Thought Sausage

Am 30,000 feet somehwere over what appears to be the rockies or some such. I says it once and I says it again...Jet Fuckin' Blue! The girl next to me is watching Law And Order SVU which means they have that shit on Direct TV so once I'm done with this (or when the battery on my laptop conks out, whichever happens first), I'll be on that like stink on shit.

I am amazed at how well this trip went. We had absolutely no hitches so far, save for a little bit of a problem figuring out where the fuck the rental drop off was at the Long Beach airport. Once that was sorted, we slid right though.

The ride itself went well. We came in a shade under 5:30. The elevation was 2800-odd feet which is pretty flat, but all of which seemed to be crammed into the area between mile 20 and 40, and it came in big jaunts...very few rolling hills (although we got some of that flavor as well). Jesus fuck that sucked. The good news was we got to come back down that region on the return ride. That made for some serious fast descents. I think we averaged 32mph for 20 straight miles. And it just so happened that occured when the sun was going down so whipping through those highways at high speeds with the sun setting behind the mountains was quite awesome. I'm sure you could probably surmise this, but the air is REALLY fucking dry in the desert. My throat is still sore from that. I think you end up breathing in a lot of dust too. I had a few instances where I started getting headaches, which probably meant i was low on water intake (I guess this because when I chugged on the camelbak for a good 10 seconds, it went away).

At about mile 65 the sun set completely. Until you are there with your bike and its tiny little light, you really never do appreciate how fucking dark and quiet the desert is. All the ambient noise that exists everywhere else is non-existant (re: bustling grass, wind, animals etc). It's really really strange. The darkness fucks with you too. Don't get me wrong, the sky in Death Valley is among one of the clearest I've seen in my life (and I've spent many a moons in the Rockies, Yellowstone and of course rural Iowa). Thank god I took that astronomy class in college so it all made some sort of sense to me. But the problem it creates is due to the fact we didn't have helmet lights (note-purchase this for next night ride) so I couldn't see my computer, meaning i had no idea how fast we were going, how far we were from the next checkpoint et all. That got really fucking frustrating on this 24 mile loop about 60 miles in that seemed to go on forever. The other major downside is that since these lights only project maybe 20 feet ahead of you, you can't see what the elevation ahead looks like...so basically you'll be riding at a decent clip and all of a sudden you are blindsided by a climb and have no clue when it ends. The temprature also drops dramatically in the desert. It went from 85 to 40 in about an hour. To say I was freezing grossly understates the matter. I punched the last 20 miles hard just to stay warm (which was a good thing).

But I guess you can sum up the whole weekend as this: Roly and I crated our bikes, flew ourselves and them out to California and rode them 110 miles through the desert at dusk and nightfall and will be at work Monday morning. And anybody who doubted us or can't understand what the point is in doing this can just shut right the fuck up...cos at the end of the day we did it and they didn't.

On that note, I'm hanging up the road bike till next year and am gonna give the Gary Fisher Mountain bike some much needed TLC until it gets too cold to ride. So for next season, we're talking about embarking on some centuries, and the east coast or maybe the southest (Florida/Georgia region) is looking attractive. I'd definitely do Death Valley again, and the folks at Planet Ultra are awesome hosts...but well, we got other fish to fry.

So says Geddy Lee.

RoxBox is a fully operational project studio. I've been toying around with a bunch of Antares plugins that I've acquired and am probably going to go on the hunt for some new drum loops (my old stock, while large, doesn't really seem to inspire me anymore). My plan is basically just to tinker without any real end-goal in mind and hopefully things will start to gather and take shape. Will it work? Who knows...it's not like I have to impress anyone these days which is nice. I still am on the hunt for a bass, but a few things have cropped up that are going to crimp my bass buying budget (namely some high dollar xmas gifts). I've been using my trusty whammy pedal to at least hear what things in that range would sound like...but alas, to even attempt to get a useful bass track out of an octave shift is so futile words do it no justice. Speaking of which, I finally pulled out my floor board after about two years of sitting in a closet (well the latest incantation, which was minus all guitar synths...consists of a DG Stomp, Dunlop Bass Wah, Boss Noise Supressor and an original Digitech Whammy Doug will no doubt want me to give back one of these days). It's kind of nice being all open ended with music like this. Back when i was in a band capacity, there was always a load of shows to have material worked up for, a new album to write, band members who thought what I had wasn't any good (and usually they were right), etc etc etc. I have no idea if/when I'll actually have any output or if Roxbox will end up being a big black repository of un-used riffs.

Meanwhile...I'm really excited to begin mountain biking. Because banks and the advertising world observes Christopher Columbus Day (seriously) I have Monday off. Megan's mom bought me a guide to Chicago area trails so I'm thinkin part of Sunday afternoon will involve some plotting/planning and if the weather holds, I'll give it a go Monday.

This weekend is the Chicago Marathon. I actually know quite a few people in it this year so I'm hoping to head down towards Columbus Sunday morning and catch their finishes. It goes right by my house too so we'll have a nice view of the action from the balcony. This is the second year I've dodged the Chicago marathon in favor of other events but I REALLY need to run this thing. 60,000 runners and about a quarter million spectators makes for a serious adrenaline rush.

Last I checked, it looked like the Cubs got sacked by Arizona tonight. Jesus the post season creeped up on me. Probably has to do with the fact that I'm the ONE guy in Chicago who really doesn't give a shit about the Cubs unless they give me a reason to. Well, what I actually mean is Cubs fans think I'm the one guy who thinks like that. Every other Chicago citizen either likes the Sox or has better things to do than obsess over a team that is going on 100 years without winning a world series.

Now that said...if/when they do make it to the big one, this city will no doubt erupt and there will be parties like we have never seen (let's be honest, the Sox winning was cool, but it would pale in comparison to a Cubs victory). So I'll be watching just to get a feel for what to expect. Know what bugs me about that? That that fucknut Dane Cook is some sort of spokesman/manpussy for MLB. Jesus that guy can't even talk about how he likes baseball without me wanting to punch him.

....theme song music from Dog the Bounty Hunter is lodged in my brain thanks to the marathon on A&E. Jesus why am I so enamored with this show?

Sorry for the lack of updates. Busy weekend, kinda. Got the mountain bike out on Saturday. Awesome. Pure Awesome. Palos rocks. I am really wishing I took thsi up earlier. Rest assured I'll be doing that more.

Work proceeds on the stuff on Roxbox. Everything coming out of me is hard rock stuff. Basically riffs I never got to use in IK cos it never really fit. Don't know if anything will ever come of these things, but at least they are recorded somewhere.

Gettin ready for another big weekend. Megan has some sorta virus which sucks (as I tend to get separation anxiety in the first order...it's been a few weeks since we've been able to do things cos either I've been gone or she has). Hopefully that'll be sorted by this weekend as its Genenders big three 'oh Saturday. We're gettin old old old....

God I could kill a whole day watching this guy wax stupid. I defy anybody who can find me one rockstar in their prime today that even comes close to being as entertaining as DLR was in 1984.

Ah Thursdays...when good 'ol Resolution Media brings me bagels. God it's good go to work on Thursdays.

Am watching UHF with the directors' commentary on (yes I pretty much have the coolest video collection in the building). We just got through the shooting montage where Weird Al is dressed up like Rambo. The funny part about director commentaries is when they talk about budget issues on the movie...and from what I gather, UHF never really had a budget to begin with...they had to beg Orion to fund every single scene in it. SUWEET

Also finally finished reading The Heroin Diaries (sans the Nikki Sixx signature...fucking 80's dorks). The chapters comprise of the months between Christmas of 1986 to Christmas of 1987. I was well into September when I figured this book may as well have been called The Dirt II but it suprisingly ends really well. One of the more intense abrupt books I've read. Nikki Sixx also has a suprisingly eloquent epilogue that chronicles all the shit that happened to him since he wrote those diary entries and then kinda sums it up. I'm glad I read it straight through just to get the full effect but I forsee this being one of those books people just keep on the toilet lid or on a coffee table. I'd say wait until you can score it on paperback unless you actually dig hearing about all the nitty gritty details of being in a huge band (like I do). Otherwise I don't know if the entertainment value is hardcover price-worthy.

Watched the republican debate last night. Meh... I wasn't terribly blown away by anybody. Guiliani was pretty good though and he only reminded everyone about 9/11 when one of the other candidates (I forget who) basically handed the line to him...and Mitt Rominey is a fucktard through and through. The only thing missing from that stage was a projector with a cell phone hooked to it so Mitt could just phone in his points and walk everyone through some powerpoint slides because that's basically all he did the whole time.

Otherwise...here's other points on my scorecard:

-Fred Thompson needs to get Sam Waterston as a running mate because being on Law and Order seems to be the only real credential he runs up the flagpole (Screen Actors Guild? Well yeah its a union, but you don't tell a crowd in Michigan that dude). Other than that, he didn't do -bad-, but he didn't really do good either.

-Huckabee - Pretty good points every so often.

-John McCain...I'd like to give ya an A for effort but.....F

-Hunter- dude has chops but...meh

-Ron Paul -this guy should run for court jester. I think they just put him up there for comedic value. Watching him get into a tizzy is like watching your old neighbor when you were a kid get pissed because you left a flaming bag of shit on his porch. And that shit was funny admit it.

Nobody else really stood out. I will say this though, Guiliani could go toe to toe with Hillary no doubt. I'm pretty much resolved to the fact that unless she goes and rapes a filipino boy or something between now and next November, Hillary will be on the democrat ticket. I'm not un-cool with that, but well shit...I can't stand the bitch now, so I can only imagine what kind of powertrip she'd be on when she actualy IS president. Plus, a democrat controlled congress and democrat president will inevitably mean I'll be paying more taxes to pay for some schmuck to get somethin for nothin (funny how i'm by no means "rich" yet a lot of the tax cuts she would repeal apply to me in some shape or form). Fuck that shit...go be fat and smoke on your own dime ya know what I mean?

Guiliani is cool though man...he's fiscally conservative, he wants to keep taxes low, he wants gays to have equal rights, he is pro choice and like all the republicans, he seems to acknowledge that the government can't make our health care, social security or industry woes go away by simply paying for everything (if there's one thing I did learn when obtaining a degree in economics its that the government doesn't actually 'pay' for anything...the just redistribute wealth by taking it from one group and giving it to another). Don't know if I agree with his strict anti-gun law. You'd think for a guy who is all about strict interpretation of the constitution, he would be for upholding our rights to bear arms. Let's just hope he doesn't run the porn industry out of every major hub in America like he did Times Square though because that would basically kill Chinatown in San Francisco and that place is the bomb.

We all know Kiss (or Gene and Paul rather) have merchandised themselves in ways that are painful to watch. You have to know when to say when sometimes, and these guys completely miss those cues. This pretty much takes the retardedness that has been 4 decades of Kiss to whole new levels:

tis my new anti-drug. I hit Palos hard this weekend. Saturday and Sunday. Even though it was my plan to get into this as a fall thing, I'm really wishing i would have taken it on earlier. Fun stuff, and good runs down there. I even saw a fox which marks the first time I've seen one of those in the wild (deer on the other hand are very common in that area). It gave me the "What the hell are YOU doing here" look and then darted away. Amazing considering the abuse I've been putting my internal organs through at night. Birthdays...

So mountain and road biking = GOOD. I think I'll stop there though. BMX doesn't really appeal to me, and I don't think I could be arsed into doing something that looks as gay as this:

I doubt your eyes would be above it (think about it!)

sorry for lack of updates. Been busy busy busy around here. Still in love with mountain biking. I added a computer and a fin (rear fender) to the MTB rig. So its ready for serious tracking action. I just went with the cheapest wireless since A. I don't really give a flying fuck about my heart rate for these sorts of excursions and B. Odds are I'm going to break the transmitter within a couple months.

This hasn't loomed too far from my mind since well, shit, it is what it is and all...but Megan disappeared off the face of the earth culminating in us breaking up (I guess that's what it means @ least). So that's the end of that. I'm not like all busted up over it...truth is I have so many other things to think about, goals to accomplish and so forth the status/quality of my dating scenario isn't going to affect my daily life. I don't have any bad feelings towards her, but at the same time, I'm not looking to attempt to "patch things up" or whatever the fuck it is self pitying bastards do in these situations.

We've invited clients from all over the country to the Chicago environs this week to talk about the vision of the company. Near as I can tell this has gone well. I didn't really get involved with it much other than the open house on Monday night. This coincides with a girl from San Francisco that I referred to Resolution (and used to work with) coming to Chicago for training for the week (she just got hired). So we've hung out a bit, but tomorrow I'm going to play tourguide and show her that there's more to Chicago than Michigan Avenue (and if you're from a city of any kind of girth, the magnificent mile becomes pretty old pretty fucking fast). Prolly skate north to Wrigley and perhaps score some sushi.

This could take some planning (and me convincing Roly to come along), but I'm gathering data for 'the big ride' of next year. There's no doubt we'll be doing more centuries and so forth, but one of the goals after doing Death Valley is to reach out and do other rides in remote areas. The first one that came on the radar was actually to go back to Death Valley and beyond, get a relay together and do all 508 miles and 35,000 feet of elevation that is Furnace Creek. It'd be a HUGE undertaking considering we would need to ship 4 bikes out into the middle of the desert, procure a vehicle worthy of being a support vehicle and mounting all supplies for 4 riders so survive this trek (you see, grocery stores and sports shops aren't all that abundant when you're in the most uninhabitable region of the country). Suffice to say itd' be a fuck of a lot easier if we actually lived out there, but we don't so it is what it is. This is all even contingent on being selected to do the ride. You have to submit an application and they only pick a certain set of people to do it. We've got some major plusses in our camp (Roly being from Ireland is a being one since they like the whole "people from far away coming in to do the ride" thing). But ultimately, none of us can be described as ultramarathoners yet so there's that to consider.

But I'm really starting to take a longer look at The Fireweed 400. This is the exact opposite climate wise. This would be just outside of Anchourage Alaska and rather than do the 400 miler, I'd be down for the 100 race (no aerobars and no drafting). I could scare up a cycling partner or two without too much hassle and the elevation isn't quite as intimidating (about 10,000 feet). Not to mention actually -getting- to Alaska isn't as expensive as I originally anticipated. It can be done round trip with bike for right around a grand. Then once we're there, it looks pretty realistic to rent an RV and be based out of it while we do the actual ride.

This weekend I'm forsaking the Drive By Truckers show and making a jaunt to Iowa for the Tallywackers Halloween ride, which is basically a pub crawl/ride through Cedar Rapids. For all intents and purposes it's an excuse to meet up with a bunch of teams we ride with on Ragbrai and remember happier times (aka when we are on the ride). I have to conjur a costume between now and then which basically means whatever I have, I'll be. That leaves me with a pirate, some kind of rocker dude and/or well, the guy who doesn't have a costume. Rumor has it there's a lot of people going as Smokey and the Bandit people. Ya got me...

I’ve stayed away from this subject even though I’ve been thinking about it all the while.

Basically Madonna has created a stir because she ditched warner bros in favor of a management company who has offered her a preposterous amount of money for a contract that retains her service until the material girl (a dubious term for a 49 year old woman) is 59. Radiohead has also made waves by releasing their album without the use of a label as a download to fans who ‘pay what the think it is worth’. Trent Reznor is finally off Interscope as well (ask him, he’ll tell you all about it).

First off I applaud these artists for making the obvious connection that selling a million records and making 9 cents per record isn’t near as profitable as selling 100,000 records and making 5 bucks a piece on them (or whatever Radioheads’ average donation is). That much should be obvious and bands have been doing this for a LONG time.

So now there’s all this speculation that record labels will go the way of the dinosaur because artists can simply release albums directly to their fans and reap all the profits. While I totally agree with this for somebody like Radiohead, this argument ignores a pretty glaring fact, which is any of these artists mentioned have had considerable dollars invested in their success before they became profitable. Somebody had to pay for all the Radiohead videos, somebody had to put up the tour support to get NIN on tour (circa Lollapalooza) and Madonna, jesus Christ where the fuck do I begin? To say these artists are proof that you don’t need record labels assumes all the promotion, production and up-front cost of launching a band will somehow evaporate. Hell, with IK back in the day, our burn rate on the road was anywhere from $300-500 a week (gas food, fixing the van, bailing Jeremy out of jail etc etc etc) and we usually came home spending more money than we earned just to get tndso the finish line. Bands I talked to that were undertaking much larger and less-shoestring budget oriented tours than us could easily spent 250k+ in a month just in the tour expenses. I submit that unless a band has some rich uncle, you have to have some kind of label/force behind you to front that money. Now granted, I think some of the advances bands get because they happen to look a certain way or play a style of music that is REALLY hot at the time are excessive, but there’s no denying promoting a band costs money. Anybody who’s done it knows that.

And the crux of my point is that if Trent never had a label willing to put Pretty Hate Machine out there, he’d still be an electro-rock goth nerd in Indiana. If Radiohead didn’t have a label with the money to put them on tour in the US, they’d still be shuffling around in UK clubs and Madonna would still be working at a thrift store in Queens. Why? Because none of these people were independently wealthy with the means to “take it to the next level” (retarded A&R phrase).

Now you might be one of these folks who think that bands can overcome the challenges those artists had in their day because of things like Facebook and Myspace. Well I got news for you…and it’s that that ain’t news! Mp3.com was essentially the exact same thing and it even paid artists each time a song got played (well for awhile). You saw all these articles about how the mp3 revolution would change how people find music. We were part of that. I even bought some banner ads on Mp3.com and while I certainly got my music out in front of thousands more people than I would otherwise, I bet we sold maybe 150 cds that way. And people, I submit that in the 10 years since those times, there hasn’t been a SINGLE artist to serve as a proof of concept. That’s right…not a single artist has been able to elevate their exposure/status to levels on par with what major labels do for their artists using a model like Radiohead (who btw are going right back to major labels to distribute the tangible version of their record so put that in your pipe and smoke it). Until that happens, and an artist (with or without major representation) can finance their own arena level tours, produce their own videos, record and release their own albums without the advances from a label, I submit that this whole idea of labels going away is a dumb argument.

The rub to this of course is that if all the artists who actually are selling a lot of records and have surefire hits like Madonna does begin to leave the labels, this doesn’t leave the labels with any money to advance the developing artists. So in effect I believe this will make it even more difficult for bands to get ‘signed’ (the single dumbest buzzword in this whole racket). And of course, the only people who care about ‘getting signed’ are the people who have dollar signs in their eyes to begin with so there ya go I guess….the rich get richer…

Most....Brilliant....Idea...EVAR

We survived another ride with our Iowa compadres (which is becoming more and more of a challenge). Good times were had. A few negatives but they certainly didn't diminish the overall excitement of the thing

-I was talking to this HAWT girl in one of the bars and she mentioned she was there with her boyfriend and pointed the fellow out to me. Said boyfriend was easily in his upper 60's (!!!???!!!) and sorta had a creepy old man vibe. Didn't look like he had a pot to piss in so my guess is that drugs or something are involved in this relationship...and/or this chick just has a thing for old dudes. Whatever. Anyway we're standing there and I'm sorta like a third wheel so I more or less just try to introduce myself to this un-named guy and he FUCKIN GOES OFF. Like out of nowhere this guy gets totally aggro on me and talks about "You wanna go out and rumble, let's go motherfucker!!" Man that caught me off guard. Not to mention I have some reservations about "stepping outside" to go fight an old man. So I backed off and avoided the dude for the rest of the night. But jesus aitch christ what the fuck is with that guy? I'm still wondering...

-Woody from Tallywackers dressed as Richard Simmons. fair 'nuff. But apparently he went to some other bar (where we weren't) and somebody didn't like that outfit so they shot him. Like with a gun. I mean, somebody actually hauled off and shot Woody because he was dressed like Richard Simmons. Only got him in the leg though and it sounds like he's already out of the hospital. Doesn't sound like they caught the guy who did it, but at least Woody isn't dead. Man, this instance isn't gonna do me any favors in convincing Horowitz Iowa isn't full of backwoods rednecks.

-Did a TON of these minnow shots. I'd never done that before, but basically, one of the bars was along the Cedar River and seemed to double as a bait shop (yes people like to get drunk and fish in these regions). So they have shots where they put a little fish in the shot glass and it flops around and stuff and you shoot the drink and the fish. They don't live long but you can feel them wiggling down your throat. Man that's a fucked up feeling.

This week I have a ton of work shit to accomplish. It is my personal mission to structure the new knowledge base for our SEO endeavors and I'm like, not anywhere near where I need to be in that regard. In fact, you could make a pretty valid argument that I'm "behind".

ugh...

On another note, I came back to civilization to find that Paul Raven died yesterday. Man that sucks. Killing Joke is one of my favoritist bands. Sucks to lose one of the good guys.

I can't even pick on Christians that do this shit...it's not even fun to fuck with 'em because they're so fucking miffy. Then when you see this kinda propaganda they feed each other and its no wonder...

On the other hand...this "letter" would make a pretty cool metal song. I'm pretty sure this exists as a Black Sabbath or Slayer song.

Okay...once again some poorly misguided dumbtard randomly hit me up on Google Talk (no doubt one of the trolls on the Google groups) asking to exchange links (note..I'm not really from Belize City, but whateva).

Let this be a lesson to whoever else decides to waste my time with this idiotic requests...

justin.chd: Hi

justin.chd is busy.
dave: hi

justin.chd: wanna link exchange?

dave: ummmm no?
can I ask you something?
why the fuck do you think that shit still works?
exchanging links?
and btw
http://www.seomoz.org/blog
may wanna follow along

justin.chd: you know l;ink building also most important for good ranking
I know blog is also good for ranking

dave: AWARE
but going around asking random people to link exchange most certainly does not work
where are you from anyway?

justin.chd: ya i am agree with you

dave: not only does it not work, it annoys webmasters
create link bait....use your news alerts to identify what kind of content is resonating in the blogosphere
and i meant for you to read that blog entry

justin.chd: ok

dave: you'll notice Google has been significantly moving pagerank down for sites that are huge link farms
but whoever gave you the idea that effective link building is just asking people to exchange links was wrong
if you're going to use link popularity to your advantage you gotta do it by shaping your content
otherwise its a matter of time until your pagerank and everyone you're linking to is discredited
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/toolbar-pagerank-losses-for-hundreds-of-websites

justin.chd: I am not do link building ever.

dave: you just asked me if I wanted to link exchange!
if by 'not do link building ever' you mean in the last 30 seconds yeah you have a point
seriously where are you from?
Europe?

justin.chd: dear friend i am agree with you but if you do link exchnage with your relevant sites and with good raking sites then your websites comes in top of ranking

dave: riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight

justin.chd: ya i am from uk
and you from

dave: I am from Belize City

justin.chd: ok fine

dave: lots of people from India have been coming along asking me to do link building or exchange links and they don't even know what kind of site I have or work with
to me, that hardly constitutes exchanging links with sites that have relevant content
BYE

Sent at 12:56 AM on Thursday
justin.chd: agree

Sent at 12:56 AM on Thursday
justin.chd: they don't know google's algo

dave: yeah but that's only all over the news right now
major upheavil

justin.chd: so they just push his sites with the help of link building

dave: techcrunch, SEOroundtable etc etc
well
I'm not gonna belabor the point cos you either get it or you don't...I'm not interested in exchanging links with you or anybody via Gtalk
so
I bid you adieu

Looks like that'll about do it for yet another halloween weekend. I expect pics to be posted by some party involved @ some point. I like Halloween because A. It basically is an excuse for women to dress slutty and not feel slutty, B. There's inevitably a shitload of parties that involve me not spending an heinous amount of money and C. It is usually the last weekend before the 'cold' sets in making hopping around to various nightspots a pain in the ass due to cold. I DON'T like halloween because A. 90% of the costumes men wear usually just make them look like bigger tools than they already are B. It is another one of these holidays that doesn't really have any real significance to our culture, as in recent times, it was a holiday invented to get people to spend more money (like Valentines Day) and C. My usual haunts that are populated by people who are out every weekend are now invaded by people who rarely go out and thus, don't know how to handle themselves in a bar or a party once they attempt to consume as much alcohol as the rest of us. This usually results in people acting like complete fucking idiots. I did pretty good this year at avoiding altercations, but usually, my Halloweens net at least one instance where I punch somebody the fuck out or come very near to it because of something they said or did to me or my friends. i guess I'm growing up.

On a non-Halloween (aka something that actually matters) note, Tomas and I hit Palos all day Saturday and tore some shit up. This weekend we found ''the good shit". Boy howdy the south west corner of that park has some tasty trails. I'm getting good enough to where I can actually hop rocks and get air rather than just lumber through things. The negative side of taht is that it looks like my days of not destroying tubes are over. I punctured the hell out of my front tire towards the end of the day which meant I had to walk/limp the thing back to the car for a solid 3 miles. That sucked to say the least. Normally I'm loaded to the gills for my road bike excursions with extra tubes, pumps CO2 etc. Not so much that day and that little 3 mile hike has learned me but good. So going forward, I'll be armed with plenty of tubes and CO2 (cos I'll be damned if I'm gonna hand-pump a fucking MTB tube).

Other than that, trail conditions were pretty muddy...so my bike looks pretty cool right now with all the mud all over it. This weekend I think I'm going to head for Iowa (specifically the Scott County Park) and check out the trails there. Rumor has it they are decent, but after what we did in Palos this weekend my expectations are kind of high. Also on the agenda for this weekend is me eating lots of Mongolian BBQ. Jesus that's crack to me.

Woke up uncharacteristically early today seeing as how I actually didn't get home until 5:15 or so, and then I tinkered with shit on the Roxbox till about 6. Headed over to Schmudde's new pad. As more evidence that Dave is without a doubt one of the cooler motherfuckers to shuffle onto this mortal coil, he tracked down a pretty goddamn sweet loft. We had a typical Dave/Dave jam session with conversation ranging from problems we've encountered with women to the current presidential spread to places that have free buffalo wings. Turns out Dave's next project is a documentary on the Rust Belt. We got to talking about Waterloo Iowa and how it is one of the cities that would technically be part of that ilk and how based on census info, it's one of the cities that hasn't rebounded. For those of you who don't live there or know anything about it, it was once a large manufacturing hub (by Iowa's standards) for a few major manufacturers. John Deere is still there but they reduced their presence in the downtown area significantly since the 80's. As a result their downtown area has had a lot of problems trying to recover and reinvent themselves. Add to this their constant bickering with their half-retarded sister town of Cedar Falls (on a city politic level, nobody else can be bothered to give a flying fuck) and this racial divide that basically dictates "black people to the east, white people to the west" which seems silly for a town with a population hovering around 60k and you basically come up with a blue collar city that is struggling with identity and purpose.

Then Dave sent me this email tonight:

===================================================
Just the way the world works man:

http://www.mettransit.org/

Not only is information on how to take public transportation to the new
Waterloo casino available, it is on the front page, in a different
colour, different font and larger size just to make sure no one can
miss it.

This is a pretty common trend with these things. Casinos are there to
take advantage of people that don't have the power to say no... that
live hopeless lives already.... you have to make sure that a bus gets
to it and that every stupid fucking poor person knows. These people
then incur larger debts and the money goes into the city council's
pockets then redistributed in their own interests (which usually has
very little to do with the actual interests of Joe Jobless who just
needs to learn how to handle money and raise his 10 kids).

Sad

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To clarify what Dave is talking about here...riding the bus in Waterloo is very different than riding the bus in Chicago or another large area. It's usually there for the really poor or disabled people. Makes ya think....

Not that I'm a huge anti-gambling guy. I personally don't gamble, as that's a vice that never held my interest. But this does produce a sad commentary on the state of things when the public transit trumpets going to the casino as a great development.

I can't get the pdf thingy to work, but does MET go to Hickory Hills, stop at George Wyth or Hartman Reserve?

To be fair though, a lot of people that use that bus probably also work at the casino and rely on it for transportation to work. Doesn't change the fact that a casino does what it does.

Yeah that song has been looming large lately.

Man, I just watched the tail end of the Democrat Presidential Debate. I originally wrote up my .02 on the mindless dribble I saw. But I think I can sum it up by saying if there is one group of people on this planet that can actually make Republicans look like responsible level-headed reasonable people, its the Democrats. Goddamn we're fucked no matter what basically. Note- when a debate between potential leaders of the free world includes one candidate expounding on their encounters with aliens, you're fucked.

That said, I've been doing some tinkering with what next year's race season is going to look like, and this is what I'm coming up with:

June 22 - Des Moines Iowa -Hy Vee Triathlon

July 12 - Anchorage Alaska - Fireweed 400 (the 100 mile race)

July 20-26 - Iowa - Ragbrai 2008

August 2nd- Southern Michigan - Steelhead Half Ironman

First weekend of Sept - Chicago - Big Shoulders

I'm sure there will be some little running races and bike races along the way but those are the pinnacle events for me...the "must hits". I MAY go ahead and do Accenture here in Chicago since it's pretty fast and it'd be kind of fun to do the sprint (yeah I did a half ironman that month, anybody who says I'm a pussy for going short distance can just fuck right off). But we'll see how much all the fees come up to. Needless to say, Fireweed is going to be a somewhat costly undertaking. I've abandon hope on doing Furnace Creek because we don't have the credentials yet. I'm figuring Fireweed should get me there...plus graduating from Olympic distance to half Ironman distance should make me look like not-a-pussy.

I'm going to start training in earnest in January. In the meantime, its just business as usual...3 nights swim, 2 nights run and no weights (yet...sigh). Calorie intake hasn't really been an issue for me. I keep it around 2000, but when the weights come into play I'll probably get in the habit of taking in 3000 or so.

All this in the way of saying some of this shit is going to require some serious advance planning. And i'm not entirely sure how well Ragbrai is going to play against doing Steelhead that next week as that SHOULD be when I'm resting. Needless to say the week between the 27th and 02 will be a VERY low key week for me. I'm really going to have to curb the drinking this year on the ride...like this time actually mean it (I've threatened to do this the last 2 years). Usually after ragbrai I feel like a freight train ran over me for a good month.

So yeah...I need to be firing on all cylinders towards the end of July or i'm fucked.