the longest week of the month

It's only Wednesday but it feels like it should be Friday and I know we all wish it was. I'm working a semi-normal schedule this week Mon - Thurs with the exception of them being 12 hour days. It's not really been a busy week at work but I'm tired and I feel like the weekend is never going to get here. Yesterday's post I felt like was choppy and had the flow of a clogged drain pipe. I kept getting interrupted in my train of thought during the entire process because I was writing from work and the alarms on my console keep going off stopping my progress every few minutes. Add to that the mouse I was using must have had a short in it and would freeze up every few minutes. I hesitated after typing the post thinking it was not of good quality but decided to hit the button anyway since I had not posted anything since last Thurs or Friday. I find that if I wait too long to tell a good story it gets stale in my brain or one of my fellow bloggers beats me to the punch and I hate to re-tell a story. So I'm half way through my week and the workday and while I do have something good to look for this weekend I feel that it's never going to arrive.
Friday as soon as Melinda gets home from work we are going to load up the dogs and the Eco trailer and head back down to Chattanooga for the weekend for another attempt at Raccoon Mountain. The campground we are scheduled to stay at doesn't really sound great but hey we're not there for the camping. Pretty much it will just be the place we crash at. Abby and Andy are going to join us on this excursion which should be fun. Our plans include hitting the singletrack early Saturday morning and the heading downtown for the Southern Brewers Festival.

With 29 Breweries in attendance and 4 or 5 local bands providing entertainment it should turn out to be a more successful trip than the last one. I've already checked the radar and it looks as if Hurricane Bill has no plans to join us for a beer this weekend. I don't think I can stand to spend another afternoon stuck between a bunch of pushy little kids at the aquarium again.

the weekend

Last weekend was a blast and right from the start I thought I wasn't sure if I was going to make it. That weekend is always a tough one for me because of my work schedule. I work 3 days, off one and then back to 3 nights ending on Friday morning. We always seem to have big plans for that weekend because I just worked the last two and sleeping Friday day can be tough to do with so much excitement planned. This weekend was no different.

Saturday Melinda and I got the dogs out on the trail for some exercise and by the time we got home I was really dragging. I decided to take a power nap and ended up sleeping for close to an hour but felt much better. That evening we headed up to Andy & Abby's house for their annual Takki Tikki Party. Takki Tikki is a themed party that has been going on in Abby's family for a few years but the theme changes every year. This year was Wrestle Mania, come dressed up as you favorite wrestler, past, present or future. Melinda nor I have ever really been wrestling fans so we struggled with our costumes a bit but it was all in good fun.

Anthony and Amanda took 1st prize for their costumes which were good and a bit too revealing for me. I have to hand it to Anthony, I don't think I could have worn that outfit in public so when he changed after winning I tried not to give him too hard of a time.

Sunday about 16 of us guys got together and headed up to Bent Creek in Asheville for an all day ride in the woods for Anthony's bachelor party. A day spent in the woods tearing up singletrack is much better than going to some sleazy strip club. I have never been a fan of it and hopefully I never will.

I think that was one of the largest group rides I've been on in a while. Sometimes I have a hard time organizing rides with groups half that size but this one went really smoothly and I was surprised at the large turn out. The trails were in excellent shape and the weather was perfect. The original plan was for everyone to meet up @ 10am, the late start was because of the previous night festivities. About half of the group who layed low the night before decided to get a head start on us and arrive early to make sure they got enough miles in. I think they were worried that the partiers were going to be a bit too hung over to cover much ground but they were quickly proven wrong as the group came together at the base of the mountain. Brad and Joshua even pulled off a show on their way back from the Fool's Gold race the day before. I was impressed that they had the energy to ride after racing for 50 miles on Saturday. We did get rained on for about 15 minutes and we did hear thunder but thankfully no one got scared off and we pushed on. Thanks to everyone who came out and if you missed it I really feel for you, it was an excellent ride. I didn't snap alot of pictures but I did get some video but it will probably be next week before I get the footage together. Stay tuned

the return of the Gatlinburg artist

After almost a month I finally received my t-shirt from the Crazy 8's run during Fun Fest. I'm not sure why I didn't get one the night of the race, I pre-registered and as I was being told they had ran out of t-shirts I was eyeing a couple of boxes full of them behind the lady that I was speaking with. I saw several of the volunteers wearing them and I wasn't really impressed at a glance so I didn't really take the time to examine the artwork until now. After a couple of emails my shirt finally arrived in the mail today and to be honest I wasn't really expecting a great looking shirt. They never are but I don't do the race for the t-shirts, I do it for the fun, exercise and friendly competition. Well let's just say the organizers of the Crazy 8's spared no expense this year when selecting the artwork for the shirt. They didn't just slap some clip art down or leave it up to the print shop artists discretion. They went out and hired a true professional, trust me I know I've seen this guys work, I think it was back in high school. I'm sure alot of East Tenn. folks will recognize his signature style as well. You know the guy who set up his studio on the sidewalks of downtown Gatlinburg airbrushing his way into the hearts and minds of any sucker he could con into letting him airbrush Bart Simpson onto a perfectly good shirt or maybe it was a big red heart with Bobby Joe loves Sue Ann across the chest in purple complete with the little white star highlights and unicorns prancing in the fog.





All I have to say is what the hell were they thinking when they designed this shirt, I expect bad artwork but this my friends takes the cake. Instead of boasting the "World's Fastest 8k" they should change it to the "World's Ugliest T-shirt & 8k"
All is not lost, now I have something to wear to the next Redneck themed party, all I have to do is cut the sleeves off and I'll be set.

Tsali footage

I got rained out on my ride today so I decided to make the most of my time inside, so instead of wasting time on Facebook I finally put together a video from my 12 Hours of Tsali footage.

Enjoy!

Tsali Mountain bike trails from Greg Carr on Vimeo.

Karate Monkey squishiness

Don't think for a second I'm going to give a spectacular technical review on the workings of the new Reba fork I installed. My brain just doesn't work that way and I get bored quickly reading other's thoughts on it when numbers and big words come into play. Either it feels good and I go fast or it doesn't, that about sums it up for me and my reviews. I finally made it out to the trails on the Karate Monkey since the installation of the new squish up front. So far all of my testing have been hot laps around the yard with Jackson barking at my heels. I do have a couple of new obstacles, (not dogs turds) and a couple of short but punchy climbs to throw at it. I'll have to say I was quite pleased with it even on the climbs what little climbing I did yesterday. I headed over to Alan's house around noon for some much needed help with a crank issue, something that has been plaguing me for a while. This issue is a bit different than my dealings with the Truvative on the Mamasita. I'm running a Race Face crank on the Monkey and although they are very similar in looks they work a bit differently and come apart differently which is what threw me off. I am no mechanic by far but thankfully Alan is and has the patience to waste an hour sweating on his front porch teaching me how to work on my bike. After school was out the crank was spinning like it was supposed to and ready for action. Alan had not been to the Hampton watershead trails before so we headed that way watching the sky for a nasty shower that was supposedly threatening us. The watershed trails are short but if you do a few laps it can make for a pretty nice ride when the local trails are getting stale and there is no time for a day trip.
As for the front end squishiness, the Monkey handled nicely even on the climbs which were alot easier than I remembered. I didn't bother to lock-out the fork because well, I usually forget and with just 80mm of travel it just doesn't seem worth the time unless the climbs are really long or steep. It's been a while since my last outing at the watershed trails and I guess my fitness level is a bit higher than my last trip because on the way to the trailhead I told Alan the shed had one good tough hill but it was nothing like I remembered. It must of been some of that Karate Monkey magic working for me. I plan to get the KM out to Warriors today and give her a bit more of a challenge where the rocks and roots have really grown in the last couple of years. Maybe I'll catch some of the wussies who are too scared to ride over rocks out there rerouting a tough section and point them over to the Greenbelt.

good weekend ahead

I think summer has finally arrived, with temps in the 90's everybody is crying like a bunch of little babies. The only thing I don't care for when it's this hot is the sweat running down my face and stinging my eyes but I finally located one of those Halo headbands I searched for all last year, actually I bought two just in case. They work fantastically good, funny looking but worth their dorkiness.
Now that I've gotten my 2 work weekends behind me I'm ready to spend the next two in the woods and have some fun. This week is going to be a long one even though I only work 3 days. Saturday night we will be attending a wrestling themed party and some friends house. Melinda and I are not wrestling fans so our costumes may kinda suck. There is no way I'll be showing up in a speedo but I may end up showing a little more skin than normal but hey it gives me an excuse to shave off more body hair. I already shave more the average guy, it really gets a lot of of colorful comments at work with the half human half grizzly bear guys I work with but I'm cool with it. My Dad always told me it wasn't cool to be a follower but I'm not so sure some of my choices to be different were what he was talking about.
Sunday morning the alarm clock will be going off early and rising me of of what I hope to is only a small hangover to head to Asheville for a bachelor party on 2 knobby wheels. A whole slew of us are headed up to Bent Creek for an all day ride on the mtn with Anthony. As much as he has tried he just can't get Amanda to get the bicycle fever so we've got to get him out on the dirt before they take the big plunge and she sells all of his bikes. She's been talking about buying a new couch for some time.

What the hell happened to Flat Stanley?

Normally Flat Stanley hangs out on the fridge all day with one of his bikes riding circles around pictures, jumping over magnets and laying skid marks across bills but his annoying presence has been absent for some time now. At first I didn't realize he had gone missing and when I did I figured that he either ran away because he couldn't stand Melinda's rules and cleanliness or one of my friends decided to take him home. I didn't say anything for a while just to see if someone would say something of if he would mysteriously turn up but in all reality I kinda forgot about him but then all of the sudden there he was. Melinda was the one who actually found him or should I say what was left of him. No the dogs didn't mistake him for a chew toy. Apparently after a long ride one day Flat decided to take a nap in my jersey pocket and since the ride was a little bit harder that day he slept right through me changing clothes and into the laundry basket he went. Melinda is no slouch when it comes to laundry, she keeps it moving. I can usually find the shirt I wore yesterday hanging up clean the next evening if not sooner. Needless to say Flat went for a ride in the washing machine and it's a good thing he is a good swimmer or he might have drown. Melinda and I immediately felt bad for the poor guy and dried him out but Flat was no longer, well flat. After some thought we decided the best we could do for him was to send him on a vacation complete with a spa package in hopes that he would return to his old flat self. I got a post card from him just the other day and he says all is well and he's feeling much better these days. He told me that he needed to extend his vacation another week to make sure he is back to his old self but I think he's just milking the free vacation but it was our fault so I couldn't say no.
Anyway since the absence of Flat Stanley things have been quiet lately that is until we had another visitor. We're really not sure of the little guys name because he doesn't say much. He justs hangs out in our gardens and hides behind the trees and bushes.

I can't tell if he is just shy or mischievous but he's funny to watch and hard to keep up with since we have way too many gardens surrounding our house. He has expressed interest in traveling with us in the Eco trailer, I know this only because he seems to hang out behind it on a pretty regular basis.

The story behind this little guy is one evening we were visiting some friends Andy & Abby and Abby collects Gnomes as some sort of hobby. While we were hanging out in their backyard I kept noticing gnomes in the gardens and we asked about it. She told us about the collection and that she had boxes of gnomes inside the house stashed away in a closet. She said she really didn't know what to do with them all so most were kept in boxes. I guess they don't like to be packed away in a dark cardboard box because one of them snuck into our car that evening and came home with us. Neither Melinda nor I realized this until we found him hanging out in the garden munching on our tomatoes, and we thought we had a bug problem. After speaking to Abby about the situation she was more than happy to let us keep the little guy as long as he didn't have to stay in a cardboard box.

Like I said before we have no idea what his name is because he doesn't talk much but I'll let you know when he gives up the info.

Last night was my second round of short track racing and it was almost as fun as the first. The crowd was not as big as the last time and still the heavy hitters did not show, well not all of them. I still got lapped by 1st and 2nd but managed to hold onto 3rd place. For a few laps I was in 4th chasing Mark Prince around the course staring at the back wheel of his ridiculously light, carbon fiber Gary Fisher 29er. That was one bad machine but I think in the end the feather lightness hurt him a little on the downhills. Everytime we went down I would make up a little ground on him and I think I can credit the Mamasita and her middle of the road components for this. Being a little heavier I think she coasts a bit faster. I don't know if all the heckling I was receiving from Alan & Mike the "local cult hero" Thomas had anything to do with it but I did manage to take back my 3rd place standing and hold on to it till the end. This time instead of paying the curly headed kid my dollar in quarters I paid all in dimes. (Next time I totally plan to show up with 2 rolls of pennies.) This week the trophy was not some form of cheap malt beverage in a funny colored can but a bottle of the local liquor store's finest $4 champagne. Hey I got no complaints the entry fee is only a $1. It's a ton of fun and I wish I could make it out every week but my work schedule won't allow it. Keep up the good work guys I had fun and hope to be back in 2 weeks for another punishing 20 minute round.

Hey Mike get the blog rolling, I need something to read as well.

getting squishy

Christmas came early this year, well not really but it kinda felt like it after Melinda and I left the bike shop with some new goods. I've been pushing Melinda for a couple of weeks now to pick out a set of hydraulic brakes and after some indecisiveness I took her down to the local shop and showed her the catalog. It didn't take long for her to make her decision once she saw red & black. A new set of Avid Elixer CR's, I was impressed and jealous. She went from BB5's to the new Elixers with no stopping in between. I flipped a few more pages and found what I was looking for, some squish for the KM.
A few months ago I swapped the Reba fork off the Mamasita and put it on the Monkey just to see how it felt. Never having ridden the Monkey wish the squish I wasn't sure how it would feel being a singlespeed. I'd heard you were better off staying fully rigid but I was seeing so many people out on the trail running their 29er SS's with a squishy fork and they seemed to like it just fine.
After I bought the Mamasita and got used to bombing down trails at a much faster speed than I could on the KM, the wheels started turning. I only left the Reba on the KM for one ride realizing that I was just teasing myself because I really couldn't afford to buy another fork at the time.
Well things changed and it just so happened that I ran into a little extra $$ and the search began for the best deal I could find. It just so happened that the best deal was found at my local bike shop.
Last Thurs night the transformation began with Melinda's new brakes.




I'm not sure if Melinda really understands how nice a set of brakes she just got or if she really doesn't care as long as it matches nicely. I can't blame her, they do look really sweet.





No more trailside brake repairs anytime soon in my future, at least not on her bike.
Next up was the Karate Monkey, I tossed around the idea of putting the new Reba on the Mamasita since it has some red pinstripping in it and the old one is all black and silver. After some careful consideration and weighing out the pros & cons Melinda said Dale Earnhardt Sr. would not be upset if I added a little red to the all black and silver color scheme. In fact I think I remember seeing some red highlights on his car.

The only issue I was having now was the weight factor, the KM used to be the lightest bike in the fat tire stable but with the addition of the new Reba that title is now held by the Mamasita. I did remove the beefy Panaracer 2.3 up front in favor of a skinnier Maxxis tire that would have made Alan smile last year.

thanks

What is it that makes someone want to scream at another person who is traveling by foot or bicycle from the safety of their car as they fly past? I'm sure everyone knows what I'm talking about. That kid who thinks it's funny to roll down the window and mess with another from the safety of their own car. Almost everyone I know that rides their bike on the road has been assaulted in this way or worse. For me it seems to happen mostly when I'm running. In the past couple of months this has happened in the same spot more than 2 or 3 times. I'm not running on busy roads, I usually stick to my local state park or running path. I guess deep down inside those folks who think this is funny are really just jealous of me because I come to the park to excercise not cruise in my beat up wanna be fast & the furious car with a muffler that sounds like an angry bumble bee spewing black exhaust and soot onto the mis-matched bumper. To you guys, I say thanks for giving me someone to laugh at and something to blog about.

Raccoon Mountain

Tuesday I woke up early checked the weather radar for Chattanooga and calculated the time we had to ride at Raccoon Mountain before the thunderstorms hit. According to weather.com we had until 5pm which left Melinda and I plenty of time to drive down and ride everything. The drive down was nice and sunny and all was going well until we hit Chattanooga and a traffic jam. I should have took it as a bad sign but I like to try and think positive so we pushed on with beautiful sunny skies not knowing what was lurking on the other side of the mountain out of our view. As we drove up the mountain and located the trailhead I couldn't help but think of how great this ride was going to be especially after we just drove close to 4 hours to get there.

We unloaded the bikes and I took a couple of pics of the awesome view of the city below.

After talking to the locals about the trailmap that was dated 2007 we scouted out a good route and got geared up.

After all the trailside work at Dupont to Melinda's ancient mechanical brakes I swore I would upgrade her to some hydros. Well she looked around but could not decide on what color she wanted so here we were again adjusting her mech. brakes again at the trailhead, this time it went a little quicker so I must be getting better at it. After all the necessary repairs were made we saddled up and then it hit.

BOOM, thunder! WTF! Where did that come from?

All we could see were sunny skies but the sound came from the other side of the mountain. We never saw it coming until it was right on top of us. I made a few calls to friends and family trying figure out how long it would last hoping it was a small pop-up that would pass quickly. It was but several popped up after that and after sitting in the car for an hour we gave up and headed toward town. I must have taken the bikes off the car 3 times thinking it was done only for it to start again.

We settled for lunch at Taco Mac's, a little Tex Mex joint with awesome wings and an even better beer selection. We decided we couldn't just drive home without doing anything so we decided to hit the Aquarium.

It wasn't a total loss but we both agreed that blurry trees and rocks are much more fun to look at than some fish behind 4 inches of glass.

sad day

It was a sad day yesterday, the Tour De France ended and for the first time I actually watched almost every stage. I didn't watch every minute of every stage but I caught the highlights and kept up with all of the action. I can't believe I missed so much back when Lance was in his prime but I guess I'll just have to settle for the flashback moments. Melinda actually kept up with the Tour more than I did but she also hasn't worked in almost 2 months. This weekend she was at a conference in Gatlinburg for work and she and several of her co-workers went out for dinner and she had the bartender switch the TV over to the Tour while they were there. I would have loved to see the look on all the other ladies faces when she made that request. She said they were a bit confused by her interest in it.
Although Lance didn't win I feel he still rode amazingly for the age difference between him and the other riders and his time away from the sport. I can't wait to see what happens next year when he has his own team and there is no question of who the leader will be. I was really surprised when he announced Radio Shack is going to be the sponsor, I haven't seen a Radio Shack in a long time.
I am excited to see what happens at the Leadville 100 next month, I heard a Rumor that Lance and Landis will be in attendance to challenge Weins for the title. That should be a good race!

A night on the trails with the kids

Yesterday Melinda left town on a business trip so instead of laying around the house watching TV when I got off work I loaded up the dogs and my bike and headed to our local trailhead. Moonshine and Jackson have a tendency to bark at every little noise when one of us is away driving the other crazy and with their lack of exercise lately I knew I needed to get them out on the trails or I might be jolted from my sleep multiple times during the night by excited dogs thinking they just heard their Momma coming home. We got to Warriors a place I haven't ridden much lately so it felt almost like I was riding new trails. The dogs just accompanied me on the first trail which drops down to the lake. A water feature is always necessary for Moonshine and Jackson for a drink and a swim. Once we were done I loaded them up in the back of truck, under shade of course with plenty of water. Don't worry it was late in the evening the windows were open and the air was cool so no animals were harmed in this adventure. With the kids settled in I headed back out for some more singletrack action. With the rain we have had this year the trails were in good condition and not too dusty. I did run across a couple of new reroutes that the clan of rouge trailbuilders have illegally constructed. I also saw some added rocks here and there where someone couldn't handle the intensity of the original rock garden and thought they might make the feature easier. I hate it when people try to make rock features easier, it usually doesn't work and ruins the correct line that is ridable if they would just suck it up and learn to ride it rather than take the wussy way out. At one point I found myself taking an illegal reroute on accident because so many people have ridden it it looked more original the the correct route but the exit actually slowed me down and left me wondering what the point of that was. If only we could find a way to harness the energy of these rouge trailbuilders and get them to come out to a workday we could show them the correct way to build a trail and then they might become an asset rather than a nuisance.
It felt good to get out and cleanse my mind and nothing does it better than singletrack goodness. As I loaded up the truck I was pondering what to do with the rest of my evening. Jackson must have read my mind because he made an excellent suggestion to head over to the Libation Station and stock up on some good craft beer that can't be found in my local grocery stores. The Libation Station is a bit of a drive for me so I don't frequent it often but it's well worth the drive because I have yet to find a better selection. It's probably a good thing I don't live any closer because it's like walking into beer heaven, I always spend too much money. It's hard to decide on just one thing, the LS has so many beers that I have yet to sample I always come out with 2 or 3 six packs.






My selection of choice tonight, the Fort Collins "Brewers Lunchbox" a twelve pack assortment of goodies. Also one of mine and Melinda's favorites from our local brewery the "Roundabout Rye Stout" from Depot Street. I always gotta support the local guys when I can.

Dead Possums and Tofurkey

Last Sat we started the day off right with the Dead Possum Ride. The weather was perfect and Melinda finally got on her road bike for the first and probably last time this year. She almost backed out on me at the last minute when she went to put water bottles on her bike only to find there were no cages, she said it was a sign that she shouldn't ride. I had needed some cages sometime last year and borrowed them forgetting to put them back on. I quickly grabbed my allen wrenches and went to work before she could change back into her pj's.

We arrived at the school to find a packed parking lot but no one we knew. In true slacker fashion most of my friends showed up 5 minutes late including the ride organizer Alan who said he was out marking the course w/balloons but I think he was really at home sipping on his fu fu french vanilla carmel drink he calls coffee. Once the ride was finally underway we really had a good time. Some rode hard some took it easy and a few of us goofed off eating donuts, you know the breakfest fuel currently used at the Tour De France.

After the ride I fired up the grill for the second part of the DPR, the dog cook off and while I waited I decided it would be a bad to let the rest of the donuts go to waste.

Once the grill was hot I got down to business cooking beef dogs, pork dogs, turkey dogs, and some sort of greenish looking tofurkey dogs. I had to try the tofurkey dogs just because and I was sadly disappointed so I ate an all beef dog to make up for my poor decision.

Alan won't eat hot dogs so he tried to be cool and fool us all by eating a bun with mustard but not me, I caught him red handed.

Andy and Abby patiently awaiting the tofurkey dogs to cook.

If you missed the DPR this year I'm sorry for you, it was a great ride with good friends and food. Hopefully we'll make it happen again next year but I promise to stick to the real thing when choosing my bun filling.

The Wicked Witch of the West meets Peter Frampton

With Melinda's Mom coming in town this last weekend and all the events on the calendar I didn't think I would get much physical activity in but surprisingly I did. After lunch Friday Melinda, her Mom and I headed over to the Greenbelt to ride/run. Melinda and I ran while her Mom rode Melinda's cruiser around like a giddy little school girl. I would have sworn she had never ridden a bike for fun the way she was giggling and squealing with delight. At first she stated that she didn't like bikes with gears, I thought this was odd at first but after some questioning I realized she just didn't understand how to shift. A quick run down in the parking lot and she was zipping around us pretending to be the wicked witch of the west from the Wizard of Oz. Remember the scene of her riding her bike in the tornado?

That evening we all headed downtown to Fun Fest for the Peter Frampton concert armed with funny beverages disguised as the normal redneck drink of choice. We fit right in without question.

The concert was ok, the music was good but I kept waiting for Mr. Frampton to really get down and jam but he didn't. I guess he's mellowed out a bit in his old age.

We did sneak up front and found a good spot to get a closer look at Peter and snap a few pictures. It wasn't that hard to make it up front since there were no mosh pits going on. Everyone one was just sitting around staring at the stage, I guess they were kind of bored like I was. I found it quite interesting to learn that the weight limit on the fold up camping chairs that you can purchase at every drug store, grocery store & Wal-Mart is stronger than the tag states. I saw alot of people pushing the weight limit and beyond of those $15 dollar camp chairs. I kept waiting for someone to come crashing to the ground but no one did. The only only excitement was the young couple behind me who got upset that I was blocking their view when I went up front to snap a picture. They kept fussing at me but I continued to block their view pretending not to hear them. It wasn't until the frustrated guy actually set his Mtn Dew down and got up to tap me on the shoulder when I finally acknowledged them. I said ok and continued to take a few more unnecessary photos just to aggravate them. When I finally turn to leave I apologized and told them I didn't realize this was a reserved section. I think the tone of my voice gave away my sarcasm but I walked away before he could respond. After I left another curious spectator walked up and took my place to snap a few photos as well and I could but help but laugh.

When I returned I found Melinda so bored that she had decided now was a good time to try meditation. Olga and Beth of course were really getting into the music singing and dancing.

As we were walking back to the car after the show I noticed a group of kids climbing up on top of the local fast food restaurant. I'm not sure if they thought the gigantic fries and hot dog were real but I thought it looked like a good photo opportunity. After the flash went off the kids scrambled thinking they were about to be arrested.

Sorry guys I didn't mean to spoil your fun.

the DPR countdown continues

The weekend is almost upon us and I am ready for it, work has been sucking lately. Not so much the job itself more like the people I work with. Having no children and no real ties to the tri-cities it's weeks like the last couple that make me ponder moving somewhere else. There are so many cool places I would like to live. Maybe I just need a good long ride in the woods to clear my head, something I've not done in a while.

Melinda's Mom rolled into town today which means anything can happen this weekend and it definitely won't be boring. I've already missed out on some excitement while away at work. Melinda, her Mom and Aunt went to Bays Mountain tonight for the Moonlight Hike that's put on by the staff during Fun Fest. I received live updates from Melinda throughout the hike via text message. Melinda wasn't too excited about the hike due to the large number of families, kids and rednecks that Fun Fest events tend to draw out of the sticks. It never fails whenever a large crowd of weirdos gather they seem to flock to Melinda. Some guy evidently decided he was Melinda's new best friend and tried his best to butt into her conversation but she ignored him as if he wasn't there. I think the poor guy just couldn't get the hint and without Melinda's permission snapped her picture before she knew what happened. I'm kinda surprised she didn't slap the camera out of his hand or knock out his front teeth, I guess she's getting soft in her old age.

In the local news a cyclist was hit by a Comcast Cable truck, the story says he was trying to avoid an oncoming car that was straddling the yellow line and had no other choice but to hit the cyclist. I guess his brakes were out and stopping was not an option. He was probably late to install HD cable service for some couch potato so they could stay inside all weekend and not have to worry about going outside and getting all sweaty. One rumor going around was that he was playing with his cell phone, probably the real story. So much for the 3 Foot Law we have here in TN. Every time Melinda hears about stories like this she threatens to sell the road bikes.

I'm actually going to get my road bike out this weekend for the 1st Annual Dead Possum Ride Sat morning, I'm excited but I have a feeling Melinda is going to bail on me, she has already stated that she is not going but we'll see.

1 more day left until the DEAD POSSUM RIDE!