MTB Adventures

Yesterday I decided I was going to load up my mountain bike and go for an adventure looking for some of Austin's top-secret trails. I vaguely knew where a couple of them started, and figured I could just ride around and get lost or something. But luckily, I ran into a guy Dave I kinda know, and he knew the trails and offered to show me around. It was a lot better than I would've been able to do by myself. And there are some awesome trails out there!
I went back today and rode the same stuff again and found a few things we didn't ride... I think I'm going back a time or two during the week... The Greenbelt is going to start having Kyle withdrawals...




I had a song stuck in my head all day today too, so it'll serve as song of the day or whatever this here thing that I do is called:
'Okie Dokie' Dan Deacon

That School Thing

I just got back home a couple minutes ago from my last class of the day, which means I've now been to every class I have this semester. The first day is always kind of hard to judge by, since we don't really do anything more than get an introduction to what the class is going to be about and how despite the rumors we don't really need to buy air mattresses to go under our studio desks. Turns out they don't expect us to have time to sleep, so that would be a wasted purchase...
Anyway, I think I'm going to be happy with all of my classes this semester, especially compared to the fall - as awesome as Jack's design class was, everything else I took more or less sucked.
I have two lecture classes: Construction, which is never my favorite, but I always do fine in it, and this time around the professor seems pretty cool, and Environmental Controls, which was HORRIBLE in the fall, but from class intro day, I feel like I'm really going to enjoy this semester of it. Then I have design as per usual. This semester we're designing a [smaller] events center, and for the first time we really have to consider all the elements of the building - how it stands up, HVAC, you name it... Finally, I have a class called Alternative Real Estate Actions - Experimental Research. I signed up for it with no idea what it was about, only knowing that Steve, the guy teaching it is awesome. The first day we watched a film called 'One Peace at a Time,' about how much the world sucks and how we can work to make it better. All I know is that it somehow relates to the class and we were told that we are going to be going out and building things. So, I'd say it's going to be a good class.

In other news, I've been back on the bike for a couple weeks now after the foot incident (which I don't even remember if I talked about on here - I broke my foot in a car wreck, no big deal) and I'm starting to feel pretty good again, so we'll see how busy I am with school, but it could potentially be another pretty good racing year. I might try out the new singlespeed in some races too!

Now that winter break is over and I'm doing things besides hangin' around with my people, I'm going to try to keep up with this thing a little better, but if you'd like even more frequent updates about my life, don't forget the Twitter.

To finish up, here's a couple songs:
'Gangsta Luv' Snoop Dogg
'Fever (The Toxic Avenger Remix)' Family Force 5

New Things

No pictures of the New Car

Because I keep going places where the sun isn't out...

Instead, today's reason why I love architecture school:


And:
'Wolf Like Me' TV on the Radio

Thanksgiving Day Check List

[x]sleep in
[x]see family
[x]eat turkey
[x]eat sweet potatoes
[x]eat fruit salad
[x]eat more turkey
[x]Scrabble
[x]Cowboys win
[x]blow up can of match heads
[x]nap on staircase
[x]Longhorns win
[ ]ride... oh well, soon enough.

Pictures of the new car will be up tomorrow, hopefully.
Have a song:
'Clouds Over California' DevilDriver

Mellow Johnny's Classic

For the first time in I can't remember how long, I was at a race without a bike or any intention of racing. Instead, I was there to hang out, get a break from studio, and maybe take a couple pictures.
As much as I would've preferred to be racing, just chillin' was actually pretty nice. Got to see some people I haven't seen in a long time, and heckling the people I usually race against was good times too.

Photo dump:

Out on the trail


Pro Class on the line
Sager, Rick, JHK, Fawley, Lance


Fawley on his way to 2nd place


Keith, Wheel, and Dave Wiens


JHK heading to victory

News

A.D.D. STYLE!

Two Thursdays ago
Driving home from Attack Attack!
That was a really good show.

Some lady driving other direction
Turns left right in front of me
Without looking
(LOL 'left right').

Car is totaled
Three broken bones
In my right foot
VICODIN!

Insurance companies
Like to screw you over
Makes shopping for a new car
Harder than it should be
I WANT A KOENIGSEGG! Please?

That's the majority of it... Let's see... Anything else...

Studio
Baseball
Chicken and Waffles
Thanksgiving
Mail
Tests
Coffee
End of the semester
Tacos
Ice cream
Hot chocolate

And some...
RANDOM QUOTE[s] OF THE [last couple] DAY[s]!!
(With absolutely no context
Because it's just so much more fun that way.)

"Well Frank Lloyd Wright says you're wrong."

"They're so PG... But their eyes are rated R!"

There's my world since the last post.
Songs:
'Ain't no Rest for the Wicked' Cage the Elephant
'The New Shit' Marylin Manson

Collegiate MTB Nationals (Part Three)

Saturday. Short Track. I opted out of watching the womens race this time, so I could eat and warm up up and everything. We got down there in time to see their finish though, before warming up some. Then we headed over to call up, which had apparently been fixed. Nope. Just as bad as last time.

Then some guy on the front row crashed at the start of the race. So me, and everyone around me, got to stand there while everyone else went around first. Ten seconds into the race I was third from last. In a field of almost 70.

For whatever reason though, people decided to get out of my way again on the gravel climb (same one as the xc, we started at the bottom of it), and I was able to move up pretty quickly. It used up energy I didn't want to waste that early in the race, but, there wasn't really anything else I could do...

We turned onto a flatter jeep road section, and I went by some more people before we hit the big bottleneck section going into a singletrack section to head back down hill. There wasn't any passing through that, the last short downhill jeep road (it was too fast), or the downhill switchbacks back into the village. I got some more people on the short loop through the village around the gondola building, and then we headed up the hill again for another lap.

I passed some people, some people passed me, and then with four laps to go I go pulled. That might sound bad, but they pulled all but about the top ten before the end of the race. I ended up 31st, and was the top Texas finisher again. Chad flatted though, so its hard to say how how that would've turned out otherwise.

Now: picture time!

Cross country


Short Track Staging


Awesome start... At least I'm on my bike


Short Track


Short Track

Its kinda like a commercial

Before the next (final?) installment of the Nationals saga, heres a quick update from the weekend:

Me and Joseph had pretty much nothing to do, so we took up a good chunk of both days going around and piecing together our costumes for the forthcoming event known as Halloween. What they are, I'm not allowed to say, but they will be awesome. Well worth the little under a week wait until I post pictures.

And we decided it was time to get more junk for the walls in our apartment. This time we went the 'high art' route though. More specifically, the home-made high art route.

My contribution:


Josephs aren't quite finished yet:

Collegiate MTB Nationals (Part Two)

Saturday morning we got up early and headed down to the village to watch the start of the girls races. We stuck around to watch them come through one of the most technical spots on the course and then headed back to the condo for some breakfast. And sitting around. And eventually getting ready to go race ourselves.

A little warm up, and we got into the staging area and waited for call up. Which they managed to really f... screw up. They called up all of the conference champions to the front row. But then, instead of going through all of the schools in order of national rankings and having them send one person up and repeating until everyone was on the line, they just picked all the big name schools and went through them. Then called everyone else up. So, instead of getting a second row spot, I got a 6th row spot.

Somehow though, everyone got out of my way both on the start through the village and up the first gravel road climb. By time we hit the singletrack I was already top 30 or at least really close to it. And then I passed some more people. Suddenly, I saw Chad in front of me, and I was gaining pretty fast. On a climb. Don't ask me.

I went by Chad, but pretty soon he passed me back, and we settled into a little group that was going about the right pace. For the rest of the first lap and the second lap I went back and forth with Chad a few times, but we were always close to each other.

Starting the third lap though, two of the guys in our little group started picking up the pace. I was feeling good and went with them. It wasn't long before we couldn't see anyone else we had been with. Then they started slowing down, so I went around and started looking for more guys in front of me. But I couldn't find any of them. The whole fourth lap I might have seen three other people. But, I was still passing [most*] them, so, I'll take it.

*One of the maybe five people that passed me the whole race came by about two miles from the end...

I wasn't exactly sure of where I was sitting in the race, but I knew I was doing pretty good. My goal had been top 20, and I ended up 22nd. Not quite, but I'll take that too. Especially when we realized I was the first finisher from a school not located in a mountainous area!

Part 3: Short Track, pictures, and more coming soon!