survived the concert

Left work at 5 so that Laura and I could do some eating/drinking prior to the show. We wound up at Dooley's (nice newer bar/restaurant in town) for a few beers and I had a great chicken philly. Next stop was Pescara's bar, where I'm sure we were way too rowdy for the atmosphere- but we enjoyed having a couple more drinks and speaking to some surgeon in town for the week. I was feeling pretty blitzed by the time we moved on from there, but the adrenaline kicked in soon enough.

We got inside soon after Alice had begun his set and things were already pretty crazy down on the floor. We left the floor a couple times for beers/drinks and also bought some t-shirts. I, without thinking, purchased a shirt that said something along the lines of "corpse eating, zombie fucking, god damn, something or another" on the back... Laura took one look at it and attacked it with her teeth in order to remove the word god. Little did it matter, I figured that only made it better.

Not long after that the set was over and it was time for the mayhem to begin. We pushed our way to center stage, roughly 80' from the stage and in the epicenter of approximately 2500-3000 crazed, drunken, zombie lovin' Rochesterites? Zombie played a really heavy/hard mix if his tunes- none of the more artsy or folksy stuff and the crowd absolutely rocked with him the entire time. The accoustics were great up front and everything was just frenzied. "Thunder kiss '65" was absolutely fucking nuts. We made it through the entire set without relinquishing our positions or missing any of the show. Impressed with Laura for pushing through. Shocked how much energy I burned out there. Slept until about 1 pm yesterday, still feeling tired and sore. Wish I'd been able to drive over to Mankato last night for Seether!

Was in no shape for riding yesterday so I did some work on my bikes- installed a Nashbar carbon fork on my Kona (remember that my winwood muddy cx was too short steerer wise... and also after having these both in my hand at the same time I'm absolutely convinced they are identical), fixed the brakes on the Mamasita and weighed the bikes. I don't really care that much how much my bikes weigh- hence not weighing them until now, but I was beginning to get curious. I left them as they were with the computers, two bottle cages, pedals, spare tube etc. all on as that's how I race them anyways and got about 23 lbs for the Mamasita (this was with the Reba), 19.5 for the Kona, just under 25 for the Marin (with the heavy 29" p35 up front and rhynolite rear), and.... drumroll...... 36 lbs for the Rio Cruz exactly how it was raced at the Sandwich! Not sure what any of that means- I'll be super happy if I just never break anything on my bike again, and I think I've been buying appropriate parts to that end as well... some of them just happen to be pretty light too.

I did order 4 xtr level shimano chains- this last chain issue was truly my fault, why should I have expected a chain that had seen everything from the Halloween race at Hillside to triple D to multiple attempts at 100 miles of winter gravel in January to CIRREM to still be functional??? However, I just decided that if I needed to swap them out more often that the $25 price I was able to get on the xtr for 9 speed and $35 for 10 speed was worth the savings vs. the KMCs I'd been running. I've also still always been happy with all my Shimano bits that I've owned. Certainly still plan to run quick-links with these for what thats worth.

Now to work 5 hrs today and 5 more tomorrow while I rest and ready myself for the Almanzo. I've already been losing sleep daydreaming about breakaways and the like. I know they are only fantastical dreams, but at least I'm not dreaming about breaking crap or bonking eh?