The Car Whisperer

Thursday Hate: Alderman Mell

2011-10-27T07:24:00.009-05:00

Yesterday, Alderman Mell of Chicago's 33rd Ward spoke up during CDOT commish Gabe Klein's address to the city council about his upcoming cycling initiatives - including the new protected bikelanes and bike share program - to ask Klein if the city could license bicycles.

Licensing bicycles is not the solution to stopping reckless cycling. There are myriad reasons for the conflict between motorists and cyclists, but the biggest of all is that the streets are simply not designed for anyone but someone driving a car.

This then leads to the misconception that cyclists are somehow scofflaws and freeloaders who don't pay for the infrastructure. Not true. Most people riding bicycles are also car owners and they're ALL taxpayers. User fees and gas taxes pay for a very small percentage of local road maintenance.

How will a licensing scheme address what is fundamentally an infrastructure and education issue? What will an unenforceable regulation for a non-problem (hanging license plates that are big enough to read from a distance as a cyclist flees from one of the handful of non-injurious hit-and-runs a year?) do besides turning an entire mode of transportation into criminals (because no one will follow it) and adding another level of useless bureaucracy? Meanwhile 32 pedestrians were killed in Chicago car-crashes last year.

It should be clear, then, that calls for licensing cyclists are nothing but reactionary support for the status quo intended to prevent more people from being cyclists while ignoring the fact that car-culture is carnage culture.

Why impede the very mode of transportation that makes our streets safer and city more livable?

Considering the state of traffic safety and congestion in Mell's ward - home to some of the most dangerous and dysfunctional intersections in the city - his failure to recognize that Gabe Klein's proposals are the solution to cyclists riding outside the law makes Mell part of the problem.

To be fair to the Alderman, he did suggest alternatively that public service ads be produced.

Good for you Richard! Advocacy groups like Active Trans and Transportation Alternatives have been shouting their education message for years, but without the needed funding - which the private sector will never provide without the necessary prodding - their voices are lost in the din of traffic noise and automobile marketing.

Perhaps Alderman Mell could lead a charge in forging a public-private partnership, such as the Downtown Seattle Association and their successful brand Commute Seattle, and work to support CDOT's efforts to make Chicago a safer and better place to live, work, and play.

Assholes of the Week: General Motors

2011-10-12T14:45:00.010-05:00

President Obama bailed them out so they could spend our tax dollars on this?

The League of American Bicyclists calls it, "one of the more remarkably ill-conceived car ad campaigns of all time:"

If you are a student looking to add tens of thousands of dollars of long term debt, care little about the environment, and want to lump two tons of steel around campus while paying through the nose for insurance, gas, and parking…General Motors has got a perfect deal for you. Bonus: it’ll make you fat and unhealthy! All you have to do is give up that dorky bicycle that’s easy to use, practically free, gets you some exercise and is actually fun to ride.

Considering that 95% of all advertising is sexual innuendo, this is about as literal as you can get:

Copenhagenize.com points out the hysterical contradiction between GM's stated environmental values and their actions in the face of "...stiff and growing competition from bicycle traffic."

Except GM gets it wrong. There certainly is a correlation between sexual performance and the car you drive, or don't drive, rather. The woman in the ad, her eyes directed...(ahem) lower...is actually just fed up with her driver's erectile dysfunction.

No wonder Cav is so happy and Tony is such a grump:

That's where my laughter stops, because the fight is just beginning: in 2008 bicycles outsold cars for the first time since before World War II. While GM has now pulled these ads preying on the financial insecurities of broke college students, they serve to remind us that the stakes couldn't be higher in the battle for making our streets safer while building a sustainable economy.

Thursday Hate: "Welfare Queens"

2011-09-29T09:26:00.010-05:00

Finally, someone has done the real math for the ever vigilant battle on busting the myth that commuter cyclists don't pay their way for road maintenance and construction.

The call to tax cyclists (and license them, or mandate helmet-use) is the kind of reactionary bullshit that is always proffered by those who simply wish prevent new cyclists from taking to the roads, which - as demonstrated here - is completely idiotic and against their self-interest. Why "conservatives" can't seem to get this kind of math in their heads when they're the ones who are supposed to be fiscally-minded...

Oh, well - soon it will no longer be a lifestyle "choice" but rather a lifestyle necessity and everyone can get over all the liberal vs. conservative, nonconformist conformist v conformist nonconformist, hipster douche v. jarhead douche crap and find something else to fight over. Like who to bet on in the Hunger Games.

Anyways...

According to Elly Blue, Grist.com's "Bikonomics" Professor: user gas taxes and fees only pay .07 cents per vehicle-mile-driven, not even coming close to offsetting a total of 5.6 cents/vehicle-mile cost. Add in external costs per mile driven for free parking, crashes, congestion, and land use, and the total now is nearly 34 cents a mile! That's deficit of almost 100% being paid for by state and local taxes!

Meanwhile, smaller, lighter, and cleaner cyclists pay almost the same in taxes while causing just 1 cent/mile traveled in damage costs.

Guess what that adds up to? The drivers - who harangue you constantly to "get the fuck on the sidewalk!" and to "pay your own way, freeloader!" - or just try to kill you - are the ones sucking at the government tit - to the tune of $3,000 a year, each, on average. You bikers? Yep, you're subsidizing these fucking welfare queens with a profit to the local government of about $260 each.

In fact, to run the average city road system at break even, there needs to be 12 bike commuters for every driver. Put that in your tea cup (in your H3's cup holder, of course) and drink it.

See you in the bike lane, Eric Cantor, you fucking communist.

Yo, Baby Mo!

2011-08-08T11:35:00.004-05:00

The headliner did indeed finally arrive on Wednesday, August 3, after four interminable days of coming attractions - I mean, contractions.

Hell Week:

Last Saturday, Patty began feeling some minor cramping that morning, followed by some "show," a sure sign that her cervix was beginning to soften up for dilation. Things quieted down after breakfast and we spent a very nice day hitting the sidewalk sales going on throughout Andersonville. Then we stopped by our friends' condo for a birthday celebration, and as we were leaving, the cramping returned.

Then by 11:30, the cramping had turned into the first real contraction, and then about 15 minutes later, another one. Early labor was on.

For four nights in a row.

Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday the contractions would begin around the same time, and last through the night - keeping us awake and dutifully tracking the intervals between, while we worked through the coping mechanisms learned in childbirth class. Then, just as regularly as they started, they'd slow and then stop just as the sun came up. During this time we became almost nocturnal, except we didn't sleep that much during the day either.

A brief break in the painful monotony came when we decided to go into triage at Prentice Women's Hospital after a tough Sunday night, when the intervals began closing to five minutes. They of course slowed as soon as we got into the cab, and once at the hospital we were told there was just a fingertip of dilation. They gave Patty a routine monitoring for fetal vitals, and sent us home.

We weren't sure what to do with ourselves, besides try to nap, so we did some of that and distracted ourselves in other ways. Monday night was no different, with even stronger contractions, and this time we knew we'd need to wait until it was flat out unbearable before going back to the hospital.

Tuesday was a great day once the contractions subsided. We had a yummy breakfast, took a long walk with Jack, then spent the afternoon at Hamlin Park pool, Patty walking back in forth in the cool water on a beautiful sunny day.

Once home, I began prepping for a long night by cooking all the veggies in the fridge to keep them from spoiling once we had to finally go into the hospital: a roasted beet salad w/ feta, egg salad w/ green onions, and a marinara.

"We need to go"

Arriving as timely as an Italian commuter train, the first contraction of the night hit at 11:30 and the next one less than 8 minutes later. I began getting our things ready. From midnight to 0300 we averaged 9 to 10 contractions per hour, and if they got any more intense...

At 0315, Patty was in the dining room and geared up for an approaching contraction. Bent over the buffet hutch, breathing and "ahhhhh"-ing she suddenly let out a yelp and burst into tears. This was it, the contraction that put it over the edge. Cab called. Jack watered. Lights out.

As the cabby was loading our gear into the trunk and Patty getting in the back seat, I calmly told him that this was not an emergency, we were hours, maybe even a day, from delivery, and that a baby would not be born in his car. He shook his head understandingly, then proceeded to drive us to Prentice down Lake Shore Drive at over 70mph, carving a line through the Oak Street chicane that Fabian Cancellara would admire.

"You're admitted!"

Once in triage we found out Patty was 3cm dilated. Normally, that wouldn't be enough to warrant admission, but the contractions were 5 minutes apart and closing, and we'd not slept because of them for four nights. Momma was running high blood pressure however, so the RN asked if we were planning on pain meds; we'd need blood work done to rule out pre-eclampsia, which could impact an epidural. We were definitely reconsidering our desire to go drug-free, so it was better to order the blood work now, in case she decided to grab my bottom lip and pull it over my head.

Around 0600 we found we ourselves in labor & delivery and things were really moving. The next cervical check showed a gain to 6cm in less than 90 minutes (typically, 1cm/hour is the benchmark). They broke Patty's bag, and then our OB showed up, at the end of his night shift to see how things were going. Patty was pretty sure at that point that she wanted an epidural, and after some discussion, we ordered it. It was right then active labor hit like an atom bomb.

As the contractions seemingly had no definable end or beginning, even coming on top of the last, the lab was delayed in getting the results of the blood work. Patty and I stood, arms interlocked, rocking back and forth there in the room. At first we were alone (she burst into tears when seeing the blood-tinged fluid accumulating on the floor between her legs), then amid doctors and nurses who made welcome lighthearted jokes about 7th grade slow dances and that, "it's not the cleanest of medical practices." They told us we were really working well together, using our coping skills expertly. Breathing and "ahhhhhhhhhhhh!"-ing our way through the worst pain Patty had ever experienced in her life, with me sternly reminding her to stay in control, and not give it up to the agony.

Relief

After what seemed like hours (in reality about 75 minutes) the epidural was approved and I was told I'd need to step out when it was administered. Anesthesia soon showed around 7:30, and I left for some cafeteria breakfast. Upon returning, it was as if I'd walked into the wrong room. Patty was lying peacefully on her side, the motor of the IV drip humming along soothingly. No one else was there.

The next cervical check at 0800 showed another gain, out to 8cm; as well as 100% effaced and at 0 station. We were ecstatic. Dr. Chen, the OB who would be delivering Baby Mo then said, "I'll be back in about 90 minutes. You should be feeling strong pressure on your rectum, and we'll be ready to push!"

I happily reported via text to family members that we could expect a new baby by 11am.

Stalled

The next cervical check indicated no change, so a small dose of pitocin was added. It was hard to interpret the monitor's contraction readout but it did seem as though the action had begun to slow. I then had lunch, watched a movie, but anxiety had begun to creep in. It was evident in Patty as well. Two more cervical exams revealed no change, and each time the pitocin dosage was slightly increased.

I warily noticed long intervals in between gently sloping contractions and Baby Mo's heart rate rising to the upper limit of normal, high 150s. Patty was also running a 101 fever, indicative of a possible uterine infection. The pitocin wasn't working like we wanted it to, and Patty and I were trying to work through a sudoku puzzle to calm ourselves when Dr. Chen walked in around 1420. Cervix was still at 8cm.

She told us that she was going to do a Cesarean-section procedure and would be back in a couple hours. If Patty made progress in that time, and felt the need to push suddenly, a midwife was on the floor who could deliver Baby Mo. If there was no progress, "we'd need to consider other options."

There was no delusion that "other options" was only one option.

I tried to not show my growing fear. Barely anyone wants a c-section and this was the dreaded end after 4 weeks of child birth classes and long discussions about delivery: cutting the chord, baby going straight to momma, maybe even standing birth. C-sections are far more common in the United States - nearly 40% of total births - largely because of the more medical/surgical nature of obstetrics in this country.

Dr. Chen returned by 1600 and when Patty told her that she felt some pressure, all of our spirits jumped. It could be the progress we were hoping for. A check of her cervix revealed, however, that we'd be going into surgery.

Not that we had any other choice. As I sat there, unable to speak while doctors and nurses came in to prep Patty for surgery and sign the necessary waivers, I couldn't find any regret for our course of action up to now. Four days of sleepless nights and painful contractions, breaking the bag, the necessity of the epidural...I wouldn't have changed any of it. If a Cesarean resulted from the chain reaction of interventions, then I could live with that.

It still didn't keep me from being scared shitless.

"I need you to stay calm for me"

I had 20 minutes alone in the labor & delivery room after they wheeled Patty away for surgery. I was to put on the scrubs they left for me, and wait for the RN to come and take me to the operating room for delivery. I sat there shaking and trying not to think about all the things that could go wrong with a very routine surgery on a women with a 101 fever and elevated blood pressure - not that I knew anything at all about surgery, except that when I was a little kid even M*A*S*H episodes used to scare me.

The RN was back to get me more quickly than I expected, and walking out with her to the OR was an out of body experience. I was watching myself as though I were a different person.

It was hyper-real. The operating room was as bright as a high school detention class. Not dark, like in M*A*S*H episodes, or in the movies. I didn't have to wash my hands, or go through an air lock. The voices and mannerisms of all the doctors and RNs oozed confidence and professional detachment while my ears were attuned to any reveal of something going wrong, through a shaky or hesitant word, or sharply issued order. I only heard deliberate footsteps, regimental dialog, and a few casual comments mixed in with the beeps and whirs of the surgical apparatuses all over the room.

A large green surgical sheet was up between us and the action and I could only see Patty from the chest up. Her arms were spread crucifix-like from her sides and she looked up at me - noticing my hurried breathing and darting eyes above my face mask - and with relaxed panic, said,

"I need you to be calm for me."

Catharsis

Those words were like an order from a general to a private as he was about to go around a wall into a hail of gunfire. I owed it to her to place my trust in the hospital, the doctors, in our own decisions that brought us to this moment. There was no going back, nothing I could do but face the situation for what it was. We were moments away from putting the last nine months behind us forever.

I stroked her cheek and just nodded, my eyes stealing in response. As I looked at the floor, deliberately slowing my breathing with deep draws from my diaphragm, I heard Dr. Chen say, jokingly:

"I think I'm more concerned about the dad than the patient!"

And then,

"Dad, you can stand up now!"

My knees straightened, my back became upright, and I watched the green sheet between me and the source of all the unseen activity move downward followed by its top edge and then the open space of the room...

I was looking at Baby Mo at the moment she was being pulled from the womb, 1656 hours on August the 3rd, 2011, covered in murky fluid and blood, unfolding from her fetal position, and held up for me to see by Dr. Chen, whose eyes were smiling brightly from behind her mask. I didn't consciously try to count 10 finger and toes, or two eyes, or see the quivering mouth, but when I heard her new, untested voice gurgling and then gaining strength into an angry shriek, I knew Baby Mo was with us to stay.

I didn't realize I was weeping until I felt the gush of tears down my face.

When I looked down at Patty she was weeping too, having watched my reaction, and then Baby Mo was whisked away to the side room for all the measurements to make sure she was, in fact, a live human baby, despite the confirming evidence of her continued bellowing and shrieking at the indignation at having been ripped naked from the only existence she'd ever known.

Vivian

The relief continued to flow, morphing to joy, as I heard the OR staff laughing and joking approvingly at the healthy sounds of displeasure. The pediatrician was then waving me to come around and join him in the room for a first picture. Baby Mo was definitely a live human baby, all eight pounds, 4 ounces, and 20 inches of her, and named Vivian Rose Morrissey.

Patty was lying just as helpless in the next room, waiting for more than 15 minutes to finally touch the skin of her new baby. I was soon able to place Vivian in her arms before they moved them from the OR into recovery.

Thursday Hate

2011-07-27T20:31:00.002-05:00

You know what job I wouldn't want to have?

The account executive at the agency that had to come up with all the Captain America tie-ins for Dunkin' Donuts/Baskin Robbins.

I would shoot myself rather than show up to work and give revisions back from the client to that fucking creative team.

"More/bigger swirl/blue/stars/red, white, and blue sprinkes? I'm a serious artist and don't have time for this shit. I need to make screen prints for the record store I'm entering in an awards show. Tell them no. Now leave. I was shopping on craigslist for fixie conversions and Yelping salons because my wife hates my Dave Navarro haircut."

Now THIS is great creative!

Going the distance for bike theft

2011-05-06T16:08:00.003-05:00

Remember this scene from “The Big Lewbowski”? The Dude sits in his recovered and now trashed car and the police officer laughs at him when asked if they had any leads:

The River Forest Police Department certainly didn’t let a lack of perceived property value get in the way of bringing bike thief Jose Bautista to justice.

Authorities were able to track down Bautista, a convicted DUI offender, with DNA analysis of the blood left on some broken glass at the crime scene. It took ten months to get the results back due to higher-priority violent crime cases, but it’s good to see that even bike thieves are not considered below the reach of such useful technology.

Anyone who’s ever had a bike stolen hardly considers it petty theft.

Thursday Hate: Stupid Mudder F***ers

2011-05-05T00:00:00.001-05:00

The Tough Mudder is coming to a city near you. And soft, pampered bros and bro hoes everywhere will be signing up and overcoming their self-esteem issues, one backwards Red Sox cap at a time.

Can you imagine one of these people meeting Pat Tillman - the ultimate example of self sacrifice and giving up the good life to be a part of something bigger?

Mettle to the Pedal

2011-05-04T17:10:00.007-05:00

May is National Bike Month.

I can think of no better way to celebrate in Chicago than becoming a Team Leader for the Bike Commuter Challenge. Put your knowledge of practical and safe cycling towards growing the ranks of the healthiest, happiest, and most productive travelers around.

Signing up is easy, free, and fun. Anyone at your office - you, for instance - can do it. All anyone else at the office has to do is pledge to bike all or part of the way to work at least once during Chicago's Bike to Work Week, June 11-17.

And once you're registered, the Active Transportation Alliance will send you all the tools you need to recruit a winning team: a poster, flyers, maps, how-to manuals, email support, plus access to all the discounts Active Trans members get, and much more. You can even get a free onsite bike safety seminar at your office! Send Active Trans your numbers the week after and they'll recognize the winners plus every organization that participates.

You know that bicycling in Chicago runs much deeper than just the Lakefront Trail or Bike the Drive. That with a little vigilance and alertness, our bike lanes and streets are safe places to ride. You have a favorite route to most anywhere in the city. You can pack a suit (wrinkle-free) in 5 minutes before riding to a morning meeting. You know that a five mile ride at a moderate pace doesn't require a shower, only a few baby wipes.

You know that a small amount of extra effort doesn't mean a loss of convenience, yet can save thousands of dollars a year. You know that if you could just get the chance to convince a few friends and coworkers, with others like you around the country, millions, perhaps billions of dollars could be saved in fuel costs, productivity, and the public health impacts of air pollution and sedentary lifestyles.

Don't just be a bike commuter. Be a Leader.

Looking down

2011-05-02T21:35:00.008-05:00

Today on my ride to work I saw $4.90 for gasoline at the intersection of Clark and Berteau on Chicago's north side.

We are seeing record prices in the city now. There are those of us, such as myself, that cluck our tongues with a "told-you-so" tsk, and go about our daily lives, fuel free for the most part. Small apartments in efficient buildings shield us from extravagant energy costs, our walkable neighborhoods entitle us to a standard of living that must be experienced to see the real value...so far.

But all of us will be feeling the pinch - if not now - sooner or later at the grocery store. For sure, one way to alleviate a lot of the pain is having that room in your budget instead of losing it to direct fuel costs. But soon formerly well-fed people will be going visibly hungry, and along with the news of high fuel prices, will be the news of growing starvation among the first world.

Prices will not go down until demand does first. Supply is in fact static or even falling, and relative bump in the ratio is out of the question. This is because the trailing bell curve of production has finally caught up with discovery.

Since 1960 the population of Earth has been discovering one barrel for every four we consume. Some call it "Peak Oil Theory."

Actually, according to the International Energy Agency, and now the International Monetary Fund, it's reality.

A reality that now dictates a painful, convulsive, death spiral for our oil-addicted civilization as demand dips and rises, dips and rises, each time a little less than before, as the airlines once again become the exclusive dominion of billionaires and our standard weekend of multiple trips to Costco and Walmart are no longer affordable; until the final freefall at the end, when the big lumbering jets disappear completely from the sky and we'll walk and ride past abandoned cars and trucks rusting in the deteriorating streets.

When will we start noticing the fewer planes in the sky? The abandoned cars and trucks rusting in the streets? In ten years, who will be able to afford them? Each day, the dollar buys less and less, fuel becomes more and more expensive, because there is less and less net energy to fuel production of the goods and services that fuel our economy.

Any return to growth as pined for in the mass media is a self-delusional lie. We are headed into a new, heretofore unexperienced historical epoch of contraction. All of our economic growth was ultimately driven by the annual increases of available net energy...increases in energy production. But those increases in net energy are gone, never to return.

Says Jim Kunstler (who has been sounding the alarm on oil-dependency since the late 80s) of Clusterfuck Nation:

The "drill drill drill" gang is under the impression that North America has vast unexplored regions where oil is just begging to be discovered. This is not true. The New York Times reported after Obama's speech - in a disgracefully dumb story by Clifford Krauss - that the eastern Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Coast contain 3.8 billion barrels of oil. Really? Hello! The US uses over 7 billion barrels of oil every year. Does the Arctic National Wildlife refuge contain between 4 and 11 billion barrels (US gov estimate)? Great, that averages out to about a year or so of US supply. And I'm not even against drilling there, only against the idea that it represents a meaningful "solution" to our problem.

Meanwhile, the old standby Alaskan oil fields at Prudhoe Bay are depleting so remorselessly that there may not be enough flow in a year or so to move the oil through the famous pipeline.

How about Canada's tar sands? Well, first of all, they belong to Canada, not us, unless we want to change that - and that could be politically messy. The tar sands will never produce more than 3 million barrels a day. The operations are already too huge, costly, and damaging to the northern watershed. Canada is our number one source of imported oil, but China would also like to buy Canadian oil. Are we planning to invoke the Monroe Doctrine to prevent Canada from selling its oil to parties outside the Western Hemisphere? That could be messy, too.

It's only when looking at the situation in the Middle East through the lens of Peak Oil does it make any sense. We are not there to "steal" oil but rather rather to ensure we keep our share when there is no longer enough to go around for all and we no longer can afford a bidding war. One can only hope the Earth's global powers retreat into isolation and accept inevitible contraction rather than continue the bidding with nuclear warheads.

Don't be the proverbial Grasshopper. Instead learn from the Ant. This doesn't mean, move to a Montana militia camp and hoard supplies; it means adopt a simpler, more self-sufficient and self-sustaining lifestyle. Replace your car with a sturdy bike. Live close to transit. Grow as much of your own food as possible, and get the rest locally.

Of course this means sacrifice!

Just because it's not what you want to hear - a new magical way to fuel all the cars and continue living in a fantasy land of limitless, nearly-free energy - doesn't mean it's not the right answer. Those who play the Grasshopper however, and hope for the slight of hand for society will discover that painfully enough.

Just ask the former residents of the once-palatial suburbs-cum-slums in Detroit, Cleveland, and a growing number of other dying American towns.

George Will hates trains

2011-03-08T22:56:00.015-06:00

Dear Mr. Will,

I occasionally enjoy your writings for the principled conservatism you express, but I found your February 27th contribution in Newsweek to be nothing but good, old-fashioned red-baiting at its most base:

"...the real reason for progressives’ passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans’ individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism."

High Speed Rail as is being pushed by the DOT and Obama is undoubtedly going to be wasteful, but don't use that to paint the entire mode of Rail. Rail is much more economical than driving in terms of fuel efficiency in $/passenger-kilometer, and the basis of the infrastructure is already there and just needs to be revived/updated.

Yes, if viewed as a purely government-funded exercise, rail is more expensive. But rail pays a greater percentage of its way through fares (62% of operating expenses) than driving does via gas taxes and tolls (less than 50% for the Federal Highway Administration).

Further, why is rail vilified for being subsidized by the government when the same can be said for our highways? Because its detractors can't let go of cheap gas (gone forever), and are deliberately comparing apples to oranges: on percentage of current mode-share vs. what is currently subsidized through taxes. Rail ridership grows every year, and track infrastructure with equal mode-share is much more economical than continued maintenance of interstate highways we can no longer afford.

Fighting "global warming" is an unwinnable battle but, rail also pays dividends in reducing pollution and improving public health. Why do you hate people's lungs, George?

There's no denying the $50-80 billion nationally per year in additional healthcare costs from transportation related pollution. To say nothing of the $150 billion in additional costs dealing with type 2 diabetes - a direct result of our car-dependent sedentary behavior.

The free ride of cheap oil is over, George. The airlines will soon be a millionaires club, and local travel and development will be increasingly more oriented towards transit, bicycling, and walking. The direct and indirect costs of a car-only transportation policy are simply too great to bear anymore. Roads are not an entitlement, and it's time to stop paying for them with the wallets of the middle-class and lower, as Scott Walker is doing in Wisconsin.

Your argument is bullshit and reactionary. You know this, so you just resort to the fossilized cliché of calling people "communists." It is your only defense against people who don't embrace the pointless consumerism of car-culture or the fallacy of "individualism" predicated on an endowment of cheap, convenient energy. Against those who place more value on public space, community, efficiency, and health.

American individualism is far older the automobile; it was born out of finding a better way of doing things.

Thursday Hate: Where is John Burge when we need him?

2011-03-02T21:37:00.006-06:00

I really hope - and you never know with Brazil - that they cut this guy's balls off and feed them to him at gunpoint.

My email to David Brooks of the New York Times

2011-03-01T23:39:00.013-06:00

Dear Mr. Brooks,

I have recently become a big fan of your writing.

Your recent columns, "Ben Franklin's Nation," "Run, Mitch, Run," and "The New Normal," resonated with me greatly. Indeed, the middle class need to reclaim our dignity by distinguishing ourselves by what we spend on, rather than what we have to spend. I, too, hope for a measured approach in ensuring the inevitable austerity is less painful.

I suppose you might call me a progressive-realist. I work for a Chicago nonprofit that advocates for better biking, walking, and transit for our citizens. Not the typical resume of a Republican. And I don't identify as such, but I am a fan of Mitch Daniels.

Mitch Daniels played not a small part in the passage of Indiana's landmark Complete Streets bill late last year. Complete Streets is the concept that most new public roadway development considers all possible users. Daniels realizes there are great gains to be achieved by reclaiming a portion of the public space for the use of all.

These are gains in energy efficiency, quality of life, and public health that will positively affect the bottom line of governments across the land.

Our current infrastructure, heavily car-centric, is much like a third-rail entitlement program, eating up increasingly more of the budget and creating dependency (on low energy prices).

Several recent studies have shown the huge dividends of investing in bicycling, walking, and transit-oriented development, especially in fuel savings and lower public health burden.

The American Journal of Public Health reported last November - covered by NPR - that in cities with high rates of active transportation, obesity and diabetes rates are 20% lower or more. Treatment of type 2 diabetes claims $1 in every 100 dollars spent in this country, and each sufferer can incur additional lifetime healthcare costs of up to $400,000. One in three born after the year 2000 will contract it.

A brand new study by the Journal of Physical Activity and Health found that by 2040, bicycling investments in Portland, OR in the range of $138 to $605 million will result in health care cost savings of $388 to $594 million and fuel savings of $143 to $218 million.

Finally, the Chicago Tribune reported that the city's Bike 2015 Plan is indeed working: they've built the lanes, and the cyclists - finding increased safety - have come. Business Week cites findings that such infrastructure cuts cyclist injuries by half. Mayor-elect Emanuel has pledged to increase the rate of bike lane development in Chicago from 8 miles per year to 25, and has promised to open the Bloomingdale Trail - the sister of NYC's much celebrated and successful High Line - before the end of his first term.

It is my hope that you will weigh in with your support on these solutions that Indiana, Chicago, and many other towns across America are implementing to cut loose the stranglehold that car-only infrastructure has on their budgets, their health, and their public space.

Thanks for reading.

On Wisconsin (so go the rest)

2011-02-21T20:44:00.009-06:00

It's too bad it takes an internet meme to make us realize - much too late, self-evidently - the real value of teachers and other state employees:

Only 5 states do not have collective bargaining for educators and have deemed it illegal. Those states and their ranking on ACT/SAT scores are as follows:
*South Carolina -50th
*North Carolina -49th
*Georgia -48th
*Texas -47th
*Virginia -44th

Wisconsin is #2 in ACT/SAT scores. Re-post if you think this is important.

Where it starts to get really ugly is when the lies quickly get mixed up with the facts. Indeed the Wisconsin state unions offered concessions with their pensions and benefits as an alternative to losing their collective bargaining power. Indeed Governor Scott Walker ignored those offers of negotiation and is now attempting to legislate their collective bargaining rights out of existence. Indeed, the police and firefighters unions who were spared their right to collectively bargain on the virtue of their previous endorsement of Walker have now rebuked him in support of their brethren.

But, a claim is now also making the rounds that Wisconsin actually had a budget surplus and that Walker has engineered the crisis to pay for his corporate tax-breaks.

It's bullshit.

The figure being cited by Rachael Maddow and her sycophants omits over $200 million owed to state programs ("But ignoring it would have meant turning away eligible Medicaid clients, which was not an option..."), and could be an additional $200 million in the red if additional debts are figured in, pending a court ruling. As well, the hits from the tax breaks won't hit for another two years.

Scott Walker is specifically targeting the collective bargaining rights of state workers because he knows what the people repeating these memes and distortions do not: that the overall financial pie is getting smaller and will continue to do so. Targeting the strength of these workers to negotiate their earnings is the Right Wing's longer-term strategy for holding on to their total volume of resources, versus keeping merely their share, relative to the rest. The growth simply isn't there to support the infrastructure we've built for ourselves over the 20th century without cannibalizing - as in this case - functions deemed "less essential."

The proof is in the "fine print" as the JSO notes with regards to the Medicaid debt. Those arrears were obviously deemed "least essential" by the state, until it was evident they couldn't get out of paying those debts, legally. So, the plan then became: make up the difference by screwing those who can be screwed legally. Only "screwing" isn't exactly a mandate and now we have the present situation in Madison on Capital Hill - mobs of protesters eating in the cafeteria intended for the politicians, who - Democrats anyways - are on the lam to prevent a quorum from being established to vote on the pending bill.

This explanation leaves some bigger questions hanging, and to answer those we need to look at the bigger picture. Why isn't there growth to support the debts being incurred by Wisconsin, and of course other states, including Illinois? This lack of growth is evident globally, in fact. Look at what's going in the Middle East due to fuel and food shortages, as well as the riots in Greece, The UK, and France earlier last year in response to very similar budget tightening measures.

The pie, as I mentioned, has been getting smaller every year since global oil production peaked in 2006 (even the Wall Street Journal acknowledged the premise in 2008, and the IEA declared it so last year.) This is a very...big...problem, and what we are seeing in Wisconsin and world wide is just the beginning of the reprecussions.

At the core of it is the following paradox: a global financial system predicated and fully dependent on constant growth to pay the debts incurred by the creation of wealth, driven by loans, yet fueled by a finite resource. Yes, that growth comes from (came from, sorry) the increasing net energy available to us, through energy production. It's what made us as a society more productive each year.

The industry countered the Peak Oil announcement by saying that there was plenty of oil being discovered all the time, and that we'll always be able to switch to other fossil fuels, such as methane, or to electric cars, not to mention renewables.

Indeed, there's plenty of oil. But the reason why this article is wrong and highly misleading is that it doesn't account for "net energy," ignores the downward curve of global discovery - inexorable since 1964 - and it repeats the economist's mantra - predicated on our financial system requiring growth - that the more energy we consume, the more we produce.

Unaccounted-for net energy and what basically amounts to ignoring the 1st law of thermodynamics were the principle arguments of three prominent "Cornucopians" debunked in Richard Heinberg's 2002 book, "The Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies."

Heinberg, and other "Cassandras" as they are known, state that while half of all the oil we've ever discovered may still lie underground, it's the harder-to-get-half. The net return, once the increasing amounts of energy invested in extracting the oil are accounted for, will get lower and lower, resulting in higher and higher prices.

Oil accounts for 40% of the world's total energy needs and simply replacing that energy through other means without considering the effects of the cascading consequences is pure folly. Not the least of which is that all of the infrastructure changes required to make such a shift are still dependent on an oil-based system. And others, such as Bush's "hydrogen economy" are pipe-dreams, net-energy losses.

And most basically, the fact that no other fuel comes close to conventional oil's efficiency and convenience. Billions of years of sunlight, locked up in a drivable, flyable, shippable, pipeline-able package, all at our convenience.

Our total net energy available to us has begun decline and it will not stop until it reaches equilibrium. Who knows where that will be? The Earth's population was about 2 billion before the industrial revolution began in earnest around 1850, and now stands at 7 billion.

And that brings me back to Wisconsin and the reason why the Tea Party is growing in popularity, and will continue to grow, to the dismay of the more level-headed among us. They represent unthinking reaction, lashing out at the decline in living standards. They can't accept that those previous standards they took for granted simply aren't possible to such a large portion of the population anymore, hence the disappearing middle class.

And finally the election of Scott Walker, et all. They will deliver scapegoats and the promise of the status quo. Not the painful truth.

It's like a trust fund kid who's money is running out and has to take the bus from now on.

Contraction is coming, in a big way. We've far overshot the natural carrying capacity of our environment - artificially inflated by the energy from fossil fuels, a once-in-a-planetary-lifetime shot, and we've squandered it in little over 200 years.

It's a long way back to equilibrium. Put your head between your knees and hang on. Get a bike. Plant a garden. And get a gun.

This one's gonna be a mother. Let's hope the bidding war launched by the shortages is waged with cash, and not warheads.

Written in 2009:

I know that I have only seen it rain
That never has it stormed within my path
I read the pages, looking at the pain
And heard the ruminations on God's wrath.
I cow'r in fear to dwell upon my fate
That's been foretold by corpses walking past...
They cackle at my slick-skinned naivete
With toothless leers and bony fingers crossed.
Expensive clothes and robes now turned to mold
Rotten, sour agelessness of excess
To be undone by no amount of gold -
Illuminating only scars and sadness.
While great swaths of fire, birthed by lightning,
Clear the remains of every living thing.

Dib this

2011-02-04T08:34:00.007-06:00

I can't believe this is my first post since December - "the Don, rest his soul, was slippin'" - but the current situation without my comment is untenable.

Keep your mop bucket in the closet and give your old crutches to Goodwill. Claiming "dibs" on a shoveled out parking space is the most egregious act of self-entitlement since you bought the goddamn car in the first place:

Since when did the public right of way become storage for your private property?

In Andre Gorz's 1973 screed, "The Social Ideology of the Motorcar," he proposes an analogy of private autos to beach houses. The car is still a luxury in a very real sense - like a beach house (or for my purposes here, a time share) - and only makes sense when few people own them. Or when a lot share a few. Cars become more devalued the more people own them.

"The automobile is the paradoxical example of a luxury object that has been devalued by its own spread," says Gorz. I'm not anti-car, I'm anti-car culture. Cars are incredibly useful tools - I have an I-Go membership and use it all the time - but nobody ever thinks about how much space they use until snow takes it away. Space - like energy - is a precious resource that must not be abused or wasted.

So currently, while cars are still an ideological luxury, in reality they've become an addict's fix because we've completely adapted our environment to their use. This in turn breeds a sense of self-entitlement and "fuck everybody else" impatience that turns us all against one another. Yesterday, on my ride to work (throughly enjoying myself on the wide open roadway) I noticed several side streets choked with snow, unplowed. Yet, even then, some asshole had decided he absolutely had to dig out his car RIGHT NOW - even with so many public transit options within less than a quarter mile...then promptly got it stuck, and had to abandon it right in the middle of the street. What then of the other people that have been waiting until a plow came through before digging out?

Fuck 'em.

Well I say, "fuck them." The suburbs, built for cars and with no viable alternative at all, are dead as oil appears to be more or less permanently above $100 a barrel.

But, imagine how much more livable and enjoyable Chicago and other big cities with viable transit and walkable neighborhoods would be if mass-private ownership of cars died. Think of how much more space we'd have; how secure we'd be riding our bikes and crossing streets.

Think of how healthy and relaxed we'd be - how much better we'd treat each other - if "exercise" was no longer such a loaded word because we walked and biked everywhere...if so many weren't dying from diabetes and obesity and depression and stress...and the rest of us weren't rushing to the gym to get our mandated 30 minutes of running in place while staring at a glowing rectangle because we spent the rest of the day driving and sitting on our ass.

Dig yourself out and claim "dibs" by getting rid of your car.

Reclaiming sense and sustainability

2010-12-15T23:27:00.004-06:00

David Brooks argued in the New York Times yesterday that, "America should focus less on losing its star status and more on defending and preserving the gospel of middle-class dignity."

The middle class is a segment of society that has simultaneously grown exponentially worldwide and diminished greatly in stature here at home. A matter of relative perspective, Brooks explains. There are simply more of them, and less of us. While no longer as powerful in their ability to set national priorities, the American middle-class is not yet "eating cake." They simply aren't as distinguished amid so many others.

The middle class - and the United States - have been derided as "tepid and materialistic." In fact, those are the very traits – while stoked and exploited by those with more means – that have led to its nadir. The foreclosure crisis and the looming hammer of debt above are both underwritten by our continued dependence on ever-increasingly expensive fossil fuel; and it has whittled away our disposable income to point of seething anger and blind rage.

However, redemption is not impossible.

Ben Franklin, Brooks reminds us, was one of the original champions of the middle class. While superficially defined as having the means to spend on non-necessities, Brooks explores its deeper values of quality over quantity, of pluralism, innovation, and objectivity. In other words, distinguishing ourselves by what we spend on rather than by what have to spend. Or knowing what is simply not necessary.

"American culture was built on the notion of bourgeois dignity." This dignity is being rediscovered by overcoming the epidemic of obesity and chronic disease wrought by car-centric sprawl and the commoditization of our health and nutrition. It will be reclaimed by standing up and refusing to be marginalized by a lack of transportation options and infrastructure that ignores a great many people's needs and forces them into near-servitude.

Many Americans go into debt because they feel they must own a car, even while 37% of the money they spend on it is lost to depreciation.

Diabetes and its complications claim one in every five dollars spent on healthcare in this country. This "lifestyle" disease is the reason why so many of us cannot afford health insurance and it is now beyond any doubt that urban sprawl and its drive-only mandate bears much of the blame. Not only because it robs us of the time spent moving our bodies, but of the time spent preparing quality meals and sharing them with quality people during quality time. Robbing us of the expendable income to spend what is actually necessary.

I see a revolution of holistic self-sufficiency and the abandonment of suburbia. Robust transit systems that complement streets which welcome walkers and cyclists along with manageable and safe traffic flow, encouraging efficacy, commerce, and vibrant community will diminish our crushing debt and nihilistic consumerism. Rather than spend two hours a day in the car, then obsessively jump on a treadmill after grabbing take out, the new middle-class will simply bike to work or walk to the train, and have the time afterward to enjoy a real meal with family or friends.

Fewer teens are getting a driver’s license than at any point in the last 25 years.

Measured austerity and real sustainability (as opposed to the "greenwashing" of hybrid cars, wind powered parking garages, and carbon credits – i.e. bullshitting ourselves) will come to define the middle-class in the very near future. It will be the one characteristic that gives them back the power they once had.

Not the power to buy or own what it neither needs nor can afford, but to free themselves of the compulsion to do so.

Food Choices

2010-11-29T12:59:00.003-06:00

From the Newsweek article "Divided We Eat":

"This is our charity. This is my giving to the world," says Alexandra,finally, as she packs lunchboxes—organic peanut butter and jelly on grainy bread, a yogurt, and a clementine—for her two boys. "We contribute a lot."

This is not just self-congratulatory masturbation. The "savings" of cheap food, brought about by way of equal amounts of cheap oil, are in reality buck-passing. Those "savings" are borne by the public in the form of healthcare costs (11% of which treat type 2 diabetes alone), pollution, and even directly out of our pockets in the form of subsidies for those "cheap" and very empty calories.

It seems self-defeating to give to charitable public health concerns while at the same time compounding those very problems with your own lifestyle choices. Instead, spend the extra on sustainably-produced foods that have far less negative impact on public health

Awww, poor baby!

2010-11-23T11:05:00.002-06:00

It is ironic, sadly and supremely so, that the group of citizens now crying and complaining over the Transportation Safety Administration’s new full-body scanners and aggressive pat-down searches are the same that drive SUVs, minivans, and cars for half-mile trips to the grocery store, to work on days when it’s “just too cold” to wait for the bus or deal with a homeless person on the train, to the gym in order to run on a treadmill, and because “I bought it, so I might as well use it.”

This is a nation so lazily and vociferously addicted to oil, believing that driving everywhere is a civil right and a way of life that they voted for George W Bush, twice, and his gigantic expansion of our already unwelcome presence in the Middle East to outright war. Not that we’d have avoided war with another president, not without changing our ways. Obama is proof of that, ineffectiveness incarnate. But by electing Bush and a propaganda machine, we convinced ourselves we could go on living as we always have, with the small inconvenience of ensuring that our Middle Eastern oil supplies aren’t endangered by Chinese or Russian intervention by intervening ourselves.

That’s the cost of “freedom,” right?

Do you really think that we’re still in Afghanistan to ensure democracy? US combat operations in Iraq may be over but our occupation is not. Do you really think that the weapons-of-mass-destruction-fiasco was just an honest error in intelligence and judgment? You are stupider than your Hummer makes you look.

Do you really think that we’re there to “steal oil?” You are stupider than your Prius makes you look.

We are awaiting the inevitable: the supply crunch. Soon there will not enough available energy at affordable prices to go around among Europe, China, Russia, and the US. It is then our Asian mission will be realized; and once it is, the terror threat will recede far into the background. If you think all parties involved will politely negotiate their way to an agreeable resolution to this shortfall, you are stupider than your protest sign makes you look.

Until then, terrorism is the most visible consequence of our oil addiction, and we bitch and moan about the TSA “abuse” with zero sense of irony. By simply reducing the amount we drive through means theoretically within our grasp we could totally eliminate our dependence on any foreign oil and any need for energy-defense missions. Most trips fewer than two miles could be made by some other mode than automobile. Why do you need so much shit from Target at one time? Why do you need such a huge truck? Can’t you drive something with better mileage? Why can’t you live in a denser area that is closer to transit?

These are all choices that you can make. However, if you have chosen to live in the suburbs and more than 2 miles from your nearest food source, voted for the candidate who cut funding for transit, or would rather drive because the bus “is for losers,” then I don’t want to hear anymore complaining about being turned into a creepy, 3D, black and white centerfold or having your genitals touched by a glorified security-guard no more qualified to be a garbage man and probably paid half as much.

We have only our own selfish behavior to blame. We're losing essential liberty for a little convenience. 300 million people changing a little can change a lot.

Thursday hate

2010-11-11T21:21:00.003-06:00

Extra tomato does not mean "one extra slice of tomato."

Someone who asks me for advice but is really only looking for validation on what he's already decided on doing.

People who must get past you to the doors while the train or bus is still moving, especially during rush hour; making me get up or contort to let them pass, risking a fall. I promise you will not miss your stop. And if you do, it won't be the end of the fucking world.

Thursday hate

2010-11-04T18:12:00.002-06:00

My top ten targets in the post-oil apocalypse:

10. Litterers.

9. People who block the doors.

8. Eric Cantor.

7. People who start with "www dot..." when giving you a web address.

6. American soccer fans who hate all other American sports.

5. People who go apoplectic against cutting social services but don't have a library card.

4. Litterers littering energy drink cans get an extra.

3. People who blame the imminently approaching economic abyss on liberalism and over-regulation.

2. People who won't eat vegetables, but they'll have their own problems.

1. "I said, 'please move your bag.'"

Humped Day: we deserve it

2010-11-03T21:42:00.011-06:00

This results of yesterday's election were a rebuke of Obama's first two years in office, no doubt. There's a link going around, What The Fuck Has Obama Done So Far? And, sorry, I have to answer, "so? Big fucking deal."

More mental heath care for veterans is great, it truly is. So is preventing providers from excluding pre-existing conditions upon new employment. These provisions would've been easily passed with bipartisan support. This is the kind of change people wanted.

The added entitlements of insuring millions of needy Americans who cost the most to treat because they suffer from chronic disease due to poor diet and lack of exercise, caused by government policy that was left completely untouched, was not the change people wanted. And the fact that it was passed without ANY bipartisan support at all has some people rightly pissed.

Especially after they just finished paying over $700 billion, instead of lining each of those motherfuckers up against a wall and putting a bullet in their brain, to the Wall Street criminals who fleeced the taxpayers that had any money left after they hatched a scheme to sell mortgages to people who couldn't afford them, then bundled them up in fraudulently-rated securities and sold them again, while taking out insurance policies on all of them - those millions and millions of little financial hydrogen bombs, credit-default-swaps.

Who's to blame? Probably Republican Phil Graham for sponsoring the 1999 bill which repealed part of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933 and removed the wall between commercial and investment banks, or the current standard-bearer for modern Democrats, Bill Clinton, who signed it. Take your pick.

But Barack Obama passed financial reform, you protest? Big fucking deal. Too late, the horses are already out of the barn. The accumulated debt at the core of it all - mortgages owned by people who couldn't pay them - debt that was greater than our combined ability to pay it, caused it all to fall apart. We got stuck with the bill and the world would end if we didn't pay.

This may not have come directly out of our pockets, but in the coming years, as our schools get worse, more bridges collapse, and ever-more reactionary politicians rescind funding for rail and complete streets infrastructure and planning, the criminality of it all will become very apparent.

The world, as we know it, is still going to end.

And this is what pisses me off the most: there is not one word about what the fuck Obama has done for sustainable transportation. The planning and ideas coming out of our Department of Transportation are the most innovative in years, former Republican Illinois state senator Ray LaHood is doing incredibly great work. And it may all be squandered by Obama breaking his word on being a bipartisan reformer. Not all conservatives are entirely beholden to special interests, some just think entitlement spending has gone too far. And when we're spending money to insure unhealthy people without first addressing WHY they are unhealthy, I think that's a good reason to say no.

And now, because of it, very real planning and the few good ideas to come out of this administration so far - transportation mitigating our dependence on cars - are at risk of being cut. In many states, such as Wisconsin, it's already on the block. And amid the permanent energy crunch that is being direly predicted in the coming years, we'll again be left forking over many more millions to pay for this next, now permanent, emergency.

And the folks who reacted to Obama's ineffectiveness will react the same way to these new Republican's ineffectiveness, by voting in even more reactionary politicians. All very sad, because our downfall is completely out of any politician's control. They will make Joe Miller and Sharon Angle (and her vague threats of "2nd amendment remedies") look like Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale.

Bookmark this blog entry. Title it, "was Brian right?" Come back in the fall of 2012 and see if we aren't ruing our continued dependence on cars and suburban sprawl. And I'm very sorry that your feelings are hurt because a bunch of gun-wielding insurgents got voted into office around the country yesterday, but that's what you get when you don't take other people's opinions into account.

Fuck it, Dude.

2010-10-30T07:36:00.003-05:00

A tragedy itself, "What Was the Hipster?" at nymag.com, definitively shows that the leading edge of popular culture has run into a brick wall, and is now being crushed to death as the trailing weight of society, full of unstoppable momentum, carreens into it, leaving an unintelligable, unnavigable morass of style, asthetics, and values.

Nothing is new.

Pipe dreams

2010-10-28T00:21:00.016-05:00

Tea Party anger is genuine, but very sadly misplaced. It's like watching a trust fund kid run out of money. Except in this case that money is cheap energy - easily obtainable oil and gas.

A half-decent screed on t r u t h o u t was brought to my attention today by some friends on facebook. Author Henry A. Giroux claims that Tea Party vitriol is led by a vast conspiracy of rich people getting greedier and meaner, the result of a collective loss of our moral compass over the last 30 years - since Reagan's election.

I read it, realized he was partly right, and was quickly reminded of the book I just finished a few weeks ago, James Howard Kunstler's, The Long Emergency. We have gone through about half of our total endowment of fossil fuels - specifically oil and gas, Kunstler writes - the cheap and easy-to-get half (and especially our own rapidly depleting supply of gas, and we do not have the infrastructure to import LNG at soon-to-be needed levels). It's all down hill from here. If anything, read the book, written in 2004, for Kunstler's related prediction of the housing collapse and foreclosure crisis will make the hairs on your neck stand up as stiffly as a legion of brownshirts coming to attention.

And many sources would say he's right, showing that global production peaked as late as four years ago. Consequently, Giroux is right, too. Our "ideals" did begin to change once Reagan was elected, because Reagan's election was in fact a reaction to our collective failure to deal with our own national peak oil crisis, in 1970: blaming it on the liberals and Arabs.

What next immediately jumped out at me was Giroux's absolute denial that government solutions don't work; that reams and books and stacks and entire libraries and roomfuls of computer servers of rules and regulations have never worked. His stone-faced failure to acknowledge that the Tea Party is, ultimately, a very real reaction. We're as self-centered as we ever were, 30 years ago, or 3,000. Don't believe me? When has a rule ever changed what you wanted? Needed? Have you ever seen a government RFP? I have. It was 57 pages of ADA, EEO, and DBE accommodations that would drive Bill Gates to become a turnip-farming revolutionary.

That the Tea Party is a reaction seems self-evident at first, because all liberals love to tout how proactive they are. But failing to address the action that caused the reaction you are condemning makes you just as big a reactionary.

Everyone loves to argue these days about who the real Nazis are, who's the real next Hitler. The truth is, who ever is in power the moment the permanent energy shocks and blackouts start is gonna be saddled by that unfortunate historical comparison. Unfortunate because it will be completely out of their control. We'll all slip into a collective psychosis, as Kunstler warns, looking to blame our problems on someone that is not ourselves, very much like the real Nazis and the German people of the 1930s.

You think the Tea Party supports your right to bear arms? Just wait until they're in power when the center starts really coming apart and they suddenly start taking the blame. I got yer second amendment right here. And the 1st, 3rd, 4th...you get the picture. And if Barack Hussein Obama and his crew happen to be the unlucky ones still in power when the shit goes down, then Palin and Co. will be proven right, but only by accident. If only they could be so lucky.

Truth is, labels shift and blame changes with whoever is in power because nobody wants to deal with the truth. It's the reason Palin, Paul, Miller, Angle, and O'Donnell are all part of this current zeitgeist. They're on the outside looking in, claiming to have all the answers. They'll be sorry when they're finally in and want out.

According to Kunstler, the world's endowment of cheap energy has made the illusion of modern economic utopia possible, including the ability for our nation, with all its diverse political views, to tolerate the massive entitlements that come with a modern democracy. But as the energy that underpins our entire, now global, society becomes unaffordable, we're suddenly realizing that we can't afford those entitlements anymore because we've dumped so much national wealth into an unsustainable lifestyle that only runs on cheap gas in our cars (read: the suburbs).

Employers can't afford to keep the payroll what it was. Food prices, for goods shipped in from all over the world, are getting too expensive, especially for the unemployed. Utility shut-offs ("come on, people...gawd, pay yer BILLS!") are the highest since the Great Depression. Freezing in a dark apartment has a sudden chilling effect on your democratic ideals.

But how can we get rid of all the entitlements? Privatization? I have several family members that each lost nearly $100,000 in investments in 2008, all their own private stash, when the market tanked. It's all moot anyway, no one can live on a SSA check alone to begin with.

So let's blame Harry Reid and his Mexicans.

As if Nevadans are going to wake up November 3rd and find all the illegals gone before Sharron Angle even takes her oath. Or even the year after. Although, in a few years, Nevadans will wake up to find all the water is gone and no one can afford their AC bills. I'd like to see Angle fix that. If she tries to come to the great lakes with a water pipeline, long a Nevada pipe dream - after they've let private mining operations drain their unreplenishable aquifers at the expense of all those people living a friggin desert (Lake Mead is at it's lowest level since the Hoover Dam made the goddamn lake!)...she'll have a fight on her hands, by god, cause I'm voting local. That's one example of socialism against which I'll join a revolution.

(Plus I love that she got so upset when that fat woman on The View called her a "bitch"...that after she told Reid to "man up." She can dish it out, but can't take it. Gender stereotypes go both ways, Sharron.)

And now that we're trying make things more efficient and sustainable, they call people like me a "socialist." With our bike lanes, VMT-reduction goals, 20-minute neighborhoods. They may be right, because it will still be underwritten by oil. Socialism is only an attempt to keep it all banded together with bailing wire and bubblegum what won't stay together on it's own without a huge endowment, a trust fund of cheap energy - gas and oil.

And don't give me the nuclear power argument - do you think the technicians needed at those plants are gonna get to work in nuclear cars? Nuclear's contribution is currently far too low, and electric cars are barely on the market. The time is now, the danger immediate. By time the market responds it will be too late. You only have to look once at Russia's nuclear situation for a clue as to what our own infrastructure may soon look like. And the "socialist" solution is provoking the very reaction about which I've decided to write.

Is it too late? It depends on your definition of "too late." The reality is probably that renewables will never satisfy our current demand. Kunstler argues that contraction, in that scenario, is the only way. He is proving to be more right every day, and it is a bitter pill for an ever growing number of people to swallow.

Thursday hate

2010-10-20T11:26:00.008-05:00

I couldn't wait until Thursday to pull the trigger on this one while the firestorm of idiocy on both sides of the argument rages almost out of control.

By now, even the most internet-challenged of us have seen the infamous video of the Delaware Senatorial debate where Christine O'Donnell appears not to know what the establishment clause is.

O'Donnell is no dummy, and she knew what she was doing. She was calculating, and she was in fact questioning Coons' knowledge of the 1st Amendment's actual wording.

It's a typical tactic by religious fascists to argue that prayer and Creationism in school isn't prohibited Constitutionally. It's of course incredibly disingenuous because of COURSE the intent is to keep religion and the state separate. What the hell else could you take from that? The proof is in the pudding with their pervasive "Moslem" comments. They'd 'd no sooner support Islamic prayer in a public school than support no prayer at all.

These people always want their cake and to eat it, too. O'Donnell and her supporters are the first to cite the 1st amendment when the government is telling religion what to do. But when religion is being imposed on everyone else - via the government in public schools and policy - crickets. No problem there at all.

Anyways, the term "separation of church and state" actually originated from Jefferson's correspondence with the Danbury Baptists. I just re-learned (I vaguely recall my U.S. History), this myself via Sarah Palin's twitter (linked to the link she posted), ironically because I'm quite certain she didn't intend for that piece of knowledge to passed on.

I don't have a problem with Creationism being taught in public school, as long as it is in a Theology class, i.e. Religious Studies, or within the context of a language curriculum. We studied the Bible as literature in high school, and this is completely constitutional. A teacher instructing, or the government requiring, that it be taught as "truth" is another matter entirely. Further, Creationism is not based on deductive reason. It's totally opposite, so how can it be part of a science curriculum?

I'll grant that the way evolution is taught in most schools could fall under the same criticism. However, since I'm not a botanist, a paleontologist, or a mammalogist, I won't argue how to best instruct evolution by employing the scientific method.

Moving on, the United States Federal Appeals Court just upheld the Illinois "moment of silence" in public schools. There was a time when I would've cried "slippery slope." But who am I to begrudge the available time made for someone to utter some incantation to whatever deity they want? As long as my kid can pull out his Richard Dawkins book at the same time, I think that's fair.

The slippery slope argument is admittedly laziness on our part in place of vigilance on when the line is crossed. The court's ruling seems like pretty reasonable middle ground, making accommodations for everyone. The problem is, religious fascists like O'Donnell try to grab yards and handfuls when offered an equatable inch. Make no mistake, however; she and her ilk will try to cross that line and use these kind wedges to open the door for far more pervasive impositions on our freedoms.

So don't be lazy. Be honest with yourself about where that line really is, and guard it with your life.

Into the woodshed

2010-10-20T07:56:00.006-05:00

I don't think I've ever experienced such a battle in the final lap of any race as I did Sunday in Carpentersville, number 5 in the Chicago Cross Cup series.

After the typical first lap disaster on probably the most technical of courses yet this season, in which I went into the tape twice and endoed once, not to mention getting passed at each barrier remount, I found myself in a knife fight for a top 15 placing among three other riders, Sasha Reschechtko (Tati), Justin Merkey (Rhythm Racing), and Tyler Avery (Pegasus). We constantly stole and gave up lines to each other turn after turn, or tried to drop each other in the pitted and rutted straightaways.

(Bill Draper)

As we raged into the final sweeping arc before the last u-turn to the line, it was Justin, me, and Tyler. I shifted to the big ring and tried to pull away but immediately we were elbow to elbow. I stupidly was still trying to move up on right, but that would've sent me into the tape and a tree on the final right u-turn - or would've crashed all three of us out, so by time I dropped back to reposition myself, it was far too late. Tyler broke free at the same time, and I crossed the line 3rd out of that group for 16th place.

I was pretty pissed at myself for misplaying the end, but once the High Life was cracked open and I was watching the 4Bs negotiate the pump section, all was again right with the world.

Overall the best day yet spent racing this fall. I had my best placing yet in the 30+ (22nd) - even while washing out on the first lap heading into the pumpers and face-planting in a turn - and the long-awaited Chubby Spud found its way into my hand once again:

Incredibly, I've moved up two places in the overall standings to eighth - wait, are we rewarding mediocrity here? I'm gonna have to start red-baiting this obviously socialist series?!? Don't worry, my much-harder-working call-up mates; I'm traveling the next two weekends in a pumpkin-carving, cider-drinking, corn-maze-claustrophobia-panicked fury, so that current placing will drop with the November temperatures. While Bryan Lee is getting his call-up dressed as Lady Gaga in a raw-meat skinsuit, I'll drinking all of my dad's beer while handing out Halloween candy on his porch wearing a wrestling mask.

Falling in love

2010-10-13T08:51:00.002-05:00

This is the best time of year to be a commuting cyclist in Chicago.

The vivid colors of turning leaves on my neighborhood streets stir almost instinctual feelings of change.

Post marathon, the throngs of runners are gone. The weather is cooling off. The wannabes have put their bikes away and are driving again. The path is once again ours.

That cool north wind pushes you and the dry fall air keeps you almost sweat-free.

Fall.

Graceland

2010-10-11T22:29:00.012-05:00

Thank you BBVP, Team Pegasus, and Chicago Cross Cup, for another stellar race in the 2010 series. Last year, Dan Ryan Woods was a vicious kick to the baby-maker, and renaming it Elvis Cross changed nothing. Well, almost nothing:

(Bill Draper)

It was hard to get out of bed, harder to get to the office today, and hardest to even stay awake once there:

30+

My placing in this category has trended downward since opening at 23rd in Jackson Park. The races have gotten more technical and hillier (or obstaclier, in DeKalb) and the competitive top half is getting stronger each time out. I started mid-pack, but then moved back quite a few places while trying to ride up the left-side singletrack: the first time I got caught behind teammate Paolo who had just taken a rear wheel on the chin, upending him; next time I lost traction all by myself, then locked up the front and endoed, finally getting back on once out in the sunlight only to start spinning my cranks madly, not going anywhere. Through the depths of my tunnel vision and frantic gasping, the cacophonous clanging of cowbells, I hear off to my left, oh so casually, “chain’s off.”

Thanks, guy.

Passed a bunch of dudes, ran up the hill on laps 3 and 4, and they all passed me again. Then I passed them again, and I said, “screw it” and decided to try one more time up the singletrack. FAIL w/endo again.

The race was still tons of fun however, mostly because a Team Tati rider in an old U of C kit wouldn’t let me pass him the last time of the second hill, cutting off my line and then opening a gap. I couldn’t quite close it through the final switchbacks, but didn’t let it get any wider by time we were hitting the last barrier. He phoned in the last 200m and I sprinted past him at the line for 33rd. It's the little battles that count for crossers like me.

After some recovery, I staked out some turf by the first 180 turn for the start of the Cat 3s, and nearly became the first off-the-bike relegation in racing history. Mr. Knauf approached to let me know it was Elvis Cross, not Dice Clay Cross. Sorry if I offended anybody.

I promise, later on I had some very clever, PG heckles.

4A

I got a call up for 9th overall, and was 5th wheel into the first turn, but I took it really wide, found the crowd coming up inside, and then after the chaos of the mud (WTF, is this the triathlete division?!) it jammed up terribly and I went through the 180 nearly at a trackstand. I was 8th or 9th coming up on the hill behind a little bit of a gap, when teammate Nick Venice came past like I was waiting to put my bike on the 147.

(Bill Draper)

And that was the only thing interesting about that race. Dropped my chain again. It’s funny how you can hear certain voices amid all the heckling, cowbell, and moments of singular pressure. Kirby’s voice cut through my brain like a knife.

I always lost places on the hill. There was one high point I’ll concede, when a VCS passed and tried to drop me on the second hill the second lap, but I wasn’t having any of it, and stayed right on his wheel. He was slower in the turns and that was the last I saw of him. Oh, and the Elvis sighting after coming down the hill, he passed me fast, with a, “on yah raght, brother! A-huh-huh!”

It was a good feeling to know that my 8th time up that hill was the last. 13th place. I'm still 10th overall and in line for a call up next race, but I won't be spending the entire weekend driving out to the suburbs, so I'll just be racing Carpentersville on Sunday. I can only hope and wait through Saturday's race in Waukonda.

Note the ethereal mood of this picture:

(Sue Wellinghoff)

Heaven will always be post-race. The endorphins will freshly flowing, the cooler will always have one more cold beer inside, and a new field of 4Bs will be just about to start. Oh, there's a cupcake...

Donzo:

(Sue Wellinghoff)

Thursday Hate

2010-10-07T10:23:00.003-05:00

Fly-by-night Halloween costume superstores.

I hate these places that are filled to the ceiling with Chinese plastic stuffed inside Chinese plastic bags. But, do you ever see anyone at Halloween parties wearing this stuff? No, because they’d look like the unoriginal tools the models are, on the packaging of these costumes. Dracula? Are you kidding me? Bride of Frankenstein? Ooo-o-o-o-o-o! Nobody – and I mean nobody – wears a costume straight out of the bag except for den mothers, Junior High principals, and these people.

So why are there 10,000 of them in these stores every October and where the fuck do they go?

----------

The people at Cracked must’ve taken a header before writing this one. I was alerted to this article by Chris of I Go With Fergus, and it is actually spot-on until #3, specifically, with this gem:

“…there are multiple studies showing that bicycle helmets, in the long run, don't actually reduce the number of injuries.”

No shit…you mean a full-body energy field doesn’t emanate from the helmet, letting me bounce of the pavement and car bumpers, right back onto my bike?

A helmet is a crash-mediator, not a crash-preventer. Statistics such as cited in this article do not distinguish between head injuries and non-head injuries. A more accurate picture would be told by correlating head injuries to crashes with regards to helmet-use. I've had three crashes that did not involve vehicles which cracked my helmet instead of my skull; once I was probably going only 13 mph.

However, the article cites an interesting study that found drivers drive less safely around cyclists when they are wearing helmets. I’d buy that. Further, there is no helmet-law in Illinois due to large efforts by Active Trans and other advocacy groups. Studies show that helmet laws discourage cycling, and fewer cyclists make for a less safe and bike-friendly environment.

----------

Finally, I want to say something about the Tennessee firefighters who let a house burn to the ground over $75. I had a discussion over Google Buzz on this yesterday, and the opinions expressed ranged from cold analysis of economics and civic policy to much deeper philosophical outrage. My own take on it was summed up as follows:

I wonder if it was less "grasping the golden rule" and more lazy and mean-spirited enough when presented with choices A and B to let somebody's house burn to the ground because they owed $75.

Again this all goes back to the issue of taxes that pay for essential services. Since when is it the Fire Department's job to collect and enforce a fucking service fee? Apparently, when the entire town has become so self-interested that local politicians are afraid to raise taxes to pay for the fucking service.

Maybe that has something to do with people living in homes they can't afford in suburban sprawl where they need cars they can't afford to drive to places to buy shit they need that they can't afford.

Choices and free will. All of it. Fuck 'em. I'm with Jeff. Let it burn.

Flyover Country

2010-10-04T16:52:00.016-05:00

It was a 7am departure on Sunday morning with teammate Evan to Dekalb - far west farm country - for the second race in the Chicago Cross Cup series competition, Hopkins Park.

That's a long way to drive just to ride your bike and drink beer, and I skipped this race last year. Two things convinced me to go this time. First, I'm a bit more dedicated to the discipline now, looking to stay active and have a lot of fun, if not experience great results. I've got a cyclocross bike now, so I might as well use it. With the four races, plus practice I've already been able to get in, I'm seeing better technique, new fitness, and getting to know and hang out with a lot of cool racers.

(Carborocket)

Second, was this:

And by that, I meant this:

(photo by Luke Seemann)

Yes, an honest-to-God flyover. I love cyclocross.

Masters 30-plus

We arrived with enough time to watch the Men's 40 plus field finish up their race and even then I heard it was a somewhat rough transition from the ramp to the grass. So by time I was at the line getting the pre-race instructions from Dave Fowkes, "have one foot in and be off the saddle" the ramp was already in my head. I have a hard time getting in my clips and I was imagining my feet being jarred off the pedals and being castrated before the first lap was finished.

And sure enough, each time up, there were people laughing and heckling me and screaming at me to "just go!!!", still other racers behind me - shoving to get past or jeering. It was about as embarrassing as any number of personal events involving puberty and hygiene in front of the classroom from 6th through 9th grade.

There is new entry to the Heckle Hall of Fame: "Next race I hold your bike for you!" by Michael Kirby (xXx Racing). Thanks, Kirby.

(Upper-left, by Larry Stoegbauer)

I passed riders, the same ones, multiple times, because they would come flying fearless past me again at the top of the ramp, while I flailed to get my foot in the clip before rolling. As well, even the straight sections of the course were riddled with hidden dips and potholes in the grass, preventing me from really attacking to close all the gaps I was giving up. No big-ringing it like at Jackson Park.

Thankfully I wasn't so slow to get pulled and I was able to get the full 45 minutes of pain and suffering in. 6 laps in all. I was somewhat disappointed with my effort, all the same, as I didn't have that same queasy feeling and retching from that last Masters race, two weeks ago, probably from six dead-stops at the top of the flyover, helping me to recover.

(Larry Stoegbauer)

4A

While waiting for the Men's Cat 1/2/3 race to start, I took about five or six practices of the flyover and down the other side, enough to where I felt comfortable jumping back on and rolling immediately. It was good to get that out of the way, and let natural ineptitude in the hole-shot sprint fuck things up, per usual.

I actually had a decent line coming out of turn 2 onto the bike path pavement before trying to make up ground on the left dirt shoulder, and then losing five or six spots coming back up over the pavement lip. Even worse, in mid-hurdle over the subsequent barriers, I smacked my head into a tree-branch, knocking me off-balance and catching myself in a Twister-like pose over my bike before righting myself, losing another three or four places. Then, I settled down, and into my usual cyclocross routine of playing catch-up and holding off those trying to do the same to me, and getting back into that top ten.

The flyover obstacle was much more fun this time around; I took it two and three steps at a time, and comfortably hopped back on and roared down, back up to speed with no issues, save for a few late clip-ins that prevented me from hammering right away.

(Sue Wellinghoff)

I was really deep in it this race, hacking and grunting, out of the saddle and in the drops, just trying to catch Tony (Beverly Vee Pak), Jonathon (Courage) and John (Main Street Bicycles). I really had no idea where I was, but catching them, and then seeing teammate Nick Venice in my sights (in 6th overall) I knew it was close to the front.

(Carborocket)

After coming down the barrier the last time with Tony right behind me, I suddenly heard the crowd roar in surprise: "Oooooooooh!" and looked back to see my pursuer off his bike. I found out later his carbon seat post snapped at the jarring transition back to the grass.

I am practically under contractual agreement to only say that you all know how I feel about carbon fiber components and a five-figure salary. Moving on.

The thing about the catch is it teases you forever. The rider ahead of you barely seems to be getting any closer for minute after interminable minute, and then suddenly, you are on top of him and passing quickly. Nick was still way out in front of me with only six turns to go, but then with with just three, he was behind me.

Based on some shouts from the crowd to a rider behind maybe a lap earlier, I was positive I'd just moved into 7th place. The last turn was a treacherous 180 around a tree, right in front of the crowd, over jarring, exposed roots. It was very easy to take it too narrowly and find yourself through the tape, or lose your traction and slide-out. Thankfully, I took it perfectly and sprinted as hard as I could, keeping the gap open behind me.

That effort was much harder than the 30 plus in the morning. That is what motivation will do for you. That kind of pressure in front and behind you will have you dry heaving in grass, struggling to catch just one more gasp of air, all with a smile on your face, because by yourself, it just isn't possible. We race because it's impossible to push yourself that hard any other way.

I had 11th place. Exactly the same as two weeks prior in Jackson Park. Hey, consistency is a good thing. The other top 10 placings were quite different this time around, and as such, with a couple of earlier upgrades to the 3s by others, I'll be getting a call-up this coming Sunday at Elvis Cross, Dan Ryan Woods, for ~~10th~~ 9th place. (upgrades -woot!)

Giddyap.

(Carborocket)

Thursday Hate: More Bikes = More Hate

2010-09-30T20:53:00.007-05:00

It was said some months back that in order to get more bikes on the road as a mainstream commuting option, we simply needed more women on bikes. Meaning when women feel comfortable and safe enough to begin biking, that is when the numbers on the streets will truly grow, society will accept bike-commuters with open arms, and our traffic infrastructure will reflect this.

Today, the NY Times gave evidence that a growing number of women are indeed gaining the confidence to take the lane, and they're looking good while doing it.

And as long as women are being liberated, there will be men, especially from the south, speaking out against it:

Not everyone is thrilled. Ross Autry, a blogger in Birmingham, Ala., noted in an e-mail that multitasking bicyclists are too self-consciously hip for his taste and, what’s worse, may pose a hazard. “Fixing your makeup or sending a text message could have catastrophic results,” he said.

Certainly, Ross. All of us men know that women are the only distracted drivers. And if distracted cyclists would be catastrophic, what does that make our current situation with all of them behind the wheel of a two ton Escalade? And the current infestation of brakeless hipsters marauding through intersections, preening in a storefront window at 23 miles an hour, giving more thought to their color-coordinated chain, aerospoke, and top-tube pad than the poor fuck on foot they're about to run over is far more dangerous than a stylish piece of eye-candy who doesn't want to sweat through her Tory Burch top.

God knows my regularly-commuting girlfriend practically has a restrictor-plate and never goes any faster than most people jog. In fact, I witnessed the greatest multitasking-cyclist of all time on my first-ever bike commute to work, back in 2004. A dude, no less, riding no handed through the Oak Street chicane of the Lake Front Trail - before it was repaved - talking on a mobile with one hand and holding a cigarette and a coffee in the other.

"TEACH ME!" I yelled as I rode by.

I imagine Ross is probably enjoying a table for one at TGI Friday's right now, before heading to home to masturbate on the internet and throw a beer can at his dog.

However, ladies, the hate goes both ways.

Just because I place function over form doesn't make me some jarhead or as George Bliss says, "an infantry solider with a helmet,” who has “alienated every pedestrian.” Yes, a lot of people bike unsafely in crowded places, but most of them aren't wearing helmets or lycra. Many others pass safely and we announce our presence, so don't project your inadequacies and bullshit on me.

Speaking of tight clothes, I wear lycra on most commutes because it doesn't bunch up painfully between my balls and my thigh. Because when I commuted 15 miles each way to my last job no one would make that ride in jeans. Because sometimes I wanna ride fast, or get in an extra 30 miles before work at my current job downtown.

And I've cracked a helmet in each of my three bad crashes that didn't involve a car. A crack that otherwise would've been my skull. I think waiting until you arrive at your destination to finally look your best is a preferable alternative to looking your best and drooling on yourself while your mother argues with the doctor to keep the feeding tube in.

Oh, and I hope Topaz Page-Green (if that is her real name) carries personal liability coverage on her condo policy, because she's gonna need it when she takes out a four year old while riding illegally on the sidewalk.

Thursday hate

2010-09-23T17:19:00.005-05:00

I gotta lot of problems with you people.

First, why the fuck do you draft on complete strangers riding the Lake Front Trail? Is it not immediately obvious to you what a gross invasion of personal space this is? It's the equivalent of reading over someone's shoulder on the train or at a coffee shop. Unless you ask, or introduce yourself...get the fuck off of my wheel.

Next up: riding in the dark, with sunglasses and without lights, weaving through ped and bike traffic at reckless speeds while wearing headphones, without so much as even giving back an, "on your left." I hope to god you only take yourself out with a tree branch or a pothole before injuring anyone else.

Finally, some guest hate. My dad was hit by a car this morning. Same dude who nearly hit him last week while backing out of his driveway, yakking on the phone. Shit caught up with him today:

The guy who hit me was totally freaked out. While I was clawing at his roof, trying to stay on, I could hear him inside on his cell phone, which of course he was on when he pulled out in front of me, "Oh my god I just hit a guy on a bike." I'm yelling back at him how I am going to rip his balls off and stuff them down his throat, etc. Then I slide off the roof still attached to the pedals, fall on my side and lay there yelling for his head. He gets out trying to call 911, he gets them, and I yell they better hurry cuz there is going to be somebody dead here and it won't be me.

I got up realized I was OK, but that the fork was now reversed. But the fucking wheel is true. Go figure huh?

Shop ordered a replacement fork that they think and hope will work but it will be at least Wed. of next week.

When you see this neighborhood you will understand how dangerous it is to back out of driveways. Everybody knows this and most back IN, then pull out forward, but still. It could have been the prego woman who walks her dog, then where would this knot-shit be?

Jurassic Park

2010-09-21T08:40:00.009-05:00

(pix by the amazing Steven Vance)

No, not quite. Although I had a startling realization as I was filling out my waiver on Friday night for Coach Randy's Jackson Park race-eve skills clinic, that my cyclocross racing age is actually 39...so next year that won't be too far from the truth.

A dinosaur on a bike.

However, since this year I'm still the spring chicken in my 30s, I ponied up for the Masters 30 Plus and the 4As. You have to double up in my situation. The 4s races are too short, and when your team is hosting, you gotta be out there. Maybe next I'll do the hat trick with two masters races and the 3s.

You guys can yell sandbagger all you want, but I'm staying in the 4s this year until I'm either on the podium or forced to upgrade. I may have Cat 3 power, but I have Cat 5 handling skills, so I think the 4s is a safe average on which to net out.

Anyways, Jason Knauff hates my constant blogging and called me out on my call up...so Jason, here's to you.

I pre-rode the course - another A+ design by teammate Greg Heck - as the 40 plus men were staging and twitching to get the 2010 Chicago Cross Cup season underway. The course was long and fast - versatile, in fact - suited to both mad CX skills in the technical turns and off-camber twists; and to roadies, who could make up for their short-comings by hammering in the straightaways.

30+

I'll keep it short and sweet for a long and bitter race. Two and half laps in I was almost puking, after having started near the back and then turned myself inside out to work my way up to 25th or so in a sold-out field of 75. Coming past the wheel pit I tried to hawk one but it got stuck halfway, stretched out between my throat and dangling down my chin. Trying to then force it out almost made everything else come up as well.

Pushing hard past David of Roscoe Village and a very determined Martin of The Pony Shop, the last two laps I could only keep the pressure up and held on to a well-deserved 23rd place. It was my best placing by far in an open field, so I was pretty happy with my effort there.

4A

As I mentioned before, I got a call up in this race. Traditionally, and for the remainder of the season, call-ups to the line are given based on your overall placing. The starting line is ten wide, so a call-up is like gold in a racers quest for the hole-shot. But since there were no results to go on, the call-ups at Jackson Park were awarded on a lottery basis, rather than last year's placing as had been done in the past. And with 10 names out of a pool of 75, the odds weren't that bad.

And truthfully, in my second race, I wasn't too surprised to hear my name called with Sister Sprocket's third dip into the paper bag filled with names. And then to hear Erik's name right after I rolled up.

The starting sprint was madness, with two big crashes in the opening turns. My technical skills were a real liability in this race and soon the podium gone. Patty, with Jack, and her sister Rose and niece Kaila watched from the mid section where they could scream and heckle multiple times as we doubled and tripled back.

I did cling to the Top 10 for most of my blazing three laps, until the very end when I was passed in a turn (where else) by Lew of Rhythm Racing. The gap closed little by little in the closing meters, but ultimately it was too late - 11th place - and I won't be getting a call-up on October 3rd in Dekalb, the next race in the series.

The 4B started right where it left off last year, with every level of fitness and skill represented in their three laps, and more heckling than a heathcare townhall meeting in Tyler, Texas.

Huge thanks to Illlinois Cycling, Chicago Cross Cup, all the officials, the sponsors, and of course, all the teams that showed up and made Sunday such a spectacular opening to the 2010 cyclocross season.

Thursday Hate: Slim Sarah (Guess Who's Back?)

2010-09-02T00:00:00.000-05:00

She's going to Iowa.

And a growing legion of creationist-"science"-in-our-high-school-labs-forcing, Walmart-grocery-shopping, Elizabeth Hasselbeck-wannabe moms with MMA-watching, Monster-Energy-Drink-for-breakfast, fat-man-titty-having, juggalo ("fucking MAGNETS! How do they work?!") teen kids will be voting for her.

Happy Halloween.

Hump Day

2010-09-01T21:18:00.006-05:00

The top 10 signs you have a dream job (or "perspective is everything"):

1. There's an "office coffee club," with Intelligentsia and it only costs $5 a month per person, versus $2 a cup from the Starbucks-branded vendor, Sodexo.

2. The Red line is two blocks from both your front door and the office door.

3. Your colleagues, all 34 of them, don't look at you as though you are green and singing, "Blue Bells of Scotland" through your tentacle beaks when you walk in with a bike helmet under your arm.

4. Your workplan for the next three months is waiting when you arrive on the morning of your first day.

5. Did I mention there's no Sodexo cafeteria? But there's Chipotle, Jimmy John's, Trader Joe's, and about 17 Thai places all within walking distance.

6. There's not one, but two private unisex restrooms (read: no steath-poopers in the stall, no piss spray on the floor, and no gum in the urinals).

7. QBP access (don't even THINK about it) and a monthly bike-reimbursement.

8. The I-was meant-to-be-here moment of the day: the HR director knew Jack when he was in foster care at Chicago Canine Rescue.

9. At the bar-meet-up after work, the new Executive Director seeks you out and already knows your name.

10. Your work is to make the city you love a more livable place to be.

Waiting for the footfalls

2010-08-24T21:00:00.004-05:00

Patty gets back from a ten-day trip to Alaska, Canada, and Portland tonight. However, she's forgotten to give me any flight information whatsoever, in spite of my asking for it several times, and I have absolutely no idea what time she gets in.

She sent me an email about 5pm Chicago time on an unrelated subject, which meant she wasn't on the plane yet then, and I still have yet to hear from her. I believe it's four hours to Chicago non-stop, so at the very earliest she could be conceivably landing just about now.

I have no desire to search the flight-tables however, to educate myself for some sort of guess. The current feeling gives me just a little taste of what it was like to await a loved one way back when there was no electronic communication of any kind.

You were lucky if you even knew that she was headed home, then sentenced to spend the days and nights in growing anticipation, reading and passing the angst-ridden hours as candles grew shorter and the wind howled outside against clouded window panes. And when you were finally absorbed in a task menial enough to completely rid your mind of her odyssey and whereabouts, the door creaked open subtly enough for the sound to be taken for granted...until familiar footfalls broke through your consciousness, and your heart tightened in your chest...

Retirement

2010-08-20T12:29:00.003-05:00

My professional status has been officially revoked.

I can’t daydrink like I used to, and have no desire to do so, regardless. I left the company-event at Wrigley Field yesterday at the top of the 7th to make a purposefully-scheduled 4PM vet appointment, specifically so I wouldn’t get sucked into, “what the hell, ‘hey Old Style here!'” and “what the hell, as long as the corporate card is going down!” or “what the hell, it’s last call!”

As I walked out after seven beers (including pre-game at Red Ivy) at 3:15 saying goodbye on my way out to Waveland Ave, it felt like getting off the Titanic at Cobh, Ireland with full knowledge of the iceberg laying in wait somewhere out there. All of the passengers did too, in this case. There was a time I, myself, would’ve knowingly stayed aboard and stared down the impending disaster along with them. The party was all that mattered; that and staving off the eventual collision: the more you drank the further away the frozen leviathan seemed to be, until the fun came to a sudden, crashing, panicked end.

Leaving early is sign of getting older and wiser for sure. Gone are the days of post-game marathons at the dearly-missed Wrigleyville Tap or the Blarney Stone, over pool sessions ringed in smoke, easy shots missed from fingers slick with pizza grease, and laughter intertwined with the clinking of dozens of glass bottles going into the trash at the start of a new round.

I don’t know if it means I’m weaker as well, but I just can’t handle going to bed drunk at 9PM on a school night, anymore. I want to feel normal, fresh; to be good-tired and not achingly dehydrated with the motivation to do nothing but lie on the couch and watch South Park episodes on Netflix. And the sleep I get, even hitting the sack early enough, is so poor that the morning alarm is unbearable.

The last real bout of daydrinking in my life was New Year’s Day, 2006. After an absolutely epic party in Lakeview with a friend in from out of town, we spent most of the late morning/afternoon at Morrison Road House in Skokie abating the wicked champagne hangover with Bears-game specials. As the sun set on that dreary and ice-cold Day One, we returned to Lakeview to Fil’s place where we drank into the evening before a flip-cup chick brawl sent us pacifists over to nearby Toon’s Bar to await the iceberg collision at last call. Thankfully, that never happened, since New Year’s Day was a Sunday that year, and the office gave us an extra day to recuperate.

Once back on the ground in Edgewater yesterday afternoon, I felt ok getting to and during the vet appointment – a little sweaty and lethargic – but the subtropical weather had returned that day. Doing anything with Jack always peps me up, however, especially in a situation like the examination table, soothing him and making him as comfortable as possible.

Getting home, however, I felt much worse. I did indeed take some couch/South Park time, and needed several glasses of water before I could get up again to take Jack out and then cook dinner. But luckily I started my recovery early enough so that, after finishing supper by 9:30, I was in decent enough shape to head to bed with reasonable confidence of quality sleep. I read a few pages before the comforting nod-offs started, and then there was only blackness until breaking the surface again a full half-hour before the alarm was to go off.

Then sunlight was peeking in through the curtains, and Jack was looking at me with anticipation. I felt superb.

I’m ready for this new stage of my life. It’s not like I’ve gotten here overnight. The bike racing has often necessitated some turbulent choices in my life; as Newt says, the dualities are always dueling. But this is the first time I’ve made the choice completely of my own accord. My new life with Patty, renewed ambition and purpose, and thinking of the future – of just to the next morning, and of the next ten years – makes it a very easy choice to make.

Hump day

2010-08-18T10:09:00.003-05:00

Why is this woman single?

Yep, helmet visor. Also, dudes on charity rides who are confident enough to talk to chicks already have a girlfriend. The single guys either aren't or ride a recumbent. Most likely both.

Obama Un-mosqued

2010-08-17T21:34:00.009-05:00

President Obama could have turned this entire Ground-Zero-Mosque issue right back into his critics faces with a smart, snappy reply, foregoing any emotion, gravitas, or grandstanding on First Amendment rights. With one quick and cutting retort, depantsed all of the frothing fanatics who still think he's a Muslim Manchurian Candidate biding his time and setting up the dominoes before springing Sharia law on all of us.

And given the vast middle ground of all of us the strong leadership we deserve.

"What do they want me to do? Say they can't build it? Maybe these Tea Party assholes, with their expert and infinite knowledge of the United States Constitution, could show me where in that great document I have the power to intervene in legally-established private property rights; especially when based on symbolic, emotional, and religious issues?

"Now, I'm sorry, but I've got far more pressing issues to deal with. Issues, such as getting this country motivated to work again, instead of commenting on Peggy Noonan columns all day long about how I'm a foreign-born, communist-Muslim, in all-caps, with really bad spelling and grammar..."

But, no, he equivocated. Again. Compromising his authority, by backtracking on his statements; statements that made it seem as though he was trying to find some sort of authority on this issue where none existed at all. Lowering his position by waiting too long to address and relieve the building tension.

Which ironically brings me to say that the developers of the ground zero mosque should have known better, and exercised a bit more common sense. They should have known that their chosen location would've brought heat down on them, and placed the very leaders who they count on to further their interests in the position of defending them.

This is where a true leader would've flippantly uttered the words above, pshawing and shooing reporters away, disarming his enemies and showing them what hypocrites they really are. Obama has stepped right into the snare, however, and will be fighting to get out all the way until Election Day.

Prediction: Hillary Clinton will run for and win the Democratic nomination for President in 2012. And the first words out of her mouth as she begins her acceptance speech will be:

"I told you so."

Friday Vitriol

2010-08-13T10:02:00.002-05:00

Today, Friday the 13th, the executions will commence immediately:

A Domino's order will not get you a pizza, but rather a .38 slug to the forehead when you open the door
All Chicago trolleys to Navy Pier will actually be carbon monoxide gas chambers
All organic packaged food items from chain grocery stores will be laced with cyanide
The brakes of all hybrid and electric cars will be sabotaged
The nutrition pamphlets at fast food restaurants will be brushed with anthrax

Thursday Hate: the right (of) way

2010-08-12T20:58:00.008-05:00

Fuck you, Edens!

If one more conscientious and gracious driver smugly waves me through a stop sign at which I so very obviously do not have the right of way, I am going to start carrying a megaphone and a huge, cartoonish arrow.

This goes for pedestrians, too. Which is ironic because they get the shittiest end of the deal, as said driver will nearly kill a pedestrian while turning through a crosswalk not 30 seconds after acquiescing to a cyclist. You'd think they'd be the most militant players in this drama, as the most vulnerable.

These people are enablers. They are the reason so many asshole-douchebag bikers are conditioned to blow through stop signs. Every time they slow down to yield the right of way, a driver will wave them, or a pedestrian will stop right in his tracks...so why stop at all? They're the only people in the world anyways, right?

Today, in the span of three miles between Kedzie/Granville and home in Edgewater, I had to unclip and almost-petulantly stomp my foot down on the blacktop, jerking my head at both the stop sign and to gesture the driver continue on, no less than five times.

And when I left with Jack on our return-home walk, I was nearly plowed into, right in front of a stop sign, by a so-conditioned cyclist. The look of panic on his face as he shuddered and stuttered his handlebars, while not even thinking of braking to yield, enraged me.

Someday soon, one will near-miss us close enough that I reach out and jerk him right off his goddamn bike.

"Doesn't anyone give a shit about the rules anymore?!"

Determining the right of way isn't hard. Bikers: ride like a vehicle. Drivers: bikers are vehicles. Pedestrians: stand up for your goddamn rights. Hey, if you're not killed, you'll get a helluva'n insurance settlement out of it.

Hump Day: happiness calling

2010-08-11T21:32:00.004-05:00

Today, it was made officially official; I signed the offer letter for my new job.

I don't normally mix work and writing but I'm so excited I just have to give a little bit away.

September 1st I go to work for a group that I have been more and more connected to since I began volunteering for them in 2006. I feel like Superman right now, and I've been able to think of nothing else.

I will be working to get us - Chicago - out of our cars and onto our bikes, our trains, (yes our taxes and fares pay for them), and our sidewalks, paths, and parks. To make Chicago a better, friendlier, more enjoyable and happier place to live.

To give a much-needed push to the boulder that stands on the precipice of the tipping point in turning back a cancerous car-culture with a powerful and resounding, "No!"

And I get to develop lots of cool ways to do it, like top-down consulting and recruitment, grass-roots organizing, and web and mobile platforms to bring it all together. All the while riding, walking, and transiting to network with the people who will make it a reality.

I wasn't sure if I'd ever get here, but I think I've found my calling...is there a phone booth around here?

Hump Day

2010-08-04T18:39:00.003-05:00

Your bat-shit-tea-partier-of-the-day.

July

2010-08-01T17:19:00.008-05:00

Before my most recent post, I last left you with a slight rant on Elston Avenue bike commuting. Thankfully, that post, written on Thursday July 1st, covered the last time I was to commute home down that harrowing stretch of Third World, Mad Max-inspired road, replete to the last with cabs darting into the bike lane and left-turning SUVs jerking back and forth in the intersection like a meth-addict trying to act normal as it strangles the cat.

For that night upon arriving in Independence Park, I gathered some things, and left for Edgewater to help Patty move her things down the street and spend my first night at our new apartment.

Patty's move was a quick and easy one, for she was only 2 blocks east on the same street. We had the help of several friends plus a late 90s Mazda, and we were eating pizza and drinking ice-cold Old Styles by 8:30.

I had purged all of my own furniture - every last bit of it, not even a folding chair remained - to the alley and to friends, so I had only boxes, and of course, the bikes. The next night, Friday, Patty and I took the Damen bus (it's northern turn-around is just a few blocks from us) to Irving, where we met some of my now-former neighbors for some heavy German food and refreshing summer Kolsch at Resi's Bierstube. The next two days were to be completely bike-free, and BBQ free, July 4th though it was.

But we got it all done, in hot-as-balls weather, sun beating down on us. We crammed it all in, and even though we'd gotten rid of half of what we owned, for the life of me I thought we'd never find a place for it all.

We did just in time for my parents to see it, less than a week later. I've come quite a long way since my mom used to arrive at my college apartment with a look of horror on her face and started scrubbing the place from floor to ceiling. We were even able to sit and drink coffee and watch the finish of Stage 8 on my laptop.

After an evening in which the waitress at my favorite local joint, The Edgewater Lounge, berated my stepfather for tipping 15% - and I then complained to the manager - we were off to Michigan for my cousin Paul's wedding.

A beautiful outdoor affair, amidst simple white trimming on the grass overlooking the bluff - I saw the sun set over Lake Michigan for the first time in my life.

We toured the S.S. Keewatin, a steam ship that ferried Canadian National Railroad passengers, in two and half days, from the western side of Superior to the eastern shore of Huron.

The following weekend my sister Maggie arrived from North Carolina to volunteer and have free evening access to the Pitchfork Music Festival. It worked out quite well for us. Me especially. I'd been worrying about a bit of contraband in my bag making it past the security checkpoint, but volunteers just walked right in through their own entrance. We were set. Security told us they needed wristband jockeys for the beer tents and people to watch the fences for jumpers.

I was told to assist at the vendor check-in, where four hipsters had made a break for it the night before, three successfully. Living dangerously, they scoped out their chances and took a running start from the sidewalk. Security had since set up a fence behind the table and forced a chokepoint, which I was to menace accordingly, with my arms folded, so everyone showed ID. The hardest part of the job was deciding what free food I wanted from the Chicago Diner booth, and listening to Real Estate.

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion absolutely killed it, as did Wolf Parade, Panda Bear was sadly out of place, and LCD Soundsystem had us dancing our asses off, working up a final sweat in the residual heat left over from the since-departed sun.

Hard to believe I was finally able to race competitively after all that time off the bike last week, and by competitively I mean not get dropped. I certainly didn't sniff so much as a top 20, but I did race three times in Milwaukee, Kenosha, and Whitefish Bay to finish up Superweek. The first and the last races were in support of my teammate Mike Seguin who pulled off a huge 2nd place overall in the series.

All of the races were brutally hot, and Friday really got the best of me. It was a 30 mile criterium, so I didn't have the benefit of Matthew Stevenson handing up bottles of ice-water to us. In fact, I'm so used to packing just one bottle for a 45 minute race, that it didn't dawn on me that I'd need three for a 75 minute effort in 95 degree heat.

Needless to say, that last sip of water with 15 laps to go tasted like hot chicken broth. I finished at least.

And here I sit. My self-imposed facebook exile continues. I was encouraged and disheartened at the same time to read this article today (thanks Leah). It confirms that Facebook is the new AOL of the 2010's...entirely self-contained internet. Except it's not for those who are too scared to go out on the world wide web, it's for those who are too lazy.

I will probably have to go back on at some point, at least to get pictures back, or for some professional networking. But right now, I feel like an addict who's been set free. I've been without a television for a year now, so I suppose this is the next logical step. At least I'm writing for myself again. I don't know if this was even interesting to you, but it feels good to unload the brain again.

Thursday Hate: I'm back, don't talk to me, I'm gone

2010-07-29T20:42:00.007-05:00

I'm back.

It's been a crazy month. A move to Edgewater, two family reunions, my sister coming in from North Carolina for Pitchfork, and finally a week of racing in Wisconsin has really derailed my creativity and posting in this space. I promise to give the obligatory, "what's been going on post" tomorrow, but really it's more than that, I'll come back to it later.

First, some long overdue hate:

Why do complete strangers at work feel the need to give me a creepy and hearty, "good morning!" or "hey there!" as I pass them in the hall? My company is over 4,000 employees. And it's like a huge cult. I've never seen that person before in my life, and I likely won't ever see them again. Eyes front and keep walking, dude. I don't want any of your KoolAid.

If it makes me a grump than so be it. I don't know these people. If it were within my department and it was my first day or with a new person, that's completely different. Your pathological need to reach out and give every single person who comes near you a smile scares me. Because something tells that if I got to know you, it would go way beyond a smile.

Moving on.

I deactivated my facebook account today. I think I must have a problem, I spent way too much time on that site. Or other people think I do. At least that's what a little bird told me. "Little" bird. Heh heh heh.

Fuck those people, but they're right in a way. It's a sign, and I should pay attention to it. Hearing it really hurt my feelings, and that right there told me I needed to step away, way back. It's not like I was some redneck Farmville addict, or constantly begging them for Mafia Wars favors. I thought my postings were funny and smart. I just want to share what makes me think and laugh. Oh, well. It's not permanent, so at least I can always go back and just get the thousands of pictures.

But what a complete time suck. I haven't posted here at The Car Whisperer for a month. I feel Facebook has robbed my critical thinking skills, my creativity, my edge. When was the last time I posted some poetry? Or an anti-societal, car-culture rant?

It's was about time for some catharsis. Consider it my wake up call.

Next up, what I've been doing with myself the last month, and a preview of August 29th, 2010. The greatest day in the history of Chicago bicycling.

Thursday Hate: bike lanes

2010-07-01T17:47:00.003-05:00

I prefer not to wear gloves when commuting. That way I can whistle better at the cab that's about to kill me.

My current ride to work is 15 miles each way. The last four miles are on Lake Avenue through Glenview, no bike lane and two lanes each way. Traffic clips along at 45mph plus.

What is the most stressful part of my ride, however? The Elston Bike lane between Foster and Montrose. Until we get dedicated bike roadways and buffered bike lanes, I'll always be a proponent of vehicularism, treating bikes as equal with all other traffic in the roadway.

Still, the narrow lanes of Lehigh south of Touhy are untenable for bikes as well, when the traffic approaching Devon backs up nearly a mile. Is a rider really going to wait patiently breathing exhaust? No, we'll either take to the sidewalk or shoal in the oncoming lane, as I did today - both are illegal.

And in the end, while the 45 mph traffic of Lake is statistically much safer to bike in, I feel like I have much more control of things in the Elston bike lane. You can see bad situations developing enough ahead to whistle at least.

Brian's Dairyland

2010-06-27T21:11:00.008-05:00

It was quite a bit shorter than the full 11 stages that began last Thursday in Shorewood and ended today in Waukesha. I also didn't get any chocolate milk or a spotted cow jersey, but my own tour of Wisconsin included plenty of cheese, Spotted Cow beer, and lots of fun racing.

After transferring all my gear from the I-Go Honda to the O'Hare rental and kissing Patty goodbye, I was on my way to Greenbush, Wisc. for the stage 8 road race in the Tour of America's Dairyland. Light traffic and a 7am departure netted me a great parking spot on the grass two full hours before race time.

Randy and Luke arrived as I spun and sweated on the trainer, even in the less humid, lower temperatures. It was going to be a perfect day for racing, in lots of sunshine, and I was very excited to be in the same 35+ Masters field as these experienced and wily vets. The only snag of the morning was finding a definite hole in my racing tubulars after hemming and hawing about a slow leak the night before. Oh well, SRAM was present for neutral support, just one more PRO aspect of an apparently very well run series.

Our 50ish-sized field rolled out on time, just behind the Pro/1/2 field, and neither Luke or I were familiar with the course, beyond what people had told us about from last year. But, even then, the 10-mile lap was reversed this year, so we'd just have to ride out and experience the first couple of laps and hope nothing got away before then.

The course profile went something like this, if memory serves:

A short uphill followed by a steep drop, then another up and down roller. Here, you had to be careful of the hot tar strips, very hard to see on the new blacktop. Very squishy, and your rear end fish tailed at the high speeds going downhill over them. Then a left turn and a false flat, followed by a quick drop, another fast left turn, a couple rollers, then downhill to a right hand hairpin turn. Here it got interesting with a series of uphill stairsteps which led to a fun downhill series of banking turns through thick forest (watch out for those potholes). This shot out onto rough chip and seal pavement through farm fields, which brought back the wind, and then turned left into it. The downhill speed quickly slowed and the pack bunched as riders looked to move up for the final series of downhill, banking turns, back through the trees and then into town.

Immediately riders were attacking but couldn't get away. The pack could chase too easily on the downhill, and there wasn't enough support that early on through the headwind. Much of the time the pace was downright comfortable and it seemed everybody was taking it pretty easy, saving energy for the hills or attacks later in the final laps.

Out on the chip and seal on the 4th lap, I was moving up when I heard Randy call me over. "Luke's off the front!" he semi-whispered. This caught me completely by surprise as I still thought he was behind me, but you all know how much I pay attention in races. Sure enough, there also must've been IS Corp in the break because they were up blocking and a dedicated chase was forming as soon as I moved to the front to do our part.

I sandbagged on two hard chase efforts, but coming through to start the final two laps, the break had slipped out of view, and the field's speed came down to almost leisurely for much of the next time around.

The final lap was a bit more competitive, especially up the rollers, where I really had to fight to keep my position and not to cramp. Through the twisty downhill section and out in the crosswind, Randy came by tapping my hip and we moved up to the front before the pack bunched up, where we held a great position. However, he was on the outside, while I remained up against the yellow, which was my undoing amidst the final argy-bargy of the last two miles. A lot of sketchy moves came past my left, squeezing me further and further and back.

If those guys really wanted to pull that shit for a 6th place $50 check, they could have it. I still had to go to work on Monday. Randy managed to hold his position and finish 7th in the field sprint, for 11th overall. I came in at the back for 37th, and heard Luke on the sideline giving me an encouraging yell.

4th place for him, out of a final five-man break. What a stellar result in such a talented and stacked field as an open Masters race! The man is crafty as hell, and can be counted on to find the one place on the course to make the move that counts. In this case, on those stair-step hills, and then leverage the wind and the blocking behind to get out of sight.

After saying our goodbyes over the requisite post-race Culver's, I was on my way to overnight in Milwaukee at my cousin Rick's place on the northwest side of the city. Friday I'd be headed back to Fon Du Lac, but tonight was dinner, beers, and visiting.

Rick met me at his house and we went and got some pretty good Mexican food, fish tacos for me:

After which we each got a haircut at his regular place, where they offered us a glass of wine while we waited, and I also got some locally roasted organic coffee. The woman who cut my hair, Christinia, was a triathlete and we talked bikes the whole time.

The next morning after Rick left for work, I spent a few hours at Milwaukee's successful local coffee chain, Alterra, over some housemade granola and a pot of French-press:

Then I departed for Fon Du Lac, the site of the series' stage 9 criterium, and to meet former teammate and good friend Rick Dearworth for lunch before the race.

The Fon Du Lac Grand Prix has been around for many years in one series or another, and is famous for it's fast speeds, with the long home- and backstretches. Today's trip past the start-finish would be blazing as well, with the tailwind down Main Street.

I was the only XXX-er in the field, along with a few other solo riders, including a Wisc.-based Pegasus rider who'd had some success in the series, and the venerable Voytek Glinkowski, of WBD-Allvoi. Verizon and IS Corp had several riders each, so I'd be watching their moves in the headwind of the backstretch.

It was a very dynamic race. Attacks were constantly going off in the wind, and the field was either chasing, or giving out the hangman's rope, and then chasing. I managed to be in a couple of early attempts and bridges, but midway through the race I found myself at the back recovering when the real assaults came.

Rick and Jared Rogers (who'd raced earlier) screamed at me to move up, but the chase was committed and wicked fast between laps 15 to go though seven or eight to go. I could only hang on to the end and try for another chance when, and if, it slowed. The good thing was that it was completely single file the entire time, so there was no rubberband effect, even at the end.

No brakes, just breaks.

(photo by John Gray)

Coming up on six to go, the field slowed just enough with indecision that I was able to move up and hear the announcer say, "Field prime! Set of tires to the field, starting with Triple X rider number eight-sixty-nine!" I had no intention of contesting a prime while leading the start of the lap, and after turn two I got out of the saddle for a medium intense effort to keep the pace up for the chase. I was waiting for the jump, and when none came, I looked behind and saw a huge gap.

Talk about the right place at the right time. IS Corp was blocking, the field was tired, and I'd just ridden away. I took the prime with five to go and started thinking about my chances to bridge up. I could see them about a quarter lap up, and I couldn't let the pack catch me.

(photo by John Gray)

The break was shedding a few riders, which I then caught, worked with for a half-lap or so, and dropped in the head wind. Approaching one to go, I was with one final rider, who, from the depths of my pain cave I can't remember, either bridged to me or I caught him.

Either way, I pulled though turns 1 and 2, and into the wind, then shook him off my wheel and fought his gap effort to come though turn four in perfect position for a pounce. Which I of course botched. I waited too long, with me just behind him; we started sprinting at the same time, and that's how we ended up, 7th and 8th.

"Sorry for screwing you," he said. "That's racing, dude. Great sprint!" I replied. I was pretty happy, feeling the 100% effort and having salvaged a top ten in a bridge attempt after having missed the move, not to mention avoiding having to go shopping for tires for a while longer.

Rick and I enjoyed a Spotted Cow together and watched the Women's Pro race from the AC comfort of the corner bar along the course, and then said our goodbyes.

I was in the town my parents grew up in, Kenosha, two hours later, despite all the construction and Summerfest traffic, to greet my dad and stepmom, and my aunt and uncle at their house. We enjoyed a classic lakefront Friday fishfry and cocktails and spent the night catching up.

After a morning active recovery ride to the lakefront, checking out the Superweek criterium course and getting some espresso, the next day we attended the family picnic in Madison. This long-running reunion includes Baers, O'Keefes, and Scharches, in addition to the Morrisseys. It was my dad's first time attending in probably 40 years, and it's been going on for longer than that. It was complete with several rounds of bocci and one dude bringing a full martini set up. But since I was driving, I had to wait until I got home for that much needed beer to end a pretty long day.

It was a pricey weekend to be sure, but a chance like that to merge family and racing can't be missed. I probably won't be racing again until the very end of Superweek, in Kenosha at the end of July. The Tour of America's Dairyland was an excellent series for the small portion of it that I experienced, and I definitely will try to plan next year's visit around the family picnic again.

Review: Cook au Vin

2010-06-23T20:08:00.006-05:00

A few months ago, Patty bought two 2-for-1s on Groupon for a cooking school on Elston Ave, Cook au Vin. I’d not heard anything about it, so it was only a curiosity on my several rides past it over the past five years.

We decided to make a double-date out of it with her friend Emily and her husband Marcus. Once we agreed upon the menu choice – French onion soup, coq au vin (chicken and wine), scalloped potatoes, crème brulee – the date was set for this past weekend, Sunday afternoon.

I arrived first on my bike, with a couple bottles I’d just picked up from Wine Discount Center just down the street; very helpful, those folks. In 10 minutes I was set up with a bottle each of Bordeaux and Vouvray, total cost of under $60. I waited in the sunshine a bit for the doors to be unlocked at the appropriated time of 3 pm.

Right on schedule the door clicked open, and Chef Amanda welcomed me inside to the cool air-conditioning. I was impressed at how clean everything was. And that, despite the vast amounts of cooking equipment within, there was still an inviting amount of space, especially around the dining table and prep area; both a dining-experience and user-friendly.

Amanda immediately opened my red bottle after suggesting we chill the white and pair it with the chicken, and I let it breathe while waiting for everyone else to arrive. It was the prefect complement to the bleu and goat cheeses, plus the chorizo and grapes on the appetizer plate offered.

We started with the dessert first, since the crème brulee first needs to bake, then chill. Amanda gave easy to understand instructions and key visual queues; such as suggesting we notice the color the egg yolks become as we whisked in the sugar (pale yellow is the ideal). She never lost her professional air and smile, even while I constantly ADD’d through the entire exercise, missing lots of steps and direction. The smell of the real vanilla beans being hollowed out was almost as intoxicating as a bottle of extract, and soon we had our dessert dishes filled and ready for the oven.

Her little cook’s secrets added a ton of value to the class. One such tip is to place all the dessert bowls in a tray of water for a steam bath while baking. This keeps the crème brulee (or other desserts, such as cheesecake) smooth and free of caking and clumping. She was a great leader who had an entire team of four couples working together.

The French onion soup prep was just as easy. Onions sliced, garlic minced, and into the pot they went with lots of butter. Again, Amanda’s color cues helped out, and it was easy to tell when we needed to add more onion. This particular recipe was modified from the traditional, very filling one with which we are all very familiar. To keep everyone’s hunger stoked for the chicken and potatoes, we next added broth to the onion and garlic, and then set it aside to simmer. Rather than baking each bowl with large amounts of cheese and bread, we next made lightly-cheese-crusted toast points, with sliced French bread, to add to the soup just before eating.

Next we mixed up whole milk and heavy cream, while others sliced large brown baking potatoes and minced fresh garlic. We layered all of it, garlic first, then the potatoes, topped with a level of cream, finally salt and pepper, until the baking dish was filled. It was topped with a couple sprigs of thyme, and away it went to bake.

Since the chicken needed to be marinated a minimum of six hours prior to final prep, the initial roasting was already done, and set to work with a large, cold container filled with the birds, carrots & onion, and red wine. There was still plenty left for us to do.

First, the chicken came out and went into a pan with butter and oil. Another cook’s tip: the flavor of butter, with the higher temperature of oil, without burning. Then Amanda had us add the veggies from the marinade, and get some searing going on. Once we had the browning and heat, we transferred the meat and veggies to a larger dish, and we reduced several ladlefuls of the wine down, finally adding some flour in with a whisk for body. When it was smooth and thick, we poured the mixture over the chicken, carrots, and onion, and then put in the over to finish cooking through.

My stomach rumbled and grumbled more and more through the whole process, but Chef Amanda kept us on track. I only snacked from the left over appetizer plate a couple times, but Patty and I did finish of the Bordeaux fairly quickly. Finally we could sit down and eat what we’d been slaving over. I popped open the chilled bottle of vouveray, my hand becoming wet in its condensation.

I’ll simply let the pictures speak for themselves. Our toast? "Salud, Groupon!"

First course:

These were pretty damn good:

aaaaaaaaaand...

"Voila!"

The complete picture:

Using fire is always fun!

Fini!

Talking heads, bikes and the city

2010-06-22T21:29:00.012-05:00

Talk about your fortuitous Fridays.

If my early morning train to Northbrook hadn't been canceled, and I didn't need to be on an 8am conference call, I definitely would've been stuck waiting out the afternoon's epic storms on a late train or worse. And probably would've missed seeing David Byrne of the Talking Heads speak about the future of cities and bicycles, alongside Luann Hamilton (CDOT), Jacky Grimshaw (Center for Neighborhood Technology), and Randy Neufeld (SRAM, formerly Chicagoland Bicycle Federation).

So when faced with the choice to wait an hour for the next train and miss my call, or head home to take it, then"work" from home the rest of the day, instead of biking in later (actually I did put in two or three solid hours after), you would've done the same. Even on Bike to Work Day. And since I rode to the train and back, I could count my miles for the Commuter Challenge.

As I rode home and then sat inside, dying to get out and play in the nice weather, I couldn't imagine the forecast for storms later that afternoon would be accurate. After I was off the phone I took Jack for a nice walk to grab a coffee (and a McMuffin...I wasn't lovin' it, but I sure was cravin' it for some reason).

The nonsequitur of the day came shortly after placing my order, just behind two frumpy, middle-aged, female cops. They kept coming back up and asking for extra cups and spoons and shit. A few seconds later I felt a pleasant sensation that I only associate with Patty, namely her wrapping her arms around my waist. The freakout came when I realized it was one of the cops, fully enveloping me in a creepy hug while asking for another cup.

"Excuse me!" I spewed as I recoiled from her grasp.

The arms came off and she continued with the counter help, not even acknowledging me in the least, just a free grope at the MacDonald's.

Well, the sky started to darken a bit, and soon it appeared that fat bastard Skilling had nailed it. I decided to race the rapidly approaching storms to Daley Plaza and the Bike to Work Day rally, to pick up my tickets for the David Byrne event. I thought I had more than enough time from the looks of the radar, but riding down Elston not even at Fullerton I started to get rained on. Little pockets of teasing moisture passed with intermittent sunshine, but looking west at the turmoil churning towards me, I started to wonder when I'd need to find shelter.

This was the sight before all hell broke loose (my shutter just missed a lightening flash by a second or two):

That's Milwaukee overlooking the I-90/94 Ohio St. entrance ramp. Just past Halsted and Grand, the wind really picked and started driving all the dust from filthy Kinzie Ave and the overpassing Metra tracks, nearly blinding me. I barely had time to get under the awing at the new Jewel on Des Plaines before it opened up.

And there I sat waiting it out, watching much braver souls than I trying to get where they needed to be, in much difficulty. It seemed like the end of the world, as trees bent sideways, the skyline disappeared in the gray doom, and thunder ripped apart the air almost on top of the seizure-inducing lighting flashes.

When I finally reached the site of the rally in a remarkably pleasant and soothing drizzle, the plaza looked as though a giant hand had come down and swept all the tents, umbrellas, and picnic tables into a huge twisted pile of metal stacked up against the windows of the courthouse:

I was told I could simply pick up my tickets at the event venue by a friendly leftover volunteer from the rally, so next I pedaled over to the Cultural Center. There I found the XRT kids (it was the station's event, big thanks to Richard Milne!) and then ran into Ethan, of Active Trans. We sat chatting for a bit and I actually saw the head Head himself enter. Then I split to go meet Patty at The Gage pub, a fantastic Michigan Avenue small plates bar, a bit pricey, but unique dishes, such as the house poutine, with elk ragout and Wisconsin cheese curds.

The forum was a couple hours later, as I mentioned an XRT event, featuring David Byrne as the celebrity guest, basically on a book tour for his "Bicycle Diaries," of a round table discussion entitled, "Cities, Bicycles, and the Future of Getting Around. " It was certainly a who's-who of Chicago cycling and alternative transportation advocates, for I recognized many, many faces from past similar events.

David Byrne took the stage to a huge round of applause, and started the presentation with his slide show. I've heard both good things and bad things about his book - haven't read it - and his presentation. I found that I enjoyed it. It would've been no different had I been in his living room seeing pictures from his most recent music tour. He was stream of thought, one leading to the next, basically taking the audience through modern city-planning's watershed wasted opportunites, the current sad state of affairs, and hopefully where we can go. Lots of slides of 1920's sketches and city plans, blighted parking lots and overgrown shopping malls, and beautiful trails and thoughtful examples of complete-streets planning.

Luann Hamilton of CDOT showed us a good amount more specifics, including some teasers on the Bloomingdale Trail, the Navy Pier Flyover, and a planned traffic diet of Lawrence Avenue between Ashland and Western. She gave us one amazing and joyous traffic figure: during rush hour, the current traffic make-up of Milwaukee Avenue can be as much as 20% bicycles.

Suck it, George F. Will.

Jacky Grimshaw of CNT gave a rundown on the engineering thought and theory that goes into planning liveable cities, such as how to build a 1 mile walk instead of a 3 mile drive from point A to point B.

Finally, the accomplished Randy Nuefeld, the former CBF director and now director of the SRAM Fund, gave the most direct-action presentation we'd seen yet. As he began, I realized there was no way David Byrne could've gone last. He could not have have followed this. I knew when finished, Randy would get the biggest applause by far, and we'd all leave, pulling at the harness to get to work and make things happen.

I'll let Steven Vance take you through Randy's presentation.

BTW, you know you've been commuting a long time when you recognize Andy Daley, in full Clif Bar kit, in one of Randy's presentation photos of the Milwaukee/Ogden/Chicago intersection.

D. Dowd Muska: Asshole of the week

2010-06-09T14:05:00.009-05:00

Is your latest column, "Four Wheels Good, Two Wheels Bad," supposed to be some sort of joke?

I suppose not, and Dowd is short for "dowdy".

I didn't think it was possible to be a bigger jerk than some of the people I encounter on my daily ride to work, but I'd genuinely fear for my life if encountering you on the road.

I suppose it never occurred to you that most people begin bike commuting because of gas prices and relief from stress (although that can be difficult with people like you out there). I suggest you take a trip to either Belgium or the Netherlands (where up to 40% of the population commutes by bike), and see how many of those people think of their chosen mode of transportation as a children's toy.

Maybe you'd like to give a lecture to World Bike Relief about how that organization is just wasting time by providing thousands of "children's toys" to address Third World poverty, malnutrition, and AIDS prevention.

However, I'm gonna guess you've probably never been outside of this country, as your fear of anything outside of the status quo indicates extreme xenophobia.

You must be some sort of a US history buff, too, as indicated by your Original 13 Flag header on your site. Maybe you should double check on how popular bicycles used to be in this country before laziness, carelessness, and sloth allowed the automobile to cocoon us into our present mess of unlivable, unwalkable, unbikeable cities.

And while you're stereotyping cyclists, take a good look at your own raging, speeding, aggressive-driving, stop-sign-rolling, red-light-running, no-lane-change-signaling reflection in the mirror. The machine you're hogging the road with carries a helluva lot more risk and liability than those "children's toys" you're defaming, and are the number #1 killer of children in this country. What's the bigger danger here?

I sure hope your attitude changes over the next few years, because gas isn't getting any cheaper, and there's a lot more of us on the way. Actually, it would be pretty funny to see you petulantly stomping your feet at the gas station over the $8 a gallon price displayed, while happy person after happy person rides past you waving and ringing their little bike bells, glad to be moving and active than still stuck inside that fucking cage.

Please learn to share. There's enough road for everybody.

Hellbent for brick, corn, and chickenwire!

2010-05-28T12:07:00.004-05:00

And we're off for Iowa tonight: Snake Alley tomorrow, Melon Cities on Sunday (speed bump and all), and then Quad Cities - The Cagematch turns 45 this year! - on Memorial Day. It will be a battle.

Holy shit, 15 laps in the belly of the beast with the Category 3s. Ready or not, this is gonna be painful test of the will.

Melon is going to be fun. That speedbump is some stupid shit, but it is my type of race, and I just need to summon the confidence to go 110% when it's time. I do and that hill is mine.

Quad Cities was my breakout race last year. Technical and fast, it's not gonna be the same as the Cat 4, and will be dicey in the corners unless it stays strung out and breaks up early. I'll probably register for the Master's as well just prior to the 3s, and complete half of that for a warm-up and race-pace course recon.

Thursday Hate: the week's sauce

2010-05-27T00:00:00.009-05:00

Streetsweepers.

Niles.

A haircut so bad he must be developmentally disabled. But not.

Phantom bike noises.

If I ask you a question to which everyone else CC'd on the email needs the answer, fucking hit "reply all" please. (And no Michael, this is not just you. For some reason, five people made my life more difficult doing this this week.)

The number of ingredients in a McDonald's apple danish.

Las Vegas real estate agents that follow me on Twitter. Then I know you personally and follow you on twitter, but you don't refollow. Maybe I post a lot, but isn't that the point?

Wrong: "The Tour de France." "Tour de [American City]" Right: "Le" and "of". On est français. The other is English.

Barak Obama?! Are you still fucking here? You've been Katrina-ed. Jesus Christ...George fucking BUSH would've nuked the goddamn thing two weeks ago.

Oh, yeah. And people who "boycott" BP. Especially those of you sittin - ALONE - in your SUV for six light cycles to get through one intersection. You don't realize that BP sells much of their oil to other refiners, do you? You want to reduce the likelihood of catastrophes like this from happening again? USE LESS. (Apologies to @stevevance)

Thursday Hate: I'm with Floyd

2010-05-20T19:10:00.010-05:00

A comment posted in response to Adam Myerson's brilliant blog/essay today on Floyd Landis' stunning (to some) confession that he did indeed use performance-enhancing drugs:

Landis is a sucker - cool if he wants to call himself out but naming names is b.s. - a snitch. He better have some serious proof too if he’s going to start this. My guess is that he’s run out of $$$...again and is looking for another book deal. Chump.

I'm sorry, but are you mad because you bought his book or donated to his Fairness Fund thinking that he was actually innocent? Are you mad because he's implicating your other heroes, George and Levi?

If so, it ain't Floyd that's the chump.

Firstly, it was called the Floyd Fairness Fund. Not the Floyd Innocence Fund. And was aptly named. Landis was being made the scapegoat. This commenter would be just as pissy and indignant if Floyd had named names when he was busted in 2006. It has nothing to do with his timing. It's that he's blowing the whistle at all.

As a friend of mine pointed out, Jose Canseco had little credibility, as well. Everyone said he was full of it, that he was all sour grapes, that he should keep his mouth shut because he had no proof. It literally required an act of Congress (which had much better things to do) but everything he said about drugs in baseball was all true.

Anyone who’s ever ridden under Bruyneel and Armstrong are immediately suspect. When Vaughters bolted, anyone who stayed on was doping in my book. If you believe that Bruyneel is the Grand Moff Tarkin and Armstrong the Darth Vadar of doping, I don’t see how the hell you can think anyone who raced was them was clean during that time.

What would you have done? After having reaching the absolute pinnacle of your chosen profession, only to see it all stripped away only because of doing what everybody else was doing? Could you look your mom in the eye and tell her the truth? How can you even fucking answer that question? None of us can even imagine how tough the choice would be to walk away from cycling once introduced to the truth of how the pros really do it, after sacrificing everything to get to that point.

Because at that point, choosing to dope is just one small link in a much longer chain. And until that day, which thankfully will never come for nearly all of us, I’ll reserve my judgment of whether dopers are bad people or not.

Yes, we can point to Vaughters, Pate, or Millar as beacons amid this darkness. Doping sucks, but as long as you're watching the races, and cheering on your heroes, and patronizing the sponsors who want winners, sponsors who look the other way, along with race officials who take bribes...you all are complicit in it, and you shouldn't act so fucking shocked.

So finally, after everybody else who's as guilty as Floyd turned their backs on him with magnanimous proclamations of their hope for his innocence, Floyd has finally decided to come clean, because why should he continue to cover for them?

I for one applaud it. Others, not so much, apparently.

A “snitch?” Really? We all love to take a stand and to say we want doping gone. But when it comes time to do the requisite dirty work - overturning rocks and naming names - we hang those that dare - the whistle blowers - out to dry.

We all want the truth. Until that truth hurts us.

Thursday Hate: everybody poops (except you)

2010-05-06T00:00:00.003-05:00

People who are embarrassed to poop when someone else is in the restroom.

If you are afraid of making pooping noises in the stall, and therefore are going to sit in there and not make a sound the entire time anyone else is in the men's room, such as when I spent approximately nine minutes changing into my cycling clothes today ...why do you attempt to poop at work in the first place??

So I'm thinking in a high traffic restroom, you've gotta be in there for, what...three, four hours a day? Waiting for whoever else is in there to just leave already so you can free a hostage before the next person walks in? And then wait another 10 minutes to take care of the fart that didn't make it out? God knows when you'll have time to wipe!

"Ewwwwww, gross!!! Someone is shitting and wiping their shitty ass...in the MEN'S ROOM! Oh, my GAWD somebody call Human Resources!"

Do you have low-pooping self-esteem? Do you think you are the grossest pooper ever? As if no one else makes disgusting noises when taking a shit? God I hope not, for your sake. And if you are the grossest pooper ever, then...forget I said anything and I thank you for your prudence.

(Do women do this, too?)

What takes me back to the District

2010-04-27T21:43:00.003-05:00

What could possibly top a scene like the one I took in towards the end of my post-Asheville vacation to Washington, D.C. to see friends and family...

I was sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, wishing my dad a happy birthday while scattered storms meandered past The General's monolith, interspersed with golden rays of evening sun. The faint but powerful driving rhythm of bass and drums could be heard across the reflecting pool, its surface brushed in waves by unseen fingers of air, beneath the familiar melody of "Message in a Bottle."

I'd left Sting, my friends, and Earth Day to fulfill what must be done on a trip to DC: to read Jefferson's and Lincoln's timeless words, to see the 58,000 names, to think for myself. No matter how many times I come back...it must be done. I began walking after standing and sitting for hours on the grass between the museums, while all matter of legends spoke and sang to us, from Jesse Jackson to Booker T, but finally my stiff and injured back could take no more. While Sting brought his pomposity to the stage I could get my 90 minute pilgrimage accomplished, and then meet everyone again for dinner.

And there I was, on those steps, above that inspiring vista, when two Marine helicopters, one almost certainly carrying the President, approached from the north and banked east, just above me, towards the Mall and the crowd. And as it turned south again, a great roar rose up from the people, assembled on America's lawn, letting loose their approval at this salute to their Earth Day celebration.

What could top that, I ask you.

Perhaps a bike ride on a misty Saturday on a rented beach cruiser with a friend at my side. Down the lanes, both marked and unmarked, over the crushed gravel in Lafayette Park, and posing for a picture in front of the White House. Up Capitol Hill, past police and tourists and senate staffers. And down, down past colorful townhomes and walk ups, down past bodegas and bars. Down the hill toward the mouth of Anacostia to the Navy Yards, a neighborhood in flux, perhaps turmoil from economic uncertainty, but a destination the less. The new Nationals Park stands almost timeless amid it's surroundings, not trying to be anything its not, and in the process being much more. A familiar venue without any pretension beyond the $8 beer, its structure is a testament to understatement. That, and the idea racing Presidents is just as good as racing Sausages.

What could top that, I ask you.

Perhaps, topping all of that, is the first moments you see your friends and family, after many months...appearing in the gloam, looking up over a freshly lit cigarette, or popping through a doorway, with a smile for you and the promise of another year's memories.

Altitude effects attitude

2010-04-14T15:50:00.002-05:00

Off to Asheville. I'll be thinking of you through the two hours tunnel vision while I climb this thing on Sunday.

So long, suckers! (wait...)

Going long

2010-04-12T20:36:00.004-05:00

I've been itching some long miles, really long and slogging miles, since I came back from Georgia a bit empty-handed last February.

One of the best options for getting in a century out of Chicago is to head to the state line, as an extension off of the "Three Sisters" route that is popular on the XXX Racing team ride. My first experience with this wasn't until 2009 when Coach Randy led a fairly large group to the border last April. It was a beautiful, sunny spring day. Once past the spirited attacks through the rollers north of highway 21, aka Milwaukee Ave and onto highway 120, we settled into a pleasant rhythm, letting the base miles pile on like durable coats of paint.

We coasted through the Glencoe sprint, only to give it the afterburner in a scorching leadout train all the way down from Tower to B'hai Temple, where Cesar and Ed jumped out of the line, already moving above 30 plus, to claim the final hill for themselves.

I'd picked the day before Easter, April 3rd, as our "long day" this year. Coach was out of town for the holiday, and with racing both the weeks before and after, and then Asheville camp and the following recovery weekend, April was done. No matter then weather, April 3rd would have to be it.

So of course, the day could not have started out more ominously. The rain literally started to fall just as I stepped outside. I was dressed for wet success however, and undaunted, I met the small team contingent at Warren Park and we rode without incident, no drop, to Highland Park.

There, after coffee and some snacks, around 15 us headed north, unsure just how far we'd make it. I was stonewall set for going the distance, but rain came down in heavy, splattery drops. After leading out the University Hill sprint for some jittery newbs, we shed a few returners, more at the "Old School" turn off, and headed north into a driving rain.

It was Diddy, Tyler, Emanuele, an ex-pro cross country dirtbagger named John with calves the size of my thighs (and I'm constantly told I have the biggest legs on the team), one more who's name escapes me, and myself. We stopped at the Cemetery loop for a piss and to try to unsuccessfully get the contacts under my powertap computer dry - it hadn't been giving a reading for the last five miles or so - and I nervously thought I would get out-voted to press on. But everyone was still game, and soon we were splintering apart in "Three Sisters."

All I knew is that I'd attack John after the next roller. The next roller. The next one. And then we ran out of rollers. At the beginning he just put that chain in the 15-tooth cog and churned an 80ish cadence while trying to ride me off his wheel. For the entire set of rollers I was pegged at 178 bpm and couldn't coax myself to come around until Highway 120 was actually visible from atop the last crest. Once there I hacked up a wad of phlegm, fixed my computer, ate a bar, and we chatted for a couple minutes until Tyler rolled in, followed by the rest.

From there, after the next left turn off the east bound highway, it's straight north to State Line road. The rain came harder yet so did our resolve, and our smiles just got bigger, and our laughter louder. It was sideways as we came out of the truck stop on Randall Road, filled with hot cocoa and Snickers bars.

Soon we were rewarded, however. The crosswind was tough, and it took some resolve to stay together and not gap anyone, but by time we reached the paved bike trail at the North Chicago Metra station, the rain was gone for good, and the pavement had started to dry. 45 minutes or so later, I stopped at the entrance to Fort Sheridan to remove my rain jacket. And as we turned onto Green Bay road, we were bathed in warm sunshine.

Tyler led Diddy up to a flying John before Scott Road, and that cooked him, for then on Sheridan into Kenilworth it was just three of us. I tried a hard jump but the big man Diddy closed my gap and took the second sprint. One more roasted, for then it was just John and I going cat and mouse to B'Hai, and then cat and mouse with an indecisive minivan up the hill. Oh well, I took a cautious jump, cleared it and then gave it my all. I sat up, looked behind, and rolled off my armwarmers. It had to've been 70.

Slowly Tyler and Diddy regrouped with us, and we spun lazily back to Chicago through Evanston, a world away from the morning we'd started our ride in.

I headed straight to Susie's Drive-thru for a recovery meal that can only be eaten on days like this, even then requiring augmentation from my own fridge:

Oh, and that's not a tan-line...it's dirt.

Stick with what you've got

2010-03-28T12:05:00.012-06:00

(photos by peloton-pix.com)

I had a big chip on my shoulder coming into this weekend. Saturday was the opening event for the Illinois Cup, Burnham Racing's Spring Super Criterium, in South Beloit. Days before the two hour drive to the state line northwest of Chicago, I knew I had something to prove.

In group discussions of tactics and "let's-win" scenarios, my name isn't mentioned very much. At all, really. Can't complain, it's my own fault. When racing for my own results, I botch things terribly, beset by indecision and fear of failure, waiting for the perfectly framed moment which never comes. In my fourth season, I am still looking for Win Number 1. Still, lack of respect is lack of respect, and I always take it kinda personally.

I know I'm a very strong rider, and even with more brawn than brains, that no one follows a plan more stringently than me. Taking my own risk of failure out of the equation clears the tactical picture for me immensely, and by declaring this year to make racing more fun and free-willed, working for others and destroying myself in the process, I'm hoping to become a much more instinctual racer. That will be a big part of removing the pressure to getting my upgrade to Category 2 by the end of the year.

The Category 3 race was stacked by my own XXX and Burnham, of course, as the host team. Each team had at least six riders. Tom Briney, Newt Cole, and Liam Donoghue had all declared designs on the victory, while (speaking for myself, at least) others only wanted match attacks, guard breaks, and lay waste on the final lap in support. The early laps played as though this script had been typed on paper.

Briney, Newt, and Liam waited a patient game while Chris Kinnonen guarded the front and Kyle Wiberg and I made sure there was red and black in each of the flurry of early attacks. Seemingly every couple of laps I was in a different iteration of the break, almost always with Recycling's Ben Laforce and Burnham's Jason Mindemann or Eric Goodwin. Don't hold me to that as memory in those situations is always a little fuzzy.

The breaks would always start with a solo attack by one of a few solo riders, and then would build numbers on late bridges by guys with support in the pack; that's definitely how I found myself in so many different groups off the front.

The last one I was in definitely had potential. Moving up the leeward left-hand side in the finishing straight midway through the race, I saw Kinnonen pulling the group with no support, then noticed a new break of three or four moving away, with no XXX representation. That was not good at all, so at the first turn I broke hard off the front. With someone in tow, I bridged into Ben Laforce's draft at the tail of a now sizable threat. I think we had a good gap for at least a couple of laps but were eventually reeled in. The shifting winds and March fitness disrupted the rhythm of a truly committed break; at one point wagged my left elbow and the dude pulled through on the windward side to my right.

As the laps ticked down, I saw more and more of Briney, Newt, and Liam who were holding to prime position. With 3 or 4 to go, Kyle was in a break of three, including Laforce, once again. As we passed turn one after seeing two to go, Kyle was drifting back to the group, with the other two riding away. I couldn't wait until the last lap like I'd planned. With the rest of the team behind me, now was the time to light the last match.

As we passed Kyle I dug hard into the wind without breaking off and closed the gap smaller and smaller. By the end of the backstretch curve (and me pedaling boxes) they were now easily within striking distance. As if he'd read my mind, Liam took off like an F-14 from an aircraft carrier. The move was so committed you couldn't not believe in it 100% and I whooped ecstatically after him, "Yeah, LIAM!!!" He caught the other two quickly and blazed away alone in the tailwind.

I sat up, got on the end to hang on by a thread with depleted legs, and watched Briney and Newt do their thing, which was fight for wheels like tenacious pit bulls. I could not have been more pleased as I coasted in across the line, dead last from the group, hearing Alan Treuthart shout, "he did it!" and then see Liam sprawled out on the grass, an arm raised in the air. Briney and Newt had made it into the top five as well.

A perfect ending to a perfect race. And later I found out I'd also won a prime, a SRAM chain with a powerlink, while pulling through on one of my early breaks.

Incidentally, I did all of that on a half-flat rear tire. Half way through, I began to feel squirrelly back there through the high-speed last and first turns on either side of the start-finish. I debated getting a wheel, but rationalized it was the wind playing with my deep Stinger 60s (but knew better). I didn't want to miss out on any of the fun I was having and it's a good thing I stayed with the wheel I had. I broke a spoke on my back up wheel somewhere between 25 or 30 minutes into the the Pro/1/2/3 race an hour later. Speaking of which:

After realizing my race wheel wouldn't hold air and putting on the back-up, my training wheel w/PowerTap hub, the 75 minute Pro/1/2/3 race rolled out with another XXX-heavy field. Included was everyone from the Cat 3 race except Chris, plus Ed Amstutz, John Tomlinson, Peter Strittmatter, Dave Moyer, and Scott Herring. The first lap and half were quite leisurely, and at the beginning of lap two when the pace was really lagging, I easily moved to the front in order not to get pinched in the turns by the widespread group.

Seconds after I found myself chasing the first of a violent barrage of early attacks, and even in a stillborn break for the rest of the lap or so. After that there wasn't much more I could do besides hang on to the tail of the dragon as the pace would often surge to 30mph-plus during the early attacks.

Finally about 25 minutes in it looked to be settled, with two separate groups off which would eventually form a group of nine. This included Moyer, whom I didn't see break away, and JT who I watched turn himself inside out into the headwind on a solo bridge to the second group.

Shortly after, people began asking me if I'd broken a spoke. "Naw," I casually responded. It was just my valve extender slapping on the deep carbon of the wheel. The joke of the Cat 3 race as well. With my calf-tattoos, I'm Cat 5 style forever, baby! Actually, not a joke all, I found after Nate Iden of Burnham rolled up behind me: "dude, your wheel is gonna fall apart!" Sure enough, I looked between my legs to see the rim "whupwhupwhupping" against the brakes. I really had broken a spoke. Rolling in, I realized my race wheel was unridable too, and there was no neutral support. So I called it a day.

I watched from the sidelines as the front group gelled cohesively and grew their gap to over a minute. With two to go they dropped to eight, and in the end, Tomasz Boba of WDT won the day, with XXX placing Moyer in 4th, JT in 8th, and Peter in 10th.

A really good day for the team, to state it politely. XXX Racing is now in the lead for the Illinois Cup overall team competition, not to mention the Cat 3 and 40+ divisions.

Thursday optimism

2010-03-25T10:39:00.007-06:00

No hate today. I am spreading the word and keeping up with the fight for your right.

Please urge your congressman today to support the Active Community Transportation Act!

All 50 states can realize the benefits of this bill. Below is a letter - in addition to the one I sent by clicking the link above - I wrote to Senator Mark Begich of my home state, Alaska:

Dear Senator Begich,

I was born and raised in Anchorage and as a Democrat, I followed your election in 2008 with great interest. I was very pleased when you took office, but recently dismayed to hear of your lack of support for this bill.

I understand Alaskans require rugged transportation options, but within the state's urban environments, the benefits of this bill can still be fully realized.

Anchorage, especially, stands on the precipice of being a very cycling-friendly city, with its network of world-class trails reaching nearly every part of town. Just this Christmas, while skiing to the inlet, to Russian Jack, and even the Bartlett trails from our Midtown home, I saw nearly more bicycles than skiers, in the dead of winter. With big knobby tires and appropriate clothing, these commuters epitomized taking innovative action to make their own community a more healthy and vital place to live.

It can be done and should be done.

If fully realized, the Active Community Transportation Act reduces our dependence on fossil fuels and foreign oil, saves lives both behind the wheel and not, and more pedestrians and cyclists will greatly reduce maintenance costs for our new and existing infrastructure. And not least, it will reconnect us to our communities and to a much healthier and active lifestyle, producing less stress and a more preventative approach to heath care, which is where the reform should've started in the first place.

So you've passed Healthcare Reform...

2010-03-22T20:53:00.017-06:00

Personally, I made jerking-off motions when I read the news, and then got back to the business of actually living a healthy, preventative lifestyle (such as riding PAST the Burger King on my bicycle), but there are a million different arguments being shouted all across the country today, over airwaves and dinner tables, and a friend's astute comments (while I disagreed with them) brought an issue to mind, the health insurance mandate: that insurance coverage must be required.

While at first this must seem like a gift to the providers and further proof of President Obama's "socialist agenda", it actually makes perfect sense. Although unconstitutional at the federal level (and will be overturned), it's perfectly legal state-by-state, and just such a mandate is perfectly accepted elsewhere at the state level in the insurance industry.

Auto insurance is mandated in many states because un- and under insured drivers are the reason for high premiums of many reputable companies. Those assholes just pass the costs onto everybody else.

In fact, the Right-ish stance on mandated health insurance should be in support of it because less of your premium and taxes are supporting deadbeats and unemployed. If you support mandatory auto insurance, and those state laws that require it haven't been overturned, I don't see why mandatory health insurance is such a problem.

As my friend pointed out, owning a car is optional. If you can't afford auto insurance, you can't afford to own a car. However, your body is not. I guess choosing to die is, but that's another discussion. If your body is wrecked, it needs to get fixed. And somebody needs to pay for it.

And as I have often mentioned, the primary reasons for the high cost of health care and insurance are A) so many people putting claims in because they are so unhealthy - imagine the cost of auto coverage if people treated their cars like their bodies and made claims for every thing that went wrong - and B) the extraordinarily expensive treatments that rely too much on technological easy fixes and ignore common sense preventative care. But neither this congress nor the president is doing anything beyond lip service to getting our population healthier. Why? Because there's no profit in that.

Mandated insurance coverage, if teamed up with sensible, proactive agriculture policies, instead of letting McDonald's, Monsanto, and Conagra write them, would gain some headway into lowered costs. But government corruption goes hand-in-hand with corporate influence. Why do you think drugs are so expensive, and we haven't had a new antibiotic introduced in 30 years, while we have 30 choices for penis pills, marketed to flaccid wheezers who don't exercise and eat fries at every meal?

The quandary is that the Right-ish stance should also be in support of spending your money how you see fit. Yet, aren't the Right supposed to be the realists? People who choose to be uninsured - speaking broadly here, auto, etc - do nothing but fuck over responsible people. And the government's job is to protect responsible people, if nothing else.

To clarify, I am not referring to another drain on the system: people who cannot afford health insurance but either don't have employment or employment that subsidizes it. Further, I am not speaking about existing conditions upon new-employment, or children with congenital conditions. These are not all morons: in fact, I was uninsured for three months in 2007, which included passing on a trip to the ER for a concussion after crashing my bike, until I found another job.

With these instances, there needs to be a safety net that allows people who NEED it to have an affordable option - not a gold-plated Cadillac, but adequate - until they can find their own coverage. Without it, we are the ones who pay for their healthcare, through higher premiums our providers charge. Obamacare provides for this.

But, as a whole, it won't work because of other the problem I mentioned that is canceling out any gains to be made in lower premium by an increased risk pool; the high demand on the system by our society in general and the manufacturers of needlessly extravagant treatments and techniques. There needs to be a far greater emphasis on preventative care, rather than just fixing what's broken in a giant, losing game of Whack-a-Mole.

We are just going to perpetuate the current disease-management system.

Thursday hate: Tony Kornheiser

2010-03-17T19:24:00.007-06:00

Wow. Just...wow. Firstly, Bob Roll has this to say:

To think I used to like Tony Kornheiser. I thought he was pretty funny in an annoying kind of way. But it turns out, he's just another fat, lazy, rage-aholic prick with an oversize sense self-entitlement to match his SUV. I can't say anything new about people like him, other than that they are sad, pathetic, misguided human beings. I hope Tony wakes up tomorrow to see the dismay he's caused by his comments and issues an apology.

Lance Armstrong was once defended by Kornheiser on doping allegations. According to Mellow Johnny's (Lance Armstrong's Austin bike shop) twitter page, you can email Kornheiser's boss by clicking here.

You know what to do.

(UPDATED): @lancearmstrong has just weighed in to his more than two million followers. Welcome to Twitter, Tony Kornheiser.

(UPDATED 8:57am) 1-888-549-3776 is the customer care line at ESPN. Select option 3 to speak to a rep and register your complaint.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

2010-03-17T05:02:00.008-06:00

Tonight I'll be at Abbey Pub, just blocks from my Independence Park apartment, celebrating on a very rare trip out for The Wearing of the Green. The idiotic behavior of 90% of St. Paddy's revelers, themselves all transplants from either Columbus or Miami, OH, trading in their Burberry for green beads and giant, green Dr. Seuss hats, makes the holiday a complete amateur night, and since I hate crowds to begin with, I stay mostly to myself hat and usually observe behind a locked door with a single Guinness and shot of Powers.

Typical St. Patrick's day douchbaggery:

However, my old friend Kevin, now of the up and coming Kevin Flynn & The Avondale Ramblers, formerly of Kiss n' Ride, will be headlining the St. Paddy's night party at the pub, capping off an entire day of celebration, including a live broadcast of the Gaelic Games from Ireland, Irish dancers, and the Shannon Rovers bagpipers.

As well, the Abbey Pub is a cheerful and well-worn place, neighborhood-owned, far beyond the Chad and Trixie comfort-zone, the box of North, Ashland, Addison, and the Lake.

Kevin Flynn & the Avondale Ramblers are a Chicago-Irish rock band, in the tradition of the great city mainstay, The Tossers, with a northside twist. Traditional rhythms and musical themes will have you tapping your feet, or downright jigging once you've had a few shots, and the clever lyrics and references to living and growing up on Chicago's northwest side will have you feeling as though you've lived all your life at the corner of Higgins and Harlem.

Slainte.

It's just a t-shirt...

2010-03-16T09:54:00.003-06:00

That may be, but this t-shirt:

...actually says, "Let's shit on and soil every last beautiful piece of ground left on Earth, so I can fill the tank of my ginormous SUV that I drive to Wal-mart every week to fill with sweat-shop-produced bullshit as I compensate for the inadequacy I feel towards the size of my penis due to all the military propaganda I am exposed to on FOX News."

Thursday Hate

2010-03-11T09:45:00.003-06:00

Today's hate will be delayed due to extenuating circumstances, and a strong chance of slander and libel, pending resolution of the issue I have been dealing with this week. So instead of vitriol and rage, I bring happiness and zen:

It's 60 freakin' degrees outside and I just heard thunder a bit ago.

Spring is here. I think you'll agree with me when I say, "we've earned it."

The traveler

2010-03-10T15:24:00.005-06:00

I have been away for as long as I can remember.

Born into wayfaring. Into shimmering blacktop and dust clouds. Towards mountains, deserts, lonely streets, filthy hotel rooms, and dangerous areas of town.

Parched and alone, relieved only by the shade of menacing fingers; dark woods teeming with teeth and claws; or the fleeting coolness of a soda from a dirty bodega. Then back I go to oppressive heat and unfriendly glares.

I watch movies alone to sooth and distract my mind.

I eat furtively and quietly in diners and on park benches. On lonesome trails and crowded sidewalks.

I sleep. Awaken. Pack up, and move on.

Always heading toward home without ever having known its warm embrace and soothing whisper. Never smelled dewy grass that was my own, waved to neighbors known for years, or shared a beer with a trusted friend. Sat down to meal cooked by all, smiles and loving eyes comingling at the center of the table, framed by friendly light from faded, old lamps.

On a sunny morning, I stepped out of the trees; leaving weariness – and wariness – behind, into a field of flowers that was strange and new, yet immediately familiar. The outline of town lay just beyond, beckoning my tired feet and aching body and worn mind.

The scent of lilac, honeysuckle and wildflowers overwhelmed me, and sat, and then lay, falling back loosely amidst the stalks and thorns and petals and grass, as they brushed against me in the morning breeze, scratching my skin satisfyingly. I let bumblebees buzz around my head and ladybugs crawl on me.

I breathed in deeply the sweet aroma of home, filling my body – as through drawing in water – from my hips up to my shoulders. Then I let out a long sigh.

Sunlight in my eye awakens me. It’s late afternoon, the sun has traveled across the sky. I stand up and stretch. I pick a handful of flowers, especially the fragrant and dewy lilac.

Then, cinching the straps on my heavy pack, I bounce a bit on my heels before heading back into the forest and away from this place, flowers in my hand.

Hero of the week: Randy Michaels

2010-03-10T05:57:00.006-06:00

I was prepared to declare Tribune CEO Randy Michaels Asshole of the Week for issuing a memo proclaiming nearly 120 words banned from WGN broadcasts. "Newsspeak," he calls them, and, besides the word, "alleged" (unless you want your already-bankrupt company to be further sued into oblivion for defamation and libel), I am actually in favor of leaving nearly all of these words and phrases out back for the low-lifes of cable news commentary to pick through.

Seeing "touch base" immediately upon opening the article got my attention.

My favorite is "in the wake of (unless referring to a boat)".

Wheatless in Chicago

2010-03-09T20:01:00.010-06:00

I've known for some time that Garmin-Transitions professional cycling team, led by Chicago's own Christian Vande Velde, is wheat-free while training and racing. But when the team's blog referenced a Men's Journal article on the team's wheat-free nutrition, I read it with great interest. There is some good information in the comments section.

As faithful followers of this blog know, I too am wheat-free, since 2003, and even more vigilant when I became a bike racer in 2007. Here is some background on why I made this life-changing switch to my diet.

I originally shared the article via Google and on Facebook, and received some comments that prompted me to outline what exactly I do eat. Here was my response, typed this morning:

Lemme start of by mentioning, at the risk of TMI - that I avoid wheat because it constipates me horribly. Nothing ruins a ride or training - or just your ordinary day - more than not being able to take a big dump first thing in the morning. However, not being a pain in the ass when eating as a guest plays into this too. If it's pizza, I'll sometimes eat it, knowing I'll have to deal in the morning if it's not going to affect a big ride or something. And, like VDV, I drink beer. Moving on:

There are tons of options - actually more - without wheat for carbohydrate than with. It's just that wheat is so ubiquitous.

That said, some celiacs (I think) need to avoid ALL gluten, so that is a caveat. Gluten is found in most grains. However, for me and most non-celiacs who are sensitive, wheat-gluten is offending protein. I've found that other more primitive grains such as oats, buckwheat, or corn does not affect me.

There is rice of course, but it's so much more than just risotto. Brown, jasmine, white, etc. Brown rice pasta is widely available (outside of Jewel). Gnocchi has a bit of wheat flour in it but it's mostly potato so it doesn't bother me much.

There's oatmeal, cornmeal (polenta, tamales, tortillas for tacos and enchiladas), buckwheat (nope, no gluten...LOVE making pancakes out of this).

Potatoes, especially sweet potatoes are a great wheat-free option. Sweet potatoes, gram for gram, are the most nutritious food you can eat. Then of course less-starchy, higher-glycemic fruits and veggies. Nuts too.

Breakfast is typically oatmeal or a couple slices of wheat-free kosher black bread (available even at Jewel), with some peanut butter or nutella, a banana, some yogurt, and a hard-boiled egg.

Lunch is usually leftovers from dinner, but sometimes I'll make sandwich out of the wheat-free bread, or just eat a loaded salad, no croutons.

Dinner is almost always home-cooked, never out of a box, unless I eat out. Some sort of rice or potato, with plenty of variety to chose from, as I mentioned above, with either sauce - made from a simple can of crushed or stewed tomatoes, spice and some red wine or vinegar, stir fry, or with steamed veggies and beef or some chicken.

Speaking of which, I eat a lot of protein. Beef, chicken, fish, wild game, tofu and other soy, yogurt (I hate milk, tho) and of course lots of Clif.

That's it. The easiest way I avoid wheat is to cook for myself, using almost 100% fresh food. The grains I eat are mostly rice, but I have such a variety available to me that I never get bored.

As well, I am trying to become more of a "localvore" this year, eating seasonally and locally when possible, and documenting it in a new blog, "Big City, Little Plate." While not nearly wholly practical or even possible, adding local, seasonal and home-grown foods is something I hope will add much pleasure to my life and I am already beginning to enjoy the benefits. I despaired through January and February, save for the grass-fed beef I was buying at the desolate now-indoors Logan Square farmer's market. Even the much-hyped local and organic co-op Dill Pickle had nothing local, even potatoes.

But just this week, the Logan market had fresh apples available in a dizzying amount of variety. Most I'd never heard of (Northern Spy?) I bought two bags for $7, about 10 apples. Very tasty.

More to come...

I ♥ Milwaukee

2010-03-04T13:20:00.006-06:00

I just read this post on why Milwaukee rules, shared by Tankboy via Google Reader, and I was surprised at the power the flood of my very personal memories had about our little sister to north. Years ago I dated a woman who lived in the Brew City neighborhood of Bayview. That spring and summer of 2003 we were together and spending lots of time there is a period in my life I am quite fond of. The At Random and Koz's Minibowl are just two of the neighborhood landmarks that are a must visit on a trip to the city.

Not to mention virtually my entire extended family is from the Milwaukee area, and I certainly have the honor of calling that town my second home. I'm gonna repost the article below (in addition to the link above) with my personal commentary in italics on most of the points.

Why Milwaukee Rules

By Drew Adamek

I've lived in Milwaukee twice in my life, first in the early '90s and then in the late '90s during community college. I have a special place in my heart for the town; it is a laid-back, hard-working, hard-partying town without any pretenses or hang-ups. The people are friendly, the town is accessible and the funky, beer fart stench smells like home.

Milwaukee knows what it is and likes it that way. It isn't fancy, it isn't redneck, it isn't Chicago, and it isn't Green Bay. It has a better airport than Chicago, you can get great food and beer, and it's affordable. I miss living there, and would live there again in a heartbeat.

Milwaukee gets a bad rap.

Here, then, is my list of reasons why Milwaukee rules.

1. The Beer Fart.

The cultural significance of the beer fart in Milwaukee is not to be underestimated. There isn't another city in America where people can tell the brand and vintage of beer you were drinking the night before by the flavor, aroma and "mouth feel" of your flatulence. As a corpulent and flatulent man, the cultural honor bestowed to the beer fart by Milwaukee warms my gassy heart.

My uncle's back yard, on a late August afternoon. Hazy, mid-80s. The sun is low and the house is casting a long shadow upon grass. About 15 close family members are chatting quietly about politics and past adventures (we are a Peace Corps family, a traveling family), the remains of a party that included a larger group of extended relatives. An odor of citronella mixes with that of the slowly cooling grill and left over food on the picnic table: chicken, burgers, potato salad, and watermelon. The night will be long and rewarding and relaxing, for the cooler is still full of beer. I hold one of those Old Style cans, ice-cold and dripping with condensation in my left hand, and lean onto my right butt cheek…the loud report rips off the plastic seat beneath, and conversation stops. My uncle Jack responds, “Brian, I take it you’re offering your opinion on this subject?”

2. Bowling Alley Bartenders.

The slim dating pickings I had in the '90s would have been a lot worse had it not been for mildly to severely alcoholic bartenders. You can't ask for more fun than a woman who knows how to keep bowling score, swears like an autoworker, drinks Jager bombs for breakfast and ain't afraid of a dick joke or two.

See Koz’s Mini Bowl above. It’s an amazing, wonderful place. Milwaukee and Baltimore are the only places where I’ve seen mini bowling, or Duckpin, as they call it Charm City. Neighborhood Hispanic kids reset your pins for tips, it’s up to you to keep score (but who cares), and the bar coolers are filled to the point of overflowing with Pabst. Great, beautiful white, silver, and blue stacks, perfectly lined up, beckon from behind the glass set in ancient cabinets. I imagine my father or Uncle Bob here back in the 60’s with its dirty tile and wood paneling. There’s not one “date picking” or even pretty face to be found in a place like this, but would you really rather be in So-Po or Wicker Park (eyeroll…)?

3. East Side Cafes.

All the atmosphere and ambience that you would want in a coffee shop without any "artists" or "writers" fucking up the buzz. Just people drinking coffee.

Brady Street is beautiful in the morning sunlight. The loud fat guys are gone and the trees rustle quietly in the breeze among colorful facades and historic buildings. Take a bike ride down and back along the lakefront, and then roll into the neighborhood and take your pick. Fuel on Center, Roast on Locust, and Café Hollandworth on Downer Avenue are some of my favorite places to chill before, during, or after a ride about town. Alterra is Milwaukee’s answer to Intelligentsia or Metropolis and is better coffee, in my opinion.

4. Summerfest.

This is the festival I thought Taste of Chicago was when I was a kid: bands, drunks, sausages. Some of the best shows of my life have been at Summerfest: Metal Church, Arrested Development, Dylan and the Dead, Tom Petty. All for the price of parking in Chicago.

I was at that Arrested Development show. And Wilco in ’03. And The Roots last year. Cheap Trick more times than I can count. There’s just more to see, more space to walk than just back and forth on Columbus, and far less turkey legs/ass cracks. Take Amtrak up, walk two miles to the grounds, buy the early-bird discount, grab an ear of roasted corn, and wander, listen, eat, and drink your way through the grill smoke and oddly pleasant smell of spilled beer. And all that food and beer are available...for cash. Not tickets. Enough said.

5. Cryptosporidiosis.

The entire town had the shits at exactly the same time. Think about that when you are complaining about the price of a Chicago city sticker.

Totally gross. Got nothing for that, but I do recall the nauseating stench of Alewives along the lakefront…

6. Pat McCurdy.

Sure, this is a stereotypical answer, but show me another bar singer who everyone knows and whose songs everyone can sing along to. If I dated a girl for longer than a month while living in Milwaukee, you can bet that we saw Pat McCurdy together.

I am happy to have broken through this stereotype.

7. County Stadium Bleachers.

The Brewers sucked. I probably went to 50 Brewers games when I lived there, and I can't name a single player from that era. But we could walk to the stadium, get a bleacher seat for $5, and hang out with people from the neighborhood. The old County Stadium was everything that Wrigley pretends to be.

The tears are welling and my lip is all quivery. I saw my first major league baseball game at County Stadium; against the Tigers in 1987. Kirk Gibson hit a home run in the first inning. When Cecil Cooper came up to bat, everyone yelled, “Coooo!” The sausage race only had three contestants (not that I don’t welcome Chorizo these days) and Bernie the Brewer actually slid down his slide from his chalet into a giant stein of beer after homeruns. And my politically incorrect Uncle Bill, in a less politically correct, and innocent, age said to the people in the row in front, whose arrival forced the relocation of my feet, “don’t sit there. He’s got the AIDS. You’ll get the AIDS from him. BEER!”

John and I drove up on a couple of nights the summers of 1999 and 2000. The new stadium was supposed to open in 2000 but a tragic crane accident delayed construction, so County hung around one more year. The walk from the car was long, an epic sensory journey. Much like Summerfest, the smells were to be savored – charring brats and foamy, parch-laying beer, spilled in moments of laughter; the sights of huge crowds under tents and around cars made us smile. The feel of dust, gravel, and broken glass crunching under your shoe soles as you walked into the hazy, smoky sunset towards the gate was as comforting as your mother’s arms. Inside, just as you walked up the stairs and came back into the evening air the experience just intensified, now all wrapped up tightly together in a blanket of organ music and crowd noise; a lazy, happy hum. You sat down in your $5 bleacher seat, with John and your Uncle Bob on either side, took a sip of your beer, a bite of your dog, and told Joe Carter to, “pull up your fucking pants!!!”

Today’s Miller Park is a Disney-esque abomination; a reality-TV version, with all its idealization of what supposedly makes a ballpark great. But nothing is really nostalgic about it at all. It’s a shopping mall, with restaurants, stadium clubs; showy, faux-golden age signs and lettering; that sort of thing. The lighting is terrible. The retractable roof is designed like a Japanese fan, so even when it’s open a great deal remains overhead to block out the sun. Combined with the high walls that support it, the entire field, even on a sunny Sunday afternoon, is in shade. Bud Selig missed the boat by not putting the stadium closer to downtown. The old highway spur north of downtown by the Bradley Center is gone now, and that huge space sits dusty and empty. Perhaps the team is a victim of bad timing.

But the biggest victim of all was Bernie the Brewer. He no longer has a beer stein to slide into; now just a spiral from one deck to another, onto a homeplate. The team didn’t want encourage binge drinking, we were told. This team named after beer, that plays in a stadium paid for and named by a beer company, with a 400 x 400 foot beer sign plastered over the outfield.

8. The Cute Girl At Rochambo That I Never Got The Nerve To Talk To.

My wife is going to kill me for this one, but if that blonde girl still lives in Milwaukee, it's worth living there on the off-chance that you might see her.

I am glad to say I talked to one pretty girl at the Up and Under one night, or I probably wouldn’t be writing all of this.

9. Cheese Farts.

The cultural significance of the cheese fart in Milwaukee is not to be underestimated. There isn't another city in America where people can tell you the brand and vintage of cheese that you were eating the night before by the flavor, aroma and "mouth feel" of your flatulence. As a corpulent and flatulent man, the honor bestowed to the cheese fart warms my heart.

As we say to our racing friends who head north of the border for some weekend warrioring, “Have fun storming The Castle!”

10. Jeffrey Dahmer's House.

It isn't there anymore, but it's still kind of cool to tell people that you lived a couple of blocks from him, and drove past the place once a day, while he still lived there.

My grandmother Morrissey (“Granny Mo”) used to brag about it like she knew him. She lived in Kenosha.

Glorious gloriousness

2010-03-03T13:42:00.004-06:00

Man, what a perfect day, and it's not even two o' clock, yet!

My thermometer reads 42, the sun is out, and I got 43 miles in before noon. Spring is coming, folks. Just hang on a couple more weeks. Friday and Saturday might be warm enough get us past the tipping point. Although if there is snow again in April, the noose is coming back out of the storage closet.

This afternoon gets even better. My bike racing team, XXX Racing - AthletiCo, has been invited to speak at the Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting at City Hall this afternoon. I'll be presenting from a brief powerpoint show and taking questions, positioning us as a resource for the Mayor's Bike 2015 plan.

After that, I'm booked at AthletiCo - XXX's title sponsor - for my first massage there in over a year. I know, I know. Funds have been tight lately, but my recent frugality is now allowing some of those needed luxuries.

It will feel good, and needed, after that ride today. Mark and I rolled out at 9:45 and turned north onto Damen into about a 15 mile an hour headwind. Tempo was the prescribed workout today, for me anyways. Once we got to Evanston, I gave it the gas and Mark was just along for the ride as I drooled all over my chin and jacket at 87 - 90% effort into that wind.

Trying to get my heartrate up was tough, however. Maybe it was the cold? It took forever to get it into the tempo zone, but my watts were there. It was like ripping off a scab: I finally got out of the saddle and rocked the bike through some bigger watts up one of the small Sheridan rollers, and then it was up and there to stay.

We turned around shortly before HP since even there we'd get more ride time than I had scheduled today. We filled our sails with that tailwind and roared back to Chicago.

For the geeks: just over 2,000kj for 2hrs, 27 minutes, including rolling in and out of the city in the small ring. Good work.

Man, I love days like this!

Thursday hate

2010-02-25T00:01:00.005-06:00

I've not been posting much lately while I've been in my dark, dank, moldy base-training torture cave, or alternatively chasing the sunrise across the country for a few hours of riding in only one layer...but the rage has been building up to the breaking point during my silent suffering, and will now erupt...

...all over your FACE.

Count down from 10, baby...

I've got a lot of problems with you people.

First up - the loud talkers at the gym. You guys are the male equivalent of women who sit around and talk about their periods or breast milk storage. "Yep! Just bein' a guy, here! Right Barry?!" [sniff!][adjusts crotch] "Laughin' real LOUD, talkin' 'bout WORK - how no one in my department 'cept me can do their JOBS..." [lifts up shirt to check out abs in the mirror] "...what a crazy BITCH my wife is...yep! A GUY at the GYM!" [sniff!][blows out hard so cheeks puff][sniff!] "Gimme a spot on the bench?!"

How about more lower body today, bird legs? You're more imbalanced than a hormonally-grown Tyson chicken. And save us some hot water and leave the conversation for the drive in on your bluetooth? Some of us had a real workout this morning, actually breathing too hard to talk while riding here 15 miles in the snow and could use a hot shower.

Next - hallway walkers who cut the left turn. We walk on the right in this country, like we drive, and while I know you wish to be all alone, other people do work here. So, don't come around that turn all the way over to the left, staring at your shoes, then act completely surprised when you run square into my chest. I will plant my feet and pick you like John Stockton.

People on Metra who act like Raymond Babbitt from "Rain Man" when you A) ask them to move from the reserved bike stowage seats or B) when you put your bike over theirs. "Forest Glenn. I'm getting off at Forest Glenn. Four stops. Won't make it. That's my bike. Forest Glenn." Then start beating their forehead with a clenched fist.

Hump day

2010-02-24T12:57:00.003-06:00

It might take a second to see what's going on here, but the sheer coincidence of it all is worth it (click on the picture to view the full size):

Chasing summer

2010-02-19T19:27:00.011-06:00

Saturday, February 13

Clowning around with our morning downtime; little chair, big beard, bigger book:

Still recovering from our close call with hypothermia on Friday and faced with the very real possibility of not being able to ride again from our present location, we decided to head even further south and salvage what we could from the trip.

Coach Randy's brother Dean was in Orlando, and once he got hold of him and his okay to crash there, we were on our way. A quick check online also netted us a criterium just 90 minutes away in Dade City.

I wasn't too sure if I wanted to race or not, or even drive that far. The weather looked pretty good in Savannah, too, just five hours away, instead of 10. But the consensus was definitely in favor of a free place to stay and a race, so I wasn't going to stand in the way of that.

The weather is looking up that night:

Near the GA/FLA border in Valdosta, we found a very popular and tasty BBQ place:

It was just a straight shot down I-75 from Atlanta to the Florida Turnpike, and then another 30 or so miles to Dean's place. It was 11 pm when we arrived. I'd joked that he'd better have a grapefruit tree. The last time I was in Florida we'd enjoyed fresh grapefruit every morning. Not 10 seconds after walking into the garage, Dean said, "I hope you like grapefruit! We just picked over 300 of them."

There were already air mattresses and blankets set out for us, and after settling on an action plan for the morning, we were all asleep pretty fast.

Sunday, February 14

We drove an hour and half west after the nine of us enjoyed a breakfast of oatmeal and fresh grapefruit. It was a gloriously sunny morning, not a cloud in the sky. Arriving in the parking lot and going through my prerace routine - getting dressed, checking my equipment - all seemed like a dream. It was the middle of February and, yet, here we were standing in sunshine as the temps climbed above 50 (yet all the locals had on coats and scarves!).

I was simultaneously nervous and lackadaisical regarding the race about to happen. I hadn't planned on doing my first competition for another month, and Friday's climbing was the first real intensity I'd had since cyclocross in early December. I knew these Floridians had been going for a month and some would already be on form. But, just being here was surreal enough, so why not throw in a race?

Getting ready:

It was a six-corner criterium, part of a weekend of racing; we'd missed the road race driving down yesterday. The corners came quickly, starting with a slightly downhill right onto jarringly rough cobbles, then right-right-left-right-right-start/finish.

First race of the year, over a month ahead of schedule and I was definitely off my game. I went straight to the back, and there I stayed; afraid to move up through the rapid-fire turns. Partly to blame was that I wasn't as diligent with my equipment check as I should have been; my needing-to-be-replaced left cleat came alarmingly loose early. I didn't want to have my foot come detached during a dig in front of the whole pack. So I sat in, grabbed wheels, worked on my cornering, enjoyed the unique training.

Tom finished the best out of us four, 13th. Ben, wearing our XXX Racing kit for the day, was 18th. Liam was 26th, but that finish is deceiving: he spent over 12 minutes off the front, chasing the 2-man break up the road. I was 24th, out 33 that finished.

Randy, Dave, Brian, Ed, and Seth raced the Pro/1/2 event, 85 minutes plus 5 laps. Ed and Seth, either fighting or recovering from sickness, dropped out before the halfway point. The pace looked very fast. We watched Randy and Dave sit in the rear lounge for most of the race while Brian was very active at the front, even after a crash split the front nine riders in a breakaway from the main group. And off they stayed. Oddly enough, our boys weren't the only familiar face in the race: Andy Crater, formerly of Milwaukee's Wheel and Sprocket team, now racing for a team out of Asheville, NC, was in the break.

With five to go, crafty Randy suddenly worked his way all the way to the front of the main group. Brian put in a couple more digs over the final laps to string it out, and then it was over. Crater, who'd sat in on the break the entire time needed only six turns of his biggest gear to come around the leadout for the win. Brian, Randy, and Dave all finished in the top 30 spots.

We regrouped for a picture, removing our knee and arm warmers as the temperature topped 60, and headed out on a training ride over a couple laps of yesterday's road race course.

Things got pretty heavy pretty fast. Ed, bummed about his early departure from the race, decided to get some major work in and spent almost all of our second 17 mile lap at the front. The first lap was at time trial pace - it doesn't take much to get the stampede going, just a couple of overeager pulls or leg openers off the front. A fun ride for sure and great workout.

We spent another night in Orlando with Dean and Ginger's hospitality, enjoying a delicious white bean chili.

Monday, February 15

The next morning was a 6:15 departure and breakfast at McDonald's. Randy and Ed had an evening flight out of Atlanta, so their ride today couldn't end any later than 10:30. We drove a bit to a state park along the turnpike, and headed out on a trail in the growing sunshine and rising temperatures (although at that moment, my fingers were ice cubes and we all had on knee and arm warmers:

Rolling out of the state park with Ed behind me, it was a bit chilly:

Randy and Ed said their goodbyes at 10ish after 40ish miles, and the rest of us turned around and Brian led three more laps on the state championship road race course, nearly breaking all of us off on two giant hills. Each were about twice the size of Spring Prairie's penultimate climb, and followed by a raging descent. The second had a round about at the end of it, which you could zoom right through, no brakes, with the right line.

The second lap was the hardest and I was dropped on both climbs. Almost all of us were dropped by Brian on one of the laps. It was easy to reconnect however, and the four and half hours we spent riding that sunny Monday in 71 degrees were easily worth all the driving and Friday's suffering in the snow.

Computer geekout moment:

4.5 hours ride time
87 miles
211 watts avg
280 normalized
318 TSS

Post ride - Dave, Brian, Liam, Tom, Ben, Seth, me:

Whoa. We were destroyed. And had a 10-hour drive back Lake Burton, GA to look forward to. Luckily, we had time for another stop at the Smoke 'n Pig, which actually put us in an even worse stupor:

...and the weather cooperated as well, with no snow until the following day. Tuesday morning, I was incredibly tired, and slept in while Newt, Tom, Dave, and Liam got a spirited hour to town and back. As they were returning, I headed out for a short 30 minutes to explore the neighborhood around the lake.

Soon, we were off in our loaded van returning to Chicago.

47 hours of driving. 14.5 hours of riding.

It was all worth it, and if the van showed up outside my apartment right now, I'd jump in without any hesitation. I still can't believe I was ever in Florida, riding in the sunshine in my shorts. I sit writing this, fighting a cold, hoping I can manage even 30 minutes on my trainer, dreading the forecast of almost a foot of more snow coming overnight and into tomorrow.

We found the devil in Georgia...

2010-02-17T18:12:00.013-06:00

...and hell had frozen over.

Thursday, 11:30 am

My fears that we'd have a delayed departure, completely understandable given the logistics of renting a van from O'Hare at 9 am and then picking up five more cyclists with bags and bikes, were proved unfounded. Seven dudes, - Dave, Tom, Ben, Newt, Liam, Seth, and myself - plus 14 bags and nine bicycles were rolling on Lake Shore Drive to a date with some epic riding in northeast Georgia on Friday morning.

For the last 10 days we'd all been feverishly checking the forecast for Clayton, GA and our emotions had been given a wild ride. The predicted weather waffled between gorgeous and sunny with 50 degree highs, to a depressingly familiar wintry mix and not seeing much above 40. We were relativistic about it, however, since the latest snowy blast just days before our departure had given us some perspective.

Cold weather sucks. Cold weather and flat terrain sucks even worse. The training potential in the mountains of Georgia would be worth the trip, no matter the weather. How bad could it be?

The trip south was very entertaining. A drunk diver just ahead kept us rapt through most of Indiana. Kentucky greeted us in spectacular fashion:

Backseat Tecmobowl on Liam's laptop:

We counted no less than five Family Inns along the two mile main street through Pigeon Forge, the hometown of Dolly Parton and the Vegas of the South, if minigolf were gambling. Gatlinburg is only slightly less rednecky and a thousand times more consumerist, with its Ripley's Believe it or Not museum, aquarium, and Hard Rock Cafe. Thankfully, it ends in blackness almost as quickly as it began, and soon we were winding through the solitude of Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the dark country roads beyond.

We arrived at the lodge shortly after midnight, with the time change. Brian was already there from Miami, and Coach Randy and Ed arrived within the hour from their flight to Atlanta. Newt had arranged for us to stay at his extended family's vacation home, and it was an absolute paradise. We'd all chipped in for his mom Jane's ticket down, and upon arrival in the rural dacha - replete with mounted trophies, a pool table, satellite TV, and 10 beds - dinner and homemade cookies were ready for us.

We chose our beds, unpacked enough to be ready to ride in the morning, and turned in late with the plan to ride the next day as long as it was dry.

Friday, February 12

We ate breakfast and watched the apocalypse unfold on The Weather Channel. 49 states received snow that day, or would. Pensacola. Oklahoma City. Dallas received 11.5 inches for God's sake. It was only a matter of time before it reached in our mountainous little hole just north of the Chattahoochee National Forest. But we figured it still couldn't be as bad as riding through Chicago's north burbs again, and up there was deeply covered in the white stuff.

Out we went.

It was very similar to my training rides in Asheville. Two lane roads, little traffic, run down shacks next to palatial plantation estates, ridges and hollers. Over the rollers we rode through the crisp winter air, dead grass and bare branches, ancient tractors and rusted cars filling in the rest.

One of the goals of coming to riding "vacation" like this, a camp, is to climb. The group can stay can together on the flatter parts at endurance pace, and on the mountains, it can be allowed to break up while everyone gets the intensity they are seeking - knives in the quads, flame in the lungs, tunnel vision. Then comes the descent, roller coaster fun, bombing corners as safely as you can - acquiring vital skills for fast criterium racing and cornering without brakes - then everyone regroups at the bottom, with no one dropped and lost in unfamiliar terrain.

First up was the famed Brasstown Bald, a stage-finish of the now-defunct Tour of Georgia. The gate was closed just after the turn off, but we decided we'd go until was no longer safe to descend what we'd just climbed. Soon we encountered a bit of snow, and maybe a half mile later the leaders stopped ahead due to sketchy gravel and other scree beginning to cover the pavement.

But I'd climbed well. Not sure if the others were holstering anything just then, but the gap hadn't grown very large at all. I'd pegged my heart rate about 90% and felt ready to go hard all the way to the top. Sorry to say that as far as we could go. Brasstown is one of the harder climbs in the country. Its last few hundred yards are in excess of 18% incline. It would've been great to add that climb as a notch in my seat post. But there we turned, and kept it calm and safe on the way back down. Even here it would be far too easy to slide while banking hard in a corner.

Before heading to Hogpen Gap, another climb in the old race, we stopped at a general store for water and fuel. The climb was steeper and longer than what we'd just previously done, still nothing like the torturous days in Asheville, and we soon encountered our first fresh snow. I was dropped by the group this time, with a more severe gap and came up eighth out of ten. Arriving at the gap at the top of the ridge, we stood there, incredulous:

The descent down took us below the snow immediately and the pavement was quality enough for full speed and barely any brakes. Good stuff. Dave, Tom, Newt, and Ben were working as a group ahead, while I was gapped slightly behind them. We reformed at the bottom, realized we were 50 something miles into an 87 mile ride, and decided to keep it together for remainder home. One last big climb remained.

As we curved up the ridge top the snow fall grew thicker, wetter, and heavier. Some of us were getting cold. Brian and Liam rode together just off the front of us, and a couple had fallen behind the pace on the way up. We regrouped at the top of the ridge and the snow was steadily falling with an ominous accumulation.

People began to shiver and question their ability to safely make it home. We all descended that last climb perilously in slick conditions, pumping the brakes while our faces were stung with the airborne ice and sleet that was forming in the lower elevation. At the meet up down there with core temperatures falling and stress levels rising, Ed and Seth decided to knock on the door of a house across the road and the Good Samaritans living there took them in. Brian bailed at the BP station, and Randy, in his ever-unflappable manner, announced we had 18 miles to go and led us off.

At first, the snow turned to mostly rain and I still felt strong and warm beneath my waterproof shell; but the spray from the road was soaking my winter bibs and gloves. Soon my fingers were going numb and when Randy said, after a seemingly interminable stretch of riding, that we still had 11 miles to go, I had to deliberately switch my mindset to do-or-die.

The sleet turned back to snow. Now I was was shivering. My fingers couldn't sense the shifters - not that it mattered. My chain was stuck in the 17 cog by ice accumulation. The brakes were caked in snow and dirty ice and would barely move. The descents were terrifying and the climbs treacherous, as the gearing was too much torque in the snow and the wheel skidded with each turn of the crank. A flat now would be disaster. There weren't many cars coming by now, and with my body struggling to keep its temperature up, I could be a half hour away from deciding to take a "nap" in a drainage culvert.

My only thought at this point was to keep Randy in sight, once he'd finally announced that we had two miles to go. Then I knew we'd made it. I was still terrified at the thought of those still behind me, and the slow, personal, shivering hell they were each experiencing. I began chanting "thank God, thank God," when I saw Randy signal right and turn off the highway, and soon I was following his tire track to the driveway of the lodge, dismounting my bike, and tromping in through the front door.

I couldn't get my gloves off fast enough. I was hesitant at the same time, afraid to see blackening fingers, but I knew that a stinging pain would follow the numbness in true frostbite. Instead I saw pale raisins and then immediately felt a burning agony as the blood began to flow back into them. Randy pulled off my shoes covers. My hands couldn't grasp the wet rubber soles and pry them over my cleats. Several times I doubled over shivering as my body sensed the warmer temps inside and began to expend all the energy necessary to try and elevate my body heat.

I jumped immediately into the shower after frantically getting the rest of my clothes off. I felt waves of warmth rippling through my limbs and up my neck. As I stood there with rivulets of hot water flowing over my eyelids, cheeks, and lips, Liam, who'd just arrived with Dave, Ben, and Tom, came running in asking for my camera, even though Tom was shivering uncontrollably in the next room. Still, he had a point:

His camp name was "Jedediah."

Tom eventually stopped shivering. We recovered that night over homemade meatloaf and veggies, and then ice cream and beer, and began to discuss our plan for the next day. More snow was forecast and we were deliberating heading south.

Next up, racing and riding in Florida. To avoid keeping you in too much suspense, it didn't suck:

Through a snowy daze, the Devil awaits

2010-02-09T16:26:00.010-06:00

First, allow me the obligatory apology for going so long without a really substantive bicycling post. Although, substantive is pretty relative, so even yet, you may remain disappointed...if you even care.

Today was a productive one for staying at home in the snow. Early work done, via telecommuting, a lunch time session on the trainer (my single-leg drills are up to 2'30" on each side now), and I just got back from Target with about $40 worth of Clif Bars for my upcoming riding vacation to Georgia on Thursday. Of course, there was time for play, too:

(dig the line of drool on his chin!)

Winter is quickly running its course and I almost can't believe I'll be starting my first race in six weeks. New Year's Day I was far from confident I'd be ready when the time came. Time to ride in the shadows of the pros along the shaded and damp mountainous routes of the now departed Tour of Georgia. To see how the previous six weeks of training have changed my body, given me strength, improved my mettle to hang with eight others; stronger, lighter, faster guys than I. To hear only my own ragged breathing, to keep pushing though the heavy scent of the wet pines in the February air.

But I am ready. I am much faster than I was at this point last year, and I am able to work much harder as well.

For example, when I first looked at how my training plan was to progress over the coming weeks, I dreaded the tempo workouts. Tempo is high-end endurance pace, the most amount of work you can put out for a sustained period. Any higher, and your body can't intake any more oxygen, and thus starts pulling energy stores from your muscles, which is why they begin to hurt. This is known as your anaerobic threshold.

While actual maximal oxygen uptake is physiologically set almost in stone, training can increase your relative threshold in large amounts, that is, the amount of discomfort you can tolerate during any sustained effort. Not that it means anything to most of you, but my average watts per workout are much increased it seems over last year. Three and four hour rides that at one time would've seen averages of 180 or 190 watts are now coming in at 210 or 220 watts. And my recent tempo workouts, which I have really never done before, have consistently been in the 260-270 watt range at 90 minutes apiece. This is about a 3.18 ratio of watts/kg, if you're keeping track. Not world class by any means, but not bad in February for an hour and half, the whole time just below the edge of pain.

As much as the recent work has contributed to my current fitness, I believe I am finally beginning to see the fruits of my long term commitment to the bike, firmly at this level since mid-2007. Last year I raced more and harder than I ever have and took part in cyclocross for the first time. This sport is cumulative, meaning the hours training over your life count for much more than the hours over the last month. You must be incredibly patient. And while I still gained my customary 15 pounds during November and December, it has quickly come off and dropping further still, not only from the bike, but because of the work I've done in the weight room, as well.

I hired one of the personal trainers at my work's gym to give me lifting programs for December and January, and will do so again once back from Georgia. The initial sessions to show me the workout, as well as subsequently on my own, have been brutal. The other members watch warily as I throw myself around the gym from station to station, drenched in sweat while contorting and hopping about with dumbbells and machines, not stopping for more than 30 seconds over an entire hour. Its been ridiculously hard, but results are results and the final push to the beginning of the racing season will be worth it.

A few of the guys I'll be riding with this weekend train with a coach who adds a lot more intensity much earlier in the year. As such, I expect the initial pace up the climbs to be fast and painful. Mentally it will be hard not to crack early and lose contact. However, I know I have the solid base miles on which to recover, and the added tempo of this winter has given me the confidence to push further and hang on longer. Possibly, I'll just make it through the worst of it and stay with them for a glorious ride to the top.

It will be a great way to top off the winter, and finally stick some knives in my legs. My coach's training philosophy is more old school, adding intensity later in the year after many base miles, and racing into full speed by summer. It is ideal for me this year, as I'd like to avoid the burnout that plagued me after racing so much this past May and June, and to be flying for the championships in August and September.

I've realized that in order to have fun at this sport, you can't think too much, and finally getting the Cat 4 monkey off my back has showed me this. You simply ride lots of miles, and read and watch lots of cycling. Then come Race Day, have fun, and leave as many calories as you can and all your regrets in front of the finish line. Results are relative. Get the most out of them with your preparation.

The view from house where we'll be staying in Lake Burton, GA, just north of the Chattahoochee National Forest:

Happy Friday

2010-02-05T09:17:00.002-06:00

"Strange was the only dog I’ve ever known who could belch at will. It was his idea of high comedy. If my mother had some of her friends over for a game of pinochle, Strange would slip into the house and slouch over to the ladies. Then he would emit a loud belch. Apparently, he mistook shudders of revulsion for a form of applause, because he would sit there on his haunches, grinning modestly up at the group and preparing an encore. “Stop, stop!” he would snarl, as I dragged him back outdoors. “They love me! They’ll die laughing at my other routine! It’ll have them on the floor!” I will not speak here of his other routine.

"In general appearance, Strange could easily have been mistaken for your average brown-and-white mongrel with floppy ears and a shaggy tail, except that depravity was written all over him. He looked as if he sold dirty postcards to support an opium habit."

---Patrick F. McManus, "Skunk Dog"

The importance of seemingly minor details...

2010-02-03T16:24:00.003-06:00

...such as the color of your bicycle seat:

Thanks to Nikki for the find...

Thursday Hate: SoTU edition

2010-01-27T23:05:00.006-06:00

Sam Alito. Did you notice how every other one of your colleagues remained stone-faced by Obama's typical and completely expected condemnation of the campaign finance decision handed down by the Supreme Court last week? It's called "restraint." As a "conservative," you should probably look it up.

In the camera shot for Bob McDonnell's Republican response was a "rainbow of diversity," as Brian Williams called it after. Four people flanking the Virginia governor: two men, two women, including a black and an Asian. I would've loved to have been there for the pre-pro. "No, no, no...can we make the women diagonal in the camera?"

McCain's crabby sniping. We could all read your lips. "Blaming Bush...blaming Bush." Yeah, after only a year in office following probably the worst president in history, I think he still has carte blanche on that angle. Deal with it. It was certainly the foundation of your 2004 campaign, and you weren't exactly begging Bush for an endorsement in 2008, either.

But the biggest stinker of the night was Obama shouting the populist line, "Jobs are our number one priority!" Then why have you been wasting almost an entire year on healthcare "reform", with virtually no action on trying to get Americans actually healthier? Michelle's lip service to childhood obesity isn't going to do squat when former McDonald's and Kraft CEOs are running the Department of Agriculture. If we don't get healthier, demand on the system will not decrease. That is what is broken with healthcare. Fix that, and then maybe we can afford to insure the entire country. Anything less amounts to enabling our destructive lifestyle.

Hump Day

2010-01-26T21:42:00.011-06:00

There were two dogs with us the night we went coon hunting. One was an old hound, veteran of a thousand campaigns, who knew what we were up to and who wasted no time in idle diversions. The other was a puppy, brought along to observe and learn; to him the star-sprinkled sky and the deep dark woods and the myriad scents and the lateness of the hour and the frosty ground were intoxicating. The excitement of our departure was too much for his bowels. Tied in the truck, he was purged all the way over to Winkumpaw Brook and was hollow as a rotten log before the night was well under way.

--- EB White, "Coon Hunt"

----------

I, too, have a dream...

The most telling statistic here is that teenage drivers licenses peaked in 1978 at 12 million, and now stand at less than 10. This got to be effecting the bottom line here. How wonderful to read this. As fucked up as the world can be, these are exciting times we live in, to be standing on the cusp on such massive change.

Thanks to I Go With Fergus for the link.

----------

I have resolved this year to train harder, smarter, and more focused than ever before, yet when it comes to racing, I only plan on having fun. After last year's near-meltdown in Peoria, I've realized I put too much pressure on myself as an amateur athlete. While the stated, concrete goal is of course racing as a Category 2 cyclist by the end of the season, I won't consider it a failure if I don't make it having raced without regret, knowing I had and used all the physical tools at my disposal along the way.

I went to a New Year's Resolution party shortly after the holiday, and made, among friends, what's known as a visionboard. You might call it a collage, which it is, but the truth of it lies in the process of making it. From Patty360:

3. Make a Vision Board

I have a serious obsession with vision boards. It started a few years ago when I made one at a New Year’s Day party and by the Eve of the following year, EVERYTHING on the board came true. Now it’s a tradition of mine to make a board with each new year and make smaller specific boards to help create positive experiences in other areas of my life (starting a new job, planning a party, designing a wardrobe). What is a vision board? Short version (this deserves its own post): Vision boards utilize The Law of Attraction and are a functional tool to keep your affirmations and visions for the future present in your thoughts. The idea is to create a collage using words or pictures that evoke positive emotions associated with the future you want to live. It allows you to live the future *now* as if you are already there. Some people start with a list of goals they want to obtain and then look for images to capture those. I find it works better to sift through pictures in magazines and pull out what speaks to me and look for themes and patterns from there. This allows the subconcious to detect what the concious mind overlooks. There are times when I don’t even know what an item means when I add it on the board, but I always discover the meaning in the future experiences I have. Give it a try, with no expectations, the first timers often experience the best results.

I have to say my first attempt wasn't totally subconscious, but I made an effort to simply identify the imagery that spoke to me. No surprise that, among many other themes, there are two pictures of Frank Schleck on my board. Success on the bike is a big one. I left the room on sort of a high from all of the positive energy in there. It was a wonderful feeling to be able to take a peek at what I was capable of achieving.

After bringing my creation home and hanging it on my wall, I just went about my January, letting it speak to me, and within days, I'd begun to see why the bike was important to me, how I was blocking myself from having fun, and how the bike will continue to be a part of my life for years to come. I believe this is the first time in my life I have ever given myself such a personal, self-motivating goal. And I find it amusing, even astounding, yet not surprising upon realization, that this approach has eluded me nearly all of my life.

It is no coincidence that I have not missed a workout since, that I feel almost mid-season strong with much form to come, and that I am looking forward to racing more than ever.

The lesson? Publicly state your goals. Sharing them with people who care will help you stay on target.

Happy Friday

2010-01-22T12:03:00.004-06:00

Thursday Hate

2010-01-21T06:32:00.004-06:00

Adults who drink milk.

People who fart in yoga class.

Massholes.

iPhones at trivia night.

"Black, please...Black...Uh, no...BLACK...This has cream in it."

http://boingboing.net/2009/05/19/moist-and-other-word.html

Hump Day

2010-01-20T08:18:00.008-06:00

Lookin' like 1994 around here today. And if the Democrats keep it up through the summer we'll definitely be traveling back in time.

I'm not surprised in the least by Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts. To all of you that are shocked and maybe depressed about it: what did you think would be the reaction to the extremely partisan healthcare debate going on in Congress right now? Guess what? There's more coming this fall. This is what happens when you ram through legislation and mistake a landslide electoral victory for a mandate when the popular vote was still razor thin.

Obama's and the Congress' monumental sin was asking a yes or no question on "change" and not bothering to clarify "what" or "why."

Not that I care in the least. Neither party has ever learned that lesson, nor will they ever. I don't understand the emotional see-sawing of people from election to election. It's beyond annoying to have to deal with people's gloating or moaning after elections. The electorate is largely nothing but a flock of sheep staring at the greener grass on the other side of the fence every four years.

What happened after Newt Gingrich's 1994 coronation as the leader of the GOP and their sanctimonious "Contract With America"? Bill Clinton destroyed Bob Dole in the 1996 election and went on to become one of the most popular presidents of all time. Then, of course, in 2000 George W. Bush was going to save us from Democratic excess, in 2006 and 2008 the Congress and Obama were going to save us from Republican excess...[making jerk off motions]and now it's again come full circle [/making jerk-off motions].

I for one, am glad about Scott Brown's election, for two reasons:

First, it will put the brakes on the partisan healthcare reform now being crafted in Congress, the very existence of which is fomenting such dissent in the famously dark blue state. Not one goddamn word is being said about getting Americans healthier. About throwing out the leaders and powerful influence of "food" corporations from the Department of Agriculture and our national food policy. Without concrete actions to get Americans actually healthier, the demand on the system will not abate, and neither will costs. Therefore any attempt to "reform" it is only further turning it into a disease-management system perpetuating our chronic ailments and obesity and making as much profit as possible on that misery.

It's called Capitalism, people - on both sides of the equation. Meanwhile the US government continues to subsidize the industrial overproduction of food - primarily corn and soybeans - to the tune of more than 3,500 calories per American per day. And the marketing and lobbying efforts of the above mentioned companies are making sure those extra calories are purchased and consumed.

Second, this guy might just catch lightening in a bottle like Sarah Palin did just over a year ago, and hopefully has the brains to actually do something with it; not to mention distract the sheep from that other dumbass. While I really do feel the US President is not much more than a figurehead at which the sheep's' anger is redirected whenever necessary, if this country is going to have a Republican president, we could not do worse than Sarah Palin.

Chicago Symphony - The Rite of Spring

2010-01-18T13:31:00.006-06:00

With David Robertson - music director of the St. Louis Symphony - guest conducting, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra took the stage this weekend in tribute to Director Emeritus Pierre Boulez and some of his favorite composers to celebrate his 85th birthday. The program included Olivier Messiaen - Les offrandes oubliées ("The forgotten offerings"), (1930), Alban Berg's Violin Concerto (1935), and the inimitable Igor Stravinsky's , Le Sacre du Printemps, ("The Rite of Spring"), (1913), perhaps the most important classical work of the 20th Century. Its premiere was extraordinarily controversial and it is widely regarded as the birth of modern music.

I was held fairly rapt by the Messiaen, which I'd never heard before. The single movement work is in A-B-A form: a haunting chorale between the winds and strings sandwiches an intense and cacophonous middle section showcasing the brass. I have never been a much of a fan of the CSO strings since I've been listening to them live (1997 when I moved here) but they really had a soft touch tonight. I hung on every chord change, surprised right to the end. After listening to the above You Tube link, however, I must say that the live performance I heard doesn't match the edge and fireworks you'll hear there in the B section.

The Berg also left me wanting more. Not to say it wasn't greatly entertaining - I was also experiencing this piece for the first time as well. Kyoko Takezawa was a capable soloist, and the concerto itself was not the austere, atonal piece I was expecting. It was actually quite tender, if a bit ham handed towards the end.

After the intermission I sat down in my seat with a lot of anticipation. Rite of Spring is one of my favorite pieces and the CSO is known for playing it well. In fact, I'd most recently seen it performed at Orchestra Hall two years ago, staged with Hubbard Street Dance. Le Sacre's history is steeped in legend ever since its 1913 Paris premiere caused an infamous riot.

Anticipation became excitement that grew through the tenuous opening strains of the bassoon and other winds, only to peter out and die as the metronomic rhythm began in the strings. It should've been savage and brutal, yet was only anemic. This continued throughout the performance, with only flashes of brilliance revealed, usually in the brass. The back row still has it and always has, although I am sad to say Dale Clevenger (principal horn) is getting noticeably old. The percussion truly stood out here, the bass drum in particular. The primality that was missing elsewhere roared forth in the famous bass drum roll, and many times she carried the entire orchestra on her shoulders.

The entire performance was still very good, but not great as is almost counted on. Still, not really the group's fault here, I'm going to venture. Much of the time, Robertson seemed to just be beating time, content to the let kids run the class room, and as expected, the quality suffered a bit. The CSO is famous for bullying guest conductors, and it is no coincidence that the orchestra's best years (although it is still ranked #5 in the world by Gramophone) were under the totalitarian regimes of Fritz Reiner and Sir Georg Solti.

Overall, not the best performance I've seen down on Michigan Avenue, but individual stars did shine brightly, enabled by a smart program highlighting the trailblazing greats of 20th Century music.

Thursday Hate

2010-01-14T00:01:00.000-06:00

I hate this guy.

http://twitter.com/thecarwhisperer

Really? A used car salesman? With a "Simpsons" avatar? Wearing a BLUE TOOTH HEADSET?!

I even have more followers than him and I just sent my first fucking tweet tonight.

fuck.

Oops, I tweeted...excuse me!

2010-01-13T22:20:00.006-06:00

Hi there! If you've come via Twitter, welcome to The Car Whisperer: Bicycling, Poetry and Other Bullshit.

I actually have a lot more to say than that, but I'd say that's a good representation of what you'll find here, on my personal blog.

I am a competitive cyclist.

I follow politics.

I am a poet.

And I hate you. Probably.

This should be enough keep you busy for a while. If you'd like even more, I've just started a new food blog, "Big city. Little plate." where I am documenting my experiment with eating only locally produced food.

Big city. Little plate.

2010-01-11T23:04:00.000-06:00

Now I've done it.

Thursday Hate

2010-01-07T00:01:00.004-06:00

Spinning class where you are the only one sweating.

Spinning class with southern rock.

Spinning class instructors who look like a fat Ronnie at age 45 and clad head to toe in Livestrong.

How the hell do you do push ups on the bike? And I'm sure as hell not going to do push ups on the floor. I'm here to ride a bike asshole. I'll lift weights in the gym.

Mighty fine 2009: the best that I could do

2010-01-03T20:41:00.011-06:00

As I searched for the right words to begin this post, I was heading into the final sunrise of the year at 30,000 feet, having left the place of my birth far behind me. Looking back on 2009 I was at a loss to find any accomplishments that were truly momentous. Most were relative to the bike obsession only, achievements that are meaningless to anybody with hairy legs. I felt an immediate compulsion to declare 2010 the Year of Getting Something done. However, upon arrival in Chicago that night, amid good friends and wine, I realized that I'd already done it. I had started the year utterly alone in searching for deeper meaning, and that night I was ending it with new found purpose and a positive spirit to guide me there.

365 days earlier, New Year’s Day began epically enough, with a full body hangover and a kitchen that hearkened back to my college days standards of cleanliness. The night before we’d hosted a 12-course dinner to ring in the New Year and judging by the all the empty dishes I set about ignoring, it was a smashing success. I smiled briefly at the empty Jell-O shots on the floor.

First things first: coffee and recovery while I waited for Katy to wake up. The Dark Knight got me through until it was time to clean up the mess.

It wasn’t as bad as it looked and we mowed through the worst of the baked-on grease, dried cheese, and heavy pots pretty quickly. While she went back to bed, I settled into the remainder of the Winter Classic from Wrigley Field, smiling as NBC tried to drown out the chant of “Detroit sucks!” from the raucous crowd, in front of me a huge plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, and a gourmet Bloody Mary using the leftovers from last night, including the prime rib and stilton cheese. I found myself amidst the thick of an ice cold day where I'd not see the outside or even so much as a pair of pants, keeping my thoughts to myself as I watched movie after movie and delayed reality as much as possible.

And kept them to myself I did, all the way to the move out in late March which was as life-changing a day as I had ever experienced. Jack and I walked the mile and a half to my new apartment in Irving Park on a cool, spring evening at sunset and I wondered where else I was headed. I'd dreaded this day ever since I agreed to move in with Katy - not that I'd known it would end this way, but that it could - and here I was expecting the worst was still around the corner.

But what greeted me instead was clarity and simplification. Let me back up…

I was carrying with me, and still do, a heavy load of guilt for allowing my obsession with the bike to put such a gulf between me and the people I'd called friends since nearly 1999. Yet the late nights filled with cigarettes and alcohol no longer excite me because my mornings are much more important now. Would I rather wake up to nausea and a headache or the giddy anticipation of a soul-cleansing, five hour ride? I didn’t know what else to do than to make those relationships work as best they could under the circumstances while embracing the new friends I have.

But this last relationship wasn’t going to work under any circumstances. And moving into another apartment in less than a year had me second-guessing how important cycling competitively really was to me.

But that night as I walked into my new home, I looked down at Jack, who was of course looking right back at me. I then saw that our relationship was now another level completely. Back on January 1st we’d been contemplating sending him back to rescue…he just wasn’t working out…fitting in, we told ourselves…but in the end I just couldn’t do it. It wasn’t fair to him, he is just being himself: a hyper, food-driven, inquisitive, loves-to-cuddle 30-pound Rottweiler-terrier mix.

And so I took him with me. By making that conscious choice to include him in my new life changed everything. With him now the central focus, and moving next door to my friend who owned the building I was living in, I quickly became part of a close group of friends, all part of the neighborhood, all with dogs.

I then realized my time off of the bike was much more important as the time on it, and as soon as I did, I began reaping the harvest from a newly balanced approach to life. But it wasn't just me - suddenly I was among friends who's schedule and pace of life jibed with mine. My neighbor Mark is a bikemate who comes on my Saturday rides with me, and the rest, Tina, Susan, Rob, Cari and Scott, Kayla and Janucz are always up for a backyard hang or beers and Mexican food at El Potosi down the street.

It's not that nobody else in my life has been this for me - I know I must sound ungrateful to anyone else reading this - but the timing just couldn't be better.

As Tina said at Susan's New Year's Eve party, "Brian, of course you've done something this year! Look around you - you have a posse now!" And Rob drove it home the following Saturday: "you're the glue, man. Before, I never really hung out at our neighborhood joints, and we certainly didn't do much like the dinner parties you throw." Indeed, the week I moved in I made a knockout risotto Milanese and invited them all over to stand in my kitchen and eat it. Nothing more formal than that. We were up until two and I put 15 wine bottles into the recycling. I repeated with rabbit stew the week before Thanksgiving.

It was a really warm feeling just then, to realize I have such supportive friends who are on such a similar wavelength as I. The guilt and regret are still there, always will be, but I have to go with what works best.

In 2009, I think I found my soul. Imagine what I can do in 2010 with that.

Now, a look back , 2009's Top 20:

1. Quality time.

2. ...and then going too far.

3. The new whip.

4. Leaving for San Luis Obispo (and more).

5. Back to Mt. Mitchell.

6. The breakthrough.

7. Almost...

8.. Sherman Park.

9. Jack goes mobile.

10. Tandemonium.

11. Shut up and ride, asshole.

12. My favorite race of the season.

13. 500th post.

14. Charm City invasion.

15. My first cross race.

16. Party pooper.

17. Race day hooky.

18. Stew.

19. The smile.

20. Home for Christmas.

Dateline: Anchorage

2009-12-29T01:38:00.009-06:00

Saturday we had a reunion of sorts, in downtown Anchorage at a bar, the F Street Station.

Craig Hasund, who played saxophone and oboe with me in high school band and the Anchorage Youth Symphony (1987-91) and his wife, Rena:

...and Mark Edwards, the big surprise of the night (he sat behind me in chemistry, 1989-90):

My brother with Sam Gray, also a saxophonist in the East High band:

And Jimmy Egan doesn't look a day older:

Later on that night one of my best friends, Erik Wegscheider - clarinet: AYS, All-state, All-Northwest band, showed a bit later. He actually called me from his truck as he drove past to tell me he wasn't coming in and I didn't blame. It was asses to elbows in there, some sort fire code was surely being broken, so we stopped in at Anchor Bar, attempted to find an open bar at the Captain Cook Hotel (Anchorage's answer to Chicago's Penninsula), and then to the old standard, Humpy's, for the final round of the evening...

The next day my brother took us to the firing range in Birchwood to pop a few rounds on his AK-47 and Glock .40 S&W:

Anchored down in Anchorage

2009-12-26T19:34:00.016-06:00

I arrived in Anchorage late on Christmas Eve night. In fact, with the three hour gain, my body time was Christmas. It had been almost four years since last coming home, but walking into the house I'd first moved into before the 6th grade felt almost routine.

Christmas day was one of the best ever. Very few presents - I bought the wine for dinner, we all got socks, but Mom bought a Wii for the house, and I found out my brother had quit smoking! An old family friend came over to eat with us, and we had lots of good wine over prime rib and uproarious conversation, before heading downstairs to play a few hours of Wii tennis and bowling.

The backyard:

Today Mom and I went skiing on the truly world-class network of urban trails that Anchorage residents enjoy. My stepdad's wooden skis, handmade in Norway, are probably older than me but with the appropriate wax applied, they glide along just as well as the high-end composite models.

Madison Way at high noon in December - that's looking straight north (the sun never really gets above the southern horizon this time of year):

Just a right and a left turn and three-quarters of mile from the house is the access point to Chester Creek Trail:

One of the many underpasses on the ski trails in Anchorage:

We stopped at West Chester Lagoon, near the head of the Coastal Trail, and watched the ice skaters:

Long story short? Keep your distance:

A view of Cook Inlet and Mt. Susitna (Sleeping Lady) from the Anchorage Coastal Trail:

Informational sign at Earthquake Park, where the entire neighborhood of Turnagain Heights slid into Cook Inlet during the March 27, 1964 Earthquake. At 9.2 on the Richter Scale, it was the largest seismic event ever recorded in North America:

At Earthquake Park:

Downtown Anchorage from the Coastal Trail:

Needs no further explanation:

Three hours and 11.5 miles, it was a great workout. We are about to enjoy some leftovers from last night - I am starving - and then my brother and I are headed downtown to meet up with some high school friends we've not seeing in quite a long time over some beers.

Until tomorrow...

Thursday Hate - Early Christmas Edition

2009-12-23T00:01:00.009-06:00

The Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

First, most Christmas music sucks. You can really only listen to it so many times, even Vince Guaraldi; so, I'll be pretty adamant here, there is no "great" Christmas music. Therefore, nothing is more teeth-grindingly grating than having to put up with people who rave about the "moving experience" of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and how it truly "captures" the holiday spirit. These are the same people who still think there are honest politicians left, or that the Whole Foods frozen dinners are good for you just because they say, "organic" on the box.

If pigeons are the current sad state on the evolutionary trajectory of the Velociraptor, the TSO are the natural progression from 80's hair rock. Although having said that, virtually nothing has changed since the 1989-91 era of arena rock, with their platinum blond straightened hair, petticoats and pirate shirts, and their Jackson Flying V knockoffs being wielded as though at a renaissance faire. You know that pose: where they lean way back and hold on to the guitar as if it's going to fly out of their hands at any minute while they stare at it, like they can't believe what they're hearing...

People who would otherwise call Tony Iommi and Randy Rhodes "noise" will pay good money to sit through nearly two hours of heavy metal cliches; giving their warmed-over religious Christmas favorites unneeded gravitas in order to feel cultured. Ugly sweater parties all over American suburbia will be accompanied - OH, so unironically - by these bland, Wonderbread collections.

Of course if you took these same people to some truly exciting "culture", such as Stravinsky (CSO, January 2010) or Mozart's Marriage of Figaro (Lyric Opera, March 2010), they'd fall asleep on you faster than a freshman who's just rubbed one out on the back porch couch after a frat party.

And that's a wrap for the Hate this year. It was certainly a rage-inducing 2009. I'm off to Alaska on Thursday, so stay tuned for a more heartwarming range of posts, such as pictures of frozen moose poop along the Anchorage ski trails, or accounts of my parents getting drunk and putting on some TSO; and be sure not to miss my 4th annual "Best that I could do" recap of the year.

Happy Holidays! Lots of love,

The Car Whisperer.

Anchorage (a love letter to home)

2009-12-22T10:58:00.011-06:00

(with apologies to Carl Sandburg)

You were once the crossroads of East and West
Keeper of the gateway between new and old
Off in the corner, yet noticed when needed
At the edge of forever by our own fingernails.

I knew no differently: you were me and I was you
And together in the snow we found our place in the world
While the rest of them twisted and burned in roiling water
We simply crunched past on our frozen, quiet way.

They say you are cold and I know this
Your pitch black mornings let me stay under the blankets
Or to contemplate the day’s start - still so far off - in a quiet kitchen
They tell me you are dark, and I nod and smile
The miserly light that you offer drives me out into the snow
To risk fingers and toes before returning to the fire
They wag that you are lonely, and I agree
We are made from your expanse, meant to return
And being lost amid your empty whiteness makes us thankful

Each time away grows longer and farther
A remembered breath, misty and faint in the air,
Grown whispier in my warmer, later, lighter days
Than when it came frozen from my reddish cheeks.

Each time I’ve returned you’ve become more like them
Busier
Brighter
Trying to belong
And not nearly so cold. Just like me.

We have aged.

But there are times when we can go back
To wake up in darkness, laugh in twilight
And crunch on past through the cold and quiet
While they writhe and squirm and ask for help.

I’ve arrived in search of your comforting clutch
And to hear your heart beat beneath the snow.

Thursday Hate - Dr Grammar

2009-12-17T00:01:00.003-06:00

You're. Your. One is a contraction, the other possessive.

"You are (you're) a piece of shit who deserves the death penalty for using your car to kill an innocent bystander in a road rage incident."

----------

Loose. Lose. Two completely different words.

"You will have loose bowels for the rest of your life once you lose your (eh?!) virginity in prison."

----------

It's. Its. Again, one is a contraction, the other a possessive. If you write it with the apostrophe, sound out both words, "it is" and if it doesn't fit, remove the apostrophe, like so:

"It's going to be great seeing your cowardly ass shanked in the exercise yard when one gang or another gets its hands on you. Rot in hell, I hope you die from a perforated colon."

Yours in hate and education,

The Car Whisperer.

The Unified Theory of Facebook

2009-12-14T19:05:00.002-06:00

1st Law: People who didn't know you/didn't talk to you/made fun of you/beat you up everyday in high school will add you as a "friend."

2nd Law: Any status update that is commented on enough devolves into nothing more than Big Lewbowski quotes.

3rd Law: The first time you "hide" a friend's status updates will be to block the messages from "Mafia Wars" and "Farmville.

4th Law: Posting an "I lost my cell phone" event is a really great way to ensure a smaller contact list on your new phone.

5th Law: You will have one friend who only posts DJ status updates. And you will hide him.

6th Law: You will find out that people you otherwise like are stridently Republican/Democrat.

7th Law: Your mom will be a "mutual friend" of your ex.

8th Law: You will be tagged in a monstrously embarrassing picture without your permission, and by the time you see it, 27 people will have already commented on it.

9th Law: At least one friend a month will leave only "is..." as their status update, in an attempt to be "deep" when they're afraid to just not have anything to say.

10th Law: You will want a dislike button very soon.

Hump Day

2009-12-09T21:44:00.003-06:00

A rudderless boat on a cloudy day
On an aimless drift through a crowded bay.

Rusty steel and angry horns
Menacing bows like threatening thorns

But do not lose faith in such a place
For the sun will show like a beautiful face,

And lead you out from amid the blare
To follow that smile to quiet, sweet air.