Wow, apparently so. Fair amount’s happened in the past few weeks since the last post.

First up, work. Conference went well by all reports, despite the “legal issues” surrounding our esteemed Prez. As that was going on, I managed to whack out the magazine, which was greeted with much applause and back patting. Seems like I’m capable of doing my job AFTER all, and it would have been a rather stupid move to give me the old heave ho, eh Mr. President? Alas, rather than make this statement to the afforementioned Prez, he fell on his sword and resigned. So all change at the office again, but the atmosphere is a lot better back there, and people have reported that they now wake up for work singing this.

Not an image I want in my head. (Shudders)

In other news, we managed to disappear up to the cabin for a long weekend. Myself, Tracee, Professor Mike, and Jarod were joined by a pair of lovesick teenage kids. Awww, just kiddin’ Michael, but you did almost induce vomiting at a few points! (That might have been the copious amounts of beer…) As usual, a good time was had by all, and the beer served an extra purpose – creating empties for the newly formed….

Ta-daaa! Yep, not satisfied with buying the brewing equipment, I’m getting all obsessive about things as usual, so Long and Short Brewing has a name. And a logo. But more importantly, two (count ‘em, TWO!) brews in progress. The brown ale which is unofficially titled Ol’ Dirty Bastard, and a – wait for it – double chocolate imperial stout to be referred to as “Whenin Doubt – Chocolate Stout”.

The brown hits bottles next weekend, while the chocolate stout’s not going to be drinkable for another 6 months or so. Which means we’ll have to make a couple more stopgap brews to tide us over until we crack that mutha’!

Other than that, not a lot going on. Michael will be furiously dialling me when he reads that my arse hasn’t been on my bike at all in the past month – thanks to crappy scheduling for work, being out of town or busy doing other crap (cabin, roped into wife-related events, in-law invasions, etc.), my riding partner disappearing for two weeks on vacation (how dare he!!) and – I’ll be honest here – lack of motivation to ride dusty as feck trails in the height of summer. The result is that the past month has seen zero weight loss – but has also seen zero weight gain. But being on my duffer is certainly not going to see me in good stead when we ride Tahoe next month. (I know, Michael, I know…)

Footy season kicks off this weekend (another excuse to not ride!), with Liverpool in action against Spurs. Have to say, the confidence that our strong finish had given me for this campaign’s worn off with our activity in the transfer market. Two players out – one of whom was our player of the season – to be replaced by two similar players. Glen Johnson steps in for Arbeloa, which in fairness is an upgrade, while Xabi Alonso’s replacement is Alberto Aquilani – a tremendous talent when he’s not on the treatment table being nursed with some injury or another. Indeed, the guy’s not even available to play for us for another month, as he recovers from ankle surgery.

Christ!

So, um, Gerrard and Nando? Up to you two. Again.

Right, I’m off to bed. Night night!

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.

—————-
Now playing: Kasabian – Underdog
via FoxyTunes

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.

—————-
Now playing: Voxhaul Broadcast – Why Not
via FoxyTunes

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!!

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!

—————-
Now playing: Clutch – Sea Of Destruction
via FoxyTunes

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…

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

Had one of the funner weekends I’ve had in some time. Ben arrived Thursday night for a long weekend, and Michael made the trek up from Ventura to hang out as well. Professor Mike was in the mix for an evening too, but bailed early for work – the pussy. The three of us are all going through adjustments, so to get together I think helped out a lot – at least it did for me. Nice to know that there’s always folks around (even if they’re miles away) that you can shoot the shit with and feel good around.

As to be expected, beer was flowing freely, with a field trip to Russian River Brewing and Bear Republic on Friday, as well as plenty of 12oz curls back home courtesy of the beer fridge. And we ate well too, as usual, with a big ol’ grillfest on Saturday night beating the shit out of substandard Lococo’s pizza the night before. We did manage to get a little bit of hiking in, out in Point Reyes, although hardly enough to burn off a beer, let alone all the crap I ingested over the weekend. Clicky piccy…

So I was driving Ben to the airport that Sunday night, talking over some of the crap on our minds on the way down. The drive home was sullen and annoying for me after I got him there safe. I’m furious at myself for getting so overweight. It’s not that I’ve let 10lbs creep on, I’ve got a good 40 I need to lose. What’s even worse was that I knew I had to lose 30 a year ago. And 20 the year before that. I’ve seen it coming, known I’ve needed to deal with it, and just… haven’t. That’s not like me at all. (Seeing those pics of me above didn’t help either)

So I got home, and had a sit down with Tracee. Neither of us are happy with the way things are – we’ve both chubbed up considerably, we’ve both talked about dealing with it, but we just haven’t – and I explained how upset and frustrated I was because of it. And, let’s be honest – I’m sure Tracee would prefer it if I looked like my old self instead of a lardarse, and I gotta admit, I miss the more streamlined version of Tracee I met back then. We’re on the same page, and we resolved to do something about it, starting immediately.

My beloved breakfast sandwich has been replaced by eggwhites, boiled pinto beans, and a little bit of Gimme Lean. Lunch has been salads, fruit, lean protein. Dinners the same. The beloved beer fridge is off limits for 8 weeks. Two days of soccer, two days of getting out on the bike. And the thing is, it’s not a chore. It’s like my mind’s finally got to where it needs to be to get rid of the flab. I’m not even tempted by the usual crap. Don’t get me wrong, a burger sounds good, but getting the weight off sounds even better, so in my head it’s no contest.

As a little motivation, I’ve set a goal. By September, I wanna do the Tabeguache ride in Fruita. 84 miles of hut-to-hut mountain biking over four days (with plenty more available at the huts afterwards), followed by a massage and comfy bed at the Gateway Canyons Resort. It got written up in NG Adventure last year, and it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. At $645, it’s a little steep, but the nice thing about this over the San Juan Huts is that this is completely all inclusive, and there’s absolutely no logistics needed – the outfitter does everything, from stock the huts to cooking the breakfast and dinners. Hopefully I can talk Michael and JB into it…

—————-
Now playing: Led Zeppelin – Good Times Bad Times
via FoxyTunes

What do you get when you google “marin mountain biking”?

—————-
Now playing: Kings of Leon – Trani
via FoxyTunes

Not just once this week, but twice – I’ve actually been back on the bike. Just returned from a few laps of the McInnis levvies, and feeling rather energized, actually. It’s hardly strenuous, but it’s a start, and I figure if I keep it up, I might be able to raise my game and actually ride China Camp with JB in the Spring.

Just as well too, because the biweekly pickup seems to be dying a death. Both games this week had minimal attendance, and yesterday was less exercise and more munchin’ burrito with Jamie and Jeret. Ah well, you do what you gotta do.

And of course, no post on here at the moment can go by without me mentioning mortgages or househunting. This is a bit different tho – yours truly was interviewed by Kathleen Pender from the San Francisco Chronicle about the current mortgage mess. Not that I’m some form of expert on the industry, but there seems to be a a fairly large chunk of folks out there in jumbo limbo like us. We’re all still sitting, waiting, twiddling our thumbs to see what’s going to happen over the next month or so… and all we can do is relax and go with it, because it’s out of our hands.

Off to the cabin this weekend for Big Papi’s birthday. Which reminds me, I gotta run and go grab his pressie!

—————-
Now playing: The Presidents of the United States of America – Peaches
via FoxyTunes

Dude, shit… er…

Hmm. Now that we’ve gone into escrow on a house, and that drama is (temporarily – not counting our chickens before they’re hatched) over, I’m not sure what to write about now.

Um…

Well, this weekend I actually got back on the Turner. Granted it was just a leisurely pedal around the levies with Naz, but it was great to be out in the sun. Reviewed disclosures on the house, had Lindsey and Sean (Shawn? Shaun? Who knows in this country…) over last night for dinner, and this mornin’ watched my boys eke out a 0-0 draw with Chelski. Ooh, and went up to Mounts to collect some tasty Vino. And now I’m stuck in the living room on the laptop (who’s battery is about to die) since the Missus is working on the taxes in my office. So all in all, a boring weekend, with nothing exciting going on.

Which, to be perfectly honest, was bloody nice.

I’ll sleep well tonight.

—————-
Now playing: Kelly Joe Phelps – Cardboard Box of Batteries
via FoxyTunes