Author: kennettron

My family and I drove down from Park City to the Redstone Village Outlet Mall for a nice dinner and a movie at the cinema.  My husband, Bob, our two children, Ryan (12) and Patricia (9), and my mother, “Nanna” as the kids affectionately call her, were looking forward to a fun, relaxing night out.  We decided on the Cafe Rio burrito bar.  Standing from outside we could see that the line inside was long, but this is always the case at Cafe Rio.  The food is decently good and the affordable price brings in the masses.  We live up on the Hill in Park City, meaning price is no object for us.  But sometimes we like to dip into the chasms of the lower class for a sneak peak at the service people, just to get a feel for the carefree life of the common man.  My husband, Bob, who’s seen success in the stock market, insists that once a month we must go out into the world and mingle among the poor, observe their likes and dislikes, and  generally weave ourselves into the fabric of the average American.  Unfortunately, on this night we seemed to have woven ourselves into the disgustingly filthy T-shirts of two young men eating at the Cafe Rio, who, judging by their food-stained apparel, appeared to have no dignity, no sense of self-worth, no respect for themselves or for those that were forced to share this food establishment with them.

As we opened the door to the burrito restaurant and stepped in line, my eyes immediately fell upon these two vagabond young males.  Both were seated in the middle of the cafe with three massive plates full of food.  Each were digging into an immense pile of nachos with forks and fingers, slurping and sucking the food down like pigs of a trough.  Without a care of soiling their clothes, their faces, or their hair, the two gluttons belched and farted their way to the bottom of the mountain of chips and cheese within the very few minutes my disgusted family stood in line watching.  I barely stomached the sight as my bowls moved up into my throat.  I put my hand to my mouth as I felt an uprising of my unhappy intestines, revolting in the disgust as the two gluttons began shoveling their next plates of burritos into their greedy mouthes.  They paused only to pour horchata down their gullets, spilling the white beverage on their been and hot sauce-covered shirts, pants, arms, faces, and all over the table.  They seemed not to care about anything other than the speed of which they gorged themselves with the cheap mexican food.  They did not speak.  They did not look up from their plates.  They did not wipe their mouths with napkins.  They did not apologize for making bodily noises.  They were two primates eating with the speed one might associate with a starving canine, hurriedly and horridly lapping at the food as if it were about to be taken away from it.  Tongues smacked lips like those of bull frogs lashing out at fat black flies.  Fists were clenched around food and fork like those of dirty possums groping and grabbing at a dead fish.  They smelled of BO, sweat, flatulence and beans.  The snorting and drooling of wild hogs brought my face to a green flush.  I became dizzy and hot.  I felt my legs grow weak and the rising temperature of the room spun on account of the horrid slobs.  Bob grabbed me stiffly by the arm as he saw me start to faint, and quickly pulled me back outside to safety.  The kids and Nanna followed suite with looks of horror and nausea.  We doubled over, breathing in the cool, clean mountain air for many minutes as our heads cleared and our eyes lost their glaze.  Then we loaded back into the Mercedez and drove away from the wretched bowels of the Outlet Mall and back up the hill to our local five-star restaurant where we dined on lobster,  caviar, veal osso bucco, and truffles  like civilized human beings.

Prologue: I should have loosened up my grip on the breaks going  around the corners.  It was a fast 2 mile course and every squeeze of the levers loses a couple seconds.  I felt good but didn’t have the best tactical race for this reason and ended up 92nd at 16 seconds down on the winner.  Fun race though.

Stage 1: Mckenzie Pass RR.  This was a surprisingly short road race, at just 75 miles.  The first 20 miles were mostly down hill and flat, with a few small rollers.  I got off the front a couple times, but nothing was sticking for long.  I should have just sat in and conserved energy for the 20 mile climb we were approaching, but I thought a break would go before it and I wanted to be part of it.  Plus attacking early was my job.  I lead the pack around the left hand turn as we pulled off of the highway and onto the smaller forest road, which quickly went up hill.  From there, I slowly lost position in the pack for the next 30 minutes until I finally got dropped as the pack shred to pieces.  The group I was in rode hard for another 10 or 20 minutes until we had a big pack of 25 or so riders.  Teammate Spencer was in there with me.  Then shouts of “groupetto” were called out as riders felt there was no chance for catching back on and their legs began dictating their now dwindling egos.

At last, we crested the mountain pass at 5,500 ft and tore down the other side and road hard into Sisters.  We could see the pack up ahead off in the distance and our pace-line was blisteringly fast.  A little too fast, and guys started missing turns on the front.

After we made our way through town, the chase lost all impotence and there were only three or four of us willing to spend time on the front.

When we got to the final climb of the day, I went to the front and held what I thought was a reasonable pace for a groupetto to do that’s making sure to not get time cut.  But as we came over the steep section, a few guys hammered it.  Spencer and I jumped on the train and partook in what I was sure was bad form, in ditching the other 20 guys in our group.  But within five minutes of hard effort, I could see why we were going so fast.  Another large group of 30 guys was up the road.  We caught them and started going straight by, but their yelling forced us to slow down and ride with them.  I was content.  My legs were pretty close to being done.  I came in mid pack of the large group, getting a time the same as the 96th guy.

Stage 2: The Skyliners TT.  Not much to say about the TT.  I was pretty spun out on the way down in my 53X11.  I needed a bigger gear, but didn’t care too much since I was out of GC contention by a lot.  I came into the race hoping for a top 25 on GC and a top 10 finish on a stage, but the GC goal was out the window by the first RR.

Stage 3: Mt. Bachelor RR.  I was determined to not get dropped on the first climb of the day again, like I did last year.  I even warmed up on the trainer for 20 minutes before the race.  Basically, the race starts out with a 10 mile climb, then goes down hill for a long time, then has rolling hills until finally another five mile climb to the finish.  Last year I got popped about half way up and rode in with a group, bonking hard, and finished dead last with only 2 minutes to spare to make the time cut.  This year I made it all the way until the final kicker up to the KOM, about 2.5kms from the top or less.  It was frustrating.  Much better than last year, but still very frustrating.

On the decent, I caught five guys and we started the rotation.  An hour later, we were caught by a much larger group of about 12 guys.  But only six or seven of us would do any consistent pulling.  Unlike last year at this race, I did a huge amount of work.  I was clearly the strongest in the groupetto, and I was paranoid about making the time cut, so I pulled too hard.  The guys behind yelled at me to slow down, move left, move right to keep them out of the wind, ease up on the climbs.  I told them I was trying to impress United Healthcare but they wouldn’t listen.  Anyways, long story short about six of us made it to the top of the climb together, I rode off the course in the last 100 meters accidentally  (damn confusing cones in the parking lot finish area).  And we all made the time cut.  I was tired.  My teammates did pretty well on the stage.  Sam got in some moves, and Lang and Chris finished in the top 50.  Sean and Spencer made it up the climb as well in good position.

Stage 4: the crit.  This was dumb.  I was lined up on the front, ready to get some revenge since my stomach was full of anger, and the stupid race officials made us take a lap.  When I got back around (after having taken a short cut through the center of the course) I found that I was now lined up near the back.  I cursed the officials many times but they were not struck down by lightning.  I was doomed to race at the back of the pack for the rest of the night, since this course is very stupid and is near impossible to move up when you’re 150 guys back from the front.  Unlike last year though, where I also raced near the back, this year was super easy and I spent most of the time breathing through my nose.  Just shows how taking the corners better and having a little extra power can save a lot of energy.  I tried moving up but could never really make any progress.  Afterwards, Chris, Spencer, my mom and my friend from Iceland, Einar, went out for dinner.  Even though it was a frustratingly boring race, big NRC crits like this are always exciting with all the fans and friends cheering you on.

Stage 5: Auberry Butte circuit race.  This was the only day of the entire stage race that REALLY mattered to me.  I knew from Nationals that I could have a good ride here.  My watts/kilos threshold is low for doing well on long climbs, but shorter climbs suit me much better.  And Aubbery Butte is all about that.  A super hard race (only 100 finished out of 150).  It was 100 degrees.  I had ridden the course 20 or 30 times this year and knew it better than probably anyone in the field except for Sean, who lives on the course.  My job was to get in the breakaway again, like at nationals.  I tried hard for the first two laps, and almost got popped the second time up the Feed Zone section/Archie Briggs climbs because I had been off the front right before and gotten caught on the feed zone climb.  I held on though, at the very back of the pack, and vowed to stop attacking.  Of course, that’s when the break went.  I was happy though, because that meant that at least the next lap was going to be easy.  It was not easy, but it was less hard.

This brings us to lap 4, which was also very hard.  I can’t remember much about it.  They blur together now.  Lap 5 was the worst.  I made it over the feed zone climb and the fast section afterwards.  But then broke down on the Archie Briggs climb.  The pack split into three groups.  I had a moment of mental weakness here.  I think I could have held onto the second group, but only made the third group.  I took second in our group sprint 5kms later, finishing one minute down on the lead group.  This was possibly the hardest race I have ever done.  I finished 54th.

Cascade race report to come. But in short, I got my ass handed to me. Not nearly as bad as I did last year, although I miraculously placed exactly the same on GC as I did last year, which was 96th. But anyways, on to more pressing news:

I’m here in Park City, Utah with teammates Lang and Spencer. The housing situation has been Craigslistesqu, meaning slightly confusing and unplanned. In the past, I’ve found one, maybe two houses to possibly stay at when moving to a new city, then I’ve driven to that city and hoped for the best. This has not been the case this time. This time I found roughly a dozen places to stay at, and I’ve kept five or six of them on hold, and another four or five believing they sealed the deal. The secret to Craigslist housing is options. Options to opt out in case one of the houses has 13 dogs 5 cats and a squirrel. A back up house in case your back up house is owned by a pedophile. And a plan D in case your landlord turns out to be a huge D. But when you finally do land the perfect house, the difficult job of breaking off your commitments with the other houses begins. Examples:

Herb’s story. (Who sounded like a raging douche on the phone and just had a bad attitude altogether. Plus he wanted us to bring him the rent in cash the night we arrived in Utah). I didn’t want to stay at his place at all, so we planned on him being a back up for the back up just in case our current destination turned out to be adjacent to the city dump or built over a pet graveyard. Herb called twice on our drive to Utah on Monday. I avoided his first call, letting it go the the answering machine. But I answered when he called a second time around 10:30pm, right as we were getting into Park City.
Herb: Hey, so where are you guys? Getting close?
Me: Uhh…we’re on our way, but I don’t think we’re gonna make it to park city tonight.
Herb: Where are you?
Me: Uhh, just a second. (I pretended to ask Spencer where we were.)
Me: I think we’re still in Idaho.
Herb: Oh, yeah it’s a long drive. blah blah blah. I ended the conversation quickly before I had to lie again. But by Tuesday the texts started pouring in. Along with the voice mails.

‘The Silent Treatment’

“Hey Kennett, this is Herb. Just uhhh wondering where uhh you guys are. Let me know. Bye.

“Hey Kennett this is Herb calling. It’s uhh mid day and I haven’t heard from you yet. Just wondering what’s up.”

It’s not you, it’s me.  And…there’s someone else.

We got to Park City late Monday night, having decided to stay with a young family who wanted to rent us their basement, which has a bed, a couch, and a blow up mattress.  Plus we have a little hang out area with a TV and a kitchen and bathroom.  I thought it was a pretty sweet deal.  And it turned out to be real nice.  But, we’ve become altitude junkies and the idea of staying at 6,700 feet when we could be at 7,300 just wasn’t sitting right with us.  A condo was opening up on August 1st that we decided to stay at, which was the same price as our current basement.  Plus it wasn’t a basement, it was a nice condo with three beds.  And it was 500 feet higher up.  Anyways, we went up there the other day and looked at it with the current tenants and decided it would be great for us.  But later that night I got an email from a bike racer in town who owns some rentals in town that offered us an even better deal.  So began the process of breaking up with Belinda, a nice elderly lady with a crushed esophagus, which made understanding her on the phone a bit of a problem.  The phone conversation that ensued:

Me: Hi Belinda, this is Kennett.
Belinda: Ohhhkis hihgs knnekdtt hwr you difso dchance to skjd condo?
Me: Yeah, we took a look at the condo and it was real nice. Very nice. But uhh, we just got an offer from someone else. Uhhh, someone who’s on, who’s, who knows our coach and uhhh, is offering a place for us to stay for free (not quite true but cheaper than Belinda’s). Ummm. But you’re condo was very nice though, and thank you so much for offering it to us at such a discounted rate.
Belinda: lkasdklfj alksdjfljasdjf ksdjfj, oh that’s alksd lkalrl.
Me: But I’m sure you can find someone else. It’s just that we’re on a real tight budget and this other place is uhh…I’m sure you’ll find someone else to rent your condo out to. It’s such a great place. Very good looking and a great location….It’s not you, it’s us. Your condo is just a bit too nice for us. It will be better off with someone else.
Belinda: kalsjdfj alskjdfkljasdlkjf
Me: Oh, of course. If I know of anyone else in Park City who’s looking for a place to rent, I’ll send them right your way. Of course. And thank you so much for offering your condo to us. It was really nice of you. Ok, goodbye. Good luck.

This strategy seemed to work pretty well. Although I couldn’t really understand most of what she was saying, Belinda seemed happy in the end for us and the the breakup went well.

Fading away.

Once we found out about the place we’re about to move to, we realized we’d have to break the news to our current hosts. They’re real easy going people and it seems that they don’t really mind whether we’re here or not. In fact, they just don’t care enough one way or the other. It’s kind of disheartening being a guest in someone’s home when they don’t miss you when you’re away. So considering that, combined with our new house we have lined up, has helped to drive us away. We want to be missed. We want to be needed. We haven’t broken up with them yet, but it seems like it will be pretty easy. They seem to have moved on without us already, so our absence likely won’t upset them anyways. Oh well…

The moral of the story is to have plenty of irons in the fire. Keep the craigslist homes waiting to hear from you. Wanting to hear from you. Don’t be too eager to commit to any one of them, and of course don’t let them know about each other. They may suspect something’s up. That’s fine. That keeps them trying to sweeten the deal.  Just don’t let them know for certain whether there’s another home.  And of course remember: when it comes to Craigslist homes, you can always do better.

This is a late post. I did this race a few weeks ago and wrote about it then, but forgot to post it on here. Currently, I’m racing the Cascade Classic, where I’m getting my but kicked. I’m looking forward to that last stage though.

Crit: My plan for the weekend was to win the overall, which meant racing smart and conserving energy in the crit, which always ends in a bunch sprint on this course, which did not happen this time. Every previous year I’ve raced this course, it’s ended in a bunch sprint with not a single breakaway staying away to the finish. Sitting on seemed like a good idea if I wanted to win. So I sat at the back for 10 or 15 minutes, extremely bored for being in a bike race, and worried that one of the attacks up the road would stick. I moved up during a prime lap and the pace stayed relatively high for the next couple laps as things were brought back together. It settled down for a moment at last and I was sitting right on Eli’s wheel when he went. It was perfect. Eli sprinted for about 150 meters, then I came around him and pulled hard for a full lap without looking back. When I did shrug for him to come around, I was disappointed to see that about six guys had made it onto my wheel. We had a large gap, but there were too many lazy/wimpy guys to work smoothly together and we were brought back in four laps later. I went back to the rear of the field and waited there for the finish like I had planned. Somewhere between then and the end of the race, 10 guys went up the road and stayed away. And, being an omnium, that meant that all the points for the crit were suddenly gone.

TT: I didn’t place top 10 in the TT so no points. I think I was 11th but can’t remember. I needed a bigger gear on the downhill (which is half the race) and I had to coast for a lot of it. This is the same course as used for Cascade, so it was nice to find out about the gearing issue in this race rather than Cascade.

RR: I played it smart and waited near the back until the first climb, which was around 20 minutes into the 60-mile race. A break had gotten away with six or seven guys early on, which included my one teammate in the race, Sean. So I wasn’t able to attack, but I did follow a few attempts made by Boswell and Shepard when we did get to the climb. The final attack by Shepard worked, and the three of us, plus one other guy, successfully bridged up to the break before the top of the climb. We now had 11 guys up the road, but one was dropped at the top of the climb and another was dropped shortly after, so it was soon down to nine. Almost everyone pulled through for the first 15 minutes and it was obvious the field stood no chance of catching us since all the strongest guys made the break. I decided to do more than my fair share of the work anyways, since Sean and I were the only teammates in the break and I wanted to make sure it stuck, and hopefully give Sean a shot at getting top three overall in the omnium, since he got 2nd in the TT the day before.

About 25K left to the finish, Boswell and Shepard escaped on a climb. I should have gone with them, but had a moment of hesitation, along with the rest of the guys.

One more guy was dropped during the attack, so we were now down to six chasing two. At the top of the climb, they had maybe 20 seconds on us, which we should have easily closed on the long downhill. But only a few of us were willing to do anything about it, and it wasn’t organized well enough to even keep them at 20 seconds. The gap was soon up to over half a minute. Around about this time, I told Sean to sit on and save himself for the end, and I went to the front and stayed there for the rest of the race. I probably pulled about 2/3 of the way to the finish, giving it one last hard pull about 2k to go near the top of the gradual climb to the end. Unfortunately, Sean had nothing left and was dropped right afterwards. I was spent from all the work I had done, and was dropped a minute later with about a K to go and came across 7th, 30 seconds back. Too bad, because they ended up catching Shepard and I know I would have won the sprint and taken 2nd If I hadn’t slain myself over the past half hour, or even if I just hadn’t done that last pull I probably could have taken it. It would have been more frustrating if it had been for first place, but since it wasn’t I didn’t care that much. It was all good training, though, and I’m feeling great for Cascade.

I took a day easy on Monday and did the usual Auberry Butte circuit race course, which is about 2 hours if I go slow, and then on Tuesday I got some real training accomplished with those Secret Intervals I talked about earlier.

I think I’ve been reading too much Vonnegut, because all of my latest posts involve Vonnegutian ideas about helping people because they deserve it, which in turn improves the world. Why do they deserve it? Because they’re human. And that should be reason enough. This is hard for me to choke down, not because I don’t like the world, but because I don’t like most people. George Bush and Dick Cheney are human. Do they deserve anything good? No. Vonnegut would say that every human deserves to be loved (I don’t know if he truly believed that because he was a cranky old bastard), but I disagree.

I’ve had it with believing people are mostly good. I tried it out for half a week there, and you know what? I don’t really like being passed too closely by uncaring semi trucks and having a gush of wind hit and nearly knock me off the road. I don’t like the way cross walk signals take forever to turn white when all those damn cars get to keep going through the intersection without ever having to stop. I don’t like how the poorest people are the only ones out using the sidewalks and crosswalks while everyone else drives—and when a poor person trying to cross the street at a non-intersection has to J-walk because it would make no sense for them to walk all the way up another three blocks to use a cross walk—when that happens and some jerk driver blares their horn at him (THIS IS MY ROAD GOD DAMNIT DON’T MAKE ME BREAK!!)—I don’t like that either. I especially don’t like seeing people driving Hummers or jacked up monster trucks. I don’t like seeing people throw McDonalds trash out their window. I don’t like over-hearing high schoolers at the park calling a girl a whore and a fat slut (she wasn’t fat anyways). I don’t like the police patrolling around the park music festival as if the dangerous crowd of hippies and suburban parents and children are going to start raging against the machine to bluegrass and flood into downtown and riot the streets of Bend Oregon. I don’t like the fact that I found $3 on the road the other day and every time I go back on that section of road, I subconsciously start greedily scanning the ground for more cash. I don’t like seeing a million sprinklers in the desert watering sidewalks and driveways. I don’t like green eggs and ham, Sam I am. I DON’T LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM!!!!!

I don’t like having to deal with one of the idiotic women who lives here:

Her: “So are you entering a marathon soon?”
Me: “No, I’m not a runner.”
Her: “Well, a marathon for bikes?”
Me: “No, marathons are generally a run.”
Her: “Well, OK I know that. I mean, a long biking…long distance event?”
Me: “Yes, that’s what I’m here training for.”
Her: “My friend volunteered for that bike race a last week.”
Me: “Uh huh.”

I’ve told her a baker’s dozen times what I’m here for. I’ve explained the races. I’ve told her when the races are. I’ve told her how long the races are. And she has told me that her friend volunteered for the bike race last week about 30 times.

And it’s not just her.

Scene: Kennett is walking out into the garage wearing all his bike clothes and shoes and helmet and sunglasses and just filled up two water bottles in the sink. What might he be doing? Where is he going? I have no idea, I better ask.

“Kennett, are you going for a bike ride?”
“Yep.”

This question is asked by almost everyone in the house every time they see me going for a ride. I realize that they probably know that I’m going for a bike ride, and that they’re just making conversation. But when I see someone going to the bathroom I don’t ask if they’re going to take a shit. When I see someone looking in the fridge for something to eat, I don’t ask if they’re going to eat something. I was in the process of drinking a glass of water and someone asked me, “Are you thirsty?” with genuine sincerity. Please, use that thing above your shoulders for something other than spewing out idiotic questions.

And of course it’s not just people here at the house.

Outside a noodle shop downtown where I left my bike leaned up against some chairs:

Guy: (Asking about my bike) “What’s the base of that made out of?”
Me: ??
Guy: “Is it that sprayed on stuff?”
Me: ?? “Uh, you mean the frame? It’s made out of carbon fiber.”
Guy: “So is that a kind of aluminum?”
Me: “No, it’s like plastic.”
Guy: “Cool. So do they forge that. It looks forged.”
Me: “No, you can’t forge plastic. It would melt or burn. They do, uhhh (me looking for an easy explanation) molds of it.
Guy: “And it looks sprayed on. Is it?”
Me: “Uhh, they painted it if that’s what you’re talking about.”
Guy: “Yeah, it looks sprayed.”
Silence.
Guy: “Could I pick it up with my pinky?”
Me: “No.”

And it’s not just about bikes.

At the Fred Meyers meat department:

Butcher: “Can I help you?”
Me: Thinking—“No, I just like to come stand here and stare at the meat for 5 minutes until you finally come out of the back, after which I walk away, completely satisfied and full because that’s how I consume calories—by sight and imagination.” What I actually said: “Yeah I’ll have two pieces of this chicken breast.” Pointing at it.
Butcher: “Which chicken?”
Me: Pointing-“That stuff right there.” There was no other chicken around.
Butcher: “How many pieces did you say?”
Me: “Two.”
Butcher: “Which pieces did you want?”
Me: “Uh, I don’t care. They’re all the same. How about those two pieces in the front.”
Butcher: “Which two pieces?”
Me: “I don’t care.”
Butcher: “Are these two OK?
Me: “Yes, it doesn’t matter.”
Butcher: “You said two right?”
Me: “Yep.”

The butcher, who must have been extremely stoned and extremely dull, then took five minutes to weigh and wrap, and then re-wrap the two tiny chicken breasts. Maybe this was his first day on the job. And his first day interacting with another human. And his first day learning how to use his hands to pick things up and punch buttons on a scale.

My point? People are cruel and stupid. Very stupid. I still think that a lot of people are nice. Maybe in general, more dumb people are nice than smart people. It’s hard to say. I’ll leave that undecided for today. I’m sure I’ll have quickly made up an answer in a day or two. But anyways, people are dumb and mean. We do mean things because we’re dumb. And we do dumb things because we’re mean. So why should I care about us? I don’t care about green eggs and ham, Sam I am. But I must since I’m writing about it. It must be my dumbness, not fully realizing all the contradictory things and ideas I’ve written so far.

I apologize to all the people vastly more intelligent than I. I apologize for being so dumb, and I feel your pain. I only ask that you humor me just a little, so that I don’t realize how dumb I really am and how much smarter you are. I try. That counts for something at least, right? I don’t squash spiders for no reason and I don’t drive a monster truck. But the people who do those things probably don’t know they’re doing anything wrong either. Just like I don’t know about all the dumb, cruel things I’m probably doing. I’m sure a vegan would look at me with disgust and contempt for how much meat I eat. A true animal lover would spit at me for smashing all those fleas I had on me the other day—yes I had fleas for a day somehow. A humanitarian would shake their head in dissaproval for all the middle fingers and “suck it” symbols I give to motorists. A true conservationist would avoid eye contact with me for all the energy I waste—fans, lights, stove, fridge, flushing the toilet when I pee, altitude generator, ridiculous amount of food consumed—most of which is shipped from Argentina, laptop, etc. In fact I’m so dumb I don’t even know what etc. really stands for. I’d have to look it up. But I won’t. I prefer to live in ignorance.

And now for something completely different:

This is to be rapped in the accent of a low-class Britt. Like Cavendish.

I found three dollas on the street today
They was layin’ in the road, GW on display
I stopped to pick ‘em up and me eyes was ablaze with hunga’
The bills were callin’ to me like the sound a thunda’
They said, “Hey Kennett why-doncha come out n’ play?”
“You’s needen a snack at a Circle K.”
And I say back to em’, “Yo dolla bills, you’s my honey.”
I’m gonna trade you in for for somethin’ sweet n’ yummy.”
But before I dun get to the next gas station
Me eyes is stuck scannin’ for another paper sensation
Every Starbucks cup on the side a da road
Is a 20-dolla bill starin’ at me cold
Every scrap a paper in the ditch to the right
Is disguised to me eyes as a big wad a bills, rolled real tight
A can a soda, an empty thing a Gu or Hamma’ gel
All I see is money, even though it’s hotter n’ hell
I don’t care bout no wata’
Don’t want no ice
I just keep scannin’ the ditch for somethin’ green n’ nice
I swerve along the street, not noticin’ where I go
Eyes locked on the ground, now I’m feelin’ kinda low
A car passes by, wondrin’ why I’m on the wrong side da road
I miss me turn, not carin’ a bit
What’s come ova’ me? Three dollas aint shit.
Who knows, who cares? I gotta find me next load.

The idea that socialism doesn’t work because people are inherently lazy is not true. In a bike race, you do as little work as possible to get to the finish so that you have a big kick left. But you still end up doing a lot of work. No bike race is easy, there are always moments of difficulty and unless it’s a completely downhill race, you feel the lactic acid in your legs at least once or twice. I don’t think people are lazy. Some work harder than others. Some work much harder than others, and do deserve to be compensated for it. But 99% of people, at least people I know, are not what I would consider lazy.

The story about the grasshopper and the ants holds a terrible moral for children. Here it is: The grasshopper is a lazy hippy who spends its entire summer playing music while neglecting to collect food for the winter. The ants are hard workers, collecting and hoarding food for themselves all spring and summer long, responsibly preparing for the “doomsday” when the first snows arrive. When winter finally comes, the grasshopper quickly begins starving and freezing to death. Fortunately for the lazy hippy grasshopper, the good-natured Christian ants feel pity for it and nourish it back to life (ant heaven exists in this story and they’ll be damned if they don’t get in!). The grasshopper learns a valuable lesson from this and next summer and spring, it knows to do its duty, hangs up its leg (violin) and collects its own food.

Grasshoppers don’t store food. They do die in the winter.

Ants don’t give a shit about grasshoppers. They would kill and eat one if they found one.

This story is also saying that music is worthless. The only things that matter in life are material resources. Who wrote this story, Reagan?

Now, think about the lowliest, most lazy person in society that you can think of. A homeless person possibly? They’re so lazy they don’t even have enough money for a pair of un-ripped shoelaces, right?

But even a homeless person is willing to work. Up to 12 hours a day! Sitting out in the hot sun or pouring rain with a cardboard sign all day. It’s not any different than holding a stop sign for construction work. It’s work. They’re not being lazy, they just can’t get hired or hold down a job—usually because of a mental illness, or circumstances they were brought up with such as abusive or drug addict parents. Who knows why they’re homeless. Cricumstances that were most likely out of their control. And they’re still not lazy. I can’t think of one lazy person I’ve met recently.

If people had more hope, more equality, an equal chance at making a decent living in the world, it seems to me they’d be even more likely to work harder at life. Should a doctor get paid as much as a garbage truck driver? Maybe not, since there needs to be some sort of motive for the more “intelligent” people in a society to be attracted to more difficult and “important” jobs. But will a plastic surgeon do less of a job if they make 200,000 a year instead of 700,000? Contrarily, would a janitor lead a more fulfilling life if they were paid 40,000 a year instead of 15,000? And they’d do a better job too. There is no shortage of work and no shortage of money or resources in this country for the amount of people who live here. The same cannot be said about the world as a whole. But for this country, at least, there is no reason why almost 50% of the working population makes a wage that classifies them as being in poverty (below 18,000 a year). In our current system of capitalism, where the cream supposedly rises to the top, the nation’s elite 1% must be extremely hard workers to own 80% of the nation’s wealth.

Here’s a story: In an anthill, everyone does the same amount of work. Some ants are better at collecting food. Some are better at guarding the hill. Some are better at caring for the young. Some are better at doing a jig; ants need entertainment too. But all the ants pull their fair share and they all get enough food and respect to live happily together without a military police force or gated communities keeping them in order. There is no slum village in an anthill.

Another story: I wolf pack. There are 12 wolves, a much smaller community than an anthill and much closer to a natural community for humans—hunter gatherer societies. There is an alpha male and a dominant female. Wolves need a little leadership apparently. But, like the ants, they all do their fair share and they all get enough to eat once the growling and bickering is over with.

Last story: Humans. The smartest species of them all. The ones born into good prosperity control the world and the rest are slaves. The end.

Creativity. For most people, it dies out after middle school when kids start realizing it’s un-cool to be original. Un-cool. Meaning it’s cool to be average, normal, boring. As people reach adulthood, they fear creativity more and more. Have you ever seen an adult try to draw something? It’s usually stick figures. What do adults wear? Kahkis and bland-colored collared shirts. Do they have Mohawks or dreadlocks? No. Do adults build sand castles? No. Do they try to invent things in the garage? No. Have you heard adult conversations? Not “adult” conversations but adult’s conversations. They’re boring. They’re about the weather. Two people meeting each other at a dinner party for the first time after introductions are made:

Person 1: So, what do you do?
Person 2: Oh, I work at a bank, yeah…
Person 1: Oh ok cool, my friend’s neighbor’s daughter works at a bank. US bank. It’s a good job, she’s been there three years now I think.
Person 2: Yeah I like it. It pays the bills. So, what do you do?
Person 1: Oh, I’m a real estate agent. Not quite the business to be in right now if you know what I mean!
Person 2: Yeah, tell me about it. My sister just lost her house. This whole thing is such a mess.
Person 1: Well hopefully Obama can get things turned around.
Person 2: We’ll see, so far he hasn’t done much.
Person 1: Has there been a president who has? Hahahaha.
Person 2: Hahahahah.

*Awkward pause

Person 1: I’m going to go shoot myself in the face because I’ve had this conversation about 211,000 times already. Want to join me? My gun is fully loaded. You can go first so the barrel isn’t messy.
Person 2: Why not.

Social pressures squeeze creativity out of most people like the juice from an orange, leaving only a dry pulp and peel that gets tossed out in the trash (or hopefully compost bin). Except in this case, it’s the juice that gets tossed out and the pulp and peel remain. Most people are normal. It’s rare to meet someone who hasn’t been juiced. Especially in pro cycling–a thank you!!! Pun intended.

After getting back from a dinner at a friend’s house tonight, where some of the people were cool and hadn’t been juiced, while some had been, I came home and the kid who lives here at the house showed me his notebook of drawings. The notebook had a bunch of colored pencil drawings of action-figure type characters for different books he was planning on making. They all had back-stories and special powers that he explained to me, and he wasn’t at all embarrassed or shy about showing them off. He hasn’t started middle school yet.

Why is it that we spend our free time watching something someone else has created?—poorly created and dumbed-down like most TV shows and movies are. And speaking of those, the weird person is usually the main character. What does that tell you? People don’t want to see a bunch of normal people on TV. Of course not, who would? They’re boring. But in real life, they don’t want to be that weird person. And they wouldn’t want that person as a friend either.

One thing I’ve always wondered, and I expect everyone else has wondered about too, is what other people spend their time thinking and daydreaming about. I think of the usual things you’d expect me to think about: fantasizing about bike races, how I’m going to train next week, next winter, what I’m going to eat when I get home…etc. But I also think about completely weird things all the time—I think everyone does. I might spend an entire day thinking about what it would be like to walk across the country, sleeping in farm fields, getting invited in once and a while to someone’s home, moving on and working at a coal mine or pig-farmer, basically being a traveling hobo—not the kind that stand at the street corner with a sign asking for help—but a romanticized bum (a hobo) who carries a stick with a red and white hanker chief bundle tied to it. A bum who travels the country finding out what it’s like to be a human in this country. Finding the true American experience. A hobo who then writes a best selling novel about his adventures and what he’s learned—that people are generally good, but evil when formed into a society. He then becomes rich and famous and goes on talk shows, but then gets depressed with his newfound wealth and the soul-less socialite lifestyle and decides to go live off the land in Canada. But he can’t re-create what he had before. He’s lonely and lost. Nothing seems to satisfy him and he becomes more and more depressed until he just gets fed up with it all and walks into the ocean and swims out as far as he can and drowns. I’ll spend a day thinking about what it might be like to be a smoke jumper—and I’ll think up a whole life story for myself if I happened to be a smokejumper. A day where I spend the entire day asking myself: “What am I thinking about now?” With the answer always being: “I’m trying to think about what I’m thinking about—so I’m not really thinking about anything.” These are usually frustrating days. Maybe I’ll spend an hour in a complete stupor, thinking about electricity or magnets or black holes or gravity or molecules and not understanding how anyone can understand any of those things. Or about suction cups on an octopus. How the hell did those evolve??? My question is, if we’re all thinking about super weird things, why is it that the world is so non-weird? I mean weird things happen, but weird people don’t exist in great numbers like you’d expect. Are we all just keeping it suppressed? Maybe we haven’t been juiced after all. Maybe it’s still inside us, just behind a lot of locked doors. A better metaphor than the orange juice would be…uhhhh…..actually, I can’t think of a good one. I guess I’m not creative enough.

I may have just recently made a difference in the world. No joke. For all the complaining I do on this blog about people not caring about the world, it’s hypocritical that I don’t actually DO anything about it, other than ride my bike and complain on a blog to 20 people. But, now…now I consider myself somewhat of a do-gooder. Somewhat of a philanthropist. Somewhat of the most influential human being ever to walk the earth–who deserves soooo much good karma in his next bike race that the imbalance of good luck in the universe causes a terrible chain of reactions to take place that end up creating some sort of weird mutant gopher-type of animal with large butterfly wings. This “gophly” will then develop a hunger for human toenail clippings and will haunt the basements of beauty shop salons world-wide, making loud chattering sounds with their large orange gopher teeth in angst for freshly-chopped bits of nail to come their way. Animal control personnel will set traps, but the gophlys won’t fall for it because the trappers use fingernail clippings as bait instead of toenail, not realizing that the gophlys don’t give a gopher’s ass about fingernails. Beauty shop salons will start going out of business and girls will become uglier and uglier over the years as makeup goes out of style and their finger and toenails start looking like guys’: jagged and misshapen with that dark brown gunk underneath them that’s basically impossible to get out and not even worth the time trying. Humans will no longer have the desire to reproduce and eventually the planet’s entire population of seven souls will end up getting swallowed in an unfortunate whale-sighting cruise boat accident. Thus solving all the world’s problems, which is the existence of humans.

Nahhh, that’s not true. But I actually did do some real good, possibly. It’s on a small scale, but every bit helps—which is what they want you to think, but in actuality only large scale events have any impact on the world. Which is why voting is pointless. And stopping at stop signs. And being alive in general.

The people I am staying with here in Bend (Craigslist-founded) are not healthy. They’re friendly people, but apparently don’t want to live past 50. I suspect alcoholism and possible drug use—all in the past of course since now they’re good Christians who have pictures of Jesus on the wall, listen to Christian rock, have miniature bibles laying around the house, and go to church sometimes.

The father figure smokes. They don’t exercise. And there’s a full on cake in the fridge—for no particular reason or event. I think it’s safe to say that if you stock cake in your fridge, you’ve got a bit of an eating disorder. Stocking cookies, candy, chips, soda—all of that’s acceptable in our society (for some reason). But cake? The line’s been crossed.

The mom is obese and blames it on a thyroid problem, which her Doctor doesn’t believe (stupid test results) and therefore won’t give her medication. They have a 10-12 year-old son who is on the way to an early heart failure himself if he keeps things up, but there’s still hope for him. A slim margin of hope (no pun intended), but with some good influence from his parents it’s possible.

He was eating a dinner of Red Vines, potato chips, and soda when I came into the kitchen tonight. Yes, DINNER. In the trashcan, there was an empty ice cream container and an apple with about four bite marks on it.

I started making a typical dinner/lunch/2nd dinner/ 3rd dinner/snack that I make all the time, which is a bunch of stir-fried vegetables with some sort of meat and some sort of Asian sauce, and quinoa if I’m needing some grains. During the time I’ve been staying here, since last Friday, I’ve made a variation of this meal about 17 times. Every time anyone is around, they comment on how good it smells. I offered some to the mom last night (no pun intended) and she ate a little bit of it and proclaimed how much she liked it. I told her how to make it (which is to chop up vegetables and meat and cook it in a pan) and explained how easy it was, and that she should try making it sometime. She agreed.

Anyways, tonight the kid was eating his dinner of corn syrup and corn oil while I made the stir-fry dish. The mom walked in and said, “There’s that good smell again.” To which I replied, “Yep.” The mom looked at what her son was snacking on and said, “OK, let’s put that away. You need to be eating a little healthier.” She got out some frozen vegetables from the freezer and made a real dinner. The first she’s made since I’ve been here.

And then a gophly flew in through the open window and bit my pinky toe off. To its disappointment, it found out that I basically have no toenail on my pinky toe due to some strange genetics passed down from my mom. It spat the toe out in disgust and Thomas T, who had been journeying over the Cascades from Sherwood, jumped into the air and grabbed the gophly in his mouth and shook it do death by snapping its neck. He went outside and pranced around the yard for half an hour with his kill in his mouth. Little did Thomas T know, that when you kill a gophly, you inherit its wings. During the next full moon, Thomas T let out a blood-curdling howl as two giant butterfly wings sprouted from his back. He took to the sky. And now no squirrel in the world is safe. And no pie is too high up on the countertop.

PS: After writing this I walked into the kitchen and it turns out that earlier when I was in the room, the mom had been reaching past the frozen vegetables to take out the frozen hamburger patties. They had hamburgers and potato salad for dinner, which is better than Red Vines, but this isn’t exactly the result I was looking for.

I’m sitting in a bathtub of cold water after a 5-hour ride. The water was painful at first, but after a few seconds I no longer felt any discomfort. As a species, I believe we’ve grown numb to the painfully cruel and idiotic world that we’ve constructed. Those last two words are important. We constructed the world we now live in. It’s the way it is because we want it to be this way. Maybe want is the wrong word, but nonetheless, we’ve allowed it.

If an alien had ridden with me today, maybe perched on my handlebars—a very small alien the size of a potato bug—it would have had plenty of time to make a lot of important discoveries about our species. Most of its discoveries would have come from observing our transportation system—roads—so the alien is only seeing part of the picture. But what better way to get a feel for out culture than travel along a busy street filled with semi-trucks and fast food joints? Here are a few key points the alien would have jotted down, without bias of emotion. Just facts collected from a day of riding on Kennett’s handlebars before it’s had the chance to go blind like the rest of us. (Note—from it’s observations, the alien believes that machines have free will. And it cannot always see people driving the cars).

The observations:

Most humans are decently friendly and helpful during face-to-face conversations with each other.

Face-to-face conversations are rare for humans. Face-to-face conversations for machines are commonplace.

Exhaust-making machines use four lanes of road, while humans sometimes get a small raised strip of cement five feet wide. Exhaust-making machines must have more rights than human beings.

It takes a 4,000-pound machine to move a single human being. Humans must weigh at least 4,000 pounds.

Gas station soda fountain machines have 13 kinds of soda, but often no water.
Humans must not require water.

Large, 4×4 machines have rear view mirrors to check if the small, two-wheeled machines they pass get knocked off the road.

Machines are likely the decision-makers on this planet. Some of the things they say are posted on their backsides:

The nation called the United States of America is the best country in the world and is blessed by God.
It is the home of the free. Though, freedom is not free.
Sarah Palin is more qualified than Obama.
Some machines ask to end an endless war that is being fought somewhere.

Machines consume gasoline from gas stations (which also sell soda).
(Note to self—find out where gas comes from).

Some humans on the side of the road hold up signs to the passing machines, asking to work for food.

Most other humans avoid the outdoors. Horses and cows like the outdoors. Birds like the outdoors. Machines like the outdoors.

Humans on two-wheeled machines prefer to ride on the side of the road, over broken glass and gravel.

Based on the number of food establishments, humans must require great quantities of food every 12 minutes.

Seeing a human is rare on this planet; they must be in hiding. Possibly from the machines.