I’m not a writer.  But for some reason I keep getting myself into these situations where I’m telling people I will write.  It’s not that I’m somehow misleading myself and my clients because I really do enjoy writing.  But I just have troubles with it.  I opened this blog so that I could practice writing in a more informal setting and get some practice.  But here I sit tons of professional pieces of copy that I need to write and a neglected personal blog.  So WTF.

I know what to do.  Sit down, practice writing.  It’s like PHP, there’s constructs, logic, syntax… It all needs to come together.  The only problem is that I’ve written some one off pieces that I’m actually pretty proud of.  And for some reason if something starts to fall below that I have a hard time accepting it as a printable piece.  So, really I just need to suck it up and start writing just to write, hence this post.  So I’m going to call myself out right now right here.  I am going to write. And in doing so I’m going to tackle the several writing pieces that I need to get done.  Here is the order I’m going to do them in and I’m going to finish them all by the 21st.  So look forward to it, you can see a dyslexic Jew Mex in action printed across three different web sites withing two weeks.  And just to prove my conviction to this I’m going to list the articles I need to get done.

1. Corsa Concepts wheel review – Oregon Cycling Action
2. Uvex helmet review – Oregon Cycling Action
3. KCNC Pump Head Review – Oregon Cycling Action
4. Bottle Cage review – Oregon Cycling Action
5. English Cycles TT bike post – Fair Wheel Bikes
6. Dr Will Bar Update – Dr Will Bar
7. Dr Will Bar CX Magazine Review Announcement - Dr. Will Bar

With all that being said, I’m also going to work on this blog and my new company blog.   All in all that leaves me very very busy.  Because I’m then left with working tons on Fairwheel Bikes new template, Template Cascade’s new site including copywrite, Pro Edge Therapies new site with copywrite, and of course all the duties of Brand Manager @ Dr. Will Bar.  Crap!  Gots lots to do  so with the exception of product testing don’t plan on seeing me out on the road too often pedaling bikes.  I will of course though be taking up my new hobby of trying not to blow up my knee while I run.

Laurelwood Loves Papyrus

My new series, Portland Loves Papyrus.  Papyrus is a free font located in just about every pre-packaged program in existence. But never have I seen a graphic design trend so define a region with no apparent reason.  It just is… But maybe it’s what I was told when I first worked with Papyrus, “Don’t worry, Hippies love this.”  True… true.  But, just in case you missed out and want to be a part of this accidental PDX movement I’m going to host it for you to download here. Read more…

Yup, I’m folding.  I have no idea when I’ll ever have time to get Template Cascade up and running again even though all it needs is some Copy Write!  With a new exciting project (shhhhhh… June 1st) on the horizon I’m not going to be free anytime soon either.  So with that in mind I’m just going to start posting a lot of my ramblings that would normally go on my Template Cascade site.  These usually differ from the normal ones in that they start with
<?PHP and then sometimes I even conclude my thoughts ?>

This is just an explanation post to the one that is going to be posted in 20 minutes. Since this really is void on content I’m going to drop one of the funnier things I’ve seen on the interwebs lately courtesy of  pro interweber @alexclemens2.

That's right this wins... Don't pun again... Useless.

A while back I published some of my expanded thoughts on High Fructose Corn Syrup. I had done an absurd amount of research on the subject and how High Fructose Corn Syrup and Corn Syrup affected health. What I posted was a lot of left over thoughts that were either outside of the scope of the Dr. Will Bar article or were too much personal opinion.  One of the subjects I covered was the Sweet Surprise marketing campaign undertaken by the HFCS industry.  As a sub-subject to that campaign I mentioned the use of the term “moderation” and how it exempts their statement from any bearing in actual dietary trends and HFCS roll in it.  Well in doing some more research on the hot two weeks ago topic of Agave Nectar (you can look for this one on Dr. Will’s site soon) I came across a startling graphic.  This graphic is driven by data from the ERS/USDA Data – Food Availability (Per Capita) Data System. After review the data set, I’d have a really hard time thinking of any way to get a more accurate data set on a large scale consumption of a product.

Read more…

Portland's famous College climb

A while back I posted a few of my favorite little tricks for blog photography.  It can basically be summed up as a very simple way to constantly have imagery for your blog or web site.  It combines a few simple tools like Picasa and something to easily crop photos.  The other key and often forgotten, overlooked or discarded concept is, use a cheap easy to carry camera.  This facilitates pictures from where ever you might go.  Carrying a nice expensive camera is great, especially if you know how to use it, but the logistics around it’s size makes your entire activity revolve around your camera.  Not a great idea for documenting everyday life.  Something in my opinion a blog should be about.  Don’t get me wrong, I am amazed by the quality and art of photographers, in fact, I recently decided I wanted to participate in the PDX Tweed Ride. A ride I had previously not given much thought about but had a change of heart due to a photographer’s creative and talented eye.

Okay…. Sorry, I’m getting a far bit off track. The real reason I wanted to re-hash this subject was to say “told you so.” Yup, I’m not above it! I’d like to think that my photos attribute to my traffic and I would even consider doing A/B testing but proof came even easier than that.  During a ride, while chasing Lions around Portland’s famous De Ronde van Portlandia, I took a fair amount of photos, touched them up in Picasa and then posted them.  All in less than 20 minutes.   Well, aside from getting a fair amount of search engine traffic from the post, I received a phone call from CX Magazine editor and friend Josh.  Basically he wanted to use an image I took for an article team Ironclad’s Robert Carver was doing on the Ronde van Portland.  Win for Low Brow Photography!  Also, in case you read this Robert, great post.

Follow the Lion: RondePDX, 2010

I’ve recently ridden the famous De Ronde van Portlandia three times in the span of 7 days, and yes, it’s been rough. It’s involved a crash (my girlfriend the first time I did it), one close call with a car, one flat tire, 21,906 vertical feet of climbing over 136.8 miles, too many gels, Dr. Will Bars and Nuun tablets to even begin counting. I have learned a lot though.  Like, it’s actually a lot easier when it’s done fast.  It’s going to hurt no matter what might as well give it full gas, get it over with quicker and give your legs less time to cool off between ascents. The first two times I did it I was hanging out with friends, chatting, drinking and eating at the top of every hill.  The third time, I was testing a set of wheels for Portland start-up wheel company Corsa Concepts (review to follow @ Oregon Cycling Action).  With the wheels as an excuse I decided it was time to test how I could go.   Read more…

I was thinking about this subject for a bit now but this poll on Velonews pushed me over the tipping point and caused me to tap my words to 1s and 0s. Tom Boonen of course did not get robbed, nor did he do it to himself, he was simply out raced, in both events. Yet neither time did he get over emotional or state anything beyond what actually happened. No excuses were made and he even admits at the end of a Flanders interview that second to Cancellara in the form he was in is pretty good.  In the different case that was Roubaix he just simply stated that he was disappointed that none of the other riders would help chase.  But he wasn’t Italian about it.  He didn’t wave his arms and waste time, or take hard short pulls and then sit up challenging the other riders.  He sat down put his head down and got to business.  Lead through example.

Problem was he was racing for the win and the others for second.  So he got beat to second but earned more of my respect in the end.  Boonen has in this case proven to be a true champion and the type of racer who is going to stick around.  It’s easy to like him or Fabian Cancellara when they’re on top but the way Boonen has handled himself over this period made me like him a lot more than I had previously.  In fact it’s grown more than my opinion of Cancellara.  For a while I’ve been a little unsure of Boonen and wondered if he’d ever act the brat.  Now I’m pretty sure he won’t.  I can now like him more, when he wins and when he looses.  Which if his trouble really are behind him, we’ll start seeing a lot more of soon to come.

There’s my two cents in under 5 mintues.  Sorry this post is of such poor quality, and with no picture, AND more than likely riddled with errors AAAAND short to boot.  Horrible, I know.

Follow the Lion... Up and down

The Lion of Flanders.  For a lot of us the RondePDX (Official Site)  is as close to the real thing (Tour de Flanders) we will ever come.  A brutal combination of hills on Portland’s West side.  Being one of the first rides I had aver done in Portland I quickly realized that although the climbs in the area weren’t notably long they could be brutally steep.  My first RondePDX for 2010 took place this weekend, a dozen of us rolled out determined not to let the weather or the hills keep us down no matter what they tried.  Do they try, the creators of the route are sadistic, combining some of the steepest grades I’ve ever ridden.  In Tucson there were secret locations that we had to ride dirt roads to get to that had these types of gradients.  But here, they lie out in the open for all to ride with yellow little lions painted on them.  The ride totals 47 miles and features an astounding 7,800 feet of climbing [Route].  It’s entirely made up of leg torturing climbs ad hair raising descents.  Never for the faint hearted.  This year it sounds like the ride is “officially” not going to happen.  So try your fate with a group of friends, you are going to suffer! Read more…

As many of you know I’m currently working for Dr. Will Bar. So with that I’d like to say that some of this is my personal opinion and in no way is my opinion the opinion of Dr. Will Bar as a company.  Personally, while running their online marketing and sales campaign, using the website itself, Twitter and Facebook one thing that kept coming up over and over again on the ingredients list was Corn Syrup. As these questions arose I had a lingering feeling in the back of my mind that High Fructose Corn Syrup and Corn Syrup were both corn derived sweeteners but had vastly different health effects. I seem to remember in much of my reading/RSS feed wandering/NPR pod cast listening that there was something about the differences and that Corn Syrup was safe. So I decided as the first part of my research on the bar to tackle this. Mainly so I knew what I was eating but later, after being hired, as a blog post for the Dr. Will Bar site so I could try to clear up some confusion on the two. You can read the article (Corn Syrup vs. High Fructose Corn Syrup) but here I’d just like to say somethings that expand more on the actual debate and tactics used.

Read more…

The Bomb, Cherry Gatorade, Coca-Cola

Dr Will is going to hate this one.  We’ll talk, the merits of the high quality fats that the nuts in his energy bars provide will surely be mentioned, as will the proper sugars of fruits and the lasting power of peanut butter. All I have to say is “yeah, I know,” however it was more desperate than that, 4.5 hours in, 3 Dr Will bars, 4 gels and I was feeling a bonk coming on. It’s a hard feeling to describe, a lingering look at a doughnut sign, a craving for salts and Trans, High Fructose, Saturated something or other fats. A tingling and aching in my neck and an empty-ness in my legs. At this point all I can recommend is going big. I mean really big, The Bomb, big.

940 calories, 378 from fat. 397 grams of which 40% is fat, that’s right, 160 grams of the artery clogging stuff. But don’t stop there, if you’re going to go big make sure to properly wash it down. I had two bottles of coke waiting for my burrito to warm up. Then I filled one more with coke and one with Gatorade. The fact that the clerk adhered to the pro rule* is surprising. So I sat outside on the curb marveling in the bajillion calories my $2.89 just bought me. I ate the burrito and saved the drink for the ride home. It’s amazing what this kind of shock treatment will do to your body. I was able to go really hard broken up by intermittent feelings of “ohhh crap I am going to see the bomb again.” But for the most part I was able to get home really fast and 1.5 hours later I was showering. And by showering I mean curled up on the bathroom floor lamenting the bomb.

But this is the dichotomy of going big. You know what’s going to happen but you do it anyway. It’s like having that last round of shots as the bar is closing. You know more than likely it’s going to just contribute to the hangover and spins and not really to the fun, but hey, there is that small chance you’ll be stumbling home and something awesome will happen and that shot will go to good use. In this case you know you have another hour and half of training. And you can let it go to waste as your body fights off the bonk. Or you can give it The Bomb, and make that last bit of training the most productive of your week. Sure you could have brought enough food in the first place, but hey, we’re beyond that point. So go big, to get home. Just remember you won’t be able to look at fake cheese sauce or coke the same for a month, but that’s probably a good thing anyway.

* Pro Rule: There is a long list of pro pules this one is the more specific “soda refill pro rule” which goes as follows. If you go into a 7-eleven (actually on a national scale Cirlce K is the worst and Chevron gas stations more often than not follow the pro rule) with your own water bottles and look destroyed enough you usually get free refills. It’s equal parts pitty, confusion on what to charge you, I don’t care enough about my job and get the awkward kid in bright spandex out of here as quick as possible.