Another cool one

The weather down here is awesome. Another day were temps are not going to break 100. Heard that Austin-Bergstrom Airport recorded 26 100+ temperature days this summer! Low of 65 and high of 84 feels damn good at this point.

Speed Walker

This dude is always rocking it along the Town Lake Trail. I must see him almost every time I hit the trail in the afternoon. He is cool.

more jumps

Another bmx track along Shoal Creek. Tons of jumps here. Guess this place gets pretty hopping in the fall. No riders here today. Just one dude chilling with his bike on a bench. Maybe the 108 degree heat had something to do with it. Tomorrow's high is supposed to be 84. Damn, I may need to wear a long sleeve jersey. Maybe there'll be some riders tomorrow.

Shoal Creek

Got a pretty sweet route to ride home on. Duval, UT Campus, Guadalupe, Pease Park, Shoal Creek, Town Lake trail. Some pretty rad stuff off the bike path along Shoal Creek. Here is a little bmx spot with some huge jumps. There is another set just as big beyond the trees in the background followed by a burm to do it all over again in the opposite way. Rode through it on the fixxie and my pedals struck all the tops of the jumps. Maybe I should learn to catch some air.

Freewheeling

First day of doing a partial commute to work is done and over with. Decided to stop by Freewheeling on my way home since it is sorta on the way. Got there just before it closed and talked with Jimmy, I think that's his name. Told him hi from my good buddy daverill. Remebered you from back in the day. Cool shop. They have some real expensive IF frames and others up on the wall. Looks like they've been there for a while. One IF mtn bike must have had a first generation Rock Shock on it.

I think the place has had a bit of a change in business philosophy since you were there. Jimmy made it sound like those were the days. They have a lot of bread and butter bikes and can't afford to turn down as many tune-ups from people with shitty bikes.

Bike to Work

Welp, not the whole way, but rode about 30 minutes to a co-workers house to take part in a carpool. Guess I'll be getting a little riding to and from work each day. I guess it'll be my turn to drive one week out of every three, but its better than what I'd been doing for the past three months.

Len

Beer

Fermenting cream ale in the carboy and a sammy smith's taddy porter clone in the keg. a 5 1/2 gallon version of that glass carboy is what broke over my wrist. just had finished filling up that keg. this new beer should be good. spiked it with about a 1/2 ounce of warrior hops. the things had a 16.3% alpha acid rating. can you say bitter?

Back on the Horse

Wasn't going to let some little homebrewing mishap stop me from brewing. Brewed up a cream ale. Freshly cooking beer smells so good.

day 2

well the cut is healing. pictures are better focused. took 'em in nightime mode yesterday.

higher ground

if you happen to catch this before midnight go to:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4837922

higher ground, pretty sweet benefit for new orleans from the lincoln center

live audio stream!

remember when sex was safe and homebrewing was dangerous?

i don't, but homebrewing still has some dangers for me. cleaning out my 5 1/2 gallon glass secondary fermenter last night. i was shaking it and it popped out of my hands and broke across my wrist. cut the hell out of it.

had a super fun friday night at the brackenridge hospital er. got in there at about 11 and didnt get seen till about 4:30. back at home by about 7.

er's are fucking crazy on friday nights. i imagine saturday is even worse. a group of asian kids came in with about 4 or 5 of their buddies who'd been stabbed. mostly in the arms and shit, but it looked like one got it in the upper torso. a little later, what looked like three frat boys came in. one was walking fast , bent over and lurching. not much blood on the front, but when he turned the corner to go to the or the back of his shirt was soaked. supposidly he'd been shot in the back and had a lung collapsed. by this point it definately didn't look too bad for me. place was crawling with cops.

had to get a tetnus shot. get local anestesia ingected into the wound. damn that hurt. feel the needle going into an open wound, not too bad, but when what i assumed was novicane come out, holy fuck! that burns like a somna' batch. the doctor cleaning out the wound wasn't too pleasant. my pussy eyes couldn't watch, but tara said it looked as though she did a thorough cleaning job. six or so stiches and then some x-rays to make sure there was no glass still inside. backwards i guess, but the doc, she felt i should be good and i would have had to be around a lot longer if we did it the other way. plus they needed to get me out of my bed so they could sew up those stabbing victums.

probably no riding fo a week or so. doc said it looked as though no muscles, tendons, or nerves were sanipped, but i am too much of a puss to worry about hurting myself while pulling on my bars. oh, well. another excuse to drink and be lazy.

speaking of drinking. i sure do miss being able to make up the excuse of looking for some one to ride with to go down to the MWC drinking club for a cold one or a few.

Last Ride For a While

not much i like more than a late night city cruise after a party. a buddy had a little potluck nextdoor to show slides from his trip to burning man. been a while since i'd ridden. work is cramping my style. anyway, spent the night talking to friends and a woman named christen who is looking to find some new riding partners. hanging with the tri training austin crew. tri is BIG down here, everyone and their mother has aero bars on their rides and you see so many plasticaero tri style bikesnothing wrong with it, but if i could afford it i'm more into ti ss, but since i can't i like steel ss.

anyway, she was tal;king about having no idea to use her gears and being real spurty. ah, sounds like your style is made for ss or better yet, fixed gear. she didn't buy it. but i am convinced ss and fixxie is great for people who can put out a lot of power and can't shift worth shit. might as well focus on your strengths (power output) while removing your weeknesses (cadence management).

she was also into finding a group that just rode for fun. shit, well sounds like she needs to try some punk rock cycling with plenty of beers.

Austin Skyline

downtown off road

The last ride I went on about a week ago. Pretty sweet section along a bike trail, where the trail has washed out along Shoal Creek. Figure it may be fun to combine this and Pease Park for some laps to train for cross. That's right, train for cross. My buddy Hector is trying to get me to race this fall. I think I am in. Got nothing to loose racing fixed gear and I've already got a ton of excuses I can use when I get my ass kicked. Guess its time to put the hammer down. Steady diet of beers, no more butts, and riding more than once a week. Rides to the corner store for beer doesn't count.

Guess I'm going to have to work on that whole mount dismount thing.

Green Break

Towards the end of the ride Hector and I decided to stop off at this park for a little break. Showed me this cool tree carving.

From here headed over to Ozone to check out some bikes. Its a cool place, but definately not as cool as MWC on a Saturday if you know what I mean. Speaking of MWC, check out that nice jersey.

Salsa

My man Hector and I kinda went for a little urban cross ride the other day. He on his girlfriend, Fran's Salsa. Must be cool having a girlfriend who has a bike like that, it fits you, and she lets you ride it!

Later and ride safe

Yvette and Phillip cruising off on the Aprilla. Man motors are nice on bikes, but Tara and I can peddle.

Cheers!

Last call

After Flamingo Cantina, Phillip, Yvette, Tara and I went to Lovejoys for one more. Second time in the place that night. Man I love their beer. Drinking their porter that night. Just thinking about it makes me thirsty!

Devil Angel

Lovejoys has some of the best artwork. Love the Devil Angels. If you're ever in Austin, pay Lovejoys a visit. Yeah, they don't have any live music, but the beer is so good. Where else can you get fine crafted beers at a dive bar that are made on site?

Less scooters but in Focus

Best Beer in Town

Definately must be Austin's best micro brew.
Definately true now that Bitter End had a fire and is shut down for a few months.

Scooters

Outside Lovejoys there were tons of scooters. Should have taken this shot 20 minutes earlier as there were 4 times as many scooters out there. At one time there must have been 20 scooters and 4 motorcycles out front.

Alpha Rhythm

Austin's Alpha Rythm playing last Saturday at the Flamingo Cantina

Austin Skyline

Fooling around with a digi is fun. I guess you need a tripod for a long shutter speed.

spd reefs

New choice footwear for riding downtown.

Dogs like it

Champagne!

Some beers at Lake Travis.

The beer I am drinking right now

Do you remember the first time you had Redhook? Tara picked this up. Cheapest good beer at the corner market. Beats the Lone Star tall boys I was drinking at the hotel in Port Lavaca this week. Use to be relatively hard to find Redhook. Not anymore.

http://redhook.com

Redbud

Must be the dogs favorite place in Austin when its dry. Redbud is a little island below the Lake Austin Spillway. Nice and deep. Rango loves to swim and fetch while Carmen prefers to stalk fish. Little too deep for fish stalking here though.

Fun for Humans Too

I say I go for the dogs, but its really cause there is a rope swing and you can jump off the tree.

Tara, you got to take the picture earlier

New Orleans

Wow, New Orleans sounds pretty fucked to say the least. Pretty sad situation and it is amazing the gov't can't do more to help down there. Hope everyone's loved ones down there are safe. Tara's whole family is from down there. Luckily it sounds as though all are safe, although in rough shape. It looks as though her grandmother is the only one left, without power, but safe.

Going to take a lot of time and money to fix it up. Even once it does get cleaned up, Loiussianna is still going to be in a constant struggle. New Orleans is on a delta and continues to subside since its lost its sediment supply. The Mississippi constanltly works at the levees trying to find a different course than the ones the Army Corp decided for it. Good luck, New Orleans.

http://edc.usgs.gov/Katrina.html

BAD ASS LITTLE DOG

The Saturday before we surrendered Chulo we had all the dogs down at the Guadalupe River along Tara's mom Jeanette and her husband Bill's place in Seguin. Who would have though a Chihauhau would swim and fetch? This dog was kicking ass. He went out into the current and retrieved a stick bigger and heavier than him. He then kicked Bill and Jeanette's lab puppies ass when they tried to get his stick!

Adios mi Chulito

Well, some of you who come here may also check out Folks From Lincoln and have seen a picture of this dog before. Tara and I found him running down our road late one night returning from a party. He didn't have a collar and was in pretty bad shape. Big sratches on his snout with patches of fur missing and his coat was really thin.

We took him home and cleaned him up. Our two dogs were pretty psyched to have another friend to play with. Contacted the pound, looked for lost dog signs, and a neighbor kid said his friend lost a dog of the same description, just down the street, at the time. Well I said, we have your friends dog, tell her to come and get him. That was the last we heard of it.

Two dogs is pretty cool, but three dogs is a hell of a lot of work. Especially small dogs. Chulo was rad and a sweet dog, but walking three dogs before you have to get to work is a pain in the ass and a dog that pratically has to run just to keep up is worse.

Tara emailed a lady from Pomeranian Rescue who specialize in finding homes for small dogs.

http://www.ponderapom.com/

We met her the weekend we found Chulo, but they were full. Last Sunday we surrendered Chulo to the Pomeranian Rescue. Made Tara and I ball, but it is good. Our lives are easier, Carmen and Rango seem to appreciate the extra attention, and it sounds like Chulo is loving on small dog world and will have no trouble finding a good home.