It's been a while. The past 6 months haven't been fun and for a while, I really hated my bike. Not in a "I need a new bike" kind of way, but a "I'd rather play in traffic on the Grand Central Parkway than ride this thing" kind of way. Most recently, I've screwed up my knee. My only guess is that I messed it up doing heavy weights. I am back on my bike because it's the least painful thing I can do, but I got nothin'. Laterally, my knee is unstable, so even if I wanted to gear up for late season antics, cross is out.
The family is tired of backyard pizza (???), so I haven't fired up the Unni in a while.
There's always next year for pizza and CX.
As far as a story, it's not from the studio, but has to do with my rubber band balls:
http://www.mtbnj.com/forum/threads/...p-in-a-couple-months.43294/page-2#post-749793
My AIM tag was llabdnabrebbur, which is rubberband ball backwards. I had a few REALLY big ones. It all started 18 years ago. We had just moved into a house from a condo and every Saturday I would clean the stoop, my postage stamp sized front yard and the sidewalk in front of the house. I'd also pick up the crap that was littered all over the place (I live in Jersey City). One Saturday, while returning from the store, and after cleaning the front of the house, I see the postman doing his rounds. The mail in his hand is wrapped in a rubberband. He undoes the rubberband from the letters, looks at the addresses and uncontiously tossed the rubberband onto the sidewalk. THE SIDEWALK I JUST CLEANED!!!! So, I walk by him, pick up the rubberband, and confront him. I tell him, "Here, this is yours. I watched you throw it on the ground. How about finding a better place for this". He takes it from me and I walk away. A few steps later I'm struck with the urge to turn around and just as I do, he tosseds the same rubberband back on the ground. I'm furious, but the thought of long jail time keeps me from kicking a Federal employee's ass up and down the block.
I'm not getting over this. The entire weekend is destroyed by this guy. Monday morning comes and it's time to take my first grader to school. His school was in Hoboken, so it was a walk to the bus, bus ride, and walk to school. The first thing I notice as I leave the house is THE rubberband. I pick it up and put it on my wrist. Then a few yards later I see another one. I pick that one up. By the time I dropped Sam off, I had picked up over TWENTY rubberbands. I brought them to work and decided I was going to use them whenever I needed one (which isn't often).
It seemed every day I was picking up rubberbands. 10, 20, 30 , 40 rubberbands a day. I had a big ass pile of rubberbands and I was hardly using any. Well, this had to be rectified. The post office was throwing money away every day in the form of rubberbands and I had to do something about it. I started to make a rubberband ball. It got pretty big. the first one was the size of a small medicine ball and took two hands to pick up When you bounced it, they heard it in the studio next door. My clients thought it was a a very funny story, but silently I did not.
When the bands would break while stretching them onto the first ball, I decided to start a second ball. This one I built up to the size of a bocce ball.
One day, while looking at the balls, I decided this was not helping the situation. I had a lot of rubberbands, but only musicians knew I had them. I decided I had to go to the top. I spent evenings crafting the right sentences to explain the situation to the POST MASTER GENERAL! I finally had the perfect letter, explaining how these balls came to being, why this was a waste of money, and that this situation should be looked into.
I boxed up the balls with the letter and waited in line at the post office to send this package.
I never received a return letter. I'm not even sure the PMG received it. It might have been flagged as dangerous, I don't know. It weighted a lot. But if it arrived, I'm sure he's got a couple of sweet-ass rubber band balls on his desk and a very funny letter from a disgruntled customer hanging on his wall.
Once It dawned on me that I was not getting a response, I came to the conclusion I was the crazy (not that) old guy that lives down the block that everyone laughs at. I stopped picking up the rubber bands and have found other things to be angry about.