The mighty DBR Axis TT, which dates to 1994 or thereabouts. Greatly enhanced with a rebuilt fork from HippieTech and various other aftermarket items.
Yesterday was death. Buried head-down in the VeloNews.com barrel, which was full of fish heads, dead cats and used Pampers.
Today was another sort of day altogether, as in a day off, mostly. Banged out a ‘toon for VeloNews the magazine, then went for a rare mountain-bike ride, in Palmer Park. Rode a few sections that ordinarily baffle me, too. Maybe it was the allergy meds. Maybe it was the weather, mid-60s and sunny. Nah, probably the dope.
Upon returning home, I flung open the windows, took the cats out for an airing, watered the lawn, fired up the ’83 Toyota for a quick spin to charge the battery and otherwise loosen up its elderly joints, and then cracked a Mirror Pond Pale Ale in honor of the day the beer flowed again. Thanks and a hoist of the Mad Dog stein to The Gnome and DrunkCyclist for the link.
Seven weeks after the shit monsoon, the basement is 99 percent finished. Drywall, carpet, vinyl and tile all have been installed and Herself’s office and bathroom resurrected. All we’re waiting on is a special-order door for the loo. Until it arrives, Herself will have to endure visitations from Turkish and Mia Sopaipilla while she is perched atop the throne, thumbing though Vogue.
Upstairs, the dishwasher, which blew up at about the same time as the basement, has been repaired. Everything removed from downstairs has been returned to its rightful place or disposed of, and now a guy can walk from room to room without twisting an ankle or barking a shin.
Seven weeks ago, this crapper was a shithouse.
While the basement was undergoing its restoration, every square inch of upstairs storage in this place was filled to overflowing, and I went through it like Sherman did Georgia.
The oldest Macs and various accessories went to the recycler — the Quadra 650, the Power Computing PowerBase 200MT, the PowerBook 2300c with MiniDock, a Tandy laptop, a UMAX SCSI scanner and an HP inkjet printer. The office G4 450MHz “Sawtooth” Power Mac, two MacBooks, two iBooks, a G3 500MHz “Pismo” PowerBook and an Asus Eee PC survived the purge, so we’re not exactly back to chisels and tablets here.
Meanwhile, the Sawtooth has been enhanced with a 250GB FireWire drive, so I can finally back up its internal drives, one of which has been making some dire noises of late (it’s only 10 years old, f’chrissakes). That will have to wait for tomorrow, however. Today I’m in the barrel at VeloNews.com, where the chamois-sniffers will soon be congregating, desperate for news about Lance Armstrong’s collarbone surgery.
I never got surgery for either of mine, probably because my health insurance sucked. And I could have used a little savvy knifework on the second break, which was nasty. Says my doc: “The good news is, as long as all the fragments show up on the same bit of X-ray film, the break will heal. Eventually.”
The Mighty Turk views with alarm as winter returns to Bibleburg, however briefly.
I’ve been trying very hard to ignore the Repuglicans’ screeching, holding of breath and stamping of pudgy widdle feet, reasoning that, like Oscar Wilde — or perhaps a gasbag with a microphone who is better fed than taught — they have decided that the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
But damn, am I sick of the racket.
I don’t agree with everything going on in the Obama camp, either, perhaps because I’m not smart enough to unravel the grand design. But after eight years of enduring that other guy, I’m willing to give Obama a little time to assess the situation and determine his response, free of snarky asides about how he’s already going gray or uses the teleprompter more than Honest Abe.
And seriously, if you voted for that other guy the last two outings, you really need to shut the fuck up for a while. Firefighters at work are not obliged to take criticism from arsonists.
Another advocate of reasonable behavior in the face of idiocy, Robert Sullivan, argues in The New York Times that cyclists have begun acting like cars instead of people. He never really defines himself as a cyclist (commuter? recreational rider?), though he does sneer weakly and tritely at Lance Armstrong wanna-bes and fixie kids. And his essay wanders around more than I’d like. But his basic point is one I support — treat others as you would be treated. It’s hypocritical to bitch about psycho motorists if you ride like a bonehead.
USA Cycling and Sand Creek Sports, together at last.
Kelli Lusk, mountain bike events and program director for USA Cycling, and Sand Creek Sports honcho Andy Bohlmann were among the exhibitors at the inaugural Peak Region Cyclist Bicycle Show, held Saturday at the Norris Penrose Center in beautiful metropolitan Bibleburg.
I didn’t do any journalism, because I’ve been doing far too much of that sort of thing lately, but I kicked in my $5 admission fee, chatted up a few pals, snapped a few pix and then beat it for home, where Herself and I squeaked in a quick run that felt more like a slow march with full pack.
Got a day off from helping VeloNews.com cover the Amgen Tour of California. Naturally, the wind is blowing a thousand miles an hour, confused grasses and weeds are spewing pollen, and I am suffering from an occlusion of the snotlocker and eyeballs that apparently were sandblasted while I slept.
But enough about me. The inaugural Peak Region Cyclist Bicycle Show is slated to run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. tomorrow at the Norris Penrose Event Center right here in scenic cosmopolitan Bibleburg. If you’re in the neighborhood, slide on by and check it out. My fave local shop, Old Town Bike Shop, is taking part, as are a bunch of other local and regional cycling outfits. And a portion of the $5 admission fee goes to the Pikes Peak Area Bikeways Coalition.
It’s not exactly Interbike, but look on the bright side — you don’t have to go to Vegas to see it.
Mad Blog Media 