RIP Wouter Weylandt

No Manic Monday today. I've been quietly getting absurdly geeked up for the Giro d'Italia ever since what was, in my opinion, one of the best Classics seasons in recent memory. That all came crashing down with the news that Wouter Weylandt, of Team Leopard-Trek, had passed away after a horrific crash on one of the final descents of today's 3rd stage of the Giro. Ironically, he won last year's 3rd stage in Italy, and to quote Bonnie Ford of ESPN, I'm sure he would want to be remembered thusly:

Having grown up crewing for my father in sailplane competitions, I've lost close friends to sporting accidents. It's not something you get used to. In spite of the fact that I'm little more than a Fred, and very much a fanboy of these amazing athletes, I firmly believe that the cycling community is truly bound by love and understanding of the sport. A member of my extended family - of my extended peloton, if you will - however distant, has left us.

Wouter was 26, and a helluva rider. I read that his wife is expecting a baby in September, which pretty much makes this a complete kick in the gut. My most heartfelt thoughts and prayers to his family, his friends, and his teammates, past and present.

Ride in Peace, Wouter...

Happy Anniversary

I've been racking my brain all week about a post in honor of my wife for our wedding anniversary, which just happens to be today. I had visions of heartwarming passages, anecdotes and snippets that would do justice to the woman I'm lucky enough to have bamboozled into spending her life with me. I spent so much time thinking on it, that I neglected my regular weekly posts on Monday and Wednesday. I figured it'd be worth it once I pulled something together for today.

A funny thing happened, though. Everything I put down just didn't get the job done. How do you express, in text, what it means for a person to be your rock, your pillow, your shrink, your reality check, your biggest fan, your cracking whip, your best friend, and much more all rolled into one?

The truth is, I don't know. I've spent the week putting down thoughts, but nothing does the trick. It's just impossible to encapsulate the breadth and depth of what my wife means to me. The past four months have brought it into ever starker relief. You don't ever really know how much you need somebody until you need them.

I guess that's the best way to describe it. Quite honestly, I don't know what I would do without my wife. I'm so happy she's with me, and I'm hopeful she won't wise up and move on.

With that, I'm copping out with a Quote Machine and a couple of my favorite pics. These people simply say it better than I could ever hope to. Happy Cinco de Mayo to the world out there, but an even happier anniversary to the person that keeps me going every day.

Wednesday Quote Machine: Spotlight on Townes Edition

I have an ever growing playlist that I keep of songs that I intend to learn how to play. Sometimes I forget about it and it goes neglected for significant periods of time. Yesterday, while working the the yard, I put it on and was pleased to find I've been good about learning many of the tunes I recently set out to master. There was one surprise, however. I forgot that I had included "To Live Is To Fly" by Townes Van Zandt. Like many times before, it stopped me dead in my tracks.


This simple, achingly thoughtful song is Townes at his best, and it's easily my favorite of his, so we're just gonna let that be this week's edition of the Quote Machine. Based on the responses from a couple of weeks ago, this may be a bit obscure for the four of you reading here. Do yourself a favor and seek out some Townes Van Zandt. He's widely considered to be one of the most influential songwriters in country and folk music, and he personally mentored the likes of Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams before he passed away.


Like many of the great songwriters (Dylan jumps immediately to mind), his strength is in the writing and not in the performance, so I find his songs better performed by other people for whatever reason. Immediately off the top of my head, I can think of versions of this song by Steve Earle, Guy Clark, and the Cowboy Junkies that each make the song sound like their own. A great way to hear Townes the first time is to check out Poet: A Tribute to Townes Van Zandt. Steve Earle also recently released his own collection of Townes songs, and once famously said, "Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the world, and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that."

Manic Monday: Spring Is Here Edition

Spring seems to have finally taken hold here in the Upstate of South Carolina. Most of the bad pollen has come, and the semi-regular rain has done a decent job of knocking it down. What does that mean? Time to get outside and do stuff.

This week, we're covering Easter, yard work, questionable taste in movie stars, and others... Off we go.

MIA

Missing: Bo's Legs

Last Seen: mountain biking on Paris Mountain on Sunday, April 17, 2011.

Items have been missing the past two days after getting completely demolished on the C1 ride at Donaldson on Tuesday, followed by struggling to even keep up on the weekly pre-yoga social trail run.

Whereabouts: unknown. Have attempted recovery of missing items via compression and yoga, but results have been, to date, mixed at best.

Missing items have been known to be elusive at times, but can typically be found somewhere on the Swamp Rabbit Trail, and northern Greenville County. If sighted, please post comment below to inform owner of their location to facilitate a speedy recovery.

Regards,

The Daily Honesty Staff

Wednesday Quote Machine: Ok, You People Suck, So We're Gonna Make This One Easy Edition

So, my little contest last week garnered a grand total of two responses, and nobody got all of them. Granted, some of it was pretty dang obscure but at least my boy Keith got the Avetts, U2, and Prince, which were the hanging fastballs of the bunch. For the record, here are the answers:

1. "I And Love And You" - The Avett Brothers
2. "Both Hands" - Ani DiFranco
3. "With or Without You" - U2
4. "Purple Rain" - Prince
5. "'52 Vincent Black Lightning" - Richard Thompson
6. "Mary Queen of Arkansas" - Bruce Springsteen

Granted, 2, 5, 6 were pretty obscure but, given the fact that the titles of the song are in the actual quotes, I thought somebody'd get one or two of them. Anyway, we're gonna bring it down a notch. Same rules as last week, and same prize (undetermined), except this week we're doing movies. First person to name each movie correctly, search engine-free (honor system, people), wins...

Manic Monday: Time Warp Edition (revisited)

Crap. Second week in the past month or so I missed Monday. So, we're taking a time warp back for a quickie edition so I can try to keep up appearances around here.

Wednesday Quote Machine: What Was Bo Playing Today Edition

We're sliding this one in under the wire. I had the edit screen open most of the day and nothing came to mind, so we're going a little from the cuff. You, dear reader, are about to be quizzed. I had a very interesting breakfast meeting this morning, after which I came home in a good mood. What do I do when I'm in a good mood? Why, sing sad songs about love, loss, and death, of course. In case you haven't noticed, I'm weird. Sad songs and the blues make me happy. Leave me alone.

Anyway, seeing as I'm at a loss, I'm gonna leave it to the 3.2 of you you actually read this to try to win a prize (Note: I have no idea what the prize will be, as I doubt anybody will try to answer, much less actually read this)  I  have several songs I'm working on in various stages of getting them down. No they're not by me, which is where you come in. What follows are my favorite lines from each song that I played and sang this morning, but there will be no song name or artist. Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to name the artist and the song in the comments section. No using search engines please. I have no way of checking on that, so consider yourself on the honor system.

The first person to correctly name each song and artist (assuming anybody actually reads this and responds, which they won't) will win a fabulous prize of unknown value and origin. Have fun.

Manic Monday: We Now Return to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

Wow. If you're a sports fan, you've just seen an amazing six weeks of competition. Odd, isn't it, that at the same time we encounter the welcome shift to warmer weather, we also get a run of sporting events that send most of us inside to watch them, foregoing the blossoming beauty that is Spring. March and the beginning of April have give us: amazing NCAA tournament play, the opening of baseball season, three amazing editions of cycling's Monuments, a huge win for India in the Cricket world cup, and a Masters that saw not only the return of Tiger Woods to top form, but also one of the most dominant finishes to a major championship in memory by Charl Schwartzel.

Phew... take a breath...

Luckily, even though we will now have an empty hole where all that excitement lived, we can now take the time to go outside and do whatever it is we like to/should be doing. So it's time to get out there an fill it!

Dream Bike (Currently)

I'm lost on inspirational themes today, so I'm gonna really indulge myself throw out the specs on the bike I'm currently lusting after. Being a clydesdale, I've decided that my next frame will need to be made of metal instead of carbon, and, although I'd love a classic steel frame, I need a do-everything bike. I need something that's relatively light, stiff, bombproof and rides well. That means titanium.

It also needs to look good. With all this time on my hands, I've come up with the spec that I will be dreaming about until the wifey lets me pull the trigger. Behold, my dream bike.

Monuments

We all have Rites of Spring, signals and traditions that mark the changing of the season, the lengthening of days, and blooming of flowers. Anybody who knows me will attest that, in recent years, my Rites of Spring have been Rides of Spring and have focused on the bike.

If you've been hanging around here at all, I've been rambling, ad nauseum, about weird bike races over cobbled roads in Northern Europe. These are races that are beautifully brutal, where riders typically finish covered in mud and with distant stares, wondering how or why in the world they just did what they did. Parlance refers to them as Monuments, and the Queen of them all, is coming this weekend. Predating my bike obsession, however, is another tradition that has marked Spring for me, one "like no other," to quote a slogan. Instead of mud and suffering, it is marked by beautiful flowers, quiet claps, the occasional roar on Sunday, and Southern charm.

Like Paris-Roubaix, the Masters is a Monument (arguable THE Monument) of its sport. Happily, both will be contested this weekend. Both have quirks and traditions that make them not just different, but one-of-a-kind. Both keep me inside staring at screen on beautiful days when I could or should be outside. Both typically leave me gasping at the skill and artistry of the competitors. Both send me outside immediately afterwards to feebly try to replicate that artistry. Both are beautiful for completely different (and somewhat opposing) reasons. Here follows a quick list of what makes these events so different and yet so similar.

Wednesday Quote Machine: Exploratory Edition

In another attempt to get volume up around here, I'm giving myself another weekly assignment, in addition to Manic Monday. In a retort/shout out to my wife, who thinks I'm creative, I'm going to try to prove that I am, in fact, simply re-creative. I've actually never had an original thought in my life, merely co-opted the lines and ideas from much more talented and witty observers.

So, every Wednesday, we're gonna throw out a couple of quotes and ideas by other people that have either popped into my consciousness recently or have lingered there over the years. It's actually a riff on something I did while living in Spain years ago. Any of my close friends from that wonderful year will remember the infamous Quote Book, and how out of control it got. This will hopefully stay fairly reined in. We'll have poets, thinkers, singers, writers, bloggers, misfits, friends, enemies, infidels, true believers, winner, losers, leaders, and many more represented here as it progresses.

Basically, it comes down to putting down a post without actually having to write something, which dovetails well with my complete lack of originality.

Like Donkey Kong

As in, it's on. Seen here, The Man Crush is ready and willing to lay down the pain in the upcoming installment of Paris-Roubaix.


You can read the whole thing for yourself, but the operative passage goes thusly:


"I’m very happy: there were fifty of them behind a gladiator...In Flanders I was the only one of the big riders in front, and so I would say I am still the number one favourite,” he said. “I am the only man in the world who can make an attack like the one in Flanders, or in Roubaix in 2010. Everybody knows that if I’m at 100 percent they have to fasten their seatbelts, like on an aeroplane.”


I still hold out hope for My Main Man George, but the pro peloton best beware... Spartacus is on the Warpath.

Best pic of the day. Check out the rest here

I promise to stop talking about cycling after this weekend. Until the Giro at least...

Cheap Labor

Whilst mowing the lawn yesterday, I was appalled by the complete state of disrepair of things out there. Right as I was trying to figure out how in the world I was going to bring things under control, I happened upon this:



As tree trimmers go, they work slowly, but, for now the price is right, and they're willing, if not eager, to put in long hours.

- Posted using BlogPress from my phone. Any spelling errors are due to fat, clumsy thumbs.

Manic Monday: In Awe of De Ronde Edition

Last week, I posted a little spiel about my favorite bike race of the year. Pretty much immediately after I hit the publish button, I was hit with a rush of self-consciousness about what I had put down. To be blunt, I felt I'd inflated the race and been a little too flowery in my description. It's a common problem with cycling people: our passion tends to spill over and, many times, our anticipation for great events leaves us disappointed with the actual result. It happens all the time in sports: Super Bowls end in blowouts, with too many stoppages, bad ads, and questionable half time shows. Like Senior prom, the build up is such that it's almost expected that there will be a let down.

The 2011 Tour of Flanders, however did not disappoint. If anything, I undersold the immensity and epic nature of the race. As a neophyte cycling fan, it was, hands down, the best race I have ever seen. I won't recap, as many others have done a better job than I could hope to (Case in point: here, here, and here). This weeks Manic Monday will be heavily focused on Sunday's proceedings. For the three of you who read this other than my wife, my apologies, but I must indulge myself. For your review, I submit the Honesty's race awards for a phenomenal Tour of Flanders.

Distant Roar

It's hard to believe that I only started heavily riding bicycles less than three years ago. What had always been a  fascination quickly morphed into obsession and borderline addiction. I can definitely say that I was predisposed to the type of disturbing behavior exhibited in the short time that has passed, but living where I live and falling in with a pretty amazing group of people definitely accelerated the process. Pile on the wealth of cycling-related news and analysis outlets, both "official" (see here and here) and "unofficial" (better and more prevalent. see here, here, here, and here to name just a few), and I quickly find myself happily consumed in the culture, nuance, history, intrigue and mythology of all things vélo.


Which brings me to the upcoming weekend. Across the ocean, in Belgium, a lion's roar is building. To the uninitiated, professional road cycling begins and ends with that spin around France that some Texan made mainstream here in the States ten years ago. However, scratch the surface a little bit, and you find a cornucopia of races and storylines that, dare I say, are at least as compelling (and sometimes more) than La Grande Boucle. One such race is the Tour of Flanders.

Manic Monday: Blah

It's been raining here at Daily Honesty headquarters for the past three days, and though the company (the wife and two puppies) has been first class, we're ready to see the sunshine lest we start acting like this guy.

Luckily, it seems that the sun will make an appearance, albeit briefly, for tomorrow night's World Championships, so hopefully our batteries will at least find some sort of a charge. Until then, we're struggling for inspiration and fighting off the Blahs in this gray edition of Manic Monday.

Commonplace

I'm always amused by what we consider normal, blah, or just plain boring. As humans, we quickly lose site of many of the positives in our lives, simply because they're always available. We all grow accustomed to the day-to-day or week-to-week aspects of life that quickly become commonplace, and well, meh...

Here's the kicker, though. Take that everyday, blah thing away for over 5 months, add cold, dark, winter weather and mix thoroughly, and pretty soon you find yourself longing for what was at one point a nuisance.

Manic Monday: $@&%! Is it really Thursday? Edition

Geeze, I'm completely dropping the ball on this whole thing. Not even a week after re(re)-declaring my commitment to keep writing, and I don't even hit the weekly post. Not like I don't have the time on my hands or anything. Sure, there are the myriad everyday hassles of being a hausfrau, but you'd think I could carve out 30 minutes a day to get on here and make something happen.

Anyway, we'll do a pretend rewind to Monday and hit March Madness, rest stop excellence (no, really), and  some other stuff in this week's edition...

Manic Monday: A Back in the Saddle Edition

So, I didn't even notice that last week came and went without even so much as a peep from me. I guess that gives the title Daily Honesty a certain ring of false advertising. Oh well. I guess that means that I was busy, which is both true and a good thing.

So here's to doing better. Appropriately, I had my first big weekend of riding this past weekend, and the sore backside to prove it. Since I'm back in the saddle bikewise, I might as well get back in the saddle with this thing, whatever it is. On to the randomness...

Manic Monday: A Sunny Skies as the Paint Dries Edition

Lots happening in Greenville and in Casa Zeta these days. Seems that change is our one true constant right now as I go through a job search, the wife moves onto a new project, the house undergoes major renovations, a new puppy is on the way, and the seasons seem to be making a very welcome early move from Winter to Spring.

A somewhat photo-happy edition of random coming right up...

Joy

Sometimes you need a kick in the backside to snap out of a funk. Sometimes, all it takes is a cold, wet nose and a whine to get you off said backside and just go out and enjoy some simple things. I received a nice little lesson in joy today from the Minister of Joy himself: my dog Jake.

A short photo reminder of how easy it can be to enjoy yourself after the jump.

Manic Monday: A Windy Wilmington Edition

This week, my dog and I have been kidnapped by the wife and hustled off to Wilmington, NC, where she is currently finishing up a project for her corporate overlords. Having left home under cover of darkness and slept much of the way, I can say it's nice when you're wife doubles as chaffeur/head rubber for 4.5 hours. It makes the miles just melt away.

This week, we have racing, in multiple forms (running, bicycles, and even the dreaded NASCAR), on the brain. Your very windy postcard from very windy Wilmington after the jump.

Manic Monday: A Somewhat Valentine's Day Edition

My Valentine was whisked away yet again to serve her corporate masters, which leaves me Valentine-less, so this will be a fairly un-Valentine's Day Edition. as I try to drown my loneliness and longing with some rambling randomness.

Welcome back to Manic Monday. This week's musings on laundry, the finer features of drywall and more after the jump.

Reward

There are myriad reasons why I love riding my bicycle. This however is one of my favorites




It's 60 degrees and sunny here in Greenville, and I had a great little ride with good friends today (Complete with a grandpuppy visit. Pics coming). Wherever you are, I hope you've had as nice a day as I have.

It sure make the beer taste better. Cheers!!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my phone. Any spelling errors are due to fat, clumsy thumbs.

Break time

This is what happens in my back yard when you sit down to take a break from blowing a seemingly endless amount of leaves on a pretty winter day.


At some point I'll do a long rant about how water oaks and their spawn (leaves, acorns, and pollen) are evil incarnate for a homeowner, but this will have to do for today.

- Posted using BlogPress from my phone. Any spelling errors are due to fat, clumsy thumbs.

Manic Monday: Super Bowl XLV Edition

Henceforth, we'll be posting random thoughts on Mondays, and what better way to start with some random thoughts dancing around in our foggy post-Super Bowl heads as we mourn the end of football season? My take on Super Sunday after the jump.

It's Been a Good Week

Very quickly...

I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I'm a lucky guy. No need to name names. If, in the past week, you've hugged me, ran with me, swam with me, Sufferfested with me, yoga'd with me, sent me words of encouragement, sent me ideas for new career paths, helped me with my bitchy bike, sent me home with some really tasty comfort food, or anything else along those lines, then this one's for you:

Thanks...

Bo

Descending to Climb

As a cyclist, I know all too well the meaning of the phrase "what goes down must come up." No, I didn't write that incorrectly. Gravity is very much a factor when riding a bike, and in the two-wheeled world, the descent is always the playful part of the ride. The only problem: unless you had already climbed up beforehand, your fun little downhill will inevitably be followed by an uptick in the road/trail and some slogging for you to get to your next goal.

When I saw the new ad campaign for the career website TheLadders.com, I had more than a WTF moment. I had a WTF hour, wondering what the marketing execs had been smoking when they approved the campaign. Video examples and how in the world this relates to the topic above after the jump.

Zen and the Art of Bicycle Maintenance

I'm pretty much the opposite of mechanically inclined. In my household, it's typically my role to find a way to cause something to cease working and wait for my über-talented and capable spouse to swoop in and save the day. Recently, I find myself with significant amounts of time on my hands due to an ongoing period of "exploring my career options." That left me in an interesting position regarding my trusty-yet-moody road bike, a.k.a. Al the Madone.

Freedom

A couple of months ago, I was in a book rut. Like with music, I find this happens on a fairly regular basis: I end up reading the same author or style over and over until I'm just plain tapped out. The end result is that weeks (or even months) go by with nary a page turned. In the era of ready made access to endless bookstores through Kindles, and Nooks, it's even more depressing. What excuse do I have when the world of books is quite literally at my fingertips and the need to actually venture to the the bookstore and fight traffic and crowds is completely removed. Chalk it up to laziness, but it is what it is.

Hello World

I'm making a deal with myself to write every day, even if it's just a snippet, one-liner, or a twitter update. This is where it's going to happen.