Happy Thanksgiving folks. Hope everybody gets out on a ride and then stuffs themselves. In that order!

I'm back....

..the fog has lifted. Blah,blah, blah. Actually still sort of got some brain fog going on. Trying to decide if I should give a go at the Southern Cross in January. From what I hear it's a blast and how can 8000 feet of climbing in 50 miles be anything but a good time? Hmmmmmm...deisions, decisions.

'Nuff said.

I'm still alive. Anything worth knowing about my life (which, let's face it, aint much) is over on Facebook. Befriend me if your on there and not my F.B.B. already.

No excuses....

...none. Nada. I'm not going to go through the usual.."I've been to busy to blog" stuff. The honest reason is...I really can't think of any way to make commuting to work, work, doing push ups and sit ups, and riding my bike sound intresting to me. Much less to the 3.6 people who read my drivel. All is not bleak in my world though.

In a little over 2 weeks is the Cowbell Challenge. This will be my first race of the year. I know a mid pack finish is the best I can hope for, but still, I cannot wait. I love everything about this stuff. The atmosphere, hanging out with people who think like I do about bikes and all things biking, all of it.

I've dropped 10 pds in the past few months. Thanks again Namrita. Seriously, she took this nutrtition thing, something I've always made as complicated as calculus in my head, and made it really simple. If your looking for any help or advice on this subject. E-mail her. Now. Go on. I'll wait. http//www.55nineperformance.com/

Commuting to work still rocks. Despite rainy mornings or nights, rude drivers, some unseasonably cold mornings and such, it is still one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Hope everyone is doing well. Have a good one.

Slow times

Not a lot going on in Allanworld. Still commuting to work by bike, which is a lovely thing. Definitely helps the mood. I've started the 100 Pushup Challenge. MY upper body strength is pathetic so I'm going old school and reverting back to my military days by doing a ton of push ups. It's a 7 week plan that builds you up to doing 100 consecutive push ups. It's pretty sweet. They also have a 200 Sit up and 200 Squat plan. I'm starting the sit up plan today and thinking about throwing the squat plan in on alternate days of the push ups. Anybody who might be intrested can check it out at http://hundredpushups.com. You can link to the sit up and squat plans from the sidebar on the left.

The weather is finally starting to come around. We've had a good bit of rain lately but we've really needed it so it's cool.

The Pisgah Mountain Bike Stage Race is a go!!!!!! Now to ove heaven and earth and whatever else I've gotta do to sign up for it, train for it, and all other things for it.

Hope everybody is having a great week. Later folks.

Rants from the road

I'm sure this is a rant and a subject that others have noticed before but, here goes. Why is it that a persons sense of self importance increases with direct proportion to the size of the vehicle they drive? It seems the bigger the SUV or truck the more of a hurry they seem to be in. Is it because it takes them so long to back the boats they drive out of their driveway or do they honestly feel that since they have the biggest gas hog on the road that everybody else has to get out of their way? I'm pretty sure that some of them aim their side mirrors at me. Obviously these people are really in a hurry. Heck, the lady who brushed past me a few days ago didn't even have her kid strapped into the car seat. After she shot by me I noticed her young son watching me from his car seat. The bad thing? He was turned around, facing backwards while kneeling on the seat. Sheesh.

F'n real world

Well...it's been a few years but the random hand of life has decided to meddle with me. Found out a few days ago that my truck was going to need some major engine work done. Apparently Chevrolet decided to make things real easy for mechanics by locating the oil pump in a place that requires the engine be totally removed to replace it. Which means....mucho dinero. So..there goes the 1st half of this summers fun budget. Hopefully I'll be up and going budgetwise by June for the Cowbell. I was supposed to do the 6 Hours of Warrior Creek in about 3 weeks but it's looking like that won't happen. I'm not even sure the truck will be running by then and I'm not riding to Wilkesboro. LOL. This sucks but...things happen and it could've been much,much worse. At least I'm not replacing an entire engine.

Good luck to anybody racing this weekend. Have fun folks.

I blame El Nino

It's March and we have 2-4 inches of snow. It's only supposed to get up to about 30-35* today so it's probably not going anywhere anytime soon. Sigh. Looks like a trainer sort of day.

Do your duty!!!!!!

Go vote for the Breck Epic Blogger Challenge. Send Dicky to Colorado!!!! Imagine the hilarity of his posts. The bad nutrition and hydration decisions..etc..etc..etc. Also..you should send Tomi and Lynda W. If for no other reason than to be like me. HA!!!!

Long Time Ago.....

Several months ago a friend of mine from the Air Force days told me about a website called KC-10.net. It's a website dedicated to the Airplane I spent my time working on. Well, I mostly worked in the snack bar, but in theory, I worked on the KC-10. Anyway, last night I was puttering around on the site and came across a pics thread in the forums. I started looking through them and was having a good time recognizing old faces and such when I came across an entry with some scanned pics. It was by my friend Eric Schrefler. He said they were pics of some guys we hung with and other folks he didn't remember. Then I saw him mention the names Opie and Mosh. For the 3 years I was stationed at Seymour Johnson Air Force base in beautiful Goldsboro, NC I went by the name Opie. I'm sure it was my boyish good looks that earned me this. One of the other guys I hung out with a lot was Jim Massey aka Mosh. Lo and behold there was a pic of the 2 of us. I don't remember exactly when the pic was took but judging by my stylish Poison tour shirt I'm guessing it was either 88 or 89. I even had a lot more hair.


In the it's a small world category...Mosh was from Youngstown, Ohio. Which I believe is pretty close to Team Dicky's old stomping grounds. He lives in Warren, Ohio now and I have no idea if that's near TD's old stomping grounds or not. Always sort of weird seeing these kind of old pics.

Hope everybody is having a great week and reaping the benefits of this super warm weather.

some new stuff...sorta

For the most part I've got nothing new to talk about. No new bike toys. Work is the same old,same old. Other than dreariness and rain the weather has been good, but I'm afraid if I brag about that Brian may hunt me down. ;-)

One new thing I'm trying is a total revamp of the diet. I have a pretty bad one. I work in the restaurant business and I'm pretty bad about "grazing" all day. Usually not the healthiest stuff either. Anyway, Namrita O'Dea was awesome and did a nutrition assesment for me. I highly recomend her to anybody who might want to do something like this. One thing she said that suprised me was despite my grazing all day I wasn't always taking in enough calories. This suprised me. I figured I was taking in way to much. Also, I needed to eat breakfast and not just consume coffee in the morning. OK, I knew this but it still helped having somebody else say it. I've been trying to eat more high quality calories and I've been doing pretty well for breakfast. Usually only cereal but baby steps. I'm usually not at all interested in shoving food down my throat when I wake up whether I'm hungry or not. I've been better about eating some nuts and fruits. Plus I've been eating a mid-day salad at work on most days. If it's to busy to eat I sip a bottle of Hammer Perpetuem for a "meal". It's not optimal but it keeps the fuel coming in. I've been having more energy and feeling better so it's definitely helping. Next thing to work on is cutting down on sweets and fatty foods. This is gonna be the diffucult one.

Thanks Nam!!!

it's the simple things

I call this one "Sunbeam Happiness"

promises,promises

I'm promised a bunch of snow by the weatherperson and all I get is this little dusting. Hell, you can still see the grass. Looks like my day goes on as usual.

It's back.

The music is back. I got bored and started playing around with the blog and added the playlist once again. Added some more songs(Iron Maiden has way to many cool tunes) and we're back in business.

It seems winter has decided to once again grace WNC with it's presence. It's been a pretty cold week and the morning commute to work has been a blast. Still way worth it though. It's scary how much better my mood is at work when I ride.

Hope everybody has a great week. I have to go say my prayers and whatever else the Gods need me to do to assure the Pisgah Stage Race happens and that I can afford it.

Later yall.

here we go

First "race" is right around the corner. 6 Hours of Warrior Creek. It's a new race on new trail. What more can you ask for? Not much as far as I'm concerned. Yesterday was a joy of a workout. I had about 2 hours between jobs so I hopped on the trainer for about 45 minutes. Did a few sets of 1 minute on/1 minute off puke in your mouth intervals. An integral part of my highly unscientific training plan.

Any of you guys watch the Travel Channels Man Vs. Food? The basis of the show is this guy goes to different cities and tries out different restaurants. The finale is always him attempting a local food challenge. This past week he was in Atlanta doing something called the Carnivore Challenge. He and a partner had 1 hour to eat a 30 inch pizza that weighed 11 pds. 11 FREAKING PDS!!!!!!
5 pds of that was meat!!!!!

So anybody near Atlanta wanna give it a shot? ;-) I'm kidding!!! Mostly.

Hope everybody has agreat weekend. Later folks.

YIPPEEEEEEE!!!!!

Check out http://blueridgeadventures.net.

A PROPOSED Pisgah Mountainbike Stage Race???????

Happy day, happy day!!!!!!!

That fresh, minty feeling....

..of a new year. Full of new possibilities. Such as, actually losing that weight, or getting faster,or, well..I'm sure there are a bunch of other things also. Anyway, I'm going to start trying to use this blog to help myself be more accountable with this sort of thing. How so? Good question. I'm going to try and start posting my rides, wieght and stuff like that. Hopefully the urge to avoid interworld humiliation will help keep me on track. We'll see.

Hope everybody had a great weekend. Later folks.