Manlio Rules

me? what have i been doing? oh, i dunno… let’s see…

1. My dad was in town the weekend after labor day. we ate very well, as you might imagine. we also went to alcatraz, which was fun but it involved a lot of walking. walking is ok, but man i’m not in shape for it. it was good times. for sure

2. Jay and i went to see superbad. it was the perfect situation. we were walking back from chrissy field, and walked by the theater. superbad was starting in 3 minutes. neither of us had seen it. we went right in. bam! hilarity ensued. mostly because of the movie, but still.

3. we won trivia a few times. the 2nd time i had to do the tiebreaker. the question? Name as many professional sports teams that don’t end with “s”. so Rockets, Colts, Blue Jays… except none of those because they all end with “s”. i missed the obvious one “red sox” and a few of the easy NBA ones “jazz”, “magic”, “heat”. but i dug through my soccer knowledge, and came up with ‘revolution”, “red bull”, and uh… “lynx”. which is a WNBA team. the other guy only got “jazz”, so we won, but i got a good deal of shit for missing the baseball ones.

4. I had a piece in an art show, that was in support of Parkinson’s disease. i think it went really well, but i’m not sure because…

5. i went to phoenix for Alex Naro’s wedding. photos to come, once i develop my stoopid disposable camera because my digi is somewhere in a bag… not sure where

6. and right now i’m in NY for mixx 2.7, an advertising conference. some of the stuff is really interesting, but a lot of it is somewhat dull. on the plus side, i’m seeing all my nyc peeps. woo! peeps!

7. oh, and i’m getting a promotion at work. now i’ll be a manager. of other people. yeah…

as always, i’m not getting enough sleep, need a new apt, and need more internet, not less…

so… here’s the thing:

1. Trish and I went up to Tahoe last weekend with her Sister and Brother in Law to their place in South Lake.
2. They have a boat. boats are awesome (see previous post about boating for further evidence)
3. the weekend was very excellent.
4. Sunday night we went to the Casinos. I won $450. no kidding. most of it on one spin of a slot machine. and yes, i know that i shouldn’t play the slots, but, $434!!!
5. the drive back wasn’t terrible, and i understand that labor day is a smart weekend to close the bay bridge, but sigh…
6. i didnt’ take any photos. but the lake was gorgeous. my legs are sunburned
7. the Adidas store was having a sale. i got lots of awesome stuff including 2 pairs of shoes for less than $100

all in all the weekend was great, and it made me very excited for tahoe this winter. which reminds me, i need to cope with getting a place… and uh… making enough money to afford it… and uh… lots of other stuff that i’ve been avoiding as of late. oh well! boats are awesome

So, a few weeks back, Jay and I are at trivia (w/Ali and Mike, winnin ur champagne by bein smartsest), and he mentions that he is interested in going mountain biking sometime soon. Now, i’m not a great biker, most of my bike experience in the last 5 years came in Brooklyn when i would use my ultra heavy dual suspension hybrid bike to zoom around the boroughs, usually with Scott about 15 blocks ahead of me.

But anyways, we decided to go up to San Rafael, rent some mountain bikes, and see what all the fuss was about. We left around 10AM, headed north, rented the bikes, and put them on Jay’s car. then we followed the GPS to San Pedro Ave, which resulted in us u-turning out of a residential neighborhood. but we made it. we suited up, and headed for the hill… and damn, that was really hard. i am the kind of biker who hates to admit defeat and get off the bike, but this was just too much for me. 45 degree incline, rocks everywhere, big dips in the trail, i was having none of it. i could hardly stay balanced, let alone have any sort of strategy about avoiding the rocks. so i hit one after the other, waiting for the inevitable large rock that would pitch me over my handelbars and over the edge of the very narrow path.

luckily that did not happen, and we managed to make it all the way around and then down a harrowing slope (downhill = scarier than uphill) and back to the car. oh, and rental bike? your new fangled disc brakes failed to impress me with all their squeaking and the ineffectual stopping.

despite feeling that i was risking serious injury at every moment (which is suppose i also do when i snowboard, but i’m much more comfortable on a snowboard than a bicycle, and i don’t make a habit of going over rocks), i had a lot of fun. my next step is going to be seeing if i can refit my hybrid suspension frame with some nice mountain tires and get the gears working a little bit better. and then victory will be mine. victory!