Rekindling An Old Flame

Before I begin this particular documentary, I would like to get one thing straight- I LOVE WINTER! It’s a splendiferous time of year that brings with it so many unique opportunities, which include, but are not by any means limited to:

Snowboarding 

Skiing 

Snowmobiling 

Sledding

Slick Roads (fun to drive one) 

Sipping hot apple cider (affectionately known as “Christmas in a Cup”) 

Sitting by the fire

Snuggling next to mentioned fire

Sleeping in

Snow Bunnies (the girlies just look so GOOD all bundled up!)

*Beginning all activities with the letter us was not intentional, but it worked out quite nicely, wouldn’t you say?

With that minuscule disclaimer as a prelude to this post, I feel we can commence this weeks 2KX Documentary. 

This past weekend an old flame was rekindled with a long lost love of mine… My bike! Unfortunately, she has yet to be named. Because of our past relationship, I have had troubles being satisfied with any one name. Depending on the day, beautiful and exotic names might come to mind, and other days might have four letter words at the tip of my tongue. So, in order to suppress these vibrant words of frustration, I just call it, “GIANT”.

Back to the story… The UVU Cycling Team took advantage of MLK weekend and migrated south to warmer climates more suitable for outdoor activity carried out in spandex. We couldn’t have asked for better weather (in January) from our host city, St. George, UT. 

Ride #1: A nice warm up lap from Hurricane, to Laverkin, to Toquerville, to Leeds, to Anderson Junction, around Quail Lake and back again (I really have no idea where these places are, I just remember glancing up and seeing those names).

Total Miles: 40-ish

Waiting for triple bypass surgery to be performed on a bike tube.

It was unsuccessful. We lost the tube- R.I.P.

On the road again. My mouth is open in attempts to catch some tasty flying insects for some mid-ride nutrition.

Me, talking to a man about a horse. It was a rather long conversation.... What?

The group at Quail Lake.

Ride #2 (Saturday): Night ride to a nearby bike shop. I was the only voice of reason in the bunch, saying it was going to get dark, and cold, and miserable, and we were all going to regret our decisions… We all went anyways. Oh, and guess what? I was right! Turns out that in January, when the sun goes down, temperature drops like 20 degrees or so. Who could have known that though, right?...

Total Miles: 20-ish

Starting to suffer the consequences of our poor choices.

Ride #3 (Sunday): The longest ride of the trip. We started in Coral Canyon and took a huge loop up Snow Canyon, down “the wall”, out around through Gunlock… (and that’s about where I lost tract of where the heck we were).

Total Miles: 70-ish

Cyclists do all they can for that extra "power" on the bike- Even if it means getting glittery, sparkly, girl tattoos at Walmart and applying them just before the ride... They worked.
                  

Not quite sure what Matt is looking for back there... But Mason's happy to be here!

Oh, hey coach!

Special thanks to the support car crew

Blown out tire. Sounded like a shotgun went off right behind me!

Hey Joe, go ahead and give us a summary of the ride in one hand motion.

The remaining Sunday hours were carried out predominantly on a bed/couch/floor and involved hot tub relaxation, turkey dinner feasts, and LOTS of Tiger Balm*.

*Don't rub your eyes after application. It burns like the fires of a thousand suns! 

Fiesta Bowl 2010

Old Father Time has been good to me this last year, as I have neglected to keep this world-wide-web version of a journal updated due to the lack of “I’m bored and need something to do” time. My deepest and most apathetic apologies go out to those who have starred at this non-updated blog and slowly slipped into madness.

I should add “updating the blog” to my list of New Years resolutions, but:

A) the list is already too long

B) I will probably procrastinate it till mid March

C) the list doesn’t even really exist…

What better way to Kick off “2KX Documentaries” (2010 in roman numerals- for those of you that didn’t go to college) than a good ol’ fashion road trip.

Destination: Glendale, AZ

Purpose: Fiesta Bowl (TCU vs. BSU)

Slogan/Motto: “What’s up chubbies?”

First stop, Hoover Dam

This old hunk of cement was old news to the rest of us, but Syd had higher hopes.  She had been deprived the wonderful opportunity of standing atop this man made miracular. So, who were we to shatter her dreams? That, and Kimball is a big fan... and Tess and I had our foot races to attend to.

Mesa, Arizona

We stayed with the family my lil’ sista (Leslie) is a personal chef for, and met two little twin whipper snappers. Kimball and I stole their toys, mainly to boost our secretly low self-esteem… It worked.

How boring is it to drive back the same way you came? We decided to venture on over to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and take a peek at ‘er. I soon learned that I cannot have items such as keys, cell phones or valuables in my pockets whilst standing on a tall bridge… Something inevitably will be thrown overboard.

Oh, and during a pee stop, I ran up this hill- No biggie…

DAILY DOCUMENTARY DECEMBER

So I've been at the drawing board trying to get myself back on the ball with this blog thing. I've left too many people hanging for too long... its time to give the masses what they want!

DAILY DOCUMENTARY DECEMBER

The idea came to me in a dream (after falling asleep on the couch watching one too many of old "The Office" re-runs).

The next day just so happened to be December the First- extremely convenient!

The following posts will be short videos Documenting my DAYS in the December!

http://www.youtube.com/user/ericpetey

FANtastic

The law of statistics has shown that I cannot go more than 2 weeks (actually more like 12 days, but that’s getting too technical) without doing something stupid that causes physical harm to myself. The problem is that I too often tend to act (or speak) before I think.

For the sake of saving myself time, I won’t explain all of my past brainless acts (its just too emotionally painful). Now some might wonder, “Why would you tell anyone how stupid you are?” A great inquiry; the answer is simple. I figure the more people that know about my problem/disease/unfortunate series of events, the more often people can warn me, “You might want to think about that.” Or possibly, “Hey, you sure you want to do this?”


Situation: The room has 10 foot ceilings, an unmade bed, a ceiling fan rotating at maximum speed, and me laying on the floor bleeding from a mysterious head wound. (Much like picture shown)

30 seconds before:
(During a routine room cleaning, I usually save the bed-making for last. I find it easiest to make a queen-sized bed by standing on the bed pulling the sheets onto the mattress. To get the top quilt evenly placed on the bed, I grab it by the top corners, and billow it up and down until it spreads out and lands perfectly in place.) This method has proven itself to be very efficient over the last few years… But usually there aren’t spinning wooden blades of death above the bed.

Think about this, cause at the time I didn’t. The room has 10 foot ceilings. I am 6’5” and the bed is about 3 feet off the ground, putting my sensitive noggin 9’5” from the floor (or 7” from the ceiling). The helicopter-like fan hangs down about 8” from the ceilng, making a 1” no mans land… The perfect equation for disaster! (Sorry of I lost you with all the numbers, they might not even add up).

So, there I was, cleaning my room, feeling good about being productive. I hopped up on the bed, grabbed the quilt to throw it over the mattress. I took one step forward to get a good billow effect, and BOOM! I got chromed in the dome by a pine bladed ceiling fan. The force of the blow knocked me off my feet, and I toppled off the bed, crashing onto the floor.

I put my hand to my head, and felt a wet gooey substance in my hair. As I glanced at my hand in my near unconscious state and saw the blood, there was a split second that I thought my brains had been forced out of my head. Further inspection uncovered a minor cut, no stitches needed.

I am currently seeking feedback on better ways to make a bed...

Have a Jarritos!

To start all you readers off with a small dose of my stupidity/lack of the “think before you act” part in my conscience.… here’s what happened.

My buddy Mike Zebe called me up earlier today and said, “Hey man, you wanna go for a warm up run at Kelly’s?” (For you non-Idahoans, that’s a super old school ski hill).
I said, “Sure!”
He said, “Sweet!”
I said, “Meet you up there?”
He said, “Sweet!”
I said, “Sweet!”

So in a ten second conversation, my night was planned. But the foolish act that spawns this tale came as I drove alone in my car up to the ski hill to shred the icy slopes.

The night before I had indulged myself with the sweet nectar of the Mexican soda “Jarritos” found at any local 24 hour Mexican food joint, commonly known as Betos or Albertos). This beverage comes in a glass bottle, which is actually relevant to the story.

So, I’m stopped at a light in Idaho Falls on my way to Kelly’s, and this empty bottle is in the cup holder. I noticed that the ring finger on my right hand was able to fit into the top of the bottle, but my knuckle wouldn’t fit. I thought to myself, “I wonder if I could fit my whole finger in there.” (Think about that for a second, cause the logic of the whole situation never occurred to me ‘til it was too late.) So to the beat of the music playing, I bounced my finger up and down and then made the plunge….

It worked! I got my whole ring finger through the top of the bottle! (For a few seconds I was actually proud of my little accomplishment and I started to smile with satisfaction… but then I realized what I had done.)

My immediate reaction was to pull my finger right back out, but it wouldn’t budge. A small panic rushed over me as I pulled and tugged at my hand trying to release it from the Mexican beverage’s death grip, but it was in vain.

The car behind me started honking. In my struggles the light had turned green, and I was forced to drive. I tried to keep my cool as I drove down 17th street periodically attempting to yank my finger free. I might have been able to hide the embarrassment from other drivers on the road, but thanks to the icy/snowy conditions, the 10 and 2 steering wheel position was a must.

So there I was weaving through traffic, getting all sorts of weird looks from people as the bottle (attached to my finger) flopped around on the dashboard. I turned into a parking lot and stopped the car. I contemplated how I could go about removing the glass finger trap.

“I could just pull REALLY hard”… Nope.
“I could twist it off”… Nope.
“Ding!” Then the light bulb came on. “I’ll just break the bottle!”

I got out of the car, swung my hand above my head and smashed the bottle on the asphalt. (I wouldn’t recommend doing that. It hurt REALLY bad). The bottle broke, but the neck of the bottle was still tight around my finger. A jagged glass covering for a finger.

“AHHH, YOU STUPID IDIOT!” I shook my hand and screamed in frustration. A few Wendy’s drive thru customers looked at me with wide eyes, probably thinking I was some dude that couldn’t handle the stress of the Christmas season, and had finally snapped.

I was desperate now. I tried to hide my hand as I ran into the nearby Wendy’s. I opened the door and rushed to the sink. I used the rapid fire technique on the soap lever and lubricated the broken glass bottle. I counted to three and twisted it free from my finger.

I gave a sigh of relief and looked at myself in the mirror. Beads of sweat rolling down my face, a purple ring finger, a broken bottle neck in the sink… and all I could do was laugh.

I made it snowboarding, and had a great time, but the moral of todays blog is:
1. Think before you go plunging your finger into the top of a bottle, and
2. Drink Jarittos! (especially the pineapple one, its real good).