SAN RAFAEL (Reuters) – Beleagured, bald, belligerent, and still overweight Irishman Gaz was resting comfortably at his San Rafael home today, after a large simian escaped from his rectum. The cause of the incident is still unknown, but experts believe it may have had something to do with USA beating Spain 2-0 in the Confederations Cup. The monkey could not be reached for comment.

Seriously, I didn’t see THAT coming. Truth be told, I was so buried in work I completely forgot about the game, until JB shot me a text half time, asking if I was watching Spain losing to the US. Whaaaa?

Fair play to the US team – they defended REALLY well, Timmy Tourettes was phenomenal in goal for them, and they took their two chances well (because in fairness, that’s all they had – two chances!) Spain, on the other hand, rained hell and damnation on the US area, but just couldn’t crack them open. They seemed predictable at best, and certainly didn’t look like a team that was considered unbeatable. Bummer that we’ve been robbed of a Brazil v Spain final, but I suppose I’ll have to wait until next year for the World Cup final for that…

Work’s on my tits. Conference time is usually bad enough, but throwing in the need to design a magazine from the ground up adds to the fun. Actually, no – what REALLY adds to the fun is when the editor of said magazine disappears for a two week holiday, meaning yours truly didn’t get the articles until the arse end of last week. No, that’s okay – I have a magic button that I just press that makes finished design pieces. Suuuure I do…

Course what makes that even BETTER is when your computer decides to shit the bed, meaning I had to spend all day yesterday wiping it and reinstalling EVERYTHING.

So with that, little time to ride. In fact, haven’t hit China Camp in over a fortnight thanks to the work schedule and the fork issues I had. But even though I’m not riding the trails, I’m at least on the trainer downstairs. Thank Jebus for that thing, otherwise I’d be going mental.

Sigh, back to work…

Tags: footy, life, work

Mountain bike related post. If you’re not interested, move along.

This is getting ridiculous.

Friday I decided to go for a ride. Headed downstairs to grab Ike, and noticed he was pretty slippery. Oil all over the place, dripping happily from the fork, forming a nice puddle on the ground.

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!

So I head back to Fairfax Cyclery, and show them the carnage. Hey lads, so umm…. you know that fork rebuild I paid for less than two weeks ago? You might want to take a look at this. And the cheeky feckers had the nerve to tell me that it had nothing to do with them. “Oh, we never touch the uppers on a rebuild, it’s all the lowers. We never touch the o-rings, and that’s obviously what’s gone wrong here. Totally different problem. Gonna cost you a new set of o-rings, and umm… we’re gonna have to rebuild the fork again.” But I just PAID you guys to rebuild the fork!! “Yeah, but that had nothing to do with it. Now, since all the oil’s leaked out again, we’re gonna have to replace all the oil, and that’s basically a new rebuild. Oh, and we’re completely booked solid, so we won’t be able to even look at your bike, let alone order parts, until next Tuesday.” What made it even better is they started saying crap like “Ohh, it’s a Reba! And a 2006? Yep, those ones ALWAYS have this problem.”

Jesus, if you KNOW these things have a problem, isn’t that something you’d LOOK for? Especially when someone brings in a fork for a FULL REBUILD?

So feck ‘em. I wheeled Ike out of there, promising never to set foot in that place again – and tell of their “service” to friends, and on Yelp. Instead, I took Ike to where I should have taken him in the first place – Sunshine Cycles, just down the road from that shitheap. (When I replaced the XR rockers a few weeks back, I needed new rocker bolts, and since Sunshine is a Turner dealer, they were able to hook me up). Ian, the chap behind the counter, gave it a quick look. Let me know that they were pretty booked in terms of service, but called SRAM with the intention of diagnosing the problem, ordering the parts needed, and then having the service appointment squared away for the day the parts showed up. After a few minutes, he was on the blower with a tech. First thing he did, was try and get it done for free, telling them it was a warranty job. (No go, the cute hoor at SRAM wanted the serial off the fork, which confirmed it was an 06 model.) Anyways, after some more back and forth, the problem was found. Wasn’t the o-rings at all, was the damper. The seals in there had blown, and unfortunately, SRAM doesn’t make those replaceable – the whole damper had to be replaced. The flipside of that is that the fork doesn’t need a rebuild at all. In fact, it would be such a quick job, and they felt bad about this having to be done after me paying for a full rebuild, that they were going to let the labour charges slide. (They are marking up the damper though, charging me $75 as opposed to the $50 I can get it for online myself.)

Anyways, upshot of it all is that I should be getting Ike back on Wednesday, ready to roll, for about $90. Whereas Fairfax were going to have me waiting about a week longer, charging me 50% more, and that wouldn’t have fixed the problem. At all.

In the meantime, looks like I’m on the trainer. Two thumbs up for the lads at Sunshine. I’ll be picking Ike up armed with their beer of choice, and no other shop will be getting my business.

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Now playing: Kasabian – Underdog
via FoxyTunes

Minor bragging. Excellent footy match today – put in 4 miles, won 2-0, didn’t put a foot wrong. In fact both goals scored by yours truly, and nice they were. Should have had a couple of helpers too, but people on my team couldn’t @#$# finish. Came home, feeling good, saw the scale sitting there in the corner.

Taunting me.

Come on, fatboy, you haven’t lost an ounce the last two weighdays. You know it’s time. Waddle over here, and take your medicine.

Seven days. One short ride, one short hike, one decent hike, two footy games, two sessions on the bike trainer, and sticking to the diet like glue.

Down 4lbs.

I’m back, baby!

In other news, United’s good luck charm is offski. £80 million later, and Ronaldo’s off to Real Madrid. While on one hand, it’s terrifying knowing that they have that much money in their pockets now, I’m giddy at the news – the two players that saved United’s arse last season were Ronaldo and Tevez, and it’s looking like neither of them will be at Old Trafford next year. Add to that the fact that Giggs and Scholes are past it, Van Der Sar’s getting up there as well, and you KNOW Ferguson’s not going to have the entire wad to spend on new players (not with the debt they have), and they’re looking likely to get knocked off their perch next season!

And the icing on the cake, is that I think I sold my 29er singlespeed wheels! Hooray!
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Now playing: The Weeks – Buttons
via FoxyTunes

Tags: diet, footy

Dusting off the total annoyance of the week leading up to it, Tracee and I got out for a nice hike on Sunday. The day before, we’d headed out to the Marin Headlands with the Brown Clan, to check out the Marine Mammal Center. Tracee’s parents are donors for the place, so we got a sneak preview at their open house, before it opens to the public on the 15th. The weather was absolutely stunning – quite a contrast from the weekend before when we tried the same spot with Mikey and Asia – and the word was the following day was going to be even better.

Didn’t need to tell us twice.

So Sunday mornin’, we hopped out of bed, hit up the Farmer’s Market, and headed out for a nice hike. A little over five miles – up the Coastal Trail from Rodeo Beach, cut along Wolf Ridge, and back down the Miwok Trail to where we started. Not a bad hike – not the most strenuous, but enough to get the blood pumping – and then a game of chuckit and a picnic on Rodeo Beach. Click the pics, yo:
So a nice blast of exercise, and a healthy end to the week. Felt awful for Mikey and Asia though – the weather was woeful while they were here, and as soon as they leave, we get glorious sunshine.

Thing that got me was seeing mountain bikers out and about here. Don’t get me wrong, the trails they were on were hardly epic (the Headlands has *some* mountain biking access, but not a whole lot without poaching) but some of the riding was just a fraction of what these nuts were doing. For example, one dude and his band took the ferry from Larkspur, rode from the City over the Bridge, up into the Headlands (that’s a SUCKY climb!), around and onto Tam, before FINISHING with a loop at Tamarancho. 52 feckin’ miles!! Check out the dude’s post on the MTBR forums for pics of his ride (well worth checking out!) Serious inspiration there.

So with that in mind, it was back to footy today. Considering I’d only had that hike for exercise in the week, I did alright, still had energy at the end, while others were doubled over and wheezing. But that wasn’t enough – scoured Craigslist, and found me a nice used CycleOps Fluid2 trainer for $100. This’ll get me an hour in the saddle at home every day, so that takes care of the “I don’t have the three hours to get ready, and head out to China Camp and back.” JB’s out of town for the week, so that’ll be my riding until Monday. Hopefully I can get my fitness back up to where I can at least avoid crapping out on the switchbacks like the last time…

Alright kids, off to bed.

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Now playing: Voxhaul Broadcast – Why Not
via FoxyTunes

I guess the dead leg had it’s desired effect.

Tried riding with JB yesterday, but bugged out when the climbing started. I had no wind whatsoever, and to make matters even better, my quad started screaming at me once the climbing actually started. Of course, the big bowl of Pho I had for lunch wasn’t helping either. So, while JB continued on, I had to do a 180 and limp back to his place. Of course, the cherry on top of it all was JB making it back to the house less than 10 minutes after me. That’s right, he was able to hammer out the climb, and took Joe’s trail back down in not too much longer than it took me to ride about two miles back to the house, on pavement.

And I guess the lack of exercise this week, combined with another weekend of crappy eating with Mikey and Asia, explains why for the second week in a row, I haven’t lost a @#$# ounce.

Oh well, head up, keep going!! Here’s something to cheer myself up – my favourite two malnourished skinny basts!

Tags: diet, riding

Sigh.

Riding’s been kiboshed this week, thanks to an oh-so-fun dead leg at footy on Tuesday afternoon. (I much prefer the description from my side of the Atlantic – a “dead leg” sounds so much more sinister than a “Charley horse”) So instead of footy two days and riding two days, looks like a half day of footy and a lot of hobbling around. I’m annoyed too, since we actually got some rain last night (Rain!! In June!! In Marin!!!!) – just enough to have settled the dust down up on China Camp, making the ride a lot easier on the lungs, sinuses, and eyes. But alas, wasn’t to be.

But since I’m still happily sporting the itch to ride, I thought I’d catch up on the last bit of bike maintenance I’d been working on – rebleeding the brakes, and cleaning the drivetrain out. Which brought to a close all the wee mods I’ve been wanting to make to Ike since I got back in the saddle last month. If you’re not interested in mountain bikes, I suggest you look away now. (In otherwords, anyone reading this other than MW…)

First thing I did was FINALLY bought me a new repair stand, so I could get around to doing the “must do” upgrade for Turner Burners – swapping out the X rockers for aftermarket XR rockers. 120 or so of these little beauties were made by the mystical and magical Paul’s Components some years back, and bump the travel in the rear from 3.6″ to 4″. I was skeptical about doing this, since what’s less than a half inch, in the grand scheme of things, right? Wrong. They really made a difference descending, especially in the rocky stuff. Gave the bike a much burlier feel, nicely confidence inspiring. And, since they’re limited edition, it makes Ike a collector’s item now!

Next thing was another frame mod that I’d wanted to do for a while. Busted out the Dremel and bored out the cable guides for the rear brakes. Never gonna use mechanical brakes on Ike, so wanted somewhere nice for my rear hydro hose to lie. Found a nice how-to on MTBR, and thanks to a little touch up paint that came with the Soma, it turned out looking pretty good!

The rest was typical maintenance. The front derailleur was shot, so that got replaced by a new SRAM X9. While I was at it, replaced the derailleur cables with XTR SIS thingies, and took a tip from JB and swapped out the WTB MotoRaptors for some bigger, burlier, Weirwolves. Damn if those things don’t make a difference in the ride too, even though they tack on a half pound to the bike. The fork was giving me some issues, so I had to run that into the shop – 48 hours at Fairfax Cyclery and $120 later, it came back with new seals and “special oil”. Don’t get me wrong, I love me my LBS, and want to support them whenever possible, but it pisses me the feck off when parts that should cost $25 tops – for a set of seals ($18 or so on line) and a quart of oil – gets marked the hell up. And they had the cheek to tell me I needed to have it done again after 50 hours of riding. Feck that, if that’s the case, I’ll do it myself next time.

Coolest thing in the world though, was cleaning and lubing my chain. Sounds boring, sure, but I found a tip online from folks who were using Prolink in dry conditions. A four step process that involves taking off your chain and cleaning it completely with Simple Green, lubing thoroughly and letting it soak overnight, then putting it in the oven at 300 degrees for a half hour, before giving it a final wipe with some Simple Green after it’s cooled down. Batshit crazy as it sounds, I gave it a try, and although I haven’t tried riding on it yet, it feels super clean, super dry, and super lubed! (See where I found it by clicking here!)

So now, the bike’s just raring to go. Pity my @#$@#$ leg isn’t!!

Tags: riding

Okay, we love you guys, all three of you reading this. But seriously folks, we need a break!! The visits of Alex, Bennie, and Michael Whaaaaaatbridge have been documented, but it doesn’t end there. No, sir! Last week, Nacho’s friend Amanda was in town for the weekend. Soon as we got her out the door, the phone rings – it’s Mikey!! Mikey!!!! He was nosing around online, found a great deal on a rental car and tickets, so would we mind an impromptu visit? Course not, come on out!!

In fairness, we had a blast with Mikey and Asia in town. I’ve forgotten how much I miss that kid, and both T and I love Asia to bits, thinking she’s a great grounding influence on him. (He’s still a smart-arsed goofy little douchebag, in case you were worried.)

But folks in town – 4 of the past 7 weekends we’ve had people spending the weekend with us, and the other three were spent with us out of town – means we not only get much needed downtime at home, we’re also constantly being strayed from our diets. Somehow managed to work around it for the first few weeks, but absolutely not this past two. Still, that’s a small price to pay for having people you love in town – but rest assured we plan on being in hiding this upcoming weekend, salads in hand.

(Seriously tho, folks are more than welcome to come visit. We’re honoured that folks think highly of us enough to make the trek!! We just didn’t plan on having a constant stream for two months!)

Ooop, gotta cut this short and go grab the mutt from daycare!

Badum-bum!

Yes folks, Ike’s back in action. After giving her a spot of TLC – installed new rockers bumping the travel up to 4″, replaced the shifting cables, bled the brakes, (finally dremelled out the cable stops for the rear hydro hose!), cleaned her up, and popped on a new front derailleur – I hit the trails with JB, and learned some interesting things:

I’m fat and out of shape. Seriously. But not as fat and out of shape as I thought. Yes, I had to walk a couple times on the switchback climb (in my defense, it’s a 600ft climb over 2 miles, which may not be REALLY bad, it’s more than I’m ever did in DC… which was what… 300ft over 3 miles – on road?) but I pedalled up for the most part. And when we got to the top, I felt pretty good – not bent over and puking like the last time I tried it. (Which, granted, involved a lukewarm triple espresso on an empty stomach beforehand, but I was also 20lbs lighter!)

JB’s a really good rider. The few times I was able to stay on his back wheel through the descents, I was really impressed. He takes awesome lines, and is a graceful rider to say the least (as opposed to his head down and hoof it approach playing footy). And – this really surprised me – he was more than content to ride at his own pace, and was surprisingly supportive to the fat Mick huffing and puffing along with him.

China Camp SP is a feckin’ AWESOME place to ride. It’s always busy, especially on weekends and right around quittin’ time in the evenings. It also doesn’t help that it’s one of the few legal trails in Marin. But feck me – it was a blast once the climb was done. 2 miles of switchback climbing (which took almost a half hour), followed by 3 miles of pedal free downhill (which took about 5 minutes), followed by 6-7 miles of beautiful swoopy singletrack that reminded me a lot of Rosaryville back in DC.

Turns out I’m not a very good wrench. I know what I’m doing. I took classes. I bought the books. I even read the instructions!! But apparently I have NO IDEA WHAT I’M DOING. My brakes were bled, and felt good. But as I was popping Ike on the roof of the Subie, I noticed my front brake no longer worked – it felt like there was absolutely ZERO fluid in there. Luckily, I was able to pop the bleed syringes on, and shoot fluid through to get it working again in time to ride. Add to that, my cable install was piss poor, with my rear derailleur slipping all over the place. Thankfully there was enough give on the barrell adjuster to tighten it enough to get me through the ride. (Stupid cable stretching!!) Looks like I’m either going to have to get back to work on it, or drop the cash to take it in for service – but there’s always funny looks doing that. Along the lines of “Dude, you have a Turner – and you don’t know how to do simple shit like bleed your brakes or change your cables!?”

But mechanical issues, and my flabby arse aside, ’twas a great ride. An absolute blast that got the blood pumping, and the urge to get back out there flowing. Minor clicky!

Oh, and for those keeping score, I’m down another 3 lbs this week. 15 total. Booyah!

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Now playing: Clutch – Sea Of Destruction
via FoxyTunes

Tags: diet, riding

The main reason I tend to be a fat b’stard is because I eat when I get stressed.

I’m not talking about stress levels when you have a deadline at work, or are engrossed in a football match. No, I mean stress as in SERIOUS situations. Life changing situations.

For example, it’s no coincidence that I chubbed up three times in my life. First, when my parents died. Second, when I moved to America. And third, when T and me decided we’d get married, find new jobs, move cross-country, and buy a house in Marin County. In the space of a year. Both times before, I cut the weight as soon as I dealt with the issues at hand – and now that we’re here and things have settled down, I’m dealing with the third “chubbening”. But now that this crap’s started at work, I’m noticing I’m slipping. A weekend down in Santa Cruz with Professor Mike saw me crack open one too many beers. And by one too many, I’m talking about a dozen over the course of this past weekend. Plus a bottle or so of wine. (Holy shit, I drank a lot this past weekend!) And add to that, the focus I’ve had the past three weeks slid around like Stephen Hawking on ice (without snow tires). It seems that the weekends are my downfall, especially when I’m not at home. That’ll be remedied this weekend, when I plan on staying the feck home for the first time in a month.

So am sure that when I sidle up to the scale this week, I’ll be suitably annoyed. I’m kinda hoping that venting about it here will help.

Work’s still on tenterhooks. We had a conference call yesterday to address the “situation”, mostly in the words of El Presidente “To calm folks down”. Of course that worked well when he said that even though he was “pretty sure” that the worst was behind us, in terms of cutting staff, he couldn’t rule out that it might happen again. And since yours truly was the one closest to the old heave-ho without getting it, I’m feeling AWESOME about that! There’s talk about changing our retirement plan from the absolutely free, ludicrously extravagant version to something a bit more normal – which shocks me. In my eyes, that should have been the first thing that went. Don’t get me wrong – love me my bennies, but I’d rather pay the mortgage, thanks very much. But alas, our office is made up primarily of folks who are dancing around retirement age, so of course it makes more sense for them to prefer to boot people out the door into this economy, than give up an ounce of the good stuff. That’s another pet peeve of mine – there’s so many folks who are at, or beyond, retirement age at work. And yet they continue to work, raking in their salaries, ridiculous retirement, and fattening social security, milking every last drop possible – while the younger folks in the office work for far less money, struggle with mortgages like yours truly, or now find themselves unemployed.

Awesome.

Aaaaanyhoo. In other news, the Premiership’s over for another season. Not officially, but it is for Liverpool – with United clinching their 18th league title, and 11th in the past 20 years. Us Liverpool fans are understandably miffed about it, and many absolutely refuse to give any credit whatsoever to our mortal enemies, citing that the best team most certainly didn’t win. Of course, my opinion is that the league table never lies, and that we left it too late to show the sort of form we’re capable of. But it’s in the past now, and all we can do is look forward to a Summer of silliness and irritation – where we begin by being linked to the likes of Carlos Tevez and David Silva, but will probably end up with Gareth Barry, an elderly Spanish former international, and some kid who nobody’s ever heard of, but honestly, he’ll be the next big thing (before disappearing into the reserves, and being sold on in two years, hopefully more or less breaking even…)

Off to ride today with JB. First time on the Turner in almost a year. I’m both looking forward to it, and dreading it. As I’ve said in the past, JB’s not only an expert rider, but is fit as all feck when it comes to riding (funnily enough, I can run him into the ground at footy, even though I’m lugging around 30lbs of chubb!) which means that the reminders I’ve given him about “Look man, bear in mind I’m fat, I’m NOT fit, this is my first time on the bike in a LONG time so I’ll be rusty as fuck, so for the LOVE OF GOD take it EASY!!” will last about five minutes. Ah well, only thing I can do is get back in the saddle, and it’ll come back.

Speaking of which, better get some work done before I disappear for it…

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Now playing: Oasis – To Be Where There’s Life
via FoxyTunes

Tags: diet, riding

Ahh, Mick McCarthy, the former manager of the Irish football team, uttered that immortal phrase describing him being close to losing his job. Well, today I found out mine’s in there too, ready to be razored into streaky back.

An email was sent out by the head honcho last week, announcing that our budget for the upcoming fiscal year was short. Waaaaay short. And that we, as an Association, needed to come together, and find out ways to make cuts, so the last resort doesn’t happen – staff layoffs.

Well, turned out it took less than a week for the last resort to rear it’s ugly head. I flipped on the mac this morning to find an ominous email from my boss. It read simply “Call me. We need to talk.”

A phone call to some folks back in the office later had me shitting bricks. More like cinder blocks, actually. Nobody knew of anything going down, but less than a minute later, my phone lit up like a Christmas tree going for a smoke break. Firings on a scale we hadn’t seen before – 20% of the folks in the office were told they were being let go. (That’s the sound of more bricks dropping behind me…)

Finally I got in touch with el bossette. Seems I was indeed destined to be one of the unlucky ones, but she lobbied on my behalf. Pointed out that letting me go would cost us more than we saved, since we’d need to pay an outside agency to do what I do. Fine, then we cut him to part-time. Nope, he does too much, we’d still need to either hire him on for additional hours, or hire an agency to pick up the slack. Okay, fine he stays, but you need to find a way to have him save $30,000. Which we can do, it just happens to be what we pay an outside agency to do our quarterly magazine (which I’ve suggested be brought in-house time and time again, since it NEVER made sense to me to farm it out when yours truly can do it.)

So, the upshot is that I still have a job, but by balls came ->this<- close to the bandsaw today.

I'm still hyperventilating.

In other news, I'm now down 12lbs total. Which is nice. 30 more to go. Headed up to the cabin for work weekend, got a lot done, but also indulged a little too much in food I shouldn't have. But I suppose that was somewhat offset by being outside working all day. Still, annoyed at my lapse in willpower. I'm gonna have to do some extra running at footy today as penance. Supposed to be going riding tomorrow with JB, but he needs to do it a little earlier - given the events of today, the last thing I need to be doing is bunking off early to go ride. So maybe I'll have to postpone that, or just ride solo later in the day...

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Now playing: Nirvana – Negative Creep
via FoxyTunes