Playing in the mud

Just one heavy day of rain on Monday was enough to create areas of standing water and muddy areas in the new section of Tranquility. It must be fixed said Dale (okay I made that up) and that we did! Dale, Chris, Dave N, Paul, Eric, and myself were out there tonight after work moving mud from the low areas and installing some drainage pipes that will hopefully take care of the water problem.

Drain system #1. No more da-dip! 

All work and no play is no fun at all! Paul in his sluggish clothes riding over the new drain system. 

Remember those hidden dips on the north north side? Well now they are much easier to ride over. Actually they are much faster to ride over. Paul and I took our bikes out afterwards and spun a quick loop on the north side. Temps were dropping fast an the wind was really picking up. Yes they are still kind of mushy to walk over, but once the mud dries up it will be hard as concrete. When your two wheels go over the pipes, you can't even tell any difference. Great work guys!

Here is the T.H.O.R. blog write-up done by Dale
http://thor-trails.blogspot.com/2011/04/pipe-bridges-for-north-tp-gullies.html

  

 Drain system #2. This is the before picture. See that standing water? Not good!

 Dig

Dig dig 

Goal was to dig the trench deep enough then throw the pipes in there and cover them with dirt

 Getting there. Now covered with dirt

It works! Great success! Water was already running through them 

Inaugural ride over the new storm drains from DJ Chi Wai on Vimeo.

A 90 sq ft apt for $700 per month?

This b*tch be crazy!!! I've slept in a closet before, slept in a doorway, even lived two years in Creighton's tiny dorms. But wow. To live in NYC and have a kitchen that consists of a toaster oven, hot pot, and a mini fridge because that is all the room that you have? Where would I put all of my bikes is the final question!

http://shine.yahoo.com/event/green/simple-life-in-manhattan-a-90-square-foot-home-2472666/

No Evil Oil

Ever stay up late and flip through channels on the tube (or LCD, LED, plasma) and watch the silly infomercials? I've started this habit of not sleeping if I have an early morning flight out. So when it was time to fly to Hawaii, I came across this informercail called "No Evil Oil". What caught my eye? This lady praising this oil that she rubbed on her neck and swore that these tumors were disappearing under her very hands! Check out the page with the video testimonial. Lady says that one leg was two inches shorter than the other, until she rubbed the oil on her leg. Her leg grew two inches! Thank the Lord for Danny Davis! Maybe I'll buy some and swim in it before the next Psycowpath race, take first place! Dave N, I'll let you borrow some. Here is the link and a second with more testimonial. This stuff cracks me up. Yet they never show a before or after picture or video.

http://pastordannydavis.com/index.html

http://pastordannydavis.com/index-1.html

Nebraska beer blog

I came across this blog while trying to look up this weekend's Beer Extravaganza in Fremont. It was today's Groupon. Half off tix. Do it. The cool kids are!

http://nebraskabeer.blogspot.com/

p.s. correction. It is in Elkhorn. Somehow I kept getting it mixed up. See you guys there.

The ever increasing cost of living

Sorry for the lack of posts, but being in Hawaii seems to be a pretty good excuse! Yes, everything is more expensive in Hawaii. And to tell you the truth, I'm not sure how the locals can afford to survive! Bananas were $1.54 per pound. Gas was $4.67 per gallon (as compared to $3.65 here). Well you think that's bad, check these prices out!

Milk is $9.79 per gallon, nothing organic. Just regular milk!  

 Yes, eggs are $5.99 a dozen. There happen to be organic but regular eggs were the same

 You like Yoplait? Well not anymore!!! Those sell for 50 cents here in NE!

Invisible man pics

Check out pictures of this guy that can spend up to 10hrs putting on body paint just to camouflage himself into the surroundings. Crazy! I think the best one is him and the bulldozer.

http://honestlywtf.com/art/invisible-man

Some pics with the fisheye lens

If you haven't been to the new Hollywood Candy down on Farnam Street, then you are missing out! I actually walked in to look for something and ended up spending over 45 minutes inside just browsing! They have this huge PEZ candy section along with nostalgic Pez dispensers. Working Soda Fountain that sells Nathan's hotdogs complete with their spicy mustard, true White Castle burgers, Orsi's Pizza, and other things. They have an arcade (Dave, they are working on putting in some classic pinball machines) and a section with full Jelly Belly selection. On top of it all, you can walk into an antique store that is attached and looks like they are building a movie theater inside (like a classic looking movie theater). I overheard someone inside talking about it all. Check out the place some weekend. You won't be disappointed. You will literally feel like a kid in a candy store!

http://www.omahafairmont.com/

The pics I took today were mostly ALL with the fisheye lens. The candy store pics are also fisheye only because my regular lens was back in my car. Sorry about that. My goal for the day was to get familiar with my fisheye before my trip to Hawaii. Haven't had much time to use either fisheye or Lensbaby since buying them. But I seriously don't want to use my standard zoom lens anymore. I'm hooked and the fisheye and the Lensbaby are crazy fun to work with!!! Look for more photos throughout the year!

Who needs the fancy Salsa Wood Chipper handlebars? Take it back old school! 

Yup, it's a cowbike 

 

click on the link and check out the old school full suspension bike! World cup design it says on the frame

Superman in the phonebooth 

 Real cricket in the Lollipop

Pez section, there were two more walls of this stuff! 

 Working Soda Fountain

Okay, non candy store related.  

Non fisheye, but Lensbaby. Notice the blur on the right side 

Round tailed bike???

Screw conventional frame shapes. Lou Tortola dreamed up this bike frame called the RoundTail. No more rear triangle but instead he throws the frame for a loop (bad pun was intended there!). Sorry, can't include the pics of the bike. Click the link instead.

http://www.mbaction.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=news&mod=News&mid=9A02E3B96F2A415ABC72CB5F516B4C10&tier=3&nid=7972506DB03B4A16ABA3D716E4CB9CDD

top 10 biking videos out there

So you're bored at work. You need some mt biking videos to watch while you wait for the trails to dry up for the weekend. Top 10 video as rated by Outside magazine. I've seen only a few here and there. Check out video number 9 where the guy doing the "trials" type action on his carbon fiber road bike. I've seen it before, what an odd video!

Watch video number 10. At 28 seconds, the rider almost smooshes the dog on the jump! Then you hear the dog yelping after the rider passes. Wall ride at 2:25. Crazy downhill city racing at its finest!

http://outside-blog.away.com/blog/2011/03/the-cycle-life-10-best-mtb-clips-aka-motivational-bike-porn.html

Check out this pic

Saw this link on Twitter. Check out how much this guy is leaning into the turn. Not sure if I would want to stand there as a photographer!

http://www.bikemag.com/photos/april-07-2011/

A good weekend to ride!

Skipped the Bellevue races this weekend, but still got a lot of riding in. Saturday: after napping and gorging on cheapo pizza at Cici's, I decided to get out and work off the calories. Get to Tranquility, empty parking lot. Pretty sure that everybody was racing. Up rolls Paul! We rode the new north side then hit up the older north section. Legs were fresh and energy was high. I should have raced!

It was Cody's first time at Manawa 

Sunday I got a hold of Cody and we ventured over to Manawa. Wasn't sure if it would be dry after reading the THOR facebook page, but the trail was perfect! Dry, no sloppy sections whatsoever! Got in two laps in the 70 degrees temps with a cool breeze to keep us cool. It must been a long winter, because two bike rides later, I already got a slight tan/sunburn. What!!! If that's the case, I'm gonna burn like crazy in Hawaii in two weeks.

Cody entering the playground area 

Glad we got out to Manawa, only got to ride it once last year after a trailday before the flooding occurred. Great trail to hone the skills and work on some cardio. Easy singletrack and I've got no problem with that! Great job done by the Manawa THOR crew. Looks like lots of trees and logs were cut, lots of big trees must have fallen since last year.

Beautiful day out, the bikes, motorcycles, and hotrods were out. 

Because I ride in style

Hmm...I think I would buy a beater car to put my bike rack onto my ride. But then again, if you have the money who the F cares??? Have a good weekend folks and race your hearts out!