Art O’Connor

“The” tour is over. I guess I will have to go back to watching the Bush/Cheney Show to get my fill of lying, cheating, and greed. Vino, way to go fuctard. Maybe you and Tyler can get together for a play date with your chimera’s? rASSmussen, eat a damn sammich then go for a ride and swerve into an oncoming bus. Alice, maybe your positive came from hair gel? The ass master from Cofidis, you doped and still sucked. I never heard of you before and hopefully never will again. Your 15 minutes was actually more like 3. Ciao. Kloden too bad you don’t have better judgment. If you are not a doper, I would think you would have learned something after hanging around with der Kaiser roll. You are judged by the company you keep. Pick your friends better.

The State Road Race (Masters) was super fun yesterday. It was great to pin on a number again. I was pretty active in the first half and when crunch time came I did not make the split. I was in the chase group that never really got all that organized which made sense as pretty much all the teams were represented up at the front. My lack of mileage and racing showed and I pretty much just sat on and finished at the tail end of our group. It felt so good to be racing though. Next up is Wolf Creek Pass for me. That race is a monster, 75 miles and sick amounts of climbing. Good times for sure.

Question of the day. Can a smile change the world? We will see.

In the shameless commerce department I closed on a new house last week that is now for rent. If you are interested click here.

Now I know where Tommy Boy got all his moves.

Since I announced that I would have won every race that happened while I was hurt I am now faced with the reality of going back to getting my teeth kicked in. I just registered for the Masters State Championship Road Race. I have a whole new list of excuses ready to go. Vino’s gotta lie, birds gotta fly, Trains gotta roll.

Dont call it a comeback….

There are no heroes on TV. Your favorite actor, athlete whatever, they are all phonies. Tool has a great line in the song “Hooker With A Penis” that says “I sold out long before you ever even knew my name”. The Tour de France is a total farce at his point. It is like the Bush/Cheney administration in that it is a total fruad that everyone is just waiting to just go away. If you don’t feel cheated you are not paying attention.

There are heroes though and the don’t ride in the Pro Tour. The guy who commutes everyday by bike rain or shine, the girl who gets up at 5am and runs in secret because her parents don’t think girls should be athletes, the Cat 4/Sport class lifer who shows up every week knowing he will finish mid pack at best, the cancer survivor who rides just ‘cuz she can. There’s your heroes, they are not riding around doped up on the roads of France.

Hamilton, Vino, Basso, Virenque, Ullrich, etc. Just go away, I never want to hear about your lying cheating ass again. I know not all pro cyclists are dopers but thanks to your parents doing a shitty job raising you they are all under suspicion and that sucks. I really believe cycling is the greatest sport in the world and people like you are killing it. Next time I am suffering up Big Mountain I won’t be thinking I am Pantani on the Tourmalet. I will be thinking I am that guy on the Huffy riding to WalMart in a blizzard.

Well Vino has been saying all along that he is above doping that he rides with courage, heart, blah blah blah. Fucking doper. Go back to Kazakhstan buy a bunch of goats and never show your face again you doping fuck. Now I don’t feel bad for not watching the dope show at all.

In non doping news after 4 training runs of 2 miles I thought it would be a good idea to run the Deseret News 10k this morning. For you non Utah readers today is pretty much the biggest holiday in the state. This is the day Brigham Young in his search for a good place to distill whiskey, have plural wives, and massacre non believers, in the name of God, declared “This is The Place”. It is officially called Pioneer Day but I like to call it Momorial Day. Anyway The Pioneer Day parade claims to be like the 3rd largest parade in the country (I am thinking there is a pretty big drop after #2) and the 10k as well as the marathon run along a lot of the route. I lined up at 6am with e few thousand others and off I went. I had a pretty good run going until mile 4 then my calves began to tie up pretty good and I had to slow down. In the end I finished just under 41 minutes which means I have some work to do before XTerra. I can barely walk right now and I am sure tomorrow will be even better.

In blog new I hit the big time today with a link from Wallstreetfighter.com. It is one of my daily reads and he just hit a million unique visitors a while back so I am honored to get the link. Anyway you should check it out it is a great site.

It is pretty well known that I don’t have much use for organized religion. If it works for you that is great, run with it I respect that. I was raised Catholic and I don’t have any traumatic story that drove me from the church or anything I just never really could swallow the whole blind faith thing. Anyway to each his own. My Mom is always on me about going to church and what not. When she saw my “Would Jesus Sit on Shirt?” she was not amused. She thought I was being blasphemous even after explaining how classless it is to sit on the break and then sprint, something I am pretty sure a righteous dude like J.C would not do. Still, she did not get it. So fast forward a few weeks, Mom is having dinner with her priest telling him all about her son the satanist and his t-shirt. Turns out the priest is a cycling enthusiast and wants a shirt. Win Win for me, Mom now knows I am not in league with the devil and I sold another shirt.

On Saturday I rode 3 hours, swam, and ran. Damn. I was pretty worked yesterday and eneded up not doing anything (besides going to work). My swimming is getting better (I have an awesome coach), but I still wonder how I am going to haul my carcass across 1500 meters of open water. So far swimming is much more humbleing than skate skiing. At least skiing I can go pretty fast on the dh. No coasting in the pool though. I just have to watch the 70 year old ladies swim past knowing I will not be catching them on the dh. Just try that on a bike granny. Yaa, thats what I thought.

As bad as the scandals in cycling are they don’t hold a candle to the collection of felons and morally bankrupt thugs in the NFL or NBA. I normally don’t pay much attention to them but the Michael Vick case is just sick. Here is a guy who because of his ability to throw a ball to other goons gets paid millions of dollars to entertain couch potatos on Sundays for a few weeks every fall. You would think that anyone who was in a postion where they are grossly overcompensated for such a random “skill” would try and do something good and productive with their time and money. Not Michael Vick. Nope, this asshole thinks it is fun to fight dogs for money and if his dog does not perform well he tortures and kills them. Maybe his coaches should do the same when he throw an interception? How many Stupor Bowls have you won bottom feeder? The money grubbers at the NFL head office have shown their class and have not even suspended the douche bag. We done gentlemen, way to put the “talent” and bottom line ahead of doing the right thing.

Speaking of cycling lots of action yesterday at Le Tour. Looks like Vino is not ready to roll over just yet. Too bad Moreau got popped as he was one of the only guys willing to attack in the mountains unlike the other “favorites”. At this point I hope Chicken rides the TT of his life and wins the whole damn thing. That would be the ultimate F.U to the pussies like Levi and Cadel who just follow wheels and wait for the TT. Even Lance would attack in the mountains. When Bill Harris was coaching me he used to say “to win you have to be willing to lose”. Good advice from a guy who won a lot.

Today Zabriskie did not make the time cut. That sucks. If you have been watching his video diaries you know he has been dealing with a bad knee and really suffering. I guess it took its toll today. Hopefully Versus will throw him a boatload of money to do commentary for the rest of the race and fire Al Trautwig (that might get me to buy cable). Hopefully his knee will get better soon and he can move up a step on the podium at worlds.

What game play?

How do celebrities get so far out of touch from reality? Most of them came from normal families where Dad (and probably Mom) got up and went to work everyday so you would think they would at least understand what actally working for a living is. Imagine poor Dave Chapelle working for 6 whole hours? No wonder he is exhausted. Who goes to the damn emergency room for exhaustion? Probably a Harry Potter fan.

I went to the pool yesterday for my first swim lesson. Good hell what have I gotten myself into? The Xterra swim is 1500 meters, at this point I can swim 50 before I am completly spent. If I owe you money or you just want to tell me what a douche bag I am you have until Aug 18 which at this point I would say is the day I drown. Oh well, it has been a good run.

If I had a kid and he asked if he could go see a Harry Potter movie the conversation would go something like this:

“Dad can we go see Harry Potter: Curse of the Whiney Limey?”

“Son, go and cut yourself a switch, then we are watching Apocalypse Now”

“Again?”