Wow, for the first time in a long while I had my weeknights freed up enough to actually hit all 3 of my swim practices, get my runs in and not show up to work on Friday barely hanging on to the will to live. Man its good to be alive. I almost forgot what it's like to spend a whole week crawling into bed every night feeling like your body had been put through its paces in ways that didn't involve poisoning my liver.
Tomorrow I'm heading back to the Quad Cities (of Iowa) for a weekend of hard mountain biking, mongolian food and fresh non-loop air (a cocktail of smog, pigeon shit, diesel, exhaust and urine). We're hitting up a couple major parks and I have a local to ride with who undoubtedly knows "the good shit" so I'll be putting the bike through its paces.
Comes at a good time too...as the mountain bike just got a new pair of shoes. The guy at Kozy sold me on a pair of Kevlar wound treads. I put 'em on last night...and it's straight up rim porn. It really takes that bike from "the sorta mean lookin one on the rack" to "keep your bike away from it because it'll kick its ass". I'm like a proud father (or materialistic self-absorbed bastard..you decide). I'm really excited to put those fuckers through their paces (and rest assured, they WILL be put through some hell). Yes I can truly say I'm addicted to this kind of riding. My youngest bro will also be in town for the weekend so I'll hang out with him at night. I love it when a plan comes together.
In other news, we (one of my teams) had some major props come our way by means of a glowing review of our work for a large Fortune 500 company by Forrester Research. This has resulted in me feeling really fucking positive about the processes and deliverables we put in place. You can't get much more of a validation than when somebody like one of the most reputable consultants in the world tells your one-of-the-largest-in-their-space-in-the-world clients that essentially, you are a badass and they should be listening less to the other chumps and more to you. That's the kinda shit that makes ya get up and do it the next day. The net result of this is that said client is renewing with us for 08 in a major way. So ya gotta love that.
Annnnnnnnnnnd while you are all probably aware that Dane Cook is on my Punch-the-fuck-out-on-sight list, go figure that no-talent asstard is on Conan as I type and within the first 5 seconds, he basically kife'd a Mike Birbiglia bit. Jesus this dude needs to get the fuck off my TV and into a frat house where he belongs.
Speaking of TV, don't bother tuning into A&E to watch Dog The Bounty Hunter. He went and got himself in trouble (again) only this time it was because he couldn't keep from saying a bunch of racist shit to his kid on the phone. So A&E cancelled the show and now they are showing even more of that fruitcake magic trick weirdo Chris Angel. I don't watch much TV at all to begin with, but Dog is usually on whenever I get back from the pool so I tune in...if anything to watch Dog's quasi-sage bit he does to every single crackhead he picks up off the streets of Honolulu. You always hear how reality television is scripted and I have no doubt this white-trash festival is as well. I can only imagine how the rehearsals between scenes go. Like when the REAL bounty hunters come along and actually find the guy, then they tell the crackhead "Okay, so you go back in the house and hide under the bed, and Dog and Leland are going to come barging in and yell a lot. Then they'll make you smoke a cigarette and Dog is gonna say a bunch of shit about christ. Think you can handle that brah?"
Either way...I think we can all rest assured Al Sharpton will milk this for all he can over the next couple of weeks until people forget about Dog and move on to paying too much attention to whatever stupid shit Britney Spears is up to.
And finally...at the risk of sounding like a total tool, y'all should check out the acoustic set Metallica did at Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit this past weekend. I realize that's sort of like talking up Pizza Hut as your favorite pizza joint. But for a bunch of old dudes that if you like, you dont' go around bragging about unless you also have a rusted out camaro with your 3 1/2 step kids out front playing on it in your front yard, they actually laid down a really fucking quality set. They played both days and both shows have their suprisingly fucking awesome covers of Nazareth Please Don't Judas Me and Dire Straits Brothers In Arms (which was a stupid song to begin with...the managed to make it work). You can download either show here for 10 bucks and its definitely worth the price of admission. I'd post the mp3's here but Lars would probably show up in the morning with a SWAT team and I've had way too good a week to put up with that bullshit on a Friday.