Yeah, that didn't work...

OK, so the last post I put up with my crazy man writing style didn't work out so well. It honestly looked OK on my computer screen. I mean, hell, it looked fabulous. What am I to do? I think you should all get Macs or something like that. Then we might not be having this conversation. Wait, we're not having a conversation, I'm prosletyzing from my comfortable chair in the kitchen of my house. Ha! Let that be a lesson to you all. I'm not sure what lesson that is, but anyway, I thought I might be throwing one out there. Highly doubtful though, highly doubtful.

This is the end of another rough week for me. The workdays have been endless. 12 or more hours per day all week long which is never a good thing in my opinion, well, not 12 hours today, but the rest of the week has made up for it. One piece of advice I can give everyone from this whole work experience as of late? Don't buy a Ford product, because from what I've seen, they don't know what the hell they are doing, at least on this one program (Sporttrac/Explorer), so yeah, if you're thinking about buying one of these vehicles, do yourself a favor, and don't. Get a 4Runner, a Tundra, a Tacoma, or anything Japanese, but don't buy those other 2 aforementioned Ford vehicles. It's kind of scary how clueless these guys seem about their own programs and their own vehicles. I don't get it. Ah well, they're still helping to pay my bills, so I can't complain too much, except for the excessive hours on end of work. I keep saying that this doesn't happen all the time, but I've changed my position on that, it is happening all of the time now. At least for the last couple of months, and well, that makes up pretty much for the rest of the time that it didn't happen like this. Breaking point, last Friday. 8:30 PM was my departure time from work, that was my breaking point. I've been pissed off ever since then. Actually before then as well, but that was the proverbial straw that broke the ye old camel's back. But, there is hope on the horizon. That being a nice long weekend coming up next week, and good food in Tampa at the SO's house, and from what I hear the SO's dad has purchased a new big TV. This, as we know, is good. The only downside to heading to Tampa is the drive. It's long. I can handle it. I keep getting the SO to let me watch videos while we drive down next week, but she says NO. I guess I'll give in just this once. She has a good point, it could be dangerous, but my friend Rich does it all the time and he hasn't crashed or anything that I know of. He just gets a lot of speeding tickets.

I am looking forward to tomorrow as I finally get to ride again. I believe that I'm healed enough now to go back out on the bike and suffer like the out of shape fool that I am. This is going to be possibly a long road back to fitness I think. I've been kicking around the thoughts in my head about doing 2 a day workouts. Either that being a run in the morning, and a ride in the evening, or a ride in the morning and one at night as well. I'd like to maybe get to the gym as well, but in looking at that option, I wouldn't want to Hulk out by heading to gym. I don't know if I would or not as I tend to gain muscle relatively easy when lifting weights, but I might go sometime this winter and do some building anyway. Don't know when or where I'm going to fit that in during my day alongside the double cardio workouts, the 12 hour workday, and hanging out with the SO. OK, maybe I won't do that. We'll see. But yeah, I'll be back riding tomorrow morning/afternoon. See how the leg feels on the bike, and the sore elbow. I'm pretty sure I messed something up in the elbow as it still kind of hurts right now. The outside wounds are healing well, but the internal mechanisms are a little achy and all. I did land directly on that mug, so the chances of it coming out of that crash unscathed are slim and none to say the least. When I did see the doc, she said she wasn't worried about it too much because the range of motion was all good, and I had normal strength in my hands and arms, so not much to worry about. Probably some good trauma done to it. I might have to make a trip back maybe to get some x-rays or something that shoots deadly amounts of radiation into my body. Maybe with enough radiation shot into me I could really Hulk out, as in the Incredible Hulk. HULK BASH! OK, maybe that wouldn't be that cool, well, maybe just go on a small rampage for a few hours. Smash some cars, knock over a few fire hydrants, take on some tanks, you know, get some aggression and stress relief out of the old system. We all have a little Bruce Banner in us somewhere I think. Although maybe being Godzilla would be cool as well, and then you could crush large Japanese cities underfoot.

In the news this week, at least in the world of cycling, it was announced that US Pro road championships are no longer going to be held in Philadelphia like they have been for the past however many years. The Philly road race is going to continue, if they can find a new title sponsor, but US Pro championships are being moved to Greenville, SC. Yes, you heard that correctly. Greenville, SC. In one way, I'm glad that they're being moved down there. It's a great little cycling community that is ruled by the Hincapie clan for the most part, but they have a lot of people around there that ride, race, and there are tons of good roads in that area in which they can have a very "selective" (ie hilly) race on. Hell, go North of Greenville towards Asheville, and there ain't nothing but hills around there. They will have some sort of weird kick ass course there I'm pretty sure of that. On the downside though, Greenville, not a big metropolitan area for the most part, as anyone who has been there would know. Nice "small" city in the South? Yes. Big metro area? Not so much. And I don't think the drawing power of Greenville is as great as Philadelphia, and it's not in the middle of a large metro area. Actually, it's nowhere near a large metro area. Somewhat close to where I live? Yes. Close to a lot of people? I wouldn't say that. With Philly, NYC is pretty stinkin' close by, Washington, Baltimore, Jersey, and so on. Are people going to drive a few hours to Greenville to line the route of the road race out in the hills between Greenville and Asheville? Only true cycling fans will do that, and I suspect that the crowd is going to be considerably smaller than even what you might see on Manayunk in Philadelphia. While this is good for cycling in the SE, I don't think that it's too good for cycling in general in the US. With Philly, the exposure to mass media, and mass crowds was exceptional. With Philly you had the big Protour teams sending guys over to ride this race, and most of the week before the race before. With Greenville, it's going to be US only. I don't know about this, just don't know. The recipe that they've been using for 20 some odd years in Philadelphia has worked pretty damn well, and now they're messing with it. It's kind of like elite nationals last year. They had them way out in damn Park City, Utah. It was sparsely attended. Why? It's out in the middle of nowhere. While Greenville does have its own airport, and is a semi short drive from Charlotte, NC, and Atlanta, GA, it's still kind of in the middle of nowhere. I'm still thinking about the crowd drawing power here. I think we might have a flop on our hands. We'll have to see what happens next year in September when they run this race.

Oooh, that's another thing. The timing of this race. What the hell are you guys doing? Everyone else in the entire world has their national championships in June, either mid or late June. We had them in early June with the Philly race, and now you're changing them to September? What the hell are you guys thinking here? Say someone like Dave Zabriskie wins the national championship pro TT (also being held in Greenville) in September. Guess what he doesn't get to wear during the Tour de France in July? Yeah, the stars and stripes. Same would go for say, Horner wins the pro road race. He won't get to sport the jersey until September? USA Cycling, that's the dumbest thing that I've ever heard. Also in year's past, they've had a pretty big kick ass race weekend in Georgia on the same labor day weekend, and now they might take away from that? Stupid timing people, stupid timing. Kind of like putting World Championships in October. It just doesn't make sense. Kind of like the Chewbacca defense (longtime viewers of Southpark will know what I'm talking about here).

In very good cycling news though, I see that we are having an NRC crit in Raleigh next may. I like this. If you attended this race last season, you'd know that it was a pretty cool course (I hope that they keep the same - Emory I'm talking to you), and of course keep it twilight, but I think it said that anyway in the announcement. It was well run, and well organized, and well, it was a good atmosphere during the race. Held in conjunction with some downtown Friday evening stuff, it was pretty dang cool. Glad to see it returning, and getting slapped onto the National calendar. I'll be looking forward to it. Either being in it (if they let me in), or watching it. Well, if I'm in it, I'll probably be watching it relatively soon after starting it anyway cause I'll get shot out the back with the quickness. Good to see it on there though.

OK, time to eat dinner. This kids needs nourishment.