As you may (or may not) have noticed on my last post, I’ve switched over the photo handling to a slightly different format. I’m using a plugin now called Shashin, which basically just pulls pictures from my picasaweb account. This is convenient since I organize all my pictures in picasa on my computer, and so uploading becomes much simpler.

Among other neato-mosquito features is the ability for it to display a full gallery, slideshow-style within the post. I’ve been playing around a bit with it, and have decided that there is really only one item that is deserving of the inaugural test-run of the embedded gallery:
My spectacular (and ever more-powerful) facial hair.

So, without futher ado, here it is: The Great Moustache Gallery (click on a photo, and it will launch a slideshow).

Moustache Gallery

Halloween, where it all began….	gettin’ creepier….	starting to fill in at thanksgiving.	the thanksgiving road trip, totally creepin it up.		2009-12-03 07.47.40.jpg
starting to use a bit of wax. night on the town.	really able to straighten it out now.	holds up pretty well skiing, even after a faceplant.	touch up, post skiing.	With the inspiration at christmas.	Dueling moustaches.
2010-01-12 07.53.47.jpg	2010-01-14 07.11.17.jpg	sushi night.	Andy and Nic visit.	a nice swoop, taking after grandpa.	FxCam_1266463540571.jpg
FxCam_1265986609596.jpg	really curling it up for the kahtoola race.

I know, phenomenal.

Now, the question for you, dear reader is this:
I sent this gallery to the fine folks at Firehouse Moustache Wax and thanked them again for making the general debauchery of my moustache possible. They asked which one of these pictures I would like to have up on their site, and I’m just not sure. So, I ask you this: which one should represent me on their fine site?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

FKR.

It feels like only yesterday that we were in vegas for his 21st birthday. Turns out that was 2 years ago, and his dad decided it was high time for a repeat.

So, with cash in the wallet, ibuprofin in the bag, and a smile on my face, off we went to vegas….. with a mandatory stop on the way….

We arrived to a bit of a debacle with the room, fortunately we brought some cheap beers while we looked at expensive cars.

Here’s a little artistic interpretation for Stuart, since this was the last of the Genny Bocks. We saved it for a special occasion.

Vegas was, well, vegas. I almost feel bad saying it, but I’ve figured out how to survive the place.

Now, Kevin Rice, on the other hand, threw down. He was a roulette-spinning, craps-rolling, and bottle-service drinking mofo.

My friday ended around 4, and his was rockin’ until at least 6. Saturday involved a buffet for breakfast (at 11:30), a lot of sitting by the pool, and then a late dinner followed by making the rounds to a few select bars. We didn’t end up at any clubs, but we did stop by my all-time, favorite bar on the strip, Nine Fine Irishmen.

We drank, we sang, we partied. It was everything I could have hoped for. I called it around 4:30 that night. It’s been a while since I’ve had the late nights like that, but it was a helluva good time.

Another successful trip to vegas in the books, and I came out generally unscathed. Didn’t lose too much money, wasn’t too hungover, and actually felt like a real human being today.

I know, disappointing.

Then again, this easily puts my number of Vegas trips into the double digits (probably by a few), so maybe I’m just getting used to the abuse that city dishes out.

I hope not.

So, I guess I’ve been a little short on the posts lately. Even to the point that Raney called me out on it.

I apologize. I’ve been a bit stressed out because of work lately. Nothing worth talking about in too much depth, but a series of 11 hour days will get to you real quick-like. In the summer I just go out and hammer out the miles on the mountain bike. It cures the stress, it takes my mind off the fact that work has gone from ‘enjoyable’ to ‘means to an end’, and it gets me some exercise.

Unfortunately, in the winter, I get out of work at 6:30 and it’s dark. I lose motivation quick, and I end up sitting on the couch with a beer. It’s a nasty cycle, and at some point I gotta break out of it.

So I finally buckled down and got on the fixie the last couple days for the work commute. It cleared my head, it got me sweating again, and I felt much better. So good, in fact, that I ended up on the rollers for another hour and a half tonight. My legs are a bit sore (which they really shouldn’t be after 12 miles of commuting and 1.5 hours on the rollers) and I’m in a much better mood.

So, again, I apologize on the less frequent posts over the last month, but here you are, Raney (et. al.). I’m turning the corner back towards embracing the pain of getting in shape, and will most likely be blogging more about it.

So quit your bitchin.

Anyways, in addition to the apology/explanation/bitching/moaning, I’ve got a few events to pass along to anyone interested.

First up is 24 hours int the enchanted forest. I’m pretty psyched about this race. It’s a first-year 24 hour race in Gallup, New Mexico. The guys who put on the New Mexico Endurance Series have had some input into it, so I think it’s gonna be a big hit. I’m gonna get my name in the hat ASAP for it, and I suggest you do as well. The info, right now, is only on a facebook page, but you can hit it up here

I’m sure you all know about how much a fan of 12 hours in Mesa Verde I was last year. Well, the good news is the registration is open, the bad news is that if you aren’t in solo or duo already, you best be finding some teammates and hitting up a 4-man. I got a solo slot on in the race this year, and I can’t wait. It’s gonna be a great time. Hopefully I can keep this string of actually training up by then.

I’ve been considering a couple other races for the early season as well this year, check out dawn to dusk and the whiskey off-road. Unfortunately, it looks like the solo is full on dawn to dusk as well, so I guess I’ll be looking for a partner if I take that one on this year. We shall see…..

Finally, Randy passed along some info on a critical mass ride here in flag this sunday. Unfortunately, I won’t be attending, as I will be getting a little out of hand in Vegas for FKR’s birthday this weekend. But, if you’re in flagstaff, check it out.

Euphoria? How can you pass that up?

I know I can’t.

Laters.

This weekend was the epitome of a ‘turn and burn’ trip.

As you know, I headed up to Salt Lake this past weekend for a little skiing action with Maadjurger and J-money. Our initial reason was to head up for The Big Lepowski, which is a benefit event put on by Black Diamond. It was basically a day of ski clinics with a bunch of the BD athletes and drinking beer at Brighton.

In the morning we got to do a steeps clinic with Andrew McLean and a couple other folks. There were about 25 people in the group, and a couple other instructors besides Andrew, so we got split up into smaller groups. The group we got in wasn’t the best instructor, but he was a damn amazing skiier and did have some good tips for spotting lines through rough terrain.

In the afternoon we got to ski with Jamey Parks in a ‘freeride’ clinic. He readily admitted that “freeride” is kind of a made up terms, and basically just asked what we wanted to work on. He took us to some nice steep lines, gave us some really good tips and then started everyone on proper ways to huck small cliffs and rock drops. It was a ton of fun, and I feel like I got a lot more confidence out of that one.

As a side note, if you haven’t clicked through to Jamey’s site yet, you might want to, that guy is pretty ridiculous.

That evening was the party and although I didn’t win anything in the raffle, we did get good and sloshed, found some religious advice, and then found some Denny’s.

The next morning we awoke to find a flat tire on James’ car, so we put a little air in it, and began the search for an open tire place. Not an easy proposition on a sunday in Salt Lake City. Eventually we did, and they informed us that it was a sidewall puncture, so no patchy-patchy……

Then they told us they couldn’t sell us just 1 tire because it was an all-wheel-drive car and they won’t just put one tire on a an AWD car because it can ruin the differential. But, they were happy to sell us four tires….

We argued for a while and eventually found a place that would do it for us down the street and hit a half day at snowbird.

The snow was a little hard and the visibility was low, but it was a good time skiing some interesting lines and watching James try not to throw up on the lift from vertigo and a severe hangover.

We completely shattered our legs, and then headed back to the car…… only to find another flat tire.

So, yet again, we pulled out the donut, and went down into SLC to see what we could do at 5pm on a sunday. As expected, none of the tire places were even remotely open, so we bought a couple cans of fix-a-flat, aired the tire back up and set out down the road to check it every 30-60 minutes. By the time we had driven to Provo (about an hour) it had lost a couple pounds, but seemed OK, so we ate some dinner, threw some more air in it, and headed home.

In the end we made it back with about 4 air refill stops on the way, and about 9 hours of travel time.

Yeah, I was a little tired at work monday.

I highly recommend hitting up The Big Lepowski if you’re in SLC next year around this time……. just make sure your spare tire has some air in it.

Man, oh man.

It’s been a week to remember already, and it’s only thursday. Too much work, too much beer, and not enough playing.

I got in a nice little ride down in sedona on sunday after witnessing a slow-speed tip-over of an SUV in front of us on the way through oak creek. It was snowing in flag, raining in sedona, and for about a mile of 89 on the way through the canyon, it was sleet/hail/freezing/slippery as hell. The guy directly in front of us tapped his brakes, fishtailed into the guardrail and when he rebounded ended up tipping his giant ford explorer onto it’s side about 20 feet in front of us.

The whole think looked like slow motion as it happened, and I truly can’t believe that he didn’t pull out of the fishtail (it looked pretty harmless at first). In hindsight, it actually was somewhat slow motion since the exploder couldn’t have been doing more than 15 when it tipped onto it’s side. I jumped out of the car and proceeded to pull a couple kids out through the (now broken) back window/gate of the car. They were hanging by their seatbelts in the third row of seats. It was pretty crazy.

As I sat there and directed traffic for the next 45 minutes (until the fire department finally showed up, WTF?) I thought to myself: man, if those guys were in a car or even a minivan they would be sitting sideways in the road with a dinged up bumper, and probably on their way. Instead, they’re staring at the underside of their SUV waiting for the cops and a tow truck.

I see the appeal of SUVs, don’t get me wrong, but watching that thing tip over at about 15 MPH because of how top-heavy it was just made me think: “WTF?”. I can’t really knock people for making their decision on a car, to each his own. I just don’t think I’ll be buying an SUV anytime soon.

So it goes. Everyone was wearing seatbelts, and thus was OK; I filled the karma tank for a while; and even though it was cut a little short due to the events, I got in a rippin ride on the damp, sticky trails of sedona sunday.

Unfortunately, that was followed by a couple 11 hour days at work. I hate having to pull that shit, but sometimes it’s the way these things go.

I’ll redeem those hours this friday when I take off for Salt Lake City to go to The Big Lepowski with Maadjurger and J-money. I love me some backcountry, but I’m jonesin for some free vertical, and Utah is a great place to do it. Just gotta make it through a couple more days I owe the man before then….

Finally, I’ve got a few links I wanted to pass along to any interested parties as well.

Have you heard about our dear boy Shawn yet? Shawn just got a job workin for the man (some big oil, not sure who) and is in Houston currently, but his eventual employment destination is deep sea oil rigs. He’s gotten to do some pretty bitchin’ training thus far, and I’m sure it’ll be even more entertaining once he makes it out to the rigs. He’s started a blog to chronicle the happenings and it’s right here: www.themudblog.com.

There are also a couple other folks here who have started up some more educational blogs/websites. Pete Prebus has been at it for a little while (but I keep forgetting to plug it, sorry Pete!) with www.mountainbikeriding.com. He’s got a constantly growing wealth of knowledge up on the site already which is well worth taking a spin through. The general jist seems to be more oriented towards somebody just getting into mountain biking, but I think his plan is to do articles on everything A to Z.

The third is Adam, who’s stillborn blog dirthugger.blogspot.com has gone by the wayside in favor of another internet endeavor www.adventurebikeriding.com. It’s along the same lines as Scott’s www.bikepacking.net, but looks to be more oriented towards touring than multi-day racing than Scott’s site. He’s just getting it off the ground, so there isn’t a lot of info on there yet, but keep an eye peeled if you’re interested in those sorts of things.

Anyways, that’s all I got for today. Peace out.

…must be sore today.

I did the Kahtoola Aggassiz Uphill race yesterday afternoon up at snowbowl. It’s funny, because I frequently hike up snowbowl in the mornings with no ill effects, yet somehow when it’s a race (even only halfway up the area) I go balls to the wall, get side stiches the whole way up, and am in a lot of pain today.

Wow.

It was a great event, and if you weren’t there, you missed out. In years past, the race has been before snowbowl opened in the morning, and was basically an uphill-only race to the top. This year it was up and down, and was after the lifts closed for the day. This not only meant that nobody had to get up at 6am to make it up there for the race, but everyone was much more willing to drink a lot of beer after the race.

Not that there’s anything wrong with beer at 9am.

Apparently last year there were about 35 entrants, and this year they had upwards of 120. Keep an eye out for results tomorrow on the Kahtoola site.

Since it was an up and down race this year, those among us with skins and skis actually were right in the mix with the runners. I ended up doing the round trip in just over 37 minutes, which was good enough for a third place in the skinning division.

I was feeling pretty good, and had a great transition from skins to skis which pulled me ahead of a couple people, but I was just no match for the superhuman strength of Coach Ilg and Mark Ulm.

Steve Ilg did the course on a pair of skate skis, which was one of the most phenomenal things I’ve seen. We were neck and neck for most of the climb, but he sneaked past me in the transition while I was stripping my skins. I have no regrets about that one, as that guy is pretty much a mutant.

I was less than a minute behind Steve, but then there was Mark Ulm. This guy was in the top 5 overall times (including the runners) and beat me by about 5 minutes. Plain and Simple: he’s a machine. He was actually sent here from the future to destroy the human race through endurance events, and it’s working. He has more cardio capacity in his pinky than most people have in their entire body. Again, a well-deserved win for him. I didn’t even see him after the first pitch of climbing. Yeah, he was that far ahead.

There was also a costume contest, and a team competition up there as well. I was a bit disappointed with the team competition, as all the teams were lumped together (2, 3, and 4 person) so it was pretty tough to compete with the average time of the team of two people who were 1st and 3rd overall with our 4 person team, but so it goes. We did well with three top-three finishers in their divisions Eric represented with a 2nd place in men’s running, Janie threw down with a third in women’s running, and I did my part with the third place. But, unfortunately, that wasn’t enough for us.

At least we had a good name: “Everyone Loves a Snowjob”

Yeah, that was my contribution.

There were a few nice costumes out as well. I didn’t catch the Ninja Turtle team, but I did snap this pic of Khoa and his homemade cow costume.

I also did my part to join the costumed festivities and wore this get-up for the whole race. I even had a suit jacket and pants cut down to shorts and a vest, and a can of guiness which traveled the whole course with me.

Like I said, if you weren’t there, you missed out, it was a great time.