I am forty-three years old. That means that I’m getting older, as well as saggier, fatter and harrier in all the wrong places. It also means that I have endured forty-three winters. I’m not sure how many wet, slush filled shoes, slips on ice, scraped car windows, shoveled driveways and bouts of uncontrollable cuss-filled shivering that adds up to, but I’m sure it’s a lot.
After I write a blog post, in a crap attempt at proof reading to make sure it sounds even a little bit correct, I find myself reading it out loud. I hate doing that because I really hate my voice. If you’ve ever heard any of the XXC Magazine podcasts, you know exactly what I’m talking about. My voice sort of sounds like a pubescent teenage boy (or girl) with a twist of Quentin Tarantino and not one tiny ounce of the talent.
The photo above in an overexposed, misfired shot taken a couple of weeks ago while riding at Hanson. I ended up liking the pic for some reason and posted it on my Instagram page, then sort of forgot about it until today when I decided to use it to help sum up my past four days. Sort of the whole best intentions, crap results, take the lemons life gave you, trade them for limes and (literally) make several gin and tonics.
Over the past twenty-plus years or so I’ve made my way from being an obese 300 pound tub-o’-goo, to a pretty fit 170 pound, unsuccessful amature endurance mountain bike racer, to a 200+ pound, craft beer drinking, white-trash Mexican food eating, not so skinny cyclist just trying to stay in shape. During that time I’ve missed my share of workouts and rides. No big deal, we all miss workouts or rides for one reason or another: work, school, family commitments, illness, or the occasional bout of “fuck it.”
However, given my increasing paunch and ever slowing speed on the bike, along with life’s normal interferences, it’s pretty obvious that I miss more than my fair share of rides due to a lengthening list of crap excuses: it’s raining, it’s too muddy, cold, windy, foggy or hot. I have indigestion, severe manscape irritation, hot Mexican salsa bung, I just did a long ride (last week), I sort of have a headache, etc., etc.,
The plan for today was to ride snow-covered dirt roads on the fatty, and that is what I did. Until I didn’t.
I had planned to head up north bit and roll some fat bike trails today, but the 0˚ temperature and windchill warnings made me think otherwise, as did and the work I had remaining on my kitchen ceiling, I’m, finally fixing a hole and some cracks after an upstairs leak last year. So I rolled an hour on the trainer, and made my third trip to Home Depot in as many days before setting about on getting my DIY on.
While I was there I finally picked up the supplies I needed to set about making a small ghetto light rig for taking photos of things like eBayable items, products and/or food photos. Mostly for the food photos I use in the crap nonsense posts I call Cat 5 Cooking (not to be confused with all the other crap posts, including this one).
Keep the following in mind: I KNOW this has little to nothing to do with cycling and this is a cycling blog. I do NOT consider myself a photographer (just someone who likes to take photos) and all the photos were taken with my new Nikon D3200 camera, which I am still learning (especially finding f-stop joy with the newly acquired Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 lens used here). This post is mainly about lighting, not the quality of the photos, subject, etc., etc., Thanks.
It’s year’s end time, so rather than blather on about resolutions I won’t keep and plans that won’t happen, I thought I would put together a small list of my favorite Soiled Chamois blog posts from the past year. I’m not saying the posts were “technically” good or that they were the most read, they are just some of the ones that I enjoyed writing. I’m also not saying that you should like what I like, be your own person Goddamn it!
BTW, I regretted the title of this post as soon as I typed it, for it shares its name with the song A Few of My Favorite Things, which if it weren’t for the existence of the Paul McCartney & Wings holiday song Wonderful Christmastime it would possibly be my most hated song in the world. OR the song that I will most likely lose my mental shit to one day.
So here we are in no particular order, rhyme, reason or rank…
Going on a blog break until after the Christmas holiday. Normal crap blogging will resume next week. I’m sure I’ll be sharing my own brand of holiday misery cheer on the Twitters and the Instagrams during that time.
Have a swell holiday.
Later.
I had high-ish hopes for riding this week, especially with most of next week being occupied by Christmas travels and festivities madness. Unfortunately I came down with some sort of flu-like crud on Monday night and most of my time over the past few days has been spent coughing under several layers of blankets in the stinky confines of the Chamber of Farts. With that said, I haven’t been on the bike since last Sunday and I am starting to feel like I have a giant, cottage cheese filled ball sack for a chin and an extruded stomach that bounces and sways when I walk. In other words, I feel like the Great Goblin from the Hobbit.
Last night, right after I hit the publish button on what will surely be known as the most widely unread blog post in Soiled Chamois history, I popped my normal shot of ZzzQuil and headed up to The Chamber of Farts that is my bedroom. An hour or so later I was still awake; I tossed, I turned, I coughed, I was hot, I was cold, I was sweating, I coughed again. “Wait, why do I keep coughing?” I thought to myself. Then it hit me…. I’m getting sick… I’ve got the crud! OH, FOR FUCK’S SAKE!
