Thank God it’s Friday

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Tomorrow brings Omloop Het Volk. Sunday is Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne. I’m about to go full blown drunk classics crazy up in this piece. And that means fries, mayonnaise and beer. But not necessarily in that order.

Is Leadville about to go bye-bye?

More than 1 billion gallons of water – enough to fill 1,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools – is backed up in abandoned mine shafts and a drainage tunnel in the mountains above Leadville, and officials worry it could blow out and cascade through the historic town when the heavy snowpack melts.

…County officials have been nervously monitoring rising water pressure inside the mine shafts for about two years. They declared their state of emergency Wednesday out of fear that this winter’s above-average snowpack could cause a catastrophic blowout of water.

“It could come out, we just don’t know where,” Schaefer said. “We’re seeing changes and we’re very concerned. We’re not crying ‘Chicken Little’ here.”

The Environmental Protection Agency raised concerns about the situation in letters sent to the Bureau of Reclamation, which has been assessing the concerns.

“Due to the unknown condition of the tunnel blockage and the large volume of water behind the blockages, we are concerned that an uncontrolled, potentially-catastrophic release of water to the Arkansas River from (the tunnel) is likely at some point,” said one EPA letter sent in November.
Check it: www.azcentral.com

Jesus. What’d ya think a billion gallons of water would do for that town? Nothing good, I can tell you that much.

More on the subject:

From: Stephen
Subject: Leadville CO
BigJon,
Leadville’s in the news and not in a good way. I’d seen an earlier story on
this but wanted to wait for the follow up. Something the readership (devoted
following? ;\) might want to aware of…
www.nytimes.com

I have a devoted following? Who knew…

I’m serious; this is a quote: “It’s not about the bike sales.”

That from Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, who plans in May to open a bike shop, commuting center, training facility and cafe in a 1950s-era building at the northwest corner of Fourth and Nueces streets.

…Armstrong predicted that Mellow Johnny’s will be “the coolest bike shop in the world,” but said he’s not trying to put any other Austin bike shop out of business. “It’s not us versus them,” he said. “We’re all about the cycling culture.”
Check it: www.austin360.com

Good thing they’ve got the “cycling culture”. Because bike shops are like fucking cash machines just churning out dollar bills. Nothing smaller than a twenty at that.

Part of the basement level will include a Carmichael Training Systems facility, where cyclists can do power-based training.

Does that mean CTS is going to open a new regional training center?

In entirely unrelated news:

Let us bow our heads in thanks for atheists
The re-awakening of atheism in America is going to make for some very interesting times. Leaders of the Christian Right have spent years trying to cast themselves as the voiceless victims in a secular society, but the scapegoating is over.

…There’s a new dialogue beginning between mainline believers and atheists, and among atheists themselves. While militant New Atheists fight on intellectual turf to replace dogma with rational thinking, humanists encourage believers and nonbelievers to get the moral work of peace, social justice and saving the environment done together.

Right-wing Christianity shook the atheist community out of its complacency with its relentless rhetorical badgering and attempts to co-opt the country. A missing piece of the real picture of America is finally being restored. Amen to that.
Check it: www.kansascity.com

From Atheists to full blown Satan Hell Fury!

Homemade Flame Thrower
Like any red-blooded, masculine man of the male gender, I love PVC weaponry. You should too. If the concept of heading on down to the local Home Depot and transforming $100 worth of random pipe bits into a killing machine doesn’t appeal to you, you’re a goddamn pansy. Also, you’re probably sane and will live significantly longer than I will. Nonetheless you disgust me, and I take comfort in the knowledge that your obituary will be nowhere near as humorous as mine. Check it: mirror.linnwood.org/flamethrower

I love that kid like a brother.

An enraged man riding a lawnmower smashed a homeowner’s window, rode into traffic on a busy street and tried to ram into a police officer, according to the Columbian newspaper.
… Soon, the suspect rode away and crossed Fourth Plain Boulevard on the mower – moving about 4 miles per hour — as police pursued him.

An officer ordered him to stop but the suspect instead swerved the mower and tried to run into the officer, who managed to get out of the way. Check it: kgw.com

Can you imagine the video from that one? Must look like Reno 911.

Life just got interesting for a few locals:

Pounds of pot, mushrooms, narcotics seized in Flagstaff bust
The Northern Arizona Street Crimes Task Force (METRO) served two search warrants today following an investigation into marijuana cultivation operations.

… Seized during the warrant searches was a large quantity of horticultural equipment, growing plants and packaged marijuana. There were approximately 150 plants and 13 pounds of packaged marijuana. In addition there were pounds of mushrooms, a quantity of LSD, Ecstasy and cocaine. Also seized was approximately 22,000.00 dollars in cash. The street value on the drugs was estimated at about 135,000.00 dollars.

Agents arrested Scott Cheshire, 32, in Mountainaire. His charges included possession of marijuana for sale, cultivation of marijuana, possession of narcotic drugs, possession of dangerous drugs, and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Arrested at the Government Prairie location was Bradley Berquist, 27. He was booked for possession of marijuana for sale, cultivation of marijuana, possession of narcotics, possession of dangerous drugs and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Check it: www.azfamily.com

I don’t recognize the names, but it’s a small town. It’s never more than a few degrees of separation. Especially if you’re talking about Bensy. It’s never more than three steps from that guy.

From: Ted
Subject: Re: What do you want me to do?
Customer walks in, ask if I have any ideas about what he should do….like maybe call the manufacturer to see if they think it’s still safe….I suggested “yeah, give ’em a call…see what they say”. Got a photo before he got out the door though.

Shit, I’d run it.

This shit ain’t exactly recent, but it’s no ones fault but my own – this email has been sitting around for fucking ever. I save some from time to time that I want to post, but then never seem to just hit the “publish” button and get on with it.

This is one of those.

From: Ralph
Subject: Bikers down
Jonny,
Here is a short list from around my neck o’the woods….

mercurynews.com//ci_7986390?IADID…
hit and run

mercurynews.com//ci_7744805?IADID…
child walking bike in cross walk….

2/12/08: Cyclist given the right hook. A friend of my wife’s from high
school was hit last night by a driver pulling into a driveway who “didn’t
see him”. Helmet broken into four pieces. Other than that mostly unharmed.
Can’t recall the incident. No surprise there. I can’t find any report about
the collision. Too early for the paper of not important enough.

The down side is when we cyclists get hit we usually have memory loss from
the collision leaving only the driver to tell the story…..

Keep up the good work.
Ralph

“I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant
to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so
obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any
gentleman will deny it.”
John Stuart Mill

And, if you wonder as I did, there is a bit more to read about Mr. John Stuart Mill over at, of all places: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill .

And finally, just because it’s Friday:

Francis is a 20-year-old gentleman who was messing around with his girlfriend at approximately 1800 when he felt a pop and then had a significant swelling and discomfort to the shaft of his penis. The patient states the erection has subsided. He denies any blood from the urethral meatus. He also denies any abdominal discomfort or testicular injury during the accident.
Check it: ibrokemypenis.com

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About big jonny

The man, the legend. The guy who started it all back in the Year of Our Lord Beer, 2000, with a couple of pages worth of idiotic ranting hardcoded on some random porn site that would host anything you uploaded, a book called HTML for Dummies (which was completely appropriate), a bad attitude (which hasn’t much changed), and a Dell desktop running Win95 with 64 mgs of ram and a six gig hard drive. Those were the days. Then he went to law school. Go figure. Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

12 Replies to “Thank God it’s Friday”

  1. I lived in A- town for 5 years. Armstrong is something else. If he says it is not us against them and not about the $$, try asking Hill Able the owner of Bicycle Sportshop (the main Trek dealer for Austin for oh, say the last 15 years) who Armstrong raced MTB’S for when he came back from cancer in 98. He is now putting his shop right down the street. Guy is out for #1, has no loyalty whatsoever. Again ask Kevin Livingston about that…. I used to run the LA flag, now know him for the total douche he is.

  2. I believe the correct way to go is ‘Pommes rot-weiss’. That would be fries with Mayo AND Ketchup/Catsup.

    I think it’s disgusting, but you go right ahead, my man.

  3. Man, nails and bikes don’t mix too well. I’ve seen pics of a ksyrium pierced by a nail around about 2000, 2001 back when those things were pricier (and only in black). Shit, last month I grabbed my shop magnet and cleared about 10 pounds of nails someone left behind on the road.

    The commentary on the flame thrower is hilarious.

    God I hope I never bust a nut or break the rod.

  4. That Leadville stuff is crazy! Good thing this is in the news and getting exposure so something can be done before she blows!

  5. I try to break my penis on a daily basis, and yet it still mocks me with its one-eyed smirk.

    (looks at groin and shakes finger menacingly.)

    I’ll get you one of these days if it’s the last thing I do.

  6. thanks god for the spring classics
    i hope leadville and all it’s hype washes away

    and my i never break my penis

  7. Dunno if this helps the cane creek rim with a nail through it, but here goes.

    There is a classic engineering problem caleed a “plate with a hole in it” Basically, without the hole being too lagre, the stress concentration is 3 times that of anywhere else in the plate.

    Mine you that the hole in the classic problem is perfect, and not uneven (think micro-cracks) in this puncture. Thus the stress concentration could be much higher here – although the rim is not experiencing plane stress like the classic problem. But I would suspect the hole in this case is experiencing a much higher stress concentration.

    Then consider what you would expect Cane Creeks Factor of Safety to be…3, 4, or 5? That would be insanely high for lightweight race stuff.

    Conclusion….ditch that rim right fucking now!

  8. Has anyone reading this ever turned pedals in Austin? I have… and you are taking your life in your own hands. Fucking Texans can’t drive and they are worse in Austin. Now I know Lance is full of shit when he says he wants to make it like other bike friendly towns. Austin is at the bottom of the list when it comes to that. Cool town otherwise. Bike friendly? Not! The Mtb tracks are worth checking out though…