Hollow cheeks

Some of you may know my prediction method for who will win the Tour de France. Basically I look at each of the 10 or so real contenders and see which one has hollow cheeks. By hollow cheeks I mean that their face is skinny in a unique way. It is like if a slightly fat/muscular person suddenly dropped a bunch of weight kind of look. Emaciated in the healthiest sort of way. Bjarne Riis simply looked emaciated when he won the tour way back when he should have let Jan Ulrich win since Jan was stronger that year and had no idea hollow cheek extrodinare Mellow Johny whould continue to win until his racing time was done. Well I wish I would have made this post before the Arizona Cardnals won their last game because Kurt Warner the QB for Arizona has gone from his normal 37 year old slightly puffy self to a hollow cheeked champion. I saw it last week and it did not register tben today before their win against Philedelphia in warm ups I put it together. He has the hollow cheeks. I basically knew they would win at that point and will likely win the super bowl too. I know this prediction is harder than the tour version since it is a team sport and easier since Kurt can throw to Larry Ferguson but still he has the cheeks.

More holiday pics

Maya and Dad
Maya and Grandpa John
Maya and Ella. She is getting a lot of play time because she is cute and it is her birthday today (1-14-09). "Yea I'm one!"
My three loves.
Random family sunset beach pic. No Shelly, Vic, Lucia, Ruth or me.
Ella's new cousin Lucia
Ella looking like a body builder?

Ella drives a boat like a 5 year old.
Ella holding a fish. Her real job on the boat was to put her hand into a murky bait well and pull live shrimp out. There is no way I would have done it. Ella perfected a technique of grabbing the shrimp by a whisker like part with great precision.
Me and my beautiful wife.

Training Log

I know it is going to sound a little silly for me, a person who doesn't actually work out to be talking about an online training log but here goes anyway. This is the program Jill Homer's super ultra marathon boyfriend Geoff uses. In minutes I got my self set up and really like it. Most online workout logs I have seen seem generally useless, want money for their lame program or annoy you by trying to sell you lots of crap. This one is easy to use, quick to note on and gives good reports on what is going on with your training. The beginning of the year is also a great time to start recording so you can do year end totals next year. So my wish is that you all would use it to so we could look at what each of us is doing as a way to inspire more time on the bike, ski's and feet. The program is called Attackpoint. I am pretty sure you can check out my relative lack of working out by going here
If you want to look at Geoff's training log to see what an ultra marathoner does go here.
The pic is unrelated but one of the best of young "Barry Obama" I have seen.

Toy Tour

Another tilt shift

I made this with a pic I found on the net.

Ella's 4th birthday pic from August of 2007

A few Sanibel Island ride pics

The riding on Sanibel has always been pretty good but has gotten better over the years as more and more of the island is turned into nature preserve. My only ride wish would be some hills. The bike is a very old Ross three speed. I had my Gitane single speed road bike down there for a few years but missed it and mailed it back home so I could be close to it. The fatter tires of the Ross were appreciated.


The island now has a decent amount of mountain biking available with occasional sandy spots being the only real obstacle.

I am on vacation

I am on vacation until Jan 3? on Sanibel Island Florida and thought I would have a bunch of extra time to blog about the trips events. So far this has not worked out and I am too tired each day once the girls are in bed to do much of anything. Christmas was good and I am now the proud owner of Jill Homers book "Ghost Trails" Reviews to come later. Miss you all. Jared

Maximum The Hormone’s video

This video taken from the site Pink Tentacle is like Japan? metal, Primus, Rage against the machine goodness. It is safe for my work but not for Heath's.

Wii Bush

Apparently someone has been practicing a lot on his Wii Fit.

Poster time

As usual from the clockwork bikes site.

I supose I should have some lao tzu quotes here

Written 2500 years ago this seems pretty accurate when reflecting on the last 8 years of Bush.

Chapter Thirty-One

Good weapons are instruments of fear; all creatures hate them.
Therefore followers of Tao never use them.
The wise man prefers the left.
The man of war prefers the right.

Weapons are instruments of fear; they are not a wise man's tools.
He uses them only when he has no choice.
Peace and quiet are dear to his heart,
And victory no cause for rejoicing.
If you rejoice in victory, then you delight in killing;
If you delight in killing, you cannot fulfill yourself.

On happy occasions precedence is given to the left,
On sad occasions to the right.
In the army the general stands on the left,
The commander in chief on the right.
That means that war is conducted like a funeral.
When many people are being killed,
They should be mourned in heartfelt sorrow.
That is why a victory must be observed like a funeral.

Ella ahead of her time

Well it looks like the fancy pants culinary store Williams-Sonoma finally caught up with Ella's acute scene of gastronomic trends. They now sell a pancake puff maker. Of course they don't call their product a "pancake puff maker." No Williams-Sonoma needed a much more northern European sounding name to get their clientele to buy. Apparently Ella is in possession not of an "As seen on TV" pancake puff maker but rather a "traditional Danish ebelskiver." Of course Ella wisely chose her puff maker over the ebelskiver because of its seasoned cast iron construction, jelly and pudding injector, powdered sugar shaker and most important of all extra turing sticks. Because if you are serious about your pancake puffs (ebelskivers) your going to need them.

Taken from HTATBL

These two images are all around the net and you may have seen them already but they are just too powerful for me to ignore. Yes this is a real church and they are praying with SUV's up by the altar. The church pic is really much better full size with the caption in readable size. Click it to find out.

My Salsa La Cruz needs this Nebraska road

A pic taken from a good blog called dirt blog that has a lot of Salsa bikes on fun rides.

Obama Blend

It seems it is all the rage in small Coffee shops to now carry an Obama blend of coffee since he has been associated with three regions of the world that produce darn good coffee. Kenya, Hawaii, and Indonesia. Most seem to be doing a simple blend of Kenyan and Hawaiian (Kona) coffee. At first this seemed like a fun idea. But then when contemplating such a roast I quickly realized what a horrible idea this roast would be. Mixing a bold Kenyan with a light and delicate Kona would be like watching a MMA fight featuring Brock Lesnar against the Olsen twins. Adding an Indonesian coffee to mellow the blend would be like turning the sound on mute to minimize the violent pummeling of the expensive Kona.

I got fat bikes on my brain

I unapologetically stole all of these pics from Speedway cycles in Anchorage Alaska. They have their own version of a Pugsley that does away with the rear wheel in front stuff, is made of Ti and costs a lot more. Their rims are 80 or 100 mm wide. The Pugsley usually sports a large marge rim that is 65mm wide. The pic shows the same tire (endomorph) on each rim. I don't know why the wider one gets taller in the pic. It is crazy however how much bigger that tire can be on a wider rim.

Toasty

Skaters Rule

Shepard Fairey is the person who created this original image. He is also behind the OBEY posters I have been seeing around town.

The OBEY poster is a rework of his first work that brought him to fame. The Andre the Giant Has a Posse stickers.

Proof that 1986 skater culture is now in control of the world.