on some frames, but I have that disease where you can't click the buy button for fear of a better deal coming along seconds after you commit to buying. I have decided on a drivetrain though. I'm gonna go with Sram x-9 rear derailleur and shifter. I say shifter because I'm gonna run a 1x9. Also, I'm going to use my old road bike cassette for the new gearie, it's an 11-23 Ultegra. I just don't think I'll need a 34 tooth cog on the bike, after all, I've ridden just about every local trail on a 32x18 setup on the single speed and I just need something that won't require so much torque on my body when I climb.

One other problem with the new frame is that Amanda isn't too happy about it. In hindsight, I probably should've bought a geared frame to begin with and just run an ENO hub on it and I wouldn't be in this predicament now. I'm not sure if she doesn't want me to spend the money or if she just doesn't want more bike parts in the apartment. I'll clarify that soon.

Change for everyone.

2009-01-20T07:02:00.001-08:00

With all of the talk of change lately, especially today being the inauguration day, a change has come to me as well. I've hurt my back and with all the back troubles I've had in the past, I have decided to not take any chances and switch my mode of mountain transportation to a geared bike. I'm just in the looking phase right now and not quite sure what I want just yet. If you have any suggestions or know where a really good deal is on a hardtail frame, let me know.

I kinda figured it would be a matter of time before I couldn't ride the ss anymore, but I didn't think it would be now. It's hard on my knees and my lower back, but it's tons of fun. So, I'll be off the mountain bike for a while, it's been more than a week since I've been on it already. Hopefully I can get an easy ride in on the Zion ss before I get some gears.

Today is the inauguration and my boss made the point this morning that, regardless of who you voted for this year, it's pretty impressive that we have such a peaceful transition of leadership. Lots of countries change leadership by having their governments violently overthrown.

I'm watching the inauguration online and it's cool that they have the live feed online, but it times out briefly from time to time, never anymore than a second or so, but it's pretty annoying.

Until then...

Mountain Biking Heaven

2009-01-11T13:44:00.000-08:00

There are several things that I have never planned to do...and ride Iron Mountain by myself is one of them. The trails are not very friendly, they're fairly remote and this time of year, it's really f'in cold up there. However, that is the exact situation I found myself in today. I had planned to ride the Beartree area of Iron with by friend Casey, but he called and bailed after I had already driven up to the parking lot and had gotten ready. So, I figured, I'm already here, dressed and wanting to ride, so what the heck, I'll ride solo. I figured that I could turn around anytime I felt like it since I didn't have anyone else to please on the ride. So off I went, pedaling up the Beartree trail.

I took my camera with me so I could take some pictures and shortly after I took the first picture I noticed that my batteries were just about dead. I got to take two whole pictures! My plan was to ride easy and stop to smell the roses..so to speak. Yeah it was cold, wet, muddy and I was alone, but the scenery up there was amazing! When I got to the top of Iron I noticed that all the trees had about an eighth inch of ice on them. It looked really cool on the pine trees, each green needle outlined on one side with a bright white stroke of ice and EVERY tree looked like that up there. I don't know if there is a mountain biker Heaven, but the trail leading to it would look exactly like that. It was euphoric.

Ahh...the beauty of iced over trees...

A small pond that is just up from the Beartree trailhead. I've seen this thing completely frozen over before.

I rode just around 11 miles and climbed around 5k feet. The Garmin data shows more than 5k, but it's just a tad bit off.

My ride data can be found here.

Also, another bit of cool news. The weekend after Christmas, my brother-in-law had some people over to his house to watch a fight. One of those guys was my niece's boyfriend's dad, aka, The Big Deaner. We were sampling some Depot Street suds my bro-in-law and I had gotten earlier that day and were talking about how cool it would be to go on a weekend tour of a bunch of breweries to sample their suds. Well, on Thursday I got a call from my bro-in-law, and apparently the Big Deaner means what he says. He has arranged for tours at several breweries in NC and arranged for us to have a driver take us to all these spots. So, at the end of February I'll be sampling brews across NC. I guess the plan is to start far away and work our way back. Anywho, I'll definitely take my camera so yous guys can live vicariously through me.

Fun-Lovin' Criminal

2009-01-09T12:09:00.001-08:00

Man, what a terribly unmotivated day I've had. Maybe it's because I haven't worked a Friday in several weeks, but I feel like I just never got off the ground today.

I've been riding a trainer for the past week on the ol' road bike. I can't say it's entirely bad, but it just isn't as fun as getting out on the bike and enjoying actual outdoors, not staring at them through the window. Amanda has ridden it a few times as well on her mountain bike, but those knobbies were roaring loud....WHAT?? I SAID THE KNOBBIES ARE ROARING LOUD!! So, last night when I got off work I stopped by the bike shop and picked up a slick to put on her rear...wait...a non-knobbied tire for her bike, yeah. The tires her bike came with are Specialized Enduros and man were those things tough as nails to get off the rim! I fought with the rear tire for a while and finally popped it off. I have to admit, it looks funny with that big knobbie tire on the front and the lowpro slick on the rear. I put the newly, hopefully silent, bike on the trainer last night so she could ride it today, (she was off work..lucky).

Nothing else new has occurred lately, so not much to talk about. Maybe I should make something happen so I can have something to talk about.

The Man From Uncle.

2009-01-06T05:17:00.001-08:00

Man, seems like forever since my last post. Has it been forever? I've been absent (minded) over the holidays and of course, just like every other person on the entire planet, my schedule gets thrown into chaos. I did get to ride with my brother a couple of times over the last few weeks. We rode on Christmas Eve at WPSP and had, what I consider, a vomit inducing ride. I was so excited to be riding my bike, especially with my brother whom I don't get to ride with all that often, that I rode fast and furious. NOT A GOOD IDEA. Anyway, we had a good ride. This past Friday, we rode Norris Lake in Knoxville with Chris Dillow and Dave "My balls are securely in tact now" Lane. We rode somewhere in the area of 20 miles, I'm not sure just yet of the exact mileage.

Keith taking a breather with his new Felt Solo 29er

Wish I had more stuff to post, but I don't. I actually have to go to a meeting now.

2008-12-22T12:18:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since my last posting, but I'm certain that there is truth to the phrase, "absence makes the hear grow fonder." With the holidays, it's tough to find time to get in front of the computer for something other than shopping or working.

I'll start today with an observation. I work in marketing, so I tend to pay attention to commercials and artwork more than I probably should. It's tough to convey the message you want sometimes. Case and point, Coors Light. I'm not a fan of Coors Light, I actually prefer my beer to have some flavor to it, and they realize that. They've gone so far as to make cool packaging to sell their tasteless suds they pass off as "beer". They came up with the idea that people like their shitty beer cold, and so that you know it's cold, the mountains on the label turn blue. Oooooooooohhh....aaaaaaaaahhhhh......NOT! The commercial says it's "brewed cold, bottled cold and the label turns blue when it's as cold as the Rockies". Okay, I'm not sure if you've ever had what's called "skunky beer" and better yet, what causes it. The skunking process is to get cold beer, let it warm up, then get it cold again. So Coors Light has managed to get consumers to not only drink skunky beer, but to be proud when you can tell it's skunky. If it's brewed and bottled cold, somewhere along the line it's gonna be warm cuz YOU have to turn the mountains blue. I don't get it, so I don't drink it.

Anyway, I just got back from the dentist, so the entire right side of my face is totally numb and I think I'm drooling.

Amanda got me a sweet new camera for Christmas so hopefully you guys will get to see more pictures up on ye olde blog this upcoming year, so stay tuned. I'm not sure how often or if I'll be posting another blog this week, but I'll try.

Have a Merry Christmas!!

Fat Tony...light, fluffy, unrefined.

2008-12-12T05:54:00.000-08:00

So I've been under some pressure lately to write another blog. It seems that Alan has a new (quite possibly unhealthy) addiction to blogs, so congratulations Alan, you have now made me an enabler.

As if it isn't hard enough having to arrive and depart from work everyday amongst scores of adolescent girls who would love nothing more than to have me look their way, snag a lock of my hair or even just brush against my jacket. I mean, come on, I realize I'm the greatest thing since High School Musical 2 and 3, but let me enjoy the mysticism of my posts. I quietly enjoy making my (2) fans wait anxiously for the next sputtering of retardation that they may or may not expect to come from the blog de Fat Tony, much like Andy Kaufman did as the women's wrestling champion and his Tony Clifton character.

Today's blog does have some sort of point to it, believe it or not. Several days ago I decided that I was going to create some cartoon characters. I have no clue why or what I will do with them, I just had the urge to be creative in some other medium than computer artwork and wordsmithing. So after a few days of coming up with ideas, sketches and analyzing features of people on TV, imagining what a caricature of them would look like, I have come up with two characters. I really wanted three, two guys and a girl, but all I have right now are two. I scanned in a couple of sketches and redrew them in Illustrator.

I introduce to you Slug and Jarvis.

Slug sketch

Jarvis sketch

Slug and Jarvis (partial) final in color

I have no "world" for them to live in, hence the solid white background and bad perspective sidewalk thingy they're standing on. When I get more down, I'll post them. This should have Cartoon Network beating down my door for a lucrative cartoon deal that will warrant me tens if not hundreds of dollars in the far distant future.

High Voltage!

2008-12-09T10:30:00.000-08:00

As many of you may already know, I grew up with a dad that just so happened to be a preacher, and still is. I remember when I was about 8 or so, watching some TV show that was all about satanic music or as the rest of us called it, rock n' roll. The show was filled with conspiracy theories of backmasking (disguising suggestive lyrics in songs by recording them backwards and hiding them in the music), origins of band names and the plot of the underground world of "satanic" rock n' roll to take over the youth of America. Some of the band name origins were actually true, for example, the band W.A.S.P., their name was an acronym for We Are Satan's People. But Blackie Lawless (lead singer), although a little scary with some of his dark eye make-up, didn't seem satanic to me, just a cross-dresser. One of the funnier ones was how AC/DC got their name, apparently, another acronym, for After Christ/Devil Comes. I found out years later that they actually saw it on the back of a radio, and it WAS an acronym for Alternating Current/Direct Current, go figure.

The purpose these shows was to educate kids/tweens/teens about the dangers of listening to "satanic" music and their connection to the occult. They showed images of Gene Simmons spitting blood out of his mouth, Sid Vicious with cut up arms and his typical stoned face and linked many of the bands to writers like Aleister Crowley (of whom Ozzy wrote a song about on the Blizzard of Ozz album) and Anton LeVay. Rock bad, nothing in particular good.

My point is that the show did nothing to deter me from the "dangerous" underworld of the rock n' roll occult. Instead it fascinated me. I began to seek out bands like the Misfits, King Diamond, Sex Pistols, Twisted Sister, etc. I would look for the most detestable looking freaks with bands that I could find and look for messages in their songs and names (one theory was that you could see the word "DEVIL" spelled out in the Dio logo). I'm not sure what made me so interested in them, maybe it was because I wasn't supposed to like them or maybe it was cuz I dug the music I heard on the show, OR the backmasking worked. They fooled me into thinking they were demonic messengers of satan himself.

Did you ever see the movie KISS made? That made them the least scary band on the entire planet, besides, who could be afraid of this guy?

So I'll leave you now with some images of some of the bands and singers that I grew to love listening to as a demonic 8 year old kid.

Tuesday eh? I call shenanigans!

2008-12-02T10:58:00.000-08:00

I'm waiting on some stuff here at work, so I thought I'd update you on the holidays. I would say we had a pretty good one. Amanda and I didn't get to spend much of Thanksgiving day together, she went to her mom's house and I went to mine. The reason we split up is because my mom and my sister decided that they were going to the midnight sales at the Tanger Outlet Mall in Pigeon Forge. So, to spend some time with them, I decided to go up there to spend the day instead of us hitting both spots in one day like we normally do. By the time Amanda got to my parents' house Thursday night, it was just me and my dad, partially asleep watching/not watching college basketball and the football game. My family has the art of non-PIP, multi-channel watching mastered.

On Wednesday, Amanda and I stayed at my sister's house. I got a chance to go hang with my pal Brad that night. I hadn't spent much time hanging out with him in recent years, mainly because we live an hour or so apart and, let's face it, I'm a busy man. We played lots of Wii tennis and talked art, he's a graphic artist too and one of my longest friends. It was good to see him and hang out.

Some of Brad's work - "Suicide Angel"

Friday morning brought the anticipation of some Iron Mtn riding with a small group of folks who sorta don't mind riding when there is snow on the ground. Andy, Scott, David, Alan, David Witt, Brandon Johnson and myself all met up at Adventure Damascus and shuttled our way to the top of SR 600 where we descended the main road for 1/2 mile and then climbed a slick, snow-covered fireroad for about 2 miles. I did lose traction while pedaling a few times and was able to keep the bike moving forward a couple of times. It's odd on Iron Mtn., one minute you'll be freezing and snow will be everywhere, the next it's 50, sunny and tolerable. Nonetheless, shuttling to the top to ride back to Damascus sounds like and all-downhill adventure, which is far from the case. Looking at the elevation gain/loss afterwards, we did lose more elevation than we gained, but what we did climb was rough. Didn't get to enjoy the festivities of suds and pizza at Bella's afterwards cuz Amanda was sick and I'm her only nurse, but she's feeling better now, cuz I'm a good nurse.

I'm starting to really know those trails on Iron and it's kind of cool and makes it much more fun every time I go up there. I love riding there and the last 3 or 4 times I've been, I've had a blast.

The newly rebuilt Reba Race performed pretty well on Friday. I had it set up a little stiff for all those rocky downhill sections, but it functioned, and that's all that matters for now. I'll do some fine-tuning before this weekend.

It's a busy week at work this week, so another entry before the weekend may not be possible. I'll leave you with a picture I worked on yesterday trying to figure out a technique I saw in a DaKine ad. I thought I did pretty well, but it's not quite there yet.

My Precioussssss

2008-11-26T11:04:00.000-08:00

Thought I'd give an update on my fork since my two readers wanna know. I got it back yesterday, no "new" fork, but they did replace the uppers and (hopefully) the dual air piston. That was the main culprit. Here is a picture of it!

Also, you may notice some nice pink cages on there too. Picked those up at Hampton's sale last week.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Alan, if you're reading this...I expect to be on Iron Mtn on Friday.

Can you pass the taters?

2008-11-25T08:18:00.001-08:00

Short week at work this week (hopefully I won't be working tomorrow all the way until Monday), so you won't be seeing a post until after the holidays. I hope to have some good stories for you all afterwards, along with some pictures.

Speaking of pictures, I rode Bent Creek on Sunday with Andy, Russel and Megan (Russ' wife). It was nice riding somewhere new. Well, not really new, but I've only been there one other time. I meant to take my camera and have some pictures for today's blog, but the excitement of riding caused my memory to lapse and I forgot it. So you'll have to rely on my detailed/not-so-detailed recollection of the ride.

We departed from Meadowview Convention Center in Kingsport around 10 a.m. in a two-Element caravan, Russ and Meg in front and Andy and myself pulling up the rear. Gotta say, the more I ride in Elements, the more I wish I had bought one...who knows, I may get the chance soon. The hour ride down went pretty fast, we suited up and took off. We climbed a few fireroads and some double/singletrack to the top of the mtn and would pick a trail to bomb off of...that was the formula for the day. One thing I had a chance to ride, which I had heard many negative things about, was the new "rock features" of Greens Lick. If you haven't ridden Green's Lick, it's basically a bomber's paradise. It's fast, it's hardpack, it has burms, jumps, etc. etc. etc. The sign at the top of the trail vaguely detailed some new "rock features" on the trail, basically to slow riders down and to add some technical features so that beginners wouldn't crash. Well, if they intended to make the trail "safer" for beginners, they failed. Like I said, it's a very, very fast trail. The "rock features" were built to last and built very well and I would've thoroughly enjoyed them had they been on any other trail, preferably a flatter one.

Nonetheless, I still enjoyed it. There were a couple things there that I hadn't ridden before. One was a log ride on one section. As you came around a turn, there was a log to the right of the trail. Off to the left side of the log was the trail, to the right of the log was a huge hole the log crossed. Andy, Russ and myself decided that we would go back several yards and attempt to ride said log. I had found a good line to ride it, but my momentum carried me to the wrong side of life and life-flashing-before-my-eyes. As I came off the log into the hole, I pogoed my bike on the front wheel and crashed pretty hard. Why is it that the slowest crashes hurt the worst?

I did get to ride the other side of the Lower Sidehill trails which were also pretty fun. Maybe next time I go I can ride more stuff.

An update on the Twilight movie date Amanda and I went on. Amanda had been looking forward to this movie for a long time now, so on Friday I stopped by the theater to buy tickets for Saturday night. It was one of those movies where there were tons of high school kids there. One couple in particular who sat behind us decided to talk the whole time we're watching previews..and I dig movie previews. They also decided when the movie started that they should comment on every single line...for about ten minutes. Amanda had enough, turned around and said something like, "If you guys could not talk thru the f*(&^in' movie, that would be great". Not a word from them for the rest of the movie. Maybe I'll bring her to work to deal with clients.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Edit: Fork update - Rock Shox has fixed my fork and it is sitting at Hampton Trails waiting to be picked up.

That dude and Bella

2008-11-21T10:45:00.001-08:00

I rode Warrior's Path State Park for the first time in many many months last night. A good group of us showed up, Brandon, Alan, Richard, David Smith, Mark Prince and Mr. Jones (sorry I forgot his first name, so you'll have to settle for Mr.).

Warrior's is one of those places where it gets pretty rocky in certain sections, and this time of year it gets hard to see those sections because of the leaves on the ground. There were several times I wasn't sure if I was even still on the trail. That kind of added to the fun though. I did have a front-end wipe out once...not a good thing when you're the front guy and the guy behind you is close enough to buzz your tire (which David did on numerous occasions). Speaking of Senor Smith, he has this habit of hooping and hollering when he's out there riding, I'm not sure if someone has gone down and hurt themselves or David just wants everyone in Johnson City to know that he's riding.

I'm still riding the loaner fork, but I did get some news on my Reba yesterday. Brian says that Rock Shox called him to ask him a couple of questions about it. That's all, no update, no decision on what they're going to do or anything. I'm going over to Hampton Trails after work to take advantage of the supersweet sale he's having, so hopefully I'll be able to get more details this evening.

I'm going with Amanda to watch Twilight tomorrow night. She heard the book was good, so about two weeks ago (a Tuesday I think) she bought the book. She read it in just a couple of days...a 600+ page book...she read it in just a couple of days, she couldn't put it down. Now, there are three other books that follow that one, four in the series, so two weeks after she started the first book, she closed the back cover of the fourth book...four books in two weeks...600+ page books...each! Geez! Kudos to her for reading that much and that fast. Kudos.

Twilight Preview

2008-11-19T13:36:00.000-08:00

So I spent all day updating a web site for work. UGH! It's so time consuming and tedious, but it keeps me busy and focused...somewhat. Nothing very eventful.

No word yet on my fork, hopefully I'll know something about it tomorrow or Friday. Hampton Trails is having a big sale starting tomorrow. 40 - 70% off everything in the store...hopefully I'll be able to make it over there Friday, possibly to pick up a new '09 RS Reba Race or a refurbished '08 model (fingers are still crossed).

Greg and I are not riding tonight, but Andy and I are talking about going out of town to ride on Saturday or Sunday. Haven't exactly decided where yet, we had talked about Big South Fork, Carvin's Cove and Black Mountain. Black Mountain may be our destination, will keep you posted though.

There is a night ride at Warrior's Path tomorrow night and Amanda is hangin' with her homies, so I may go for this one. That means I have to set my DVR for all the good shows that come on before I'll make it home. Alan, you better not pansie out on this one because of the temps!

Is that guy waving at you or me?

2008-11-18T13:29:00.001-08:00

It has been a while since my last post, but I figured that if I started this thing back up, I'd feel better. I've been down lately. Maybe it's because I've been pretty busy lately. I work 9-5 everyday, I do freelance work, I'm the newly elected president of the NTMBA and I've been trying to learn some video editing software at work. Whew! That's one heck of a list.

I hadn't ridden as much lately either. My RockShox Reba fork crapped out on me a month or so ago. I've had a time trying to get it fixed or replaced under warranty. I sent it out from Hampton Trails the other day and so far, no word on if/when they will replace it...keep your fingers crossed. Andy has let me borrow one of his old forks to use until I get my precious back. Thanks Andy!

I did get a night ride in last night. I gotta say, I was a little anxious since I hadn't ridden in a while, plus I was feeling a little blue, but I knew a ride would make me feel better. Seems I get a lot of my critical and insightful thinking done while I'm riding. Maybe that's why I don't race very often. Duckman, Brandon and myself rode out of Steele Creek Park about 6 p.m. last night. We all rode the first side together, then Brandon split before the climb up the other side of the park's trails. My riding kinda sucked last night. Could be because I hadn't ridden in a while, or could be because I've never ridden Steele Creek at night before. Either way, I had fun.

Greg and I may ride tomorrow, so if you're reading this by then, you should ride with us too!

Typical (or not so typical) Thursday

2008-04-18T08:53:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was the first time I had ridden my mountain bike in a while. I rode at Norris in Knoxville about a month ago, but that was mostly fireroad stuff, but yesterday was singletrack at Steele Creek in Bristol.

I had been on the road bike a whole lot over the winter, even riding in sub-freezing temps a lot of times, doing a weekly ride on Wednesday's with some buddies and, of course, the occasional commute to and from work. I will digress for a minute and tell you about my commuting since my last real blog was about just that.

The first day I started, it was chilly outside, of course it was 7 in the morning, but I put on my jacket, windproof gloves and started out. The execution of my commuting plan worked flawlessly, however, my preparation...not so much. I had planned to take a set of clothes in on Mondays so I can have fresh clothes when I get to work, but, I forgot to include shoes, a towel and a few other things in my clothing stash. So, I had to bring all that in my backpack on the bike ride, which made for a very heavy and uncomfortable pack.

I also thought that the evening ride would be the most enjoyable part of commuting, the sun would be out, it would be warmer and it's the end of the day, right? Eh. In the mornings, I mostly have the road to myself, there aren't many folks out and about at 7am, but EVERYBODY is out at 5pm. I have to fight traffic all the way home, so the ride home takes about 15 minutes longer than the ride to work, go figure. Nonetheless, commuting by bike from exit 14 takes me 15 more minutes to get to work than if I drove my car all the way there from exit 19. Not a bad trade, plus I get to ride my bike more often. Hopefully I can commute more often which means I'll have to plan my days ahead of time, which in turn is not good, because I never plan for anything.

Back to my original topic, mountin biking. Since I had all this "fitness" from riding the road bike all winter, I figured that yesterday's mountain bike ride would go fairly smoothly. I did remind myself of some suffering that would take place, after all, my mountain bike is a singlespeed, a far cry from the 30 gear combinations on my road bike. So, I knew it would hurt a little.

The first part of the ride was lots of climbing, it was tough, but I made it to the top of the first climb without incident. I found out shortly after that, that I had the rhythm of an old white man. I rode terribly and wiped out a couple of times. It's a different animal that mountain bike. Roadies have it so easy and now my legs look like I've been mountain biking. Welcome Summer!

On a not so lite note, after my ride yesterday, Amanda told me that her sister's house burned down while they were out at the store. So, if you could please pass along some good karma, thoughts and prayers for them, that would be awesome.

PSA

2008-04-17T11:52:00.000-07:00

For immediate release.
4/17/08

Beer is now cheaper than gas. So, drink, don't drive.

Grab yer pole!...that sounds wrong.

2008-03-31T07:53:00.000-07:00

So for the past year, Amanda has been into fly fishing and she seems to love it. She works at a fish hatchery, so it's easy for her to walk over to the river and fish after work. By the way, catching fish at a fish hatchery isn't easy, they seem to be smarter there.

Anyway, so last week I bought a rod and reel so I could go fishing with her. I didn't get anything expensive or fancy, but they seem nice. I found out that just buying a rod, reel and line wasn't all. You have to install backing which is thick string that you start on your reel, then tie the actual fly line onto that, then you have to tie a leader on the end of the fly line. The leader looks more like traditional fishing line that you can tie or, in Amanda's and my case, has a plastic connection point so you can switch them in and out when you need a new one. Anywho, there was much more to the preparation than I anticipated.

Once I got it all put together, I went outside for the next few days to practice my casting, which also isn't very easy. It looks cool when you get the motion down, but making a perfect cast takes some work.

On Saturday, Amanda and I went to her work and out for my first fly fishing expedition. The conditions were pretty far from ideal. It was cold and it rained and stopped, rained and stopped, rained and stopped, on top of that, we were wading in the river. We had waders on, but you could feel the cold of the water through them, not to mention, my hands were absolutely frozen. After about an hour of fishing (which in my case was actually digging my fly out of brush and getting the line untwisted from the end of my rod) we decided to go inside. This was welcome because; a) I was freezing; b) my poor fly was destroyed from the branches and the fish were probably laughing at me; and c) I was freezing.

After getting a snack, a new fly and warming my digits, we set back out to try again. I got tangled in brush less often, but still didn't catch anything. It's possible that I suck as a fly fisherman, but I got to spend some time outdoors with Amanda (who didn't catch anything either) and learned a new hobby.

Next time I'll have tales of large brown, rainbow and whatever kinds, of trout and warm weather.

Gas-X

2008-03-26T05:44:00.000-07:00

For the past week I've seriously considered finding a way to save gas money and ride my bike to work. By car on the interstate it takes about 25-30 minutes to get there, which makes my commute to work about 20ish miles.

So, now that gas is stupid expensive and receiving an email from my dad about buying only American gas (like it really matters where it comes from, they still rape you), I have decided that it's time to do something pro-active. Starting probably next week, I will drive my car a mere 6 miles down the interstate (to avoid morning traffic in town) to a gas station (don't you love the irony), get on my bike and ride the rest of the way.

Doing this is posing a few problems though. I have to dress "professionally" at work, which means a dress shirt and tie most days, so getting clean, non-wrinkled clothing to work will be a challenge. Also, I have started a recycling campaign at work to recycle the hundreds of plastic bottles, aluminum cans and the 4 or 5 newspapers that we get on a daily basis, so this means that I will have to drive the entire way to work at least one day a week. So, on Mondays, I will drive the entire way to work to bring in a week's worth of dress clothes that I will keep in a garment bag in my office, I will also drive the entire way to work on Fridays so I can take away the week's recycling.

Gas is roughly $3.20/gallon, my car holds 13 gallons of gas and gets around 32 miles/gallon. Per week, I spend about $35 dollars for gas alone (I normally don't fill it completely), that's $140/month...just to get to work. If I can spend $35 every two weeks on gas, I'll save about $70/month and through the summer months (I consider this at least 4 months), I will have saved almost $300, and at the same time, stick it to da man!

So who cares where my gas comes from, cuz I'm not buying it...as much.

Create a diversion...

2008-01-30T08:03:00.000-08:00

So, I'm feeling stressed out today. It has been a slow process to get me to this point, but today I really feel it. So, in an effort to reverse this trend, I've decided to share some useless information with you.

Every year Amanda gets me a calendar, this year it was a Worst Case Scenario calendar. Today's worst case scenario is how to escape from a giant octopus...so listen closely.

1. Pull away quickly

2. If you do not escape, do not go limp. Octopi tire easily, so continue to put pressure on the arms by attempting to swim away.

3. Prevent the octopus's arms from wrapping around your arms.

4. Peel the suckers from your body. Give the octopus a spear, raft, surfboard or other object to latch on to. Work quickly, before the arms grab you.

5. Detach the octopus from its anchor.

6. Turn somersaults in the water to irritate the octopus.

7. Swim toward the surface.

Seeing as how it is highly unlikely that I (or anyone reading this) will ever be attacked by an octopus, I guess it is just good information to have.

Iron Horse Mountain

2007-11-07T11:12:00.002-08:00

My birthday...like most other folks with birthdays...I wanted two things, gifts and some excitement. My lovely Amanda took care of the gifts part and even treated me to a flick, 30 Days of Night, which was pretty good...and gorey.

Excitement would come in the form of a mountain bike ride I had arranged for that weekend. I gathered up as many willing riders as I could from the mountain bike club and beyond and set off on an epic 40 mile ride on Iron Mountain.

The excitement ususally comes late in a ride on Iron Mtn. since there is a whole lot of hike-a-bike climbing, but the anticipation of rocky descents, lung busting climbs and possible mechanical and/or physical failure was replaced by a horse on the trail. About 3 miles into the ride, I and three riders behind me, noticed everyone up ahead were stopped at the crest of a hill. These spots are usually ideal for garnering speed to bomb the short downhills that lie ahead, but instead became a bird's eye viewing point of my buddy Nate and his newfound, and lost, riding partner....a horse. Although not completely out of the ordinary since there are lots of horseback riders on Iron Mtn, but odd that there was no rider or saddle on this lil' lady.

After a few minutes of getting to know our new friend, we decided to see if we could lead her to the nearest fire road and contact someone and let them know that we had found her. With the first pedal stroke, she got into line and joined our pack for several miles. She was a bit spooked at first and kept her eye on those of us behind her as she trotted briskly along the trail, but soon grew accustomed to the sound of our rattling chains and uphill grunts.

She eventually made her way between the rider up front and the rest of us, so for what seemed like days, she set the pace for the next few miles...a very, very, very slow pace. Nate, who was way out front became concerned when we hadn't shown up for quite some time at the next trail intersection, so he decided to double back and check on the rest of us. At this time, I was the third rider back from the horse, which Bob, right behind her, was following very closely. As Nate and the horse met up around a turn, she was surprised and rared up just like they do in the movies. Bob did his best martial arts monkey roll off the side of his bike and down the hill and the horse bolted up into the woods. She still followed us after that, but stayed in the back.

We made it to the trail intersection and had cell service, so Nate was designated as the caller. The 911 operator informed us that someone had in fact been looking for her and that her name was Lollipop. We agreed to bring Lollipop to the fire road and await someone to pick her up, but in true, I don't want to go home or be found fashion, she bolted on us when we learned her name and never got her to the road.

So, wherever you are Lollipop, I hope your safe.