The Perfect Pint

Just sat down for some dinner at a Buffalo Wildwings on the University
of Cincinnati campus to watch the US vs. ES world cup qualifying game
and the bartender poured a Perfect Pint of Guinness, complete with the
faint shamrock topper. No work tomorrow, I cannot wait to sleep in.

Working hard...

... Or hardly working. I'm sitting watching a 7000 pound piece of
hardware travel at a rate of about an inch a minute and I have another
20 FEET to go. This will take a while...

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Assault!

So I saw these two geese who were just sitting in the middle of the
barnes and noble parking lot and thought it would be an amusing
picture with them being so comfortable in their suburban environment.
I approached slowly and they were seated, but when I got within 15
feet, they stood up and started walking towards me. Geese are not nice
creatures and I prepared to defend myself armed with only my work
laptop as I backed slowly away from their advance. Fortunately for
both parties, detente won out and a mutual no fly zone of 25 feet was
established. Next time I am coming better armed.

Hockey in the midwest

Rubbin's racing

I had nothing to do after work tonight so I decided I'd see if i
couldnt get some track time at the local indoor go kart facility,
turns out that Thursdays is buy 3 races and get the fourth free! How
could I turn down an offer like that?

The drive over took me from Ohio to Kentucky to Indiana in the span of
30 minutes, not so shabby! The track was pretty small and the karts
not very grippy but plenty fast and more than enough fun. Of the four
races my fastest lap times were:

1. 22.31
2. 20.98
3. 20.56
4. 20.66

Steady improvement up until the end. The last race had a lot of slower
traffic for me to get around and as such I really wasn't able to find
a good rythem around the course. I think I'll be back there next
thursday night for some more action.

Goodbye Love, Goodbye Happiness, Hello Loneliness..

RIP Landau...

Run Route

Brought to you by MapMyRun.com

Run Ben Run

3.25 miles, no idea how long it took me, but i was averaging at least an 8 min/mile clip, felt good, looking to expand that performance tomorrow evening.

Gokarting

Vroom vroom

Flying

My parents had my siblings and I flying from a very early age, I
remember going to key west and snorkeling when I was quite young, and
of course we went to Disney world a few times as well. I don't really
understand some people who are so afraid of flying, afterall, it's
safer than driving your car on vacation. The problem is that airplane
crashes get much more press.

Anyhow, the moral of the story is that I treat flying as I would
commuting on a city bus or taking the metro to work, it is sort of a
pain in the neck, but a necessary evil. I wonder what would happen if
somehow the airlines convinced people who didn't normally fly to come
take a trip. There is so much to see out in the world, I just don't
understand homebodies. What are they scared of? What are you scared of?

I was in a car accident in japan. I landed, rented a car, and on the
way to the hotel managed to smash side view mirrors with a guy in a
lexus. He didn't speak English, I didn't speak japanese, and guess
what happened?

Well, he didn't kill me with a well placed thrust of a samurai sword,
I wasn't thrown in a Japanese prison, we just sort of used hand
signals to relay the fact that no damage was done and it was far
easier for us to go our separate ways.

Americans are inherently distrustful of anyone who is not American,
but what is even less amusing is that we don't even trust each other.
I wonder what the statistical ramifications of trusting someone would
be. If you are looking to write a thesis on the behavior of humans,
look me up and we can talk. I would like to see what would happen if
you ran an experiment where a person trusted 100 people to do what
they say they will do. How many kept their word and how many were lies
to or stolen from? I have a feeling that I'd be disappointed. With the
results but I'm willing to be the test subject, which brings me to my
next example...

I recently went to Ghana, in west Africa, to visit my sister who is a
peace corps volunteer in a smallish (15000) person vilage on the
eastern shores of lake Volta. I'd mention the name of the town, but it
will be quite a few years before it shows up on your google map
search. Before I left, the prevailing opinion of those I told bout my
planned travels agreed that my will should be finalized and I should
say my last goodbyes to friends and family alike. They all picture the
continent of Africa as Joseph Conrad described it in "Heart of
Darkness" which centered more upon the mid 19th century than today. Of
course I doubt anyone who has this narrowed view of Africa actually
read Conrad's novel, which I recommend. I cannot claim that Africa as
a whole is similar to my experience in Ghana, and I'll not try to draw
similarities, but I had a wonderful experience. The most profound
thing I realized was that these people are HAPPY! How dare they be
happy?! They don't drive new cars, they don't have christmas bonuses,
they don't have a time share in Mexico, hell, they don't even have air
conditioning and it was 100 degrees in January! But they don't have
stress like we do, they can't afford it. We worry that the warrantee
on our new car is going to expire soon (the warrantee on my motorcycle
is about to expire, oh well), we worry that our Christmas bonus won't
be big enough to buy the new model of iPod (I'm writing this on my
iPhone), we worry that the plane will crash on our way to the time
share in tropical Mexico (I'm flying at 27,000 feet right now on my
way to not so tropical Cincinnati), and we worry about how the house
is intolerable if it is colder than 72 degrees or wamer than 75
degrees (I don't have a clever quip for this, I hate being hot).

So how dare they be happy? They live lives that most here in the US
would condsider destitute and yet they laugh more freely than any
group of people I've ever met. Shame on us for not appreciating what
we have and shame on us for bringing about our own Financiapocalypse,
credit to Drew for introducing that term to me.

I am pretty far off track from where I started, but let me end with
this:

Do some good in the world, go see it. Fly to somewhere that is going
to appreciate your tourism dollars. When you go, don't stay at the
marriot, stay somewhere locally owned, eat some local food, talk to
some local people. If they aren't friendly to you then you've chosen
the wrong destination, because the right places have people who want
to share their culture, not hide it. Please make sure that when you
share our culture that you share more than fast food, excessive
spending, and American idol. Of course that may mean that you should
invest some time and energy in seeing your own culture first, but that
is another story for another time...

Delayed

My flight from Burlington to Chicago, enroute to Cincinnati, is
delayed this morning because the crew arrived so late last night that
they had to have a certain number of hours off before flying again. I
was excited to get the update last night, it got me another hour of
sleep, but then....

The captain just announced in the gate area that we would be further
delayed due to a mechanical issue with the plane. Apparently the pilot
has snow coming in through a window in the cockpit, de-icing for him
will be like taking the LTD through the carwash, leaks everywhere!

Cruising speed in the LTD was around 75 mph, cruising speed in an
airbus 320 is more like 425 mph. Looks like they are bringing in a
specialized airplane mechanic to apply some high speed caulking around
the leaky window.

A list of terrible things

1. The Toyota Prius. It is the antithesis of everything I enjoy and
love.

In other news: I did a little muddin' in my truck yesterday, nothing
too spectacular, but it is an activity I would like to do more often.
Good thing vermonts mud season is right around the corner. Only
downside is that I'm off to Ohio tomorrow and the tires on my truck
absolutely suck at life, bringing me to:

2. The tires that are currently on my truck.

I used to have a set of bridgestone dueler AT revos that were
phenomenal in all categories, with the exception of longevity.

3. Crashing: I bit it hard up at Stowe a couple times today, but
crashing is terrible any time it is done outside of the demolition
derby arena. I would like to do more jumps on the snowboard but the
season is drawing to a close.

4. Missing: I went shooting yesterday and in our informal competition
I killed clays with 17 of 25 shots. I was a bit disappointed because I
was perfect through 8 shots, which means I only went 9 for 17, ouch!

There are many more terrible things on this world but this is not the
time to dwell upon them, on we go!

Poor Landau...

More details on this car at another time, but suffice it to say that my buddy Bob and I purchased this at auction, well he purchased it, I agreed to be a co-owner, for $450 and sold it 15 months later for $500 to Bob's dad. Attached are some pictures of the deconstruction effort that has taken place this weekend. Sad to see such a fun car bite the dust, many a fun adventure was had, many a gallon of gasoline burned!

Rental Madness

I am in Ohio this week, and probably for quite a while longer than
this week, but I did score myself this killer Lincoln continental as a
rental. Top speed is electronically limited (allegedly) but the
interior is extremely comfortable. Some day I too will be able to say,
"that was back when I drove lincolns..."

Design flaw: it took me about an hour of driving to find the cup
holders, and there were only 2 in the front seat, which has room for 3
people! My tundra, which is 6 years older, has 4 in the front seat
alone!

Ice Riding

This winter I purchased my first dire bike, a 2005 Yamaha TTR 125 LE
with electric start. Anyone who knows anything about dirtbikes will
question why I bought a bike that is intended for use by a 12 year old
and to which I'll reply: because it's fun, inexpensive, and about on
par with my abilities. I purchased the bike from a punk kid in New
Hampshire for $500, talking him down from $600. I know, not exactly
the steal of the century but pretty close, the clutch was shot
according to the kid. I pulled the clutch cover plate off and replaced
the adjustment lock nut that had fallen off and went on riding, cost
me about an hours worth of time and zero dollars. Sucker! Long story
short... I studded the tires and now have been riding the bike on the
ice about every other weekend with guys from work. I have a long ways
to go before I am fast but I've been trying to focus on my body
positioning and I can already feel the bike responding to my inputs. I
might be done for this winter though, I'm off to cincinati for the
next month, no joy there.