What Do You Get . . .

It has been a while since there has been a post in the what just came out of Dempsey series. Ten points to whomever can identify what the boy ate yesterday based solely on the following pictures.

About three minutes after having the hydrogen peroxide dumped down his gullet . . .


It begins . . .


. . . the reverse of "over the lips, through the gums, watch out stomach here it comes!"


Yaaaak . . . what kind of neighborhood scavenger is going to eat that?


I really have no idea what goes through his head during the day when I am gone besides, "Food, food, food, food, food, food, nap, nap, nap, here comes the mail, I bet I can eat that, food, nap, food, look there's a cat in here." The peroxide did the trick and the contents recently imbibed made their glorious exit. The worst are the remnants and foam that come up at the tail end of the deed.


Good thing the rain and snow came last night to wash away all physical evidence captured in these photos. Reminder of the afternoon, the dog can reach even the back corners of the counter top when there is food involved.

Given the fact that my street is flooded, almost to the crown of the road, I don't think I am going to be riding outside today.

Welcome to Town

So you say you want to live in Colorado . . . Tim Srenaski, teammate #2 has made it to town, just in time for weirdness to ensue. Just to give a quick cross section of Boulder/Denver unique individuals . . .

You have Boulder-guy, complete with cowboy boots, man-dana, and man purse.


To contrast him, you have angry, gun totin', Republican guy. The picture doesn't have a high enough resolution for you to read his wheelchair bumper sticker, but it says "gun control means using both hands" . . . I'm pretty sure he was packing heat.


I'm pretty sure the one wearing the purple cape was on her way to some sort of witches and wizards gathering. I half expected her to run into a wall, trying to get to the Hogwarts Express. (for the record this picture was taken in Denver)


Though not part of the "Rogues Gallery" . . . I give you Brian Hutchison. Sporting the latest in retro fashionability, the Remember's Only jacket by Sessions, Brian looks with disgust at snow, that's right, snow, falling on his shoulders Saturday morning.


It was bad enough that we got snowed on at the top of Sunshine. Even worse that the snow followed us down the hill, disturbing our time sitting at Spruce Confections, enjoying coffee and scones.

For me, the race went about as expected. I tried to stay towards the front as long as possible before drifting back in the steeper sections. I managed to keep the front group in sight almost to the dirt, but as soon as I fell off, it became an exercise in riding at a sustainable pace for the remainder. I stayed with the rider from Horizon as long as possible and then just kept turning over the 39-23, hoping that nobody was coming up behind me too quickly. I met my first goal which was to stay in the top 20, finishing the day in 17th place. Times were not as fast as last year due to some lallygagging at the start and wet conditions on the dirt section. At the top, the wind picked up and snow started falling. We headed down the hill as quickly as possible to seek shelter and comfort in the form of scones.

I headed back up to Boulder, in much nicer weather on Sunday to ride with Hutchison, Reichardt and to show Tim some of the wonderful, local rides. We met at Spruce Confections and headed up into the hills, see ride route here. According to the GPS info, we rode 47.5 miles and climbed just a hair under 5000 feet, not a bad day all in all. I'm sure Tim enjoyed the additional elevation change, topping out at 9400' . . . Minneapolis is at an elevation of 866' just for reference.

It really was a pretty day in the hills, you can see Lickskillet Road drop off the face of the earth.


I'm not sure what the story is in the next two shots, use your imagination, if your story is good enough, I'll publish it on this very site!


The roads weren't this bad.


The hippie muffins at the Nederland Co-op weren't amazing yesterday, but still pretty good. I think this was the Halfwheel zucchini and strawberry. I'm sure it had some sort of flax seed and spelt goodness. The climb out of Ned to Magnolia was not aided by having it sitting in my stomach.


There were many other activities this weekend . . . sushi party, tennis, eating gelato, napping . . . oh weekend where have you gone?

Getting It Done

In some instances it is all about the tools selected for the job. I want one of the Bobcats in the picture below, specs linked . . . I'm not sure why, but it looked like the coolest toy ever when I spied it walking the neighborhood with Dempsey the other day.


I'm still a ways away from being ready to landscape the backyard, I'll build the garage first, but when the time comes . . . there better be some sort of Bobcat action in the yard.

Meanwhile, at sunrise across the street, we have walls on the second floor. The framing crew of two keeps moving along at a pace expected for two dudes and a saw. There are still no indications of design, besides large windows on the second story. I can only hope there aren't any "juliet" balconies.


The race for tomorrow is the Sunshine Hillclimb. I will be practicing another bike racing skill . . . opening gaps.


I will put up the good fight against gravity, we'll see how that goes for me.

A New Personal Best

Despite the rain early in the day, conditions at Cherry Creek turned out to be pretty good. There wasn't much wind, but there was a small river flowing across the road, not in the usual spot at the "wetlands" but just before that. Nothing like hitting water of an unknown depth at 29+ MPH on tires that are only 21mm wide.

I hit my goal for the series which was to break the 21:30 mark. The time last night was 21:27 . . . a new personal best. It also kept my streak alive of going faster each subsequent week. I hope to keep that up for the last two weeks and I think there is more speed to be found. While conditions were fast last night, they weren't the best of the best because of the flooding.

My coach is a jerk and by jerk, I mean he rides really fast. Mike was finally back in town and out at Cherry Creek last night. He beat me by 1.7 seconds according to the results which goes to show his theories are correct. When you come back from a 5-day stage race you're either flying or dying. He chose the former.

Dempsey hit the jackpot this morning at the tennis courts. We arrived to find a pile of tennis balls on the far side of the court. I let Dempsey run around like a madman amongst the balls while I picked up some trash left on the court as well. He tried to pick up all the balls at once and when that failed he moved them from one side of the net to the other.

The Scoop!

If I type fast enough, I think I can scoop my other neighborhood food bloggers on Pajama Baking Company. I stopped by yesterday, mid-morning after seeing the sign on the door the night before saying they would be open at 10:00.

Selection looked pretty good, but there are some spaces still to be filled in cases before PBC is open for regular hours. I wasn't in a loaf buying mood at the time so I will have to go back later and sample more of the wares, but I was a little surprised that they weren't trying to pimp out all of the goods to people like me who wandered in off the street. One of the counter peeps did encourage me to try every flavor of ice cream. They will have phenomenal ice cream sales. All flavors were good, but the ice cream with chunks of banana and chocolate was outstanding. I foresee summer evenings of me walking to PBC for a scoop, followed by a scoop of gelato at Nosh.

I opted for a double shot of espresso and a cookie for lunch, truly the lunch of champions. Nobody knew what the cookie second from the left was, but I went with it anyways. Oatmeal raisin with golden raisins instead of regular ones is a genius move. It gives the cookie similar flavor but a completely different look. The espresso was one of the better shots I have had in a while outside of the Brenner house. I'll stop by this afternoon for my pre-TT double (or quadruple depending on the weather) shot for sure.

My goal for this afternoon is to keep the streak going out at Cherry Creek. I have ridden faster each subsequent week so far. Hopefully the weather will hold out this afternoon, otherwise it will be a very wet race, see 4/25/07.

Gringo de Mayo

I'm amazed that Cinco de Mayo has not yet hit the pages of Stuff White People Like since it seems like it is just a bunch of Gringos sitting around drinking Coronas and celebrating something they know nothing about.

A few of us gathered around the fire pit in the backyard to drink some cervezas and enjoy traditional specialties like the Mexican Hamburger. I am pretty sure this tasty treat has zero authenticity but it should because it is genius. You grill a hamburger the way you normally would, put it on a warmed tortilla, cover the burger with refried beans and cheese, then wrap the package shut so you can flip it over and get the cheese to melt inside. As soon as you take it off the grill, you smother it in green chili, lettuce and tomato and enjoy. The topping opportunities are pretty limitless, if you can dream it, you can probably eat it.

It looks like spring has sprung in Denver. The Lilacs are in full bloom and the weather has gone from random to predictably random. Translation, expect to get caught in an afternoon thunderstorm when you least expect it and yes, it might snow still.

This week is a bit on the light side when it comes to racing. There is the Sunshine Hillclimb on Saturday which will equate to just under 50 minutes of racing. The rest of the weekend is open for riding wherever for the fun of it. I'll probably get in a nice cruiser of a ride after the race Saturday and then go torture myself with Joey Brenner on Sunday.

Derby Days

Another Kentucky Derby has come and gone, horses ran, mint juleps were consumed, cakes were eaten, biscuits disappeared, more mint juleps were consumed and I think I am now a victim of adult onset of Type II Diabetes thanks to all the sugar.

Co-hosting with Gwyn made it a lot easier to get the house ready for the party. She also provided the elements of class and grace that I certainly would have forgotten like floral arrangements, serving platters, etc.

Deb keeps her rent payment low by cooking, cleaning, taking part in party prep. It is a pretty good system actually and I might have to hire her back after she moves out.

We started getting the table set up prior to party time and quickly found out it was going to be necessary to pull an extra leaf out of the basement and give ourselves more space for the bounty of cakes, biscuits, crudites, deviled eggs, phyllo purses, and more.


You can see the expanded table, completely covered with food in the background of this shot. Amazingly there were only a couple pieces of cake, some fruit, a few vegetables, and eight biscuit sandwiches left over at the end.

As the call to the post approached (we told everybody 3:00 to get them there earlier, suckers) the action picked up. Having 30 people in an 850 square foot is kind of nuts.


From approximately 4:00 to 4:05, all attention turned to the TV to watch some horses run. Nothing like adding gambling to the mix to make the race more interesting.

Dempsey has some serious action riding on the bone he dragged into the dining room to gnaw on.

After the dust settled, the party resumed. The Applejack Rabbit (punch made with applejack, lemon juice, maple syrup, and seltzer) was much to JD's liking, but he did share with Walker.


In the end, we all got to sit down, relax a little, and recover before removing all evidence of said party from the house.


With the exception of the coffee table on the front porch and the bushel of mint in glasses of water (hopefully they'll grow) . . . you'd never know anything happened. The house is clean, maybe a little too clean.

With all the party prep and festivities, I still managed to get out and race both days this weekend. The 8 AM start time for the Lookout Mountain Hill Climb was both cruel and unusual. I think it got up to about 38 degrees by the start of our race. I did alright, finishing 9th, a little more than a minute off the pace. Sunday was the Rabbit Mountain Time Trial up in Hygiene, CO. I did alright again, finishing 6th a mere 5 seconds out of 4th place. I was a little upset with myself because I didn't race a very intelligent time trial, going out way too hard, ignoring the fact that the second half of the course was more "demanding" than the first.

After the race, I rode up St. Vrain with Professor Brenner who stated earlier in the day, "Yeah it has a navigation system, but I don't know how to use it, I just sell the things" referring to the Porsche Cayenne of the week as he drove around north Loveland aimlessly trying to find Hygiene.

All in all, it was a good weekend . . . can't wait to get back to the daily grind! Speaking of, I hit an all time low this morning in coffee consumption. It is bad when you reuse a filter out of desperation, but even worse when you craft one out of paper towel to feed the addiction. I will let that serve as the culinary foil to the Pecan Bundt Cake with Bourbon Glaze.