Winter Biking

So,

Is all I ever post anymore when I get written up in the media??

Just a small neighborhood newspaper.

Listen to the audio slide-show if you are want to hear me speak.

SW Journal

Take that!

(photo unabashedly stolen)

Boston

So got back from a long weekend in Boston…

Interesting town, not really sure yet what I think about that place. What is
certain is that I would have a terrible time living there, the biking looked
absolutely terrible. One of the things most all of my friends takes for granted
living here in Minneapolis. The roads, the trails, the greenway, all of it just
great.

Also, maybe just area that we were in, but there was little to no street art.

Here it is all over the place and frankly fantastic (with the exception of those Sur 13
thugs who tagged my garage twice).

Damn Envelopes.

I am reasonably sure that only my family and a couple of
close friends still read this, chances are good that of those
readers at least a couple of you were lucky enough to be included
on my Christmas card list. I am not one who generally bothers
with sending off cards for the holidays, frankly I have quite the
negative attitude towards most of what goes on towards the end
of December. It isn’t as though I am a total Grinch (maybe just a
touch), but rather that I just hate what christmas has become to
be and the commodification of such. Christmas isn’t about spending
time with family anymore, rather it is about spending giant wads of
moulah and further ensuring that the sprawling retail empire ends
the fiscal year in the black.

That is what I don’t like.

I like spending time with family, I like the concept of sending off
cute x-mas cards, not limited to those featuring cute little puppy
dogs wearing paper reindeer antlers with a back drop of sparkle
glitter. If nothing else it is a way to say “hey… I am still here…
I am still thinking about you… Merry x-mas and shit”.

You know I really should have signed every card like that…

Merry x-mas and shit,

Felipe.

Anyway, the point of this little rant of mine, I actually managed to
find the time in my busy schedule to send off cards, which for me
is really quite amazing. Last year I was so broke from school and
not working as much that I didn’t get anyone anything. My gift to
the family was to volunteer my services as the family mule, drive the
other two Minneapolis kids across the country, cook the x-mas dinner
and in general be the vibrant upbeat person that everyone loves.

So, the cards went out just fine… Or so I thought..

Less than 24 hours after I dropped off the lot of them in the drop
box over on 27th and Minnehaha, I learn that whatever company
made the envelopes must have gone with a cheap saliva activated
adhesive; my cards were arriving open! So far I have heard from
three recipients, all of which had a card that was opened.

Now this is a little troublesome, some of the cards had gift-cards
inside, others had notes talking all about my year’s accomplishments.

OK, really the notes went to nobody but grandparents and extended
family, the rest of you should already know how things have been
going with my life.

So that is about it, I am miffed about the damn glue not being adhesive
enough.

Aside from that, life is good.

Fun Fun Fun with the Nokians!!

Hey all..

Yes I am still around.

Working a ton, but really who isn’t?
I still don’t know what it is about us
Americans that constantly makes us
feel the need to work work work..

But we do right?

All of my friends, family etc. are
perpetually running feeling overwhelmed
and one step behind. I don’t know if
I am just getting older, but although
I am stupid busy all the time, I feel
in total control of everything that comes
my way.

But anyway work is work.. Bleargh..

We got a nice dusting of snow a couple of
days back, enough to gum up things and make
riding that much more difficult. The city
is quite good about keeping the trails
clean, so usually riding the Greenway
has been no problem. Yesterday I broke
out my SS MTB and had no difficulty what
so ever tooling around without getting into
much trouble. The problem however is that
my MTB has some serious crank issues,
there this loud constant creak each rotation
and I will be damned if I can figure out how
to repair it. I took the bike into my LBS
and they weren’t able to get the non-drive
side crank arm off, which I am certain is
causing the problem.

So with that bike out of commission, I have
been riding the tried and true Miyata.

While riding fixed is quite nice in the snow,
the skinny tires were getting tossed around
like all hell in the residue left over from the
plow.

SO,

To make a long story shorter, I stopped in
this evening and got myself a front Nokian
studded tire..

Best idea ever!

I would like to get a rear as well, but the 50
dollar a pop price tag has me putting that
off for a couple of weeks.

Bracket Rocket

Sorry to leave you all in suspense there…

Yes I did get back just fine from Spain/France. It

was about as awesome of a trip as one could have

hoped for, but it does feel great to finally be back

at home with my posse both friends and family.

Lets see… News?

Well little sister moved over yonder to the other

side of the country, totally wasn’t cool of her to

leave *sniff* but I understand why she did it. It

still doesn’t feel like she is gone but I know ’tis

true. She will be just fine, it is all of us the

Minneapolis folks that might not fair as well.

So, I had up until a couple of weeks ago been

working only at the b-wood, you know the

same place where I was the Chef a couple of

years back. I was just pulling early morning

bakery shifts, which really I was enjoying. The

only downside to working in the bakery is that

whole waking up at 3:30 in order to start work

at 4am puts a damper on the previous nights

activities.

Baking however kicks ass… And I am pretty

dang good at it if I do say so myself…

However, now I got myself a new job…

Like the last one it is a small organic cafe, this

one focusing more on bagels. It is cool, instead

of just using regular plastic togo cups and what

not, we have a composting system where the

majority of the ‘garbage’ goes into a separate bin

where some good natured people process it

into compost and sell it as such. Considering

the alternatives and how freaking huge the

compost bin is compared to our traditional
dumpster it is just dang cool is all.

Oh here is a whale I drew… Most everyone
who would read this has seen it already but
whatever.

I just like tossing little pictures in off of my flickr
every once in a while, just break up the monotony.

But back to my new job..

I am actually not doing the chef thing exactly, but
instead I am the General Manager. That basically
means I am running the place, all the little details
that need to be dealt with I deal with, well myself
and the owner. It is still a new place and I feel like
I have quite a bit to offer, already there has been
an incredibly warm reception from the employees.

(Those are all my sharpies, I did some organizing the other day.)

More pictures!!

Oh and I just spent 200 euro (300ish US) on the best meal of my life. And yes that was just me.

Los Fotos

Finally pictures got uploaded!

Here are a couple of my favorites…

That is about all for now, I could add more but I figure this will slow down the load time enough as is.

Tomorrow San Sebastian!

Barçelona

Barçelona is freaking awesome! Highlight of my trip so far and I have really only had the chance to see a little section of it as of yet. I arrived a little late, there was some trouble with some rocks on the train tracks so we had a little bit of a longer stop and got into BC around 10:30 instead of 9:30. I was lucky enough to find my hostel quickly and got unpacked and cleaned up before hitting the streets at almost midnight. Good thing is that most restaurants are still serving at that time so I had no trouble finding a tapas bar. I didn´t get too much just some patas bravas and albondigas in squid sauce, it did fill the little void of hunger that I had been suffering from a long day of walking around and riding public transportation.

Speaking of walking I was completely off on my assumption of where the bus was going to pick me up from Bonnieux to take me to Avignon. Blakers dropped me off right by the wine cooperative where I figured the stop would be (according to the schedule I had). The cooperative is where the smaller wine growers go to turn in their grapes and avoid the hassle of having to do the wine making themselves. It is also where you can go to buy cheap local wine, they even have it in bulk coming out of these hoses with nozzles that don´t look much different from those that you would use to fill a tank up with diesel. If you go through the hassle of filling your own vessel you are able to get the wine at the bargain price of 1.15 a liter. All the college art students were stoked when we told them about the crazy cheapness.

Anyway after I missed the bus I decided to just walk to where I was certain that there was a stop; Lumieres about 5 miles from where I had been dropped off. Normally a walk like that wouldn´t affect me much, but with the addition of a 50 pound back pack I started to get a little bushed. The worst part about it was that because of some road construction I was forced to walk on the busiest highway in the area for the majority of my trek. But at least I got to the bus stop and figured out how make my way to the train station.

The train ride over to Barçelona was mundane really, I finshed some trashy short detective novel that I had begun the day before and I admired all the graffiti of which there was plenty passing through the train windows. Funny thing about French graffiti (and Spanish to a lesser extent) is that the style of lettering are quite archaic compared to what we have evolved to in the states. Big bubble letter that are clearly readable are the norm in contrast to the wild style in the US. Not to say that it isn´t cool, just it is retro to be sure. Even the hip-hop kids that I have seen are dressed kind of retro, kangol and adidas ala Run DMC.

In the afternoon I walked about 3 miles and randomly I plopped myself down in front of a little cafe for some lunch. Little did I know that it was right accross the street from the OxfordHouse, a school the has a 4 week long intensive TESL certification program. Before I could order this guy Tim from Boston and an older lady Jana from England sat down next to me having both just taken their final exam. In the next 3 hours of eating and drinking I met a bunch of other students who were wandering the streets, I got Tim´s number if I feel like calling him in the next couple of days so I guess that means I made at least one friend.

After the cafe I had to get myself to bed for a little bit to sleep off the afternoon revelry, so I took an little nap back at the hostel. One of the workers was busy passing out blankets, it was supposed to be getting cold that night, read 17c (laughable compared to Minneapolis, I didn´t even use my sheet). I woke up in time to walk down to the beach and drink a beer gazing out accross the sea, I may have had a couple too many or they were too strong because I just got crazy tired quickly. I managed to figure out the metro to bring me back towards the center area and people watched for a bit before heading home. All and all a big busy day, and I didn´t even manage to buy shoes yet!

There is supposed to be some sort of a fountain show tonight that rivals the one at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, I just have to figure out where that goes on and get myself over in that direction.

The little internet cafes don´t allow photo uploading but I have somewhere around 400 new pictures some of which are easily the best I have been lucky to take in my life.