Thought Sausage

I think one of the most annoying characteristics of rock musicians is their apparent belief that they are the only ones who don't like George Bush. As a result, you have dumbass quotes like this one from Richard Patrick (about his new album)

"We've got two oil men in the fuckin' White House that have destroyed our country. And we can't seem to recognize that as a culture. It just astounds me. So it's a call to arms."

What fucking culture is he referring to? Because as near as I can tell, hating on GWB is like the hip thing to do. Name me one celebrity that isn't a country musician or Kid Rock that doesn't have some disdain for Bush? Go figure a dude who hasn't had a hit since the 90's shows up late to the parade on this one.

And what's the call to arms he's talking about? Oh yeah, America is completely ignorant to the woes of the country and how the administration has screwed things up. But don't worry because Richard Patrick and his band are going to lead us to the promised land with their top 40 wannabe pop rock.

Celebrities talking about politics only goes to remind us that they'd be working at a Wendys if they weren't hot or played an instrument.

Another 4th of July holiday weekend in the can. We celebrate by drinking, grilling and blowing lots of shit up. I managed to inject a little bit of cycling in there as well. Jesus the summer is flying by.

Friday night we hung out on my roofdeck and caught fireworks going off in all the neighborhoods. Even though I've lived in this building for 3 years now, I've never stayed on the roof to watch the 4th of July spectacle. It's really pretty amazing to see from the 28th floor looking over the west loop. There are literally hundreds of fireworks shows going on over the west end of the city as all the neighborhoods have their own fireworks shows. So it's not like there's just ONE set of them going off. It's easily one of the coolest visuals I've seen while living in Chicago.

Went out for a bit of a cycle with Roly mainly to see if the trailer/stereo is going to work. And it does. Loudly. Pedaled it down to Ian's and it's essentially ready to go for Ragbrai. sorry no pics yet.

Other than that, I have some minor things to hash out work-wise early on this week and then Thursday Roly and I crate our bikes and hop in a plane bound for Alaska. Everything seems in order for that particular voyage. Never a dull moment.

Well, let it be said that the folks who live in Alaska seem to have a greatly different perspective on what "close by" is than those of us living in the continental US. Roly was wise enough to actually look at the distances between the airport, hotel and race site. All in all, if we were to stay in Valdez where our hotel was (as per recommended by the organizers), fly in and out of Anchorage and drive to the race site, we would need to drive 1400 miles in a span of 3 days. Somewhere in there we'd have to fit in a 100 mile bike race. Apparently there's an impassable mountain range between Valdez and Anchorage Expedia doesn't know about and the race organizers don't seem to give a shit about. Nice.

So some last minute itinerary changes and the Valdez hotel is cancelled and we are now staying at the Econolodge at the Ted Stevens Anchorage Airport. Sure it's 70 bucks more per night, but now we have wireless in the rooms, and we'll save a metric fuckton in gas because we trimmed the driving down to a shade over 200 miles for the whole trip. As Roly said, "it just wouldn't be a cycling trip without something fucking up".

Other than that, everything else seems to be in order. I'm riding pretty strong, gear is all functioning properly, and Ian will be driving us to the airport in his truck (bike crates don't fit in cabs). All that's left to do is pack the bike in my crate and do a final gear check.

Ran a half marathon distance last night (13.3 miles). I sort of chilled out in the back half because my knee was starting to have weird sensations that knees have when you ramp up mileage. Normally this wouldn't bother me, but I didn't want to risk being hurt for the race on Sat. I definitely need to run more though. Steelhead isn't that far away.

Thanks Failblog!

Am sitting 30,000 feet or so over Canada (I guess? How the fuck else do you fly to Alaska from Salt Lake City?). We must be fairly far north at this point because it's around 11pm and the sun is still sort of up. We are at a point in the year where the sun is always out this far north. It's not like mid-afternoon or anything, but it only gets as dark as dusk back in Chicago. Flights so far have been relatively painless. I had a woman sit next to me en route to Salt Lake City that was in Chicago to go to her father's funeral. She explained this at length and also explained how life sucks because you spend it accumulating a bunch of shit, and then when you die, they just pack it up and give it away. After she ordered herself a couple vodkas, she proceeded to go into extreme detail and bust out the camera adn show me pics of her children, her house, and her birthday party with her friends (which was some sort of sex toy party...which seems to be all the rage with women in their 40's now).

Ever wonder what types of people are flying to Alaska this time of year are like? Well from the passengers on this 757, I would surmise they are either A.people who work on the pipeline "gettin to it", B. the reddest of rednecks who never set foot outside without some piece of clothing with the word "Skoal" on it or C. Spouses of military people stationed in Fairbanks or Anchorage. The row in front of me represents B and A and are basically getting on as you would assume this demographic would. They just met and haven't shut the fuck up since the plane took off. I think Roly and I are the only people on this plane that don't fish. As near as I can tell, that's all anyone on this plane seems to think one can occupy their time doing while in our nationa's 49th state (was it 49 or 50?).

So we're going to land somewhere around midnight, and then head off to get the truck, check into the hotel and call it a night. Tomorrow, we'll put the bikes together, go for a morning cycle through Anchorage, visit this sports store, get some salmon for lunch and then head off to the race site to pick up our packets. From there, we have zero plans till Saturday. We met a dude in a bar at the Salt Lake City airport who is from Anchorage and has driven the route we'll be riding many times. He says the elevation ain't shit and that we should be good, but that the roads kind of suck. No shoulders basically. That bodes kind of poorly, but not really since I can't imagine there's a lot of congestion in this particular neck of the woods. He DID go on to say that it is very possible we'll encounter/see a bear or two. As long as they are 500 yards away or so I'm fine with this, and hopefully we'll get some cool pics out of the deal.

Oh, and let me go ahead and say Delta is on my shitlist. Remember me saying they said you can fly a bike for free if the dimensions don't exceed 62"? Well their asstarded way of measuring this in no way resembles anything that makes sense. Our crates were over by 27 inches. Those 27 inches just cost Roly and I 150 bucks. Each way. So by "free", Delta really meant $300 (and that's on top of the $25 they charged me for my bag since I checked that first). MOTHERFUCKER! The cost of this trip is spiraling so far out of control it's almost comical. We're already way above our hotel and car rental budget and this extra $300 is just icing on the cake. We're actually considering going to a Fed Ex or UPS in Anchorage and seeing what they'd charge just to ship the bikes back to Chicago since it's very likely less than $150 fucking dollars. Goddammit I should just make a rule of only flying to rides that are in towns Jet Blue flies to. I'm not even going to worry about it at this juncture. I have money, I'd rather not burn through it at this rate, but if that's what it's going to take, then burn baby burn.

Other than that, I've been watching Californication on my ipod thus far. This show is the shiznit. Every episode is David Duchovny fucking one chick after another. I'm only 3 episodes into season 1, but as soon as I get done writing this, I'll be going through as many as I can the rest of this flight. Highly recommend.

We are now safely ensconsed in the Econo Lodge in Anchorage watching Family Guy (the one where Peter gets lipo suction). Everything went exceedingly well getting into the airport and after a quick gear-check (nothing is broken and all is in tact). It's about 57 degrees...and I'm 100% spent at the moment. Will update tomorrow

Am sitting in the Anchorage Airport waiting for a plane that may or may not be coming before 10pm. Apparently weather has fucked Delta's schedule up all kinds of fierce and I'm now on United. This isn't a bad thing since United's service is pretty decent, they have good movies and the seats are alright. They also let me check one bag for free and only charged $100 for the bike (as opposed to Delta's bullshit $150). Plus this is a direct flight so I get into Chicago tomorrow at 7am (theoretically at least). I'm probably not going to stroll into work until 10 or so (if then even). It all depends on how much sleep I get between now and then (I'm fucking exhausted at the moment).

The race went pretty good I suppose. I got 5th in the 100 mile solo (and first in my age group, which basically means I beat some other dude who has yet to turn 30). I would have actually placed higher except I had a slow leak in the back tire I had to stop and pump twice. The first time I got off the bike (around mile 60) I had 6 bikes pass me. I made up all but two of them.

The course itself was a hilly motherfucker. TONS of climbs. This was by far the most challenging century I've done (although to be fair, I was riding a lot harder than I normally do). The fact I was able to come in around 5:10 is pretty good though...especially since this was a solo race (aka no drafting) and the hills were so brutal. Pics are imminent. Unfortunately we didn't see any bears or moose. However, I was on about mile 70 or so and looked to my right and a fucking fox was running alongside me. Not like it was pacing with me, it was clearly interested in something going on to the right of us. But it was pretty cool seeing that species up close. I'd say it was probably about the size of a lab/golden retriever. Had a massive red bushy tail just like the firefox fox. He was only alongside me for a good 20 seconds or so and then darted off.

Roly and I then bummed around downtown Anchorage a bit. Not a bad place and booze is fairly cheap here (we found a place that was selling vodka/redbulls for 4 bucks). Lots of locals were out and we ended up hanging with a group of chicks that live up here. I'm given to understand that the locals are under the impression the only reason people under the age of 70 come to Alaska is to fish. So when we told them we were here for a bike race, we got some curious looks.

Spent today wandering through all the shops on 4th street that are more or less the toursity enterprises that specialize in selling knick knacks and random shit that has Alaska emblazoned on it in some creative fashion. I got some stickers for my bikes and Roly got a shirt.

So anyway, due to this whole flight change situation, Roly is now on a plane pointed towards Detroit so I'm here by myself.

So that's that basically. Alaska is in the can. I can now say I've been to all 50 states which is pretty good for a guy who hasn't turned 30 yet.

Greatest music video ever

no really.

Thanks Sam for enlightening me to the truth. I will join you on tour with these guys.

In other news, congrats to Ryan and Em on their engagement this weekend! I have no clever line other than to say I dutifully await the reception/ceremony.

I finally decided to join the rat race and get a Flickr account. So whack this link to see the pics Roly took (I'll upload mine to flickr too once I get a chance).

I'm going to Iowa to ride Ragbrai in like 5 minutes. So I'll be away from the keyboard until a week from Sunday. So, like, play nice and don't break anything while I'm gone.

Will report when I get back. Much insanity has already ensued.

Am back on my own couch in my own living room watching the E True Hollywood Story on Britney Spears (yes, this is all that's on as the Detroit/Sox game is dull). But that's not the point. We just got back from RAGBRAI 08 yesterday. I don't really have the gumption to coin a full recap, but I imagine that'll be forthcoming.

So here's the Cliff's Notes version

-Our bus died. The new bus. The 3rd bus. The engine apparently threw a rod and that particular engine is not too easy to come by. Anybody who happens to have a spare 1987 Detroit Diesel they just can't get rid of, feel free to email me because I'll take it right the fuck off your hands. In the meantime, the next 12 months will likely involve coming up with a solution to this matter that doesn't cost 25 grand (nothing is cheap on buses).

-I lost my credit cards. So I called and cancelled them. Then I found said credit cards. Now I have 5-7 business days where I can't use plastic. This is becoming fantastically problematic for me.

-TUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUG FESSSSSSSSSST

-In my haste to leave I grabbed Paddy's helmet out of my car and forgot to close the trunk all the way. As a result, the battery died completely. AT&T Roadside Assistance is en route to jump (hence why I'm sitting here watching these C-List celebrities ponder where "Britney went wrong").

-The Tallywackers, Team Pucker, Subtle Savages and Party Patrol are some of the coolest motherfuckers like, ever.

-You bet your ass I'm ordering one of these as soon as I have plastic to do so.

- Took in the Dark Knight in Ames on Wednesday (or was it Tuesday?) night. Holy fucking christ but that movie is amazing. I can't wait to see again (which I will...repeatedly, and on the IMAX).

So next up is Steelhead on Saturday and I think I'm fairly leveled out from the ride. I definitely need to get some runs in and hopefully get myself sorted out and ready. I've decided to camp while in Michigan for it. I've been living in a 1 man tent the last 7 days and have come to decide this is pretty good living for races. So there ya go.

Jesus it's already August?

Serious now...all you aspiring marketeers....THIS is how you create a viral vid that will get attention:

Best two hours you'll hear until they post another Tom show