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Brian: You know that doesn’t really do anything when you shout like that.

Me: I know, it’s mostly for myself.

Brian: Fair enough…

Took me forever to get around to posting this, but I used the built in camera in the monitor plus a program called Gawker that takes still captures at predetermined intervals (every 5 seconds for this) to make this video of me striping and then rebuilding my new fixie. The explosion sound at the end is when I popped my inner tube while inflating it. Damn thing sounded like a gunshot when it actually happened.

I’ve had the bike working for about three weeks now and aside from the weekly trips to the bike shop to buy parts that I should have replaced when I first put it together (axle, ball bearings, etc.) it’s been working like a charm. Now I just have to find some time to learn how to ride it properly…

I had a dream last night about my friend Jeff. In it, Jeff and I managed to win some sort of prestegious science and innovation competition (which means he did all the work and I came up with a fancy name for our creation). Anyway, we won the competition and were gifted several million dollars for our efforts. Sweet, right?

So I came in to his house to congratulate him and I was already spending the money we’d won. I’d parked my hovercraft in the lawn, was distributing lawn santas to neighborhood children, and I think I was wearing one of those big metal diving suits with the air hose out the top. Jeff was sitting at the kitchen table and when I clanked up behind him, I saw that he was writing a check to his mother for the remainder of the mortgage on the house. The sad thing is, if we’d really won money like that, that’s probably how that scene would have unfolded (though most likely without the diving suit, they’re too tough to get up the stairs).

It’s nice to see that even though he’s been dead five years now my mind still likes to remind me that Jeff is the greatest human being I’ve ever known.

(Written: Saturday, October 27)

Midnight rides are generally fun. Generally. Which is what I thought when I set out twenty minutes ago. Despite it being actually midnight, and thus dark, the full moon was directly over my head, bathing the entire road in a nice blue light. As I set out I felt refreshed, I felt exhilirated. Here I was, gliding down a dirt road with nothing but the moon to guide me. I’d spent almost the entire day (rain and shine) in the garage tearing parts off, afixing others, and generally being crabby and pissed. But now it was all paying off. I’d cleared the last obstacle before “rideable” and I wasn’t going to wait for Sunday morning…

My bike was eerily silent as I pedaled up gentle grades and then down into the fog banks collecting in the lowlands. Having a simple one-gear system makes for a very quiet ride, and I felt like a ghost gliding up and down those hills. Like something out of a Washington Irving story… Aside from the steel and rubber thing I was pedaling on, I really could have been drifting through the moors of colonial times. It felt so completely surreal.

Coming down the final hill, approaching the main road, I noticed a slight disturbance in the harmony that was man and machine. My left crank was pulling a little strangely. Odd, I though, as I approached the train tracks that represented the boundry between my own fantastical world and the modern one of macadam and reflective paint. My crank was pulling very strangly now, like the metal axle had suddenly warped. I slowed, I’d better check this out.

As I was pulling my left foot out of the foot strap I suddenly felt my entire foot go free, but not the kind of free I was used to. I looked down. Crap.

The entire left crank was hanging from my foot and swinging freely in the night air. And suddenly I saw my midnight ride for what it was: On a dirt road that sees one car an hour after midnight, if that. Away from my friends who were all going to sleep when I quietly sauntered out of the house, not even telling them I was leaving the house. On a bike that I’d just put together two hours earlier, that obviously had not gotten any type of inspection or anything before I rolled up my pant legs and took off into the darkness.

I was at least a mile from the house when I finally wrangled the bike to a stop and turned it around. Sadly, the hills didn’t look quite as enticing as I trudged back toward the garage.

Spent the weekend in Chatham with Greg and Astrid. We hung out, drank a lot, watched the clouds pass, you know, the normal stuff. Oh, and this…

Photos by Astrid.

Yesterday, Greg and I were in the beautiful town of New Lebanon (not to be confused with the nearby Valley of Speed) visiting one of his clients, for whom he was designing a logo. We ended up at a wonderful little cafe/mini-golf/meeting place/golf tutoring complex all under one roof called the Triple Nickle.

If you’re ever in Northeast Columbia County, you simply must go. The decor of the place is great, the coffee top notch, the chairs comfy, the staff friendly, and the chocolate chip cookies deserving of some sort of federal award for baked good excellence.

Now, something that I can do better than most is ride the coatails of friends, which I managed to do quite well while Greg pitched his designs for a new Triple Nickel logo to Kay. It probably took us about three hours to do fifteen mintues worth of business. Of course, neither Greg or I actually wanted to leave. That place is great I tell you, great!



Anyway, In the course of deciding on serif or sans serif, we managed to get into a conversation about Kay’s past golfing experiences, and she mentioned Arnold Palmer (my grandmother’s favorite golfer, by the way).

“Arnold Palmer,” I said in my uncouth way, “does he know he has a drink named after him?”

Kay gave me a look, “I worked with the man for ten years, that’s all he drank.”

Guess that settles that!…

In our never-ending quest for more speed, Greg and I returned to the Valley yesterday for some Big Block action. In an effort to get a different visual perspective than the the last time I brought a camera there, I dragged my big camera along for the ride, complete with Lensbaby. The results, sadly, were on the low end of my Lensbaby exploits, but not exactly bad. It’s just really tough to get those cars in focus when they’re moving so fast. About halfway through the evening I figured out that I could cheat a little if I took my photos while the cars were still lining up for the pace laps. Honestly, you can’t tell the difference, and I’m not telling you which ones are which.

As night fell, and being that I am not so good with the Lensbaby as it is, I switched to my regular lens, but since I was so far off in the dark, and because the cars were moving so fast, I ended up with a bunch of colored blurs going by.

I’ve titled this one: Triptych of Blurs

Not exactly what I was hoping for (though, realistically, I expected something like that to happen), but not a bad result, considering I had to turn the shutter speed to almost one second and the stands shuddered each time these monsters roared by.

Many wonder if Sniff This lives full time at the Dodd farm, or if he has a lair or a cave somewhere and was raised by bears. A certain sect of Falcon Ridge-goers believe that he is the manifestation of all the mischevious thoughts of the whole folk world. Well, the intrepid, award-winning photo-journalists at doylebrau.com were granted unprecedented access to Sniff This’ pre-Falcon Ridge rituals and will be able to put many of these myths to rest. The photo-essay below may not fully explain his ecentric behavior whilst at the festival, but it at least puts it in context…

Sniff This wakes up early on Thursday morning. He has a full day ahead of him, but the thought of returning to the friendly confines of the Dodd farm puts a little bounce in his step.

Rub-a-dub-dub, Sniff This in a tub. This will be his last shower for the next four days. A bathing song makes the job go faster. His favorite is Afternoon Delight, much to the chagrin of his roommate.

On the subway, taking part in the great New York City rat race.

Gotta make the donuts… Only 8 more hours until he can leave for Falcon Ridge. Sniff This Factoid: His co-worker actually fear even the mere threat of the Sniff This smell.

Standing at the Hudson Train Station. His odessy has just begun, as he now must find his way across Columbia County to Dodd’s Farm. Last year he was able to hitch a ride with a weathervane salesman, but this year seems to have him at a disadvantage, being that Dodd’s farm already has a weathervane.

One of the many well kept secrets of Sniff This is that he loves ice cream. He asked for a small, but got a medium instead. Now he’s trying to eat the evidence before the shopkeeper comes over to ask him for the extra quarter.

Take it from Sniff, the bathroom at the X-tra Mart on the corner of 23, and 9H is not worth the trip, despite what it says in the brochure.

Waking up in a tent on Friday morning. The smell has not yet fermented to its full potency.

Watch as the wild Sniff stalks its prey…

Inexcusable.

Saturday afternoon. Looking a bit more like a bloated rock star than usual.

Sunday afternoon. Good god.

If you would like to meet Sniff This, please contact his manager, Patrick, who will arrange a meeting over a couple of servings of cheeseballs.

Now that I’m back in the land of mattresses, nutritious eating habits, and bathing, I find myself being asked how it was that I got to be so sunburned this weekend. With child-like exuberance, I tell the asker about the magic of Falcon Ridge, the dance tent, Colorado Wraps, and cheese balls. But before long I get mired down in an explanation of the back story that preceded an event over the weekend that was so unbelievably hilarious to myself and my fellow festival-goers, but completely incomprehensible to the poor soul I’m heaping my story upon. Of course, by time I get to that point that poor soul has either fallen asleep or wandered off to watch the linoleum curl.

The problem is, after five years on the hill, we’ve developed our own language of inside jokes, malapropisms, and strange accents that is about as close to English as Unamunda is.

Which is why I’m so excited that I was actually able to capture some of this inside-jokery on camera. Contained within the two videos below is the essence of my Falcon Ridge experience:

Reveling in the same thing happening over and over and over…

Tomorrow morning, I embark on a strange and wonderful journey upstate to the 19th annual Falcon Ridge Folk Festival.  These are the four days of the year when the Batman to my Bruce Wayne gets to come out and play.  Yes, from Thursday until Sunday evening, I will be Sniff This, court jester of our little group of tents up on the hill.

It all started when I went to my first festival with the current line-up of folk folk.  Apparently, the entire weekend the first time they saw me, I was wearing my Sniff This t-shirt, probably because I was too lazy to change.  And when I came back the next year I brought the shirt along and wore it again (for the entire weekend, due to the urging of my fellow folk folk).  By the third year, a new tradition was firmly established, and I’ve been wearing that thing up to Falcon Ridge ever since.  I’m a little worried this year, though.  The shirt started off red and seems to have faded to a dark pink color on the outside.  But whatever color it’s lost, it retains all of it’s original magic.  Indeed,  I’ve noticed strange powers attributed to the shirt: small children will smell me, old women will smell me, couples will smell me, most men will smell me.  Pretty much anyone except for attractive single females my own age will smell me.

Of course, by the fourth day of being out in the sun without a shower or a proper cleansing of any kind, the shirt takes on a completely new meaning.