Discover Top Posts Tagged with #wordsonly

Velocity.

What is it about an airplane ride that clears the head? Altitude? Packed in humanity? Mini seats? Recycled air?

These last few months in transitioning back up to Seattle has been a whirlwind. From extended hotel stays, finding a home with 3 flights of stairs, new job(s) acclimation, mom stays, Zoo Tunes, Portland trips, a much needed Palm Springs vacation, nanny hires, the Special Olympics, etc. etc. etc. All things told, amazing memories made with so many exciting ones ahead. It has not been the easiest of times though either. Moving is hard. The boyz in their first 2 years of life have done it 3-ish times. They have been incredibly resilient and flexible though. Certainly near the top for the list of qualities I’d love for these little guys to have, is malleability. Be comfortable and strong in a diverse amount of situations. Mini James Bonds - lower cased double o 7′s. Ev and I have been solid overall. A wide range of experiences have brought a wide range of emotions. And we are getting through it. Laughing when we can, as much as possible. Sprinkling in some non-“Wheels on the Bus” music, some wine, and rooftop chats during these beautiful, darkness evading Pacific Northwest summer nights. My wife is the best. This whole thing called life would be impossible without her.

Health-wise I feel really strong. In late June I ran the Seattle Rock N’ Roll Half Marathon with Ev and Claudia. It was great time and a nice little nod to the fact that my health is definitely on the up and up. So, I need to keep it up. Ev, of course, cruised through the race. And Claudia and I actually did too. Albeit 20 minutes slower or so than Ev. Now the only issue, sitting just a bit over a month out from the race, is that I haven’t gotten even 1 run since. Without really any excuses. Need to re-calibrate now again and focus back to something physical. Runs are fun and all, but I am looking to do more. I’ll start with some Denver hotel room workouts and see where that leads me… I have my annual colonoscopy coming up and looking forward to that. No real reasons for any heightened concerns… It just feels good to have the health of my ass validated. Literally. No news will continue to be good news on that front.

Just earlier this week I was able to hook up with my brother from way back and partner in cancer crime (along with I’m sure others that will remain unmentioned) – Danny Zollars. He has been fighting the good fight of this disease for the past 5 years. And while things aren’t perfect with him at this point with some more battles to fight, he was only given a 12% chance to still be alive now 5 years ago. The convos, laughs, story re-hashes from all over our lives, Vikes talk, Dre beats, and overall perspectives shared. Including a dance party with the boyz and a night cap from Roberto Lez. DZ has the OG blog on Tumblr – Rectal Talk. @dannyzollars Give him a follow if you so choose. He, like me, is writing for him. His daughter Zoe is well on her way to being famous as she is highlighted (rightly so) a lot. And for the price you’re paying (FREE!) for this hot, late 30’s white guy, from the Midwest literary content – it just doesn’t stop delivering. His story is wild and one that is inspiring all the while there for a quick perspective check when needed. Not to mention some pretty incredible things coming up that are going to be done medically to physically eliminating it all. Amazing research for everyone! The bond he and I have has been strangely special from Day 1 and I am looking forward to it continuing for many years to come.

Lots of great new music out there – from Cardi B and the new Drake album. The GOOD music 5 week album drop with Pusha T leading the pack there. Childish Gambino. Kendrick remains incredibly re-listenable. Migos, Future, Big Boi, and Black Thought. The Robin Williams documentary was incredible. Anthony Bourdain is gone. The genius mind is impossible to predict. Lebron is a Laker. Hot Ones keeps delivering as a show. John Mulaney’s special and all of the other 3949058 comedy specials on Netflix. We are in a very comedic rich time. In addition to it being the truth of what is happening out there through various lenses, it is really therapeutic to laugh. I was fortunate to see Bill Burr (on my comedy Mt. Rushmore) perform in Portland. And our boyz just keep getting bigger, better, and more hilarious. Their exploits are well documented (and will continue to be) on my IG account with their hashtag #westandleo.

I have missed the writing. Which is a good sign I suppose. But one I should listen to. Much like the physical aspect of health…make time for it. It’s healthy. And good for you. And what’s good for you is the good for the world.

What again about the airplane ride makes your head so clear? I think it’s the velocity. The raw speed necessary to fly is remarkable. A modern miracle as a classic Louie CK bit illustrates… There is a lot happening all the time to get us all to where we need to go. We are all moving really fast. But not so fast that we don’t have the ability to look around and appreciate it. I need to do a better job of it for sure. When we pause for the views, the awe of it all is breathtaking.

#velocity #update #overdue #wordsonly

#liberatejevoblr censors keep censoring because jevos (including me) don't want them

@tumblr, and you are only a content provider

desde, cada sitio

#jevoblr #wordsonly #butgaypornisheretostayaswell #también #biological gay #jevo jevo #onlythelyrics #Spotify

Halloween Queen

At minds edge

The ravings of the damned

Echo

Through the flat,

Out-cut

Graceless

Land.

Bunny girls

Satin, peroxide

Roll heart-sliced

Candy

Perlesant eyes

Fizzy-pop American whiles

Tickle the mind

Suck hard or blow

Or run and hide

From her

Queen of midnight diamonds

The emerald footed swinger of hips

Red lips, pressed to finger tips

Flashing flame-hot Lanolite

More than delicious

Every bite

Countess blood lover

Of erotic dream

Bites down hard this Halloween

To steal that rubber ghoulish heart,

Within reach

Though a world apart

Her beauty gleams

Terrifying

Glamouring

Glitching

Truthfully lying

Cherry, pomegranate, orange crush

For mere mortal

Her sublime smile,

Is quite enough

To evaporate a soul to mist

It is utterly pointless to resist

For her necklet of trophies,

Of fresh cut wins

Will lasso your mind and draw it in

Til

Lost, it is

In the endless universe

Behind her eyes

To wander

Halcyonic,

Captured,

mesmerised.

#halloween #nickjaguar #poem #wordsonly #halloween queen

Santorini & Naxos, Greece

Reflecting back on a trip from two years ago is tricky and clumsy at best. Names and neighborhoods are barely at the tip of my tongue. Remnants of what I remember are distant and feels incomplete when looking through the collage of photos.

What’s clear is that the people I chose to travel with significantly amplified every second of my experience. When I look through these photos, I can’t help but smile because I know exactly how I felt in that moment. I can’t believe how blessed I am to have an amazing group of strong, supportive, smart, beautiful and funny women beside me to explore the world with.

And the yogurt. The yogurt. Yogurt. With a drizzle of honey. I’d go back to Greece just for the yogurt. *chef’s kiss*

#greece #blog #wordsonly #travel tip

My Favorite Heckle So Far (CX 2014 w/Marin)

"Stop SMILING!"

As far as heckling goes, I'll take it. In a world where: "RIDE it!" and "You're doing it wrong!" are common refrains, I like being accused of smiling too much. Call me soft. Whatever. At an average of seven laps per race, I probably heard this shout 50 times this season over nine races. Most of these came from the smiling face of Tom Jackson at the Marin tent. I could also have been coming from the stern face of Dan Horndash, or from behind the sunglasses of Erik Cho next to him. Things were too blurry for me to tell who was shouting, but I grinned wider each time. I was lucky enough to ride as an "ambassador" for Marin this CX season. The ambassador gig is the best deal you can imagine. Basically, you get to ride a sweet bike, hang out with cool people, and talk up a company you believe in. Some Instagramming and stuff is in there, but mostly it's just being a pedaling representation of the brand within the bike community. All pressure for results is self-imposed. Thus the smile. Sure, I'm kind of competitive and enjoy placing well, but I just really love riding my bike.

Marin also made it a point to be at nearly every Bay Area cross race this year. This means that whether I finish third (my best this season) or 21st (my worst), I was lucky enough to have TJ and crew waiting at the finish line with a recovery beer already cracked. Somehow they managed to fit this in between providing neutral support and loaning out demo Cortinas. I was not the only one Tom, Dan, and Erik was helping out.

As the season winds down and my CX tires lose their tread, I'm looking forward to a winter of work, long rides, and coaching the SF Composite high school MTB team. Cross is fun, but sometimes I want to ride for longer than an hour--and not nearly as hard.

So Tom, Dan, and Erik: you'll have to try again next year. I haven't stopped smiling yet.

December 8th, 2014

#wordsonly

arent we all suicidal? we live to push our selves and exhaust our selves we eat foods we know do more harm then good we inhale cigars and herb, filling our lungs with black smoke we break our own hearts as we chase after those that we know will never come to us we stretch our bodies and our beings so we can do all that we are supposed to do? we are killing ourselves and everyday apart of us gets weaker and weaker until it disappears we are told to live our lives to the fullest, all or nothing, do or die we hold in tears and they drown our brains in emotion and unforgotten sorrow we are killing ourselves in a more subtle way slower, less deliberate we are the controller, the hero of our destiny and we are murdering ourselves everyday with every pleasure we succumb to. but, this is life

- thoughts

-Jascynt Tulloch

#thinking #rough draft #quick thoughts #nofearthewaves #wordsonly #jascynt tulloch

Berkeley Hills, May 12th

Field size: ~65, ~32 finishers

Placing: 16th

Here’s an old-school lap-by-lap report, focused on the theme: “le jour sans” (or, what happens when a race doesn’t go as planned). ED—hopefully you can do something with this.

Lap 1: This thing started hot. By the looks of the characters on the start line, that was no surprise: Adrien from Garmin Development, an Australian pro riding on a South African team, Kirk Carlson, Mooney, and full squads from Mike’s Bikes and Marc Pro—the Squadra boys didn’t even bother with a team meeting before the race started. Isaac, James, Matt, Mat, and I all knew the drill: try to make it in any threatening moves, but don’t waste energy. We didn’t have the horsepower to dictate tactics, and we knew there’d be a certain amount of attrition. That was dumb. I should have ensured that we had a team meeting, and not doing so was my first mistake. We could have done a better job of consciously conserving energy if we’d talked about it in advance. In any case, it started out hot. Looking back at the HR profile, I was deep into the 180’s (high for me) during the first lap, and looking around wondering who would start coming off. The end result was that James ended up in an early move, and the rest of us burned a few too many matches early.

Lap 2: I don’t do well with hard starts, so I spent the second lap sitting in the group trying to conserve. I’m pretty sure this was when Matt “the Sausage Bandit” Abdalah got frisky. Unfortunately, the only thing I can remember from this lap was thinking “your only hope is to maintain this. You’re not going to go any harder.” Mistake number two was that I didn’t force-feed myself at this point, as I’d need the calories later.

Lap 3: James’ move had come back, and he’d disappeared somewhere. Isaac was out too, so the Matts and I got together for a very brief chat. There was a selection up the road, but we weren’t sure how many or how much time they had. People were getting tired. As usual, Abdalah called the race well, and suggested that we move up so as not to get caught out in an acceleration. We did so, and finished the lap somewhere near the front. Mistake number two continued, as I didn’t eat enough food during this relative lull.

Lap 4: I made mistake number three here: I didn’t properly think about or communicate what I was going to do next—I let years of racing by myself get the best of me. As we entered the long gradual climb at the beginning of the lap, I attacked the group in an attempt to bridge. Forearms on the bars, I got away alone, and was joined a few miles later by Keith (Marc Pro) and Owen (Specialized). The three of us caught the lead group just before Mama Bear, and knew we’d rejoined the race.

Lap 5: Shit got real. I was feeling good, and was happy with the effort that had landed me back in the front group. This probably contributed to my eagerness to go with the attacks that started right away. It was a Mike’s Bikes and Marc Pro slugfest, with occasional shots taken by Kirk and Phil. Things were fine for me, until they weren’t. As we rolled into Baby Bear, I started feeling awful. I wasn’t bonking (I didn’t think), but the legs weren’t there. I managed to hang on through the false-flat leading into Mama Bear (whilst Mooney rode solo off the front like a maniac), but was promptly dispersed with when the hill kicked up. Steve O got popped, then me, and I could see gaps forming in front of Tobin and Keith. I limped over the final couple of climbs alone, completely shattered. It wasn’t until after the race that I realized I’d only taken in approximately 700 calories. That was half as much as I should have had. Two words: amateur hour.

I’ll take this opportunity to make a resolution: I will ensure that we have team meetings before races (sorry guys), and I will not let myself, or any teammates go light on calories. That cost our team a top-ten result. Though it sounds like a weak-willed affirmation, the race itself was awesome: hard, hilly, held on a perfect day, and close to the City. Not one to be missed!

#wordsonly

Boggs Enduro, May 3rd-5th

Field size: Pro Open Men: 7, Pro SS Men: 5, total racers ~750

Placing: Hillclimb: 1st, 8 Hour: 1st, Super D: 1st (of 1 finisher in “Pro SS”, but crushed by 3 minutes by the winner of Pro Open Men!)

This “report” could be so much more than it will be. It should be more than this. But unfortunately I have a penchant for overcommitting, overexerting, overextending, and generally saying yes to too many things. And so I find myself writing this almost a week after the Boggs Enduro mountain bike race finished. It’s Friday at 5:36 PM. I’m sitting at the café up the street from my apartment, and I’m caffeinating when I probably shouldn’t be. Heather is giving Ranier a massage, so I’m kicked out for a couple hours—the perfect opportunity to finally write this. After checking Instagram, trying to figure out why Chrome is misbehaving, and then thumbing through Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, that “couple of hours” is down to 1’20”. I’d better get going.

It’s not an overstatement to say that Boggs singlehandedly changed the trajectory of my cycling “career”. Let me explain.

Several months ago, I crashed at Merco. The gouge on my hip was the deepest I’ve ever had, and it made me stop and think. Am I willing to take the risks necessary to get a result on the road? Do I actually stack up against a field that’s any bigger than NorCal? Do I enjoy the process of racing at the national level? Does it match who I am as a person?

As I mulled these questions over, I couldn’t help but think more about mountain biking. I’ve always enjoyed it, and the simplicity of the equation: luck x (fitness+technique+equipment choice)= result, has always been attractive to me. (No joke, try using a subjective 1-10 scale for each of fitness, technique, and equipment choice, and a number between 0-1 for luck, with 0 being “everything that could go wrong with my bike went wrong with my bike” and 1 being “my perfectly chosen bike worked perfectly”. The closer you get to 30, the better your result. Mike Hardy, I expect you to poke a lot of holes in this math!) Though the tactical variables in road racing keep it intellectually/socially challenging, I personally enjoy the “solo breakaway” mental state: you’ve played your card, and now it’s a test of mental and physical strength. Maybe that’s why I end up in breaks even when they don’t make sense—I like working hard and not worrying about what other people in the bunch are doing, or how twitchy they are. The hole in my hip gradually filled. The tegaderm came off. The thoughts came and went, and I raced some more.

During this time I’ve had the chance to come back to a book that helped me decide to spend this year racing my bike. It’s called The Start-Up of You, by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha. Despite the cheesy title, I found this book incredibly useful, and I highly recommend you go read it. In the meantime, I’ll summarize one of the authors’ claims, so you understand why I’m making this tangent now: you should pay attention to your personal strengths, and how they fit into the realities of the market. You should then be ready to “pivot” and change course if you realize that your skills/talents/strengths would be more highly rewarded in a different environment. You should be constantly iterating until you find a niche where you can be successful. My experiences at Merco (and subsequently San Dimas, and Sea Otter) made me question my personal strengths as a bike racer, and wonder if I’d do better in the dirt. Part of it is physical: it takes years of disciplined training to compete at a high level on either dirt or pavement—there are no shortcuts here. But a big part of it is tactical as well. I began to ask myself if I am any good at jockeying for position constantly in a road race or crit, and whether or not I enjoy that. I then though about whether I enjoy fine-tuning technique and focusing on flawless execution. Would Ben and Reid recommend I apply the fitness I’m gaining on the road to some mountain bike races? I’m not sure, but I have a hunch they might.

In any case, the thought of mountain biking quickly became the thought of singlespeed mountain biking, and then the thought of endurance singlespeed mountain biking. Why? Because if I take the “solo breakaway logic” a step further, I start to get at the reason I fell in love with bike riding in the first place. I like asking my body the question can we do this? and promptly answering with a let’s find out. To me, the internal dialogue that ensues when we ask ourselves that question is one of the most valuable things in cycling.

Think about the last time you challenged yourself on two wheels. Maybe you were getting comfortable with clipless pedals. Maybe you were doing your first 50 mile ride. Maybe you were finally cleaning that section of trail that you used to dismount and walk. Whatever the challenge was, if it was right at the limit of your ability level and you overcame it, you know the feeling that I’m talking about. You had to talk yourself into something. You had to tell yourself it was possible, even if you weren’t entirely convinced.

Sometimes this dialogue lasts a few seconds, as when you’re trying to bunny hop a log. Sometimes it lasts multiple days, as with the Race Across America. The longer this conversation lasts, the more opportunities your body has to talk back. As you do slightly longer events, you get better and better at sweet-talking your body into things. For me, having only one gear makes this conversation simpler: you can either turn the pedals or not.

Reid, Ben, the allure of singlespeeds, and some gentle nudging from Heather all led me to Boggs. Put on by the fine folks at Bike Monkey Magazine (thanks Carlos!), this is a top-tier “unsanctioned” event. New for this year was an “enduro” format, with a hillclimb Friday evening (~10-12 minutes, full-gas), the 8-hour race Saturday, and a “super D” Sunday. Don’t ask me how results were calculated for the enduro, you can learn that on the Bike Monkey website (www.bikemonkey.net/events). For me, it didn’t really matter: I was the only one silly enough (brave enough?) to enter the whole event in the “Pro Singlespeed” category.

Here’s the lowdown on the race:

Hillclimb: I started with the “Pro Open” men (geared bikes). The fire road we were on quickly got so steep that going fast enough to turn my 32-17 ratio meant that I rode away from the other guys (while trying to breathe out my eyes). Also, it felt good to know that getting dropped in all the P/1 stage races actually has added to my fitness level. First win of the MTB season.

8-Hour: staying out of the dust was motivation enough to line up on the front row, so I tried to. After everyone backed their way into position in front of us (ahem, Levi, I’m talking to you…), I had to settle for third row. It was good enough though, and I was able to make my way through traffic on the first climb and start the singletrack section in a decent position. I also didn’t blow up, which is key when you have almost a full shift of work yet to do. Unfortunately, endurance mountain bike racing isn’t that exciting to summarize. The next 7.5 hours consisted of eating enough, drinking enough, and fighting the ever-loudening voice inside that told me to slow down. Luckily, the gear I’d chosen didn’t let me. I finished in 8 hours 11 minutes, completing about 95 miles and 12k feet of climbing. I’d crashed twice, and my arms were sorer than my legs. I’d inhaled enough dust to frighten a dustbowl Oklahoma farmer, but I set the best time of the day.

Super-D: with arms I could barely lift and a desire not to make another trip to CVS for tegaderm, I lined up in baggie shorts and a flannel shirt. The good mountain bikers put up to 3 minutes into me in a 20 minute effort, but I stayed upright. I also learned how much time I stand to gain if I learn how to actually steer a mountain bike. I’ve got a little work to do.

So that’s the quick recap. Really fun race, great people, and a couple of good results. The confidence on the dirt is going up, and I’ll see if I can keep this rolling as the season goes on. Reid and Ben might be right, and I might be onto something with this whole mountain biking thing.

Ok, I’m 4 minutes over time here at the coffee shop. I need to run home, get the laundry bag, pick up our laundry, and then return home, shower, and head down to The Mission to meet some friends for dinner. If you’ve read this far, I’m impressed and grateful. Hope it wasn’t a waste of time.

#wordsonly