04/05/06 to do list
***gawk at matthew barney's new exhibition "the occidental guest" at gladstone gallery, april 7 though may 13, 2006. open tue-sat 10am-6pm. (515 west 24th street b/w 10th & 11th aves, nyc)
***see mono w/pelican, & the life and times @ the drunken unicorn on may 14th & 15th, in atlanta, ga, just cuz it's called the freakin drunken unicorn!
***watch the best films of 2005 at bam.
***spend a few hours on taxcut.com and figure out my blasted taxes.
***spend some tax refund dough on the kidrobot last chance sale.
***and last but not least, listen to built to spill's new album, "you in reverse", on vh1.com for free! the album is out tues april 11th.
6 days of bitchin biking bliss...
...gang banged by 6 days on the road. this is the journal i kept on my trip to sedona, arizona, with 20 or so alumni and current students from the university of illinois at champaign. we called it sedona x. x = 10th ibrc trip out to sedona. kind of a reunion thing. with the illinois bike riding club being a highlight of my college years, it was great to get back on the saddle and hang with old friends. and finally being able to see the stars at night. most, if not all worthwhile details have been left out. appy polly logies. enjoy! i did. =)
pix
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AbOWjRozZN2GL
http://community.webshots.com/user/blue_ox
http://community.webshots.com/user/brady_g
http://community.webshots.com/user/cattv
and if you don't feel like sifting through hundreds of pictures, try the highlights are posted in my photo album on friendster. you can search for me by full name or add me with the email address cathykchang (at) gmail (dot) com.
3.16.06 thursday
6:30am – alarm
6:45am – shower
7:30am – laundromat. gotta wash those nasty sweaty gloves that haven’t been worn in 4 yrs
9:30am – i’m off across the manhattan bridge to bicycle habitat on Lafayette to get a much needed tune up for the bike. hal does the job – new front brake pads, lubes up the derailleur & gear changers, cleans the chain, trues the back wheel, probably need a new derailleur post-sedona. the bill comes to $65-ish. hal has lengthy gray dreads and rides all bikes. not so much downhill though. when I asked him if he rides downhill, he said “uphill. downhill is all thinking and no effort. too easy.” he has 9 bikes. maybe. he’s lost count. he just got back from riding in LA and recommends road riding a deserted highway east of the colorado river.
11am – rode back to the apt, bike rides like a dream…
12pm – done packing, do some last minute work emails, and hope that they’ll be ok without me.
1:28pm – with a full backpack and stuffed laundry sack, i guided my bike onto the subway, rode to penn station (always busy!), now I’m catching NJ transit on track 3, ride one stop to Secaucus
1:48pm – gruff station agent on smoking break helps my directionally-retarded self find my transfer train & track. track F here I come…
2:45pm – arrive in ramsey. wider middle doors didn’t open, had to fight my down narrow-butt aisle to squeeze my way out the narrow-butt end door. damn you fat ass bike! you and your love (downhill) pedals. whew, that was a great workout. i will pack lighter next time.
3pm – hm. I forgot a poncho, flip flops, and toilet paper.
3:30pm – hit starbucks for a prepackaged turkey&swiss lunch. + izze + snickerdoodle cookie + voila, hey Celine!
4pm – brief stop at Celine’s cute & cozy 1 bedroom on the ground floor…and WE’RE OFF!
…new jersey…new york…pennsylvania….ohio…
11:30pm – exit 32 on I-76 west has a nice Quality Inn. damp carpet, but excellent free continental breakfast w/a waffle machine + bananas w/a choice between cheerios and frosted flakes. favorites of cathy and celine, respectively.
3.17.06 friday
6:59am est
29 degrees. brrr…on the road by 7am after shower & breakfast and heading to Illinois first to meet up with the rest of the caravan. 31 peeps woot!
…ohio…Indiana…Illinois…
12:30pm est 11:30am central – weird to be back on the u of I campus.
5:30pm on the dot. we OUT! with 12 peeps…not 31.
jamie + celine + cathy + nick + brady + brandon + giese + john + adam + ricky + craig + weisman
74 south to 40 west to 44 west…
3.18.06 saturday
2:46am – entering cherokee nation
…(STL – home to “extreme church trinity” and “washita battlefield”)…missouri…oklahoma…texas (7am)…
8:16am – milemarker 134 to milemarker 121 is blackened prairie last week’s north tx wildfires. it’s raining now, air smoky with fog or foggy with smoke, smells like an old park bbq pit. 50 miles from Amarillo.
10:41am – new mexico! home of the “santa rosa blue hole”. seeing elevation changes for the first time and gotten away from the haze of the tx fires. now playing portishead. the soil is red and the city names are in Spanish. reading “the time traveller’s wife”.
8:15pm est = 6:15pm mtn = sedona/flagstaff/phoenix
hello sedona you sexy bitch.
3.20.06 monday
6:47am
frank designed some maps of Sedona and adam giese printed them up. giese is in Woodstock, il, and doing computer repair. frank and carol are married and live in flagstaff. smoker john gaddess and guy bresler arrived yesterday, as did frank. carol will be joining us tomorrow and a few other days for some riding. smoker jon lives in Idaho and guy lived with mike after I graduated. yesterday we rode two ride sessions. first was broken arrow to chicken point to little horse to mystic trail. that departed around 11am. then we got back around 2pm, just as it was getting cold and starting to snow (darn thorn gave celine what seemed to be a phantom flat). after resting up, we went for another round at 3pm-ish. we did the first ride backwards and at the end of it, it was sleeting, snowing, raining. very cold. but disorienting because we were in the desert, surrounded by cacti and adobe housing!
john faull arrived yesterday too, so we are now at 16 with our count.
work is reacting as expected, sending out SOS’s. thank god for blackberrys.
red planet diner = dinner last night b/c it was raining. washed my hair in the bathroom sink. it was glorious. especially with the help of their superb aircraft-carrier-strength hand dryer. the waitress and a busboy gave me the evil eye when I exited. screw them, I was damn quick! Saturday night dinner was spaghetti with meat sauce. breakfast today = oatmeal.
4:50pm
rode huckabee to stream crossing to jim thompson trails
got my ankle pinched in the streambed & celine save me by moving a log. then we hiked our bikes for miles and miles. after that my hands were numb & feet were gone. crazy cold again with a touch of rain/snow pellets. blasted by freezing winds on the road ride back. great views, a bit too painful.
3.21.06 tuesday 5:33pm – illini jersey day
tim, rick (neck), Kevin, and toby (mark) arrived yesterday afternoon. they did moab before drifting down to Sedona. celine and I had just gotten done with the bone chilling ride and were numb with cold so we changed. the boys that had just arrived were drinking and proceeded to go for a ride on mystic trail & submarine rock properly soused after 4 beers apiece. psycho awesome.
chilled out after that ride and had delicious vegetarian chili made by frank. macaroni, green peppers, onions, sunflower seeds, tomatoes, black beans, garbonzo beans, white beans, and various spices. and hot sauce. hearty farts all around. followed by smores and chubby bunny. toby won again with 13 marshmallows. adam giese, celine, and john weisman competed.
so today we did chickenpoint to HT to templeton (awesome trail that follows some slick rock ridges/cliffs) to the road, a few miles back to town on the road thru hail, rain, and gross strong sideways chilly winds. celine, carol, and I rode up to templeton together. then celine headed up little horse to head back to camp. she crashed pretty bad on Monday and was feeling bushed. I followed carol down templeton and when we got back to town, went to the subway where most of the riders had gathered for lunch
“Brandon Patchett is sooo hot” surrounded by 6 little hearts is graffitied in on this page. no comment.
I got a hot pastrami & avocado on honey oat bread. w/mayo. fucking delicious. then it started raining pretty hard, so we sat around at subway for a while waiting for the weather to clear up. after about half an hr, there was a break, so we headed out, about 20 of us. almost left brady behind – his face down nap kept him out of sight…
and then the rain turned to snow. we had to take trails back to camp. super muddy, wet. so basically, I did most of what I did that morning, except backwards. after the trails, there was a bit of road riding. super scary, especially when I couldn’t see anything but the fat snow clumps flying in my face. not to mention the dreaded return of numb hands, feet, and this time, legs. good times!
“if this isn’t a good time, I don’t know what is!” – jamie mid-snowstorm-ride
got back to camp frozen and wet. then washed hair in the river. extremely cooold. by then, snow was accumulating and our tent was collapsing under the weight.
we split into “under 21” --> hot chocolate. and 21+ --> oak creek brewery.
after 2 hrs at the brewery, I’ve had two beers and we’re going to have burgers, brats, veggie dogs, and potato salad for dinner. jamie tries to do a trip out to the Laundromat, but the only one they find is open 7am-7pm. cold night’s sleep again.
3.22.06 wednesday 9:55am
everything was frosted over this morn. woke up 8am-ish. within an hour, the sun came out and the temp has risen incredibly. snow’s melting away, may even ride this afternoon, most likely a hike. giese’s got a mean lumberjack swing & oatmeal, beef stew (patchett), and burritos (john faull) for breakfast.
3.23.06 thursday
7:55am
wed = slept late, hiked to vultree arch, go back to camp for steak & potato & campfire-baked veggies.
thurs = wake early, town loop ride. well, for the boys anyway. something long that goes around the entire city of Sedona. the boys are shooting for an 8 hour ride. wack.
3:06pm
we (carol, celine, cathy) took off for our girls ride around 10am. we did a bit of road riding to get to gildner trail, which splits into lots of little trails, like two fences, dawa trail, and ok trail. pretty good ride, very smooth for the most part, singletrack. templeton/HT is still my fave. had some trouble with the clip in pedals, but had fun cruising on those trails by dry creek road.
ate lunch in town at a natural foods store called new frontiers. very dope ready-to-eat selections (vegan salads, rice curry casseroles, etc) and lot of free samples scattered throughout the store. also, they had enormous sweet strawberries and tasty sweet potato fries…and dill pea salad and artichoke salad. YUM! then we headed back to camp.
rinsed off nekkid in the river when we got back to camp, first full body shower I’ve had since Friday morning. freezing cold but glorious. now I’m all lotioned up, loosened up, and ready to read/tan.
tomorrow’s last full day here…
probably pasta for dinner. o yeah, we had egg/veggie/cheese burritos for breakfast. TASTY!
3.24.06 friday 7:05pm
had ravioli & tortellini with tomato meat sauce & zucchini, squash, broccoli baked in the fire. miller high life for dessert. stayed up till 1am-ish maybe. probably just midnight. it gets “late” early out here.
had bananas and oatmeal for breakfast. plus prunes & yogurt covered pretzels. we all headed up to submarine rock around 11am. most everyone bombed down the traditional run. then brady, tim, toby, and blair (bagel guy from flagstaff) pulled some daredevil shit and went down a taller steeper rock at the far end of sub rock. we also took the group picture, a few, and one final ass-ful photo. perfecto. with several surprisingly hairy asses. after sub rock, rode back to camp to chill, while jamie, nick, weisman, john, adam, and craig went for another long ride. pretty crazy after they did town loop just yesterday. about 14 of us went into town for Indian food buffet. it was ok, the soggy donut holes were gross, and it was nice to not be (more?) literally eating out. side. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm rice.
john faull took off after the buffet, back to Colorado.
half our group went shit shopping for tchotchkes and the rest of us went back to camp to recover from the buffet. then around 4pm we drove the bikes and some bikers up schnebly hill road. bumpy drive, up to the top, or near enough, then just a pretty rocky technical downhill covering slickrock, tourists, (dry) stream crossings, icky switchbacks, and babyheads. no falls thank goodness. boys team = frank, patchett, toby, tim. girls team = carol, cathy.
3.25.06 saturday
8:57am
celine & I fetched bagels + cream cheese from NY Bagels this morn.
“maybe it’s the constant elevation changes that made us burp & fart so much” – celine pontificating the boyish tendencies we acquired this week
traveling north on 89a at the moment. it’s a road that winds through the Coconino national forest on our way up to flagstaff. scenic though twisty and dangerous.
1:18pm
zuzax, nm
flippin, Arkansas
liberal, Kansas
sapulpa, Oklahoma
ennis, tx
currently driving through new mexico.
5:11pm MST = 6:11pm CST
we just crossed the tx state line. and into central standard time.
7:03pm CST
mile 63 on 40 east in texas. we just passed the Cadillac graveyard on the right. the tx cattle feeders association is located right next door to the tx wheat production association in Amarillo. bigtexan.com
had dairy queen for eats. ricky got tacos. dairy queen tacos?!?!?! brady got an m&m/heath blizzard that was supposed to be an oreo/heath blizzard. or something like that. giese brought mcdonald’s into dq and they tried to kick him out for “cross contamination” bullshit. later I had my first fresh krispy kreme donut. truly a beautiful thing. never again though. way too intense.
3.26.06 sunday
2:09pm EST
just left champaign. had quick lunch from strawberry fields and caught up on some tv. ciao to the caravan. traveling east on 74 and super sad Sedona X is over. the drive to u of I was uneventful. a bit of musical car seats was played and I learned patchett is not that much of an asshole and giese is a scary driver when he’s tired.
“Sigourney weaver has a horny thrashing beaver” – mc paul barman
3:59pm
nameless creek, Indiana
3.27.06 monday 3am-ish
...indiana...ohio...pennsylvania...new jersey...new york…
popped into burger king for dinner. huge thanks to celine for hauling car ass like a heroic hoss and getting me home in record time. and avoiding cops. as well as concrete road construction dividers.
home again.
attention students
from alaina@cencom.org:
Hey Everyone,
We thought you might be interested in joining us for a FREE tour of DC Comics offered to Undergraduate and Graduate students. The event is on Wednesday, April 12th at 11am. If you would like to join us, please respond to this email with your name and email address, and what school you are from. Hope to hear from you!
Best,
Alaina Bendi
Center for Communication
p: (212) 686-5005
f: (212) 504-2632
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