pure jenius.

For really buming me out. PBS has some great programing that is alway worthwhile. I like tuning in randomly and catching a good show. That's just what happend the other night, Strats and I flipped over after watching the Fatty Fats and were drawn into a show called "The Undertaking. " It starts off by introducing a family that has owned and operated a funeral home for several generations. The storyline then turns to an elderly gentaman at the funeral home making the final preparations for his funeral so his children don't have to worry about it when the time comes. That in of itself is a sad thing to think about, but it's for your loved one's best interest. The next scene is a younger couple making funeral arrangements. The undertaker was asking for clarification of the name of the person they were making arrangments for, then asked for a birthdate....November/18/2004. They were planning a funeral for thier 2 1/2 year-old son...who had not died yet. The poor...

I began racing for Grand Performance in 2003. For the first time ever I showed up to Downers racing with a team, and a great time at that. I now had 6 guys working for the 1 me. The goal for the day was to get into position to get me on the podium. Sure enough, I was delivered to the last lap after never having felt the wind all race. I found my way to the podium in 5th place again, proving that the year before was not a fluke. '04 I missed the podium by 6 inches. '05 I flatted with 4 laps to go (that one still haunts me). '06 I played main lead-out for E-Rock and delivered him to a 4th place finish. '07 was 50 degrees and rain. The race was crazy fast but rather safe. The crashes didn't start happening until 4 laps to go. On the last lap, sitting 5th wheel and 750 meters to go, this happened: I hit the deck at 35 mph and found myself face down on someone's lawn. - P

A bit off topic but this week has been one of the most challenging weeks at work and will continue for the next few weeks. 2002 was quite the year for me. I decided to semi-retire from work and live in a crappy apartment, not have a job, and race my bike. I had been toying with that idea for a few months when, within a short time frame a family member fell ill and passed away. I come from a very small family so it was a difficult time. That shot of reality made my decision to go out and live life while I could do whatever I wanted. I showed up to DG that year freshly unemployed and out of money. With gas prices at a staggering $1.40/gallon and a $50 entry fee, I was going to make for damn sure I got in the money. As the business-end of the 80k race was barreling down on us, I couldn't help but think of my what my family had experienced a few weeks prior and that all I really then cared about was finishing safely. On the last lap, I capitalized on the opportunity to jump through a s...

I've always fancied myself as one of those criterium racers. Simply put, I love going around corners really fast. Superweek was always one of my favorites since it was comprised mostly of crits. Lots of crits...for many days in a row. The schedule goes something like this: race starts at 6pm (most of the time the races started late), finishes around 8pm, pack the car and get back to wherever you are staying around 10pm, BS late into the night, sleep in, coffee ride in the a.m., race at 6pm that night. Now these races at Superweek always draw in some serious horsepower. The crits usually have over 100 racers and is nearly single file for the 100k of racing. By the third day of racing you love that you hate it because 25th still pays money. Were am I going with this? These Superweek crits are probably some of the hardest crits in the nation. It draws the likes of many pro teams, and many riders from around the world...right there in Wisconsin. I would drive a few hours, race in some ...

Ever since I was a wee little junior and lived 30-minutes away, I have been going to the crit at Downers Grove, IL. Back in the early days it was just a 4-corner crit, a handful of racers and even fewer spectators. Today it is a two day event on a one-mile eight-corner masterpiece attracting hundreds of racers, thousands of spectators, and a huge vendor area. In 1993 (off the top of my head) Downers Grove played host to the USPRO criterium championships. I was floored when for the first time got to see the likes of Alexi Greywall, Ron Kieffle, Davis Phinny, and many other pro cyclists that I only read about in Winning, Bicycling, and any other publication from that era actually race right in front of me. (Pre interwebs! No Cyclingnews.com/Velonews.com/MCF.net) It was awesome. I remember watching the pro race thinking "holy shit they hauling ass!" What amazed me more was they continued to haul ass for 100k (62 miles), and at that time my longest road race ever wasn't that ...

1.) Text message conversation with Patty Cakes. 2.) Checked my bank account balance (or lack thereof). 3.) Played one game of Free Cell (I won). 4.) Stood in the kitchen and read the paper. 5.) Checked the blue book value of my car. (maybe that was yesterday) 6.) Updated my wiki (www.insitki.org) 7.) Stood in the kitchen and drank coffee. 8.) Had an email conversation with homegirl about x-mas. 9.) Checked analytics.google.com (my stats suck, time to promote the pure jenius blog) 10.) Watched a 747 land (we are in the landing path when plans are coming in from the east)

Late night at work cutting over to the new telco. All went well. Company V isn't ready for our code release this weekend so they decided to call it off and re-sched for homegirl's b-day weekend. Great. hummm.....now why did I get 40th? - P

A few weeks ago we decided to kid-sit homegirl's two nephews (3.5 and 5 years old). The 5-year-old, makes you want to have kids. The 3.5-year-old makes you not want kids. It was fun since this was the first time the little guys had a sleep over at our house. All went well, no trips to the hospital and they didn't starve. So I guess I would make a great parent. Not a bad day today for a CX race. Not a good day either...but it got us out of the house on a gloomy October Sunday. The only cx bike I have is my Bianchi San Jose singlespeed (commuter geometry and straight up old-school steel). The course was pretty wide open and the park is hilly so I chose to run a 39x17 which turned out to be a really good gear, but my fitness / lack there of, was my biggest problem. I spent my one hour of pain keeping out of everyone's way and enjoyed hearing cheer for me and yell "go single speed!" So thank you for doing so and making it worth the race. If anyone was standing on the ...

..nothing to see here. Sorry for getting your rss excited.... Check this out.... If anyone has a worth while Ikea hack/mod let me know. - P

T-minus 4 days to the big cut-over. I've been put in charge of a big project at work. My company is changing voice and data service from company I to company O and the big day is Monday. The data and voice T's have been turned up and tested. The next hurdle comes on Monday evening when all of our 100+ DID's port. Either we will not have voice, or we will. Two months of planning has gone into this so it's go time. I can't wait for Tuesday morning. Five days without the sun sucks. With it being extra dark in the morning makes it hard to want to get out of bed. - P

Yes, I am. A few weeks back I participated in a cyclocross race in which I was completely fried from the day before. I basically ended up riding at about 8mph for the entire race and walked up the "run up." A few days later a comment was posted on someone's blog asking if I was still out on the course (they obviously saw my spectacular performance). Figuratively, I am still on the course. I'm fortunate enough to have a boss that recognizes the work/life balance and let us slack most of the summer. Now that summer is over we have to catch up on projects that have been sitting idle, and also try and get as much done by next spring so we can enjoy the summer. My workload is such that it makes it hard to ride to work and find the time to ride outside of work. That's not the way I had hoped it to be since we are now in the midst of cyclocross season. I decided to partake in some races while in my sub-prime cycling state. CX is fun and gives me at least 1 hour every wee...