the good life

Below is a picture of our basement. Well, part of our basement. The main room is essentially an indoor hockey rink, a beer pong table, a party couch, and a washer and dryer.  The back room however, pictured below, is worth a few thousands of dollars, apparently.  This masterpiece-worthy beauty of a cluster fuck resulted from the residential bikes (Mike, Kylie and Lexy's 3-5 bikes each) plus the Flawda boys' traveling arsenal of rides. All crammed into this little space, providing a nice geometric challenge and one awesome picture, courtesy of Mikey.
In a week-long shopping spree, our friend Dan wound up with two more bikes, making his total somewhere around 3800. Pictured above are a few of his bikes that he brought up with him from Florida.

Party caravan makes it way to the Panhandle of Paradise. Or makes it back up to the sliver of a state that is NC. Who knows? Gas stations all look the same, and I can't tell which direction the car is pointing.  

Blitzkrieg Tour of Central Florida--Without Even a Single Gator Sighting. Dang.

After a week of shuffle-board tournaments, Jimmy Buffet dance parties, and eating deep-fried snickers for dinner every night, the Florida-inspired Spring Break '08 (Asheville Edition) ended with a caravan of sorts back to the State that is South of the South--Flawda.

Ryan and Ian left at a rediculously early hour (eight or something nuts like that), then Dan and Joe took off an hour later, followed about another hour later by Kylie and Mike, plus a special guest, Lexy Lewis.  The latter made his decision at the very last minute with the words, "hey, you think I still have time to pack?" Kylie and Mike rejoiced with a "Hell yeah, get your stuff...we're going to Florida!"  And so it became three Ashevillians setting out to invade the Swamplands for a weekend of shenaniganning and bike riding.

And this is where it becomes everything that I love about America: the disgusting yet wonderful waste that is the road trip. Who the hell besides our dumb-fuck nation would enjoy--take pride in, even--driving 18 hours round trip in three days for the chance to ride a bike somewhere else, sleep in someone else's house, and shop at a different grocery store chain? In the words of the Great Kevin Arthur Biggs, "'Tevs yo." (That's short for "whatever, yo.")

I think the perfect symbolism for the Road Trip is the amount of coffee and sugar that is generally consumed while driving.  It creates a very surreal and dangerous contentment mixed with a uncontrollable cracked out feeling of invincibility and relentless energy (which isn't exactly needed within the confines of an automobile, but 'tevs yo.)  This creates the paradoxical state of feeling simultaneously amazing and sick to your stomach with disgust of yourself.  That, my fellow Americans, is the road trip.

But on the flip side, its fun to spend hours with your close friends, starring out the window, talking only every once in awhile--whenever a random thought presents itself and interesting enough to share with the others.  And in a single day you can go from late winter in the Blue Ridge Mountains to the dinosaur-era, malaria-infested, 80-degree forests of central Florida. It's magical, to say the least.

Two days and two bike races later (one wasn't really a race--it was more just cruising alongside other goons, peddling through hub-deep puddles, sand, mud pits, and sometmes even amazingly fun singletrack in the fragmented woods of downtown Gainesville--friggen awesome!!) The other race was more serious and expensive, so we don't want to talk about that.

Then we went home, back to 17 Nebraska, which at some point over the past week was re-Christianed by Ian Knabe as "17 Viertel" with an official sign post and everything. So basically, Mikey owns us. 'Tevs yo.

Florida boys travel upstream for Spring Break '08 and once again, no one knows where Ian is...

Since, well it was supposed to be around 3 pm, but then it was more like 4:30, probably, but then actually wound up being after 6 on Friday that the first installment of the Guys from Flawda came up for Spring Break '08. Originally known only as "The Monosyllables" Dan and Joe are actually two great, personality-full, young men with secret talents ranging from stylish bicycle riding to steller beer-pong abilities to suave Jack Johnson impersonations.  Two days later, another couple of Flawidians came up: Ian "No, Stop! Please but that down!" Knabe and (the future) Dr. Ryan Fisher, Ph.D.  Since then, the house has been full of Mortal Kombat tournaments, rediculously non-sensical conversations, basement hockey, and other random mini-adventures.  

An example of the latter is the dare that Mike imposed on and took up by himself: the eating of 10 Festino's frozen pizzas. Ingles was having a deal--ten pizzas for $10, so Mikey figured he could prove his manhood and thrifty grocery shopping skills by eating 10 in one sitting. Too bad he pussed out after 6 1/2 or something, though. In the words of Brent Brookwalter, "You're so weak you disgust me."

Besides that, the Caravan of Disaster, otherwise know as Joe's Pathfinder has taken the group of hardcores (i.e. the Florida boys plus some random girl from Ohio) has taken Joe, Dan, Ian, Dr. Fisher, Mike and me on some very Pisgahwesome mountain bike rides. The weather has been pseudo-spring/Florida style, so the riding has been exceptionally nice--and this week by far makes up for last week's five days straight of road riding.

To explain myself about that last comment, I just got this bling-bling road bike from C.S.M from Ski Country: "Seven Bills" as the Flawda boys say for this titanium wonder with a darn-good build (or Gruppo, as the snob-ass roadies say).  Ever since first laying eyes on Timmy-from-Flagstaff's Rigor Mootis with the dented top-tube, my ultimate final fantasy four has been to own a Ti bike. Titanium is an obscure element that is found only in bicycles and robots, and its exceptionally great for the former because 1) its uber-lightweight and feels oh-so-good 2) it can be melted down into a wedding ring whenever the time comes, and 3) as Art Shuster says, "You could leave it in the bed of your truck and piss on it for a year and it'd still be rideable." In conclusion, this bike is a dreamboat. But enough of this Ode to My Bike...I was terrified that I might be turning into a roadie, so this week of amazing mountain bike rides in the Pisgah area with the Flawda boys has been reassuringly amazing. 

And tomorrow we're traveling back to their Native Panhandle for SERC #1 and the Tour of Gainesville. I have four goals, of which I'm hoping to fulfill at least three: Punch a gator, podium at the SERC, play shuffle-board with a retiree, and drink mojitos on the beach.  I also want to play kickball and watch Mike eat another 6 1/2 frozen pizzas. 

That's all. Now get back to doing something worthwhile, you loser.

Cheers,

Kylie

man cookies

The past couple days have been quite calm and relaxing at 17 Nebraska. Last night Mike taught me how to make cookies which was quite fun. But when I put the dough on the baking sheets to bake them he didn't tell me how huge my mounds of dough really were, so when I pulled them out of the oven there was one large cookie that Mike and I deemed a "man cookie". Mike actually did the same thing with his cookies 15 minutes later. I guess this means that we are both real men.

I have recently started a new job for a new tree compnay called Above All Tree Service. A catchy name with a catchy slogan. "We trim your trees, not your wallet". It is all about the sales pitch, right? But working outside again all day has been a breath of fresh air for a number of different reasons. It is great to be able to use skills that I have for good and not for evil. For example, today I spent 3 hours in a large oak tree removing it so that it wouldn't pose as a potential roof remover. I smell like sawdust and gasoline, and the ladies love it... well, one REALLY likes it.

This weekend and the following week are going ot be ridiculous cause we have got some really good people coming up to the house. Tons of bike riding to be done. Tons of beer to be drank, and hopefully not too many wrestling matches, but with Ian coming up, who the hell knows?

-Lexy