Top of the Food Chain

One of my best friends from undergrad always used to say that we didn't make it to the top of the food chain to eat salad (I'm not sure if we're on the top, but)... He sent me this, probably won't be finding this option here in Boulder. haha Thanks Zach!

New Blog to Check Out

My friend Marty works at the Daily Camera here in Boulder. She's a rad chick who is multi- talented...she writes, rides, and snaps photos! She has a column on biking in the paper and just started a blog that you should check out. It's already got some cool articles.

The Dark Horse and Guitar Hero Championships of the World!!

Tyler Rocking Out

Tyler called me up on my way home from the lab (much too late, as usual), and convinced me to join him and Zach for a couple of beers and a little Guitar Hero Tournament action at the Dark Horse.

The Guitar Hero Tournament Scene

I'd only played once before, but a beer sounded good, and I'm always up for a new adventure. Well, Tyler is good, but the people the 3 of us got paired up against were stupid good (i.e. need to get lives other than playing Guitar Hero!!). We had a lot of fun and got free t-shirts out of the deal, so not so bad!

Zach didn't do so hot, but the cheers from his little bro helped a lot, I'm sure!

Day 3

One of the few moments of sunshine

It's pretty pitiful that I have only been snowboarding 3 days and I bought a pass, well, two actually!! I've hit up Winter Park twice and made it up to Copper yesterday. Jon and I had a fun day with pretty good snow conditions, some bigger aspirations on bumpy (HUGELY BUMPY) trails than our skills, or lack thereof, warranted, and tired legs at the end of the day! Well mine were, don't know about Jon's. He got some amazing second wind after we ate lunch, and I couldn't keep up with him for the rest of the day! Crazy. I need to go at least two more times to make it worth having bought a pass! Seems easy enough, but the weekends are always too short!

This makes this run look NOT steep, which it was, and with little bumps which they WEREN'T!

Who to Cheer For Tonight??

Going to the mens' bball game tonight, and I'm a little torn on who to cheer for, since I've got a degree from each place! haha I guess since Brian will be cheering for Tech, I'll have to give the Buffs the honor of my professional cheering lungs! :)

Best Way to Utilize your Entire Vacation...

Not really sleep at all! haha

You can't see our matching KHS fixies...I'm sure we were quite the site!

So, Melissa is one of the most gracious and best hosts I have ever met! I showed up in Phoenix late on Thursday night, and the adventure kicked into full throttle. She was able to borrow a very nice XC bike for me, let me use her extra moto (see below) and all of the associated gear you needed to ride it, and drive me all over the Phoenix/Tempe metroplex to participate in all of the activities said bikes and gear lend themselves to!! She coordinated all of this while trying to still do her prescribed training (above and beyond the fun things we did), physics, biology, and calculus! The girl is amazing!

We went to the comedy club on Saturday night for a few good laughs and some not so funny "comedy" which was fun since I've never been to see stand up before. Of course we got in late and had to get up early since we'd made plans to meet up with the awesome guy who lent me the bike for the weekend, Mark from Global Bikes, and his ripper wife Nicole. We rode some sweet, very technical trails pretty much in downtown Phoenix! The trail was super rocky, and wasn't very forgiving to anyone who had a get off! I have a right side full of bruises, and Nicole had to make a trip to the hospital to get a few stitches in her shin! She was a trooper about it, and overall it was a lot of fun.

Cat 2 race...The course was a figure 8, nice and spectator friendly!

After our ride, we headed down to the state capitol to watch the Valley of the Sun crit. We got a little lost, so we were a little late to the race, but it was sure fun to watch once we got there on our matching KHS track bikes! (Melissa has two, one that fits her, and one that conveniently fit me. I gave her a quick "how to ride a fixie" lesson, and we were off!) It was a beautiful day, and an awesome way to end a wonderful trip! THANK YOU to Melissa for making my weekend holiday so much fun! :)

Brian and me after the crit in downtown Phoenix

Desert Goodness

The amazing AZ desert!!

Here we go!!

Today, the fun factor was 10!! Melissa took me out for my first moto experience, and it was so much fun!! I was a little nervous, but once I did a couple of laps in the parking area and got the hang of it, it was go time!! We rode some trails out in the desert, and it was beautiful! The desert is all green right now, too!

Melissa rocking her pro kit!

Me on the lil bike...

and Buhly's baby!

Melissa is a good teacher, and the trails we rode were so much fun...sand, whoops, mud, and berms galore!! What a great way to spend my Saturday!!!!!!!!

Two thumbs up! :)

Who can tell me what's wrong with this picture?

Camp Buhly Day 1

No pics today, sorry. I'm actually pretty bummed about that. Melissa and I did a 2.5 hour XC ride today, and the scenery was amazing. I'm a big fan of saguaro cactus, though! The ride was one of the most fun XC rides I've ever been on, actually. I'm on the local shop's Specialized Epic Demo bike (thanks Mark!). It's a really fun bike to ride.

After 4.5 hours of sleep last night and the longest ride I've done (road or mtn) in a long time, I'm tuckered out. We're off to dinner at one of Buhly's favorite Vietnamese places. Hopefully I don't fall asleep in my meal. haha :)

Hopefully some pics tomorrow...my first day of moto riding. Wahoooo!

LOVE/HATE Relationship

I LOVE garlic. I, do, however, have a small problem with sometimes "overdoing" it. For example, more than once I've opened a bag of sour patch kids to eat a couple of them and end up eating the whole bag. No self restraint, I guess. Well, it happened with garlic the other night. I've got some pretty fabulous homemade pickled/spicy garlic in my possession right now, and it is sooooo good. So, of course, I ate WAY too much. Not only was my mouth burning from the peppers because I ate so much, but I woke up in the middle of the night with a pretty bad stomach ache! Again, not the first time this has happened, but clearly I'm not smart enough to abbreviate my garlic eating. I'm gonna work on the self restraint and maybe not eat so much next time...

DH Skills Training

Otherwise known as commuting to school on my fixed gear bike with 23 mm track tires on lots of snow and ice!

# of crashes: 0
# of almost crashes: 4

Getting better, for sure! :) I never said I didn't like a good challenge! haha