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 I've been off the bike for a long time, so it was nice to kick off the season for real. The first thing I did was bring a total newb to Valmont. He's a kid I work with who's a wildland firefighter. He said he's never had to chance to mt. bike but always wanted too. So I threw him on a dirt jumper and told him where to go. He did awesome. I sent him down the small slope style line, dual slalom, pump tracks and single tracks.  With full sleeve tattoos and a borrowed skid lid he already looked like an X Games pro. It was fun to see him work up the courage to do the tiny diving board. The first time he pedaled towards it, then stopped and had to start over. I got to see the exhilaration of a successful attempt. The ride went perfectly and at the end he was googling used dirt jumpers. A few days later I got out on my first trail ride. My riding buddy Aki took me out to a new trail that I had only heard about. We started down and encountered a large rock slab. I scoped it ou...

 History is a giant wave washing  over the timeline, some things float to the top and get carried along with it, while others are swept away for ever. In the months after 9/11, footage of the event played on tv news every day for weeks. The attack only lasted a few hours, but hundreds of hours of video footage was captured. I assumed that the internet would hold a record of those video clips, but it really doesn't. All that exists now is some carefully curated footage and most of it is in documentaries.  One particular memory I have can't be found online, maybe it's in some newsroom vault or maybe it was erased and taped over. But I can describe it. The man filming is running down the streets getting closer and closer to the first tower. He arrives just as the first tower falls. A wave of darkness blocks out the camera and you can hear the powerful wind howling past like a hurricane. Gradually light starts to come back and the street he was on is transformed into a mono-c...

 I love to read, lately I've been rereading my way through some of the classic dystopian future books predicting how things would be in our time. It's fun to see what predictions were way off, and which ones we are currently living with. Fahrenheit 451 (1953) actually nailed air pods. The author Ray Bradbury described tiny "seashell" speakers that fit hidden in the ear.  The protagonist starts talking to his wife, but she is oblivious because she has tiny speakers hidden in her ears. The wife in the book is also addicted to a screen that constantly shows a senseless barrage of images and short clips that are mostly incoherent. The protagonist watches it for a few seconds and a scene appears with two people in the middle of an argument. No context is given, but the actors are in a disagreement. Montag, the protagonist suggests they turn it off, but his wife says, "no I want to see who wins the argument." Montag says, "but you don't even know what the...

 Well we did it again! Me and my trusty co-driver led the racers around the 75 mile course of the Old Man Winter Rally  I don't remember how many exactly how many I've driven, but this was about the 3rd or 4th I've done with my co-driver Robert. The first two years of the Rally I rode the course on a tandem. Then I discovered it's more useful for me to help support the event than participate in it. Driving the lead car entails several challenges, the first is correctly leading the racers down the course. When I started doing this the map app was glitchy and cell coverage was spotty. Navigating was done by watching the odometer and reading turns off of cue sheets printed on paper. We used radios to communicate with the rest of the staff. The map app worked pretty good this year and I think we had cell coverage the whole way. It still gets confusing because the course returns on the same roads that it went out on. And the app just shows the course going down the road in b...

 I think I mentioned that I bought my first mountain bike in 1994, then I got my first dirt jumping bike in 2002. As I roll into my 50th year I gotta say I'm pretty happy with the dirt jumping aspects of my life. Instead of slowing down, I'm actually learning new tricks and getting them dialed in. No-footers have been a struggle for me, they seem to come and go. I find them to be much less dependable than no-handers.  So I set a goal for 2025 to dial in my no-footers on the dirt. A good friend met me on New years Day and we got after it. I made one warm up lap, then I started throwing one no-footer after another. I probably did about ten of them. Some were a little weak, but a few I was pretty happy with. The no-footer is one of the foundational tricks. It's the first step to higher level tricks like no-foot cans, supermans and even the tailwhip.  There are a few tips I use for this trick. The biggest one for me is to not take my feet off too early. I make a real effort t...

 I'm on my second week long business trip since I started this job in September. They send me out for training to get more knowledgeable on firetrucks. First I went to Minneapolis, Minnesota last month. I went to a Waterous  to learn about Fire Pumps.  I tried talking to as many locals as I could, I was really hoping I could engage someone about my love of "The Minneapolis Sound." Alas,  no one I spoke with understood the magnitude of the musical genius that hailed from their town. This was music that had a huge influence on me as I was growing up and help shape the way I am. It would be pretty cool if I meant Prince, but I don't, I am speaking about The Replacements , and to a slightly lesser extent Husker DU .  These are two of the greatest 80's post punk Alt bands that ever existed and they came from the same town! I serious considered buying an Uber ride to go visit an iconic house. But it was raining. Now I am here in the lovely town of Gilbert, Arizona. I ...