guiltypleasure

movin' on

2005-11-28T20:13:00.000-08:00

movin' the blog: thatantonguy.com/blog/

i've got sunshine in a bag
i'm useless, but not for long
the future is movin' on
the future is movin' on

news! and commentary!

2005-11-26T08:08:00.000-08:00

Even Supporters Doubt President as Issues Pile Up. who are these people? it isn't as if anything has actually changed in the last year. all of these issues were on the table a year ago.

Who is thankful today? The people of Jackson, Mississippi. "an increase in the purchase of guns and jewelry". excellent use of taxpayers' money.

distorted intelligence. duh.

the cristian right.

“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.”

THOSE WORDS, PENNED IN ARTICLE 11 of the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, are as succinct a statement as we have from the Founding Fathers on the role of religion in our government. Their authorship is ascribed variously to George Washington, under whom the treaty was negotiated, or to John Adams, under whom it took effect, or sometimes to Joel Barlow, U.S. consul to Algiers, friend of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, and himself no stranger to the religious ferment of the era, having served as a chaplain in the Revolutionary Army. But the validity of the document transcends its authorship for a simple reason: it was ratified. It was debated in the U.S. Senate and signed into law by President Adams without a breath of controversy or complaint concerning its secular language, and so stands today as an official description of the founders’ intent.

indeed. the brilliance of the system isn't that the people may enact it's will via the vote of the majority but that there are limits to what the majority may do. that is, there can be no tyranny of the majority over the minority.

2005-11-25T14:47:00.000-08:00

ah yes, thanksgiving. pretty standard fare here in spokane with michelle's family.

the stuffing had cornmeal and sausages. it was damned good. nothing touches my mom's cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie. nothing. the cranberry sauces takes two or three days in the crock pot. ah yeah!

i went and lifted real quick today. michelle went for a run and now she's playing lord of the rings on xbox with shakey jakey. it's a cool game, but i prefer the fighting games that are first person. i think we're going shopping.

i'm trying to deploy MovableType on thatantonguy, but it is being difficult. hmm...maybe i'll ask.

shakey jakey just said "fuck". now i'm going to get shit for it. damn. fucking kids.

spokane tv is pretty awesome. just saw an ad for a pawn shop. ha ha!

photos

2005-11-23T19:45:00.000-08:00

pictures uploaded to thatantonguy in the gallery section. check it out.

chainsaws, medina, chainsaws.

2005-11-21T08:21:00.000-08:00

man. take a guy who hasn't worked a lick in almost a year. then send him out into the forest with a chainsaw and a big truck and make him cut and haul trees for 12-15 hrs a day. good times. i was getting up at 500 and on the road by 515, getting home at 730-930. wednesday and thursday we were working near menlo, wa. how's that for a drive? it was really pretty once off I-5. but man, i am sick of I-5. friday we worked around chehalis and morton. saturday was out in the belfair area. pretty cool. and then yesterday was back to chehalis and mossyrock, which is near morton. never got to do that nice sweet straight shot from morton to seattle though. always had to get back to chehalis first. i don't even know how many miles i logged. well over 1K.

i have a little meeting with a temp agency. i was going to get my hair cut this weekend. i was supposed to be home by 300 yesterday. i was home at 900. no time for hair cuts.

i'll give you all some extended entries later. i took some pictures too.

thatantonguy.com

2005-11-15T11:18:00.000-08:00

got my own website now. thatantonguy.com. not much up there now. just got the account going today. we'll see what i do with it. i could move my blog over there, but there are a number of advantages to blogger. $10/month for the website. not so bad, i suppose.

i can set folks up with email addresses. RC2K@thatantonguy.com. how's that for a ring?

tombomb put up a stellar post yesterday. full of gems, like "religion doesn't exist" and "ethereal candyland". oh man oh man oh man. finally, i'm getting my money's worth out of his tuition. but he forgot about the dancing jesus! i love the hate mail that sites like that get. so-called christians threatening his life (and legs). man oh man. get a grip, folks!

MoS and Ricky Ricardo pulled out some sweet rides at the state cross race this weekend. love that podium shot of Ricky.

picture by hyun lee

gotta go dig out my long underwear and warm clothes for tromping through the christmas tree forests of adna, wa. yeah, that's fucking out there.

wild and crazy bitch

2005-11-14T10:24:00.000-08:00

lookin' at a big week this week. gotta go and get some trees. god, i hope it isn't rainy and shit. that's fucking miserable.

anybody seen blogshares.com. interesting concept. cycling soup and i are both worth $1K. i don't fully understand the whole thing, but something about blogs are valued by the number of incoming links. players "buy" the blogs with fictional money and it's a sort of market. although i imagine that he has more incoming links. not much content though.

speaking of very little content, medina seems content to let his dribble pass as blogging.

want a big tree for christmas? come to buchanan family trees in bellevue. remember when i tried to sell a tree on ebay? can't seem to find that picture. yeah, we'll try that one again. good trees there at buchanan though. lots of big ones too. huge. 15' or more. even tall-ass medina can't reach the top. the president of the mariners bought one. delivered it to their place. his wife is really nice.

so, we dogsat this weekend. sadie. sadie the golden retriever. she's a bit neurotic. she sleeps on the bed. or at least wants to. she also doesn't chew her food. it's amazing. she'll eat dry food by just swallowing. it's one of the most fascinating displays of eating i've ever seen. the simpsons got nothin' on this bitch. well, she is a bitch, isn't she? she's not really a barker. she groans a lot, but not so much barking. but she can get a bit excited. saturday or friday morning, something got her going and she barked right next to my head and woke me up. oh man, i wasn't too happy. what're you going to do?

nice day for a ride on saturday. looks like today is pretty sweet too. i'm going to head downtown to lift. we'll see what happens to all that when i start working the christmas trees.

i'm looking into getting a website and all that. any ideas on domain names? as much fun as pleasuresite.com or siteofpleasure.com or siteofthepleasure sounds, i think i need something a bit more professional. put some ideas in the comments, yo.

out until later

aint it the truth

2005-11-11T10:47:00.000-08:00

Woodland Park plan bids farewell to bunnies. great quote here:

Since all it takes is one male and one female rabbit to make more rabbits, the city and the House Rabbit Society would continue to trap rabbits after the initial round-up, DeCaro said.

yep. it only takes two. true enough.

Early deaths plague homeless. yep. a friend saw one being carried out of woodland park last saturday.

Courtroom fight follows sentencing. who are these people?

It's time we curb votes on transit. laughing stock of canada indeed!

no title

2005-11-11T09:18:00.000-08:00

been weight lifting. man, that's tough stuff. i'm not ever working hard. i'm doing an adaptation cycle of easy lifting. 3 sets of 15 reps at low weight. i'm not going to exhaustion, so it isn't so bad. but man, i was sore after the first session. hips and strange muscles i'm not accustomed to working. discovered the my right hamstring is significantly weaker than the left. it got absolutely worked after the first session and now it's super tight. i can barely reach and touch the ground, which i can normally do with my hands flat.

the funniest thing about cyclists lifting is that we can't hardly carry the weights around. it's exhausting to get the weights we need for our legs. my poor little arms.

lifting has also exposed me to something i'm not accustomed to: day-time TV. judge brown. soaps. man, it's bad. so bad. where do they get these people for judge brown? trailer park trolling? good god. i remember wapner. judge wapner. we watched him a lot as kids. and the price is right. my little brother would have made a killing on the price is right. maybe he still can.

gotta go cut down trees next week. yeah, lots of hard work goes into getting those pretty little trees to your living room. be sure to tip your sales person!

more walmart

2005-11-10T11:10:00.000-08:00

why subsidies are a bad idea. it ain't capitalism, that's for sure.

check out this booming real estate market. jesus.

news and commentary

2005-11-10T08:21:00.000-08:00

so, senators want to consider a windfall tax on oil companies who've made enormous profits this year. i'm not so convinced. the oil companies respond (rather correctly) that its a market situation. they've had lean times and now they're getting their due. but, if they want free markets, why don't they give back the subsidies? you know, the enormous tax breaks? give 'em back. if they want to benefit from the markets, they ought to make the markets truly free.

same for walmart. their mantra has always been about the efficiency of markets. they decry any sort of union or regulation because it is inefficient. but they too get subsidies. where's the efficiency in that?

incidentally, corporate subsidies (corporate welfare) costs taxpayers considerably more than welfare ever has. so many profitable companies don't pay any taxes. scandalous.

end of bushism. bush learned well from the handlers of reagan. project an image of strong morality and good leadership and voters will back you, regardless of ideology. what happens when you are no longer coated with teflon?

bush and co's mantra "who would have known", just doesn't wash when you consider that all the anti-war protesters knew. duh. the same with katrina and the nahlans levees. they've been saying for years that they needed more money. the administration cut it.

tomdispatch has some good content.

i got your decoder ring right here...

2005-11-09T16:18:00.000-08:00

man, those intelligent design folks in dover got their asses handed to them. ah yeah! don't need no decoder ring to understand that message.

i don't know what it means for the trial though. i'd be pretty pissed if i were a tax payer in that school district. if the district loses, they could be liable for the legal costs of the folks suing them. and those folks suing them have a good case. a really good case. turns out that the folks behind the whole ID thing have pushed a lot of other religion in government causes, with undermines their argument that they're pushing ID 'cause its good science (which it isn't).

interesting notes from the elections. has the republican "revolution" run it's course? perhaps in virginia. and in ohio? not that the republicans ever came through on many of their promises. not that the democrats are worth a whole lot either. shit, the only reason kerry had any chance last year was because outside groups like moveon.org waged a spirited campaign. kerry brought nuthin' but being "not george bush".

this lighting in from the bombings in jordan (new york times) spookily resembes goya's "third of may" painting.

texas bans marriage

2005-11-09T12:30:00.000-08:00

texas bans marriage. indeed, they did. even for hetero's.

scooped!

2005-11-09T10:30:00.000-08:00

damn, tombomb scooped me on the pirates of somalia! but, he didn't provide links! must provide links! that's what i get for listening to my girlfriend and "getting my nose out of my computer". and to think that i made fun of www.venganza.org back in september for postulating the existence of pirates.

pass the pleasure around. it's italian. its? it's? i can't remember. i know RC2K doesn't remember.

breaking news

2005-11-08T12:11:00.000-08:00

sellin' christmas trees again in the '06 christmas season. ah yeah!

that means that this guy is comin' back:

whatcha got to say about that, medina? sold your mom a christmas tree last year.

medina sez:

2005-11-07T12:09:00.000-08:00

medina has a new blog. medinasays.blogspot.com. nice template. not much content.

team ride on saturday. fuck. coldest most miserable ride. after about 10 minutes, i almost turned around. should have. it was about 40 degrees and dumping. it wasn't so bad, but then we got two flats within 50 minutes of eachother. i got really cold and started shivering and chattering while on the bike. i killed it for 10 minutes just to get going. my feet were long frozen and my hands were quickly following. made it home and peeled everything off in the garage and hopped into the shower. oh god, it itched. itched back. i don't know what's worse, the thaw or the cold. the aread between my leg warmers and my jerseys was bright red and cold to the touch. my feet were blue and cold to the touch. my feet swelled up after the shower and were super painful. i was planning on lifting in the afternoon. that didn't happen! shoulda turned around. i need to get one of those yellow rain jackets that everybody says is so water proof. the team jacket just doesn't cut it.

i checked out internet radio this weekend. i found a good reggae one at creation steppin' radio. kexp.org is one of the best, really. steaming archives. listen to their solid blues, reggae, world or whatever shows anytime you want. independent radio, yo. it's a solid station. check it out.

i've been checking some of the links that refer to my blog. lots of "women for god" and what not. not many references coming from tombomb. cyclingsoup is the leader. oh, and pinche tomâs, i know that you check several times a day. thanks.

so, i'm thinking of getting a real website going. mostly, it would be nice to have some server space. probably, i can accomplish everything i want with free services. i guess, i just want to build my own website. wish i knew more html. i'm experimenting today, and damn it if firefox and explorer don't come up with totally different displays of the same code. jesus.

like i said

2005-11-04T16:58:00.000-08:00

in guantanamo for political satire. it's almost funny. but these guys lost three years of their lives. what did you do in the last three years?

canadians are weird

2005-11-04T14:43:00.000-08:00

latotita.blogspot.com/

man, these folks are weird. they're aparently a couple from halifax. they're adopting some little girl from columbia and so they're writing a blog, in spanish, from the point of view of the little girl. que extraña.

they even have pictures of clothes that they've picked out for the little girl, titled "Mis primeros vestidos!!!!" (my first clothes). weird.

que piensas, pinche tomâs.

news and commentary

2005-11-04T14:24:00.000-08:00

'cause i'm an expert.

is it a gulag yet? indeed. a lot of the discussion on guantanamo and torture has been a little misdirected. a lot of people seem to think that the left is concerned with protecting terrorists when people of concience are really concerned with being certain that punishments are meted out to those who are certain to be terrorists. there seems to be an assumption that if a person ends up in custody, they're guilty. it just isn't true, and so i think everybody involved ought to be interested in sorting the guilty from the innocent. it serves our interests.

more on intelligent design.

"America's culture has been influenced by Christianity from the very beginning," Mr. Thompson said, "but there is an attempt to slowly remove every symbol of Christianity and religious faith in our country. This is a very dangerous movement because what will ultimately happen is, out of sight, out of mind."

ah ha! so there we have it! i think his prediction of the consequences is pretty ridiculous. but it is very telling. so, they want to keep christianity in government because they're afraid of losing ground to other religions? so, their motivation is indeed the promotion of religion. and that's exactly what the founding fathers DIDN'T want. further, he misrepresents the goals of the separation movement. the goal is to keep religion out of government institutions, decisions and what not. we are not concerned with the activities of churches and religious organizations. in fact, many are in fact religious. separation of church and state protects religions more than many realize. america is a land of vibrant faith. that is in a large part due to the spearation of church and state.

FEMA fashion god

2005-11-04T13:56:00.000-08:00

Disturbing e-mails from FEMA chief released (news.com)

November 3, 2005 5:07 PM PST

Louisiana Congressman Charlie Melancon posted to his Web site unflattering e-mails written by former FEMA Director Michael Brown.

The e-mails show that, while the Gulf region of the United States was reeling in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Brown exchanged e-mails with several of his coworkers about other pressing issues-namely, fashion. On the day the hurricane hit, FEMA's deputy director of public affairs, Cindy Taylor, wrote to Brown that he looked "fabulous." Brown replied, "I got it at Nordstroms...Are you proud of me?" The exchange is just one of a handful on the topic of men's shirtwear in the days surrounding the catastrophic storm. In another e-mail shortly after, Brown proclaimed himself a "fashion god".

But even more unnerving are the e-mails related to the relief effort itself. A message sent to Brown on Sept. 2 offering help with patients on ventilators went unanswered until Brown forwarded the original message on to someone else four days later.

The e-mails (see PDF) are part of over 1,000 messages handed over to a House committee that is investigating the government's response to Hurricane Katrina. And they are just the latest reminder that e-mails-especially those written at work-can come back to haunt you, even if you are a fashion god.

me me me

2005-11-04T08:41:00.000-08:00

the posole turned out well. there was a lot of liquid, so i just cooked it a lot longer than it specified. check it out.

applying for more jobs today. volt. that volt website is a bit frustrating. i've wasted a lot of time trying to upload my resume. it butchers it. grrr...

i wonder what cyclingsoup has to say today. i still think it could be RC2000, but i'm doubting it. actually, i'm almost certain it isn't RC2000. RC2000 never types "it's". he always types "its". it's annoying. but we love him anyway. actually, my favorite is "your" instead of "you're". he aint got nothing on some of terry's typos. terry's typos are never a pattern, however. he's just going too fast to get it right. cyclingsoup is missing a key cycling blog. drunkcyclist. yeah, what's up with that? he races sometimes.

tour of california. should i send them my picture with the podium hat? maybe i can get in? i'm going to make a composite pro team. the pleasure rollers. yeah, we roll 'em fat. cause that's what we are. fat. real fat.

new york marathon this weekend. maybe watch it on tv? the man on tv claims that the economic impact of the race will be $150 million. whoa. i wonder what the impact of the tour is. a lot, i imagine. interesting. i wonder, is it profit generating or is there a charity component?

jimmy witherspoon. he had the blues.

one day, we got ham and bacon
next day aint got nothin'
aint nobodies business if i do

if me and my baby fuss and fight
and the next minute we alright
aint nobodies business if we do

i'm a roadrunner, honey! bo diddley rocks.

ah yeah, i got a hat! (and i look stoned)

random food

2005-11-03T14:42:00.000-08:00

posole, food network style. seems pretty reasonable. i'm making it tonight.

sopapillas by emeril. probably pretty good.

indan food recipes. it almost looks like they're being sharked from a book, but she appears to be indian, so its probably legit. who knows. plus she calls her husband hubby, which is really annoying.

naughty curry. not a very visually appealing site, but good recipes.

white people get stranger every day

2005-11-03T12:01:00.000-08:00

watched brother from another planet yesterday with my uncle. gotta watch it every couple of years, he says. john sayles. his directoral debut? not sure. damn funny though.

went to the gym yesterday. got a new membership at epicenter fitness. one of the guys answering the phones there doesn't get it that it isn't epic center. one word, dude. anyway, i was going to get a membership at the ymca in the university district cause that's where my lady friend goes. but she wanted to switch, so we got in at this place. nice place. they have one downtown seattle and one in bellevue. i was in early in the days, so it wasn't crowded at all. not much interest to me, but all the cardio equipment has dvd players! anyway, lifting is rough. i haven't done it in like 2 years. not since the night i asked my lady friend out back in '03. at the ymca. it was an easy work out too. just a little something to get the muscles adapted to what's going to hit them. well, i'm damned sore today. and riding up to my aunt and uncles afteward was a trip. my legs were awfully sluggish to get started. pedalling circles was about impossible. and i didn't have any acceleration.

got a package from michellin today.

Thank you for subitting your outstanding results. We are pleased to see that you are doing well this cycling season. Enclosed please find your coupon and/or cash prize check along with a special michelin Podium hat. This hat is to only to be worn by you. Podium hats are only given to those who have earned them. Looking at your results, you are certainly worthy enough to wear this podium hat.

ah yeah! i guess that's what you get when you win the state crit. and a check. gotta love getting checks for riding your bike! i'm worthy! finally!

RC2000 has a website.

creating good will for US in pakistan. really, its difficult to imagine a better and more timely chance to really win some hearts and minds in that part of the world. cause, you know, bombs in iraq and afganistan haven't quite done it.

bird flu. terrorism and bird flus are the fashionable fears. but really, the most dangerous thing we do everyday is drive. millions die every year in accidents, primarily caused by speeding.

doing business in arkansas

2005-11-01T15:56:00.000-08:00

trying out picasa.

news of the day

2005-11-01T15:30:00.000-08:00

walmart gets a sweet deal from the labor department. i have to really wonder about the motivation on that one. the times seems rather baffled that they violated their own handbook and got nothing in return from wal-mart.

excercise and cancer. nothing "stops" cancer (which is why i say there is no cure). cancer happens. the proper focus (and the research community knows this, although the reporting community consistently fails to understand it;) is on effective treatment and early detection. those two things together might consititute a functional "cure".

blame the liberal media for bush. it just isn't liberal. period.

exellent blog bit from mother jones about how the iraq war is increasing terrorism and bottom line, their aint no good options cause they fucked it all up from the start. illconcieved is the word, i think.

administration failing to meet security deadlines. they have to file about 260 reports a year. that's 5 a week!

somewhere over colorado

2005-11-01T15:03:00.000-08:00

for sale

2005-11-01T14:58:00.000-08:00

Cycling Soup

2005-11-01T12:05:00.000-08:00

could RC2000 be the pen behind Cycling Soup? sounds a lot like him. but then, this passage in the post "advice to..." would indicate otherwise: "I’m not an expert, but try my advice if things don’t go your way." yeah, probably not RC2000.

photos

2005-11-01T09:05:00.000-08:00

brotherly love

brotherly love

jawara

got to have kaya now...

2005-11-01T08:37:00.000-08:00

...for the rain is falling.

chickens seemed to be the popular costume this year. is it a morbid reference to the bird flu? lots of fat little chickens running around.

we had a grand total of about 8 tick or treaters. we're in a tough position. the only non-busy street to cross to get to us is 50th, which as the zoo, so nobody coming from there. yeah, not a prime spot. so, we watched homestar. see strongbad's advice for getting women (medina, pay attention).

i can't wait to take my kids trick or treating. expand my mind a bit. get a little something for the flask and strike out in search of fat and sugar. doesn't get much better than that, huh?

after going out to get candy, i rode over to my uncles, where they had chocolate torte. damn it! killin' me. i had some. more split pea soup for dinner.

horace andy has one of the most distinctive voices on the island. you heard the man, "feel good all over"! and that's an order!

so, i did the legal music download thing last week. emusic.com. 50 free downloads. i ate through those pretty quick. deciding on whether or not to get a subscription. you see, i love music. high quality sounds. HiFi, if you will. so, i don't dig on compressing the music. maybe its ridiculous, but i want "lossless" digital music. harddrives are cheap. well, not many places are selling lossless. my bet is that if they did, i'd be better off buying the plastic discs. so, i'm not sure if i'll buy any music online just yet. but if you're intersted, check out emusic. their prices are good and they don't have protection on the files, so you can play the mp3's on any device and burn as much as you want. lootin' and burnin'. they have a lot of music from outside the mainstream and the library is constantly growing. if you're interested, i can refer you and if you get a paying account, i'll get more free downloads! ah yeah!

applied to another job today. marketing associate. looking for a job is hard work. i need a break.

put this in your pot and cook it

2005-10-31T11:00:00.000-08:00

its halloween. dangerous day for big fat sprinters.

creepy tacos. not scary. creepy.

hot tip from medina:

When you go trick-or-treating tonight, make sure you stop by Pyatt's place. He gives out the big candybars!

good to know. good to know. made some split pea soup last night. ah yeah! good stuff. low maintenance food right there. put it into a pot and cook it.

drank lots of coffee this weekend. went to a coffee shop on sunday that was cash only? huh? yeah, so we had $8.50 and our coffee was $9.10. stupid barista didn't offer any help at all. another customer spotted us $.60, aparently feeling bad for me counting pennies on the counter. jeez.

75th St Ale house was lunch on saturday. good stuff. good beer too. dinner was at bizzaro. say a little score sheet for a certain seth and anna who'd had dinner there. hmm....bizzaro had belly dancing. well, a waitress was doing some belly dancing. good music.

tombomb seems to think that a ban on cross races "going through" beer gardens will equate to a ban on cross races "going around" beer gardens, as is the case at star crossed. plus, starr crossed wasnt a UCI race this year,.

all about uncles

2005-10-28T08:59:00.000-07:00

so, my uncle keeps looking and feeling better. he's even making urine, which would indicated that his kidneys are working. interesting. so, we don't really know. he could be truly coming back from the brink or he could be rallying before the end. the doctors certainly don't know. his primary diagnosis remains lymphoma, which they cannot really treat aggressively. i guess we'll see.

one of my cousins has put a different uncle's work on the web. phenomenally talented. i'll post a few pictures here. check it out at michaelcorr.com. more are posted periodically. michael has a phd in japanese art history. or a phd in japanese history and art. i don't know. he lives in japan now and writes the familiy periodically. his corespondence previously consisted of haikus on note pads. they've become more lengthy letters. he was (is?) a prolific artist. block prints, mostly. asian themes abound. many also include the work of poets. for example, in my kitchen i have one that is just a poem:

i love
making
brown rice
in the big
old pot

it will
nourish
every
body

after all
it costs
next to
nothing
to serve

-m castro

as a kid, "lusty deer at the zoo" was my favorite. it consisted of those words and the outlines of a few animals scattered. i don't know if any of us understand it.

Untitled, wood-block print with black ink, 14"x20", 1968.

"St. Elmo's fire," wood-block print on paper, 14"x19", 1967.

pictures

2005-10-27T17:14:00.000-07:00

my pictures at snapfish

rosa parks (1903-2005)

2005-10-27T09:38:00.000-07:00

rosa parks has died. "while the bus boycott succeeded, Parks in 1957 was forced to leave Montgomery because of persistent death threats." indeed. nothing pretty about racism.

an editiorial at the nation from 1955,:

In Montgomery, Alabama, recently an impressive demonstration of this latest strength occurred when the Negro community--some 40,000 strong--declared a boycott against the city bus lines. The incident provoking the ban was the arrest of a seamstress who refused to give up her seat at the order of a driver. The driver testified that he had twenty-two Negro passengers and fourteen whites in his thirty-six-seat bus, and he ordered the woman and others to move back to "equalize" the seating.

Such incidents have been all too frequent in "the Cradle of the Confederacy": last summer a fourteen-year-old Negro girl was dragged off a bus by three policemen and taken in handcuffs to jail because of a refusal to relinquish her place to a white man. A bus driver left his vehicle to beat up a mentally deficient Negro who had "bothered" him from the sidewalk. Drivers have been said to carry guns in their cash boxes to "settle" disputes about transfers and change-making. Because of the stored-up resentment these caused, no organization or leader can be said to have inspired the boycott. ''The leaders were led," said one Negro minister. "It was a vertical thing, sweeping through all our people. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen, and the most heartening." more...

ah yeah! the nation (and many on the left) have been fighting the good fight for a long time. in times of great injustice, inaction is complicity. we should be thankful that some people stood up. where would be be without them? i wonder where trent lott and george bush were? hmm... wasn't it the republicans voting against the voting rights and civil rights legislation. huh.

miers withdraws.

from wonkette.com:

Trent Lott: "I think the President should look across the country and find the most qualified man, woman, or minority."

Should we be happy that he thinks those colored folks are acceptable for positions of powered or apalled that he aparently doesn't think they're men or women. begging the question, "does that mean that they're human in his eyes?)

for your benefit

2005-10-26T10:12:00.000-07:00

check out the archives for posts from my old blog. ah yeah!

one good thing about music...

2005-10-25T15:20:00.000-07:00

...when it hits, you feel no pain.

so, my uncle's organs are shutting down. things were the worst on saturday and sunday. his body has since been rallying and he is now awake and responsive, although a bit groggy and very fatigued. this is a great thing for all of us. his slip into unconsciousness was totally unexpected and all of us were caught totally unprepared. now, we all have the opportunity to say good bye.

the outlook is for him to make it for a few days to a week. in reality, it is a waiting game. how difficult must this be for him? a brave man. when he woke up, he did not know what was happening. he asked, and my aunt, choking her sobs back, explained that his organs were shutting down. he asked "am i dying" and she had to respond "yes". i cannot imagine anything more difficult than this. these are brave people. doctors have told him many times that he was going to die, but he has always pulled through. he's phenomenally resiliant. i think that now, he is making his peace.

a story:

when peter was home and situated in his bed, my cousin and family friend jawara brought in a stereo. will asked peter if he wanted some music on. peter asked for marley. will brought in a bob marley live cd and put it on. the first song was "trenchtown rock". you know, "one good thing about music, when it hits, you feel no pain." could it have been a more appropriate song? anyway, everybody was very excited that peter was conversant and home. the music really hit the spot, and everybody was in high spirits. debbie threw up her hands and danced a bit. peter responded by puting his arms up as well and shaking his hips as best he could. it was beautiful.

cousin will has long made it his habit to appropriate peter's music collection to himself. even i have a nina simone cd of peter's. well, this morning, will had a cd of peter's playing, one which he'd had for some time. will asked peter if he knew what was playing, and peter responded "yes, you never gave it back". ha ha!

music is an important part of peter's life. jazz, classical, latin, blues. its all there. he'd likely subscribe to the view that "there are only two kinds of music: good and bad."

thank you to all who have offered their condolences and support. i really appreciate it.

eulogy

2005-10-24T12:18:00.000-07:00

my uncle, peter, is passing away. he is an amazing person, which i will relate in a story.

born in the late 40's, he grew up in ranier valley (seattle). he briefly attended college in the northeast. i don't think he remembers a whole lot of it. like all members of my family, he was an activist. he was a man of passion, integrity and conviction. but he was also a caring, kind and compassionate man. he believe that above all, all people's lives must be treated with dignity and respect. justice was his ultimate guiding principle. he staunchly opposed the vietnam war for what it was: needless death and destruction to no end which would ultimately benefit the people on either side who were fighting and and being fought for. the civil rights movement also inspired him. it is a story about serving justice for the oppressed that i will relate.

it must have been the sixties. i'm not sure if it was before or after the voting rights act. MLK and JFK were dead. scores of activists had already been murdered, tortured and jailed. yeah, murdered and jailed. it was clear that the federal government was little interested in making real change and that the southern power structure, now threatened, was reacting in an incredibly violent and vicious manner. even the priests were mudurers. knowing that he was going into harms way, peter travelled to mississippi to help with a project there. he knew that the north cared little for the plight of blacks. but if young white kids were killed or hurt by southern whites, there would be a reaction. they were right. he went, with the goal of puting himself into harms way. you see, poor blacks were now being swept into a sort of economic slavery. freed slaves and their decendants were given little education or other resources to sustain themselves and their communities on, so they were poor. very poor. taking advantage of this, plantations now kept blacks tied to their land with contractural arangements that caused families to only grow furhter and further into debt. that debt was passed onto the next generation. to leave was punishable by law. it was slavery. peter joined a group that was helping to kidnap willing blacks from the plantations. they would be housed in a large barn and given a chance somewhere else to start anew. a whole transitional community was built and the families and volunteers like my uncle helped with some farming and maintenance chores. this was an underground operation. across the way was a legion post. a place where white guys with guns got whipped up into a drunken racist frenzy and went out looking for folks to murder, maim or torture. if nothing else, they'd burn a cross or two. (not that they benefitted in anyway from the oppression of blacks) well, my uncle and this group had to protect themselves. the barn was littlered with bullet holes from attacks. one night my uncle was on guard duty. he was up in their lookout, where they could see the road and legion post. he had a shotgun. he'd never shot one before and certainly hadn't shot at a person. well, a car comes down the road on his side, driving slowly. he gets the feeling that something isn't quite right and is watching, holding the shotgun close. he's trying to get the attention of the other person he's doing lookout with but he isn't able to. well, the car slows to a stop in front of them, and my uncle readies his shotgut and aims it at the car. he doesn't really know what to do. well, the driver and passenger get out, switch and drive away. it was nothing. the next day peter tells the group that he can't do guard duty. he'll contribute in any other way: washing dishes, helping with the kids, farming; but he won't shoot a gun. see, my uncle knew right and wrong. he knew what he believed in. but he couldn't resort to violence. he knew only compassion. he does not hate the people who hate. not a man of faith, he never the less worked with and respected any faith that respected life and worked for justice.

he was not a democrat. he was a believer in justice. and justice was in everything he did.

mumble in the jungle

2005-10-21T09:41:00.000-07:00

so, RC2000 wants to be a reference. the problem with RC2000 having plenty to say is that nobody can hear him 'cause he's mumbling all the time. i'd hate to have his glowing comments misunderstood.

electric pumpkin carving knife huh? yeah, you better have some fucking good designs if you're going to pull that shit out. i carved two pumpkins last night. i carve quick and with purpose. it'd be tough to get that time cut in half. pictures will come later, when i get my camera, which i left upstairs. and when i get a solid draft of this cover letter done. here's a quote:

as a member of the board of directors of LWV, i am well practiced in appearing attentive while actually being asleep. i can work well in teams, even when the others (as they typically are) are totally unreasonable and just plain jerks. and mumble a lot.

yeah. valuable skills for any job, really.

i'm supposed to interview some kid from oregon about being on the team. i'm so past membership. what a hassle!

SNDK nearly doubled profit. google is way up. today is a good day to be a big fat retiree. ah yeah!

from big fat sprinter to big fat executive

2005-10-20T13:36:00.000-07:00

busy busy busy. i might not work 35 hrs a week like RC2000, but i'm a busy guy. i'm working hard on a cover letter for a job at bike works. executive director. fancy title. maybe its a long shot, but who knows. "bones" pyatt is only a president, so if i get this job i'll be higher ranked than him. "rollin' pyatt style".

cover letters are hard to write. every word has to count. get it down to one page but somehow impress them.

references. my old supervisor is being rather difficult. he's hell bent on research. i wasn't. so i can't get a super glowing reference. what can you do? maybe RC2000 will be a reference.

pumpkin carving tonight. ah yeah!

the market is killin' me.

payback

2005-10-19T08:51:00.000-07:00

applied for a job yesterday. through volt--a contract agency that works with MS a lot. i just looked on craigslist. one job needs somebody familiar with payback periods. hmm...like james brown? 'cause i can do payback.

made some biscotti yesterday. not so impressed. for one, i had to use whole wheat pastry flour. it's great for most applications (oatmeal cookies, pancakes, etc) but occaisionally it isn't quite right. i think it wasn't quite right for biscotti. i also don't know of my mixer is up to it. i need to learn more about that.

walked around greenlake too. then took the little doggies to the dog park. ah yeah, the dog park. smells like shit. but there are loooots of nice cute little doggies to play with.

tacos were on the menu for dinner at gwen's (the previous residence). ok, listen up you gringos. this is how you make meat for tacos: in the crock pot. put your meat in with onions and spices and slow cook it. it'll shred nicely afterward. for beef, mix in some chili powder. for chicken use adobo seasoning (which has plenty of salt). let it cook and then pull it out and shred it with a pair of forks. it'll kick the crap out of any ground beef in the pan with ortega taco seasoning. same can be done for pork, use cumin as the seasoning. carnitas. ah yeah! i love carnitas!

hot tip from pleasure tipper medina:

hammer trick.

good times in the dark continent

2005-10-18T16:00:00.000-07:00

chaos grows in darfur.

i have an idea. let's take as many able bodied men and women from africa as we can. that way, when the rest of the world's population explodes, theirs will stagnate. after that we can build colonies. we'll take everything of value while keeping all but a few of the local inhabitants poor. when we're done we can throw a bunch of countries together and wish them luck. then, when there's an epidemic of catastrophic proportions, lets ignore it until it is too far along and it will again claim an entired generation of able bodied men and women, stagnating population and economic growth for a second time. all the while, let's indescriminately pump millions of inexpensive guns, landmines, grenades and missiles into the continent so that anybody who wants an army or militia can have a well armed one. any aid to the country should come as economic aid that really benefits our own corporations and banks rather than building a sound middle class in that continent. oh yeah, and when a country in the south codifies a system of racial brutality and official racism, lets support them with even more guns and technology to support that system. hell, i'll bet IBM has a killer application that will be critical to that government's ability to track terrorists like nelson mandella. sounds like a killer experiemnt, huh?

its a crappy name, really

2005-10-18T08:43:00.000-07:00

calvino, over there at prolix is gettin' me in trouble with all this sweet talk about his girlfriend. damn you, calvin.

and then tombomb beat me to a rant about how the seahawks appear to be rolling, but really they will continue to suck. there's always that one game that sends them spiralling out of control into ignobility. no, they aren't "going to be good this year". they suck. seattle sports.

so, what is up with the names of sports teams. tennessee titans? houston texans. god that's a bad name. i liked the tradition of naming the team for something in the area. especially the industries. seemed like a nod to the working stiffs who make the true fan base of a team. packers. oilers. steelers. those are some names. colts? yeah, really fucking scary. mariners is cutting it close. dodgers, bulls, bears? clever. texans? fuck those guys. what exactly is a seahawk anyway?

i'm feeling irie! are you?

went for a longish ride yesterday. three hours. that's long, these days. just about killed me too. rode south over i-90 and into bellevue with RC2000. wandered around bridal trails and then back on the bgt. it was a windy day. god i hate rolling in on the burke with a head wind. it was hot too. i was over dressed. of course!

haven't heard from medina in a while. guess he's backing down from the dueling hammers challenge.

learn from the mistakes of vietnam. written by nixon's defense secretary. the irony is that both wars are essentially hold overs from world war two and the (supposed) end of colonialism. in fact, the vast majority of civil wars in the world can be traced to the legacy of colonialism. colonial powers, on their way out, drew lines where no logical borders existed and cobbled countries together. ethnic, tribal and religious groups who had no history of social, economic and political cooperation were suddenly thrust together and told to share and play nice. yeah, that worked out really fucking well, didn't it. iraq is no exception. fucking mess. and of course, you keep nasty allies, you end up with nasty problems. saddam hussein and ossama bin laden illustrate that point nicely, eh? for defense contractors, its a brilliant strategy. they get the business when hussein uses the aid money to buy their weapons. and then they get the business when hussein is toppled. chickenhawks gettin' rich. there was a time when war profiteering was illegal. immoral. that time is gone.

big men chasing a pointy ball

2005-10-17T11:00:00.000-07:00

big weekend.

missed the team ride on saturday. it looked like it was going to rain, so i bailed. made a nice breakfast and went out shopping and what not. we had company coming for dinner. still haven't put the apartment together. we started putting up decorations and what not. bought a tv too. costco. good stuff.

went to the seahawks game last night. never been to a pro football game before. pretty awesome. we were about 18 rows up, at the 35 yard line. ah yeah. brother andre hooked me up with the tickets. right on andre. went with cousin will. right on will.

i think my favorite part was when the houston kicker had the chance to be the hero. see, the kicker, he isn't a football player. he just happens to be good at something the rest of those guys aren't good at. so they kick and hope to all hell that the returning guy doen't make it through all the rest of the big guys. cause if he does, then the kicker has to be a football player. and when you're there to kick, that really sucks. so anyway, the kicker kicks and the whole bunch of guys charges down field at all the big guys from the other team who are charging at them. the kicker kinda half ass jogs down the field dancing from side to side according to where the returning dude is headed. all the while, you know he's just hoping that one of his big dudes takes him out. but this seahawks returner guy is stuborn and keeps coming at him. yeah, well the returning guy fumbled and that goofy pointy ball starts bouncing right to the kicker. i've been watching him this whole time, so i see what's going to happen and i start yelling "go kicker guy, go kicker guy" (people look at me funny). well, he runs up to pick it up but he blows it and it bounces off him goes bouncing all funny like footballs do toward some other hapless guy. i love watching those guys try to pin down a football. who knows where it's going to go. ha ha! terry buchanan played football. it was a football injury that brought him to cycling.

pro sports kinda bother me. market forces gone so wrong. athletes, stadiums, networks. so much money going into the sport while teachers and schools go without. homeless folks sleeping in parks. to think of it in marxist terms, what professional athletes produce cannot possibly be on par with that of teachers, homemakers, scientists, etc. but who's gonna pay to watch them do that? the money we spend on entertaining ourselves is phenomenal. so, sports sell. the consumer is willing to spend money and time to watch professional athletic events, so the sponsors spend the money. it all spirals out of control and we have the current situation. it seems so wrong, but what are you going to do about? everytime you buy a coke, pepsi or nike product, you are supporting the system. is it even possible to opt out? not really. in a lot of ways, it really comes down to greed. as a civil society, we count on the haves to kick a little something down to the have nots. its only moral, right? some folks don't think so. what's theirs is theirs. they're happy to be interconnected when it serves them. did they go to public schools? who paid for those stadiums? do they drive the roads that we all pay for? the police? so many (way out there) conservatives want to return everything to the markets. security, roads, utilities. there are places like that. its called the third world. don't work too well, really. the rich have private security and the poor are fucked. how's the middle class gonna build up if there isn't proper security and all that? hell, india had a public power company that enron and mr clinton shut down in favor of the promise of more efficient private providers. yeah, well prices went up many hundreds of percent and the people had no control. how well does that work for development? not so well. so anyway, pro sports bug me.

still reading? you must not have anything to do. two cups of coffee down. one to go. and then i'll make breakfast.

michelle and i are planning a nice weekend away. port townsend, i think. we need a quality bed and breakfast.

more research on the affects of video games on folks. the whole thing is annoying. i like some of the comments. for example, that is a very poorly controlled study. to properly control that study, you need a group that watches tv, a group that doesn't do anything, a group that plays a violent game and then a group that plays a presumed nonviolent game. now compare those folks long term as well as short term. the long term study is a difficult one to do. but without those controls, we don't really know what we're looking at. the issue is pretty overblown anyway. for one thing, TV remains the prefered opiate. but more important than that: there's nothing in those games that we don't accept in movies. stores are happy to sell violent movies. video games? oh, well that's a different story. part of the problem is that there's a perception that video games are for kids. the reality is that (1) kids under 18 aren't allowed to buy the violent games, (2) the majority of gamers are between ages 25 and 35 (3) old folks are always scared of something. remember what they said about rock and roll? yeah, that didn't really pan out so much, did it? and i'm sure that my generation (although i will remain a voice of reason in all issues) will freak out about something. yeah, kids do play the games at their friends houses or have friends older brothers buy them. but wait, doesn't the same thing happen with movies? oh right, but this is different. of course. shrill hyperbole is what it all is. throw some aimless democrats looking for voters from the right and you have a lot of bullshit being thrown around.

there must be order

2005-10-14T15:52:00.000-07:00

got to ride the burke gilman trail today. god i love that thing. especially all the bumps and what not. i had some guy who aparently didn't understand the social order of cycling. he tried to grab my wheel. i slowly picked up the pace to a nice 21mph and then drilling him over the bumps at mathews beach. he couldn't hang over the bumps. they're pretty harsh. probably lost my draft and gave up. bugger.

now i'm sitting around doing jack shit. maybe i should read something rather than fiddling on my computer. maybe. i could read about how to bullshit in marketing. yeah.

hindu squats. i call them pleasure squats. they work. maybe jim can save some money on a squat bench and just do these.

RC2000 claims to be busy. sounds like a sham to me. he doesn't work.

blah blah blah.

dueling hammers!

2005-10-14T10:43:00.000-07:00

a comment from our dear friend, medina:

Dude, I can't read your blog anymore...that damn picture of you is freaking me out.

- Medina

p.s. here's a free lesson: http://www.diydata.com/tool/hammer/hammers.htm

learn it, live it, there will be a test...

sounds like a challenge. medina thinks he can take my 24oz vaughan. good luck. bring it on, medina.

but his mom still reads.

mistress brown, your son is dead

2005-10-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

how incompetent can the military be? it defies all expectations.

i have a dog sleeping with its head on my right arm. it makes typing a bit difficult. sorry doggy, you might have to move. nothing gets between me and my blog! just ask michelle...now he's snoring. and he farts too. its bad.

so, i pulled out all my decorations yesterday. looks like michelle and i will be doing some compromising. she can have her crusifixes and marys if i can have my buddhas and shivas. sounds reasonable, huh? incense too. i have a lot of decorations. the artwork alone is astounding. lots of crazy posters from the 60's and 70's. good stuff. i'll post some pictures sometime. they're difficult to transport too. the glass breaks easily. they aren't framed--just clips and glass.

aparently today is friday. i got confused yesterday. i thought it was wednesday. what's a guy to do?

career change coming my way. see, i worked two years in a lab at the UW, using my zoology degree. well, research isn't for me. i love science. i like talking about it. i like the future of science. but i don't want to do the bench work. different animals entirely. so what is next? well, i think i'll become a capitalist pig and go to business school. but first, i should get a job. i've looked into jobs at pharma or biotech. technology also interests me. so i'm looking into marketing at companies like adobe and MS. got some books to read. the first is "bluff your way in marketing." sweet. no experience necessary! i don't want to sell anything. i want to manage products. exciting products.

fighting the good fight, one bean at a time. donate your bike for the oppressed. things are rough in the chiapas. the government cares little for the people as they are heavily native (take the US attitudes from 150 years ago, that's modern mexico). the land is rich with natural resources, which are exploited freely, but little is done to give them even electicity and safe water to drink. schools? forget it.

i'd love it if my obituary ended with this line: "please send acerbic letters to Republicans". anti-war obits.

kill your tv

2005-10-13T09:44:00.000-07:00

got up and made michelle breakfast and washed dishes from last night's steak and arugula salad. now i'm tired. must rest.

breakfast was rewarmed left over polenta with two fried eggs and marinara. it's a tasty breakfast. unless the "marinara" is ragu that you happen to have. goddamn, that shit tastes like ketchup. ugh.

age of the internet giants. i think that we'll be seeing a lot of consolidation of internet companies soon. microsoft recently reorganized to become more of an internet company. with google moving so far beyond its searching service, i think the threat of hosted software is finally being realized at microsoft. already, i'm using hosted software for this blog. blogger (a google acquisition) provides all the computing, i just provide the input. could all applications be served this way? the end of the home PC? i sure hope so. its a better value, really. no need to invest in hardware at home. all of your data (pictures, movies, emails, documents, etc) are stored remotely. this means that they are backed up with no effort on the consumer's side. (if your hard drive failed, how much would you lose?) there would be real competition between providers. travel the country and access your documents easily. no need to invest in software titles that need to be upgraded. simply subscribe. if office currently costs a couple hundred dollars, would you pay $10 a month to use the suite? all those patches and updates can happen once on the server side rather than getting every consumer to adopt. that's good news for software companies. computers would essentially become consoles. purely a way to access the internet. your A/V set up? stream music and video from your storage or online providers. the hardware is totally integrated with the TV and stereo. forget CD's. who needs 'em? not me. the best? control music from anywhere in the house over the network. but you know what all this means? windows is irrelevant. any high school student could write the code for an OS that ran on linux because the OS wouldn't need to be nearly as capable or complex. its a brave new world.

TV programming is evil. is it still evil on an ipod?

went TV shopping last night. jesus, they're expensive. and big. but not in the direction i'm interested. they're about as deep as they are wide. so big and clunky. but i (michelle) aint payin' $500 for a flat 24" screen. guess i'll just buy on craigslist.

the blues are rockin' me this mornin'. elmore james. i know i'm shaking my moneymaker. are you? mississippi fred mcdowell. "you want to rock fred, you set me down in a rockin' chair". hearin' mcdowell talk on those tracks is awesome. a bit tough to understand at points. when i want to get some real good blues, i got to fat possum (not tom crawford, but a record label). RL Burnside. Robert Belfour. Junior Kimbrough. this aint no bb king "i got diabetes and sing for burger king" bullshit blues with huge horn sections and a gazillion producers. these are guys with a guitar and the blues. and probably a bottle or two of bourbon. here's a bit from junior kimbrough's bio:

If Junior's sister had been any kind of baby-sitter he might not have picked up the guitar. When Junior was too small to help his father work the fields his eldest sister stayed home with him. She was supposedly watching him the day he took his father's guitar "off the high shelf," where his father kept everything he didn't want his children fooling with. It became routine: when his father left for the fields, Junior carefully took down the guitar. He learned fast andwell, well enough to teach a local white boy, Charlie Feathers, how to play.

yeah, that guy knows the blues. you think he grew up with some shit? only one of his family to work off the farm? black kid in the deep south in the 50's and 60's? yeah, that's tough.

michelle got an email from a college recruit that addressed her as Mrs.. she's feeling kinda funny about it.

another reason to get firefox: the search bar. integrated google search bar (like the one that you can download for IE. except this one can be configured to include any number of other search engines as well as amazon.com, wikipedia, dictionary.com, ebay, google desktop, its good stuff. check it out.

technical difficulties resolved

2005-10-12T16:38:00.000-07:00

crash course in css and i got things sorted out for you IE folks, which is the bulk of you. saw an article about firefox and it's marketshare. seems that they hit the wall. the "anything but microsoft" crowd was tapped out somewhere below 20%. so 80% either like MS or don't care. going back to IE to test the site was a little rough for me. after using firefox for so long, IE seems pretty clumsy and cumbersome. the tabbed browsing thing is key. safari has tabs too, but you have to activate it in the preferences.

technical difficulties

2005-10-12T11:21:00.000-07:00

it appears that there's a problem with the template. all stuff that should be on the right side is waaaay down below. for all you explorer users, you're screwed. it works fine in firefox and safari.

what about bob?

2005-10-12T08:53:00.000-07:00

woke up to my portfolio in free fall. SNDK. i'd expected that as the holder of the patent in flash and a maker of flash memory, SNDK would be bolstered by the strong iPOD sales. not so. although apple's news was 75% good, the market is beating them down. probably the couple of tech stocks that have seriously rallied are a bit over extended anyway. i was just thinking yesterday that it might be about time to sell. i had the good look of watching the real time chart on SNDK drop straight down one and a half points in about 15 seconds. good god.

went to see bob mould last night. old time rocker. been rockin' longer than i've been breathing. there was a band before them, shiny toy guns (from la they kept assuring the crowd), that wasn't so hot. they had a rad key boardist though. pink hair that fell into his face. he was rockin' out. the drummer was cool too. he drummed as i imagine a gorilla would, flailing about (and had the hair to match). they had a cool style going on, they just didn't have much good music.

bob mould (on the right) looks like jeff pyatt

bob has a blog too. rock and roll life style sounds tough. i like his template. gotta learn more html/css

didn't bring my cellphone last night. kinda wishing i did so that i could get a picture of bob. god, now i'm THAT guy. i HATE that guy.

michelle and i realized that we are aging. we didn't want to stand up for the show and it was far too loud. and we were ready to go home at 1130 even though bob mould had only been on for twenty or thirty minutes.

anybody see the "date sexy mexican singles" ad? oh god, i want to get that one back. it should be a permanent fixture on my blog. maybe having the keywords mexican and singles will help with that.

let me learn it from my guru

2005-10-11T10:15:00.000-07:00

went sailing out at the duck dodge. buncha goofy sailing types gettin' drunk and playing chicken. good stuff. they all tie up afterward and have a big party. good times! see some pictures.

for years people have been asking me "anton, how do i make a killer margarita". i invariably responded "let me learn it from my guru and then i will teach you." well, that guru turned out to be esteban, michelle's uncle in New Mexico. you can buy mixes, but as it turns out, the ingredients for a standard margarita are so simple, there's no reason. besides, they taste like crap. and they're more expensive. here it is. first off, get some good tequila. a good margarita needs good tequila. the flavor of the tequila should be on display, not the lime juice. you'll also need triple sec, or cointreau. cointreau is better. so, in a shaker, put 1/4 cup water, 1 shot tequila and 1/2 shot cointreau or triple sec. add 1 tablespoon of limeade concentrate. shake. pour into glass with ice. if you want to put salt on your glass, rub the rim with a lime and then roll it in course salt. mmmm....salt. for a frozen margarita, replace 1/4 cup water with 4 ice cubes (typically about 1/4 cup in volume) and blend. this makes a pretty strong margarita, so watch out.

want some fajitas to go with that? well, i have a good recipe. got it from the metropolitan market. marinade: 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup lime juice, 1/2 cup chopped cilantro, 1 tablespoon cumin, minced garlic. mix all this and add 1 pound chicken breast, cut into thin strips. marinate for at least 15 minutes. stir fry (on med-high heat to drive off the liquid). add 1 cup sliced onion and 2 cups sliced sweet peppers after chicken is partly done. cook until peppers are soft and sweet but not limp and soggy. salt to taste. eat, drink and be merry.

actually, nobody has ever asked me how to make a margarita.

news and commentary

2005-10-11T08:40:00.000-07:00

really, i accomplished very little yesterday. i drank a couple pots of coffee and then topped off with wine. slept well enough. looks to be a bright and sunshiny day. maybe i'll go outside.

it wouldn't be nearly as funny if it weren't true. cronyjobs.com i heard about the site at a skull and bones circle jerk.

freefall george.

officious white house gift shop.

indiana isn't the place for (premarital) pleasure.

more on cronyism.

"This choice is exactly what it appears to be -- it's the ultimate vote of confidence by the president in a lawyer who has served as his lawyer in one capacity or another for a very long time," said Bradford A. Berenson, an associate White House counsel in Bush's first term. "The president is very, very confident in his judgments about people, and he likes to reward loyalty."

the strategy of nominating roberts was obvious and shrewed. this nomination? i have no idea. but fanatic dobson does.

everybody is weighing in on ms meier's letters to mr bush. comical. one blog likened it to "the ugly girl fawning over the popular highschool quarterback." ouch.

supply-side economics. i'm no economist, but the whole supply-side thing kinda bugs. "a poor man never hired me". true. but is it only the wealthy who own companies? is the only economic development we want one of the wealthy supplying jobs? what of middle class entrepaneurship? what of the spending power of the middle class? cut taxes on the poor and middle class and watch them spend spend spend! the storm unmasked poverty, so let's cut social programs. the conservatives contend that those programs weren't working. but then to not even pay prevailing wage on the reconstruction? while awarding no bid contracts? it's absurd! the attitude is that the poor will do nothing to stimulate the economy (never mind that they ARE the economy) so don't bother giving them a wage. just use them to rebuild the infastructure. economics is complicated; but you wouldn't know it from the republicans. just cut taxes. on the rich. only tax cuts for the rich will do the job. never mind the poor.

its a long one

2005-10-11T08:10:00.000-07:00

this is why we spend millions of dollars on basic research. research that has no apparent value aside from being cool. cause some day, it pays off. seriously.

science is cool stuff. i wish the general public had a stronger understanding of it.

evolution in action. have you evolved?

i wanted to write a thing on evolution and intelligent design, but i found something better about evolution. check it out at newscientist.com. that basically sums up the theories of evolution about as well as i can. it's really an amazing theory. it explains so much. ecology. disease. cancer. so much. yes, it is a "theory". but a theory isn't just some hairbrained idea. it's the basis of all science. all of science is theoretical. because the scientific method cannot "prove" anything, it can only falsify. that link is a rather long wikipedia article. let me explain. no, that is too long, let me sum up. the scientific method is a process of finding things out utilizing evidence or observation. first, a hypothesis is made. a proper hypothesis has consequences or predictions. observations of those consequences or predictions are made. those observations either support or falsify that hypothesis. many difficult to test hypothesis have been put forth, such as einstein's theory of relativity. it took a number of years for scientists to devise an experiment that could observe the consequences of the hypothesis. after much testing, it became a theory. an example of making and testing a hypothesis is the blackness of crows, how do you prove the hypothesis that "all crows are black". well, a scientist looks at a large number of crows. they're all black. his hypothesis is supported. is it proved? no, because he hasn't seen all crows and is therefore, still falsifiable. now, is it safe to consider this theory so sound that it could be regarded as fact? probably. (incidentally, i've seen crows in tanzania that were partially white).

should creation be taught in science class? typically, it is argued that creation isn't science and therefore shouldn't be taught in school. i (and many experts) take another tack. creation can be tested scientifically and therefore could be considered science. it doesn't hold up. take this creation science hypothesis: all life was created at one time. on prediction that this hypothesis makes is that fossils of complex life forms will be equally distributed among the sedimentary layers." what is our observation, to suport or discredity this hypothesis. well, life forms are distributed as fossils through the sedimentary layers from simple to complex, with complex life forms only appearing much later. incidentally, this employs an "auxillary hypothesis" that sedimentary layers reflect the passage of time with older layers below younger layers and things found in those layers existed at those different time points." scientific theories are complex and interdependent. it would be impossible to simply throw out the theory of evolution and pop in the theory of creation. so many other theories would have to be modified and discarded. a theory that fits existing theories is a stronger theory. theories of creation just don't do that. the portions of life that evolution does not explain that creation would explain (if any) are far less than those that evolution explains than creation does. so, on the whole, we accept evolutionary theory and reject creation science.

so, creation is bad science. do you teach bad english, history or math in schools? no. why teach bad science? seen this way, the issue is fairly clear. or so it would seem.

but then a new challenger came: iintelligent design. little changed from straight up creation, intelligent design attempts to appear as a scientific theory. and of course, politicians are calling for a compromise, "teach the controversy". what controversy? there is no controversy. evolution is not remotely controversial among scientific thinkers. ID is a crafty opponent because it poses as science. it is not truly science, however, as it is untestable. it cannot be falsified, which is the key to the scientific method. read the wi

i am not amused

2005-10-10T15:00:00.000-07:00

rainy day. isn't really raining all that hard. it was a nice weekend. team ride on saturday morning. i went out thinking it would be cold (it looked cold). i took off my jacket and hat before i even got to zoka's! damn. so its that time of year. time to bring five pounds of extra clothing on every ride. it could rain. who knows. time for fenders too. i'm getting everything together for my rain bike. should have it together this week. gotta shark a few parts from my tt bike...

went to michelle's parents' on saturday. one of her aunts was in town so most of the local family was there. three nephews aged 1 yr, 6 yrs and 12 yrs. always an adventure to hang out with kids of that age. things laying about like fake dog shit. good times. played touch football--barefoot in the wet grass. i was lacking in traction. two days later, i'm quite sore.

dinner was awesome. sopapillas. posole. enchiladas. and green chiles to top it off. RC2000 and ricky ricardo ought to appreciate that line up. especially when it's prepared by some native nuevo mexicaneras.

on our way back from michelle's parents' house, we stopped at ikea real quick like. yeah, real quick like at ikea, i hear you say. well, i was ducking. i was dodging. i was taking the short cuts. michelle wasn't quite as focused. nearly lost her once. it was touch and go for a bit.

turns out ikea is a tourist activity. yeah, on HWY 169 there's a sign for "tourist activities" and it lists the "IKEA shopping district" as one. weird. need to get a shot of that!

here's a shot from NYC. i think pinche tomas will appreciate it.

anybody out there with html experience want to tell me what "span" and "div" mean?

haven't figured out what exactly to do about pictures. put a bunch up on snapfish.

i need some commentary. i somehow ended up watching the local news the other night. good god. so worthless. they had a bit where a firefighter from seattle won the national firefighters chilli contest. but all they had was a clip from the today show where they happened to talk to him in the crowd outside the studio. so worthless. maybe my definition is a little restrictive, but news should be information that informs me in such a way that i am able to participate in society and government. world news counts. firefighter's cookoff? not really. murders? barely. i'd say that 90% of what is shown on local news wouldn't count. there's a great book on the subject: amusing ourselves to death. the general thesis is that TV news has come to be more entertainment than informing. print media, by nature is rational. it relies on intellect. the consumer to can go back to previous sections, reread and procede at their own pace. essentially, the reader analyzes the content much more. the typical print article might take several minutes to consume. the content includes pictures, occaisionally, which can be viewed and analyzed at the reader's pace. TV by contrast, its primarily irrantional. sounds and images play to an emotional side without adding any content. take the intro to newscasts. the music. it makes you feel a certain way, doesn't it? and the images. what do they mean? zooming, panning, turning, flashing. why? reporters often talk in a certain way. why? what does this really contribute? the exagerated styles on the daily show wouldn't be so funny if they weren't so accurate. the average bit of news gets lets than a minute of attention. its TV, so we're accustomed to it. but step back and notice how little time is actually spent on a story. notice the quick cuts and quick edits. fascinating. news as a market product. they show what the people want. the people want entertainment. does it sound familiar? rather like brave new world. i need to read both those books again.

los lobos. not just another band from east l.a. saw la bamba the other night. los lobos has a cameo. the singer also sang the song for the actor to lip sync. they go pretty easily from anglo rock to latin. amazing, really. good music too.

there are only two kinds of music...

2005-10-07T10:59:00.000-07:00

...good and bad.

it rained yesterday. i kinda wanted to ride, but not in the rain. looked cold too.

made some pumkin bread. it wasn't that great. i'll try again, but with some buttermilk. yum.

anybody check out "get your war on"? funny stuff.

doing business in Iraq FAQ's. funny. sad. necessary, in a sense. my favorite is "who are the governing authorities in Iraq?" excellent question, really. does anybody know? perhaps rumsfeld and crew need to consult this manual. i'll forward it to them.

flunk. good music from iceland.

so two network companies are having a spat and so huge swaths of the internet are unavailable to folks on those networks. when market forces fail, they fail spectacularly. of course, market forces will push them to an agreement. if i were a big customer i'd be putting some heavy pressure. i also can't tell if the issues are my flakey internet connection. when i restart my computer, i can get to the sites. hmm...

racing robots. i like the pictures where they drive into walls. oops!

i'm going to go ride now. maybe i'll put up some pictures later.

get your war on

2005-10-06T14:05:00.000-07:00

it's a link. click it.

don't put your cap where you can't reach it

2005-10-06T09:42:00.000-07:00

junior murvin has some good advice for you all. these reggae fellows have some good ones. desmond decker is in the house now. i'm linking amazon, but cellophane square carries a decent reggae selection. there's a shop on capitol hill, on pike or pine, that is all reggae. don't be no square.

speaking of squares, i rode with RC2000 yesterday. among other things, we discussed the future of humanity and our impending doom. how to use a french press.

continued. get a good grinder. seriously. "dust and boulders" won't cut it. getting it ground works, but then you lose the freshness. just buck up. are you serious about coffee or not? i wouldn't worry too much about the bloom. i just scoop it off. i also stir more. i dunno. i steep from 3:30 to 4:30. more stirring, less steeping. plunge slow. and now, the key point: let the coffee rest. seriously. it's been working hard. give it a little break. a minute or so. pour slowly. drink often.

i stopped in at RC2000's den of cohabitation. nice place. stayed long enough to get a ride home with michelle. that's fall riding for 'ya! but before getting that ride home, i stopped in at la taqueria guadelajara. $3.25 for a decent burrito al pastor (pork). lots of espanol being spoken by the patrons. it couldn't be sooo bad. i think my favorite part is that the cheese isn't standard, it's extra. that's how mexican should be. it's a taco truck at NE 24th and 148th NE in bellevue, in the parking lot of the 76 station on the northwest corner. worth the ride. my other favorite part was the red sauce. it had a real chilli flavor to it. that's good stuff.

i rode my bike while michelle ran. yeah, i rode next to her. it's funny.

dinner was at a mexican place in ballard, la carta de oaxaca. good food. tapas style. the chips are fresh. i mean, the lady behind the counter makes the tortillas, fries them and serves them. where you gonna get chips that fresh? there's a difference, gringo. the salsas are great too. kick the shit out of agua verde. i get the black mole with pork. so rich and so black. i make a good mole. i wasn't to impressed by the empanadas. the lamb was good. almost cold when we got to it. three dishes with chips and guacamole were sufficient. i recommend getting the flan. flan is good. the posole got good marks too.

i'm a soul rebel.

The last mosquito that bit me...

2005-10-04T10:51:00.000-07:00

...had to book into the Betty Ford clinic. well, not quite. but last night marked the fifth night in a row that i've had too much to drink. sunday was a birthday celebration for our landlord/upstairs neighbor. pizza, cake, champagne and wine. ah yeah! last night was HALO2 night. antizee conquered all challengers. and drank lots of beer.

had cake for breakfast yesterday. it was good. today i'm going to try and rustle up some of the left over waffles from the weekend. more sushi for lunch yesterday. musashi's of course. tuna, salmon, albacore and mackerel. they also have a good veggie roll. for good tea, check out the selection at ten ren. they have a location in the international district. they're happy to let you tast lots of teas too. zoka's has tea too. i'm sure it's quite good. i'll try it next.

alan schmitz is now known as "medina". try it. he responds. incidentally, per his own insistence, he's can handle a hammer quite well. he "hammers stuff all the time." all the time.

tombomb got a good post up today. finally something beyond the dribble that is his daily existence. very good.

RC2000 tells me that he's up at zoka's and i should come up there. looks cold out there and i don't have the car. plus i can't lock my bike up. that clinches it. i'm staying home and drinking my own coffee. broke my french press last week. damn. damn damn damn. i got a replacement glass. but then i promptly broke that one. just the lip though, so it's ok. it'll work. which is good.

ravi shankar is back in the hood. ragas and talas. norah jones is his daugher! ok, so i already knew that. i'll have to check out some of those other artists. got some new bob dylan. cousin will brought it over. he says the martin scorcese documentary is quite good. he'd know.

peter jackson directing a HALO movie? oh god, the gamer/geek crowd is going to freak!

later today i shall ruminate on evolution, science and religion. in the meantime, study up at www.venganza.org

anthony dickson is the great white salami

2005-10-03T08:41:00.000-07:00

eating a doughnut for breakfast. and some smacking coffee. damn, that's good coffee. colonel fitztroy's blend. you can buy direct from zoka's.....but don't! buying from me is almost a 10% savings! can't put an email up on this cause then it'll get spammed with all sorts of crap. not like at my old blog where it wasn't indexed by google and was essentially by invite only.

big weekend. star crossed was saturday night. but first, i went to the doctor. i had a gigantic blister growing over some old (about a month) road rash that had some folks worried. i called the consulting nurse on friday and she said that i should get into urgent care cause it could be inftected. it wasn't. in fact, it obviously wasn't. no redness around the blister. (i had no idea how to tell). so, essentially, the consulting nurse didn't ask a critical question and i wasted three hours and a lot of money (i have only catastrophic insurance). damn. breakfast was at the costal kitchen. i like the hazelnut pancakes.

star crossed. we didn't arrive until 615 or so. in time to see part of the masters a race. before the pro race. we didn't venture much past the beer garden. next year i'll do some watching from up on the top of the burm. you can see most of the race from there. the view in the beer garden is good, but there's a lot that happens in the rest of the course. the deckerator won. again. he didn't start in the front group. but he rode across a smart gap to get there. and then pulled back barry wicks (see his race face bio)who looked to be riding away from the rest. and then he smacked wicks down who barely edged out a charging kabush. that was an awesome shoulder to shoulder sprint. ah yeah! get terry's write up and a picture of carl's big check here.

to bring ourselves down, we drank ravenswood zinfandel and watched absolutely fabulous. i went to bed drunk.

sunday was shopping for the apartment day. went to target. yuk.

meeting last night to decide on the team for next year. the few, the proud, the guys with no life outside of racing.

rant rant rant

2005-10-02T22:29:00.000-07:00

gotta love the media. first they reported on rumors. now they report that the rumors were false. of course, the mayor of nahlans and the police superintendent were perpetrating the rumors. but still, you think the media might take some responsibility? nope. check it at nytimes.com. there are some real gems in there.

"Not one piece of educational material was taken - the best-selling books are all sitting right where they were left," Captain Canatella said. "But every $9 watch in the store is gone."

Faced with reports that 400 to 500 armed looters were advancing on the town of Westwego, two police officers quit on the spot. The looters never appeared, said the Westwego police chief, Dwayne Munch.

In an interview last week with The New York Times, Superintendent Compass said that some of his most shocking statements turned out to be untrue. Asked about reports of rapes and murders, he said: 'We have no official reports to document any murder. Not one official report of rape or sexual assault.'

400-500 armed looters? are you kidding me? let's see if we could even imagine 50 folks with guns getting together to cooperate and loot an entire town. 400? so obviously untrue. i can just see those two cops trying to get their jobs back.

here's a good one. michael crichton as an expert witness at a senate hearing. wtf? who really cares what his opinion on global warming is? what credentials does he have? what credibility?

Still, he retains enough of his scientific background to thrust himself into the debate, insisting that the environmental movement "did a fabulous job in the first 10 years, a pretty good job in the second 10 years and a lousy job in the last 10 years."

As a result, he said, its influence on policy needs to be reined in, at least until alternative views are given equal airing and fair consideration by independent reviewers. Only then, he said, can policy makers make informed decisions.

i gotta say that i think that the "alternative views" to environmentalism have gotten plenty of airing. i mean, oil, mining and timber companies are not lacking in access to the government, especially this administration. and lets not confuse the scientists doing the research and the folks taking the conclusions of that research and asking it to be used to direct policy. entirely different animals. independent reviewers? isn't that what the scientific community and journals are? the public confusion about science baffles me. tomorrow, evolution. kansas is getting on my nerves.

working isn't soooo bad.

2005-10-01T09:34:00.000-07:00

worked friday out at marymoor to set up starcrossed. ah yeah! its gonna be a good race. i'm rooting and looting for dan neyens and rich mcclung. i worked for about 5 hours. it wasn't so bad. oh man, that race is going to be cool. so cool. there'a ride over bridge that the peds walk under. beer garden. good times.

after helping to put the course together i jetted out to seattle to pick up the deckerator for a photoshoot with him and zoka's barista, phuong tran. that was a lot of fun. and then she made us lattes. jesus. that's a latte. she owns a shop, lava java, in ridgefield, wa.

after dropping the deckerator off, i ran back home and off to ikea. good times at ikea. we had dinner there. not so great. sweedish meatballs. i had to try it.

google isn't so smart

2005-09-28T19:06:00.000-07:00

these google guys have some algorithm to figure out what kinds of adds to put on. so wrong. when i last checked it was lake sammamish real estate and some christ mosaic church. could they be more wrong? as one person (me) put it: "i cannot be deciphered by any mortal algorithm."

what's up with blog spam? or spam in general. spam existed long before the internet. telemarketers? spam. direct mailings? spam. and so now they spam my blog. frank wrote me a nice comment about working from home. who do they think they're kidding? obviously SOME people must click their links and buy their shit 'cause otherwise they'd give up. right? i mean, it's an obvious market/evolution thing. but maybe the barrier to entry is so low that they can afford to fail 99% of the time. i want that kind of job. i can fail 99% of the time and still make money. then, all i'd have to do is figure out the key to that 1% success and i'd have it. work smarter, not harder. here's a guy who's working smarter (well at least not too hard).

so, what are my plans for today? well,i should unpack more. after dropping michelle at the bus stop, i brought more stuff back. so i'll go through all that. almost done moving my stuff in. that's the easy part, really. the a/c adapter for my computer should arrive today. yeah, dell. i ordered a new battery and a/c adapter but instead of an adapter, they sent me a mouse. right on. when i ordered a computer for my brother, they sent the computer to some guy in las vegas. no idea how that happened. in fact, every order i've made from dell has been screwed up in some way.

what's a guy to listen to when it is cloudy, windy and rainy? thelonious monk. better git it in your soul. actually, that's charles mingus.

got a recipe for you folks. this is a little ditty i made up after perusing a few at www.epicurious.com. steak salad with scallions. get a steak, i don't know what kind (i don't know anything about steak). salt and pepper the steak and cook it in a pan with some oil. take the steak out and make a tent over it with foil. reduce the heat on the pan and add lots of finely sliced (not diced) scallions. caramelize those babys. when they're good and sweet, add about a quarter to a half cup of wine (i used merlot, it seems to be the choice, but any dry red wine ought to work). simmer that until is is reduced by half. add 3/4 cup beef stock and reduce that by half. while all that is going on, slice your steak and arrange it over a generous bed of arugula or other green. when sauce is done, pour over your salad. drink what is left of your wine. i'm a cat3 cook. if you want recipes from a cat1 cook, check out phatduck.blogspot.com. her blog is really a lot more interesting than mine. huh.

sold out

2005-09-28T19:03:00.000-07:00

nun a yous guys is payin' me, so i decided to try the ad thing. i'll probably make like $.05. i sold out, i guess. i think i get paid for clicks. i don't know. really, i don't know anything about it. they won't even tell me how much i get paid for clicks. they say "wait and see". aight.

shut up, it IS hard work

2005-09-28T12:24:00.000-07:00

busy busy busy.

michelle drove to work today, so i tagged along and rode home. from MS took west lake sammamish to may valley and came back across MI. nice three or so hour ride. damn cold to start.

went and picked up our new couch. ah yeah, buying furniture together.

carl decker is coming to town. from vegas. will he win star crossed again? or maybe a new dark horse? dan neyens?

had sushi for lunch with cousin will. cousin will and i are a few months apart age wise. lived next door for the first two years of college. tight. close. i'll dig up a pic when my computer comes back online (more about that later). musashi's is the prefered sushi joint. good and generous portions. michelle and i have gotten out of there satiated on $20. we didn't quite make that today. but i also could have gone for about half the sushi that i got. after sushi we played frisbee. and now i'm tired. i want to take a nap, but i should probably start making dinner. i have some black tea going. no sugar though. i can't find it. it's packed away! half my stuff is still at the storage unit. that's rough.

seems to be some confusion about my new cell phone voicemail message. i specify that the caller should leave any information they consider pertinent. you see, i'm just not going to tell people what kind of a message to leave. some people like to specify that the caller should leave the time they called, full name, phone number, etc. typically, the phone tells me who's calling, their phone number and the time they called and what not, so it's irrelevant if the caller does that. i'll let the caller decide. it becomes a somewhat market driven thing. if they want a call back, then they'll leave the right sort of information. if they don't, they risk not getting a call back. evolution. market. it works. and then there's the difference between "pertinent information" and "good advice". my mom left me some good advice (dance naked and shake your butt). not really pertinent, per se, but excellent advice, really.

got a good desert recipe from pyatt. peach flambé. it has a lot of alcohol in it. figures.

apartment pictures:

damn, the photo hosting place really compressed them. damn. no more of that!

stealin' boxes

2005-09-26T07:29:00.000-07:00

moving weekend. god moving sucks. actually, moved out a month ago. but now i'm moving in. but i moved michelle as well. of course, as i mentioned, she wasn't packed a bit. worked out well though. pretty much everything is out of her place and in here, including all the big stuff. its all in disarray though. we lucked into a bunch of boxes. our new land lady had a bunch of boxes from her move. the person at the store didn't charge her properly and she got 30 boxes for $3 or something. is that stealing? are we now accomplices?

went on the team ride on saturday. haven't been on a team ride in a while. big group. even jeff pyatt showed up. pyatt and terry on the same ride? craaaazy! i was supposed to meet some of the guys who've applied to be on the team, but none of them talked to me. hmm....maybe i'm kinda scary. ha! the 30 or so of us rode by a woman and she yelled out "boy there are sure are a lot of you guys!" ha ha. you betcha lady. you betcha.

new place is in the joa. just off aurora. now i'm cool like seth. the woman who owns the place and lives upstairs has four cats and two dogs. two year old boxers. they're pretty funny. marley and georgie. i came home and they'd pushed the door open and were running around with my water bottles. the cats are all of one breed, burmese (i think). they all pretty much lay around with eachother all day and then get all crazy go nuts at night. they're adorable. i'm a cat and dog guy. shocking.

friday was on tv on friday night. classic. pure classic.

moving in is a big step. even bigger? sharing our change jars. yeah, unified change jar. can't get out of that one so easily!

life is too short to clean your own house. really? that's pretty out there. how much time does cleaning our house really take? i guess that depends on how anal you are. shit, if you have kids just make them do it! builds character, you know. i think that life is too short to work.

its a cruel cruel world

2005-09-23T15:55:00.000-07:00

feeling sick today. yeah, totally lame. actually, i've had some sinus thing for a good 6 sweeks. i've managed it so that it didn't totally lay me up on the east coast, but its been there, bugging me and affecting my energy for some time. anyway, today it was bad. might be getting better. i still can't breath properly. boo hoo.

anybody read about the exploding bus in texas? the worst part? "The oxygen canisters ignited causing multiple explosions and making it too hot to get anyone else off at that point," said Don Peritz, a spokesman for the sheriff. didn't see that one coming. anybody remember the exploding bus we saw on the way to nationals? maybe this is a common thing.

did some touch up painting on the new apartment. we're moving in tomorrow. or maybe sunday. borrowing a truck on sunday.

it's turning out to be a nice day. too bad i am inside. i should be looking for a job. damn. reality, huh? problem now is that i'm not training, so my day is wide open, but i don't have many unemployed friends. maybe i'll hand out with andy fischer a lot more.

when did they make firefox for OSX? actually, i guess its always been there as mozilla and firefox only came after as a windows thing.

tony says my blog is too wordy. i don't know about that. maybe he has a short attention span. he multiplied his running miles and added them to his riding miles and figured that he's ridded the same number of miles as me.

good music. a loungy redo of guns of brixton by the clash. haunting.

blogger is ok. i get to do more html myself, but i can't figure out the encoding on the template. i don't know where this pink theme came from. i tried customizing the colors but can't get it to work. hmm....

beer season is upon us

2005-09-23T08:30:00.000-07:00

left my ac adapter on the plane. and then the company declared bankruptcy. i'll bet they sold it. jerks. how can they be bankrupt? they got $500 out of us just to get our bikes and racks home. it was $200 on the way out. i think the woman and her manager had personal motivation to "charge us properly".

got a cell phone. first cell phone. isn't it great? nobody calls me on it.

so, i arrived home on monday. spent most of this week getting reaquainted with my lovely girlfriend (and roommate to be). that's nice. also been packing up her stuff. aparently dreaming of my return while i was gone took up more of her time and energy than expected and she didn't pack anything.

SNDK is trading on high volume today. hmmmm.......

this blogger thing isn't working too well on the mac that i'm using. it doesn't work in either safari or explorer. damn you, google. oh, drama!

went on two nice rides this week. its fall for sure. went out in a long sleeve jersey and a sock guy undershirt (we need broadmark versions of this next year) and i was still cold! even in the sun! did the nice bgt to marymoor to ms to kirkland loop. go to northend or southend as desired. lets see if i can put some pictures up here. hmm....where is my camera!

i'm having sausage and cereal for breakfast. some whole foods hippie cheerios somewhat akin to cardboard (which i prefer to normal cheerios) and isernios lean breakfast sausages. they're good and good for you!

grilled peaches rock. grilled peaches with whipped cream and caramel are to die for!

i don't know if i ever talked about the univest crit. well, it was annoying. there was this whole omnium competition for the weekend. but no money in it. for fun, i guess. a few teams went home rather than stick around for the crit. the crit was 50 miles. 55 laps on a longish course. it took about 1:45. it wasn't super fast, but fast enough. there were speed bumps too. not really harsh, but big enough to jolt me off my bike if i wasn't watching for them. the race went mostly through a nice old neighborhood with lots of folks throwing parties on their front lawn. after the race we were invited to one. the beer really sucked. nice folks though. anyway, the race wasn't too fast, but fast enough to be really annoying. i wasn't quite on the rivet, but i sure didn't think i could go a lot faster. in the last 10 laps the pace really heated up and i was on the rivet for sure. but then with two to go the pace slackened and i got near the front. going into the second to last corner i was able to get close, but we went into it some 6 abreast and the guys on the outside chopped us hard. i blasted past like 10 guys out of the final corner with some serious hyperdrive action, but that was good enough for 24th. i really should have used that hyper drive in the beginning to get better position. i spent a lot of time in the back. i was told that i was near solomon. that's rare! (no offense meant, solomon). if i'd just have better position in the first place i could sprint with the winners. instead i'm sprinting for 20th. tom finished 17th. my 24th is suspicious as i'm certain that i was only a few places from tom. oh well.

put it into hyperdrive

2005-09-17T09:39:00.000-07:00

earlier this summer, on the bgt i heard a guy tell his girlfriend to "put it into hyperdrive". i'm pretty sure he was talking about her bike. i'm not sure. well today in the road stage of univest, i needed hyperdrive. i can't remember where i left it. fast race. really fast. it was pretty much as i expected. the beginning was a mad dash out of town with everybody sprinting from corner to corner. it was strung out. early attacks formed a group off the front pretty quick. they stayed away for a while, but i have no idea how. they must have put it into hyperdrive, 'cause we were killin' it in the field. first kom was ok. i hit it in decent position and was able to carry a lot of speed up it and dart through some holes. my strategy for the race was to bury myself on the climbs to stay up in the front group(s) and then recover. well, i managed the first part, but the second part eluded me. the first climb wasn't so tough, only 500 meters or so. but the false flats after killed me. i got over just off of a group but couldn't find that hyperdrive to get me there. i let a number of guys come past and i was finally able to kick it onto somebody's wheel. we were all strung out trying to catch the main group. for the next 10 or so minutes i was breathing raspy and rough. that isn't good. cho cho breathing is what terry calls it. the race just didn't relent. we hit the second climb after a really heavy false flat run-up. teams were drilling it on the front and we were pretty strung out when we hit it. man that kicked. 20%, at least. maybe i did find hyperdrive, i don't know. i wasn't so much trying to ride to the top but rather trying not to fall over. i could just barely turn the pedals over. guys were swerving, falling and walking. the weaker among us were begging to be pushed. my eyes rolled back and i got dizzy. made it over the top though with even my t-rex arms full of lactic acid. i was in an ok group and we were just off the front group. luckily on this one it tips straight down. the descent was curvy, dark and wet. i'd liked to have railed the corners but we couldn't see what was on the other side. a camera moto came by us and screwed our lines up. i locked it up going into one corner. troy would slide sideways and ride into the ditch on that corner. we got down and were 20 seconds behind the group. guys were pulling through, sort of, and we got back on. never got to the front after that. there was a brief slow down and it was pegged again. i hit the feed zone on the back and fell off fiddling with my musette bag. somebody had the field strung out in front of me. i got back on when they slowed down. i was hurtin'. i was so beyond myself i could hardly see. we rolled a long a while and i check our average speed. 28 mph. yeah. that's a crit pace at home. a fast crit at that. i was working my way up and we hit a rise. i tried to stand up to get over it and there was nothing. i slid backwards but came over just on the back. i clung on for dear life as it was strung out again. it gets rough back there, guys opening gaps, and blowing up. shortly after we hit another rise and i was cooked. i couldn't hang on. i slid backwards and struggled up the 6% rise like it was a 20% rise. finally i got off my bike and sat in the ditch for a while until i felt better. a good sized group caught me and i rode in with the guy who'd won the first two sprints and alejandro acton, from agentina. won a couple of stages at the tour of argentina. guy's legs are bigger around than terry's torso. he won the GMSR crit. doped?

univest is a hard race. you gotta bring your a game. tom brought his a game. he found his hyperdrive and finished 12th or 3th (or 14th). he's having dinner with jonathan vaughters tonight.

russell has a noodly appendage

2005-09-16T09:40:00.000-07:00

troy and i busted it out to our other host housing. our gamble paid off. we're with a nice professional couple who has one high school aged son in the house and two other children off at college. they also have a wireless network and have better things to do than attend to us. that's great. i hate hosts that hover. we're in harleysville. not too far from the other place. when we arrived, they had a peach crisp that was made with some awesome local peaches. they have ripe pears for me to gorge on. its the good life.

we rode the course yesterday. the most convoluted twisty race i've ever seen. check out the map and directions. there are few roads we stay on for more than a mile. solomon drove the van while dan navigated and gave troy and i the heads up via the radios. pretty sweet deal. troy and i motor paced. tom did something else. as usual. motor pacing is a great way to prepare for a race because it gets the legs moving and you can ride at race pace (25-30 mph) but it doesn't take so much out of the muscles. the heart rate gets up but the legs don't get as tired. we got lost a couple of times, but that was ok. i'm glad i saw the course. there are some crazy obstacles. one lane bridges that you enter on an off camber turn after an 18% downhill; wooden bridges that drop out from under you. the caravan cars will get air on that one. between the twisting and the steep hills, this race will be hard. very hard. the front is going to roll quite fast while the rest of the pack clogs. and that's just getting to the circuit. the circuit is 4 miles long and we do it 13 times. there's a grinding hill in there that takes it out of a rider. that took several hours. came back home for a nice chicken curry with vegetables from the garden. apple-rhubarb crisp was for dinner. not bad.

the "mess that is the english language". even the nerds don't know what to do with it. "Who's to say that the "nominative-ablative-dative-accusative-verb" syntactical ordering is either correct or ideal?" yeah, i was going to ask that too. i'll bet tom (not peterson) knows the answer.

gotta get a new razor.

things i've forgotten to include in other entries. tom brought 5 pounds of oatmeal. he cooked pasta in a tea kettle in the room at the mad river barn. he used to eat a lot of tuna but then found out about all the mercury and so now he eats a lot of canned chicken. tom likes salad. he's constantly making a salad with either tuna or chicken on it. he eats a lot. tuna or chicken on just about anything is a meal for tom. tom also snores. its loud. dan can sleep some 12 hours a day. he wears ear plugs to ensure that he's able to continue sleeping until noon when everybody else is up and about.

i don't know why tom wears his helmet and gloves while he rides the trainer. i'll ask.

another group joins the fray over teaching evolution in school. see flying spaghetti monster alternative to intelligent design. they have about the same scientific merit (intelligent design and flying spaghetti monster, that is.) did anybody know that there are still 17 pirates in the world? arr, matey, arr.

climb slow, descend fast

2005-09-04T10:07:00.000-07:00

start with yesterday's race. 70-something mile race. there was a hill in it, but it was a pretty easy grade. for a lot of guys, it was a big ringer. i little ringed it cause i like the chain-line better. i can spin it better. anyway, it couldn't break the pack up much. if the prologue was an insane fight for position, it was only worse at this race. like i said before, 130 riders is way too many to put in one lane. especially when everyone of them thinks he can win. guys were again riding blatantly over the yellow line. there were huge cracks and holes in the pavement as well, so guys trying to avoid those holes would nearly crash guys. it was insane. i've never been so on edge in a race for so long. we were packed in tight. dan took the first kom. they worked the other riders in brilliant fashion. on the second kom solomon and tory set a good tempo but dan went a tad early and was aced out. ah well. in the first sprint (where we didn't have full road) i was boxed in. way boxed in. i just couldn't get any where. again, riders were riding on the left side of the road--for long periods of time. if you wanted in on the sprint, you just had to. there were a lot of attacks, but the field just wouldn't let anything go. guys chased their teammates down. it was ridiculous. sean and i got into one promising break, but again, they just wouldn't let it go. for the final sprint we figured on leading me out with tom and sean on my wheel. that way we could get a good result and those guys could get more points for their overall standings. it was a pretty strange sprint. at about 15 km to go, the pack just shut down. but because it was so tight, nobody could move up to do anything. physical blocking. what can you do? it was super dodgy. we all came so incredibly close to crashing so many times. insane. as things were ramping up, troy got me near the front, but we were on the right.. we were in an ok position, but then at 1 km a group came way over the yellow line and led out and we were suddenly screwed. i jumped and got what i figure was a top ten. tom was on my wheel and a few places back. however, because all the yellow line violations for the intermediate sprint and the final sprint were so blatant, they nullified those. damn. the whole thing was pretty stupid. nobody ramped it up because nobody could get to the front to do it. it was just impossible.
before today's stage there was a rider protest. we didn't start when they wanted to start us. some well spoken blokes chatted with the organizer. they basically told him that it was ridiculous and since he'd taken in some $15,000 in entry fees, he could at least get more than one moto to enforce the yellow line rule (since it wasn't enforced on saturday but was draconianly punished). the outcome was that riders that were relegated were reinstated but point penalties stood.
so today. dan is high in the KOM competition. there's a sprint at 18.5 miles. again, lots of attacks. nobody would let any go (suprising). but then one went. and they let it go. i was right there, but totally pinned in. i figured it would get chased down, so i didn't take the risks to get it. i'll bet it was the same for everybody else. they built up their lead and we worked on the front and held the gap steady until the first climb. i went backwards pretty fast, as did troy. up the climb the break was caught just after the KOM. damn. i got over the top with a group and promptly dropped them on the descent. i've never see a bunch of guys with such big asses descend so slow. it was ridiculous. we caught the pack pretty quickly, but man it was frustrating. weak. they were so weak. i got back to the front but we didn't have to work too much. there were a lot of attacks and a few guys got off the front. nothing that could really stick too long. dan wasn't feeling hot so he set tempo to keep the attacks down. eventually i got the race leader's team (target training) to do some work with us. lots of the teams were pretty content to let the break keep going. when the gap finally got to 2:30 they went to the front. middle climb wasn't too long but it was damned steep. probably 12-15%. and then it kicked at the end. kicked hard. solomon broke his chain, which was too bad. i was counting on him being up with tom and sean on the final climb to help a bit. ah well. what are you going to do? dan popped hard on the climb. the descent from there was super duper fast. i hit 62 mph. that's a new record for me. i also nearly went into the ditch cause a i didn't set up for a long sweeper quite right. ha! screw you noah! the break was still off and so i went to the front with fior di fruta and worked to bring them back. we brought back the target training guy that had been dangling, so they had to go to the front to protect their guy. finally! well, there were a few steep pitches that really socked me after working. and then the couple miles of hard pack dirt and gravel. we finally hit the final climb and i put my anchor down. yep, i was wasted. cooked. blown. i did the last 10 miles alone. damn that finish climb, only a two miles or so, killed me. the final 500 meters was 18%. i was seeing stars. i barely barely barely made it. a race official had to push my broken carcass off the road because i couldn't pedal any more. tom finished 4th and sean was in the top ten too. good finishes. some teams gave us crap about using all of our guys up, but i think we played things about right. losing solomon to a chain break was unfortunate, but what are you going to do. not like i was going to be any good on that final climb.
everybody finished though. that's good. that's guts. damn, if i'd fallen off on the first climb, i'd have turned around and gone home!

angry salmon

2005-09-03T10:10:00.000-07:00

yesterday was the prologue. a different format. 2 mile neutral rollout to the bottom of a climb. the first 2-3 miles were pretty gradual, 2-3% with a strong wind. the last 3-4 miles however, were super steep, a reasonable format for the abilities of our guys. no full road at this race, so with 130 riders, you can bet it will be a mad fight for the front. our strategy then was to keep tom, dan and sean safe. if the pace wasn't high enough then we'd set it and keep our guys out of trouble. it was a crazy fight and guys were pushing and swerving and taking all sorts of chances to get up. a few guys were relegated for blatant yellow line violations. i felt that the whole thing was totally unsafe. i can't believe the whole weekend will be like that.
anyway, the pack started splitting as soon as we hit the climb, which really started with a 10% or greater pitch. the front group stayed essentially intact. i slid back a bit but was still in that group. on the next pitch however, i wasn't paying very good attention (and i was hurtin') and i was split off. i was at my steady tempo, so riding across the gap wasn't going to happen. in the front sean put in an attack with a few km to go to try and draw out some other guys and soften things up for tom. i don't know what happened after that but tom got second. tom doesn't really know what happened either. i asked him. he isn't sure.
dan decided at some point that this trek up the hill was much like the salmon running up the streams of the northwest. salmon never give up, so he couldn't give up was his logical next step. in his mind, he was a salmon all the way up. dan the salmon.
this morning we're getting ready to drive to the circuit race. it's 1015 and it is shocking that dan is awake., i'm not sure if salmon sleep 12 hours a night, but dan does.
the mad river barn inn turned our hot water on. that was nice. tom likes long cold showers. me? not so much. maybe that's why tom is so bitter.

the town is named "sugarbush"

2005-09-01T10:11:00.000-07:00

transcontinental flight. seattle to cincinatti to burlington. rent the van. drive to sugarbush. yeah, sugarbush. that's one sweet bush. smugglers notch isn't too far away.

crazy times getting ready. move the last of my stuff out, do some last minute cleaning and pack. most everything was packed. i got back to the house and my ride was already there. i packed my bike in record time. that tube with two strikes? it's a slow leaker. damn.

totally uneventful flight. without adam on the flight, we were all able to sit with a seat between us. much more comfortable. the flight from cincinatti to burlington was on a smaller plane. the flight attendant brought beverages through and then spent the rest of the flight reading. cush job. where do i get one?

the flight went straight east over washington, idaho, montana and so on. such amazing views over those mountains. i'll have to look back on google earth to see where it all was. check out this: lat=44.7084928166, lon=-100.629940268. i think this is the river i have pictured.

i had all sorts of funny things to write when i was on the plane. i can't remember them now. this entry sucks.

its that time of year

2005-08-17T10:13:00.000-07:00

another damned ride across I-90, down to seward park or north on the burke is just gonna kill me. seattle is good and bad for cycling. there are a lot of great routes in the city and are enjoyable and relatively free of traffic. however, to do anything very long, you're basically stuck going three ways to get out. blah. it gets tough to motivate to ride those same rides over and over.

race in the southern regions of our state this weekend. and portland. crazy crit in portland on friday night. cool course, but really only good for about 40 riders. they had 80 and that was just too many. guys at the back weren't even clipped in when the front went around the first corner. it was a rough and tight six corner course. super fast. i got a call up, which is cool. i was up there with a coupla' pros and that was sweet. i was the first amateur to be called up, so i just flashed those guys a big ol' grin. anyway, i had a killer start. it was my first hard race since the racing in canada a good three weeks earlier and i'd felt like total crap in the car on the way down. anyway, i was chasing and attacking and i felt good. maybe a bit too good. i covered a couple of moves and chased or something and i went into big time deficit. not good. i was going backwards, opening gaps and what not. i finally stoped going backwards and found myself on the last wheel. apparently, the pack had split and twenty of us were off the front. well, just my luck that we were just then lapping the other sixty riders. i had no idea what was going on. i followed the guy in front of me and picked our way through the pack. somebody drilled it up front and i was fucked. a few laps later my back was seized up and i was off the back. damn.

went back to where we were staying for dinner. noah's exploits with the ladies was the topic of conversation. ah, high school. after dinner we went to bed and damn if i didn't just lay there for like 4 hours. i got up at 300 to walk around. my heart was still racing from the race. ah hell. up at 730 for breakfast. i think we rolled out at 900 for the circuit race in olympia. the circuit race wasn't anything special. big break went early that had 4 of our guys and 5 guys from other teams. stevenson bridged. i was sitting on while andy, troy and clayville did most of the work. nicholz was sitting on and ii didn't want to get jumped and have us all be screwed. i don't think we got much of a gap and we came back. young dan neyens and clayville got off with steve higgins from BRI. that was good for us and we were content to play defense. BRI put in a lot of moves and we covered them. in the sprint i was second behind stevenson for 5th. clayville won and neyens was second. nice work by those guys.

TTT on sunday was awful. i was tired as hell and i think the other guys were too. ah well. we were 4th, 17 seconds off of third. i just couldn't get my legs going. oh well, what are you going to do?

been tired all week. headaches and sinus issues. have basically taken it easy every day. i'll go hard tomorrow. i wish there was more racing so that i could just race and recover all week. i guess i can go harder next week if i need to.

i'm also packing up to move. yeah, moving. am moving to michelle and gwen's place in the short term while michelle and i look for a new place to go. i'll be on the east coast for the first three weeks of september, so probably after that.

let me learn it from my guru

2005-08-11T10:15:00.000-07:00

went sailing out at the duck dodge. buncha goofy sailing types gettin' drunk and playing chicken. good stuff. they all tie up afterward and have a big party. good times! see some pictures.

actually, nobody has ever asked me how to make a margarita.