Everyone, no matter what their gender, needs a refuge, and I spent an inordinate amount of time in mine this past weekend, making messes, fixing things, and just generally preparing for the upcoming summer months. It's hard to believe that summer time is once again upon us, and the months of soggy slogging through the grey and cold is finally at our back.
Of course with the nice weather comes the regularly scheduled onslaught of alleycat races, non- alleycat races, and just your general, store bought bicycle related mayhem.
Ryan from Seattle's Bike Bloc wrote in with a list of just such events.
This first one is another ladies only event brought to you by our friends at Mobius Cycles;

If you're a boy, don't bother.... Unless of course you're planning on lending a hand, providing bike washes, distribution of liquid refreshments, back rubs, moral support, and so fourth.

However, if you happen to be a dude and you're feeling the itch for competition yourself, fear not, because there are these two that don't care what you've got between your legs, as long as it's a bike;

Few are happier that the doldrums of winter have passed than those in Portland, and to celebrate the departure of the suffocating winter blues, Captain Dave is getting ready to throw an event that is not only good for the goose, but good for the gander as well;

I'd like to note that Dave originally sent this flyer to me in a PDF file, and I just now used my big brain to turn it into a Jpeg.
... All by myself.

It really is a red letter day in the realm of technological advances for me.

Anyway, not only is summer time the ripe part of the year for being out and about on bicycles, but it's good for watersliding, rope swinging, barbecuing, beer drinking, and sometimes even camping.

Of course I can't broach the topic of camping without including this video Sammy sent, along with an email that just said "dude, seriously";

What else can one do when hanging out in the woods in a blue speedo, while fanning the flames of their fire with an ore? It only makes sense.

A couple of weeks ago Cary sent this poster on to me;

While it's kinda clever and made me smile a bit, it didn't totally make sense until I happened to stumble across this article.
You can't make stuff like that up.
I sent an email to our friend David who works at Vice and asked him if he was lucky enough to get tangled up in her web of deceit, to which he said he had not.
Prolly cause he doesn't have a beard.

Personally, the only beard I love is that on the face of Chuck Norris.

But it's mostly because I'm afraid of what will happen to me if I don't.

Here is a shot that TinaB sent in that has nothing to do with anything other than the fact that it totally rules;

I loved this so much I put it up in our Flickr account, but while I was over there, I was reminded that I haven't made mention recently about the Bummer Life's continuing photo contest. The prizes keep stacking up, and as I mentioned before, the winner wont be picked until I'm damn good and ready, so keep the photos coming in.

(send 'em to stevil@swobo. I like to keep it easy.)

In closing, here is a video from Newt and his Great Humongous that is sure to please;

If the girl's mouth was a person, it would be a ninja.

However some of Julie's competition in the wildcard event was Daichi, and I kinda feel like if his mouth was a person it would be a ninja with a gun.

Monday is once again upon us, and as such, it's time our noses met with the grindstones.
Grin and bear it, and don't forget to do nice things for yourself at least once a day until we meet up with the weekend again.
It can be anything from sleeping in, to riding your bike in the middle of the day, to getting 'I love beards' tattooed across your back.

The world is your oyster.. Crack it open and let a little bit of it slide down your throat.