Penz

I recently purchased a new pen from the internet. It was delivered yesterday, but since I was not home at the time of delivery, they left it in the housing association office. No big deal, they're open from 9-12 on weekdays, I'll just show up to my 9am meeting a little late after picking up the pen.

Nope. The small sign indicted that they would be closed today. Great, now I'm going to have to wait until Tuesday. Lame.

Why would you buy a pen on the internet? Because unfortunately there are few retailers carrying fountain pens these days. Fountain pens write better. There I said it. I was hoping that because fountain pens write better, I would be able to write better with one. This has yet to happen. Remember IAMPETH and the Spencer brothers? Penmanship.

I started looking at and attempting to learn and/or invent some ornamental capital letters. Here's an example from Caitlin's pumpkin contest entry.

Radio

Lately I've been pretty jazzed to be able to sample some new tunes via pandora internet radioesque website. It has about as much variety as the radio, but will allow you to choose the genre and skip songs once in a while.

Sometimes I hear voices, usually in my head. Today I could swear they were coming from the computer. Behind my epic metal there were voices. Was this a scheme by pandora to subliminally sell me more Epica or Apocalyptica albums?

I turned down the volume on the pandora website. The music went away, but the faintest sound background noise still came through.

Was I running another website or program in the background that made sounds I was not aware of? I shut them all, the noise remained.

Let's double check, I muted the sounds on the computer. The sounds persisted.

I turned the volume on my speakers all the way down. The music got louder. Apparently I'm picking up a local radio station via my computer speakers. Oddly enough it comes in loudest with the volume turned all the way down. Weird.

Nats part 2

My third collegiate mtb nationals effort was easily my worst. I got my best result yet, which was not even close to my expectations.

On the plus side my parents came out to watch and I got to play the role of Jemaine with Justin playing the role of Bret.

Justin had a good day and finished 5th in the xc. Massive respect.

Caitlin took some pics and finished the xc without a chain, scooter style. Good game.

sick and tired of being sick and tired

Saturday I woke up with a stuffed up nose and felt like crap, but I had pre-registered for a 'cross race. So I raced. Maybe I was sick from being pregnant?



I felt and looked like crap:



I ended up going ok and finished 10th on both days.




My body is tired. Done.

Justin is coming

There's a special occasion coming up called collegiate mountain bike national championships, or something like that. The part that makes it so special is that Justin, formerly of UMBRC fame and currently a resident of the beaver state (Oregon), is coming out to race. Oh yea, the race is in the tar heel state (NC).

Below is part of a custody battle for young Justin that transpired this morning, highlighting just how special this occasion is.



me:i don't know if we could fit all 5 of us

would you mind driving FB? or i could prob fit him too but not the two of yous

he was thinking coming in wed night

Caitlin: yeah sho

I'll keep him Wednesday too

me: no way. I'm keepin' him

I have the cage set up already and everything

with his little water bottle on the side

i just bought fresh cedar chips

Caitlin : no way!!!

I've been Justin proofing my house for months

I just finished getting all breakable items above 4 ft

me: But I put a plastic cover on my couch and got those 3 ft high barriers to block off doorways

Caitlin: I plugged all the empty outlets

and rerouted all things in an outlet so the wires run through the wall

me: I guess what we'll have to do is when he lands, we'll both stand at opposite sides of the room and call him, whoever he goes to can have him

no cheating either, I don't want to see you sneaking bacon in your pockets or anything like that

Caitlin: and I don't want to see you with a bowl of granola and yogurt

pictures

Here are a few pics courtesy of Caitlin from the cx race this past Sunday. I recently realized that as long as I'm not burned out by the time cx nats rolls around I could go and do the collegiate race. That might be fun. The UCI Elite race was not.

Nah

I was thinking about posting my recent race results on the 'official website' for Aaron Oakes, but I'll stick them here instead.

I raced collegiate mountain bikes (they're smarter than regular ones) a few weeks ago and won the xc. This past Saturday I also won the xc and a TT.

Sunday I went to my first 'cross race and there were more all-stars there than at the mountain bike race. I finished 2nd. Results.

Hopefully I'll be able to post a video clip of me shouldering it over the, non-uci and way too high, set of doubles and sprinting up the hill that followed.

More stuff happened, but my full-time student/job won't permit me the time to write about it.

The video is at the gun show, I'm the one running. Hear.

Suffering

For quite some time I've been toying with the idea of writing about suffering. This is not it. I don't even know that I could coherently put into words what it is I would like to express about suffering. Instead I'll just say that it is relative and usually a good thing.

Most recently, in the context of my back, I've been suffering a little because the knot which is aggravated by my compression fractures has been acting up. Yea, it hurts, but what hurts a lot more is when I put a lacrosse ball down on the floor and lay down on it. I place the whole weight of my body directly on the aggravated muscle, while the hard rubber ball firmly nestles it's way deep into my muscle tissue. Suddenly when I get up it hurts a lot less.

The moral: When you exist at a certain level of comfort, minor aggravations will cause sufferation. If you increase the level of suffering relative to your baseline, you can elevate it and eventually be comfortable with the first level of minor aggravation. This will alleviate the previous gripe.

Graph? Yes.



Don't even think about thinking about those unfortunate people who I may be offending by talking about suffering. You know, the people with no choice about it, the ones in drought stricken or impoverished parts of the world. They don't count, because they're not from America. Duh.