One more week. Just one more and this degree is DONE.
Just one more week.
Two finals a big fat paper and one shift at Vancouver Fire...
One week.
DT
Sexy Selfies
11 years ago
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
so...
Are you bored? Have you done your workout today? How about your homework? Feed the cat? Water the plants? Kozy'd the Shack? All done? Sweet. You should come with me to see Rembrandt And Pals at the Portland Art Museum. Or PAM if you like. Then let's head to OMSI to check out some dead people. Then maybe if school's still in session we'll all take the train up to the Zoo and throw rocks at some bears, because we're humans, the master species, and we can do stuff like that.
DT
DT
Monday, June 04, 2007
put out an "amber alert"
Cool Thing Of The Day: Watching one of our mechanics take his first ride on a bike he built. I'm not talking 'built' like buy a frame and buy a bunch of parts and put it all together. I'm talking 'built' like make a bunch of drawings, do some geometry wizardry, take a bunch of steel tubes, painstakingly arrange and weld them together, spend a few months fillet-brazing the thing to perfection then putting some parts on it and it's a bike. This was the first frame he ever built, he took his time with it and it looks great. It was a fanfareless but very cool little event in our small corner of the world. When you spend a good portion of your life working on bikes slapped together by machines in far-eastern mega-factories, the day you ride something built by your own hands is a pretty cool deal.
Un-Cool Thing Of The Day: Some worthless idiot stole our shop demo Trek 69er off of the roof rack of an employees car. Which was parked in our parking lot. While we were open. Who does that? Here's the good bit: That bike's pretty new. So new, that we have not sold a single one. We are the only dealer within 200 miles that sells that bike. With a 26in wheel in the back, a 29in wheel in the front, a gigantic triple crown fork and a crazy bronze anodized frame, it is very distinctive. Seriously. You can't miss it. And some idiot has the only one. Here's what it looks like by the way.
By noon today every pawn shop and used bike shop in town will have a picture and serial number, so when the idiot tries to sell it, he'll get arrested and we'll get the bike back. If the bike shows up on Craigslist of Ebay, game over. Same result. If the idiot takes it to Forest Park, he'll get jumped by one of the 10 shop guys who commute through the park, get beaten with a frame pump and then get arrested. So if you see this bike, it's ours. And we want it back.
DT
Un-Cool Thing Of The Day: Some worthless idiot stole our shop demo Trek 69er off of the roof rack of an employees car. Which was parked in our parking lot. While we were open. Who does that? Here's the good bit: That bike's pretty new. So new, that we have not sold a single one. We are the only dealer within 200 miles that sells that bike. With a 26in wheel in the back, a 29in wheel in the front, a gigantic triple crown fork and a crazy bronze anodized frame, it is very distinctive. Seriously. You can't miss it. And some idiot has the only one. Here's what it looks like by the way.
By noon today every pawn shop and used bike shop in town will have a picture and serial number, so when the idiot tries to sell it, he'll get arrested and we'll get the bike back. If the bike shows up on Craigslist of Ebay, game over. Same result. If the idiot takes it to Forest Park, he'll get jumped by one of the 10 shop guys who commute through the park, get beaten with a frame pump and then get arrested. So if you see this bike, it's ours. And we want it back.
DT
Saturday, June 02, 2007
whoopin up.
The US team officially crushed all at the Pan Am games. Everyone's favorite mulleted Team Peestream/Chipatople rider Brad Huff pulled off the big one in the Omnium, then followed it up with another win in the madison with none other than the newly un-retired Colby Pearce. Blatchford slayed all challengers to win the sprint, then teamed up with Duvendeck and Selker to show everyone who's boss in the Team Sprint. They convinced everyone but the Cubans, who were so unimpressed, they beat the boys by 6 tenths. Jennie Reed was numero uno in the Kierin, then silvered in the sprint behind another wicked fast Cuban.
Whatever. They're all in trouble when Ping-Pong gets his new track bike figured out.
Tuckerman's 3 minutes back at Hood going into the last big climbing stage. Good luck ANT. Don't go blocks.
Waiting anxiously for a letter from Seattle. Any day now.
If Zabel's a doper, I'm done with pro road racing. That corner of the sport's a mess.
It's hot in this east-facing apartment, with it's giant winows and poor circulation. The sun heats up the concrete blocks and turns this place into a pizza oven. No AC. Just window fans, ice cubes and muscle shirts.
DT
Whatever. They're all in trouble when Ping-Pong gets his new track bike figured out.
Tuckerman's 3 minutes back at Hood going into the last big climbing stage. Good luck ANT. Don't go blocks.
Waiting anxiously for a letter from Seattle. Any day now.
If Zabel's a doper, I'm done with pro road racing. That corner of the sport's a mess.
It's hot in this east-facing apartment, with it's giant winows and poor circulation. The sun heats up the concrete blocks and turns this place into a pizza oven. No AC. Just window fans, ice cubes and muscle shirts.
DT
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Monday, May 28, 2007
foto-blahggin'
Jenny and I made the epic drive up to Winthrop on thursday to spend the weekend with Solomon and Brandy in a solar-powered, outhouse-equipped cabin in the woods. Did some good rides, ate some good food, drank a couple of good drinks, and generally decompressed. Thier "driveway" was really just a couple miles of goat-path which cuts straight up the side of a mountain.
You step outside the door in the morning and you are alone. Very alone. Quite the change from the downtown apartment.
Good morning. Coffee, velonews and not much else.
One advantage of living where they do is the security of it all. Some people get all excited about never locking thier doors. How about leaving race bikes on the covered porch and sleeping outside every night? The master bedroom is a roofed and mosquito-netted deck on the side of the house.
Sometimes you're sitting on the porch just relaxing, talking about the world and you get the undeniable urge to shoot some stuff. Do you live way out in the middle of nowhere? Do you have a CO2 powered BB gun and some empty budweisers? If yes, then let that hick-flag fly high and take some shots, my friend.
There's more where that came from.
DT
You step outside the door in the morning and you are alone. Very alone. Quite the change from the downtown apartment.
Good morning. Coffee, velonews and not much else.
One advantage of living where they do is the security of it all. Some people get all excited about never locking thier doors. How about leaving race bikes on the covered porch and sleeping outside every night? The master bedroom is a roofed and mosquito-netted deck on the side of the house.
Sometimes you're sitting on the porch just relaxing, talking about the world and you get the undeniable urge to shoot some stuff. Do you live way out in the middle of nowhere? Do you have a CO2 powered BB gun and some empty budweisers? If yes, then let that hick-flag fly high and take some shots, my friend.
There's more where that came from.
DT
Monday, May 21, 2007
shop of the stars...
For a rainy monday, we were at an 11 on the rock star-o-meter. First the singer for chick-band formerly known as Sleater Kinney stopped by to get a flat fixed. Pete almost peed himself. Then the singer for Kaddisfly dropped by for a new tube. Then Colin Meloy from the Decemberists had to show everyone up by breezing through to buy matching Amsterdams for him and his girlfriend. He came up to ask me where the helmets were and I couldn't remember. The haven't been moved in two years. Couldn't even remember my name. I think I mumbled something about a mariner's revenge and stumbled off. All in all, he's a nice guy with a nice girlfriend, who had to borrow a truck from his guitarist because he doesn't own a car.
Another Swan Island crit went down the tubes on Sunday. I rode there and back, so of course it pissed rain all the way there, rained even harder during, and even harder when I struggled over Skyline afterwards. The race itself was pretty average. About 40 Team Hamburglar guys tried to do the Rubicon TTT by getting a big group of thier own off the front, but just ended up attacking and chasing each other all day. I tried a couple of moves, but each time was so far in the redzone I knew it would go nowhere. So they effectively kept themselves from getting a group together and it all comes down to a field sprint. I find Casey and Gephart's wheel, the laps count down and off we go. Mr. Too Vanilla himself is leading out Gephart. Coming into the last sweeping right hander, I launch around on the left and just as I overlap with Skerrit he blows and goes LEFT pretty hard. I'm screaming my head off (which at the time probably came out as a barely audible "hhrraaaiiiiiieeee" type whimper), I steer into a wet manhole cover and I'm going sideways into the outside curb. I closed my eyes, clicked my Nikes three times and said "there's nowhere like home" and when I opened my peepers, I'm uright and rolling down the finish straight, watching the sprint unfold. Skerrit says he never saw me. I say he owes me one.
Tuckerman finished 3rd overall in Arkansas. That's huge. It's huge-tastic. Huge-tacular. huge. Sounds like a weekend of big sacrifice from the team. I'll post more when I hear it straight from the boys.
I might be racing somewhere in Trinidad in a red, white and blue skinsuit next month. Not sure of any dates, or even if I'm going for sure, but I'm in total panic-training mode either way... Fingers crossed.
DT
Another Swan Island crit went down the tubes on Sunday. I rode there and back, so of course it pissed rain all the way there, rained even harder during, and even harder when I struggled over Skyline afterwards. The race itself was pretty average. About 40 Team Hamburglar guys tried to do the Rubicon TTT by getting a big group of thier own off the front, but just ended up attacking and chasing each other all day. I tried a couple of moves, but each time was so far in the redzone I knew it would go nowhere. So they effectively kept themselves from getting a group together and it all comes down to a field sprint. I find Casey and Gephart's wheel, the laps count down and off we go. Mr. Too Vanilla himself is leading out Gephart. Coming into the last sweeping right hander, I launch around on the left and just as I overlap with Skerrit he blows and goes LEFT pretty hard. I'm screaming my head off (which at the time probably came out as a barely audible "hhrraaaiiiiiieeee" type whimper), I steer into a wet manhole cover and I'm going sideways into the outside curb. I closed my eyes, clicked my Nikes three times and said "there's nowhere like home" and when I opened my peepers, I'm uright and rolling down the finish straight, watching the sprint unfold. Skerrit says he never saw me. I say he owes me one.
Tuckerman finished 3rd overall in Arkansas. That's huge. It's huge-tastic. Huge-tacular. huge. Sounds like a weekend of big sacrifice from the team. I'll post more when I hear it straight from the boys.
I might be racing somewhere in Trinidad in a red, white and blue skinsuit next month. Not sure of any dates, or even if I'm going for sure, but I'm in total panic-training mode either way... Fingers crossed.
DT
Friday, May 18, 2007
Tuckerman wins!
He may not be a pretty man, but he's a pretty quick little bugger.
Awesome. That's too cool for school.
Awesome. That's too cool for school.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
wack attack
In the mood to cause a hipster heart-attack at stumptown? Roll up on this. Maybe with some pink rims.
DT
DT
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Hoy Polloi
So Chris Hoy jumped head-first into the hurt-box in Bolivia a few days ago. The guy already has the sea-level world kilo record, but he wanted the absolute record that frenchie Arnaud Tournaut holds of 58.875 at altitude. 15,000 feet of hot, nasty altitude.
After 2 attempts he missed by .05 seconds. Draaaag. Train for years, dedicate your life to a dying niche of the sport, spend a few months doing intervals in a hyperbaric chamber, fly to La Paz, put your one-directional front wheel on backwards and miss the record by a hair.
That's a lovely little what if to think about for the rest of your life.
DT
After 2 attempts he missed by .05 seconds. Draaaag. Train for years, dedicate your life to a dying niche of the sport, spend a few months doing intervals in a hyperbaric chamber, fly to La Paz, put your one-directional front wheel on backwards and miss the record by a hair.
That's a lovely little what if to think about for the rest of your life.
DT
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
back to school
yeah, i know you said you'd never set foot in another high school gymnasium ever again, but this might be a good reason to give it another go.
I may get annoyed with some of the ones that mope around in front of the convenience store by my house smoking crappy ciggarettes and begging me to buy them beer, but big ups to an awesome group of kids from Lincoln High for taking matters into thier own hands and staging one of the best fundraisers ever.
I can see the brainstorming session:
**students**
"our music department sucks"
"yeah, it sucks"
"i wish we had a recording studio so we could record emo records"
"yeah"
**teacher**
"conservatives dont want to pay taxes for you to have music education, or for me to make a decent wage. sucks doesn't it? that's life so get used to it. I need a drink"
**students**
"that sucks"
"yeah"
"we should have a fundraiser"
"yeah"
"carwash?"
"nah. too wet"
"rummage sale?"
"nah. i don't want to sell my Wii"
"bake sale?"
"nah, my cook wouldn't be into that"
"silent auction?"
"nah. boring"
"concert in the gymnasium with two of the best bands in the entire city?"
"sweet idea"
"wicked"
"yeah let's do that"
"cool, my dad knows a guy"
DT
I may get annoyed with some of the ones that mope around in front of the convenience store by my house smoking crappy ciggarettes and begging me to buy them beer, but big ups to an awesome group of kids from Lincoln High for taking matters into thier own hands and staging one of the best fundraisers ever.
I can see the brainstorming session:
**students**
"our music department sucks"
"yeah, it sucks"
"i wish we had a recording studio so we could record emo records"
"yeah"
**teacher**
"conservatives dont want to pay taxes for you to have music education, or for me to make a decent wage. sucks doesn't it? that's life so get used to it. I need a drink"
**students**
"that sucks"
"yeah"
"we should have a fundraiser"
"yeah"
"carwash?"
"nah. too wet"
"rummage sale?"
"nah. i don't want to sell my Wii"
"bake sale?"
"nah, my cook wouldn't be into that"
"silent auction?"
"nah. boring"
"concert in the gymnasium with two of the best bands in the entire city?"
"sweet idea"
"wicked"
"yeah let's do that"
"cool, my dad knows a guy"
DT
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Monday, May 07, 2007
frenchies
Found a New York Times at the coffee shop this morning on my way to work. Big noise about the French elections, the continuing failure of the Socialists to get anything together and the newly elected ultra-conservative pro-business anti-fun Nicolas Sarcozy-shack. The thing that struck me was the turnout. 84 percent of the french voted. 84 percent.
In 2004 we set records for 60 percent of the US getting off thier lazy asses to vote. In 2000 we managed a pathetic 52 percent. According to Newsweek's latest poll, Bushie's approval rating is 28 percent. 72 percent of the country doesn't like him but only 52 percent bothered to even vote? And of that 52 percent only 51 percent of that actually voted against him? Wierd. People suck.
Speaking of people who suck.
DT
p.s. next time I will only write about awesome stuff, happy sunflower meadows and reckless behavior.
In 2004 we set records for 60 percent of the US getting off thier lazy asses to vote. In 2000 we managed a pathetic 52 percent. According to Newsweek's latest poll, Bushie's approval rating is 28 percent. 72 percent of the country doesn't like him but only 52 percent bothered to even vote? And of that 52 percent only 51 percent of that actually voted against him? Wierd. People suck.
Speaking of people who suck.
DT
p.s. next time I will only write about awesome stuff, happy sunflower meadows and reckless behavior.
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
shop notes
I thought I would make it to Burnaby this time around... No dice.
Even with a free place to stay, the day off work and the forty gallons or so of gas at 3 and a half bucks a pop makes the whole deal a bit impossible. Weak sauce.
Come on Portland indoor velodrome, come to daddy.
Drove to Seattle to beg for a sweet job from some men in white shirts on Sunday. Interviews never feel like they went great, so it's hard to say how it'll all end up. I find out in a month.
Next race on the schedule is the great Swan Island Crit. Guess I should put my road bike back together...
DT
Even with a free place to stay, the day off work and the forty gallons or so of gas at 3 and a half bucks a pop makes the whole deal a bit impossible. Weak sauce.
Come on Portland indoor velodrome, come to daddy.
Drove to Seattle to beg for a sweet job from some men in white shirts on Sunday. Interviews never feel like they went great, so it's hard to say how it'll all end up. I find out in a month.
Next race on the schedule is the great Swan Island Crit. Guess I should put my road bike back together...
DT
Monday, April 23, 2007
Sunday, April 22, 2007
no pity in the rose city
If I wasn't a bike racer, I'd be a soccer player...
Watched the Timbers smash Puerto Rico 3-1 at PGE last night with 7800 others. It was a night for the hooligans. I've never seen a match get so violent. After we scored in the opening minutes and doubled it before the half, the Puerto Ricans got pissed and didn't hide it. Multiple fights broke out across the field and by the looks of it, the home boys have been working on thier Kung Fu.
The Army was too big for thier traditional section 107, and ended up sprawling out into 4 others including ours. What a manic atmosphere. 60 percent total chaos and 40 percent sychronized madness. The songs, the flags, the GIANT flags, the chants, the screaming. All while surrounded by cops and PGE officials, but nobody seems to care. The Army really is an army this year. Flyers were passed around for a convoy of busses heading to seattle for a showdown on May 5th. That could get wonderfully messy.
DT
Watched the Timbers smash Puerto Rico 3-1 at PGE last night with 7800 others. It was a night for the hooligans. I've never seen a match get so violent. After we scored in the opening minutes and doubled it before the half, the Puerto Ricans got pissed and didn't hide it. Multiple fights broke out across the field and by the looks of it, the home boys have been working on thier Kung Fu.
The Army was too big for thier traditional section 107, and ended up sprawling out into 4 others including ours. What a manic atmosphere. 60 percent total chaos and 40 percent sychronized madness. The songs, the flags, the GIANT flags, the chants, the screaming. All while surrounded by cops and PGE officials, but nobody seems to care. The Army really is an army this year. Flyers were passed around for a convoy of busses heading to seattle for a showdown on May 5th. That could get wonderfully messy.
DT
Saturday, April 21, 2007
T minus a couple weeks or so...
Track racing's almost upon us again. In May the circus begins again. Big events are afoot in Canada during the first weekend; big races, big fields, big beer garden, maybe even some cold hard cash. I'd love to make it up to the glo-worm velodrome if the financial stars can align themselves and someone gives me some floorspace to pass out on at night. Might have a place with Chader, but he has to check and make sure if its all right with his dog or something...
Once again. Raining. On track workout day. Fcuk.
Anyone up for a puddle-cruise up Forest Park? Single-speed mountain bikes? Maybe a night raid? We could blast up to skyline on the knobby tires, slide back down in full panic brake-lock, charge into town and park our bikes next to the harleys stacked up at Starbucks on 23rd and loudly critique the monstrosities for thier wastefullness and laziness. Could be a good time. Think about it.
DT
Once again. Raining. On track workout day. Fcuk.
Anyone up for a puddle-cruise up Forest Park? Single-speed mountain bikes? Maybe a night raid? We could blast up to skyline on the knobby tires, slide back down in full panic brake-lock, charge into town and park our bikes next to the harleys stacked up at Starbucks on 23rd and loudly critique the monstrosities for thier wastefullness and laziness. Could be a good time. Think about it.
DT
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
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