Liberalism and Democracy

I didn't start this blog to be about politics. I'd rather it be about fun things, however, now seems to be a good time to give a little rant about politics.

I am tired of it quite frankly. In case you haven't seen the news, Wisconsin has had ongoing protests at the Capitol for an entire 14 days. Yes, 14 days. The controversy stirs over the collective bargaining "rights" for public employees. It also stirs about a proposed increase contribution by public employees, which include teachers, to 5.8% contribution to their own pension, and an increase to 12.6% toward their health insurance. All have been met with extreme outrage by, most notably teachers, and public employee unions. In Wisconsin, if you are a public employee you are required to contribute to your union. No choice, they take the money out of your paycheck without you having an option.

Wisconsin is a big union state. A majority, if not all, of the contributions to Democrat political campaigns is done by unions. The largest union in the state is the teacher's union, I believe, not entirely sure though. Either way, the unions are a big contributor to the Democrat party. If you know anything about me I can't stand the Democrat party. But, each month $36 is removed from my paycheck under the guise of "Union dues." I am smart enough to know this goes directly, well maybe indirectly, to some democrat somewhere. I'd like that to not happen.

Anyway, back to the controversy. The first 6 days of this protest was put on by the teachers. Literally, classes and schools were closed so teachers could go to Madison to protest. Seriously. They then claimed it was "all about the children." Yes, those all important children who are NOT IN SCHOOL LEARNING! Eventually this protest became a national story and so now all the big union bosses are encouraging those protests to continue. All the while, they claim to agree to the increase in contributions for the public employee. They don't agree about the collective bargaining. Oh, I should mention, they are still able to bargain about their wage, just not the health insurance or other benefits.

A vote on this measure, which the Governor says will help to close a budget deficit, was supposed to happen about 3 weeks ago, but couldn't because the Democrat state senators who don't agree with the bill, fled the state. Got up and left, went to Illinois and are refusing to come back to work. They too have said they agree with the contributions part of the bill, but, they apparently don't agree with something else and they aren't necessarily saying what. If you are any kind of smart, you can gather they don't agree with the collective bargaining part because: They are democrats, they get money from unions and if collective bargaining and mandatory union membership is ended, they won't get as much money from the union because people like me may choose to not be in the union.

Yes, a long story, however, there is something troubling about all of it. On November 2nd, 2010, the State of Wisconsin elected a Republican governor and gave a majority of control back to the Republicans in both houses of the State Congress. 14 democrats, who choose not to go to work, are nullifying the election because they don't agree with the bill and don't want it to be voted on because they know it will pass. Does this not seem ridiculous to anyone else? Democrats can do whatever they please, vote on controversial bills at 2am on a weekend so no one will notice, and Republicans were there, yet, when they no longer have power and don't agree they just run away? Is that democracy?

Teachers claiming they can't do their jobs well enough because they might not be able to collectively bargain about their insurance and sweet benefits? Really? Your ability to teach hinges on just that alone? Seems kind of weak if you ask me.

Democracy in American starts with elections. If you don't vote, you don't have a voice. Unfortunately with voting, the majority wins and obviously, not everyone likes the majority. However, if you don't allow the majority to do what they were elected to do, you are silencing the voices of those who voted for that majority.

The mind of a democrat is confusing. They don't seem to understand that tax money is money that comes from other people and not from the government at random. The "give me what I deserve" idea in this country is terrible and is clearly on display. When 10% of the wage-earners in the country pay 70% of the taxes, something is a little wrong, yet these people always go back to any kind of tax break being something to help the rich. Why not? They pay the most taxes!

I don't understand and never will, but, it would be nice if all these people would just go home and back to their jobs. I am guessing though, they don't have jobs and are probably collecting unemployment.

La Hacienda

Well, after a long wait, I finally was able to put up some pictures of my house for your viewing pleasure. Here is some explanation of the photos, I am sure you can probably figure them out for yourself though.

The first picture is the outside of the house. It is a nice place to be sure. I enjoy living here and the neighborhood is quite incredible. There are a lot of nice people, most of whom have families with smaller kids. I am sure there will be plenty of trick or treater's this Halloween. The next picture is a picture of the living room from the front door. The couch you see is the first purchase Amanda and I made together. Being the giving person she is, she felt she needed to get me something as a housewarming gift. We decided on that particular sectional after lots of sitting on a lot of different couches and furniture.

The next picture is another picture of the living room, looking toward the kitchen. The kitchen is nothing spectacular. It will eventually be renovated. The renovation project will consist of the removal of a few walls to open the kitchen and living room up. It is being postponed in order to get some insulation in the attic. The next picture is of the breezeway. I think this could be a pretty awesome spot with a few updates. Updates are simply a matter of will, imagination, money and time. So, for now it will remain as it is. As you are looking at the picture, the garage is to the left and the kitchen is to the right.

The picture after the breezeway is of the "office" or other bedroom. The couch has a pull out sleeper, so it can function as a guest room if need be. I don't anticipate having too many guests, but, if you are interested, there is a bed. The picture after that is my bedroom. It is considerably larger than what I had at my apartment. The best part of being in this house, is that I can lay on a couch that I have plenty of room on and my feet aren't in the kitchen while I am laying on the couch in the living room!

After the bedroom is the camping corner in the basement. Nothing too spectacular to talk about there. After that is the attic. It is pretty open as you can see, and there is zero insulation in there. Which could explain why the previous owners had a budget with WE Energies of $180/month. They also had three kids and a few dogs. Alright, the dogs probably didn't contribute to the high utility bill, but the kids probably did. This attic has definite potential. Depending on my career and future plans, this could become a "master suite" type deal. Time will tell. There is definite potential, this is for certain.

The last two pictures are back down in the basement in the area commonly known as "The Lab." I can't take credit for this term of the area where one keeps his bicycles, it comes from a teammate, the dentist. It really is just the area where I keep my bikes, helmets and shoes. There are a few clothing items, and once the front closet is gone (part of the kitchen renovation) there will probably be a few jackets and such down there, but for now, just bikes. I suppose I may also have to get a washer and dryer, but for now, I enjoy going to mom and dads.

Well, that is all, enjoy the pictures and hopefully you'll get to see it in person at some point in time.

Peace all!

AB

Fixes, fixes and more fixes

Since I last wrote to you, I have had several items I have needed to fix. Well, you can probably call them repairs essentially. Though, fix and repair is probably the same damn thing. I digress.

First, the garage. I returned from work one night last week, I think it was either Friday or Saturday, I don't remember for sure. I pulled into the garage and as usual, I closed the garage door from in my car using the remote. Suddenly I heard a very loud bang, similar to a gun shot. I was a little nervous as you could imagine. I got out of my car and noticed one of the side springs of my garage was missing. I thought it was a little odd, and sure enough, the spring had broke. The biggest part was resting nicely on the step up into the house. The other part was still attached to the cable. This would later turn into a bigger deal than I thought. As it was, the garage door was now sitting crooked in the opening. Thankfully they make replacement parts for things like garages, and I was able to get a couple new springs at Home Depot. They came with cables in them and I thought these were the safety cables, I would later find out I was wrong.

After trying to figure out how I was going to attach the old pulley to the new spring and coming to the realization it wouldn't work, I decided I would need to get replacement pulleys too. So, I went to Ace Hardware because apparently Home Depot doesn't carry such items. At least, I couldn't find them on the website and it was easier to go to Ace than to Home Depot on that particular day. And, Ace is the helpful hardware place.

Finally got the new pulleys and went home to try and finally install them. I was able to successfully get the pulleys on the cable and attach them to the new springs. The next hurdle was getting the spring onto the garage door frame so they could do their job. Unfortunately, the springs were about 4 inches short of attaching directly to the frame. Here is where I figured out the cables were a necessary part of the whole installation process. They were to be used to attach the spring to the garage door frame. After some careful installation the garage door finally worked again.

Now, the garage door was broken for about 3 days. During that time, I had gone out for a ride on the cross bike with my dad. I took him to this small park in Brookfield to help him with his mounting/dismounting and showed him some drills to work on that particular skill. After, we were planning on doing some riding in Greenfield park. I have a loop I made up myself to follow and it is fairly challenging, but nothing too serious. We were about halfway through a lap and going through some trees in a field when all of a sudden I heard this serious noise. It sounded like I had run over a stick and for some reason thought the stick was stuck in my chain. Definitely wasn't the case.

I looked down and my chain was literally in my rear wheel. No good. My derailluer hanger was torn in half and the derailluer was just hanging on the ground. Can't ride the bike like that. Thankfully my dad was with and he rode home and got the car and was nice enough to give me a ride back to the Hacienda. After realizing my derailluer was actually bent beyond repair and getting a new hanger and derailluer, the cross bike is back up in action.

All in all, it was a few days of spending a lot of money to get make some serious repairs. This home ownership thing is cool, but it seems like almost everyday something new goes wrong. Either way though, it is fun and I have a new couch to hang out on and write this awesome and highly entertaining posts...alright, so maybe not so awesome or entertaining, but, you did read all the way to this point, so it had to be slightly intriguing.

I swear, I will put pictures of the hacienda up...just not today. Sometime soon though, I promise.

CX or Cyclocross

As many well know, there is another form of bicycle racing. Well, there are several forms of bike racing in all reality; road, mountain, track, downhill, etc. The often forgot form is that of cyclocross. It is getting a lot of coverage this time of year on places like Cyclingnews.com and maybe even Velonews.com. I am not sure, haven't been to Velonews in some time.

Either way, I plan to rock the 'crosss racing this season. Lets not take that too far, I should clarify "rock." All I simply mean is I will be on my cyclocross bike and doing some of the racing. The "rock-ing" part will hopefully come with time, but, it remains to be seen.

Anyway, I rode two days in a row. Yesterday I went for a little warm-up/technique ride. I just practiced the art of dismounting and mounting the bike quickly. Much to my surprise, I remembered what I had learned and didn't completely suck or harm myself in the process of practicing. After a few loops in a local park doing my mounts/dismounts I went to Greenfield Park to do some laps.

I have no idea what my course was, I just made it up as I went. I tried to ride hard, and I think I accomplished that feat. I came home and went and had sushi with Amanda. I think I prefer salmon over tuna, but, depends on the dish.

Today, a teammate of mine, Mantel; aka The doctor; aka Nation; aka Chris, went to Washington Park. Home of homicides and the annual Velotrocadero Halloween Cyclocross Race. If you didn't figure it out, it is the race my team puts on. We essentially just went to start riding the course and putting in a rut. Overall, the course is bumpy as hell right now. To the point you feel like your teeth will fall out of your head.

Our ride was decent. We did a hot lap and I was full on red zone for the entire time. I would say I felt ok, not great, but not terrible. I managed to break my saddle right in half. I believe this happened on said hot lap, but not sure. Either way, I now need a new seat. I am not sure if it broke because I am grossly overweight (not likely) or because I have insane raw power (also not likely). The more likely explanation is that it just broke because it was it's time. After all, the seat is probably 4 or 5 years old.

Well, time to go to work. I've accomplished much today the 22nd day of September. The day is young however, I must go serve and protect.

AB

US Pro Road Championships = Awesome (Part 2)

Sunday was the road race. The day started with a fairly large breakfast at the Holiday Inn Express. It was a continental breakfast, with plenty to choose from. I went with cereal, a bagel with peanut butter, banana and something else that I can't remember right now. Either way, it was too much, as I would later find out.

Lisa and I decided to go for a run, and it was clearly not long enough after breakfast. I was still stuffed to the gills and running with what feels like a stuffed, distended stomach sucks. We ran pretty fast and went 5 miles. It was pleasant. The trail we ran on was called the Swamp Rabbit trail, kind of a funny name, but a very nice place to run.

Once we got back to the hotel and I was able to take care of the gastrointestinal issues I was experiencing, we got ready to go to the road race. Our hotel was right at the end of what you might call the "downtown" area. Nicely done Mom! So, it was just a simple walk from the hotel to the race course, well, the part that went through downtown.

We got to the course and started figuring out a good place to sit. We had a map, and we were trying to figure out where to sit. There was a spot on the course where the riders would come through twice on each of the circuits through the city. We figured out where this spot was and went to get a coffee and snack down by the start/finish. This race had a pretty sweet set up. There were these VIP tents that had TV's in them and there was a big screen TV by the start/finish line.

After our snack, we waited by the start/finish line as the riders were coming through to sign in. We saw Matthew on his way to sign in and he came back so we could talk to him before the race. We also got to see some of the other guys riding to the sign in, like George Hincapie, Levi, Jason McCartney, Chris Horner and pretty much all the other guys!

After a quick word with Matthew, he got set to go as they were calling up the riders. We made our way to our spot to watch the beginning circuits. In the first few laps the main field was looking pretty relaxed. I am sure the first lap was mostly for the fans as they came by quite slow. There was a break right from the get go. The eventual winner came from this break, but, we wouldn't know that for some time. After the three circuits, they went out on the big loop which included 4 trips up Paris Mountain. I have no idea what the climb is like, but, it is roughly 2 miles long, averages 10% and I believe is close to 15% the last few kilometers. It isn't a piece of cake, this is for sure.

The breakaway started as 4, then quickly dwindled to 3. They were able to gain an advantage of close to 17 minutes. In bike racing, that is HUGE! There were various reasons for the huge gap, however, it would seem the most consistent reason was the fact there were no radios allowed in the race. Many people, well racers, have said this was the reason. There are some good aspects to not having radios, it brings racing back to the old school, however, things like this happen. Either way, Team Radioshack wasn't going to chase the break. Ben King, the eventual National Champion, rides for Trek Livestrong and will ride for Team Radioshack next year. There were other teams in the race though that could have chased...BMC, Garmin, etc. I initially thought Kelly Benefits should have chased, but, I see in the picture they had a guy in the break, which would mean they wouldn't chase.

Before the race, Lisa got a text from Matthew with the plan for the day. It went something like "Chris and Levi are protected riders, I am going to attack on the 3rd time up Paris." We were hoping to be able to see the TV, so after they went out on the circuits, we moved toward the start/finish line. The TV was showing the race, but, because of the break, they were only showing the break. Which was cool I guess. They did only have the one camera, and you can't just forget about the break.

The break stayed together for the first lap and a half. We later found out that the 2nd time up Paris Mountain, Ben King just rode away from his companions. Once he was on his own, he was still able to keep a good gap. Ben King continued to rock the course and apparently Team Radioshack's plan still went as scheduled. We were getting updates about what was going on from a lot of people, Lisa's parents, Eric and my buddy Luke. We were told Matthew attacked, got a gap, caught the two dropped breakaway guys and was closing in on Ben King. We later found out this was completely false.

We were confused when the group came through the city. First it was Ben King, about 6 minutes later the two dropped breakaway guys and shortly after that, the main field. Matthew was in the field and we were totally confused as to why. I had thought the plan had worked: other teams were forced to chase because Matthew went off the front, they would eventually catch Ben and it would leave room for Levi to attack on the last time up Paris Mountain and bring it home for the win. Not so, however.

After all was said and done, Ben King won with a super human effort. He was out from the get go, and was on his own for 50 miles! It was crazy hot and his ride was extremely gutsy and very impressive. Congrats to him!

After the race my family, Lisa and I got to meet Levi, Chris, Jose Acevedo and Jason McCartney. All very nice guys who are quite cool and seem to be some cool people to be around. I was pretty set after this point. I had hoped to meet Levi by the time we left so I was good to go. We went back to the hotel, I downloaded my pictures and we hung out for awhile.

A short while later Lisa got a text from Matthew inviting us to dinner with the team. What? Really? The team? Awesome! So, I decided I should take a shower and we got set to go. We walked down to the restaurant to meet them there. We got to the restaurant plenty early so they wouldn't have to wait for us. Eventually they got there and we went in.

I have to say, sitting at a table with the team was cool. Not only is it cool that my brother is part of the team, but, cool that we were able to see who he "works" with out of the "work" environment. It was a great time and I am very thankful for the fact we were able to be there with them. Thanks Matthew! I got to hear some pretty cool stories from Levi and found out that there is no one right way to set your cleats. I also learned that even pro cyclists have similar problems to what I have when I ride. Clearly, their problems are a little more important than mine, but, it is still interesting to listen. Ben showed up and we got to toast him and his win. He is a great guy and definitely a future talent.

All in all, the trip was very awesome. I was very happy to get to see my brother and hang out with him for a little while, as well as my sister-in law! It was an awesome time with the family too! I am extremely grateful to meet Jose, Levi, Chris and Jason as well as Ben King. All super cool guys!

It sucked to leave, mostly because I won't get to see Matthew and Lisa for awhile and I miss them. I won't miss the heat and humidity of South Carolina, this is for certain!

Picture 1: Matthew
Picture 2: Matthew and Lisa
Picture 3: The initial breakaway
Picture 4: Levi in the field
Picture 5: Matthew in the field
Picture 6: Ben King on the way to his win.