Kayaks and Karoake

Fun weekend. Rock Cut and New Zealand Wendy's birthday party. Birthday first, Rock later.

New Zealand Wendy pulled off quiite a birthday party! She wanted to pattern it after the Amazing Race. We met up at the boat launch at the Skokie Lagoons at 7 pm Friday. Some of us, including me, couldn't get there until later. We each were on a team of three people. Two members of the team had to kayak across the lagoons to find a birdhouse that had a message in it telling us what to do next. She had rounded up enough kayaks and gear to be able to do this! So, once our kayaker came back with the message, we were given the address of a nearby house that we had to find. Luckily one friend, Craig, on my team had grown up around there and knew exactly where the street was. I would have had no idea - and Wendy had told me I didn't need my GPS! Unfortunately we each were in our own car, and we couldn't leave our cars in that lot after dark.

Once there, we had to say a phrase at the front door, at which point the guy came out of the house and took a picture of one of us (me, in this case) with a hula hoop, using our own camera so we would have proof Then he gave us a needle, thread, and button, which we were supposed to sew on the handkerchief or bandanna that we had been told to bring along. I couldn't see well enough in the dim outside light to thread the needle. I dropped it the first time and had to ask for another needle. I wasn't expecting to know the guy who owned the house - it turned out to be a bike shop owner I hadn't seen in years! What a good sport he was to do this. Then he gave us our next clue. It was referred to as the lemon squeezer by the lake... which of course is the Bahai temple. So we went to the temple and had to search around for the hidden clue. The janitor was busy sweeping - I asked him if he had found any clues! He said he had just started. Lucky us, or the clue could have ended up in the trash. I kind of felt like I shouldn't be walking around this magnificent, hushed, house of worship looking for clues... luckily there were only a couple of people sitting in there.

The next clue was to go ask for the movie Great Outdoors at the Video Adventure store. Dan and Craig stopped off at Dan's to drop off his car while I tried to get to the Video Store before Brian and his team. We were all well ahead of him, but he caught up to us at Central Street. I took Chicago and he took Sheridan - I made good time but got tripped up by a light by the Firehouse. Had I been more aggressive about getting through the yellow light, I would have gotten there first. Brian, Kris and Kristen got to the movie first - inside the plastic box was the clue! I got to it as they were reading the clue. I later found out that Brian had called ahead and tried to reserve the movie! The staff said they wouldn't help him cheat....! They headed over to Northwestern ahead of us while I waited for Craig and Dan. Then we headed over to Norris Center at NU to look at the Roommates Wanted board to get the next clue! I was the only one in oour group who knew where that was, so it worked out fine.

The next clue was to go to the Heartland Restaurant and take a team picture in the photo booth. That was our opportunity to drop off my car at my house before going to the restaurant. Finally our team was all together. We saw Brian's car in the lot, so we knew they beat us there. We hadn't seen the third team in quite a while. When we got to the bar at Heartland, some other people met up with us and we had a few drinks before the next stop.

The next stop was a place we only had the address of. I knew what it was going to be, but I don't think most of the others did. It was a Korean Karoake Bar! I have never, ever been to a karoake bar before! I always used to think they were stupid, but for some reason it sounds alot more fun than it used to. Maybe it was being able to do it with a small group of friends instead of a bar full of people?? My only brush with karoake was at the 2005 WORS banquet when some people did karoake after the banquet. I was way too shy to do it at that point, in front of people I didn't know very well.

There were alot of us packed into a private karoake room. I think the whole place is private rooms, which seems like a great idea to me! I think it made even the shyest comfortable enough to belt out a few tunes. Wendy called me tonight and said they (not sure which "they" that would be) decided that I was the karoake queen - apparently I was the biggest surprise. I guess that's good - I never sing in public cuz I don't think I sing very well - I can never tell whether I am staying on pitch... but it was nice to hear that I wasn't terrible! I guess my friends have never seen the closet wanna-be musician/rock star side of me - they only know the bike racer wanna-be side! I have been obsessed with bikes and bike racing culture for so long, I forget that once upon a time I was also obsessed with music.....

Anyway, we stayed for hours and it was really fun. I realized my taste in music is a little different than the group's - some of the songs I picked no one had heard of, but everyone was fairly patient with other people's choices. We never really ended up eating dinner cuz the food options at the karoake place were expensive and fried, fried and more fried. I was so fired up about karoake when I got home, I stayed up way too late going through iTunes on my computer playing songs.... silly, huh?

It's here!

It's here, it's here! The 24 Solo DVD finally came in the mail. I can't wait to see it! I may not have time until Saturday, though more likely I'll probably end up staying up really late some night to watch it before then.

Pain and the Brain

Someone recently gave me some reading material about pain. Being injured, I have been reading it to learn more about how the nervous system works.

I have noticed several people, in their blogs, talk about riding so hard in a race or ride they end up puking.

(Not to mention a video of someone chugging a whole 32 oz bottle of a certain orange flavored antioxident energy drink all at once....that brings on it's own very special kind of pain, apparently!!)

Anyway, I thought I'd quote a few paragraphs from the stuff I have been reading.

"in persistent pain, when the alarm system and brain are sensitized, all of these fears can help maintain the pain by activating those pain ignition modes - and set the orchestra up to play the pain tune. Remember that the brain wants to protect you from anything that is dangerous."

"So, hurt does not always equal harm. Simply by reminding yourself of this each time you are in pain can help reset this system..."

"When the central nervous system gets really desperate to prevent you from damaging yourself, it can paralyze your muscles (called "spinal shock" - it does go away) or make you faint, vomit, pass out, whatever it has to do."

So I wonder if that protective response is what is going on in the body when people sprint so hard for the finish line they vomit?

Messenger Video, and "World of WORS"?

Here is a link for a video about a NYC bike messenger race.

I wonder if anyone has ever come up with a video game where bike messengers dodge hazards to see who can get the delivery there first. I don't know much about video games - for all I know there could be several like that out there.

There could be a WORS video game too. How about "World of WORS"? "World of WORS-craft"? You could have a lot of fun making up things to find in the woods that could make you go faster, and various ways to beat your opponents.

Also, could you put the WORS courses on a Computrainer and preride from home? I don't have a Computrainer to know if it would work.

What if someone made a HelmetCam video of each course and put it on DVD? Or better yet, walked it and videotaped it? Do the courses change too much from year to year for that to work? Those of us that don't get to preride might like that. maybe this kind of stuff already exists and I don't know it?

Tour de Georgia Video

For live Tour de Georgia video coverage on the web, go here and click on the AT&T Tour Tracker Link.

Not everyone is training....

Here's a link to a silly music video that I received today.... I have never heard of her before.... apparently not everyone is training for racing season!!

(thanks to Gil for the video link.)

Ride your bike to the grocery store....

For Earth Week, my local Wild Oats grocery store is offering 10% off your groceries if you ride your bike to the store, starting today. Just show them your helmet when you check out. I don't know if every Wild Oats store has this, but if you live near one, check it out.

Paris Roubaix coverage is on tv right now..... looks like way too nice a day for this race! (Unlike the unfortunate folks at Sea Otter....) Ooops, there's a big pile-up! Ouch.

Olympics in Chicago?

Wow, Chicago just won the race over L.A. to be the U.S. bidder for the 2016 Olympics a few minutes ago. 2016 seems so far away. If it actually works out, just think of the racing we will get to see here in the Midwest!

Tax Deductible Eating and the Cargo Bike Movement

I read an article in the Chicago Tribune (paper version) Thursday about the cargo bike movement. I started hearing more about these when I stopped by an old friend's framebuilding shop in Seattle last year. A former messenger and bike mechanic in Chicago, he had been building cargo bikes in Seattle for quite a while. I've been wanting to convert one of my old mt bikes into some type of cargo bike for commuting and grocerying for a couple of years, but haven't gotten around to it.

At the end of the article was something I found amusing (see below). There has got to be a way for hungry racers to take the same idea and make it work for them!!

"Alan Wayne Scott, 57, a bike messenger in Toronto, is also an important figure in the cargo bike movement. After realizing that as a bike messenger he was eating three times as much as he was used to, he wanted to deduct food costs from his taxes the way an automobile driver deducts the cost of gas. Scott fought for many years in the Canadian courts until, in the late 1990's, the Canadian government agreed to allow the deductions."

Don't leave food in your car in bear country.....

As I'm writing this, there is a Pimp My Ride episode on where a outdoorsy girl is showing where a bear attacked her car in the San Bernadino mountains. He opened the door and got inside in search of the food she had in the car, accidentally locked himself inside, tore up the inside trying to get out, and then pooped in it! They showed what looked like a ripped open bag of cheetos and a Clif bar wrapper on the seat. There are claw marks everywhere on the outside, and the inside is really trashed. He tore off door panels, etc. She said that when the sun heats up the car the poop smell reappears. ugh. I guess she is going to be ecstatic to have her ride Pimped and De-Pooped!!!

I'm glad there aren't bears at Kettle after seeing that car.... we'd all be in trouble!

Now they are fixing up the car and are showing a hammock that pops out of the trunk for when she goes camping. It looks like the paint job is going to include giant stylized bear claw scrape marks on the hood and sides of the car.

Anyway, last weekend I worked the Clif booth at the Shamrock Shuffle expo Friday night. There were alot of shufflers shuffling by at the expo, but not as many as I expected, given that 30,000 people had to pick up their registration packets Friday or Saturday. Maybe the rain kept people away. The people watching was ok. The Potbelly booth had a roulette wheel where you could win different thing, such as free sandwiches or Potbelly items. The enthusiasm of the women running the booth made it fun and made it not so bad to wait in line - they cheered everytime someone won something. I got a handy Nalgene-type water bottle the first time. I was trying to win the lettuce head-shaped stress ball (there was something strangely appealing about it, all green and squishy), so I had to go back and try again later. She made sure I hit the "stress ball" on the roulette wheel the second time around, with a little "help". I also filled out a survey to get Saturn cowbells which will be ideal for 'cross season next year. I don't think the woman doing the surveys had any idea what the cowbells were for, until I tried to explain it. It probably still sounded kinda strange.

Last Sunday I went to see the Parkside race. I got up in time to make it to the afternoon races. Another nice day! Almost perfect. Two out of three amazing days for the parkside series this year. Lucky racers. I heard the women's field was big, would have liked to have seen that one. I didn't see as many familiar faces at this one, but it was nice to catch up with the friends that were there. Congrats to Chris S. on getting second in the Masters 30+ race and then going back out there and doing well in the 1,2's as well. I was sorry to hear about Kim's grandmother. My condolences to both of them. I'm sure the last couple of weeks have been tough.

I shipped a box of goodies off to my little nephew and brother in law for their birthdays. It took a couple of hours to wrap everything and draw cool little pics on the labels of each present. The pictures I drew on the labels give a little hint at what's inside, without being too obvious.

Last night NZ Wendy had a game party at her house. The people that hadn't seen the slides of her Africa trip got there early. The rest of us got there later, and ended up playing a game called Rigamarole. It was fun, but no one was really that into playing games. Most of us hadn't seen each other in a while and wanted to talk. We were like an unruly class who wasn't paying attention to the teacher. She had to keep reminding us to focus. It was a pretty fun game, though. Examples of stuff we had to do by drawing cards in different categories: count the number of tatoos on everyone on your team and win the corresponding number of points, sing the first couple of verses of the star spangled banner (I can't do that but we found out who was a good singer!), compare the number of piercings one team has vs the other to see who has more, read the ingredients label of a food to the members of the other team while they have their eyes closed and make them guess what food it is. (I completely stumped the other team by reading the label of a bag of Clif Shot Blocks! Not even the rustling of the bag gave it away!) Wendy is taking guitar lessons, so at the end of the evening she ended up reading the words to the songs she was learning and we tried to guess what the songs were without hearing the music.

I have been trying to study for a continuing ed test but it's been really hard to put everything else aside and concentrate on it. The phone keeps ringing, for one. I am hoping tomorrow I can do that.... I've just had too much other stuff to get done lately. Gotta work on the taxes too.

Some people are going on a riding trip on the trails near St Louis next weekend - I really wanted to go, but being injured, it's probably a really bad idea. And I have so much to get done in the next two weeks. I don't think I'll be able to go. Which is too bad. With racing every weekend during the season I don't end up going on fun trips like that. Next year, I guess.

I really liked Gina G.'s performance of "I'll Stand by You" on AI this week. She's the rockingest female on the show - a good thing. I also thought her cover of "Call Me When You're Sober" was better than the Evanescence version. I hope she hangs in there, partly because I like her spirit, because she's from around here, and because she used to be in former teammate Lisa K's band Catfight.

Good luck to Holly K. in her first expert race in AZ at the NMBS race this weekend! I hope it went well.

Happy Birthday to Carlos!