Been a bit busy lately. Calamity takes time. In fact, I just spent all morning cleaning up the apartment. Used the 6-year rule and threw tons of garbage away I forgot I had. I was talking to one of my bicycling teammates the other day and he said, "I don't do regret." and that's how you gotta be in life. Even if it's just throwing stuff out of the closet.
Great segway to the bicycling adventure that's the charitable ride thing known as the BP MS 150. Some might say that BP should concentrate more on keeping their refineries and oil rigs from exploding rather than sponsoring events. But I think it's a good karma offset for them.
I trained all of one time on my bike for the race. And that time my bike was in super need of a tune-up, as the bike store guy later told me. That was the explanation of its smoke monster sounds.
Why wasn't I worried about lack of training? Easy: because I'm awesome. I do whatever I set my mind to. I can trust in myself that I'll never quit. And alas, it all works out.
Here's an assload of pictures:
The thing is, they have a break spot about every 11 miles on the 180 mile route (it's a 2 day thing, hence the different jerseys). I never stopped at any break spots. Just the lunches mid way (if it's free, I'll take three). I didn't like joining any of the riding line phalanx things that people use to break the wind and share draft.
I'd rather just ride by myself and stare at the ground and zone out. It's really boring not having music, so being able to get out-of-body with it is important. I showed up 5th out of the 25 on my team to our tent (and also to Austin the second day).
Cool thing #1: I saw this chick I hadn't seen since college. We used to play tetris all the time at the CPE (hellhole chemical engineering building). I was just standing there and alas, there she's walking up. We were both shocked and had an embrace and that. A bit like a LOST reunion.
Stupid thing #1: There's this giant truck you stick your bike on after the race, and they drive it back to town. The one mine got on had a flat tire somewhere along the route, so I had to wait something like two extra hours once I got back.
Cool thing #2: I was sitting next to some sucker on the bus. I was really tired and didn't feel like talking to some old guy. We were driving through Austin and he was like "Jesus Christ, look at this traffic. And it's Sunday afternoon." Usually, I would have said something like, "Yeah." but I was scared that'd open the flood gates of him trying to talk to me. So I just ignored him, closed my eyes, and went to sleep.
I soaked up a bit of the NFL draft last night which I love. I was out of country during last year's NFL draft, which broke my streak of paying attention. It'll be tough balancing fantasy football with stocks this year. Stocks have been much more profitable (the last couple of weeks have been amazingly amazing). I'll sort something out.
Comments (2)
Wow. My friend, Chris Chang, also did that BP 150 ... I have no idea if you know him, but yea. In any case, just wanted to say you are pretty cool. I don't have the time or the patience to do half the stuff you've done. Anyways, would it be too forward of me to let you know that you're awesome?
I didn't think so. *grins* If I ever go to Texas, I want to hang out with you and soak up some of that awesomeness. [as if that were possible, right? ;)]
Good job staying awesome!