To Be A Superfan

I'm all packed up to head to Iowa City for Jingle Cross. All year, I've been looking forward to this weekend -- the closest really big race and a chance to line up with a bunch of women in a sport I've really come to love.

Well, I won't be lining up. A crash in last weekend's Lincoln CX left me with a fractured thumb and the inability to grip handlebars -- not exactly OK for 'cross racing. This past week has involved a lot of psychological pain and frustration on top of the physical as I've watched the gnarly bruises develop.

So, this weekend, I'm shifting gears. Trying to take inspiration from CVO, Liz and others, I'm transforming into superfan mode. Best of luck to my Sheclismo teammates Sydney, Kat, and Kimberley, to our honorary member Ryan the singlespeedo, and to all the other Nebraska riders taking the course. I wish I were out there with you, but I'll be happy to heckle you or hand you a drink, too.

[_] is following you

I get a kick out of little things like this. Thanks, Google Reader.

KC Sprints at Duffy's

Women's final: Downtown Syd Brown vs. Eli"s"abeth Grindcore

Shirtless grudge match: Rhino vs. Mr. T

Great crowd!

Soccer nerd grudge match: Matthew vs. Aaron

MKGB practices aiming for the puke bucket

Notable Quotable 2009

As much of a gadget freak as I may be, I love my Slingshot organizer. More than anything, I like having it around to quickly jot down info about things I see, films while I'm watching them, and, most importantly for this post, funny things people I'm spending time with say. Here's a collection of quotations from the last year, mostly without attribution.

January 28- can you mix chamomile tea and wine?

March 7- it was calypso metal for a second there.

March 15- you need to edit all day. do it. now.

March 22- what happens when you repeatedly remove 2 ft. of film from Ghost until 9 minutes have disappeared?

March 26- who is amen? goosey jossip. the way he breathes.

March 26- sever thunderstorms

April 2- how are you going to argue with the traveling nurse with the new fake boobs when she takes your glasses?

April 10- you and I lick ass at the mutual flake

April 17- Hispanic veggies -Felice

April 24- ride sightings of a big scary green and yellow snake, 3 deer, and a Tom turkey

April 26- salt dogs should've been the salt creek beetles. their mascot would have big mandibles to scare the shit out of kids. -Conrad

May 30- my brain is too powerful for passion. -Marti

June 10- have a good try one at the a&n bar in wymore.

July 3- all women have a built-in grain of indestructibility. and men's task has always been to make them realize it as late as possible. -Sans Soleil

July 12- baby/child one pulled pit with water pouring out of its open mouth, dead. "look, my gill can hold her breath!"

August 17- mom: I'm going to the blood bank
Elisabeth: have fun with the vampires
mom: you know, it's something good I can do that doesn't require brains
elisabeth: yeah, that's the zombies

September 8- when is our workplace going to reflect the creativity-fostering we want to see in schools? it's depressing, not funny.

October 10- ART ART ART show!

October 17- Kein mensch ist illegal.

October 18- I tried to do handstands for you.

October 21- serendipity: I heard your voice in Dresden comes on the shuffle while driving in dresden. berlin graffiti: I'll be in your dreams if you'll let me be in yours.

October 22- dorky business idea: underwear printed with dutch flag pattern, for your Netherlands.

Weekend in Chicago

Last weekend, I went to Chicago. This is the view from Nate's rooftop. Pretty great, especially after nine hours of driving.


After a late-night party in Pilsen, Nate & I rode to breakfast at Lula in Logan Square. It was incredible.


Having my own bike along made the long drive well worth it. On Saturday afternoon, Nate & I spent some time in Millennium Park, reading & watching the clouds.


We met up with Dave and rode up the Lakeshore. Dave has a pretty sweet looking ride with a tension disc.

Nate did live visuals for the CAVE show Saturday night. Totally beautiful. Not pictured: my lovely dinner with Rob Sand in Iowa City on the way home.

Stolen Bike

Melissa's Peugeot got stolen Friday night. Let me know if you see it.

Tri-State Century

Melissa & I headed to the northeast corner of the state to do some camping and biking over the weekend. We staked out a really nice camping spot at Ponca State Park Saturday night. Setting up tents together and leaning our bikes up near them felt like BRAN -- but with far superior camping.

At 9:30 Sunday morning, after a lovely campfire breakfast, we headed west and then north.

First state line crossing of the day, on a bridge over the Missouri River.

No sir, we are not whimps (wimps?), though the headwind at this point was quite strong.

This massive cat clearly owned the city park in Elk Point, SD. He was prowling after small children.

Second state line crossing, from South Dakota into Iowa. There were loads of casinos at this border.

Back to the good life, quickly, due to heavy traffic.

Delicious Thai-Lao food in South Sioux City, NE.

Fueled by dinner and powered by a tailwind for the first time all day, I finally hopped into the big ring for a bit.

Our shadows were getting long as we returned to Ponca at around 7 PM.

Century completed. Thanks, Melissa!

Two different sessions with Big C

This evening, Conrad and I headed out for some roadie miles. We surveyed the windstorm damage in Denton, where lots of trees were down. We also saw lots of hailed-on and wind-damaged cornfields. Bummer.


After we capped the ride with a margarita, we caught the moonrise at the 27th & Hwy 2 bridge. A little perspectival fun with that...


Sunday, however, we had a different sort of session. I've been riding the fixie for 4 months now, and need to improve upon my trackstanding skills. We palped our ironic urban under the overpasses for that one.

We checked this scrapyard while we were at it, too.

Eagle FAC

Evening plans shifted around a few times tonight, but Felice called at just the right time for an FAC ride out to Eagle. We were lucky to have the shack on the MoPac to ourselves for a nice long session with some PBR before continuing on to the One-Eyed Dog. Cheers to best friends!

Rumbletime on the Platte

Good work, team.

Cats vs. Dogs

Friday evening, post-FAC at the Zoo Bar in celebration of Reynold Peterson's birthday, Brent, Sarah, Ande & I headed to Haymarket Park for the Saltdogs season opener. Sadly, the photo doesn't really show that this was a Cats vs. Dogs endeavor.

There were some great clouds to the west, and the weather was perfect for baseball.

Fireworks Friday! Inexplicably, the fireworks display was accompanied by two plays of "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones. Does this make sense to you?

Post-game -- a Cats victory -- we headed to Bread & Cup for some beers, bread & butter on the patio. On the counter inside were some beautiful antique peonies next to the fresh greens for Saturday's meals.

Bikes lining "S" Street.

Out of the Races and Onto the Tracks

St. Paul Saturday

Gigantic latte at Gingko's

Jelly is the sweetest little cat. She greeted us every time we came walking back from somewhere.

We Tast[ed] The Flavors of Korea

Nick & Calico. She was just a little puppy the last time I saw her! This summer, she'll be riding back to Nebraska in the trailer hitched to the back of Nick's bike.

Ok, so that's in Des Moines. Ingenious bike parking integrated into the design of the parking meter.

My Week #1 (April 21-27)

Robbie started April with weekly videos with 8 seconds of footage per day. His sister Annie followed suit. I'm hopping in the fold this week.


My Week #1 (April 21-27) from nocoastfilms on Vimeo.

As originated by Robbie Wilkins and followed by Annie Wilkins, here is my first entry into the My Week genre. I decided not to follow the 8 seconds per day allotment as strictly this time; it was a busy week.

Wildlife Ride & Dinner

Jennie & I felt the need to mellow out yesterday afternoon, so we went for a nice little ride to Roca. It was a journey filled with wildlife.

First, and most exciting, my foot was a mere couple of inches from a huge snake. We screamed for a good long while and I didn't have it in me, as much as I wanted a photo, to go back and pull out my camera. I looked it up today, and I'm quite certain it was a young common kingsnake.

(image: UNL IANR Snake Key)

If it was, it likely wouldn't have done me any harm, but I wasn't about to go near a snake I couldn't identify.

A mile or so further down the trail, we encountered 3 young deer, and one stood on the trail until we got quite close while the others bounced through the woods alongside us. A bit later, we saw a large wild tom turkey in a fallow field, fanning out his tail feathers.

As we got closer to Roca, it started to rain a little; it felt great, seeing as though it was 89 degrees out. We paused at Roca Road and were debating whether to check out the Roca Tavern or not when a major strike of lightning and a booming, long thunderclap convinced us that a pitstop was probably in order. Soaked and colder, we sat down for a couple red beers.



After the rain passed, we headed back into a strong, cold headwind. On the way back, we saw bunnies, another deer, and several varieties of birds, of course.

Dinner: trout with kale, tortilla español, and ice cream with raspberries.