Livin' the High Life!

Most recently I have been educated by my friend Leslie, the ways of the High Life. Based on the photo above you may have already come to realize that this has some thing to do with drinking the 'Champagne of Beers'. As well it seems that this blog focuses on beer. So naturally I would be writing about beer and the finer points of drinking it.

I had been informed of the value of Miller High Life in the past by Leslie, but had never actually seen the light until recently, when I was going to meet him at his house for an evening with he and Lulu. I was instructed to pick up some 'cold' beverages. I stopped at Cala/Bell/DeLano's to pick up some value based beer. As I scanned the beer section for the best taste/cost/quantity beer option I was drawn to the 32oz. bottles of Miller High Life. At the moment I saw the bottles on the shelf it was clear that there is not a better value out there(as I had been informed of months earlier by Leslie, only to realize it myself at that very moment).

When I arrived at the house Leslie began to educate me further. . . . One needs to do more than just purchase the beverage and drink it, it needs to be prepped properly. I don't mean opening it and letting it breathe or pouring it into some sort of crystal decanter. No, simply place the 32ozs of fluid gold into the freezer for about 10 minutes or until you get just a tiny bit of ice beginning to form in the bottle. Now you can enjoy directly from the bottle with paper bag coozie of course, or as we did on that night pour into pint glasses and place bottle back into freezer until the next pour.

The sweetness can hardly be described, one must enjoy this on their own. It's best to enjoy on a Friday evening after working in a "The Office" type of environment for an entire week.

Thanks Leslie. Enjoy.

Girls are as bad as boys

This is pretty funny. I remember being a young man and feeling like doing some thing like this when after buying a girl a couple of drinks she decides to slip in that she lives with her boyfriend...

I'm not entirely sure what this is all about, but it's worth looking at. Click

This is one's for DDP. This is a great song, worth listening to. Oh yeah, look at the video while you're listening. It's cool too.

Lance Armstrong

The Tour de France is underway, it started on Saturday, July 4th. Yep America's independence day. As I'm sure you are all aware, Lance Armstrong has made a comeback and is riding this year's tour. How exciting..... At the end of today's stage, a team time trial(TTT) his team won and put Lance a fraction of a second behind the leader Fabian Cancellara. They're practically tied. Lance is almost in the Maillot Jaune! 

I didn't think I would be excited about Lance's return to the tour, but some how I am. I don't really think that he'll have the mustard to win, but he is an intelligent bike racer, and he has won this race more than anyone else, 7 times. Makes you want to believe.

Though I always had a passing interest in cycling, and always paid attention to who had won le tour, Lance Armstrong and his string of victories really piqued my interest in cycling. 

As I got more and more interested in cycling I realized that the tour wasn't the only race out there, nor was Lance Armstrong the only bike racer, or type of bike racer. There are way cooler races and way cooler riders to follow. I also realized that racing personally albeit not at nearly the professional level taught me even more about cycling.

Basically my point is is that I hadn't really thought that Lance's comeback would be that big of a deal, but I'm really stoked and rooting for him. It has brought me some of my original zeal and enthusiasm for the sport. I hope he at least wears the yellow jersey some time during this race this year. Go Lance! 

Pizza Party

I made a pizza. I love pizza. Pepperoni is the best style of pizza. I don't see any reason to get anything but pepperoni. I hate when you're at some sort of social function and everyone decides to order pizza. Of course some one says "I'm a vegetarian, and so is my friend Unicorn, can we get a veggie pizza?" Suuurrrrre. The order is made, a few pizzas show up: maybe a combo with  a little of everything, a vegetarian with a bunch of soggy veggies, and a pepperoni, the best! As the night wears on it's clear that no one has eaten much of the other two pizzas instead focusing almost totally on the pepperoni.... Seems even the the vegetarians that were so into having a veggie pizza are eating all of my pepperoni pizza. They just suddenly felt like having just a few slices of pepperoni. Totally Lame. My point is, that everyone loves pepperoni pizza, they just may not realize it until it shows up in front of them. Stop ordering veggie pizza unless you intend to eat all of it, and don't take the pepperoni away from those that really want it, because no one wants that soggy veggie pizza, not even you! Enough said. 

The move is done

Moving sucks. I think that everyone agrees that moving sucks. It's always harder than you think. There's always more stuff to move than you think. And the final clean always ends later on the last day than you think...

I'm glad it's over. Now the fun part, arranging the new place and making it home. The best part of the new place, we got a dishwashing machine! I also went out and bought a new 40" flat screen television for the place. I don't really watch much TV, so I got it for Momo for her movies. She was stoked.

Peeps is slowly adjusting. He's dying to go outside. Momo won't let him out on his own yet. He needs an escort... Yeah she got him a leash, I walked him this moring. He's a cat....

Now I can finally get back on the bike regularly and build up the fitness to tear Kris a new one.

Golf and Beer

Sword, Cellular, Chris and I played golf on Easter Sunday. Of course it involved drinking beer, as it always does. It's kinda like playing pool at Smitty's, you don't know if you're better buzzed or sober. Cellular hooked up with a sweet rate for the round. Man, what a beautiful course. Now I haven't played all that much golf, but that was the nicest course I've been on. The Presidio....

Prior to playing we went and had pizza and a pitcher of Buweiser at the Village pizzaria on Clement and Arguello. The hawaiian BBQ place that Sword wanted to go to was to hard to park near, and we were pressed for time due to having to stop to get a 12er to supplement the 12er we had for the game. 

I'm sure Cellular won. I did par a hole!

As you can see above the weather was very nice. Jesus was obviously shining his light on us on his resurrection day.

Abalone and Damnation

DDP got a breathalizer. He hosted an abalone dinner. Salza made beat salad. We all drank beer. The highlight of which was Russian River Brewing's Pliny the Elder and Damnation that Salza brought. Above is my last blow of the night. Of course you don't blow those kind of numbers with out also consuming a few silver bullets as well. I had designated driver.

Get Rad

Today was about as good as it gets. After spending the morning with my GF and my folks at the farmers market. I got on my bike and did a hectic ride consisting mostly of the "Alpine Loop". It felt great. Above is a picture looking north at Stinson beach(Holla!) and Bolinas(much respect) from Bobo ridge(Yeahyah!). Point Reyes is out there as well, though you can't really see it. I need to get a better camera than just my crummy iphone camera.
Remember when I said I had given the socks part of my race loot to my mom? Well guess what I saw when I walked in her door the other day? My mom, chilling-out whilst wearing some oh-so-sweet bike race socks. Observe above.(Duey appears in the upper corner. He's a bro.)

I Spotted this really nicely done adventure mobile in the parking lot of Delano's. It's possible Salza may be moving into some thing similar. If he does, I'm sure I'll be helping him customize it. That way I could live vicariously in it with him....

A sweet pic of "M" checking the action on what maybe her new rig. It was featured in my last post with Salza riding her. The bike is probably still in the parking lot of the brewery.

Bikes and Beer

I raced on Sunday. The Ronde Van Brisbeen. In Brisbane, CA(not Australia.) Above is a picture of the start/finish line. I started and I finished... That's about all that needs to be said.

I got some killer stuff from the race organizers. A musette bag, a sweet cycling cap and some socks that are too small, so I gave 'em to my mom. As you can see they have race logos on them so when ever I wear them people will realize that I'm a bad-ass-bike-racer.
In other news... Toby and I have been researching how to home brew beer. He and I both have non standard work schedules, so we have some time to do product research. We found a bike that Amir built. That's Toby riding it above. It's really choice. Apparently he "gave" it to a co-worker. It's been sitting out side the brewery for some time now. The reality is that it's not choice.

Here's a cool website to check out if you want to live like a fabulous hippie, or if you're into, like motorcycles and stuff.

First day at the new job

Is in the can. We stayed busy all day working on compulsory duties, like opening procedures and PoS, procedures. Not very exciting stuff. However, just being there at a dynamic shop with cool people was so much fun. 

It looks like I'll be riding with a new kit....

Chad was so nice to give me a team jersey and Assos bibs after my first day! Very nice stuff.

Last day of Freedom

Today was my last day of freedom. I'm officially going off of unemployment and starting at a j-o-b that I'm really excited about. I'll be starting at a local bike shop called Above Category. Here's a link to the blog. And of course to the home site.  I think the people there and of course the shop are awesome. I'm happy to become a part of the team.

Madera stage race

Well, Madera is in the books for '09. I'll spare the details, but it was a blast, as usual. I finished 25th overall in the E4's. Just shy of my goal of top 20. Next year top 10....

In unrelated news, I found this. I think I'm going to try it out. If I do it I'll post the results.