Meet the Inlaws

Well not yet anyway. Our kids have been dating for so long..... and we know each other so well...It just seems that way. I shall introduce them from left to right

VO2Max - Resides in Colorado.. Writes for a blog that you must have a Vo2Max > 70 to read Faster Skier.Thinks biking up a mountain with cross country skis on your back then going skiing then biking back down is a light training day.

Mrs Prozac - In such a great mood so much of the time this writer believes she is secretly on Prozac or the inspiration for it.

Mr ODR - If the sun rises this Saturday morning you can be assured Mr ODR went on a 12 + mile run at 5 am with his running club "The Oven Door Runners". Mr ODR is also into a new hobby "Bee Keeping". See this post. Honey Spectator.

Buttery Sticks -Needs no introduction. Dates Carrot Chopper, fiercely allergic to dairy, Got Wart remover for Christmas. The buttery drip

Public Service Announcement: If you want to get a tweet when a new post comes up can follow me on Twitter @gdenton1

Free Media PC

Well there was free bike now we have free PC. It all started with me wanted to hook up an old Dell to the TV downstairs to get netflix. That attempt failed when I needed a new power supply. Pot Roast gave me his old gaming motherboard which sat in my house to 4 months but it would not fit in any case I had. I wanted to build the thing but I promised myself I would spend zero dollars on it so I had to get creative, patient and lucky not to mention tenacious. I collected a bunch of parts from friends a scrap bin and an amazing array of stuff I had around the house which I forgot I had. This PC streams HD quality video to my big screen TV. You Tube, Hulu, Crackle (Seinfeld episodes). Vs. for the tour. Who needs cable when you have a free PC.
 Here is the entire low down as to how free PC came to be.I estimate it would be around $2000 with all new components.
1) Motherboard, memory, Video card from Pot Roast
2) Power supply and DVD from scrap bins at PC recycling place
3) Case from a good friend . I was over his house and saw he had one of the SilverStone cases that I was Jonseing over and I asked him about it and he said he had another one which he would give me for free.
4) Hard drive pulled out of an old USB backup drive. Sorry RQ your thesis backup has gone poof
5) Lithium battery for mother board from my Timex heart rate monitor. I suppose I had to replace this but they come cheap ($1 each) in a pack of 7 from Battery Bob.com.
6) USB cable extension from a box of cables in the basement
7) Video cable to TV from computer monitor in Cream Puffs room. I suppose she will want this back at some time.
8) Memory stick from an old Dell
9) CD drive from old Dell. Poor old Dell it has be raped pillaged and plundered
10) Windows 7 license from Carrot Chopper. I had to pay her $20 to get the student discount. Shhh dont tell microsoft. I suppose its not free now however but since I already had it and was not using it I think it counts.
12) Wireless key board and mouse from Pot Roast. These were in use on an old computer and I replaced them with USB models I had lying around.
13) A boatload of effort in loading the operating system, components and calibrating the LCD. Probably 40 hour of work to build it. My time is free however.

The NFL Style Guide

As much of a detractor of the NFL I am (Why is this the only sport televised on Sunday, cant we have some Football too, and by football I mean soccer). Its hard to like a sport which features 5 seconds of action followed by 5 minutes of reviewing and re-reviewing the play to see if the guys knee was down. Flip a coin and get on with it already! But I can guarantee, on Monday morning  people will be endlessly talking in the break room about whether the guys knee was down.

I have been enjoying some of the styles being sported on the field these days.

How about these tattoos. I think we are about all out of real estate here.Oh maybe we could wedge some initials in there somewhere.

Apparently if you need to make some room in your payroll you can get some homeless guys to play for you.

Hair out the helmet is pretty popular these days. Extra style points if it is knotted or braided.  Do these guys go up a helmet size for the doo.

It really blows nicely when you run fast too.

If someone can tell the purpose of  those arm bands please do. I have racked my brain and I cant find any reason on gods green earth to wear those things (unless of course your elbows get really sweaty)

Heres another homeless guy. Lately he has been playing like one too.

And Its

Off with his head! Not 24 hours after penning the rule set, I broke 8 of them, and the queen spoke. See her comment at the end of the previous post.

Things that make the Red Queen yell "Off with his head!"

Well the Red Queen and I have been empty nesters for a few months now and instead of all bliss and naked rooms we have a new dynamic developing.  That is the dynamic of Port'<'Man (that's me!) annoying the hell out of her heinous. So I developed a top 10 list of things that make the Red Queen want to yell "off with his head".

1.  Any of a host of things that start with her saying "There's a smell.."

2.  Any of Port'<'Mans hair strands found in the house which are not immediately attached to his body at the present time.

3. Fanning the covers when entering the bed at night i.e. letting in cold air into her warm cocoon

4. Same idea as above, Waving a cold body part in the general vicinity of  her.

5. This one can be summarized by the advice "Never Sit on anything while naked". Ruins the naked room doesn't it.


6. Sullying the glass cooking surface on our GE range. If you even look at that thing cross eyed it gets messy.



7. Leaving a stain on anything. I wont elaborate, but you can use your imagination here!


8. Lets face it, used workout clothes stink and P'<'Man makes a lot of them. The RQ and P'<' have a well developed system of processing these clothes. However occasionally a garment finds it way into the wrong receptacle and its, you guessed it. Its  "Off with his head!"

9. Blowing air anywhere near her auditory receptors.

10. For this one she just says "You have breath..."

and a bonus one

11. P'<'Man sitting on the couch and placing his grasping agents in and around areas usually reserved for his under garments. After which event takes place, the offending objects are now regarded as equivalent to being radioactive or infected and must be cleansed with soap  and water (or better yet acetone) and a scrub brush before they can touch any surface in the house again.

Honey Spectator

This is not the B sample from my latest Cyclocross Union drug test. No its the pure nectar of the gods, honey, produced by bees enslaved by Mr. Odr.



Lets see what Honey Spectator had to say about it

....Mr Odrs honey is partially digested then regurgitated insect food which was supposed to be the winter food stores for an entire community when it was stolen by Mr. Odor after 50,000 hard working bees spent the entire summer producing it (Yes carrot chopper is pissed). It contains the overtones of the Mangan back yard including Sunflowers planted by Mrs Prozac. It has the smokey notes of mower exhaust and Mr Odrs arm pits due to him mowing the lawn shirtless. Honey Spectator gave it a 4 stinger rating out of 5 stingers.

I am Marwe

On the left we have the excellent best in class Marwe roller ski as rocked by the lil B of Clarkson University Golden Knights Nordic Ski team fame and Buttery Sticks of the Dartmouth Nordic ski team.
On the right we have the incredible successor to the beast, a roller ski designed and built by former Indy Car engineer Portless man. He used carbon fiber in the design,  the same stuff used to make Indy Cars (oooo!). Hint: if you click the picture it enlarges and you can see it more clearly. (kind of like Viagra). Speaking of which you can go back to the Portman Naked room post and see his match stick more clearly.
Portmans Naked Room


Remember its a cloths pin and a match stick OK! Match stick length does not equate to actual size.

The all black composite ski was arrived at, after building four prototypes over 3 years trying 3 different wheel types 3 shaft designs and 4 strut types.

Testing involved feedback from buttery sticks, and the injuring of little B when a prototype broke as he was descending a hill.  Fortunately the Red Queen did not chop off my head and let me continue to design and build skis. Although lil B now refuses to test any of my skis. I am now my own test pilot.

I have rocked these babies and they are awesome. I have tried over 6 different types of roller skis now and I can say these black beauties are the best. Given that this whole endeavor started when I kept twisting my ankle and hitting the pavement using lil B's old set. My unbalanced self being able to confidently ski these is reassuring that the design is solid stable and forgiving. Not to mention comfortable.  At this time I have no plans to go into production. This set took about 50 laborious hours to build and I cant be doing that every week. I do have a more mass producible design in mind so stay tuned. I may be the next Marwe or maybe.................... I am Marwe!

Make the Faces Famous Hip Circles

Bound to go viral in the next few days is this video of my famous hip circles.
Get ready for tens of thousands of hits as reporters will ask "How does he do that" or better yet "Why does he do that?" He's portless man thats why! And then its right back to doing the dishes, gotta keep the Red Queen happy! Pot roast exclaims "disappointing!" I can't keep everyone happy.

Suffering on the Bike

I

PortMan sufffering at the 2011 Cobbs hill cyclocross

      I had a bizarre conversation with my friend over at Jacked up Old Man about how to become a champion. Although if you have ever spoken to the old man you know that every conversation is going to be bizarre. Its a good thing he puts people to sleep for a living (anesthesiologist) , that way there is no danger of conversation.
    He says, and I quote, "I must suffer, there is only suffering". I have been reading a lot of philosophy lately (you know the meaning of life, death to Nietzsche, What does it all mean, that kind of sh**). Some philosophers believe that the meaning of life is happiness, we are here to make ourselves happy. Although optimists believe this, pessimists that fear this is so. Well someone didn't tell this happiness stuff to the Jacked Up old man. He frequently boasts about flagellating himself. Although we misheard him the first time he said it and we thought he was fond of farting on himself. That's Flagellation not Flatulation! Back to the suffering.

   I had originally thought the JUOM was crazy, lately I am thinking he may be on to something. Lately, I have been doing a lot of bicycling, specifically cyclocross races. I must say once you get over that initial hump of "this is going to hurt like hell for 30 minutes" it becomes quite addictive. I have now been going out on 2 hour stints pushing the biggest gear I can, standing up in the big ring on every hill and just loving the pain in my legs and the burn in my lungs. The bike and Nordic skiing, which happens to be the JUOM's specialty, are the best mediums in which to do this and not injure yourself permanently. You can go out and suffer and still go home and mow the lawn and work around the house. aka making the Red Queen happy too.** .  It makes the things in life that used to be big problems seem miniscule compared to the pain you are now in. It flattens out the big hills and makes anything seem possible. People around me are complaining like little babies, while I just think about the suffering, . "I must suffer, there is only suffering", by golly the jacked up old man was right.

**A side note, if you have a wife and she nags you, that's a good thing, it means she still cares, if your wife is as quiet as a mouse, she is planning you death)

Excuse me, but is that your Ferrari

We were out for a beer tasting with Pot Roast Cream Puff and the Red Queen and someone had parked the above red Ferrari Testarossa in front of the brewery in full view of the tasting room. A gentlemen asked me the question that is the title of this post. I responded "Well yes, as a matter of fact that is my Ferrari". Then I spent 5 minutes convincing him it wasn't.  Well I guess I look like a guy who might own one, except for the fact I know my penis is not that small (See previous post for evidence, Don't worry that's really just  a clothes pin and a match stick, had you fooled didn't I).  I digress, which I often do, must be the ADD. Did you know the medications for ADD are actually amphetamines.. there I go again... Anyhew. As we are standing there talking about how well endowed I am, a guy similar to this, except fatter, and with bad tattoos he was wearing the wife beater (belly hanging out) and arm pit hair sticking out too. I will make a cloths pin and call him RedNeck Ferrari guy, I promise you he will have pants on.

As the guy appears and gets in the car, the two female acquaintances of the gentlemen I was talking to, let out a collective Ewwwww. Then one of them says "He's obviously compensating".

It was like that old sesame street skit  "Two of these things do not belong together". It was like watching a democrat cut taxes on the wealthy or that little girl on Americas got talent with a voice like a 30 year old opera star or that African American guy who sings like Sinatra. You just don't believe what you are seeing. It doesn't make sense. Nada a computee.

Portmans Naked Room

 Well the kids are all grown up and off at college. So Portman, aka port-less man aka portcullis has taken Lil Bs old room and turned it into the naked room ala Terry Bradshaw in the movie "Failure to Launch". Well in our case its more like a naked house (call before you come over or you may get an afternoon surprise). Scroll down to see Portman enjoying his naked room. Note the farmers tan, it is the end of summer after all.

The Lake Placid Iron Mangan

As you can see from the above video, the events that make up an Iron Mangan are as follows (All events must be done with a Mangan)
1) Scale Algonquin mountain. A 4 hour hike with 3000 feet of climbing with a 1 mile stretch at 25% grade
2) Bike up White face mountain. At 4687 feet. a 3300 foot climb over 8 miles. 8% grade. This is a greater than a one hour effort at about as hard as you can pedal a bike.
3) Roller ski 10 miles up and down some pretty big hills. See video for one of the descents! Remember these things have no brakes.
4) Go cliff diving off 35 foot cliffs into a cold raging river. Giving cliff diving instruction is optional.
So grab your favorite Mangan and do an Iron Mangan. Its good for your health, I think?

Aim Here

At my company they have installed a very helpful aid in the urinals in the men's room. Its a target to help you aim in the correct place. Are you kidding me? If you cant piss in a urinal from that close a range you definitely need some sort of help and I mean the kind of help the Red Queen offers. Were that many people missing the porcelain entirely that we needed to install and aid to show you where to aim it. It certainly makes relieving yourself more fun however. Oh no its a little to the left, I need to make a correction, lean baby lean, right rudder for gods sake! Whew back on target. I was panicking there for a minute, the stream almost went in the water but I saved it at the last minute!

Celebrating One Year from ending CHEMO

So to celebrate one year from ending chemo I decided to do something relaxing. I took a bike ride up a mountain. Not just any mountain, Whiteface mountain in Lake Placid New York. We are talking about 8 miles long and 3500 feet of vertical. Thats an 8% grade with no rest.

This is comparable to the hardest climbs in the tour deFrance climbs classified as Hors categorie or beyond categorie. The most famous Tour climb the Alpe d'Huez has exactly the same profile and distance as the climb we did today. Of course I had along my favorite domestiques and Soigneurs, Buttery Sticks, Lil Brother, and new to this blog Mr ODR and Mrs Prozac and their daughter Vo2Max. Portculies made it up in 5th place but still made it up. I burned 1100 calories, averaged 210 watts of power and did the 8 miles in 1 hour and 26 minutes and average of 5.6 miles per hour.

Oh and by the way the day before we climbed the second highest mountain in NY state which has the steepest elevation gain of 1000 feet in 1 mile. The day before that we biked 28 miles in the mountains of Lake Placid, the day before that I did the same 40 mile bike race that caused buttery sticks to pass out and the day before that I ran 4 miles in the park. Now I feel like I need that Bordeaux IV more than ever!

Buttery Drip

 

I left the house for an hour Saturday and came home with lots of questions for my kids,

In order of me asking them.

Why is there a fire truck in the street?

Why is there an ambulance in the driveway?

Why is Buttery Sticks on the kitchen floor with 5 paramedics around him?

Who was using the gorilla tape and what for?

Why is there an untouched glass of “Purple Drank***” in the sink?

Why is there a 1 gallon vinegar jug out?

 

Turns out the answers to these questions are below

 

Well we all learned something very important this weekend. Do not, and I repeat, do not do the following*

1)      Work 30 hours a week at a job where you run around the in sun after little kids all day

2)      Run 56 miles a week at 6:30 mile pace

3)      Work in the evenings at a roller ski camp where you work out for 2 hours a night

4)      Just for fun throw in some extra bike rides in there in your spare time

5)      Then on Saturday get up at 6 am to ride in a 40 mile bike race at 23.5 mile/hour pace

6)      Then on the same day, run in the park for an hour. Any pace under 7 min/mile will do.

7)      Perform surgery on yourself to remove a wart from your thumb, this causes you to bleed uncontrollably

8)      Have your girlfriend try to make a bandage from Gorilla Tape to stop the bleeding

9)      Have your girlfriends sister look up on the internet how to stop the bleeding and you end up dipping your finger in a container of vinegar.

 

*If you accidentally perform steps 1 though 9, in order, you will lose consciousness.

**Note: Consuming a glass of the famed “Purple Drank” will not prevent the loss of consciousness nor will it cause you to wake up any time soon.

           *** Purple Drank, Yes drank as in the past tense, is slang for the beverage known by the name brand "Ocean Spray Cran-Grape". It is revered on our house by lil-B and Buttery Sticks. They will drink as much of this stuff as I bring home. It has a side effect of making them silly and slap happy, at least thats what it does to lil-B anyway.

 

 

Last minute debt deal reached

I must be freakin psychic.

Tiger Woods Fires Caddy

In case you have not heard Tiger Woods fired his caddy of 12 years Steve Williams. Tiger is currently injured and is not playing. Williams was on loan to another golfer Adam Scott for the US Open. After the Open Williams and Scott teamed up again for another tournament. Tiger said he did not approve Williams to caddy for Scott beyond the US Open and immediately fired Williams. This means Tiger ended his 12 year relationship with his friend for .. uh...cheating on him?

NFL lockout avoided and the Government will raise the debt ceiling

Mark my words the debt ceiling will be raised. Most likely in a last minute heroic deal. Whats going on is the parties are posturing and trying to get across to their constituents that they are really trying to do the job they promised and not raise taxes or not reduce benefits or allow machine gun ownership or whatever they promised. Hey its a golden opportunity to push your parties agenda. Why they tie it to such a no brainier decision I dont know other than they must think we have no brains to actually believe them. Just raise the damn debt ceiling and play politics on your own time boys and girls. Incidentally John Boehner did actually take his ball and go home during the game.

The NFL lockout ended when the owners and players realized they would be crazy not to take advantage of the huge windfall of cash they call the NFL. As fans we must be idiots to pay huge sums of money to watch these behemoths crash their heads into each other. Go watch some real football (English style) instead. Better yet watch a sport like track and field or cycling. Where athletes are meant to grimace as they suffer, not stand on the sideline half the time.

I couldn't make this stuff up. I swear its all True

Lets review the weekend. Carrot Chopper came home after, true to her name, chopping off someone’s limb and proceeded to eat every avocado in sight as well as every nut, twig, berry, grain, fruit, vegetable or generally salady or grainy item, left my cupboards bear and did it all while standing up, including chopping off the limb.

Pot Roast eco drag raced a dude in an identical black Golf TDI. For those of you not familiar with eco drag racing it goes like this. You pull up to someone at a light in a car suitably matched to yours, say a Prius vs a Prius. Then you point to the person and finger wave in an intimidating manner. You both then shut off your engines and roll down your windows. You say “How much you getting” and you exchange gas mileages. The high number wins. Roast won the race, by the way, but we think he was coasting on the down hills.

The puff of cream came home with a knife collection to rival Jack the Rippers. We all were awed by the fact the every single item including the thermometer was etched with the CIA logo. I thought they would be more secretive than that.

Stick of Butter witnessed Portcullies massively bone headed move of karate kicking the China cabinet and smashing a glass picture frame to bits. I am really surprised the Red Queen didn’t jump up and chop off my head but chopper just handed me the dust pan instead.

Pot roast fashioned an Eastern European Check valve to fix the broken water system, during the repair the sump pump decided to let go and blow up in a plume of smoke. This garnered that ultimate male bonding ritual of a trip to Home Depot and a lightening of my incredibly generous fathers wallet by $200 bucks.

John Mayer showed up and played Lil Puffs grad party. Fabulous Stuff.

http://shawnwelchacoustics.com/about.asp

Lil B graduated from high school and we all started counting the days till his mess is out of my...I mean he leaves for college. And the naked room is only month away folks!

A meaty issue

Whats the difference between a rock band and a jazz band. A rock band plays 3 chords for 1000 people and a jazz band plays 1000 chords for 3 people. No kidding, my wife and I literally sat and watched a local jazz band play an entire set at a local restaurant. The only audience members were my wife and I. At least the line for autographs at the end of the show was short.

Watch this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Wj8I8DZNOk&feature=related
It has a whopping 69 views. Hopefully more after yall have watched it. This woman is talented with a capital "T". She graduated from the Eastman school of music here in Rochester.

The tart above has one video with 388,123,734 views.

You throw some tenderloin over your loins and your miss popularity. Work your ass off at your craft for years and you get 69 views. The world is backward. So go out and support some local Jazz and ignore that stupid tart who shops for her clothes in the freezer section at Tops. Besides I know "The Chopper of Carrots" is pissed about that dress.

Irony

Sometimes I realize stuff thats just too good not to point out. Like this. My daughter, the puff of cream, is now in college studying to be a pastry chef, in other words how to make people fat. My other daughter, the chopper of carrots, is in college studying to be a nutritionist and exercise scientist. In other words how to make people skinny. And my wife, the queen of red, is in college studying psychology and writing a thesis on eating disorders, in other words how to help people who think they are fat but really are skinny.  And finally, in a few months, my son, the brother little, will be in college studying Mechanical Engineering, In other words how to....well who knows what the heck engineers are doing anyway! To exemplify, if you dont see the irony in any of this, then go out and buy this months copy of Race Car Engineering and read about a guy who thinks he is famous but is really not.

Almost Famous

Well it took 20 years but I landed on a magazine cover. Albiet a very techy geeky rag about the incredibly small population of race car engineers, but hey, if you resemble the remark, go with it.If you are really ambitious then go down to your local bookstoire and plonk down the $10.50 required and buy the thing but I have set up an e-reader site you can see it for free.

http://gb.zinio.com/

username: gdenton@rochester.rr.com

password: debras

Click on the issue and it brings up a reader. If you move your mouse to the bottom it shows the controls. Go to the index and click on the Penske Active (Page 48). Article is quite technical but I am quoted throughout. There is even an old photo of me in there. Its quite an honor and very exciting to have this article done about something that was so secretive 20 years ago.