Friends

One of the benefits of having a ridiculously expensive phone that really acts like a computer is the ability to add various applications and other useful tools right at your fingertips. This includes things such as weather radars; weights and measures conversions; streaming music; and super useful time-wasting games. Recently, I began playing a word based game where you compete against one other person. This particular game recently gained some prominence when one Mr. Alec Baldwin was removed from an airplane when he refused to quit playing.

While I’m certainly not the smartest person in the land, I do like to think I have some degree of intelligence. What I’ve been finding though, is the people I’m playing against are infinitely smarter than I am as I’ve been getting housed in every single game. A typical game for me starts with a few big words that gain me a sizable amount of points and usually an early lead. Of course, as the game progresses, I end up running out of ideas and end up using words like “to” or “add” or some other minimal word that gains me very few points. At the same time, my opponent will end up playing some obscure or scientific word that I didn’t know existed. The end result of this exercise is a swift come-from-behind victory for my opponent and me with a slate full of vowels.

I figure I have a few options to correct this situation. First, I could read the dictionary to establish a greater vocabulary, but this might take a significant amount of time. Second, I could stop playing this game, but then I would need to find another activity to waste time. I think my best option however, is to find dumber friends.

Statements of the Day

Today was cold.

It barely got out of the 20’s.

Fortunately the sun was out so that helped.

I rode Scotia with Jeremy, the Nixtreeme, and Seb-dog.

My toes were cold until the end of the ride.

I cleared a big log; with an audience, and it felt amazing.

Winter without snow might not be that bad after all.

Tomorrow I get to sleep in…

Where Are You?

Finally, after a long hiatus, the ski season has officially opened here in the SC, kind of. We had a few days of cold that allowed the local ski hill to make enough snow to open with limited slopes. By limited slopes, I mean one, but it was still something.

This has been an uncharacteristically warm winter and this weekend was no exception. Ski hills everywhere have been taking a beating as Mother Nature has been stingy on providing piles of the white stuff. In fact, here in the SC we’ve seen a scant dusting at best. It’s been so bad, I’m starting to wonder how much of a ski season there will actually be. On the plus side, this warm weather has allowed me to stay on the bike much longer than I usually would but honestly it feels like winter has mostly passed us by.

Granted, there is still plenty of time for a significant amount of cold to settle in and we could still get crushed by a winter storm or two. Of course, if the warmth continues to hang around I won’t be too upset, but it would be nice to spend a little time on the slopes this year. After all, I did tune my board and I would hate for that fresh wax to go to waste.

Hang on Tight

If Saturday night marked an end then Sunday morning had to bring along a beginning. We’ve officially turned over a new calendar year and my 2012 has already been highly eventful. To close out 2011 and officially start two aught one two, I managed to drive 1,600 miles in three days, attend a funeral, and experience what it’s like to be in one of the shows about driving in a blizzard. You know the ones where a string of cars are driving real slow with their hazards on and some jag-off rips past them all going way too fast only to end up in a ditch? Yeah, that kind except in this case I was NOT the idiot driver but there were plenty of them in ditches. I’m not sure if this is a sign of things to come but if it is, 2012 is going to be one hell of a ride.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Ho Cubed

So according to the calendar on the wall, today is Christmas. That’s right, the day when all us good Christians gather for a day filled with prayer and reflection on the year and to celebrate a birthday. For me, that loosely translates to eating and drinking entirely too much over a multi-day period spent with family and friends.

Several years ago my family (read: me) decided that exchanging gifts was more trouble than it’s worth. There are too many people in the family now so the gift exchange portion of the day would just take way too long and trying to coordinate everyone’s schedule is just too daunting. Personally, I prefer it this way because let’s be honest, I have just about everything I need and if I don’t I’ll most likely buy it for myself when I realize that I might actually need it.

As I wait for the rest of the family to arrive at my parents’ house I’ll soak in the remaining bits of quiet while I can. Soon a whirlwind of chaos and mayhem will ensue and the children will turn the living room into a snowstorm of wrapping paper with little effort. It will be good to see everyone and catch up on the past year and who knows, maybe this time when a jolly man dressed as Santa appears at the door unexpectedly, someone in the house will actually know who it is.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Fair Weather Fun

As many of you know from reading this little distraction, I like to ride bikes. This started during an extended stint in Georgia when there really wasn’t anything else to do. Also, people already looked at me funny since I was from the north so I figured wearing spandex several days a week while hauling down back roads with several other like minded people would really blow their minds. We pretty much only did road rides; flat road rides. The temperatures were never much below fifty and that was in the middle of our winter. We could ride all year long without much to worry about.

After I moved to the SC I continued to ride my road bike but got back into mountain biking. Even though I continued to ride for as much of the year as I could, the riding season was always much shorter for me because the temperatures got much colder and I had no interest in freezing my bits off just to turn over the pedals. Sure, plenty of other people I knew were riding in temperatures that seemed crazy but that’s what they did. I don’t want to say I was soft, but I definitely grew accustomed to the warmer climes.

Over the years, however, I’ve continued to ride later and later into the season. I typically prefer to stay off the road (except the DD) because it’s usually too frigid and wind-blown for my tastes. Instead I choose to get out in the woods, on a bit of single track, where you tend to stay a lot warmer because you’re working more and moving around on the bike a lot more. It gets to the point where you are almost overdressed in little more than a jersey and wind jacket.

What’s the point of telling you all this, you might ask? Well, this weekend I was out riding my mountain bike on both Saturday and Sunday. Jeremy wanted to get the Seb-dog out for some exercise and I decided to tag along. Saturday we rode some of the new trails on the south end of Raystown which were super fun and flowy. Then Sunday we rode some of the Cooper’s Gap stuff in Rothrock. Both days I wore the same thing (literally) and was plenty warm. I’m not sure if this means I’m getting acclimatized to the cold weather or just getting bored with staying inside on the weekends. Either way, I’m feeling less like a fair weather rider.

Tourist Season

I, like everyone else I know, have the unfortunate need to provide nourishment for myself. It doesn’t really matter what form it takes, in order to survive I have to eat. This leads to one of the activities I don’t really enjoy. I find that every five to eight days I need to go to the grocery store and stock up on the items that my taste buds enjoy.

Before I get too far down the road I should mention that I have a relatively simple diet. I think I get this from my father who ate the same thing for lunch everyday for as long as I can remember. He would head to work in the morning with a turkey and cheese sandwich, corn chips, maybe a piece of fruit, and a pack of Tastykake brand coffee cakes in a brown lunch bag. The point being, I am also predictable (read: boring) and buy the same stuff every time I go to the store (mostly). At this point you may be asking yourself why I deplore this activity when I know exactly what I’m going to get and where it is located. Well, my issue comes more from the fact that I usually feel like the only person in the store who has this figured out.

You see, I get very frustrated by what I like to call the grocery tourists. You know the type, but if you don’t then you might actually be the tourist (possibly you, mom). These are the people who have a list in one hand and are slowly walking around with no care in the world. They leave their cart in the middle of the isle or, if they are with someone else, walk side-by-side so no one can pass. They like to linger in the high traffic areas with no shopping agenda contemplating who knows what. It’s as if they have never seen food products arranged in isles and on shelves. Or maybe they just happened into a grocery store for the first time in their life. Unlike the grocery tourists, I like to get in and get out as quick as I can. While I’m not the busiest person on the planet, I know that I don’t want to spend my free time looking around the grocery store.

Now I may be a little sensitive to this topic because I happened to be at the store this weekend and was surrounded by way too many grocery tourists that seemed to have no business being in a food store. Sure I could go to multiple specialty stores and possibly avoid some of this hassle but unfortunately I live in an area that doesn’t have a lot of those particular establishments and I’m not that snooty. Either way, I just ask that when you arrive at the grocery store please don’t act like you’re in a library because you’re not there to browse. Keep things moving and have an agenda or please move out of my way.