Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Jethro Tule


I just got back from lunch in Avon, CO, my temporary home. So here I am sitting on the deck of the Loaded Joe's coffee/pub soaking up some CO sun and sipping on a tasty double americano when a dude rolls up on a beater single speed commuter. He seemed a bit disgruntled and I noticed his chain was very loose. "What happened to your whip" I asked. "Dude, my rear hub nut things came loose, do you have a wrench bro." "No bro-bra, but in case you're not privy to rear hub nut thing sizing, what you'll need is a 15mm dude." The dude said thanks and moved along his way. After the amusing encounter I reminisced to my early days of single speeding before the advent of quick release compatible sliding reardroppouts. When our horizontal dropout redline monocog posse would go ride someone would always have to bring a 15mm craftsman open-end wrench in case of hub nut thing slippage or a flat. I remember always lusting for a Surly product called the Jethro Tule; a stubby unit with a 15mm wrench on one end and a bottle opener on the other. It fits in your back pouch and in traditional Surly tradition it's built like a tank. So for all you surly, mangy, hairy chested, beer swilling, unkept single speed bro bra dudes, I highly recommend the Jethro Tule. And after you finish with the business end, flip that bitch over and pop a beer with the party end.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Hard at Work


The Potent Heronito

Let me tell you a thing or two about a thing or two. Never drink a stiff cup of drip infused with three shots of espresso. It all started the morning of Jan 14th 2009 at Winter Park Colorado. My buddy Matt and I were having a heady organic breakfast burrito in the Coffee and Tea Market when he pointed out a drink option scribbled in chalk toward the bottom of the espresso menu. It read HERONITO……Espresso Infused Coffee. Of course anything that sounds a bit ridiculous catches my attention and my curiosity got the best of me on this one. I walked up to the counter and a dreaded out little stoner girl sloooowwwwllllllyyyyy asked me what I wanted. “I would like the strongest Heronito please.” She replied, “reeeeeaaaallllyyyyy, you know that has three shots of espresso in it. I didn’t actually know this but at this point I didn’t care, I was more curious if she would forget to ring me up or not. She didn’t and five minutes later I was back at the table sipping on 12 ounces of straight diesel fuel. To be precise, a triple shot Heronito is one cup of rich shade grown fair trade Guatemalan super roast enhanced with three shots of espresso. Needless to say, within three minutes of my first sip I stared feeling weird things happening to my body. I started to shake and talk real fast, my legs began to twitch and my sphincter started to dilate. All of a sudden it hit me, “I’M GOING TO SHIT MY PANTS!” I jumped up and ran to the little stoner girl. I must have had a terrified look in my eye. “Is soooommmmmethinnng wrooong sir?” I quickly replied, “I just drank half of the Heronito and I need to find the restroom.” Like the flip of a switch the little stoner girl snapped out of her enlightened state and all brain cells became one functioning unit. “Sir down the hall to your left, run past all the stalls to the last one, it’s the handicap stall with hand rails, you’re going to need them. HURRY SIR YOU DON’T HAVE MUCH TIME! It obviously wasn’t her first experience with the side effects of the Heronito. So I did just that. With the agility of a running back I sprinted, dipped, ducked and dodged my way through the masses to the restroom. At this point details get a bit sketchy, my mind started to go blurry and I blacked out momentarily. When I came to I was washing my hands at the sink, and I remember looking around at the other restroom patrons. It was like everyone in there had seen a ghost, it was eerily quiet and nobody was really moving. I thought nothing of it, finished washing up and headed back to the Coffee and Tea Market. I thanked the little stoner girl for her good directions and went about my day. I walked out knowing I was one of the lucky ones, having narrowly survived an encounter with the potent Heronito.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Can you relate?

I just purchased a bike (I know I'm a hypocrite but it's an investment in quality of life) and now I have no money to buy coffee so I hope this will suffice. I bet a few of you can relate to these

Stages of Drunkenness
0 - Stone cold sober. Brain as sharp as an army bayonet.
1 - Still sober. Pleasure senses activated. Feeling of well-being.
2 - Lager warming up head. Pretzles are ordered. Barmaid complimented on choice of blouse.
3 - Crossword in newspaper is filled in. After a while blanks are filled with random letters and numbers.
4 - Barmaid complimented on choice of bra. Partially visible when bending to get packets of crisps. Try to instigate conversation about bras. Order half a dozen packets of pretzles one by one.
5 - Have brilliant discussion with guy on the next bar stool. Devise fool-proof scheme for wining lottery, sort out Denver Broncos defense problems.
6 - Feel like a Demi-God. Map out rest of life on cocktail napkin. Realize that everybody loves you. Call parents and tell them you love them. Call girlfriend to tell her you love her and she still has an amazing ass.
7 - Send drinks over to woman sitting at table with boyfriend. No reaction. Scribble out message of love on five cocktail napkins and Frisbee them to her across the room. Boyfriend asks you outside. You buy him a Slim Panatela.
8 - Some slurring. Offer to buy drinks for everyone in room. Lots of people say yes. Go round the bar hugging them one by one. Fall over. Get up.
9 - Head-ache kicks in. Michelob tastes off. Send it back. Next bottle comes back tasting same. Say, "That's much better". Fight nausea by trying to play old Space Invaders game for ten minutes before seeing out of order sign.
10 - Some doubling of vision. Stand on table shouting abuse at all four bartenders. Talked down by bartender's wives, who you offer to give a baby to. Fall over. Get up. Fall over. Impale head on corner of table. Fail to notice oozing head wound.
11 - Speech no longer possible. Eventually manage to find door. Sit and take stock. Realize you are sitting in pub cellar, having taken a wrong turning. Vomit. Pass out.
12 - Put in cab by somebody. Give home address. Taken home. Can't get key in door. Realize you've given address of your local gym. Generally pleased at way evening has gone. Pass out again.

Quote of the Day

Single Speeders get off more!

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Good Calories, Bad Calories.....a new lease on life

I must say I was a bit skeptical when Adam gave me the book "Good calories, Bad calories." Hold your thoughts until you read Adam's overview. This book will change the way you live. Below in all his writing majesty I present Adam Jensen's new lease on life:

So, first of all, I don't drink coffee, I don't agree with wasting hours of the day, sitting and talking about what you could be doing,instead of actually doing it, I don't like blogs, and I used to not like fat people because I thought they were lazy. My view has drastically changed recently (about fat people, not coffee or blogs)to sympathizing with their ignorance, and to the hatred of the government, education system and companies that lie to us, and businesses that profit off it – like fast food and coffee shops. That said, I owe the discovery of the book to old man Shryock. I'm just more persistently persuasive, or annoying, depending on who you ask,at pushing my ideas on people. Not trying to convince people to change anything here, just want people to be aware of what you, society,politics, and mega-corporations are doing to the health of yourself and everyone else on the planet. Since the 50's, when government, the FDA and the American Heart Association, began vigorously promoting lowfat, high carb diets, for a plethora of idealistic and, at the time,common sense reasons, to improve Americas health, thing have gotten massively worse. Each decade, more and more are not only overweight,but obese, suffering from heart disease, high blood pressure, high LDLand VLDL cholesterol, diabetes, endocrine cancers, dementia,depression, Alzheimer's, and several other supposedly diet manageable or "genetic" diseases – as if we're recently evolving to express genes during the past 100 years we've been carrying for millions of years.Why then are we still following the same guidelines, which have been ambiguously "proven" for 100 years, to the point that the NIH just granted another $200 million to prove low fat, high carb diets will cause weight loss? If things were so clear, why are we still studyingwhy low fat diets aren't working? Unfortunately, since the powers that be, have chosen yet again, to fund the wrong studies, asking the wrong questions, due to pride, ego and political issues, or heavy corporate and pharmaceutical influence, seeking to clarify the low fat theory, in the mean time, assuming it is correct, while the right questions are assumed to be incorrect without even asking.Who has the most to lose? Big business, Coca-Cola, General Mills,GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, etc. Sound frighteningly like the tobacco industry? These companies know humans are addictable, and are successfully capitalizing off that little weakness. Food industries spend billions on advertising and research on maximizing taste vs.minimizing production costs, not what is beneficial to humans.Cheapest way to make something taste good, add sugar, or even cheaper,high fructose corn syrup. Pharmaceutical industry's billions of profit depends on people being unhealthy. Instead of researching how to prevent disease, it's more profitable to keep people sick,dependant on drugs. I saw a cartoon once, of a kid walking with his father by a huge factory kicking out sky filling plumes of smoke.After the son asked what the factory was for, his father explained that it was to make the little pills they have to take every morning,so they can breath the toxic smoke that fills the air… See the connection? WTF?Being immersed in oral health for the last 3 years, my obvious question is, although we are one of the most evolutionarily sophisticated beings, why would something that is apparently sobeneficial to your heart and brain so destructive to your teeth?Research has conclusively shown that acid-producing bacteria cause carious decay in teeth, only when fed fermentable carbohydrates, most notably sucrose. Sucrose, a.k.a. table sugar, is now being consumed by a typical American at 150 lbs. a year, versus 10 lbs/year 200 years ago. Why? Because we are led to believe that the only way to behealthy is to read labels, and avoid high fat foods. Look on cereal boxes, most say ADA or FDA or AHA approved to lower heart disease, or this product is a heart healthy choice. "Take the Special K challenge," eat massive amounts of carbohydrates, and still be hungry after an hour. Sweet. Point being, your body is smarter than you,and by dissolving your teeth away, it's trying to protect the vitalorgans that you are unknowingly damaging, causing high blood pressure,GI cancers, insulin resistance and obesity, from the insulin response instigated by those carbs. Ever asked why 90% of people at the gymare overweight? You think these people are there to justify overeating chunks of lard and trans fats? No, they see themselves gaining weight, so in addition to eating less fat and more carbohydrates, they workout, making themselves more hungry, feeding themselves with more"health" carbohydrates, and still getting bigger. I'm not saying carbs and exercise aren't good. Obviously fueling, refueling, and recovering with carbs during and after intense exercise is necessary.Why don't the bad side effects of eating sugar happen to elite athletes? Unlike when we are inactive, the way our body is incredibly designed, the working muscle does not need insulin to move sugar out of the blood into the cell. The problem develops when we eat mostly carbs while sedentary the remainder of the day, while in school, at the office, driving, or at home.Random thought, if fat is so fattening, and carbs are so good, then why do people get so fat drinking malt sugar filled beer? Ever thought that the starchy, high glycemic potatoes in French fries might be the problem, not the salt and oil? What about the unrefined flourin hamburger buns instead of the cheese and red meet? Or pizza crust and not the pepperoni and sausage? Or the example the writer uses,the toast and not the butter?Pippo pointed out that our ancestors lived to eat. Our only function in life was to find food, and reproduce of course. Thousands of years later, now that life is more modern and comfortable, we are obsessed with spending as little as possible on food, and as much as possible on cars, houses and toys. Crap thing is, after a while, we're sounhealthy, due to our innocent ignorance, that we can't even enjoy all those excess amenities.Last thought: why are herbivores like elephants and hippos so fat, and carnivores, like lions and tigers, so lean and fit, when both seem tolay around most of the day?I'm not trying to convince anyone to change anything, or even be persuaded by anything I wrote. I just want people to be aware thatthere is a book out there, backed by thousands of research papers,that will change your perspective about many things that influence your and everyone else's lives, and challenge you to educate yourself,in hopes to improve your quality of life - and prolong the life of your teeth. Come on, you knew as part of my growing responsibility of a soon to be dentist I had to throw that in.

Adam Jensen

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Update and Goals

It’s been awhile since my first and only post and I apologize. A quick update of my whereabouts: I’ve been in Colorado for about three weeks now, two of which were spent homeless with me moving from couch to couch, and occasionally sleeping in my car or the company truck. As one can imagine, my gumption for blogging (or anything for that matter) goes way down after a night in the passenger’s seat of my POS BMW325i. I’ll go ahead and answer your next question now. I travel around the country in a big truck and trailer and give away stuff at ski resorts from Vermont to California. Don’t ask for more detail because my job description is very nebulous and if I go into too much detail it might start to look like I don’t do much.

If you read my original post you may have gathered that I spend a majority of my time in a coffee shop bullshitting with friends about bullshit. While there may be some truth to this statement, I have come to realize since leaving Montana I haven’t spent near as much time in coffee shops and much more time in the office or on the hill. With most of my friends either in Missoula or traveling around I’ve had some extra time to contemplate life. Here is what I came up with: I’ve decided to set some goals for myself this winter, both personal and blogging related.

As many of you may have witnessed at the grizzly triathlon last year, my speedo didn’t quite fit as it should have. It really was a shame because just a few months earlier I was a member of the infamous 2000 mile bike torture test Giro D’iscovery and came out of it in the best shape of my life. Unfortunately, it’s easier to lose shape than gain it and last winters excessive drinking, rich food, and sedentary lifestyle erased any gains made during the previous summer. It took all year to regain any sort of shape and I have vowed not to do this again. So goal number 1 is to stay in at least mediocre shape. I will have more on this in a later post courtesy of Adam Jensen and his new bible “Good Calories, Bad Calories.”

On a completely different note, our country is in a bad ressession. With millions of adjustable rate mortgages (ARM’s) coming due in the next year, I suspect the next wave of home foreclosures will add insult to injury and dare I say it, possibly be the straw that breaks the camels back and sends us into a depression. For years now we Americans have been living beyond our means (myself included) and now we are going to pay the price. Thankfully my exceptional foresight has fostered a brilliant idea. I’m coining it “Operation Lean Burn.” The objective is simple: Buy what you need not what you want. I feel like the ultimate hypocrite right now because I’m the biggest consumer around, usually buying only what I want and never what I need. I’m asking for you the readers to help me on this one and I’m going to do something a bit unorthodox. Once I figure out how to use this blog, I’m going to post graphs and pie charts of my personal expenditures. I’m going to open my financial life up to you and let you control and regulate my spending. The goal is to spend as little as possible without greatly sacrificing my quality of life. We must succeed on saving money because with the housing market like it is, my company Wild Rockies Landscaping might have a tough couple of years and having a little extra saved away would be nice. So there you have it, goal number 2 is to save money

Last goal: To post entries at least a couple times a week. I don’t have the time to make daily entries but I’ll try to do three times a week, and if things are going well maybe more. Later bitches

DOUG DALE