Good Times in the Rock.

So my plan for not getting fatter has only been going "okay." I keep eating out too much and drinking too much beer. Stupid beer.

Speaking of beer, this past weekend was my last working weekend of the year! It was a fine way to end the season too. I left my house Friday morning in good spirits. Everything was great until about 50 miles down the road. Then I had a massive blowout on the trailer, so that kinda sucked. That's the 5th time this year I've had to change a tire on the trailer. LAME. Oh well.

So then I got back on the road and rolled into Russellville to see my little friend Newt, otherwise known as Nathan. He used to hate that I called him Newt, but I think now he's grown to love it. Newt was done with school for the day, so we made it out for a ride. I've been rather fascinated by the delay timer on my camera, so I insisted we use it:

Rather than hang around and party with some college kids, I decided to head on over to Little Rock. I checked into my hotel (Hampton Inn, of course) and then made plans to meet up with my old roommate Jason. I have a bad habit of forgetting what room number I'm in, so I usually tear the room number off the little envelope and put that in my pocket, just in case. I know this sounds like an awful trivial detail, but keep reading. So Jason and his girlfriend Amy and I went out for beers and food. Our waiter was a friendly guy, so we chatted with him quite a bit. Then the bill came. I put my credit card in the little book and off he went with it. No big deal. But then he brought it back. With a grin on his face. At first I thought, what a weirdo. Then I opened the little book and inside I found the bill, my credit card, and that little piece of paper with my room number on it. Mind you, this little piece of paper was CLEARLY from the Hampton Inn. Crap! Now this guy thinks I want to jump his bones! I left there dearly hoping this guy wouldn't show up at my door with lofty expectations.

He didn't.

Work the next day was pretty fun. I won't go into details, but this picture is pretty representative of the entire day:

It was unseasonably warm in Little Rock, so we all decided to take advantage of the nice day and go ride. I had no idea Little Rock was such a pretty place. I've gone all this time thinking it was just a big crap hole.




Then of course, we all went out for pizza and beer after the ride. Hilarious times were had by all. It rained yesterday, so we called it an early day, which was okay with me because then I got home way earlier than expected.

Now I'm home for awhile. Although I'm trying to plan another vacation just because I can. And because I'll go nuts if I stay home doing nothing for a month.

The last week has been nothing short of fabulous. Danger got to join me at my second to last demo for the year. She got to hang out in the trailer and get petted a lot. Although I think she was a little pissed off when I put a t-shirt on her:

Then of course, there was Thanksgiving with the family. As usual, we drank a lot and made asses of ourselves. I found these football pads. They were a little small, but they did the trick. I was impervious to attacks:

The day after Thanksgiving, I drove up to Madison to hang out with my pals here. I always know it's going to be a good weekend when I check into the Hotel Fossen (Heath and Heidi's house). The weekend consisted of the following:

• Hella good food, courtesy of Heidi
• Plenty of booze
• Approximately 7 hours of The Sopranos on DVD
• A couple hours of climbing with Julie and Heath
• Plenty of sleeping
  
• Surprisingly pleasant Old Navy bargain hunting
• Beer at the Dane with a fun crew
• Riding bikes
  
• Cramped quads and frozen toes
  
• More booze
• Delicious Tacos
• Hot Chocolate with Peppermint Schnapps

I know. Another list. I'm too lazy right now to really write anything. I'll make up for it later this week. Here. I took some pictures. Pictures are substance!

17 miles, 40 degrees, 7 weirdos

Julie rockin' the singlespeed

I stole Heidi's sweet ass Surly to go to lunch with Julie. Check out my sweet Party Bars!

Alright. I gotta wrap this up. I need to get on the road and head home. One more demo this weekend and then I've got roughly a month of sitting around trying not to get too fat.

Sloth.

That is probably the best word to describe me lately. Aside from doing one weekend of work, I've basically been sitting around the house trying not to do anything. I'm decompressing. I started to clean my room, but it proved to be a much too daunting task at this time. So I took a nap instead.

I don't really have anything else for you, but this should suffice till I get back from Thanksgiving festivities:

HOW SOMEONE WITH AN AMERICAN PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION WHO
DIDN'T REALLY PAY MUCH ATTENTION IN CLASS BUT LEARNED JUST
ENOUGH TO PASS EXAMS IMAGINES THE FIRST THANKSGIVING.

BY MATT PASSET

- - - -

PILGRIM: Happy First Thanksgiving. Thank you for having us to your tepee.

INDIAN: How!

(The INDIAN holds his hand in the air with his palm facing out.)

INDIAN: That means "Hello" in Indian.

PILGRIM: We came here on the Mayflower. It is that big ship over there. It has nothing to do with the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. That is something else completely.

INDIAN: We are having a powwow; it is like a meeting.

(PILGRIM takes a bite of food.)

PILGRIM: This is good. What is it?

INDIAN: That is corn. It is also called maize.

PILGRIM: Yes, like a labyrinth.

INDIAN: (Mumbles something inaudible about David Bowie.)

PILGRIM: Thank you for introducing corn to me. This turkey is good, too.

INDIAN: We hunted it. We are hunters and gatherers.

PILGRIM: Excuse me one second; the buckle to my shoe has come undone.

(PILGRIM bends down and buckles his shoe.)

PILGRIM: This is a nice neighborhood.

INDIAN: It is called Plymouth Rock. It does not refer to one single rock. We are not eating dinner on some large rock sitting by the water, even though people might one day think that. We just moved here. We used to own Manhattan, but sold it for $24. They paid us in buttons and arrowheads.

PILGRIM: (Sarcastically.) Wow, $24! That, uh ... sounds like a good deal.

INDIAN: We have casinos and sell cheap cigarettes.

(INDIAN lights a peace pipe, adjusts his feather headdress.)

PILGRIM: I have a buckle on my hat, I think for no reason.

Rockstar.

So, after 7 weeks on the road, I'm finally home again. I came home last night to find that my roommates purchased Guitar Hero for the Wii. Awesome. This is what today's to-do list looked like at the end of the day:

• Box and ship 17'' 7.5 FX bike
• Call Travis back.
  
• Finish event feedback reports.
  
• Clean out the car.
  
• Do laundry.
  
• Beat Guitar Hero.
• Call Gator Cycle about Jan event.
• Get other January dates set.

Don't let this fool you, though. I only beat Guitar Hero on the "easy" level. I still have a lot of work to do.

Still goin' ...

It's been a pretty good week. I didn't do much for Halloween, just ate some pizza and drank some beer. I camped in Greenville, SC on Thursday night. I hadn't camped in awhile, so I was happy about it. Although the ranger said they had free firewood, but in this case, "free firewood" meant "really huge logs that no human could ever carry." So then I just resorted to plan B. I walked around the camp ground going "Hey, can I have one of those pieces of firewood?" It took me about 30 minutes, but then I got more than enough wood to make a fire. I have to say, I am the best marshmallow roaster I know. I have perfected this tasty art form and it is delicious.

Friday was frustrating. I needed to get some work done before getting back on the road, so I found a Starbucks. I spent about 20 minutes trying to get online with no luck. So I asked the guy behind the counter what the deal was. He said, "we don't have internet." WHAT? Are you kidding me? Who has ever heard of a Starbucks with no internet? UGH. So I used my sweet phone to find another Starbucks. I went there. I tried to get online. It wasn't working. I asked the guy behind the counter and braced myself for the irritating answer. And it came. He said "we don't have internet." WHAT THE HELL? Isn't there some rule that Starbucks Coffee places are supposed to have internet? Does this just happen in Greenville, or are there other internet-less Starbucks locations out there?

I just got back from a ride and realized that I've had three really great mountain bike rides in the last week. The weather's been perfect, my bike's been working great, and the trails have been fun and fast. Can't ask for much more than that.





Although the trails in Arkansas will always hold a special place in my heart, I have to say, North Carolina has some really nice trails. I also figured out that there's a plant here that smells like gin. Thank God ... at first I thought that smell was coming from me.

Now I'm on what might be the most comfortable couch I've ever been on. I'm writing this, watching Austin Powers, drinking wine, and watching Travis swirl his wine around in his glass. He doesn't know this, but I'm secretly hoping he screws up and gets wine all over himself. Oh, and Travis's fiancee Cristin is in the kitchen making lasagna that I get to eat pretty soon.

You could say I'm pretty happy right now.

That's all for now, kids. Good news for those of you back home ... one week from today I will be turning my pony toward the house. Start planning for the GLORIOUS REUNION now. Or at least just get off the couch so I can lie there all day long.

All the leaves are brown ...

Well, I guess I can't complain too much. At least the sky isn't gray. The harsh reality of Fall has hit me kinda hard in the last few days. I spent most of October in various parts of Florida, so I sort of forgot that Autumn is setting in. I was walking around in board shorts and flip flops, going to the beach, putting on sunscreen, and basically living in my own happy little world until I had to come to stupid North Carolina. Now it's cold and I'm not happy about it. Mostly because I really didn't pack enough cool weather clothing. Back in ... September when I was getting ready for this little jaunt, I thought I was really planning ahead by packing one pair of pants (actual full-length pants, not capris or shorts), one pair of real shoes, two pairs of socks, and one long-sleeved shirt. Now I feel stupid for not packing more stuff. Oh well. That gave me an excuse to go shopping.

And while I'm complaining, not only did we have an event ruined by the pouring rain, but I also managed to get a flat on my trailer on the way there. And of course, the guys were more than willing to stand around taking pictures:



Anywho ... I've been working way too much in the last week or so, so I haven't had time to post much. What I really wanted to tell you about before I started whining about Fall was the sweet paddling I did in Tallahassee. I was traveling through Tallahizzy last week and had a day off, so I met up with this guy there to go paddling. While we were driving to the river, he mentioned that we might see some cool wildlife. I'm sure I don't have to mention my fascination with alligators and manatees, as I have written about this before, but I tried not to get my hopes up about seeing them. So we got to the river and Andy unloaded our boats. At this point, I learned that it's a really good idea to go paddling with someone who is both tall and strong because then they can load and unload the boats while I just kick rocks and stuff. Then we started paddling upriver. The water was pretty cold and really clear. Apparently the river is fed by natural springs or something. We saw these fish jumping about a foot out of the water. Mullets. Seriously. You learn something new every day. That day, I learned that "mullet" is not just a term describing Billy Ray Cyrus's hair. So I was having a pretty good time and was happy enough to be out on the water. BUT THEN .... we heard this sound that sounded like a whale doing that thing with it's blowhole (that sounds a little dirty, doesn't it?). Turns out it was these:









Yeah ... that's right ... MANATEES! At first we just saw two of them, and one of them was just a little (relatively speaking) guy. That second picture is the little guy under water. I took that with my sweet camera that I still haven't managed to break yet. If you look closely in the last picture, you can see them next to my boat. Then as we kept paddling we kept seeing more MANATEES! By the end of the day we'd seen: 8 MANATEES!, 1 otter, 2 turtles, 2 owls, and a whole bunch of mullets (the fish, not the redneck haircut). Then we (and by "we," I mean, "Andy") loaded up the boats. We went into the nearest little town and had fish sandwiches and beer. Needless to say, it was a pretty good day for me.

Other than that, there's only been the usual amount of excitement. By mere coincidence, I did get to meet up with my fun friends Mimi and Jeff for a day at the beach, which was made better by a delicious bottle of wine sent from a friend:



We didn't have any glasses, and there was no way to keep it chilled, so we had no choice but to drink it from the bottle while sitting on the beach. Keepin' it classy. Then we ended up at Downtown Disney and I wanted to die until we found the Margarita Shack, at which point I started to become increasingly happy with each delicious drink. Then of course, Jeff and Mimi had my back and they let me have some floor space in their hotel room so I didn't have to pony up the cash for one myself. Beats the hell out of sleeping in the car!

Ahh ... sunny, warm Florida ...

While North Carolina is cold this time of year, it's really not such a bad place. I did manage to get one really good mountain bike ride in on Sunday, and I have a day off tomorrow, so I should be able to get another one in. I just have to make sure I get my flat tire from last week fixed because well ... I have another flat on the trailer. Bummer. Oh well. at least I'm not working on Halloween, which means I'll be drinking and making fun of people instead. Not bummer.

Does this look infected?

My leg doesn't look so good. But it's been pretty itchy, so that means it's healing, right?