Seven Inches Of Fury
Posted by Steve | Filed under General
No……not that. Ladies and gentlemen. I give you the most badass Linebacker ever to grace the gridiron. I’m pretty sure I played against him in high school. I lost track of how many times I got tackled by what seemed to be blades of grass while toting the rock. Apparently all this time I was getting owned by The Seven Inch Linebacker!
My lil mutt
Posted by Steve | Filed under General
He loves to rub his nose into my bed sheets or any clothes I take off and drop on the floor. Either I smell really good or really bad. i can’t tell.
I’m a cowboy….on a steel horse I ride
Posted by Steve | Filed under Cycling, General
okay, it’s really carbon fiber but you get the picture. Here she is. This is the new bike I will be riding on the AIDS/Lifecycle event coming up in June. A lot of the parts are carbon fiber so its much more comfortable than the steel and aluminum bikes I’ve ridden prior. It weighs 15.6 lbs even though I didn’t really build it to be light. I could easily knock another pound off but I’d rather have the extra durability at my size.
Choosing the correct size was difficult as always because I don’t have normal dimensions. For my height I have short legs and a long’ish torso. Because of that I went up a size to get an extra centimeter of top tube length, which is why I don’t seem to have much seatpost showing. If I could have gotten a custom frame I’d have spec’ed a 51cm seat tube and a 54.5cm top tube. I have a custom-made steel alloy frame in my closet but I retired that. Carbon fiber is too expensive to get customized. As it stands this frame has a 53cm seat tube and a 53.5 top tube. That means the reach from the saddle to the handlebars is less so I had to get a longer stem to compensate. Yes, 1 cm is definitely noticeable when you’re on a bike 2-4 hours a day.
100 of my closest friends and I negotiated a group buy rate of $500 for the frame. It is normally produced and sold under various brands. The previous revision of this frame marketed as the Litespeed Pavia sold for $1,200 so we got a great deal. I cherry picked all the parts and looked for deals wherever I could. The final cost was around $2,700 and thats with getting the frame well below retail cost. If I had walked into a shop and said “build me this bike” it would have run near $4,000.
I got in a few rides this weekend and it feels really good. The comfort of well-made carbon fiber will really be advantage when I’m on the bike for 4-5 hours a day. Aluminum tends to be very stiff and transfer all the rode vibration right up your arms and ass. You feel like you’ve been on a jackhammer after a while.
So, here it is. I’ll put more in the gallery later in the week. I’m pretty tired right now.
Do you give to the homeless?
Posted by Steve | Filed under General
Sometimes I do if they REALLY look homeless. A lot of the homeless in L.A. are pretenders just trying to avoid working for The Man all day. Maybe they’re out of work actors…I dunno.
The Century Blvd exit from the 405 (my exit to the office) must be prime panhandling territory because I see 4-5 different guys working that corner. They’ve all got the fancy sign proclaiming “homeless” or “please help”. Some of these guys put some serious effort into designing that thing too. Most of them are clearly pretenders though.
The true playa for real is a guy I call Whitey. Why? Well cuz he’s white. He’s actually brown though. He’s got that dirt that looks so ingrained on him you don’t think he’ll ever get clean now matter how many showers he takes. I’m pretty sure if Whitey ever got undressed to shower he’d kill all life forms within a 20 foot radius. Whitey is usually wearing about 10 layers of clothing but you can tell by his face he’s about 120 lbs. Whitey is definitely homeless. There is no doubt. Truely homeless people are oblivious to their surroundings, especially street noise. If they hear sirens or screeching tires they don’t turn to look because they hear that 24/7. It’s like birds chirping to them. One day I saw Whitey sleeping on the corner with his homeless sign leaning against him. My man was KNOCKED…THE…FUCK…OUT! This is a busy exit ramp too…this road leads to Los Angeles airport. He had like 10-12 pigeons walking around him picking up crumbs. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few didn’t just park their asses right ON him. Whitey is the guy you can give money to and just know he will buy some food. I’ve never seen him drinkin alcohol…unlike Dude.
Dude is a black guy, probably around 50-55′ish. Hell, he might be 40. Who knows. He ain’t homeless. He might not have a place to call his own but he definitely sleeps indoors at night. He’ll walk right up to your car and try to get you to roll the window down so he can mumble something. You either oblige and reach for some coin or you hurriedly lock the door and wish you could drive from the passenger seat. There is no middle ground with him. Dude looks able-bodied so I wouldn’t give him jack. He could at least go recycle some damn cans or something. I wanna roll the window down and yell ‘GET A FUCKING JOB, BIATCH…YOU’RE MAKING US LOOK BAD’. He’s never wearing the same clothes two days in a row and he doesn’t have more than a few weeks growth of facial hair. Dude’s problem is the bottle. The other day Dude was B-U-S-T-ED ass drunk at the exit. I’m not sure he could’ve made it to the car and back standing if you held out a wad of hundreds. I thought he was going to get hit. I almost wanted to give him money just so he’d sit his black ass down.
All the other corner workers I will collectively call Hector. No, they aren’t all hispanic. I’m just too lazy to break them all down. They’re not interesting characters like Whitey and Dude anyway. Except one guy I have now dubbed The DJ. The DJ was working the corner Monday wearing headphones and bopping to the music. Dressed than most day laborers, if he’s got money for batteries he don’t need my help. I need batteries for my digital camera now. Maybe I can get The DJ to panhandle some for me. Hey yo, DJ? Can a brotha get some Energizer 3-Volt Photo Lithium’s? Those puppies are expensive and I need to get my shutterbug on….ya heard?DT out!
Edit – this morning I watched The DJ pull out some sunglasses, blow and dust ‘em off then cool as a cucumber slid ‘em on under his LA Dodgers hat and recommenced bumpin tunes on his mp3 mplayer while flashin his “Please Help” sign….only in Cali.
I do love a glazed donut but not this much…
Posted by Steve | Filed under General, Jokes, Newsworthy
A few days ago there was a story making the rounds on the news wires about Krispy Kreme introducing a new donut that would be made of whole wheat and low on calories. NBC affiliate WAGT in Augusta picked up on this hard-hitting story, however it looks like they don’t exactly have an eagle-eyed production staff in the newsroom when you look at the on-screen graphic they used in their report. Watch the YouTube video below or click the image above for an enlarged still. This is what happens when you hire idiots that get their on-air graphics from a Google Search without even looking at the results.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UyTOeee8hQ
Words…
Posted by Steve | Filed under General
Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.
Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.
Dream as if you will have a lover for ever. Live as if you will never get to see them again.
The Courtesy Call
Posted by Steve | Filed under Amore & Vita, General
Ever given one? Ever gotten one? Who gets one? Who doesn’t? How soon does it come? What form does it come in? WTF is the courtesy call you say? Simple. The courtesy call could also be called the respect call since it is, in most situations, a measure of the respect you have for someone. The courtesy call is about if, when and how you notify former significant others or booty calls of news that either directly or indirectly relates to them.
A friend of mine just found out that an ex-SO of hers is now engaged. Rather than get a personal call or even an email she found out via the Internet. How much time has to go by in that case before a courtesy call is no longer warranted?
Suppose someone you were with found out they got an STD. Maybe it was after you…maybe it was before. Is a courtesy call always warranted? How far apart do the instances of them sleeping with you and them hearing about a possible STD need to be before a courtesy call is not warranted?
What if you’re now dating your friend’s ex or his/her sister? Do they get a courtesy call before the clothes ever come off? Should you wait until you’re exclusive?
What if you’re divorced and so serious about someone else that you’re ready to move out of state with them? Do they have a right to know regardless of whether you still get along or not? Obviously if there are children involved the situation is different.
I had a personal situation where I felt a courtesy call would’ve been prudent. It happened over 10 years ago after I had gone fishing off the company pier. We only went out twice and remained friendly afterward. Well about five months later I’m shooting the bull with some guys in the office. Come to find out Coworker is pregnant! Word was out she had slept with another guy in the office after me but he was vehemently denying he was the father. At this point people in the office know about us since my roommate worked at the same company. One of the guys says to me “DT, you’re amazingly calm about this. What’s the deal?” I said she and I were together five months ago. If it were mine she’d be showing by now. In actuality I was calm because I didn’t know until just now. I was 99.999% sure it wasn’t mine but I called her that night to get the final .0001%. Nevertheless this brotha would have appreciated a courtesy call to say “hey DT. FYI, I’m pregnant and I’m having it but you’re not the baby daddy so don’t trip.”
What are your thoughts on the courtesy call? For me it is about respect. If I’ve shared a significant part of my being with someone and they’ve chosen to share the same with me I feel they are owed a certain something. How do you define when a relationship reaches that point where the other person is just entitled to be told certain things privately and before it becomes public knowledge? Equally important – when are they no longer entitled to know?
