GO!

.. for a bike ride. highly recommended!
at LEAST 25 miles or so.
everything seems to melt away, especially up a huge hill.
I like to seek them out.
they are not very nice and will let you know just how they feel about you.
so will traffic, but that's another story.

and then, there's nothing like power-washing a bike, breaking it down into piles of hardware, stripping, sanding and re-painting the frame, putting it back together and tuning it up! my ride would have been much easier/faster had i tuned it up before the ride this weekend.

also, did a lot of practicing this weekend on the turntables and am really excited about a new mix. it made the last recording feel as if i were forcing a lot of the mixes together. don't wanna say TOO much cause i'll probably start over-thinking it (i still have to record it). i have learned quite a lot from the last attempt at a *full length* mix on so many different levels.
kind of like climbing a mountain on a bicycle (without all that physical exercise).

getting taken for a ride.

inspiration for me takes many many forms, and sometimes just a little change in the weather can open up a whole new can of worms. in the last post i wrote about getting back out on the bike and just letting the mountains (or hills depending on your frame of reference- coloradoans) just take over. well, they have shown me something quite new.

i've caught a cycling bug again. and this time it's for real.
i was getting super strong pushing the 'ol 52x16 up skyline road up to three times a week. but as tough as i felt riding up a mountain in the biggest gear possible was like riding with square wheels. it sure hasn't been as bad as that time i was riding the morgul-bismarck "wall" and started rolling back in between pedal strokes. i should be flying up the hills like a true grimpeur. the climbs are what makes cycling so interesting. it's where classic battles are fought and people crack. where the suffering begins. mountains are the teachers.
but i sure wasn't flying up the mountains. and i was suffering in the wrong way, to be perfectly honest.
i also wanted to go further past the hills, get lost, and find myself in my new surroundings here. i wanted to go... faster.

i decided to invest in some firepower. i chose a better weapon.
i bought a new bicycle.

i felt like i have betrayed faustina, but it is time to let go a little bit. thousands upon thousand of miles that bike has taken me.

fast (except on the uphill).
it's been less than two weeks now and i have put about 200 miles on the new bicycle. it has changed how i ride.

the difference is unbelievable. i had been riding on my toes because of the momentum of the drivetrain. i couldn't shake the saddle sores even after three seat changes. my lungs are opening up because of the wider handlebars. and even after all of that pain (the wrong kind), i still loved riding that old bicycle. i was ready for something new. i couldn't wait to take it out for a huge ride, further than i had gone before.
well, last weekend i got taken for a ride. i was out forty miles (which mapmyride told me later), before i even realized that i had gone that far and before i realized that i had no idea where i was. i was trying to get down to the tulip festival in woodburn, which on paper was only supposed to be 45 miles- 50 tops (mapmyride), then hitch a ride back with brooke, her brother and nephews. easy. i've done that distance on the fixed gear no problem. did it a week before!

but take a few wrong turns and voila! epic ride time.
i think i actually cracked a little more mentally than i did physically that day. but, it was more of realizing that i knew nothing out of the area that i have seen in the past few months of living here. and that's okay. i was really afraid of having to ask for help or something, or of getting blown over in the wind because of exhaustion (i admit, it's happened before and it's no fun). i had to stop and figure out where the hell my new bicycle had taken me. i had to turn around. i had to make the phone call to abort the mission. i didn't want to get picked up. bicycling and independence go hand in hand for me... i had to find my own way back home, or back to brooke's brother's house. something.

i had to buy some maps. stopping helped me to realize that i wasn't really lost that badly, because i wasn't ever in the middle of nowhere. i was in the suburbs of suburbs of suburbs of portland.
sometimes that is even more scary than being in the middle of nowhere.
i was in wilsonville.

it took two maps to get back to town. and morale improved greatly when i got to put away the map that was further away from home. i really had to suck it up and just pedal one circle at a time, not take any more chances, and make sure that i was on the right road. it got me to focus on my form very seriously. thirty or so miles later i was near the new rendezvous point in hillsboro. back in fairly familiar territory. a old B-17 bomber was flying low overhead and i knew that i was near the hillsboro airport (they have a pretty big airshow this time of year)... coming in for a landing. i started riding faster again, with a little fist pump that i had made it. i was finally suffering in the right way. i was humbled. i let my mind beat me before my legs even gave out. i was shown where my place was. and it didn't even take a mountain to show me that. perspective.
i am so ready for more. can't wait to try the ronde van portlandia and the otto miller/dutch canyon rides. and then, this summer, a ride to the coast.

hack fest.

took it a little easier on the bike this week. all this riding has been murdering my lungs in a good way. so good that i have quit smoking again. i think it might stick this time, except for those too-sweet-to-pass-up-occasions. but maybe that's a bad sign saying that, i've kept the edge for a little while so far and the hacking has started. all that wonderful lung butter/hazardous waste is making its way up and out. so i've given myself a little recovery time off the bike.

got to go to a wonderful hazmat training session this entire week! now i know all the federal regulations i need to do my job safely, but also be there for cleanup when the time comes, still need some hands on training, but got to check out the amazing hazmat truck the portland fire department has. i was as excited as a kid getting to see a fire truck for the first time.

got out a little early and i took advantage of the gorgeous weather that came around today! went on a nice 60 mile down south again to tualatin and back through hillsboro and up the west hills via germantown road and back home. part of the same route in which i got horribly lost, but better because i know where i'm going now. it was awesome to put in the miles and have a steep grade to negotiate after 40 of them. after that, some practice descending. it looked like this.

and then up and over the st johns bridge. it's my favorite way to come home and it usually give me a boost because i know i'm within ten miles of home. coming up and over the bridge and on a day like today you can see mount st helens, mt hood and mt adams (?-still learning them all) carefully framed by the most beautiful bridge on earth.

i've been spending a lot of time lately in those hills right behind the bridge.

sorry it's just the wikipedia pic, but please check out some of the ridiculous photos people have taken via image search.

i haven't been posting photos much, because i am one of those camera-less. the forgotten ones from yesteryear.

maybe someday i'll purchase one, but for now it's stealing-borrowing brooke's. i just don't want to break it. maybe i'll steal it tomorrow for the next ride. i saw on the map that there's a meier rd, and i'm gonna go see if any of the relatives live out there.
oh, and got to try out my brand new CO2 pump. it's the best. it's weird how i just got it yesterday and got to give it a go today. thank you mr nail for being there.

hiding out.

whether i have chosen to or not, i've been hiding out. moving far away does that, i guess. but, rather enjoying it. plotting. scheming. but, under the radar. keeping a good attitude. i've mostly been studying my books on sound physics and computers. read a whole bunch of other books for a little break a bit ago. really enjoyed "the diamond age..." (neal stephenson), "the sun also rises" (hemingway), and "blood meridian, or the evening redness in the west" (mccarthy).

now, reading my curtis roads, miller puckette, gareth o. loy, j.o. smith, and getting out of it what i can, whilst listening to zbigniew karkowski, lasse marhaug, john wiese, and daniel menche.
in fact, all four are playing a show at reed college tomorrow. this show will be the blood meridian of noise shows.

some music by which i've been really inspired the past year has been the clubroot album on lodubs, ben frost's 'by the throat,' black to comm's 'alphabet 1968.' visiting some classics by corrupted, especially 'se hace por los suenos asesinos.'
things are great.
training for a half marathon.

reading list and renewal

After too much thinking about all the fun things on which to write, I thought I'd just keep it simple. Unfortunately, even just a simple post took almost a year to write, or always sounded unbelievably trite (maybe that's just me, eh?). Or that I was trying to sell/complain/brag/ hunt for the next-best-thing which so few sites actually succeed in avoiding. So, here's a new approach. We'll see if i can keep it up. I had a thought today while running in the pouring rain of just posting pictures from my life. I hope to post something every day, but setting goals aren't one of my specialties (where hope comes in). Since I am fascinated by so many things this seems to make things difficult and I run out of time. Simple enough?

I had the day off today. I was doing some reading. I like to read. These are books that I compiled from various zones around the house.

If you look closely, maybe you can guess what I have been getting myself into.
From top to bottom:
A little book by George R.R. Martin. A book about getting hitched. Incredible short stories by JG Ballard (heard about "The Drowned World" in an interview with Kode9 a long time ago- seriously out of print and it came to me one day after looking for it for a couple years). The dual-biographies of Deleuze and Guattari (just finished today- inspiration to write, write, write, write). A masterpiece of Analog synthesizer designs (always on my mind). And a book for figuring out how my circulatory system works under the stress of training (and also to help with that setting goals thing). Don't buy or read any of these books. They're all terrible for your health.

the new graffiti in the garden

I think graffiti is wonderful. I think when people try to cover it up, they do an amazing job as well. They obviously aren't as talented as the original artists themselves, especially with colors, but in a way create a completely new form of art without even knowing it- unconscious genius. This is one of my current favorite walls.

If I were a graffiti artist, I would just paint in blocks of solid color. No name attached, just styyyle. It mimics the technique of those who cover up and also smears the line between the two conflicting parties- a seemingly never ending battle. Is it graffiti? Hmm.
I wouldn't cover up graffiti, just create some areas of color and texture on top of an unassuming blank wall.


I also love stairways to nowhere.

Especially when they have graffiti on them.