Changes

There has been all sorts of action in the neighborhood as of late and the word on the street is good for the most part. I noticed the other day that the Asian Imports store on Pearl across from Sushi Den was having a going out of business sale. That didn't take long at all. The good news is that the owners of Sushi Den bought the building and plan on opening a Japanese Deli/Fish Market. I've always thought they should have a fish market since they have access to the best seafood in town.

Mulberries, the cake shop on Pearl St. is moving on . . . not a biggie since I tend not to buy fancy cakes and their regular stuff, cookies and the like were not very good. I am partial to Gateaux anyways. They have always been extremely friendly and their pastries are ridiculous.

Further down the street, they are actually fixing the street! Iowa is designated as one of the Denver bicycle routes, but the road damage has gotten beyond shameful. Hopefully they will fix everything from pearl to Santa Fe. I see a lot of riders bouncing along, riding in the middle of the lane, trying to avoid the craters and/or string together the few patches of decent pavement left.

In other bicycle news stupidity, the county commissioners of Jefferson County, home to some of the best riding and training routes, are seeking legislative power to prohibit bicycle use on certain county roads. That's some good, forward thinking right there. There are laws in place statewide concerning bicycle/vehicle safety. In short they read something like, "Bikes, you stay to the right. Cars, don't hit them and pass with care." I understand that it is hard to hit the gas pedal after you have slowed down to pass a bicycle. As a cyclist, I'll be the first to admit that there are a significant number of asstards in our midst who certainly don't help the cause, but the residents complaining about bicycle use on their routes home should put the same effort into banning the cars that also get in their way on the road. Just the other day, there were like, 800 cars in the way on I-25 on the way home.

It is getting harder to mention stupidity of any form without thinking immediately about the guard shack next door which is coming closer to completion. The "trellis" feature has been added in the form of heavy beams, at about head height, over the sidewalk.


Just like the other "architectural features" the beams are out of scale and everything about the thing looks heavy handed and awkward. Even at the original height, it would look goofy, especially with the gate that looks like an after thought. I'll be curious to see the completed project, but I'm guessing it won't look much different than the above shot.

Boulder TT

I ended up heading to Boulder last night to do the Wednesday TT for a change of pace. After my Tuesday workout on the TT bike in the hills, I had no idea how my legs would feel at full speed. They felt ok I suppose. I forgot how nasty the first few steps are of the climb back towards town, but I did a pretty good job of keeping my cadence nice and high to keep the legs from loading up. Somewhere after the halfway point, I let my focus drift from the effort to the clown drafting off of me. Nice work on the individual time trial effort there chooch. I have no idea what my times have been in the past, but given the high level of variability when it comes to wind conditions, it is probably irrelevant. It was good to get the effort in and even better jumping in the pool at Chuck's house after. I might just have to do it again next week.

I took advantage of my recent discovery in the work neighborhood finally. At lunch time, I rolled over to the bakery outlet over on 39th and Dahlia. It turns out to be two bakeries under one roof. One focuses on artisan breads, baked the old fashioned way and sold for a lot of money at places like Whole Foods and the like, for $5 a loaf. The other bakery supplies bars, restaurants, and other food establishment type places with hoagie rolls, sourdough bread bowls, and the like. Turns out they sell their day olds for $1 a loaf and with the artisan type breads, a quick turn in the oven at 350 make them spring back to life. At that price, I figured why not give it a shot, so I have a Ciabatta to try as well as a loaf of German Rye and a Cinnamon Raisin, although I'm pretty sure mine is better, it never hurts to have a loaf in the freezer for snackin. It also doesn't hurt to let somebody else heat up their place, rather than get my oven cranking during the middle of the summer, in my mostly non air-conditioned house.

Local News

The Denver Post is a terrible paper. The newspaper delivery person mixed things up today and I got the DP instead of the WSJ. I have gotten used to reading articles that are 1000 words as opposed to 68 and I have to say, I like the detail. I can choose to read it or I can skim, but with an anemic article barely covering the simplest of facts, there's not much to work with.

Also, in the local news, zoning/building codes hit a neighborhood project. I've been watching the "thing" next door go up, wondering how long it would take before the City put the beat down on it. It has been beaten down . . .


When I got home this past week from racing, I noticed the guard shack next door had been altered dramatically to conform to code. It was moved back from the sidewalk a good few feet and the top and bottom had been chopped rather severely. It still looks dumb, but now it is well off the sidewalk. I'm waiting for the neighbor to confront me. I'll probably tell him to take it up with the inept architect/builder who told him to do it in the first place . . . zing!


The doors and windows are now completely out of proportion and way too low for normal standards, but since when has a trellis had doors and windows anyways? I feel slightly bad that time and effort went into something that had to be taken down, but you have to build what you say you are going to build when you get a permit and you have to know the applicable codes.


Meanwhile, back in the espresso room, drywall isn't exactly flying onto the walls, but I am making progress slowly. In short order, I should be able to get going on the top. I did things kinda goofy with my desire to spread some of the load to the walls instead of having the espresso machine and top sitting directly on the cabinets. Long story short, it will be done before I die. Things are shaping up with some corner bead in place, there is hope yet.

Dogs!

It is nice to see worthwhile programs getting some media coverage, especially in the day and age of relatively worthless social causes. Having taken a dog through formal training with limited success, I am always impressed with the behaviors taught to service dogs, be they seeing eye dogs, assistance dogs, etc. I didn't realize though just how specific the training can be or what dogs (and their trainers) are capable of. In this weekend's WSJ, there was an article about psychiatric-service dogs and a training program that places dogs with prison inmates for the training.

Puppies Behind Bars is the non-profit responsible for placing dogs in prisons for training. They have achieved a number of successes not only with the dogs, but with their handlers as well. I remember reading an article in Smithsonian Magazine a few years back about the organization. It is a great way to defray some of the costs of expensive training for assistance animals, using the resource of unlimited free time that those incarcerated possess. I hope other creative thinkers find similar win/win situations like this one.

I only got to race once this past weekend, since I really didn't feel like trekking down to Colorado Springs to do a 16 minute, uphill time trial. The Longmont Crit was plenty of race for the weekend though, with a deep, deep field of 100+ riders in the P/1/2 race. The good news is that I am slowly getting better at riding crits, the bad news is that I still haven't managed to do anything in one yet. I still put in efforts too early and don't maintain my position at the end of the race when it is most important. It was interesting to get out there after riding easily all week. I was almost afraid that my legs wouldn't know what to do when things got going. I felt pretty comfortable in the first 20 minutes which hasn't been the norm for me in the past. Next weekend will be an off weekend for racing since I don't feel any great need to do the Mt. Evans hill climb. Strange to think that I only have a few weeks left of local racing. Then there will be one more big block of training and then off to Austria.

Survey Says . . .

Quick poll . . . is the population getting dumber, smarter, or simply more aware of seemingly complex subject matter? There is no shortage of stories about general stupidity exhibited on a daily basis. The category of criminal stupidity is one of my favorites, especially the stories where the "victim" declines to press charges for reasons like "nah . . . that was the best laugh I've ever had and the dude got his punishment" (story about somebody trying to siphon gas off a motor home but tapped into the sewage tank).

I went to lunch the other day and tried a place in my new work neighborhood. I might as well take the opportunity to explore while I can. We headed to Phoenician Kabob for some Middle Eastern grub and I give it a so-so rating. The gyros were good, but the rest of it was questionable. The baklava had so much rose water poured over it that it tasted like eating perfumed soap. The highlight of the meal had to be the bill though.


The price was right on the "sandwitch" which was pretty well stuffed with grilled meaty goodness. The misspelling would have been forgivable had there been a more ethnic staff, but the front of house guy was full on, white-bread, probably couldn't find the Mediterranean on the map, kid out of high school.

Speaking of kids and high school, this kid hasn't even made it out of high school yet, but his career path is pretty well guaranteed. There is no question that this youngster is smart as a whip, hopefully he doesn't end up in jail for hacking that helps himself rather than others. Access to this type of technology and intuitive understanding is becoming more common as kids are exposed to it at younger ages. I remember the good old days of working on the Apple IIe in the weekly computer lab classes at Durham Academy . . . wow, will you look at the stats of that high powered machine!?!

I'm still debating the merits of this article which was in the WSJ this morning. As with some other articles in the past, the tongue in cheek writing is outstanding, but the subject matter makes me afraid for the future of society. Creating a festival out of mooning the Amtrak trains as they pass seems right in line with the glimpse of society provided by Idiocracy.

The fact that the festival gets out of control should come as no surprise . . . there are a lot of asses involved.

The past couple weeks of training between races have been relatively easy. I feel slow during the week, but fast on the weekend. Case in point, I participated in a midweek race last night.


I got smoked, but at least the kid bought me some ice cream after. Hopefully I will be fast again on Sunday for the crit in Longmont which isn't the State Championship this year, but it will still be fast.

We're Not in Kansas Anymore

I'd call the trip to Lawrence remotely successful. Everybody had a good time, there was lots of relaxing in our free time, and the racing was decent. When we finally got around to racing, the crit was a fairly standard, eight corner crit but the wind was picking up making the backside a little tougher. The midwestern style of racing is a bit peculiar, the pace was much easier than the majority of our local crits, but the amount of negative racing was unreal. There was actually a guy in one of the little moves I was in, "blocking" for his teammate who was only five meters off the front of our group of six. Had he stayed out of the way, since we were going to catch his teammate anyways, we might have actually made some ground on the field.


I put in some good efforts, got in the mix, spent a couple laps off the front solo, hoping that guys would come across in small numbers instead of dragging the entire field with them, but no luck. Eventually two guys got off the front and nobody wanted to chase in any sort of organized fashion. The two stayed clear, Zac got 10th, but got hosed when it turned out that the finish camera didn't have enough light and the finish photo was too blurry for them to handle any protests anyways.

Having pre-ridden the circuit for Sunday's race, we knew it was going to be a tough one. The course took full advantage of the topography offered up by the KU campus. There were two climbs on the profile and the one prior to the finish was steep and twisty enough to take away all momentum. My goal was to hang on as long as possible and keep an eye out for Zac who is riding really well right now. In the first few laps some moves got up the road, but came back. A couple times, I got to the front to keep the pace up and to close things down. Eventually, as expected, everything came apart leaving multiple groups on the road, dangling behind the leaders. On lap whatever it was, I'd lost count by then, I was feeling decent and others didn't look so happy, so I collected Zac and drilled it. I pulled him as far as I could and told him to go if he could. By the time I recovered a little and reattached myself to the back of that group, Zac was long gone, off and hammering his way into the lead group. That was about it for me in the circuit race. I yo-yo-ed off the back of that group a couple times and then called it quits. The last time I went up the climb to the feed zone, I was creeping. Zac finished 6th out of the group of 9 off the front. I think he'll do just fine at the Super Week races in the coming days.


We got the van packed back up and ready to go for the long drive home. Zak and Melissa were ready for some prime movie watching on the DVD system in the Grand Caravan, Chuck was ready for the comforts of the Pinkerton mobile, and Zac had his shirt off, ready for the drive through the land of humidity sans A/C. Given what we saw on the way home, I wouldn't want to drive with the windows down in this part of the country. Not only did we have a plethora of smashed bugs on the windshield, side windows, side of the van, but we also came across this guy at a gas station.


I am 99% sure that is the image of Jesus on the back of the moth. I should have collected him in a jar for later analysis, but frankly I was scared. Chuck offered up $20 if I ate the moth, but as you can see in the next shot, he was a big one.


The squeegee was the only thing we could find that would give it decent reference without having to get too close. The only other excitement on the drive was . . . well, there was none, it was Kansas and eastern Colorado at night.

Road Trip

Yesterday morning, I woke up at the same time as usual, but instead of heading to work, I kept driving past the exit for Quebec and kept heading east into nothingness. We had four people, four bikes, ten wheels, a bunch of bags and some cookies packed into a swank 2009 Dodge Grand Caravan, courtesy of Vista Auto Group. By way of drives, it was a pretty easy one. We made it to Lawrence in just over 7:15 without incident and surprisingly without seeing anything incredibly blog worth, other than the sign that read "Abortion Stops a Beating" with a tiny logo filling in for "heart" that really doesn't stand out. Apparently Kansas doesn't have the meth problems that Colorado and Wyoming have.

The set up for the race is pretty sweet. We are shacked up in the Eldridge which is right in the middle of the downtown part of Lawrence. We had plenty of time after the drive to tool around town a little bit and get settled in. Knowing that a college town would have a barbershop, I headed down the main drag to get my mane chopped. Back in the luxury suite . . .


The street sprints were just outside our front door which was convenient for heading back up to the room after the one "sprint" effort. I'm not even sure why, what, how, but I had very little expectation of doing anything in the event, but it was a little bit of a cluster. I'm not sure if any of us left the room mentally for the sprints, although Zak's girlfriend Melissa took 4th in her event, without even knowing what was going on.


Back in the comforts of the room . . . usually, we try to find the most economical lodging setup possible, but since the race organization was covering the costs for staying at the Eldridge, it was a no brainer. Comfortable is good since we don't race tonight until 7:30.


We've got bikes galore. It could have been a bit tighter in the room, but Zak and Melissa very wisely decided to get a room at a little B&B down the street. We still have bikes for four guys and two of Zac's extra bikes since he is heading on to SuperWeek after this race. He and Chuck carpooled out here, but Zac didn't drop the "I don't have A/C in the car" until it was too late for poor Chuck.


We are almost out of cookies which is disastrous. I can't race without cookies . . . I did the prerequisite, pre-race baking Thursday night and made a double batch of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies for the trip and it might not be enough. Well, only nine more hours to kill before the race . . .