back at home, work

Everybody slam on your brakes!!!

I am going to go ahead and do my complaining... On my journey from Spartanburg to Marietta last night traffic managed to see brake lights and slam on their own brakes. Talk about peer pressure. So we'd be going 80 or 85mph and somebody way up ahead would tap their brakes and traffic would instantly stop. And to top it all off... when i noticed traffic was stopped ahead of me i'd take my car out of gear and coast in an attempt to lessen my personal impact on the world's petro shortage, and to save a few bucks... but anyways, some jerk off alabamian cadillac guy was riding my ass and i'm like **finger out the window** i move over, still coasting, he zips past me and we end up next to each other once we reached stopped traffic. I'm thinking "Ha jackass!" Okay, enough.

In better news, Christmas with the Barnes and Oalmans was good. I got to Woodruff around 9:15am Saturday, after racing a Corvette on I-85 and accidentally reaching a new top speed in the WRX...115mph...and anyways, he pulled way ahead when i realized how fast we were going, i let the cruise take control again, around 85 or so, and he disappeared. But for anybody with a bike rack and sports car, make sure its tight on the roof... my trusty yakima slid about 3 inches back on the top. Made me sort of nervous. So thats that. We exhanged gifts, and I actually managed to suprise Rach with the Mtn biker wallet she didn't think she was getting. We went to her Nana and Papa's and did our secret santa thing (i guess thats what its called, not really sure though) and Susan Marie walked in with way more than ONE PRESENT, but thats to be expected I guess. It was too late to ride when we left, so we worked off our lunch by hiking around the woods. The following day we lazied around and got to Southside around noon. We met one other rider in the parking lot and otherwise had the trail to ourselves. We were like, lets go slow and ride two laps, and shortly thereafter forgot our agreement and were racing as usual. Probably rode around 8 or 9 miles and called it quits. We found the parking lot full of people getting ready to test out their new christmas gifts. There were probably twenty people or more there. So I guess we finished just in time. We went back to their place, I loaded my car, we took flowers to her father's grave and I was off.

I stopped once for yellow roses, a diet mtn dew, and a snack. Stopped somewhere inside Georgia for gas, debated stopping at (the surely infamous) exit 173, but didnt and got to Marietta around 9 something. We watched TV, watched Steel Magnolias, and went to bed. I woke up to CNN and coffee and a crossword puzzle and she woke up a little while later. Now were going for another gourmet breakfast at waffle house.

nothing rhymes with purple or orange

Wouldnt it suck to be a word, and not have any word that rhymed with you? I was just thinking about that.

monday night we all (chris, jd, denise, bobby, ryan, stephanie, brian, frank, me and rachel) hung out at jd's house and watched the last samurai and played halo and drank beer and stuff. it was a good time, and a somewhat scary ride home.

tuesday was ok. everybody cancelled on riding (frank, rick powell), and rachel had a nasty hangover so i didnt ride. i did however go shopping for some supplies for a "christmasy" arts and crafts project. can't really comment on that more.

went to work and played on the computer for four hours. yeah. me and rachel worked on our bikes. i finally put good brakes on my singlespeed. yeah. so that was last night. today was a long day at the bike shop. i left and ate dinner with my folks, then took a nap, then awoke to my cell phone ringing. so now im at wayne's (rachel's moms boyfriend's) house about to play scrabble.

still smiling
joseph
p.s. i just checked my grades... i made:
art resources B*
modern art history A
ancient/medieval art history A
pop culture/art history A
discrete math A
servant leadership films A
american government A
history of mathematics B
*this class will be changed to an A in january.
this semester pulled my GPA up from 3.46 to 3.53 hehe. im such a nerd.

finally done with finals

this weekend passed by pretty well. i went to work saturday, bought my parents bikes, sunday i went to my grandparents land for our gift giving day. i got some good stuff. a camp hammock, rain fly and bug net, got DMB The Gorge, got a DMB poster, tons of snack food, my tires (saturday) were part of my present.

i went to the mall to do some xmas shopping. then took my discrete final, and made my way to the library to use the internet. found bobby there, we did some running around to get wendy's and got my bike, took him back to school, met rachel and we went to flat rock. i rode my singlespeed and we explored the place. we had a good time riding this rock wall. it was really tall, like 6 feet. wait 6 inches... or 4 inches... anyways. we had coffee at barnes and noble, and saw what mountain bike magazine had to say, then we went our separate ways.

i had dinner with my parents, then came over here (to wayne's house) to pick her up. we're going over to jd's house to play halo...wait to drink beer and eat pizza...and play halo.

auburn tomorrow to ride, then work. and work wednesday, and thursday, then hang out with my family friday. dont know when i'll post again. so merry christmas. peace

jg

socks

today was good. me and my dad took my car to superior tire this morning. then i went to work. and it was boring, i played with socks all day. i got to talk about mtn bikes a couple times. i went over and joined them at the cannon. then we went to fountain city, and then i went back to the socks. then i bought my parents' bikes, and called it a day. went to Ocean's twelve, and then to waffle house. the movie was pretty good, but the plot was twisted just enough to be the sequel. so that was it. i'm being boring today, and dont have anything else to say. i'm gonna ride tuesday though, should be fun.

jg

pigs dont fly

at least they didnt last time i checked. i took my other two finals and they went okay. after my math history final i went to flat rock park and did a night ride. i only rode about 2.9 miles on my rigid singlespeed and my helmet lightset went out. i realized the importance of a full charge. riding across slick rock under a dark sky proved to be scary, especially knowing theres random three and four foot drops and one rather large twenty foot vertical. so i made it back, cold and safe. i showered and talked to my parents, who i've probably seen a total of twenty minutes over the past week. so that was the rest of my day.

i found out that rachel's holiday party has been changed to tomorrow, but we're not going. we're still gonna go up there on saturday, which reminds me i need to call frank to get some bourbon. i'm gonna go ride tomorrow with rick and b rank (brian). thats all. jg

one down two to go

i took my modern art final earlier. i think i did well, definitely enough for an A in the class. now i'm wasting time before my others. wish me luck

8

raw fish and the end of the world.

today was a fun day. we slept in, until 10am or so. then i went and took my dog to the groomer's to get a bath. i went to school, finished up a journal for servant leadership and dropped that off.

that was a good time. got california rolls, cucumber rolls, and tuna rolls. she had a tough time with the chopsticks. i wanted to order some saki, i thought that would help. but i wussed out. only my second time, but i'll be a conoisseur in no time...

i went to work and talked to a guy in trekland (wisconsin) for an hour and forty nine minutes. we talked about the new program for our bike shop. we did this online meeting thing through ATT.com and i was looking at his screen and could have interacted on his computer from mine, but i didnt really know what i was doing, so i sorta chilled. it was funny though, he had his own customer database with lance armstrong, sheryl crow armstrong and other famous people. and all that was showing up on my screen. he didnt think it was that cool, but i convinced him that for "us georgia rednecks" that was pretty cool. anyways. i finished with that whole phone call thing i talked with this homebuilder guy about a bike for his kid, and then it was time to close the store. it was a quick four hours.

then i left. and i went home, shaved and made my way back to the girls' dorms. and i have three finals tomorrow so i am gonna study now.

jg

p.s. the title of this post was sushi and the end of the world. well, i mentioned sushi already, and so click here to see the end of the world.

brrrr its cold

as the title of this post suggests, it is frigid here in c-town. i am currently in the (warm) library, but am about to brave the cold to go print out a few hundred pages in the computer lab. well, mabye only like 60 or so. anyways. today has gone by steadily, cant complain at all. no thanks no whine/wine or cheese today.

the day started by waking up (what a profound statement). were running a little late. So i went to tutor Melisha for the last time in abstract algebra. It went well, and she seemed confident for her final at 6pm today. So went and got jazz, took him to fountain city, he got a strawberry smoothie and actually didnt complain. it was surprising. Although he did complain that i only kept him for an hour. but thats not a surprise really. then stopped by the bike shop, then came to school. I just typed a two page paper for servant leadership about Mona Lisa Smile. I realized today that i have three finals on thursday and i actually need to study soon. that sucks cause i have work tomorrow. so im about to go cram for three finals back to back to back. But i figured first, i'd post something, no matter how boring on here. ha.

My weekend should be filled with fun. The WRX is getting new Toyo tires saturday, then I'm gonna break em in with a trip to ATL saturday night for Rachel's xmas party. Then sunday my family is having our in-no-way-related-to-christmas-or-any-other-holiday-"family-time"-gift-giving-get-together. It should be fun. I'm buying bikes for my parents. Yeah.... we'll see how that goes. Hopefully i'll fit a ride in friday morning before work. okay. i'm leaving now.

p.s. i must add... today i threw away my favorite pair of jeans. :( it was tough. i almost cried. well not really, but it was tough. those jeans had more holes than all my other jeans combined. they had rust marks from the time bobby got stuck in his jeep and we tried to push and they ended up sitting in a wet muddy pile of random clothes for a month. the belt loops were starting to break. the right pocket was falling apart from my pocket knife getting clipped on for the past year or so. if i would have dipped, there would have been a circle from my dip can. they were those kind of jeans. they had a faded square from my wallet. i guess you could say they looked like a pair of jeans you could buy at abercrombie & fitch. i remember when me and my mom picked em out back in tenth grade. that was like...2000 i guess. they were probably 70 bucks. but if you look at it on a payment plan... thats only 17.5 dollars a year. thats only 1.45 dollars a month. well, you get the idea. so. i guess they're gonna get replaced with my old navy pair. we'll see.

holy ****

okay. my day was going great, especially for a monday, until about an hour ago. but anyways... i'll just talk about the day in chronological order. and therefore the "holy ****" only applies to the end.

i had modern art this morning followed by pop culture. we have a final thursday in modern, so its not done all the way, but our essay was the final in pop culture, so today was the last day. it sucked, thats been one of my fav. classes of my college career.

so then i tutored melisha and that turned into $35. get jazz from school. me and him rode bikes around his neighborhood. then we played some PS2 racecar game for an hour or so and then i went downtown to our bike shop. i changed the tires on my singlespeed and suited up in my cold weather roadie gear (ie: tights, long sleeve skintight jersey).

so i show up to phenix city and its cold as shit and i decide to ride anyways. i got in the woods and i start getting scared cause its quiet and incredibly dark and i start thinking about the serial killers that lurk in those woods, it is phenix city after all... and i cut my ride short and i got back to my car and this phenix city rent-a-cop pulls up and this bounty hunter guy and they're like "son, you got any weapons on you?" i start freakin out and im like am i under arrest and something, then i figured out they thought i was a hunter. so i convinced them "i'm only a mountain biker" hence the mtn bike on top of my car, and as they say the kerry sticker on the back should have given them the "anti-kill-innocent-animals-idea."

so then i went to fountain city, strolled in getting some iffy looks for my winter riding attire, or maybe they just thought i was sexy. hmm. and got my coffee and left. talking to mark on IM about our cars. and thats all. later.

jg

best week ever

tonight i was sitting around with the soccer girls and i decided i should be on vh1's best week ever. technically i guess it started last saturday, kevin and rachel. sunday riding my DH bike all day. monday getting big brother of the year. got three new cd's. aced two tests. got the woodstock dvd. sunday slept until noon... and took jazz to ride bikes and to see spongebob squarepants. anyways. later

jg

relief: no more essays

its thursday night. i successfully finished my final research paper for popular culture. it was interesting, but i am just burnt out on typing. i think i wrote something like 75 pages this semester. and i'm just a math major. we're not supposed to have to write. do i want any cheese with my wine/whine? no thanks very much, i already had some.

aside from spending the entire day either in class, or working on this paper i did, well, almost nothing else. i took a test this morning in american government. it was our fourth test (we dont have a final, each test is 25%) and i think i made a 98 or 100 on it. i needed like a 87 to make an A, so i think i've successfully secured one A. we also got back our discrete math tests from tuesday. i made a 94. i made a few stupid errors. oh well. our final in that class is on the 20th, the last day of finals. every semester i've been in school i've had a final the last day. its like a curse or something. i dont know if i put it yet or not, but mrs. mccrillis gave us back our research papers for modern art. i wrote mine about amadeo modigliani. she gave me a 98. i dont know if it was that good, or she was getting tired of reading papers and just wrote something down, but i'll take it.

Now that i think of it, I should make all A's this semester. The only class I'm worried about is Pop Culture. the essay i just finished is like 25% of our grade, and it wasn't that great. oh well. my thomson stem came today to the bike shop, it looks good. real good. i'd almost venture as far as saying its sexy, with its smooth curves... oh wait. sorry.

i'm looking foward to the weekend. starting at noon tomorrow i guess. I'll go to the bike shop, but it should go by really quick. I have no idea what I'll do after work. maybe a night ride... hmm. then saturday i am taking Jazz, my little, to my grandparents land to camp out. he's never been, and well, it won't be uber-wilderness or anything, but should be fun. i'll take my camp stove and stuff and make oatmeal and coffee, hot chocolate (for Jazz) with whip cream on the side. well no whip cream. then maybe get a real grandma-cooked breakfast too. mmmGood. Sunday afternoon I dont know what i'll do. maybe ride.

thats all for now, and probably the next few days. I'm without a computer at home, so its tough sometimes. later

jg

wednesday

its been a great day. time has gone by incredibly fast. i worked from 2:30 until 7:30, and the time flew by. i got to work on a christmas list for a DHer in town (submitted to me by his mom). he's getting a marzocchi 888rc. (if you dont know, you probably dont want to. ) some avid juicy 7 brakes, and some more stuff. then i messed with installing the new POS program, and think i already messed up. oh well.
right now i'm waiting to get out of class, gonna hang out after her class. dont know what i'm gonna do, i'll put that one here tomorrow i guess.
i'm about to go get some hot tea and honey, i swear that'll cure (almost) anything.
jg

woooooo hooooooo

i must say today around 7:15pm I finished my modern art research paper. It was a 7-10 page paper with footnotes. I also finished (this morning) my 7-10 page paper for ancient medieval art. the two papers were pretty much the same with some editing here and there, but for me that was still a lot of work considering i started research monday morning. It was like an elephant was lifted off my shoulders. or something like that.

Yesterday was good too. I rode my bike to my early classes, rode home, skipped my one hour seminar class, and went to work at the bike shop at 3pm. We were pretty busy for a wednesday this time of year, and I was rushing to get out by 7:25. I was running late meeting my good friend rachel up at her apartment in atlanta. i made a somewhat speedy trip to northern atlanta from central columbus in about an hour and a half. the trip home was probably worse... got on I-85 at 8:04 and walked into class at 9:30am. dont ask me how... but the evening in atlanta was good. we went grocery shopping, prepared for the first ever blizzard inside publix, and got a publix brand dijorno pizza that turned out to be better than dijorno i think. anyways. we ate pizza and watched "midnight in the garden of good and evil." i still have to watch the last 20 minutes or so, but its good so far. Then today at school was so-so, can't really complain.

by the way... for anyone else who has a roof rack of some sort... traveling without the rack is much much more gas efficient. monica palmer and rachel b have both told me so, but it took first hand experience to believe. useful trivia i guess. thats all. bout to go watch robert deniro and taxi driver. you talkin to me? haha

this is one of my favorite pictures from snowshoe. its on the NORBA pro DH run, about halfway. you're hauling *** through the wooded section and it spits you out on an open section of a black diamond ski run. this is about a 5 or 6 foot drop. me!!photo: shaun e. 

a somewhat flat section from the NORBA pro DH run. snowshoe wv. 

my goose. it still rides on my bighit. i originally put it on there to distinguish my bike from others on our snowshoe trip. but it got so many comments i just left it there. 

me and rachel b. i think this was a pre-ride picture. note the smiles... pisgah nc 

i just conquered pisgah. or did it conquer me? pisgah nc. this trip inspired buying my new car. 

does this even need an explanation? tsali nc 

a different view of the same jump below. harris co, ga 

i dont remember any of this really. post concussion. i asked "what day is it" like a thousand times. 

yes this is a trail. i managed to fall down it successfully getting my first concussion, and smashing my helmet. 

me and my bighit dropping it in harris co. these jumps arent there anymore. but they're relocated, and bigger... harris co, ga 

me and my enduro actually managed to climb. mouse branch loop i think. tsali nc 

one of the obstacles at snowshoe. i chose the skinny side. yeah. we can't figure out what the green bar is. snowshoe wv. 

me and my little bike. one of the many times i managed to mess it up. the rear brake caliper locked up after i managed to rip the master cylinder out. by the way...thanks to progress, this section of trail no longer exists. phenix city al 

this doesnt fully describe the few thousand feet we just descended in 15 minutes. the first half was the NORBA pro DH run, that was off limits i think... and the second half was some fairly easy trail. then a section by the golf course. zach of course had to torment some golfers mid-backswing. sorry guys. 

enough of wussy flowers. shaun riding a gnarly obstacle on trail i. in the back to his left is a section of three 4x4" beams that were a pretty good challenge. i managed to ride them all three attempts. but i didnt get any pics of me on them. hmm. 

wildflowers we illegally picked on some highway in wv. they were for a special someone. 

me complete with full face. going so fast its blurry... this little jump was a bunch of fun, despite being a massive two feet high. 

shaun on trail e i think. snowshoe wv 

shaun, the bartender, and me. snowshoe wv. 

me frank and zach. note the "get high on a mountain" tshirt zach is sporting. we just finished a ride. smells like roses. 

the beginning of the end

hows's this thing work? i am attempting to start a blog. i dont really know what these entail, but i will hopefully post a bunch of mountain bike pictures soon. that should be fun. i really should be typing a 10 page research paper right now, but this is way more fun. what else should i write about... hmm. two of my friends have blogs that are way better than this so anyone reading should go there: rachel's and rob's. okay. im gonna try to post some pictures and the go to class.

zach going to fast for me to get him in the frame. freeride park, snowshoe wv 

shaun estes messing around while we waited for the shuttle back to the top. snowshoe wv 

shaun estes coming down a trail that is way steeper than it looks here. snowshoe wv 

a back down the ski lift. we were trying to get a picture of the two hot chicks, but instead we got a picture of two hot bikes, close enough i guess 

this guy driving this bus was scarier than the ride down a black diamond ski slope, no joke