Monday, December 24, 2007

Happy Holiday's Ery'one!

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Nice concept.

My friend Abby turned me on to this website yesterday. http://www.freerice.com/

Here is the breakdown- You go onto the site and it gives you a word with four possible definitions. You try to choose the correct def. For each correct answer 20 grains of rice are purchased by the sponsors of the website to go toward the needy via the United Nations World Food Program. You can play as many times as you like and there is a counter to let you know how many grains of rice you have generated for donation each time you play.

It's pretty cool. Yesterday I got on a couple of times, had some fun and earned over a thousand grains of rice. And now I feel wicked smart.... maybe not... my kids thought it was pretty cool (and probably better for them the Guitar Hero 2).

L8'er

B-Horn

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Score!

Had more fun last Saturday hangin with my newly appointed fashion consultant. She steered me right and hooked me up with J. G. who is a local clothing designer at the B.C. which is his funky clothing shop.

There is now an official "Ballistic Hornet" winter jacket. Being that it is my X-mas present it can't be donned until Dec 25th.

The specs- It's long and warm- in fact it's made out of airplane seat material. That's right, I think it's the seat base pattern for NordAir. It is actually fire retardant and may be used as a floatation device. So, I figure I got that going for me... and it's got the bling factor with an embroidered steely Hornet with checkered flag racing wings that is ready to sting on it's sleeve, A big B on the left side of the chest, and even a symbolic honeycomb pattern to conceptualize the Nest!

It is my special superhero cape like thang... I noticed right off the bat that when I put it on, I definately ran faster and jumped higher... a lot higher!

Monday, December 10, 2007

Save the best for the last!

Saturday was AWESOME! Cold, with a lot of snow and mud, yet warm enough to make slop. But just because the conditions were prime doesn't mean the racing would be equal. In these conditions you need hardcores willing to put in an old fashioned yeoman's effort. In fact the racing wasn't ok, or good, the racing was exceptional. In every category, each rider brought his/her A-game and made this day of racing the best of an already phenominal season of cross racing. The Men's A race took the cake... please read the various blogs for the inside scoops, here is how this outsider saw it...

First off, the one and only "Sly and the family" Fox showed up donned as Santa going to the beach... so you kind of knew things were gonna heat up.

As far as the Men's A race, let's use the analogy that Bartmang is the '08 Patriots, and the rest of the field wants to knock him off. So what are the other NFL teams doing, they are attacking the Pat's all the time throwing everything they have at 'em. Enter, and here is a new one for ya folks- Street-Ali-fighter" Goulet. From the gun he went ballistic (you know I dig it when I pull out the B-word). He took charge of the race much like Bart has done race after race... Bart hung on to his wheel for a while, and it looked like he was ok. But, the "Alifighter" kept on attacking on the narliest corners creating just a bit of distance. Ali is a mudder, no doubt about it. When you consider how ninja Bart's skills are, to be in a position to one-up-him at any aspect, is worthy to the max. So here is where Ali changed the whole dynamic of the race, he saw Bart falter ever so slightly on the turn leading up the hill near the start and drilled it. Eventually getting more than 1/2 a minute on Bart and then sustained it (ed note-I know Viagra ad ha, ha). Ali looked like a bounty hunter chasing down a bail jumper, focused- would be an understatement. Well the difference between Bart and the Patriots, is that the Pat's only play one team at a time. Bart was going to feel the heat from a group of bad men with worse intentions.

This is where the sharks smell blood, and it was impressive how smart the tactics were. Reed Wycoff knew that Bart had teammates around him, so he had no choice but to drill it hard to try to chase Bart down which he did with A-Train riding roughshot,not about to help... Team Rico was not far behind with Gallagher right there not sure whether to conserve for the Nat's as planned or take a great opportunity as it presented... and Mitchell Peterson who started off toward the back only to heat up and start picking off groups in front of him. Each dude playing his cards to only his/his team advantage.

So, here is how it went from that point-Rico is just off the 2nd chase group of 3 lead by the Gallagher who is now putting the gas on Wycoff and A-Train, lap after lap. Ali is gapping Bart Big time and the three chasers somehow catch up with Bart! Bam! With Rico right there in the mix after a huge effort just dangeling behind... WHAT a race!!! Then it appeared as if Wycoff was losing a bit of steam after his gargantuan effort chasing Bart down, Art was somewhat rested, potentially ready for an attack... as was Gallagher who was probably in the best postition with Bart and Team Rico having done a lot of work soloing...so basically really good stuff at that point... with it being unclear who had the goods, and who was spent in that group of 4, with Ali in command. At that point these guys were smelling blood and were going after Bart en- masse. After a few laps Bart apparently recovered and made his move, no-one could hold his wheel and he was going after Ali, only to make up a second or two per lap at first... but then on the stretch next to the pond, Ali's pace got instantly slower yet his rpms were still up. This was not good for him, while Bart kept steady in a bigger gear and made up 15 seconds the first lap and caught Ali with a 3/4 of a lap to go on the last lap. We could see the move by Bart has it happened, at it's onset with ONLY two laps to go, but never did we think that he could catch Ali in that time span. Now the hunter was being hunted! Bart kept his Tom Brady composure throughout the entire race but especially in the waining minutes of the 4th quarter- with the game on the line, he rode steady and DID IT! Bart caught Socks! No one could believe it!!! Then it got even better, Ali would not let Bart pass, they attacked each other like boxers in the midst of a draw in the 15th round, punching and countering relentlessly... did Ali save enough? Did Bart expend too much reeling him in? Until finally, it was answered with 1/2 lap to go Ali's rubber band broke. Bart took 1st, Ali with a valient 2nd... A-Train was riding his A-game solidly in third, but had yet another mechanical... and walked the course to the finish, calmly with his bike in hand. Then came Rico and Gallagher (Rico has had his share of mechanicals this year) around the last muddy corner they were nose to nose and Rico outsprinted the G-man at the line... for 3rd and 4th respectively... I thought it was the damn Preakness with those two. Then came the lunch pale man, blue collar worker of the day, yes Reed "Whycough?" who lead the chase to catch Bart for the majority of the race getting a well earned 5th...

Everyone looked like coal miners after, mud all over their bodies, faces, teeth, ears etc... and freezing. Ali was holed up in the Ridleymobile, as he got his verbal high fives from everyone including Bartmang.

Post race notes- Ali apparantely hit the wall at 50 minutes and got tunnel vision. Bart let his guard down just a bit during the race (he won't do that again) and the rest of the field dug very, very deep to make him pay... Gallagher and A-Train are looking good and definatley on excellent form for the Nat's (good luck gents) and Team Rico pulled off the podium after refusing several long solo efforts to bridge forward. Probably the best race I have ever seen, bar none!!!

Thanks to Matt O, Jon G, Steve the Patriot, Steve the Flahoot, Ellie and Gardie for making my rookie season fantastic. To my team and sponsor Mikelo Prattini and Canyon Bicycles for their interest and support, and all of the sponsors. But especially to all of the riders who rode their tails off all year, and never gave up. You guys were truely inspiring and motivational both on and off of the bikes to me... at a time when I really needed it! You guys have lifted my spirits big time in the last few months, and I can't wait till next year! Lets make next year even bigger and better (if that's possible!)... Look forward to seeing ery'one at the awards banquet...

Sincerely,

B-Horn

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Way to think inside the box!

Being that my brain is the size of a good sized pebble. I dig when you humans use your's... Below is a picture of typical shipping containers that are used for imports into this country. It's too expensive to ship them back to Asia, so they sit. LSS (long story short)-Dudes figured out that they can re-use these for modular homes.




One company Lot-ek makes each shipping container with all the modern stuff, plumbing, appliances, air, storage etc. self contained. You can order what you want with respect to rooms (See Below) Here is the outside...







This is the kitchen...



And here is the bedroom...



They are portable for the nomad in all of us... when you go, just move it, or if you want to store it while you travel the globe you do this (below)... Hey those are my two on the top!




If you look around some companies make them custom for you however you want it, in fact some just look like regular homes and other's are way upscale and big.


Anyway for an ave 2000 sqft (3bd/2ba) they start between 99k to 129k and go up from there... imagine the applications world wide (Katrina, alternative to Habitat for Humanity etc, etc, etc) let alone the enviro friendly stuff. So pack it up and pack it away... cool stuff fo' sure! I wonder if they make'em in Nest like dwellings?

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Couldn't ride today!

Took the Hornjet to South Africa today in an effort to get some good road training in... unfortunately we encountered this...

So we went surfing instead... see ya this weekend... I hope, surfs up...

Monday, December 3, 2007

This is what it is all about!

This is Nathan Greeneisen (from now on will be known as LGH "Little Green Hornet") he races with the young'uns... snow was not going to stop him! He wore his ski helmet and goggles...




He has some awesome support, and if you look closely in the background (to the upper right side), you will see Scott Allen riding with his son Sam also!



That's right he wore his ski helmet and goggles. These dudes (ettes) are very, very rad... it makes announcing a lot of fun. And kudo's to the parents of the these crossers (crossents) as well as all of the sig others that make it happen... I have seen neighbors come down to support, as well as other racers helping parents out with the race spawn, when it is their go time...and that's what it IS all about brethren and sistarista's!


So raise one up for the LGH group and their support... and by the way the L.G.H can give a pretty mean post race interview. (And thanks to Wasmund) for posting the pic's here at this site http://www.pbase.com/swasmund/cx112407


B-Horn

Cross weather was Cross.

If you didn't cross, or watch cross this weekend you really missed out... here is a pic from the north side of the course where it dips under the power lines going eastbound with A-Train posing pre-race...




Great job to everyone being safe, no-one got electrocuted... except for G-Love post race when he got shocked disconnecting the speaker, which then dropped on my head... feel kinda bad for the speaker... thanks for everyone who fishtailed and dumped only to get back up and do it again... mucho time-o's... and to the awesome Oktoberfestive beverage drinkin' fans... I truely felt like I was in the bleachers near the frozen tundra of Lambeau field...good stuff...

B-Horn