Fueled by Porkchops and Beer

Thus far, after completing 3 days of riding across the state of Iowa, I have come to the conclusion that people on the Tour de France are doing things completely wrong. Those clowns ride like crazy while drinking water and gatorade and munching on power bars and energy goo. I have also learned, to my horror, that once they start in the morning, Tour riders do not stop until the end of the day. That's dumb.

Here in Iowa, we start early. After about 5 miles, we then stop for coffee. After another 7 miles, you stop for a breakfast burrito and a banana. Then you high five some kids in a small town, before you go visit Mr. Porkchop. Mr. Porkchop is an old guy who serves porkchops and yells "AAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!" at passing bikers. He serves no side dishes. Your meal consists of a giant porkchop. By about 2 or 3 pm, the budwesier beer tent usually comes into sight. Finally, i like to roll into town about 3 or 4 and then sit around and talk with my team about how awesome we are.

We recently have landed at Ames, Iowa, which is by far the biggest town we've seen so far. I imagine that, against all better judgement, we will go big tonight to mentally prepare ourselves for a repeat performance tomorrow.

RAGBRAI Preseason

Wow wow wow. I am currently on a weeklong bike ride across the state of Iowa entitled the RAGBRAI, which has over 10,000 riders. Our team is known as Team Harold, and we have a bus. The bus ride from the Lou to Iowa was enough to warrant an entry in itself.

The first five minutes of the bus ride were quite dull, so it was suggested that we have a cold beverage. Fortunately, George , (my father-in-law andan Anheiser Busch employee), made sure there was a keg on the bus. As you would expect, most of us calmly sipped our drinks and discussed capital gains taxes and religion. One individual however, was not so calm. Let's call this individual "Joseph" to protect his identity. "Joseph" is 68 years old, a complete unknown to the team as of a week ago, and apparently completely crazy. All of us are highly seasoned in the ways of Budwesier consumption, however, Joseph was lapping everyone.

At this point, Joseph looked around and decided that he needed to armwrestle someone. He chose Brader. Brader was by far the biggest guy on the bus, half of Joseph's age, and looks like a pro wrestler. You may find this hard to believe, but Brader won. He also nearly ripped Joseph's arm off. fortunately Joseph never felt it, since he was speaking jibber-jabber and had to be restrained for the rest of the bus ride. He kept asking for revenge on the big guy and wanting to know where he was, even though he was two feet away.

Eventually, we arrived at Iowa and Joseph was had lost control of all emotions, including his bladder. Hardy, his sponser from Team Harold, then had to turn around and drive the guy all the way back to Missouri. Bizzarre.

Currently, I'm just hoping i don't do anything so horrible that i get voted off the island and sent back home.

The Upcoming Bike Trip

Tomorrow we leave for Iowa. We will bike from the west side of the state to the east side of the state. Powers-that-be-willing, I will inform you all about it. Two adversaries are conspiring to keep this dream from becoming a reality.

One: my ass. Bike riding requires a lot of sitting on one’s ass. I have padded shorts, but I’m concerned.

Two: Best Buy. They are on a crusade to provide the worst customer service possible, and are currently performing unspeakable acts upon my laptop that I don’t even want to contemplate. I have currently had to endure pictures of Best Buy employees posing with my laptop in compromising positions. It is enough to turn the strongest of stomachs. Yesterday, I received in the mail a package containing a severed “backspace” key. I will not give in to such terrorism. I hope they will do the right thing, and that I will not have to give in to the demands of such tyrants.

Backpacking in CO

After leaving Kentucky, the land of the horse, I traveled to Illinois and Missouri to see my mom and brother. Both trips were quite enjoyable. Unfortunately, all the wonders of those excursions are captured on my computer which is held by those no-talent-ass-clowns at Best Buy. We have a pretty good relationship.

The most awesome backpacking trip ever, of which you can currently see no photo documentation of (due to Best Buy), took place along the continental divide of Colorado amongst myself, Aaron Young (of KC fame), and Greg Hessee (of Denver notoriety), and also, Brew (Greg’s Dog). We persevered through rain, uphill climbs, beer depletion, and altitude sickness. I’d show you pictures if I currently had some. You’ll have to take my word on the awesomeness of it all. We climbed a 13,000 foot pass and then sledded down to the bottom of it. We ascended a 14.000 ft. mountain just to show that we could. We did. Send your fan mail here.

Look for pictures soon. If you want them sooner, email jackasses@bestbuy.com, and request that they give me my laptop back sooner, and that they find out why it won’t connect to my sweet new video camera, which will provide the world with infinite entertainment.

A Horse Ride in Kentucky

Since space camp I have had my computer confiscated by those ass-heads at Best Buy. Don’t even get me started on those Nazis. Thus I have been extremely limited on my reporting for the good of mankind. To flash back to when I had computing power, I was in Lexington, Kentucky to see my brother and sister-in-law. Of equal importance, if not more, I saw for the first time my 10 month old nephew Fernando. His name is Fernando Dingrando because it rolls off the tongue nicely. Until those hardliners at Best Buy give me my computer back, this only contains of a picture of what my nephew, Fernando, sort of looks like in my imagination, not as my camera/computer actually documents. I apologize, but vent your rage at Best Buy.