I'll start off with a little story about my commute home on Wednesday. I donned my stretchy pants, and tap shoes and boarded my speed cycle to get some good base miles in (that's bike racer speak, you know. Really I was just riding my bike due to an all day landslide of total and utter crap, and it was just what the doctor ordered to help prevent me from inserting my head into the oven.) Anyhow, there I am blissfully ending my ride, flowing along though the dawdling river of steel and glass when suddenly from my right blasts a burgundy Honda P.O.S., cutting me off and missing my front wheel by mere feet. "Hellooooo,.."I began into the passenger side window. "Would you mind opening your eyes when you drive?" I said, as the horn blared and the middle aged woman's middle aged middle finger extended in my direction. Catching up with her I began again- "did you really just pull out in front of me and then flip me off?" "You damn bicyclists are always running stop signs and doing whatever...." I cut her off -"YOU PULLED OUT IN FRONT OF ME!" I didn't make an immediate assessment of you and assume you were a blind, white trash retard, though it would appear that I wouldn't have been very far off of the mark had I done so" I concluded, leaving her dumbfounded, cigarette dangling from her gaping, ugly mouth. I peeled away feeling vindicated. A few blocks later she passed me again, saying and doing nothing, and as icing on the cake of our interaction, I passed by for a final time giving her my boldest single digit salute.

"See you in the government cheese line" I muttered to myself as I headed off into the sunset.

Thou shalt not cross a disgruntled man in an EVIL kit, might be the lesson here, and I'm quite proud of myself for once again leaving the windows intact and hopefully her ego in pieces.

Now then, on to business. First up, Bobo let us know how his most recent suffer fest worked out for him;

"Shouldn't the caption be more like "oh crap, they're testing my Olympic blood?!@%$"

"If it had been a 2 1/2-hour race, I don't think I could have held on." (What he doesn't say is that after the race, he went for a 10K run - I drank beers)"

Bobo's tenacity reminds me of a quote Robert Ives used to be fond of saying- "I might not be the fastest bike racer, but I can suffer better than anybody."

Way to suffer Bobo. It makes me proud to have spent as many races in your shadow as I have.

Now in news of the 'why the hell not?' A different Robert gets ahold of us to ask that very question;

"I don't know about you, but I'll definitely be in Spain for this one.

First staged in 1620, this strange event celebrating Corpus Christi sees grown men dressed as the Devil leaping over a row of babies lying in the street.

As I replied to Robert, how embarrassed would you be to show up wearing the same baby jumping suit as that man?
I for one would be totally mortified.

Then from Greg I simply get this email;

"For your consideration."

I don't know how it is that that little slice of weirdness slipped under my radar, but I am forever thankful that I've got the foot soldiers out in the interwebs doing.. er.. God's work.

No sooner do I mention 'God's work' (in jest of course) do I get an email from John about a fella that is out there in the world working very hard to make a positive difference, and not just by burning the devil's car;

"Stevil,
Been a spot of time since my last writing and I can say that’s a good thing. This time around it isn’t about friends discovering their true values as one of them almost gets removed from the chessboard o’ life, but it does involve friends helping complete strangers. Likely you’ve seen this propped up on Urbanvelo, but I’d like to get this to as wide of an audience as possible.

Sam bends over backwards to make the world a better place.

-John

Indeed, if we can all dig a bit deeper into our pockets, and help out with this very worthy endeavor I'll do what I can to ensure we get gold stars on Santa's nice list.
I don't know about you all, but I've got red marks o'plenty. I need all the help I can get to get back on the big fella's good side.

But as you all know, getting on my good side is easy.
Rainman sent an email illustrating just how simple it can be;

"Stevil,

Have some fun, hump someone.
-Rainman"

It's as simple as that. Squeeze some porn into the superbowl, or sprinkle some unicorns on ESPN, and you're on the fast track into the cockles of my heart.

Finally, here is one from Ashley for the 'holy crap' files;

Hey, so I guess that's it. Hold the fort down and jump some babies in my absence.
I'll catch you on Wednesday(ish).

Until then, here is something for you to think about;

Over and out-