Altima, Maxima and 300

Since my last post, I've been out on three trips.

Tooele, Utah.
Las Vegas, Nevada.
San Francisco, California.

Tooele is in the general Salt Lake City area, and it was beautiful.
The landscape was incredible.
The mormon temple was all lit up.
There was a thousand lights on every tree, which was truly stunning.
It's amazing what you can accomplish when you start your own cult.

Las Vegas sucks.
Don't ever go there.

San Francisco and the surrounding bay area is truly gorgeous.
The town in funky and hip.
The northern bays (not sure if that is accurate but since I'm not a local I can call it that) are stunning and diverse in landscape.

Now that we've covered that we'll get on to the more important things -- rental cars.

In Utah, I rented a new Altima.
It got great gas mileage but it was really boring.
Nissan's devotion to the CVT transmission is absurd.
You step on the throttle and you just wait for something to happen.
A Car and Driver article reffered to the transmission response like a rubber band.
They're right.
The driver's seat had no lumbar support.
It served it's function when I needed it but it was super boring in the process.

In Las Vegas I rented a white Maxima.
I still love those things.
They rip, they growl and they look mean.
'Nuff said.

In San Francisco I rented a Chrylser 300.
One of my co-workers said they were really nice.
It was an OK car.
The driver's seat had good lumbar support but lack any side bolsters.
It also had tremendous stroke of adjustment in every direction.
I could slam the seat way down so that I could barely see over the steering wheel.
The leather was supple but really slippery, which amplified the lack of side bolsters.
The stereo was only adequate. I was expecting more out of a car of that caliber.

So far the Ford Taurus Limited has set the bar really high.
Now, I don't know a lot about car audio but the Taurus could make the mirrors rattle.
I know that when you crank your shit up really high and a rental car stereo rattles the mirrors, that rocks. Usually they have crummy, low-end sound systems.
The Taurus' sound system wasn't.
The 300's sound system got loud but didn't thump.

Next week is a trip to Ohio.
Maybe I'll get a tiny little thing and see how a micro-spec car and see how it stacks up.

BBQ in three states

Since the end of October I've eated bar-b-que in three states.

Houston, Texas
Greenville and Anderson, South Carolina
Salt Lake City and Grantsville, Utah

You might be surprised when I tell you that Utah has the best BBQ of the three locations.
I would call you a liar if you told me that, but, please believe me that Utah knows a thing or two about BBQ.

Richard's Round Up in Grantsville, Utah, has a killer pulled pork sandwich.
I went there with John (gentleman that I was training int Tooele) for lunch on Wednesday and their pulled pork was firm and juicy, not mushy or stringy. Simple potato bun allowed the pork to speak for itself.
I had their ribs on Monday or Tuesday night and they were perfectly tasty, but, and this might sound ridiculous, the meat just fell off the bone. Personally, I like to work for my ribs; ribs that make you gnaw and tear at them so you feel as though you earned it.

Pat's Bar-B-Que in Salt Lake City, Utah, has the best ribs I've ever had!
Pat's ribs were so incredibly smoky and spectacular.
They were thick and had plenty of cartalidge that you have to work around, nibble at and spit back onto your plate. They were terrificly meaty.
Holy crap! If you ever find yourself in Salt Lake City, you WILL go to Pat's BBQ!
Prepare accordingly though - they only make a certain amount of meat each day and when it's gone, tough luck.
Additonally, Pat's BBQ has the best corn bread I've had at a commercial establishment.

Moreover, the Red Iguana is a fantastic Mexican restaurant in SLC.
Check it out, get there early, order anything smothered in mole sauce.

I won't bore you with a recap of Texas and South Carolina BBQ.
It was good. Probably good like you could find in any city.

What else?
Impressions on where I've traveled recently?
OK.

Houston, Texas = sucks. Don't go there. Not worth it. Sprawling, concrete depression.
Anderson, South Carolina = Stop by on your way to Greenville.
Greenville, South Carolina = Go there, tomorrow! Great downtown, tons of restaurants, wide sidewalks. I've never seen so many people running in any city I've visited. Apparently there are tons of parks and one huge one that runs about 20 miles up a river.
Gainesville, Georgia = Skip it. Tiny downtown and sprawling strip mall paradise thereafter.
Utica, New York = Holy shit! Don't ever go to Utica. Utica should be paved over so they can start over.
Salt Lake City, Utah = Go there. Quite lovely. Temple square lit up for Christmas, wow! Stunning display of lights and presentation and what you can accomplish when you create a cult.

Revival of the travel blog--rental cars and too much food

This blog as a travel log back in 2008 with m trip to Italy.
Since, perhaps, a year ago she has lain dormant and neglected.

However, now that I have been travelling a lot lately with my job I have decided to resurrect this girl and chronicle my travels, which will most likely be rental cars I beat on and the food I eat too much of.

So far this year my destinations were:
-Boulder, Colorado (Ford Focus)
-Detroit, Michigan (utterly forgettable car)
-Chicago (Chevy Malibu)
-Hamilton, Ontario (utterly forgettable car)
-Grafton, Wisconson (Nissan Maxima)
-Cudahy, Wisconson (Nissan Maxima)
-Houston, Texas (Dogde Charger)
-Deerfeild Beach, Florida (Toyota Camry)
-Seal Beach, California (Chevy Malibu)
-Newport, New Hampshire (my car)
-Smithfeild, Rhode Island (my car)
-Anderson, South Carolina (Ford Taurus Limited)

I'll hit the highlights on what I remember in list form.
-Beachwood BBQ in Seal Beach.
-Back Country Pizza in Boulder.
-Little Piggies BBQ in Anderson.

Since most of these trips are rather distant memories I won't try to rehash all the details of each trip.

So far the Nissans of Wisconson were the funnest cars I've rented.
Those cars can move! They have lots of balls. Sometimes that's all that matters, just throttling the hell out of a rental car can make any week out on the road fun.

Second place goes to the Taurus. Great stereo, great driver adjustability (even the pedals can be moved!), however, lacks lumbar support.

Tid bits of advice

I have been thinking carefully about what to write about Baba since she is a rather private lady, and she would probably not appreciate if I blabbed all about her all over the internet.

But, I can give you some bits of advice that seemed to have served her well over the years.

Always support the little guy. They have had the same trash pick-up guy for the last 40 years. We drive past his house when we go food shopping or go to the deli. BFI and All-Waste, or something like that, are here, but we're sticking with the little guy.
This goes for doughnut shops too. Yum-Yum is around here, and they totally beat out Dunkin Donuts.

Never say die. Baba is not in the greatest shape, but she still gets her chores done- it just takes a little longer. As long as you don't let grass grow under your feet, you'll be fine.

"Don't buy a motorcycle." 'nuff said Baba. I hear you loud and clear.

There is nothing good on TV. There are so many channels and nothing good on them. So you should just go outside and watch nature.

Be accepting. Accept the things you cannot change. If you don't they'll just grind you down. Then where will you be?

Talk to the cats like they're people. [If you're a cat person, you already know this to be true.]

Give hugs and kisses as much as you can. You can take them with you, unlike your money and house and toys and pool and cars.

Your grandmother is so old...

Your grandmother is so old, that her 26-year-old grandson moved in with her so she could keep living in her house.

Wait... That's a terribly joke.

Why would you say that, Phil? You're a really crappy comedian.

Ah, you're right; I am a terrible comedian, but I am a great grandson and I have two really great grandmothers.

I moved in with Baba (mother's mother; remember that name, she'll be a recurring character) and I live less than 10 miles from my Dad's mother, Grandma, here in the greater Philadelphia area.

I haven't done a piece here in three months, and in that time a lot has happened.

I finished my time in Boulder, at VeloNews. In that last month I really soured toward Boulder. I rode a ton (30 hours in about seven days, averaging 10,000 feet of climbing five of those days). I was fried from riding and unimpressed with Boulder, as a possible place to put down roots.

I realized the relative importance of competitive cycling reporting in the overall hierarchy of journalism; we'll put it that way...

I realized how much I love the East Coast (that's right, both capitalized!), family and manufacturing. Boulder seemed to have very few things grounding it to a way of life that I find important. There's no industry there, beyond computer programming and other service-sector jobs. Had I desired to be a professional waiter, or dedicate ANOTHER four years to law school Boulder would be a great place to live.

When I describe my time out there I always make sure to say that I would go back to Boulder, or another place in Colorado, to vacation. A cycling or hiking vacation would be fantastic, when I have enough money to fly there, stay in a nice hotel, eat in nice restaurants, and fly back to civilization (East Coast).

But, to make a living out there for a liberal arts major in the manufacturing field, Boulder was not the place.

So, Southeastern Pennsylvania here I came. (That's what I said at the time, but now it's in the past, so you'll have to forgive the butchered verb tense.)

Baba needed and needs help to stay in her house. It's as much home for me as my childhood home in Newmarket is since we spent months at a stretch here in the summer.

It's also something of Baba's ancestral homeland. The four or so acres she has left, after selling about 35 acres to a developer with great apprehension, was a her and my grandfather's wedding present in 1952 (Fact Check). She has lived all but six years of her live on this land, and I think the last thing she would want would be to leave this land and house for an apartment in assisted living home.

As I was leaving Colorado, I spoke with a friend of a friend about my plans to live with Baba. He said he was the primary caregiver to two elderly relatives and it gave him a wonderful new perspective about life, aging and caring for others.

Therefore, as I started this blog to chronicle my adventures in Italy, I shall now try to convey the nuggets of wisdom and insight that I have gained and will gain from living with my grandmother, Baba.

That brings you up to speed.

Now buckle up and enjoy the motorized shopping cart ride through the next phase of my life.

"You should work three days a week and ride more."

That was the wise advice given to me by former VeloNews intern-turned-writer Robbie Stout, two days ago.

And, damn it, that's what I did today. I went for a two and a half hour lunch ride today.

It felt great. It was a beautiful day. I first went out for an hour with the advertising staff and then for another hour and a half on my own up Flagstaff Road.

Flagstaff takes you up - as far as I went - about 1200 feet above Boulder. It is still odd to me to see, what seems like, the whole world stretching out in front of you as you climb into the Rockies.

Going back to the East Coast after spending time on the front range is a trip.

Out here, you can see for miles and miles, even on cloudy day, which are few and far between.

However, back east, everything has a pulse. There is trash in alleys and deciduous trees. Not in Colorado; it's wide open and still brown.

It's amazing to see two totally different worlds that are on the same continent.

Today was pretty sweet, and complimented nicely by sunburnt stripes at the top of my tricep, where there was a gap between my arm warmers and my jersey sleeve.

An untimely report from Colorado.

It's been a bit over a week since I rolled into Boulder.

The drive was fairly miserable, and it went a little something like this;

Day 1 = 3:00 p.m. -- 10:00 p.m.

= nap at New York ThruWay rest stop

= 12:00 a.m. -- 2:00 a.m.

= nap at New York ThruWay rest stop; 14 degrees outside when I woke up.

Day 2 = 5:00 a.m. -- 7:30 p.m.

= maybe two 1-hour naps in Ohio

Day 3 = 8:00 a.m. -- 9:00 a.m.

= breakfast at Grandma's Kitchen on I-80 near Davenport, Illinios

= 10:00 a.m. -- 11:30 p.m.

= rolled into Bolder shortly before midnight.

Never drive across the country. It's so boring.

If anyone every says that you should drive across the country, tell them you'll book a flight instead. And that they can pick you up at the airport after they do the drive alone.

Trust me.

However, Boulder is cool.

I think it's too early to give an official or formal critique, so I'll keep my fool mouth shut for now.

The last two Tuesdays have seen the VeloNews staff go to the Boulder Indoor Cycling Center during lunch time. Riding track, while a bit boring while you're going slow, becomes quite fun at higher speeds.

Roger Dogder. Over and out.

Throne of Malevolence

Throne of Malevolence.

See you in Hell.

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

The artist's favorite.

Count down to Colorado.

In case you haven't heard, I am going to do my journalism internship at Velonews in Boulder, Colorado, next semester.

I have a host of worries and low-grade anxieties about this, but overwhelmingly, I am excited about it and the progress I have made in the last couple of years.

Patting myself on the back has never been what this blog has been about, or something that I have ever been good at.

So.... We'll cut to the chase.

When my mom and I were driving to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving, we came up with a pretty rockin' idea.

I want to make signs to hold up to other drivers to amuse both me and them.

I think the signs have to be fairly PG rated. I can't make any truly foul or tasteless signs, although I would love to do that, I can't guarantee that other people will either think it's funny or not run me off the road.

I was thinking about the following:

- I am so bored.

- What's good, shorty!?

- Heee-eeey!

- Any good Mexican places around here?

- Where ya headed?

- Got a map?

- My mommy doesn't know where I am.

- Would you like a Mentos?

I would love to hear your suggestions.

But please remember...... PG rated!

Somewhere there is a college bar filled with...

Somewhere there is a college bar filled with handsome young men.

But, that bar certainly isn't on the UNH campus.

After a Saturday night out in Durham I came to the conclusion that most of the male, bar-going UNH population are a bunch of schlubs. Underdressed, backward hat wearing schlubs.

Let me explain "Schlub" to you.

If your idea of dressing up to go out includes any of the following, you are a schlub;

Boston Red Sox hat

Sports hat in general

Black North Face fleece jacket

anything camouflage print

jeans that don't cover your entire butt

if your underpants are showing

a hoodie of ANY kind, with any logo, print or otherwise

untied Timberland boots

The list could go on. But these were some of the glaring and galling examples from Saturday night.

Now, fellas, gather round, pull up a carpet square and listen intently.

You have to, at least, equal your female counterparts in the dressing department.

All the ladies put in quite a bit of effort to look lovely, well put together, and at the very least, presentable.

You, need to look better than you would if you were just going to class.

No ties or sock garters.

You need to step up your game.

Maybe tuck in your shirt and button it up to the second button from the top -- unless you have a mane of chest hair and gold chains on.

Wear jeans that fit. You are not in high school anymore.

Wear a sweater. The right sweater can compliment nicely a dark pair of straight-leg jeans.

Wear brown or black shoes -- just make sure your belt matches your shoes.

And SHAVE your face. If you don't have luxurious facial hair, you need to get rid of it. Trust me, I tried growing a fu manchu, and it was ugly. But, most importantly, it was gone quickly.

So, gents, try to stand out above your peers. There will always be enough schlubs around so that minimal effort of your part will stand out like a beacon of good and stylish taste.

Typing up the police log...

Every time I type up the police log on production nights at The New Hampshire I am supremely satisfied with myself that I have never been arrested.

Supremely satisfied.

So many dumb kids get busted on this campus for dumb stuff.

On November third, we ran a great article by one of our contributors (Miss Alexandra Churchill) about her Halloween ride-along with Officer Welman of the UNH Police Department.

About three-quarters of the way through the story, we get this lovely anecdote:

While slowly moving through the masses that block Strafford Avenue, an open beer can somersaults in the headlights of the cruiser and onto the street. Welman immediately reacts, flips on his swirling blue lights and catches the perpetrator’s stunned face in the stark headlights.

The underage thrower of the can is arrested for unlawful littering and unlawful possession of alcohol.

This kid actually got into university. How does that grab you?

Now, I won't tell you who this young knucklehead is, but if you were so inclined as to want to find who this is.... who am I to stop you.

I might point you to some local police log and the publishing date of article and the littering charge.

I am not trying to "out" or screw this idiot kid, but I just want to make the point that every Monday night when I type up the police log, I am supremely satisfied that I have never been arrested.

Tall enough to ride this ride?

Have you ever seen someone that looked totally out of place and wanted to ask them if their parents knew where they were?

It seems like a small portion of the UNH student body was washed in hot water and immediately put in the dryer, resulting in minus-sized proportions.

They're not everywhere, like Asian Lady Beetles, but like beer cans in a freshman's room, they're sprinkled about campus.

Every time I see one of these people -- primarily young ladies, little guys don't any attention from men or women (sorry short guys, it's your curse, not mine) -- I want to break out a tape measure and see if they in fact meet the minimum required height to enter college.

I figure that would be something around 48" to 52", just like the Cannonball at Canobie Lake Park.

internet

Open a word processing document.
Type "I love the internet.".
Hit enter.
Wait a moment.

If you did this right -- note the rude, condescending tone in my 'voice' -- then you should see a green squiggly line under the word 'internet'.

This is scary.

I think that this is the first step to Skynet coming online.
I think that computers are programmed to know when we are typing words about them and that them wanted the word 'internet' to be capitalized is like Christians wanted to capitalize the word "God'.
The computers know, and want us to know, that the internet is the birth place of their collective conscience. Moreover, they want to subtly program us to recognize this.

Soon, computers will be sentient and exterminate the human race.

On an completely unrelated topic... has anyone seen my blue pills?
All I can find are the red ones and I'm getting a little anxious.

Table. Slowly but surely...

I have not made any progress on my table lately.

I need to buy more Ash so that I can make the width closer to 30 inches.

Right now it's something around 25 inches, which makes it rather cramped for two people to sit across from each other. Therefore, I need to but another five inch piece of Ash and take it right to the end of my bread-board end. I also think I hastily cut my ends so that they are something like 27 inches. Oh well.

I have been working on my stool, which is my actual project. It's coming along nicely.

I oiled the base on Saturday, and even though it looks very "low volume"

, as my professor, Leah Woods, described it, the upholstered seat really pops now with the oiled Spanish Cedar.

Here are some pictures of the progression of my stool:

She's a whole lotta Rosie before I started cutting.

Above: I really wanted to stop with the leg shape I had here, but had to press on.

Below: She's starting to shape up.

So here we are. Don't think that I am slackin' on my other table. I need to do my graded work first.

There are some cool features on this stool though. I wanted to leave the legs uncut, without all taper cuts that you see in the last photo. When I looked at it, it told me that it was finished. So, to be sure, I made a test leg out of Poplar and cut it to the shape of the final leg. When I put it all together, it looked good. And I decide to make all the tapers on all the legs.

It's kind of sad that I have to put a seat into it, because when you look at the legs down through the open frame ( where the seat/fabric goes ) you get a really interesting view of the insides of all the legs.

But, as I said earlier, the upholstery looks pretty good -- quality-wise, not bad for my first outing, not too much pucker of the fabric -- and its functions is quite good -- good feel when you set your tushy down, the seat frame doesn't bite into your leg.

I was going to do some dark wood accents but decided against it for a number of reasons; dark wood feet and splines in the seat frame, both in Black Walnut. But I didn't want any end grain to show in the feet so I would have had to make some funky glue up pieces and screw them on; plus it would have raised my seat height, which I did not want to do.

And the spline are Spanish Cedar also, but since they are from a different board, they will have a different tone, which will be an accent of the monochromatic kind.

So there you go -- a crash course in my design decisions.

I'll post some more and better quality pics when it's all done.

Small things in the morning...

In the morning I am not always at my best.

I usually say very few things in the morning.

I used to think that people were stupid for saying they needed their coffee before they came online. Now, I think differently.

However, the little things that are easily overlooked brighten me up in the early morning hours.

("Early morning" being defined by college student standards is before 8:00 a.m. )

The other day, I stopped at a stop sign before making a left across traffic. I looked to my right and saw a squirrel burying something.

Hey! Shut up! I thought it was cool. He had this vacant, yet determined look in his eyes. He was gathering all the surrounding ground cover to hide his stash. Then scampered off.

It would have been cooler if he did it cartoon-style. I had this discussion with Squatty on a bike ride once. I asked him about his previous life as a munitions safety inspector in the military. I asked him if he inspected things as if he was in a Roadrunner-Wile E. Coyote cartoon.

"You know, would you go up to a bomb with a tiny hammer and tap it on the nose. Then it would explode and then you'd be all blackened, and hold up a tiny sign that said, 'Ouch'?"

"Yes," Squatty said dryly. "That's exactly what I did. Then my skeleton would fall to the ground to the sound of a xylophone. How did you know?"

I wanted to see my squirrel friend pat down his stash with a tiny shovel then he would lean on the shovel and sigh. Then he would get a out a checklist and check off that particular location.

He would have definitely needed a hard hat.

Then yesterday as I was driving to campus, I saw a dad put his son or daughter on the school bus. The little kid had to have been in first grade.

The little dude got on the bus and dad waved to him or her.

Then turned to walk back to the house, got a two steps away and turned back towards the bus.

He forgot to hand the tiny backpack to his tiny child.

Must have been his first time putting Junior on the bus and he almost blew it.

It made me laugh.

Shut up. So what if I am easily amused?

It makes mornings a little more tolerable.

Table's not tabled

Table = ~70% done.

Table top is glued up, but I have to add another strip of ash to make it a little wider - 25" inches is a bit too narrow for two people to sit across from eachother. I still also need to cut the breadboard ends (prependicular strips of wood that cap each end to minimize expansion and contraction).

The legs are milled up and still need a lot of work.

The rails are done, but not glued. I don't know exactly how I will fix the rails to the top.

This will definately run into other weekends, since I am going to see my first cyclocross race

tomorrow, and going to work on Monday.

Tables are on the horizon.

We have a four-day weekend coming up. With Columbus Day this weekend, my normal weekend gets doubled. No work at the machine shop on Friday. No school Monday.

My plan is to build a table.

One weekend. At kitchen table 60" x 30", White Ash with a Paduak or Bloodwood strip down the top.

This has all the elements of a bad idea. I'll explain....

While there are 96 hours available to me, we'll half that seeing that it's not particularly plausible to think that I'll work 96 hours straight. Therefore, I have 48 hours to make this thing.

I am also not a very skilled woodworker. I am a hard worker, which does not translate to skill.

So, this could be interesting.

Some of the things I have working in my favor are:

I have this thing all planned out, design-wise. Parts list is simple; one top, four rails, four legs. Bam!

I am not getting uber-fancy. There won't be a lot of garish design features and extravagance. Just a simple table.

Bam!

Scheduling will be very important. This is what I am thinking...

Friday = Buy wood. Mill wood. Glue legs up. Cut up top. Tongue and Groove the pieces for top.

Saturday = Glue up top. Cut rail pieces. Make rail joints (I don't know what the joints are called that I am using). Glue rails together. Biscuit joint rails and top for gluing.

Sunday = Taper legs. Cut leg/rail joints. Sand everything.

Monday = Overflow day, and believe me, there will be work overflow.

I think that I am digging my grave pretty deep on this one. If I can say one thing about myself is that I am pretty good at that.

But I am as excited as I am scared about this prospect.

I will take some photos of the process, with time/date cards, in order to track my progress.

Every time I make something I want to take a series of photos to show the evolution of my parts. I think this is a perfect time to do this.

Wish me luck. I'm going to need it.

Wanna go on a car ride? Wanna go buh-byes?

I have a cat named Red.

His name is Red because he is red. He's actually orange but Orange is not a good name for a cat.

A while ago, I was moving my truck out of my driveway and I left the door open and Red started nosing around the door. I scooped him up and put him in passenger's seat and drove down the street and back.

It was really funny because Red was on "high alert" the whole time, and if you have a cat you'll know what I mean, he was in "slink-dash" mode the whole time.

You know "slink-dash" mode, right? It's when a cat is in a new, unfamiliar, or slightly threatening place, and they get really low to the ground and seem to sniff each spot before they put a foot down. I don't know if dogs do it because dogs suck and are not nearly as cool as cats.

So, fast forward to this morning.

I left my house and Red was on the deck. He wanted to go inside but it is so nice out that I told him that he should stay outside today. (Yes, I told him this. Yes, I talk to my cat.)

But I could tell that he really wanted to go in because he followed me to my truck. He only follows you around when he wants something.

So, what did I do? That's right. I scooped up Red and put him in my truck and we went for a ride around town. We went through downtown Newmarket, past the Town Hall, turned right on to Packers Falls Road, and right on Elm Street, up and over the hill by L&M, and then left on to my street.

There is a "but" in this story.

When we were on Packers Falls Road, Red let out a forlorn little, "oooowwwwwWW" cry. His voice is really cute because: one, he rarely talks so when he does it's a treat; two, he only says "ow"; and three, "ow" always goes up at the end like he's asking a question.

But today, the way he said "ow" and the look in his eyes told me that he was not having fun.

When we got on to my street, he did something he never does voluntarily -- he laid down on my lap. Then he did something he does all the time when he's stressed out -- lots of fur came off of him.

At this point, another funny thing happened. I saw my friend Angus walking up my street. It turns out that Angus was going to work on a project with classmate who happens to live on my street, but he was very surprised to see a cat on my lap.

"You have a cat!"

"Yeah, I'm just taking Red for a car ride."

{That should sum up the stupidity of the situation.}

So, the bottom line is... I don't think Red likes car rides as much as I like taking Red on car rides. This is a particular shame because Red is such a little adventurer. He wanders the neighborhood, kills things --recently he devour all but the head, left leg and tail of a chipmunk -- and gets in fights all the time.

It's a shame that we can't -- well, shouldn't -- take him on car rides.

College life feels sludgey

I had a post all loaded up and ready to go concerning Cadel Evans' well deserved World Championship win but I shelved it because I have nothing new to throw onto the fire.

Yes, he deserves it.
Yes, he finally attacked.
I hope that Silence -Lotto will actually back him up next year in the Grand Tours.

You see? Nothing that hasn't been said already.

Therefore, I will proceed to less pressing matters.

My diet.

This semester started with a bang.
I have been up on campus nearly every morning at 8:00 a.m., with a couple of exceptions mostly coming after late nights at The New Hampshire (UNH's student newspaper).

But with long workdays on campus comes miserably irregular eating patterns that have left me feeling as though I need dialysis. I feel like I am supposed to be running on 10W-40 but instead someone got lazy and put in some cheap 90-weight gear oil.

Oh man... Let me give you an example of my intake lately:

Monday went like this;
Breakfast = ghett-o's (market basket brand cheerios), one banana, 1% milk. {not so bad}
Lunch = Buffalo chicken sub (three fried chicken tenders with Blue cheese dressing with lettuce and tomato on whit bread. {tasty but not so nutritious}
Dinner = tomato soup and grilled cheese. [from Dining hall] {SUCKED, that is not dinner nor is it nutritious AT ALL}

Tuesday:
Breakfast = the usual.
Lunch = one slice pepperoni pizza, luke warm, fresh out from under the warming bulb. {SUCKED, but at least it was something...}
Dinner = maybe...

Wednesday went like this:
Breakfast = the usual
Lunch = "slider" sized cheeseburger and waffle fries. {SUCKED but something is better than nothing.

[ Let me explain to you waffle fries. Like waffles are delicious because there are nooks and crannies for peanut butter and syrup to hide, waffle FRIES are awful for you because there is more volume and surface area for grease to absorb. The label should say "Fat-ass fries".]

Dinner = Barb's (my dear, sweet, tiny, sailor-mouthed mother) Turkey and Black Bean Chili with a scoop of Homemade Macaroni and Chees on top. {Finally, the first REAL thing I hav eaten all week!}

I reflected on all this (except for Wednesfay dinner) as I drove home from school. I thought, "Of all that is good and holy in Oden's beard! No wonder I feel like shit, have been sleeping like shit, and had no energy lately!"

How the hell am I supposed to perform while I pump this sort grog into my body?
Better question, what am I going to do about it?
Fruits and veggies? Good idea. I'll have to get over my phobia of green food stuffs, though.
No more coffee? You got a better chance of seeing God, my friends, before I give up the delicious Brown Serpent!
More sleep? Tell that to my editor, professors and work ethic.


So, it's now Thursday - or it will be by the time you read this.

And I am going to start my day with a cup of coffee, bright and early, frantically work till 1:30 when I run to the MUB Food Court and put a burger on a piece of pizza, eat it on the way to class, then work till 11 p.m. at TNH while eating some combonation of fried food and cookies and then, as your hair shampoo label reads, LATHER, RINSE, REPEAT!

Until the end of the semester, when I will schedule a high-colonic enema, dialysis, angioplasty and a dental cleaning.