Cut Off

Catching up on Jed's blog reminded me of a biking incident i was involved in, a few months ago. At the end of my ride, I was waiting at a light for a green to cross. As I waited, some doofus who wanted to turn right, was honking at the old lady in the car in front of him, who was too nervous, or whatever, to make the leap and turn right on red. But she eventually did right before the green. Now, I was kind of in a bad mood because it was windy that day and it really wasn't a fun ride, and so I decided to assert my right of way into the crosswalk in front of the hothead driver as the light turned green. Which didn't work, he cut me off, but fortunately i'm not 225 lbs and going 20 mph like Jed was. At any rate, as he drove off, I flipped him the bird... and for a second there I envisioned life ahead as a grumpy old man... until something miraculous happened. Looking in through the rear window, up popped a bird back from the driver. And all of a sudden I felt vindicated. By flipping me the bird back, he acknowledged that he knowingly cut me off and that he's pissed that I actually called him on it. Ahh, that made the ride worth it.

(2007-08-10 13:59:27.0) Comments [2] // Permalink

Mountain Gears

So I got the second mountain bike ride in for the season. Well, as mountainous as it can get when I start out from home, which ends up being about 8 miles of road, 4-6 miles of dirt and another 8 miles of road. Anyways, its been quite some time since I hopped on the hold hard-tail, so before I attempted to hit some steep trails I took a few weeks to ride an easy bike path between Mountain View and Shoreline Park. The first ride up to one of the peaks at Steven's Creek park was surprisingly easier than I expected, however, I did near black out as I paused at the top for a while. Yeah, I probably pushed myself too hard there. I paced myself a bit better on the second ride and felt pretty good at the summit. Its all coming back to me. I remember how I used to categorize trails - the "up-and-back", and "balloon", a couple basic ones, representing the path for the whole ride. So for example, a balloon ride, is one where you start and end on the same section of trail, but somewhere in the middle, you take a fork which leads you back to it later on. And then there was how I would rate each ride. Mostly on my performance. Which included things like if I had to stop to rest (-1), if I had to put a foot down in a technical section (-1) or even worse, if i pitched it in a technical section (-.5) - that only a minor ding cause as long as I didn't get hurt, there is a story in it at least. Then theres the gearing during uphills, max speed through downhills. So many things to occupy your mind during that slow, agonizing uphill. Ah those were the days.

(2007-04-11 10:12:26.0) // Permalink

CBS Sports SUCKS!

Is is just me, or does the CBS Sports NFL coverage just suck. I complained to them last season, but sadly they didn't listen to me. What bugs me the most, is that they routinely go to commercial breaks instead of showing, sometimes critical, replays of the game. Then, of course, the announcers are never very enthusiastic about the game. About the only thing they have going for them is that the coverage is in HD. And I was just watching a game I wasn't even very interested in, the Denver/Colts game. Naturally, being a Raiders fan I wanted to see Denver get beat. And Manning's always a pleasure to watch, too bad he didn't play much. Farg!

(2005-01-03 11:34:04.0) Comments [1] // Permalink

Jonesin' for Football.

Man I don't know what happened to me. I never used to be into watching sports on TV. I remember growing up, my brothers were always into watching them. It drove me crazy. Being the youngest there wasn't much I could do. But, just a few years ago, I really finally got the point of Football. Except maybe Hockey, I don't think any sport can compare to Football. I need to watch some now! Not that I'm ready for summer to be over, but nothing could be better than watching the silver and black with a 6-pack of the silver bullet. A moment of silence to pray for the Raiders.....Amen.

(2004-07-18 10:35:36.0) Comments [3] // Permalink