Rides like this make all the bullshit of parenting worthwhile. If I could i would ride home with them from school every single day until the day i died.
my camera = suchapieceoshit! 3 min non-stop spinning, and after the vid 3 more.
Month: September 2012
hey babes, more kits!
Some good lookin stuff here, but i bought this.
when i told beckie she said i was a dork. Not for buying one, but for waiting so long. How could i retort, when it cost only $19? I have socks that cost more. I have bought pitchers at sports bars that cost more.
i got the innertubez and an hdmi cable now. Laundry, dishes, weights and pilates instead of sitting in a bar at 10am. and hanging with my little teammates. better than season tickets. #we.bleed.green.
We like to dress the same. We like to cat-pile.
Jerseys last forever. My granddad bought this for me when i was like 14. i havent really been a Dolphins fan since the lukewarm reign of Jay Fiedler.
My high school girlfriend bought me this when we drove to U Penn to celebrate after her early acceptance.
A few day earlier i bought us both Princeton sweatshirts when my early acceptance came. The speckles you see are moth holes, the guns you see are real.
I have too many jerseys, and they look the same as the day i got them ~25 yrs ago. Indestructible. When the memory of the emotion behind the shirt becomes so null and hollow its worth less than the actual shirt on Ebay, its time to get a tax writeoff from Goodwill. Thanks Grandpa Alexander, goodbye Miriam; cleaning out the closet. There are starving children in Africa who want to root for Mark Clayton on hand-me-down versions of Madden ’84. Note: Clayton (5’9″ 177) and Mark Duper (5′ 9″ 185) stand as evidence of the NFL’s evolution — today’s prototypical wide receiver now is 6’2″ 210-ish.
I don’t warm to things easily, nor do I shed them easily. I like to gatekeep the narrative of myself, a Sartre-esque indulgence that satisfies the majority of me that lives in my mind. So, when my #5 jersey arrived the day before the Eagles-Cardinals tilt, I had to show my loyalty on a 3.5 hour Windgate-Pemberton-Rocknob-Landslide-Bell beatdown.
6am, here comes the furnace
how is it possible that a shirt can offer absolutely no sun protection, and still be completely non-breatheable? Chainmail for the 1st World – I had not a single scratch from cat claw after the ride. Mebbe i should keep the Dolphins shirt for trail work days?
halfway, bout to hit the funnest little illegal trail i never suspected.
Climbing back out Coachwhip on double-track, a couple novice riders pulled over rather than pass me bar-to-bar, and one mumbled ‘Hang in there.’
Aww no, yer not gonna hang-in-there me!!!
What’s wrong with a simple ‘have a nice day’? Its polite, and non-judgemental. The weight and heat of the jersey hurt, but fandom and fashionistaism know no bounds.
I returned to teammates wanting a bike ride to brunch. Little toasty at 11:30, as i struggled through the longest steepest flat 1.5 miles of my life. Egg white omelet with asparagus tastes like ass compared to a ham-and-cheese.
Patio at Over Easy, its like the REDFACE Plague!
It didn’t matter (much) that the Eagles endured a complete ass-raping from the Cards. I got drunk with dehydrated expedience. After 42 yrs I have finally accepted that I can not affect the game from 2000 miles away on Tivo. I still look good, I rock the tailgate, the true fashionista just knows.
Stumble to Daylight: A Cubefarmist’s Paean
The Naked and Famous – Punching In A Dream
A year at PayPal felt like this
sometimes like this
It was never ‘For England! Long live the Queen‘. All nobility was denuded by flat smiles from foreign middle-managers who did not exercise or care about boundaries, and another $K and 401k match. Indian contractors are a muted culture of acquiescence, aggression, asskissing and technical skill. In moderation they are reliable, perfunctorily rah-rah, and and don’t whine wanting free trips to play paintball. En masse they overwhelm American ingenuity, encase autonomy in officialdom and tar. The 80% of my co-workers who were on H1 visas thought PayPal was worth it. Mostly. Where they came from and their disposition to deference didn’t stop them from complaining to me constantly, however, while still themselves contributing to the problem. When i gave notice they thought me heroic in my self-determination, and just a bit spoiled in my slothfulness. I heard Americans rank 36th in math and 1st in self-esteem. They quickly went back to work; I quickly stopped showing up til my exit date.
Money can be worth less than it is. I took a pay cut to see my kids.
Walking away from money is deeply conflicting. Paternal responsibility as a provider, nurturer, role model. Status, validation, benchmarks of accomplishments are barometrics for my paradigm. While they are hollow, a pricey college degree and 15 years in the salt mines make them mean everything. It stings the car payments and tuition. I haven’t felt it yet, but i probably will in a year. I will always pine for Bagel Day, drawers of scotch tape and coffee, jugs of peanut butter.
I took a pay cut to see my kids. I ride more. I weigh less. We took the girls to a waterpark for 7 hours at 102 degrees, and I only yelled once when my wife spilled cherry soda all over the car.
A friend said i was buying happiness.
No more TPS reports for Hari Kupanyavijayjay. Instead I *pause* *blink* *blink blink* …develop software all day! Read code, tweak, polish, dig, streamline, scrum manage, config and release, document and control, peel onions and root out cancer. I bring order out of chaos and glue bonds no one knew existed so no one knew were brittle. The possibilities for precision and elegance are ecstafying. My spell-check isn’t sure that’s a word, but i’m sure its a state, as rewarding and effective as a left join pulling orphans out of a database. I have relearned more linux in 2 weeks than I forgot in 6 years.
I took a paycut to see my kids. There is no fax, no office phone, no sink, 1 router, a Dropbox account, and 2 other doods breathing and typing and tooting in a tiny office with me. I yell a lot less. I think a lot more, like Spring has come to my e-space bringing wildflowers and cool rivulets of runoff. I don’t dread starting the work day, or dread its end knowing there are still hours at home that make no difference whatsoever.
The new gig thinks its like this.
And maybe it is. Out of meatspace, if you believe in rainbows and unicorns, they are kinda true. Optimism about work is a welcome change after too many years of resignation and toil. 6 weeks have been really good.
There was one catch: I had to use a Mac.
Despite the rapidity with which they identified me as Their Guy, and my palliative glow in someone wanting in my resume what I wanted in myself with only a 4 mile commute, Arabs and Jews seemed an easier problem to solve than learning a Mac.
Le MacBook sat on the table for 3 hrs while I waited for the seraphim to alight and begin programming for me. When they flaked, I couldn’t fathom how to login without an ALT key. For 2 days i was driving in Britain, faucets plumbed backward burning me reaching for a cold drink, close rudely maximizing, save rudely closing, Star Bellied Sneetches. i was iFucking glad Steve Jobs got cancer, someone needed an iHug.
Day 3: more powerful than my come-to-Jesus snowboarding moment. The whole underlying linux shell hums for a web-based software engineer, with seamless UI integration that Winblows couldn’t master in 15 years. And unlike Windblows, you can actually turn off the iShit. The programs, plugins and populace are all undeniably tighter. That so many Mac fanbois never conveyed the sheer technical superiority of the Mac allows my continued snootiness at their fantoms.
Day 4: zombie-apocalyse mode: i will kill for my MacBook. Once you go Mac you never go back.
My fast affection for the job was much the same. Going from a team of 10,000 to a team of 10 was still simply software development. But so lucid, tighter, and kinda a joy to use it. I look hipper carrying a MacBook and not a swipe card, and doing hip things, and soon hot hip chicks will flock to my hipness.
I actually like my coworkers again.
Everyone has a stake, but mostly keep the sabre-rattling to themselves. A professional crew, with a lot of impressive experience and weapons. Very hard to build in Phoenix. Very focused, and very fun.
Most days have felt like this. GO IGGLES!
I want to be a millionaire, so fucking bad. I want to spend each winter break snowboarding with my kids. I want to not work. I want to ride and cook healthy and walk the earth. Maybe. Mebbe not. But if you believe in rainbows and unicorns, they are kinda true.
GnarGnar RP
A 10-jump DH line with ramps and berms on top of Whale Hill.
I would have expected bike lockers at the Malecon before expecting this. Almost 75 rides in Rocky Point over the last 7 years, and never saw a single local mtbr. Then suddenly a significant piece of work, expense, balls and building expertise. Who can afford a DH bike down here, let alone bother the riding is so crappy?
#WHAT.THE.FUCK
#WHAT.THE.FUCKING.FUCK
It was so unexpected, I walked right by most of it and never looked up, which forced me to pinch out 1 pathetic timid run at 10:30 under a scorching sky, instead of 2-3 somewhat timid runs at 9:30 when it was only 95.
When I rolled over the top of the hill, I saw a new layer of plywood over the boulder line and barbed wire fence i’ve never found a way around. That it had a gap in the middle i attributed to wind and shitty mexican labor running out of materials. I wanted to boost it on the approach but couldnt get enough speed. I never looked over my shoulder up the hill.
There was a new cinder block foundation on the left, which i assumed caused the new washout on my right. The next large boulder was oddly packed in at the front, and the second one one i noted to pop off next time down. The subsequent boulder launched into a gapper that could not be ignored even by a hungover stoned xc weenie like me. The final one trannied out 5 yards from more barbed wire. 3 fun ones to hit on the way back, 3 only dumbass mexicans kids would try — still a helluva find down here.
ego-stoking on some strange, before knowing the top was there.
2012 0901 RP 03 from Jason Alexander on Vimeo.
The third time i pushed back up, I spotted the unnatural bulb of a jump, and traced it uphill to another and another. I kicked myself for an hour wasted hitting Old Port again, and dove in while go-rounding the ramps. The 29er is fine for finesse moves, but sucks in the air clipped-in with no pads. I still got a healthy kick ripping a beautifully built hipper out of the largest berm.
Thank you, mystery builder. I hope to meet you and pitch next trip when i bring the Bird. I’d never strand myself like that, but karmas this trip also brought the bike rack, G’s bike, the Blur and the 2bike. Choices will abound again next trip, with pads. Thank you, mystery builder .