What's tha haps

I don't remember a lot of what has happened since the last time I blogged. So, I will just start where I am now...

Heading to MN tomorrow. The BRO is getting married on the 18th. My lovely wife left this morning to drive home with her dad. They are shuttling my road bike home with spare wheels. A friend of mine called for pointers on how to get his wife to drive his bikes around the country while he flies...

This coming week is sure to fly by. Saturday AM road ride with brohonzzle then an evening full of grilling and beer swilling. I have received notice that several people are concerned by the idea of overindulging in barley pop and then riding bikes through the cities. I agree. Outcome to be determined...

Sunday I am accompanying my wife and Liz to the cabin to two days in the north woods. Think I will leave the road bike behind and focus my energy on catching fish and grilling hot dogs.

Back Tuesday for the Tuff Ride. I am scared...

Wednesday is Donut Ride. This is a ride from Highland Park through dowtown Minneapolis, to the Lakes, to Minnehaha Parkway. Stop at Mellow Glaze Donuts for a time-out. This is where I proposed to Jenny so she is really looking forward to the ride.

Thursday Mtn Bike race at Buck. Last mtn race I did was in St. Cloud two years ago. Mike knows how well I did there...

Friday is party night at Gasthous (sp?).

Saturday. Wedding!

Sunday. Recovery ride and grilling.

Monday back to Bozeman.

In biking news:

Managed to shave a full minute off my best time up Hyalite Canyon.

New Zipp 303's are f***ing awesome.

Scored second place at the Beartooth Pass TT. 22 miles, 3,700 ft of climbing.

Strong is building me a new ti cross frame as I am not too psyched with the one I have now. I love the 100% satisfaction guarantee.

Garmin-Slipstream pint glasses showed up today. There are going to make me much faster.

Ben checked out a BMC Pro Machine from Quality for Jenny to ride. Full Super Record and Easton tubulars. 13 pound super bike. Will I be able to get jenny back on her Salsa???

Do you ever get tired of...

hearing about this economy...these troubling times...due to the economic slowdown...the meltdown....the crisis...the bad credit...the liquidity problems...the golden parachutes...the capital needed...the stress tests...recession proofing...the recession...profit taking...deal seeking...these economic times...

I am ready to vomit. If everyone would just turn off their stupid TVs and stop listening to inflamatory pricks like Savage, Ingrahm and Limbaugh we might all be better off. No one knows what to do, so deal with it. Stop bitching, it doesn't help anything. It's so easy to be critical. We are all professionals at that.

If you are going to argue about the realities of global warming at least know the basic tennants of the argument. I work around a bunch of people who shit on every Democrat / liberal / independants name every time it snows. So much for global warming, huh? Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle... I don't consider myself a crusader, an eco-nazi, a peacenik, a granola, a greenie or even much of a liberal; but I do consider logic and reasoning to be the building blocks of discussion. At least have a clue before you open your mouth and spout off. And racist jokes aren't funny; grow up. Everyone is different, deal with it.

Went around town today and handed out flyers for my new company to architects around town. Some people were genuinely interested and some people just politely smiled through their teeth and showed me the door. I hate being that guy...

On the upside the new team kits arrived a couple of days ago. I like the new design (since I created it) and the gear fits really well. I liked the process of working with Hincapie. The are easy to work with, the design process was easy, you can do any number of colors you like for one price. The downside is that one price is steep. Jersey and shorts for $176.

Biking is not going well this year. I have been too tired to bike most nights and when I do get out and ride I go hard. Right now I really only have a two hour tank and when I hit that mark I am empty. But I guess being able to maintain 170 bpm for 1.5 hours is still ok. Last weekend the GAS boys put the leather to me and made me suffer. Doing 2000 ft of climbing at 18-20mph is NOT easy. At the start of the third climb I waved the group past and limped home. This weekend should be good for riding. The goal this year is to be good middle of July...I have time.

I am going to try to get some office time at the home theater job. I want to set up a complete Autocad library and start to make our drawings look pro. We need to distinguish ourselves from the competition and I think this is one way to do it. I think we should show that we are on the same playing field as architects. Architects convey their thoughts and ideas through drawings and we can do the same. Hopefully less wire pulling for me and more time on the computer.

Well, I am out of finger strength. Little bit of rant in there. Hope all is well !

Shripping the Gnar

Sunday was an epic day at Big Sky. Knee deep for four hours straight on the back side of Lone Peak. For some reason people don't ski the Shedhorn lift. You can do 16 minute laps and hit fresh turns every run. Hit a few spots that were wind loaded and thigh deep. Most of the turns were shin deep and plenty of face shots. Probably my best day in the last three years. I don't think anything will beat the winter of 05/06 when we skied knee deep on 9 weekends.

Spent all night tonight working on Design 5. We are learning a lot about the professional printing process. Been a bit more of a struggle than I anticipated getting our business cards done. I have a lot to learn...

I have been a little frustrated that things haven't been moving more quickly on the new business front. I was venting to Jenny about this yesterday and she assured me that we are making progress. She reminded me that I am working more than 50 hours a week right now and that I can't expect to have energy all of the time. It's also a coincidence that my father in law just sent me some articles about starting a small business while still working full time. Funny how these things work and how peoples timing is sometimes uncanny.

Peace out...

Stuff

Long week of work. Boring.

Rode the trainer for 1.5 hours last night. Played Elder Scrolls the entire time. Makes the time go really fast.

Out on the road for 4 hours today. Ryan, Randall and I took it easy most of the time and did two intervals at red line pace. After splitting off from those guys I hooked up with the Bozeman Masters Velo crew for another ride to the west. They were feeling fresh and headed west into the wind. I rode with them for 45 mins before returning home. By the time I got home I was almost in the complete Bonk zone. I looked at my watch and it said I had a 155 heart rate average. So... I worked way too hard today and am feeling it now.

Tomorrow is Design 5 day so just a couple hours on the trainer in the morning and then it's computer time for the rest of the day. We are heading to Borders to get a book on Adobe Illustrator so we can nail our marketing layouts...

Mr. Anderson and Kyia are in town so I am going to try and hook up with them on Monday or Tuesday evening if they are free. Big snow on the way and they are hoping to take advantage.

Another slow week of work coming up. Not much on the radar so I feel that my time is either limited there...or... I will be doing crappy busy work until things pick up. I volunteered to take some time off but that hasn't worked out so far. I could really use some time to focus on my new company but Avitel seems content to pay me for busy work...

Headbangers Ball

Lots O Riding this weekend. 2.5 on Friday with JT. Conversation speed for two hours then a couple of seriously difficult intervals before a 20 minute cool down.

Saturday JT and I met up with the Bozeman Velo Masters squad. JT and I both figured it would be a nice rolling day at an easy pace. It ended up being 3.5 hours of smashing heads against brick walls over and over and over... This squad of guys in the 50+ age group can F***ing hammer. I have no idea why I was surprised but I ended the day with a lot more respect for this crew. Of course my own ego got the best of me and I spent the entire ride proving I was the strongest and ended up with two cramping calves at mile 68. I know these guys are over 50 but it was some of the most difficult interval riding I have done in years... At least I am riding well. Really looking forward to getting in some racing. Next week is the first official race in Missoula. Just a 45 mile training race but the big boys will all be there.

Today I got out with John for a little over two hours. Today was the perfect recovery ride. Good conversation and no hammering.

Jenny has also been out on the bike the last three days and is ready for the end of winter. The last few days have been awesome. The sun has shone each day with highs in the upper 50s. Tomorrow it's back to the grind but this weekend should help smooth the transition.

Update

Work: Working home theater full time. The past couple of days I have been at an airplane hanger working on theater gear. The owner of several Montana banks has a huge hanger at the Bozeman Airport with a house inside of it. It's about a 2,000 sq.ft. house with a bedroom, huge office, 3 bathrooms, two living rooms, a huge poker table and a great kitchen. We were swapping out some theater gear. I took time to admire his float plane which is the largest single engine float plane money can buy. Also checked out the Bell 407 helicopter. His jet wasn't there, but his Bugatti car was. One of only 12 on earth. Amazing what money can buy... Also a spare $75K Escalade parked in the corner...

I have a few more leads for my new company so things seem to be going well on that front. Going to pursue a few projects in the Spanish Peaks so I am excited.

Also, still working Fridays at Bechtle Architects. Suddenly I am working 60 hours a week... Weird to go from unemployment to very busy...

Biking: Been on the roads two days a week now and then gym time the rest of the week. 2.5hours on Sunday. 9mph into the wind, 35 with the wind... Today I did the stair mill for my tempo workout at the gym. 10 min warm up, 40 min @ 170 bpm, 10 min cool down. I was sweating all over the equipment and for some reason people weren't hopping on the mill next to me... wonder why?

Other: Jenny and I had an awesome ski day last Saturday. Two days after a major storm and we still skiied powder all day on the backside of Lone Peak. I love Big Sky for that reason. Worth paying the money to feel like you are all alone.

Jenny has also been getting into the backcountry on her touring skiis. She and her sister and a couple of friends toured into the Mill Creek Drainage in the Paradise Valley. They had a killer warm day and had fun with the dogs.

We bought our plane tickets to get to MN for my brothers wedding. Looking forward to spending 10 days at home!!! Biking, partying and networking are all in the plans.

Also, I am sure that many of you heard that a half block of downtown Bozeman blew up. It's amazing that only one person lost there life since it was at 8:15am on a weekday. Went down to see that blast and it's sad how much that hole impacts the feel of downtown. I found myself feeling very sad for our little town. I love downtown Bozeman as it really feels like a small town and a great community. Apparently, there was an underground crack in a service line and the gas seeped through the dirt and filled the basement of a downtown art gallery. When the manager arrived in the morning the gas exploded and instantly destroyed three buildings. Then one more building burnt to the ground and a fifth was deemed completely unstable from the blast wave. Windows were blown out for three blocks around and the fire burned for two days. They haven't made much progress clearing the wreckage and only one side of mainstreet is open past the site. Very sad.

Weekender

Only worked for a few hours yesterday and then took off for the day with Jenny to play outside. We went up to Bridger Bowl to ski but cars were parked almost to the highway so we decided to go hiking instead. We hiked up Grassy Mountain for about 45 mins and enjoyed the views. The dogs were happy to be outside and were whipped and tired during the car ride home.

Today I got out for 2 hours on the road bike for an easy spin with Ryan. The sun was out but the temp sat at 30F. Should have known not to ride the roads today since it snowed 12 inches only 36 hours ago. Icey bike but no harm done.

Tonight we are playing it low key, making dinner and maybe heading out for a beer.

Jenny bought some ski boots and poles to go with the CC touring skis that my brother sent out for us. We are heading to Bohart Ranch tomorrow for some time on the snow. Looking forward to a hard workout on the hills...

Home Theater

Some people think I just hook up DVD players and TVs at my job. This is partly true. But for the next two months (if I am working here that long) I will be stuck in a rack room with one other installer working on hooking up a system. This is one of the biggest systems in the US and costs more than ten times what my home is worth.

The pictures below show the progress made in the last two weeks. It doesn't seem like much for 80 hours of work but we have to run one wire at a time and cut each to a custom length. If we didn't it would just end up as a rats nest of wiring and would be impossible to service in the future.

The top two pictures are of the amplifier rack for the distributed audio for the house. There are 18 16-channel amps. There are 200+ speakers in the house plus subwoofers so the system needs a lot of juice. Each channel gets a Left and Right RCA cable, a Left and Right Speaker cable and each amp is connected to the Network with a Cat 5 wire.

The bottom picture is a fully switchable 256 channel audio matrix switcher. There are only 3 of these systems in houses on earth. One is in the Ukraine (oil magnate), one is in the Middle East (oil magnate) and the one here in Big Sky (hotel magnate). This little baby costs 250K and is most commonly used in millitary applications like NORAD where you need to distribute audio and video to hundreds of TVs. Anyway, the switcher lets you send any source to any speaker independently of every other speaker. What this means is that in this house, every single audio zone can play a different source at the same time.

Geeky post but I thought you might like to see what installers really spend most of their time doing.

time for a new post i think

It's only been a month. Stop hating on me. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

OK. So....

Hmmmmmm....

Home theater work is as busy as ever. We actually scored two new 16,000 square ft. jobs in the past week and a half. Wealthy people have money. If you have $100 million in the bank and you lose 40% of it would you change your lifestyle? Probably not.

Bechtle Architects is picking up steam so it looks like I may be back at the firm for 30 hrs a week. That would be really nice.

I am starting my own company. Design 5. My articles of organization and operating agreement should be filed next week. It's going to be official. And I have three clients!! Yes!!!

So.... If you know of anyone who needs any landscape planning, landscape architecture work, planning work or project installation oversight... CALL ME!!! 406-600-0342. Available for projects in MN and MT.

No tires on the Zipps yet. I am waiting to see if there is a MN connection for rubber...

I am sick right now. That's no fun. Was almost 53F today and I sat on my ass. Oh well.

I spent the last two weekends at the Human Performance Lab at MSU. Dr. Seifert was conducting a study for a sports drink company. I was paid $250, pizza and four other meals. The study was conducted in three parts. First part was a VO2Max test. My max has gone down 6 points, to 56. I should see significant improvement by the end of June with proper training. The first Friday I showed up to the lab, was weighed naked, pissed in a bottle, handed that steamy bottle to a guy with gloves and then had Dr. Seifert shove a large needle into my arm so they could draw blood for the next 4.5 hours. After being prepped I went into a room with nine other bikers and started to bike on my bike set up on a trainer. The company bought two new 42" LCD tvs for the study so we watched Tour highlights. The point of the study was to lose 2.5% of your bodyweight in sweat and then drink it back. It took me 1hr15mins to lose the weight then I had 20 mins to drink three full Nalgenes of water. That sucked. Then I just had to sit around. I had to have blood drawn, pee in a bottle and get weighed every 30 mins for the next 3 hours. After that you get to eat pizza and then take off. I repeated it again last weekend. That's it. Money in the bank. I don't know what the drink was because no one could say anything unless Dr. Seifert and Dr. Heil get favorable results. If the top secret drink didn't help hydrate better no one will ever know it existed....

Jenny and I booked tickets to Las Vegas for early May. I have never been there. We found a screaming deal through Allegiant air. Three nights hotel, airfare and two tickets to Cirque de Soliel for $215 / person. Not bad...

Next trip to MN is in July for my brothers wedding. I looked at the schedule and I think I can make it to 4 bike races. Marty RR, Hopkins Crit, Dakota Crit and Black Dog. Depending on the plans maybe the Tour of Granite Country RR (if they let you only do one stage...)

Peace out....

Forgot one thing...

Project bike. Arrived in the same box as my new wheels. Hopefully rolling this spring...

Catching Up

Let's talk about Christmas... Fun, tiring, fattening. Perfect. Spent time in The Cloud, The Cabin and in The Cities. Ate my fill of sushi twice and chowed down on Bravo once with Sean who I haven't seen in....years. The cabin was awesome. Jenny specifically requested that we shoot guns, drink beer, ice fish, hot tub and eat good food. We did them all in classic, over indulgent style. Jenny prefers the .44 magnum pistol to the .22 and wasn't quite ready to fire the Howitzer that my brother refers to as a "rifle".

It's the time of year when I start to talk about cutting back on beer, dropping weight and increasing my training hours on the bike. Well, I am doing it all again but this year I don't expect to do any better than I did last year. Seems that I can train my butt off and still not do any better than the guys who start April 1st. Hopefully my new hoops will help.

Lot's O Changes coming soon. Starting a small design business, maybe getting a Project Management job, maybe starting a Home Theater and Automation design position or maybe just losing it all... who knows?!?! Time will tell...

Make it snow

She just wanted to make it snow. Is that so wrong?

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/88ca2e8d42/sorority-girl-just-wanted-to-make-it-snow-from-that-happened

Not much..

...to report. Weather has been incredibly cold and nasty. No outdoor activities for me. Unless you count pulling home theater and automation wire in a 20,000 square foot duplex...

Past week has seen some time in the gym, a few more cans of food at the Food Bank, office party (bowling and drinking), and a play at the Ellen in downtown Bozeman.

This evening I took the Madshus skis out of storage and went through the multi step process of waxing. Ended up doing 6 coats to get them ready. Should be good to go. I don't really trust my waxing job so a trip to Revolution is in order.

Also am getting my ride laced with some new wheels. Zipp 303 custom builds and a set of HED Ardennes. These should endow me with the ability to win races without watching what I eat or training. At least that's what the ads claim... In the end I can probably score the trophy for Biggest Poser. Yes!

Hope to see some folks in Cloud Town on the ski trails... Anyone up for a few loops? Ben? Mike? Kris? Kyia? Crash? Pat? I will be the guy crossing his tips, falling down and generally displaying very poor form. Can't miss me...

Stuff(ing)

Turkey Day is coming up and the temperature is going down. We purchased our Hutterite turkey and we will be sharing it with some friends up at the Big Sky condo. Big Sky is also supposed to open the day after Thanksgiving. Our Frequent Skier cards give us free skiing for that weekend so we may venture out on the slopes. I am sure there will be only a couple of runs open.

For the first time in my adult life I took some of my money and bought food for people who are less fortunate. Jenny and I bought two turkeys and two complete meals and dropped it off at the Gallatin County Food Shelf. I read in the paper that the food shelf has seen a 30% rise in use in the past 6 months. When we stopped by I was impressed by the size of the operation. Two huge warehouses stacked with huge bins of food. It was also depressing to know that all that food wasn't enough to meet the forecasted demand for the next few months. The past few months have brought a lot of change for Jenny and I and the economy has meant that we have dramatically changed our lifestyle. Though we are secure and safe it has made me realize just how easy it is to go from flush to broke. The older I get the more it's sinking in that there are so many people out there working their asses off for very little income. I feel that since I am doing OK then I have a responsibility to share some of my luck with people less fortunate.

Hope all of you are doing well during the Turkey season and I wish you all the best for your friends, familys and jobs!!!

3 oh 3 and other news

New wheels are in my future. First pair of tubulars in the form of Z I double P.

Racing yesterday was brutal. I haven't gone hard on my bike for over a month. Jumping right into a race was stupid. But, I finished and I am glad I did it. 8 laps on a really fun course. Mud, barriers, two run-ups and a fun crowd. Lap one I almost threw up twice. Litterally heaved a couple of times. Lap two I promised myself I would drop out when going through the start/finish. Lap three I recommitted myself to dropping out. After lap four I figured I was half way and may as well finish. Just rode my standard race solo time trial. I finished second from last and I guess that's about as much as I expected.

Jenny and Mario were out cheering me on and that helped. I was battling for last place with a Muleterro rider and that ended up being fun as the crowd got into our back and forth racing. At least I was smiling while suffering and providing entertainment for a fun crowd.

My interview with Shealy and Company went well. Wade and I are getting back in touch a month from now when we will discuss the next step in the job process. So for now it's back to home theater in the Yellowstone Club...

No Soup for You!

But there is soup for me. My wife made the most awesome, home-made lentil and sausage soup. I am going to eat that soup like there is no tomorrow. She rocks!!

No pictures

Ended the last post saying pictures would follow. I lied. No pictures of the ride up Hyalite. Was fun though.

Weather here has turned decidedly chilly. I have been working in the Yellowstone Club for the last week and a half and it's snowed every day up there. Little over two feet sitting on the ground now. This week we are finishing up a job with 12 50" flatscreens. Not too shabby.

Started back at the gym last weekend. I am super psyched and focused for this coming bike season. I know that most people haven't finished this season yet but I have been done for a while. I gained 7 pounds and that's all I am going to let happen. Last winter I gained 22 pounds between November and January and that sucked!

When I hit the gym last weekend I was feeling pretty strong because I have been biking a decent amount despite not racing. I saw a scrawny guy put up 940 on the leg sled and it got my ego going. While I couldn't put up that much weight I did make it through 4 sets at 780. What I couldn't make it through was work two days later. My legs were so f***ing mad at me. I had to climb ladders and stairs all day and I swear that I haven't had that much excersize induced pain, ever. I have since calmed down and just done my low weight, high rep workouts. I feel like doing some CC ski racing this year so I have been doing upper body workouts for the first time since college.

I saw John Seifert at the ski swap yesterday and I am meeting up with him at the end of the month for testing. Also participating in a study. Nothing like getting paid a pile of cash for riding a bike for two hours.

Biking Again

Out on the mountain bike yesterday. Did three laps on Bozeman Creek to the bridge for 2400ft of climbing. Felt good.

Today we are riding Hyalite for only the fifth time this season. 9 mile climb. Going to be fun and really cold. Hoping there is no black ice...

Pictures to follow...

Stuff

Haven't been on the bike too much recently. Started a new job this week and I have been pretty tired. Good news is that I don't work on Fridays anymore.

When I worked home theater in the Twin Cities I catered to the well healed and wealthy crowd. Here in Montana, Avitel caters to the ultra wealthy. Can you imagine spending $50 million on a new home that you will use 2 weeks a year? Or can you imagine spending $40,000 on a shower that covers you with 85 gallons of water per minute? Or how about spending $1.5 million on a home automation system? Or maybe putting 140 pairs of speakers in the ceilings of your home?

I can't imagine it either but for people up in the Yellowstone Club and Moonlight Basin it's second nature to spend money. There is something to be said for the "trickle down effect". The house I am working on now has roughly 40 people working full time, 5 days a week to build it. And it's been going 4 years now. That's job security. Not that I am arguing for tax breaks for the wealthy. I am starting to realize that no matter their tax bracket, the ultra wealthy will spend money like it's a problem to have it.

In other news, Bozeman will have a new bike team this spring. The Bechtle Slade team is being replaced by a stronger, more motivated team. We had a pre-team meeting to guage interest on Thursday night and almost everyone on the email list showed up. We have three powerful guys you just moved from SLC (including a former Euro Neo-Pro who raced with Dewey Dickey) and the rest of the crew from last year. We should be able to give GAS a run for their money at the races in 2009.

Past couple of weeks have been pretty busy. My in-laws were in town and we hung out in Paradise Valley for a week. Jim and Nancy are awesome and we had a lot of fund eating and fishing.

Back on the bike today for some serious climbing on the mtn bike...

Tobacco Roots

Fun weekend in the mountains. Mulv, Katie, the dogs and I went into the heart of the Tobacco Roots for a weekend of camping and mountain biking.





Saturday we set up camp next to Boulder Creek. We were car camping so we had the Coleman double burner and whipped quesadillas. We also put back a few beers and sat around the campfire until it was time to hit the hay.





Sunday we woke up late and made breakfast burritos, got the bikes in order and filled the camelbacks. I bike from the camp spot for an extra couple of miles of climbing and met the ladies and the dogs at the trailhead. The trail to Lost Cabin Lake is 5 miles of perfect single track with an almost perfectly steady grade the entire way. Once at the lake we took a short break and then headed back down. The trail was great. You could ramp up to high speed in just a couple of pedal strokes or just let the bike go and cruise through the pines at a comfortable pace.





The dogs were worn out at the end and I had fun going really fast back down the road to the camp. With the ride finished we packed up camp and headed back to town for burgers at The Garage.





Great weekend with great rides, food, views and people.