A cool english band (Kasabian) showing how to really play guitar hero ;-)

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-10-30/the-week-in-viral-videos-2/?cid=sexybeast:featured1#gallery=917;page=16

First, I finally got all my photos imported into Picassa so you can now view them all at http://picasaweb.google.com/RossCoops. While waiting for all those pictures to upload I decided I was going to do jumping jacks, and see how many I could do. Well during the final album upload I just hit 1,000 of 'em! Man am I going to be tired tomorrow...

Well Sally didn't make it out bike riding again this weekend, so being the kind considerate boyfriend that I am, I went without her :-)

Bike riding hurts my butt! Okay, I know that is not the most polite way to start a blog but it is true. My rear end still hurts a little and we went on our bike ride last Sunday. Today is Wednesday. I think I need a new seat, and to ride more so my rear gets used to the torture.

Ross and I found some parks that start in Tempe and end up in Scottsdale. They are all connected by a path. There are one or two spots where you have to cross at the lights but other places are bridges over the streets (Ross likes those) or tunnels under the streets.

We got bold and thought a bike ride early-ish on a Sunday before it got too hot would be fun, and it was fun. We rode just over 8 miles, not too bad huh? And that is why my rear hurts, 8 miles is a long way for someone who has not been on a ride in over a year.

It was so nice though, I am ready to do it again. Actually, I was ready to do it again later the same day. Ross was wiped out but after I showered and ate I felt great! And the ride is really nice, not too many ups or downs, lots of trees and grass, each park has a lake, and there were people out playing ball. At one park there was a toy sailboat regatta going on. That was a nice surprise.

I really like being able to ride without having to deal with traffic. I am much happier dodging joggers, other bikers, roller bladers and a walker or two than cars and their crappy driving skills. Now let's see if we get up this weekend and do it again.

Yesterday I was reading the local news on line. There was an article comparing Phoenix today and Phoenix 12 years ago when the Superbowl was here last. It talked about how many more miles of highway they have built, how many more people live here now, how much bigger the new convention center and stadium are, and lastly how many more people they expect for this big game.

The best bit was the attraction they are building for the Superbowl called 'The Football Experience'. I guess it is going to be you playing football, I'm not sure. The article did not go into detail. All it said was they were building an amusement park like attraction outside the stadium for people to "experience".

In case you didn't know the Superbowl is not actually in Phoenix, it is going to be played in Glendale which is a suburb of Phoenix. Glendale has been trying for a long time to get "unattached" from Phoenix and make a name for itself. So what does it do, well not the city but the owners of the stadium, they sell the name of the stadium to the University of Phoenix. Now not only does it say Phoenix and therefore people do not think Glendale, it sounds like a college team's stadium instead of a professional team's stadium.

They should have taken the meeting with the Morton's steak house people. The Mortons were ready to pay millions to have the naming rights. The stadium people freaked out though, because one of the sons opened a restaurant called The Pink Taco. Nice huh? No they were not planning on calling it The Pink Taco Stadium. The son was thinking Morton's Stadium.

Anyway back to the Superbowl craziness that is sweeping this place. I thought it would be fun to drive out Glendale and see the "experience" they are building and maybe take some pictures. Well, they were still building it so no pics, sorry. We took a couple of the stadium. Unfortunately we missed a great picture of a sign by the road near the stadium that read "rent your house or condo for $10,000 a day"--how crazy is that?!? No, Ross and I are not going to do it.

I was hoping they would have some big signs out front or something, but really there was nothing going on. Oh, well. All I know is that Ross and I plan on staying in and hiding from all the freaks out there during the weekend. Hey, I might even watch some of the game.

Having turned 38 recently - a great shock to my system as I still think I'm 24 - I decided it was about time to start getting back in shape. So over the last month or two I've taken up jogging every day. It would have been a longer period then that, but the summers are so hot here that it was pretty much impossible to start. Now we still have days in the 80º's, but if I get up at the crack of dawn it will only be mid to high 60º's, which I can just about cope with.

I started out literally just running around the block. Doesn't sound that impressive but blocks are twice the size they are back in Portland, and it was in the 90º's at the time :-) I pretty quickly got up to half a mile, then 1.6 miles, and currently I'm doing 2.5 miles every day. The nice thing so far is I've managed to find routes that avoid all main streets and just take me through some really nice neighborhoods, in fact one of them is a historic neighborhood and is so full of trees the temperature drops about 5º and you would swear you were up on Mt.Hood somewhere! It's crazy to see that right in the middle of Phoenix. I reckon I can probably extend my run up to about 4 or 5 miles before I ever have to cross a busy main street, and I'd be happy if I even got close to running that far this winter.

So what are the good points of running? Well on the upside I've noticed several things: One, my head feels really clear after a run, like it clears out the Doritos and Haagen Dazs that normally circle my brain. Two, I've been sleeping like crazy, like... a normal person!!! One night I got a full 10 hours which is unheard of for me, and the night after that I was in bed by 8.30pm because I just couldn't stay awake any more!

So what are the bad points of running? I have the tightest calf muscles on the planet. I don't know if it's a result of years of mountain biking, or years of sitting at a computer, but man my calf's will not stretch out. I'm worried that this will lead to shin splints as my shins already feel a little tender after doing the 2.5 mile runs every day. If anyone has any tips beyond the 'stand on your tiptoes on a curb and stretch your heel downwards' please let me know :-)

In all of this I also discovered an exercise book that I really enjoyed. It's called "Younger Next Year", and while it's really aimed at guys closer to retirement (say in your 50's) there were two things I really liked about it:

1. They don't prescribe you a set routine that you have to do, they just point out in Darwinian terms why your body biologically needs exercise every day - i.e. We spent tens of thousands of years wondering the plains looking for food, but only the last 100 years sat at a desk every day.

2. They do the same thing for food - tens of thousands of years eating nuts & berries & the occasional bit of meat or fish, but only the last 50 years eating at McDonalds.

In both cases, your body hasn't made that adjustment so it completely misinterprets what you're doing. It really opened my eyes as to why theres an emerging obesity/diabetes epidemic in the West. Check it out...

So, all that said, it's about 8am so I'm off for a run - ciao ;-)

This weekend was nice and cool for us, only high 80's, so we decided to have an active weekend. Saturday we went hiking around some trails we hadn't tried before near Papago Park, and we liked them so much that we went back Sunday and did some biking around there too. It felt really good to be on my bike again after a long summer where it was just too hot to do anything. It's also nice to start finding places to bike that are off the roads here (although Sunday mornings are pretty quiet). I'm sure there are plenty of off-road trails, I just need to find them - or be told about them by any local readers of this blog :-)

Even Sally got into it for a while today which was great, and she decided that next time she wants to go off the main trail too, so I can finally use my mountain bike for what it's intended for - stupid things that make you fall off and hurt yourself - yay! My bike was performing really well - amazingly well considering it's about 12 years old now - and that's got to be thanks to the guys at REI who massively overhauled it after my years of neglect. Best $100 I've ever spent :-) The bike rack I bought 2 years ago (and have hardly used) for the bed of my truck also worked really well - no bikes being launched into the middle of the freeway or anything like that!

I think sometime this winter, we probably need to either head up to the mountains or well out of town to try & find some good places to ride. But we need to build our stamina up first, an hours drive to get out of town, just to do a 30 minute ride is a bit dumb... well unless we can find a great burger place somewhere near the trail end ;-)

Last weekend Sally & I were down at Tempe Town Lake (see following pictures) when we met a couple of people riding Trikkes (http://www.trikke.com)

We’d seen Trikkes once before back in Portland but it was right before we moved and we didn't really have time to investigate them, so we eagerly approached the couple and started chatting to them. They kindly wasted 20 minutes of their day telling us all about Trikkes, how to ride them and where you could order them from on the web. We left excited, and vowing to check them out.

By Wednesday we’d found a dealer here in Phoenix called S.S.Scooters and headed over there in the rush hour traffic to check out the Trikkes. The guys that worked there were great, letting us try out a T8 - so called ‘cause it has 8” skateboard wheels. It can also support enough weight for my lardy arse ;-) Unfortunately for Sally they only had one in stock so I bought it, and she had to order one, which should be here in a few weeks.

Fortunately / unfortunately we’re both so out of shape that even when we take it in turns riding it, were exhausted after about 20 minutes, so it’s not like were fighting over the one Trikke just yet.

It really is an amazing full body workout. It’s basically a similar movement to skiing or inline skating, so you’re always carving from side to side to keep your momentum going. On slight downgrades its more of a leg push movement, while on upgrades it’s more of an upper body workout as you move the front wheel from side to side quickly to keep your forward momentum. The trikke website has lots more info on this!

Our plan is to get good enough that we can ride all over Phoenix. Luckily the place is pretty flat for the most part (except for the occasional mountain of course) and we should be able to follow the canals that run all over the city as well as going to places like Tempe Town Lake, or hell, just wasting 20 minutes in a local parking lot - damn skater-punk kids!!!