Purely for Enjoyment

This Comes courtesy of my room mates, I have nothing left to say so view...

Craig's List Bonanza

First of all, to clarify the title of the post. Bonanza was recently the word of the day, as well as actually existing as a town in Colorado. So if you happened to be suckered into driving through the San Louis Valley, I highly recommend taking that detour if you are also, like me, of the persuasion that life is just too darn long.

Anyways, I just found this and thought I'd ridicule it for you.

Whole Foods-grass-fed yogurt- m4w (Cherry Creek) Denver, CO

"I was looking for the sour cream ... You sold me on the virtues of the umhomogenized yogurt ... Saw you in the checkout wearing your bike helmet but didn't get to ask... Would you be available for dinner sometime?"

The absurdity of basing a relationship on some's knowledge of the intrinsic negative side affects of transfats and hydrogenation when compared to the ickyness of a little bit of watery stuff on top of your yogurt if you didn't eat it yesterday made me think this was a joke, since I would consider such dairy banter normal and reasonable (but then again this blog was a coin flip away from being called climb bike bass 'n dairy farm). It seemed more unreasonable for this mystery girl to be so adamant about a product this lad wasn't looking for ("So I see your looking at chicken wings. Have you considered the difference between Texas prime rib and authentic Polish sausage?")

So I think the third sentence is the important one (although the ellipses lead me to believe this is an excerpt from a significantly longer treatise of his trip to the grocery store, so the third sentence here). Normally continuing to wear your bike helmet while you perform significantly un-bike-related things is considered nerdly. It gives me the impression that maybe you need to wear your bike helmet at all times (maybe this woman doesn't even own a bike). I also found it peculiar that he didn't notice her wearing a helmet during the conversation. So my belief is that she was wearing an inconspicuous hat-helmet and that initially Mr. Right assumed she was wearing a inconspicuous hat, one that you might not even take note that she was wearing a hat at all:

and from an alternate angle, it reminded him of that magazine add he saw.

Therefore, like anyone 'in the market,' he is trying to show how 'in' he is with bike culture to see how 'in' he can get with her.

As with all my posts, I hope that you can all learn a little something from this.

Lesson 1) sometimes dairy banter is purely educational

Lesson 2) always abridge your craigslist posts when necessary, but, unlike this poster, provide a link to the full essay in order that those who have excessive time (a very small minority of those browsing the missed connections section of craigslist) might be further enlightened.

Papa John, an American Godzilla

First of all when I logged on to velonews this morning I was roused by this photograph showing how hard professional cyclocross racers are willing to push themselves

Then I thought what makes people really push themselves and I quickly realized this was no simple race. This was the practical side of cyclocross... Yes, cyclocross riding is the most practical escape route when one is faced with a giant monster chasing you across grass, mud, and contrived obstacles. I believe, in reality, this photograph is about the last three survivors of the attack of the giant Papa John monster, which I can only assume has already consumed the majority of greater Portland.

looks kinda like this

While that is all fun and games (except for everyone living in Portland, for whom fun and games was an overly serious matter that contained no joy, and especially now that they were killed by a monster). I do intend to actually start posting this low grade crap again. Seriously.

What have I been doing this last month

Check out this if your in the Sprangs in a Week

I would like to apologize to the 5 people who checked in here to see what crazy nonsense has been floating to my mind. I realize that not being able to justify your own sanity by dipping a B$ litmus strip in and seeing if my ideas seem bizarre is no small sacrifice. So I will attempt to placate them with the most nerdly post every seen in the blogosphere (and miserably fail).

Firstly I went to Colorado Springs and managed to sleep for 80% of the time I was there. While I was awake, I managed to catch this guy getting arrested outside of King Soopers

This didn’t seem to weird, except that he was getting EMS treatment when I got back.

Yes, I also had other days that rivaled this in excitement!

For instance on a different day, I saw this product: Gipz. While it was fairly satisfying, I’m glad that I never spent my own money on them. What was especially exiting was the twofold instructions (I read some Heidegger this month, too)

It has instructions for both the average person and the ironically impaired. Next to the large self-explanatory arrow showing where to open the product, the elves (Evlus Keeblerus) show there species poetic/rhyming capacity with the clever phrase “Rip ‘n Tip.” But, in order to market to a larger demographic they give the direction to “Tear Here.” I feel like the Keebler clan should combine their rhyming and need to market to everyone meanwhilst (meanwhilst is meanwhile in the pretentious case) directing the correct market to the correct instructions: “Find the arrow and pull to tear, your lack of irony makes you a square.”

Yes and my month got even more exciting than that!

I drove through a hailstorm and took pictures

Driving in inclement weather and photographing it is, Driving through inclement weather and texting 2.0

I also saw the Barnum and Bailey Ringling Bros Train! At first I was disappointed that there were no elephant sized cars, but then I began phantasizing (it’s kinda like calling something phat— in that it’s lame) about a herd of elephants migrating across the plains that lie east of the front range en route from Pueblo and Denver. But I was awakened from ma reverie, by something (probably to buy this personal burger fryer)

Or this shot glass holder

Whate’er the reason, I continued on with my day and eventually past the train again to catch this photo

The main thing to note is the satellite. I guess it would be nice to have if you were a part of a traveling circus, but it still tickled my ulna (since compounding my ulna, the large titanium plate has made that bone far more ticklish than my humerus).

Anyhow, you can see that nearly a half dozen things happened to me. So I'm sure you're all glad I didn't stretch each of these occurrences into their own posts. I also snapped some photos of various outhouse signage.

Revenge of the Nerd

As always, sadaday in the Tarryalls is thrilling!

Even in the total absence of dancang

But sitting around quietly listening to Dizzy "Freakin'" Gillespie go me to thinking, "Man I should really be listening to Cat Steven's 'Another Saturday night.'" But after that, the thought train kind of stopped rolling.

But just like a train that has been sitting rusted on a set of tracks in the Arkansas River Valley eventually starts moving again once the river erodes the tracks and the train falls over and begins its long quest to the Mississippi Delta, I some how was able to come up with an adequate subject for this weB LOGular entry.

In this forthcoming entry, I will attempt to combine philosophic musings with the eternal warm-when-wet comedy of the Alpaca

God was joking, right? Except for the softness, that's for real

Some sort of children(s) posed a query to me while guiding. "Why," he proclaimed, "is it that so many people both climb and mountain bike?" (don't worry about the incorrect usage of proclaimed... unless you really want to be both a nerd and 'that guy'). That seemed like an easy answer, they both require a similar level of athletic prowess combined cleverly with constant peril. Sure, quads don't help grabbing things and biceps don't really help going up hills but only nerds really care that much about inconsequential performance. But does music some how fit into that same idea, or am I a music nerd... NO!

With that issue resolved I almost let the subject slide, but then I realized I never resolved anything, I just reaffirmed the fundamental truth of reality (my unnerdlyness). It's pretty obv

**********************************

Wait, I just found out that there is going to be a World of Warcraft movie.

NERDS. And not the cool sweet-n-tangy nerds.

**********************************

ious that I'm not a nerd, just look at my high school face book (the actual book from high school not the popular website) photo.

Just imagine the resolution if we had 4th generation iPhones

I still, unfortunately, had to prove that music is possibly totally BA. Sure everyone has stage fright, but I've never come close to doing this on a gig. What is it about being totally isolated, being a music nerd practicing that is totally BA (Boastfully Awesome, this blog is no place for either fowl or foul language).

The answer lies in perception of coolness (la perception de la cool, in French), I've top roped climbs in front of clients shortly after essentially soloing a route and they were impressed. I certainly don't see soloing 4th class as 'cool' but that's because I sat down and read Freedom of the Hills, and determined that TRing routes is safe, just like I practiced and found out that jazz is safe (unless you beep when you should bop).

So like any great philosophic work, I leave you with a paradox. I have to be a nerd in order to not be a nerd whether climbing, biking, or bassing. And a picture of a muskrat, I'm also leaving you with that.

Two Horses and an Alpaca

As I was stuck supervising Chitlins while they slept last night, I watched the Firebird (L'Oiseau de Feu, Жар-птица, Der Feuervogel depending on your languageway) auf iPod (иПод) (its teal... the coolest, and not even a little nerdly), as a creative artist myself. I got to thinking about my own 10 minute opera/ballet (you may need to download Finale Reader) based on the text of the children's book that started my lifelong obsession with shenanigans (and not just 'cause its a fun word to say). Realizing how much interational success that it is bound to achieve me, I thought about what other ideas I might have to give the world, I was astounded to remember that nearly a month after having the idea I had made almost no progress towards writing the first season.

That's right! I had almost entirely forgotten about "Two Horses and An Alpaca." Now, I don't normally get all Willy Nilly about emoticons (remember I'm no nerd), but I will say this of myslef:

:(

While I plan to get on that in the next [large unit of time], I will tell you this of the concept so that you, yes all 9-12 of you, can start the buzz. Firstly, that this show is firmly planted in reality and there is a farm/ranch on the back side of Florissant which happened to have only two horses and an alpaca visible as I rode by on one particular day. That there was an alpaca resort (as far as I could tell) down the road, that the characters will mostly be animals and have Mr. Ed-like voices. The horses are going to be straight edged while the alpaca is going to be the free spirit whom the horses try to shun, but end up learning a lesson about individuality by the end of he episode

Most importantly, there will be a comical Kramer-like dog who will have a catch-phrase, coffee themed name, and will be on an endless quest for the central Coloradan banana tree.

Just wait for the hijicks to ensue.

Since there were no photos in this entry, it is my pleasure to present both a joke and a photo depiciting how exiting square dancing was tonight.

What a hindu?

It lays eggs! HAHAHAHAHA......

Recovery: Apathy is Acceptable?!

So the last several days (aka Sunday and Monday) was the wonderful time where work didn't expect me to be able to effectively deal with children, and I was able to engage in a general apathy known widely as recovery.

Sunday proved to be the best example. After a night of cramping each time I rolled over, I convinced myself that the day was worth facing. Then promptly after finishing a bowl of cheerio's I slept for another 45 minutes. Then I performed an adequate 145 minutes of lounging and practicing the contrabass. Then I realized that all the food I had eaten in the last 20 hours had induced nausea, so I came up with the brilliant idea to lounge by Tarryall Creek. I took a several hour nap, woke up hungry, then continued driving to Jefferson to get a delicious, greasy, delicious Burger and Fries from the Hungry Moose Caboose (please go there if you're in Jefferson, CO), and it was greasy.

After able recalorification, I resumed my lounging:

'I'm gonna guess by your tan lines that you aren't a golfer'

I also found some enjoyable views:

I even learned some interesting Tarryall Valley facts during my roaming.

At Least my bike doesn't poop in the Wilderness!

Such as there is a horse trail to the base of X-Rock

"Ranger's were required to show proficiency in horse packing"

Or that Forest Rangers were once held to some standards of proficiency. As interesting as that was I slept till dinner and then slept for the night.

The next morning I managed move up in the world from apathy to lethargy. After barely any sleeping in, and a mere meh-cceptable lounging period it was time for... Breckenridge! As everyone knows Summit County is the place to be if you don't feel like doing anything active and if you don't really want to spend money. Me and PIC (Partner in Crime) visited several local boutiques only to discover that unlike a endurance bike race, real stores give very little away for free. So we bought Mary's Mountain Cookies, and skidoodled over to Carter Park. Where after a short hike at the start for the firecracker 50. We saw this.

"Custom Fence"

I was unable to capture all those just outside the frame who were upset because of Breck's attempt to make fence culture into the main stream be just going out and getting the nicest custom fence they could without spending the time to get 'field cred.' I also captured a photo of nerd culture, that was expressly not for sale, but I managed to delete it in my unnerdlyness. Please use google to search for photos of 'iPhone users' for better results than I could have given anyways.

After seeing family and eating Empire Burger, an LLF (Long Lost Friend) entreated me and my companion to step foot in Manitou. This required the several hour drive to reassure myself that I would be normal even after a stop in the Mate Factor and several moderate-to-severe hissy fits descending from Woodland Park. We arrived early to Manitou, so the obvious thing to do was hit up the penny arcade.

While I was tempted to spare my quarters in order to find out how kissable I was, I remembered that there are several websites that advertise that service for free, several maybe even on this blog. So I used the pinball machines to relieve me of my pocket change.

I don't see anything Roller Derby related in the game play!

After singing lines from "Pinball Wizard" and a thorough stretching/calisthenics routine, I played as seriously as I could, only to realize that I was inches from grave injury as this warning indicates

I ended up lightening up my mood, and felt much safer. This LLF soon showed up and relieved myself of the embarrassment playing arcade games poorly. Obviously the next step was to head northwest by several hundred yards and attend the "Mate Fator." I won't go into very much detail, but I will say that I received a complimentary cookie for them taking too long on my order, that the cookie wasn't particularly delicious (whereas the steamed and buttered muffin is F-I-N-E fine), that we had a pleasant conversation, and that I attempted to document my fellow tavern goers including what must be the Monday Night Magic Card Before Going Back To Our Parents' House Club, which was meeting directly across from me. However, I'm terrified to report that apparently everyone else in the place seemed to be a vampire, because they all failed to show up in the photographs.

Anyone with connections is encouraged to call those who can help.

The Barely 100

Feeling like a piece of fridge, watching emotional embrace

As everybody knows, (where everybody means the literally dozen-ish people who have viewed this blog) I raced the Bailey 100. Needless to say, I didn't take any pictures because of the off chance that I could accidentally document myself incoherently weeping to myself while spending most of my mental energy trying not to 'toss cookies.'

Therefore, I intend to tell the story of what I do remember via unrelated pictures.

The story starts mostly the night before where the most notable thing that happened was my interaction with Dave Wiens.

Dave is a "bear" of a man... HAHAHA

The extent of my interaction was two fold. Firstly, he gave me my doubled pay that my boss offered. This occurred through a sophisticated procedure as illustrated thusly.

Dave Wiens pushing my visor over my eyes

Dave is represented by the giant prairie dog and, to keep our statures in proportion, I'm represented by the small stuffed bear wearing a visor. Dave's hand motion is represented by the red arrow and my subsequent visor direction is illustrated by the blue arrow. The magnitude of my visor's fall is represented by the blue hatch mark in the left directionway of the bear.

After that and some senatorial meet 'n creep, which I'm assuming will set me up with a job as long as Colorado has a state senate, it was bed time. At first I thought that 4 wake up meant in the afternoon, but apparently not since I found my self trying to stomach breakfast burritos at roughly 4:15 am (mountain time, opposed to my original guesses of east coast and Greenwich mean time). After some prerace shenanigans and a dose of my secret PED (performance enhancing drug), we were roused to race with the traditional call, of iPhone to bull horn amplified national anthem, and a starting gun that actually means bidness, we began riding.

Among some of the other things me and my riding buddy learned, we determined that some of the bicycles in the race cost more than $1000! We learned this from a Scott sponsored riding who claimed her bike cost six thousand dollars (thats 18.72 in Euro), and that she had nine. Wow! Can you imagine...

Then there was a while where we rode some sweet sangle tarck. And about 3 hours in that same ride came up from behind us and informed us that we smelled poorly (which took some clarification to determine that it wasn't our skills that stank).

The Charmin Bear: Would you ride behind him?

The next thing I remember is noting at about 4.5 hours that "this is the part where things get less fun." And I'm no amateur at determining parts of things. I've also successfully determined when it was the part where we go off the road, and the part that happens after the drums stop (bass solo).

Then there are spots that don't stand out, learning at mile 65 that the winner (JHK) was in, changing chamois, and reapplying my PED

How does you're chamois-saddle interface feel?

Then there is some really low points and I won't bore you (or embarrass myself) with the details, but I did manage to finish. I will confirm rumors that it was indeed my second worse day on a bike, after...

Welcome To The Black Hole

The B$ seal

Unfortunately, i have been sucked into the black hole which is the Tarryall Valley for sometime now. And despite my best efforts, all attempts at communicating with the outside world have failed and have come crashing back to me at very close to the speed of light.

I have had some experiences that I won't ever forget, such as seeing democracy's inaction on jury duty. Being deceived twice: once that I was going mountain cycle riding with centaurs, when in fact I was doing it with a senator. Then I thought I was going meet the cast of ALF, when I was meeting a program called A.L.F. But this is all part of the illogical shenanigans (a sophisticated physics term) that occurs beyond an event horizon.

But the subject of this post in a 100+ mile training ride for the Bailey Hundo (taking place tomorrow) I was only able to document the first third of this ride do to camera's batteryway being very low on power, but I managed to get some sweet photogs of the first half.

This photo was from playing hide-and-go-seek with Pikes Peak. He did pretty good for a while, but I prevailed. I was unable to get many other good photos, except of these geese exploring the concept of chicken wire (largely obscured by brush)

and my ferocious attack into Cripple Creek.

7 Miles per hour!

What I was not able to document photographically was two fold. My creation of a sitcom about two horses and an alpaca (based on a farm which had those animals in that proportion). And Cripple Creek.

The sitcom needs to wait for a separate post, as blogger does not allow for such voluminous text for both subjects. But Cripple Creek is an odd place. I had seen a billboard that advertised Cripple Creek as an "adult playground" so when I saw a playground across from main parking garage I figured I had made it to the right place. However, the only thing like a casino was gambling my dignity by using the slide bekitted. I then got objectified by some townies, by which I am still scarred. So while I never quite figured out the whole casino thing, I can attest that Cripple Creek has outstanding public facilities, albeit hard to find. Seeing the mines is also cool and I would recommend taking the scenic county road between CC and Victor.

Oh yeah, I also saw this this week.

And then after seeing who I was this

More Posts to come later this week! and jokes too :,(

Going Away From The Center Of The Earth

Relativity says both answers can be considered right.

I spent Friday night in Tarryall. Thanks to Kirk, I now know my blood oxygen saturation at 9000' is 98%. This came as a shock to me since it means that I am in some way fit, and its blown one of my excuses (which barely dents the surface). In similar news I tried to run from campus up to the top of columbine trail and back down Gold Camp/Chutes/Chamberlain back to campus. That proved to be a 3:15 hour run and a nice 45 minute walk. Which conveniently gave me an excuse to miss Llamapalooza. I would reveal my training numbers, but all of you would then have the great advantage of knowing excactly what not to do to get ready for a 100 mile bike race (practicing double bass concerti isn't one of em).

Anyway, for my final project for the class I'm in now, I'm taking my own advice to heart (rare!!!!) and working out how reverse what I piano player does and play a pretty good bass line, and comp chords in a cliched staid sounding way. I've been devising a series of etudes, which i'll post if I find a way to scan them. If I inspired you to figure out how to do it on your own without my help, just remember how annoying it is when piano player do bass lines: make sure no one else is also playing chordally.

JOKE TIME

(except this actually happened)

Someone told me that I looked '10,000 times cuter with out my mustache'

I said, 'there are a lot of other ways to illustrate the fact that anything times zero equals zero.'

HAHAHA

Alpacas are the internation symbol of both snuggly warmth and humor

Rock-apella!

You also think pie is delicious... Let's go on a date!

Everybody (ie some people) knows the joke 'A Capella is Latin for out of tune.' Well I decided to put that to the test by actually attending a collegiate A Capella concert. I had actually seen the nascent stages of this concert, by which I mean I saw them taking photos for the flyers...

This is sideways because I was actually ROFL-ing.

While this may seem like a stereotypical movie scene, but luckily people were only being shot at with cameras. I later stumbled upon the result of this glam sesh...

Just because we aren't in kindergarten doesn't mean we can't all be unique slightly differently

So now that I saw their smug shot, the only thing left to do was actually sit through a performance (and BE THERE sounded threatening and I don't want a roving gang of people in evening casual to be haunting me). Their flyer did leave some accuracy to be desired, here's the start of a series of photos I was about to take.

Too many times has the am/pm vagueness gotten me in trouble

I was about to take a bunch of photos of the stats from my bike ride today, but unfortunately for all of you reading this for my training secrets... you've been foiled since the lights went down not a second before 7:41:32.

psst, I have a secret, but the audience can't know

This is a photo from song 1. The Jackson 5's 'I Want You Back.' I happen to feel it was a good way to turn Acapella into Flopapella. Choosing a song that relies mostly on a bass line that people can't since no one wants to hear people sing in that octave (which is why I don't sing), is like giving the double bass part to the 'cellos or the flute part to the bassoons... Why? On a related note, you might be wondering who spewed as they walked on stage, but I can assure that those are a haphazardly arranged Christmas lights that kinda say Room 46. But they didn't just stand there and sing... nope, they also to copious amounts of water breaks.

Water Break... AKA Gossip time!

They decided to drink out of red wine glasses with a nice pitcher in the middle, and I decided to sit in corner and take low quality photos of their performance... to each his own.

They the revealed to their other talent, passing off to the next soloist by making it clear that they didn't actually know too much about each other except that it was a safe bet to inform the audience that the next soloist had a nice voice, and is a good all-around person. This was good for me, because I was able to just listen to my iPod since I already had found out what I needed to know about the performance (that it was good).

For the second song they decided to go for a different formation...

Shun the non-believer

Clear the run formation didn't work for the first song so they decided to spread it out and go for a pass. And what did they throw at us? A ballad. I should point out because it isn't clear from my photographs, but there is a book of A Capella rules somewhere, and its first chapter is about how one must always dance as if they were this couple, only they must keep both feet on the floor at all times. Anyways, that song did indeed end, so....

WATER BREAK!

What do the lights say again?

So began another awkward pass off, which also ended. This process continued several times, alternating between running and passing formations. The grand fandango came when the format changed a little for the beat box solo.

The Third Formation

This selection differed in that everyone stood as far away from their (as a found out from his introduction) beloved beat boxer. Further, he used a microphone (colloquially refered to as a mic). Sufficiently enthralled by this space age technology. I watched in awe as our 'singer' (by the way, I think singers make jokes about beat boxers the same way that real musicians make jokes about singers) did away with the tedium of idea development and general cohesion that is generally associated with 'traditional' drum solos. But perhaps more importantly, he danced with his feet significantly off the ground, and attempted a dance maneuver attempting to replicate someone walking on the moon, and I'm sure I wasn't the only audience member used to more conservative ac-ap (as its known to its devoted followers) groups who was taken aback by this controversial statement of personal flair. I go to a concert like this expecting the traditional dress code of "lets show how easy going and quirky we are by how we dress and end up all wearing jeans and partially unbuttoned collared shirt with a white undershirt," and I found this went too far.

I was so disgusted that I walked out (at intermission as I was planning). I did manage to catch a glimpse of the mixing set up that wasn't used in this production.

Something is draining the endowment?

Oh sure, it looks nice, but I know you're wondering, "Hey does this thing make credit card transactions?" The answer is of course, yeah I guess.

Please enter your PIN to make a generous donation to the apreCCiate fund

To be fair everyone in the group could sing pretty well, and they seemed well rehearsed. And I'm all in favor of art forms that allow people to express their true feelings. I'm just glad to be listening to Maceo Parker's down home grooves right now.