Every year I think it would be a neat thing to post an all-inclusive calendar of cycling events that interest me. My first iteration was lame to say the least... But it slowly got better and in 2006 I settled on a format that I thought would stand the test of time. I 'borrowed' this look from OBRA and ended up liking it so much that I used it for the WSBA calendar as well.

But, since I'm no professional coder my calendar is 100 percent manual when it comes to updates and revisions. Not so good. And it has to be completely overhauled every year when January 1 no longer falls on a Saturday or whatever day of the week it was last year.

Enter Google Calendar.

Now my ride calendar looks like this. I love it. You can opt to view just road races, track races, social rides, holidays, whatever you want. I can now also create recurring events, easily link to Google Maps and people can add this stuff to their Google Calendar if they have one.

Outsourcing like it's going out of style - I love it.

Green Lake has historically been a haven to milfoil, ducks, migrating Canada geese, really bad pick-up basketball, English Premier League wannabes and these days, now that it's way too crowded to ride around the lake, it's also apparently the freaking dog walking capitol of the universe.

The other day Shelley and I went out for a leisurely stroll to enjoy a rare moment of Seattle winter sun and after seeing dog after dog pass us by we wondered how many we would encounter on our one lap around the lake. I blurted out, "40 dogs!" but Shelley, after giving this some careful thought said, "I think 25." So, coffee in hand we took off to walk and count.

Oh. My. God.

I had no idea... and how long has Martin lived in Seattle? The best thing is that part and parcel with being the dog walking capitol of the universe Green Lake has now also become the dog shit capitol of the universe. It seemed like every few (okay, maybe hundred) feet or so I was swerving left or right to avoid stepping in another pile. To be technically accurate, they weren't piles, they were just smears as someone else had already beaten me to it. At one point I even saw an elderly couple that were both stopping to scrape the soles of their shoes off on some piece of wood. Blech... Nothing quite as fun as finishing a brisk walk, getting back into your car (with carpeted interior of course) and realizing - too late - that you stepped in dog shit.

Which brings up the things I love about some dog owners. And in case you were wondering, I have previously had two dogs; now I know I can't offer them the quality of life they deserve.

• Ever watch the Dog Whisperer? You know, the show where Cesar Millan tells all these folks that they should stop treating their dogs like people? There was no shortage of owners being led around the lake by their dogs all the while talking to them in English telling them stuff like, "No!" Nice.
• If you can't control your dog with your voice, what are you doing taking it to such a crowded place? Likewise, if your dog does not like crowds, can you please put this trait ahead of your need to chat on the phone while ignoring the fact that there is a 60 lb animal bouncing all over the path in an effort to avoid (or attack - take your pick) everything that passes you by?
• If you have to carry your dog because it's too small to keep up, maybe you should leave it at home. It will get enough exercise just running to the door when you arrive every evening. It's resting heartrate is probably already 200 bpm; don't push it.
• When it comes to dog clothing, who decides if the dog really needs this or not? Did your dog tell you that it was cold? And who managed to upsell you from the cotton or wool horse blanket style garment to the Gortex shell with more pit zips, vents and technology than what was used to summit Everest 20  years ago?

ASIDE - check this out, for the obscenely devoted dog owner and homemaker with way too much time on their hands you can even get patterns and sew your own creations.

Animals, I love them, really. But they aren't people, people. And clean up after them, please.

How long until the next neat-o thing appears on the Internet? Oh wait, it's already here...

I first heard about MapMyRide from my friend Brian and I gotta say, this is cool. Not only can you 'map' your road or off-road ride, you can apparently also save you ride and let others search them, use them, etc., etc. A two wheel ride share if you will.

As cool as this is I'm really bummed that this service never uses a secure, encrypted (HTTPS) connection when asking you to create your profile, sign in, anything. In this day and age that seems unconscionable. Oh well, it won't stop tons of folks from entering all kinds of personal data I'm sure. :(

After checking it out and seeing that they use Google maps, I wonder how different it is from Gmaps Pedometer.

Call me a cave dweller but I had never seen this before yesterday when I was driving Cameron to school. We passed by a construction site and one of the workers was running across the street to a mini mart and he had on a hard hat in the shape of a cowboy hat.

Nice.

What's the deal here? Is turning your traditional, old school hard hat around backwards just not hip enough? Or is the classic rock version of the hard hat and it's been around for years - it's just that I have never seen it. I'm betting that's the case...

A quick Google search confirms that you can get a hard hat in any color you want, with any graphics, but they only come in the standard shape (with some slight variations) and the cowboy hat. And I could not help but notice that all the 'models' sporting the cowboy hard hat had a mustache. It seems somehow perfect.

It really does come to your frame of reference. If I was on a construction site and saw someone with a cowboy hard hat they would be subjected to endless ribbing. Which obviously proves that I have never been on any construction site in my life. If this guy can get away with that hat in one of the most narrow minded, homophobic, blinders on when it comes to style communities it has got to be a cool thing to do. Not so cool that everyone is doing it mind you, you've gotta know the young construction crowd prefers the Ken Griffey look but still, to be able to pull that off...

One word: balls

Some more: doesn't travel outside of his social circle much

Long story short - I have a computer running Windows Server 2003 and because of problem with a RAID card I had to edit the boot.ini file to see if the issue it had booting up was due to the operating system trying to boot from the single system drive or the RAID array.

I know you can make some changes to the boot.ini file using msconfig but you can't just edit the raw file. Well this way you can.

• Click Start > Run and type sysdm.cpl and click OK.
• Select the Advanced tab and click Settings under Startup and Recovery.
• Under System Startup, click Edit.

This will open the boot.ini file in Notepad and you can type or delete at will!

Here is the Microsoft KB article with a sample of a default Windows 2003 boot.ini and a dual-boot boot.ini file:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;323427

Here is the Microsoft KB article with the above instructions for editing your boot.ini file for Windows XP but it works exactly the same for Windows Server 2003:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;289022

Lastly - here is a default Windows Server 2003 boot.ini file:

Okay, so we don't really need this at all; that was a rhetorical statement.

What's the deal with drinks like Pepsi Max? In my humble opinion, Pepsi USA is Johnny come lately to the trend of drinks that make you irritable, twitch uncontrollably and unable to relax at important times of the day (like when you need to go to sleep!). I mean c'mon, hasn't this train already left the station? Check it out, we have:

• Rockstar Energy Drink [which uses fonts like you saw in Boogie Nights]
• NOS [which looks like a terrible MySpace page... is this supposed to appeal to the inner rice boy in all of us or something?]
• Red Bull [the original and the first to get combined with alcohol!]
• AMP [this is made by Mountain Dew which is owned by Pepsi and which is already really popular...]
• Wired [truth in advertising - sho 'nuf]

And about a gazilion others.

It would appear to me that in true, red-blooded American fashion someone at Pepsi decided that damn it, we're in America and here more is more by god so let the nasty soda flow. Twice the caffeine or regular diet Pepsi. Did I mention that it has guarana? Oh wait, then that's really three times the caffeine; my bad. Good luck kicking that smoking habit now, you're going to need 'em just to calm yourself down.

All this stuff reminds me of the body builder drinks you see at the gym. You know, stuff like Ripped Force:

Check these bottles out! I think you can also find them listed in the dictionary under "overkill" or "redundant" or "garish" or "stupid". The louder the label the more weight you will lose. Or is that the lighter your wallet gets... I forget.

Ripped Force an dotehr body builder drinks are just like all the hopped up sodas except they use longer words to describe their products like "thermogenics" and scientific terms like "ECA stack" which are used in an [very successful in my opinion] attempt to bamboozle the average consumer. And it's obviously really successful. When you see how much air time people like Kirstie Alley get pedaling methods like Weight Watchers it is no surprise. None at all.

ASIDE - Kirstie keeps telling us how much weight she has lost but I'm just not seeing it... It's like the total ascent number on my GPS, it lets you know how much elevation you gained and lost. I'm always blown away when the ads for this particular regime come on the television and there is Kirstie, in a tight dress. Looking not so thin. And with the same, tired, much-too-blond-overly-streaked-this-style-went-out-of-fashion-years-ago hair. But that's another post.

I'm going to go out on a limb right now and predict that Pepsi Max (diet or not) will not be around one year from now. It has to be the case that these guys are going to well once too often, right?

I love the bus.

Tons of people I know hate riding the bus; or any form of public transportation. They say it's weird, dirty, the people are freaky and stare at you, they don't want to be forced to sit next to the guy that smells like a bum or a sweaty tourist. I like to people watch and  believe you me, there are few places better than good old Metro.

ASIDE - these days everyone and their brother is plugged into their MP3 player so no one looks at you anyway. Toss loads of dark glasses into the mix on any sunny day and it's almost like being in a house of mirrors. You could not feel more alone.

So besides all the practical advantages of taking 'the second car' like not having to drive myself, my employer provides me with a dirt cheap pass and there happens to be a bus line that goes right to my work and drops me off about five blocks from home, I get to check out all the weird, dirty, smelly freaks that ride it with me.

And make no mistake, there are almost always some on board. Like three days ago. This guy was sitting a few rows in front of me and had on a knit cap. Only unlike most of the youth today who pull it all the way down so it practically obscures their eyes, this guy had it rolled all the way UP stylin' like Jacques Cousteau:

Never have I seen this style carried out to this extreme. This hat was rolled up so far it looked like a yarmulke.

What exactly does this (let's just call it what it is -  a fashion accessory) accomplish? It's covering about 10 percent of his head and if it actually were cold and windy the first strong gust would steal this skull decoration no problem. Watches, belts, glasses, purses, they all have a second purpose over and above being fashionable that is practical. This woolen thimble? Not so much.

I've always wondered about this particular fashion accessory... What look exactly is this person striving to achieve? The esoteric, French artist? Some overly dramatic cinematic stereotype of a sailor? Certainly not that of the  underwater researcher and SCUBA pioneer pictured above.

I gotta say, I love zip-lining! What could be more fun than placing 100 percent of your trust in a little piece of metal, some webbing and then tossing yourself into space? That's right, not much.

Shelley and I just got back from Whistler where I had booked us a trip with Ziptrek Ecotours; we did the Eagle Tour. At first I was pretty skeptical of a zip line in the winter but it was totally amazing. The more I think about it, the more I think it was even better than a zip in the summer. At least at this place.

Why did I choose the Eagle Tour? Because it boasted of a 2000' zip of course. Bigger is bigger after all. Without further ado, here are some pictures and video of the trip.

I thought walking along the suspended bridges and zipping from tree to tree was pretty damn incredible. The third zip deposited you in this 'tree house' 140' up in a Sequoia for crying out loud. We had two guides, one would go first so that he could help us land and one would sweep. It was fun to see the first guide zip as his pulley would clear the snow off the cable and send up a rooster tail as he zoomed across the valley. We were told that we would approach 50 mph on the 2000 footer and it felt like it. I tried to keep my head facing forward but the snow was stinging my eyes too much so I had to shield my face with my glove.

I would do it again in a heartbeat; what a f'n blast.

OK - who's the sneaky republican in here? How else to explain that giant John McCain banner ad at the top of our blog this morning. "Don't Let It Happen" - with a picture of Hillary Clinton's head floating in a crystal ball. That's good stuff. Maybe a certain someones Orange Juice Rant (not naming names) tipped the scales to the right. I'll be sure to pepper my next entry with enough socialized health care, legalized marijuana & abortion rights rhetoric to remedy this ridiculousness.

I'm heading to the doctor on Thursday for my knee. I'm hoping that he will be able to tell me why I'm in ever-lovin' agony going down stairs, going up stairs, sitting in a chair, not sitting in a chair, breathing, walking upright, that kind of thing. If there's one thing I hate, it's inconclusive doctor visits. I've had too many 'well, let's just wait and see on this one' appointments. I realize making a diagnosis takes time but Jesus H, I took a 3 hour lunch just to be here. Break me off with the Patellar Subluxation and let's get on with it.

In the mean time, I've busied myself with all variety of Exciting projects. Let me tell you. The first being the New Diet. After Martin and I came back from Whistler, where we had eaten our weight in bagels and Guinness*, we made a pact of sorts to eat better for a while, a week or two, just to even things out. Get back to basics so to speak. We've all read about Martin's feelings on keeping it below 180. And in general my fondness for being able to fit inside the house. So it didn't seem like a bad idea at the time. We decided to cut out cheese, bad carbs (rice, crackers, white bread, etc), sugar (in the form of pints of ice cream Martin likes to hoover apres dinner) and alcohol. We also tried to be mindful of portion-size, at least during the day at work, when Martin has been known to eat 4 yogurts, 6 bagels, half a jar of peanut butter, 2 protein bars & 3 Odwalla juices before lunch. It's been tricky all week making dinners that conform to these rules, provide enough protein and fiber yet still let me get my buzz on. I'll admit, it was incredibly hard not to drink this week. It was a tough week in many respects and I did have wine two nights and sake on Sunday. I also had a beer on Friday when Martin threw in the towel and ordered a pizza (now tell me, at that point, is it so wrong to drink a beer?) in which I promptly did damage control by making a kale and cabbage Roughage Bomb salad. I think I prefer notions to ultimatums. When you say I absolutely can't have something, I kinda want it. I've made dishes with bulghur, red lentils, I even attempted onion noodles. I heard the recipe on NPR. Of course, this French chef was making "No-Carbonara" with butter, cream, parmesan and bacon. And when you've got butter, cream, parmesan cheese and bacon, who gives shit about noodles anyway? But he made the noodles from from blanched onions. Long and stringy like noodles. No one ( I don't know who this 'no one' was) could tell the difference, they couldn't figure out it was onions. So I was intrigued, I wanted to give it a try. Many tears later, I had my onions in the steamer basket. I was to steam them until 'translucent yet al dente'. Easier said than done. I thought they were too crunchy but were indeed totally translucent.

Probably won't be making them again any time soon. At least not without the cream & bacon.