notyal

Sucking on NUUN tab has saved me a couple of times on long, hot rides when I start to feel the dehydration coming on. 

Weed, shrooms...gardening is fun!

On 6/16/2020 at 11:13 AM, AntonioGG said:

When is the next episode?  This is like Archer!

Evil Leader: "Mwwuahahaha! Operation Pandemic Freedom Removal is going exactly to plan. Now that all the "sheeple" are wearing a mask, it's time to move into Phase 2: stripping Americans of their freedoms."

Mad Scientist: "Ahh, about that, Sir, we don't actually have a way to rob people of their freedoms or control them in any way just because they are wearing masks."

Evil Leader: "What?!?! I thought we were having positive results on our test subjects."

Mad Scientist: "We were, Sir. However, it seem the sheep we tested the masks on were easily controlled because of hunger. The actual people appear to be removing their masks to eat."

Evil Leader: "Hmm. I see. Yeah, I didn't see that one coming either. What about the other initiative? You know, the mind control masks?"

Mad Scientist: "The mind control masks do work flawlessly. However, they don't seem to be selling on Amazon at the rate we had hoped. Market analysis might suggest that selling a $6,000 mask may have been a bit excessive."

Evil Leader: "Well, shit. Those things are expensive to produce! We can't just give them away now can we? How many have we sold?

Mad Scientist: "Two, and both to fake YouTube doctors who thought it would be funny to buy the most expensive mask to prove some kind of point. Good news is that they are now completely under our control. Bad news is that they were actually doing a better job of spreading disinformation before coming under our control."

Evil Leader: "Ok, I've heard enough. Let's put a pin in Operation Pandemic Freedom Removal and divert all resources to Operation Race War."

 

14 hours ago, hurronnicane said:

On the bright side, the garden is still producing though it is going to burn up fast in this heat!

 

This puts my garden to shame. What am I doing wrong?

9 minutes ago, GFisher said:

OTBS... it is only 24% humidity right now

 

And not a cloud in the sky! 

Did a 30 mile gravel/road ride at the hottest time of the day last week. It’s a brutal. At least on the trails you can find more shade.

16 hours ago, quixoft said:

I've started to see reports of antibodies only lasting a few weeks to a couple months. If that is in fact true, a vaccine won't do shit. What do we do then? 

Most vaccines don't work with a single dose. That's why they do rounds of booster shots.

From an article about the virus bringing families closer together. Hilarious. The increase in domestic violence, and alcoholism is closer to the truth. But seriously, MASKS at home? You can't make this stuff up.

You can make it up. This is probably how it went. “I’m writing an article about the virus bringing families together and need a representative image. A family wearing masks at home would be perfect.”

Yes, I’m implying that this image was staged. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s a stock image.

Todays stats from Worldometer. These deaths are still people that HAD Covid when they died, not just died FROM Covid.

 

That death rate is clearly rising. So,
Your insertion is that it’s rising because more people have it, yet the regular amount of people are dying, but they would’ve died anyway, so numbers are being skewed? It’s a complete coincidence that they have COVID-19? That seems like a bit of a stretch.

24 minutes ago, RedRider3141 said:

I think where Automotive or bike shops become a scam is not when they charge you for something that you probably can do yourself but when they "diagnose" some thing to drum up business.

I've noticed that users have a much higher opinion of LBS on bicycle forums vs car/truck/motorcycle forums where they dealers are called "stealerships".

Long winded example from years ago where I am obviously still slighted... I had a Nissan Dealer in a rather affluent area diagnose my '01 pathfinder with a Check Engine Light. I do all my own maintenance and many repairs but I was having trouble tracking down a specific code that could have been 6 different things. I figured the dealer could use their proprietary scan tool to get more than the P Code and tell me the issue. They came back with a $6K repair estimate on a 14 year old car with a 150K miles. Their claim: Engine Sludge was causing issues in the valve train. Their solution: replace the entire upper half of the engine. When I pointed out that a brand new engine usually runs $5-6K and that after their work I'd sill have a bottom end with 150K miles on it the repair advisor just shrugged and said that most people just have the repair done or buy a new car. I ended up going home, looking in the valve cap and seeing a perfectly clean engine with no evidence of sludge so I did one more diagnosis myself based on some internet advice and replaced a $40 sensor in <5min. 60K miles later I've had no issues. The great thing was on the repair estimate none of it should the sensor replacement, just everything around it.

Dealerships are the worst. I once had to argue with a (what do you call the person who checks you in?) that my wife's hybrid pathfinder needed an oil change. She claimed that because it was a hybrid, it did not need oil changes, like ever. I asked for someone else to help me. Funny thing, after a year or two of owning that car, we moved and started going to a closer dealership where they told me it looked like the oil had never been changed. 

(We got a maintenance package with the car so oil changes were included for the first couple years. I stopped getting oil changes at the dealership as soon as it ran out.)

1 hour ago, AustinBike said:

When I use BSS I request a specific person to work on the bike. Can't be 100% sure that they actually do, but I have never had an issue with a bike where I have specified who I want to work on it.

Definitely. It's more about who is working on your bike than where they work. BSS has some damn good mechanics if you know them. 

So close he could taste freedom.

2 hours ago, taco_junkie said:

I had one miss half of her kindergarten and the other missed half of 3rd grade. I felt like it wasn't such a big loss that they wouldn't be able to recover. Maybe their skills with scissors and glue sticks wont be as good. I know school, even Kindergarten is a lot more than that but I felt like they have time to overcome whatever they missed.

Kind of glad it happened at the age it did for us. I don't know how the older kids are dealing with it all. What happened to seniors headed to college? I can't imagine missing out on something like algebra or a whole history class.

It's probably easier to keep my kids indoors too. They don't really question it. Trying to trap social media connected teenagers in a house? F that. My kids don't have cell phones and their world simply shrunk. They have each other and us. They play together better now than ever. Any bullshit about limiting screen time is out the window at this point. I bought them a Nintendo Switch and I built them a RetroPi. They can play every old Atari and Nintendo game ever made and the older one saw some of that process. So she knows how to pirate ROMs now. Every now and then I try to push a David Attenborough show on them.

Exact same ages here. We also have their younger boy cousin right down the street who they spend most days with as well. My older daughter plays really well with her little brother and even younger cousin, but she is feeling the lack of social interaction with friends her own age. I'm more worried about the social impact if she doesn't return to school. She's plenty book smart, but she has always had trouble coming out of her shell socially. With my boy child, I'm mostly worried about the lack of structure. 

My wife has a full time job treating medically fragile children. Not something that can be a work from home situation. That would leave it to me to entertain, feed, and make sure they are keeping up with school work during the day all while trying to work from home and post silly shit on a MTB forum. 

1 minute ago, Bamwa said:

Layton coming through for his boy! Purgatory!?

Barton Creek Greenbelt

Purgatory would count too

All of them, really.

Rock gardens galore

Many beers to kill the pain

Great sunday mornings

I would have guessed that the internet forced shops focus more on profiting from service. For one thing, it's a pretty good way to sell components at full price when the internet is flooded with discounted parts. 

2 minutes ago, JMR said:

Go home?

Wait! First you wake everybody up and tell them the concerts over. Then go home.

So before he plays it, every yells " PLAY ICE ICE BABY!", then he does and you wake up and go home. Seems like money well spent.

What happens at a Vanilla Ice concert after he plays Ice Ice Baby?

4 minutes ago, mack_turtle said:

Vanilla Ice holding Friday concert on Lake Travis despite rising coronavirus cases

event maximum capacity: 450

tickets sold as of two days before the concert: 84

More shocking is that 84 people are willing to pay to see Vanilla Ice.

1 hour ago, AntonioGG said:

If you drink enough beer, the cold no longer bothers you.  You just didn't drink enough beer (and that's saying something for a UW student!

Beer works in warm weather too. Have you ever drank a beer on the beach? Case closed.

1 hour ago, quixoft said:

I'm the opposite. Born and bred in south Texas and got to work on a dairy farm each summer as a kid. Riding a bike in 100 degree heat is a walk in the park compared to post holing fence lines and baling hay in a 120 degree barn gulf of Mexico humidity and dust everywhere.

I'm all wrapped up in clothing when it gets below 65. We had those days a couple weeks ago with some 65 degree, low humidity mornings and I nearly froze riding at 6am until I warmed up from exercise. I don't know how folks can do it in northern winters. I love snowboarding but I'm wearing about 8 million layers and once it goes below about 15 degrees, I'm out. There aren't enough layers in the world to keep me warm from that crap. I was waiting for the bus from Frisco to Keystone one morning and it was -6 and my fucking eyelashes were freezing. I went to bar and drank all day instead of boarding.

I'll will take Texas heat over a northern winter every single time. Fuck that shit. I'm talking to you Mr. Polar Vortex that makes my life miserable in winter down here every few years.

Same here. Bring on the Texas heat! I'll gladly take 100+ degree summers for a mild winter. The one exception would be if I could be in the mountains and get some skiing in. I still hate the cold, but sliding on the snow is fun. Mountain biking is a very good replacement, though. I can't imagine living in a place that is flat and cold like the midwest or [shutter] New York City. 

https://www.kxan.com/investigations/several-williamson-county-hospitals-approach-icu-bed-capacity/
Not good

“KXAN’s investigative team has been pressing for more transparency from hospitals and local governments about bed numbers, as hospital admissions in Texas continue to spike.”

I wonder why they didn’t just ask TheX’s neighbor.

2 hours ago, JMR said:

Is this for real?

 

I hope he is right. I really do. What concerns me is that in those charts behind him, the kids went back to school after a significant drop in the curve. Ours is going the other way.

After spending several years in Lubbock, I have to say that my perspective of dust storms must not be the same as most. I was expecting something more like this:

10 minutes ago, quixoft said:

Bring an inflatable life preserver with an integrated bug net. That way you're protected from the locusts and the floods.

Great! Only the fire and brimstone to worry about now.