Large Fella on a Bike

Feeling The PDX Love...

Don't know what it is, but man am I feeling some love from folks lately.

A few examples...

via email:
#1.  "Hi, just wanted to write you and say that I wish you hadn't ever moved here.  If I see you riding around and I'm in my car, I'll try my best to take you out.  If I see you riding and I'm on my bike, I'll put my air pump through your front wheel spokes."

#2.  "You serve no purpose.  I like your blog though.  Otherwise, you serve no purpose.  Crawl back under the rock you came from.  Please"

#3.  "Hello Mister LFoaV [**perhaps a typo, perhaps something else?**], or whatever the hell you call yourself.  I think you have two [**spelling?**] many opinions about things for someone who is too [**they nailed that one though**] new out here.  You should do yourself, your family, and all of us fine people of Portland, a BIG favor.  Shut the ^%$# up, and go away"

This one from the blog itself:
#4.  "wow.
heard about your journal from a coworker at our bicycle shop here in Portland.
read this post. read your snow days post. read your interviews. read your purchases of bikes. and i read about your money problems.
sell everything, get a job, learn to install a headset. DIY
these things are elementary.
I am bummed you live and complain in our great city. "

This one from last night while riding thru SE [came from a light green Toyota Camry]:
#5.  "Hey!  You're that guy from Minnesota.  %#@! YOU, A$$HOLE!  You better watch yourself, and your back"

This one from two cyclers that passed me on Milwaukee:
#6.  "Are you that guy "Large Fella"?  You're an a$$hole.  Go away".

And the final in-person encounter, while riding thru a warehouse area just past Powell [guy on a Fixie w/a front basket] as I passed him, late last week:
#7.  "Jacka$$, I hate your thoughts about almost everything"
**That one is questionable though, after he said this I looked back over my shoulder and he smiled and waved... so maybe that one wasn't at me and he had a BlueTooth headset on and was talking to a local framebuilder or someone else?**

Keep Ridin'... Always

Foul? Naw, but...

I am pissy.  Of course I am.  I'm human: good days/bad days/positive sunny entries/negative angry entries.

I'm not down for the "Only write about the Hallmark Moments" [plenty of other folks do that, -most in fact- and much better than I ever could].

#1.  We really dig Portland.  Okay, that's that.

#2.  I like being surprised [and thusly, wrong] about people, but mostly people aren't surprising and therefore I end up being 'Right' in a disappointed way.  Most folks are predictable, and therefore unsurprising to me, and therethereforefore: I end up being Right about them, which then bores & disappoints me.  See, I like -actually Love- being made Wrong.  But I'm usually Right.  Bummer.

#3.  Amy was to be done -finally- with her utterly craptacularly low-paying contracted nursing gig, and on & into the much higher paying staff position.  This was to happen on the 26th of Jan.  But, refer to #2 for example, nope... someone got predictable and therefore there are issues, approvals, etc... and instead of working today [or even tomorrow] she'll be home [not generating that glorious green glue that makes the pistons of Life much easier] waiting to hear if the powers that be at her place of gigment actually have a job at all for her.  See?  People, again... being predictably moronic, predictably predictable in the having [and placement] of their craniums stuffed -squarely- up & in their pooper shooters.

#4.  The weekend we planned on having, you know the one where it's "Hey, that chapter is done, starting Monday: onto some real money and thus worth our time apart from one another... lets celebrate!!" was -instead- spent on "Which of the 11 bills can be put off for at least 2, possibly 4 weeks [paydays] before it's Trouble-Time: that is, if there's even a paycheck at all, or gig for that matter?"; "Okay rent is covered, and we have 276.49 clams in the bank... for what again: 2 maybe 4 weeks... that is, if the gig comes thru that was promised and then seemed to vanish".  A great way to spend a weekend as a family... and all because a certain Nurse Manager who promised and then guaranteed the position disappeared on Friday, went AWOL, right after Amy discovered she's not on this week's schedule, or any week's schedule.

#5.  Killing time, between bill-talk, looking at some blogs... and it's mostly "Dig my new bike/dig my new bike parts!".  Sorry Chappy, dig my new hell.  And by the way: how many sets of feet/hands & sitbones you got for all them bikes anyway?  You can only ride one at a time anyway.  Plus, you hardly ever ride in the first place.  [refer to "Pissy"]

#6.  And to quote Amy, "Tell those people, you know the ones that chew at your ankles, that just because you have done something amazing or something not a lot of people have the juice to accomplish-that doesn't mean every second of your day to day life is Mary Sunshine and fresh-squeezed orange juice".

I agree with her, completely.

So, you [whoever you might be] want Mary Sunshine & OJ?  Go here and here... cause I can only offer Me, My Life: and Everything that happens in It.

Keep Ridin'... Always

Custom Etched Rims-Now Available:

Couple last rides, [yeah I ride a lot & generally don't have the time [nor coin] to collect a boatload of shiny, unridden bikes w/shiny parts to photograph like some out in Cyclo-Blog-O-Land do apparently]...

crunchy, lightly gritty sound emanating from the rear wheel upon braking.  So, like any person who rides much/and doesn't run off to their high-end sales case/or Ti Card to nab the latest greatest CNC-machined replacements, I simply stopped [mostly] using the rear brake [unless it was unavoidable].

Finally decided to see what all the hubbub was about:

...found out.  Brake pad worn thru to metal block.

Less than year old set of wheels, rear/non-drive side custom etched, bummerishness.

Fortunately, not too deeply and therefore still highly usable.

New Kool-Stops installed, all is well that ends well.

Sorry, I got nothing new and high-end to show, just a pair of new Kool-Stops and that won't score me many Cyclo-Blogging-Points.  I'll try harder next time around though.

Off to ride--> [ahh, what a bike is for, who woulda thunk it?!].

Keep Ridin'... Always

Inspiration to Follow At Your Dreams

This documentary was wonderful, deep and completely inspirational.  I recommend it.

Very Much.

Also:

My new BBC arrived earlier today, and I took it out for a shakedown cruise...

Brevet-Ready w/integrated x-mas lights ala Peter Weigle.  Yes, it's full-on stainless [for you bike-geeks out there].

Keep Ridin'... Always

Hurlogging...

Yeah, it's new.  I just came up with the term.  I've already had it copyrighted and trademarked, working thru the details on the international patents.  So chill on that part.

Here's the way:

Hurl

+

YouTube
______________________

Blog Gold

I never knew blogging Hurlogging could be so easy... I've been working much too hard at all this nonsense.

In other news... people get much too pissy about things.  I remarked about me not digging Brooks saddles any longer [at a friend's blog-up & over in The Minnesota], that I think people who use them are holding onto the past for the sake of memory/visuals/a particular image [I know I did-when I kept using mine to the point of sheer agony]/that maintaining them [the saddle itself] is an annoying time-suck [i.e. worries about rain/snow/road spray] and even though it was/is just one opinion/my opinion, people still need to get pissed off.

I'm not into this whole 'keep your opinion to yourself' society we've taken great strides to craft [ourselves right into a little clean box with].  Here's what I think:

I don't dig your opinion of my opinion...

...there ya go.

Keep Ridin'... Always

Springwater Corridor...

Last night, about 2100 hours, two middle-aged crackheads tried to roll me.

Heard some whispering, figured it could be 3 miles away with the winds, last second saw something with my helmet light off to my left, two guys tried springing over the chain-link fence.  One made it, the other was not so lucky: hooked his pant leg and went over the fence face-first and didn't get his hands out in time [10lb's of raw thumping chuck roast thrown into mid-air/down to asphalt as his head made contact with terra firma]... the other guy did make it and grabbed my arm while screaming "You're mine c&^%sucker".

What he didn't plan on was the glorious tailwind I was enjoying.  Prior to the incident I spied a nice, solid 24mph on my speedo @ the entrance to the Corridor, and when he got my arm and pushed I was flying by fast enough that my arm [under speed] sheered off & into him and sent him ass over head a few yards from his fallen cracked out comrade-in-pipe.

I shall be avoiding the Corridor later in the evening from this point forward.

Keep Ridin'... Always

W-I-D

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Scale spoke...

Weight:  181.8 pounds

Weight on Last Weigh-In [December 7th, 2008]:  185.8 pounds

Gain Loss Of:  4.0 pounds

Total Loss Since November, 2005:  319.2 pounds

That's more like it.

Big roll earlier today and the high winds we've been having out here: felt great, reaffirms the push, the struggle, the effort.  I dig it, All.

3 days of non-stop examination, talking, reflecting, being forced into the Vault of The Past for an upcoming article, Done.  Whew... and I don't think I made a complete jack-off of myself either [but that's to be determined when the piece goes live later this year].

In other news: thinking about rolling south to NorCal.  I want to visit the folks @ Rivendell, Swobo, XtraCycle and a man named John Francis.  I need a route, and I think I'll be taking Chloe with me on the El Dumbino [unfortunately Amy probably cannot get enough days off from her gig as it's still too early in the game for that].

Keep Ridin'... Always

Suckered Punched to the Inner->

Solar Plexus of your Everything.

Or, how every once in a while something in the replies hits you perfectly where it counts.

Back at the beginning of LFoaB a respondent mentioned a book, and that book made a lot of things make sense [and in the end that book -as any book cannot/should not be everything- was a partial catalyst, but needed to be filtered & tempered through me before it could act as a launching platform, for what was to come... but it was a big moment], and now, just yesterday, another respondent mentioned an organization w/a link to a video, and well... whoa, it -watching it last night, well it was HUGE to me: it was a big moment, one of those "This applies in so many ways, I can take this as a pre-Nov. of '05 kinda deal, and as a right now/right here statement too" moments.  So, thank you again for the kindness of people I know and don't know, who are out there thinking and sharing their ideas and thoughts with me.  Sincerely, Thank You, JB, because that/this was huge.

First the video:
That video flattened me in so many I am still watching it, studying it, pondering it... it was one of those impact-fully amazing things that when I started it for the first viewing last night, after three days spent with me talking non-stop to a writer flown out here from a major publication, I immediately was covered in goosebumps.  A video so profound in one of those quietly unassuming ways that Amy walked out from the kitchen and immediately put down everything she was doing and just sat and watched and listened too; and seconds later Chloe came out of the bedroom from her lessons and did the same.  I am left excited with possibilities, things to do/that need doing, it's almost overwhelming.

John Francis is doing, has been doing, had done, what I am trying/have been trying to do.  But at the same, I am failing horridly at it... and have shackled myself amazingly to a single wall, in my own prison of my own constructing.  I have broken out of many things in the past 3 years, maybe even before as a kid/teen with regard to music & the arts and the small-town background I emerged from, but in my most recent breaking out and thru walls, I have reconstructed newer, stronger, more impenetrable walls... with thicker re-bar, deeper concrete, even less light.

I propose that this is one of the basic tenets and follies of Man [Wo-Man, too]... "By undoing things good or bad, we simply aim -usually unknowingly- to box ourselves right back in with something new [or newer]".  All of this can be undone simply thru listening, truly listening to: others, nature, the [our] environment, and -of course- ourselves.  To some degree, and with a measure of success/non-success, I have accomplished aspects of this, but there is much that needs improvement here/much that needs and demands my avid attention and undivided muscle of work.

Baby-Steps again, humbly.

One of the first areas that needs my attention, and is within my immediate grasp, are apologies to those closest to me that I 'thought' I heard and was listening to all along, but truthfully have not been: Amy & Chloe; family and friends.  I am sorry [but you will -ALL- be getting more personal apologies than the written word]... and then, the next phase:

that my day to day ideals of riding have come under attack [in my own mind & soul] i.e. "What is the purpose of just riding around, beyond errands or set destinations, when there is so much more to travel/so much more that I enjoy than just mere circles and loops?".  That one is going to be more difficult, but I am committed to seeing it thru and understanding it better, and hopefully -ultimately- coming to some kind of peace with it.

Keep Ridin'... Always

The Dark Knight...

watched it the other night with Amy.  Brought Chloe out for the last minutes of it -the part whereby he -The Batman- takes the heat/the fall, -and as Gary Oldman explains- "because we have to chase him", "because he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now", "so we'll hunt him, because he can take it", "because he's not our hero, he's a silent guardian", "a watchful protector"... and from that night forward:

Chloe has taken to calling her daddy, "The Dark Knight".

Amy rolls her eyes at this, no matter how much we try and convince her that those last minutes of that particular movie couldn't have been conceived had it not been for my very existence.

See for yourself:

Keep Ridin'... Always

Above & Beneath: Me.

An apology... I lose my temper, things tick me off, I speak too much/think too much-and then, sometimes & unfortunately, write of them.

So, I am sorry for crunching at the edges of my piehole to an un-named person a couple entries back.  I won't delete that entry, it happened-out of my mouth, fingers & mind, so it stands & I have to live with the fallout... but I am sorry for the words.

I wish no one badness or misfortune.  I am a work In Progress.

Onward...

I hear, see, read the phrase "It's beneath you" a lot.  Some times it's leveled at me, most times, at others/or in general.  It's caused me to think about it... and I started thinking about the opposite of it, "It's above you".  So, what's above me?  Much.  Improvement.  Challenges.  Things to aspire toward & for.

And then I started reflecting, and thinking.  And that brought me to a couple more things:

1.  I talk too much.  I reside in a world of constant sound[s]... most of which are composed by my mouth.
2.  I write too much, maybe not too often [maybe so] but, too many words when I do.  It gets washed out, confused, spewy.  In my aim to be crystal-clear specific I get more washed out results thru verbiage because of sheer bulk.  I love writing, writers & the written word, but I honestly think I am not good at doing it, moonlighting as one & constructing them.

So... my new plan:

A.  Speak less.  I am going to force myself to speak no more than 100 words per day [only exception: once I reach my per-day max, I'll only exceed it in the case of a real emergency i.e. "Hey mister, you're on fire" or "Amy, look QUICK, a Hummer is bearing down on you to your right"].
B.  Write very short, concise entries.  Hit it, make the point, quit it & out.

There might be much beneath me, but there is even more above me.

Keep Ridin'... Always