Point 2012

A bit severe for a beer commercial.

Boy

Facebook won't let you post links anymore. Stupid Facebook. A great film, and a great project to prepare for the London Olympics. You will be moved.

 

Cresthill

Went to the NCAA Hockey Final Four. Tampa. 

So warm weather, good birding, good hockey.

Also a chance to visit my boyhood home on Cresthill Drive in Town N’ Country, just on the far side of the airport. While Dad was serving in Korea for a year, I went to first grade in Tampa.

I remember the house, the neighborhood a bit, the school, the pool (long gone). I was riding a bike by then. Got a Mohawk. Wore shorts on Christmas day. We went to a ‘Twist’ dance party. Kennedy was shot..and Oswald too while my mother was ironing. Good times.

Stopped by the house. No longer a new area. Now middle-class Hispanic with 50 year-old homes. The old shirtless man of the house and his wife spoke no English. The granddaughter a bit. I finally got my point across. I’m sure they thought it odd that I would stop by, but they were nice about it. Worth a peek.

StuporBowl XV

Todd had to work. Bob had a show. Jim had a bad back. Great day for a ride even if solo. Temps in the 30s, clear roads, sunshine. And 400 other riders to keep me company.

Showed up early, scored the manifest. Just enough time to map out all 14 points and plan a route. The first unknown, the start turned out to be east bank, way under the 35W bridge. The second unknown, an additional stop, folded easily into my route. I took off downriver and up out of the valley with a minority of the riders, out to pick up the four stops on this side of the river.

I maintained a methodical mid-pack pace, maybe two minutes off the lead at the first stop atop of Witches Hill. A long slog to Sporty’s, also a drink stop so had to navigate a line out the door. Back over the river and to a bizarre stop, in Gardner Hardware, through the fire door, up five flights of stairs to Trash Bags HQ. And five flights back down thank you very much.

A little trouble finding Kitsune Cycles tucked into an alley on the far side of downtown. Have to go back and find out how they ever stay in business. South Minneapolis and then a long slog to the Testosterdome.

Or so I thought. Barb’s clue for me was, “this one’s off the map”. Another questioning voice would have helped here. Anyone? A lonely trip down Portland into Richfield and the obvious conclusion that I should have read the manifest more carefully. Only a 9 mile round trip out of my way. Did I says it was a great day for a ride?

By the time I got to the Testosterdome the party was in full swing, people were settled in for the duration. Then Angry Catfish, then Sunrise where, uh oh the stamper had beat feet even before 5:00. Same story at The Hub. I did cruise past the finish, the Nomad World Pub. In good company with other arrivals, but outside of the time limit. 

Stupor action at the Testosterdome. The race within a race.

Clintonville

Doug invited me onto his curling team for the Clintonville Bonspiel. “This year, they have special wooden curling stones for first event winner. It’d be great to win one.” 

I met teammates Jim and Jason from the Green Bay Curling Club 10 minutes before our first match. We were a purpose-built team for the match, Clintonville being midway between Point and Green Bay.

·         Jason    Lead. First year curler

·         Kurt      Second.

·         Jim       Vice-skip. Long-time curler. Teamed up with Doug on numerous occasions when both lived in LaCrosse 18 years ago.

·         Doug     Skip. Former high-level curler including national competition and Olympic trials.

Welcome to three days in the hyper-analog world of curling. A typical shot:

Skip calls the shot from the house (target) 150’ away, some spoken, mostly thru broom gestures.  - Thru the port (between two guard rocks), sure down-to onto counter on the four foot. Called shot is to cross over and get a little roll under cover, bumping it back to out-count them. Plan B is to just sit on it and set us up for later. We’ll see. Don’t be short. I need about back four weight, just a draw.

Shooter - Slower than yesterday?

Previous shooter/sweeper - A ‘lil. Watch that side tho, it’s seen a few rocks.

Shooter shoots… - It’s a little wide.

Sweeper calls - Weights good. Mebbe a lil light.

Skip - Gotta curl. Where are we?

Sweeper - It’s light, top eight – top twelve, gotta go. ~Sweepers start sweeping.

Skip - All the way, lines good. Lines real good. Every bit. Every bit.

We make the port. Skip calls us off once through to allow the rock to curl more and cross over the counter rock. Shooter ends up right on top of the counter. We cut them to one point for the moment. Each team has three rocks left.

We all played well. Jason and Kurt, the front-end, were generally solid. Setting up the play for later. We would often beat the other team to the four foot, dictating the strategy for both teams. Jim and Doug were super solid. Experienced, good shooters and good rapport.

Everyone starts in the first event. Losing teams drop to second, third or fourth events. The first event is miss-and-out. You only play undefeated teams. Competition intensifies as the teams winnow. Three of four of our games were tight and challenging at least through the first two-thirds of the games. You always have to guard against the big end, the bad break.

We were the only team to finish 4-0.

SOFA

Chicago last weekend for SOFA. It’s awesome!

Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me on Thursday. Who wears a costume to a radio show? Paula Poundstone as a pilgrim.

Friday we SOFAed. Sculptural Objects and Fine Arts exposition. Head-spinning array of big time glass art. OK, also metal, stone, wood, baskets, furniture, craft and more. Best in the world, and all for sale. Galleries from Seattle, Denver, LA, Melbourne, London bringing their best.

• I knew one of the glass artists and one of the gallery workers, a start.

• We missed Lino Tagliapietra at his book signing with the Schantz Gallery. Safe to say they didn’t miss us. They sold over $600,000 of his works by days end.

• Dante Marioni and Preston Singletary came together for collaboration. Lifelong friends and each successful in their own right. A ton of their stuff sold through Blue Rain gallery in Santa Fe. 

• Dante and Preston took over the CMOG mobile hot shop to demo/make a piece together. We cozied up to Blue Rain and finagled passes into the demo. Front row, sushi, drinks and some awesome handiwork. Absolutely magical.

Westbound and Down

BroFest 2011 was in Northern California July 4 week. We always miss a few folks. Still, had a very nice quorum. Headcount of eight+.

Some great riding, camaraderie, family, friends. Few days in the smoking hot central valley. Few days along the beautiful coastline north of Santa Cruz.

And a day in between around San Francisco. Nephew Jake showed off his Oakland Hills route. Nice uphills, freakin’ fast downhills and not much flat. Just a mile into it, the five of us rolling along. I was careless, hit a bump. Front wheel zigged the bars from my hands, bike went down hard and I followed. Mostly just slid. A few holes in my kit, kept me from worse road rash. Washed the mean streets from my wounds, straightened the bike out and we pressed on for a beautiful and demanding 50 miler.

As the days went on the raspberries hurt less. By evening my chest was aching. My hip grew a large hematoma. Neck was sore at day 2-3.

I can’t complain. Though not lately, I have crashed lots. Mountain biking and ‘cross will do that. Low sides, high sides, front wheelies, over the bars, off the back. Knock wood, only have had minor injuries in spite of some pretty good wrecks.

Felt good enough after a rest day to do a beautiful 30 miler through Pescadero. Great times. Thanks all.

Ribs hurt enough after returning to get it checked out. Broke my #5 on the right side. Damn.