Thursday, February 22, 2007

Sunday, February 18, 2007

YABADABADOO Addendum

So even though I stared at the previous post a million times trying to make sure there were no glaring and embarassing spelling, grammar, or punctuation problems, I seem to have forgotten a few key points of substance. First of all, YABADABADOO stands for Yet Another Boy Activity Drinking Alotta Beer And Doing Outdoor Operations and was conceived by the ad wizards over at Mr. and Mrs. Greased Up Deaf Guy Incorporated. A very big thanks to the two of them. Secondly, participants will need only pay for hockey (~$20), skiing/snowboarding ($29), Keller Williams (~$20), and any beers above and beyond those that will be awaiting them chez Sleepy. I will have the food factor covered throughout the weekend. Please post any additional questions you may have.

--Sleepy

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Fred Flintstone and/or Hanna Barbera Would Be Proud

So snoe.down '06 spawned a need for a winter getogether with the Pandapas crew, and thus, YABADABADOO was created. A weekend of carefully planned activities in and around Manchester, NH, that will actually feel "active," whilst we throw back some of grandpa's old cough medicine. Tic Tac, sir? Anyways, activities begin on Friday, February 23rd whenever the first participants arrive. We will attend the Monarchs/Bruins game slated for a 7:35pm opening faceoff. At the time of this printing, I have two extra tickets which I believe to be reserved for GUDG and Crayons. If anyone else is interested, Google the Monarchs and give the rest of us a jingle jangle. Post-Monarchs activities include a possible bike pub crawl (weather permitting). Saturday will likely bring some chilled recreation of sorts followed later in the evening by some late night skiing/snowboarding at Crotched Mountain in Bennington, NH. It's not a wicked pissah of a mountain, but it's never busy and it has a bar. Plus, there's a bonfire at the bottom and there's a tree just below the lift filled with women's bras! After rolling in during the wee hours, shirley the crew will be in need of some rest possibly leading into the late morning/early afternoon. Sunday will be mostly a day of laze, but the troops will need to rally in the 4th quarter for the Keller Williams show @ Lupo's in Providence. Your mission, should you choose to accept it......is to show up, dum-dum.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

DirtRag and MuddBunnies




One of my favorite magazines is DirtRag. There have been copies of this kicking around my household on and off since high school. My mountain bike riding sister was reading it back then, when she rode on their "team" for the 24 hours of Canaan(remember that race???). Anyhow.. I'm back on their subscription list and have been considering getting a lifetime subscription. This time of the year i get squirrelly when they skip a month, But yesterday I got my latest copy.

On pg 8 there is a picture of one of this months contributors, and she's dressed in nothing but her mountain bike. Make sure you check it out.

She's a contributors to the MuddBunnie calendar this year... which, just so there is no doubt, seems absolutely worth buying. (Girls on mountain bikes)

If you're into that sort of thing, make sure you don't forget to pick up a Ditty Bops Bikini Bike calendar too. This year they changed to posing with vegetables.

Ever since I saw the cover of Queen's Bicycle Race/Fat Bottom Girls(NSFW!) when i was 15 I've had a thing for hotties on bikes. But that's just me...

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Riding in the Beer-muda Triangle...

It's been wicked cold these days, check out the pond down the street, frozen solid 4-6" thick...



So Mrs Forty and I moved this year. We used to live in an area everything was close together, old, and sketchy. Going for a mtbike ride meant either heading down to the GhettoTrack or loading the car to go ride in Big River. While the GhettoTrack was cool to have a huge variety to ride in, from fast ghetto alleys, a skate-park, a short dirt track with jumps, and eventually some quiet singletrack about five miles out. Not a whole lot of each, but enough to scratch an itch. Unfortunately, no matter what, all options on the Ghettotrack where trash-and-broken bottle strewn. (After the 12 blown tubes in the first few weeks, I ended up putting Mr.Tuffys in the tires of all my bikes. When it came time to replace the tires on the beater, I plunked down the cash for some 2.35 Big Apples that have a kelvlar belt...they rock btw)

Anyhow.. one big factor for where we were looking to move to was how many key places i could ride on my bike. Work was a plus, woods a must, grocery store key, all other places not so much. I couldn't care less if there was a star-buck$, or any of that other crap. So far so good.. rideable woods are 1.5 miles away, a grocery/video/pizza/library are 3 miles out, work is 7 miles away (through the woods and on a dirt road no less), and the westernmost point of the Beermuda triangle around 10 mile. Watch out for Western Beermuda....been "-Adab"-ing it out there since high school.

Anyhow... out here instead of the homeless sleeping/peeing/sh*tting etc under the bridges and behind dumpsters, I see things like this with regularity:

The horses and their people are neighbors of The FlatTires and the Fortys.

I'm starting to get use to this....

-40.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Go with what ya got

Mrs 40 is always complaining that I'm... frugal. I prefer to think I tend to use what I have onhand rather than go out and buy something. Go with what ya got and all... ya know?

Here is the latest project. I needed a shelf to put up the amp and the xbox on. I didn't really want to go to the store to get a shelf, so a 2x4 ripped down the center, a couple angle brackets, a board, and, my new favorite structural item, Bike chains!

I don't know why Mrs 40 got so mad when she saw my handiwork, I cleaned them first. *Shrug*.

Monday, February 05, 2007

StuporBowl Sunday

In observance of the Big Game, we held a local Stuporbowl, except without the race, and instead we played some disc golf. Oh, and yeah.. we drank some beer.

Crayons, Flat-Tires, Sleepy and I took a quick ride up Po-Dunk hill with the ladies(Ingrid and Maggie). It was pretty cold... so cold that our water would freeze, so we didn't bring any in the hydration packs, just beer.



Ingrid loves beer so much here she is attacking dad for a sip.



When we got back, Sleepy busted out his new toy, a portable disc golf basket. We set out around the new FlatTires loop with an ibucket, some beverages, and some discs. Crayons nailed some long putts, and is my hero.



After that it was time for ping pong, then a dip in the wood fired hot tub. Sorry pervs.. no pictures of that. You wouldn't want to see my winter white flabby belly anyway.

It was a great weekend... good times. Sorry if you missed it.

But! Stay tuned for Sleepy's YABADABADOO weekend in three weeks! Sleepy, care to let us in on your plans?

-40.

Groundhogs Day

Happy Groundhogs Day. I would have posted it sooner but the switch over in the blog thing screwed with me. Well anyways, the groundhog saw his shadow or whatever and spring is supposed to come early. Hopefully we'll get some meaningful snow before then. If not, I may have to travel to find it.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Tis the season.

(this post is a little late due to issues transferring over to the new Blogger)

Been busy for the town volunteer fire department recently.

Two structure fires in 36 hours... I am in the picture below (h/t WJAR ch. 10 Providence), to the right of the man in the white helmet, checking with another team as I am heading to the truck to switch air bottles and head back to work the interior at the first of the two fires.



The second fire was also actually over the town line, and that turned out to be an excellent stop as well. Really a testament to the performance of CAF (compressed air foam- all the stuff that looks like snow out front- there was no snow...) to fight fires. We used probably a third the H20 that you would using conventional water, meaning less damage to the structure (in this case an historic house that predates the signing of the Declaration of Independence) while having superior knock-down capability (though I have spoken with some in the fire service who are not fans, but that could be due to limited exposure to it). Using less water is especially important in a rural setting. In this case, thanks to a coordinated effort with surrounding towns we had more water than we could use on stand by just in case, but it is nice to know that you are not going to actually need it.

While it is fantastic to have up to date and well cared for equipment- it is better to not have to put it into use. With the winter being pretty mild so far, we have yet to have a chimney fire (knock wood). I tend to be fanatical about checking my chimney during the winter burning months (back in NW CT my fire chief had his chimney light up- and if you think we EVER let him hear the end of that- you are definitely wrong...), as a chimney fire can easily get hot enough to crack the masonry and extend into walls, attic space and through fire extension take down a house.

If you burn, make sure that you are burning as efficiently as possible, that your chimney meets NFPA code and is routinely swept, etc. If you have really sticky creosote, that is loaded with burnable material, meaning you are not burning as cleanly as you could. If it is really light and crumbly to the touch, that may be a sign that it has already touched off at some point. And if you hear a sound like a jet engine eminating from your fire place, close it down and call the FD!