The Man Filter

A guy at work told me that my ‘man filter’ is broken. I think I disagree. See, saying it is broken implies that it worked (or worked better) at some point, which, in my case is not true.

A man filter is something between your brain and your mouth that prevents you from saying what you really think. Like when a girl asks if these pants make her but look big, or when your boss asks your opinion of some of their work. Your man filter prevents you from saying stuff like ‘no, not big – HUGE is more like it’ or ‘I can’t believe you did this, it fundamentally sucks’.

Some guys man filters are like those kitchen sieves – really fine meshed wires that only let the smoothest of smooth through. Guys with filters like that are politicians and Casanovas or political Casanovas. Most guys filters are like those little fishing nets that fly fisherman use – they catch most stuff, but little things get through. Others are like a volleyball net, or a soccer goal – that’s the stinky guy with greasy hair and no friends. My man filter is like one of those big salmon fishing nets – just the right size to catch the monster salmon, but often struggles to contain the simple hatchery rainbow trout.

Man filters can break too. Like when you are riding your bike and someone in a car almost kills you that f-bomb and bird might break right through the mesh. You can patch up the break, but it is never quite the same again. That’s why when you get older your man filter gets weaker – with the cumulative effect of previous breaks and all the crap backed up behind it. That’s why old dudes say so much stuff that a younger guy wouldn’t. At some point an old guy could have a complete blowout and let out all the penned up angry thoughts accumulated over the years – look out for that! I guess that is better than choking on the accumulated angry thoughts and keeling over.

I won’t have to worry about that.

So what about women filters? Whew, the man filter caught that one (sometimes the man filter catches things that shouldn’t be typed too).

The Prodigal Son

I went to get my five year old out of bed this morning. When I opened the door and walked in he opened one eye and groaned ‘Not you again’. Nothing like a little disrespect to get the day rolling.

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Last Friday he came home from school and told me he wanted to have a triangle lovers party.

Me – ‘A triangle lovers party?’

Son – ‘Yeah, it will be at night time.’

Me – ‘Um, Ok’

Son – ‘There’s no adults aloud’

Me – ‘Yeah it’s probably better that way’

There was more but it was less entertaining after that. It turns out it is a party for kids who like triangles – the kind from geometry. Yeah – not what I was thinking either.

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Earlier last week I was helping him get ready for bed. I gave him some pajamas, they had sports balls with flames around them. Trying to get him excited about anything related to bed time I said ‘Sweet, FLAMING BALLS’.

In the other room my wife was talking to her parents on the video messenger on the computer. My son jumped up on a chair in front of the camera and said ‘Do you want to see my flaming balls’. The look on the in-laws face was priceless.

Roadside Lost and Found Episode 6: I Lost My Head!

I always thought that I loved the fall, but this year I have come to the conclusion that fall really sucks. It starts getting cold, it starts getting dark, and the ‘pretty’ fall leaves only make it impossible to find the dog poo in my back yard (unless I use my shoe).

Maybe I am just bitter because I had to spray poo residue off my shoes twice yesterday during my yardwork. Freak’n fall! But really, I think there is more to it than that. Every year it makes me feel a little down – this year has been especially bad since I haven’t been riding and all. Normally cycling and killing innocent animals makes my fall tolerable, but this year I didn’t ride and killing stuff didn’t take very long. I have been very turtle like lately, I just want to tuck my head in and sleep.

So anyhow I decided a new moto to drive me through the remainder of fall and winter. I call it Toughen The Fuck Up (TTFU) – I actually stole from Stuart O’Grady, the professional cyclist. I like it, I think it fits.

So under TTFU I started riding again. And started seeing weird stuff again…

I was out over the weekend and found Ken’s head laying on the side of the road. I also saw his leg, and arm, but I wasn’t fast enough to stop for them, his head though – how could I not stop for that? I imagine there was some kid tearing Ken apart in the back of the car, throwing body parts at cyclists while his sister cried.

I have had many things thrown at me, but never a head. That would suck.

Back to Ken. After I took the picture I told him to TTFU and get himself together…

Just Angry

My retirement from cycling has made it harder for me to be an angry cyclist. Angry, yes, I can still do that – but cycling not so much. As such my blogging hasn’t been very blogtastic lately, but what do you do?

For over a week I have been meaning to write about my first 5K fun run. The obvious point to start is the oxymoron ‘fun run’ – but that is so lame I couldn’t bring myself to write it.

I have always thought that running was a survival skill, not a sport. Running is what you do when confronted with danger, not when you need a pleasurable past time. Anything that can make your body ache like that can not be good for you – and should probably be avoided except for emergencies. I guess that retiring from cycling is an emergency.

I have been running for a few weeks now. I decided to try a 5K – the Vandal 5K because I heard that 99% of people would never run a 5K. If I could do something that 99% of other people couldn’t (or wouldn’t) do that would be good! Good for my man ego at least, I always need a reason to think I am better than other people?

So I did the Vandal 5K run to raise money for Vandal athletic scholarships. Vandal athletes are obviously not very athletic this year, maybe a little scholarship will at least help them be scholarly. Probably not.

So I did the fun run. I finished in 23:57. It was kind of fun. Actually more funny than fun because I finished in the top 10 out of 100 or so – and I suck. Of course it is a Vandal athletic event. I’ll take what I can get.

The best part? There was a beer ticket attached to the race number. Go Vandals!

Trouble with Tribulus

Yep, that time of year again. The days are shorter, the weather is cooling, the goatheads are goatheading.

Or at least that’s what I thought until I saw this…

The official Idaho Noxious Weed Guide. It lists all of the misplaced plants in and around Idaho. When a plant grows somewhere you don’t want it, it is called a weed. If a plant is particularly good at growing where you don’t want it I guess it is a noxious weed.

Anyhow, I turned to the goathead page (aka puncture vine, Tribulus terrestris, monkeyfist, bikers bane, the weed of doom, effing goathead) and was pleasantly surprised to see that there are not goatheads in Ada County. Note the infestation map.

That is most excellent news. Can you imagine if we had that stuff here, boy that would suck. Imagine if it grew along the side of popular bike routes like Hill Rd, or the Greenbelt – what a pain in the ass that would be.

Well I guess we narrowly averted that disaster. There are apparently goatheads in Canyon County though – sucks for them, Elmore County too, Valley County – bummer, significantly below average. I will try to stay here in good old Ada.

So if you think you got a flat recently from a goathead you are most decidedly mistaken. You must have been out of Ada County. Or ran over some glass. Or imagined it all-together.

Open Letter to Phone Book Guy

Dear Phonebook Guy,

Thank you for delivering the latest version of the Phonebook Guy Phonebook. I really needed something to put under the front tire of my bicycle while I ride on my bicycle trainer this winter. However, I don’t really need the Canyon County edition as well as the Ada County edition. Thank you in advance for retrieving it from my doorstep.

You see, I really don’t like Canyon County and I don’t intend to go there seeking services. In particular, I don’t intend to seek services in Canyon County using a phone book. As a matter of fact, I don’t really intend to use the phone book to seek services in Ada County either, but I do need a good wheel holder upper – so thank you again. In case you were wondering, the Ada County edition makes the best wheel holder upper when you open it to the legal section. Last year I sweated on Holzer & Edwards all winter and it worked quite well for me.

I guess the reason I don’t use your phone book to seek services is because of this new invention I discovered recently. You may have heard of it. It is called the internet. Al Gore invented it. It actually pretty much makes your business model obsolete – like the post office. Sorry about that. You see, the way I figure it, if a business hasn’t embraced technology enough to have a web page (even a bad one), they probably don’t embrace other technology either - you know? I mean I could end up with a doctor that thinks using lasers for surgery is a fad and prefers butcher knives – that would be bad.

So now that I think of it, I probably don’t need the Ada County edition either. I will gladly use it as a wheel holder upper this year, but I don’t need another next year. I will just buy one of those plastic wheel holder uppers – that way I won’t risk offending someone by sweating on their add either.

Thanks in advance for not delivering next years phone book. By the way, could you please tell your friends Phone Book Dude and Phone Book Man that I don’t need their phone books either – Yes, even if it has a glossy BSU football cover. Thanks.

Sincerely,

Mike

Chicks Dig It

Finally, my last cycling event of the season. After a long year of downs with a few ups here and there I am very much ready to quit cycling forever, or at least until next week – whichever comes first.

The last event is the Bogus Basin Hill Climb. Optimistically it is a short 13 mile ride with only one hill. Pessimistically it is a 15 mile 3,500 vertical foot bitch with a few short sections of respite. Realistically it is just a hill, not that steep, but kind of long.

Usually I know that things are going to go bad from the beginning. Saturday was different. I lined up reasonably close to the front – there were probably only 100 riders in front of me. I felt pretty good for the first couple miles. Then reality hit. The reality is that I am fat, and out of shape, and have a chronic hip injury. Reality really kind of sucked.

So there I am about half way up Bogus basking in the suckiness. So much suckiness that I got passed by a BYRDS kid in baggy spandex – I think he might have been 10. Anyhow, basking in the suckiness – and I think, 'God, this sucks…'

God – ‘Well, yeah, what did you expect?’

Me – ‘I expected a little less suckiness, a little help please?’

God – ‘I think you need a new hobby’

Me – ‘Like?’

God – ‘Like something that doesn’t require leg shaving to start with’

Me – ‘But chicks dig shaved legs’

God – ‘Really?’

Me – ‘No, not really – but I kind of like it’

God – ‘Elmer, there is no hope for you’

Me – ‘Barrack says there is hope’

God – ‘Barrack doesn’t know you’

Me – ‘Maybe you could arrange…’

God – ‘Shut up and ride’

And then things got better. Much better. My legs loosened up, my head cleared up, and I felt pretty good. I started catching people.

That chat with God really helped. It was either that or shifting to my small chainring after for the 4 miles in the big one – oops. You would think you would notice something like that.

I caught and passed the baggy spandex BYRDS kid on the last corner – now that is something to carry me over to next year. It is going to be a hard winter.

I think I am going to take Gods advice an try a new hobby for a while. I’m thinking alcoholic – I think I can do that. I am still going to shave my legs though.