Soho single style and why I couldnt work in foodservice.

New bars, new brake levers, new chain and single speed cog setup. The Soho frame has standard dropouts like a regular road bike, but it also has a eccentric bottom bracket which allows you to adjust the tightness of the chain. took it out for a spin the other night and it was a really comfortable ride. The longer wheelbase and relaxed geometry makes for a smooth ride and with the new bars and a couple adjustments the riding position is a lot more like my cannondale road bike.

Last night I went up to a local eatery and sat at the bar shooting the bull and watching a LA car chase live on CNN with the bartender when this guy comes in a sits down a couple seats down. After ordering my food, he started ticking and making noises. Either he had a nervous twitch or tourettes syndrome. He ordered a beer and then ordered some pot roast. I have had the pot roast here before and it is pretty good eats. His salad came out real fast and then his dinner came out a couple minutes later. He stirred it up a little took one bite and slid the plate back across the bar saying "Ugh this stuff is ice cold!" The bar tender took it back immediately and asked for another plate to be made up. He brought the original back and put it in the bus boys tub and told the customer "I'm sorry, but the manager is back there fixing you a new dish right now." The customer started making crude jokes about not wanting extra sauce or anything from a pissed off cook. The bartender kept telling him, dont worry the manager is taking care of it. They bring out the next plate and it is steaming hot. The guy stirs it up, doesnt even take a bite this time and say "This shit wont do, all this is is stringy beef. Pot roast should be in chunks." Mind you this is the way this dish is always served, and his first plate looked exactly like the first one. The bartender took it back and called the manager. The manager came over and took the dinner of his ticket and apoligized. The guy told him all this food was crap and he was just hungry and really wanted a steak. The manager asked him what he wanted and he would go back and fix it. The guy said he didnt want to eat here anymore and the manager left. THEN the guy sits there for the next 5 minutes busting the bartenders chops about he really wanted to order something, but he knew the cooks would just screw with his order and he didnt want anything extra in the food, if you know what I mean. At this point I finished my grub threw the poor bartender a fat tip and wished him luck.

French Railroad coming thru.....

If you dont know who Floyd Landis is, stop reading now, unless you like Inspector Clueso (sp?) movies. I think the old Inspector would be much more adept at handling the whole Floyd Landis situation that anyone currently involved. From changing rules to fit their needs, to righteous indignation, to a crusader win at all cost mentality, to men actiong like 11 year old boys who are left out of a game and then do everything they can to drag everyone else down with them. I work in an industry that has mandatory hiring drug testing and monthly random drug teesting in effect to protect those who operate our equipment and those who share the road with them. If the companies we dealt with treated our business like the French LNDD lab, USADA, and the arbitration board has handled Floyd, there would not be a single truck driver available to haul a load anywhere in the United States. The negligence involved in leaked results, mishandled "re-testing", policy neglect, rules infractions, and personal rights violations is incredible and would make most people give up and move on to another way of life. But they have picked on someone in Floyd who is physically tough (broken hip and all) and mentally tough enough to win the Tour de France and if he were the type of person to roll over and give up he would never have even started the toughest race in the world to begin with. I am glad that they are holding these hearings publicly so that the light of truth will shine on all the dark dusky corners of this sordid affair. I am all for playing fair and having a drug free sport, but I am not in favor or fever pitched win at any and all cost mentalities of the people in charge of protecting a safe and equal sport.

Do it yourself crab legs.....

Had to roll to the big city of Orlando this Saturday to pickup my cousin at the airport on the far side of town. Luckily this let me stop at Petty's Meat Market. It is a haven of good food and good meat counter. I found some King Crab legs on sale (cousins request), some Petty's own turkey sausage (with sun dried tomatoes, olive oil, garlic and secret spices), a nice hunk of Parmegan Reggiano cheese, 2 nice bottles of Pinot Noir, some Whippets chocolate cookies, and some roasted garlic mustard. I am glad I dont live next door due to the $170 I dropped in there. But it was good. I took the crab legs, split them in half, brushed them with olive oil, butter, salt and pepper and broiled quickly to heat them up and they were pretty good. Between my cousin, my mom and I we wiped out 4 pounds worth. It is nice to have little hideaways like Petty's around. I cant wait till tomorrow to try out the Turkey sausage for brunch. The other nice thing is that they usually have a couple bottles of wine open for sampling when you go in and they always have a keg of beer tapped for "samples" while you shop (there is a little note on top please asking everyone to limit themselves to 2 "samples" but I didnt see any beer police on patrol. Very friendly place, very cool selections.

While I was in town mom had me stop by and check out verandah funiture for her while she is on the mend from knee surgery. The place had some real nice selections and some really good stuff, which they were very proud of. You could tell how much they liked it by the price on the tag.

The thrd stop was at the bike shop to pick up some tools for the do it myself personality. I picked up a real nice heavy duty cable and housing cutter and a spiffy Topeak Chain robot (link breaker). I am aiming to open my own shop one day once I have all the tools I need.

Tax day....grrrrrr......

I am officially tired of being single and having disposable income and having to dispose of it on taxes to the government. Suzy can back me up on this, she has commented before on the training of the welfare class. But when you consider all the blessings we have in this country, it is a small price to pay compared to any other ceveloped country.

So to get over my BLEH tax feeling, I did a little e-commerce retail therapy. No more ordering at the local shop and waiting for it to come in, you just click and drag and input the numbers and a few days later the New Age Santa Claus dressed in UPS brown delivers, just like magic. Fortunately I am able to resist the urge of flipping thru the Allen Brothers catalogue that showed up at my work address today. They have some MIGHTY fine looking beef in that catalogue. I can recommend the 4each 20 ounce bone in Ribeyes. They are a little pricey at $139, but they are top shelf quality and they grill up mighty fine. MMMMM. www.allenbrothers.com if you have the means I highly recommend it.

ps they have free steakburgers or steak dogs with any order over $99.

Nothing like pimping the meat.

Anyways, the bike bling is in the mail and I am eagerly awaiting its arrival, I will hopefully have a work on bike thrash session and get it all assembled this weekend. My cousin is coming in to town to visit with the parents this weekend. Actually the parent. One is going to the great white north for the weekend and the other just had a new knee installed at the ortho floor of the local hospital. She is recupping and taking visitors. Great doctor and the surgery went very well.

I am eagerly awaiting the release of Hot Fuzz this weekend at the movie theaters. It is a followup by the same creators and cast of Shawn of the Dead, which was really funny. It hits theaters this Friday and I will be in Orlando , so I can see it at a real theater with stadium seats, Dolby THX, and maybe even a beer if I can con my cousin into driving.

SOHO under the knife.

I havent tinkered with either of my bikes wince I did the crank transplant and put on a new Dura-Ace on the road bike. Now I am casting a wandering eye on the SOHO city bike and two things are on the list. New handle bars-brake levers, and single speeding it. It has a single chainring crank on the front already, but it comes with a 9 speed setup on the back. I will for the short term just remove the deraileur, pick a gear ratio I like, shorten the chain to fit and snug it up with the eccentric bottom bracket. Once I am sure about the gear ratio I want I will buy some spacers and an adapter and take all the other extra 8 gears off. Up front this will mean I can take off the gear selector, and cable and put on a new handlebar with some sleek new brake levers. I ordered up a Soma Fabrications Bullhorn Urban pursuit bar. Fancy name for a cromed bullhorn bar. I also ordered some bar end brake levers that will allow me to run the cables under the tape or inside the bar. The only thing I have liked about the current bars that came with the bike are the looks and they have a gap in the middle that allow you to hang a U-lock thru them. I dont own a U0lock and I dont leave this bike where I need to lock it up. The one thing I really dont like is how uncomfortable they are. There is only one real hand position and it a few degrees off comfortable. Hopefully the bull bars will let me tape up more of an area and give a little more comfort. This will also knock a little weight off the bike with the removal of a shifter and derailleur and make it sleeker. Picks will follow once the UPS man delivers....

Blog on blog.....

What a week. Friends in the hospital being tougher than I think I could be after tackling an SUV and living to tell about it. Old home visits that bring back nostalgia and a yearning for the "good old days". Friends helping family by taking on some extra family members. Oh, and my new favorite place in town, The Cuban sammich king.

Our thoughts are with our friend in Atlanta. She is recovering from a scooter-SUV accident and she had a bounce back hospital vivist. But she is tough and determined, and has a great fomily around her, so I have faith she will get better.

I was reading another friends blog about visiting the old home area, and the influx of formula box stores. I am as guilty of patronizing them as anyone else, but it almost seems like creativity is not given a chance against the onslaught of cookie cutter mass merchandising. Does that mean I am getting older and crankier when my mind rails against these things or is a yearning for the past, thinking about the good old days? Actually when it comes to disposable income shopping (bikes, hobbies, books) I really like finding the independent dealer that has knowledge, enthusiasm, and a real interest in the subject on his side.

Some other friends have taken in a dog on the short term. I admire them because they already have 4 dogs in the pack at thier house and you might think the jump from 4 to 5 is not a large jump, but fitting a new piece into the puzzle is always a challenge. New rules, old rules, new habits, old habits, I wish them luck and a little calmness in the near future.

I walked across the downtown circle the other afternoon to check out the sammich (I spell it that way on purpose) shop. I have noticed it being open at extended ours for our sleepy little town and wanted to see what up. It is owned and run by an older Cuban gentleman, and when I walking in I immediatly flashed to the Soup Nazi episodes of Seinfeld. He is very deliberate in everything he does and he looks like he is about to snap at you at any second. But growing up in Florida and knowing some Cuban people from my past, I know this is just a cultural persona that is mainly a shell exterior. Below it they are all great people. I ordered up a grilled chicken sammich and it was fantastic. this goes back to the comment above about enthusiasm, knowledge and interest in the job. The shop is a tiny little shop with a counter for 8 people and the grill area. You can watch him fix the food and you get the impression that he knows what he is doing and everything he does is to the same exacting standard. From sammiches to the cuban coffe shots to the handcut plantains, it is all good. So now I have two places with great food withing 200' of the apartment. This is a very good thing.

Man, this has been the king of 7 day work weeks.

And I have fit it all in to 5. I covered someone else's desk while he was out Monday and Tuesday so I did my job and his job also. So if I do 2 of his and 5 of mine I count it as 7 days total. No wonder I am so tired. But we had a good month. My one account is hitting on all cylinders, and the other one is doing better than expected. So I am happy, for the most part. The only downer is a couple minor accidents, and a couple loads that are normally no-brainers- turned into pain in the butters. But if you dont have rough weeks you dont appreciate the good ones when they come along. Hows that for Catholic reasoning.

I have missed riding the bike all week so far, but I will definitely get in a ride tomorrow afternoon and 2 days this weekend. Then I will cheerfully wave goodbye to all our northern snowbird visitors who will pack up the Monday after Easter and head north back to their homes at the northern end of I-75 and I-95. Buh BYE!!!!!!

Sometimes you just have to look in your own back yard.

I recently moved to a downtown apartment that is on the backside of a business building. There is a place called Sandy's on the Circle and it is a morning and lunch diner. Closed for dinner. They had a small space in the back that they rented and put in a small 6 seat bar and put in dinner seating for about 30 people. The windows are heavily tinted and there isnt a fancy sign and they are only open till 9pm so they are a little hard to notice. They only opened 7 weeks ago and in a small town like ours they are still making a name for themselves. Anyway to get to the point I had a bad day at work and went and had a decompression analysis beer with the supervisor that works for me. We went to the other new restaraunt in town (Roadhouse Grille), that has a good staff and good prices and it has been pretty busy. Our regular bartender served up drinks, but they never really push the food a lot. So after decompressing, I left without getting anything to eat. As I turned the corner to my apartment, I had a sudden flash to all the afternoons and evenings lately where I can smell these great smells coming from this little restaraunt next door. So I parked and went inside and there were 5 customers in there at 8:58 pm. I asked what time they closed and the bartender said 9pm. I was about to leave and she asked what I wanted. I told her just a steak to go for dinner. She said to grab a seat and give her 10 minutes and she would round something up. I was about to refuse, because one rule I live by is never go in to a restaraunt at closing time and make the cook mad by making him stay late. It is a good rule to live by. But the bartender was cheerful and she put the order in and when the cook stuck his head out and asked what sides I wanted I told him whatever he had readily available. So I 15 minutes and one beer later I took home (around the corner and up the flight of stairs) a flat iron steak, baked potato, and green peas in a cream sauce with little tiny bits of ham in them. The steak was a perfect medium, the potato had some really good seasoning on the outside, and the peas were fresh and excellent. I was really amazed at the quality of the food from this little whole in the wall place behind the cafe. Especially since the same people own the cafe and the restaraunt in back. I have been in the cafe for breakfast and the pancakes were made from batter that was overmixed and they came out tough, the sausage was OK, and the home fry potatoes were not seasoned at all and they were really dry. So it is a real treat to have this little haven of goodness right out my front door. I can actually go out to the railing and call and order down to the waitress when they take a break outside, but then I couldnt sit at the bar and enjoy a beer or some wine.