Transparent Racing

One of my recent projects has been starting a professional mountain bike and cyclocross race team, called Transparent Racing (check out our blog at http://transparentracing.blogspot.com). My original plan was to have this team start for the cyclocross season (winter) of 2009, but after finding out that the team I thought I was going to race for, Team DEVO, was not happening this year, I decided to bump it up and race for my newly created team. My friend, Kat Statman, is also joining the team this summer, and we have two female racers who will be joining us for cyclocross season (whose names I am not at liberty to mention because they have current racing commitments).

This past weekend, April 18-19th, was our first race of the season as Transparent Racing and we raced the 2009 Sea Otter Classic in Monterey, CA. Both of us finished both the short track cross country and the cross country, but neither of us had stellar results. The cross country race on Sunday was brutally hot, but we both finished (unlike 25% of the other Pro starters). Here are our thoughts post-race (and some team pictures).

Lots of projects

I love having projects. That's why I haven't been posting at all recently. Currently, I am working on two big projects that I can't give too many details on (because I don't want anyone stealing one of them, and because neither is going to come to fruition for a while). But I will say that both are bike-related (as are most things in my life) and I am very invested in and excited about both. So I'm happily project-ing away and am feeling better because I have been training a bunch and still been able to work on my projects. My days still start late, because I go to bed late, but during the day I am able to work on my projects, ride my bike, and hang out with Victoria.
On the subject of my projects, I have started using some programs that I hadn't, and using others in different ways than I normally do, to help me with my projects. For example, I recently started a blog for each project (which I then set to "private" so that I'm the only one who can see them), and have been using them to organize my thoughts and keep notes. I initially did this so that after my first project goes live anyone who is interested in the process I followed can read about it, but it has since turned into a great way for me to organize my thoughts and jot down notes.
I have also started using Campfirenow.com as it is a great way to collaborate with other people. Since I am working with Kat on the other projects, it helps for us to have a place to go to chat that we can then refer back to because calls don't always work (and it is hard to keep a fully-searchable record of your telephone conversation).
I have also started using Google Docs. It is an easy way to upload documents and share them with other people and allow everyone to edit them, instead of emailing them as an attachment, and receiving a new version every time someone changes anything.
In other news, I recently got a cold and haven't ridden for the past 3 days. I'm hoping that tomorrow I can get back on my bike because starting this Friday I will be racing the Tour de la Patagonia which will be my first mountain bike stage race. I'm really looking forward to it and hope that I will be feeling good again.
And finally, it sounds like my family (well, Boden, AC, and my parents at least) will be coming to visit us, along with Victoria's sister, in a few weeks. We will be meeting them in southern Argentina and will be spending some time in Parque Nacional Torres del Paine which should be really cool and beautiful. I just have to figure out how to work my training around it...
ps. Still no news on whether or not I'm going to Continental Championships, keep your fingers crossed for me!

The problem with having time

I've had a lot of time recently, and it's been really hard. Now, I know that that sounds silly, so let me explain. First of all, I'm not used to having time. I'm used to being so busy that I'm continually running and have to plan my days down to the minute to get everything done that I need to. And even then, I'm frequently late and I don't get enough sleep. So having time has been really weird to me. The last couple of months, I have had time to blog, program, get into graphic design, ride my bike (a ton), play on the internet, cook, and get enough sleep. The issue is that because I have so much time, I haven't been good about planning or using it well. I stay up too late, get up too late, and then feel lazy for waking up so late. Then I make and eat food, ride my bike, go on the computer, and then it seems like it's time to go to bed again. I know this sounds great, but there are so many other things that I want (and need) to do. For example, I need to make some money, so I've been building a website and creating a logo for someone I met via Twitter. Both of these have been cool projects, but have taken quite a bit of time. I also want to blog more, but haven't made the time to do that. I also want to meet some people from San Martin who are my age, because I think that hanging out with them would really, really help my Spanish. Plus it would be fun. And then there are even more things on the computer that I want to learn and do. I have been trying to learn Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign, but haven't really had time, and I really want to create (program) an online bike social network (that's another story). And finally, I want to spend more time with Victoria. I get to see her all the time, but we don't really spend quality time together. Instead, we are simply near one another, location-wise, and this just means that all of our time is half-time and we never get individual-time or together-time.
Here is where my time is going:
Riding: I've been riding way more than I ever have at this time of the year. On one hand, it has been really fun and I think that it will pay off this race season, but it has also been really hard not having anyone to join me on my really long rides. I tend to get lonely and it makes the rides somewhat less fun. It is also hard because I know the majority of the trails in the area, so my only option on 5-6 hour rides is to ride trails I already know and try to switch the order up...And right now, my fork has decided to act up, so I can't do anything until it is fixed.

Playing around on my bike

Cooking: I've never really had to cook for myself before this year, and I didn't realize how time consuming it is. Making a tasty, healthy, home-cooked meal is a process. For example, I would say that on average, it takes Victoria and I 1-2 hours daily to make dinner. I prefer cooking for myself over eating out because it is cheaper, tastier, and healthier, but it eats up your time.

Yummy, homemade food

Computer: This is a big one, but I feel justified because my computer time is not spent on only one thing. I keep in touch with people, work, learn, and have free time all on the computer, so it isn't surprising that it takes up a lot of time. But here is my problem. I need to be on the computer to work and stay in touch, but it is such an incredible source of knowledge that all I want to do is learn. I just want to spend all of my time on the computer learning things and applying those things to my personal projects without having to worry about money. But that is not the way things are meant to be right now...
Here is my solution: SCHEDULE. I know it sounds silly to make a schedule for vacation, but it seems to be the best way for me to get the things I want to get done done. I have tried this a couple of times already, but my schedule keeps getting screwed up by not going to bed when I say I'm going to. This in turn screws up the next day's schedule because I wake up too late. I would just force myself to wake up, but one of my cycling goals this year is to get enough sleep and I am intent on sticking to that.
So that's my rant. Kinda silly I realize, but it has been causing me considerable stress (which is partially because I'm not good at not stressing). I hope everyone is doing well and using their time more wisely than I am.

Two Whole Years

That's how long Victoria and I have been dating, as of today, January 15th, 2009. That's a really long time. I'd say it has all been a piece of cake, but that would be a lie. It hasn't all been easy, but the fact that we've worked through the hard parts just speaks to the fact that we really care about one another (at least I think so).

It was an interesting day to be a 2 year anniversary. First of all, I had a 5 hour ride. With 4 20-minute steady state intervals. Unfortunately, they weren't real steady (I'm planning to blog about that tomorrow on TwoWheelTales.com). So I was gone for a good chunk of the day. Unfortunately.

But before I left for my ride, my wonderful Victoria gave me "Tuskan". That's what I named him (because of the tusks). I have been wanting a stuffed friend for a while because she has "Pinkbunny" (yes, all one word) and I was hoping to get one when I was down here because then it would have a story behind it... So here is a picture of Tuskan and Pinkbunny, who are now best friends (we already caught them trying to steal food from the fridge together):

When I finally got back from my ride, I was exhausted and found no Victoria, but instead an amazing breakfast sandwich waiting for me. It was delicious. When Victoria did get back (from her ride), I sat and wasted some time on the internet while Victoria took a nap (apparently she was tired). Then we went out and bought some groceries and made some delicious sweet and sour chicken for dinner. If you want the recipe, here it is (note that we substituted flour for cornstarch because we couldn't find cornstarch): http://is.gd/2P8V And here's a picture of how it turned out:

So there's a brief update of what is going on. It wasn't a real romantic 2 year anniversary, but it was fun. And as I always promise: I'll try to blog more regularly.

Oh yeah, almost forgot to mention that my friend Kat (see his blog) asked me to be his best man! I've never been a best man before. Wow, that's cool...

Questions (with a desire for feedback)

I recently wrote a post on TwoWheelTales.com asking for feedback from readers on why they think that road bike racing is so much more popular than mountain bike racing among the general public. Instead of rewriting that post here, I would love of you would head over to my article and leave me a comment there.

Insomnia (or "I hate mosquitos")

I started off the new year planning to get enough sleep every night (see my post about my 2009 Racing Goals). I have been successful in this, but it has been significantly harder than I thought it was going to be. The first two nights of the new year (actually the last night of 2008 and the first of 2009) I couldn't sleep. Most of all, it was too hot (we don't have air conditioning), and then I had to deal with mosquitos buzzing around my head. Honestly, they wouldn't have bothered me much, because mosquito bites don't bother me much, except that you can hear them when they're near your face. And these ones are especially mean, fast, and sneaky. For example, it you wait for one to land on your face, then swat at it, you end up hitting yourself in the face, and it gets away. And then, when you can't deal with them any more, and turn on the light to go on a killing spree, they stop flying around and sit on the wall or ceiling where they blend into the wood and brick. Finally, my mind simply goes out of control when I lay down to sleep. I start thinking about all of the things I want to do on the computer - websites I want to build, jerseys I want to design, things I want to learn, blog posts I want to write - and I can't shut them out.

Fortunately, I have had a few nights free of insomnia. And Victoria and I have started sleeping with the windows open, which helps with the heat. But those darned mosquitos just will not leave me alone. I've also realized that our schedule of going to bed at 2:00AM has made our attempts to go to bed at a reasonable time significantly more difficult, since our internal clocks are all out of whack. Finally, I've begun to wonder if restarting training has affected me. I actually had Sean (my coach) mention that to me once, but I never understood why that would NEGATIVELY affect your sleep.

So that's my rant about not sleeping. Basically, it stinks. If you can avoid it, do. (And don't ever go to bed with "A Whole New World" stuck in your head, it doesn't help).

Dvorak Keyboard

I'm no efficiency master. There are tons of things I do that are inefficient. But I do try to minimize them as much as I can. My most recent random attempt at better efficiency was to change my laptop keyboard layout to the Dvorak layout. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry, I hadn't heard of the Dvorak layout either. Here's a summary:

When keyboards were being invented, the keys had a tendency to jam. This caused the inventor to change the placement of the keys so that the most commonly used keys were as far apart as possible to reduce jamming. While this successfully fixed the jamming issue, it also set up keyboards incredibly inefficiently. And for some reason, we have continued to use the same layout.

Somewhere around 1930, Dr. August Dvorak tested efficiency in the office and realized that the QWERTY (standard) keyboard layout was incredibly inefficient. After much research and after trying numerous layouts, he eventually came up with the Dvorak layout. Here's the basic premise: put the most common letters under the fastest fingers on the home row. Smart, huh? 

But because everyone was so used to the QWERTY layout, few people converted, and it (obviously) has not become an industry standard.

The good news is that even though keyboards do not tend to be set up in the Dvorak layout, it is incredibly easy to change most operating systems to use the Dvorak layout. Here is a website that shows you how.

So, now that I have rambled on and on, here is my story: I changed my keyboard! It was fun. And then I pulled off all of my keys and moved them around (see picture). It took me some time to get used to it, but now I'm comfortable with it again, and I'm hoping that it will allow me to reach previously unattainable typing speeds (the fastest typist in the world uses Dvorak).

I realize that it isn't for everyone (mostly because most people do not have time to re-learn to type), but wouldn't it be great if all of the kids who were learning to type learned on Dvorak keyboards? We'd have a whole new generation of mega-speedy typists!

ps. You can buy stick-on letters so that your keyboard reads correctly if you don't want to pull out the keys, like I did...

Happy Holidays 2008 Card

Dear family and friends, 

For those of you who don’t already know, the two of us are spending the year abroad in South America. This has completely changed the feeling of this holiday season. Even though we’re taking full advantage of the bike-riding, lake-swimming, sun-tanning weather, we’re missing the snow and luminarios back home, and most of all, missing each and every one of you! So we thought we’d write a letter to let you know we’re missing you and update you on our adventures abroad thus far.

The first two months of our trip we spent in San Alfonso, Chile, a town of smaller than, well, smaller than small. San Alfonso is located 60 kilometers (about 36 miles) Southeast of Santiago, the capital city, in a beautiful canyon called Cajón de Maipo. Living in San Alfonso was always an adventure. Getting groceries each week consisted of two hour long rides on the rather unpredictable (but always entertaining) bus, and doing laundry meant tracking down one of the three or four people in the town who owned washing machines (and paying them an outrageous amount per load).

While in San Alfonso we met an incredible number of amazing people who made our time there, well, AMAZING! We met the Andrade family who rented us our casita, took us rafting, and gave us free range to explore the 3,600 hectares of mountains they owned. We became friends with the family who owned the market where we bought fresh bread daily, and with a wonderful taxi driver named Tito who took us to try our first Mote con Huesillo, a traditional Chilean drink. At the school where she volunteered as an English and dance teacher, Victoria made a number of small friends who called her tía and didn’t seem to notice how slowly and carefully she spoke Spanish. We were even befriended by a number of stray animals, the two most memorable being a pregnant, one-eyed cat (Pirate), and a dog that, if she were human, would be an Olympic runner (Dingbat).

We also mountain bike raced in Chile. Macky raced in four of the Copa Chile races and placed 9th, 7th, 12th, and 9th, respectively, in the Pro category. Victoria raced in the Copa Chile series finals and topped the podium in the Novicio Damas category. It was at these races that we met the “Giant Bicycles Chile” Team. They ended up becoming our adopted Chilean bike team, and the team manager Antonio, his girlfriend Paula, and her daughter Anastasia became our adopted Chilean family! During our last week in Chile we lived with them at their beautiful house in Santiago. 

San Martín de Los Andes, Argentina, where we are currently living, is turning out to be just as wonderful as San Alfonso. In addition to it being stunningly beautiful here, situated on a 15-mile-long lake in the Andes, we have met another group of (you guessed it) amazing people! During our first few days here, a number of people we barely knew helped us find a place to live and introduced us to the town. We quickly became friends with Flavio Bonilauri, the owner of a local bike shop, and his crew. Victoria even found an all girls cycling group that rides together twice a week. 

Argentina has also sharpened our culinary skills. Being used to the diversity of our moms’ delicious home-cooked meals, the shock of cooking for ourselves was just that, shocking! Unable to come up with a different meal for every night, we resorted to alternating between pasta and…pasta. Mind you, we did switch it up a bit; sometimes we ate our pasta with cheese and sometimes with tomato sauce. And sometimes, we even ate it with BOTH! But once we hit San Martín, we decided we had had enough pasta to last a lifetime. With the help of our parents and the Internet we have mastered a whole new smorgasbord of recipes. Among other things, we can now make our own tortillas, refried beans, salsa, breaded chicken, and energy bars!

We hope that this holiday season finds everyone as healthy, happy, and excited about life as we are (if someone less tan)! We are missing everyone back home, and send all of our love and wishes for an awesome 2009! 

Tear up the powder for us! 

With Love,

Macky and Victoria

P.S. We made a “Happy Holidays” slideshow for everyone using some of our favorite pictures from the trip! You can view it here.

Other links:

To see an interactive map of our trip so far, click here.

To see our complete collection of photos, visit our flickr albums.

If you want to read more about our trip from Macky’s point of view, visit his blog (okay, you've clearly already done that). 

…and if you want to read Victoria’s account of the trip, ask if you can borrow her journal or read her poetry when she gets home. 

Christmas Wishlist

It's a whole new thing for me, this Summertime Christmas. I've found it incredibly difficult to get into the Christmas spirit without snow, cold weather, a Christmas tree, lights, decorations, or skiing. Victoria and I have tried hard. We decorated (colored on) our Christmas tree (a hand-drawn picture) yesterday and made ourselves a delicious Christmas dinner of breaded chicken and twice-baked potatoes tonight, but the one big thing we're still missing is presents. You see, the problem with being poor and in a foreign country is that you can't buy one another expensive presents and there's a good chance Santa might not be able to find you. So, because I'm not planning to get any of this stuff, but I'm still trying to get into the Christmas spirit, I decided to write down my Christmas list here and explain why I want each thing. Here goes (note that these are not in any specific order):

1. The $1000 entry fee for the TransAndes mountain bike stage race (unfortunately, I need this by December 31st) because I really want to race the TransAndes Challenge.

2. A new 15" (unibody) MacBook Pro laptop set up as follows: 2.8GHz processor, 320 GB Hard Drive (@7200), 4 GB RAM. Microsoft Office, Final Cut, and Photoshop CS4 Suite installed would be a plus. My Dell is working, but has seen better days. Plus, you can dual boot run Windows on the new MacBook Pros (in case I need any of my PC programs).

3. The iAero III G or the iPro Wireless III G power meter by iBike. I have accepted that POWER is the next step to take in my training (along with riding more) and the iBike power meters look great (and are easy to switch between bikes).

4. The Garmin Edge 705 cycling computer (with heart rate and cadence, of course). The new Edge 705 is power meter compatible and works with the iBike power meters. And what would be the point of having power if you couldn't pair it with your heart rate and GPS data?

5. Any set of PowerCranks (the PowerCranks xLite Adjustable would be best). These are crank arms that DO NOT connect but both sides power the drivetrain. I am told that they work wonders for your pedal stroke and I would love to have a perfect pedal stroke (there's no point in wasting energy when you're pedaling).

6. A Retul fit for all 4 of my bikes. I had a professional bike fit a few years ago because of knee pain, but I have had a bit of pain resurface recently (I think I've grown). Now that I don't plan on growing any more, I figure this is the time to get another one.

7. 2 SRAM group sets (I'd love Red, but I'm not picky), 1 for my cyclocross bike, and 1 for my road bike. I've got low-end Shimano componentry on them right now and it just doesn't work all that well. Plus, I really like the hidden cables...

8. A smartphone. I admit that iPhone is the best known and absolutely beautiful, but since it is still unavailable for Verizon, I'll go for some other kind of phone. I want to be able to browse the web/check email from my phone, and this seems like the way to go. Plus, as a Computer Science major, it seems like I should probably stay at the forefront of the technology that is around. So, maybe a smartphone running on the new operating system, Android.

Like I said, I'm not planning on getting any of this, but it doesn't hurt to DREAM BIG right?

Galletas de Bici (Bicycle Cookies) - Homemade Energy Bars

At $4 a pop, Clif (R) Bars just aren't worth buying down here, but I still need something to train with. So I decided to search the "magical internet ball". I found tons of recipes. TONS! I didn't know where to start there were so many. So I decided to try a new approach: Twitter.

Although I found Twitter (and blogged about it) almost 11 months ago, I didn't really start using it until about a week ago. That was when I realized its potential (it also didn't hurt that I got wireless internet). So I sent out the message:

Anyone know of any good "homemade Clif Bar" recipes? I'm in Argentina and can't get Clif Bars down here, but need something to train with...

And people actually responded! I had multiple people send me suggestions and websites, and I finally decided on a variation of this recipe (thanks to @sprocketjockey).

The only problem was that it required peanut butter, another luxury that is hard to come by here in Argentina. So I decided to make that too!

Back to the "magic internet ball". And I came up with this recipe.

Between these two recipes, Victoria and I made some delicious energy bars, which we have since dubbed "Galletas de Bici" (Bicycle Cookies). I admit that they do not have the same flavor nor the same texture as real Clif (R) Bars, but they are cheaper, delicious, and easy to make.

So here is our "Galletas de Bici" recipe:

Homemade Peanut Butter (makes 1.25 cups):

1.25 cups Peanuts

0.75 cup Caramelized Peanuts

1 tsp Salt

4 tsp Olive Oil

Blend the peanuts and salt, adding olive oil slowly until the desired consistency is achieved.

Galletas de Bici (makes 18 brownie-sized bars):

1 cup Rolled Oats (regular old oatmeal)

1.5 cup chopped Dried Fruit (we used pineapple, apricots, pears, and raisins)

0.5 cup chopped Nuts (we used almonds, peanuts, cashews, and walnuts)

0.75 cup Rice Crispies (or other cereal)

0.5 cup Fat-Free Powdered Milk (we don't think the "Fat-Free" matters)

0.75 cup Sugar

2 tsp Butter

1.25 cup Homemade Peanut Butter (see above)

1 cup Honey

Chocolate

Mix all of the ingredients up to (and including) the sugar.

Melt the butter, peanut butter, and honey in a large frying pan.

Mix the melted mixture with the dry mixture (not with your hands - it's HOT).

Pour this into a wax-paper lined 9x13 inch baking pan.

Sprinkle the chocolate (or if you have a bar, grate it) over the whole concoction.

Put in oven for 5-10 minutes or until the edges brown very slightly (I'd give you a temperature, but our oven doesn't have any numbers).

Allow to cool fully.

Cut up and store in fridge.

Mi casa es su casa...¡pero no la venda!

It happened like this:

Victoria and I were wandering around San Martín de los Andes, Argentina looking for housing and we found what we thought looked like a promising apartment building, but couldn’t figure out where to go to ask about renting. Then Victoria saw this kind-looking middle-aged woman walking from her car to her house. We ran over and asked the woman who we could talk to about renting and she explained that they were all owned individually. We thanked her and were about to leave when she mentioned that she had a friend who was renting a small house and invited us in while she gave this friend a call. When she was unable to reach her friend, she offered to drive us up to see the house, because she knew where it was and figured we’d like to see it, if only from the outside. We accepted and thanked her and the three of us headed off.

This was the beginning of a more-than-2-hour adventure where Cecilia drove us from place to place following one lead after another. We talked to people that were friends of friends of Cecilia’s whom she had never met, drove to numerous different communities in the San Martín de los Andes area, practiced our Spanish, saw 3 different potential houses, and heard about Cecilia’s Italian lover. Admittedly, none of the places she showed us were quite what we were looking for

and we eventually rented a cute little apartment in the center of San Martín that another friend showed us, but Cecilia’s generosity and kindness after knowing us for less than 5 minutes really surprised me.

And this is how our entire trip has been! Everywhere we have gone people have invited us into their homes and made us feel welcome. In Mendoza, we met up with friends of the family,

Alberto and Maria-Gracia Aristarain, who helped us find a hostel in Mendoza and then let us stay for two days (for free) at their beautiful Bed and Breakfast, Casa Glebinias. In San Alfonso, we were warmly welcomed by friends of friends of the family, Sergio Andrade and his family, and given a place to stay for the night and the next morning, the son, Pangal, and his friend, Marco, helped us find a place to live in San Alfonso for the two months we were there. Also during our time in San Alfonso, we were invited to two

different asados (barbecues), two different times, by two different families that barely knew us. The colectivo (a kind of taxi) driver, Tito, who we got to know, invited us out to try mote con huesillo (a special Chilean drink – see picture) because he heard that we had never tried it. And the list goes on and on.

There is one other group that I would like to mention: the Giant Chile mountain bike team. The first race we went to, we met one of the younger racers, Nicolas Prudencio, who introduced us to the team and invited us to join them at their tent. From then on, we hung out at their tent during every race and even traveled with them to the race in Concepcion (5 hours away). We got to know the team really well and, just before we left for San Martín de los Andes, Argentina, spent 5 days at the team manager, José Antonio Riquelme’s, house riding and touring Santiago.

Throughout our trip we have met incredible people and I have made life-long friends. I am also more determined than ever to do everything I can to help people out, even if I’ve barely met them!

Note: The title of this post was something that José Antonio said to me when we were at his house. It means “My house is your house...just don’t sell it!”

An interesting experience

I have always had the tendency to give people the benefit of the doubt. I usually assume that insults were accidental and that I need not react. And I’m usually correct. Most people do not mean any harm and insults are usually the result of accidents, miscommunications, or both.

I found out two days ago that this is not always the case.

Victoria and I were sitting in the central plaza in San Martín de los Andes discussing whether or not to rent a cute, comfortable apartment we had just toured, when a boy of about 18 wizzed by us on his bike. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, or even noticed, but he knocked Victoria’s hat off of the wall on which we were sitting. He immediately stopped and both Victoria and I thought he was going to apologize for his careless behavior, but then I noticed that he had also knocked my digital camera off, and began to get suspicious. Victoria bent down and picked up the camera and turned to the boy who then tried to GRAB IT OUT OF HER HANDS. At that point we both realized that his intentions were not harmless, so Victoria kicked him and yelled “NO!” while I jumped up and asked him what he was doing. At this point a friend of his of about 20 came up behind us and said something. I turned to explain that the boy was trying to steal our camera when I realized that they were in it together, so Victoria and I quickly made our way out of the plaza into a more open area. Unfortunately, in the heat of the moment, I was not able to come up with anything good to say and didn’t know where to go to get them in trouble, so we simply left.

The thing that surprised us the most was that the failed thievery happened during the day in a relatively well populated area and that, instead of running, the failed thief tried to force the camera from Victoria’s hands.

Aside from being overcharged by a baggage carrier the first day of our trip in Buenos Aires, this has been our only bad experience in South America. And, like the baggage carrier experience, we’ve learned from it. We are now a bit more wary and careful not to let anyone see us carrying anything expensive. But we still have my camera!

Victoria says “Oh yeah? That thief is probably at home now crying about his bruised shin! I taught him to mess with gringa girls!”

Excuses

There are a few good excuses for not posting on your blog for as long as I have: extended hospital stay with no use of your hands (and no friends to type for you), extended hospital stay with no internet (I probably wouldn’t believe you), travel to a foreign country with no internet access (hard to find nowadays), and (the only real excuse) death.

While much less life-threatening and impressive, my excuses are, at the very least, true. The first, and possibly most valid, is that I was overcome by a computer science major’s version of writer’s block. I began to worry that my writing was not worth reading and that I was wasting my time by blogging. I eventually realized that this was absurd. First of all, my blog is not especially well frequented, and secondly, the people who do read my blog probably don’t care as much about how readable it is as they do about knowing what it is that I’m up to and that I’m not in jail or dead.

My second reason is that I found my bookmarked links to Photoshop tutorials. Of course, this caused me to drop everything (aside from the basic necessities of eating, sleeping, and riding my bike) and spend countless hours on the computer learning to do things like make a snail look like

it is crawling out of its picture frame (see first picture), light letters on fire (see second picture), or make miniature planets (I have yet to accomplish this).

Last but not least, I changed my keyboard from QWERTY to Dvorak. This probably means very little to most of you, but it has had quite an effect on me. Although by no means a record-breaking typist, I was at least comfortable and relatively fast on a QWERTY keyboard (the normal one – look at the upper left row of keys). I have now reverted to a typing speed slower than the one I had achieved in my 4th grade typing class in New Orleans. “Why would you do that?” you ask, well, that is a different story, but let me suffice it to say that it was the promise of incredible feats of typing that drove me to act in such a brash manner.

As I have finally regained a very small percentage of my previous typing speed, I no longer have any excuse not to be posting regularly (or as regularly as I ever do). I also have quite a bit of updating to do, so look for numerous posts in the near future!

Chile: The land of “HERE WE ARE...Now what?”

Santiago is big. And confusing. Seriously. First of all, the ATMs at the terminal wouldn’t accept our debit cards. We tried with both of them, but to no avail. Finally, we gave in and exchanged 300 Argentine Pesos at a less-than-great rate so that we would have enough money to last us until we found an ATM that would accept our cards. After that, Victoria and my first goal was to get ourselves and our luggage to Cascadas de las Animas, an adventure resort 45 kilometers southeast of Santiago, where we have family of friends-of-the-family. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done.
First of all, we didn’t know exactly where Cascadas de las Animas was. When we finally figured out the general area and explained it to one of the cab drivers at the terminal, he told us that getting down there with all of our luggage would cost something around 200,000 Chilean Pesos (approx. $400 USD). So we immediately nixed that idea and began look into the idea of taking various metros and buses, as had been suggested by one of the members of the “family of friends-of-the-family”. The problem with that plan was that there was no way we were going to be able to transport 2 bikes (in boxes), 2 suitcases, 2 bike bags, 1 backpack, and 1 messenger bag 45 kilometers via metro and bus.
This is where the next useful piece of information came in: at bus terminals, there are frequently “custodias” (cheap baggage storage). Overjoyed by this new piece of information, we paid a luggage carrier 1000 Chilean Pesos ($2 USD) to transport our luggage to the nearest “custodia” and paid to have our bikes and 3 of our remaining 6 bags stored overnight. Then we had to figure out public transportation in Santiago, Chile.
First we had to get on the “Linea 5” metro. We ended up asking the ticket lady, and after she gave us our tickets, she pointed to the stairs directly behind us. When we got down the stairs, we realized that we were on the platform for “Linea 1”. Because “Linea 1” is not “Linea 5”, we went back up the stairs and asked the turnstile guard. He also pointed us back down the stairs. Getting slightly worried, we trekked back down. It was at this point that I realized that “Linea 1” would bring us to “Linea 5” if we got off at the correct stop. One down.
Once we reached “Linea 5”, we knew that we had to take it to the “Mercedes” stop. When we realized that we had 20 stations to go, we relaxed slightly and began to look around. The first thing I noticed was that we were getting closer to the mountains. I was overjoyed by this prospect and pointed it out to Victoria roughly a million times. This started our discussion of where we wanted to live in Santiago, and we both agreed that we would be perfectly content to live outside of the city. Two down.
At the Mercedes stop, we had been told to get on bus #72 to San Jose de Maipo. Unfortunately, we watched 10 or 15 busses go by in a matter of minutes, and none of them was #72 to San Jose de Maipo. So we walked across the street to the shopping center called “Puente Alto Shopping” and used the pay phone. We spoke to Pangal (the son of the family) and he gave us the following directions: “Take bus #72 to San Jose de Maipo. Then take the bus to San Alfonso and ask the bus driver to drop you off at Cascadas de las Animas.” That seemed relatively easy, so we crossed the street again and as we approached the stop, we saw bus #72! Three down.
Once we hit San Jose de Maipo (fortunately, the bus driver told us when we were there) Victoria and I almost immediately decided that we liked San Jose de Maipo and would be content to live there. We bought 4 empanadas at the corner store where the bus dropped us and were given directions to stay on the same corner to await the bus to San Alfonso. Imagine our surprise when the bus to San Alfonso (it said San Gabriel, but we asked the driver and he said he went through San Alfonso) was also #72. We decided not to let this phase us and finally arrived at Cascadas de las Animas, which people kept calling Cascada de la Anima (I found out later that that is because no one pronounces the letter “s” at the end of words in Chile). At Cascadas de las Animas, we met Pangal (after having spoken to him multiple times on the phone) and he brought us up to his family’s beautiful home on the side of a mountain above San Alfonso. We met his parents, Sergio and Gordita, ate a light dinner and went to bed. Four down. Success!
Note: we didn’t take many pictures during this part of our adventures. We were too concerned with survival...

Chile, HERE WE COME!

Considering that we only had to go from Mendoza, Argentina to Santiago, Chile, it turned out to be quite an adventure. It started off easy enough: we got to the bus stop, got all of our bags and ourselves on the bus, and began the journey. Then it became more complicated.
First of all we had to fill out immigration cards to get into Chile. This wouldn’t have been too difficult if the English translations hadn’t been just as confusing as trying to understand the Spanish. For example, “Address in stady country” was the English translation of “Dirección en el país de destino” (address in destination country). Personally, I have never heard of a stady country and it took some deciphering to figure out what we were being asked. We also realized that we had about 8 mandarins and 4 kiwis to dispose of before we reached the Chilean border because you cannot bring foreign fruits, vegetables, or animal products into Chile. I quickly sat to work on a couple of mandarins and a kiwi while Victoria drifted off to sleep.
As we got closer and closer to the Andes, we began to realize how tall they were. I kept trying to get photos that showed cars at their base so that I could blow it up to show how small the cars were compared to the mountains, but every time I tried, the cars seemed to disappear because I had to zoom so far out to fit the mountain into the picture. And they were BEAUTIFUL. Most of the mountains we could see were snow-capped, and we were told that what we saw was “nieve eterno” (eternal snow) that stayed year-round.
When we finally hit the border with Chile, we had quite a wait. At first we simply sat on the bus and looked at the snow-covered peaks but then we decided we wanted to get out and walk around. Unfortunately, immediately after we left the bus, we were told to go back and get our passports and proceed to the border office to get approved to pass into Chile. And that’s when things got a lot worse...
First of all, it was cold. Not just chilly, COLD! I wasn’t all that surprised, seeing how we were 3,000 meters (9,000 feet) above sea level in the middle of the Andes surrounded by snow. I was alright, but Victoria had decided to wear shorts for the bus ride, so she was freezing. Then someone started smoking near us and it really affected Victoria. First she started complaining about being light-headed, and then she said that her vision kept slipping away. I was getting a bit worried, but we needed to get through customs and we were at the front of the line, so we gave them our passports and they stamped them and everything seemed to be going fine, until Victoria swooned. Fortunately, I was right next to her, so I caught her and some nice people in line with us helped me get her and our passports to the medical center. At the medical center, they put her on oxygen, and laid her down while she recovered, and I ran around getting the rest of the customs things taken care of (more stamps and papers and bag searching). The nurse explained that altitude sickness (“apunamiento”) was a relatively common occurrence at the border because we were so high up and told me to give her lots of fluids and keep her from getting excited. Fortunately, we still had 3 or 4 hours on the bus, so it was pretty easy to keep her from getting too excited; she also immediately went back to sleep once we got through the border.
The rest of the bus ride was relatively uneventful (thankfully) and we got to the Santiago bus station sometime in the afternoon. There started our next adventure.

Argentina: The land of $10 steaks and terrible drivers

I am in love with Mendoza! It is a beautiful city full of wonderful, helpful people. Victoria and I arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina October 1st at 9:20AM after an 11 hour flight during which we got to watch “How to Eat Fried Worms”. We promptly found a taxi and set off for the Terminal Omnibus (bus terminal) because we had been warned that Buenos Aires was not a very safe place to be, especially as a couple of tourists loaded down with 2 bikes and enough luggage to last us 8 months. We were able to find an ATM almost immediately and made the first dent in our summer savings. It cost us about $30 USD to get to the bus terminal (not including the $20 in tips that we spent paying everyone to help us move all of our bags and bikes from point A to point B at each stop) but the experience was priceless. The drivers in Argentina are TERRIBLE. According to one travel website I saw, Argentina had 7,500 deaths from automobile accidents in 2006 (which averages 20 deaths a day) and I can see why. Although there is some road signage, drivers seem to follow their own rules and no one seems to care. Turn signals are never used, lanes have absolutely no meaning, and honking is a popular pastime. Drivers seem to drift from lane to lane, or simply straddle the center line as if they cannot decide which lane is the one they wish to occupy.
At the Terminal Omnibus, we bought tickets to Mendoza, Argentina ($50 each) and then tried to entertain ourselves for 5 hours while trying not to attract too much attention from the locals. Although we look pretty similar to many of the people in Argentina, our clothing gives us away. Shorts, t-shirts, and brightly-colored Keens don’t seem to be in style in Argentina right now...Oh well. I was very worried about whether or not we would be allowed to put 2 bikes, 2 bike bags, and 2 suitcases on the bus, but no one seemed to mind and the baggage guy seemed content with a $3 tip. Then started our 16 hour bus ride.
We slept. Kinda. But mostly just sat in the relatively comfortable seats (better than a plane) and looked out of the window. Most of the ride took place after dark, so there wasn’t much to see aside from the occasional lit-up town. We stopped sometime after 21:00 (9:00 PM) and had a delicious dinner of chicken and mashed potatoes that was (apparently) included in our bus fare and then kept driving.
When we arrived in Mendoza, Alberto Aristarain (a family friend from Mendoza) had someone waiting to pick us up. Fortunately, he waited around even though the bus arrived an hour late and we were able to cram all of our stuff in his mini-van like car and eventually made it to our first destination: Casa Glebinias, Alberto and Maria-Gracia’s Bed and Breakfast, 15KM south of Mendoza. We introduced ourselves to Alberto and Maria-Gracia and ate a late breakfast on their veranda overlooking the sprawling grounds of their B&B. That afternoon, we took a cab into Mendoza and got a room at the Adventure Park Hostel, just blocks from Plaza Independencia, the center of Mendoza.
We spent the night at Adventure Park Hostel and spent two days wandering around Mendoza Casa Glebinias in one of Alberto’s cabañas with a cute little veranda and amazing breakfasts. It was all very surreal and enjoyable. Our third day in Mendoza, we slept in, ate breakfast, and eating delicious food and being tourists. Our second and third nights in Mendoza, we spent at then took a 45 minute bike ride around the community surrounding Casa Glebinias on two very old bikes with HUGE, incredibly uncomfortable seats. It was an interesting experience and difficult for me, as it was the first time in a long time that I had ridden for more than a few minutes on a bike that did not belong to me wearing something other than spandex! That night, we went to Patio de Pastas and I ate one of the best steaks of my life. It was well done, juicy, covered with cheese and mushrooms, and only cost me $10!
The other exciting event that night was that we were mistaken for locals 3 times! Considering that all of our other experiences had told us that we were very obviously tourists, this was quite an improvement. Unfortunately, stammering that we were not from the area and couldn’t give them directions quickly informed two of the three groups that we were indeed tourists, although I did successfully direct one taxi-full of people to continue “al derecho” (straight) to find the road they were looking for.
The next morning, October 5th, we left Casa Glebinias at 8:45 in the morning to catch the 9:45 bus over the Andes to Santiago, Chile. I was sad to leave Mendoza and the Argentine population, but hopeful that the Chileans would be just as hospitable.

Bike accident

On January 18th at 14:30, I was riding my bike through Middlebury, VT on my way to work, and I glanced down for a second to look at my gears. When I looked up, the two cars ahead of me had stopped. I had almost no time to react, but was able to miss the first car, and then slid along the side of the second car, knocked off their mirror, and scraped the car's side, all without falling off my bike. I immediately pulled over, and went back to talk to the driver, who, I found out, worked at Middlebury College. She was incredibly helpful and kind, and walked me through everything I should do in a car accident (since it was my first one). We called the police, but because it was a small accident and no one was hurt (my arm was a little sore), they decided it made more sense to record the report and not to send anyone out. We traded insurance information, and I found out a couple of weeks later that she had a really nice heated, auto adjust mirror, and that to replace the mirror and fix the scrapes would cost $1400. I am now in the process of trying to get my family's insurance to pay for it, but I don't know how much luck I will have. I guess that I did learn my lesson though, and didn't get hurt, so that is something to be thankful for. Sadly, $1400 is one expensive lesson!

Spring Semester 2008

Finally, school is looking up again. I admit that last semester and winter term, I was having a really hard time getting excited about classes, homework, or anything except for racing my bike and going home to see my family, Victoria and New Mexico. I was getting excited about going abroad, but was having a hard time accepting that I still had a long time before it happened.
Now, I'm enjoying school. I'm taking CS102 (Mathematical Foundations of Computing), CS312 (Software Development), Japanese 103, and Documentary Film Production. I am enjoying all of my courses, except for CS102, but I'm trying to get excited about it to make it more bearable. CS312 is really cool, especially because we are doing software development on the web, which gives me a good excuse to spend time learning CSS, XHTML, XML, and web programming. I am also enjoying Documentary Film because I get to use a really nice video camera and learn to shoot documentary films. I am hoping to use what I learn from this course to create a documentary-style video about the Middlebury Cycling Race team to try to get more people excited about racing. Japanese is going well, but I'm having a hard time spending as much time as I should studying and doing the homework.
I am also excited about school because the Middlebury Cycling Race team is finally coming together. I held a meeting for those people who were interested in racing, and it sounds like we may have about 10 people who will be racing on a regular basis. This is a great improvement compared to the 1 (myself) who raced regularly during the mountain bike season, and the 2 (myself and Brett Dollar) who raced regularly during the Cyclocross season. I am also excited because about half of the people who plan to race have never raced before, and many have never ridden on a regular basis. They are also just really cool people who are a ton of fun to hang out with.
The last thing that I am quite excited about is the video work I will be doing for the school. I am working with Maggie Paine, and some other students on campus to create videos and think of other ways to get prospective students interested in coming to Middlebury College. We are hoping to create "MiddTube", which would be similar to YouTube, except that only Middlebury students would be able to add videos. I may play a significant role in the creation of MiddTube, and I am really excited about it.
That's all for now, and I'm working on getting better about blogging more often.

Introduction

As this is my first ever blog, I would like to give an introduction to who I am, what I do, and my reasons for creating this blog, as well as a quick explanation of how to find what you are looking for in my blog.

First of all, my name is McConnell Franklin and I am 20 years old. I am a second year student and Computer Science major at Middlebury College in Middlebury, VT. I also race bicycles. I race Professional on the mountain (Cross Country and Short Track), Category 1 in Cyclocross, and Category 4 on the road (simply because I have not done enough races to be racing in the category I should be racing). In my spare time (of which I have very little), I spend quite a bit of time on the computer learning as much about computers as I can. I am also interested in video, web design, GPS, and programming.

I started this blog for a number of reasons. First of all, I wanted to create a place where people could go to stay updated with my racing (if they were so inclined). I know that there are quite a few Pro racers who keep blogs so that anyone who is interested can get the first hand story of the most recent race or training ride, and I figured it was a good way of letting people know what was happening without sending out mass e-mails to people who might not want to know. (Search for tags: cycling, training, racing)

Secondly, I wanted a place where I could talk about the interesting things I learned on the computer during my many hours of knowledge searching. I know that in my quest to understand the inner workings of computers, how to program, web design, etc, I frequently relied upon blogs, discussions and forums to help me find the answer to strange, uncommon questions, and therefore hope that anyone who is interested in a (hopefully) easy to understand and read explanation of some of the more interesting things I have learned about computers will begin to visit my blog on occasion to learn something new. (Search for tags: technology, computer)

Third, I created this blog as a place to write about my adventures abroad. Although I am currently still in the United States, I have made the decision to take a gap year next year to travel. I will be leaving in September of 2008 for Japan, where I will be staying for 4 or 5 months, and will then travel to Argentina for another 4 or 5 months. I plan to spend my time in these countries meeting as many people as I can, making contacts, learning the language, and racing my bike. I made the decision to take this gap year for a variety of reasons: It has been too long since I was overseas, I need a break from class and homework, I want to ride and race my bike internationally, doing a study abroad year through Middlebury would be very difficult because of the Computer Science major requirements, and I feel that my Spanish, and Japanese to a lesser extent, is at the point where immersing myself in the culture will quickly improve my fluency in the language. (Search for tags: travel, "country name")

Lastly, I plan to use this blog to write about other important happenings in my life. Most likely, these will be stories or important events, or simply updates on what and how I am doing. (Search for tags: life, stories, updates)

To end this lengthy post, I want to explain how I came up with the name of my blog. Initially, I was planning on calling it "Conflict of Interests" and giving it the URL of "conflictofinterests.blogspot.com", but someone had already taken that name. Then, as I thought about it more, I realized that I do not believe that my interests conflict with one another, and rather that they are simply an interesting and unique mixture. With that in mind, I decided that I would title my blog "No Conflict of Interests" and decided I needed to use an acronym of sorts because "noconflictofinterests.blogspot.com" is a little wordy. So, I searched for a very long time for words that contain the "NCOI" and eventually stumbled upon "UNCOILED". I settled upon this name because I feel that it accurately describes certain aspects of my life.

"I am simply a piece of string that has come uncoiled and is stretched across a variety of interests."