Breakfast

Best part of a healthy breakfast? Nutella on toast.

Yep. I'm at home tonight chillin by myself. Roommate is out of town, family is scattered, girlfriend doesn't exist. The cat, however, is very much here.

I think tonight might be a good time for some bike work. Although I don't want to put on my new drivetrain if it's going to be raining all week...hmm. I shall have to ponder this dilemma. Good thing I've got time!

Also, riding in the rain is awesome.

Russia

Looking at my stats, I have more pageviews from people in Russia than any other country. I'm not sure who you might be, but I appreciate you reading my blog. Thanks.

The Easy Road

I have this thing where I like doing something just because it's very hard. I'd much rather spend my effort trying to do something very hard and seemingly out of reach than doing things that I know I can do. In my view, things that are very easy to do aren't as worth doing as harder things. Those get me excited. Just sayin.

I think I'm about to make a $22,000 gamble on my future. That's putting my money where my mouth is. And it's scary. Almost scary enough to not try for it. But that's the hard part that makes it interesting.

I would rather go big and come up short than sit around and do the same thing I always do for the rest of my life.

Also, I think that I might have posted a blog very similar to this recently, but I don't really care. It's what's going through my mind at the moment.

Regensburg

Man, I LOVE really old cities. This one is definitely the oldest one we've been to, and you can definitely tell. We toured a massively old city, and looked at the cathedral with the bones of some long-dead saint on display. Did I mention that I love really old cities? A lot of the reason for that is cathedrals. So cool.

All of the cities that we've been to in Germany have been incredible. They all have this awesome mixture of old buildings and history and then the modern shopping areas. The awesomeness is helped by the fact that most of the streets are cobbled, the are hordes of people constantly walking around, and there are bikes EVERYWHERE.

I have to say that the highlight of the day was eating an unbelievable lunch at a 1000 year old sausage restaurant by the river. The best sauerkraut and mustard I've ever had.

Also, right by the Miles' house there is a beer store. In this beer store, you can get a fantastic bottle of beer (German beers are something like 20oz rather than our paltry 12oz) for what equates to about $0.90 usd. You can't walk into craggy and do that. And this is just as good.

Innsbruck and friends

Innsbruck was fantastic. Surrounded by mtns, cut through by a river, and filled with pretty Austrian girls. We went down on a bit of a whim, found an awesome hotel, and got to walk around in the early am for a while before our train took off. This is possibly one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, surrounded by both rolling hills and massive snow-capped mountains. The train ride in and out was absolutely fantastic with spectacular views going over the pass. We also stopped by a semi-local bakery for some treats...delicious, but honestly still prefer the goods of one BMB.

After that foray, we headed up to Regensburg to see Justin and Hanah. We ended up hanging out in their house and playing games and watching movies all day today since the weather was beyond awful. The music studio here is so sick, and Justin has gotten to do some pretty sweet things while putting out really great music. It's cool to see where all the magic happens. Tomorrow we're going to tour Regensburg by bike which I'm super pumped about.

Finally, look at the bottom of that mini-Nutella package. See where it's made? Yeah, that's the city we were eating it in. You're jealous.

The Alps

So right now Michael and I are sitting in a hotel in Innsbruck at the moment, and are planning to do some alps viewing tomorrow. We already had a good day in a small Olympic town earlier today, although I can't imagine being able to spell the name. But it's been a good time. Right now we're also eating probably the best stolen I've ever had (sorry BMB, yours is delicious too...). And drinking beer out of a vending machine.

We stumbled on a snowshoe race (you can see it in the picture) where they had made snow for this event. It was kinda like a local TT series where only locals come out to play. Very weird though. Also it was at the base of an Olympic ski jump, so there's that.

Tomorrow we are going to head up to Augsburg and regensburg to visit one J Miles and see that part of the country.

Finally, I saw a macked (mac-ed?) out carbon ht (like euro-tricked out) with a 600w motor in the rear wheel. Dumb.

Munich

After sleeping until 11 accidentally, Michael and I spent the day walking around munich...and I do mean WALKING. I'm guessing that we covered somewhere between 10 and 15 miles. But we got to see the best of what Munich has to offer; cathedrals, shopping streets, and lots of Bavarian Christmas markets. Good times. Had some delicious meat products, got some good pictures, a good day.

We both agreed that we need some friends, however, that we need some friends. Cause at the moment we're limited to doing whatever we happen to stumble on.

Not sure what we're doing tomorrow but I'm sure it will be fun!

Alps

We're about to head to the alps. Not the best day to do it, seeing as its raining and snowing, but we'll make due. Hopefully I will have some pictures to show you once the day is done. At the moment we're sitting in the mall waiting for our train to come. We just got done shopping, spent 10eur on a day's worth of food for the both of us (including a loaf of stolen which is going to be amazing) and are pretty much stoked on the whole thing. Awesome.

Frankfurt

Finally made it to frankfurt and met up with Michael. We went and hung at his hostel for a bit to sort our luggage, an then walked back to the train station past the strip clubs and nude bars. Yeah. Red lights all over the place. And now I'm waiting on michael to find out about luggage storage. So here's some pictures to pass the time. No idea if they'll end up the right way around.

I've never been in a NY airport before. It's weird. Other than this being the worst airport on earth, I'm pretty sure I've heard more non-English than English. I was expecting it in Germany, but not quite yet.

Also, the airport is right next to the Budweiser factory. Not good beer, but it's here.

Germany

Well, I'm in the airport on my way to Germany for a bit of vacation. I'm pretty much totally stoked. I'm gonna get there in the AM tomorrow, and then we're going to head straight down to Munich where we will spend the first few days. I'm expecting that my brother is rather looking forward to seeing a familiar face after a couple of months in Africa, so that should be fun as well. Hopefully I'll get to update with something at some point, but I can't promise anything. Peace.

Nice Day for It.

Man, what a day. Beautiful riding weather! I wanted to get in a good ride today, and also go watch the cross race over in Hendo, so I packed up a bunch of gu's and Probars, dressed a bit too warmly, and headed over in a very round-about way to watch the pro race. Awesome day, lots of climbing, got my cheer on, saw some friends, now I'm blown out on the couch playing Halo and eating leftover pizza.

78mi

4.5hrs

Walnut Hollow > up East Fork > over Cedar Mtn > over Jeter Mtn > Big Willow > over Laurel Park > race > back over Laurel Park > back on the river home.

That's a lot of climbing. No wonder I blew myself up by the time I got to the race.

Thanksgiving.

My family is going to be gone (most of them) on thanksgiving, so we started early with a meal tonight. It was amazing. The only thing it was missing was a chocolate pecan pie from Bracken Mtn. And turkey. But no one really misses that anyway...

Wisdom

Un-requested pearl of wisdom for the day:

"Oh, you're single? Enjoy it now, because this might be the last chance you'll ever have to be single"

- Old man after asking me if I was married.

Thanks.

Mini-Trip

Just got back from a mini-trip to Chapel Hill/Raleigh/Durham area (aka, the triangle). I like it there. Made me start thinking about some big things.

Also, apparently that's where all the pretty girls in NC live. Seriously, I was in Target, and I think there were more attractive females in that store than live in Brevard.

Also, I'm quite tired right now from driving all that distance.

Also, H&M needs to make their jackets/suits/whatever available in long sizes, just like Banana Republic.

Also, I need to get a netbook until the middle of December. Just a temporary one.

I feel like there was something else I wanted to say, but I can't remember what it was for the life of me.

Peace out y'all.

4 Weeks

Tomorrow morning marks the 4 week anniversary of my decision to dig myself out of a giant hole I had allowed myself to fall into. It's been an uphill battle, but completely worth it and honestly not all that hard. More like a false flat.

If you know you've got something that needs to be changed or eliminated or even added to your life, DO IT. It's completely worth the effort.

Swank

First Swank is in the books. It was a good time and hurt just as much as I expected. I think I was 14th like 25 minutes off the leader, which is disappointing off of what I would have liked to have done, but right about where I figured I would be given how out of shape I currently am. It was a very different experience riding the trails I know and love while full of fatigue; mostly just slower and hard to stay focused on what was coming up. I was fighting a couple of serious distractions the whole time...I think I need to work on that for races like this. Farlow sucked every bit as much as I expected it would, and I can't actually think of a worse trail to finish on than Cove Creek. Seriously, does that trail actually lose any elevation from start to finish? It doesn't seem like it. Could be just because my XC legs gave out at about 2:30 so it was all about survival after that.

Post race sucked a good bit, but overall a good day once I got home and got some food in me.

Uhh, what else? T Cowie pulled some stupidity at the start and ended up passing 192 people to finish 8th off the couch on a brand new bike. Wes used his bionic shoulder to keep it together to finish 12th or something awesome. Art and Derek CRUSHED it in 5th and 6th, and Dan showed ever body what was up with a 15th. PAC was on point today!

Up next: lots more riding, keeping on with work, and planning an awesome trip at the start of next month. Should be some good times!

Swank

Swank tomorrow. I've wanted to do it for a long time and am finally getting to. Pretty much gonna just be a fun ride in Pisgah at this point. Results to follow.

20/20

Have you ever heard people over the age of 40 talk about the "mistakes" that they've made in their lives? Up to recently, I've never really understood what they meant. To me, mistakes are usually very short-term and usually aren't remembered past a couple of days. Not because I have a short memory, but rather because, in youth, mistakes either seem trivial or unimportant at the time. It seems like with age comes better hindsight, and a better ability to see grand-scale mistakes.

It should be noted that "mistakes" doesn't necessarily refer to something that you knowingly did that was stupid or wrong. There are plenty of innocuous things that one could look back on and deem a "mistake" simply because it's something that is regretted or poorly planned out.

As an example, I've recently noticed at least 2 grand-scale mistakes in my life. One was a mistake in the more classical sense of the word...remaining in a destructive relationship when I should have known better. The hindsight on that kind of thing is obvious and doesn't really need much in the way of explanation. The other is more of a planning error that is holding me back from what I would like my future to be...going for a BA degree in college rather than a BS.

Now, the latter example is something that, at the time, I didn't think mattered or affected my future at all. So to me, it falls under the category of taking a short term view of life and not planning out all the options - a mistake when looking back all the same as the former example.

Both of these have held me back in some way in life. However, the other thing that comes with age is a constantly changing definition of "grand-scale". At 23, a mistake that means I have 1 year of catch-up work to do because of my degree is what I would consider grand-scale. I don't expect that looking back on my life when I'm 70 I'll say, "you know, that one thing back when I was in my early 20's really messed things up for me." It's all about the perspective that you have at the time.

Does that mean that the 4 years in college, or the time during a "long-term" relationship, or whatever thing I notice next are wasted? I don't think so. It might not be ideal when looking back at them, but at the very least I should learn something from every misstep...

I would be the very first to tell you that I am no where near what I would consider "grown up" or "mature" or "old-enough-to-have-a-proper-prospective-on-life". However, it's an interesting experience being able to look back far enough and with enough detachment to be able to see things that are bigger than the youthful definition of "mistake". It makes me wonder what I'm doing right now that I will consider a mistake when I'm 30.

Moral of the story to tie into the idea of this blog? Constantly evaluate what you're doing in the present so that you can grow, learn, and improve your future. And don't worry about the "big" mistakes in your life...when you are able to zoom out, those big things might not seem all that big after all.

Cheesy blog out.

Focus

You know what's really hard? Changing your thought patterns. If you've been thinking about something in a certain way for a really long time, it's hard to make yourself stop thinking about it and start thinking differently. The trick is obviously to have something else to focus on. I've just got to wonder, how long does it really take to completely forget about something and get past it.

They say that it takes, what, 30 days to break a bad habit? But thinking isn't at all like smoking or something like that where you just don't do it for 30 days and are good to go. Your brain has this funny thing where it brings stuff up in a kind of sneak attack and before you know it, you're thinking about something you had considered licked. The question is, do those little relapses make it take longer to "recover" from a bad way of thinking?

Screw it. Just live life and keep moving forward.

1. I love living in a place where I can go ride for an hour after work on entirely sick singletrack that's better than what 99% of people have within 50 miles of their house. That's nice and a good way to end the day.

2. House sitting is nice most of the time, but then kinda sucks when you can't really hang out with anyone because you're out in the middle of nowhere and you end up spending your evenings alone.

3. This makes 2 posts today after not posting at all for the past 2 months. Don't judge.

4. Did you know that you are legally obligated to use a bridge in Dupont if there is one provided rather than ride through the water? True story. Also, don't ride in the ranger's grass. They don't like that.

Relief

You know what's awesome? Not worrying. Not caring. Living life. For the first time in probably 4 years.

You know what's not awesome? Somali rebels.

Things That I Love and Make Me Happy

Summer
Pisgah National Forest
Hip-hop/rap
Mountain bikes
Pretty girls
Downhill racing
Competition
School & learning
Dr. Pepper
Hot sun
Manual labor
Cereal
Early mornings in the woods

Quiet

Yesterday was weird. Other than 3 text messages, and a 15 minute visit with Chaput, I didn't talk to anyone. Except for a brief visit to a couple of stores. That doesn't count though.

It's not often that you get to spend a day in almost complete solitude and quiet. It's a nice feeling, and you pretty much can do what you want. I actually found myself freaking out a good bit mentally...feeling like I HAD to go talk to someone or fill my day with things to do just so that I wasn't wasting a day or being lame or whatever. It took until about 2 to start really enjoying the time to myself.

You should try it.

Starting a Change

What is the first step towards making a significant change in one's life? Is it the recognition that there is something in your life that needs to be different? That you are somehow not living up to what you've idealized for yourself? That you have a weakness that needs to be addressed? OR is the first step towards change the desire to change itself? Do people get restless what who they are and allow that to spark a change in themselves?

Looking at the question I just posed, it doesn't seem quite as complicated as it was in my head. Of course the first step in changing is recognizing that something needs to be different, right? You first recognize, and then from that there is a desire to change what you've found in yourself. Couldn't it work that way? Of course. But, it could also happen that someone has a general desire to improve themselves and begins looking for ways to make that happen in all areas of their lives. It's the difference between being reactive and proactive. Seeking out things to improve for improvement's sake, or realizing that there is something in which you could be better. Neither option is better or worse than the other, but different situations call for different types of actions and mindsets.

For example, in parts of my life, I had a preemptive desire to change a certain of aspect of who I am. There really wasn't anything wrong with how I was doing things previously, but I realized that I COULD be doing it better. In other areas, I've identified a weakness and from that have made the decision to change. By doing either of these things, I expect to become a happier and more complete person.

Is change for the sake of change good? No. Change comes enough without needing to force it on yourself. However, if you can stay ahead of the curve, or improve something in order to make yourself a better person, then why not go for it? At least then you tried...

New Blog, New Mission

Those of you who know me and have kept up with anything I've done online may (or may not) know that I had an old blog HERE. However, that blog was associated with my brevard.edu email address, and that domain recently underwent some changes, taking away my access to the old blog.

As frustrating as it is to lose the old posts that I had (and to not be able to post for several months), it was high time for a revamping of both the look and purpose of my blog. I was tired of having a blog that only dealt with bikes and bike riding, and the limited scope of things that I discussed. Few people want to read about the same mundane things that most cyclists have in their blog.

I can't promise that this blog will be any more interesting, or that you will be any more entertained, but I can promise more variety of topics and a more complete view of what I view as important. My plan right now is to talk about everything from racing and training to work to food to style to personal interactions and everything in between.

My idea behind this blog is to document the changes that I want to make in my life, and hopefully inspire, in some small way, a change in my readers as well. I have had some major life changes in the past 6 months, and feel like there are a lot of areas in my life that are lagging behind and incomplete in terms of being a man. Hopefully a blog about changes like this will serve to give a deeper picture of what it is to hit the final stages of growing up into an adult. I'm not under any delusions that my blog will be read by a lot of people, or even that the people who read it will be overly interested in what I have to say. All I want is to be able to have a record of what I've done, for my own good if nothing else.

Enjoy.