Horny Things

Prepare to believe...

The unicorn, a mythical creature, just like the Liger...

Wow, now that's entertainment. I started this post off with a bang. Let's see where we can roll from here;

Last Friday was killer. We hit up the Denver Roller Dolls roller derby match! A good time was had by all! It's roller derby, how could it be bad? But it was even more fun than I figured! Plenty of action, lots of cheering to do, chicks on skates knocking one another around, and 24oz. PBRs...

Jessica and I met a celebrity - Dumptruck the official Roller Dolls announcer;

Not just a great announcer, he's also a great dresser, and changed outfits for every period of play;

The way peanut butter and jelly go together, so do short-shorts and roller skates...

Saturday a bunch of us went out to celebrate D-Rock's last week of freedom. Soon enough... I will be on my own similar journey.
First we hit up some dinner.

Then a quick stop at the bar for some drinks to make sure the Rockies were still upholding my prediction of getting swept. And finally some "gentelmanly" entertainment. Of course. Don't worry D-Rock... what happens in the champagne room, stays in the champagne room.

Sunday... after sleeping in for sure... Jessica, Alex, myself, and the herd of doggies all took off for a little walk to enjoy the nice weather. (of course, we're back to snow today).

Desktop Tower Defence

Since Seth was whining the other day that he needed proof... I meant to post these two pictures. Desktop Tower Defence is probably the best time-waster I have come across yet. It has consumed many productive hours of my life, that I will never get back. But it hasn't all been in vain, as now I can regularly beat the hard level, with a perfect score of zero creeps getting past.

And just look at the absolute efficient beauty of the technique I used. And no, none of that retarded "juggling" going on to beat the game.

The only problem, is that now I'm obsessed with defeating "The 100" level of the game. 100 relentless waves of creeps. I've gotten up to level 86, but then it's just too much. I have a new technique up my sleeve to try though...

I hate fall...

I remembered the other day why I hate fall... it's freakin' cold! And the days are short! I was climbing Flagstaff road the other day after work, and it was already starting to get dark. It was windy and only about 50 degrees. I was climbing in a jacket and knee warmers and was far from being hot. ...it's going to be another long winter. At least it was quiet, and there weren't many cars full of sight-seers making the trip up and down.

Of course, that didn't stop the group of 4 I passed, climbing with their helmets strapped to their handlebars. Apparently it was too hot to wear their helmets... or something. Whatever it was, they sure did "look pro". Dorks. And even better, I passed a guy (again, remember it was 50 degrees) climbing with just a t-shirt... UNDER his bibs. Always a classic look. I mentioned that one to Craig, and he replied that he thought it was time that clothing manufactures started putting instruction manuals with bibs. You know, to explain to people that bibs ARE NOT overalls! There's no hammer loop, there's no breast pocket on the front... wear a jersey OVER your bibs. You can wear your baselayer under your bibs... but only if you have a jersey on also.

Boulder cyclocross race tomorrow.

But today I decided, is "Bring your doggie to work day";

Not Already!

I woke up this morning to Jessica proclaiming, "It's christmas time! It's christmas time! Can I have my present now..."

I'm not ready to let go of summer yet, but this morning we woke up to 3 inches of snow on the ground, with a long day of more snow still ahead of us, in the forecast. Ugh. What else could we do, but climb out of the nice warm bed and head out to the hot tub! At least there is always something fun about sitting in the nice 104 degree water, with fresh snow in the trees, and more snow falling.
Sadly, I don't think it will be enough snow to force a snow-day from work tomorrow. Instead, it will likely be all melted and gone by tomorrow afternoon - with any luck.

On the music front, make sure you check out the new Radiohead album, "In Rainbows", which came out this past Tuesday. It's especially cool, that they are trying a new method; after dumping their record label, they have decided to release this album in two forms. The first is a complete disc box set, including an extra album, some extra tracks, photos, a vinyl copy, and the cd copy of the new album. The second, is a "name your own price" download from the bands website.

Yep, that's right, name your own price. Zero dollars if you want. But I did offer up some coin for the album, hoping that maybe it will support this new idea, and why not throw something to the artist for their work as well? In addition; the album is downright awesome! It's a great album, so be sure to check it out.

Only in Boulder

Only in Boulder do you have not just a group ride, but CYCLOCROSS group ride (complete with two pseudo 20 minute long races), from 8-10 in the morning, when most of the world is at work, AND have it attract a solid 100 riders.



Yep, I got up early this morning so I could meet up with the cyclocross group ride today. Beyond the numbers and the time of day, and all that, the quality of the field is pretty great too. Plenty of pro-riders and former pro-riders all out for a morning spin. I felt pretty good today, even though I had done a couple hill-efforts last night on the road bike. The number of riders on the course, and wide open range of abilities means you are usually stuck behind someone, but I was hoping to not go full-on anyway. At any rate, a good way to start off a Wednesday morning, especially when it means you have to get to work an hour late.



And really, the best point of the title, Only in Boulder, I offer up this fine example;

This one was so good, I had to go around the block after I saw it, to make sure that I got a picture. Sure, who hasn't seen someone that decided to bolt a 2x8 or some other piece of lumber to their car, in place of the factory installed bumper. But a tree!? Chained no less to the car!?Sure, replacing that bumper and/or plastic bumper cover is a ridiculous process and the parts are typically just as insanely priced from the manufacturer. And I understand as much as anyone the absolute joy and feeling of accomplishment of totally "rigging" something together to work, especially when it is "thrifty". But a split tree? For a bumper? On a newer model car?

Of course, now the worst part of this entire situation is that it begs the question; Did he just do this to make his car MORE "Hippy-esque"? I mean, we ARE talking about Boulder, and on a Subaru Outback. Plus the dude/dudette lives IN town. You can't just go into the backyard, find a nice straight tree, and cut it down (usually). This person probably took a trip up the canyon to find a tree, cut it down, split it, neatly cut away the old bumper cover and then chain it in place. Though it's less than perfect being a little short and definitely not level. I don't want to think about it anymore, in case the owner imagines their car is a little more "natural" now. Though I definitely look for the car each morning on the way to work, and it makes me chuckle...

Cyclocross Updates

Cyclocross season is continuing to ramp up in intensity as the weeks click by.

Two weekends ago, the racing was down in Colorado Springs, on a dusty, hot and windy course. The course was super bumpy, but had a sweet 4 dismounts. Other than that, I think I would like to forget about the race. It was that race you have, where anything that can go wrong, WILL go wrong. My legs felt like wood right from the start; great. Just what you want, flat legs on a course that is all about power. No faking your way through that one. Then on the first lap, I had a crash. A lovely front tire wash-out that had me flipping over the bike and playing in the sandbox. Knock the shifter back into place and start chasing. I had two barriers (of course the high-speed ones) where my left foot had problems unclipping from the pedals. I'm not sure if I picked up a piece of gravel or what, since I haven't had that problem with the new shoes and pedals I have - not before or since then. The first one did provide a sweet slam into the barrier - one foot clipped in, the other on the same side of the bike skidding through the cinder, and both tires locked up, and WHAM! Well, at least they did a solid job mounting the barriers into place. And to wrap things up, there was this super fast section, on cinder, with one real line, twisting through a little wooded section. I was full-on going through there, as I come around the corner to see some chick, carrying a mini-human, walking right down the race line. Fabulous. Because of the conditions, you totally couldn't just change lines, and that meant I was off the trail, both wheels skidding again, and into the trees. You know, full stop, just at the bottom of the steep ride-up on the course no less! UGH!

Whatever... race over. At least afterwards the real fun was to be had. I'm not crazy about Colorado Springs - other than the fact that there are three Dunkin' Donuts there (none in the rest of the front range!). So you know Jessica, Craig and I were all headed there with a hankerin' for some Donuts. I had to stock up. I got a dozen. And made it through just about all of them, the last "radiator donut" just didn't make it to my belly. Wow, am I fat! I was a bit bummed that they didn't have vanilla or even chocolate creme filled - my favorites. Well, at least there is another race coming up down there later in the year, so we will have another shot at it!

This past weekend we got to stay close with some local racing. I decided to skip out on the race at the Research Park. I ride there fairly often to work on skills and such (plus the sweet jumps), but paying to ride on a course that is like concrete with fist sized rocks strewn about, tends to loose it's appeal. Instead, we were down in Morrison on Sunday for the Red Rocks race. Man! Those boys put together an angry little course! A massive loose run-up, a long run through a volleyball court, a paved climb, and some twisty sections made for a fun course. Did I just say "fun"!? Yeah, I guess it was fun, but like I said, it was a TOUGH course! I even like longer run sections (and think we need more of them), but it was rough. I had a crappy start with guys flubbing around in front of me, and then got in a group and had a difficult time passing on this course. Plus... let's face it, I was a pussy and should have been jumping the single barrier, but didn't. I have to get out my own barrier and get over the mental part of it, so that I do it in a race. Before long, the race was down to just keeping a smooth, fast rhythm, and maintaining the speed till the end.

We had an awesome crowd in attendance though, and that really helped. Jessica was there, Seth and Keely brought the grill to cook up some dogs, and plenty of the rest of the gang that raced earlier were hanging out drinking and yelling. I was also keen to play with my new toy, my new refillable air horn. Cowbells are just so "last-year". Time to step up to the big leagues with 100psi of compressed noise-making!