It's just 1 week until nationals now and I'm in the middle of my tapper period. It's so hard for me to tapper, because I really really love to train, so having extra days off and more recovery time drives me a bit nuts, I find myself day dreaming not about racing, but about what I want to try for the next strength phase that I'll start shortly after nationals, sheesh.

On a break from work today I got thinking about how cool it would be for reviewing race tactics and such to race with a helmet cam. So I got looking around and they're starting to get pretty small and less expensive. The one that looks like the best bang for the buck is the Oregon Scientific ATC 2K, which is a bit bulky to wear on a helmet at 9.3 x 9.4 x 2.9 inches but it can be found for as cheap as $75. One from Twenty20 that is coming out later this month is only 95mm X 53mm X 34mm, but will retail for $349 http://www.vholdr.com/shoot.php.

Today I hooked up with my buddy Brain for some motor pacing. It's been soooo long since I've been on the motor other then during a few Keirin races, I had forgotten just how much damn fun it is to come around the motor at over 42 mph... too bad it was soo damn hot, after the 3rd effort I thought I was going to die and the 4th was even worse.

Watching the AZ track scene grow over the past few years has been fun, given that we don't yet have a track in Arizona it's some what hard to get a lot of people to give the track a try, but every year the turn out to the AZ track championships in San Diego has improved and this year was very good, more people then ever and we're getting more riders moving up the categories. We really do need a track soon. Rumor has it that we're very close to having a bond measure in Pima county to get one, so hopefully in an election or to residents of Pima county will have the opportunity to vote for AZ getting a track!

Bill Egan was kind enough to share a few pictures of the event.

Ed White shared some photo's of last Friday's sprinting action up at alpenrose... http://www.flickr.com/photos/ewwhite/sets/72157601216280994/. (I'm the fat kid in green). Thanks Ed!

Oh ya, and check out some of his beats. It's mostly house, even though he may say he's a has been some of it's pretty damn good in my opinion.

While racing up at Alpenrose last Friday I got talking with a cool guy from Chicago named Ed, among several things that we talked about he mentioned that one of my favorite sprinters (Stephen Alfred) who I've had the pleasure of being beaten by several times over the years, who was also one of the nicest guys that I've ever met on the track got banned for 8 years for failing drug tests for banned substances! WTF Stephen?!? I'm sure he's still a nice guy, but I am very very disappointed.

In a climate of other air lines increasing their fees for taking a bike on a flight I just sumbled accross Southwest's bagage prices.. http://www.southwest.com/travel_center/baggage.html, seems at some point over the last year or so they dropped their bike charge down to $50!

How do we get our society away from being so dependent on and wasteful of natural resources that pollute our environment? Far too many Americans drive their cars(or worse yet SUV) alone everyday instead of using the many options that we have (bus, train, car pool, bike, telecommute)? And if they won't, how do we get them to respect those of us who do instead of yelling, honking, throwing things and occasionally hitting us with their vehicles (and usually not stopping..) when we ride our bikes instead of driving?

It's funny how in life things that are totally natural and normal for some people are seen as being weird and strange by others. Take for example coding in a social environment while enjoying a nice beer or three... such as in the bar at a conference. I can't picture going to a Sakai conference with out having at least a couple nights of doing such, especially when Steve Githens is around.

It makes me so sad to come back and see so many of my fellow Americans who are so desperately out of shape and unhealthy and don't care. It really stands out when you go from a rather healthy culture and then come back to our high stress, out of shape, extra large soda pop drinking, deathly afraid of exercise, wasteful, lazy culture where people get yelled at, flipped off and have things thrown at then for ridding a bike instead of being part of the problem. What's with that? When and why did we get so backwards?