Oh my...

Kodak Gallery Sierra Nevada team bikes for 2006 are provided by Merckx! Very nice. Team member Dan Schmatz was quoted as saying, "I've been on a Merckx for about a month now and it's the best transition to a new bike I have ever had. After the first ride, it felt like I had been on it for years." Fellow team member, Ben Jaques-Maynes mentions on his website, "we're running Merckx this year and it's going to be sweet."


I guess their bikes don't suck for another year!

Here is Something Fun

You can do this too at http://metaatem.net/words/

The Picture Says It All

Link here, so go read it. It's got a quote from the bike courier, who happened to be female.

Stormy Weather

At about 5:15 we had a nice bit of thunder, rain, some lightening, and the always fun, hail. Not really similiar hail to what they have in Texas or the Midwest, but pea-sized with a few reaching erasure head proportions. I didn't get any pictures, but that was only because I was using the camera to video the hail. I'm going to FTP the thing up to the server and I'll link it in a later post. Be pre-forewarn, only because I'll give you forewarning again later, it's 158 mg at 4:3 ratio with sound, in MPEG format.

But I did think to take a couple of pictures after the hail stopped. Here you go! Or you can look at the larger photos by clicking on the Flickr badge in the right column.

Sickly Weekend

I'm not sure what was wrong with me, but after my ride on Friday, I was starting to feel worn out, not unusual, but then felt deathly ill on Saturday. My entire lower body ached badly, more so than usual after a good ride. As well, I would occasionally get the chills. I spent the entire day on the couch sleeping intermitantly. Sunday I felt marginally better and today even more so, but still not well enough to venture out to ride in the rain.

I hate the feeling of missing 3 days of riding. Makes me feel like I'm falling behind. Behind what you ask? I'm not really sure, but I look at the situation as 3 lost days I can't retreive. Oh yeah, I'm training for the Tour of California. You know I want to be in as good of form as I can be to spend countless hours sitting in the car and standing on the roadside yelling at real cyclists! Especially if I'm going to be taking pictures and blogging.

First There Was the Double Double

There used to be a time where one patty in a burger was enough. It must have been McDonald's who upped the ante with the Double cheese burger. Then came In-n-out with their Double Double, followed by the 4x4.

I tried out there burgers when an In-n-out was first opened in Northern California, it was pretty good. My brother and I would always joke about the 4x4 and extended our fun by coming up with the 18-wheeler.

Our big rig of burger was derailed today by the invention of the 100x100.

$97 and a dbl / dbl with 98 extra patties on the side to create the 100 x 100 In-n-out behemoth.

Cool Carrierbike Design

Link to website

This bike is more for the people who have every type of bike or for those who can't afford a car and need to use their bike as a truck.

The bike can be ridden as a normal bike and comes with some cool features. As well, you can then attach the cart to the front of the bike after removing the front wheel. The cart, when removed can be used as a push cart.

Some of the cool features include 5 point safety belts for the children, disc brakes, integrated front- and rear lights, fireproof hood and seats, that also have been tested for heavy metals. The front lights are really cool as they are built into the handlebars.

I like this for the fact that one bike has many uses. But what I think it's missing is place to carry the front wheel when the cart is attached. That way, once you arrived at your destination with your loaded cart, you can then replace the front wheel and go about doing other stuff as needed.

While on the Office Topic

Here is a link to some great tech pranks at Sync Magazine. After I sanitize my hands and throw on some latex gloves, I'll go around and pull the freeze frame prank on all my co-workers!

Toilet Seat More Sanitary Compared to Keyboard

This is distrubing to me since I'm the IT person and touch everyone's keyboard. But on a bright note, I won't be so worried about touching the toilet seat now.

Ready the article here.

The study was conducted by Clorox and I think they know a little about being clean. The study states that where you rest your hand on the desktop contains 10 million bacteria. Nice!

Here is a something to think about:

The average desktop has more bacteria than any surface tested in the bathroom. Toilet seats and photocopier surfaces were the least contaminated sites sampled in all offices.

The surfaces tested were:


1. Desktop
2. Phone
3. Mouse
4. Keyboard
5. Microwave door handle
6. Elevator button
7. Photocopier start button
8. Photocopier surface
9. Toilet seat
10. Fax machine
11. Refrigerator handle
12. Water fountain handle

RESULTS

The top five most germ-contaminated spots were (in order):

1. Phone
2. Desktop
3. Water fountain handle
4. Microwave door handle
5. Keyboard


Note to self, pick up some Clorox wipes and latex gloves!

Chapter Grand

I stumbled upon a cycling article about Ben Krieg, who was a cyclist, rock climber, and snowboarder as well as a member of Phi Delta Theta.

Sadly, he suffered a fatal heart attack on Jan. 18th. Check out the tribute blog set up by his family to read about him. He was a quality guy based on the submittal to the blog.

Diarrhea of the Mouth

Read the ESPN article here.

You've got to love Bode Miller for being a great skier and even admire him for being a bad ass while being that great skier. But Bode, come on brother, you need to keep the yap shut and do the talking out on the hill.

In this article I've linked, Bode tells all what he thinks about drug testing. Hey, that's great! It's something that needs to be discussed, but the last thing you want to do it drag other people's names through the mud. Bode mentions that Barry Bonds and Lance Armstrong are just knowingly cheating. Everyone has a right to their opinion, but when you are going to the Olympics and they begin in a couple weeks, the last thing you want is for people to hate you for stupid comments.

I thought the drinking and skiing stuff he said was enough to teach him to shut the yap, but I guess not. Doesn't he realize that Lance is the poster child of the Cancer cause and cycling; two things that seem to really have caught on here in America? Who knows!

Man, I hope he gets some gold medals so we can forget about all this crap he's been talking, not to say he's not on to something, though.

Rock the Nation

Read the article over at Christian Science Monitor, here.

The Russians acted surprised to find out they were being spied on. Hello, everyone is spying on each other, duh! The declaration of the end of the cold war seemed to be merely lip service when Russia was broken up.

It seems that the Russian Federal Security Bureau (FSB) caught wind of this rock and set up hidden cameras catching alleged Russian spies uploading secret data into the rock with palm-held computers and British embassy staffers later retrieving the data.


Quoted from article:

The tale veers ominously away from standard spy-versus-spy fare with the FSB's insistence on a direct link between the alleged MI6 espionage and the British government's approximately $1 million annual support for Russian democracy-building groups.

Coming two weeks after President Vladimir Putin authorized the creation of a new state agency to scrutinize the activities and funding of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), some see the espionage charges as part of an escalating effort to clamp down on foreign-funded civil society groups.

This story is bound to explode! The Russian government seems to think the money is being used to pay off operatives within their ranks. The groups who get portions of the $1 million say their activities are open and legal. I tend to think the money is being used ligitimately and that it has nothing to do with the British spying.

Either way, it should make for some exciting news!

Bidwell Walking/Bike Path

There was an article in the local paper today about the Bidwell Park and Playground Commission dropping the idea of closing the path running through Bidwell Park to cars. I personally don't mind the cars in the park, but that's because I can usually ride along side or behind them. The speed limit in the park is 20 MPH, which is perfect for cyclists, a bit slow if you are in a car, but blazing fast if you are a pedistrian.

In seeing this article, I spoke with a few co-workers about it. It was interesting to hear the different points of view as compared to my own.

I rarely have issues with the cars in the park, but seem to always have problems with pedistrians. The problems I have is if you call out that you are passing on someone's left, 50% of the time they step into your path because they don't understand there are rules of the road. Then about 40% are wearing headphones and don't hear me anyway, leaving about 10% of pedistrians who are appriciative for my calling out. Then there are the pedistrians with the 20 foot dog leashes who walk on the right side of the path while there dog walks on the outter edge of the left side. Prime situation for me to have a major crash.

So, I'm always at odds wheather or not to call out, "on your left" if it really only puts me in dangers way but I definately yell at the dog walkers.

In talking to my co-workers I was able to hear ideas from a different perspective. Just as I am not too fond of the pedistrians, they are not fond of cyclists and the article went as far as calling cyclists jerks. My co-workers confirmed this by explaining situations where cyclists buzz them on the path. As well, cyclist are already disliked because some of us don't stop at stop signs and red lights. My co-workers pointed out this happens all the time around the Chico State campus.

Like I've lumped together all pedistrians, they have also lumped all cyclist together. And I must admit, college students on bikes rarely, if ever, follow the traffic laws.

I guess we all need to be a little more conscience about each other while out there enjoying the park.

One odd comment I found in the article was this:

Commissioner Russ Mills pointed out that cyclists can't be given speeding tickets because odometers are not required on bikes.

Now I won't feel so bad when I cruise past a park ranger while on the path doing greater then 20 MPH!

Treo 650 Random Shutdown Problem

Ok, so I've been using the Treo 650 for about 2 weeks. The thing seemed to be working properly when I first began using it. But then it started to randomly shutdown the wireless connection. This is bad when it's in you pocket or somewhere you wouldn't see it shut off. It was getting to the point where the phone was totally unreliable. Shutting off in the middle of calls was the breaking point for me and I called support.

Come to find out, it's a faulty SIM card tray. Palm is going to send a new one in the mail, but while I was on the phone with support, I shoved a couple of pieces of paper behind the SIM card and the tray. Problem solved. Thank goodness!

Day 24, 2006

Well, today is nice and sunny and that sucks, but not really. It only sucks for me because I'm at work until 5 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays and can't ride. I am enjoying the nice weather through my office window.

As well, I did fully enjoy a 2 hour ride after work yesterday. I felt like crap, though. Probably from the 4 beers I drank with all the fatty food I consumed while watching football. But it's hard not to ride when it's 65 degrees out in the middle of winter. Gotta love California!

Oh, check out this fist/bike "fight the power" logo...

I found this over at Dan Schmatz blog, "Your Bike Sucks" along with some other great stuff. Dan is having a little photo contest to see who has the best mullet picture. If you have one I recommend sending it to Dan as he promised PRO gear to the winner and it's not just any PRO gear, but Kodak Gallery/Sierra Nevada swag, bonus!

Hair seems to be the hot cycling topic for early 2006. Read Fat Cyclists post on the subject, it's great stuff, plus the picture of Levi is too funny.

So, maybe it's time for me to change hair styles, even though I'm not sure I even have a style. I'm thinking something to the tune of a reverse mohawk, but grown long on the sides and back so that when I wear my helmet, it hangs out the sides, yet my head is cool!

Ok, I think I have my stuff together where as I can post pics from the Treo again. So, here goes the photo dump:



























[Posted with hblogger 2.0]

Tasty Chicken dish

Here is a picture of what I had for dinner the other night. Mildly put, it was fantastic. I altered a recipe which called for pork by using chicken breast for a dish lower in fat.

As you can see in the picture, it's basically stuff wrapped in meat. I'll break it down for you in the recipe below:


Things you need:

4 large chicken breasts
6 oz sun dried tomatoes in olive oil if possible
1 bunch fresh basil (I don't always use this and didn't in the dish pictured above)
1 cup pine nuts
garlic salt to taste or plain salt
pepper to taste
Italian spices mix (mostly needs oregano and whatever else it contains, well great)

How to make it:

pre-heat oven to 350

Take chicken breasts and pound them flat to about a quarter inch thick. Salt and pepper as you wish. Mean while, roast the pine nuts in a non stick pan at medium heat, until brown. Lay chicken breasts out flat and cover in sun dried tomatoes. I like as many as I can fit but it's too much for others. Then sprinkle pine nuts on top. After washing and drying the basil, chop off stem and layer basil leaves on chicken. Then, taking one edge of the chicken, roll it like you would a sleeping bag. Place in baking dish. Dash Italian spices, salt, and pepper on top to taste.

Cook for 40 to 45 minutes or so depending on the size of the roll.

Day 22, 2006

Well, I was hoping to upload pics from the Treo that I took while on a bike ride yesterday, but I'm having some issues that I haven't yet identified. For whatever reason, I can post text but not pics. So, I'll have to look at the settings on another phone and see if I can mimic those on this phone. Only problem is the other phone is at work, so I get to that tomorrow.

So, bike rides...

Friday I had a good one of about 2 hours, but it was cold cold cold. Then as it was beginning to get dark, it started to rain lightly. I was able to make it home before it really started to come down so that was cool.

Saturday I made it out for about 3.5 hours and put in a few good efforts. Today I seem to be paying for it as I feel tired and not up for much. As I look outside and it's nice and sunny, but very cold, I know that I ought to go out and ride for a little bit. Argh, I hate that. When the body says no but the mind say, hey, that would be great fun.

Decisions decisions...

Treo 650 Firmware Update

I'm posting this info so that the next time I have to do a firmware update to the Treo, I can look back on this post and scream!

The first day I attempted to complete the update, I had many problems. I'm not sure, but I have a funny feeling that the update failed numerous times because I didn't have the power cable plugged in.

So, today, I tried again, with the power cable and it went really smooth. The reason it went so smoothly was the help I got from the following sources:

Treo Support for Cingular 1.17 firmware update
Operation Gadget's post on Things I Wish I'd Known Before Attempting the Treo 650 1.17 Firmware Update for Cingular

The Operation Gadget's post was most helpful and pointed out a few neuances in the process of updating. A few things that Dave at Opeation Gadget's didn't specifically mention, though were in the Support document from Palm was:

Take out the memory card
You need the power cable

Both of those tripped me up more than once. But with those practice runs under my belt, I was able to do the final update in a matter of 30 minutes total. Note that I have many third party apps on the phone that require a longer sync time then if the phone isn't overloaded.

If you have one of these and need help, drop me a line!

Maximize Your Sick Days

So work gives you all these sick days, right, but of course you never are so sick that you need to miss entire days of work and the sick time inevitibly piles up. I'm not sure about where you work, but at my place of employement it's a use it or lose it type situation. Ok, so we don't actually stop accumulating sick pay until we reach 480 hours, which means not calling in sick for 5 years, so it's kind of a non issue. So this post is for people not like me, plus I only call in sick when I'm sick!

The folks over at 52projects.com have come up with a great post on how to strategically plan the best use of your limited sick days. If you are a worker, you may want to check it out. LINK

UGH, More Rain

I was hoping the rain would stay way this afternoon so that I could ride outside but it's looking more like a trainer session today. I just took a peek outside and it's coming down pretty good and sideways. It'll probably be nice tomorrow when I can't ride. Oh well, looks like I'll need to dig deep for some inspiration to turn the pedals today.

Blogging for $$

A ways back I blogged about different styles of blogs which could be used to drive traffic to your site and yesterday, I received a comment to that post. It was from a gentleman named, Jeff Faria. It seems that he has a blog and yesterday he posted about "a flood of startup money may enable a flood of pro bloggers".

After reading the title I began having dreams of going PRO but came to my senses quickly as I was a business major, not a journalism major. Needless to say, though, I do have a blog and I post stuff there, so I am a blogger. But PRO... the word holds connotations of having or showing great skill. I'm not sure that's me, but anyway.

If you happen to be interested in being PRO at blogging, check out that link and read what the good man has to say. I'll look more closely at it later today as I'm always interested in money someone might send my way. Plus, I'm half way down with the cause just for the guy having a Portuguese last name!

Day 17, 2006

It's effectively Monday today after the MLK holiday. Today I have a new office partner. I used to share an office with the other IT person, but since he left and I'm the only IT person, I've had the whole office to myself.

Don't start imagining a Bellagio type penthouse suite as my office, it's much more glamorous then that! Plus, I have views of Bidwell park and the North Rim, ha, beat that!

Anyway, her name is Stephanie and I basically know nothing about her other than what is required to create a user profile in Microsoft Active Domain. So, today should be fun. On top of that I need to finish work on the security document for our assessment by the state (about as exciting as landing on top tube of the frame, if you know what I mean).

So, yesterday it didn't rain. Very nice. But it was about freezing it seemed, so rather than bike in the morning, I opted for 3 hours of yard work. Olive trees are beautiful things, but not when they drop 80 gallons worth of olives all over your Spanish tile patio.

I filled over 2 40 gallon garabage cans with the olives I raked out of the bed around the patio. All the oil from the smashed olives made the tiles slick and before I knew it I was laying in a pile of smashed olives on the ground.

Ok, after falling I knew it was time to ride because yard work was getting too dangerous. By the time I made it out it was noon-ish and the temperature was somewhere in the high 40's to low 50's. Perfect for riding. I spent the next 3 hours riding around in circles at the park and got a little over 50 miles in. It was great except for when I got home and felt the need to eat everything in sight.

On a sad note, I didn't get to sport any of the wet weather gear.

Now on to some complaints: AEG, kick down the race route so I can start to plan my trip. Yes, like the pro bike teams you have invited to your race, us fans also need to know the route. It makes it much easier for us to cheer on the riders when we know where to stand. Otherwise, I'll be cheering at ESPN2 while sitting in a bar in downtown Martinez.


I'll leave you with a nice little picture I took with the Treo 650 while I was walking out the door from work on Thursday evening.

Flickr & Blogger

I just noticed this morning that there were new posts to my blog which I don't recall posting. Odd, I thought, as I clicked to see what the post was. Well, in the confusion that is known as my life, I vaguely remember flipping some switch to meld the two Web 2.0 services together. I think I did that last Friday but just haven't post picture to Flickr until yesterday.

So, I'm hoping this will be a good thing and not get out of control. There are times when I get back from a trip or some outting where I've snapped a bunch of pics and load them to Flickr. I'm hoping that when I load, say 100 pics, that it doesn't bump ligitimate posts from the queue for the RSS feed.

Anyway, nothing anyone but me really cares about, lol.

So, since I'm here, I'll spew some nonsense. There really isn't anything as swell as being up at 4:45 on a Monday morning when you don't have to go to work. Since I cleaned the house this weekend, there isn't any of that stuff to do, so I'm filling my time by loading music to my MP3 player. I need to have some new music for my ride later. As well, I'm honing my "Need for Speed" skills on the xBox so that in the future I can get a job driving remote controlled Humvee's for the military in some new age war. Always planning for the future!

Oh, so in case you haven't gotten to the pics that I just posted, which are not exciting, here is one. It's a pic of my bike with the new fenders that I won't be needing today! YEY!

[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]

Day 15, 2006

Three days straight where I've been able to ride 2 hours or more. Yesterday the weather finally broke at 2:15 or so and I was out riding by 3. Friday the rain didn't start until I was nearly finished with my ride and was on my way home. And today, it was bright and sunny with nearly no clouds. But it was somewhere below 40 degrees or so when I left home at 9:30.

Today I rode the same route I did last Saturday, which is unfortunate because I was hoping the road would be open. The flood sign was still out so I didn't even bother riding down there to look as last time the muck was deep and broken limbs were all over the road. Matter of fact, on the way back in on West Sacramento, there seemed to be more water then last weekend. I'll post a pic or two from the camera phone from out on the ride.

Dwight Slade

My friend got some tickets to a comedy show at Lasalle's featuring Dwight Slade. Dwight is a staple of the Bob & Tom Show and quite a funny guy. A real nice guy as well! It was a packed house at Lasalle's and Dwight had the place going from the gun. My sides now ache from laughing.

Here is a picture of my friend Weasel Dog from 93.9, KFM (aka Brent) and Dwight and a female friend.

Anyway, I'm not a comedy critic, so that's about all you'll get out of me, but I highly recommend seeing Dwight when he visits a town near you.

Here is a picture of my friend Weasel Dog from 93.9, KFM (aka Brent) and Dwight and a female friend.

Light Rain Would be OK

I've nearly finished cleaning the house and was hoping to reward myself by beating the hell out of my body while out on a long bike ride. I had already come to the conclusion it would be wet out and having all those cool wet gear items mentioned in the last post, this wasn't going to be a problem.

But, I just have to draw the line at riding in pouring rain unless you happened to be out riding and it started to pour. So, I'll sit here watching the the infrared satellite image over at NASA looking for a break. Or maybe football, even.

If you happen to be interested in the weather, here is a link that will serve you well.

http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/GOES/goeswestpacusir.html

Courtesy of NASA Ames Research Center with reprocessing performed at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Global Hydrology and Climate Center in Huntsville Alabama

Wet Weather Equipment

It's the season where if you want to ride outside, you need special equipment, even in California. Yesterday was one of those days. It rained all morning but let up in the afternoon. So, rather then stay inside, I ventured out into the wetness, but not unprepared. Today I'm going to show you a couple of items which I have purchased to make my time outside in the rain and cold more enjoyable which could also help you prepare for poor conditions.

First things first, clothing. It's been said that there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing and I tend to believe it. No matter how bad the weather is, barring natural disasters, you can always find the right clothes for the job.

Some of the clothing items I like to use in the rain are the Performance clear rain jacket, Performance Neoprene Bootie and a pair of Defeet mittens. I'll need to get some wet weather gloves soon cause the mittens don't keep my hands dry or warm.

Performance Clear Rain Jacket

Performance Neoprene Bootie

Second, bike equipment. Fenders are a necessity and though you might be confused as a bike commuter, not that that's a bad thing, you will keep the major portion of road gunk off you and your bike with a good pair. Here is the set that I purchased over at PerformanceBike.com.

SKS Raceblade

Whew, I'm sneaking this post in right before a scheduled outage over at blogger.com at 3:30 PST. YEY!

More Odd News

The other day I posted about an article on fat pets in England. Today, I read an AP article about a survey taken stateside that finds America's attitudes toward overweight people are shifting from rejection toward acceptance.

Are you kidding me?!

Note, I do not have problems with over-weight or obese folks. But since I've battled the bulge before as I'm sure we all have, I can't see why anyone with the ablility would reside to feeling bad. I say "bad" because when I carried excess weight, I wasn't happy and didn't feel good either. To boot, it was frustrating to have my stomach in the way when I tried to put on socks or shoes.

Anyway, read the article here.

I guess I shouldn't be upset as I'm probably like that in other facets of my life.

Ok, I got the replacement screen for the 650 today and installed it. Only took 10 minutes to swap out. Then I moved the apps from the 600 to the memory card and installed them on the 650. So here I am posting from the 650. Actually, the reason I'm posting is to test my FTP settings.

I need to send over a picture to test and here it is...


if there is no pic by now, I'm officially not smart!

[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]

Odd News or Maybe Not

Article Link

I'm not sure if this is a case where the pet resembles the owner or the owner resembles the pet, but I would guess the latter. To boot, I was surprised the article was specific to England and left out us folks across the pond. I'm sure we could give them a run for their money when it comes to the waistline.

But, this article states that pets are now losing the battle of the bulge with a whopping 33% of English pets being obese. Once again, I wonder where American pets line up against the Brits. It was reported that 38% of English pet owners noticed a weight gain in their pets over the Christmas holiday. If you would like to look for signs of obesity in your pet, they included a sagging stomach, bulging sides and a reluctance to take exercise. You may also look in the mirror and take notice of the owner of the pet having similar characteristics.

Note to pet owner, both you and your pet should put down the fancy feast!

Day 7, 2006

Photo dump from of my bike ride today take with the cell phone camera.













Anyway, it was about 3 hours and a bit over 50 miles and no, not all the roads were covered in mud like those above. Actually, the weather was pretty nice, it just happened to have rained in the early morning.

[Posted with a Treo 600 & hblogger 2.0 by Tony]

Quick Thought and Lance Sighting...

Ok, I was reading over at VeloGal's website about Lance being at the Rose Bowl to cheer on Texas. So, I googled "lance armstrong" and "Rose Bowl" and then clicked the News link.

After reading a few of the articles I found something interesting. Lance Armstrong is still a cyclist and not a former cyclist. Many of the articles mentioned him as a cyclist. Maybe it's just me and symantics, but he really is a cyclist now. But previously they called him a cyclist and not pro cyclist or something to that effect.

So, I wonder when Lance will graduate to ex-pro or former pro? One thing for sure, he'll always be a cyclist.

I was hoping to find a picture to post with him at the game, but no luck!

Oh, lookie, it's time to ride!

Day 6, 2006

Ok, Day 6 is something to be excited about! It's a FRIDAY and wait, it's party cloudy and 55 degrees, ideal for a nice 2 hour bike ride once I'm off work at 2:30.

So, on that note check out this page over at the Discovery Channel website, it's got video and cartoons of Team Disco and their fun antics!

http://team.discovery.com/videogallery/videogallery.html

Oh and I've posted some new information about the Tour of California over at the Tour of California Blog, check it out!

Day 5, 2006

I'm dehydrated today, the 5th day of the year. Usually while on the trainer, I'm not sweating as much as out on the open road. Not because it's cooler outside, but because I can't motivate myself to ride that hard inside. Outside, there are plenty of visual queues that scream, "ride harder" like the guy I passed yesterday while he was looking down at his drive train. Or some jogger up the road or a car.

There is nothing quite like attacking the unsuspecting. I've seen this guy in the park a hundred times but he didn't recognize me at first. So, he had a couple of choice words for me when he caught up, before he realized it was me. It's funny how recreational riders, like ourselves, need to defend our ego's while out on the road.

So, this guy, his name is Sean or Shawn, he looks more like a Shawn to me, tells me he's having trouble with drivers out on the road being a jerk to him. Last year, he got run off the road by someone he flipped off and broke his collarbone. Now, I've only been riding the road bike about 4 years but have never had a problem like that. In that period, I can only think of one instance where I knew for sure a driver had it out for us. It's quite obvious when they drive by you at 5 miles an hour faster than you are going screaming obscenities and swerving into your lane, bike lane that is.

There really isn't much to do in those cases except count your blessings no one got hurt. Really, in all of these situations, I find it's best to forget about it and move on with your life. Confronting angry drivers can only lead to bad things occuring. Either you'll get in an argument (nothing solved), get in a fight where you kick the persons ass (nothing solved except maybe a charge of assult and battery), get in a fight where the person kicks your ass (still nothing solved and your ass is kicked). I'm sure I'm missing a few potential outcomes, but really, those are the ones that keep me from confronting drivers.

So, my words of wisdom to Shawn was to learn the wonders of pacificism while on the bike. Truely, it's the path of least resistance and it's not like you'll ever convince some driver they were at fault.

Be it right or wrong in your minds, it's how I approach the situation of a-hole drivers.

Sweet California Winter

It rained for days on end and finally and nice sunny day. 65 degrees with a cool breeze and that was after 3 PM.

I almost stayed inside to ride the trainer because I had a slow leak in the rear tire. Instead, I rushed home, changed the tube and headed out. A mile and a half from home it went flat. I figured the tire was the issue and just rode the flat home.

I grabbed a tire off another set of wheels and a new tube and was out the door in about 10 minutes. Not too much of a dent in my ride, I still got a quick 90 minutes in before dark.

So, the tire. I have been riding the Attack and Force tires by Continental which in my limited experience with tires, seem like a solid and grippy ride. I swapped the rear tire out with a new Continental Grand Prix 3000. Adaquate, but similar to riding on a wet noodle.

It's time to order some new tires and wish for more sunny days.

Day 2, Year 2006

Today, the second day of the year, will be filled with house cleaning, stationary bike riding, and the mastery of Need For Speed, Ultimate Edition for the Xbox. Ha ha, 35 year old's playing video games is funny.

House cleaning, a workout unto itself and a necessity, will fill all the AM hours and some of the PM hours while fake bike riding will occupy a few of the afternoon hours and NFS will take me on into the evening with a smile on my face.

On the house cleaning front, I've got to complete the following check list before moving on to biking portion of my day:

wash all rugs in house (backdoor rug, bath mats)
wipe down all oak cabinets through house
oil front and back doors
vacuum carpets
mop tile floors
clean all toilets
wipe down kitchen countertops
clean appliances
do dishes put them away even
water inside plants
wipe down mirrors in master bed and bath
bathroom counters
vacuum cat's room (we have cats and they are messy)
wash bed clothes/make bed
take out the garbage

Estimated time of completion: 4 hours

Then, it's time to rest while I sit on the bike trainer.
Estimated time of completion: 2 hours

You know, now that my place of employment has moved to within 1.7 miles of home, I don't get to spend those quality hours in the car commuting, so I've taken up driving on the Xbox to keep in practice. It's a blast, plus I can smash the hell out of cop cars without getting in any trouble, very satisfying!
Estimated time of completion: How ever many hours it takes to pass out!

What a fine way to spend the 2nd day of year, could be worse, I could have gone to work.

Hail The Pro Pickem Champ...

With an impressive tour de force, team What The Hell! has once again taken the Sierra Nevada Beer League pro pickem game. Finishing up the season by winning the last week and a total of 4 weeks thoughout the season, team What The Hell display near perfect dominance over his competitors. Only team Da Bears were able to test What The Hell in the final 5 weeks but came up only 25 points shy of toppling the champ.

We did have a chance meeting with the coach of team What The Hell where we were able to ask a couple of choice questions, wanna hear it? Here it goes.

ADITLoTR (short for A Day In The Life of Tony Rocha, if you didn't figure that out on your own already): Another year another victory, what can you can Tony?

Tony: Well, it was a long, hard fought season out there on the gridiron and none of this would have been possible without Sierra Nevada Beers and Ales, because I stole there name for our league and consumed their product during loosing weeks. Secondly, I'd like to thank the NFL for being there, because truly, without the teams and players, there would be no professional football known as the NFL. And of course, I must thank all the participants of the Sierra Nevada league as winning a league where you are the only participant is ... well, just plan lame.

ADITLoTR: Great, so what was your secret to success this pickem season?

Tony: Well, early in the season while midway through a 12'er of Pale Ale I had to take a mean squirt and on the way to the outhouse tripped over the cat and smashed my head against the ground but that's another story. While down on the ground, I found an old Production and Operation Management book tucked into the wood pile and decided to reminisce about the days I used to cut POMG 143 to drink pale ales and decided to cracked the book open. Many of the pages were still fresh though the book was 10 years old. Within, I found a multitude of simulation theories which, while still laying on the ground, filled my head with ideas. Ideas how to dominate pro pickem football. Well folks, the rest is history.

ADITLoTR: Yeah, you did lay quiet a whooping on the rest of the league, huh? So, now that pickem league is over for another 8 months, what are you plans for the off season?

Tony: Well, since I still have another year on my contract with team What The Hell!, the pickem off season is going to be filled with fantasy Basketball over at ESPN.com where I'm currently participating in the LetItRide Bball league. I don't mean to break my arm, but I also happen to be leading that league as well on top of being the defending champ.

ADITLoTR: Wow, you sure seem to be quite the fantasy player?

Tony: Yeah, when you can't be an athlete, why not be an athletic supporter? is the question I like to pose to folks like myself. What better place to display my skills than in these "real life" fantasy leagues?

ADITLoTR: Don't ask us, we are supposed to be interviewing you.

Tony: Oh yeah, sorry, ma bad!

ADITLoTR: It's ok, it's obviously you are a little wrapped up in your own world.

Tony: Yeah, maybe, but it's my world damnit, this interview is over, you've done pissed me off!

ADITLoTR: Alrighty! Now back to reality!