Let me show you how to make the face

There must be a reason this blog is named How to Make the Face.
Here I am sprinting toward the finish at the 2011 Race with Grace on Thanksgiving day.

Carrott Chopper and I participated in this race. It was my first 10K in several years.
I wish I had a copy of the finish line video, they showed it in the church after the race.
I am shown finishing then mouthing what appear to be swear words as I agonize in pain. I swear I was not however, swearing that is. I indeed was in a lot of pain. And thats how you make the face!

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

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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!