I took the ferry into SF with devin on the 28th of september, just missing my birthday and now I'm downstairs from my old apartment on clement street in sf. i went about 3,500 miles in (unless i counted wrong) 48 days, 49 if you count the first day. my knees and wrists are in pain at most times, but since devin and i went on so many flats, i already felt much better than i did in utah. everyone asks me a hundred questions about how and why i did this and the tan lines from my gloves look funny. I woke up late, got a haircut and a shave and a clean shirt on.
it's nice to wake up in a place i really want to stay in for a few days, a place where you can get fresh vegetables and all the other coastal finery. i looked at my bike today but i am definitely not riding it or touching it for another day at the most. SF is the greatest city on earth so i'll bring a camera with me and take some pictures of me having fun. i got lifted up on joe and peter's shoulders and got a hero's welcome ("for he's a jolly good fellow" etc) but I don't think there are any pics of it out there, I'll do my best to find them though cause a pic of that would be a good final entry for this journal.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
nevada california
I'm sorry it took me so long to post again. The reason is that I was in Nevada and western Utah were there are no towns, much less libraries.
Devin came out to Cedar City and we rode along highway 50 and some other routes through the high desert of Nevada and across the Sierras into California. Weather started to get bad so I'm worried that Dan might run into some trouble. We were freezing cold on several days even though we were in the sun, it's just a very cold area of the country. Also the wind would really fade us. One day we rode hard all day and could barely make it 59 miles into the next town.
downhills felt like flats and flats felt like uphills and uphills felt worse than usual. the wind was ice cold also and went through us completely. i don't want to complain too much about it, especially cause it's over now, but let me say that it was very difficult and leave it at that. having devin with me made the whole hting much easier. he has been my friend since i was 7 and he was 8 and it's like the girl scouts say about old friends and silver and gold.
the weather cleared up a few days ago and we had a much easier time. also we left nevada, even up in the sierras it's nowhere near as cold as it is down in the desert. california is, as always, the most beautiful place on earth and the central valley's almost complete lack of hills is a real feather in its cap.
I'm in Davis at Danya's house. Danya is Devin's girlfriend and she goes to graduate school here studying geology. I saw all kinds of rocks this week. sedimentary, igneous, all that.
Thank you amy for the paper moon info. thank you refath for telling me happy birthday but you aren't supposed to have my phone number and you aren't supposed to have a phone at school. don't you read the paper? congratulations to ms. sarah walsh who is working for the US state department in venezuela and leaves tomorrow. apparently she can't come down tomorrow cause she is taking a brimstone bath. thank you dad for the words of caution about the cougars. i read the same article in harpers or the atlantic or whichever about that. the real danger is getting hit by a piece of falling debris from a semi or sideswiped by a car but i'll watch out for cougars as well.
It's my birthday tonight but tomorrow I will be in SF. Anyone in the area is invited to come meet me at the ferry building for dinner and a drink. I want to go to pakwan or taqueria cancun or both. Call me tomorrow around 6. i will probably be in a better mood than i've ever been seen in before. if you are trying to talk me into going to mexico or houston, this would be a good time to approach me.
i will soon summarize this trip and let you know what i have learned, how i have grown as a person, what insights i've gleaned into the soul of america, my thoughts on matters ecological, my poetry about shreds up radial tires on highway shoulders, what keychains they sell at gas stations in kentucky vs. utah, all that shit. as always, i'll gladly sell you the whole seat but only the edge will be needed.
as always pics are at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/79019224@N00/
Devin came out to Cedar City and we rode along highway 50 and some other routes through the high desert of Nevada and across the Sierras into California. Weather started to get bad so I'm worried that Dan might run into some trouble. We were freezing cold on several days even though we were in the sun, it's just a very cold area of the country. Also the wind would really fade us. One day we rode hard all day and could barely make it 59 miles into the next town.
downhills felt like flats and flats felt like uphills and uphills felt worse than usual. the wind was ice cold also and went through us completely. i don't want to complain too much about it, especially cause it's over now, but let me say that it was very difficult and leave it at that. having devin with me made the whole hting much easier. he has been my friend since i was 7 and he was 8 and it's like the girl scouts say about old friends and silver and gold.
the weather cleared up a few days ago and we had a much easier time. also we left nevada, even up in the sierras it's nowhere near as cold as it is down in the desert. california is, as always, the most beautiful place on earth and the central valley's almost complete lack of hills is a real feather in its cap.
I'm in Davis at Danya's house. Danya is Devin's girlfriend and she goes to graduate school here studying geology. I saw all kinds of rocks this week. sedimentary, igneous, all that.
Thank you amy for the paper moon info. thank you refath for telling me happy birthday but you aren't supposed to have my phone number and you aren't supposed to have a phone at school. don't you read the paper? congratulations to ms. sarah walsh who is working for the US state department in venezuela and leaves tomorrow. apparently she can't come down tomorrow cause she is taking a brimstone bath. thank you dad for the words of caution about the cougars. i read the same article in harpers or the atlantic or whichever about that. the real danger is getting hit by a piece of falling debris from a semi or sideswiped by a car but i'll watch out for cougars as well.
It's my birthday tonight but tomorrow I will be in SF. Anyone in the area is invited to come meet me at the ferry building for dinner and a drink. I want to go to pakwan or taqueria cancun or both. Call me tomorrow around 6. i will probably be in a better mood than i've ever been seen in before. if you are trying to talk me into going to mexico or houston, this would be a good time to approach me.
i will soon summarize this trip and let you know what i have learned, how i have grown as a person, what insights i've gleaned into the soul of america, my thoughts on matters ecological, my poetry about shreds up radial tires on highway shoulders, what keychains they sell at gas stations in kentucky vs. utah, all that shit. as always, i'll gladly sell you the whole seat but only the edge will be needed.
as always pics are at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/79019224@N00/
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Western Utah
I'm at Escalante Grand Staircase National Monument, or at least right near it in the town of Escalante. A million things have happened. I spent the night before last sleeping outside in a brutal cold front but I still have all my finger, toes and my nose. Utah looks like another planet and they people make it even more disorienting cause they are all mormons and the innkeepers do things like make the european tourists who are unmarried but travelling together sit through morality lectures.
Almost all of the weakness has been driven out of me. When I see a hill I no longer fear it I just go up it. The process of me going forward on my bike is now almost toally involuntary. The other day in a motel I woke up in the morning and i thought "there is no possible way a brother like me is getting on that bike today" cause my whole body was in pain and I was tired and wanted to watch the giants/rockies game. but 25 minutes later I was forcing myself up a steep grade road. i also realize that even though the giants have matt cain, their wild card bid is not shaping up to be real exciting baseball.
the right way to go on a trip like this is with wool and steel. wear an all wool jersey, anything else will stink and will either be too cold or too hot. ride an all steel bike. anything else will be too rattle-y and will break. wool and steel. think about it, if conan were taking a bike trip would he wear a nylon/wool/spandex blend?
Also I take back everything I said about NPR. They are great. I'm lucky to be able to get paul harvey and rush limbaugh on my radio in the canyons. If you tell me the first two lines of anyh song in the top ten country singles charts I can tell you the chorus cause it's only country stations out here. I did hear bon jovi's 'dead or alive' which is good cause i am actually riding on a steel horse. i saw the wire on HBO if you don't watch it you should. Don't worry if you haven't seen an episode yet, it's like trainspotting or clockwork orange where the dialect becomes easy to understand after a little while. I also saw a movie where andy griffith was a small town preacher trying to raise kids and a black and white movie which i think was from the 70s about a travelling con man/bible salesman and a little girl that travels with him in the 1930s. the guy may have been beau or jeff bridges. what movie was this does anyone know?
my favorite subjects for movies are con men and time travel. if a movie has either of those things in it i'll watch. i think a good movie would be one about time travelling con men but i'm not sure how it would work. I tried to watch the movie where al pacino and matthew mcconaughey are football gamblers but fuck that movie.
A guy told me that spinach no longer exists, it blew my mind.
devin flew into utah and will meet me soon. he should have flown into las vegas cause i am closer to there now. victor, pay your phone bill so you can figure out a way to get here. take a bus east on h-way 50 or something. i may make it to SF by my birthday, if I don't I will eat a hostess cupcake with a candle it. if they don't have hostess cupcakes then i'll eat a sno-ball.
I want to dedicate all riding for this week to all of my friends who got married this summer or are getting married soon: tarita fazio, peter geniella, ben wood, howard slobodin, andy granelli, chris perkins and esecially ari rosen, whose wedding I couldn't attend cause I was in Western Kansas. I'd hoped I would get hit by a car so that I could attend but it didn't work out.
If any of my former students are still reading this, let me know if you want to get an internship at this place right by ITHS which will teach you how to fix bicycles. i think it also gets you into college. it's the sort of thing that i'm jealous of you guys for having around you. The other thing is PS1, the art museum that you guys never go to and that the school has no relationshiup with. it's one of the greatest art museums in the country and it's like three blocks away.
Almost all of the weakness has been driven out of me. When I see a hill I no longer fear it I just go up it. The process of me going forward on my bike is now almost toally involuntary. The other day in a motel I woke up in the morning and i thought "there is no possible way a brother like me is getting on that bike today" cause my whole body was in pain and I was tired and wanted to watch the giants/rockies game. but 25 minutes later I was forcing myself up a steep grade road. i also realize that even though the giants have matt cain, their wild card bid is not shaping up to be real exciting baseball.
the right way to go on a trip like this is with wool and steel. wear an all wool jersey, anything else will stink and will either be too cold or too hot. ride an all steel bike. anything else will be too rattle-y and will break. wool and steel. think about it, if conan were taking a bike trip would he wear a nylon/wool/spandex blend?
Also I take back everything I said about NPR. They are great. I'm lucky to be able to get paul harvey and rush limbaugh on my radio in the canyons. If you tell me the first two lines of anyh song in the top ten country singles charts I can tell you the chorus cause it's only country stations out here. I did hear bon jovi's 'dead or alive' which is good cause i am actually riding on a steel horse. i saw the wire on HBO if you don't watch it you should. Don't worry if you haven't seen an episode yet, it's like trainspotting or clockwork orange where the dialect becomes easy to understand after a little while. I also saw a movie where andy griffith was a small town preacher trying to raise kids and a black and white movie which i think was from the 70s about a travelling con man/bible salesman and a little girl that travels with him in the 1930s. the guy may have been beau or jeff bridges. what movie was this does anyone know?
my favorite subjects for movies are con men and time travel. if a movie has either of those things in it i'll watch. i think a good movie would be one about time travelling con men but i'm not sure how it would work. I tried to watch the movie where al pacino and matthew mcconaughey are football gamblers but fuck that movie.
A guy told me that spinach no longer exists, it blew my mind.
devin flew into utah and will meet me soon. he should have flown into las vegas cause i am closer to there now. victor, pay your phone bill so you can figure out a way to get here. take a bus east on h-way 50 or something. i may make it to SF by my birthday, if I don't I will eat a hostess cupcake with a candle it. if they don't have hostess cupcakes then i'll eat a sno-ball.
I want to dedicate all riding for this week to all of my friends who got married this summer or are getting married soon: tarita fazio, peter geniella, ben wood, howard slobodin, andy granelli, chris perkins and esecially ari rosen, whose wedding I couldn't attend cause I was in Western Kansas. I'd hoped I would get hit by a car so that I could attend but it didn't work out.
If any of my former students are still reading this, let me know if you want to get an internship at this place right by ITHS which will teach you how to fix bicycles. i think it also gets you into college. it's the sort of thing that i'm jealous of you guys for having around you. The other thing is PS1, the art museum that you guys never go to and that the school has no relationshiup with. it's one of the greatest art museums in the country and it's like three blocks away.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Colorado
I'm in Pueblo, Colorado. Pueblo is the hometown of Ricardo Lazo and Colorado is where my mother's family comes from. I rode 300 miles in the past three days, much of it at night cause traffic was light and there's less wind. The great plains are very boring but I did see prairie dogs and rabbits running around.
Caedmon, don't be offended we were all just playing. Jill, everything I could think of to tell those kids has curse words in it, and they've never heard those before so it could scar them. Try to talk Eumine out of the marines though doesn't he watch the news? Andy, thanks for sticking it to the man by reading my blog at work. Justin, firstly I never took any notice of the ethnicity of any of my students and secondly all references to santa are forbidden if you are using school computers.
The most interesting thing that happened in the past few days is that I met a real live hobo who goes to the annual hobo convention every year. His given name is jim but his hobo name is the Texas Rubber Tramp. He is from texas and instead of riding the rails he rides a bike. He persoanlly met boxcar willie in branson missouri. He had two teeth that I could see. The guy rides an old old bike around the high plains of texas, colorado, kansas etc going to lumber yards and getting wood to carve into train whistles which he sells at the hobo convention in iowa which has been going on for 110 years apparently. Everything he was saying to me was blowing my mind. He rides on interstates and if he gets hit by cars he shakes their insurance companies down for money to finance his lifestyle. he has an adopted daughter in san jose who works for IBM. I'm not even sure how much is true but it's all great.
I bought him dinner and had a good talk with him, the guy rides solid rubber tires and once weighed his bike at a truck scale at 950 lbs. The man is 59 years old! I took a picture but as usual can't upload it right now.
Caedmon, don't be offended we were all just playing. Jill, everything I could think of to tell those kids has curse words in it, and they've never heard those before so it could scar them. Try to talk Eumine out of the marines though doesn't he watch the news? Andy, thanks for sticking it to the man by reading my blog at work. Justin, firstly I never took any notice of the ethnicity of any of my students and secondly all references to santa are forbidden if you are using school computers.
The most interesting thing that happened in the past few days is that I met a real live hobo who goes to the annual hobo convention every year. His given name is jim but his hobo name is the Texas Rubber Tramp. He is from texas and instead of riding the rails he rides a bike. He persoanlly met boxcar willie in branson missouri. He had two teeth that I could see. The guy rides an old old bike around the high plains of texas, colorado, kansas etc going to lumber yards and getting wood to carve into train whistles which he sells at the hobo convention in iowa which has been going on for 110 years apparently. Everything he was saying to me was blowing my mind. He rides on interstates and if he gets hit by cars he shakes their insurance companies down for money to finance his lifestyle. he has an adopted daughter in san jose who works for IBM. I'm not even sure how much is true but it's all great.
I bought him dinner and had a good talk with him, the guy rides solid rubber tires and once weighed his bike at a truck scale at 950 lbs. The man is 59 years old! I took a picture but as usual can't upload it right now.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Also
I watched a movie at the motel last night called Bound For Glory staring David Carradine as Woody Guthrie. I am urging Jake to watch it for the scenes of rail-riding and union-busting. I also think he would like F.I.S.T. if he could get past S. Stallone which is hard for a lot of people. What goes for jake goes double for all the rest of you.
I also listened to the guy who plays the PC in the apple ads on NPR yesterday. I don't think he's so funny cause he stacks the wack and fails to show me the funny. hobos+spaceships+straight face is supposed to equal a laff riot but it doesn't. I am starting to hate self-satisfied tone of voice that everyone involved in any capacity with public radio has, including the authors and musicians they bring along. I think that NPR should hire jim rome and have him read the news and give commentary, etc cause he has a better radio voice.
anyways i've dallied long enough in ness city, i'll upload the camel pics ASAP.
I also listened to the guy who plays the PC in the apple ads on NPR yesterday. I don't think he's so funny cause he stacks the wack and fails to show me the funny. hobos+spaceships+straight face is supposed to equal a laff riot but it doesn't. I am starting to hate self-satisfied tone of voice that everyone involved in any capacity with public radio has, including the authors and musicians they bring along. I think that NPR should hire jim rome and have him read the news and give commentary, etc cause he has a better radio voice.
anyways i've dallied long enough in ness city, i'll upload the camel pics ASAP.
Western Kansas
Stefan don't hate Caedmon. Remember to ask yourself what jesus would do. WHAT JESUS WOULD DO! I think what she meant was that even though I was talking a lot I wasn't taliing shop about bikes cause I find such talk to be boring. I love bikes but they are basically 2 circles of rubber, 2 triangles of steel and a length of chain. As long as my bike doesn't break down. I'd rather talk about the scenery, people, radio etc. I don't want to talk about mileage or maintenance. A lot of peopel I meet have these biking computers which always make them crazy cause they spend all their time measuring the grade or looking at their RPM's or 7 day rolling average of mileage or whatever. I'm proud to not be a real cyclist in the sense that I don't go in for all that.
I'm in Ness City which used to be an oil town. I stayed last night in a place called the Derrick Inn in a motel that looks like it was built in the 70s for oilmen. There are pictures of gushers everywhere but they don't really do much for me. Dan became allergic and then has had bike trouble so he is staying here for the day, I would just as soon get out and into colorado and i can't help him so i'm riding a lone for a while it looks like. Western Kansas has three towns named after horace greeley, the socialist editor of the NY tribune from the old days, the towns are Horace, Greeley and Tribune. I think today I will ride through Modoc which is also the name of Jake's favorite villain. I'm now going west on highway 96, a state route i think. i see very little of interest. one thing i saw yesterday was a dead turtle that had been run over in the street and had apparently dragged its crushed body to the side of the road to die. it was heartbreaking.
Pete I knew you would clear up the jake brake stuff. Pete is alwasy the best source for turcker related knowledge. I watched a show on CMT last night called 'trick my truck' where hardworking truckers get their trucks customized by a team of mechanics. I feel like pete would be really into it. I realize that the reason truckers relate to country music so much is cause it is more likely to deal with trucker-like themes such as alienation, loneliness, rambling etc. because of this, it makes for the best music for driving cross country.
I'm in Ness City which used to be an oil town. I stayed last night in a place called the Derrick Inn in a motel that looks like it was built in the 70s for oilmen. There are pictures of gushers everywhere but they don't really do much for me. Dan became allergic and then has had bike trouble so he is staying here for the day, I would just as soon get out and into colorado and i can't help him so i'm riding a lone for a while it looks like. Western Kansas has three towns named after horace greeley, the socialist editor of the NY tribune from the old days, the towns are Horace, Greeley and Tribune. I think today I will ride through Modoc which is also the name of Jake's favorite villain. I'm now going west on highway 96, a state route i think. i see very little of interest. one thing i saw yesterday was a dead turtle that had been run over in the street and had apparently dragged its crushed body to the side of the road to die. it was heartbreaking.
Pete I knew you would clear up the jake brake stuff. Pete is alwasy the best source for turcker related knowledge. I watched a show on CMT last night called 'trick my truck' where hardworking truckers get their trucks customized by a team of mechanics. I feel like pete would be really into it. I realize that the reason truckers relate to country music so much is cause it is more likely to deal with trucker-like themes such as alienation, loneliness, rambling etc. because of this, it makes for the best music for driving cross country.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Caedmon
I want to go on the record as admitting my mistkake as far as Caedmon' name. In my defense I met her after a solid day and night of mountain appalachian riding some if it with no map cause mine was lost. Her blog describes me as not being a real cyclist though (I met her in pippa passes so it's in that section of her journal). Am I not wearing the ridiculous spandex shorts? I guess my legs aren't shaved though so she is probably right. I'm proud of her for finishing her ride and jealous of they her diligence with her journal. I think one of the drawbacks to riding with other people is less time to compose thoughts and think and all that, most of my posts are just a random collection of nonsense and and giddiness cause they're all written in a hurry.
One other interesting thing is that all matter of plants grow wild in kansas, everywhere. I can't really be too specific but it was really a surprise to see some of the plants although admittedly the camels were a bigger surprise.
One other interesting thing is that all matter of plants grow wild in kansas, everywhere. I can't really be too specific but it was really a surprise to see some of the plants although admittedly the camels were a bigger surprise.
Central Kansas
This is in some ways the hardest part of the trip. There are no hills at all, just a very slight constant uphill, almost unnoticeable. There is usually a crosswind and sometimes a headwind but never a tailwind somehow. I can see nothing for miles but just more road, pastures on my left and salt marsh on my right.
Last night we rode into the night to get to the next town. Riding at night is totally safe because you can see a car coming from about 5 miles away and we are on roads where traffic is so light that I was passed by about 10 cars in 2 hours of riding. The strange part is riding towards a distant light on a horizon for 2 hours and watching it get no closer at all.
I was wrong about good morning america, I should have said the title was 'city of new orleans'. Jake and my mom are right. I had never heard the song before in my life but felt that I knew it anyways. Another song that gets played a lot on country radio is 'green green grass of home', the kenny rogers version, which i remember listening to on the car radio as a small kid with my mom. The best country song I've heard int he past few days is "the race is on" by george jones. I advise anyone who makes this trip not to bring an ipod because firstly it's unsafe, secondly it will break and thirdly it won't give you weather reports. Get an AM/FM radio with a speaker, it's the only way.
I saw some camels and fed them grass through a fence, also a zebra, I took pictures but they won't let me plug in any devices to their computers here, I'll do it later. I'm currently in the town of Larned, Kansas and it will be a couple days before I get to Colorado. I'm about 1200 ft up right now, something like that but I think by the time I get to pueblo I will be at 5000 ft so it's a long slow steady climb.
Another thing that happened is last night Dan and I went to the only business in Larned open for labor day, a smoky bar. We had some coors draws and we met an older drunk guy who wanted to show us pictures of his grandkids. He also complained about the kansas city royals, who were on TV getting pasted by the yankees. apparently all of the beer in kansas is watered down by law. also there are signs that say that the jake brake is prohibited in town. What's a jake brake? is it unsafe? noisy? somehting truckers use? I know pete knows about this so let us know, peter.
Last night we rode into the night to get to the next town. Riding at night is totally safe because you can see a car coming from about 5 miles away and we are on roads where traffic is so light that I was passed by about 10 cars in 2 hours of riding. The strange part is riding towards a distant light on a horizon for 2 hours and watching it get no closer at all.
I was wrong about good morning america, I should have said the title was 'city of new orleans'. Jake and my mom are right. I had never heard the song before in my life but felt that I knew it anyways. Another song that gets played a lot on country radio is 'green green grass of home', the kenny rogers version, which i remember listening to on the car radio as a small kid with my mom. The best country song I've heard int he past few days is "the race is on" by george jones. I advise anyone who makes this trip not to bring an ipod because firstly it's unsafe, secondly it will break and thirdly it won't give you weather reports. Get an AM/FM radio with a speaker, it's the only way.
I saw some camels and fed them grass through a fence, also a zebra, I took pictures but they won't let me plug in any devices to their computers here, I'll do it later. I'm currently in the town of Larned, Kansas and it will be a couple days before I get to Colorado. I'm about 1200 ft up right now, something like that but I think by the time I get to pueblo I will be at 5000 ft so it's a long slow steady climb.
Another thing that happened is last night Dan and I went to the only business in Larned open for labor day, a smoky bar. We had some coors draws and we met an older drunk guy who wanted to show us pictures of his grandkids. He also complained about the kansas city royals, who were on TV getting pasted by the yankees. apparently all of the beer in kansas is watered down by law. also there are signs that say that the jake brake is prohibited in town. What's a jake brake? is it unsafe? noisy? somehting truckers use? I know pete knows about this so let us know, peter.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Western Missouri
Sorry I haven't taken any pictures yet, my battery died. The roadside motel I wanted to stay at was full of construction workers working on bridges in the area so we're at a holiday inn express tonight not far from lebanon, MO. Cities here always have biblical names like damascus, berea etc. I think there should be a town in the south called "jesus".
While listening tot he radio on our last day in appalachia, there was a radio preacher who yelled "ha!" at the end of every phrase, like the rapper juvenile. Like "it is the honey of gah-yad ha! and the honey of gah-yad is good ha!". We went to an old pentecostal church during a sunday service to get water but left before they could get us to handle any snakes.
another thing was that i found an all old country music station that plays exactly what i want to hear all the time. they play about an hour of country gospel music every morning. The best song of this variety today was "the witness protection of the lord". there was also a song where the chorus went "jesus loves you, I don't". I think the "hello, america" prevalence ont her adio can be chalked up to it being a song about taking a train to new orleans and it was the one year anniversary of the hurricane yesterday. I put that together maybe a week too late to consider myself smart. Devin you are right abotu the hit song of the summer, it's the only song to play on urban stations, pop stations and even light rock stations.
In more radio news, there is a senatorial campaign ad that i love where a plainspoken older guy is complaining about the liberal positions that the other candidate takes up and he mentions that she doesn't support ethanol "'what side is she on? that would be the other side'. i'm jim talent and i support this message". Can someone tell me just what kind of scam ethanol is? I get the idea that it's a massive subsidy to corn farmers to run cars off of corn oil but that it's incredibly inefficient. Alexa, can you or AJ put it into small words for me?
in motels i saw the land before time, inside 9/11 and the flight of the phoenix (a frank capra joint).
The land before time is an animated movie about dinosaurs. any fifth grader could tell you that the brontosauruses and triceratops didn't share the same habitats and weren't even around during the same eras of time. Also it was animated by don bluth, more famous for space ace and dragon's lair. He quit disney cause he didn't want to be exploited like all the old guys who he trained under were. I feel like the animation was lazy cause the movie was maybe 65 minutes long and maybe 10 minutes of it was flashbacks where they got to reuse animation from earlier in the film. i don't see why they had to make the movie about baby dinosaurs, kids love dinosaurs already you don't need to make them kids to make them sympathize. ids will watch a movie with an adult protagonist. i think keith david should have played the part of the main character.
Inside 9/11 was a documentary about how things went down on 9/11 minute by minute. It's one of three national geographic terrorism documentaries out currently. i'm sure you all know the basic story but it was well done I thought although they did all kinds of trick stuff like have a woman talk about how she was sure her husband was dead and then cut to an interview of her husband so the surprise is that he lived, etc. they left out the part where bush knew all along because dracula told him about it though.
flight of the phoenix was great. jimmy stewart, richard attenborough, ernest borgnine, a mexican guy, a french guy, a german designer a monkey several others crash a plane in the desert and have to rebuild it. i was going to say they should remake it with keith david and set it in outer space but they already remade it with giovanni ribisi as the german designer. weak. oftentimes, movies are given a science fiction setting when they don't need it, event horizon and pitch black are two movies that would have been better if they were about hardy seafarers and ghost ships in seafaring times and the like with no space ships.
the question for today is what movie should have been a science fiction movie and what science fiction movie should have had a non science fictional setting? You must answer this question. My answer is that star wars should have been set in the old west and obi wan kenobi should have been an indian. brewster's millions should have been set in the year 3000.
i'm sorry i get sidetracked talking about movies, it's just that i think about an d talk about cycling all day. i have the same conversation with strangers every day, they ask the same 6 questions over and over. cyclists coming the other way ask the same questions also: what's the terrain like? what motels are cheap, etc. dan and i talk about mostly the same things every day: what towns we're going to go through, how many miles we should go that night, where we'll meet up, what is the best thing to eat for breakfast, etc. dan is 23 so he can do things like drink 11 beers and eat seven taco bell tacos and then watch adult swim until real late and somehow still be OK the next morning. he also ambushed me with bottle rockets overhead a few days ago. ahh to be young! By the way to any ex-students of mine, when i mention anyone drinking alcoholic beverages please note that they are over 21 and that this is going on after the day's riding is over. Also when i say alcoholic beverages i mean root beer and when i say botttle rockets i mean pressed wildflowers.
We had to go a couple miles on a gravel road cause a bridge was out today, other than that it was not an eventful day. we're seeing more dead armadilloes on the road as well as an armadillo-like creature that i don't know the name of. the amount of roadkill going on daily is incredible. raccoons, possums, squirrels, birds, frogs, turtles. it's really alarming and the face that dead animals, especially mammals, make is really hard to look at for me.
I don't know if i mentioned this but I saw a live fox for the first time in my life, he was crossing the road and looking really clever and shifty like he was going to catch a hen or something. I feel stronger as a cyclist than ever before and if i have a lighter day (less than 75 miles with no major climbs) I feel like I can go for more hours, although I can't because we usually don't get started until about 11 AM. I hope I may be becoming a superhuman larger than life paul bunyan type who will scare the ozark mountains and make the ohio river cry, etc but that's probably just crazy talk form being i the sun too long. I am still having fun although I want to take out a restraining order on my bike seat.
I want to tell most of the people here in america's heartland that they are the crazy weird ones. Now I know how jake and adam feel travelling around to various backwater places and having the strangest people ever born look at you like you're the crazy one. Granted, i am wearing bike shorts but still, they must have seen that before but still they all stare like i'm bleeding.
Tomorrow, we plan to ride into golden city, which is the last stop before kansas. regardless of what thomas frank says, i hear the problem is that it's uphill all the way with wind usually blowing right in your face and towns 64 miles apart so it's generally too far to go past one.
While listening tot he radio on our last day in appalachia, there was a radio preacher who yelled "ha!" at the end of every phrase, like the rapper juvenile. Like "it is the honey of gah-yad ha! and the honey of gah-yad is good ha!". We went to an old pentecostal church during a sunday service to get water but left before they could get us to handle any snakes.
another thing was that i found an all old country music station that plays exactly what i want to hear all the time. they play about an hour of country gospel music every morning. The best song of this variety today was "the witness protection of the lord". there was also a song where the chorus went "jesus loves you, I don't". I think the "hello, america" prevalence ont her adio can be chalked up to it being a song about taking a train to new orleans and it was the one year anniversary of the hurricane yesterday. I put that together maybe a week too late to consider myself smart. Devin you are right abotu the hit song of the summer, it's the only song to play on urban stations, pop stations and even light rock stations.
In more radio news, there is a senatorial campaign ad that i love where a plainspoken older guy is complaining about the liberal positions that the other candidate takes up and he mentions that she doesn't support ethanol "'what side is she on? that would be the other side'. i'm jim talent and i support this message". Can someone tell me just what kind of scam ethanol is? I get the idea that it's a massive subsidy to corn farmers to run cars off of corn oil but that it's incredibly inefficient. Alexa, can you or AJ put it into small words for me?
in motels i saw the land before time, inside 9/11 and the flight of the phoenix (a frank capra joint).
The land before time is an animated movie about dinosaurs. any fifth grader could tell you that the brontosauruses and triceratops didn't share the same habitats and weren't even around during the same eras of time. Also it was animated by don bluth, more famous for space ace and dragon's lair. He quit disney cause he didn't want to be exploited like all the old guys who he trained under were. I feel like the animation was lazy cause the movie was maybe 65 minutes long and maybe 10 minutes of it was flashbacks where they got to reuse animation from earlier in the film. i don't see why they had to make the movie about baby dinosaurs, kids love dinosaurs already you don't need to make them kids to make them sympathize. ids will watch a movie with an adult protagonist. i think keith david should have played the part of the main character.
Inside 9/11 was a documentary about how things went down on 9/11 minute by minute. It's one of three national geographic terrorism documentaries out currently. i'm sure you all know the basic story but it was well done I thought although they did all kinds of trick stuff like have a woman talk about how she was sure her husband was dead and then cut to an interview of her husband so the surprise is that he lived, etc. they left out the part where bush knew all along because dracula told him about it though.
flight of the phoenix was great. jimmy stewart, richard attenborough, ernest borgnine, a mexican guy, a french guy, a german designer a monkey several others crash a plane in the desert and have to rebuild it. i was going to say they should remake it with keith david and set it in outer space but they already remade it with giovanni ribisi as the german designer. weak. oftentimes, movies are given a science fiction setting when they don't need it, event horizon and pitch black are two movies that would have been better if they were about hardy seafarers and ghost ships in seafaring times and the like with no space ships.
the question for today is what movie should have been a science fiction movie and what science fiction movie should have had a non science fictional setting? You must answer this question. My answer is that star wars should have been set in the old west and obi wan kenobi should have been an indian. brewster's millions should have been set in the year 3000.
i'm sorry i get sidetracked talking about movies, it's just that i think about an d talk about cycling all day. i have the same conversation with strangers every day, they ask the same 6 questions over and over. cyclists coming the other way ask the same questions also: what's the terrain like? what motels are cheap, etc. dan and i talk about mostly the same things every day: what towns we're going to go through, how many miles we should go that night, where we'll meet up, what is the best thing to eat for breakfast, etc. dan is 23 so he can do things like drink 11 beers and eat seven taco bell tacos and then watch adult swim until real late and somehow still be OK the next morning. he also ambushed me with bottle rockets overhead a few days ago. ahh to be young! By the way to any ex-students of mine, when i mention anyone drinking alcoholic beverages please note that they are over 21 and that this is going on after the day's riding is over. Also when i say alcoholic beverages i mean root beer and when i say botttle rockets i mean pressed wildflowers.
We had to go a couple miles on a gravel road cause a bridge was out today, other than that it was not an eventful day. we're seeing more dead armadilloes on the road as well as an armadillo-like creature that i don't know the name of. the amount of roadkill going on daily is incredible. raccoons, possums, squirrels, birds, frogs, turtles. it's really alarming and the face that dead animals, especially mammals, make is really hard to look at for me.
I don't know if i mentioned this but I saw a live fox for the first time in my life, he was crossing the road and looking really clever and shifty like he was going to catch a hen or something. I feel stronger as a cyclist than ever before and if i have a lighter day (less than 75 miles with no major climbs) I feel like I can go for more hours, although I can't because we usually don't get started until about 11 AM. I hope I may be becoming a superhuman larger than life paul bunyan type who will scare the ozark mountains and make the ohio river cry, etc but that's probably just crazy talk form being i the sun too long. I am still having fun although I want to take out a restraining order on my bike seat.
I want to tell most of the people here in america's heartland that they are the crazy weird ones. Now I know how jake and adam feel travelling around to various backwater places and having the strangest people ever born look at you like you're the crazy one. Granted, i am wearing bike shorts but still, they must have seen that before but still they all stare like i'm bleeding.
Tomorrow, we plan to ride into golden city, which is the last stop before kansas. regardless of what thomas frank says, i hear the problem is that it's uphill all the way with wind usually blowing right in your face and towns 64 miles apart so it's generally too far to go past one.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Illinois/Missouri
We went on a ferry across a river to leave kentucky and I'm pretty happy about it. Kentucky is very rough country for cycling. Unfortunately so is southern illinois. many of the roads are gravelly. one bright spot is that unlike in kentucky, alcoholic beverages are freely available so we were able to drink some beer at a bar. The beers only cost like $1.50 which to someone who's lived in NYC and SF is preposterous but for Dan who is from richmond, it didn't seem unusual.
I don't have much time to wrtie so I will try to make it quick: I rescued some turtles from the side of the road. We spent one night in Illinois (carbondale) and then crossed the mississipi, stopping in chester, illinois which is famous for being the hometown of popeye's creator. I've heard "hello america" 3 times on the radio in the past three days after never hearing it on the radio before in my life.
We crossed through iron mountain and will sleep in houston, missouri tonight. The ozark mountains have no power over me, mostly I scoff at them with contempt. they are gradual climbs and when you gain altitude you tend to hold onto it for a few miles unlike the appalachians which were treacherous and full of monsters and whatnot. This is the most fun riding we've had so far cause the terrain is perfect and the weather is cooling off a bit although we did get stuck in the rain a few days ago and had to call it an early day. Dan saw a bobcat, but I missed it.
I'm starting to think I will be back in SF for my birthday. Blogger won't let me upload any pictures, I don't know why, but you can go here to see them:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/79019224@N00/
I don't have much time to wrtie so I will try to make it quick: I rescued some turtles from the side of the road. We spent one night in Illinois (carbondale) and then crossed the mississipi, stopping in chester, illinois which is famous for being the hometown of popeye's creator. I've heard "hello america" 3 times on the radio in the past three days after never hearing it on the radio before in my life.
We crossed through iron mountain and will sleep in houston, missouri tonight. The ozark mountains have no power over me, mostly I scoff at them with contempt. they are gradual climbs and when you gain altitude you tend to hold onto it for a few miles unlike the appalachians which were treacherous and full of monsters and whatnot. This is the most fun riding we've had so far cause the terrain is perfect and the weather is cooling off a bit although we did get stuck in the rain a few days ago and had to call it an early day. Dan saw a bobcat, but I missed it.
I'm starting to think I will be back in SF for my birthday. Blogger won't let me upload any pictures, I don't know why, but you can go here to see them:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/79019224@N00/
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Kentucky
Thank you alexa, viktor, amy, stefan and chiara for the kentucky information. Thanks to peter, mom, dad and thadd for the support. Thanks to jake for making me jealous by eating at Golden Era when I called him.
It comes a little but late cause I didn't get to a computer today. I'm staying at the hatfield inn in leitchfield kentucky, having ridden out of coal country and the appalachians and intop western kentucky. the inn is a chian and is owned by the hatfield family that feuded witht hte mccoys. there is a portrait of an old timey hatfield in the office where i am typing this. they signed a peace treaty two years ago, someone like victor please paste a hatfield/mccoy summary for the benefit of those who ain't know for example any ex students of mine.
the day i last posted was very eventful: i crossed a state border, and met some guys going the other way who informed me of a guy about 30 miles ahead of me. i got a flat tire on a coal road and had to fix it in the rain, only when i fixed it i messed up my brakes a bit so i had to loosen my back brakes. i rode and rode until it got dark up and down appalachian mountains and i lost my map coming down a hill too fast cause it was hard to ride the brakes cause they were too loose and i had gone about 100 miles each other previous 3 days. i rode through coal country and past active coal mines and i think even inhaled coal dust and eventually got to a hostel at pippa passes at alice lloyd college.
alice lloyd college is a high school for mountain people that is open and free for all and that somehow feeds into the university of kentucky. it feels like a religious school even though it isn't. there were two people at the hostel one was named dan and he had his section 11 map and was going the same way as me. we've been riding together since then which i think has been 5 days. the other person there was a girl named cadmus who was about to enter the appalachians and told us that we had finished the hardest part already.
the terrain and riding conditions have gotten much easier. the appalachians are the most poverty stricken region of the country and have some of the highest illiteracy rates, etc. on a school day, we rode past some kids who said "where you goin'?" and dan said "california" and the kid said "suck mah dick!" and his friend laughed. the kids probably had ringworm so it's hard to get too mad at them. dan is from richmond, virginia where he's a bike messenger, he rides with a trailer and is on his way to LA to work there.
i've been bitten by mosquitoes (and bedbugs at the berea, kentucky motel), chased by every imaginable kind of dog (including three beagles at once), and seen every type of livestock, even llamas. I've listened to more classic country than ever before in my life. chiara, one time the country radio station said john denver was coming up next and dan and i (he has the same kinf of radio as me, even though signals were weak till we got out of the mountains) got excited cause we thought it would be country roads or at least rocky mountain high which would be applicable but instead it was a song unknown to both of us.
I ate chicken and dumplings again and also white bean soup with cornbread. I also drank a no fear energy drink which made my head spin and a beer callred sterling which tasted like it had mercury in it.
Sarah is right, keith david is the best thing for just about any movie to have. if you don't know he was the rich guy in the ATL, the cop in final analysis, roddy piper's friend in they live who he fights for thirty minutes and he does the voiceovers for the navy recruitment ads. stefan do a search for keith david cause you will realize that he is your favorite actor.
I think margot kidder was found in a treehouse holding a 5 lb bag of mike and ikes and talking to her wooden teeth which she was clutching in her outher hand.
devin if you could meet me in colorado it would be incredible. if not, we'll get another chance don't sweat it.
I'm very glad i brought the bike i brought, cause it's fairly easy to repair, it's a shimano touring bike i got off of ebay from a guy who took it across country last summer. I want to replace the stem so i don't put so much weight on my wrists and maybe get moustache/preacher bars. dan started out 9 days ahead of me but got screwed up cause he was waiting on a bike part.
we took a shortcut today to see the maker's mark distillery but ended up going the wrogn way and are now off the main trail. we're riding on a state highway (#62) but traffic is light, visibility is good and conditions are safe. We're going southwest and may miss illinois entirely which wouldn't be the end of the world. I sort of wanted to take the ferry across the ohio river but it's not a big deal to me. I'd like to go on a riverboat down the
mississipi or fake my own death like huck finn as well.
devin you should watch take the lead starrign antonio b. actually just watch the trailer it will tell you all you need to know. i totally want to see crossover, which is the new urban basketball movie but if you read victor's comments about the demographics here, good luck finding a movie theatre that will play a movie that urban here. maybe in missouri.
henry martinez- good luck in your senior year of high school. avoid hydrogenated oils, internet sports betting and adjustable rate mortgages.
Devin, In 18 days i will probably be in pueblo colorado. I have family in boulder and it's like the world capital of outdoor stores so there is stuff i need from there for the last part of my trip. It's hard to say exactly cause i am not on the route right now and won't be again until I get into missouri probably.
You guys are both wrong, the hit songs of the summer seem to be the faith hill one about partying and the kenny chesney song about driving around in an old ford truck. country songs rely on maybe 8 or 9 stock situations. one is called "there goes my life" where the singer starts out where his girlfriend says she is pregnant and he thinks there goes my life because he can't ever leave his little town etc and even though i didnt know the 2nd verse i knew the 3rd verse would be about him watching his daughter leave home years later and singing the chorus.
'daughter leaving home' resonates powerfully with country music audiences i guess, there are like four new songs out that have that idea in them.
jake, i am looking forward to the new fantastic four movie but if i may make a comic book nerd digression for a minute i feel like there are may be five marvel characters that you shouldn't fuck up and dr. doom is one of them. as dated and silly as he may seem they should have had faith in the source material and the faxct that the movie was aimed at 12 year olds and kept him as the gypsy king/ex roommate and rival of reed richards/scarred face etc. making him a generic corporate villain was really weak. they should have had the villains be the frightful four anyways. i'd say LOL now but my mom is gonna read this.
the problem with the new superman is that lois lane is supposed to have a 5 year old kid and already have won a pulitzer prize and she looks to be about the same age as the students at my old job. parker posey would have made more sense if they wanted someone like margot kidder. i guess it's cause they want to make like four or five sequels.
to the anonymous poster who said "mr. green ur a dickhead come back to ITHS nigga", I hope you don't write like that on your admission essay for Cambridge. I am guessing it is Refath Razzaque. Refath, remember what I told you about spelling, racial slurs, manners etc. Now that I no longer live in your neighborhood I am putting you in control of it so you have to act right.
tomorrow's riding will be dedicated to my fellow members of NYCTF cohort 8. This means ricardo lazo, martha mahoney, audrey harris, raina mast and kim bliss especially. Also max monde, jill becker, lev fruchter, mike maloney, danielle kinzer and anyone else unlucky enough to have worked with me the past two years.
Now with all of that out of the way let's try to upload the pictures.
It comes a little but late cause I didn't get to a computer today. I'm staying at the hatfield inn in leitchfield kentucky, having ridden out of coal country and the appalachians and intop western kentucky. the inn is a chian and is owned by the hatfield family that feuded witht hte mccoys. there is a portrait of an old timey hatfield in the office where i am typing this. they signed a peace treaty two years ago, someone like victor please paste a hatfield/mccoy summary for the benefit of those who ain't know for example any ex students of mine.
the day i last posted was very eventful: i crossed a state border, and met some guys going the other way who informed me of a guy about 30 miles ahead of me. i got a flat tire on a coal road and had to fix it in the rain, only when i fixed it i messed up my brakes a bit so i had to loosen my back brakes. i rode and rode until it got dark up and down appalachian mountains and i lost my map coming down a hill too fast cause it was hard to ride the brakes cause they were too loose and i had gone about 100 miles each other previous 3 days. i rode through coal country and past active coal mines and i think even inhaled coal dust and eventually got to a hostel at pippa passes at alice lloyd college.
alice lloyd college is a high school for mountain people that is open and free for all and that somehow feeds into the university of kentucky. it feels like a religious school even though it isn't. there were two people at the hostel one was named dan and he had his section 11 map and was going the same way as me. we've been riding together since then which i think has been 5 days. the other person there was a girl named cadmus who was about to enter the appalachians and told us that we had finished the hardest part already.
the terrain and riding conditions have gotten much easier. the appalachians are the most poverty stricken region of the country and have some of the highest illiteracy rates, etc. on a school day, we rode past some kids who said "where you goin'?" and dan said "california" and the kid said "suck mah dick!" and his friend laughed. the kids probably had ringworm so it's hard to get too mad at them. dan is from richmond, virginia where he's a bike messenger, he rides with a trailer and is on his way to LA to work there.
i've been bitten by mosquitoes (and bedbugs at the berea, kentucky motel), chased by every imaginable kind of dog (including three beagles at once), and seen every type of livestock, even llamas. I've listened to more classic country than ever before in my life. chiara, one time the country radio station said john denver was coming up next and dan and i (he has the same kinf of radio as me, even though signals were weak till we got out of the mountains) got excited cause we thought it would be country roads or at least rocky mountain high which would be applicable but instead it was a song unknown to both of us.
I ate chicken and dumplings again and also white bean soup with cornbread. I also drank a no fear energy drink which made my head spin and a beer callred sterling which tasted like it had mercury in it.
Sarah is right, keith david is the best thing for just about any movie to have. if you don't know he was the rich guy in the ATL, the cop in final analysis, roddy piper's friend in they live who he fights for thirty minutes and he does the voiceovers for the navy recruitment ads. stefan do a search for keith david cause you will realize that he is your favorite actor.
I think margot kidder was found in a treehouse holding a 5 lb bag of mike and ikes and talking to her wooden teeth which she was clutching in her outher hand.
devin if you could meet me in colorado it would be incredible. if not, we'll get another chance don't sweat it.
I'm very glad i brought the bike i brought, cause it's fairly easy to repair, it's a shimano touring bike i got off of ebay from a guy who took it across country last summer. I want to replace the stem so i don't put so much weight on my wrists and maybe get moustache/preacher bars. dan started out 9 days ahead of me but got screwed up cause he was waiting on a bike part.
we took a shortcut today to see the maker's mark distillery but ended up going the wrogn way and are now off the main trail. we're riding on a state highway (#62) but traffic is light, visibility is good and conditions are safe. We're going southwest and may miss illinois entirely which wouldn't be the end of the world. I sort of wanted to take the ferry across the ohio river but it's not a big deal to me. I'd like to go on a riverboat down the
mississipi or fake my own death like huck finn as well.
devin you should watch take the lead starrign antonio b. actually just watch the trailer it will tell you all you need to know. i totally want to see crossover, which is the new urban basketball movie but if you read victor's comments about the demographics here, good luck finding a movie theatre that will play a movie that urban here. maybe in missouri.
henry martinez- good luck in your senior year of high school. avoid hydrogenated oils, internet sports betting and adjustable rate mortgages.
Devin, In 18 days i will probably be in pueblo colorado. I have family in boulder and it's like the world capital of outdoor stores so there is stuff i need from there for the last part of my trip. It's hard to say exactly cause i am not on the route right now and won't be again until I get into missouri probably.
You guys are both wrong, the hit songs of the summer seem to be the faith hill one about partying and the kenny chesney song about driving around in an old ford truck. country songs rely on maybe 8 or 9 stock situations. one is called "there goes my life" where the singer starts out where his girlfriend says she is pregnant and he thinks there goes my life because he can't ever leave his little town etc and even though i didnt know the 2nd verse i knew the 3rd verse would be about him watching his daughter leave home years later and singing the chorus.
'daughter leaving home' resonates powerfully with country music audiences i guess, there are like four new songs out that have that idea in them.
jake, i am looking forward to the new fantastic four movie but if i may make a comic book nerd digression for a minute i feel like there are may be five marvel characters that you shouldn't fuck up and dr. doom is one of them. as dated and silly as he may seem they should have had faith in the source material and the faxct that the movie was aimed at 12 year olds and kept him as the gypsy king/ex roommate and rival of reed richards/scarred face etc. making him a generic corporate villain was really weak. they should have had the villains be the frightful four anyways. i'd say LOL now but my mom is gonna read this.
the problem with the new superman is that lois lane is supposed to have a 5 year old kid and already have won a pulitzer prize and she looks to be about the same age as the students at my old job. parker posey would have made more sense if they wanted someone like margot kidder. i guess it's cause they want to make like four or five sequels.
to the anonymous poster who said "mr. green ur a dickhead come back to ITHS nigga", I hope you don't write like that on your admission essay for Cambridge. I am guessing it is Refath Razzaque. Refath, remember what I told you about spelling, racial slurs, manners etc. Now that I no longer live in your neighborhood I am putting you in control of it so you have to act right.
tomorrow's riding will be dedicated to my fellow members of NYCTF cohort 8. This means ricardo lazo, martha mahoney, audrey harris, raina mast and kim bliss especially. Also max monde, jill becker, lev fruchter, mike maloney, danielle kinzer and anyone else unlucky enough to have worked with me the past two years.
Now with all of that out of the way let's try to upload the pictures.
South Central Kentucky
Thank you alexa, viktor, amy, stefan and chiara for the kentucky information. It comes a little biut late cause I didn't get to a computer today. I'm staying at the hatfield inn in leitchfield kentucky, having ridden out of coal country and the appalachians and into western kentucky. the inn is one of a chain that is owned by the hatfield family that feuded witht hte mccoys. there is a portrait of an old timey hatfield in the office where i am typing this. they signed a peace treaty two years ago, someone like victor please paste a hatfield/mccoy summary for the benefit of those who ain't know for example any ex students of mine.
the day i last posted was very eventful: i crossed a state border, and met some guys going the other way who informed me of a guy about 30 miles ahead of me. i got a flat tire on a coal road and had to fix it in the rain, only when i fixed it i messed up my brakes a bit so i had to loosen my back brakes. i rode and rode until it got dark up and down appalachian mountains and i lost my map coming down a hill too fast cause it was hard to ride the brakes cause they were too loose and i had gone about 100 miles each other previous 3 days. i rode through coal country and past active coal mines and i think even inhaled coal dust and eventually got to a hostel at pippa passes at alice lloyd college where the hostel keeper gacve me vienna sausages which I almost ate but regained my sanity long enough to eat some cheese and crackers.
alice lloyd college is a high school for mountain people that is open and free for all and that somehow feeds into the university of kentucky. it feels like a religious school even though it isn't. there were two people at the hostel one was named dan and he had his section 11 map and was going the same way as me. we've been riding together since then which i think has been 5 days. the other person there was a girl named cadmus who was about to enter the appalachians and told us that we had finished the hardest part already.
the terrain and riding conditions have gotten much easier. the appalachians are the most poverty stricken region of the country and have some of the highest illiteracy rates, etc. on a school day, we rode past some kids who said "where you goin'?" and dan said "california" and the kid said "suck mah dick!" and his friend laughed. the kids probably had ringworm so it's hard to get too mad at them. dan is from richmond, virginia where he's a bike messenger, he rides with a trailer and is on his way to LA to work there.
i've been bitten by mosquitoes (and bedbugs at the berea, kentucky motel), chased by every imaginable kind of dog (including three beagles at once), and seen every type of livestock, even llamas. I've listened to more classic country than ever before in my life. chiara, one time the country radio station said john denver was coming up next and dan and i (he has the same kinf of radio as me, even though signals were weak till we got out of the mountains) got excited cause we thought it would be country roads or at least rocky mountain high which would be applicable but instead it was a song unknown to both of us.
I ate chicken and dumplings again and also white bean soup with cornbread. I also drank a no fear energy drink which made my head spin and a beer callred sterling which tasted like it had mercury in it.
Sarah is right, keith david is the best thing for just about any movie to have. if you don't know he was the rich guy in the ATL, the cop in final analysis, roddy piper's friend in they live who he fights for thirty minutes and he does the voiceovers for the navy recruitment ads. stefan do a search for keith david cause you will realize that he is your favorite actor.
I think margot kidder was found in a treehouse holding a 5 lb bag of mike and ikes and talking to her wooden teeth which she was clutching in her outher hand.
devin if you could meet me in colorado it would be incredible. if not, we'll get another chance don't sweat it.
I'm very glad i brought the bike i brought, cause it's fairly easy to repair, it's a shimano touring bike i got off of ebay from a guy who took it across country last summer. I want to replace the stem so i don't put so much weight on my wrists and maybe get moustache/preacher bars. dan started out 9 days ahead of me but got screwed up cause he was waiting on a bike part.
we took a shortcut today to see the maker's mark distillery but ended up going the wrogn way and are now off the main trail. we're riding on a state highway (#62) but traffic is light, visibility is good and conditions are safe. We're going southwest and may miss illinois entirely which wouldn't be the end of the world. I sort of wanted to take the ferry across the ohio river but it's not a big deal to me. I'd like to go on a riverboat down the
mississipi or fake my own death like huck finn as well.
devin you should watch take the lead starrign antonio b. actually just watch the trailer it will tell you all you need to know. i totally want to see crossover, which is the new urban basketball movie but if you read victor's comments about the demographics here, good luck finding a movie theatre that will play a movie that urban here. maybe in missouri.
henry martinez- good luck in your senior year of high school. avoid hydrogenated oils, internet sports betting and adjustable rate mortgages.
Devin, In 18 days i will probably be in pueblo colorado. I have family in boulder and it's like the world capital of outdoor stores so there is stuff i need from there for the last part of my trip. It's hard to say exactly cause i am not on the route right now and won't be again until I get into missouri probably.
You guys are both wrong, the hit songs of the summer seem to be the faith hill one about partying and the kenny chesney song about driving around in an old ford truck. country songs rely on maybe 8 or 9 stock situations. one is called "there goes my life" where the singer starts out where his girlfriend says she is pregnant and he thinks there goes my life because he can't ever leave his little town etc and even though i didnt know the 2nd verse i knew the 3rd verse would be about him watching his daughter leave home years later and singing the chorus.
'daughter leaving home' resonates powerfully with country music audiences i guess, there are like four new songs out that have that idea in them.
jake, i am looking forward to the new fantastic four movie but if i may make a comic book nerd digression for a minute i feel like there are may be five marvel characters that you shouldn't fuck up and dr. doom is one of them. as dated and silly as he may seem they should have had faith in the source material and the faxct that the movie was aimed at 12 year olds and kept him as the gypsy king/ex roommate and rival of reed richards/scarred face etc. making him a generic corporate villain was really weak. they should have had the villains be the frightful four anyways. i'd say LOL now but my mom is gonna read this.
the problem with the new superman is that lois lane is supposed to have a 5 year old kid and already have won a pulitzer prize and she looks to be about the same age as the students at my old job. parker posey would have made more sense if they wanted someone like margot kidder. i guess it's cause they want to make like four or five sequels.
to the anonymous poster who said "mr. green ur a dickhead come back to ITHS nigga", I hope you don't write like that on your admission essay for Cambridge. I am guessing it is Refath Razzaque. Refath, remember what I told you about spelling, racial slurs, manners etc. Now that I no longer live in your neighborhood I am putting you in control of it so you have to act right.
tomorrow's riding will be dedicated to my fellow members of NYCTF cohort 8. This means ricardo lazo, martha mahoney, audrey harris, raina mast and kim bliss especially. Also max monde, jill becker, lev fruchter, mike maloney, danielle kinzer and anyone else unlucky enough to have worked with me the past two years.
Now with all of that out of the way let's try to upload the pictures. the computers i come into contact with are pretty miserable. they're invariable 5 years old and slow and just turning off the applications that are slowing it down takes about half an hour, plugging in my camera makes the computer freeze up, opening up another window so I can copy the url's of the pictures from flickr takes about an hour, etc. it is very frustrating.
the day i last posted was very eventful: i crossed a state border, and met some guys going the other way who informed me of a guy about 30 miles ahead of me. i got a flat tire on a coal road and had to fix it in the rain, only when i fixed it i messed up my brakes a bit so i had to loosen my back brakes. i rode and rode until it got dark up and down appalachian mountains and i lost my map coming down a hill too fast cause it was hard to ride the brakes cause they were too loose and i had gone about 100 miles each other previous 3 days. i rode through coal country and past active coal mines and i think even inhaled coal dust and eventually got to a hostel at pippa passes at alice lloyd college where the hostel keeper gacve me vienna sausages which I almost ate but regained my sanity long enough to eat some cheese and crackers.
alice lloyd college is a high school for mountain people that is open and free for all and that somehow feeds into the university of kentucky. it feels like a religious school even though it isn't. there were two people at the hostel one was named dan and he had his section 11 map and was going the same way as me. we've been riding together since then which i think has been 5 days. the other person there was a girl named cadmus who was about to enter the appalachians and told us that we had finished the hardest part already.
the terrain and riding conditions have gotten much easier. the appalachians are the most poverty stricken region of the country and have some of the highest illiteracy rates, etc. on a school day, we rode past some kids who said "where you goin'?" and dan said "california" and the kid said "suck mah dick!" and his friend laughed. the kids probably had ringworm so it's hard to get too mad at them. dan is from richmond, virginia where he's a bike messenger, he rides with a trailer and is on his way to LA to work there.
i've been bitten by mosquitoes (and bedbugs at the berea, kentucky motel), chased by every imaginable kind of dog (including three beagles at once), and seen every type of livestock, even llamas. I've listened to more classic country than ever before in my life. chiara, one time the country radio station said john denver was coming up next and dan and i (he has the same kinf of radio as me, even though signals were weak till we got out of the mountains) got excited cause we thought it would be country roads or at least rocky mountain high which would be applicable but instead it was a song unknown to both of us.
I ate chicken and dumplings again and also white bean soup with cornbread. I also drank a no fear energy drink which made my head spin and a beer callred sterling which tasted like it had mercury in it.
Sarah is right, keith david is the best thing for just about any movie to have. if you don't know he was the rich guy in the ATL, the cop in final analysis, roddy piper's friend in they live who he fights for thirty minutes and he does the voiceovers for the navy recruitment ads. stefan do a search for keith david cause you will realize that he is your favorite actor.
I think margot kidder was found in a treehouse holding a 5 lb bag of mike and ikes and talking to her wooden teeth which she was clutching in her outher hand.
devin if you could meet me in colorado it would be incredible. if not, we'll get another chance don't sweat it.
I'm very glad i brought the bike i brought, cause it's fairly easy to repair, it's a shimano touring bike i got off of ebay from a guy who took it across country last summer. I want to replace the stem so i don't put so much weight on my wrists and maybe get moustache/preacher bars. dan started out 9 days ahead of me but got screwed up cause he was waiting on a bike part.
we took a shortcut today to see the maker's mark distillery but ended up going the wrogn way and are now off the main trail. we're riding on a state highway (#62) but traffic is light, visibility is good and conditions are safe. We're going southwest and may miss illinois entirely which wouldn't be the end of the world. I sort of wanted to take the ferry across the ohio river but it's not a big deal to me. I'd like to go on a riverboat down the
mississipi or fake my own death like huck finn as well.
devin you should watch take the lead starrign antonio b. actually just watch the trailer it will tell you all you need to know. i totally want to see crossover, which is the new urban basketball movie but if you read victor's comments about the demographics here, good luck finding a movie theatre that will play a movie that urban here. maybe in missouri.
henry martinez- good luck in your senior year of high school. avoid hydrogenated oils, internet sports betting and adjustable rate mortgages.
Devin, In 18 days i will probably be in pueblo colorado. I have family in boulder and it's like the world capital of outdoor stores so there is stuff i need from there for the last part of my trip. It's hard to say exactly cause i am not on the route right now and won't be again until I get into missouri probably.
You guys are both wrong, the hit songs of the summer seem to be the faith hill one about partying and the kenny chesney song about driving around in an old ford truck. country songs rely on maybe 8 or 9 stock situations. one is called "there goes my life" where the singer starts out where his girlfriend says she is pregnant and he thinks there goes my life because he can't ever leave his little town etc and even though i didnt know the 2nd verse i knew the 3rd verse would be about him watching his daughter leave home years later and singing the chorus.
'daughter leaving home' resonates powerfully with country music audiences i guess, there are like four new songs out that have that idea in them.
jake, i am looking forward to the new fantastic four movie but if i may make a comic book nerd digression for a minute i feel like there are may be five marvel characters that you shouldn't fuck up and dr. doom is one of them. as dated and silly as he may seem they should have had faith in the source material and the faxct that the movie was aimed at 12 year olds and kept him as the gypsy king/ex roommate and rival of reed richards/scarred face etc. making him a generic corporate villain was really weak. they should have had the villains be the frightful four anyways. i'd say LOL now but my mom is gonna read this.
the problem with the new superman is that lois lane is supposed to have a 5 year old kid and already have won a pulitzer prize and she looks to be about the same age as the students at my old job. parker posey would have made more sense if they wanted someone like margot kidder. i guess it's cause they want to make like four or five sequels.
to the anonymous poster who said "mr. green ur a dickhead come back to ITHS nigga", I hope you don't write like that on your admission essay for Cambridge. I am guessing it is Refath Razzaque. Refath, remember what I told you about spelling, racial slurs, manners etc. Now that I no longer live in your neighborhood I am putting you in control of it so you have to act right.
tomorrow's riding will be dedicated to my fellow members of NYCTF cohort 8. This means ricardo lazo, martha mahoney, audrey harris, raina mast and kim bliss especially. Also max monde, jill becker, lev fruchter, mike maloney, danielle kinzer and anyone else unlucky enough to have worked with me the past two years.
Now with all of that out of the way let's try to upload the pictures. the computers i come into contact with are pretty miserable. they're invariable 5 years old and slow and just turning off the applications that are slowing it down takes about half an hour, plugging in my camera makes the computer freeze up, opening up another window so I can copy the url's of the pictures from flickr takes about an hour, etc. it is very frustrating.
Friday, August 18, 2006
kentucky
somoene tell me something about kentucky that doesn't have to do with coal please. bryan thanks for catching my typo in my last post. my mom is probably gonna read this and that's one of those things that gets me fucking busted. cursing wasn't really frowned on but i wasn't allowed to do such things. the lack of capitalization alone is probably filling her with shame right now.
I slept in a gazebo in a city park, i met a bunch of mexican dudes from michoacan, i rode well into the night cause a motel was full, i tried to meet with donovan, i startled a bull and i got chased by a hornet for like a mile. i also met some other dudes going the other direction and gave one of my spare tubes to one of them cause i was carrying three. they had come all the way from oregon.
the library here won't let me upload pics. I'm on patty loveless drive in elkhorn city, kentucky and am riding to pippa pass tonight. Yesterday I went about 109 miles through mountainous terrain which was good but i'm feeling a bit fatigued.
I was riding along, listening to FM radio, the awesome part of don't stop believing when a bugu fle win my eye, it started raining and my chain fell off outside christiansburg and i had to walk my bike like 5 miles, there I met a guy named Tank who drove me to walmart from his place to get a new chain. He was a black guy and I mention this not cause race is prominent in my mind at all times but because of the way he talked. see, black people in the south make more sense when they talk than white people do cause they don't talk all of that hillbilly talk. He did refer to all people as "pimpin" like for example to another driver he said "oh, sorry I cut you off pimpin". Anyways, the chain fit but only well enough to stay in gear, not well enough to be shifting. So the next day I rode about 30 miles on it in one gear so I could buy a new chain tool, I had broken my original chain tool by misusing it.
One other thing about race is that white people here do very stereotypically white things. like for example they drive RV's and eat baloney sandwiches on white bread with mayonnaise and french's mustard.
I believe I am in the smoky mountains but I'm not certain. Someone tell me some things about this area. I crossed the appalachian trail again and saw a shop that sold t-shirts that said "if you hear banjo music, hike faster". It was a welcome change from the "git-R-dun!" t-shirts i've seen so far.
Comments are now mandatory cause they make me more motivated. Mandatory!
Ryan, what do you feel that a courtroom thriller needs to have in it? I saw this movie recently called final analysis which was maybe the worst movie of the mid 90s and I just kept watchign it cause it was set in SF.
I am turning into an intense hippy drifter. I don't smell good and I am doing such things as enjoying nature. Stefan would be ashamed of me. Also I am eating whole wheat bread with all natural peanut butter and honey. Did I mention to all students who read this (shalah, elyssa, george) not to eat hydrogenated oils? Make sure to be one with nature, etc. I don't know if i mentioned it but I haven't changed my jersey yet because I don't see a need. The outside of it is covered in white salt crystals from sweat that has dried on it.
I was also thinking about this- a bike chain is as strong as it's weakest link which in my case a couple days ago was not strong enough. a bike is only as strong as it's bike chain but now that i've fixed it the weak link in the whole operation seems to be my knees and my weak and cowardly mind. At all times I ask myself 'what would stefan do?' and since I can't get a job in high finance or watch the blade tv series on my flatscreen, I have to drive the weakness out of myself like it was the devil. this is made much easier if you are listening to the country gospel station on the radio and are in your 10th hour of riding.
the best songs I heard on the radio yesterday were probably "i never promised you a rose garden" "i'm a fool for you". Is country music like soul music for whites or is it more like rap music? I realize now that the reason I like rap and country most is that I like words more than I like music and both types are very verbal whereas for example in rock music the words seem like an afterthought to fill dead air.
I slept in a gazebo in a city park, i met a bunch of mexican dudes from michoacan, i rode well into the night cause a motel was full, i tried to meet with donovan, i startled a bull and i got chased by a hornet for like a mile. i also met some other dudes going the other direction and gave one of my spare tubes to one of them cause i was carrying three. they had come all the way from oregon.
the library here won't let me upload pics. I'm on patty loveless drive in elkhorn city, kentucky and am riding to pippa pass tonight. Yesterday I went about 109 miles through mountainous terrain which was good but i'm feeling a bit fatigued.
I was riding along, listening to FM radio, the awesome part of don't stop believing when a bugu fle win my eye, it started raining and my chain fell off outside christiansburg and i had to walk my bike like 5 miles, there I met a guy named Tank who drove me to walmart from his place to get a new chain. He was a black guy and I mention this not cause race is prominent in my mind at all times but because of the way he talked. see, black people in the south make more sense when they talk than white people do cause they don't talk all of that hillbilly talk. He did refer to all people as "pimpin" like for example to another driver he said "oh, sorry I cut you off pimpin". Anyways, the chain fit but only well enough to stay in gear, not well enough to be shifting. So the next day I rode about 30 miles on it in one gear so I could buy a new chain tool, I had broken my original chain tool by misusing it.
One other thing about race is that white people here do very stereotypically white things. like for example they drive RV's and eat baloney sandwiches on white bread with mayonnaise and french's mustard.
I believe I am in the smoky mountains but I'm not certain. Someone tell me some things about this area. I crossed the appalachian trail again and saw a shop that sold t-shirts that said "if you hear banjo music, hike faster". It was a welcome change from the "git-R-dun!" t-shirts i've seen so far.
Comments are now mandatory cause they make me more motivated. Mandatory!
Ryan, what do you feel that a courtroom thriller needs to have in it? I saw this movie recently called final analysis which was maybe the worst movie of the mid 90s and I just kept watchign it cause it was set in SF.
I am turning into an intense hippy drifter. I don't smell good and I am doing such things as enjoying nature. Stefan would be ashamed of me. Also I am eating whole wheat bread with all natural peanut butter and honey. Did I mention to all students who read this (shalah, elyssa, george) not to eat hydrogenated oils? Make sure to be one with nature, etc. I don't know if i mentioned it but I haven't changed my jersey yet because I don't see a need. The outside of it is covered in white salt crystals from sweat that has dried on it.
I was also thinking about this- a bike chain is as strong as it's weakest link which in my case a couple days ago was not strong enough. a bike is only as strong as it's bike chain but now that i've fixed it the weak link in the whole operation seems to be my knees and my weak and cowardly mind. At all times I ask myself 'what would stefan do?' and since I can't get a job in high finance or watch the blade tv series on my flatscreen, I have to drive the weakness out of myself like it was the devil. this is made much easier if you are listening to the country gospel station on the radio and are in your 10th hour of riding.
the best songs I heard on the radio yesterday were probably "i never promised you a rose garden" "i'm a fool for you". Is country music like soul music for whites or is it more like rap music? I realize now that the reason I like rap and country most is that I like words more than I like music and both types are very verbal whereas for example in rock music the words seem like an afterthought to fill dead air.
Monday, August 14, 2006
central virginia
I only get a few minutes at this place to write and I wasted most of it trying to upload photos. Sorry for the die hard digression I was a bit sunstroked. A lot has happened and now I can't write it all. Sorry for bad picture quality, I will fix it later the computer is so old and the connection is slow so I can't make flickr work with blogger I'll figure it out later.
I went over the blue ridge mountains it was incredible and I'm now in lexington, VA. i listen to a lot of FM radio including a whle nascar race and leann rimes interview. I saw a black guy driving a truck with confederate flag on it and a drunk guy yelling at his dog to not bite me and then he explained to me "dang ol' dog sumbitch is all bark i'll tell you". It was cool cause he was holding a case of beer and staggering around outside his house.
Oh also I had a bottle of beer that I was going to drink at the cookie lady's house but she is set against drinking so I had to carry it with me. Up in the blue ridge parkway it saved my life though cause the next day I ran out of water so I opened my warm budweiser and it sprayed all over my all wool eddie merckx throwback jersey but no beer ever tasted so good.
Oh if you are a student at ITHS then I should add that when I mentioned wacky tobacco I was referring to the cigar shaped gum that you can buy. When I said Budweiser I meant Sarsaparilla and when I said I stole an ear of corn I meant I bought it. I would also like to take this time to tell you to stay in school, wear your seat belts, practice safe sex, don't drink and drive, respect one another, practice good dental hygiene (that means flossing also), don't eat hydrogenated oils, white rice, or anything with high fructose corn syrup, read catcher in the rye also cause if you get to be my age and still haven't read it that might be embarassing and it takes only a few hours to read.
Also to my ex-student James Gao, if you read this i want to congratulate you on getting a summer job working with kids. James, the Hindus believe in something called Karma, a sort of cosmic justice. I'm a lifelong atheist but the idea has some merit I think. For example I messed with my teachers too much growing up and so I had to repay my karmic debt by teaching. I hope you don't get offended if I say I hope the kids terrorize you a bit and I only wish that Eumine was working with you.
I was thinking about this kind of balance today cause I was going down a hill and instead of enjoying the downhill all I could think of the climb that was coming after it. And then when I was climbing I wasn't hating it cause I was looking ahead to the next downhill. So the whole time I was dampening my happiness or unhappiness by looking only at the future. Is that good or bad?
Also I want to add that this ride is dedicated to my sister's son who will be born soon, but segments of it are sponsored by various other people. The first few segments were sponsored by Nick Galli for calling me and encouraging me, Sarah Smith and Joe Martin for giving me directions, and john mctiernan for directing die hard.
before i get to the pictures I want to ask a question. Do you guys thinks superman (the 1970s ones) would have been better if karen allen (from animal house and indiana jones) had been lois lane instead of margot kidder? would karen allen have made star wars better as princess leia? I'm starting to think that any adventure movie in the 1970s would have be better with karen allen in it. She at least should have been in the 2nd indiana jones. It's amazing how short actresses careers are in hollywood, but i know i'm not the first person to notice that.
Oh actually one more question about movies: when you see a movie trailer, what does it have to have? I mean in addition to the mandatory guy getting kicked in the balls.
And also a music question. What is the hit of the summer?
Also thanks for the west virginia information ms. walsh but I am not in west virginia I am in the western half of the commonwealth of virginia. I am writng this from lexington, where the virginia military institute is located.
Also someone tell me is Isiah Thomas has fixed everything yet.
A freight train in Mineral, VA
This is Loki sitting on a cornstalk. he's real.
this is cat that was messing with my bike.
This guy claimed that he was a real country redneck. I told him that they chew tobacco where I'm from in California also and he said "hell naw, they's only tasting!" He only chews Red Man. Someone show this guy to Jeremiah.
This is a pet goat that someone had.
This guy used to be in the navy. He told me "I don't like California much, you don;t mind me saying I don't like New York City too much either". Shalah, I made sure to tell him Assalam Aleikim just like you told me to tell strangers, but he wasn't feeling it.
This woman is the legendary cookie lady. She runs a house in afton virginia where cyclists are always welcome and has been doing it for 30 years. The house is filled with postcards, valentines, etc. search for cookie lady on google and you can see pics of her house, it's incredible.
This is a mule or a donkey. I'm not sure of the difference between them. One is stubborn and one is surefooted and one is sterile. Also one is a little smarter as a general rule.
They gave me a baloney sandwich. You wouldn't believe the diets of people out here.
I went over the blue ridge mountains it was incredible and I'm now in lexington, VA. i listen to a lot of FM radio including a whle nascar race and leann rimes interview. I saw a black guy driving a truck with confederate flag on it and a drunk guy yelling at his dog to not bite me and then he explained to me "dang ol' dog sumbitch is all bark i'll tell you". It was cool cause he was holding a case of beer and staggering around outside his house.
Oh also I had a bottle of beer that I was going to drink at the cookie lady's house but she is set against drinking so I had to carry it with me. Up in the blue ridge parkway it saved my life though cause the next day I ran out of water so I opened my warm budweiser and it sprayed all over my all wool eddie merckx throwback jersey but no beer ever tasted so good.
Oh if you are a student at ITHS then I should add that when I mentioned wacky tobacco I was referring to the cigar shaped gum that you can buy. When I said Budweiser I meant Sarsaparilla and when I said I stole an ear of corn I meant I bought it. I would also like to take this time to tell you to stay in school, wear your seat belts, practice safe sex, don't drink and drive, respect one another, practice good dental hygiene (that means flossing also), don't eat hydrogenated oils, white rice, or anything with high fructose corn syrup, read catcher in the rye also cause if you get to be my age and still haven't read it that might be embarassing and it takes only a few hours to read.
Also to my ex-student James Gao, if you read this i want to congratulate you on getting a summer job working with kids. James, the Hindus believe in something called Karma, a sort of cosmic justice. I'm a lifelong atheist but the idea has some merit I think. For example I messed with my teachers too much growing up and so I had to repay my karmic debt by teaching. I hope you don't get offended if I say I hope the kids terrorize you a bit and I only wish that Eumine was working with you.
I was thinking about this kind of balance today cause I was going down a hill and instead of enjoying the downhill all I could think of the climb that was coming after it. And then when I was climbing I wasn't hating it cause I was looking ahead to the next downhill. So the whole time I was dampening my happiness or unhappiness by looking only at the future. Is that good or bad?
Also I want to add that this ride is dedicated to my sister's son who will be born soon, but segments of it are sponsored by various other people. The first few segments were sponsored by Nick Galli for calling me and encouraging me, Sarah Smith and Joe Martin for giving me directions, and john mctiernan for directing die hard.
before i get to the pictures I want to ask a question. Do you guys thinks superman (the 1970s ones) would have been better if karen allen (from animal house and indiana jones) had been lois lane instead of margot kidder? would karen allen have made star wars better as princess leia? I'm starting to think that any adventure movie in the 1970s would have be better with karen allen in it. She at least should have been in the 2nd indiana jones. It's amazing how short actresses careers are in hollywood, but i know i'm not the first person to notice that.
Oh actually one more question about movies: when you see a movie trailer, what does it have to have? I mean in addition to the mandatory guy getting kicked in the balls.
And also a music question. What is the hit of the summer?
Also thanks for the west virginia information ms. walsh but I am not in west virginia I am in the western half of the commonwealth of virginia. I am writng this from lexington, where the virginia military institute is located.
Also someone tell me is Isiah Thomas has fixed everything yet.
A freight train in Mineral, VA
This is Loki sitting on a cornstalk. he's real.
this is cat that was messing with my bike.
This guy claimed that he was a real country redneck. I told him that they chew tobacco where I'm from in California also and he said "hell naw, they's only tasting!" He only chews Red Man. Someone show this guy to Jeremiah.
This is a pet goat that someone had.
This guy used to be in the navy. He told me "I don't like California much, you don;t mind me saying I don't like New York City too much either". Shalah, I made sure to tell him Assalam Aleikim just like you told me to tell strangers, but he wasn't feeling it.
This woman is the legendary cookie lady. She runs a house in afton virginia where cyclists are always welcome and has been doing it for 30 years. The house is filled with postcards, valentines, etc. search for cookie lady on google and you can see pics of her house, it's incredible.
This is a mule or a donkey. I'm not sure of the difference between them. One is stubborn and one is surefooted and one is sterile. Also one is a little smarter as a general rule.
They gave me a baloney sandwich. You wouldn't believe the diets of people out here.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
University of Virginia
People like the Amtrak woman in Penn Station who wouldn't let me take my bike on the train, i was gonna say, aren't around in the south. everyone here is real gracious and whatnot. But I came to the library here in Charlottesville and they won't let me connect my camera to the computer to send all of you pictures. Here is what has been on my mind as I've been riding all day so far with noone to bother about these things and now I am resting.
By the way if you are going to comment, leave your name and a way to get back to you, otherwise it's very hard.
0. People here are country as hell. for example they'll say god bless you when they see you. There are confederate flags here and there also. I met a guy with a giant piece of chew in his mouth and I told him that people where I'm from chew tobacco also and he asked me where I was from and I said 'california'. i thought fuck i'm about to get killed so I said 'in the rural part'. he claimed that they were just tasting it. 'california they don't chew! only get a little taste i bet! haw haw haw!' I can't win by telling people here I'm from NY or from CA cause neither gets many points. I don't think it'll help if I say I voted for Nader either.
I also ate the best barbecue sauce of my life at almost heaven in mineral, va. jerrell johnson was right about the food down here. The scenery and trees and wildlife are incredible. I grabbed a goat by its horns and I stole an ear of corn (unfortunately it was dry and hard feed corn but I still ate it).
1. i was thinking about the movie and how essentially it takes the dominant theme in comedies form the era (slobs vs snobs) and puts it into an action movie context. I think that's what sets die hard apart from all of it's imitators (speed, sudden death, die hard 2, under siege 2:dark territory). It's amazing that they got the surface elements right but didn't ever make an attempt to copy the film's spirit. In speed they got the hostage situation, in sudden death the disgraced civil servant looking for redemption angle, in die hard 2 the action and the b. willis etc.
2. lynyrd skynyrd- everyone here loves them and will tell you so every chance they get. a radio station is playing a skynyrd weekend for the 2nd weekend in a row.
3. western- there should be a silent western where people are on bikes. i think it would be cool, like in that chase scene in top secret only for a whole movie. by the way top secret holds up better than you'd think it would.
4. best scenes to include in movies. I think every action movie should have a scene where the president is sitting at a table with his advisors and they're all yelling at each other and saying things like "with all due respect..." and "that information is on a need to know basis" etc. There are usually some old generals, and if the movie was made in the 90s, one of them should be black as a colin powell (when he was one of the joint chiefs of staff) analog. Also there should be a weasely young guy played by michael j. fox or a younger martin short and he's the george stephanapolous analog.
Anyways I like these scenes where one of the generals says "we're going to have to call Mcnolte" and then the other one says "mcnolte? who's that?" and then the NSA chief is like "mcnolte's dead!" and the young guy is like "who's mcnolte?" and then the general is like "what are they paying your salary for? when i was your age i was knee deep in VC blood!" and then the attorney general is like "mcnolte's a traitor" and then the general is like "mcnolte's the finest man this country's ever known. with all due respect, sir, if you had half his balls you'd be" etc etc.
5. I'm going to buy an mp3 player when I get to a bigger town. i want an iriver or one of the ones that runs on AA batteries. the problem is i have nothing to listen to, please send any mp3's you have that I would like to sorry.breakfast@gmail.com. I especially want johnny clarke, francoise hardy, the geto boys and paul wall but whatever you see fit to send.
6. When I was a kid my mom used to believe in moderation for everything. so whenever she would leave the house and it was hot i would turn the AC up all the way. when she came home she would say "why'd you turn the AC up to FULL BLAST?" I realize now that full blast is a real old fashioned term that comes from coal engines. I also think I want my nickname to be "full blast".
7. I should have brought some of the tobacco that is wacky.
By the way if you are going to comment, leave your name and a way to get back to you, otherwise it's very hard.
0. People here are country as hell. for example they'll say god bless you when they see you. There are confederate flags here and there also. I met a guy with a giant piece of chew in his mouth and I told him that people where I'm from chew tobacco also and he asked me where I was from and I said 'california'. i thought fuck i'm about to get killed so I said 'in the rural part'. he claimed that they were just tasting it. 'california they don't chew! only get a little taste i bet! haw haw haw!' I can't win by telling people here I'm from NY or from CA cause neither gets many points. I don't think it'll help if I say I voted for Nader either.
I also ate the best barbecue sauce of my life at almost heaven in mineral, va. jerrell johnson was right about the food down here. The scenery and trees and wildlife are incredible. I grabbed a goat by its horns and I stole an ear of corn (unfortunately it was dry and hard feed corn but I still ate it).
1. i was thinking about the movie and how essentially it takes the dominant theme in comedies form the era (slobs vs snobs) and puts it into an action movie context. I think that's what sets die hard apart from all of it's imitators (speed, sudden death, die hard 2, under siege 2:dark territory). It's amazing that they got the surface elements right but didn't ever make an attempt to copy the film's spirit. In speed they got the hostage situation, in sudden death the disgraced civil servant looking for redemption angle, in die hard 2 the action and the b. willis etc.
2. lynyrd skynyrd- everyone here loves them and will tell you so every chance they get. a radio station is playing a skynyrd weekend for the 2nd weekend in a row.
3. western- there should be a silent western where people are on bikes. i think it would be cool, like in that chase scene in top secret only for a whole movie. by the way top secret holds up better than you'd think it would.
4. best scenes to include in movies. I think every action movie should have a scene where the president is sitting at a table with his advisors and they're all yelling at each other and saying things like "with all due respect..." and "that information is on a need to know basis" etc. There are usually some old generals, and if the movie was made in the 90s, one of them should be black as a colin powell (when he was one of the joint chiefs of staff) analog. Also there should be a weasely young guy played by michael j. fox or a younger martin short and he's the george stephanapolous analog.
Anyways I like these scenes where one of the generals says "we're going to have to call Mcnolte" and then the other one says "mcnolte? who's that?" and then the NSA chief is like "mcnolte's dead!" and the young guy is like "who's mcnolte?" and then the general is like "what are they paying your salary for? when i was your age i was knee deep in VC blood!" and then the attorney general is like "mcnolte's a traitor" and then the general is like "mcnolte's the finest man this country's ever known. with all due respect, sir, if you had half his balls you'd be" etc etc.
5. I'm going to buy an mp3 player when I get to a bigger town. i want an iriver or one of the ones that runs on AA batteries. the problem is i have nothing to listen to, please send any mp3's you have that I would like to sorry.breakfast@gmail.com. I especially want johnny clarke, francoise hardy, the geto boys and paul wall but whatever you see fit to send.
6. When I was a kid my mom used to believe in moderation for everything. so whenever she would leave the house and it was hot i would turn the AC up all the way. when she came home she would say "why'd you turn the AC up to FULL BLAST?" I realize now that full blast is a real old fashioned term that comes from coal engines. I also think I want my nickname to be "full blast".
7. I should have brought some of the tobacco that is wacky.
Friday, August 11, 2006
i am riding
this is my first post here. i'm not sure how often i'll be able to update it. i quit my job as of september 1st (i was a schoolteacher in NYC) and decided to ride my bike across the US. I got a bike and maps and all that first. if i update this it will be from libraries and places like that.
I started yesterday morning in penn station being told amtrak wouldn't take my bike to williamsburg, va, so I took a greyhound instead. the greyhound was slow but they stopped at a place where you could buy honey barbecue everything and buy sister 2 sister magazine. but i was reading like the atlantic or something so i didn't take advantage of it.
i saw the washington monument from a greyhound which was alright and when the bus stopped in richmond and they said the bus to williamsburg was delayed i was like fuck it and decided to start my ride at 6 pm, august 10th. I got lost and it got dark and if not for the help of joe marting and sarah smith i would have had to sleep in a ditch full of pinworms and chiggers. i stayed in a holiday inn express and went to a walmart to buy some tools and organic (wtf walmart?) groceries. yeah i know i'm supposed ot be pro union but they're open 24 hours and this was at 10.
my bike was busted up from the ride but i was able to fix it up with the help of a mechanic in mechanicsville. the pannier racks were fucked but he remounted them. the guy is an ace. everyone here calls you sir and whatnot. i saw a sunburned white guy with no shirt on and i asked him which was was sliding creek road and he said "i'm from west virginia" and gestured at his sunburned body like it was proof. i also bought boiled peanuts to eat.
on my little radio i heard laffy taffy, miss new booty, amazing graze, swing low sweet chariot, more than a feeling and you can go your own way.
now i'm in ashland and i asked a woman to take my picture, let's see if i can upload it. I think it worked. Anyways the pic is of me in ashland about to go eat lunch. if i look tired it's cause i had insomnia last night worrying about all the stuff that could go wrong but i realized that when things do go wrong it's not the end of the world because after all it's not like i have to go to work tomorrow.
anyways please leave comments or information or anything interesting about the following places in virginia, which i am going to next: coatesville, bumpass(!), tabscott, palmyra, christiansburg, monticello, blue ridge, vesuvius, lexington, buchanan, troutville, etc.
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