Apologies for not writing for a little while. I'd be lying if I said that things have been busy around here because it has been the exact opposite. The semester finished and my hours at work got slightly cut back for a few weeks so really I've just been sitting around watching a screen of some kind. You all still love me anyway.
I wanted to write a little bit about death. Over the holiday the girl's sister's boyfriend's mother passed away and so I've been thinking about it most of the day. You're probably asking why a death that seems so distant would affect me. Well, it was her house that I was at over Thanksgiving so I did know her, albeit briefly. She was very nice and to allow a complete stranger into her home on a holiday typically reserved for family was extremely gracious.
I'd eventually like to talk about how I have dealt with death on a personal level, how it affects my belief in a higher power, and what death might be like. But all of that will need to come later. I just wanted to make a short post to let you all know I hadn't forgotten about this.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Imagine a sport where the spectators jokingly scream insults at you, encourage you to crash, offer you beer, shots of whiskey, pieces of bacon, ring pops, and money. This is cyclocross.
Dave has picked up the sport the past few months and I was finally able to make my way out to a race today when I felt like I needed a break from my last final assignment for school. It was cold and I'm pretty sure my toes still haven't had proper blood flow return to them from the afternoon but holy hell was it fun. The essential premise of the sport is that you bike around an off-road course that has a variety of hills, hairpin turns, and sandpits. The entire race typically takes a half hour but it's definitely physically demanding. It sounds pretty typical but the culture surrounding it is what makes it a great time. It's essentially a drink-all-day atmosphere where the last few races are all about having a good time and really getting into the action. On this particular course everyone seemed to stack around a sand-filled L-turn that was prone to terrible wipeouts and jump attempts where the riders would just faceplant into the ground. As the riders would come around the turn everyone would try to entice them to crash by offering all of the items I mentioned in the first sentence of this post. We ended up seeing riders come around the corner chugging full cups of beer or tossing aside a shot glass they had just emptied. We saw a man dressed in a Superwoman outfit, another guy dressed as Santa Claus, and even a guy in a full gorilla suit whose head was eventually decapitated by another guy dressed as Mario who proceeded to finish the race while triumphantly raising the mask into the air as the crowd cheered. It was absolutely insane and the perfect way to take a two hour break between staring at my research and writing down a couple of pages of drivel.
Dave has picked up the sport the past few months and I was finally able to make my way out to a race today when I felt like I needed a break from my last final assignment for school. It was cold and I'm pretty sure my toes still haven't had proper blood flow return to them from the afternoon but holy hell was it fun. The essential premise of the sport is that you bike around an off-road course that has a variety of hills, hairpin turns, and sandpits. The entire race typically takes a half hour but it's definitely physically demanding. It sounds pretty typical but the culture surrounding it is what makes it a great time. It's essentially a drink-all-day atmosphere where the last few races are all about having a good time and really getting into the action. On this particular course everyone seemed to stack around a sand-filled L-turn that was prone to terrible wipeouts and jump attempts where the riders would just faceplant into the ground. As the riders would come around the turn everyone would try to entice them to crash by offering all of the items I mentioned in the first sentence of this post. We ended up seeing riders come around the corner chugging full cups of beer or tossing aside a shot glass they had just emptied. We saw a man dressed in a Superwoman outfit, another guy dressed as Santa Claus, and even a guy in a full gorilla suit whose head was eventually decapitated by another guy dressed as Mario who proceeded to finish the race while triumphantly raising the mask into the air as the crowd cheered. It was absolutely insane and the perfect way to take a two hour break between staring at my research and writing down a couple of pages of drivel.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
It's finals week which means I'm eating chocolate-covered pretzels and catching up on TV from Monday. Deadspin already spoiled who got kicked off SYTYCD this week so I guess I don't really need to watch that, which is a good thing considering what I need to get done in the next 7 days.
But a lot of us are in that boat of OH MY GOD THIS WEEK SUCKS so I'll spare you the details. Instead I'll talk about what has now become one of my favorite ways to procrastinate: podcasts. I know I've talked before about how I'm usually pretty in-tune with all things technology and internet but it seems that some really huge tech stuff falls through the cracks. I got turned on to podcasts last week after the girl and I listened to This American Life while getting ready for Thanksgiving. I had listened to NPR a good bit when I was working at the bank so I was familiar with the program. And I think a few of you have mentioned it before. But I had just never really bothered to learn what kind of podcasts there were out there. I liked reading most of the news on my own and went to enough sports websites and watched enough ESPN to where I didn't need someone to dictate things I already knew so I never felt the need to see what was offered. But it's only been a week now and I've spent far too much time listening to Ira Glass and downloading Radio Lab for my own good. This shit is great, and I'm pissed I didn't know about any of it earlier. And now I just have another couple of hours of media to consume every week to get in the way of getting a good night's sleep and doing some quality schoolwork.
But a lot of us are in that boat of OH MY GOD THIS WEEK SUCKS so I'll spare you the details. Instead I'll talk about what has now become one of my favorite ways to procrastinate: podcasts. I know I've talked before about how I'm usually pretty in-tune with all things technology and internet but it seems that some really huge tech stuff falls through the cracks. I got turned on to podcasts last week after the girl and I listened to This American Life while getting ready for Thanksgiving. I had listened to NPR a good bit when I was working at the bank so I was familiar with the program. And I think a few of you have mentioned it before. But I had just never really bothered to learn what kind of podcasts there were out there. I liked reading most of the news on my own and went to enough sports websites and watched enough ESPN to where I didn't need someone to dictate things I already knew so I never felt the need to see what was offered. But it's only been a week now and I've spent far too much time listening to Ira Glass and downloading Radio Lab for my own good. This shit is great, and I'm pissed I didn't know about any of it earlier. And now I just have another couple of hours of media to consume every week to get in the way of getting a good night's sleep and doing some quality schoolwork.
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