Sunday, December 2, 2007

i tried to find a photo of a letter made out of a chain, but instead found a drawing of naked men conforming into letters of the alphabet.

i think this is better.


i didn't get an email account until like three years ago so i missed out on all of the teenage email chain letter hijinks, but when i was around the age of seven i received a chain letter in the mail from someone. his name was yougel and the ornately written letter was postmarked from gstaad, switzerland...

dear american colin,

i have found your name in american phone directory. please relay this message to seven people to avoid disease and misfortune.
this is all. good day to you.

sincerely,
yougel

...my parents said not to forward it because 'we don't support the swiss'. at the time i didn't bother to ask why, i suppose i assumed that it must have been some sort of political vendetta...

...nope. actually it was due to food poisoning from expired fondue cheese. swiss fondue cheese. apparently she was REALLY sick. Anyhoo, with tricia don's permission we visited switzerland as a family two years ago and had a lovely time. i held on to yougel's letter all this time and while we were there i attempted to look him up. after depositing about thirty swiss francs and an hour of my time into a public telephone i was able to track down his mother, who had since moved to genthod, which is a small town right outside of geneve. over the telephone she informed me that yougel had passed three years prior, and i said i was sorry to hear that, which i was. we visited her the day we were to fly out of the genevian aeroport and she told us the rest of the story that she didn't have the heart to disclose over the phone. yougel was swimming around the shores of lake geneva with his friends and contracted a deadly strain of 'duck pouse', which leeches into the water from the feces of swiss, orange-billed mallards.
he died ten days later from symptoms usually associated with amoebic dysentery. we did however get 'harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban' as one of the inflight movies, which was shown on those cool video monitors that are built into headrests of the seats. i think the other movie was something shitty like 'mona lisa smile'. i hadn't thought of this until just now, but his original letter to me mentioned something about '...disease and misfortune...' if i did not participate in his little charade. curious to say the least.

okay, so i guess we've established that it has been awhile since i had an opportunity to participate in any form of chain-lettering, but i just was 'tagged' by corey carlson (...who, i might interject, was recently attacked, and presumably taken advantage of, by a crazed individual on a denver bike path). so here, at the risk of myself contracting the hanta virus and suffering a horrible/painful death, are five things you don't know about me, maybe.


(with a slightly aggressive and punctual tone) fact.

1. i too was watching 'how to loose a guy in 10 days', but did not finish it because decidedly it was not up to par with tom hanks' films in the genre, my personal favourite being 'you've got mail'...i will say though that the new film with hilary swank has definite potential.


2. i was once involved in pretending to be a seductive young asian woman on aol instant messenger...who asked a sexed-up, pre-SAT taking teen for his measurments. he sadly complied.

3. i bought the entire set of 'rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and the island of mistfit toys' action figures (dolls) off of ebay when i was ten (sixteen). i think i used my mother's credit card...without her knowing.

4. someone was wondering what the name of the "...troll dolls with the gems in their belly buttons and colored hair..." were officially called the other day, and in my head i was able to chime in with 'treasure trolls' far too quickly...okay no more doll related facts.


5. my parents refuse to buy real christmas trees these days because of the hassle, as in you have to give it water and a corner to live in..."i already have look after two kids, and i don't need a third", so we have a nice, swedish fake one that is supposedly flame resistant. key word "resistant". i think that the class newly made trees in sweden must attend to learn about the dangers of fire is probably similar to lesson in school when the police officers used to come in and teach us about saying no to drugs. after people ask me multiple times if i want to smoke hash with them i eventually stop saying no. i guess you might say that i am "hash resistant"...not to be confused with "hash proof".


6. not really a secret, but when i pour cereal into a bowl at breakfast time i ALWAYS add far more to the bowl than i intend to eat...so that i can dump the excess in the sink.


(pause)...i think i'm missing the point maybe...were they all supposed to be embarrasing?...or just five things out of the ambiguous "things you don't know about me category"? whateve. i'm going to go watch tonight's installment of 'project runway'.




...it was a baker's dozen.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

the very pants i was about to return.

…writing a web log post from the denver international airport (free wifi) because typing on a keyboard allows me to rest my hands on the typing surface thus eliminating any temptation to put my arms and hands on the gross, bacteria enveloped, synthetic blue airport furniture. how could I forget the alcohol wipes. instead of killing the 99.9% of germs on this seat, i’m absorbing them through the my one hundred percent cotton banana republic slim-fitting british khaki safari slacks. i too once had grandiose dreams that i might one day find myself penning out stories of love, deception, greed, lust, and unbridled enthusiasm in the pages of a j. Peterman (http://jpeterman.com/) catalogue…

“…she paused for a moment in thought before elegantly pursing her lips together and daintily running the scarlet colour from right to left. at that precise moment he, across the world, was readjusting the band of his father’s old patek phillipe that had been sadly parted momentarily with his wrist for inspection by the customs agent with the oddly callous demeanour. a quick glance out to the sun-bleached tarmac; dodgson was on time for once. after procuring his well-worn rucksack from the oxidized steel rollers of the antiquated x-ray device, he strolled out the door and towards the shapely man bent over the engine cavity of the olive green cessna 3130. the scent of burnt petrol perfumed the air and when dodgson acknowledged his presence by a slight turn of the head, the expression he wore was unmistakably synonymous with enough time to pour a glass of what little he had left of the bottle of 1958 glen garioch. he pulled the lever to gain entry into the cockpit and sat down with the…yada…yada…yada…the pants he was wearing were superbly comfortable”

It never would have worked out.



…time to board. (saved & posted from home.)

Monday, November 19, 2007

do you want to go in the bathroom and smoke a cigarette with me?


well hello. its been a while since i made my last post, but i suppose this is always the case. enjoy the photographs and commentary from the last few weeks.


on halloween night i went to astronomy class at an observatory, in a park. im quite certain that i saw the words "BALD ASSHOLE" scrawled across someones door in something red, perhaps sheep's blood. toilet paper had also been strewn about their yard. i remember the days when we would just toss a few bottles of green food coloring and anise extract into the pool of the person...(who thought it a good idea to pass out fruit or pennies to children on halloween)...and be done with it. then again, i think sheep's blood is probably commercially availible these days, which it was not in 1997. on the other hand just because something is "commercially availible" doesn't mean its cheap. the werewolf testicles that i purchased on ebay for halloween of 01' cost me fifty dollars a piece, and i'm pretty sure that mean old man didn't realize that he was eating real werewolf testicles, they could have been a dog's for all he knew. i think i talked about cow's blood in a post long ago; the fascination with mammalian hemoglobin continues...


the redline cup. racing with the cat three's is crosstastic. i did not finish dead last and i did not vomit...or itch for that matter. woot. i think i finished 55th out of a 76 man field. i also watched the pro race, and was situated a mere twenty feet way when mr. jeremy "love tap" powers got fresh with a barrier and she maced him in the face.


evan sandstrom and i went to a cyclocross race in the highlands ranch area that was called "on the cross" and was held at church...then evan drove me to a liquor store and bought me beer. not cheap gross beer, but classy "microbrewed" beer. this was one of my finer races of the season. almost scored the hole shot, and ended up second wheel through almost all of the first lap. i tried to keep the pace up, but ended up losing a few positions and grabbed on to the back of a chase group. fifteenth place finish. evan broke a bolt on his stem twenty-five minutes prior to the race. lame. one of the guys in the race was named jafar. sick. you win some, you loose some.


i went to see feist play at the ogden theatre and ended up having quite the lovely time. she opened with "sea lion woman", and prior to that i was not aware of her "rocking" abilities, but yes she can play, sing, wear red tights, and look pretty. my only complaint was that she played the opening riff to "lovertits" and then stopped. for the family i would like to note that the beer was not actually mine, i just borrowed it from jane for the picture.


"my moon, my man"


leslie feist.


finals weekend was every morning this weekend + monday morning at seven o'clock. yes, i know wtf. its over now and i can start manufacturing the z's at night...instead of sitting at the table in my kitchen, drinking mediocre coffee out of the french press, bitting my nails, and reading about sexual promiscuity...for anthropology.


bob mapplethorpe, potential getaway driver, go.


the quarter is now over. i pack my things tonight and take a six week holiday to the american southwest tomorrow. i was supposed to start base on the third of december, but...DECEMBER 9TH ARIZONA STATE CHAMPIONSHIP OF CYCLOCROSS! base can wait a few extra days. ill see you there...while you are there...in arizona...watching the race.



bon voyage.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

two firsts in one day. first cyclocross race and first water-borne itching parasite. yes, a busy day indeed.

headed out to interlocken this morning with the sandstorm brothers, evan and eric. eric (age: 15, height: 6'7'') needed to make it to the juniors race, so at dark thirty we all piled in to the volvo and made the pilgrimage to the course.

much of the course entailed riding through this viscous grass that absorbed most of the energy that was expended with each stroke through the pedals. there were quite a few turns, some of which people were describing as "off-canter". i almost hit a tree, but i did not thanks to my superior genes/immune system. my roommate just called his online girlfriend a "cheap-ass bitch" while engaging in some non-halo 3 variety of battle (another video game that i do not know the name of)...frankly, i don't think this relationship is going to last. im sitting next to the sloth as i type this, and thus feel compelled to let you know that it's business as usual in room 607 north. he informed the young lass that he woke up at two in the afternoon, ate some trans-fat filled confectionery delight, and then has, "...pretty much been playin' halo eva since." it's nine o'clock right now. ill be leaving him soon, and the child (aubrey) will be coming with me. okay enough of that, back to the race.

the dismounting sections of the course, there were two of them, included an epic, deep puddle of stagnant, amoeba filled, cess pool-esque water, followed by a muddy run up, as well as a dismount at the bottom of a hill, a run up, a jaunt through a volley balll course, and finally two more barriers up a mild slope. this last section made kind of an "m" shape.


(pictured is greg "mud and cowbells" keller, lover of cyclocross, and sick blogger. i don't know him personally, but i read his web log.)

a few hours after watching the lil' sandstorm rip it up like a mummy on acid, evan and i (...outfitted in our undeniably sexy long sleeve skinsuits...) rolled up to the start. the field sizes for almost all of the races were disgustingly large....i think the senior men 45+ category had a rumored 100 or more riders....the race being in such close proximity to boulder and denver was most likely responsible for this. there must have been at least fifty (correction 100) people lined up for our race, and evan and i were only about two rows back at the start. following the commencement of the race there was a mass of people looking to get a good position into the first turn, i was passing people and moving my way up before the creek crossing, and after the gross hill had put myself in a decent position. the rest of the race was spent trying to move up. i was passing people on the sections with the barriers and dismounts, and was being re-passed on some of the grassy sections. the legs felt good the last three to five laps, meaning i was not so far into oxygen debt that i was unable to maintain cognitive function.

things that went well today, sort of. firstly, the weather was warm and sunny. all of the observatory park mounting, dismounting, and clipping in practice friday afternoon seemed to have paid of as there was no racking of one's self, and most of the time i was able to keep power moving through the pedals, post-barriers. also, i looked good...this is a given and really requires no mentioning. i also finished top 20 i think...maybe...well, we shall see. i beat all of the people i was determined to beat at the start, namely the two significantly younger TIAA-CREF kids.

things that did not go well today. after the muddy run up i dropped my chain to the outside somehow and had a difficult time getting it back on, a few positions were lost, and the post-chain drop bicycle remount was over a knobbly section of the course and was mildly painful.

evan was not happy with his result, and said that his "...legs felt like shit...", but he rocked it, and like a true sandstorm was riding through the sand pit/volley ball course. bad ass.

my first observations on the sport that is cyclocross.
1. ex-csu coach probably loves it due to its intense nature, and innate dick-in-a-vice qualities.
2. it's hard as fuck (pardon my american).
3. i can't wait to do it again...sans the itching and hallucinations (more to come on this...).

the second "first" (itching and hallucination)...

now that i have attempted to discuss the race without considering what transpired afterwards, which made yesterday a not so fantastic day, i will tell you about my undiagnosed allergy to stagnant pond water.

i dont clearly remember all of this. (the swear words are necessary because they help in recreating the agony).

i was very itchy after the race, my head started itching and then it started moving down my body...im very thirsty, but more so itchy...i drink some water out of an ash colored nalgene bottle, which smiled at me...i wish there was more water in this bottle...corey's parents, corey's lady friend jami, corey, scott wenzel (i would like to absolve him of all dead-ness, but maybe just a tad dead to me still), eric, and evan were all shucking and jiving next to the muddy ditch after the four's race, it's nice to see all of them...evan and i are going to disneywrand for spring break...i itch every fucking where!...okay i need to get this skinsuit off so that i can scratch my skin so hard it bleeds and my forearms get sore...back to evans car...skinsuit off boxers on...ill sit on the asphalt and scratch...i think that woman standing next to her car can see into my boxers...i dont care...evan i need help, lets go get some benadryl please...i wonder if i can go swimming in that stream of reclaimed water...okay we're in the sandstrom mobile, and i am laying down in the backseat with only boxers and a pair of sunglasses evan handed me on...my vision is all sorts of fucked up, why is it so bright?...i can't see anything...(driving)...i see a pool...evan pull over the car...now...okay the pool is gated, im hopping over the gate...fuck fuck fuck theres some sort of inpenetrable, spring-loaded cover on the pool...the bottoms of my feet itch, it must be this pool deck...my feet are on fire...hopping back over the gate, back to the vehicle...bob you were told to thoroughly clean the pool this morning!...(driving)...albertson's parking lot, throw on white shirt and shoes so that i can get service...into the store, evan hands me a gatorade i start drinking...cold soda in the fridge next to the check out, i start drinking that...where did they go...i cant see anything, it is so bright in here...pharmacy isle...antihistimines!...fuck there are like a million varietys of benadryl...im going to pass out or lie down...okay im sitting on the floor...evan just open a fucking box...here swallow these...eric go get two gallons of water...check out, credit or debit...back to the parking lot...dump water on a towel and start rubbing...okay im starting to feel better...clothes on.

...anyways, that's kind of how it went down. thank you evan and eric for all of your help. thank you corey's parents, jami, corey and scott for yelling words of encouragement. we went back to watch some of corey's race afterwards, i started getting drowsy from the four benadryl tablets and after almost passing out in the shower, fell asleep on top my bed.

i attempted to WebMD my symptoms, but the diagnosis of "crabs" seemed incorrect.



in other news...

haley brill and i are in the preliminary planning stages of a trip to india. would you like to come?

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

first cross practice...using a cross bike. still not using mtb shoes, but someday soon.

headed out to a park off of bannock st. that eric moore showed me once upon a time. i spent the first part of my morning hopping invisible barriers and running up a hill. i think it went alright all things considered. i am terrible at mounting a bicycle while running, i either end up stutter stepping and sort of half-hopping on, or i build up the courage to do it properly and end up jumping excessively high and crashing on to the saddle, which hurts. i wish i was a female...no pain when you mis-hop on to your bike saddle, and no need to purchase costly calendars. the park is right next to a high school, and since today is a tuesday school was in session, and people were doing some pre-class canoodling on park benches, etcetera. nobody was really paying attention to the uncoordinated kid that seemed to be moving about the park without rhyme or reason...running with a bike over his shoulder, attempting to do wheelies, riding down hills with both legs on one side of the bike...one homeless man did however hear me utter some profane language under my breath after i had credit carded myself on the tip of my saddle. he smiled and my pain had been justified. i hurt myself, people like watching people hurt themselves, therefore people like me. thats called a syllogism. im like john hammond, except i have bicycle and he had an elaborate amusement park with cloned dinosaurs on an island about forty miles off the coast of costa rica.



definitely worth a couple weeks of dealing with unsavory ebayers.

Monday, October 8, 2007

...AND THANK YOU KYLE! D'AURIA.



wtf was i thinking.

the friuts of my loins.

i went over to eric moore's haus at around 4:30...and three-five hours later this was birthed in his living room. thanks eric and tito.







Thursday, October 4, 2007

извинения

the prior post was much more entertaining this morning, following the french press of coffee and the two bowls of cinnamon toast crunch. no more posting for the sake of posting. i cross my heart...and hope to die. kids are scared of the park. yeah, grown men come into the park and don't leave alive.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

i noticed this while perusing the web post-breakfast...polish fixie!

"Hi Dennis! I’m from Poland. This is my third fixie ,her name is “Gąska Balbinka” I use her to commute every day ,everywhere. Bike is based on cromoly steel frame ,shitmano 600 cranks ,modolo handlebar ,and wheels –miche pista hubs –remerx Taurus rims. Gear is 52X17. I’ll be glad to see my Balbinka in your’s gallery. My mail: rurokura@o2.pl rurokura@o2.pl"

click on the link and check out rurokura's sick shitmano cranks. yeah, thats right even polish people think shimano sucks, the polish consensus is that they should stick to fishing reels.

http://www.fixedgeargallery.com/2007/oct/1/rurokura.htm#image_2

Monday, October 1, 2007

after a weekend of seaching, my friend carl is sure that the lost ark of the covenant is not buried in some crevasse in the catskill mountains.



seven people have now told me that honey bees have stopped working or something, and from experience i know that when seven different people of different ages, different ethnic backgrounds, different heights, and different opinions on the ethicality of stem cell research, tell you that something is happening you accept this as infallible fact. thus, i did what any sane person unaffected by the fumes of model-grade super glue would do...i went on to craigslist and tried to purchase a bee farm. for anyone unfamiliar with the concept of 'craigslist', it is a centralized network of online communities, featuring free classified advertisements (with jobs, internships, housing, personals, for sale/barter/wanted, services, community, gigs, resume, and pets categories) and forums on various topics. as of now craigslist is inundated with a lot of high-profile beekeeping properties (it seems that even the 'honeyville' folks in durango have caught wind of hard times in the beekeeper community), but i finally found some guy that lives right outside of golden, colorado who might be willing to sell me the half of his garage/attic that bees that have taken over. he said, and i quote, "they seem more aggressive than normal bees." excellent, it seems that not all the bees have succomb to slothfulness. i work with a lot of aggressive people and they seem to get more work done than most, you might even call them 'busy, and mean, little bees'. i didn't want to seem like i wasnt 'serious', nor did i want him privy to the information that those bees may be worth their weight in beets in the coming months, so i told him to contact me in the next week so that we can discuss the details of our arrangment. i bought some flavored honey sticks at the sunflower market yesterday in celebration of my soon-to-be latest property acquisition. i figure that in about a month i will own a haunted bread factory AND half of a bee infested garage/attic.



i ran into the macaulay culkin's degenerate, and much less well-known brother the other day on a bike ride...lets just say there's nobody 'home alone' up there. this fellow didnt just buy milk, eggs, and fabric softener...he consumed them, probably in a single sitting. if this kid was alan greenspan he would have changed the accepted form of currency in the u.s. to oak leaves years ago.

speaking of bike riding...i havent been doing much of it. i guess i should say 'enough' of it. not to worry however, all of the components to finish building my cyclocross bike should be here by the end of the week and before you know it i'll be posting unexciting 'race updates' that nobody except my parents will read.

this should be a fair representation of me pre-cyclocross season...



...and post...



...step aside sven nys, ryan trebon, corey carlson, eric moore, and evan sandstrom.

okay i guess thats really all i have for now, for you family members out there i know i left out some general life details...ill get back to you later with them.



(...you're gonna get a bullet in you head courtesy of kyle! d'auria...)





Saturday, June 9, 2007

apologies folks ive been busy not writing in this web log...have you been to the grand canyon? i have. sixteen times. sucka...goodbye Harry Potter.

this post is about a month old now, i started writing it and then saved it. ive been doing the traveling thing off and on for the past month and have been in such glorious places as...the north rim of the grand canyon...mount lemmon...the o'hare airport in chicago...mordor...my grandmother's house...and ireland, but now im back in tucson for the remainder of the summer. woo hoo.

(this is dated but in a quest for a decently sized post it shall stay) i started composing a post, which detailed my wreck several weeks ago, but i guess i forgot to save it. it was a good one. sorry. whatev. most of you already know the story and the limited injuries involved. anyways a few weeks ago i went down in a crit that was held at a go-kart track of all places. i can do sketchy roads that wind through neighborhoods, but a slick go-kart track that has something like 13 ridiculous turns spread out over the 0.7 mile course was not as much fun as it might sound. i went off the front for a prime and two atrociously taken turns later my bike and body were sliding, one away from the other. i hopped back on the saddle and took my free lap. the limited number of spectators...including two friends and an ex-pro...saw everything. i finished unimpressively.

i was at the grand canyon post office with my mother who needed stamps and i saw these...



i own star wars stamps now, and if you send me your name and address i will consider sending you a letter with one of these bad boys attached. the letter might have random items from a drawer in my room that i just cleaned out inside of it. seriously, just post name and address in the comments section.

the bike shop a mile from my home just sold me a single tube for eight dollars. the owners and every employee in the shop...excepting two...just made the ever expanding 'colin don's shit list' (pardon my american) joining the ranks of such people as elijah wood, my cousin mose, and my elventh grade writing teacher mr. knutson. i called the shop the other day to get everyone's address but the person who answered the phone refused, saying that he wanted my name and didnt think that i actually planned to send any of the employees complementary letter openers from my law firm. (4 pizzas a person) x (8 employees...including the owners) = (32 pizzas). i hope that everyone down at 'tucson bikes' is hungry on friday. dominos said that the best they can do is 20, so i had to call pizza hut to complete the order.

i was in ireland when 'harry potter and the order of the phoenix' premiered in cinemas around the globe and was unfortunately unable to adorn myself in a robe, black spectacles and face paint to see a midnight showing of the film, but i saw it the next night at a small theatre in a town called kilkenny. luna lovegood was a total hottie as my man zach valdez would say. im going to go watch it on thursday again if anyone would like to come.

as you all know the seventh and final book in the harry potter series will be released on friday, finally a chance to put my cloak to good use, ill be going as the nameless asian wizard that is ubiquitous in the background all of the films...hopefully walter ping will get some attention in the final book. i would be really upset if i was an old person that was really into the books, but died before the series had been completed, you know this must have happened to someone and its really too bad.



with all of the traveling and what not my training has been sort of off and on. i went up to windy point this morning after something like ten days off the bike. i felt alright. i droped the chain two cogs down on the steep sections and tried to see if i could vomit. i couldnt. i think you have to combine hard training with innapropraite food, i.e. mexican, in order to actually work so hard that you vomit. you dont really care about what im talking about do you? well, unfortunately the purpose of this web log is both informative and journal-esque. thus, i get to talk about whatever i feel compelled to type.

i bought a strawberry milk yesterday and realized that its cow blood content was far greater than that of chocolate milk.(informative)

dear diary,
my aunt matilda was diagnosed with alzheimers yesterday, and i spent all afternoon crying in the corner of my room.(journal-esque)



the tucson riding scene is littered with competitive and hard group rides, for instance the shootout, but there really isnt all that much actual racing going on this summer. mildly dissapointing, maybe ill drive to montana.

i guess thats all i have for you now, ill try to update this thing more frequently. au revoir.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

"the iron horse bicycle classic"...so as it happens there's a little bit of climbing involved.


my wheel is still in the shop, so not wanting to race 'the beast'...who i finally found a home for by the way, some overly talkative fellow who looked like levi leipheimer with freckles...i naturally borrowed a wheel from the spoke. i took it out on a training ride the last thursday to demo it before leaving to durango on friday, and whilst in red rocks a spoke unexpectedly snapped. the wheel was deemed un-ride-home-able, so i tried calling several people with little success and eventually came to scott's name in the contacts list. yay scott! so while i was riding in the car back to du with him i casually threw out a question pertaining to the course of the iron horse road race. any climbing scott?

this was taken verbatim from the iron horse website..."Climb a heck of a lot of vertical feet (5700ft) and scale two almost 11,000 foot mountain passes on this 48 mile ride through Colorado's San Juan Mountain range."

...sufficing to say i had a fantastic time.

i rode down with co-author of the oats book, ben, in his saab hatchback, which was "born from a jet" apparently...pretentious piece of shit kept mentioning it everytime ben would shift, "third gear, eh? well, may i just point out to you that i come from a rather prestigious lineage of jets." then it would make some ridiculously loud noise, which im guessing was its feeble attempt at an aircraft fly-by sound effect, kinda like "WHOOSH!" (the noise would travel from the passenger speakers to those next to the driver in order to simulate the doppler effect.) the fly-by sound effects were inconsequential in light of the bitching that occurred when ben filled up with 'regular' unleaded...anyways, being the responsible gents that we both arent we might have forgotten about a few things...
- a place to sleep...'look, see this...that's a car, two-hundred and seventy-five thou...might want to hang on to that one.'
- registration?
- start times?

the 'place to sleep' quandary was easily remedied after calling corey, only to find that he was sleepin' with my brother...i mean his parents...and he gave us the number of the host house that we stayed with when we were down in durango for the fort lewis race. the fellow's name is dustin, and he was more than happy to accomadate two weary travelers last minute. it was quite thrilling to do the whole college student/unplanned/show up at your door/mooch thing. dustin's a neat kid that used to race in the collegiate scene, as well as as a cat. 2...his weekend project involved a hard-smoothy business, using a blender that was hooked up to a stationary bike. he also rode the entirety of the iron horse - 48 miles - on a single speed with a coaster brake, wearing flip flops and a cape. neato.



the road race was on saturday and went well all things considered. orbea kid (also known as matt beck from the U. of NM) managed to crash into me within the first five, very calm, very level miles of the start. ass. his bars ended up wrapped around my seat post and one of his carbon bottle cages broke and entwined itself in one of my rear spokes? This was probably orbea kid's 12th crash this year, in which he hit the pavement, and most likely the least costly of the 12...carbon bottle cage? fifty dollars tops. far better that than a carbon wheelset, or frame for that matter. it became instantly apparent that orbea kid had sabotaged my rear derailleur in the crash, probably with a knife, when it refused to go down in to my smallest two cogs...the 12 and 13. not that i really had any chance of winning the race to begin with, but i would say that this veritable nail in the coffin ensured my fate. i wish i was uma thurman...and no, not so i could look at myself naked.

"dear orbea kid,
are you aware that you are gross? does it suck big time to have road rash every waking moment of cycling season...if you rode rollers in the winter replace 'cycling season' with 'your life'? you should be bisexual, it would increase your chances.
sincerely,
colin don"



...okay, but yeah, i caught back up to the slow moving cat. 4/5 peloton. at the first hill, approximately ten miles in, the 75 rider pack got split up. ben, eric, and i comprised three of the twelve man lead group. our group stuck together, dropping only two guys over the course of approximately 15 miles(?). i was content with hanging on to a wheel on the up hill; eric and ben were doing a good job of leading some of the climbs with a deviant pace. when we assembled into a paceline on the descents i was able to keep the cadence high and get into the rotation. i was popped off at the start of first, of two, big ascents...thanks eric moore. eric tried to break and the pace went up ten fold. i rode the ascents alone, excepting when a two of the cat. 3 riders grabbed my wheel on the way up molas pass. they wanted me to stick with them on the descent but without my 12 in the back i could not, which im sure they, having no clue that my derailleur was malfunctioning, percieved as mental weakness. i descended into silverton, mentally beaten, trying to present facade of strength by burying myself down the main strip into the finish.

i drank a 'tab energy drink' after the race, which was exceedingly gross. luna-bar tea cakes on the other hand...

i ended up in ninth place and won a swell looking sweatshirt/hoodie. ben placed fourth, and i think eric took sixth. congratulations all. i beat orbea kid (ass), and in the game of life this is all that truly matters.

on sunday morning ben, dustin, corey, corey's parents and i went to the local diner, since our races werent until the afternoon. i had blueberry pancakes and an egg.

the criterium on sunday..."It takes experience to know that sometimes you have to go so hard that your left testicle comes out your right ear, and only then will it start to get easier"...was hard. the course is drawn out in the photo posted below. i had a really good start and got up front quickly, which limited experience has taught me is probably how you should do it. i held on to the lead pack for a long while, a few breaks went away and then would be quickly reeled in. i dont know how long we were into the 50 min. crit, but a break containing eric moore went away and stayed away...to my surprise. corey was on the steamworks brewery corner with his dad and mom, whose cries of positive affirmation were easily discernable amongst the spectators, and was providing helpful commentary. so after a few laps at the back of the chase group i decided to use what energy i had left to catch the break. we got close, and i think if someone had kept the pace up after i dropped off the front we could have done it. a few laps later i got popped off the chase group and rode the rest of the crit alone. i didnt get lapped by the break, but i could hear the moto behind me on their final lap. out of a thirty-five man field, only twelve ended up finishing. i ended up in tenth, and won twenty-five dollars for getting fourth in the omnium (road race + crit = onmium). eric finished third and got 1st in the omnium. ben was crashed within the last five laps, for the second weekend in a row, and did not finish. we stuck around to watch steve forbes in the three's race and corey in the pro-1,2 race. i drove us home, and didnt even fall asleep behind the wheel...like last time. we said bon voyage to durango at around 7:30 and pulled in to denver at about 2:15. fun weekend. i cant wait to do it again.



vanity at its best...the only thing that would make any of these photos better is zach 'milkshake' valdez, in the background with the pain face on. (the photos are small because the photographers website has a no copy/paste spell placed on all of the expanded photos, probably as some sort of ill-conceived scheme to actually sell copies.)







...i was a little bored.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

i wish i could clearcut the state of colorado so that it would stop raining.



i obviously would not be able to do this myself, so i was considering going into the city tomorrow to find the creepy vagabond that told me several months ago that she would wield her dark magic against me if i refused to give her my chinese leftovers; i was coming back from a rather delightful meal at the white lotus palace. my initial thought was that she could use her dark magic to do the clearcutting, but after thinking about it i decided that such a feat would be overly vexing, especially for a malnourished person. my new plan is to have her raise paul bunyan and his ox back from the dead. she would also program them to do my bidding, and my bidding alone. first order of business boys...deforest the state of colorado.

i ended up yielding the leftovers and consequently im not entirely sure she is a dark sorceress, but she smelled strongly of mushrooms, which are a pretty standard ingredient in potions, so im pretty confident.

try to imagine a combination of these last two photos.



Monday, May 14, 2007

the other trifecta...the one not involving the simultaneous enjoyment of sex, salted-cured meats, and television.



whilst the du cyclists were in lawrence 'the emerald city', kansas this weekend i was not, due to the unfortunate coincidence of a rather large biology exam. the thursday morning send-off soiree was very elegant though, cream cheese, dan wahl (ass) and decent coffee were all present...plus a few members of the team.

the exam went well i suppose. i totally nailed the question concerning sea otter testicular defeminization in the northern pacific.

side note: i heard that vitamin warehouses in alaskan inuit villages sell sea otter milk as a high protein supplement, which is often used by narwhal wrestlers during the peak season. at twenty grams of protein per ounce its one of the greatest recovery beverages in existence. sea otters, however, are a tricky species, and harboring enough of them in captivity to obtain marketable quantities of milk would be both difficult and semi-illegal, according to the law of the inuit. thus, their milk is harvested in small quantities by freelance fisherman/summer time beet farmers. Also, it's entirely organic (which these days is huge), and quite expensive, so you would need to be more wealthy than i to begin a regular regiment. sea otter milk is number sixty-nine on the UCI list of banned substances, although current tests are still unable to test its presence in the body. don't fret floyd landis, id like to reiterate the relative obscurity of this e-publication. (the photo at the top of the page is not a sea otter).

i tried sending out an email, which was an exact replica of one of walter hoge's infamous "weekend ride options" emails, but as it happens i neglected to press send. so saturday at 9:37 am i commenced a lonely one hundred and five mile ride of utter bliss.

the route: bike path to chatfield state park, up deer creek to the high grade turn off, up high grade to highway 73, highway 73 to n. turkey creek road to parmalee road to grapevine to the backside of lookout mtn. to the bike path that leads to cherry creek reservoir to home to the fridge to a spoon and finally to a jar of peanut butter.

yep. so it was kind of funny being able to experience all five climbs on a single saturday, you get to see all the separate groups of people who endure each individual climb, for instance there was this picnic site at the climax of the high grade climb that an overwhelming amount of people were stopped at. alas, i forgot the required bottle of sarsaparilla and just didn't feel right about sitting down without it. not very much youth on the road, a lot of older folks. it finally got to the point where i had said hi to so many people that i had to speed up everytime i was to pass by someone to avoid being 'rude'...paradox? perhaps. that seems like kind of an asshole thing to do, but i was coughing a lot so i needed to save the throat for dry heaves.

i brought food and money for first time ever and i didnt loose my mind...like on that ride with forbes, eric, and grant prior to spring break, during which i did loose my mind.

in a foolish attempt to go for the 'century' i headed out to the cherry creek reservoir, despite the ominously dark clouds. it started to rain while i was on the bike path and it started to pour just prior to entering the reservoir. so i got a little wet and may have futilely cursed that 'bitch' mother nature a few times, but on my way back to campus the rain let up.

on sunday i actually sent out an email for a lookout mtn. recovery ride, unfortunately amy, the only one who replied, slept late. she's a little depressed these days, after the breakup with the 'milkshake', so i kind of understood. its hard to do a recovery ride when there's no one with you to talk to, all you really want to do is get the ride over with because firstly your legs are cashed and secondly you probably shouldn't have chosen lookout mtn. as a recovery destination. i brought a small bag of drinking chocolate (http://www.mariebelle.com/product.cfm?id=4) to eat at the top of lookout. huge mistake. i was fatigued and had an obscene amount of difficulty getting it into my mouth. also, its semi-powdery consistency caused me to choke and consequently loose a great deal of its chocolatey goodness to the pavement. the legs started feeling decent half-way up the mountain though.

okay, i guess that's all for now. have a lovely evening everyone.

ps. when you see corey carlson be sure to congratulate him on his superb gila result and the thick new non-lady 'friend' (overly dramatic air quotes).

pss. if you hadn't noticed i dont use capital letters, but i do use ellipses...a lot.