rhymes with milk

Broomfield Event Center (1STBANK Center)

• Local Natives opened up the concert, but Ally and I were at a party at her mom’s house a little late and missed them. We weren’t too heartbroken.
• Arcade Fire

Ally’s former babysitter (Rebecca) from nearly 20 years ago posted on Facebook that she had two free suite tickets up for grabs to the concert. Ally tried to get them, but somebody beat her to it. Then she got a message from Rebecca saying that the person that got the tickets couldn’t find a babysitter, and couldn’t accept the tickets. So Ally was next in line. Apparently Rebecca and her husband run a branch of a mortgage company, and they own a suite (like, their company name is written above the door to the suite…that’s how hard they own it) at the Broomfield Event Center so that they can give their clients tickets as gifts. Whenever they don’t have anybody to give them to, they pass them on to friends (or Facebook friends). We got to sit in awesome leather chairs in a suite that smelled like nachos (we didn’t feel comfortable eating their fancy food since it was never offered to us, so we just drank ice water out of the sink in the suite’s minibar/kitchen…yeah).

The concert itself was amazing. Arcade Fire rocked, and played all of their best music. We moved around to behind the stage for then encore. This was the first concert I recorded with the iPhone4, and am impressed with the quality over the 3GS. It’s still shit, so I recommend searching YouTube for a better version.

If you zoom in really close between miles 19 and 20, you’ll see a little jog in the line. Not coincidentally, it’s right next to a ditch. It was dry before I got to it.

I have a goal to bike 5000 miles in a single calendar year, and I’m tracking my progress in the RWM Sandbox. The number 5000 is pretty arbitrary, not some holy grail number for me or anything. One day I was talking to my boss Nico about what kind of millage he puts on his bikes every year. He said that he doesn’t keep track anymore, but suspects that it’s somewhere in the 10-12,000 mile range. That’s a goddamn shit ton of miles. So I thought to myself, “It would be thoroughly impressive if one day I rode even half as many miles as Nico, Biker Extraordinaire,” and committed to making an attempt.

So far, things are not looking good. Of the 31 days in January, I’ve either been sick or snow has covered the ground for about half of them*. And of the remaining days, the majority have been freezing cold, I’ve worked all day and have had to commit to riding at night, or I simply just didn’t have the time to ride. Things are looking bleak already.

Excuses aside, I actually think this challenge is going well and I’m having fun tracking my progress. I recently joined a gym that prides itself on catering to bicyclists, so I’m definitely getting some millage out of their stationaries. It might be cheating just a little to include stationary miles, but let’s be honest, I need as much help as I can get. 5000 is a big number. That’s 96 miles PER WEEK.

Anyway, there’s a screenshot of January. Let’s see where I get to by the end of this month. Hopefully I add more than 67 miles, but I won’t be disappointed if I don’t. I figure numbers will start to skyrocket come springtime.

* Even when the weather turns around and starts melting the snow, I still can’t ride much. I try to stay off of wet and icy roads with Sven as much as possible, and let’s be honest, there’s no way I’m riding 5000 miles on just Helga. She’s a little too big-boned for that.

Yesterday Dustin and I bought used tennis rackets and played until the sun set. We were in tshirts/shorts the whole game. Today, 24 hours later, it’s 1°F outside. Crazy Colorado and your wacky weather.