the blue colnago: December 2008

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Be safe.

Peace out, yo!

Random....

You may notice, if you look closely at these pics, that it was warmer then....

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Dylan....

Good stuff. Thanks for the "heads up", Rory.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

A Heartwarming Story....

A small boy was lost at a large shopping mall.
He approached a uniformed policeman and said, 'I've lost my grandpa!'
'The cop asked, 'What's he like?'
The little boy hesitated for a moment and then replied,
'Johnnie Walker Black Label Whiskey and women with big boobs.'

Thanks for sharing that, Brownie. ;)

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Ice, Ice, Baby....

Sweet....

Covering everything....

Check out the driveway. It's uphill all the way....

No snow today. Not yet, anyway. It's forecast for tonight. What we do have is plenty of ice. It started raining sometime last night or early this morning and covered everything with about a quarter inch of the stuff. It was 41F yesterday and was still 37F when I went to bed last night. It must've cooled off, eh? Oh well, I've ventured as far as the mail box and that's about it.

Not a whole lot going on around here today. Judy isn't feeling well and I really need to get out to get some things from the store. I'm not real excited about that. We'll see, I guess. Nothing that can't wait until tomorrow.

Sounds like I'll be spending a couple of days in sunny central Florida in a week or so. As much as I hate to leave this deep-freeze, I guess I'll have to go. Just suck it up and move on....

Whatever....

It's all good.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Friday Thoughts....

`Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'

`That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.

`I don't much care where--' said Alice.

`Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat. . . .

'--so long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation.

Have a great weekend!

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Christmas Merriment....

Just having some fun....

Carlie, Brother of Jackal, Moo, Jackal....

CX is #1, or something like that....

A little Guinness and a little Fat Tire....

My eyeball itches....

:)

It was a long, wonderful day with the family. Couldn't have been better!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas.

Thanks for calling me back, Fat Albert. It was good to hear your voice.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Merry Christmas....

I hope that each and every one of you have a very merry Christmas!

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Stolen....

DanGerous sent the link to this pic to Jackal in a comment and I stole, er, I mean borrowed it, from there. (I call them the Cannondale Twins. Dan is from The Great White North and rides all winter up there. Eh?) Pretty cool, eh? A pedal powered snowplow. I suspect that if the gearing were right, it could actually work. They could probably be manufactured fairly easily and sold to fitness concious people in the snow belts of the world! I'm liking the idea.... Probably oughta have studs on the rear.

In other news: It's still -5F here in Iowa and that is freakin' too cold for me. I tried to get Judy to go out and start my car for me this morning (-9F) but she wasn't having any of that. Since I was already outside (when I started my car myself) I took the garbage out and cleared the snow off of her Jetta for her. I'm so sweet!

The weatherman is calling for 3-6 more inches of the white stuff starting tonight and into tomorrow morning. Whatcha gonna do? Sure could use that pedal powered snowplow right about now. It would be good "cross" training.

That's about it for now. I smell supper cooking....

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

COLD....

-13F outside right now. Windchills in the -30 range. It's cold. I think the forecast is for 39 degrees on Friday and 31 on Saturday. That'll be nice.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Beautiful day....

The mailbox....

Closer view....

Your's truly....

10" of new snow....

Yay....

Yeah, I fired up the snow blower....

Nice....

Had to get gas for the snowblower after I was done, so I got coffee too....

Got up about 5:30 so I could clean the drive to let Judy out to go to work. Lots of new snow. Plus, the plow had gone by so there was about 3 feet of it at the end of the drive. I started the snowblower. Well, I broke the starter rope on the second pull so I plugged it in and pushed the "start" button. Vroooooom! When all was said and done I think I had shoveled as much as I had moved with the snowblower. I hurt all over now!

I used up all the gas that I had in the garage so I rolled up to Casey's when I was done so I'd have gas if I need it in the future. Hot coffee and a sweet roll for breakfast. Yummmm! Good stuff.

Jackal had commented that I should spend my last day of vacation this week blowing out his drive. I went by there on my way to get gas to see if I could even get near his place and saw that he's already shoveled it out. Good job, Buddy!

I wonder how the gravel roads are? I'm sure they'll have the maintainers out there getting them cleared soon.

None of the smaller side streets had been plowed when I went up to Casey's but the main roads were pretty clean. "Normal" winter driving conditions, I guess. Plus the idiots driving around while talking on their cell phones. Hang it up and concentrate on your driving, idiots! Sounds like a topic for a future rant. I truly believe that if you took people's cell phones away they'd die. What did we do before cell phones? I can't imagine how we survived! Also, the NTSB estimates that there were as many traffic fatalities in 2006 caused by cell phones as by drunk drivers. I wonder why we allow it? Just plain stoopid, if you ask me....

I think I'm going to do a post one of these days of all of the pictures that I have of Kerkove picking his nose. Just a thought.

Highs in the mid 20's today, upper teens tomorrow, then back into the deep freeze starting again on Sunday. Why did most of my family move to Arizona and Alabama? Got me. LOL.

If they get the side streets plowed soon I may head up to Hartman North for some xc skiing. That'll be fun!

Have a great day, boys and girls. Stay warm.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Happy Birthday....

To my baby sister, Susi. Or Skeezix, as she's known around here. She actually lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. I hear they got some serious rain the other day. Flagstaff got snow. Lots of snow. Susi has somehow gotten much older than I am. Hmmmmm......

Speaking of snow.... The weatherman is calling for 8-12 inches of it tonight. Our friends in southern Iowa can expect 3/4 inch of ice. Nasty. Anyway, I dug the snowblower out, just in case. It started on the third pull, which impressed the hell out of me. I didn't start it at all last year. I'll probably just shovel anyway, assuming it's light weight snow. If it's heavy snow I'll surely have to shovel cuz the ole snowblower won't blow it. Sweet, eh?

Went out to Farm and Fleet tonight looking for some bicycle hooks to hang wheels and bikes up in the basement so I might be able to move around down here. I expected them to be about a buck apiece. Whoa! 59 cents! Yeah, I bought a bunch of them!

Fat Albert just emailed me and accused me of doing some kind of snow dance to bring on whatever is coming tonight. He figures he'll be able to drive by and watch me shovel snow in my jammies or something. I guess it's his idea of fun. Strange. How's the Guinness, Buddy?

I spent a couple of hours tearing the CX bike down today and cleaning it up. It certainly needed it. Looks like new now. It's a good thing that we have a shower in the basement because I know that Judy would not have appreciated it at all if I'd put it in the shower upstairs to get the mud from Jingle Cross off of it. That would have been ugly.

Anyway, time to go.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Snow....

One fish, two fish....

....red fish, blue fish.

Judy wanted me to take the garbage can up to the curb. I figured I may as well go ahead and shovel snow since I had to get dressed to go outside anyway. I think we have 3 or 4 inches of new snow and it isn't heavy like the last batch so it only took 45 minutes or so. She was laughing because she thought I looked "funny" in my Dr. Seuss jammies with my boots and winter coat. Whatever....

Anyway, we got the job done and are back inside now. It's 8F outside but no wind so it isn't bad at all. Heck, Jackal showed up about 7:30 on his CX bike. He just had to see how it handled in the snow. Fine, would be my guess.

Oh! I've been chatting with Fat Albert. (He is alive and well and riding the rollers in the garage) He's still accusing me of being corrupt in the tallying of the Lanterne Rouge voting. Hmmmm.... I explained that I was merely being "creative" (no money changed hands, no senatorial or other seats were traded or sold, nor were any seats attempted to be traded or sold....). Chicago politicians are corrupt. All of them.

Anyway, have a great evening!

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Winter is here. Kinda....

The Queen of Cross is also the boss of Toad's....

When I went to bed last night it was over 40F outside. It was 42 when I got up this morning. That started changing right away. It was 32F at 12:45 when we went to lunch and was 25F an hour later when we were done. Whoa! At least the packed snow and ice are gone from the driveway. I can deal with that, I guess. Just read the current temp and the forecast. 12F right now with tonight's low expected to be -1F. Perhaps an inch of snow. Gotta love it! I had an email from my smartass brother in Alabama earlier today asking if it was cold up here. I replied that it was "nice" outside. Whatcha gonna do?

I was just checking results from CX Nats and saw that John, Kat, Landon, and Steve all did well in their respective classes. Good job, folks! Woohoo!

Not really much going on around here lately. Cold with a little snow and ice. I haven't forced myself outside to ride yet. Soon. :)

I would like to thank everyone who took the time to leave comments and vote in the Lanterne Rouge debate. I think the people have spoken!

I was looking for another set of Weyless Korsos for my CX bike and ended up buying a set of Rolf Vectors from Jackal instead. Not the lightest wheel around but I did learn that an aero wheel works great, even at my low speeds, in sand and mud. The Vector has a very similar width and aero profile to that of the Korso. It's all good!

Has anyone been out on the paved trails? How are they? Time for studs yet?

I haven't heard from Fat Albert in a couple of days. What's up with that?

That's pretty much it for now. More later.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

Fat Albert....

Fat Albert teaches statistics at the local college. Talking to some of his (female) students leads me to believe that he's a fairly good teacher, which doesn't surprise me much. I mean, he is anal, and I believe that that's the one sure sign of a good statistician. He likes to look at statistics, no matter how straight-forward they may be, and draw some rather wild conclusions from them. Let's have an example, ok? I know that statisticians love examples.

Let's say that your poor old drinking buddy, Blue, enters a bunch of cross races one year. Let's say that he's out having a good time busting his ass just to have fun and that he finishes DFL in (almost) every race he enters. Suppose that not all of the people that he races against participate in every race of the season but that your poor old drinking buddy does. You must also assume that your poor old drinking buddy finishes every race that he enters and that some of the other people who start the race don't. Also assume that your poor old drinking buddy participates in every race in the state during that season. Are you with me so far? You should also know that your poor old drinking buddy sometimes stops during the race to talk to friends, family, extended family, team mates, acquaintences, or other interesting people that he sees on the course, and occasionally stops to talk to hecklers, and may have stopped a time or two to drink beer with some of the antagonists on the run-ups and such. He also may have stopped a time or two to help other racers who threw a chain or had other mechanical difficulties while participating in an event. He might have stopped by the barriers during one race to dance with a stranger who simply appeared that she wanted to dance.

Anyway, just because your poor old drinking buddy did these things, oops! May have done these things, should you take the coveted title of Lanterne Rouge away from him?

I'm feeling persecuted by my buddy Fat Albert because he's trying to "prove", by using statistics and records, that I didn't finish DFL. Just because the state standings say I wasn't actually DFL and the DICE standings say I wasn't DFL, doesn't mean that I wasn't DFL. Right? Seriously. Think about it. Should Blue be penalized just because someone else who entered a race didn't finish, or because someone else didn't race in all of the races available? It doesn't seem right that he be docked for things such as these which are obviously well beyond his control. Make sense? Besides, 93.2% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

So here's the deal.... Let's vote on this. If you guys post a comment saying yes regarding my claim to the title Lanterne Rouge for the 2008 CX season, and there are more yes votes than no votes, I get 2 sixers of Guinness from Fat Albert. That only seems fair since he has caused me great mental anguish over these last weeks by claiming that I am not entitled to the title I fought so valiantly for and which I titled myself with. Of course you can vote no, if you so desire, but why would you? If the no's outnumber the yes' at 6 p.m. central time on Friday (though I can't see getting any no votes) he'll still give me two sixers of Guinness but I'll share it with him. Sounds fair, right? (Please remember the part about "mental anguish" and show some sympathy)

I believe that I've stated my case quite clearly so now it's time to vote. Vote soon and vote often. Thank you.

Remember, 97.2% of all statistics are made up on the spot! :)

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo!

I'm excited!

The weather forecaster is calling for freezing rain mixed with snow this afternoon and evening with 4-6 inches of snow tomorrow. After what seemed to be a short spring/summer/fall, I'm not sure I'm ready for winter. Whatcha ya gonna do?

I 'spose I can get the xc skis out. Maybe.

Or put the studs on the Surly.

I could sit in the easy chair and sip whiskey. That would be good.

We'll see.

Ride safe.

Peace out, yo.