Feel free to skip this post. It is nothing more than a long complaint. I am sick for the 9000000th time, this year. I knew it was going to happen when my office mate came in coughing her lungs out last Thursday. It is a little bit ridiculous. I was supposed to run 11 miles Wednesday morning. When I woke up sneezing at 2:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep, I realized it wasn’t going to happen. I was hoping that it was just allergies. But somewhere around noon, when I was still blowing my nose every 5 minutes, I knew I was in trouble. After work, I was supposed to go out with Reagan and some friends to a movie that she scored some tickets to. Instead, I stayed home, did laundry and took a photo.  Initially I was going to try to get a shot of the lightning going on outside, but decided that I didn’t have the patience or energy at the moment. So, instead I took a super exciting shot of my B-berries sitting on my desk.

I’m supposed to do a 21 mile run on Saturday and the Hartford marathon in 2 weeks. I’m kind of freaking out.

To add insult to injury, the hosting plan that I mentioned in my last post, didn’t exactly workout. So, I am trying out a new hosting plan, with my blog as the guinea pig. The tech support guys are really nice, but it is an operation that is pretty new, and from what I gather, it is a pretty small shop. As a result, my request to modify the PHP build running on the server, has still not been addressed. Because of that, I have no GD or FreeType libraries, which half of my plugins require (if you have perused it in the past couple of days, you may have noticed that it has just been displaying the header and a php generated error message). That is why shortcode is appearing where all of the images should be, when a page loads up. The only reason that anything besides error messages is displaying, is because I finally broke down and disabled all of my image handler plugins. It’s like driving a car with no brakes.

As if that weren’t enough, all of the MySQL databases on our old server (i.e. the one where Reagan’s blob, and all of our other sites, including some paying clients are currently hosted), have been infected with a malicious script that is redirecting all of those urls, to spam sites. Awesome. The tech support guys are working on it. But, as of Sunday morning, things still aren’t resolved. To top things off, my (home) office looks like a tornado hit. At least I can control that one. So, as soon as this post is published, things are going to start looking up. Wish me luck on resolving the rest of the crap on the list. I hope that everyone else had a less stressful weekend.

Normally, by this time of the week, a little bit of detente creeps into my mood, and I start to anticipate the weekend. Today, however, I’m totally stressed out. I had a 9 mile run marked for this morning. I woke up at 5:30– monsoon. So, I figured I would give it an hour, and set my alarm for 6:30. Again, I woke up to a monsoon. Since It takes me about an hour to do that kind of distance, I had to abandon running this morning. The crappy part is that I’m going to be working tonight, so I won’t be able to do it then, either. I know I need to just get over it.

On the positive side– 1. we are FINALLY getting some rain. Hopefully it will cool things down for a minute. 2. It is Wednesday. Only two more days until a weekend, in which neither Reagan or myself have any commitments marked. This means that we can do whatever we want! 3. I shot a pretty cool thing for Oakley last night. I included a few of my faves above and below. I used to have a pair of Frogskins in high school. I loved them. 4. If you love Piper, be sure to check out some super adorable video of her practicing walking, over on Reagan’s Blob.

I took this shot of the construction at 1 World Trade Center, last night on my way home. It is weird sometimes how certain seemingly random things will set my mind in motion, wandering down equally random paths. Last night, for example, after observing the construction, admiring the workers, etc., I started thinking about the days when I used to do construction work.

My family comes from a long line of masons. All of the men in my family have performed some sort of back-breaking manual labor during some period in our lives. It is kind of cool, the way that those experiences shape your thinking and who you are.

One time my brother and I were arguing about how to “lower” one’s gas-mileage. What we meant by “lowering gas-mileage” was actually, lowering fuel consumption. My dad was in the room, reading the paper or something during the conversation. At some point, he decided to point out our backward terminology, and chimed in “I can think of a lot of ways to lower your gas mileage. For starters, you could tie a pallet of cinder blocks behind your car.” After which my brother and I both proceeded to make fun of my dad, saying that his brain only thinks in terms of bricks and cinder blocks (which is more funny when you take into account that in reality, my dad’s brain is like an organic super-computer).

I hope that some day my kids tease me for talking about bricks.

Not long afterward, several other Resorts along the Wasatch range decided to allow those pesky mogul wrecking “ski-boarders.” The early 90′s brought in the Jim Crow-type of era for snowboarders. “Sure, you can come on the lifts with us since you are buying a ticket, but don’t get too comfortable around here, you lateral stance hip-hop loving freaks.”

What happened next, I still have mixed feelings about. Snowboarding made its debut as an Olympic event, which was kind of the catalyst for world acceptance of the sport. Before that, I think that it was still viewed as a passing fad, to a certain degree. It was so exciting, as a snowboarder, to feel validated. At the same time it was kind of sad, because snowboarding was losing it’s edgy nouveau freshness. Suddenly snowboarding was all the rage. All of the little silver spoon turtleneck wearing Austrian tourists were riding, instead of skiing. Those were the same kids that we got in fights with on the ski-bus bus in jr. high.

Suddenly the sport was flooded with tons and tons of money. From the perspective of a kid who had to save for months and months to buy his first deck, and who wore Sorel boots because he couldn’t afford Burton, it felt kind of sad to see the sport change directions so abruptly. It felt like the sport went from a bunch of rag-tag hoodlums to glitz and bling, over the course of a few short years.

After 2002 SLC, I embraced the new “snowboard culture.” I accepted the fact that, like anything else, the sport and culture associated with it, is an organic thing. I was a little irked at Park City Ski resort, that vying for the Olympic bid is what it took for them to finally open their doors to snowboarders, and buy a pipe dragon. There are still a few resorts that don’t allow riding. Not surprising, two of them are in UT. One is Alta, another is Deer Valley. I like to think of them as the dirty south good old boys of ski-resorts. Since Alta is located on BLM land, there is no stopping riders from poaching early season pow, before the lifts open. In honesty, I prefer the bird anyway.

Before this rant/manifesto carries on too much longer, I’ll get to the point. One of the things that I absolutely love about the modern snowboard culture, is that the roots rowdy originality that has always surrounded the sport, still comes through in modern snowboarding innovation. Only– now it is super deep with funding. The DC mountain lab is a great example of this. I’m sure that Ken Block isn’t the first dude to come up with the idea of a rally car-style snow cat. But since DC supplied the cash flow, he was able to make it a reality. When I saw this video, I was smiling ear to ear. Who else is getting stoked for snowboarding season?

BTW: all references to the American civil rights movement are tongue-in-cheek. This post is not meant to diminish the struggle for racial equality, in any way. I fully understand that the struggle for snowboarders to be recognized as athletes, can’t even be measured on the same scale as the magnitude of the civil right movement. So there is my disclaimer

Anyway, U2 was probably one of my top 10 favs, through Jr. high, and high school. I haven’t really listened to them much, since. Given all of the buzz, I decided to try them out again, to see if I just forgot how good they are, or what. I accomplished this by adding a few of their songs back into my shuffle playlist.

I have discovered that not only do I not particularly care for U2′s music anymore, but that I was tired of it. Since I have had their songs back on my shuffle, I have found that when a U2 song comes up (particularly during a workout), it literally makes me feel tired. So tired, in fact, that I have to skip their songs, to prevent myself from losing steam/motivation during my workouts.

The funny part is that I own every one of their albums, even some of the imports. Every one of them purchased in hard copy format, complete with tangible plastic and cover art. It is funny how people grow out of, or away from certain things. I’m pretty sure that if someone were to have interviewed me 15 years ago on the subject, I can guess what my response would have been. I would have sworn up and down that I would love the group my entire life. I would have said something like “U2 is such a dynamic group. They are not afraid to let their sound transform with the times. They will always be relevant [to me].” My statement would have been true, to an extent. Jjust take out the bracketed “to me” part, apparently. Which brings rant #1 to a close.

Rant #2: Why has my running suddenly started sucking so bad? Two weeks ago, yesterday, I had the best run of my life. I ran so fast, and felt great afterward. I have not been able to come anywhere near that pace, since then. In fact, during my run yesterday, before it was cut short by rain, I was turning out mile-times that were over a minute slower, than they were 2 weeks ago. I can’t begin to describe how frustrating this is. It is especially frustrating, since I’m running a scored half-marathon this weekend, and the Hartford Marathon, the following weekend. Am I still going to be in this rut for both of those races? Ugghhhhh.

On the bright side (not that anyone is still reading, I mean the U2 thing was just ridiculous), tomorrow night some of our friends got us ticket to see a lecture by Dean Karnazes. He is the dude that wrote “Ultra Marathon Man” and did 50 marathons in 50 days. I posted about his book, earlier this year. So I’m hoping that after his lecture, and cleaning all of the U2 out of my playlists, that I can get back on the upswing. Wish me luck.

Reagan and I, have on occasion had discussions regarding the integrity of retailers (lifestyle pushers) like Urban Outfitters. My argument is that, by providing all of those reproduced “vintage” (FYI, I hate the term vintage) tees, etc., in one location, and charging a ton of money for them, Urban Outfitters has effectively taken away everything that may have been cool about the items.

Whereas, if one happened upon the item at some mothball laden Army surplus store, thrift shop, or flea market, the item would have been oozing with character etc..  But because of the advent of Urban Outfitter-type organizations, even the flea market/thrift shop variety has been downgraded in character, coolness, and novelty. Which, I can see how this probably wouldn’t affect Reagan’s purview of the chain much, because I feel like the aspect I’m complaining about isn’t as prevalent in the products for women. Especially since Reagan doesn’t really buy the logo tees and stuff.

So that was my rant about UO, generally. Well, last month the Chain took things to the next level. Now not only can you buy your prepackaged hipster costume at Urban Outfitters, you can also purchase a custom fixie (pictured above) to parade your new faux-vintage duds around town.

I’m not really even sure where to start on my list of things that is wrong about this venture. I mean most of the guys that are legitimately hard core enough to call a fixie their main mode of transportation, most likely also call it a tool of their livelihood and have also most likely never heard of a chain called urban outfitters.

To wrap up this little outburst, lets mix in a little bit of positivity. Check out these hot handlebars that I came across yesterday.

These beauties, made by Nitto, are the B123 model. They are a hot choice for velodromers, messengers and casual commuters alike. This particular bar comes custom painted by Death Spray Custom with the iconic love/hate tattoos (so you don’t have to get real tattoos on your real knuckles).

Ugh. I go away for the weekend, and this is what happens.

Sorry, that this is going to be kind of a rant. So, skip it and I won’t be offended. I have been really frustrated with my running for the past couple of weeks. I have been having problems with my ITB (I think), since the BK half marathon. I ran it with some new shoes that have less support and are made for a more neutral stride. I didn’t think that it would make that much of a difference. I thought that maybe they were just wearing out (since that also tends to make the knees a little sore). So I switched to some even heavier shoes with less support. After that I noticed the problem getting worse. It was to the point that it hurt every time I would descend stairs.

I started reading a lot of articles about knee pain caused by running, including a few that gave me ideas on some stretches to do. I also talked to the people at  the running store where I shop, about it. I started doing the stretches and it seemed like things were getting better, especially after I switched back to my old shoes. After my race last weekend, I didn’t have any pain at all.

Then yesterday, I wanted to run 12 mi.. It had finally stopped raining, and I was home early enough to do the whole run before it got dark. I could only make it about 7 and 1/4 before the knee pain was too much. What is wrong with my stupid legs? So freaking frustrating!!! In fairness, It could be because I haven’t been doing the ITB stretches since last week.

When running in pain, everything else starts to bug the crap out of me. I start hating what ever song is playing in my headphones. I get pissed off at all of the people who aren’t walking or riding on the correct side of the path (especially on the bridge). Of course I never say anything to them, or even give them dirty looks. This is the best part:

For whatever annoying reason, the GW generally only has one side that is open for pedestrian traffic. I prefer it when the south side is open, because there are no stairs, and the breeze is generally blowing north (blowing exhaust away from the path). Last night I had already done several laps of the bridge (was already in pain and pissed off) when an 18 wheeler came across spewing thick black smokey exhaust. The breeze was blowing it all straight into the faces of the people on the ped path. The stuff smells like a trash fire.  In an act of defeated anger, I pulled the collar of my jersey up over my nose, and gave the driver the bird as he drove by. He probably didn’t even see me. Or if he did, he was probably laughing. It’s kind of pathetic the way that I let myself become indignant just because of a little knee pain.

On a positive note, I plan to be at the beach for the next 2 weekends in a row. Which means, no shoes getting in the way. I heard that running in the sand is supposed make your calves super toned. So, maybe if I work really hard, I can get some sexy calves like Reagan’s.

(which is only appropriate to use, while walking through wide open fields, or the set of “I am Legend.”), to shrinking down like this:

So good. Admittedly, it is going to be a little tough for the person to see where he or she is going. But it is a small price to pay, to avoid being stabbed in the face by a metal prong, every time it rains.

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