BikeFail

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It’s 8:30pm, it’s still about 98+ degrees (even though the sun is down) and I’m sitting on the back porch at Rudy’s with rob, clad in full spandex-riding gear, shot gunning a Lonestar, after having walked three miles up from the bottom of the greenbelt. But let me back up…

I’m a firm believer that everything should have general operating parameters. Don’t not use this toaster in the bathtub. This tuna best eaten before 2062. This bike is best ridden in non-fatal temperatures.

3663413540_6b8255a320On that last one, I think perhaps we maybe exceeded our advisable temperatures range today. In hindsight the bike probably was fine, (the tires were not), but the rider (me) was functioning a little below optimal efficiency. Now I’m a big believer in getting out when it’s hot, and I’ll take this any day over the nefarious winter version of this extreme. If you can ride your bike in Texas in the summertime, you can ride pretty much anywhere. But at 5:30 we were pushing 104 with a Heat index of 107, so things were going from epic to stupid pretty fast.

The idea was, lets put down some miles on the road getting out to the trail, do a figure-eight loop with a few gut-buster climbs, roll back in to downtown the road, drink a beer at Royal Blue. It was solid, it was great, it was fucking retarded. The problem comes from me being cheap. Sometimes this works in my favor, sometimes it ends in me shotgguning lonestar’s at Rudy’s. Six months ago, I bought some very lightweight tires to race on and liked them so much, I’ve kept them into the summer (since my racing season was one race), and well past the useable life of the side-walls. Whether it was the heat, my ever-exapnding girth, or just my Karma coming back to bite me for being a cheapskate, At mile 3 everything started going wrong.

Keep in mind, I’m an Eagles Scout so I leave the house on a bike ride pretty well prepared. There’s redundancies in place to keep things from going to hell. Well, first the sidewall split and the sealant, which had pretty much cooked off in the heat, didn’t really cut the mustard. Then the tube i had was a narrower diameter than recommended for the tire. Then the whole thing exploding a second time, just as we finished our second descent to the creek bottom. So, at this point, as the british would say, we are good and fucked.

I guess we could look at the positives of this experience. I didn’t throw my bike into the woods like I tempted too (I did throw a few rocks). The bums that populate that area of the Greenbelt learned some new choice, f-bomb-laced phrases. Germ got to run an evac to get the car at time trail-speeds and find a new exit out tho the road that, in his words, smelled like death and dead things. And Rob and I got a scenic walk back through the gated community next to the bum camp (from which we almost did not escape), down 360 which was pleasantly radiating the days heat back into space and our faces, while Semi’s barreled past at mach5.

Not a good day, but we leaned some things – like don’t be cheap when it comes to something like a tire. Many public thanks to Germ and Rob for tolerating the chaos that I caused, and the facilitating the evac. New, thick bastard tire with a gallon of sealant, is going on today.

Critters

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I like the animal kingdom as much as next average hippy, but this, if you’ll pardon my language, is fucking ridiculous.

“We support compassion for the even the smallest animals,” says Bruce Friedrich, VP for Policy at PETA. “We support giving insects the benefit of the doubt.”

Friedrich says PETA supports “brushing flies away rather than killing them” and was disappointed that the President had gone ahead and squashed the pesky fly.

This afternoon PETA sent a Katcha Bug, a device which traps bugs and allows their safe release back into nature to the White House.

Will someone please explain to me how I should go about giving an insect, that’s larval stage feeds off rotting flesh, the benefit of the doubt? If anything the precision strike on said insect only proves my theory that President Obama is a member of secret ninja society and has already killed Bin Laden with his bare hands.

Memorial Day Bits

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We’re going to go ahead and call this weekend a success as I have a nice sunburn, and somehow still smell vaguely of Barton Springs and Margaritas (somebody observed that if I could figure out a way to bottle that smel , that might in fact be a good career move).

One of the reasons I love Memorial Day weekend, aside from the 3.5 days of not working is, it’s as if the cable networks have time-lock safe on all the WWII movies that only opens at the end of May. From Band of Brothers in its entirety, to the History Channel bonanza of Pacific War documentaries – if it hadn’t required being inside all weekend, I could’ve sat on the couch and viewed 72 hours non-stop of the last communal-global-suicide attempt.

Speaking of being outside, after a thunderstorm shut down the springs on Saturday, we made another attempt on Monday, and were greeted with a 20 minute line to get in (really guys, how hard is it to hand someone $3?). The line wasn’t that bad, but more excruciatingly painful was the High School kids behind us talking about how hard their lives are. Remember the days when the hardest thing in your life was when your dad wouldn’t let you get your ear pierced? Yeah, me neither, because I don’t suck at life.

And speaking of douche-bags, the drama continued after we picked out a spot on the hill above springs,as the folks behind us treated us to a litany of how great Greek parties were back when they were in school, including various different chants (complete with re-enactments), nicknames and a couple of really unfortunate anecdotes, involving a slip and slide, KY and a trip to the ER. Like, I really, like feel stupider for having over heard that, and like really fear for the future of our country if this is all we have to offer.

In the good news department, Momma and Poppa Treichler have completed the cleaning of the garage in preparation for the upcoming remodel. I have mad respect for anyone who spends a week cleaning out a garage, but even more so for cleaning garage, that has been steadily piling up up crap for the past 20 years. Construction should get swinging as soon as they can get a crew moving. I’m also looking forward to the fourth of July weekend up there which we will spend building cabinets (yes, this is my idea of fun). Doing b_258_exteriorconstruction work is always satisfying – doing construction work at 9,000 feet (sans oxygen) even more so. Check the Cabin project page for more updates on that chaos.

And speaking of building stuff, while at the springs, trying to ignore the washed-up greeks up hill from me, I stumbled across an ad in touting the benefits of the new Austonian, which at 56 stories will be the tallest residence in the western half of the country. The guys building this thing, have either been of planet for the past year and didn’t hear about this whole series of small problems we’ve been having with the economy, or they have brass balls the size of a 1974 Buick. I’m guessing the latter. Still this project pisses me off – the name for one thing. Guess what, folks here call them selves Austinites, not Austonians. That particular suffix is claimed by our slightly more humid cousins to the East, in my humble opinion they can have it. And point two, holy crap the size of this thing –  the tiny building off to the right in the rendering there is the Frost Bank at 35ish stories. Inferiority complex much?

Finally, while the three-day weekend is great, it is in fact important to remember the nature of the holiday, and those who didn’t make it home.

Plastic

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Once again, as an upstanding citizen with a damn near perfect credit score, I’m about to get screwed.

Now Congress is moving to limit the penalties on riskier borrowers, who have become a prime source of billions of dollars in fee revenue for the industry. And to make up for lost income, the card companies are going after those people with sterling credit.

Banks are expected to look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks, according to bank officials and trade groups.

“It will be a different business,” said Edward L. Yingling, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association, which has been lobbying Congress for more lenient legislation on behalf of the nation’s biggest banks. “Those that manage their credit well will in some degree subsidize those that have credit problems.”

Awesome. I’d go on a full-fledged rant on this, but apparently in order to stay competitive, I’m going to be busy for the next 6 months wrecking my credit score, purchasing a bunch of crap i don’t need and can’t afford so I can be on the receiving end on one of these great new economic policies for a change.

Bad Day

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It wasn’t the whole reason, but it was the final straw for sure – after two days of missed appointments and way-too-long phone calls, the AT&T U-verse dude informed me that, due to our apartment’s electrical system being so old it was actually installed in 1836 by Mescalaro Apaches hoping to trade some day-labor for some booze, we will in fact, not be able to have cable installed, and more importantly I will not be watching the Giro de Italia this weekend.

What follows is my not-so-PG-13 rant on this subject. If you are easily offended, best just to press on down the road. Read more →

TxDOT Hearts Austin

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TxDOT just issued it’s spending plan for our state’s $1.2 billion road-building chuck of economic stimulus act. Despite the mess of undersized highways, half-arsed connector ramps and pot-holed streets that perpetuate some of the worst traffic in the country for a city our size, TxDOT has decided that Travis County will be getting exactly – wait for it – one project: a ramp at 183 and 290.

We can widen I-35 to six lanes in that a fantastic tourist destination Waco, or add lanes to FM50 in the vibrant city of Bryan, but god forbid we do something about the 70’s era clusterfuck that is I-35 in downtown Austin, or even, I don’t know try building a major-highway that doesn’t come to a screeching halt at a random stoplight? Instead, TxDot is going to (once again) ignore the needs of the capitol city, and build a connector ramp out in the ass-end of nowhere, I guess so the TxDOT higher-ups can get back Houston a littel bit faster. Thanks guys. I’d love to continue this rant, but I have to go get my oil changed on the northside, so I need to allow 45 minutes to get there in traffic.

Read the full report here.

If you’re bored post some other projects they might have considered in the comments. The ever-increasing number of stop-lights on 71 (on the way to the airport) come to mind. And if you’re really bored, you might ponder calling your representatives.

All-Nighters

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After a careful scientific study, I’ve come to the conclusion that I am entirely to old to be staying up till 4 a.m. to launch websites, no matter how hip and feature rich they might be. Nor does putting your head down on the desk, just for a minute, lead to continued productivityn i the wee hours of the morning, something I should have learned in school, but a trap I continue to fall into. At least if I pass out on my desk these days the worst that would happen is I’d had have “cvbnm” imprinted on my forehead from my keyboard. In school you had to stay awake – if you passed out on a table you risked being lobotomized by the thousand tiny shards of balsa wood that made up your model.

Excuse me while i go main-line some redbull.

The Non-Renewal of My USA Cycling License

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USA Cycling is the national (non-profit) entity whose purpose is, according to their official Articles of Incorporation, “the preservation, development, and administration of the sport of  bicycle racing within the United States of America.”

Well, sort of. Keep in mind that we, as cyclists, pay anywhere from $60-100 a year for a racing licenses, to help facilitate this agencies $13 million budget, their $2.9 million payroll, international racers (like the Olympics) and ostensibly the organization of a grassroots cycling movement in this country.

…finally I was transferred to an entirely helpful gentleman in the “Athletics Department” named Gregory Cross. Mr. Cross confirmed for me that of the 5 Under-23 riders representing the United States at this weekend’s Cyclocross World Championships in Hoogerheide, The Netherlands, only 1 of them was “funded”, i.e. getting their travel and expenses paid for by USA Cycling. The other 4 not only must pay for their own airfare & luggage fees, but they then must pay an $800 “team travel fee” to USA Cycling for hotel, food, and ground transportation during their stay in The Netherlands. And this is how we cultivate the next generation of champions?

More…

I’ve always wondered why Americans riders, with a couple notable exceptions, suckitup when it comes to international cycling competition. This might go a ways to explaining it.

Percentages

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As a rule I don’t post things about work up here. I also try and post things relevant to my life (it’s my server space after all). But sadly, most of my life has been consumed by work-related drama lately, so it’s quite difficult to sit down and crank something out for the site that has nothing to do with my professional life. Hence the low traffic this week.

So without violating those rules I must say, it’s a curious thing, this capitalistic system we’ve forced our selves into. Pay to go to school, to get the money to get the car so you can drive to work to pay to get the things you want that break or wear out so you get to work harder to replace them. And repeat.

Alarmingly, according to my social Security statement, which came in the mail today if i earn at the same pace I’m going for another 37 years, the government will pay-out about half of what I’m making now (this provided that the avian flu or the republicans don’t get us first). What will half my salary now be worth in 2046, I wonder. A loaf of bread?

So where’s the reward? What am i working for? The system seems like an infinite logic loop that only leads to a system failure at the end (think Windows 95). Except the crashes are at the expenses of thousands of hours of real people’s time. Is the work we do enriching peoples lives, changing the planet, elevating our society? Mine’s not, how about yours – and more frighteningly, do we even care? Consider that time is the most precious thing someone can have, and people are our most precious resource – by the transitive properties the cumulative waste of our lives in this system is monumentally mind blowing.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to go back to being a hunter/gatherer, but at the same time i think we’re smart enough to see when a system is broken. The question is what will the answer look like.

On the Sooners and the impending nuptials of Tim Tebow and the Fox Sports Crew…

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Maybe part of its growing up in Texas, in the heady days of the Southwest Conference, but I feel like you should show a little solidarity with your region of the country. Especially with really important issues like a national championship game. In hindsight (taking into account said hindsight includes the after-effects of more than a few too many pints), after the screwing that Texas got from the BCS, It’s probably too much to ask, for folks in Austin to Pull for Oklahoma.  But just the same, I was a little shocked by the one-sidedness of the crowds last night – I guess when your teams fight song is variation of I’ve been working on the railroad, it’s a bit much to expect them to remember there not in the SEC.

Of course it could be worse. The third quarter finds me siting at the bar in the Tavern, watching yet another one of my teams self-destruct at the last minute. However, the guy next to me, the only other person in the bar wearing red, has $500 on the Sooners in a getting-less-friendly-by-the-yard wager with the bartender. The guy is at least kind enough to pour my fellow comrade-in-crimson a shot every time Florida scores.

Somewhere along the line, probably after the Sooners blow two chances to score in the red-zone (bob, you know you can kick field goals in American football right?), I realize not only am I witnessing a crap game, but if the fox sports anchors are to be believed, something very magical and special. Did you know Tim Tebow is actually the second coming of Christ, The Dali Llama and Luke Skywalker rolled into one weird-looking, home-schooled package? Fair and Balanced my ass. Of course this is all occurring in Florida, the place that gave the White House to George W Bush nine years ago – at this point, I’m wiling to except that the entire state  is actually some kind freakish reality TV show, where the unexpected can and inevitably will happen, with hilarious nation-destroying results. But I digress…

So, as expected, the team I was pulling for choked like and 80-year old emphysema patient. The only solace really is I can stop caring about sports for 8 months (with the exception of the Tour of course).