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.

seasonal employee's are the university equivalent of a "lecturer"..."senior lecturer" if you've been at it a while.

...after you box em'?...

...you ship em'. that's the luck, smartass.

...the denver international airport - headquarters for the new world order? perhaps.

http://www.geocities.com/Baja/5692/

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.)

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.

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?

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.