Monday, January 28, 2008

weekend rides

Saturday, I did 90 minutes of ashtanga in the morning, then brought my Vanilla and met up with Jose, Matt, and Pattie for a 60 mile total dam loop ride. First 50+ mile ride in just about 3 months. It was tough. No problem with the Brooks saddle, it felt perfectly fine. After that, I walked Gizmo on town lake, ate a burger and had some beer at downtown Jo's, came home and proceeded to pass out by 8:30. Sunday I was mighty sore, so no riding, just yardwork.

Friday, January 25, 2008

winning streak..


I lucked out today and found 2 good team slayer partners, I think we won 6/7 matches. Other than a valhala sniper match where I did horribly, I did quite well in the other matches, getting quite handy with the spartan laser and the hammer, as shown here.

frontwards cover

okay, I am listening to a horrible cover of the Pavement song "frontwards" by Los Campesinos(??). It has no style, miles and miles..

ditch digger

kexp has been playing this old song from Rocket from the Crypt a lot this week, it's a great song. Makes me want to dust off my guitar. It came out in 1992...16 years ago. Jeez..

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

rabbits

David Lynch had a series of shorts about rabbits before Inland Empire Came out -- he then incorporated some of the footage from the shorts into the movie. The random laugh track is jarring, so say the least. And they live in room "47" and hear someone coming.. all tied to Inland Empire.

watching inland empire on rollers

weather is super-crappy right now, I had to use my rollers to get some exercise last night. So for the first 45 minutes of watching Inland Empire, I was on my rollers, trying to maintain my balance while trying to figure out what David Lynch was up to, which made it twice as surreal.
Inland Empire was like an all star reprisal of David Lynch's past work -- it explored similar themes to his last work -- evil traveling via electricity -- the electrical outlets,lights in Twin Peaks, telephone in Mulholland Drive, and the lamps in Inland Empire. It was overall most similar to Mulholland Drive, with Laura Dern playing the lost actress. Plenty of cameos from his past actors. Even Naomi Watts was there as the voice of one of the rabbit people. And the log-cutters at the end -- Twin Peaks ?? I have to do some more thinking about what this movie was about, one thing is for sure, it was far more terrifying than any of his past ones.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

GIANTS!!

yeah NY!!!!

Saturday, January 19, 2008

brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

one of the coldest road rides I have ever done in Austin. I delayed the start until 2:30, hoping it would be warmer, but it did not make much of a difference. Arm warmers, leg warmers, windstopper vest. I still felt frozen.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

hindsight on iphone cases

having just replaced my crippled iphone for not an insignificant amount of money, I have changed my mind about cases for iphones and portable devices. Get them. Portable devices are too fragile. And Apple's policy seems to be if it is dented, the warranty is voided. I got the matte black Agent18 case for my iphone and I am quite happy with it. It does not impinge upon my usage of it, the surface feels better in many ways than the aluminum does, and it adds very little to the form factor while still providing excellent dent protection for the aluminum body of the iphone.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

bike commuting thus far this year

It's pretty cold out, but I have managed to commute by bike twice this week, partially aided by my car being otherwise occupied with getting its 35K service and some control arm bushings replaced. You'd think Audi would figure out how to make those things last longer. I had the same issue with my old 1.8T -- every 30-40K the bushings would wear out.
So I think that's 3 times so far this month commuting to work, my goal is at least twice a week. I have been using my planet cross, I have not gotten the cross tires for my vanilla yet, and the tires on my planet cross are the 700 x 38 specialized crossroads, which barely fit that, and I doubt will fit the vanilla with the fenders.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

my vanilla rally bike - first test ride


downtube detail
Originally uploaded by tylernol
after screwing up the chain installation Sunday, I managed to do a short ride Monday night on it -- it felt great. Handling was snappy, drivestrain felt pretty stiff, fit was good. I need more time in the saddle to see how I deal with the saddle to bar drop and the brooks swallow saddle I bought.
Bringing it to the bike shop Sunday to get the chain installed with a proper campy tool, the bike attracted a lot of attention, everyone was impressed. It definitely made the carbon bikes there look boring(well they are)

Saturday, January 05, 2008

biking update

so no-go on SSWC08 -- they were "already full". yeah right. I'll bet they made room for their friends first. As my friend said -- "do you think Gary Fisher or Travis Brown waited until 3 am EST on New Years eve to register"? Got my Vanilla in and assembled except for the tires -- the winter tires I ordered have not shown yet so I have to move them off another bike. And I did my first long ride of the year - 20 miles of mtn biking at Reimer's Ranch. My front wheel slipped out on an off-camper turn and I caught a nice tree trunk, sending me flying -- more carnage for my poor left knee. Otherwise the ride was a lot of fun and I did not feel as out of shape as I feared I was.

Friday, January 04, 2008

today today !!

Package Progress
Location Date Local Time Description
AUSTIN,
TX, US 01/04/2008 8:38 A.M. OUT FOR DELIVERY
01/04/2008 6:42 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
DALLAS,
TX, US 01/04/2008 3:15 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
01/04/2008 12:44 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
COMMERCE CITY,
CO, US 01/03/2008 3:58 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
COMMERCE CITY,
CO, US 01/02/2008 1:57 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
SALT LAKE CITY,
UT, US 01/02/2008 5:17 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
SALT LAKE CITY,
UT, US 12/29/2007 1:41 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
HERMISTON,
OR, US 12/28/2007 12:17 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
12/28/2007 10:40 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
PORTLAND,
OR, US 12/28/2007 6:50 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
PORTLAND,
OR, US 12/27/2007 6:19 P.M. ORIGIN SCAN
US 12/21/2007 5:33 P.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

new year's resolutions

biking - start training for Terilingua in Feb, TMBRA spring series SS open class, SSWC08 in August. At least two dirt derbies a month. spin class pass for Pure Austin Gym?
rowing - get back into rowing, twice a week
yoga - no more unlimited pass, but 1-2 times a week of ashtanga and hatha flow.
diet - no beer, soda, or chips until Terilingua.
artwork,photography - photo class, start cranking out guache or acrylic paintings at least once a month.