James Pearl Thinks Blogging is Dead

rottin'

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
It's not gone yet. This seems to be my pattern. I have a decent day, then that night I sleep less. I didn't go to bed too late. Ok, it was 12:30 but we wake up at 7:00 so 6.5 isn't a bad number. Well...at 5:00 I am awake, wide awake, for at least half an hour. Eventually I go to bed again and wake up at 7, and I feel like I have taken a step back. I won't bore you with the details of the morning but today it seemed like every one of my streaming radio stations was on mode: Suck Hog. Between fundraisers, not connecting, playing just junk, and I suppose my mood, they were all rubbish today.

Then my man @jmanic saved my day with this suggestion: Beck station + Pandora. Nailed it. 10 of 10. Give my man a gold medal. And he didn't even text me tick dick, or dick tick, or whatever. Nothing in appropriate at all. I rewarded him by suggestion he make some edits to his current workload and introducing various Harry Potter terms in it.

I have 2 ways I can go with the narrative right now. Inappropriate texts as it pertains to the Olympics, or Harry Potter. Frankly we have enough bad/negative things in the world that I will go with Harry Potter. The other topic is a veritable miasma of discussion and while I think it is worth it, I really don't want to have it here. So please let's focus our attention to Harry Potter, currently on book 5.

I have promised D and Julia I would read all 7 of the book before we go to Spring Break and hit up Universal. I started in January and I am now on book 5. Those of you unfamiliar with the books will think that hey, doing pretty well. Those of you know the series know that even though I am almost 200 pages into book 5, I have not yet read half the total pages of the 7 book series. Yeah, it's that back-loaded. In all, I am on a pace that requires I read about 40 pages a day between now and the 3rd-to-last day of Spring Break. Given the subject material, 40 pages is not a lot. At the same time, making sure you get 40/day is actually harder than it may seem. I should probably just dedicate 1 day a week to read 300 and then be done with it for the week.

The story is what it is - most of you know it. I have been to Universal before - last year at the ServiceNow conference it was the end party. But I hadn't read the books nor seen the movies. Now I have seen much of the movies (not all of them) and read almost half of the pages of the books. When we get down there, I will be able to slay HP trivia with the best of them. That HP stands for Harry Potter, not Hewlett Packard.

On that note, this is really where my mind goes when I say I rode the Swiffer. It's a combination of Zwift, Swiffer, and the Quidditch concept. So I imagine myself riding this Swiffer broom in the basement every day. Adding it all up, and my not feeling well again, I went broom-style and just stayed inside. Felt a little better on the bike but still hacking up Ned's Left Lung, or Atomic Dustbin. But I did not kill my television.

Sorry for those of you who were hoping I would get outside today. But on top of that, we have been given a red alert at work, such that ALL other work besides the Minnesota Garbage Barge is to be put on hold, while we try and sweep the deck of that particular barge free of bugs. So while I was riding my broom, I was answering texts from my boss, who was trying to fix defects that I have the info on. So it was kind of a necessary step on my day on many levels.

Tonight I have very little in terms of plans. I need to catch up on some newspapers from the last few days as well as have dinner at some point. I think we will put the Olympics on at 8:00 then sit here and I will sweep more bugs off the USS Minnesota's deck while D polishes up a project she is working on. At 10:00 we will likely call it a night because it turns out that @UtahJoe got me sick who has now gotten D sick. So we need to try and get solid nights of sleep because this is seriously in danger of screwing up the weekend. Of course, tonight will probably be the best TV of the week and we will stay up until 1am because it's riveting, only to find out tomorrow that the gold medal winner was texting pics of his golden snitch to people who didn't want to see it.

I mean really, isn't it obvious that @jmanic should be taking my editing advice here?

G Damn...Neds Atomic Dustbin...I loved grey cell green. You emeffer, now I'm going to have to internet it...
 

gtluke

The Moped
if you like cheddar, the cabot 3 year aged is the best I've had at normal people pricing. I've only ever seen it at costco though. The 5 year at the cabot factory is life changing but 3 times the cost of the 3 year. Cheddar and Parmesan are my favorites. Never got into mushy cheese other then fresh motz and ricotta.

HOLD ME
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Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
My weekend is not technically over but I will not have much of a chance to sit down later. So I will take a little down time now to recap how this one went, so far. In some order...

1. Friday I stopped working around 2:30 and jumped on Zwift to do a VO2max workout. As I was riding out the end of the workout to hit 90 minutes, who do I find but @seanrunnette (actually he found me) then we rode together for another hour. He made me climb the 2000+ foot hill. Yes, I rode 2.5 hours on the trainer. If that does not tell you how much better this has been for me, nothing will. The 2 messages on the screen were from @stb222. He was telling me to ignore whatever it was the @Mountain Bike Mike was messaging me.

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2. That night we didn't do much other than watch the Olympics. As you can imagine, that biking effort really took a lot out of me. Frankly, it was stupid to do that.
3. We woke up and decided to hit the YMCA and spin class. This was probably a mistake. I ended up just grinding out some time and D was ready to go to bed when we were done. That brings me to my next item.
4. It quickly became apparent that this was a major theme of our weekend. Yes my cold (or is it the flu?) is still lingering and D is now sick as a dog. Why do people think dogs are always sick?

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5. Eventually I felt a little better while D camped on the couch and got worse. I filled this up in anticipation of the snow:

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6. Then @jmanic went and posted a guac pic on the Facebook and D was all like, I'm all over it. So this was kind of our dinner:

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7. I was told that I had to post pics of the after wood to get full credit. He got the text, but here is where your NYTimes plus wood ended up in part:

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8. We watched more Olympics but it is starting to lose its luster for both of us. I guess it happens every time that by day 8 or 9 the events all start to run together. I can't really watch another Skeleton run, to be honest. We did both find the women's 4x5km cross-country ski race fantastic. I have definitely found myself considering a Norway tattoo on my left cheek (or is it right?) while watching these ski events. The Times has a fantastic article about the guy(s) that wax the Norwegian team's skis. That's not a joke. I find it awesome that the country gets so into it.
9. On that note, I feel like the first article in the 52 Destinations thing the Times is doing was a total turd. Sorry I'm trying to be positive but that piece on New Orleans was junk. Hopefully they get better.
10. D was out by 10, I followed shortly after at 11. I slept 8 hours, she slept almost 12. She is still sick today. This one has been a beast. Here is what I woke up to though:

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11. I got back on the Zwift this morning for 2 hours and a minute. I did a HR-based ride today because I have noticed it has been zooming, definitely higher lately with this cold. That's normal with HR & sickness. Those of you training and actually paying attention would be wise to pay attention to that bit of advice. If you are riding when sick, take note of the HR and lose the power-focus, because your body is working harder to make all the things work. I would have been wise to heed this advice before today. See: VO2max workout above.
12. The only thing keeping me from going longer than 2 is grudle discomfort, which is remedied by standing up. Those of you who have done trainer work know that standing is not the greatest thing on a trainer. But @seanrunnette sent me some DIY directions to make a movable platform (not type) for the trainer which I may try to throw together tomorrow.
13. Technically I am off tomorrow.
14. Tonight we are going back to the MPAC to see Gobsmacked. Since they don't like you taking pics of it I will just pull one from The Google. I'll let you know how it was tomorrow but I'm pretty sure it will have been good:

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15. When I get home, if I remember, I will grant Mike his wish and remove Kevin from Time Out.
 

gtluke

The Moped
Maria thought she had a cold or flue all week but was diagnosed with some complicated sounding infection. Got meds, and totally turned around in 2 days. She was sick for like 3 weeks but this week being way worse.

And yeah, why is xc skiing so great to watch? Bobsled is on now, and it's a cart going like 100mph in a frozen tube but somehow watching someone xc ski is more interesting.
Holy shit as I type this a bobsled just finished at 88mph UPSIDE-DOWN and I think the are now winning
 

jShort

2018 Fantasy Football Toilet Bowl Lead Technician
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Those of you training and actually paying attention would be wise to pay attention to that bit of advice. If you are riding when sick, take note of the HR and lose the power-focus, because your body is working harder to make all the things work

If you're sick, and not really training, you should listen to your elevated HR. Take a few days off man. This cold is probably lingering because your addicted to the Zwift!!!
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
DAY OFF TIME!

The Times had an article in the Morning Briefing that touched on what to do with your day off. The first thing it said is that you need to actually take the day off, and not pretend to be off and just half-ass the work day. I paraphrased the half-ass part. Basically, don't work. Today, I did not work. I did trade some texts with my boss, but we were mostly making fun of the customers. One eternal quote that came out of the movie Clerks: This job would be great if it weren't for the fucking customers.

I had 5 things I planned to do today. I made a list.

0. Bonus time! I did not plan this but I got on the scale this morning and I am 6 pounds lighter than I was on February 1st. ZWIFT #4LYFE.

1. Go to Home Depot and buy the stuff to make the materials to make the Squishy Trainer Base. I don't know what it's actually called. But the guy made a list of things you need to buy in order to make it yourself. Like I said yesterday - routine standing is going to be necessary to keep this going. Anyway, I went and bought everything. I made an executive decision based on the wood available and got a 24"-square deck. When I got home I realized the trainer is actually going to need the 32" wide base. Oh well, this is what I get for not following directions. If you want to see more about it, click here.

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2. Ride bike for 2 hours. Maybe one day I will go into why I am still riding but not today (@jShort). Did another 2 hours and tried to stand every 15 minutes, which worked great. Instead of Mr. Grundle getting grumpy at an hour it was more like 1:40. I think @seanrunnette and I are in a positive feedback loop right now. He does 2, tells me. I do 2, tell him. And so on. I stuck with a HR-based ride again today, but I let my HR go a little higher, just into the L2 realm. Slightly higher HR but 30 more watts so I can see I'm almost done with this cold. Got myself into Level 9 so the Mayan Jungle is right around the corner. No idea who N Johnson is. Maybe the old Yankees player. Maybe a Russian Troll posting likes to my Swiffer.

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3. Read up to page 500 in the current (5th) Harry potter book. I don't have much to say about that other than, yeah, I did it. When this is done, I think I may pick another series of some sort and power read it after this. In the past I never read a series consecutively. I have always forced myself to read at least 4 non-series books between it. Don't ask, I don't know why. But I think I may want to pick up either the Foundation or Robot series and rapid-fire them. I really want the kids to read these one day. I don't know why the pics went all upside down from here on out. Too lazy to go edit them and re-link.

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4. Make a stir-fry with a Szechuan sauce we got yesterday, for D who is still sick. And of course @Mitch who never shows up at our house for dinner. Ugh, stupid pics. I am going to throw a Mantrum soon (HT: @jmanic).

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5. Put this Nanoblock thing together that I got for Xmas a few years ago. It has been sitting around and I keep saying that I'll get to it. Well, I never really give myself any time to actually just sit down and do these things. But after looking at the box for a while I think I have decided to do it with Julia. She is in Vegas right now, as it turns out. She's coming back tomorrow and we'll have lunch together. She's going to be 12 and I fear that the next 5-7 years or so are going to be hard. So I wanted to save this as something we can do together. I know, it's a stupid mini-Lego but like Homer says, it's the small things in life. F these phone pics.

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I have really been enjoying this song a lot. If you don't like it, you can go ahead and keep it to yourself. You have to admit that this video is SICK though.

 

jShort

2018 Fantasy Football Toilet Bowl Lead Technician
Team MTBNJ Halter's
It's called a rocker plate. @jdog invited me to a Facebook group dedicated to building these things. Some are petty wild, some a piece of wood with a tube underneath.
I think I'll end up with a new smart trainer at the end of the year and will look to make one.
The Kurt Kinetic trainer has this side to side movement built in which is pretty cool, but I want a kickr i think.
 

Patrick

Overthinking the draft from the basement already
Staff member
i need to re-read foundation - since Elon sent it up with the tesla.
Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.

--think i mentioned this before, Childhood's End. a.clark.

---

my teenager freaked tonight because he had to endorse a few checks for his birthday.
nobody told him his signature can be whatever he wants, and since he never practices writing in script
it was a big deal. moral of story, i'm trying to get better at reading what is important (like maintaining snapchat streaks)

remember:
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doesn't mean we don't try. You'll do great, you are the father of a daughter. Ain't no replacing that.
 

The Kalmyk

Well-Known Member
C'mon Man!
Watch this.


Beat me to it. Kinda. I have this up on the music thread. Love this video. My man 59 seconds in.... winning/hard steppin

Days off- I don’t do anything for work on my days off. Dont even check email. I don’t believe in sharing my personal time with anyone I don’t want to. I work hard when I’m on but off is off.
 

Magic

Formerly 1sh0t1b33r
Team MTBNJ Halter's
This rocker thing is pretty awesome but I feel like it would take up a shit ton of space, or at least visually. What kind of trainer do you use Norm?

That food... would eat.
 

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
@jShort - why no love? Invite me to said Facebook group. Jesus I thought we had something here. Remember last year when we were texting each other and it turned out that we were both on the trainer at the same time?

@1sh0t1b33r - I think it's a Cyclops. It is a dumb trainer. Like this:

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It was a sad day today. I made no progress on my quest to get to level 10. I think I probably have about 3 hours left to get there, so I can make it to the Mayan Jungle in Zwift land. Man, I bet it's going to turn out that the day I hit L10 I am in London or friggin' Richmond. And I won't get to see my rich reward for like a whole day:

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Yeah so anyway, the broom took a break today and I ventured outside. It is a strange world out there. Now that I have been cemented in place for a while it's interesting to feel how much more the bike moves. I was trying to get a feel for how much lateral movement the bikes goes through on a ride. It's non-zero, for sure. So this rockit thing is probably not a bad idea. I swear I will have this totally dialed in by the time it's 80 degrees out, which is was damn near today...at least cosmically speaking. Tomorrow is supposed to be more of the same but I am not sure I can handle being outdoors 2 days in a row...

I was outside so no pics of the world. You'll have to look out the window or Google it. Short sleeves was kinda nice. Did 2+ for the 3rd day in a row and the 4th time in 5 days. I think I have just under 10 hours in the last 5 days. As I said to @seanrunnette, this is going to be an interesting year on the bike. 237w average weighted power for the ride. Ok I just realized that is the Coggan formula, not the Strava, which is 227. IDK what the difference is but Coggan is the Dr. Dunkenstein of Power. Plus it's higher so I'll go with that.

UGH! Sorry about the numbers @Mitch. I just get carried away sometimes. But I am stoked on the 2018 biking season. I'm already dreaming of Kingdom Trails (not really, I mostly dream about stupid work shit).

Julia got back from Vegas this morning and I took her out to dinner tonight to spend a little daddy-daughter time together. She was in a good mood. She had a good trip and went to the Grand Canyon as well as a show in Vegas. I got an omelette because Sean planted that seed today. I replaced the home fries with a fruit bowl and passed on the toast. They say that you can't exercise your way to lower weight, but I find that the more I exercise the easier it is for me to make healthier food choices.

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D asked me if I ever followed up on Gobsmacked, which I admitted that I forgot. The show was ok, though I am not sure either of us would recommend it. I thought it was fine but I think D was a little disappointed. In all there were 6 singers and a beatboxer. 3 of the singers were very good. 2 were, well, not. And 1 guy was kind of a supporting beatboxer but not really. By far the star of the show was the 7th guy, the beatboxer. Dude was legit and kept this going on & off for like almost 2 hours. Easier to watch this to get a feel for it.



I really just want to kick back and read the paper but taking Monday off work just slams us the rest of the week. Such is life.
 
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