One way street.

My little sister is 6 years my junior and the baby of the family. As a result she has been taken care of her whole life and hasn't had to deal with some of the trivial things the rest of the world deals with. She's nearing 24 years old and still lives with my mom, going back to school for her second art degree, and in constant search for a boyfriend. She's talented, beautiful, smart - yet can be entirely selfish.

Today is just a small example of this behavior. A little background - I've been trying to get her to do something - go to the gym, climbing, drive down to Oregon to visit family, etc - and she's bailed on me each and every time. Yesterday I noticed she was wearing a nice pair of slacks - and I looked this morning for another pair I had that were identical to hers. Then I asked her about them earlier today and she said they're hers, but funny they were super long on her and were dragging on the ground more than before. I thought maybe those are mine - mixed up in the laundry from when our basement flooded and we used my mom's laundry for a week or so. She said she might find time to check later.

Then she came in and asked me what I was doing later today. Thinking she might ask me to go to the gym or something - I got my hopes up. But no, she wants me to install her fenders and tune up her bike. I told her I'd do it if she brings my pants back. Then she stormed off in a huff. "Geez!" I can't believe, like, someone would, like, make me do something for them when I just, like, asked them to do something for me! This is a one way street!

I love my sister but she can be self centered at times and likes to push people away. It's not fun to be around someone like that so when they start asking for favors without reciprocating .... I mean, I know she's my sister and all... but something has got to give every now and then.

Caution: the following story is not fictional!

I met Angela three years ago during my first year of cycling. She was helping the leader, Joyce, develop a women's cycling team. She was very inspiring - especially to someone like me, who was super eager to learn everything and anything about the sport. Angela had gotten into the sport later in life, similar to me, and had run with it from the gun. Three years later she was on a pro cycling team and attending NRC events. I thought she was amazing.

Well as it turns out, over the next three years of my cycling adventure, I would find out more than I wanted to know about Angela. At first I didn't see that she would use people to better herself in any way she could - I thought she was genuine and was in it for the affect you can have on new comers. But then as time passed, and the rumor mill of the peloton grew, so did Angela's reputation. I got straight up first degree burns from this a couple of times - as did other people who fell into her spider web of me, me, me talk.

The reason I bring this up - out of the blue she contacted me yesterday. She keeps a blog as well and I regularly check it to see what she's up to lately. As far as I knew she was gone to Europe and was going to be there a while. Funny, I received an email from her. Here's what it said:

What's up? How are ya? Jeremy said he saw you last friday. Were you racing? How is it going? Are you racing this week?

I have a huge favor, if you have time. I am wondering if you would be able to help me w/ timing. I am doing a 3k effort on Wed and need lap times. I'd like to do it before everyone shows up for racing.

I'd be happy to burn some of those WC Cds in retrun for this great favor!!! And, I'd be happy to return the favor any time.

Well, let me know what you think, I hope it's not asking too much.

Later Tater

Innocent enough - but I did not fail victim to her prey. Simply put, I'm busy today and don't want to make an unnecessary trip to the track. Sorry Charley, but it's time you found another sucker.

Note to self: Never join a board again!

Giving back to the community is important. It lets the society around you know that you care and want to establish something that will hopefully last a generation or two. But sometimes you run into a grumpy old fart who shouldn't be a part of something and they just need to severe their ties and call it quits.

For example, I'm on a board. We contracted some duties to be done through this grumpy fart who gets paid a pretty penny to do nominal tasks. He often complains that he's over worked and stretched too thin. He has a hard time delegating and thinks that every volunteer associated with our organization will in some way let him down. He has some serious control issues and yet is unwilling, now, to put in the time necessary to complete any of the tasks he is getting paid for. Yet, he hasn't performed at all on the short time I've been on the board and I'm wondering why we're paying him?

Rereading my post - I just had a light go off in my head. I've been able to avoid dealing directly with him up until this point and knew better than talking with him. Well suddenly he has thrown himself into my path -and I'm reacting to his negativity. I just need to remind myself to stay the hell away from his grumpy ass and all will be better.

Last week he announced he's stepping down. Suddenly, things started to get a little brighter. The gloom will be gone and we'll actually be able to start functioning without a constant pessimistic presence. Fantastic. We'll see what evolves as time goes on. My buddy thinks that the grumpy old fart won't be able to cut his ties and will come back to haunt us in some shape or form. Let's hope not.

Where's the team in I?

With great remorse I decided to be the one person out for the team time trial happening in a few weeks. I don't know why I did but no one else was willing to budge and I can't stand waiting in turmoil. Sometimes you have to take one for the team I suppose.

The more I think about it, the more pissed I am. WTF was I thinking?

Rant: nothing to rant about!

Apparently my life is going pretty good right now because I have nothing to bitch about. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Nope.

Airplane Flying

You'd think that the early morning flight would prevent strange things from happening. But I suppose what happened really wasn't strange - but more so just the ordinary happening really really early in the morning.

I left on a 6:30 am flight headed for home on Sunday morning. Most of the plane fell back to sleep - all except the two little brats and their father in the seat behind me. The kids were probably 7 and 9 - and not too bright if you ask me. And of course, because their little munch kin legs couldn't reach the ground they instead decided to kick my seat. At first I thought maybe their father would tell them to stop, but no. Twenty minutes later and at the end of my fuse I turned around and told the little shit to stop kicking.

Did that stop him? No. Next time I have a little kid in the seat in front of me, I'm going to kick the shit out of their seat. That'll show them.

In all reality though - who gives a shit? I just needed to vent it.

Grainy photos

It is so nice to have a therapeutic blog. It helps all of my angst and pent up feelings come out - and let the world know how I feel without really cluing them in.

And now, without further audieu - my rant of the day.

Why is it when you do a sporting event and photographers are there taking photos and you are suckered into buying them, they turn out to be worse than a camera phone picture? You'd think if something was trying to take photos professionally, they would at least let you know the proper resolution for ordering a photo. But not this one. Not only were the photos super grainy, but they were also labeled incorrectly. How ridiculous.

I sent them an email letting them know how disappointed I was - and have not heard back yet. They're probably thinking, gotcha SUCKA! You just paid $46.00 for grainy mislabeled photos. Ha! Well guess what? I think I might just contact the BBB and let them know what a shady operation your running.

Mofos.