Ida Maria – I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked

Some great new music liberated from the intertubes. U2’s new album, Death Cab for Cutie, Silversun Pickups, Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers, and Ida Maria’s Fortress Round My Heart. I dl’d her after hearing her on XM. Good thing I caught her name last time, since I decided to not pay my bill and just let my subscription lapse. Times are tight, long live The Pirate Bay and uTorrent!

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I Open Source

About a month ago I was working on getting the Feed Reading Blogroll plugin integrated with my sidebar, and received some extremely friendly and timely help from the developer via comments exchanged on his blog. Yesterday I got a random email from someone who had read that little thread asking me some questions about my customizations.     He was very nice, almost apologetic for taking up my time.   I immediately sent him the original and customized versions of the files I tweaked, genuinely happy to assist.   As I said in my email to him “No worries, bro.   what goes around comes around.”   Its beautiful when the world works out that way.

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Meatpod Smiling

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Hei Hei Steps Up to Some Gnar

I took the Hei Hei out on Pass Mtn this week.     Its not super gnarly, but plenty chunky with a good sampling of technical challenges and a few genuinely tough moves.   5th ride on the bike, about 8 hrs so far.   I’ve ridden Pass Mtn probably 100 times in 8 years, and know every bump.   The bike did well on the last ride when i threw it at some trials; time to take off the training wheels.   In the 1.5 years since I’ve had the Heckler, I have ridden it exclusively on Pass Mtn, probably 20 rides.   My tech skills have definitely grown enormously with the big bike, but I was still a bit nervous and certainly respectful of Pass Mtn, having bled on every quarter mile of   it over the years.   I used to get pounded by Pass Mtn on the Blur, so there was a little bit of trail psych-out and big-bike dependency going on in my head.

The Hei Hei proved itself to be more than up to the task.   The climb was easier with the sub-28 lb bike, rolling the chunk no problem, and dropping Alex just cause I could .   The drops and slots also no problem, they felt totally in my comfort zone.   The only real tough parts were coming out of gnarly moves near the saddle into their following switchbacks, and I’d attribute that more to me being a little nervous about the bike and focusing on the truly dangerous parts too long instead of riding with confidence and spotting the exit lines in a timely manner.   The chunky descent down the South face was not quite, but almost, as fast as on the Heckler.   That’s a tradeoff I can sure live with, and all this without the thru bolt yet!

I am so pleased the bike did so well.   I bought it to be an enduro ride that could handle a bit of everything in AZ, and that’s exactly what it showed me it could do today.   Woohoo!   it was also really cool to realize some trust in my own skills, the plush and burly Heckler giving me a forgiving learning environment over the last 18 months, but me absorbing its lessons well enough to translate to a “smaller” bike.   But i sure felt the chunk in my arms and hands!

The final step up I plan to make with the Hei Hei is on National, hopefully today as Beckie and I are meeting at Somo after work.   Not sure what she will be up for, as its been probably 4 years since she’s even been on Javalina.   If we make it up Mormon, I will try to talk her into riding the Heckler down so I can take the Hei Hei…I’ll even ride the Heckler up the hill for her, that’s the kind of great guy I am!   The Hei Hei is not ever gonna be my ride of choice for National as I have no desire to ride it big like the Heckler, but I’m so psyched to be pushing the edges of my preconception of what the Hei Hei can do, and knowing it won’t feel overmatched on the Crazy 88 or the next Squealer.

Yay new bike!!!  

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Pretty Little Girl Goes to the Haircut Store

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Madden Retires

Woohoo!!! My prayers have been answered, I can turn the volume back on for Sunday Night Football.   I hate him hate him hate him!! He hasn’t had anything new to say in 10 years, if you can even understand him with all the marbles in his mouth. Doddering old man who couldn’t finish a point, fawned over any player who retired in the 80’s, and too much of a spineless pussy to call out any players from today.   Turducken is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard of.   He made my ears bleed with non-stop use of phrases “heckuva play” and “this league.”   The man-crush on Brett Favre was creepy, and for the last 5 years it sure didn’t look like Favre was having so goshdarn much fun playing the game.   Off to the glue factory you go!!!