Winter

SHIT! IT’S COLD!

• The Summer 2006 Huber Wedding

• New Garage & Brewing

• D.C 2006 Trip

Hrm — perhaps a few quickies as well

• Turkey Day was a 3h drive “Up Nort” to one of Moms sisters’ places — very nice spread and a great meal. Marinated wild turkey…mmm! That is a long drive for a meal though…
• Long weekend – so nice. I’m refusing to even turn the work laptop on. This is driving me a bit nutty, but I’m dealing with the withdrawl symptoms nicely.
• In Vino Veritas: Gotta get the Cab/Merlot bottled this weekend — by next Oct with 10 months in the bottle, it should be damn good.
• Lots of good news on the Cray front. This is a huge validating win for us and really should help move Cray back to the front of the pack, if not breaking away from the peloton someday entirely, for real HPC offerings. Wankers with your “clusters” need not apply. By-the-way, anything below a 30TFLOP system now immediately registers as “small” with me — I know, a bit snobbish — deal with it.
• The year of road trips starts in under 30 days. Oy. We are driving back to MT with the dogs for Christmas — I’m praying for a smooth trip both ways. If all goes well with the dogs, we’ll be repeating this trip 4 times next year — 3 weddings and then Christmas. If all does not go well, we’ll be repeating the trip with the addition of drugs for the dogs. Modern pharmacology is not without its benefits.
• Boston – I’ll be there Saturday May 26th through early morning Tuesday June 2 for the Liza’s wedding – I’d love to catch up with a certain Herr Schwan & McDonald provided they can be troubled to drink beer.
• The Violator: Just go watch. This, Ladies & Gentlemen, is my future brother-in-law. I couldn’t be happier.

So you ask — what has the last year meant? Well — here are the highlights that come to mind. Nothing too gushy or personal of course – must protect the guilty

• Harley rides, lots of harley rides. First date after the thunderstorm (hey, why do you think guys buy motorcycles?), to Roscoe for her birthday, a few trips to Rock Dodge, lots of little lunch trips in Billings, Bozeman, getting beer from Costco, wow ! We jsut need to ride a lot more here in MN!!

• Cooking – I’m the meal master, Portana kicks my butt with some breakfast thingys and all baking. I make a mean milk shake and rule the grill. She makes me want to eat healthier I keep trying to cook healthier for the both of us!

• Pets – some good times, some rough times. Just a little note — these are likely the only kids we will have and we are both thrilled about that! But the hair…oh! the hair!.

• Dealing with life – my getting laid off, her job interviews, moving, two new jobs, packing two houses up, living as a guest at Auds for a month, unpacking into a single house, getting used to living together – sleep schedules, bathroom sharing, eating schedules, finally getting the hosue unpacked, furniture shopping, the list goes on. I’m amazed how we’ve gotten through all of that without a huge “Nic you are an ass” fight. Damn, I guess we might be adults after all!

I’m sure there are huge events I’m leaving out here, but I think it is suffice to say that this first year has been an amazing adventure both personally and relationship wise. I can’t think of anything I’d have done significantly different – I’ve really enjoyed it and hope it continues for a long, long time. Well — I’d write more, but I’ve got dragons to slay here at work!

Oy yeah — I love you Babe!

Montana Barbies are FINALLY available!!!!

• Kalispell Barbie: This modern day homemaker Barbie is available with a Mercedes 4WD SUV, a Prada handbag and matching Nike Yoga ensemble. She has a masters degree and double-majored, but has the luxury of being a stay-at-home mom with Ken’s generous salary. Comes with Percocet prescription and Botox. Starbucks mug and traffic-jamming Blackberry internet/cell phone device sold separately. Husband Ken is into fishing, golfing, baseball and is often “working late.” Available at all Seattle-area Starbucks retailers.

• Bozeman Barbie: This princess Barbie is only sold at Nordstrom. She comes with an assortment of Kate Spade handbags, your choice of a BMW convertible or Hummer H2 and a long-haired foreign lapdog named “Honey.” Also available is her cookie-cutter development dream house. Available with or without tummy tuck, facelift, and breast augmentation. Workaholic, cheating husband, Ken, comes with a Porsche.

• Butte Barbie: This recently paroled Barbie comes with a 9mm handgun, switchblade, ’78 El Camino with dark tinted windows, and a meth lab kit. This model is available only after dark and can only be purchased with cash – preferably small bills, unless you’re a cop, then we don’t know what you’re talking about. Boyfriend Ken is in jail. Available at many pawn shops.

• Great Falls Barbie: This tobacco chewing, brassy-haired Barbie comes with a pair of high-heeled sandals with one broken heel from the time she chased Beer Gut Ken out of Auburn Barbie’s trailer. Her ensemble includes low-rise acid-washed jeans, fake fingernails, strawberry lip gloss and a see-through halter top. Purchase her Mustang convertible separately and get a Confederate flag bumper sticker absolutely free. Boyfriend Ken is in treatment. Available at Army Navy Surplus.

• Havre Barbie: This pale model comes dressed in her own Wrangler jeans 2 sizes too small, steel-toed cowboy boots, a classic Metallica ‘T’ shirt and a Tweedy Bird tattoo on her shoulder. She has fake fingernails, a six pack of Budweiser, and a Hank Williams, Jr. CD set. she can spit over a distance of 6 feet and kick mullet-haired Ken’s ass when she is drunk. Also available is the gold-toned cubic zirconium ring that Ken gave her after another one of his “episodes” with his boss’s daughter. Comes with Barbie’s Dream Double Wide Trailer. Available at Wal-Mart.

• Browning Barbie: Pregnant at purchase, this Barbie comes with a stroller and bus pass. Also included is a G.E.D. and a completely filled out food stamps form. Construction worker Ken and his ’82 Caddy are optional. Available at Value Village.

• Missoula Barbie: This Barbie is made out of recycled plastic and tofu. She has long straight brown hair, archless feet, hairy armpits, no make-up, and Birkenstocks with white socks. She does not want, or need, a Ken doll. If you purchase the optional Subaru wagon, you will receive a free rainbow flag sticker. Available at REI.

• Helena Barbie: This versatile doll can be easily converted from Barbie to Ken by simply adding or removing snap on parts. Walks to work. Likes to “experiment,” but will never commit. This model is being phased out and is only available from the manufacturer.

• Food. There are a few decent restaurants here in Billings, but to get good quality food you have to pay for it, sometimes dearly. What I miss about Philadelphia is that there were tons of local places that had a dish or 3 that were really spectacular — the Lamb Curry at Tangiers (an otherwise completly shabby and tiny bar, entirely fantastic) , which was a total of .5 blocks from my apartment. Pine St. Pizza, and your tasty, tasty cheesesteaks, my hangovers miss you and your greasy goodness. The places are too many to mention — I just miss the sheer numbers and variety.

• Cultural events. Call me a snob (oh quiet you..) but donning a tuxedo ala Bond, spending $200+/ticket and heading out for a really good fun time in the upper crust of societal events was a thrill. I think part of it was the “Young Professional” scene — a self-fufilling dream where just being in a crowd with 25-40 something folks who all were at least psuedo interested in seeing the theater/opera/ballet/symphony and not just nailing the open bar for the ticket price equivalent in booze. Just being there made you feel that you were on the top of the ‘game of life’ and had truly made it — mainly because that is what everyone there thought. Perhaps it is the conversation with folks that had drive and passion for work or life or achieving something that at least appeared good and honorable with their lives. I don’t take anything away from people here — life is just different and I truly think the character of people here is far above and beyond that of the East Coast — but I miss the discussions about politics or art. I do get a large amount of this thanks to a few friends here, but perhaps what I really miss are the events dedicated to it. It is true to a certain degree that you had to be at least partially successfull to attend such events — you had to have the extra Benjies to blow, but the real trick was getting invited on someone elses bill — a feat that was accomplished more than once. BTW, yes I look like a younger-but-manlier Bond in a tux.

• Shopping. (In a manly sense. Like some folks I am not a woman deep down inside — at least not completely.) I’ve been accused of being part old woman (I have plants, birds, can cook, knit, crochet, cross-stitch, like to garden and generally hold an intelligent conversation while looking a large breasted woman in the face), but that is not really true. I was just raised to be open minded– yeah that’s it! Anyways… how freaking hard is it to have shopping for things that just approximate current styles? Am I now required to purchase casual shoes with a minimum sole thickness of 2″? Why OH F@#$#ING WHY is there not a good place to get a hot shave ? (Ok, that one appears slight dandy, but if you have never experienced one — shut up. You know not of what you ridicule. Besides at somepoint we men get married and need equal ability to spend $50 on “spa treatments” — I prefer mine to be functional as well.)

• Housing. Ok — here is the big one bugging me of late. Perhaps I was just spoiled in my apartment, but is it really that hard to build a house today that does not look like either a complete cookie-cutter subdivision nightmare or that the “architect” (and I only use that word because they insist on calling themselves that..) went to the Helen Keller Corel Draw School of House Design by Number? Good god — let us take 10 parts fucked up layout, knee walls, vaulted ceilings and pre-fabbed furnishings, mix with 42 parts assbarn derived roof lines (seriously — 40% of your front eleveation is shingles — Hellllooooo!), toss in a sprinkling of insanity with siding choices — honestly, neutral brick and greyish-beige steel siding. HAVE SOME DAMN imagination. The real horrors come on the inside of these places — carpets, gas fireplaces, odd shaped rooms, sanitized wall coverings, and just BAD decorating. I’m just about to put the pool of architects designing these monstrosities into the same pool as laywers — Flabby Hunks Of Whale Shit, Inc. Also — would it be impossible to design a large house that doesn’t take the GNP of a small country to heat and cool ? For fuck sake.

I also got the skull from the butcher too — he skinned it and left it just right so I can take it to the taxidermist and get mounted. Now that it is all cleaned up (for the most part…) — boy is that going to look great on the wall. Hopefully it fits in the office, or I’m going to have to find room on in the living room or bedroom. Nothing says sexy like a big set of horns over the headboard. Grunt

• Weekend was one of the best ever, nothing like spending a whole day with someone. I spent 75% of Sunday on or near the bike in pursuit of fun for Portana’s bday (birthday, not fancy french bum washer…). Great day of riding, hit small rain sprinkles during 90F heat, boy does that help, especially since I have the new fangled helmet. Lunch at the Grizzly Bar, talk about great food. I love a Prime Rib “sandwich” that is a steak with a dinner roll. Mmm, yeah, that piece of bread is soooo not getting used, and we are just going to call it a steak! Alaskin King Crab for appetizer, just about the best seafood I’ve had in ages. I think I may have hooked someone on Maker’s as she orderd one on the rocks while we waited out the rain deluge. There is something about a sexy woman drinking brown liquor on the rocks that makes her seem very mysterious This single day probably made my week, if not month.
• Lou in town! More stories later, but great to have a friend from college here in MT. It was fascinating to hear about the whole crew, oddly making me a bit sad that I’ve not kept in better contact, but then again I’ve always been horrible at keeping in touch with people. I think something about “living in the now” pokes in there…
• Chatterbox HJC 60. Total piece of crap. I thought it would be nifty to have an intercom for the road trips on the bike — chit chat and tunes the whole way. Yeah, first off, not that much talking you really want to do, just lose yourself in the ride. Second, wind noise. It kills. This thing is getting returned ASAP, and purchasing a direct splitter for the iPod and an extra set of ear buds. Net savings: $200+ USD. And to the person who suggested I get a windshield to help cut down on wind noise: yeaaah right.
• Work…you @#$@#$ers. On top of the week-a-month travel fun, aka HELL, to ORNL, I’m going to be spending almost 2 entire weeks outside of Denver for work meetings at the end of the month. That boosts this month’s travel+out of town work days to 18. This had better be the last month at ORNL, getting really sick of 25-50% travel, so not what I signed on for. To boot, other than doing my job and helping my company out immensely, no real benefit to me. Bitter? Nooo, not me. Selfish? Completely, but then again I’m just asking to have a semi-normal life. Oh yeah, and I am pretty sure there is at least 1 more trip to ORNL that will have to happen right after this Denver excursion, so looking at 3 weeks straight out of town. Booo! I guess this is the price to pay for working from home. I am very excited about the supposed pending return to recoding lots of internal tools. Coop: Remember the Shaver’s joke about rewriting ltest in python — looks like it is going to happen
• Northwest & 6.35am flights out of TYS. Bullshit! If you are going to cancel the flight because YOU HAVE NO FUCKING FLIGHT CREW, please do not mark the flight as leaving late due to “required crew rest” and then cancel it 30mins before takeoff. If I had known it was going to be canceled, I could have slept in past 4am and perhaps gotten a few hours of sleep. You do get bonus points for having reclining leather chairs in the terminal, made it quite easy for me to sleep the 5 hours until the second flight took off. This is the second day in a row, the last being end of June trip to ORNL, that it has taken me ALL DAY to get back to Billings on second rate flights after you botched this one up. Second, get the @#$@#$ing airport security guys to let us in the line so we can get our flights rescheduled. Note to self, never ever ever ever again schedule early flight, take the 8.40am one and be glad that it takes off on something approaching a routing basis. Yeah. Nothing like scheduling the early red-eye flight to get home just to spend 14h+ in the airports. My butt hurts.

So — just a bit of background. The Great American Hillclimbs take place in the South Hills of Billings, MT. The race is to see who can drive to the top of the ‘Bentonite Nightmare’, aka a 400 foot hill that is just about straight up, call it 70 degrees or so. Most folks do not make it all the way up, they end up not having enough traction, motor, or momentum to get all the way up. Oh yeah, this takes serious skill and a goodly amount of balls (lack of brains works in a pinch). It is impressive, and not just from a RedNeck point of view, these are for the most part heavily customized or purpose built machines. We are talking extended swingarms, paddle tires, different suspension, not to mention that they motors are from all walks of life – dirt bikes, street bikes, snowmobiles, well you get the picture. And these folks are willing to break them — tumble back down the hill break them. It was said that it was $100 a bounce, I’m guessing it starts higher than that. Some of the riders had wonderful dismounts, the bikes flipping several times in the air and then careening down the hill until a “catcher” grabbed it and roped it off. All in all, a wonderful event if it were just for the motorhead part of it…but well, let’say it is only a good reason to party like rock stars.

Here are a few links to slightly more event related photos and videos:

• Transworld Motocross
• Gagzette

Party, why yes we did! I took a fair number of pics you can find here. I’m going to pull the rest under the “more” tag to protect the innocent. WARNING Explict RedNeck behavior revealed and explained, not to mention photos of men in women’s underwear. You’ve been warned!

So we started off a couple of weeks before the event planning things out. It takes place in a field at the end of July in Montana. It will be hot and dry, so get shade. Landon found a smoking deal on pop-up canopies at Gart, so he and I picked a 10′x10′ each. Shade – check. We spent a night dinking around with how to set these things up on the pickups so that we could be elevated enough to see over all the other folks.

Oh yeah, did I mention that you are in this field with 10,000 other people? The parking lot is lined out with painted lines into rows so things are slightly organized. So we arrived at 6.30am to start setting up, mainly to get the choice spots near the front and along the isle. With it being so hot, we wanted to make sure we got a good view of the copious traffic that was sure to be there. God bless women who should and then do wear bikini tops! Oh yeah, back to setting up. I went all altruistic and sprung for the fixings for steak & eggs. Landon was kind enough to cook them up so us lazy folks could get setup and eat. We also rented a Port-a-shitter so that we could avoid the masses and their disgusting habits. Oh yeah, you know you’ve gone high-dollar when you can afford a personal toilet!

Once we were good and full, the drinking and racing started. Oh yeah, and more drinking, then we drank some, and a bit more, then got drunk and continued to drink and enjoy being drunk.

Now that we’ve consumed a good amount of booze (some of us nearly a litre of Maker’s, oof), we make way to the pond to do some skinny dipping, cool off, and drink some more. Who says that copious amounts of booze and heat do not mix? Oh yeah, this was only day 1 of 2. Suffice to say that it was a blast and thankfully I left before the strip poker game really got ugly. Oy, what is it about these people wanting to get naked?

Day 2: Otherwise known as the big party day. This is when they run the big bikes — aka the “pro” riders. The entire parking lot was packed, I’ve never seen that many people in one spot in Billings. I was pretty well queasy from the day before, as were a few others so the day was a light one for drinking so more racing was watched. We re-arranged the trucks a bit so the two canopies could cover all 4 truck beds — good idea Matt. Towards the end of the day, brains started getting cooked and between the sheriff deputies running around on their 4 wheelers to break up fights, we tried to get girls to flash us, something every group of guys within shouting (and believe me they did) distance did. Yeah, such a proud moment there BTW – some people just need to grow up — a little in-group drama signaled the end of happy-fun time and off home it twas for A/C and water. Lots of water.

Well, it looks like I survived the biggest party in Billings this year, so I can cross that one off the list. It was truly a blast, thankfully I had some exquisite company to keep me sane — you really do rock! I’m just trying to imagine how we will top this next year….

• Black Eyed Peas – sexy – sultry -georgeous lead singer. Mmmm, tasty — her, Gwen Steffani and a ..well let’s call it a good time had by all. Oh yeah, their music is pretty darn good too, been jamming all morning. How is it that I am actually listening to main stream pop culture music? Am I losing my discretion ?
• Great American Hillclimb. Good times, I will have to explain the fun after this weekend, as I’m just not going to do the stories of yesteryear any justice. So far it has been a bit of cat herding to get all the friends on the same page, but I think we’ve got the plans lined out. Rough plan is to get there at 6.30am to setup the double truck & canopy venue, bust out the steak & eggs on the grill, start drinking (DUH!) and get things situated before they start launching. Loooots of drinking. Lots.
• England – only two weeks until the sister and the niece fly out — I’m so happy for you!
• Back, back, back at the ORNL. I’ll be in TN again Aug 1-6, good times. Things.move.fast. This is supposedly the second-to-last trip I will make there under the current contract, but I can’t see how the contract would end now — to many things to be done. The good news is that after 4 more trips, I will qualify for Elite status on NWA — free first class upgrades and 150% miles. Oh yeah.
• Coding is fun – I’ve gotten to do some again this week at work, turns out I’m still good at it. Thankfully I’m not a completely useless “suit” yet.
• New motorcycle helmet. Modular, super comfortable and full face protection. I can’t wait to ride on the highway with this thing, I won’t have a super sore neck or bugs implanted in my face after riding at 100mph! I know, what a wuss, but have you ever hit a dragonfly at 100? How about a cicada? Didn’t think so! Them buggers hurt.

Well I’m getting bored now, so I’m going back to work so I can get to the gym and head out for a lovely dinner date, nothing like starting off the weekend the RightWay(tm).

As Kris & Christy have been watching Bogart for me while I go cavorting off to TN every month, I was asked to help move hay this year for their horses. They have a bunch (15?) of horses on their place and need to feed them. Apparently this means hay. Mary and Landon were also there for the fun, even though Christy so crawfished on a bet for the ride to Cody…bummer. How much hay did we get to move? Well, 40 tons or 1100 60lb square bales. Suck. For those of you who never have had the fun of moving square bales, it consists of throwing them down from the stack to the pickups & trailers, stacking them there, driving 15mph back to the place, throwing them off (most of the time up!) to the stack, and stacking them in the new stack. Uh-huh, each bale gets moved a minimum of 4 times. Oh, did I mention this was also the hottest day of the summer so far at 100F+? We were chugging water (“wood-er” for those Jersey folks), Propel and Gatorade. You know it is a hot arsed day when you chug gallons and gallons of fluids and never have to pee. We started moved bales around 9am and quit at 6.30pm or so — ok, so wussy-boy here quit around 5pm, but in my defense I had blisters on just about every finger. Yes Landon, our new friends will not have horses.

At this point we are tired, sunburnt and quite thirsty and hungry. K&C provided the booze and burgers, and off I went. I was lucky enough to have a person (you know who you are, and you soooooo rock!) who was willing to come pick me up and give me a ride home, so I decided to have a few drinks. End of the night, Landon and I killed most of a 1/2 gallon of Jack Daniels. Mmmm, tasty. Apparently (I use that word because I am working off of 3rd party reports and not my own memory) I left there at 9.30pm and was showered and passed out by 10pm or so. I’ve not gotten that rat-arsed in way too long, and boy did it feel good! Thankfully the buckets of fluids we consumed during the day prevented any serious hangover. Weee!

Sunday, sunday sunday I managed to sleep in a bit, but then was off to the races again. The sister gave me a ride up to K&C’s to grab my truck and Bogart, had some coffee and toast there and off to The Shop I was. Mr. Truck needed some serious part store lovins, so I hooked him up. New front brakes, tie-rod ends, front steering control arm and a quart of oil topped him up. I’ve still got to do the transfer case seals and the rear brakes, not to mention return the new air cleaner for one that actually fits, but I’m gonna tackle that some night this week. Hrm, I think I need new rubbers for the sway bars and a grease gun too. So yeah…my shop skillz are seriously amusing. I managed to gouge, pinch, slam or otherwise mangle a few more fingers — thankfully different ones from the hay-moving incidents. It seemed that Kris was quite enjoying my pain There was also a slight incident with lug nuts and proper torque that I seemed to experience on the drive home. Whoops, only gonna do that once!

That evening was the afore-mentioned BBQ & Beer brewing festival at my place. Portana — it was just a pilsner, an ale is a different beast. I shall show you the way, oh young apprentice. It was a pretty good show all the way around, just nice to sit back have some charred meat, cold beer and tell hillarious stories and jokes for a few hours with good friends at the end of a looooong weekend. There was also one hell of a thunderstorm that came through — we were all out under the carport sitting around for it, and some of the lightning and thunder made us all jump and squeal. A few were so close there was no time between the lightning and thunder, wow. Bogart slept through the whole thing, must be rough being a dog!

So at this point (and typing all this for you), 9 out of 10 fingers are bruised, cut, swollen, sore and otherwise f’in painful. Thank goodness the remote thumb is still in commission and Tivo has a few NAPCAR races for me to watch. I’m tired, happy, and can’t wait for next weekend!

It was a terrific weekend, with only a slight charring to prove that I helped fund the Chinese GDP. I was able to hang out with almost all (sorry Mom, you went to ND!) of the people I wanted to, which is a major feat for me. I know it was a good weekend as I’m looking forward to working as a break from the fun

Now without further delay, another installment of the ‘numbers game’:

• Amount of fireworks purchased in Cody: $100.07 USD personally; $500 USD+ for the group.
• Number of full face helmets to be purchased after riding 50 miles in rain using borrowed helmet: 1
  • It is sad it took this for me to realize how great they were. Honestly Nic!
  • I like this one. Rain gear might not be a bad investment either…
• Bugs plastered on face from ride to Cody: 10 billion. Mmm, tasty!
  • For the uninformed, bug splatter feels much like a greasy booger.
• McDonalds ‘Cause that’s how I roll’ references by the FurryOne: 100s
• Number of girls with broken arm: 1
  • Yeah, ok, whatever. Save the drama for your mama.
• Little bratty kids at the pond that SHBABJ: 6
• Parents of said kids that needed to be beaten about the head and neck: 3
• Chevy pickups ‘mud-a-fied’: 1
• Other Chevy pickups needed to be yanked out of mud: 1
  • Cuz: Kudos on creative use of bandana
• Friends of mine who needed to wash their trucks due to taunting of my less-than-spectacular rooster tail skills and subsequent redemption of myself: 1
• Hours of fireworks show: 1.5
  • Hours for end of night bottle rocket war: 1
  • Number of idiots who decided that Roman Candles make appropriate weapons: 1
  • Ordinance spent by me: 5 gross bottle rockets, 10pk 4oz rockets, 20 banger rockets
  • Square inches of rocket-launch blackened skin: 30
  • Square inches of blistered skin from holding on to a 12pk of bottle rockets lit with the torch a bit too long: 1
• Bottles of booze consumed: HA! Like we can count that high!
• Rating of the firework show in Castle Rock part: 8.5
  • Special thanks to the sisters & their boyfriends for fun banter!
• Hours spent actually thinking: 5, maybe 6.
• Old friends seen at the grocery store: 2. Wow, how things have changed.
• Number of girls whose relative youth does not translate into relative attractivness: 3
  • Yes John, the hot people do get everything. Thankfully they let us hang around.
• Well behaved kids that are bucking the genetics of her parents: 1
  • environment and discipline go a LONG way. Sis – you and Bek rock!
• Star Wars 3 rating: 8 compared to first 2 prequels, CG gets a 10; plot 7; acting 4.
• Miles run: 1.5, and an ugly 1.5 at that.
  • You know it is going to be rough when you get a sideache 5 blocks out and can smell the fireworks and bourbon 10 blocks out.
• Extra hours of sleep needed Tuesday morning: 3.

• Work.
  • Wow, what a month. I am continuing to enjoy working for ORNL. As I am attempting to work right now, I’m going to try and not blather on for eternity. If I talk about it, I’ll be forced to not do anything today…again.
• Working out
  • It turns out that Svelte Nic is being a bit more reluctant than I anticipated. Getting old sucks. I’ve since switched gyms to Evolution. I’ve switched mainly because I sometimes need folks to drag me to the gym and the availability of work-out buddies changes during the summer.
  • Evolution kicks ass. Period. Also, drinking protien shakes is lots less painful than it used to be. They even taste good, not like the shredded cardboard of yesteryear.
• Softball
  • Since the move back to Montana, I’ve gotten to do 10K things I’ve been missing for the last 6 years. We are playing city league co-ed ‘D’ league. So far we are doing pretty well. I’m having a ton of fun!
• Girls
  • Ahh, the dilema. How much do I tell, given that some of them might just stumble across this site? I think it more fun to keep y’all guessing…
  • The Lions made an early run and attempted to suck the life out of me with a nubile young decoy, but I managed to fend of the attack through the use of my you-must-be-able-to-at-least-appear-interesting-for-the-first-date defense. The Christians seem to be coming back, with an exquisitely crafted import with a seemingly Siren ability to lure me into beaching my raft. It is quite surprising to see this new level of tatics being used in Billings, it was refreshing to meet similarily equipped warrior as myself. I might just have to revise my reporting to a more positive light, war leaves something to be desired for reporting, but hey, I’m having fun with it, so just go along for now.
  • Alive after 5 proved to be a target rich enviroment. It was fun to see people I’ve not heard from in years, as well as those people I got introduced to.

I think that covers most of the interesting bits, well ok, I’m sure I am forgetting lots of stuff, but I’m lazy and need to work.

It was a fantastic day, the weather was the best of the whole weekend. Mary & Landon rode up on their bike (the green one), I rode mine, and Matt & Mandy followed in their truck with their dogs. The drive from Billings to Big Timber was uneventful, but got in some cool 90mph single lane side-by-side riding with Landon. It was neat to hear the bikes right next to each other – there is almost no exhaust note and all you can hear is the raw motor sounds. Grunt. We also stretched out the bikes legs a bit and zoomed up near the 100mph barrier for a while. Lunch was in Big Timber at this pizza place, can’t place the name at the moment. It was really good and a nice mid-ride break. We gassed up and then headed south of Big Timber up the 2 lane road to the Natural Bridge. We putzed around there for a while, and I took a bunch of photos. The ride back started off painful – rain drops sprinkling down at 80mph make me want a full face helmet for the next road trip. We managed to outrun the rain, and near Columbus we actually overran Landon’s dad and brother. We played a nice game of ‘how fast can we go?’, with us hammering down the highway well into the triple digits. It was also the first time I have had the throttle pegged in 5th gear. Nothing like 30 miles in a little over 15 minutes Landon’s dad put all us HD guys to shame with the BMW bike — he blew by me doing 110 like I was standing still. Humbling.

• worked on the truck down at The Shop
• rebuilt the distributor — it was in sooo much need of this. All the weights had their round holes ovaled out and it looked like someone took a big electrical shat right in there too

• timing, the hard way. Since there were no existing timing marks on the front cover, we got to “”engineer”" a positive stop from an old spark plug and a bolt. For those of you who don’t know, what needed to be done was place a degree wheel on the balancer and rotate the engine around with a wrench until the #1 piston hits the stop. You then reverse the engine until it hits the stop on the other side of the stroke. Take the two numbers and TDC (top dead center) is right between the two marks. Thank god Koelzter knows what he is doing.

• Farts really do rise. Yes, I have proof. Here is how you can recreate this bit of “man-fun”:

  • one person eat something really narsty (evil-doer)
  • other person comes over later, completely unawares. (victim)
  • evil-doer is underneath truck placing timing marks on balancer
  • victim is working in the engine compartment, blissfully unaware they are about to experience chemical weapons of a variety never before seen in the public sector
  • evil-doer (apparently) sharts, keeping the news to themselves
  • victim does the usual sniff…sniiiiff sniiiifffffff. “Oh jesus dude, did you shit your self (again)?”
  • evil-doer wipes the tears from their eyes as they are laughing so hard. Laugh it up funny boy.
  • Wash-rinse-repeat as necessary

• The retiming and distributor rebuild did help matters out quite significantly, but did not clear up the vacuum advance issue. The next idea is to rebuild the carbeurator on the beast, seeing where that leaves us. I am pretty sure that if it does not solve the problems, I am going to give up and just drive it — it runs great without it, just sucks a bit o’ gas

Friday. It was another day of 60F weather here, and I was not going to miss out on it. I would like to think I kicked butt at work the rest of the week and cranked out a lot of testing, so took a long and late lunch to polish up the Harley. There were a few spots on the paint that had been rubbed when I moved all my stuff in Kris’ horse trailer from CT. I used the Harley Scratch & Swirl and rubbed all the spots out in a few hours. A nice coat of glaze and a polish later, and the bike is back to its usual sparkling self. I worked for a bit, and at 5 gave Landon a call to see if he wanted to ride — he did =D. We cleared out the cobwebs for the bikes and cruised around Billings. A few beers at BullWhackers dried up that pesky road thirst, and then we proceeded to really crack open the bikes on top of Zimmerman trail. As it turns out, my bike has NO problems keeping up with Landon, so my previous misgivings about the lack of power are still founded, but I’m not experiencing anything out of the normal. Such good news!

I headed home after the ride and was just going to hit Golden Phoenix or something like that for take-out, but got inspired and hit up Walkers Grill for dinner. I was completely surprised at the place — it made me feel at ‘home’ again in a restaraunt. It was like I had stepped into a nice place in Philly and was getting dinner there. I had a few Maker’s & Cokes, the Satay and Lamb Curry, and finished off the lovely evening with a glass of Sandemans Founder. Yes folks, there was Port on the menu! Fantastic!

I rounded out the evening by chilling at The Shop (I’ve decided to add capitals, it does get mentioned enough) for a few, but Koelzter was busy doing the heads on a Ford, so I chilled at K&C’s for a bit. I managed to not get too shitty for once and head home at a semi-reasonable hour.

We continued to the “Anything for a dollar” theme from last night , and headed to BullWhackers to hook up with the rest of the crew and do some liver damage. Lucky me, they had Fat Tire on special for a dollar. As usual, I proceeded to drink lots — it is a fun thing to do you know! The best part was that Kris picked me up, so I had none of the usual driving worries to slow my consumption. We had the requrisite blast, spiced up by seeing the fruits of Mary’s visit to the piercing shop, very nice. Thanks to Chad for the lift home.

Saturday night was a bit calmer, and unfortunately was not a continuation of the dollar drink specials. I hit King’s Korner for a few games of pool with K &C, Troy, Sam and Bill. It was then onto the Red Door. It is amazing how good some of those karaoke singers are. Kris, Christy & I took off around midnight and crashed at my place — their house is a bit stanky after refinishing their tub. The fireplace got used again, and Tivo was her usual great self.

All in all, a nice lecherous weekend. Tuesday I will have to return to the guise of a nice dependable software engineer. I have to mention, it has been sometime since I’ve had this many friends to go out and party with. It is soooo nice.

First up on the parade of details – Food:

• Roasted Garlic
• Southwestern Rubbed London Broil
• BBQ Pulled Pork
• Spinich Dip (Melanie)
• 7 layer Taco Dip (Mom)
• Assorted Chips, bread and soda

Honorable Mention to Melanie, Koeltzer, Mandy, Kris & Christy for helping out with rubble duty and cleaning.

As it turned out, there were oh, I suppose 30 people here over the coarse of the night. I have to say it was a freaking blast. I got to see almost everyone in Billings I know at one place. It was very nice to have a place large enough and setup to have that many people — not once did it feel overcrowded. I look forward to doing this again this summer, perhaps for some wicked BBQing. Hrm – the driveway is definately large enough for an inflatable pool.

Everyone seemed to have a good time, especially once we busted out Brooke’s gift of Beer Checkers:

Now for the usual bullet list of fun:

• Amount, in square inches, of counter space left open after beer cases were set down: 0
• Number of Full Moon cell phone picutres taken on Melanie’s phone against her wishes: 2
• People who fired up my Harley just for fun: 6
• Approximate start and ending times: 6.30pm and 5.30am
• Overnight guests: 3
• Number of welcome (and planned) overnight guests: 2
• Bags of beer cans, bottles and cardboard cases tossed out: at least 8, you freaking booze hounds
• Amount of food left at 9pm: 75%
• Amount of food left at 2am: 5% . Drunk people get the munchies too.
• Gifts recieved: 4 – Beer Checkers, Candles, Oriental Dragon statuette, Lambic Beer
• Tours of the house give: too god damn many, that is for sure. Next time it is “Hi, glad to see you; Can I take your coat? Make yourselft at home – hey leave the pants on, for godssake”

After we got done, we headed to the BrewPub for drinks and grub. It was a good time, I even attempted to go and hit on random girls. Apparently I need to work on my game, but it was pretty fun to exercise those muscles again. We drank ourselves pretty silly, then headed to the WildWest for more fun. All I have to say is that shooting Sambuca and Wild Turkey together is a shitty idea. Chasing them with beer is only slightly less retarded.

The lead act was a total douche bag. Here is a hint: If you are white, Mormon and from Boise – DON’T DO STANDUP. Seriously, I’ve met dead people that had better acts. The main act however, was a total 180. This lady had her excrement in a proverbial mound. I don’t think I have laughed that hard in ages. After the comedy was over, we continued to the Wild West to continue the hillarity, otherwise known as Nic dancing. Yes folks, he dances, but only after some serious drinking. Now, I’m not sure if it was the booze or the fact that I am participating in the Great Women in Montana Snipe Hunt, but P.J seemed to be quite cute and could dance. Too bad she has a boyfriend — although, for those of you who know me from Penn — that’s never really stopped me. (Editor’s Note: it was only twice, and both times I was attacked like a 3 legged cat at a dog show).

Well, come Saturday, Karma must have caught up with me, because I’ve caught a nasty cold. It is Tuesday now and I am still reeling from it. It better be gone by Saturday, cause come NyQuil or not, I am drinking my butt off Saturday night. Why you ask? I’ve finally decided that a housewarming party in the new place is in order. This should be good….