Stranger Things

I spent a few moments contemplating and debating the possibility of renting my place out for the DNC since I will be out of town anyways. I checked the listings on craigslist and found pretty much exactly what I expected. There are a bevy of places offered for the low, low price of $1000+ per night. Some are really nice houses with more amenities than you could possibly imagine. One of my favorites was the rental that included use of the property owner's Range Rover.

I put up a pretty bare bones listing, 2br, 1ba, walking distance to transit, blah, blah, blah $350/night, blah, blah. Within 20 minutes I got a response, but not one that I was expecting:

Hi –

I'm a reporter with The Wall Street Journal looking into a story on the rental market in Denver during the upcoming DNC.

I saw your ad on Craigslist. Would you be interested in speaking with me for the article? I am interested in speaking with people who have raised their rates because there is so much demand and I’m curious to know what interest you’re getting.

If you’re interested, please send me a note back or call. If not, that's fine and I apologize for disturbing you and I won't email you again unless I hear back from you.

Best,
Christina Lewis
The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street, 10th Floor
New York, NY 10281

As a daily reader of the WSJ, I recognized the name and nothing in the email reeked of the usual craigslist scams. There was no request for free use of the house or the "I am interested in your _______ (fill in item) and can pay only in Gambian Dalasi, but will first require that you send a deposit to XYZ, blah, blah, blah" rigamarole. We'll see what happens, correspondence has occurred. If applicable, I will update my listing to "as featured in the Wall Street Journal" . . . any takers? So far I have had no response to the ad and I think there is a glut of housing on the rental market for the DNC.

Also in the category of strange, over the last couple of days, woot.com has had one of the more worthless woot-offs running. Checking back for new items was more of a waste of time than usual, that is until the end of the woot-off when the items took a turn for the extremely odd. I found this description especially amusing and wrong, so very wrong. This one is quite . . . well . . . you make the call.

Visitor #10,000

I am betting (pretty safe bet) that in the time it takes me to post this post, I will have had my 10,000th visitor according to the sitemeter. Through the powers of the internet I know who you are, where you are, who you work for, what kind of computer you use, the resolution of your monitor . . .


In all reality, I don't know who you are, just some basic statistics that your computer dumps out into the world. Thanks for stopping by.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, it looks like Whole Foods is running into potential issues with the Federal Trade Commission. If it's not one thing, it's another. A few months back the CEO took a PR beating for being an idiot. I couldn't find where his behavior fit into the company's core values, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't. I can only hope that the FTC forces Whole Foods to improve the store on Washington and Buchtel as part of any settlement. The sign has changed, but they still don't have the Ginger Spice cookie and I still get angered every time I go in there just to buy one thing only to find they don't have that one thing despite the fact they have 38 varieties of gluten free, low sodium, "food substitute".

I can understand both sides of the argument and I feel for Whole Foods on this one. They (and their competition within the "natural" foods stores) are facing increased pressure from the mega-chain grocery stores which are offering more and more products labeled as "natural" and "organic". So far as I can tell these offerings, especially when it comes to produce, just look beat up. Recently I have taken my business to the newer game in town, Sunflower Farmers Market where I can load up on all sorts of produce of respectable quality without going broke.

Have you taken a close look at your favorite box of cereal as of late? In an effort to stave off obvious price increases the kind folks at General Mills and Kellogg have been toying with the dimensions of the packaging. Just a tip, round numbers don't stand out. When my cereal box contains 14.7 oz. I am going to start asking questions. I'm sure once they get crop production straightened out after the whole "food?!? money is in ethanol!" debacle we'll get a couple ounces back . . . that is until the cost of transportation catches up with us. Oh well, there's always the comfort of a wholesome, hearty meal at Bennigan's . . .

Still Alive

After weeks of torment and abuse (not really), my grocery store, refrigerated packs of herbs are still alive. When we last left off, the remainder from the packs were clipped, put in water, and left on the window sill in the kitchen to root. Those that rooted got transferred to soil, and were eventually moved outside. The mint is really taking off.


At some point, the mint will out grow its current pot and will have to be transferred into something larger. I'd like get the mint in the ground one of these days, but that would require knowing where it was going to go and isolating it appropriately so it doesn't take over the yard.

The basil is doing pretty well. I need to start clipping more actively to promote some more growth so I have enough to do something with it. I hear it is possible to keep it alive during the winter but since it is an annual I don't have the greatest of expectations.


The plants that have really surprised me are the succulents from Derek and Lisa's wedding last year. I repotted them a little while back, putting all three together in a larger pot. They need to be repotted separately into larger pots, but as leaves fall off, they pull some sort of strange alien routine and sprout from the fallen leaf. It kind of freaks me out to tell you the truth.

This afternoon, I'll be headed west to go up the hill on the time trial bike in big gears once again. I'm actually kind of looking forward to this workout, just for a change of pace and something that I don't do every day. After taking the day off yesterday (with the exception of the commute), I think my legs are ready for some more torture.

Another Weekend

When I think about the Salida Omnium these days, I immediately start to conjure up images of inclement weather. Not a year goes by that something funky doesn't happen in the atmosphere come race time. As we drove into Salida we were greeted by rain, thunder, lightning, and nebulous delays on start times for the time trial.

We navigated our way to the course and found shelter under the porch of partially completed house in a new housing development just off the golf course. After entertaining thoughts of trying to get into the house to set up shop, I set up the trainer on the porch and waited until it was time to get warm. Kevin tested out wet weather aerodynamics prior to the start.


Fortunately we would be riding on a surface with about as much texture as a cheese grater making the wet conditions little more than uncomfortable. The rain stopped shortly after my start time, but I was distracted by other things at that point, like the mystery of the unrelenting false flat and trying to reel in Dan Porter.

The time trial went pretty well, I finished 7th in a field with some really strong riders who collect paychecks for riding their bikes. I knew the start list was going to be solid, but I didn't expect everybody to show up who did. The road race was fast from the gun this year with a strong, early moving getting up the road just after the turn onto the highway. It came back after the first trip up the hill, but a second move went just after that stayed away for the rest of the day. I got spat out the back after the second trip up the hill and rode around until I got tired of riding around at 4.5 laps.

Given the way my legs felt yesterday when I went for a ride, I was very glad I headed home after the road race instead of sitting around until 5:00 on Sunday for the crit. I took the opportunity to practice grilling with Matt to get ready for cross season. Bananas Foster on the grill works out pretty well as long as you have a decent metal bowl and the coals are still hot enough. We might bring that one back out for the fall season.


Yesterday afternoon instead of braving the heat, Brian, Jessica and I headed to the movies to see the next of the Batman flicks. It was very dark as expected after reading a couple reviews. They did a good job of not making it completely cartoonish like the previous ones. I was surprised how many kids there were in the theater. There will be a lot of youngsters not sleeping very well at night for the next couple of weeks.

Archi-texture

I didn't notice the other morning, but the north elevation and south elevations are opposite each other in color scheme. Where the north side has the darker grey as the accent, the south side has the lighter grey as the accent . . . now that's architecture.


The plumber and/or mechanical engineer should be shot for putting the vents front and center on the roof, easily visible from the street. I will keep my fingers crossed that they at least paint them a darker color so they don't stand out so much.

You can see the afternoon sky to the east wasn't looking so friendly yesterday afternoon. I jumped in the car anyways to head down to Meridian. At this point of the season, the quicker I get out of the house to go ride the better off I am. It is hard to muster the motivation for some reason, especially on the easy, head out for 2-3 hours and cruise days.


There was lots of traffic because of storms and general "rainbow" delays. Just about everybody who saw it commented on the size of the rainbow, too bad the phone through windshield picture didn't really do it justice.

The goal for last night's ride was to sit in mostly but put in three solid efforts. Effort number one came a few laps in. I decided to keep it in the 53x11 and cruise up the hill at the start/finish for the loop. When I looked back, only one person kept the pace and he looked like he was huffing and puffing pretty good by the time I eased up. He apologized for not being able to help and work with me to maintain the gap, but I wasn't interested in trying to stay away as a group of two. A small group including Joey, Eric, and Byron bridged up and we kept things moving along. I wasn't pulling especially hard, just nice and smooth, knowing I had a couple efforts still to go. The last efforts came towards the end, one to stick with Byron as we opened a gap on Joey and Eric, and the last one to get to the line first, gotta love practice races.

The good news is the legs feel respectable going into this weekend. Hopefully I can turn out a decent result in the time trial and then be useful in the road race. Kevin is flying these days and I'm sure everybody will be watching him very closely on Saturday.

Bread

I started attempt #1 of batch of dough #2 last night and got the bread in the oven this morning before heading off to work. For the batch, I tried using half bread flour, half all purpose, reduced the yeast and salt to 1T each. On attempt #1, I shaped the loaf and let it rest in the fridge overnight. The loaf sat on the counter for about 30 minutes while the oven came to temperature.


The loaf flattened out some as it rested, but didn't reach the flying saucer state I saw on one of my earlier attempts. There was some oven spring, but nothing as dramatic as the very first loaf. I'd like to find the happy medium between the two. Next attempt, I'll let the loaf rest for 60 to 90 minutes at room temperature and see what happens. All in all, not a bad looking loaf.


It felt a little bit dense, but both crust and crumb are respectable. The other aspect I would like to work on is the bottom of the loaf which stayed a little on the pale side and softer than expected. I will try giving the oven a little more time after it has come to temperature to ensure that the unglazed quarry tiles are thoroughly heated. I will also pull the loaf off the parchment sooner, although I wouldn't think that would make a huge difference.



Speaking of not too bad looking, the powers that be across the street opted for grey as the main stucco color, slightly lighter grey for the accent on the side, and forest green for the mezzanine.



I will have to get a better picture in the afternoon when the light is better. I'll be curious to see what the other material is going to be on the facade.

What Will They Think of Next?

The City of Los Angeles has an obesity epidemic much like the rest of the country, its citizens are blowing up faster than balloons at a carnival. A member of City Council is trying to pass legislation that would ban new fast food restaurants from opening in certain areas.

The logic behind Councilwoman Perry's arguments seem to be derived from the family discussion captured in the clip below.

Without getting into discussions too deep and involved, where is the fine line between government regulations for general safety and a nanny state with the purpose of protecting people from themselves? Where do you stop? Don't grocery stores have similar foods on their shelves that are also the means to the undesired result of a population growing larger in girth?

I have come to enjoy watching the excesses displayed in AMC's Mad Men. I can't imagine a work place filled with chain smoking in house and cocktail hour starting mid-morning in just about every executive's office. If you haven't had a chance to watch the series, take a gander, get caught up before Sunday when Season 2 gets started. I put the show in the category of TV that is not immediately making me dumber for having watched it.

In the same vein, I'm looking forward to Pushing Daisies coming back, but I have to wait for October on that one. I can only keep my fingers crossed that the influx of decent TV will soon banish "reality" shows to the depths of the internet where they belong.

In the Kitchen

After riding in circles at the park last night, I hit the store to buy some fruit so I could finally use the ice cream maker attachment that came as the rebate on the KitchenAid mixer. Peaches were on sale so I decided to make a batch of peach sorbet for the test run.


The bowl is essentially a double walled bowl with some sort of anti freeze in the middle so it gets nice and cold, but you don't get the mess of an open ice and salt water bath. The dasher and drive assembly were a little lighter than I thought they would be, but they seemed to get the job done.

The sorbet post dashing, but pre time in the freezer . . . kind of looks like baby food.


The post freezer time looks kind of like . . . frozen baby food. The taste test got two thumbs up. It has a nice peachy flavor and the consistency is good. I am slightly hesitant to make ice cream. I know what goes into it, but if I actively pour that much heavy cream into the mix, I am likely to stop eating ice cream all together. I might get over the irrational fear or try some alternatives like the frozen yogurt recipe from Food & Wine back in May. Mmmmm . . . frogurt . . .

Batch #2 of no knead bread is in the fridge doing its thing. Tomorrow will be day three of percolating so I will shape a loaf, let it rest for an hour and a half at room temperature and then bake. This batch has less salt and less yeast and I did half bread flour, half all purpose, and about 1/3 C more water. Pictures to follow.

A Dog on the Town

In the heat of the day yesterday, the car's thermometer registered a peak of 104 degrees. Dempsey, wearing his finest, black, fur coat decided it would be a good day for a swim and some shopping in the air conditioned climates of Cherry Creek North. He really wanted the bed in the background of the picture, but since there were no prices on anything, I wasn't buying!


We swung by HW Home since they are dog friendly as well and I had some soap on hold. I highly recommend the Cucina Chef's Soap in the Olive Oil and Coriander scent from a Canadian outfit called Fruits and Passions. Not only does it wash hands really well, but it also smells really good, on your hands or just sitting it the soap dish. It looks like this, but get the green one.


Dempsey put in a request for some of their dog products, but HW Home doesn't carry them. He splashed around in a couple of the fountains in Cherry Creek North, but still displayed hesitancy to jump right in. After a couple shoves, he would jump in a little more quickly, but you'd never know he was supposed to be a water dog.

On Saturday while Dempsey was at home asleep on the floor, I was racing up Mt. Evans. The race went about as well as I could hope, I didn't come very close to my goal time, but it was good for training nonetheless. I sat towards the front for the first part of the race to make sure the pace didn't dip too low as we approached the first switchbacks and slightly steeper slopes. I kept to my own pace as the accelerations started and unfortunately lost contact with a group of 12 or so just up the road from me. I caught a few notables on the way up and finished in a respectable 2:06.

Kevin had a great ride, keeping himself in the right spot all day, only putting in efforts when he really had to. After all the work he has put in to prepare for this race, it was nice to see him get the well deserved win.

Epic Proportions

The status of my living room as a bike shop has surpassed any high water mark ever set. As I made my way to the door this morning, I had to zig around the pile of wheels on one side, avoid the three bikes lined up by the fireplace, and get the door open without knocking over the precarious pile of tires waiting to go on said wheels. Added to the mix is a sweet set of early 1980s Campy Record tubular wheels donated to the cause by Chip. I'll have to get a picture to post, they have some pretty sweet high flanged hubs.

They were just taking up space in his basement and who besides me really needs wheels with a six speed freewheel . . . We were checking out the cluster just after Meridian last night and the freewheel should give me a little more cruising ability for the rides around town. Don't get me wrong, having been on the big gear crushing program for a while, I certainly can ride around town in the 52x17, but I'd much rather spin easily and not work up a sweat on the way to work or wherever I happen to be headed on the old Guerciotti.

With the Mt. Evans Hillclimb on the schedule for tomorrow, the forecast is for a high of 80, increasing chance of storms in the afternoon, and high likelihood of suffering. As of Thursday registrations, the field (scroll down to the P/1/2 list) will have some pretty heavy hitters.


As you can see from the topo map and elevation profile, this is indeed a hillclimb. With the exception of the little dip at Summit Lake, there really isn't much relief on this one. Ride to the top, catch your breath, pile on some clothes and ride back down, call it a day.

Busted!

The real question here is "how dumb do you have to be" to think you are not going to get caught. I wouldn't go so far to say that the Tour has been marred by scandal. It is almost to be expected at this point that somebody is going to try to get away with whatever they feel necessary to get results . . . in just about any sport . . . or business . . .

The racing itself has provided good entertainment thus far. It is hard to say that doping has impacted it negatively up to this point. Unfortunately some of the riders that made the first mountain stages exciting to watch are now gone. The Tour is still wide open at this point, I'll keep my wait and see mentality and just shake my head when it comes to the media coverage of the latest in doping news.

European Vacation Planning

I have been finalizing the last details for my upcoming European Vacation, following all of the economic news all the while, hoping for a miraculous rebound of the US Dollar or drastic slump in the value of the Euro. For those of you with nothing but time on your hands, I have attached a widget to the blog for rapid currency conversion. The picture is grim right now . . . $1 buys me just shy of .63 Euro.

For the first part of the trip, I will be just outside of Geneva, Switzerland, staying with Becca, Jan, and the kids. This should give me a good chance to spend time with them since I haven't seen them in forever. I'll also be able to hit some of the climbs of this year's Dauphine Libere to put the finishing touches on my preparation for Masters Worlds.

After the visit, I'll hop the train to St. Johann and get settled in for the week. All of the races are in the general vicinity of St. Johann, but I will also use it as my base for some day trips between races. This year, the Tour of Germany starts with a prologue in Kitzbuhel, conveniently on one of the days I don't race. I might include a day trip to Kufstein again this year to visit the Riedel Factory Store . . . . Last year I was "lucky" enough to have my time trial bike stolen the day after the time trial which gave me plenty of room to bring things home. I hope not to be so lucky this year.

The last race on the calendar is the UCI Masters' Road Race. Right after the finish, I'll pack the bikes back into the box and get back on the train to head back to Munich where I get to be a tourist for the remainder of my stay. I need to plan my itinerary soon and check out all the places I should visit around the city. I spent a few days wandering last year and there is quite a bit to see in and around Munich. If possible, I'd like to take a day trip to Chiemsee, check out the castle and be a beach bum.

If anybody wants to donate to the cause . . . I am looking for others to stay in the vacation rental I have, it sleeps up to six comfortably. I'm also toying with the idea of renting out my house for the Democratic National Convention . . . anybody?

Colors

Apparently there is dissension in the ranks, there were new color samples up on the wall of the duplex across the street. Looks like they are going from vomit shades back into the grey tones. My fingers are crossed . . .



After my ride, uphill on the time trial bike this afternoon I get to head over to the Denver Spoke to register for the Mt. Evans Hill Climb. I am going to set lofty goals this year and aim for a time under 2:00 . . . something tells me the start is going to be smoking fast like last year. The longer I can hang on to the pace without imploding, the better my chances are. Hopefully it will be good for sustained power while seated, always useful for time trials.

Round and Round

The weekend of racing involved a lot of going around in circles. On Saturday was the Louisville/Rocky Mounts Crit which has approximately 1.5 corners on the course with a gradual rise along the backside. It is one of my favorites, mostly because I did well last year. Sunday was the Longmont Crit which at 90 minutes on a short course you either get bored or dizzy after a while.

Saturday got a little bit silly because of some pre-race negotiations gone wrong, but the break got away early like last year, hovered at around 40 seconds until the field whittled it down to about 12 seconds. I spent the entire time watching Jon Tarkington, knowing he'd be likely to jump across. The second I took my eye off of him he was across! Come the end of the race, I found myself a little too far back to really do anything in the sprint and that was that.

Sunday was an exercise in moving around in the group, pulling some things back, pulling some unnecessarily, working on better positioning, only to dump the best opportunity of the day. With about three laps to go, the pace dropped slightly and I put in an effort to leave my spot in the back half of the bunch. I saw another riding moving up the left side and by the time we both got off the front, I was able to get on his wheel. In about a lap we made it to the remnants of the lead group which had called it quits at that point. Instead of forging ahead, I made the mistake of sitting up at that group and the field swarmed back around . . . back to the back of the pack. Again, in the wrong spot to sprint, I didn't do much results wise. Teammates Kevin and Randy stuffed themselves into the top 20 quite nicely though. There were the usual crashes in the race and a lot of tire blowouts.

Imagine what would happen if this one had a blowout . . . the dog in the milk crate (not wearing a helmet either) would go flying.


Ah, Sunday afternoons in the Cherry Creek area are always amusing. I also noticed this weekend that color samples were up across the street and my worst nightmares are confirmed. Vomit green is going to be the stucco color. Take your pick:


Any way you slice it, it isn't going to be pretty. At least for a day, my daylilies provide a lovely distraction. They have finally got their act together and put out some flowers. Too bad they only last for a day.

Bakin'

After roasting on my way down to Meridian yesterday afternoon, I think my body is starting to adapt to warmer temperatures. Probably a good thing since the sun was nice and red this morning which I have always taken as a indicator that it is going to be another hot one today. Depending on your choice in weather information outlet (NOAA, Weather Channel, Wunderground) today's high is either 96, 91, or 97 (35.6, 32.8, or 36.1 for those of you keeping score in Celsius).


I went through more water than I usually drink on an entire ride just getting down to Meridian and finished off the remainder during the hour of going in circles. I was a pretty standard effort for out there, attack, recover, attack, recover and hope that something would stick. At the end of the evening, because I am a wuss, I caught a ride home with Joey Brenner instead of noodling back to my house under my own power.

I decided to bake the last loaf of the first batch of dough from the Master Recipe in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day this morning, experimenting some more with the variables left to tinker with since the dough had already been mixed. I shaped the loaf last night and let it rest in the fridge overnight. Baked at 465 F, it came out looking like this.


Letting it rest in the fridge as opposed to the warmth of my kitchen left a little more "legs" in the yeast for some degree of oven spring, but the loaf was still a touch flat.

For the next batch of dough, I am going to tinker some more, reducing the amount of yeast to 1T, the salt to 1T, mixing in some bread flour, and adjusting the time the shaped loaf rests before going into the oven. I will try one loaf at room temperature for around an hour and one in the fridge for two hours and go from there. The loaf from this morning came to work with me and disappeared quickly, so it couldn't have been too bad.

Ouch!

I went out for a nice cruiser of a ride yesterday afternoon. According to the program, it was to be 2 hours, pretty easy, spinning a cadence of 80+ RPM with some hills involved. I decided to hit the 32nd to Golden, through Golden, Rooney Road, back on Alameda/Florida loop. So did the winds.

The ride out to Golden wasn't too bad with mostly cross/tailwinds. Once I hit the path along US-6, I was riding into some pretty stiff winds. Rooney Road wasn't much better. I struggled to maintain 19 MPH on the downhill sections. Alameda was fairly blowy as well with a nice side of stink from the manure they put down as fertilizer around the new overpass. I had a brief section of relief on Union, but the winds continued all the way home.

Even though I spent all day hydrating at work, almost to the point of nuisance (it is nice having to get up every 40-60 minutes to go to the bathroom, kind of like a smoke break but probably not causing cancer) I felt like the desiccating wind had sapped my body of all moisture put in during the day. I spent the rest of the evening drinking more fluids and refueling for another day . . .

Something New

The riding part of yesterday wasn't really something new, but it was the first time in a while getting out on the time trial bike with the sole purpose of heading uphill, in position, in big gears. Nothing like spinning at about 55 RPM in the 55x17 going up Golden Gate Canyon. It was a wind assisted effort, but it felt better than it has in the past regardless. Coming down was not as much fun as usual because of an SUV towing a trailer taking the curves very, very gingerly.

Post ride, I met up with Melisa for happy hour and food at Bistro One, the new place on Broadway between Pasquini's and Divino. I was pleasantly surprised as I walked in knowing nothing besides what I could see through the window prior to the restaurant opening. Happy hour drinks were a reasonable $1 off well and draft with the best deal being $4 wine by the glass. Our bartender Charlie was friendly, quick to pour different things to try, and full of menu recommendations. We started off with the Black Mussels (white wine broth, mushroom sage french toast read the full description). The mushroom sage french toast was pure genius, why hadn't I thought of savory french toast? It made for some mighty fine dipping in the remaining broth.

We decided to stick around for dinner and try some of the other menu items. Melisa opted for the Basil Salmon (with crawfish risotto and Meyer Lemon broth) and I had the Bistro Fettuccine (with shrimp, tomato, basil, and fresh mozzarella). Many of the ingredients and menu items are made in house like the pasta, breads, ice creams, and they have a rooftop garden going where they grow tomatoes, herbs, greens and the like. My pasta was very good, my only suggestion to the kitchen was to treat the shrimp with a little more respect as they were a hair on the tough side. Melisa's salmon was done very nicely. The Meyer Lemon broth was light, but complemented the other flavors in the dish quite well.

Despite being full of food and beverage, we made room for dessert. Picking something to split proved to be difficult because everything sounded good. We ended up with the Cinnamon Sugar Fritters (with cream cheese ice cream and chocolate sauce). The fritters were good, but I'll be back to try the other desserts . . . blueberry cobbler is calling my name.

I was impressed for the most part. The restaurant is very new still but doesn't seem to have too many issues getting good food out of the kitchen. The space is really cool, modern, and comfortable without being cluttered. Another nice addition to the n-hood.

Not Ready for Public Consumption

I baked the first loaf of "no knead" bread from the master recipe in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day last night. I'll put the results down as mixed for now. There are no pictures because I decided the test run wasn't quite ready for public consumption.

I ran into a few issues and realized some mistakes and omissions after the fact. My loaf came out of the oven with a nice shape and good looking crust to it, but it felt very dense. I had some issues shaping the loaf and found out after the fact that the website for the book suggests a longer rest period of 90 minutes (instead of 40) after shaping the loaf to prevent the crumb from being too dense. I still have 3/4 of the batch to experiment with, results to follow. I think giving the yeast more time to keep doing its thing will help.

Speaking of yeast, more excitement in the takeover attempt by InBev. I won't even pretend to understand how filings with the SEC work in matters like this, but the gist of it is that InBev is trying to get the shareholders to unseat the current Anheuser-Busch board of directors. Even more interesting is the family split that is becoming evident. Let the fireworks begin!

Speaking of alcohol, it looks like the neighborhood's "urban campers" have gone upscale.


As I approached the abandoned bottle, I didn't immediately recognize it as the usual beverages enjoyed by the "address unidentified" crowd. I had to take a closer look.


I'll leave this mystery in the unsolved file, but the opportunity for speculation is incredible. There are so many different directions to run with this one.

Long Weekend

Nothing like jamming a long weekend full of activities to ensure you need another weekend right after it just to recover. The weekend pretty much started on Wednesday with the bachelor party events, followed by the burlesque show on Thursday, wedding on Friday, long ride and party at Mike's Saturday, and a race on Sunday to top it all off.

The wedding was a lovely affair up in Lyons. I saw a few faces I had not seen in a little while, but there were a lot of the usual suspects. It was a very nice spot for an outdoor wedding and Brian and Jessica could not have requested better weather. The only thing we couldn't figure out was who the guy in the turquoise, zoot suit was. We were lucky enough on the way home to catch the finale of the Coors Field fireworks show from the highway. Traffic slowed to a crawl, some people were smart enough to just pull over to watch instead of playing bumper cars.

Over the course of the evening, I got suckered into riding Squaw Pass with Derek, Doug, Ewam and others on Saturday morning. I headed out to Golden by car since I wasn't really looking for a 5+ hour ride. It made for a lovely day of climbing in the big ring. The time has come to refocus my efforts on seated power in prep for the Masters' Worlds time trial. We made it up and down the hill just before the thunder storms started rolling in. I got home with just enough time to relax a little bit and throw together my first batch of dough, using the master recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, and then head over to the party, or so I thought.

I got a call from Deb just as I was getting ready to leave the house. Long story short, the hardware store cut a new key for her that didn't work, but handed her one of the new keys thinking it was the original and she ended up being locked out. I got to practice both my B&E skills and my reglazing skills, all on Ace Hardware's dime. It was very upstanding of them to cover all costs associated with the snafu . . . I'm sure they were glad we didn't call an after hours locksmith.

Sunday's race was kind of ridiculous from the get go. I was standing around waiting to register and started noticing who all was out and about. You'd think there wasn't anything going on nationally and/or internationally in cycling given the strength and depth of the field. I played the survival game for a while, floating at the back, coming around gaps as guys popped off. It took its toll and I called it quits about 50 minutes in as the break had gotten away and I was doing nothing but riding at the back. No skin was lost and I lived to ride another day.

Back to the grind I guess . . . only five days until the weekend.

Holiday

I'll stay away from dripping sarcasm, it is better left in the hands of professionals, yup . . . proud to be an American. Another Fourth of July is just around the corner and I didn't take advantage of the bounty of fireworks for sale in Wyoming.

Brian and Jessica get married tomorrow evening up in Lyons and I could have provided the fireworks display. Although not on the registry, it would have been the best wedding gift ever . . . along with the money needed to bail out all participants afterward.

What better way to kick off the holiday weekend than rip apart the house? I pulled a piece of the casing from the inside of the front door this morning to see what I would uncover. The hope was that there would be some space between the jamb and the brick of the rough opening.


No such luck. As you can see in the picture below, the jamb is up against plaster and other material with no room to spare.


This limits me to keeping the same size door I have currently (2'8" width) which in turn limits the style/material/manufacturer options. This beauty, although it would get painted white to match the rest of the trim at my house, might greet you as you walk onto my porch in the near future.


For now, my brain is going on holiday, see you after the break . . .

Keepin' It Cold

A funny thing happened on the way to the highway to go to Laramie last Friday. All of a sudden the A/C on my car stopped blowing cold. Tim, Kevin, and I played the guessing game for a little bit, speculating on what the culprit might be. In any case, the car was headed to the shop on Monday.

I headed over to Auto Imports after doing a little calling around for VW shop recommendations. Brenner recommended 303 Motorsports, but Wheatridge is kind of a trek for the back and forth on the commuter and a long way to have somebody shuttle me over. Scott recommended Autobahn Premier, but they just moved to a new building, weren't taking any customers this week and they don't do major A/C work.

Auto Imports started into the diagnostics, pulled up some fault codes and determined that the electromagnetic clutch on the compressor was stuck on an open circuit and needed to be replaced (see part #16). Not too bad, $700 in parts and labor total including the diagnostic. They had a remanufactured clutch in stock to install, installed it and called with the bad news. The clutch may very well have been bad, but the compressor itself was not functioning. I had them check into a remanufactured compressor . . . it would have saved me a whopping $40, uh no thanks. They ordered a new compressor, complete with clutch assembly (see part #12) and completed the work on Tuesday.

I don't recommend replacing one of these, they are spendy. I could have theoretically saved a couple hundred dollars by either waiting and having them shop around for the part of by going to Meineke, but I'd rather take it to somebody who knows their way around my car a little better.

I will be offering air conditioned rides at $20 a mile to pay off the repairs, come one, come all . . . only 87 miles to go.

Dead Dog - Day 2, Gone But Not Forgotten

After some quality eats at the Chuckwagon in Laramie, I was ready to contemplate the thought of the remainder of the stage race. Sunday was the double, crit in the morning and time trial about an hour or so later.

The plan for the crit was derived from some sage words of wisdom from Mike Carter. Kevin sat towards the back, out of sight, out of mind, conserving and staying out of trouble in general. Tim and I spent our time floating towards the front, covering moves, pulling things back together. I had the hope that some guys who were well out of GC range would get up the road and that would be that, but others insisted on pulling just about everything back. With about 20 minutes to go, a group of four got off the front and Kevin left the comfy chair at the back of the race to quickly bridge the gap solo. This forced the race leaders to get to work since they couldn't really give up significant amounts of time in addition to the 30/20/10s time bonuses for the stage. I sat third wheel for the entirety of the chase, letting the pace lull if the leaders stopped pulling.

In the end, it came down to a sprint with no time gaps for the main group and the bonuses were collected without major impact to the GC. I worked a little harder than I would have liked, but call it an opener for the time trial I guess. On the unfortunate side of things, Blake Caldwell flatted within 5 laps to go which meant no free lap for the mechanical. He lost about a minute, taking him out of 1st place going into the TT.

I am not going to lie and say the time trial felt good, at all. Knowing there was going to be a head/crosswind on the return to the finish, the approach was to spin as lightly as possible (in the 55 x 11) on the way out and give it everything on the slightly uphill return. Going out was ok, coming back was pretty awful and I didn't ever feel like I was getting on top of whatever gear I was in. I couldn't really sort out the feelings of ambivalence with a great desire just to be done with it from the real sensations in my legs saying they were done for the weekend. It would have been nice to be able to push a little harder. Another 30 seconds would have put me in 14th in the GC and would have met Doug Manno's challenge to put 1:30 into him in the time trial . . .

As expected, Kevin clocked a very fast time and finished the race sitting at the top of the pile. We stuffed everything back in the car and headed back to Laramie for the awards BBQ. Way off in the distance, you can see the Snowy Range Pass we rode over the day before.


I felt like this squirrel who was sunning himself peacefully, eternally in the park . . .


Since the race was the FIAC (don't ask) National Championship race, Kevin is officially a national champion and has the jersey to prove it.


All around it was a pretty good weekend. We laughed, we (or at least I) cried, we rode well as a team . . . another Dead Dog Classic in the bag.