September 2008 Archives

I am want to do some mountain biking.... ok for this area it's more like flat land off road biking, but I want to do some non-skinny tire riding!!  I have an older model Gary Fisher Mamba hard tail that rarely gets ridden but still want to try!!!!   So if anyone wants to get out this weekend and show me how it's done drop me a line.... I was thinking Sunday mid-day either Dam Neck or Ipswitch unless there are some better recommendations.  Email... stormyva at gmail.com

09-30-08 Updated.... I guess I need to start actually proof reading what I type before I actually post it.  "I am want to do some" really made a lot of sense!

Yes, cycling season is over so I am blogging about other crap that has nothing to do with saddle sores and training miles.  So here it is... The band Vampire Weekend has a new single out, but from what I have been able to find you either have to suffer through a Chick Flick called Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist to hear it or you have to buy the freaking sound track.  Well that's two music/song posts in a row that point to some artists signed to main stream labels.  What the heck is wrong with me!?!?  Time to head off to magnatunes.com and pandora.com to find some non-mainstream people!  Read more about the release here New Vampire Weekend - "Ottoman" at Stereogum.com

Linda Kiraly Cant Let Go Video

Something to remember! 
When installing Movabletype on a Windows server only use Perl 5.8.8!  The newer version of Perl causes the final screen on installation to freeze.  After a long install process you are left with a screen that says "Initializing Database..." that never changes.  It is forever initializing. 
I spent 30 minutes troubleshooting an install when I finally remembered the little Perl thing!  Grrrr!
Now it's off to figure out why Yahoo pipes is aggregating a comments feed instead of post feeds!!!  Computers sure can suck!!!!!

Gamjams has recruited Chuck from the Flamencochuckwagon.com to write a great piece that should help any potential new racer answer most of the questions they may have about racing.  Check it out here: Questions Demanding Honest Answers

The Fatcyclist and I both had the theory that Lance Armstrong would announce that he was coming back to professional cycling with his own team, Team Livestrong.  At the press conference today he officially announced that he would be returning to ride with Astana.
Read more about it here:
VeloNews | Armstrong to Astana | The Journal of Competitive Cycling.

The Smithsonian Institute is sponsoring free museum day this Saturday and/or Sunday depending on the venue.  Some popular local venues that are participating in the free admission day are: Portsmouth Childrens Museum, Norfolk Botanical Garden, and one of our favorites, the Virginia Living Museum. 
More Virginia museums can be found here: Museum Search | Smithsonian Magazine

Can a theory really be stolen? Anyways, Fatcyclist has published a post about his theory that Lance is going to announce that he is coming back to professional racing with his own team, Team Livestrong.  That of course is the same theory that I posted here 3 days ago when I reported he won the 12 Hours of Snowmass race.  Maybe the Fatcyclist is mad that I dismissed his review of Dznuts.... but come on stealing my ideas, whats up with that?

Seriously though, Lance coming back to cycling as Team Livestrong really does make the most sense.  It will give his and the Livestrong Foundation's efforts the most publicity.  It also will much better coincide with Lance's goal of taking the fight against cancer global.

Fatty is out at Interbike this week so it will be interesting to see the stuff that he finds to blog and comment about, keep an eye on his site this week!  TheFatCyclist.com

I have published the file with results for what should end up being the 1st Annual Fort Lee End of Summer Criterium here.  From what I am hearing the MWR and everyone else on base was so impressed with the way that the race was put on that they have already to Karen and Col. Leary to start planning next year's race!

All of the folks involved did a great job coordinating and putting on this event!!!!

Help a local "Tri Girl" and Fat Frog get the funds to go to the Ironman Championships in Kona, Hawaii. 
I can't put the information better than Dan Craft who said...."She has worked hard to get there, and she deserves to go. By the way, she's the tall skinny blonde with the pony tail on the blue and white cervelo. She puts in more miles on the weekend than most of us put in in an entire week. If you think you're tough and in good shape, try putting in 100 miles with her...she has no mercy...none at all! She puts me in the hurt locker on every long ride. She is looking forward to going to the Ironman World Championships on October 11th and going toe to toe with the best in the world. Lets all wish her luck and, if we can, help her out." 

Help Staci Go To KONA @ GetFitGifts.com

I have seen this chamois cream mentioned in a few places and it sounds like it might be pretty good, and it's cheaper than DZ-Nuts.  It's also different in that it is Shea Butter based rather than water based.  The reviews have been mixed, but that may be attributed to the fact that this product is applied differently than traditional chamois creams.

::: nubütte™ chamois butter :::

I am still not convinced that I need to spend $22.00 plus shipping for a product that's sole purpose seems to be to market an individuals name.  That would be Dznuts.  Sure it has Tea Tree Oil, Masterwort, and some other stuff to prevent bacterial and fungal infections, but that can easily be added to the super cheap chamois cream alternative called Bag Balm.  It also seems that this product although hyped all over the internet hasn't been reviewed by many people in the road cycling circles.  The Fat Cyclist has a review, he's a mountain biker and even says "I normally don't use any chamois cream at all."  Velodramatic has a blurb about it, but it sounds more like an half hearted advertisment than a review.  Then you have this one at Deadspin that closes with: "The more I learn about cycling, the happier I am that I own a car."  These are the review links from Dz-nut's "In The Press" page.  I did however find a real review from a cyclist in Texas, whom sounds more like a touring rider rather than a racer.  He actually wrote up a comparison of a couple of different products. Unfortunately for Dznuts their product didnt fair too well.  The description and performance of the product reminds me a lot of my experience with Brave Soldier Friction Zone. 
What I don't understand about the company behind Dznuts is their marketing campaign.  If I were going to try to put out a new product, especially one that is more expensive than many of the more popular alternatives, I would try to direct my marketing to the market segment I was trying to sell it to, the road cyclists and racers.  Not a single one of the cycling blogs I have visited, with the exception of Fatcyclist.com, has reviewed the product. No one that I know or talked to at cycling events has used it.  Why should I spend $22 on a product that doesn't even have a "track record" with it's targeted user community even if Dave Zabriskie's name, or at least initials, are on the product.  For now I am going to be content using my Assos and my $5.00 cheap-o alternative Bag Balm. 

I came across an article on Velonews today talking about how Lance and his Team Livestrong won the 12 Hours of Snowmass mountain bike race in Colorado.  This might be a great accomplishment and all, but what really caught my attention in the article was this:
Taam, who first connected with the Tour champ after Armstrong called the local Aspen Trek dealer bike shop that sponsors the aspiring pro. “He was looking for someone to ride with and I was the lucky guy. He’s really been pushing me and he’s definitely not too old to come back. I think he’s just really psyched about racing again.”

How cool would it be to be "the lucky guy" and being able to train with someone on the caliber of Lance.  Especially for someone like Taam who has only had medicore finishes as a Cat 2 rider in Colorado. 

I also chuckled when I saw the Team Livestrong team name.  My speculation is that Lance will come back to racing and form his own team or one of the existing teams will be re-named under a new sponsorship from the Livestrong Foundation.  That to me is the way Lance will accomplish his stated goal of "taking the [fight against the] global epidemic of cancer to a bigger stage".  His quote in the article "be it Astana or some other yet-to-be-created entity — will follow the lead of “new” cycling" makes me think even more that there will be a "Team Livestrong" in the '09 Pro Cycling season.


Read the original article on Velonews.com here.

This weekend went by in a blur and lots of things happened so this is going to be a LONG post!!!!
It started with a near death experience for a squirrel on the Fat Frogs Saturday morning group ride.  We were headed down Nanney's Creek Road at a nice pace when out of nowhere the squirrel took off across the road.  Ran in front of me, saw the rider next to me and turned around.  He came back across the road and under my front tire.  Then rolled up the tire to get caught between the tire, fork, and bottom tube.  This squirrel was VERY pissed off at this point.  He proceeded to gnaw at my cable housing, fork, and then tried to go at me.  At first I was in shock, what the hell am I supposed to do with an infuriated squirrel that is attached to my bike???  I managed to get stopped and roll the bike backwards before losing any limbs.  The squirrel was freed and took off running to safety.  He didnt even look back to thank me for lettting him loose.  What's up with that?  I know have some nice little teeth marks in the front fork of my Felt F5C.  Who else can claim that!

After the morning ride and some yardwork we headed down to Chesapeake to go to check out the "Adopt-a-thon" that was being hosted at the Greenbrier PetSmart by some local shelters.  We walked in and 5 minutes later were filling out paperwork for the latest addtion to our zoo.  A ~1 year old femal labrador mix of some sort named Prism.  She is a sweet dog with very unusual coloring.  That's a picture of her to the left.  She comes home tonight, so we will see how it goes.  The cats are not going to be happy at all!  So, if the posts here stop please come by the house to make sure the cats didnt murder everyone in the household!  After heading home Saturday I had to start preparing everything to get ready for my first endeavour as a Chief Referree for a bike race, The End of Summer Criterium at Fort Lee.

Sunday morning my sister and I left bright and early to head up to Fort Lee.  Ok, it was early, but not bright.  5:00AM is WAY too early to be doing anything on a weekend and it is still very dark at that time in the morning.  I remember mornings that I was just getting home from a night out partying at 5AM, now I am getting up at 5AM, stressed out as hell, to work a LONG day in the heat!  To get there we chose Route 460 because it the most direct route to Petersburg.  The problem with 460 is a that most of it is a speed trap.  Knowing this I will normally never do more than 9 miles per hour over the speed limit.  Going so far as setting the cruise control at 5-7 miles per hour over when I go through the slower section through the little towns.  Anyways, about 3/4 of the way to Petersburg on Route 460 is a small, speed trap, of a town called Waverly.  The speed limit drops to 35 before you even get close to the "populated" part of Waverly.  As I was driving along at what I am fairly sure was only about 44 miles per hour I see a Sheriffs car driving in circles in a gravel parking lot underneath a Virginia Diner sign.  I think why in the heck is that goofball doing circles in a parking lot.  He must have been really bored.  When I saw him doing this I looked down at the speedometer saw about 44 miles per hour and let my foot of the gas to slow down just to be safe.  Sure enough the fat excuse of a person imitating a respectable police officer decided that I was going too fast and pulled me over.  He proceeds to inform me that he shot me on radar doing 49 in a 35 mile per hour zone.  I did not argue, not wanting ot make matters worse, but there is no way I was going 49 through that most famous speed trap on Route 460!  When he returned with my ticket I asked him "Where did you clock me going 49 because I am sure that I was not going that fast?"  He told me that he got a stationary radar shot of me back at the Virginia Diner sign.  This is when I bit my tongue, rolled up the window, and left!  The last time I checked the dictionary the word stationary meant not moving.  NOT MOVING, as in not driving in circles in a parking lot.  I am not sure how a radar gun works, but I would imagine that if it's meant to get a stationary reading and Mr Redneck Sheriff is driving in circles the reading is going to be wrong.  The question is what do I do about it, Waverly is about 50 miles from Va Beach, the court date would cause me to lose a day of work, and there is no guarantee the judge would even do anything with the ticket anyways.  Is it even worth it to go out there and try to fight the ticket?  This must be how the town makes all their money!  Now I am pissed off, wide awake, and still have another 20 or so minutes to get to Fort Lee to get set up.  I was hoping this wasnt an example of what the day was going to be like.
The Fort Lee Criterium went much better than the drive up did!  I was very nervous about this race.  It was going to be the first time a race was held on this course, my first race as Chief Referree, and to make it even more nerve wracking the "queen" of the VACA officials Ruth Stornetta would be doing the annoucing right next to our official tent.  Any screw ups on my part would be right there for her to see!  As it turned out I couldn't have had a better situation to be broken in to it!  Sharon, Karen, and their "gang" did an awesome job of putting together the race.  Everything we needed was there, the roads crossing the course were blocked, there was plenty of help, I also had a great group of people to help out with the officiating.  Especially Danielle and Gilbert Craven with the tutelage on the responsiblities of the Chief Ref, I couldnt have done it without them. Other than the awful heat, the only complaints I heard were about a couple of sections of rough pavement in some turns.  For those to be the only complaint from a full day of racing I would say it went pretty well! 

We though we have it bad having to avoid pedestrians and crazy drivers.  In Montana they have to watch out for bears too!

Teacher OK after crashing into bear on a bicycle - Yahoo! News

MISSOULA, Mont. - A middle school teacher suffered some bruising and a big scratch on his back after he struck a bear while riding his bicycle to school.
ADVERTISEMENT

Jim Litz said he was traveling about 25 mph Monday morning when he came upon a rise and spotted a black bear about 10 feet in front of him. He didn't have time to stop and T-boned the bruin.

He tumbled over the handlebars, his helmet hit the bear's back and the two went cartwheeling down the road.

The bear rolled over Litz's head, cracking his helmet, and scratched his back before scampering up a hill above the road.

Litz's wife drove by shortly after the crash and took her husband to the hospital. He hoped to be able to return to teaching science at Target Range Middle School on Friday.

Update 9/10/2008:
Lance has officially announced that he is coming out of retirement.  He says he is hoping to "raise awareness of the global cancer burden".  Still no annoucement of team affiliation, but that will probably come out in his press conference scheduled for September 24th. 
This is really a good thing for pro cycling in general.  The sport desperately needs a clean athlete with the popularity that Lance has to bring the sport out of the dark cloud it is currently under.

Update 9/8/2008:
Nothing from Lance's "troops".  Astana is denying the rumor and says Lance is not riding for them.

An article posted on Velonews.com is stating that Lance will come back out of retirement for 5 races, including the Tour De France, with team Astana.
Whether you like Lance or not, I think this will be good for the sport. Hopefully the media coverage of a person like Lance who is making attempts to prove himself clean will turn around pro cycling.

Update 1:  Upon doing some more research on this supposed letter I came across another slightly different version of the letter at the forums on Snopes.com.  There is no confirmation as to whether or not the letter is legitimate or not, but until its confirmed I have removed the letter from my posting.

As I was perusing my morning news links I came across a reprint of a letter written by a person named Anne Kilkenny. Ms. Kilkenny claims to have known and worked with Sarah Palin on City Council in Alaska. Understandably the letter and statements have to be taken with a grain of salt. As there is always two sides to a story, but the "achievements" that Sarah Palin made while in office do not sound like those that would make one worthy as a candidate for a high ranking office. (Update 2: Removed the text of the letter.)
I read the letter at these two sites originally: fairlyconservative.com and my2bucks.

I am not normally one to comment on politics, but this year's presidential race has been interesting. Obama and his cult like following, always in the media. Everyone was talking about him. They were talking about anything in particular, just him. It's kind of like that old Seinfeld episode about nothing. The media talks about him being here, there, talking to this person and that person, but nothing with any "substance". He was everywhere and you couldn't visit a media outlet anywhere without seeing or hearing his name.
Then a few days ago old McCain announced his running mate Sarah Palin. Poof, Obama was gone. No more Obama this and Obama that. It's all about Palin and her family issues. The issues should not even matter in the first place but it's all that the media is talking about now. Is it possible McCain's pick was more about marketing and putting his campaign in the media than the actual capabilities of the pick? I think so. I am also sure that by picking a woman McCain is hoping to pick up some of Hillary Clinton's supporters. I find it hard to believe that many supporters of Hillary will jump to support someone as "right" as Palin though.
This race has definitely done one thing, it has me watching politics a lot closer than I have in the past, even on a local basis. It seems that there might actually be a candidate for mayor in Virginia Beach that has a chance at beating out our current troll of a mayor. Sessoms seems like he might be a worthy candidate, but I will have to do some research on him before coming to a conclusion. Then again, anything is better than Meyera.

I downloaded and installed Google's new web browser called Chrome.  So far it's nice, not great, not super, not awesome, just nice.  Chrome isn't bloated with excess features and plug-ins, the memory footprint is relatively small, and it's fast.  It opens fast and renders pages fast.  Once opened the lack of menus is the first thing I noticed.  No File, Edit, View, just a row for tabs and an address bar.  The bookmarks toolbar can even be hidden to further simplify the view. 

I wont waste much more time going in to detail about all the capabilities of the browser though.  There are tons of in depth articles on the web like this one at Lifehacker.com if you want to find out about all of the features. 

I dont see Chrome taking over the browser world, but it has it's place.  Especially with the Application Shortcut feature.  This one feature alone would have kept me from just tossing it to the wayside.  Chrome's lower memory usage makes using it to run "desktop web applications" more feasible.  I set up a desktop application shortcut with Chrome for one for one of my favorite online music services called The Sixtyone.  I then right clicked and assigned the hot key combination Ctrl + Alt + S to it.  When opened and running for an extended period of time it is using MUCH less memory than any of the other options like Firefox or Prism.  I tried this same desktop short cut trick with Google Docs, but ironically the right click feature in Google Docs doesn't work when accessed in Chrome.  

The other reason I decided to continue trying it is the simplicity of the browser.  I like the minimalistic, clutter free, interface.  It removes the extra distractions and lets me just browse the web.  Isnt that what a browser is supposed to do anyways?