Militant Buddhist

Arrived in Newark on a somewhat overcast evening, and had a few minutes, so I took in some of the sights…like the solid gold dome on this building:

I have now been to two Game 6′s. The Devils are undefeated when I am there.

I read the game thread, which was 90% bitching by Bob Levine. Looks like people were complaining about the Devils “passion” again. In person, it was a different story. They showed up, and played hard. They absolutely outplayed the Panthers…except…they make boneheadedmistakes. Fortunately, last night Florida was making equally boneheaded plays – inopportune offsides, bad passes, and most notably, missing the net when they shot. By a mile. Seriously, at least three times a Panther came down the left wing, and fired the puck so wide, it went directly into the right wing corner. It’s remarkable to me that an NHL player could do that time and time again.

The ice must have been pretty bad…nobody could handle the puck, and skaters were falling down for no reason at all. At one point, a Devils defender fell, and the guy sitting behind me said “Ah, taking the Clarkson approach”.

The refereeing was abysmal. Even though we ended up with more power plays, we should have had 3-4 more, and we should have won that game in regulation. On the Panthers second goal, while the puck was still in the Panthers zone, Kovy was blatantly tripped…I’m sure you all saw that, as he was carrying the puck at the moment. What you probably did not see, was another Devils forward getting tripped right in front of the Florida net, behind the play. So it was an effective 5 on 3 coming up the ice, with the predictable result.

Just as egregious, early in the game, Zubrus was absolutely hammered from behind, face first into the boards. In fact, Z was fouled time, and time, and time again, with no calls. But the boarding that wasn’t called could easily have been a major – it was that bad. In fact, I’ve seen it in several highlight packages.

Bettman was at the game. Bettman was booed.

Marty was ok. Not a wall, but ok, especially considering the amount of time between shots. He made a few really big saves. Maybe he could have controlled the rebound on the second goal a little bit better, but he shouldn’t have been facing that shot anyways.

Adam Larsson had better be in the next game, because Harrold was absolutely awful (update – it’s been announced that the Devils will roll with the same lineup). I know he had an assist on the Bernier goal, but it was an assist that anybody would have gotten. He had one terrible turnover after another…including one of the worst I’ve ever seen, that could have lost us the game. He had the puck, everybody else had left the zone, because the Devils were on a PP. Florida had one forechecker. One. The forechecker was 30 feet away from Harrold. Harrold literally passed the puck right to the Panther! We were losing our minds in the stands. Basically, anything you could do wrong, he did last night.

Another reason to have Larsson in the lineup – you’ve all heard me say this before – the breakout. Our non-existent breakout. There are things that you can do to make the game a lot easier on yourself – two of them that the Devils consistently don’t do are:

1. Win faceoffs (we actually did win about half last night). And…
2. Have a good, consistent breakout of your own defensive zone. And the Devils don’t. Seriously, beyond Zidlicky, we don’t have ONE SINGLE defenseman that can make a decent outlet pass, except for Larsson.

Nobody on this team makes a better outlet pass than Larsson. He makes very quick reads of what’s going on, makes good decisions on who to pass to, and then makes good, quick, accurate passes. As opposed to, say, Salvador, who waits as long as he possibly can, because reading the play in front of him isn’t one of his strengths. So he waits for forecheckers to come to him, to clear up passing options, as well as lanes. Problem is, then he has to pass through a forechecker, which he doesn’t do very well…and many of the other Devils defensemen have the same tendency, which repeatedly leads to broken plays, and a tough time getting through the neutral zone. Or worse, second chances in our defensive zone, because we turn over the puck.

And those are both things that keep the Devils from being a great team, that can really make a run. Because although we’re tied up 3 games all, Florida hasn’t really made us pay. The Flyers will score all over our asses if we give them those kinds of chances.

A couple of other notes -

1. Kovy is definitely injured. Either that, or he’s just worn down, which is a distinct possibility. On the PP in which he scored a goal, he was invisible until he actually scored. I was commenting to Mark Dodd that it was surprising that Kovy wasn’t getting any touches…and then he sneaks down to the back door…and scores a somewhat ironic goal.
2. Clarkson looks like he’s doing his best to play through pain.
3. Andy Greene was our best defenseman, by far. If he only had the eye and passing ability of Larsson, he’d be one of the best d-men in the league. He was really, really solid, and made all the right plays. I’m glad he’s still a Devil.
4. Volchenkov was huge! Big hits, at the right times. Solid positional play…except for one play where he went to make a big hit, and took himself out of position, resulting in an odd man rush. So gotta take the good with the bad, but when he brings the good, it’s very good.
5. Bernier!!!! When he’s on the ice, the puck goes in one direction – towards the opposition goal. He’d better be a Devil next year.
6. The Florida owner is a complete wack-job! He’s been attacking Devils fans from his twitter account! We need to make him pay.

Ok, that’s it for now. I’m reposting this on my blog, because it’s easier than coming up with something else to write about.

This story was requested recently, and I thought it might make a good blog post. So here we go.

I used to have Nazis for neighbors.

Nazis.

Yup, Nazis.

Now, technically speaking, you would probably call them White Supremists, or white trash, or dirtbags, or idiots, or something like that. But I was told by somebody (I don’t quite remember who) that they considered themselves Nazis. And who am I to not respect somebody’s delusion.

All things being equal, not the worst neighbors I ever had. They were goddamn disasters, though.

I guess I should describe where I was living at the time, cause it’s kind of a key to my constant interaction with these people. It was Sayreville, NJ, a place called MacArther Manor. Sounds kinda snooty, right? Incorrect. It was pretty much a lowlife mecca in the middle of a fairly nice neighborhood, owned by a slumlord. I don’t really know what I was thinking when I moved in there…I did like the area, very much. And I was a little pressed for time, as I had a lease ending, and hadn’t found a new place yet. And they allowed pets – and I have one. Some of you may know Sammy the macaw. Also it was a split level, and had a basement, and I do like having multiple floors. And a laundry room, which was really nice. Outside of that, it was a complete and utter shithole – awful wood paneling everywhere, slightly too narrow…it had been listed as a townhouse, but really was an old rowhouse that had been built out slightly. I just happened to be looking in a book on the history of Sayreville, and saw that it was one of the oldest buildings in that town still standing, probably about 100+ years old…built by the guy after whom the town was named. Sayreville was a brick factory town, and this building had been built as housing for people that worked at the brick factory.

Apparently, Mr Sayre thought only so much of them.

The first day I moved in, the super came over, introduced himself, and asked if I wanted to smoke some pot. Not my thing, but thanks anyways…I can’t remember his name, but he seemed like a nice enough guy, blue collar, contractor…I hang out with about 80 guys just like him. He starts giving me the lay of the land…tells me about the drug dealer at such and such an apartment, the section 8 whore that lived next to him, etc…he tells me about this guy Mike, who I should never, ever let in my place, because he’d just be casing it to rip me off in the future. Then later on, the super sent Mike over to fix something in my place. Great. Thanks for the heads up. That super moved on before too long – the cheap slumlord who owned the place went through 4-5 supers in the 2 years that I lived there…he basically kept ripping them off.

Next door to me was this long haired kid, who liked to bullshit me about what a rock-n-roller he was. He was my neighbor for about 3 months, and then he moved on.

And in moved the Nazis. Chrissie, Kevin, and Chrissies daughter, father MIA.

The way MacArthur Manor was set up, you shared a front porch, and a back stoop, with one of your

neighbors. And Chrissie pretty much set up shop on that back stoop – so long as it was nice weather, and she didn’t have a family court date, or something pressing, like that, she was always out there. Now, this was a very heavy woman, in her late 20′s, and she’d kind of spread out, with this sense of white trash princess entitlement that you simply have to experience to know what I’m talking about. Pleasant enough to talk to, and very outgoing, she made it the social center of her life – always out there, two packs of Newport 100′s by her side, chain smoking away. But always in my way…anytime I wanted to go in or out, she’d have to move. Which meant that she was essentially sitting in front of my door. Which meant that when I was doing my laundry, I could look right out the door, and see what was going on there. And one day, I look out, and I see she’s reading some white supremist literature. I’ll give anyone the benefit of the doubt…maybe somebody just gave it to her, trying to make her a convert. Nope, it was getting mailed there, regularly…and regularly ended up in my mailbox.

I’ll reiterate – they weren’t bad neighbors, except for blocking up my back door…at one point, they had a dog that barked…all…night…long. And it was right on the other side of the wall that my bed was up against, so little sleep was had that night. Mention it to them the next day, and it never happened again. Not sure how they shut the dog up that thoroughly, but whatever they did, it worked. It was weird, though, them and animals. New animals showed up on a regular basis, expensive, purebred dogs and cats…and they’d disappear just as quickly. I know they sold some of the dogs (one time to a black guy, who Chrissie joked and laughed with…the minute he was gone, she said to me “Gawd, I can’t believe how much that nigger paid for that dog”. Nice.), but there was simply no way they had the money for these animals – I think they received some form of assistance, and were living hand to mouth.

I would occasionally talk to Kevin, who was the opposite of Chrissie, personality-wise. Very quiet, kept to himself…seemed like a fairly hard worker, and since I never once discussed anything even slightly political with them (it would have gone badly – I look white as can be, but my grandmothers maiden name was Rodriguez, and I grew up calling her lita, which was short for abuelita. And there’s no way I would have hidden that part of my history), I would occasionally forget that…well, that they were fuckin Nazis! They weren’t a perfect couple, by any means, and would argue a lot…the cops came frequently because one of them would call the cops on the other. One day I came home to find Kevin moving his stuff out…the guy looked so bummed out, that I felt myself feeling bad for him. Until I realized he was moving his books out…and noticed the titles…and realized that about 90% of those books were about Hitler, and had titles like Hitler: Misunderstood Genius. Christ.

Cops did show up there on a regular basis, too, as I alluded to before. They seemed reasonably harmless to me, but there was often a cop there for either a domestic issue or something to do with child services…I do remember one time a cop was lecturing them on the living environment, saying that a child simply needed a cleaner home than they were providing – which was absolutely correct, at that point. I couldn’t smell their apartment through the wall, but when I’d walk past their door, I’d occasionally be accosted by a smell that was wafting out.

I think the story that takes the cake, and the one I was actually asked to write about, was the smoking issue. Chrissie was a heavy smoker – like I said, she was always out back, chain smoking. She also always seemed to be pregnant, though you’d never know to look at her…one time she told me she was pregnant, and then a couple of months later she had miscarried. I expressed my condolences and moved on. About 6 months later, she happily announces that she’s pregnant yet again. I give my usual response: “Congrats! Or, my sympathies. Whichever applies.” Trying to be funny, of course, not trying to be a Richard Stallman-esque dick. She laughs, assures me they’re very happy, and I go inside and make myself a tasty glass of chocolate milk.

Several days later, I’m walking from my car to my door, and there she is, sitting on the stoop…

…smoking. With two packs of Newport 100s sitting next to her. She’s not even dropping down to Newport Lights, no. She’s going full bore.

sigh

“Chrissie” I say, “You’re pregnant. What are you doing.”

And then I get one of the most mind-numbing, self-centered, bullshit bits of fake logic that I’ve ever heard in my life.

“My doctor told me that the reason I miscarried last time was because I quit smoking cold turkey.”

Wha…

“Ok, so are you going to taper down and quit over the next couple of weeks?” It seemed like a fair question to me.

“No”, she says, “I’m afraid it would be bad for the baby.”

She was afraid it would be bad for the baby.

This is a special kind of white trash logic, one that I really can’t comprehend, excuse, or laugh off. Because I knew it was bullshit, And she knew it was bullshit. And I knew I had that “quit bullshitting me” look on my face…I wasn’t trying to hide it in the slightest.

I used to smoke…I smoked for 10 years, from the time I was 17 til the time I was 27. I tried quitting a bunch of times before I was able to do so successfully. Quitting smoking sucks…not just because physically, it’s a hard habit to break, but because you probably don’t really want to quit. It calms you down, helps pass the time, smoke rings are cool, and it gives you something to do with your hands. Not to mention a reason to take a break at work. So I could empathize with her dreading the quitting part, but she was sitting in front of me, basically telling me she would prefer to risk that baby’s health, rather than going through the effort of quitting smoking, even for a few months.

They did have the baby, several months later…it was tiny, though. I’m sure she rationalized her behavior as heroic, or something equally delusional “wow, this kid is tiny, but imagine what would have happened if I had quit smoking!”

What’s the moral to this story? White trash neighbors are endlessly entertaining. But there will be times when they do stupid, shocking shit that will make you shake your head.

Some of you may have noticed.

Yes, I’ve brought back my blog. And just in the nick of time, or so it would seem…there’s an election of some sort coming up, and it seems to be populated by loons! I can’t imagine that I don’t, or haven’t, felt the urge to comment. Seriously, each one of these guys is crazier than the next, and I’m literally on the edge of my seat waiting to see how it turns out. Especially if, as some people are suggesting, the presidential election could be turned from a shoe-in for re-election, to a shoe-in for a GOP upset if we get a $5 gallon of gas!

And even more importantly, a new cycling season is upon us! Yes, and while there will be no Alberto Contador, there will be an Alejandro Valverde. That’s just as good, right? Right? Hey, come on. He’s already beaten Simon Gerrans twice in uphill sprints. At very least, he should be a wild card that keeps things interesting – sort of this years Alexander Vinokourov. Or as John Galloway might say, this years returning dirty doper (he’d probably say something about him being poodle-haired, as well).

Speaking of cycling, I’m a bike racer now. Not a good one, not a fast one, but I’ve not been pulled, or finished dead last yet, and that makes me feel marginally good about myself. And I’m starting a cycling team! Team Kranky Cycles, which will be a shop team for the best bike shop on the east coast, Kranky Cycles. As it stands right now, I’m the team president, the bubbly and effluent Marjolein Schat is the VP, and we will very shortly be trolling for new members. My personal hope would be to get somewhere between a few and a bunch of riders, with a couple groups of similar fitness levels, so we can get some good group/training rides going, some camaraderie, and possibly somebody to work tactics with at races. If you are a cyclist, and don’t live too far away from Highlands, NJ (of course you can join even if you live in Ottawa, but it probably won’t be as rewarding an endeavor for you), and you’re interested in signing up, do get in contact with me, via email, or in the comments section below.

Rog news? I’m still in school,  closing in on my associates degree (I’m a Networking and Communications major), working towards the ultimate goal of a BS (would you expect anything less?), and employment that will surely bring fame, excitement, mad money…that’s what a college degree gets you, right? I’m looking forward to it.

Other news – if you’re reading this, you probably know who Sammy is, right? If not, Sammy is my blue and gold macaw. And it turns out Sammy is a Samantha! A chick! I figured that was the case, as she is loud, bossy, opinionated…but now it’s confirmed. And if you’re a Sammy fan, you are probably delighted to hear this. If you’re not a Sammy fan…well, you just haven’t gotten to know her, yet.

Blog news – you may have noticed the new theme. It’s not going to last, as I’m finally going to get around to learning to theme for myself…but I think this looks ok for the moment. It’s one of the “stock” WordPress themes…scroll down to the very bottom to see who made it and what it’s called if you really like it. You may also have noticed that while all the posts are still here, the pics have all disappeared. Yup, that’s a drag, but when I exported the database on the old site, it turns out that it just saved the text, and not the pics. That’s ok by me, though…while I’m sure some people might feel differently, to me, the text is the important part. I do promise, though, that I will post more pics of Ivan Basso’s sister, eventually.

That’s about it for now – I’ve missed you all! Hope you feel the same way about me. For now, be safe, and I’ll have something new to say shortly.

Thank a vet, thank a vet, thank a vet. That’s all I’ve been seeing on Google+, Facebook, and twitter, all day so far. If you see a vet, thank him! Buy a poppy flower, put it in your lapel to show them you appreciate their service. Get a yellow ribbon magnet that says “Support the troops”! It shows how American you are. When you do that, you’re being all you can be! Now go thank a vet!

Thank a vet…for what, exactly? A knee-jerk, jingoistic sense of patriotism, and pure-hearted love of American exceptionalism, and how these brave soldiers contribute to that with their fearless defense of our great nation?

Pass.

Not because I don’t support the troops – that’s an absolutely ridiculous notion that has been put out there by certain politicians who’s base constituency consists of people with an overly simplistic view of what makes America…great. The aforementioned American Exceptionalism™, the John Wayne that resides in all of us as we ride our medicare paid for Rascals around, with American flags affixed, of course. They use this as a political tool, as a big stick they can swing at whatever opponent they may have at the time, be it in an election, or somebody who’s in opposition of a bill said politician is trying to get passed, or worst of all, somebody who is trying to root corruption out of government. We all support the troops, that’s a given. We all know that a lot of these guys are going into dangerous situations, and that some of them might not come back, and hopefully we all appreciate the hell out of that.

So what’s my problem with thanking a vet, then, you ask? Is it a Doug Stanhope-esque, some troops are dicks kind of thing? Nope. Perhaps an aversion to every single person who’s ever worn a uniform, be it military, police, firefighter, cadet or cub scout debasement of the word “Hero”? Cause really, is a military file clerk a hero? Of course not. And yes, that’s annoying. But that’s not it either.

My beef with thanking a vet is not because I have any animosity towards people who’ve served, regardless of what capacity they served in – file clerk or front line infantry, or what their reason for serving was – for love of country, or just because they needed a job/way to pay for school. To me, it’s all immaterial…we do owe them a debt that, in a lot of cases, can’t be repaid. And yet…a simple thanks…just doesn’t feel appropriate, somehow.

How about an apology?

How about we make today about going up to every veteran we see today and instead of thanking them, we say I’m sorry. I’m sorry because any blood you may have shed, any friends you may have lost, any limb that’s no longer there, but you’ll still be having ghost feelings for, for the rest of your life…is in no way in defense of this country…that it’s not protecting our freedoms in any way, shape, or form…that it’s solely for the sake of mostly multinational business interests that they’re dying, getting shot, injured, screwed over on their pay, screwed over on their benefits, being given sub-standard equipment, having to have their families hold fundraisers to get them the equipment that they were supposed to be sent out with in the first place?

How about we all go up to them and say “I’m sorry, because at some level I’M COMPLICIT with you getting used by politicians to protect the interests of Big Oil, by not making better choices when I vote, by not getting out there and helping wake my friends and neighbors up to do the same, that I’m accepting what’s being SHOVED DOWN MY THROAT by ‘both’ parties, that I’m not doing a better job of getting people into office who would be using the military for what the military is supposed to be used for – defending the country, not conducting imperialism for the sake of business interests”?

Or something to that effect.

Look, I’m not trying to be that guy who’s saying “I’m more patriotic than you, because I see how these guys are being used as cannon fodder by monied interests and you don’t”. I usually vote 3rd party, fully understanding that I may be throwing my vote away, but I don’t campaign actively anymore, I don’t get out after my friends saying “This is what’s necessary”, which makes me just as big a part of the problem as anybody else. And I’m not trying to politicize Veterans Day, really. I’m not trying to cynically make the day that is supposed to be spent reflecting on and appreciating their service into a cause. I do think we should thank them.

But the way things are, nowadays, I think we should also go that extra step, and say “I’m sorry”, as well.

Well, when we made this record there was a little bit of doubt
Whether or not the ting was ever gonna come out
I said, “hey chief, you reckon this record will be released?”
He said, “Son, we ain’t got enough oil
to keep the pressed greased”
We got the crude oil blues
And son, if we can’t make records then we don’t need you
I said, “what am I gonna do if I can’t sing and pick?”
He said, “well just keep yourself warm playin’ all them hot licks

- Jerry Reed “Crude Oil Blues”

Earlier tonight, I was on the facebook, and I saw a status update from a friend of mine, the amazing guitarist Chris Buono:

$48 FOR FUCKIN GAS IN A CAR THAT COST A LITTLE OVER $30 NOT LONG AGO. Great work and FUCK YOU to whomever deserves credit

There was no closing punctuation, which I thought was weird, but again, he’s a guitarist, so…

Anyways, there were a couple of responses, and then I said this:

Just remember, the only way to get them under control is to NOT drive if you don’t ABSOLUTELY have to. Bitching about it while still driving half a mile to the store won’t accomplish a thing.

To me, it seems like the logical response. But remarkably, some don’t see it that way, as evidenced a couple of responses later by this:

Summer is driving season. They don’t give a shit because they know we’ll pay it.

Which launched me into the following rant:

Dude – don’t go on vacation if that’s what it takes. Just don’t effing drive! Figure out a way. Remember a few years when gas prices spiked? Remember how hard and fast they came down when PEOPLE JUST COULDN’T DEAL ANYMORE AND STOPPED DRIVING??

And you’re right, it is a scam. The price of gas has shot up way higher than the price of oil. So this is pure profiteering. And THEY’RE GOING TO GET AWAY WITH IT if people say “They don’t give a shit because they know we’ll pay it” and then go and pay it. Of course! If we’re DUMB enough to let them do this to us, then we DESERVE to pay those higher prices. Sacrifice a couple trips in the car a week, watch how fast those gas prices come back down.

I’ve mentioned something along these lines before, I am fairly certain.

Unfortunately for me, my RAV4 gets agitated when I feed it regular, so right now, here in NJ, I’m paying $4 per gallon for Plus grade (and I’ve seen it as high as $4.80 in Connecticut). That seems really high to me, especially since it took $50 to fill the tank the last time I did. A couple of months ago, as Buono pointed out, the same fill up would be in the low $30 range. So why are gas prices so high? I’ve heard and read a variety of reasons for the current high gas prices. Speculators on Wall St, hedge fund guys are causing it. Ok, maybe. That would be convenient, as most of those guys suck pretty hard; it would be easy to continue to pile hate on them. Price gouging oil companies – very possible. Oil simply isn’t as expensive as it was in ’08, the last time that gas prices went insane. Right now the WTI crude price per barrel of oil is $103, which isn’t cheap, but in July of ’08, a barrel of oil would cost you $147! One hundred and forty seven dollars! And what was the average price of gasoline at that time? A shocking $4.11. And I do mean shocking – that’s not hyperbole. At the time, I could barely afford a day trip with my girlfriend. Seriously – if we drove a couple of hundred miles, I was really thinking hard about the impact on my wallet. So, ok, a high of $147 per barrel of oil, and gas cost $4.11 per gallon at the pump. At $103 per barrel today, gasoline costs about $3.96 nationwide (for a gallon of regular). Some quick calculations say that $103 is a little over 30% less than $147, but $3.96 is only slightly more than 3% less than $4.11 (3.6496%, to be exact, rounded off to the nearest ten thousanth).

Why the disparity in percentage differential? Why is the cost of gasoline so much higher in relation to the price of a barrel of oil? What are the unseen costs to the oil companies? Are there any?

I’m looking at this from a fairly non-technical point of view, so I can’t really comment on what the cost of doing business is for the oil companies. They wouldn’t tell me what they are, anyways – they’re pretty tight with those kinds of numbers, giving a lesson in obfuscation in their stock reports that no two human beings would be able to draw the same conclusions from – except that Exxon (or whatever other oil company) is doing great! And they are, as evidenced by the fact that their profits went up 53% in the 4th quarter of 2010, largely because of the juxtaposition of the economy improving, and the price of gas rising.

“It’s a home run,” said Fadel Gheit, managing director for oil and gas research at Oppenheimer & Company. “It’s a big positive earnings surprise on strong operating results across all business segments underpinned by strong production growth, higher oil and gas prices and improved margins.”

Note the last two words of that sentence – improved margins. No kidding. Selling gas at almost ’08 prices, while buying at a price that isn’t reflective of that per gallon increase at the pumps, will certainly make for an improved margin.

As I said, I don’t know the variances of what I’m sure are an awful lot of costs for the oil companies. But when industry analysts are saying that they’re making their money on improved margins, I think it’s safe to say that the oil companies can’t hide behind their costs as a legitimate factor. Given that, I think the answer to why prices are higher is fairly self-evident – pure, unmitigated greed. The already insane profits of the oil companies wasn’t enough, they need more. So, they’re going to squeeze us.

I have a theory about this – I think it’s all a big experiment. Possibly the conclusion of an experiment, but more than likely just a continuation of one. In ’08, prices were high, but some (or many) were suggesting that the oil companies were profiteering, or taking advantage of circumstances, usually an emergency or a war, to charge an unfair price. in this case those circumstances were the perception that the high per barrel cost of oil necessitated high prices at the pump. Fortunately for the oil industry, they had friends in the Senate, like noted criminal lowlife Ted Stevens, who weren’t going to allow any charges, or even substantive inquiries, to be brought about. But while yes, they were profiteering, profit wasn’t their only consideration – long term profit was the real issue. Finding out how much we, the American people, were willing to pay, and pushing us past that point was the real goal. A good trainer at your local gym will do the same thing – if can bench 200 lbs, he’ll have you do a couple of reps at 210, which shocks your system a little, and makes it develop into a system that can pick up 210 lbs. It also has the psychological effect of letting you know, mentally, that what you thought was your limit really isn’t. In this same manner in ’08, the oil companies first shocked you with a $3.00 per gallon price, then pushed you past that limit, first to $3.50, then $4.00. At that point, people just said the hell with it, and stopped driving. And the oil co’s took note. Specifically, they noted the price point at which we stopped driving. Which at the time was figured to be about $3.00 per gallon.

At that point, gas prices plummeted, as people adjusted their behavior, stopped driving so much and bought more sensible cars (remember all the car companies and dealerships practically giving away SUV’s?). The Prius, previously a bit of a laughingstock, became an impossible to get symbol of how to live live sensibly. I remember paying $1.35 for gas at that point, which I hadn’t done for at least 8 years before that. Life was good for the moment, but the oil companies now had a blueprint to work off of. And slowly but surely, gas came back up to $2 per gallon, but that was ok, because people were used to that. And hell, paying $2 seemed like a bargain, compared to $4. And slowly but surely, gas went up to $2.50 per gallon, but that was ok, because at least it wasn’t $4.

And slowly but surely…

The week of April 28th, 2010, gas was up to $2.85 per gallon…sneaking right up on the $3 per gallon mark that they had deemed to be the cutoff. That was a year ago. Since then, we’ve been pushed past that point, and nobody has complained, until recently. But all of a sudden, people are starting to feel it – the paycheck doesn’t go quite as far, the bills leave us a little tighter at the end of the month. But why? Nothing seems out of whack, pricewise…everythings about the…same…oh wait. Gas is $3.90. And nobody really noticed it getting there, because we were conditioned. They started conditioning us three years ago, and this is the end result. They are now in a position where they can raise gas prices beyond the rate of oil prices, with nothing more but mild complaining from us.

How about we make it a little more difficult than that, hey? Because they aren’t the only ones that can learn from what happened. Gas steadily rose up until July 7th, 2008, and then finally, we realized that we couldn’t afford it anymore. And we stopped driving. I started riding my bike into work more, 17 miles each way. You maybe scrapped a vacation, or drove to the store one time less per week, or figured out a way to incorporate mass transit into your life. Well, it’s time to do that again, if you aren’t doing something like that already. For me, it’s not that hard – the supermarket is a half a mile away, I don’t have kids to run around, so I don’t really have anywhere that I have to drive, unless I have a gig. And unless I do have a gig (or rehearsal), you can bet I’m not driving anywhere. My bicycle is more than enough to get me from any point A to any point B that I need to get to otherwise. I know that most people can’t say that, that most people have families, kids that need to be shuttled about, etc. But to suggest that it’s impossible to cut down on the amount of unnecessary trips simply isn’t acceptable. This is the point at which sacrifice becomes necessary, and if you are somebody who had kids, it will be an excellent object lesson for for your kids, on how you can control your own circumstances and economy. Don’t drive! Set aside one day a week where you absolutely are not getting in the car, no matter what (short of a medical emergency, of course). If that’s not a possible part of a solution for you, if you’re doing more than just a commute to work and back every day, figure out a way to cut out two or three trips per week. Figure out a way to use public transportation. Don’t buy into that nonsense that two cars in the garage is the American dream, and that anything short of that is failure – that’s marketing bullshit that has been pounded into your head. Living in a manner that allows you to have the maximum possible standard of living, while at the same time keeping these massive corporations in check is what we should all be striving for – and everybody who figured out a way to not drive as much, everybody who sacrificed a little bit the last time around knows that we can rein them in again.

And if you’re not going to do that, if you drive your car half a mile to the store instead of walking, if you can’t give up the slightest bit of convenience, then do me a favor – shut up. Because I have absolutely no patience for somebody that can’t give up a couple of unnecessary car trips per week. Understand, and take responsibility for the fact that if you are that guy, then driving to the local convenience store for a pack of gum is more important to you than reasonable gas prices. Or in other words, if you aren’t going to be part of the solution, I don’t want to hear your whining.

In closing, I’m going to leave you with another facebook (because facebook research is fun and easy!) from which I actually learned a little bit, that will hopefully help illustrate a couple of things – 1, how we have to manage gas prices ourselves, 2, how greedy these oil companies can be, and 3, how maybe we need to change some regulations here in the US. On offshore drilling:

It’s astonishing how clueless the right-wingers using that argument can be.

Apparently some of these Palin-Americans are naive enough to believe that oil drilled off the American coast has a nice shiny label on it, and must be sold in America. It doesn’t work that way. All oil drilled offshore of the USA goes to the WORLD spot market for petroleum. It does not stay in the USA. Once on the world market, it gets sold to the highest bidder – China, India, Argentina, whoever. There are NO laws saying that the oil must stay in the USA for Americans to use.

So every time some oil executive or right-wing talking head tells you that we need to open up more drilling in the USA to achieve “energy independence”, you can know right off the bat that they are lying to you. All they’re trying to do is boost oil company profits – and sell the oil to the highest bidder.

So until/unless we have a law that requires all oil drilled in the USA to be bought and sold here, then that oil will continue to be sold on the world spot market. The reason they’re talking about “energy independence” is because they count on the American public to be stupid enough not to realize how commodities future markets operate.

Don’t like it that way? Fine – then change the law. That’s what China does: all domestically produced oil in China is required to stay in China; it never goes to the world spot market. That way China only buys surplus oil. It’s also why calculating China’s oil consumption is hard; their domestic production numbers are a state secret.

Oil companies (and their puppets in Congress) get stupid rednecks all worked up over “drill, drill, drill” by telling them that it will help the American economy. They count on uninformed voters to not know how the global oil market actually operates. But drilling offshore only boosts oil company profits – it does NOTHING to make America less dependent on oil, foreign or otherwise.

And this says *nothing* about the problem of taking years, even decades, to bring an oil field from concept to production. A field that comes online in 2025 isnt going to do anything to lower gas prices *today*.

So there you have it, folks. Go forth, and don’t drive.

Not too terribly long ago, I was riding my bike. This is not unusual, as I ride my bike a lot. It was a nice day, the birds were singing, the sun was shining, and I was riding my bike, enjoying the sounds, the sensations, the click of the shifters, the ticking of the freehub. I wasn’t going anywhere in particular, I wasn’t training, I was just riding my bike. Enjoying it. A soul ride – it keeps Rog sane.

On this particular route, there’s a short downhill, between a quarter and a half mile long. Straight, not very steep, but enough so you can work up a nice head of steam. It’s in a nice residential area of Sayreville, NJ, which is a town that I used to live in, and still live near and ride through all the time. This hill is lined with trees and houses, kids play in their front yard, but there’s just enough traffic to keep them out of the street. Nice, working class people live there. They often wave at me as I go by, because they’ve seen me many times. I like the people who live on this street, even though I don’t know them. I’m a working class guy, and they are my people. I like the hill that they live on, too, because by the time I hit the bottom of the hill, I’m usually doing about 40 mph, and it’s fun to go fast, especially when you don’t have to work too hard to get there – you can really enjoy the speed, even when it’s only going to last for a few seconds.

One note about this hill – the speed limit is 25, so technically, I’m speeding. Nobody seems to mind, and in my head, it’s safer to go that speed anyways, as the cars that go down that hill are doing about the same. Today, though, as I’m going down the hill, I see a car start to back up in it’s driveway. He sees me and stops, but I still take the middle of the lane, for safety’s sake. I do so after checking my six, to make sure no cars are going to flatten me. At this point, I’m doing about 40, as usual, and I’m coming to the bottom of the hill. Now the road going straight ends, and you have to make a left turn, so I stay in the center of the lane to make the turn.

HONK!!

A little bitty sub compact car had come up behind me – he must have been flying, he had been at the top of the hill when I took the center of the lane. And now there he is, a couple feet off my rear wheel, blowing his horn at me. I make my turn, letting my natural momentum pull me over to the shoulder of the road, gravity slowing me to about 25 as I start to pedal again. The guy driving the car pulls up alongside me and yells:

“Get off the road!”

I yell back at him “Share the road”!

He yells something about the law, I yell that I was doing well over the speed limit, how much faster did he want to go? He calls me something, I call him something wittier, he makes like he’s going to pull over. Ok, fine. If you want six feet, two inches and 225 pounds of blue collar rage in your face, then yes, pulling your car over and trying to bully me is exactly the right move. Turned out he didn’t want that after all, as soon as he realized I was game, he sped away, yelling curses out of his window as he went. I’m sure he had a meeting to get to, or something…every tough guy has an excuse.

I’ve thought a lot about that day since then. I’ve wondered many times what it is that enraged that guy so, or why he would even honk his horn. He could certainly see that my natural trajectory was going to take me out of his path. There is no possible way that I held him up for more than a second or two – and had a car been there instead of me, it very well may have slowed him down more than I did. It certainly would had the driver cared at all about the speed limit. I’m willing to bet, though, that he wouldn’t have honked, yelled, or angrily waved at a car that was slowing him down. And the car would have stayed in his way, slowing him down for considerably longer than I did!

The only conclusion that I can come to is that being on a bicycle, he had the perception that I was going to slow him down. He also had the bully’s safety of being wrapped in steel, knowing that he could run me over if he chose, and had the last resort of being able to easily outrun me. So this is all perception based, and judging by the amount of times I’ve been honked at, yelled at, flipped off, etc, when I’ve been undeserving of any such derision, it seems to be a generally shared perception. The only conclusion that I can draw, America (yes, I’m talking to you – most countries around the world, not all, are more tolerant of cyclists), is that you don’t want me on a bike. My chosen method of conveyance offends you somehow. You think I’m in your way, you don’t like the shiny spandex (I’ll grant you, I do look like 10 pounds of potatoes stuffed in a two pound bag), somehow you think I’m going to make you late for whatever it is you’re dashing off to.

Let me tell you something – this perception is ridiculous. I’m not slowing you down. Not ever. In fact, virtually everything you DON’T like about your commute, I make a little bit better! Or has it not occurred to you that if I’m on my bike…I’M NOT IN MY CAR!!!

I’m just going to let you think about that for a second, so the ramifications aren’t lost at you.

How many times have you been driving somewhere in your car, especially on your commute to or from work, and found yourself wishing the car in front of you just wasn’t there? Let me tell you, if that car was a black RAV4, then it may very well have been me. I don’t drive especially fast, so if you have a lead foot, you’d be on my bumper, and I’d be torturing you with brake tests. But if I’m on my bike, neither of us are getting on each others nerves.

Unless, of course, you need to do 41 mph in a 25 when I’m doing 40 and taking over the lane. In which case, slow down, dick, you’re driving too fast!

Seriously though, think about it. If I’m on my bike, I’m riding on the shoulder of the road. You’re passing me. Neither of us even notice each other. I get home safe and stress free, everybody is happy. Not to mention that when you get to work, there’s one less person to compete with for a parking space. If, say, ten people who normally commute in a car were on a bike instead, you’d be through that red light that you’re waiting for, while sitting in traffic, one cycling of the light earlier.

It’s starting to look a little better now, isn’t it?

Hey, how about road damage – are you a fan of it? Do you like running your car over pavement that is starting to fall apart because so many cars roll over it? Because of me, there’s less of that! Fewer new tires to buy, a couple less front end alignments later, and all of a sudden, not only am I getting you to and from work faster, but I’m actually saving you money!! And the benefits don’t end there, by a long shot. I know people get tired of hearing about the less tangible benefits of cycling, but hey, fact, my riding my bike to work means cleaner air, cleaner water (yes, cars do lead to water pollution), and generally a better quality of life for everyone, even if it is in amounts that you probably wouldn’t notice. On top of that, your tax dollars will never, ever be needed to buy me one of those scooters that fat people ride in Wal-Mart and Disneyworld. You do know that Medicare pays for them, right? Ironically, mostly in tea party states, like Kentucky. Bottom line, I’m not the most fit person in the world by far. But I’m not going to be a fat guy – and never getting anywhere in any way outside of driving your car leads to exactly that, and more (the following quotes were taken from Carjacked: The Culture of the Automobile & Its Effect On Our Lives, by Catherine Lutz and Anne Lutz Fernandez):

Cars affect our national and individual health in significant but invisible ways. If we were less dependent on the car, and a gasoline-based system, we would experience much lower rates of asthma, heart disease, and cancer, and fewer mothers would have babies with low birth weight. And no matter what alternative fuels are developed to reduce air pollution, a way of life less reliant on driving would help contain America’s obesity crisis. – Carjacked pg 161

Fact is, I’m a little bit tired of having my life threated by either aggressive or inattentive drivers. Do you want to get home safely? Well, so do I – and if your knee jerk response is to tell me that I should either get in a car, or get on a sidewalk (illegal on a bike, but you’re telling me to walk), then let me point out the fact that pedestrians, whose presence is certainly more tolerable than mine, are basically in danger from…aggressive and inattentive drivers, especially in America

The idea that a certain number of car deaths is inevitable is swiftly debunked by a quick look overseas. Pedestrians in the United States, per trip, are three times more likely to be killed by cars than pedestrians in Germany, and over six times more likely to be killed than those in the Netherlands. – Carjacked, pg 203

So it’s not just me that you’re trying to kill, eh? It’s pedestrians as well. Ok, I don’t see how pedestrians are getting in your way to the point where you have to run them over. Or is it that you’re so distracted by me, and how much you hate having to share the road, that you don’t see the pedestrian until he or she is an unfortunate smear on the ground?

Let’s get back to the reasons why you hate me so much:

I’m in your way – i think I’ve already debunked this.

I’m doing something you can’t relate to – hopefully, you’re reasonable enough to get past that.

I’m doing something that you think might be fun for me, and you think I should be as angry as you are – You know what? You’re right. It is fun for me, and when I get home, I’m stress free, thanks to the exercise. Don’t be mad at me for that.

You’re mad because I run lights when it’s safe to, and you have to sit there and wait, or risk a ticket – unless you do 25 in a 25, I don’t want to hear about it.

Let’s face it – you’re mad because you find yourself slowly but surely gaining weight, year after year. You keep saying you’re going to do something about it, but you know that you’re probably not. You’ll go to the gym a couple times, every January, and try to live up to that New Years resolution, but you know it’s not going to last, and you’re mad at me because of it.

Are there cyclists who are jackasses? Of course there are. Darting across the street without looking, running lights whether or not theres traffic coming, expecting everybody to stop for them. But you know what? They’re the dramatic minority, and let’s face it, they’re more closely related to the aggressive car driver than they are to me, and most other cyclists like me. Inconsiderate jerk-offs who expect the world to stop for them – and I yell at them when I see them doing something that’s going to lead to car drivers taking an intolerant attitude towards cyclists. And I may even be mistaken for them sometimes, because I do yell at cars – but make no mistake, I don’t ever put you, or pedestrians, or anybody else at risk. I do know my rights on the road, and I’m aggressive about making sure that they aren’t taken away from me. BUT – I also yield to you when it’s appropriate, when the situation dictates that it’s best in terms of safety and politeness (something that’s very important to me), and I never try to take the right of way away from you when it’s rightfully yours.

I don’t want to be your enemy. It’s not good for anybody, and is going to lead to you beaten to a pulp and left on the side of the road, or me dead, the victim of a hit-and-run. Neither of those options are acceptable. I want you to get home safely, in a timely fashion, and as unstressed as possible. I just don’t want you to do it at my expense. Fair enough? Respect me, and I promise I will respect you. Remember, you can seriously hurt someone, and I’m hoping that from a human standpoint, you don’t really want to do that – legal ramifications aside, hurting other people isn’t fun. There’s too much collateral damage.

In closing, please take a minute, and visit the Yield To Life website – they’re advocates for both of us, recommending that cyclists obey traffic rules, and that cars show us the proper respect. I promise, they come off a lot more reasonably than I sometimes do. And if you disagree, please let me know in the comments section – let’s debate! We’ll be respectful of each other, we’ll understand each other a little better, it’ll be great.

Thanks to Anne Lutz Fernandez for permission to quote from her book Carjacked: The Culture of the Automobile & Its Effect On Our Lives. Please read her excellent book – it’s got a lot of information that may convince you that finding a way to and from work once in a while is a great idea.

Ladies, I’m going to need you to please explain this one.

Riccardo Riccò is, by almost anybody’s measure, a pig of a man. As arrogant as anybody who has ever raced, he showed the world what a jackass he could be in the 2008 Giro d’Italia, in which he finished second to beady-eyed doper Alberto Contador, who wasn’t even planning on racing until about a week before the race; by some reports, he was sitting on a sunny beach mere hours before the opening team time trial (Spanish press, you know). Throughout the race, he constantly declared to anybody that would listen how superior he was, how he was such the better climber than Contador, how he was outclimbing him everywhere. And then showed us his…let’s just call it awkward time trialling style, in the final time trial, in which he gave up over a minute to Contador, whom he had already trailed going into the final time trial. And after all was said and done, with Contador standing on the top step of the podium, Riccò still was going on about how he was the better man.

In a way, it was like the script of a cheesy feel good movie, or bad serial pulp fiction – on one hand, the triumphant, flashy, always smiling Contador, on the other, the sneering (he really does sneer a lot), arrogant Riccardo Riccò, the perfect foil, who could be counted on to provide the perfect rivalry, with both of them able to accelerate uphill in jaw dropping fashion. Contador would be assured to always prevail thanks to his remarkable (suspicious?) time trialling. But alas, it was not to be…Riccò decided he had had so much fun in the Giro that he would race the Tour de France, which he was originally not going to do, and after two stunning mountaintop finish stage wins (stages 6 and 9), Riccò tested positive for the new Epo variant CERA, and the burgeoning rivalry was over as soon as it had began. Contador continued his meteoric rise to superstardom (fueled by ???), and Riccò was given the Scarlet D, and doomed to 20 months on the sideline.

A couple of notes about that positive test, because as with anything that has to do with Riccò, things are rather…colorful. Turns out Riccò was supposed to be tested after Stage 4, and he tried to escape the doping control officials! He got in a car, and tried to run, but was thwarted…by heavy traffic. After that, Tour officials decided he would be tested after each and every stage – a moot point in the end, as his positive test came from that Stage 4 test that he tried to go lambchop on. After the test was conducted, and it was determined to be positive (which takes a couple days to do properly), he was arrested by French police, who later let him go, due to lack of evidence. He later admitted to Italian doping officials that yes, he had doped, and was given his 20 month sentence in lieu of a 24 month sentence, which is the

mandatory first offense penalty when someone is caught doping, unless it’s a talented Spaniard, and corrupt Spanish officials.

20 months pass…

When Riccò’s suspension ends, he doesn’t get the the welcome that some disgraced dopers do. Ivan Basso was allowed to resume his place in the peloton, maybe not with open arms, but without any vitriol from his fellow riders. Notorious weirdo Floyd Landis came back to racing, albeit the American domestic scene, with nary a harsh word. Even the worlds smallest Bond villian, Alexander Vinokourov, found a place on Contador’s team, and won over many of his former fans with dazzling attacks, with a Classics win and a return to form at the Tour. But not Riccò. Instead, he was treated like a pariah, with extremely harsh words from the worlds fastest mouth, Mark Cavendish:

“It’s like a parasite coming back into the sport,” Cavendish said at his HTC-Columbia team’s training camp in Majorca. “It’s not the fact of what he did, because everyone can make a mistake. But he doesn’t see it as a mistake. He’s not even sorry about it.”

Clearly, this was indicative of how people actually felt about Riccò, rather than being about his not coming out and saying he did something wrong, since Vino, Landis and Basso never suggested that they’d done anything wrong upon coming back (though a couple of them have since) and were allowed to return and have a tremendous amount of success, Landis excepted. No, the revulsion expressed at Riccò’s return had more to do with his popularity, or lack thereof, in the peloton. To put it simply, he’s a dick, and almost nobody liked him.

But Vania Rossi likes him. A lot. So much so that she agrees to marry the skinny villain, and lets him knock her up before they tie the knot! Amazing. Truly, this is a sign that Riccò must not be such a bad guy, in private moments, because by all accounts, Rossi is a nice, pretty girl. And a hell of a bike rider to boot – she finished second in the Italian womens cyclocross nationals, not too terribly long after spawning Riccò’s little boy. Sadly, then the roof fell in, when Rossi tested positive for CERA – the same blood boosting drug that Riccò got popped for. Scandalous! But she stood by her man when he was down, and surely he would stand by the woman who had given him so much, right?

Turns out no:

“What’s happened? I know as much as anyone else. I’ve been away from home for three months but now everyone will put two and two together and ask ‘Who gave it to her? I’ll be guilty again,” Riccò said.

Wait – it turns out he’ll be guilty again? Surely, he can’t be making this all about him, can he?

“The thing that bothers me is what people will think. I didn’t need this but I can’t go and kill myself. I’m going to carry on training. It’s a strange situation but it’s nothing to do with me. We’ll do the counter-analysis but in the meantime I’ve been splashed all over the newspapers.”

Right. Ok. But…at least he’s not going to break up with the mother of his child, in what’s surely the darkest point of her life, for doing nothing that he didn’t do…or would he?!?!?!

“I am disappointed with my girlfriend and there can be no reconciliation until Vania is shown to be innocent of the allegations that were raised,” said Riccò, according to Italian website Tuttobiciweb.com.

Well that’s bad.

Believe it or not, I wanted to see Riccò come back, and put in the kind of rides he had been putting in before he was suspended, even if he became just a stage hunter who would blow up the following day in Grand Tours. He was exciting to watch, and somebody that could go head to head with Contador. Which makes him a member of a very select group, since only Andy Schleck has been able to hang with El Pistolero lately. And that makes Riccò much more appealing to me than Schleck. Why? Because there’s no question in my mind that Riccò would never, ever frolic in a pool with Contador and dolphins.

Now look, I grew up in the ’70s. And whether or not you agree with me, it is a fact that, unlike today, men were men back then, and boys were raised to be men. And you didn’t get to be a man by having your biggest rival be your bff. Uh uh, screw that noise. You went out onto your chosen field of battle, and you tried to tear the other guys head off. And when I was growing up, if you got too friendly with an opponent, your coach would let you know, in no uncertain terms, that such behavior would not be tolerated. And I prefer sports to be played like that. And I prefer cycling to be raced like that. Like the great killers of the sport – Armstrong, Hinault, Kelly, and the greatest of them all, Eddy Merckx.

Could you imagine Lance Armstrong frolicking in a pool with Jan Ullrich? Personally, I couldn’t. So from that standpoint, I wanted to see Riccò come back, and go after Contador and Schleck, and show those boys a little testosterone. But I also don’t want to ever see anybody mistreat his woman, especially when that woman has gone through what Rossi went through, so I’m off the Riccò bandwagon. But Riccò keeps on keeping on. He is not going to be denied, and upon his return to racing with Ceramica Flaminia, he scored a couple stage wins and the overall at the Tour of Austria, a couple of stage wins and a second overall at Settimana Ciclista Lombarda, and did very well at other races too, riding and winning with panache, which scored him a ride with the very exciting Dutch team Vacansoleil. As well, he did some image rehabilitation by training with the very highly regarded Aldo Sassi (who has since passed away, RIP), who also trained Cadel Evans and the post doping Basso.

Out of the blue, this past Sunday, Feb 6th, Riccò is taken to the hospital for kidney failure. Apparently, he tried to give himself a transfusion with a bad bag of his own blood (even his own blood hates him!), and his kidneys shut down because of it:

According to Gazzetta dello Sport, the doctor who treated Riccò told police that he was in a state of shock and said, “in the presence of his wife [ed. actually his fiancé Vania Rossi], that he had done a blood transfusion that he had kept in the fridge at home for 25 days.” He was apparently worried about “the poor conservation of the blood he put back in.”

Now, did anybody notice anything odd about that paragraph? Cause I saw something that sure struck me as funny. He was with Rossi when this went down. Wait – he broke up with her, left her holding the doping bag full of syringes, when she had stuck by him. He refused to come home from a training camp to be by her side. He basically acted like a spoiled child every single step of the way throughout her doping positive, and never once spoke out in support of her. And she didn’t take that kid and move on? They’re now a happy family of dopers??? Ladies, this is the part that I need you to explain. I know, you like the bad boys.

But this is a little over the top.

Now, of course, I hope everybody is ok, Riccò returns to full health, realizes the error of his ways, makes a positive contribution to society, marries his girl, and helps her raise a good little doper. But I am baffled, and a little amazed, at the capacity for forgiveness that some women have. Because Riccò certainly doesn’t deserve it.

Does he?

So Floyd is yapping again, eh? And now he’s taking on, of all people, Jonathan Vaughters and Bradley Wiggins. JV, of course, runs the Garmin-Cervelo team, which is the standard bearer for teams that supposedly ride without doping.

Supposedly? Yes, I say supposedly, not as any kind of indictment against Garmin-Cervelo (and for the record, I absolutely believe that they and Wiggo are clean), but because nobody is 100% above suspicion at this point. Like many Americans, I used to be really naive about this kind of thing…I would get mad when people would accuse Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa of using steroids – how could people make such accusations? These guys are naturally gifted athletes, they would never do such a thing! Fast forward a few years, and I feel like kind of a jerk for believing that they weren’t doped to the gills.

I first started following cycling when Greg LeMond won his second Tour de France, in ’89, when he came back from getting shot by his brother, and when Lance Armstrong started his amazing winning streak – after beating cancer, in case you didn’t know – I was thrilled. When the suggestion arose that he was doping, I dismissed any notion thereof summarily. No way, no chance. He’s a great American champion, and while after a couple of years I was starting to get the point that yes, athletes did indeed dope, I simply couldn’t believe that someone who was so close to deaths door would do such a thing. Well, as time went on, I realized that he probably did dope, that there was very little chance he could have done what he did clean. I went through the five stages of grief, and came out a better man. I still appreciate what he did, and while I’m not as big a fan of his as I used to be (some of things I’ve heard about the kind of guy he is made me less of a fan), I do think he won on a level playing field, and if nobody had been doping, he probably still would have won at least four or five of those seven tours.

Enter Floyd…one of many people to get busted after leaving Lances side. Wins the Tour, in spectacular fashion. Dumped as tour winner a few days later after testing positive. Writes a book, takes money from fans to fund his legal defense, and in the mother of all miscalculations, thinks he can beat the UCI, USADA, and WADA with one hand tied behind his back. Spends all of his money, loses the case, his wife and family, publicly embarrasses himself by having his manager threaten to expose LeMonds childhood abuse history, which blows up in his face in spectacular fashion. After all that, he’s still suspended for two years,

But things are different now, or so it would seem. Better testing methods, a new generation of riders, and one gentleman from the doping era who wants everyone to be able to ride clean. Jonathan Vaughters, Slipstream, you all know the story. While I do have a lot of respect for JV, I’m not a huge fan…he’s a bit of a fancy boy, and his man crush on Bradley Wiggins was embarrassing. But I am a big fan of the team, and am always hoping that Tyler Farrar will figure out a way to beat Mark Cavendish.

Floyd keeps marching on, though. After his suspension, he attempted a comeback, but too much sitting around, and so much beer consumption that his team had to institute a no drinking during stage races policy made him a washed up has been. Still believing in himself, or maybe just wanting a payday that even he knows he didn’t deserve, he tried to get a ride with Armstrong. After realizing that this simply wasn’t going to happen, he released a rather cryptic tweet: “Planning something for 2010 that will change the cycling world forever!” Most people in cycling wrote it off as Floyd just being the weirdo that Floyd is. Sadly, it turns out he was planning on burning USA Cycling to the ground.

At first, he went after Armstrong (and peripherally George Hincapie, Tyler Hamilton, and his former best friend, Dave Zabriskie!), speaking to federal investigators, and will probably be a big part of what will eventually bring Armstrong down. It made sense – Armstrong didn’t give him the ride that he wanted, he was bitter, seemed logical – especially when you find out that under the federal whistleblower act, Floyd will probably get a big payout from the fines that will be assessed Armstrong, possibly in the millions. Then he starts doing all of the usual Floyd shit, showing up at the Tour of California, showing up at the Worlds…no idea who was paying his travel bills, but again, it’s part of the circus of Floyd. Nobody really minded all that much, because Floyd was taking on the big bully. Lance isn’t as popular or powerful as he used to be, and Floyd certainly had absolutely nothing to lose. In fact, in some circles – the Lance hating circles, Floyd became something of a cult hero. Forgotten was the fact that he not only doped in the peloton (which, honestly, was no big deal since everybody was doing it), but even the fact that he played his own fans for idiots, lied to them, took their money…this group that used to lump Floyd in with Lance, suddenly decided he was their white knight. Overnight! Suddenly Floyd was their guy.

But Floyd just can’t shut up! And now he’s going after the anti-doping movements posterboy – Jonathan Vaughters himself. And he’s going even farther than that…he’s suggesting that THE golden boy of the post doping era, Brad Wiggins, might be somewhat less innocent than we’ve been led to believe. Uh oh. In the curiously titled Neil Browne article “The Inside Story of Matt White’s Firing” (update – since writing this blog, the article has been taken down. Obviously, my hard hitting journalism was too much for Neil Browne and Versus), in which Matt White isn’t discussed, Landis says:

“Had USADA done what it was obligated to do at the time of his confession, as I’m not aware of a rule allowing for immunity in the case of a confession, I’d have known of it for one thing. But more importantly JV (Jonathan Vaughters) would not have been allowed to go on to develop USPS version 2.0 behind the facade of the “clean team” mantra.”

And goes on to say:

“I discussed the fact that Bradley Wiggens (sic) HGB numbers that were publicly (posted on the web to show how he was riding clean) touted as evidence of his sainthood almost certainly indicated blood doping by Wiggens (sic) in the last week of the 2009 tour. His response was not so disturbing because if his defense of Wiggens (sic) but by the indication that he in fact had discussed these very numbers with the UCI and the UCI had assured him that it was a result of using a different testing machine.”

Well, now it seems he’s gone to far. How can we tell? Because Catherine Wiggins has stepped in with a tweet of her own.

Oops.

A quick word on Catherine Wiggins – she’s a saint. Back when Brad Wiggins backed out of his contract with Garmin, I criticized him heavily, often answering his cheeky tweets with cheeky tweets of my own, suggesting that his word wasn’t worth anything. I received some criticism from Catherine, his wife. You ever receive criticism in an incredibly nice, sweet way from somebody that you’ve never met, but in the process realize that the person criticizing you is a genuinely nice, sweet person? That’s Catherine Wiggins. So Floyd getting put on blast like that means something, at least to me. And I wonder if his making these kind of reckless accusation against people who walk on water is going to start making people judge Floyd a little more harshly, whether or not they think Lance is guilty. Honestly, I have to wonder what Landis’ endgame was on this, what his beef with JV and Garmin could be. He did get some pretty (justifiably heavy) criticism from David Millar, so maybe it had something to do with that. I suspect, though, that it’s just more whining from a doper who’s mad that others didn’t get caught, and is operating under the delusion that it’s his mission to bring everyone else down in the same manner he was brought down, regardless of whether or not there’s anything to it.

Somewhere, Jeff Novitzky has gotta be kicking himself, and hoping he can find a more credible smoking gun.

A final note, a bit of advice to the UCI, WADA, and the virulent Lance hating crowd everywhere – forget about Lance. He’s Novitzkys problem now, and will probably receive some kind of a comeuppance. Attempting to take away Tour wins from Lance, and give them to some other doper will not help the image, or the legacy, of cycling. Someone (wish I could remember who) gave MLB some advice for when Barry Bonds gets elected into the Hall Of Fame – don’t bother with any asterisks, or anything like that. Everyone knows. Everyone will remember.

I’ve decided to take part in the 3 State 3 Mountain Challenge. I’ve been doing very little riding the last few months, so it’s going to be a real challenge to get into shape for this ride. I’ll be detailing my training, as I go through the process of trying to get myself where I need to be.

Todays training consisted of:

I didn’t do shit today.

1/13/10 Update – we won. I think she found out the hard way that cyclists, while we don’t have an official lobby, are not a group to be fucked with.

An Assemblywoman in NJ (Cleopatra Tucker, D) has proposed that all bicycles in NJ be registered, and have license plates (Bill No. 3657) . We all know the reasons why this is such a ridiculous proposal – let’s please be diligent, and let the members of the Transportation Committee (where this bill currently resides) know that we don’t want any nonsense like this in NJ. Call their offices, email their offices (you can email them through the websites), and pass this information to a friend, and have them do the same.

It’s our state. Let them know that.

Assemblyman John S Wisniewski, D (732) 432-8460 http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/bio.asp?Leg=160

Assemblywoman
Linda Stender (D) (908) 668-1900 http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/bio.asp?Leg=205

Assemblyman
John F. Amodeo (R) (609) 677-8266 http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/bio.asp?leg=267

Assemblyman
Thomas P. Giblin (D) (973) 779-3125 http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/bio.asp?Leg=257

Assemblyman
Charles Mainor (D) (201) 536-7851 http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/BIO.asp?Leg=322

Assemblyman
Matthew W. Milam (D) (609) 465-0700 (Cape May Court House)
(856) 765-0891 (Millville)
(856) 696-7109 (Vineland)
(609) 926-3779 (Somers Point) http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/bio.asp?leg=266

Assemblyman
Vincent Prieto (D) (201) 770-1303 http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/bio.asp?Leg=247

Assemblywoman
Caridad Rodriguez (D) (201) 854-0900 http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/bio.asp?leg=294

Assemblyman
Scott Rudder (R) (609) 654-1498 http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/bio.asp?leg=273

Assemblyman
Scott T. Rumana (973) 237-1362 (R) http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/bio.asp?leg=297

Assemblyman
Brian E. Rumpf (609) 693-6700 (R) http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/bio.asp?leg=228

Assemblywoman
Connie Wagner (D) (201) 576-9199 http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/bio.asp?leg=296

Assemblywoman
Cleopatra G. Tucker (D) (973) 926-4320 http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/bio.asp?leg=285