New site for my rants:

please see the following website if you're still interested in reading my banter:

http://meriwether.typepad.com

repost of xmas 2001

I thought i'd link an old post of mine from 2001. i love the pictures of this post of one of the annual Xmas day rides:

http://www.offcamber.com/Marin_space_Log.html

randoms

My girlfriend recently had a cardiologist appointment to check out her heart for problems. He gave her the go-ahead and a week or two later her regular doctor left her an odd voicemail telling her she needs to call him, because there’s something "odd" about what the cardiologist wrote in her file. So she calls him and he says that "it all looks normal and great until you see the last line of the report: ‘Sue is at risk of sudden death’". They both, obviously, were a bit taken aback by this line and asked the cardiologist what was up…in the meantime my girlfriend was somewhat amused that she may just topple over and die suddenly. I was getting emails saying, "Guess what? I haven't suddenly died yet!". The cardiologist left her a voicemail a few days later and tells her he forgot to write a "NOT" in that sentence…so it should’ve said "Sue is NOT at risk of sudden death"….OOPS! Just a slight screwup, doctor!
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The Avengers "died for your sins" is a must have for the early punk collection. Good luck finding any other album by them (but wait! see the links!). I seem to have lost my LP of theirs that was severely scratched anyways. I can’t find it anywhere. They did a great "paint it black" cover, along with their own great tunes. Check this writeup if interested:
http://www.randysrodeo.com/punk/avengers.php
http://www.comnet.ca/~rina/avengers.html
and check out Penelope Houston’s own site where she will actually burn you a CDR if you really want the old Avenger’s stuff that is out of print:
http://www.penelope.net/allcds.html
how cool is that?
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While driving, I was spacing out and then realized a huge pothole was coming so I pulled up on the steering wheel as if I could bunny hop my car over it. Duh.

still alive!

sometimes i have nothing to say. well...not really. I just don't have TIME to say it. But since my girlfriend is now working full time on her PhD dissertation...i have a bit more time at night to sit at my computer.

I left work quickly to go skate. The weather precluded me going "ice skating" at the Denver park, so I went to Xgames. DK nor Kev took the bait so I skated alone. For once Xgames had good ole 80's punk playing on and off, between new punk, which i call CRAP.

It's hard to explain skateboarding to the person who doesn't or has never gotten into it. When a kid, it was my life, my social group, what defined me in middle school and part of high school. I was good enough to get sponsored as a street skater back then (which isn't saying much compared to street skaters now!), but injuries took me out of skating street for the long term. In the early 80's there were no skateparks anymore in California...only cops telling us to get out of the local parking lot and to stop scraping off the paint on the curbs.

So tonight I had one of those sessions that made me feel very young again. But the weird thing is, that I never could do what i'm doing now back then. Of course i had no access to even ONE skatepark back then and now there are 7 within a half hour of eachother.

Tonight was Progression and FUN. A few new or completed tricks that just came together. I can't really explain the feeling you get lofting a backside air over the coping, or grinding the corner in the deep end of the bowl, or finding new lines that throw you perfectly into another line you haven't seen or tried before, or even just finding an endless line that allows you to carve around the bowl effortlessly...but hopefully you get the picture. I imagine surfing is like this.

It's like riding the same technical trail you've always ridden, and never could pull off a certain section. Then one day, for some reason you try a different line and what was so difficult is now so easy. All you had to do was NOT focus on the line you had been taking, but trying a new line. Or pointing it thru the trees on teles and not worrying if you'll have space to stop before hitting a tree...and you find out that you don't hit a tree. Somedays you just pull it off without much effort.

So there i stood on the deck, alone, listening to Stiff Little Fingers blasting thru the speakers, chills shooting down my spine...thinking that THIS is one of those things I've been waiting for after all these years. I dreamt about having a bowl, ramp, or anything with transition to skate for all my teenage years....and never got it. We got the occasional empty pool (2), and the bigtime bust of the Bolinas Reservoir ditch (imagine running thru the woods with your board away from the same ranger that later in life chased us on bikes for riding too fast), and Simborg's half-pipe that we created from construction site waste but got torn down after only 2 months of use..but that was basically it. We were forced to skate street, which is fun, but not the same, and not what I dreamt of skating. Vert was COOL...and still is. It's really good to get back to fulfilling my teenage goals, and do what I've always dreamt of doing.

Quote of the Day

"Today is Groundhog Day and the State of the Union Address. As Air America Radio pointed out, it is an ironic juxtaposition: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication and the other involves a groundhog."

Change of plans...praise upslopes!

Upslopes mean lots of snow for the front range. The east side of the Divide gets southern moisture that barely any of the rest of the state sees except for the SW of Colorado. For example, the totals of the storm are over 20" for Eldora where Breckenridge only gets 2". We rarely get more snow then those big resorts, so it's just a treat when we do.

We got about 18" of snow at my house this weekend which meant powder at Eldora. The whole crew was there except one notable exception: King NIMBY. As the Rollinsville Redneck says: one of the crew has to take it for the team to get powder at Eldora. Whenever someone takes off for the weekend, it seems to inevitably snow. Sacrifice, so thanks to DK, we had 8" of new Sunday and Monday there was reportedly 13" of new on top of that. My legs need replacement quads.
I was fourth chair and got first (non-ski patrol) run down Muleshoe. Definitely 8" and the right side was just perfect (unheard of). They just opened Muleshoe after having blowed a ton of snow just previous to the storm. Then I met Marcus and Rollinsville Redneck at the bottom of Corona for a face shot, then over to Salto, followed by a Pipeline to the Gully with a ski patroller who showed us under the ropes (it's good to be locals), then a Chicken Glade, and then we met up with Hippie Stinx Danimal for a Bryan Glade, and over to Placer/Liftline and around to the front where we saw Dubba, Burhop, and Scott for a Powderhorn run. I had fallen face first in the deep on the way over (wet snow someplaces!), and when Megan and Dubba hit their faces on the snow (face shots?), we decided that was it, we were spent and headed home.

I was supposed to go meet Nate in Fernie, Alberta, Canada....but my flight got cancelled because of bad weather in Calgary. Not snow, but ice fog. I'm kinda glad it got cancelled now! The next flight out was Saturday, which would've only meant 1 full day instead of two full days...so I opted out. They didn't have as much snow as we just got...so in March I'll attempt round 2 to Fernie.
While at the airport, or because of stress at work (there's just TOO MUCH OF IT!), i'm feeling like the virus is starting to re-attack my body. After 3 weeks of health...it's back. It looks like it's another one of those years. I get sick for one entire winter, then don't get sick again for 4 years. Good and bad I guess....

DK

(not you DK, but DEAD KENNEDYS. )

I've been into listening to albums of ole' lately. Not that old, but albums from my youth (early 80's). I've been going out and buying the CD's to burn onto the iPod, since all i have is the actual record and no record player.

I listened to Plastic Surgery Disasters from DK this night and had chills down my spine with the sheer timelessness of this album. Their other CLASSIC album Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables is equally amazing. Those two albums are two of my all time favorites and two of the most influential early US punk albums, if not THE two. (The Circle Jerks "Group Sex" and "Wild in the Streets" come close.) Unfortunately, not many bands could follow their lead: great politically inspired punk music that wasn't just 3 power-chords (3 chords on the guitar with lots of distortion). The brits did it better, and always have since then. I love Bad Religion, but DK's music is much better. Jello Biafra was/is an excellent songwriter that put into words what most people of that time couldn't elucidate. There are more classic lines from those two albums than ALL of the "punk" albums since 1985 put together. Seriously. Winnebago Warrior is a masterpiece - Jello had a way of making you laugh at the most serious and awful things! You laugh shaking your head amazed at what humans do (in a bad way)! History repeats itself every freakin decade and we don't even think about it.

Go get these albums if you don't know what I'm talking about...NOW! You won't be disappointed. Or if you haven't heard them in awhile, take a listen again and be surprised at how the band could be singing about this administration and what's going on in the world right now.

events to hit

Cool events (part 1 – not a complete list…comment to send me links and I'll add 'em!):

Montezuma's Revenge (solo 24 hour race at high elevation…a bunch of DIFFERENT loops – what a concept!)
http://www.montezumasrevenge.com

Iron Cross Cyclocross race in PA…looks very cool…long distance cross!http://www.highspeedcycling.com/ironcross.html

100 miler in Breckenridge…haven't done it, but I've heard it's sweet.
http://www.warriorscycling.com/events/breck.php

Iron Bike, in Italy. 5 day gruelling endurance race with good reviews from Stefaan from Belgium.
www.ironbike.it
and check out: http://www.ironbike.it/news/prologo.htm

if you're reading Off Camber…you know this one:http://www.offcamber.com/intergalactic.htm
or newly: http://www.offcamber.typepad.com/

The best darned short-distance race (the clunker crit):
http://www.fruitamountainbike.com/