Running amok... straight from the oases to your half-marathon...

So my sister and one of her homies ran the Boston Half-marathon yesterday. This is totally awesome and I'm extremely proud of her. I'm less a fan of doing the event "rogue" (without registering); however, given the circumstances - it sold out in less than a day, back in July - it's understandable, and I am totally sympathetic to and supportive of those who feel the need to abuse themselves without such details as timing chips.

I know well that endurance events affect everyone differently (both physically and mentally) and that the experience one has over the race course is unique from all others. Often people learn something about themselves; be it about perseverance, self-confidence, goal-setting, hard work, handling adversity, or any host of other traits they never knew they had. But not my sister, no. On a course that apparently wound its way through a zoo, she learned that camels can live to be 50 years old. Sweet. How about that for personal growth??

Let's all laugh at the flawed technology!

My former boss and I are both college football fans, so, naturally, we partook in some goodnatured workplace ribbing at the expense of the other's alma mater. And as Cal freakin' sucked it big-time over the weekend, he didn't miss the opportunity to rub it in. Upon opening it however, i was greeted with an altogether unexpected ad-link. Awesome. Good work, Google!!

Reason the internet is great, #17586

It allows you to find stuff like this. Bikes and history coming together is truly a wonderful sight. Though it's rather disappointing that nobody crashed.

This is absolutely Sarah's fault...

Random songs from back in the day don't often pop in to my head, but it happened today. I blame Sarah and the power of suggestion. That's right, bringing back the old-skool jams errant-neuron-style...

So much to express, so little skin...

I was at the gym this evening and had just gotten out of the pool and into the hot-tub when I was joined by an asian guy about my age. I don't really want people looking at me so I try not to look too much at other people, but i was instantly struck by the guy's tattoos. Also, i figured, if someone gets inked in places that are commonly uncovered, i could afford myself a bit more of a look. Now, lots of people have tattoos these days and generally I find peoples choices in tattoos stupid in ideation and as equally poorly placed. But this guy's tattoos were like nothing I'd ever seen before. Even more than the rather hilariously dichotomous "CELTIC WARRIOR"/Yin-Yang-tramp-stamp tattoos adorning the back of the third fellow now in the hot tub.

I've done my best to make a mock up of what his chest looked like:

Yes, that is a 47 in huge block numbers on top of a dragon/snake. The snake continued down his left arm and that too was covered by a block lettering of VIET-something. And down the back of his right arm he had SUCKA FREE. I have to surmise that the only logical place to put that 47 was right in the middle of his chest, and if it covered part of the existing snake, well, it had to be done. Similarly for the VIET-something down the left arm. Because more than the body part picking the tattoo, it is the tattoo that picks the body part. And as someone with a well-documented disdain for SUCKA's (be they other humans or poorly placed tattoos), tattoo overlap was apparently an eventuality that couldn't be avoided.

So, rock on, overlapping tattoo guy! Because you know that there is no compromise when it comes to the best location for a tattoo!

Diamonds in the rough - mediocre postings, brilliance in the comments

I don't read Fat Cyclist's blog, but it was linked to on another blog, so I thought I'd check it out. And while today's post was meh-riffic at best (to steal a BikeSnob term), there was an absolute gem in the comments. Thank you, Heather near Atlanta (7:59am), for brightening my day.

What up, rydah? - rapidly losing faith in the quality of Felt Bicycles

I've never ridden a Felt bicycle, but they've always seemed to get good reviews and they sponsor the quality Garmin-Slipstream pro cycling team, so I've always given the bikes (and the company itself) the benefit of the doubt as far as quality goes. But two issues have come to my attention in the past week that are causing me to question my previous assumptions:

First, this article. Seriously, the steerer is just a tube. In this case an aluminum tube. There is no reason a properly designed one should fail. Carbon fiber, maybe. But not metal. Come on guys, really this should be a no brainer.

And second, there's this gem. Reading through the text you'll see that the Felt's new urban offerings all come with the BEERnuts tool. Sounds handy enough; until you realize you have now presented thieves a "tool mounted to the seat tube [and] attached with wingnuts for easy removal [that] fits the bolts on the rear axle, making theft of your wheels and/or bike simple when you so much as divert your eyes for a fraction of a second… and it has a bottle opener for aprés-ride refreshments so your thief can celebrate the bike you gave him."

So, Felt, I really think you should be doing better.