Monday, January 28, 2008

best bar in america

so i realize that the title of this blog is beth bikes; however, my ohio friends (who do not comment and, probably do not read), deserve some love. thus, this post: "best bar america", i.e. thursday's lounge.

if this bar was in san francisco or new york, it would fucking suck. it is cool cause it is in akron, ohio. only there will the hipsters, frat guys, harley davidson dudes, break dancers, and ravers all meet in harmony. 32 oz of beer for $3.50 (it used to be $2.50...), no cover, and a kickin' dj on thursday and saturday night... i actually hate dancing, except here. everyone goes ape shit. thank you to the love of my life dave pittman for introducing me to this place in the summer of '04. since then, i have gone every opportunity and have declared it: best bar in america.

this is my best friend amy who i always go with. she typically makes awesome faces like this while dancing. her cousin, paul is the other guy in the picture. he is the photographer of most of these pictures. and is pretty much the coolest guy ever. he actually lives in california too, but in santa maria.

here is my friend josh, who was the first guy i dated. we went out for a week....but, it didn't work out. nevertheless, he is the coolest guy to hang with, cause he is kinda looks like jesus. plus, he is the best hugger in america.

dancing gets really intense at thursdays. quite a good cardiovascular activity.

here is my beautiful best friend!

and her awesome cousin. he also kinda looks like jesus. drinking america's finest beer: great lakes brewery. they brew many fine beers, including: "burning river"--named after, of course, the cuyohoga river that caught on fire one day in the 70s.

the musical selection at thursdays is pretty awesome.

josh. definitely jesus-esque.

this eye brow move is really a winner. lick the finger tips and smooth 'em out.

this is me very happy, because i think about thursdays lounge all the time, and i am so happy to go there every christmas.

go team. it is nearly 3am, and we are ready to go.

but paul is not yet ready to go, and amy is trying to give him some sound advice to leave.

finally paul leaves, but instead decides to take photos of random things outside of kinkos.

miss amy sleeps in the car, awaiting her cousin, cause she has to get up at 7:30am to teach sunday school...and it is already 3am.


i cannot wait to go back to ohio to go to thursdays! (and see my mom and family....)

Friday, January 25, 2008

some old pictures from LA

alicia recently sent me some of her pictures from our LA trip, so in the spirit of keeping all my bike adventures in one place, here they are:

this handy sign was in the rear windshield of karla's car. observe hanan's bike is upright now. several hours later, it nearly fell off the car. thankfully, we had lots of good karma on our side.

alicia said this is an excited face; i would say terrified

alicia is too cute.

don't pay attention to the saggy arm warmers, see how close i am to the black line!

those are some pimpin' white gloves.

despite a little slide down the banking and a dirty skinsuit...

alicia still zoomed the day away smiling a bunch.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

thou shalt not... wa- wa- wait!

My mom told me yesterday she thinks I am “very funny” in my writing, but she doesn’t like how I swear so much. Swear?! What the hell did I write in my last post? I re-read it. Whore. Apparently whore is a swear word.
“Whore” Word History: Derivatives of Indo-European roots have often acquired starkly contrasting meanings. A prime example is the case of the root *kā-, "to like, desire." From it was derived a stem *kāro-, from which came the prehistoric Common Germanic word *hōraz with the underlying meaning "one who desires" and the effective meaning "adulterer." The feminine of this, *hōrōn-, became hōre in Old English, the ancestor of Modern English whore. In another branch of the Indo-European family, the same stem *kāro- produced the Latin word cārus, "dear." This word has several derivatives borrowed into English, including caress, cherish, and charity, in Christian doctrine the highest form of love and the greatest of the theological virtues. • Another derivative of the root *kā- in Indo-European was *kāmo-, a descendant of which is the Sanskrit word for "love," kāmaḥ, appearing in the name of the most famous treatise on love and lovemaking, the Kamasutra.
“in Christian doctrine the highest form of love and the greatest of the theological virtues” Whore. Exactly. My point exactly. C’mon, ma’am [that is how you pronounce the word “mom” with the nazal Cleveland “a” sound], swearing? I’m just spreading the gospel like a good Midwestern girl. Geez, I wasn’t vice president of the East Ohio Conference Council on Youth Ministries for nothing!

I measured my quads this morning, and wow oh wow, they were at 59.5cm. That is astounding. I don’t know what training I have done that has caused this sudden growth, but I am not complaining.

Friday, January 18, 2008

a much long awaited quad update

so, in my blogging delinquency, i have not kept you quite up to date on things that keep you up on thursday nights: my quads. well, as you know, there hasn't been much action recently-- i've been chillin' steadily at 58.75 since sometime in october.

photo taken by carol on january 13, 2008 at 1pm

well, the last couple of weeks, i have had some different numbers.
december 27- 58.75 [review]
january 3- 59 cm
january 10- 58.5
january 17- 59cm
cause i only work in academia 1 day a week now, i don't quite get my fill of bullshit analysis. thus, here it is.
After months of stagnation, January marked a month of slight fluctuations in quad measurements. There are several possibilities to such non-linear variation. as observed over previous periods, quad growth (and shrinkage) is, at minimum, on a one week delay. that is, growth from one week to the next, is the result of the activities (i.e. heavy lifting, sprints, or dormancy) of the (at least) two prior weeks. Thus, increases in the week of January 3rd can be traced to the holiday spent in the Midwest. This holiday week marked a change in training for the study participant, as she often reverted to survival mode, sprinting away from chasing farm dogs, as well as a change in diet: heavy carb-on-carb dinners (as the only available food to vegetarians at family functions was potato salad, mashed potatoes, or salad dressed with mayonnaise). The week of January 10th, displays a significant drop of .5 cm. This could be the result of the study participants several long rides during the first week of January, as she had a few days off work, and whored around, catching a bunch of 50 year old men's wheels. However, January 17th marked an unexpected increase in quad size. This increase causes quite a conundrum to the author; however, it is possibly due to chasing her roommate up the Monticito hill on her way home from work (roommate in car, participant on bike). However, more weeks of measurements are needed to draw any conclusions about the fluctuations in quad size in the month of January 2008.

Monday, January 14, 2008

a long jaunt to fremont and back

yesterday was quite an adventure. i left my house at 7:30 to meet marian. we had plans to ride to fremont the long way through the pretty hills of redwood park and then over palomares into fremont early bird to do the women's 3/4 clinic.

i got a flat early while we were bombing down the hill in redwood park. i kinda sorta snapped the tip of the valve off on the frame pump. marian was going to give me her tube, but upon pulling it out, she had picked up a box of 650 tubes. oops. i felt okay, though, and figured i could make it, despite the slight malfunction. however, upon rolling out, she realized she too had a flat front tire. it seems we both hit something. now, we had no tubes. but, no fear, because we are girls and men will always come to save the day! (it only took a couple minutes and she bummed tube #1 off of a man with a neon yellow wind jacket.)

we rolled into castro valley and i realize i lost marian at a stop light. i turn back and long story short is marian is on the sidewalk with two very awesome people who gave her tube #2 cause she flatted in her rear. marian was perhaps smart and took karma's sign to go home. i however, am not so smart.

when i got to the early birds, i borrowed Laurie Fenech pump to inflate my weakass tire. right when i was finished getting air in it, it popped...and my valve had busted....or so i thought. laurie is pretty much the nicest person ever, and gave me a tube and i changed it. then i hear a pssssssssss again. and i was confused cause there was no glass for sure. i checked again; no glass. laurie gave me another tube. this time, i rolled around the block once, until i hear a pssssssss again. at this point, i am pretty frazzled as i was rushing to try to get to the clinic and i knew there wasn't glass in my tire, cause i had checked several times. anyway, upon some examining we see a big gash in my sidewall. laurie fenech again was like an angel from heaven and pulled out a spare tire out of car for me to use, so i could do the clinic! what a wonderful women. i was so lucky in so many respects-- that i actually made it to the clinic and didn't get stranded and that laurie let me borrow her tire so i could participate in the clinic.

i was very happy to do the clinic, cause taitt & laurel taught me some cool stuff. the hour went by really fast, but i think i learned somethings. i was so fortunate and lucky to have gotten that spare tire for sure!

i rolled over a couple blocks to the early birds to use to porter potty, but instead ended up hanging out with team oakland all afternoon and yelling at racers. my favorite part was overhearing the smack getting talked in the pro/1/2 peloton.... especially that guy who yelled: "hey. know your place!" that was a sweet line, and i am adding that to the repertoire.

this is laura, karla, me, carol, alice, and mel..aka team oakland and adoptees!

this is a very flattering picture of myself, yelling probably at the man off the back in the masters cat 5 race. i believe this photo suggests two future plans of actions: a) take it down a notch, and b) purchase some clearasil.

here is me talking to karla. my face does not look so ugly, because the picture is smaller and you cannot see my zits. also of note is the loose armwarmers. mel, my guru, told me the real secret of why i should lift arm weights: so my armwarmers stay on.

here is karla being funny. while some would say they are proud of karla for hangin' with the pro/1/2 big boys for so long, i was disappointed. i told her to go off the front near our turn so we could houl like banchies. however, she did not listen to me....because she didn't care about the fans, apparently. so instead, we had to watch some people with stars and stripes or some shit like that go off the front. it would've been way cooler if it was karla. but i'll forgive her because of her toyota echo.

other exciting news was i got to see the fresnoakland dudes. holla! if i were the rest of norcal, i'd be super scared of this team. cause i hear their freezer is full of ox blood.

with a new tire and all, i tagged along the team oakland train back to oakland. we took the scenic route-- down hesperian baby. the ride back to o-town was quite eye opening to me. little did i know, but east oakland has more cycling fans than you can imagine! i've never been to belgium, but i best east oakland could give those eurotrashites a run for their money. i've never had so many people cheering for me on a training ride ever. it was pretty awesome. i mean, some dude was so impressed with us, that he ran in the center of street ready to give us a bottle feed of something in a brown bag! anyway, props to east o-town for having so many cool passer-byers give shout outs. i especially liked the three lady friends who yelled: "hey there are women! yeah!!!"

well, all in all, a great day. i must say, i was extremely lucky today with my mechanical mishaps and feel very blessed to being lent a tire so i could do that clinic! if anyone actually reads this blog, and you are a woman 3/4, you should come to the clinic next week! taitt sato is going to teach us sneaky things.

angel award of the month goes to laurie fenech.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

welcome 2008!

happy new year, blah blah blah.

much apologies to be MIA for so long. returning to the bay is very difficult after having so much fun the buckeye state. midwesterners are very awesome.

2008 is going to be awesome as well. why? my grandma always said "what new years day is like is what the rest of the year is like."

2007 i had the worst january 1st of my life. i was so hungover january 1st, i was still hung over january 2nd and had to call off work. thus, my 2007 moto was: "2007: paying for mistakes of 2006." this proved to be very accurate. i had a terrible year: messed up teeth and 2 week liquid diet; stitches in the face; broken wrist; then, 3 months on jury duty for murder trial....and that was all before june! man, my roomates and i had a new years eve party in june cause we just wanted '07 to be over that bad!

however, things are looking up in 2008. why? january 1st was awesome. i got home at 3:30am that night; woke at 5am, looked at the water next to bed, and it looked so far away. i didn't think i could pick up my hand to reach it and drink it. i was worried that a terrible hangover would ensue. however, i persevered, drank my water, got up, refilled my water, and chugged two more glasses. then, i woke up at 9am feeling like a million bucks! my roommates did not bode so well. my friend betsy has a horse in livermore that she needed to train that day-- so she was gonna drive out later in the afternoon. i felt so good, i told her i'd bike out there to her farm if she'd drive me home... and that i did. and i even got to pet the horse! thus, i told my roommates that my new years moto was: "2008. feeling better than everyone else." they did not like this moto, thought i was being a bitch, and renamed it: "2008. stepping on the backs of everyone else."