Spring time

Its spring. Everything becomes green again... alive once more for another trip around the Sun. In Alaska we'd always keep our eyes open for that first Robin, pecking its beak into the soil for a yummy earthworm to murder, but in Bellingham there are Robins here all year around.

That said, I did see my first hippy of the season. See the happy hippy! See how he walks, to-and-fro searching for the quickest path to the Coop. I get the feeling that these 2010 Spring time hippies have evolved... or at least their tastes have. Trader Joes is out. Too corporate. I went in there the other day to buy some laxatives (dried cranberries) and I noticed that there were no hippies to speak of. No patchouli or BO scenting the air. Quite the contrary, I smelled the stink of upper middle-class housewives. The parking lot was full of giant SUVs with 'buy local' bumper stickers and child seats. A changing of the guard to be sure! See the happy hippy! See him take his dollars elsewhere!

I set myself a goal early this January: Bench press 300 pounds by the end of the year. It is insanely optimistic I know... but I recently broke through another strength plateau. I'd been stuck for a while at static strength level so I started increasing the intensity of my workouts and supplementing with a Nitric Oxide booster (in addition to protein and creatine) and the results starting knocking on the door. I repped 225 pounds 6 times. Given that just a half year ago I would have struggled putting up 225 one time I'd say the path is clear.

It is now biking season... meaning that after work I can come home and head straight to the hills. I got plans too, I want to rebuild some of my old trails and continue new ones... pics will be forthcoming.

Sprint Time Rant

Damn Hippies!

Ah spring... The signs are here; fragrant cherry blossoms, stinky dog crap, green leaf buds, warmer temps, (even) more cars, and odiferous hippies. Yes folks, hippies. Believe it or not, I think they actually push up out of the ground in the spring like hibernating animals, and judging by the smell, not too far from the growing piles of dog crap either.

Lately I've noticed more hippies on bikes during my commutes. Sure, this is a good thing in principal, I love to see anyone on a bike, but the way these hippies act on their bikes is what peeves me to the core. For example, today I was riding home and I came up to a stop sign at a relatively busy highway. As I start slowing down I notice another rider coming from the other direction; a hippy. As the hippy gets closer to it's respective stop sign I notice that it isn't slowing down; in fact its speeding up! The dumbass hippy proceeds to blow right through the stop sign without even a hesitation or a look right or left! Geez! Thankfully no car was coming at that moment or I'd be picking stinking pieces of hippy flesh out of my teeth for the next couple weeks. As the hippy passes by me I look at it with utter astonishment and notice a handwritten sign taped to its back which reads "NO WAR". I almost didn't know what to think at first, but then I came to my senses. Like all rational people I'm opposed to Emperor Bush's adolescent idiocy in the Middle East yet I choose to elevate my dissent to the level of rational discourse. This hippy, with it's sign on it's back took my argument and metaphorically rubbed it in dog crap. "NO WAR" ?!!??! What the hell is a cardboard sign on the back of a cotton wearing, granola eating, non-helmet wearing stink factory supposed to prove? Man I'll bet all those Right-wing Fundamentalist Republican fatties driving their Ford F-850 double dually 5X extended cab trucks must get aroused just at the thought of swerving their steering wheels just ever so little when they see those mobile billboards of stupidity. There is almost nothing I dislike more than someone who takes an argument that I hold dear and mutilates it. But it gets worse:

It was about a week ago and I had just got home from the office when I noticed movement outside my window. Native Bellingham Hippies; on tandem bikes, a rather rare breed. As I looked them up online I found that this specific breed is marked by extreme self-righteousness, excessive body hair, and a pungent vinegar aroma. As I closed the window, I watched the hippies fail to stop at TWO stop signs, and noticed... you guessed it, cardboard signs on their backs. "NO BLOOD FOR OIL", "PEACE", and other nonsensical phrases. I don't own a gun, so I just bottled up my anger on the inside.

The bottom line is this: all winter, during the crappy weather, snow, ice and gloom I never once saw a hippy outside. This leaves me with a lingering suspicion; that the hippies were driving cars. My suspicion is offered even more evidence by the fact that only now, with the warmer temps am I actually starting to see them. Do their ideologies only reach so far as their comfort level? Apparently yes; which is the real reason I despise the hippy life; it wreaks of hypocrisy. Where were the hippies on the 10 degree days? The days it snowed a foot? They sure as hell weren't out riding with me. There is nothing I want to see more than societies built around human powered transportation instead of the automobile filth, and I suspect the hippies would agree with me, but only in principal. I'm positive that when it came time to really put their convictions to the test most of them would fall flat on their faces, eating their own words. So what do they do? They exercise their beliefs when the weather is nice, but even then they can't get it right: stupid signs, no helmets, complete disregard for traffic laws and a lack of common sense. They are creating a bad image for the rest of us cyclists who ride every day, obey the laws and deal with enough garbage from stupid drivers as it is.

Can I get an AMEN BROTHER?