The second annual Mustache Ride is Saturday August 25th, 4pm at Col. Sumner's Park. According to the flyer there will be prizes and a party at the Polo Haus afterward with lawn games and jello wrestling. That's a definite step up from the ramen wrestling of last year.
If I ever get my fictional alter ego listed on Wikipedia I'll know I've made it. I've arrived.
Mustache Commander
The long promised Team WRECK t-shirt may finally become reality. I happened to be sitting between C. Murder and Chas as they were discussing Westside shirts. Then Mary Lou made this awesome design with two days notice. It'll be printed on American Apparel shirts at a cost of $6 per.
After much thought and a consultation with Drew I'm going to go against the egalitarian creed espoused by my team name and make them only available to team members for now. A limited edition, like Stumptown t-shirts.
This means I have to define team member, so here goes. If you've been on a mountain bike ride with me in the past year, if you've attended a Death March or if you've played in a polo tournament or raced in an alleycat as Team WRECK then you are a member. If you meet any of these criteria and you want a shirt (or several shirts) please let me know what size. I haven't decided on colors yet but I'm leaning toward Josh's suggestion of dark heather gray with maroon ink, or possibly UPS brown with cream ink. Drew suggested forest green and I've always been partial to pale blue and safety orange. Let me know in the comments or in person what size and color you prefer and I'll try to make it happen.
That must taste salty.
Hinoki cedar at sunset.
A red tailed hawk taking off. The next day as I was climbing Orchard Heights I was startled by a loud whooshing noise and great horned owl flew right over me and landed in a nearby tree. I threw my bike in the ditch and scrambled up the hill. I got really close to it and it's head swiveled around to look at me with huge, yellow, slowly blinking eyes. Of course I didn't have my camera.
This showed up in my email box this morning. Thank you, Bicyclejesus, whoever you are.
I really enjoyed this book. I wasn't so excited for the movie but I am now that I've seen Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter and Sam Elliot as Lee Scoresby.
Another interesting post on the freakonomics blog. And again their commenters put you people to shame. Can I get a little vitriol around here?
I think this is the most ridiculous idea anyone has ever come up with. Has the world gone mad?
This blog post and comments may well be the most frenzied display of science illiteracy I have ever encountered in print.
I don’t understand how this would work, as potential temperature increases with height. Wouldn’t the air parcels lifted by the tornado cool adiabatically?I had to look that one up.
Dr. Doom is Team WRECK for life. He was the anchor on our championship polo team. Now I hear he's not only coming back for the Westside this year but also sponsoring with a vest and three belts for the polo champions.
I keep forgetting to check in at MessNYC. I've got to move them up in my bookmarks. Here is a synopsis of the ECMC, Whitesnake style, and some terrific photos by Andy Zalan.
Dabby sent me this video of some euro doing completely ridiculous urban tricks on a trials motorcycle. I'm a real sucker for this kind of thing.
Jaden and Uncle Bill discussing the bows J made out of Filbert wood and twine.
There is no corndog quite like a county fair corndog.
That is a sweet tractor.
Nice plumage.
Bill pointed out that this rabbit had a built in pillow. Photo by Jaden.
Photo by Jaden.
A boy and his cow.
Jaden took this and announced "This one's for Dabby"
Photo by Jaden.
Photo by Jaden.
Photo by Jaden.
J and Uncle Cleanhead.
J on the zipper, I felt nauseous just watching.
Our farm really needs a new tractor.
Apparently this is for making corn into silage. Very impressive.
Bill interfacing with a "robot".
Jaden finally worked up the courage to explore the secret room behind the shower.
Photo by Jaden. He found these dessicated remains among other things.
As commander of Team WRECK I'm considering instituting something like this armband of shame for team members who don't show up for rides after saying they're going to. What do you think, Dabby?
In usual Team WRECK style we got out of town late. We made it to Hood River around noon and collected Mace. He and Junko are nearing completion on the condo project they've been working on. Their reward is a 5 month vacation in Japan and Mexico.
That post isn't going anywhere.
Entering the Krep's Ranch.
Cowboy pointed out this lizard. I wanted to call it a skink, is that right?
View from 2200 feet.
Cowboy on the climb.
Mace was a soldier.
Tough going.
Almost at the top.
I thought the lines on the hills were caused by water runoff but Cowboy thought it was trails made by cows, looking for fresh grass and shade. He's probably right.
Here Cowboy stuffs pine cones and leaves into his tire in lieu of a tube. We both had several weird valve stem related flats. I gave him my spare tube after his first and after his second he stuffed the tire. Then I got another flat and we both walked for a while until he gave me his other tube, which was nice of him, and we headed up the trail only to be told by a helpful hiker that we were going the wrong way. Cowboy threw his bike into a few trees and we proceeded back down. At this point I left the Cowboy, I felt a little guilty but I did give him my tube earlier and I felt confident that if anyone in our party could make it out of these hills it was he. After several more wrong turns, some unnecessary climbing, some high speed descents and another flat tire (1/4 mile from the car so that's fine) I made it back. Much to the joy of my team mates, as I had they key to the car, enabling them access to cold beer, beef jerky, cookies, clean clothes, sandals, etc. It took Cowboy about an hour to make it back but he was in high spirits when he did.
My favorite Villa Rat has some good pictures from Rickreall on his Flikr page.
A snippet from Sheman Alexie's Eastern Conference preview on True Hoop that made me laugh.
"Milwaukee: Sometime during the season, Bogut expresses admiration for the non-materialistic, simplistic, and communist ideals of Yi, after which the Bucks have the Famous Communist Genocidal Dictators Bobblehead Night, featuring Mao, Castro, Stalin, and Bill Laimbeer."
Since I started a blog I've been cajoling El Jefe towards doing the same. I knew he was a good writer and here's the proof : Idle Hands of Jefe
Also my own son has a guest post on Dabby's blog and C. Murder has been posting almost every day at Bigman Shoes.
Planters from the old bus mall.
Abrupt change at one of my favorite corners.
When I first saw these I thought of the monolith from 2001. I guess it's some Red Bull promotion. If they had asked me I could have told them they would be better off putting money into new sports like bike polo, alleycat racing and extreme bocce ball.
Self portrait with monolith.
The perfect donut. A raised glazed from Voodoo.
I spent way too long last night reading comments on the new freakonomics blog on the NY Times. They led with a post asking readers to comment on possible targets and tactics for terrorists. The results were varied to say the least. If I could get comments like these my blog would be a lot more entertaining. Here are a few of my favorites.
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