Thought Sausage

After a 14 hour drive, I'm now in the Quad Cities at my parents house,where my car is buried under what looks like a foot of snow. Needless to say, I'll be making my way back to Chicago tomorrow (after a stop by the Genghis Grill, natch).

In the drive from Breckenridge Colorado to Bettendorf Iowa, the temprature changed 42 degrees (from a -20 to a 22 F). Suffice to say, the last couple days were COLD. That didn't stop me from getting to the "next level" in my skiing (which isn't to imply that I'm like, a good skiier or anything). I actually found myself enjoying the upper bowls and summit runs this time around. Usually I get dragged up there by somebody (usually my brother) and more or less, tumble down. By mid-day Tuesday, after re-acquainting myself with the blue and green runs that I've been skiing since I was 12, I worked up to the black and double blacks and much to my suprise, I was having a "good time". I guess most of that can be chalked up to the fact that since the last time I went skiing, I like, got in shape and stuff. All else went well, except for my cousin who ended up with a level 2 shoulder separation no thanks to some dumb snow-bunny bitch who 'snow-plowed' her ass in front of him prompting an un-planned collision with the gound. Pity since he was having an otherwise good run of it. Jesus fuck if there's one reason I don't ski in Aspen, its these prissy soccer mom bitches who can't ski to save their life but must wear the most extravagant 'outfits' that just scream "I am the epitamy of everything you hate" to anyone who wasn't born with a silver spoon up their ass. I am told this is the target demographic of Aspen and while I've never actually ski'd there, I've been through town enough to assess that to be an accurate description.

So that's that. We've got Josie's b-day tomorrow night, and I've elected to help Patrick move into his new pad in the northern quadrant of the loop. So in theory, since he's now in my 'hood (as opposed to Lakeview where the rest of the Irish lads live), I have a running partner.

I've also decided to get smart about my money (or heinously stupid, time will tell). With the help of my astute (and Jewish even!) investing/trading buddies, I'm going to join the rat race and open an Ameritrade account this week. I've been buying Omnicom stock with my employee discount plan for a little bit. It's been plunging in Q4, however, projections are good for next year and the hefty discount they sell shares to us minions for more than makes it worth while. This new endeavor involes me buying out on the open market and making "good decisions" (yikes) and striking when the iron is hot. I've -sorta- made some good mock calls. Nevertheless, I've got 5 grand earmarked for this adventure, so either I'll piss it away on some dumbass tip or make some money for the condo downpayment kitty.

And last but not least, my Tri bike fancy is rapidly shifting away from the Fuji Aloha and more towards this insanely priced rocket (if its even legit...1700 off? Really?). I'll do some more investigating tomorrow, but I'm not entirely sure why it's got Dura Ace derailers and not Ultegra all around like its little brother . Am I missing something here? Anyway, at that price, with free shipping, I'm well below my budget with money left over to throw some Spinergy Rev-X's on that bad boy. I didn't know much about Motobecane but my brother was investigating them pretty heavily and we ended up buying my dad this for X-mas and it is in fact t3h Awesome. Specialized is behind that brand, and while I've seen Ian beat the fuck out of that Roubaix he has, I still have faith in 'em.

So that leaves me with a new tri-lust, stocks to purchase and a car buried under snow. Does this make me some sorta aggro-yuppie?

UPDATE: Apparently I was confusing Dura Ace with Tiagra components. Dura Ace is in fact the step up from Ultegra. Now only if I learned that BEFORE I emailed the company asking them about this...Dave: 0 Motobecane: 1