i got a new car and it is unlike anything you've ever seen in seattle.
it looks like this:
i got a new tattoo and it looks like this:
(the picture doesn't do it justice. it looks really great) here's a closer-up of the airplane:
and the story behind it is this:
my grandfather elmer was in the air force in world war 2. and he was a real hero. not the erin brockovich type of hero, but the protect-your-freedom-in-a-war type. he flew in a b24 liberator. the old grey wolf.
he flew in a million missions over europe. a lot of people flew in one mission or a half of a mission and they were killed. my grandfather was not killed. he survived the entire time to return home to his wife charlotte. they both died recently. i miss them very much. they had a painting in their house that looked like this:
it's a b24 bombing italian oil refineries. i am awfully fond of it because it reminds me of my grandparents. jamie at liberty tattoo married the two images and put them on my body. with a needle and some ink. it hurt tremendously. but not nearly as much as it hurt to lose my grandparents. elmer would love my tattoo. well, probably not because old people don't really like tattoos. but he would appreciate it.
i don't really race bicycles anymore. i totally lost motivation to do it this year. it rained a lot. and i made a bunch of excuses. at some point after december i fell out of shape. then i stopped riding regularly. then i stopped having fun when i did ride because i felt like doodoo butter each time i went out. i've done two races this year. in one i finished 79th. in the other i crashed in the miserable rain. on neither occasion did i have fun. cycling should be fun. people should do stuff that's fun in their spare time. not stuff that makes them miserable. right? i mean it's good to push yourself and step outside of your comfort zone for a bit, but it's got to result in some sort of positive outcome. if i'm wrong here, just let me know and i'll punch myself in the nuts repeatedly. i may get back into bike racing. but probably not this year. due in large part to the climbing trip that i'm taking in july/august.
i'm going here:
it's called ceuse and it's in france.
up closer it looks like this in spots:
riding a bike right now will not make the climbing there any easier. nor will it make me more french. riding a bike in a bike race might even make me more injured. to get ready for the trip i have been climbing more, eating baguettes, wearing a beret, smoking cigarettes, and just being a dick.
i'm going there with my friend zach. i went on a climbing trip with zach a couple years ago. we went to spain. except he wasn't there when i got there because he had already left. hopefully he'll still be in france when i get there. since my spain trip didn't quite turn out the way i had planned. i still like zach even though he left spain before i got there. that's why i'm going to france to meet him. zach, please still be in france.
on another note, i have a great girlfriend:
her name is therese. she is a nurse practitioner and is gonna be a midwife. someday she will tell me stories about the painful baby delivery she helped with as opposed to stories about the abscess she removed from some woman's anus. or the fungus she had to remove from some guy's balls. i think nurse practitioning is a very glamorous profession. therese, when you are a midwife please wash the placenta off your hands before touching my face.
therese has a daughter named rose. she's 8 and currently has no front teeth, but she DOES have a sweet mustache:
i like spending time with therese and rose, but don't tell them that because it'll go to their heads and they'll get all cocky and shit.
at the end of july i will have worked at the vertical world climbing gym for 8 years. that is a LONG summer job.
my brother's baby charlotte is amazing.
she's almost four months old. soon she will have a job and husband. or a robot since she will be growing up in the future.
if you've made it this far, thanks for your patience. you'll now be rewarded with millions of dollars. and by millions of dollars, i mean some comedy:
