Gimme Gimme Me Shock Treatment

I was feeling sick I was loosing my mind
I heard about these treatments
From a good friend of mine he was always happy smile on his face
He said he had a great time at the place

Peace and love is here to stay and now I can wake up and face the day Happy happy happy all the time shock treatment, I'm doing fine

Gimme gimme shock treatment Gimme gimme shock treatment Gimme gimme shock treatment I wanna, wanna shock treatment

I was feeling sick I was loosing my mind I heard about these treatments From a good friend of mine he was always happy smile on his face He said he had a great time at the place

Peace and love is here to stay and now I can wake up and face the day Happy happy happy all the time shock treatment, I'm doing fine

Gimme gimme shock treatment Gimme gimme shock treatment Gimme gimme shock treatment Gimme gimme shock treatment Gimme gimme shock treatment Gimme gimme shock treatment Gimme gimme shock treatment I wanna, wanna shock treatment

I'm Mr. Mom now. K&N gave me the shaft last week (because I knew too much) and so I get to spend some time towing Ryder around and taking him to his classes at My Gym. Rad. I sure will miss him when I'm in Snowmass.

Not sure what I'll do for work next. I have a month or two before the well runs totatly dry, but hopefully it won't get to that point. I just need a little time to decompress before I jump into the job search. It definately came as a shock...

Get To Know Brett Kinsfather

Freemanrace: What was your first impression of me?
Brett Kinsfather: What's with the gallon jug of water?

What is your impression of me today? Where's the gallon jug of water?

Brett Favre: Great or Greatest? Great quarterback, greater pain killer addict.

If I gave you 200 bucks to go buy a gift, what would you buy me?
I'd bribe someone to give you a better job.

If I gave you 50 bucks to buy yourself a gift, what would you buy?
Contacts...I'm f’ing through with glasses.

I hear bad habits are hard to break. Are there any bad habits you’d like to break? My bad habit of continually ripping on the same people.

Courtney Love: Victim or Misunderstood? At one point in time, she had a great rack.

What do you think of my Nuns Having Fun calendar and does it offend you? An office cubicle must.

I consider myself superior to the average Joe because I ride bikes. Why don’t you ride bikes? I consider someone who can kill another man with their bare hands superior to anyone who rides a bike.

What do you think my first impression of you was? Where the effe did this guy come from and where is his gallon jug of water?

What do you think my impression of you today is? One of the few people who understand Matt's love/hate relationship with all living creatures.

Do you have any parting words? I heard two Louie Bono stories recently. The first one was that he has spent some time in a mental facility. The second one was my friend overhearing this come out of Louie's mouth to a girl at a recent wedding: "Hey, you know I have a room at the hotel for after the reception...I'm in room D, Big D." He then proceeded to laugh hysterically to himself.

- Brett Kinsfather is an internet minister currently residing in Illinois. He spends his time building hot rods, looking for employment and compiling stories for an upcoming biography about his childhood friend, Louie Bono, who’s the dumbest man alive. Brett’s only regret in life is that he’ll never get back the time spent waiting for Bill Crites to finish eating the many dinners they shared together.

Tossers Tuesday

Actually, every tuesday is Tossers Tuesday in my book, but yesterday was a True Tossers Tuesday. We saw them at the Galaxy Theatre. I forgot what a shithole that place was, but I digress. The opening bands were horrible, the Street Dogs were so-so and The Tossers were freaking awesome. Joey and I chatted up Tony Duggins, the singer, on our way out the door. He was completely pissed (that means drunk), but very talkative.

Right now I'm not very talkative. I think I'll go ride my bike...

Do This, Don't Do That...

It's been said that to live in 7 Oaks is weird. I agree. 7 Oaks just doesn't have enough structure for me.

No shoes, No shirt, No credit card, No dice.


It doesn't say anything about throwing rocks at the reflections of the ducks.


But I have a license...


Signs are threatening enough, but nothing's worse than good old fashion public ridicule for parking your bike in the, quote-unquote, vegetable garden.


No Pamela Anderson?


I guess the frogs and pollywogs aren't technically considered pets.


How does this work? Do I read left to right? I'm confused. And what do they mean No Dogs? It's a campground. In the forrest. There's squirrels & raccoons all over the damn place.


This one doesn't bother me as much. It's not like that road behind the gate looks scenic, mystical or magical.


I see the same anti-drug campaing signs around Mentone.



7 Oaks: A great place to get away (if you wanna be hassled by the man).

Back from Mount Snow, Vermont and, of course I’ve got no photos to show for it. In order to snap a shot you have stop and stopping isn’t an option during a fast-paced, high-stress National Championship race weekend. Wait… scratch that. Unlike normal race weekends, this trip was low stress thanks to Christie’s parents (the Millers), who took care of us. Greg’s family took the second shift of the weekend and continued to make things comfortable for we weary left coast travelers.

We even got to see a little bit of the surrounding area outside of the race venue – quite an oddity. Saturday afternoon’s trip to Jamaica, VT to soak our legs in the river was rad, mon. And I didn’t have to wash a single dish throughout the entire trip because that’s pretty much all Joy did. If she wasn’t riding her bike, she was doing dishes.

I’m getting good at jacking other people’s images, so why start photo-documenting these trips now? And besides, I don’t think my camera has a strong enough strobe to light the haunted Mount Snow trails. Under a canopy of trees, the race course was cut through slippery, root and rock invested mud that made wearing sun glasses and using your front brake a life hazard. So, let’s say for example the course was marked with street signs instead of ribbon, stakes, arrows, broken bodies & damaged bikes. Here’s what they’d likely be:

The result of using the front break.

They could have used one of these signs every 20 feet. I guess it was a mountain bike race...

Of the two bridges on the course, I could only ride one of them without hitting the deck and risking death and dismemberment.

The universl sign for, "That's gonna leave a mark," Tom and Frosty could have put one of these at the top of every decsent. Mount Snow is definately not a spectator course for innocent ears.

The Play-by Play

I raced the single-speed with hopes of finishing on the box. Not fifth, not fourth – but on the actual box. Let’s just say the cog I chose allowed me to run as high as second place at one point and walk as low as 12th place at another point. That point being the finish line. But at least I didn’t have to do any dishes.

Meanwhile, on the Home Front

Ryder loves to swim and with assistance from his floaties, he gets around the pool pretty well especially for a 2-year old.

Ryder could be the next Michael Phelps, sans the DUI.

He and Denise went to Austin to visit friends and family this weekend, so I’m bach’n it, as they say. Actually, I feel more like Bridget Jones, because instead of tapping a keg, so far all I’ve done is watch TV and over-indulge in Dreyer’s Slow Churn Ice Cream.

I wonder what Vino is doing right now?

Vermont Good. Vino Bad.

"I wanted to believe it was a really good day [for Vinokourov]. It makes me very sad. Vino is one of my favorite riders. He's one of the most beautiful riders in the peloton. If a guy of his stature and class has done that, we all might as well pack our bags and go home right now."
- Saunier Duval-Prodir rider David Millar

More on my trip to Vermont later...

My Camera Sucks

What do I have in common with FEMA?

When disaster strikes, I’m not prepared. I threw away a potential NMBS Single-Speed win, or a podium finish at the very least, in Deer Valley, UT this weekend. A pinch flat and a Big Air valve containing a badly deteriorating o-ring left me walking the race course. My ever-growing list of things to do includes getting a tubeless set-up on my Rig, which should have been Bike Priority # 1 before departure.

On the bright side I was in the lead group of 4 when disaster struck and we were killing it. My failed flat fix was near completion when the next 1x1 creaked passed me. So, as I spent the rest of the day exploring Deer Valley singletrack solo and blowing off steam, this thought occurred to me: “I worked too damn hard for that UCI Pro License to not be using it,” and so the National Championships in Vermont will be my last Single-Speed race. I’m going back to the big show for Snowmass and for next year too, should I decide to continue this travesty.

And besides, who cares about Single-Speed racing anyway? What will hold more weight when Ryder gets older; the fact that his dad won a few Single-Speed races, or the fact that his dad chased around the world’s best mountain bikers for a few years? I’ll choose the latter for him.

Enough megalomania. I had comrades in Utah. Our condo was a potpourri of SoCal mountain bikers, plus one-and-a-half. There was Christie Pleiss, Joy Andrew-Sick, Sean Donovan, Romolo Forcino, Ely Woody, Nigel Hill, who is the plus one because he lives in Humboldt and Carolyn Popovich, who is the half because she splits her time between Romolo’s place and her school in Philadelphia. For a brief moment we had a boy’s lacrosse team staying with us too, but that’s a long story for another day. Anyway, a good time was had by all (I think) and good race results were produced by all, with the exception of yours truly.

And finally, this was too good to pass up. From Sager’s blog:


"I didn't go to Park City's Deer Valley NORBA or whatever they're calling it now (NMBS/Frosty's arbitrary STXC pulling)..."


That's hardly subject for arbitration.

Confession

I took Flintstones Vitamins once but the horrible aftertaste was a side affect I wasn't willing to live with. I never did it after that one time, but I had to try it because I wasn't getting the vitamins and minerals I needed to be competitive in the Rialto Youth Soccer League.

On Saturday night I witnessed one of those rare moments in life where everything happens the way it should. While walking down sleepy Grand Ave in Los Olivos, a speeding BMW swerved into the on-coming lane pointed in the direction of some innocent kids, (scratch the word innocent), some kids hanging out near the curb (Oakdale style). The driver acted as if he were going to run them down, but with Jerry Rice-like reflexes, swerved back into his lane and went on his way with a hurricane of dust and straw in his wake. Greg Pleiss and I looked at each other in amazement. Before I could say, “Did you see that asshole?”, the planets aligned and a hidden cop car pealed out of the sky. In an instant, we were watching COPS Los Olivos.

The driver was young (junior college age) and so were his female passengers. The Statey cuffed the felon, but didn’t knock his prisoner’s head on the outside of his squad car while shoving him in the back seat. Bummer. Sloppy police work if you ask me. No doubt the influence of our current governor. But I digress – the important part is that, if for just one evening, there was one less BMW driver on the planet and the sleepy town of Los Olivos was safe.

Back to Dinner...

On Saturday night, Trevor, Greg, Christie & I dined at the Los Olivos Cafe’. The Pleiss’ had eaten there a few years ago (before they were the Pleiss’) and since then the café has been the stage for a few scenes of the movie Sideways. No one in our party refused a glass of wine, but we couldn’t help but notice the lack of vino on the table of self-proclaimed wine aficionados, JHK and Mrs. JHK. No red wine, no white win, no pink wine - just a pink t-shirt worn by the eventual runner-up of Sunday’s XC Race.

I would have ordered my own pink t-shirt that evening if the San Marcos Motel in Buellton had wireless internet. They did have a hundred cable TV channels (including HBO & ESPN), so I made Trevor watch Sherman’s March. Sherman was a bad dude. I secretly vowed to race the next day’s event with the same passion and furry of the great general, burning or destroying everything or everyone in my path. Instead, I fell a little short – landing somewhere between Sherman’s March to the Sea and a full Confederate Army Surrender. Fifth Singlespeed O/A. I’ll take it.

World News

The witch hunt continues

Ryder is 2!

It seems like just yesterday I was three-quarters through a bottle of wine and working on bikes in my plush Raven Way garage when Denise waddled in and misdiagnosed her water breaking as an uncontrollable pregnant-pressured bladder. Destiny told me to skip my ride that evening and spend some time working on, a bottle of wine, and badly neglected bikes. I was numbly on my way to finishing both jobs when I stopped to mop up the garage floor, pack an overnight bag and drive my contracting wife to Redlands Community Hospital: a drive that she chauffeured on many occasions due to my string of random injuries, aliments and surgeries. Even pickled, I was familiar with the drive from our Grand Terrace home to the hospital.

Back labor forced Denise to stand on the cold delivery room floor through her painful contractions, and me to serve as her pillar. (Note: the one and only time I’ll refer to myself as a pillar). Eventually all that standing, all that heavy breathing and all those massive contractions gave way to all that wine and all that void of dinner in my stomach. Spotting a potential embarrassing moment that I’d never live down (interesting fact - woman faint, men pass out), soon-to-be Grandma Suzie assumed the pillar position while soon-to-be Grandma Cindy assumed that a Del Taco combo burrito would get me through the rest of the birthing. Sure as the sun rises, the from-concentrate beans and oatmeal meat gave me the strength and nourishment to see Ryder born (viewed from the dry end of the bed) as the sun rose on April 21, 2005. Including everyone in the delivery room like Denise, our family, the doctor, the nurses and of course, Ryder, I owe those precious moments to Dan. I think I may have just figured out Ryder’s strong obsession for beans.

Great Grandma Joyce holds the birthday boy. Mint chocolate chip birthday cake, cheese cake or beans? “Yes please,” says Ryder. He loves his sweets and his beans equally.


From the left - Evan, Ryder, James, Brandon & little Destry kick it backyard style.



Attached in the email reminding me that he’ll be in the states on Monday, my good Czech friend, Robert, sent some photos of his new custom painted Prodoli road bike. Apparently decades of communists oppression helped produce a storm of custom-painted creativity. Czech out the detail to the water bottle cages, seat tube & top tube. It’s like a Trek Project One. I call it a Commie One. Anyway, the bike looks as fast as a Russian Mig.

The only thing this bike is missing is this.

Leaves of 3, Let Me Be

My trophy from Sea Otter: Poison Oak. My left forearm got the worst of it, but even after nearly two weeks, little spots keep popping up on the rest of my body.

Here’s my daily routine since getting the poison oak: get up from a horrible night’s sleep and start drinking lots of coffee to level out the 8 AM Benadryl. By noon, I’ve changed the dressing on my arm at least twice and the morning Benadryl buzz has worn off, so it’s time to take another. At 2 pm I’m a complete zombie from all the drugs and from coming down off the coffee. By 4 or 5 the drugs are starting to wear off again, but I’m usually able to get on the bike by that point, so the discomfort is temporarily replaced by the high of riding. After the ride, I come home, shower and reapply calamine lotion to all my spots and sometimes take another Benadryl, chased by, at the very least, a couple of beers to kill the pain. Even so, I still can’t sleep well because the goo seeping out of my arm wets the dressing enough that it wakes me and I reapply calamine & dressing. Lately I’ve been cutting the toes out of old tube socks and wear those to bed like a poor man’s arm warmers. And the day starts all over again…

The outbreak on my legs is strategically positioned on both sides of my inner thigh and either rubs on my pants & shorts or on the outside of my saddle while I’m riding. The spots on my back are right where my heart rate monitor is supposed to go and the blisters near my armpits are where all my shirts lay against my body. But the left forearm – oh, the left forearm. God help me.

What Would Jens Voigt Do?

I've Been Busy

Since the big New Year's freeze of '07, I've been busy. Too busy to blog at least. Just working, hanging out with the kid & riding. And a little racing here and there too.

Here's some good stuff of Ryder.

December of '06 at a cross race in Torrance. Ryder had a lot more fun than I did. At this race I punctured while running fifth (again).

Ryder likes hippos. Especially ones that swim and are the size of compact cars.

He likes snakes too.

Back at the cross race - Denise is responsible for the feed and Ryder is responsible for packing up the trainer after I'm done warming up. I'm responsible for flatting. Everyone does their job well.


Back at the zoo - "Echo, echo, echo, echo, echo!"

New Stuff from Brandon Bird

Battle of the Heroes

"I always pick Dauber, on the account of his speed attacks," says Brandon. Brilliant.

T-Mas

That's all I can muster for now. Photos of Ryder's 2nd Birthday, racing & random B.S. soon.

The Inconvenient Truth

We got snowed in today.


My orange was frost bitten.



The pool froze over & the grass died.

When I was a kid we had one toaster. It was metal and it was shiny and I think it out-lasted me in our house in Rialto. That toaster lived through several electric chord replacements and tens of thousands of bread and English muffins. Not long ago Denise & I got a plastic black toaster, probably from Target and from day one, it never worked right. Because I’m a cheap-ass I refused to buy a replacement for the plastic piece of junk until it actually broke. It finally broke, but only one side of quit toasting, so because I’m a cheap-ass, I kept using it. I just had to toast one piece of bread at a time.

After about a week of spending twice the amount of time trying to make & eat breakfast, I concluded that time was money and decided that I’d treat myself to an early Hanukkah gift and buy a new toaster. It just so happens that I had a $10-off gift card to Target (the irony), so at lunch one day, Brett & I braved the holiday crowds, unemployed & stay-at-home moms & set out to buy a new toaster. Our trip was two-fold – also planning to pick up a Christmas gift for the gift drive at work. As it turns out, they had the same piece of shit toaster that I was replacing, but to the right of it stood two toasters. Toasters built the way toasters were supposed to be built – constructed from metal. I chose the dull finished toaster, thinking that it was less likely to show finger prints than the traditional shiny toaster. And what a choice it was. I’m a week into using my new toaster & I’ve had nothing but perfect toast. I’m even craving toast for lunch, dinner & fourth meal. What a difference metal makes.

For the gift drive, Brett, Jenna & I went in thirds on a plastic big wheel.

The new toaster appears to be bullet proof. If you look closely you can see my reflection in the toaster...



The Old P.O.S. Toaster: Who says once you go black, you never go back?

Speaking of rip-offs. Wednesday was Denise’s birthday & 1-800-Flowers screwed up and didn’t deliver the flowers I ordered for her until close to 7 pm last night. Sounds like I should call David Horowtiz or Stone Phillips. Now that I’ve asked around, I’m the fourth person that got hosed by 1-800-Flowers. Moral of the story. Don't send flowers.

I just ran across this photo of an early fall ride that we did up to Poop Out: A signature Johnson/Hepenstal ride, except no one was severely injured and I don't remember any flats.

Here's proof that it's not how flat you can whip it, it's who you know. Eddie Arnett & John Kerr hooked me up with a MBA cover shot & a few inside. I'm the midget on the left with the red rectangle around him.

TCB (Takin' Care of Business)

So much for summer tan lines...

We took Ryder to the beach once this year. He loved it.

Now we're talking about taking him to the snow for the first time. I'm sure he'll love that too.

It's Friday night. I actually got a lot done today. Got my allergy shots cleared with the anti-doping people at USA Cycling, got my iBike partially hooked up, got Denise's iPod Shuffle running and working & I'm currently downloading music while I'm typing this blog. Risky business running two such programs at once with this POS Dell. It appears as if I'm getting a lap top for Xmas, so that gift may lend itself to more frequent blog updates once I get it hooked up wireless. Oh, I almost forgot. I got Denise's Xmas gift online today too. TCB!

Spent 45 minutes on the Power Cranks this morning. I can't decide which is worse, the discomfort of those things or the bordem of them while on the trainer.

Doing the Raincross ride tomorrow morning. Hopefully we'll all stay out of the potholes.


Speaking of the Raincross ride, just in case you forgot, this is what suffering looks like.

Well damn. Something inside me suddenly wants to update this poor neglected thing, yet I’m failing to come up with anything relevant. I could write a long review on the long Redlands Xmas Parade. Nah, living through it was enough. Just think about watching TV, only instead of actually watching a show, you’re watching two straight hours of commercials. That’s the Redlands Xmas Parade. It seemed tolerable last year. At least Ryder enjoyed it.

I could write about the Death Cab show that Denise, Josh, Jeannie & I went to on Tuesday night. Okay. The Bren Events Center at UCI (no, not that UCI – the University of California at Irvine. That UCI), which is their basketball arena. It was a pretty good place to see a show. It’s not too big and even sitting near the top, we weren’t too far away. Some people apparently paid admission just to hang out and not watch the show. Like the two hags sitting behind us, who wouldn’t shut up. I thought they were filming a talk show in the row behind us. Then there was the girl, whose name was Scooch according to her brother, sitting in the row in front of us. She filmed the entire show with a small hand-held video camera. It’s probably already up on Utube.

The show itself was just so-so. Denise & Jeannie thought it was good. Don’t get me wrong, they played some kick-ass stuff. It was just too far and few between and the Pogues show may have ruined all shows for me, since they're such a great live band. I thought the opening band kicked ass. They’re called Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins. I bought one of their CDs and it’s pretty good. They’re kind of like Patsy Cline meets Jack White or the White Stripes.

Other than that I’ve been riding the hell out of my bikes. Four to 6 hour rides on the weekend and hour plus trainer workouts during the week. Some dumb-ass forgot to call out a pot hole on the Raincross ride last Saturday resulting in several flats and destroyed wheels. There was probably about 50 or more of us single-file going full throttle and BAM! Water bottles flying all over the damn place. Luckily no one was killed. Oh, and I got chased by a dog on the Sunday ride.

I can’t get enough of The Valley of The Shadow of Death by The Tossers. I’ve probably listened to it ten times in the last two days. Plus they’re working on a new album that will be out early next year.

I wonder what Ryder is doing right now?

Finally, something newsworthy

A spy photo of George and his National Championship Jersey courtesy of Greg Johnson. Greg was Georgie's driver over the weekend during the newly-crowned National Champ's whirlwind Southern California promo tour. I wonder if my name ever came up in conversation as they drove all over the damn place?

It's Christmas time, which means my mom is hounding us all for our wish lists. I emailed her a list of some stuff that she could purchase for me on-line. Here's her reply:

"Okay. If your other items are to be ordered you better get a move on it.
Love, Mother"

So, I guess I better get a move on it. Later.

I've got a lot to say...

but no time to say it.

Of course, this speaks volumes.