DanBailey.net

Testing my ability to photoblog via iPhone.

Back in the day, after Dot-Com Bubble 1.0 burst and left me living in my parents’ basement, I went through a period of despair while looking for jobs and started to consider alternate lines of work. I would list things like “helicopter pilot (army)” and then list the pros and cons. As desperation set in, the list became more and more outlandish. After viewing the following video, I cannot believe I never considered the option of “Official Team Mascot”, because this shit is hilarious:

To know me is to know that I have exceptional skills when it comes to profanity. I credit two organizations — my parents and the U.S. Army.

When I was young, perhaps 9 or so, my father and stepmother informed me that profanity was okay by them. And I took to it like a hungry lion to a lamed gazelle. In short, I devoured that motherfucker. (See?) All through my elementary and middle school years, I was so far ahead of the curve on the profanity use and abuse, that I shamed my classmates for their woefully inadequate attempts to express frustration, anger, and all other variety of emotion. By the time high school rolled around, I had exhausted all the possibilities and varieties of fuck, shit, damn, and so on. The art had grown boring, and others were catching up.

And then the Army rolled around and profanity transcended the expletive and became an adjective, adverb, and all-around modifier of every word in a sentence.

And it became a hard habit to break. Oh, I can keep it under control at the office, for example. But when I’m around friends and family, when I’m relaxed, the profanity, it just spills out of my mouth.

Just this last week, I met my girlfriend’s father for the second time, and her mom for the first, and I swore a blue streak without realizing I was doing it. And these aren’t people I want to offend, and I don’t want them to think of me as being one-dimensional, a typical schmuck.

I’m in love with their daughter and I hope to show them that I hold her in the highest regard, that I respect her and care about her, and that I’m a decent human being that always tries to do what is right, and is worthy of her affections.

So fearing that I’ve already started off on the wrong foot, I am looking to correct that. Quickly. There’s more to it than the girlfriend thing — this is something I want to do for me. Someone once said something to the effect that anyone who has to resort to profanity to express themselves is illiterate.

As a wannabe-writer, I’ve been thinking about that the past few days, and it’s sinking home.

Does this mean I’m going to start sounding like Ned Flanders when I talk? Hardly. I’ll leave you with a quote from Mark Twain, who said,

Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.
 
 
 

Seth Godin’s got a good piece on two easy-to-start web businesses. If I ever need to start freelancing on the side again, I’ll probably do one or the other.

Need a good Tour de France fix? Cyclingnews should be your first stop.

ABCNews, in its commitment to journalist excellence, provides us with the Animal Kingdom’s Odd Couples. Okay, so it’s not earth-shattering news, but it’s good for a serious “awwwwww” response.

And here’s a great piece on Sign-Up Form Design from the folks at Smashing Magazine.

• Observed this weekend: a white Toyota Prius with a “carrying handle” spoiler (much like the WRX STi, circa 2005), ground effects, expensive rims, and red-orange flames down the side. The lesson learned here is: if you’re going to go dorky, go big. Also learned: I need a quick-draw holster for my camera (and to carry it at all times).
   
• Got a good ride in last night after the bike shop. On the outbound leg, I kept noticing that I was slowing down and feeling shitty. This of course called my form into question — and rightfully so, as I haven’t been riding much. Well, turns out it wasn’t that so much as it was the loss of pressure in the rear tire — I hit a small bump and got a nice pinch flat out of it. Replaced the tube and turned for home. The inbound route was headwind the whole way. Go figure.
   
• Had a nice time hanging out with Kate, Matt, Jenni, Wendy, Cindi, Wendy’s girl, and others, on Friday night. Matt and Kate both sang at karaoke. I refused to humiliate myself. (I couldn’t hit one note in twenty, even if you held a gun to my head.) Kate and I bailed on going out to the 90’s on Saturday night because we were both exhausted and not in the mood for crowds. One of these years, maybe.
   
• Have discovered some issues with the Fontosaurus payment gateway and e-commerce engine not liking each other very much, so I will probably be making the switch to Paypal (*gag*) for the immediate future.
   
• Finished reading Mirrored Heavens this morning before work. Pretty enjoyable — it has a very cyberpunk feel to it, but it makes Gibson’s characters look like a bunch of pussies. I’ve got a whole stack of new books sitting on my desk that I’ve been dying to get at…the hard part is going to be choosing what to read next.

I never thought I’d see the day when a TV commercial made me happy, but every time I see the Discovery Channel “whole world” spot, I find myself smiling and humming along…so I’m reproducing it here…and then following it up with a link to today’s xkcd (which is, by far, the best webcomic out there).

Today’s xkcd.

So for awhile now, I’ve been trying to find the words to talk about Kate in here. And most of what I end up writing seems to be cliché, barely one step beyond “I love my girlfriend because she is smart and funny and hot”… And that’s just going to seem stupid.

The writer that lives a life of leisure and slackdom inside my brain piped up with an idea about context being extremely important in the delivery of a message, so I decided to write an open letter to her. This serves two purposes; first, it allows the uninvolved reader see how we communicate, and at the same time, when she reads it, she’ll understand that when I wrote it, I did so with her in mind, and that it’s from the heart, and not edited based on trying to put together something that’s been “sanitized” for public consumption.

…

Dearest Kate,

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So it’s been far too long since I last updated this site. Shame on me! Life has been pretty crazy lately and as a result, writing for the site has been low on my list of priorities.

A list of the things that have been keeping me occupied lately:

1. Girlfriend. Kate and I are doing really well, and I’m dopey-in-love with her. She’s smart, funny, tough (with a mushy center), and easy on the eyes. And we’re good together.

2. Work. Work’s been fun lately. I’ve started flexing the creative muscles a little bit, plus getting more PM work, and designing/implementing process. Good fun!

3. Video Games. Well, Rock Band is definitely a hit with friends, and we’ve rocked out a few times. Got some friends I should join up with to play online. In other fun, I’ve started playing Call of Duty 4, which is an awesome experience.

Note what’s missing? Yeah, bike and writing updates. Seriously, I need to get back on the ball with those. Like tomorrow.

Today’s already spoken-for — I’m leaving the office at 2pm today, and going and getting a new tattoo (which I’ll detail in a post this weekend), which will be my first in about 12 years. After that, I work at the bike shop, where I’ll be faxing in my order for my new time trial rig.

Saturday calls for a long bike ride, forcing myself to write at least 2000 words of novel, and some serious housecleaning.

So it’s only installed on the back brake right now, but last night I installed the combination of Nokon housing and TRP CR950 carbon cantilever arms on the cyclocross rig. This is an upgrade from Avid Shorty 6 arms with just cheap/generic Bontrager cable housing.

The change is amazing. I barely even have to brush the cross-top lever to get the rear brakes to engage, and they do so in a smooth, predictable way, and deliver enough power to stop the bike quickly.

I’m really going to have to remain cognizant of the fact that my Las Cruces is moto-wired (ie.: the brake levers are wired opposite of usual — left hand now controls the rear brake), or I’m going to eat dirt/pavement.