The way Nebraska and Texas played, it's quite possible.
That's the funniest thing in this blog, so you can stop reading now if you'd like to.
Mavericks Grind Out 13-3 Win
Anyway, here's my weekend update:
Friday
1) Ms Katherine and I watched the entire Disc 4 of NBC Must See TV: Heroes. Woo! That Sylar's a nasty feller.
2) Before going to bed, I checked the blogotubes. LOL on shim's fredcube comment about "going to hell". Seriously Fred, I don't want to spend eternity in hell, especially with you.
Saturday:
1) Met a couple of friends at Zorinksi for a 12 mile run at dark:thirty in the morning. Saw three deer in the moonlight. The deer scared the crap out of my friend Mike, who had the fight/flight syndrome; it was one of those things that's only funny being there while endorphins course through your veins. Quite hilarious, though.
2) I had a very enjoyable lunch with Ms Katherine and one of her friends at the Korean House in Bellevue. Munched on all kinds of BBQ meats, kimchi, bean sprouts and Korean pan cake. The Korean House is right next to the Offut base entrance on 24th St. I recommend.
3) While watching the Huskers implode in the 4th and coming up with the creative title to this blog, I had a negative reaction to shim's google mirror-mirror hungarian notation comment. Being forced to think like Charles Simonyi is not unlike going to hell. I think Shim made an effective point. I've since repented. Fred, you're on your own.
Sunday
Church at Glad Tidings in the morning followed by another trip to the Donut Professor. It's kind of a pattern. This time, I stepped out on a limb and went for the blueberry cake donut. It was delicious. I actually hoped to see the Shabbos+1 group at the store. Just some scrubby kid with dirty hair and shoes plopped up on the bench opposite him while he shrewdly ate an apple fritter. You could plainly see that he didn't care about anything but the immediacy of that donut. Needless to say, the kid's got promise to one day carry the Shabbos+1 tradition.
A productive afternoon involved cleaning the house and tearing out old growth and weeds in the front yard around the house.
At 4pm, I was finally able to get the Cervélo out for a 90 minute solo down the keystone to Capehart road and back. Man, it felt great. Well, at least the first 75 minutes of it did. The last 15 minutes I was feeling dizzy and my legs were totally wiped out. I struggled to maintain 15 mph with a tail wind and barely made it up the small hill on 52nd St between Western and Hamilton.
Ms Katherine made fish curry last night: tillapia in a lovely medley of tomatoes, onions garlic and ginger in a coconut and chicken broth curry. Yeah, it was rather good.
In a bit of posturing yesterday, the NCAA posted its future list of NCAA championship host cities. Omaha was not listed as the CWS home for 2011. 
However, the list did include the Qwest center as the home for the 2010 NCAA Wrestling championship. This piece of news aught to bode well for the Omaha sports fan. After all, wrestling, err wrasslin', has a strong tradition in the big O!
Indeed some of the greats, including Maurice Vachon and Dick the Bruiser were home grown wrestling talent.
So anyway, what's all the panic for about losing the CWS?
I can't wait to see the next generation of talent pick up from where the likes of Macho Man Randy Savage and the Ultimate Warrior left off. Maybe Ms Elizabeth and Scary Sherri will be there too. All of this in the beautiful Qwest center!
With such excitement, will we even miss the CWS?
Friday Night:
Ms Katherine and I had a big date. First, her swimming lesson was canceled due to a high school/club swimming meet at UNO. We stuck around and watched for a half hour before going out to dinner (Great Wall) and grocery shopping. Whew! What a date. If I said that we then went home and watched disc 3 of Heroes Season 1, would that be sharing too much information about my personal life?
Saturday
After house cleaning, Katherine studied while I took Emmylou to the park for an hour walk. Then, I went hunting for components for the yellow GT. Stopped by Bike Masters, saw Bryan's poster, and talked shop with the older guy with the British accent while he shoveled some mean looking stew in his pie whole. Among the bikes there, there was a $10,000 Felt TT. Meanwhile, NU was getting their ass handed to them on the shop TV. I then went to Powerpro sports to drool over some Honda Interceptors and Suzuki Bandits. It's funny: those bikes cost $6,000 and you get one helluva rush riding them. The highlight of the rest of Saturday night: Ms Katherine and I finished disc 3 of Heroes. You can stop here if this is too personal.
Sunday
Church at Glad Tidings in the morning followed by a trip to the Donut Professor.
Perhaps the Donut Professor could be the home of Shabbos +1 during the interim. Donut shop culture is like cycling anarchy: coffee made from dipping a brown crayon in hot water and artery choking deep-fried flour pucks represents an interesting dichotomy to livestrong. Just a thought.
Then, I did yard work. The highlight of the day was going for a 9 mile run from my house to drop off videos Season 1 Heroes discs 2 and 3 at the Blockbuster on Cass Street.
Along the way, I noticed a foreboding sign: "River City Hockey is now closed" on the shop's door. I liked Ted and his shop. Times are bad. It seems like small businesses are closing left and right.
The remainder of the weekend was spent on a walk with Emmylou, dining on take out Cantonese noodles from the Rice Bowl (four out of five stars) and studying with Ms. Katherine.
Congratulations. You made it to the end of this blog entry.
It's starting to simmer a little at UNL.
It's not unlike the name calling at local school playgrounds. You know...Billy is a wus, and "Tommy is a crusty old fart" kind of thing.
But Callahan says that we've got it all wrong.
With a script prepared for him with the assistance of the UNL forensics team, he attempted to assuage the situation while paying tribute to his new AD by releasing the following statement:
"Crazy, but thats how it goes
Millions of people living as foes
Maybe its not to late
To learn how to love
And forget how to hate...
I know that things are going wrong for me
You gotta listen to my words
Heirs of a cold war
Thats what we've become
Inheriting troubles I'm mentally numb
Crazy, I just cannot bear
I'm living with something that just isn't fair
Mental wounds not healing
Who and what's to blame
I'm going off the rails on a crazy train"
CUSTOMER: Who's that, then?
CART MASTER: I dunno. Must be a king.
CUSTOMER: Why?
CART MASTER: He hasn't got shit all over him.
Something stinks in Husker Nation, and it ain't just the sewers.
A proposed 2% sales tax on prepared food for the new ballpark comes out to about 10 cents for a $5 lunch, 50 cents per business week or roughly $25 per year. Since a general admission ticket to the CWS is $10, it's the equivalent to buying two CWS tickets for a game that most likely someone else will watch. O! but I forgot: we have our ego to protect as the home of the famous NCAA College World Series.
But the ballpark is chump change to the $1.5 billion needed for Omaha's sewer repairs. At roughly 15 times the expense of building a new stadium, perhaps the mayor will propose a 30% restaurant sales tax to cover it? O! but this isn't sexy news like (drum roll please).....a New Ballpark!!!
Speaking of sewers, how about Steve Pedersen's career? What a sham. Chancellor Harvey Perlman should be the one flushed for not listening to his neurotic booster club when he gave the former AD a bonus and a five year contract extension earlier this year. Instead, Pedersen is first rewarded and then sent out like a goat to take away all of the sins of Husker nation. Then this guy Perlman looks like a genius for bringing in former head coach, U.S. Congressman and future saint, Mr. Tom Osborne.
Heraclitus allegedly once said that you can never enter the same river twice. Well, Husker Nation is drowning in a it's own Rubicon of tears, elimination and other exudate that's now congealing in Memorial Stadium. Tom Osborne, as you wade into this foul cesspool, "I just want to tell you good luck. We're all counting on you." (Leslie Nielson, Airplane!)
Indeed, something reeks around here. My money (through inevitable rising property taxes) is betting on the only near term success: fixing our sewers. So good bye NCAA CWS and enjoy your new home! Good bye Mr. Pedersen and enjoy your $2M! While I'm at it: good bye Mr Callahan and enjoy your millions, too. And thanks, Mr. Perlman, for wasting the University's money, which is funded by our taxes as you may recall, on an unwanted AD and his coach.
O! I look forward with great anticipation towards the installation of those sexy, $1.5B sump systems. Anyway, there will be one less thing stinking to high hell in the Big O! good life of Husker Nation.
From Bicycle Village's Interbike 2007 update:
"Big toys for big kids! For every Interbike Yakima brings some crazy new machine that draws the hordes to their booth. This year their Hot For Teacher big wheel did the trick.
Sized two and a half times larger than the tot rod you rode as a kid, this trick trike boasts dual disc brakes, a cooler for your beverages and, unlike your first 3-wheeler, you can coast on this puppy. Oh, and since it's hard to tell in the photo, the guy on the trike here is six-feet five-inches tall!"
My four year old lab-sharpei-pitbull-??? mix, Emmylou, was in a bad spot yesterday. Katherine called me at work: Emmy was shaking, having a hard time standing and was protecting her gut/back left quadrant. I could hear the yelping in the background. It was just awful sounding.
I quickly went home and managed to get Emmy into the car for a trip to the vet. On the way, she perked up a bit when we passed Memorial Park. It's funny that way. Only moments before, she was in terrible agony, but then she saw her favorite park, her disposition shifted. It was bearable again. That was a bit of relief.
Emmy was no longer yelping when we got to the vet. She was nervous, but that's typical beahvior upon visiting the vet.
30 minutes and an x-ray later, the vet returned with Emmy who was now wagging her tail and flashing her trademark goofy grin. Apparently, there was no bone damage, dislocations or tendon tears, nor were there any foreign objects like chewed up pop cans or chain rings in her gut. Whew! The vet said that she likely had a muscle tear in her leg and would need some anti-inflammatory drugs and rest.
Who knows how she did it. I have a sliding glass door -- the equivalent of a 72x84" HD TV for dogs -- that provides a perfect view of the backyard. I've witnessed Emmy leap a 60" vertical when a squirrel comes into her viewing pleasure and have had to regularly clean her nose-streaks off the top of the door...perhaps she tore the muscle that way?
If Emmy could have just told me what was wrong, a little ice and some Tylenol would have saved big bucks. I just don't know how you parents do it, especially during the non-verbal days.
Anyway, for $217 I got a couple x-ray snaps of Emmy's hips and a potent 7-day dosage of doggy-specific Non steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAIDs). The hip x-rays also showed no dysplasia, which is some relief as well for my bow-legged pup. In the end, I suppose that the $217 also bought us a little peace of mind.
Good grief, what a day.
My brother Murphini helped mark another year of my life recently with an addition to the cycling wardrobe: a Pearl Izumi long sleeve Woolie. Dang...That's hot! Thanks, Murphini! In fact, I'd have to admit that my kin is a group of hoopy froods that I'm extremely fortunate to sass.
Anyway, this woolie segues into questions that a cycling newbie has on cool weather riding gear. Please advise or I shall rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon.
Head
Do I wear some sort of hat under the helmet?
Hands
What types of gloves will I need for different temperatures ranges:
Torso
I understand the concept of layering with thermal undershirt/wool/silk base layers, a long sleeve jerseys and a shell. But what is the case for wearing a short sleeve wool jersey? Would you wear arm warmers in the morning and then opt for no sleeves as the day went on? Also, until I get some more experience, I won't know how much layering to wear.
Legs
Tights? Knickers? Thermal underwear? Maybe I'll get knickers just to tell the young whipper-snappers when I'm 80 that I once owned a pair back in aught-seven.
Feet
Neoprene Booties? Munson's duct tape?
Seriously, though, I'm lost when it comes to this stuff. Mostly, I believe that it will be used for commuting. I suppose there could be some group rides on the warmer days. So basically, what brands do you recommend and where to go to get it? Thanks in advance.
Rather than bore you with the dross of my P2sl, how about grabbing a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster and enjoy a little Vogon poetry with me.
Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits
On a lurgid bee.
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously drangle me
With crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,
See if I don't!
Picking up from yesterday's brief interruption...riding a motorcycle was a enjoyable, but it doesn't compare to the exhilaration of a draft line or the sense of satisfaction of covering a long distance on your own power.
While I had taken up running a couple years earlier, my kid brother Brendan had been nudging me to follow his lead in getting into triathlons. So as a primer, he permanently loaned me his 1999 GT ZR 4000 road bike. Thanks, Brendan!
Somebody once said, "This is my grandfather's axe. My father replaced the blade and I replaced the handle. It's my grandfather's axe." Is that philosophy or geometry? I think it tends toward philosophical circles, but I would bet somebody could use side-angle-side to prove that theorem is correct. Anyway, I'm not exactly sure about it, but that same principle was about to be set in motion on the GT.
At the time of acquisition, the GT was a commuter with green knobbies and a partial paint strip.
I finished stripping it with the help of Jasco Premium paint and epoxy remover. That's good stuff. Just make sure to wear gloves and apply in a well ventilated area.
Next, it was powder coated for $40 at R&R Powder Coating on 19th and Leavenworth. The shop owner Ray is like your favorite uncle who chain smokes cigarettes and drinks coal-black coffee while talking shop. He did an excellent job: the powder coat is bullet proof, looks great and you couldn't beat the price.
Then it was time to assess the components. I knew that the chain, chain rings & cassette were well-worn, but I wasn't ready to invest much more money in it because I was unsure if I'd enjoy cycling. So I opted to replace the cassette and put some new Bontrager yellow Race X Lites tires on it. The big bucks would have to come later.
I didn't ride much at first: commuting to work, during UP lunch rides and in the 2006 Corporate Cycling challenge. But this past summer, I finally caught the cycling bug during long group rides. It was never easy. Pain may better describe it. Maybe even preposterous. Somehow, this equates to good times. Cyclists are nuts.
All of the wear and tear over the years finally caught up with the bike. The day after it's final triathlon race, it went to crap. Bryan's idea of pissing into the seat post tube to restore what Brendan and I rode out of it was creative. Crude, but certainly creative.
Instead, I have decided to rebuild it properly, which could cost more on upgrades than the bike was worth brand new. That being said, I'm looking for parts: 105s or better. It needs shifters, dérailleurs, cassette, hubs, an axe blade...
Post-Edit:
Ol' Yeller has been restored.
