Peacocks and Chinchillas

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What Everybody Ought to Know About [blank]

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Published on April 22, 2010, by in DESIGN.

I couldn’t sleep last night. Likely due to the timezone mambo we’ve been playing for the past few weeks. To fall asleep, I got to reading copyblogger. Not that the content would put me to sleep, but it would give me something to do until my body decided to call it. The two kinds of article I like the best on copyblogger are first those about grammar mistakes: mistakes never to make/it’s ok to make/if you make you sound stupid. I’d like to think that I would only make these mistakes in case of emergency, so it’s somewhat of a narcissistic/self-gratifying activity. Second, I can learn a lot from the tips on blogging creatively. I started to get one of those midnight panic attacks while reading The 8 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers. I’m not prolific! The thought of being concise gives me hives! I don’t want to continually learn

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Cleveland, or “The Rock ‘n’ Roll Capital of the World”

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Published on April 21, 2010, by in ADVENTURES in biking, skiing, traveling, thinking, DESIGN, FOOD.

Also known as “The Forest City” (we did see many trees), “The Cleve” (I can see how two syllables might be too much to ask), “The Sixth City” (no dead people in sight), “C-Town” (someone will eventually err to the side of idiot and follow any metropolis’ first letter by ‘town’), or “The Rock ‘n’ Roll Capital of the World” (even though the RnR Hall of Fame awards take place in New York — *snub*), Cleveland is a neat place. It’s one of those off-the-beaten path places that might not be right along an interstate highway, but Steve and I chose to take the scenic route once again (read: longer), and hug the South Erie Lake shore as we made our way from North Central Illinois to the Pittsburgh, Penn. area between IMBA Trail Care Crew visits. We’ve taken a liking to Choice Hotels, a liking a kin to George

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Mountainbiking Shots

 

Prints from Chicago’s Field Museum

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Published on April 17, 2010, by in ADVENTURES in biking, skiing, traveling, thinking, DESIGN.

During our time in Chicago, we visited the Field Museum. My favorite exhibit was that of Ancient Americas, with these two prints on display, and the accompanying description: “In the central Canadian arctic, a new art tradition has become established, that of printmaking. This school of art has no direct link with the tradition of Alaskan pictorial engraving, yet its vigorous expression of daily life and legend is immediately apparent.”

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My Job Involves…

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Published on April 15, 2010, by in IMBA TCC.

Turning this: Into this: And I love it! Here’s a post I wrote for the IMBA blog all about our visit to Adams Park in Omaha. I also posted all my trailbuilding school pictures on my flickr site. It really is a neat story. The park is an underserved community, and this is a great opportunity to bring biking  to those who may not otherwise have the chance: Bringing Bike Parks to the People in Omaha!

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Salida Pumptracks

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Published on April 3, 2010, by in IMBA TCC.

We are currently in Salida, Colo. for the Colorado Mountain Bike Summit, put on by IMBA, Bicycle Colorado, and the Bureau of Land Management. The Summit is an opportunity for bike advocates to learns from each other, learn new skills, and work together on ways to advocate for all things mountain bike-related in our beautiful state of Colorado. Salida is also home to some amazing pump tracks, one of which we were able to ride thanks to Shawn from Absolute Bikes and his family, Tony Boone, and other cool folks in Salida. Pumps tracks are literally fun for everyone – if you ever get a chance to ride one, do it! A few local advocates have been working really hard to build more public pump tracks in Salida (Salida might even be the pump track capital of the world one day). In support of that effort, we’re headed over to

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Have Backhoe, Will Move Rocks

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Published on April 3, 2010, by in ADVENTURES in biking, skiing, traveling, thinking.

My Dad  – Bernard – never had a son, so he really enjoys moving dirt and heavy rocks with Steve. Thanks to Steve’s infatuation with heavy machinery (along with trains, tug boats, and snow cats), he is more than happy to oblige. I snapped a few shots of them one afternoon in Carbondale, after they mustered up an excuse to play with his backhoe! They planned to be outside moving rocks around for about an hour, but stayed glued to the backhoe for about three hours.

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Modern Classic Soul

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Published on April 1, 2010, by in MUSIC.

I have a hard time justifying liking this 50 Cent song, but who cares, I guess. I love classic soul, a la Helene Smith, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Al Green (the latter to Steve’s daily mockery — I’ve learned not to put Al Green or Marvin Gaye on a mix CD for Steve), and there are some soul revival beats in this 50 Cent/The Game ditty. Here’s the fitty song I like, followed by one of my favorite Otis Redding songs.

 

Clown Car 101

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Published on April 1, 2010, by in ADVENTURES in biking, skiing, traveling, thinking, IMBA TCC.

Steve and I (I feel like I start every post with “Steve and I,” but I guess that’s what you get when you spend 24/7 with someone) get a lot of questions and comments about our car. Sometimes when you check into hotels, they ask you for your car make/model/year/color. Subaru/Outback/2010/… multi-colored? Skittles? Clown-ish? The car’s a spectacle. What’s also spectacular, is how much you can fit into it. We live out of our car (not *in* our car, I’d like to specify), so it’s important that we have everything we need in there, and even more importantly, that’s it ORGANIZED. If you know me, you know that I’m organized. And anything else just simply won’t do! So when we had a vacation at the end of March, after about 2 1/2 months on the road, Steve and I decided to regroup and reorganize our IMBAru. Our system was, well,

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