Archive for May, 2005

shoulda ridden in

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kevin
on Saturday, May 28th, 2005
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Damnit to hell. I got lazy again and rode downtown and took the bus, thus cutting 8 miles out of my commute today. It wasn’t even 80 degrees, so I could have easily done it. I guess I just felt lazy today, I dunno. I rode the bus to the mall and ate Chick Fil-A, which is amusingly the only place I ever eat when I’m at the mall. Then I rode from the mall to work. After putting in 30+ miles each of the last two days and averaging over 13mph each day, I guess I figured I deserved a slacker day or something. Since I get off at 2 tonight, I might just take a longer route home or something. I dunno.

Being out riding in the sun has made for some interesting tan lines, that’s for sure. My arms are pretty dark but because I wear fingerless gloves, my hands up to my middle knuckle are white. Plus I wear short-sleeved shirts so my shoulders and upper arms are super white too. For whatever reason, my legs aren’t tanning for shit.

My co-workers think I’m riding too much or something. Apparently I’m losing fat and gaining muscle, so I’m looking even skinnier than usual or something. I eat like crazy but I guess I burn it all off and it goes to muscle or something. One of them even went so far as to say I look like I just crawled out of a concentration camp. Amusing. With as much as I ride, there’s no way in hell I’m going to be able to gain any fat at all. I burn it all off like crazy. I still have some fat on my stomach and such. No six pack or anything. Then again, I could care less about such things. About the only place I really want to gain any muscle is in my legs. Perhaps a small amount in the arms as that helps with power transfer while pedalling out of the saddle. However, I’m too lazy to actually do any exercises or anything to improve my upper body strength. Speaking of strength, I’d bet if I started commuting on a fixed gear bike my leg strength would be even better. It’d probably improve my cadence and such as well. Oh, well… another project for another day I guess. :)

2500 miles

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kevin
on Saturday, May 28th, 2005
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So yeah, I bought my speedometer for my bike on something like Nov 21st and as of the morning of May 27th, I hit 2500 miles. That averages out to right around 400 miles a month. Not a ridiculous amount, but still not half bad considering a lot of that was the winter months. Hopefully I’ll end up doing more miles on my road bike than I did on my MTB. Realistically, I’d like to double my mileage to 800-1000 per month. I’ve been cheating too much and taking the bus. The problem is that it’s just so much quicker and I can sleep in so much later. It’s nice, but that means less mileage. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to do a few centuries this summer on the road bike and really rack up the miles.

As for the road bike, I’m still waiting on parts. Universal cycles messed up and shipped my stuff UPS ground instead of 2nd day air, which means it won’t be here til June 1st. Thankfully, they were nice enough to refund all of my shipping costs, so I’m not TOO pissed off. I saved $22 and end up with it 5 days later. Everyone makes mistakes, so I’ll let them slide this time. Performance Bike took forever to ship my order and on top of that shipped it USPS, not Fedex like I requested. Hopefully it makes it here in one piece. They give me a tracking # and when I go to the USPS’s site it says tracking was not purchased for this item. Go fucking figure. Goddamn worthless douchebags. Too bad their prices are so damned good, otherwise there’s no way in hell I’d ever consider ordering from them again. At any rate, the only things that haven’t made it to my house are the ergopower levers, chain, cassette, seatpost, tires and pedals. Once that all gets here, I finally get to build it up and ride it. For now, I’m going with shitty cheapo pedals until I decide what I want to do. I’m considering a nice set of road pedals and shoes, but that’s going to cost me between $200-300. Ah, decisions, decisions..

I cant think of a title

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kevin
on Tuesday, May 24th, 2005
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Yeah, so I don’t really have a title for this post, just a bunch of random observations and bullshit. Sam came over and we went and rode around downtown and on campus. Ate @ Woodruff’s downtown and admired the beautiful women both working and eating there. The weather was absolutely gorgeous so it was a good day for riding. I didn’t feel like doing a whole lot of miles or anything since I’ve done quite a bit over the past week or so. We basically just rode around, took some pictures, rode around some more, etc. Nothing major, really. Knoxville has done some really nice things with the old World’s Fair park. I was pretty impressed with how nice it was. Plenty of places to just sit around and relax, if that’s your sort of thing. They also have an enormous grassy area about as large as a football field for playing frisbee, running pets, just whatever you want to do. They also added a really nice man-made “stream” with a couple of waterfalls and such. Pretty cool since for the most part, it was just sitting there looking stupid for the past 10 years or more.
All my bike parts have been ordered and are in various stages of processing and shipping. At this point it’s just a waiting game until all the stuff gets here.
I have two DVD’s from Blockbuster I need to watch. One is a Chris Rock DVD; the other is “Lolita”, which is an old Stanley Kubrick flick that I haven’t seen yet. I still have the Bill Hicks DVD that I’m not ready to send back yet. I’ve watched it like twice and still love it. I haven’t watched the documentary portion of it yet, though. I’m really bad about getting DVD’s in the mail from Blockbuster and not watching them for 2-3 weeks after I get them. I’m just slow like that and in most cases would rather be out riding my bike than sitting at home watching a movie or whatever.
System of a Down has a new CD out called “Mesmerize” and I must say I’m pretty impressed. Obviously if you don’t like them, then you’re probably still not going to like this CD because it’s basically the same wacky style as their old stuff. I happen to like them quite a bit, so I dig this CD. Probably better than Toxicity, actually. Audioslave has a new CD coming out today. I should probably download it but I’ve just not gotten around to it yet. I’ll check it out on Yahoo Unlimited when it’s available (probably in the morning). My friend Matt already downloaded it and loves it. At the moment I’m listening to Pitchshifter’s first CD… it’s called www.pitchshifter.com amusingly enough. Very good CD, I must say. Most of their stuff is pretty good overall, but I’m surprised at how good their debut is. Anyway, enough randomness for now.

Google bikes and other randomness

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kevin
on Friday, May 20th, 2005
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Interesting post on the google blog. Apparently a lot of google employees bike to work. Pretty cool. Hell, they’re even making a big deal about National Bike to Work Day (which was yesterday, apparently). Here’s the post. Pretty neato stuff. My company seems to think it’s pretty cool that I bike to work. Hell, they let me keep my bike in my cubicle so I don’t have to lock it up outside or worry about it getting rained on. That’ll be especially nice once I get my road bike built. Then again, I don’t think I’ll be riding it much on days I know it’s going to rain. I’ll ride the shit out of it like a cheap whore on the days it’s nice, but the mountain bike is going to be reserved for shitty rainy days and such.

Speaking of the road bike, I’ve got all my parts picked out and should be ordering them later this afternoon. I’ve managed to shave off about $100 just by hunting around for better deals. Admittedly, I’m putting part of that savings into a better (and sexier) rear derailleur. I’d already decided on the badass carbon shifters with hardcore bling factor. They’re also functionally superior to the ones I was planning on as well, but the fact that they’re carbon fiber just makes it that much better.
Brake Levers
Rear Derailleur
Click those to see what I’m talking about… so yeah, they’re gorgeous, hence I must have them. See, what’s “sad” is that I talk about bike stuff like some guys talk about women. As a matter of fact, I’d rather go bike riding than have sex. Biking > sex, hands-down. I’ve turned down sex for bike riding on several occasions recently. I’m sure that’ll happen even more often once I get my road bike built.

I guess there’s one more reason not to have a girlfriend. She’d interrupt my cycling time. Having to decide not to go cycling so I can hang out with a chick? eek… that just wouldn’t work. Perhaps if I could find a girl who enjoyed cycling, I’d consider having a girlfriend then. Outside of that, I can’t justify taking time out of my schedule and out of my time for myself to devote it to anyone else. The idea of devoting some of MY time for MYSELF to someone other than myself just doesn’t appeal to me in the least. Basically my attitude is that everyone else fits into my schedule as I see fit.. when I have time… or in many cases (especially in the case of a female) when there’s absolutely nothing else better to do. Even THEN you might be lucky if I devote 30 minutes of my time to you. Put bluntly, I’m an arrogant, self-centered prick who only gives a fuck about himself, everyone else be damned…. and I’m damn happy that way. As my pin says, “Fuck you, I have enough friends”. Hell, most people aren’t even worth my time anyway. Ahh, the joys of being single and unattatched. I do what I want when I want and how I want. I come and go as I please, I spend my money as I see fit (on myself of course). The best thing of all? No stress! Small problems are just that, small problems. I don’t blow things out of proportion, don’t get pissed off about much of anything. But yeah, anyway… enough of that rant. The few of you that bother to read this get the point, I’m sure.

It’s raining like a whore at the moment and I forgot my rain gear. Kinda gay, so I’m just kinda sitting at work waiting for the weather to clear off a little bit so I can make the short ride to my friend’s house and crash. I’m going to get wet either way, but the less wet I get, the better. If I would have remembered my rain gear, I’d be fine. Oh well.

awesome pin

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kevin
on Wednesday, May 18th, 2005
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Ok, so I got this pin that says “Fuck you, I have enough friends!” It rules and it basically hits my attitude right on the money. Most people just plain suck and aren’t worthy of being my friend. I have enough friends to suit me as of right now so I’m not really in the market for new friends. Unlike some other people, I take very little interest in the affairs of other people and could pretty much care less what other people think, say, do, want, need, etc. If it doesn’t directly involve me then it’s basically not important to me. Yes, I’m self-centered, deal with it. I don’t generally do things for other people and I don’t expect people to do things for me. I especially don’t like it when people do random things for me because a lot of people like to use it against you when you don’t feel like doing something for them. “Well, I did so-and-so for you, so why can’t you do this for me?” to which I say, “tough fucking shit, I didn’t ASK you to do that for me so I’m in no way obligated to do jack shit for you!” Sorry people, but just because you do something for someone doesn’t automatically mean they “owe you” or whatever. Now, if I ask you to do something for me and you do then fine, I owe you a favor or whatever. See, that’s the way the world really works. You do things for people because you want to… not because you want them to feel indebted to you or to make people think of you as a nice person (and get a favor in return). But whatever, people are stupid and selfish in general. I just happen to admit it more readily than most others. I have my group of close friends that I’m satisfied with…. outside of that my attitude towards other people is “guilty until proven innocent”. I don’t trust them until they give me a damn good reason to believe that they can be trusted.

VNV Nation

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kevin
on Monday, May 16th, 2005
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So yeah, I signed up for Yahoo Music Unlimited, which lets me listen to music on demand for $7/mo… basically almost anything I want to listen to, I can at the click of a mouse. Very nice. So yeah, flipping through the industrial music they have available, I ran across VNV Nation’s new CD and can’t help but be impressed. It’s definitely darkwave industrial in the lyrical sense but the actual music is downright dance-able. The first single “Chrome”is actually quite addictive with a great dance beat behind it. Overall I’d give the CD a 7.5 or an 8. Highly recommended if you’re into industrial dance.

amazing ride

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kevin
on Friday, May 13th, 2005
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So yeah, I figured I’d post this before I go off to sleep. I rode home my normal route tonight instead of taking a long detour like I was considering. I felt kinda peppy tonight and wanted to see how my average speed would work out. I ended up pushing myself a bit harder than I normally would, though I wasn’t really any more tired than I usually am when I get home. It was almost 70 degrees tonight when I left work so the weather was absolutely gorgeous; knowing this, I decided to go at it pretty hard. I made it home in 53 minutes at an average speed of 15.3 mph. I’m almost certain that this is the first time I’ve ever managed a 15mph average speed. One other time it took me 56 minutes to cover slightly less distance, so that came close but stll this is probably my new personal best. Too bad I can’t go that hard every night! Needless to say, I feel pretty damned good about it. I’ll be curious to see how it goes when I get my road bike. All told, specific stats were…

  • total time: 53:10
  • Max speed: 31.2 mph (coming down Bearden Hill on Kingston Pike)
  • Avg speed: 15.3 mph
  • Distance: 13.64 miles

Tomorrow (ok, fucking today, whatever) is supposed to be another hot one. Expected high is 87 degrees. UGH! Luckily humidity isn’t too bad lately. I’ll probably end up just biking downtown and taking the bus in, especially since it’s already almost 7am and I haven’t slept yet. We’ll see, though. So yeah, night night fuckwads!

night weather

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kevin
on Thursday, May 12th, 2005
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It’s been so nice here at night the past few nights, makes for great riding. My normal commute home is just under 14 miles. Last night it was so nice that I decided to take a long detour and turn it into a 20 mile ride with a stop at Waffle House about the halfway point. All told, I put in about 26 miles yesterday with 6.49 of them coming before work.. the rest after work. Amusingly, the 6.49 miles before work netted me a 13.1mph average speed.. by the time I got home (after riding the 20 miles) my average speed had actually increased to 14.0 so apparently I was hauling ass riding home. Needless to say, 65 degrees @ 3am is wonderful riding weather. It’s also nice because traffic is significantly less at that time of the morning. Amusingly, at like 4:30am on a side road somewhat near my house, I actually passed another person on a bicycle going the opposite direction. Douchebag didn’t have a helmet or a light of any sort… on top of that, he was wearing dark clothing. At least he was riding on the road and not on the sidewalk like most fuckwads around here like to do.

On a somewhat similar note, now that the weather has gotten better I’m seeing a lot more cyclists commuting around town during the afternoon. It’s definitely neat to ride downtown and pass 5 or 10 cyclists riding around various places. At least I’m not the only cycle commuter around here. However, it seems that most of them don’t ride 14-15 miles to and from work. Most of them seem to live in the general vicinity of downtown so they don’t have to ride as far. Still cool to see, though.

riding

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kevin
on Thursday, May 12th, 2005
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So yeah, since our weather has been so fucking wonderful the past few days, I actually got a chance to get some good miles in the past couple days. I got 22 miles in with Sam on Monday on a route that I’d REALLY like to do again at a faster pace. Basically it was pretty hilly and I kept dropping him and having to wait. There was one section of our route that was just a megawhore, to say the least. One short, steep climb followed by a hellacious downhill (36mph on a mtn bike!) then a mile-long uphill climb yet again. It undoubtedly kicked my ass but it felt great. Knowing that I pedalled up that huge hill without stopping made me feel pretty good. Obviously once I got to the top, I had to sit and wait on Sam for like 15 mins but it was still great fun. He actually did damn well overall on those hills, riding well over halfway up both of them. The thing that amused me both was the disparity in the amount of liquid the two of us consumed. In the 22 mile ride, I managed to drink a 32oz bottle of powerade and some sprite @ Chick Fil-A. Sam drank three 32oz bottles of powerade and two cups of water (one at McAllister’s, one at Chick Fil-A). It’s rather fitting though since he is over 3x my size. Anyway, fast forward to Tuesday. I actually managed to get in 18 miles. I could have done more but I got lazy once I got home. I’m rather pissed at myself because I could have easily gotten in 30 miles total or more. To make up for that, I’m taking a really long weird route home tonight, I think. I don’t have any real reason to go straight home and I have a pretty damn good bit of energy I could stand to burn off. I just hope my headlight holds out. Time to consult Google Maps to plan out my route.

comment spam is gay

Published
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kevin
on Wednesday, May 11th, 2005
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So yeah, comment spam is ubergay. Every few days I’ll get like 20 comments sitting in my moderation queue waiting to be approved. Every single one of them is from some spambot trying to post links to some stupid online poker site. Talk about gay. Luckily they all get dumped into a queue and I can delete them all really quickly. At various points, I’ve had well over 100 comments waiting in queue but normally it’s anywhere between 10-25. Still a nuisance since I get an email every single time a comment is posted or needs to be approved. I don’t get THAT many comments on my blog from regular readers. I’d say 90% of the “comments” I get are spam and end up getting deleted. Oh well.. such is life when you have a readily accessible blog.

Onto other news… I got a new DVD from Blockbuster online. It’s a 3 hr 30 minute Bill Hicks standup comedy DVD. I haven’t gotten a chance to watch it yet, but hopefully I’ll do that tonight. Just depends on my mood. I’m a huge Bill Hicks fan and I have more or less all of his material in mp3 format. Too bad I never got to actually see him before he died. Then again, I didn’t even really discover him until fairly recently. He’s worthy of a listen if you can handle cynical, scathing social commentary. Amusingly, most of his material is from the early 90’s yet still holds true today. He’s one of those comedians that makes you stop and think “jesus, this world really IS a pretty fucked up place”. Sad thing is, most of what he said in his monologues is pretty much dead-on, whether you want to admit it or not. He’s by far the best comedian I’ve ever heard, but then again I’ve always been one to love dark, pessimistic satire. At any rate, the DVD should be most interesting. I’ll probably have to watch it in a few sittings since it’s over 3 hrs worth of his standup routines. Luckily it’s 3 separate appearances, so it shouldn’t be too hard to break it up and not have to watch it all at once.