I have a blog

So, there I was, drinking my morning coffee and reading my 6th favorite blog, when I was reminded that I actually have a blog of my own. Maybe I should update it once in a while. So, here goes a blog post, sorta:

Can we get Julian Assange extradited to Egypt instead of to Sweden? Technically, he’s a journalist, right? Perfect. They send him to Egypt and once the revolting Egyptians are done beating up on Anderson Cooper, they can turn their attention to Assange. Sounds like a win-win. By the way, I just realized the first three letters of Julian’s last name spells “Ass.”

How many more years do we have to watch the Black Eyed Peas sing “Tonight’s gonna be a good night?” It seems like for years now, every time they appear live on TV, they play I Gotta Feeling. Well, I’ve gotta feeling that song is way played out. Speaking of the Super Bowl, its halftime show, and its commercials, how much longer do we have to endure the likes of Ozzie and Slash? Those two need to hop the first crazy train to Paradise City and never ever return.

Beginning New Year’s Eve, my job went all Mad Men. Yep, that’s right, at the moment I’m the sole ad writer at work. How’s that for a resume builder? I know what you’re thinking; “Don Draper and the rest of the principals at Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce don’t drive economical Mazda 5s, wear clothes from the sale rack at Kohl’s, drink discounted wine from Gerrards, and ride last year’s Trek models.” Well, Redlands isn’t exactly Madison Avenue and I’m not exactly trying to sell something as sexy as London Fog trench coats, but I do see a big purchase in my near future. On pay day, I plan to buy a pallet of Zantac to cure the bleeding ulcer I can feel coming on.

I guess this blog really wouldn’t live up to its name and its banner if I didn’t throw in something about the beautiful ugliness of suffering on a bike. Another year, another 150 bucks thrown at USA Cycling to keep my UCI license current. There’s some suffering for you. The last couple of years I’ve consider just purchasing the standard domestic card, but I’m still too proud to give up that coveted International license. I worked hard for it. Who knows, maybe I’ll keep renewing it until social security doesn’t pay me enough to afford assisted senior living and a UCI license too. Or maybe they’ll have to pry it out of my cold dead hand.

I already put the 2011 license to use this year at Boulevard Road Race. The short story is this: With 5K to go there’s one dude up the road by about a minute and I’m in the first chase group of about 10. Just before 2K to go the attacks started and I was only able to respond to the first two. The third attack was too much for me to cover. I cracked, then rode into the finish, but not before getting caught by a few other chasers. Official results say I was 16th, and that number makes me ill because it reminds me of amateur basketball. March Madness is right around the corner and there’s nothing sweet about that.

The real sufferers at Boulevard were Ryder and Tricia. They drove the 2.5 hours down there with me, stood around the feed zone for 3 hours, and then drove another 2.5 hours back home. Their only reward was getting to listen to my iPod set on shuffle for 5 hours of travel. If only everyone could be so lucky.