Bad Ass Brews Cruise and Me

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="Let's ride! by Evo Terra"][/caption]

Yesterday kicked off American Craft Beer Week. I celebrated by taking part in the Ameri"CAN" Bad Ass Brews Cruise. Along with a hundred or so other more-beer-than-bike fans, I rode about 20km on a four pub route.

 

But don't let my full regalia of biking gear fool you, this event placed much more emphasis on brew and cruise than bike. Our leisurely pace resulted in some 3 hours of total transit time. It also left enough time for a quick side jaunt to do some tequila shots with my new girlfriend Meg and her lovely friends.

Despite all my friends chickening out on the event, I had a great time. I met a bunch of new friends and uncovered a new side of the Phoenix beer scene I never knew existed. They do these periodically, so I'm looking forward to the next. And after reading this, maybe you'll join me next time?

And don't forget: The first Ameri”CAN” Canned Craft Beer Festival is next weekend. You'll want to get tickets now. :)

 

Today, now with more bacon

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="131" caption="Image by shawnzam via Flickr"][/caption]

I just cooked an entire pound of bacon in the oven. I took me the better part of an hour as I didn't want to mess up multiple baking sheets.

No, I don't have visitors in town. No, I'm not cooking for a party later on. No, this isn't prep-work for something else yet to be created.

When Sheila asked me why I was doing this, I replied much in the way that Venkman replied when Stantz was inquiring to the source of funds for the ecto-containment system he had been developing with Spengler.

But now I have a pound of BRE¹ at my disposal. Bitches.

 

^{1 - Bacon, Ready-to-Eat}

Warrior Dash AZ 2011 wrap-up

Shootin' at the walls of heartache, bang, bang, I am the warrior
Well I am the warrior, and heart to heart you'll win..if you survive
the warrior....the warrior - Patti Smith

Waaaaariors, come out to plaaaay - Luther

Jesus H. Christ in a chicken basket, but do my legs hurt.

3.4 miles of completely untrained for hell. That's what I did yesterday. Running? No sweat. For someone who actually prepared. Obstacles? Twelve that I managed despite never having so much as attempted a 2-inch vertical leap. But I finished, motherfuckers. Dressed as a Roman soldier, chasing Jesus. Like there was any other option?

The Warrior Dash is one of those things that at first sounds stupid, then kind of awesome, and winds up an incongruous mix of the two. I was in the 10:30am heat with a pile of other morons, some better prepared than others (like me.) 3.4 miles, 12 obstacles that bore only passing resemblance to the promised challenges, and the desire to do but one thing: finish.

I did.

Some running. Some walking. Some wondering what the hell motivated me to do something this stupid, but mostly thinking about all the things I'll do differently next year. Here they are:

• First day, first heat - I pity the fools who ran the course after us. And I weep openly for those to attempt it tomorrow. A few hundred people at a time every 30 minutes puts some serious wear on the track. I'm betting some parts are nearly non-navigable tomorrow. Next year, I'm going first.
• Portable shower - Now I like getting hosed down by an irrigation truck as much as the next guy, but it's not what I'd call efficient. I sluiced off at least 5 more pounds of mud when I got home.
• Destruction-proof camera - The finish line is pretty epic, but the opportunities to capture sheer stupidity on film mid-race are legion. Unsure I'll trust the baggies some folks used to carry their mobile devices.
• Naproxen - Because if I hurt this much 7 hours later this year...
• Caravan - This is a tailgaters dream. And while they don't allow you to bring in outside beer to the event pavilion, plenty of us were drinking in the parking log and no one gave us the evil eye. And since the free beer they gave us was FCW¹ swill, I could have used a few more.
• More people - While we made it a family affair, this is an event that is conducive to hoards of your fellow malcontents.

Yes, I'll have fond memories of my first Warrior Dash. And more aches and pains that a man my age should have to deal with. Ever.

 

^{1 - Fucking close to water}

Sure you're not a racist...

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Image by sajbrfem via Flickr"][/caption]

Do you have any idea how hard it is to declare that you are a white guy and not make it sound like you're a racist? I didn't either until I had this recent email exchange:

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Mr Terra,

Greetings, and allow me to introduce myself.  I am SFC Michael Sampson¹, an Equal Opportunity Advisor (EOA) from Ft Bragg, NC². I am in search of a guest speaker for the Hispanic Appreciation Festival/Luncheon³ that will be held on the 2nd of Oct. 2011⁴ at Ft Bragg. I was wondering if you would be our guest speaker for this Festival/Luncheon. I look forward to hearing from you.

Yes, the email really did start off with UNCLASSIFIED. Good to know.

Since I make a portion of my income doing public speaking events (and pickings are slim in 2011 thus far on that front), I was intrigued. And a little puzzled. So I sent this missive:

Hi Michael,

I haven't been back to Ft. Bragg since I was born there⁵.

I'd love to come, but am curious as to the content you're looking for and how I might contribute?

Because who knows? Maybe my fame has reached all the way back to my birth place, and they want me for my fine oratory skills rather than the path my ancestors took to the New World.

I awaited his reply with much anticipation and was rewarded with:

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Mr Terra,

I thank you for your reply. We are looking for a 25-30 minute speech on the topic of Hispanic culture in America; struggles, personal gains and/or losses. Just a speech of your experiences,  be they either positive or negative. And maybe how those experiences helped you or deterred you thus far in life. I hope that is some help to you.

Now... I'm pretty quick on my feet. And rather resourceful. At this point I'm 100% confident I can nail, NAIL the type of presentation the Army is looking for. I shall take the audience on an emotional roller-coaster in those 25-30 minutes that leaves them weeping at parts and cheering in others. They. Will. Love me.

Just one problem. See if you can figure it out in my reply:

Michael,

It seems to me this information would best be presented by someone of Hispanic lineage. I don't check that box when it's census time. :)

Because how the hell do you say to someone, someone who thinks you are of a particular minority, that you are, instead, a pasty white guy? You can't come right out and say Sorry, but I'm white. Because that is the exact same thing as saying Whaddaya think I am, a Mexican?, which is not at all what I was trying to say!

To say I trembled in anticipation of his reply would not be far from the truth. It arrived:

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Mr Terra,

I aplogize if I have in anyway offended you. I thank you for your time.

FUCK! I did it anyhow. Gods dammit, man! Did you not see the smiley-face at the end of my prior email?! How could that have failed to properly convey the levity in my statement?

In a meek frenzy (yeah, picture that), I quickly replied with:

No offense taken, Michael. Honestly, I was more concerned of that going the other way. :)

Great. No other option but to go with the I have plenty of Latino friends line, I suppose. To which I can only assume he's thinking:

... fucking racist.

^{1 - Not his real name. Don't want to Google-bomb the poor fellow.}

^{2 - Not the real military installation. See #1}

^{3 - Not the real name of the event. Though it was Hispanic. See #2}

^{4 - Not the real date. This is the military, people. They have really good weapons.}

^{5 - Not true with  #2. But I was born at the real installation in the real email. From the real guy. Really.}

Yeah, this will piss you off. Yay!

OK, people. This shit is not as hard as you are making it out to be.

For the last fucking time...

• Yay - An exclamation used to express extreme happiness or joy. E.g., Yay! She touched my pee-pee!

• Yeah - Colloquialism for "yes". E.g., Yeah, your inability to get this right is kinda pissing me off.
  

The following terms are not acceptable alternate spellings. Not now. Not ever.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="166" caption="Image by Olivander via Flickr"][/caption]

• Yea - The opposite of and rhymes with nay. If asked "Should it be legal to throat-punch those too stupid to spell  either yay or yeah correctly?", I would proudly answer with yea.

• Ya - Slang for you. Ya rhymes with uh..., which is the noise I make in my head when you try and use this word in place of yay, ya fucking moron.

• Yah - Slang for yes, but only if you speak German. Yah rhymes with thaw. Assuming your intent is proper, you're still too stupid to spell ja correctly.

I'm glad we cleared that up.

Crossing the line on friendship

Updated the day after April 1st, 2011 - Why yes, this was my half-hearted attempt at an April Fool's missive for 2011. Not a lot of folks here in town were suckered in, but more than one from afar fell for it. Heh. I suck.

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you've probably seen a few... well let's just call them odd updates from me from time to time. OK, sure. Most of my updates are odd, but these tend to be rather out of character.

You see, Jeff Moriarty and I work together during the day. And our office computers are literally a few feet a part. We started this game sometime ago where if one of us leaves our computer unattended, the other is almost obligated to hijack Twitter or Facebook for a raunchy post or two. It's all in good fun.

Or rather, it was.

I once gain left my computer unattended for a while yesterday, and Jeff proceeded to do what he does. There's no use in looking for the evidence. I followed my normal procedure and deleted the offending update from both Facebook and Twitter. This time, however, I wish I didn't.

Here's where it gets a little uncomfortable. I happened to be doing a little online banking on that computer. I don't worry about that too much since the bank times the session out after just a few minutes of inactivity. But Jeff is a swooper and manages to get on the computer literally seconds after I walk away. So while he was doing what he was doing, the online banking window was still open.

And when I check my accounts this morning, I see that $500 has been transferred to an account I don't recognize.

...

Funny? Not so much. I'm still shaking a little as I write this, as I'm not exactly sure how I'll address the situation. I'm pissed, puzzled and seriously thinking of pressing charges. The fun, is over.

I really find the whole thing hard to believe. And to think that it happened today... of all days. It's really unbelievable.

Don't let this happen to you. Don't let things get out of hand. Always lock your computer. Oh, and check your calendar.

I've been called a dick by better people than you

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="375" caption="this is a giant cock by permanently scatterbrained, on Flickr"][/caption]As it turns out, I'm a dick.

Some background for the uninitiated: I run¹ a website called Podiobooks.com that offers up serialized free audio books. We take any book² as long as the author/producer meets our technical requirements. Yes, they do the work. And we give these serialized audio book files away for free. And I call it a business model. Call me crazy.

But that's not what makes me a dick.

No, I was called that today by Mark Van Dyke³ after I rejected his third submission. He's been trying (?) to get those tech specs right since December 17, 2010. Trying may be a stretch, since I'm pretty sure he's never bothered to read the very clear guidelines we set forth on how submitted files need to be encoded, tagged and named. Nor has he taken the advice to use the Mentorship section of our community site. And it's a good bet that he's never looked up the definition of the world "serialized".

Now we're getting into why I'm a dick. Even though I think I was kind of nice.

Here's the email he sent me an hour ago upon receiving his third rejection notice from me⁴:

Your a dick and your service is lame at best!

PodioBooks is a shitty brand name to begin with and you are a prisssy little wimp hiding behind a keyboard ;)

Kiss it E... You should call your site FU-Audio Fairy-69.mp3

Asshole!

I think you could make a good argument either way on that last term. Salutation or invective? And the irony of being called out in email for hiding behind a keyboard pegs my Irony-O-Meter in the red.

So what did I say or do that infuriated him so? Well, after the third file failed to meet our standards, I took a listen to the file (first time, as I usually wait until they hit the tech specs -- he still hadn't -- and then listen and provide suggestions on how to make their audio sound better) and sent him this note:

OK, Mark. Something is getting lost in the translation. We have some very, very exacting standards on how files should be named (you've finally got that), how they should be encoded (missed), and how the ID3 tags should be completed (complete and total miss).

But before we go much further, is what you are planning on putting on our site nothing more than a 17 minute long infomercial for your company? Because we do serialized audio books here. Not infomercials. Serialized, meaning more than one episode delivered over time, in a series, until the work is completed. Audio book, as in an narrated version of a book. Not a sales brochure.

Let me know if I've misjudged, but it sure doesn't sound like we're a fit for one another.

E.

Dickish? A bit. But those who know me will attest to my much greater propensity for dickish behavior. This was, by all accounts, rather tame.

Mark, it seems, runs a service with the ingenious if not poor-grammar-laden brand name of "Sell House Fast For Quick Cash" (dot com, you might imagine)⁵. His intent seems to be using my website to place his infomercial in the ears of the thousands of audiobook listeners who frequent our site. Because I'm sure all of them need to sell house fast for quick cash, donchaknow.

Well Mark, if you're reading this (or in your native language "if your reading this"), I'm sorry it didn't work out. And by "work out" I mean it's a damned shame that you didn't bother do a little homework to see if we were a fit for what you wanted to do. It's not like you're an author, which should have been an initial clue. Beyond that, I give out lots of tools to make sure submitted files are rock solid before submitting.

But hey, at least you gave me something to blog about tonight. Good luck in the sells of house for the quick cashes business. Hey, I think that domain is available, too!

Huh. Turns out I am a dick after all.

<sup>1- With the help of many, many talented people who got it started, keep it running, keep it populated, and are building our our future site. Thank you all!

2 - Well, almost any. No hate speech. Nothing that will get someone killed. And no sales brochures, now. More about that on the post I made on the Podiobooks.com blog.

3 - No names were change to protect the not-so-innocent.

4 - These are exact copy-and-pastes. No edits. Why, when it's this great?

5 - No, I'm not providing a link. That gives them a boost, and while they may have a fine service for those who do need to "sell house fast for quick cash", I think it's only fair I not provide that boost. Not after being called "prissy", most certainly!</sup>