Ray LaMontagne & The Pariah Dogs God Willin’ & The Creek Don’t Rise
Initially Beg Steal or Borrow caught me because of it’s Joni-esque feel. Then in listening to the whole disc I came to find out that LaMontagne is just great. While I prefer to look down my nose at singer-songwriters (see Lester Bangs’ James Taylor Marked For Death for further instructions), I’m forced to give it up for this guy. Fantastic. Depressing and in many ways playing to my love of the melancholy, but fantastic.

Oasis Masterplan
B-Sides from the best band I didn’t listen to in the 90′s. Acquiesce is a monster. I got heavy into Oasis’ first album this year too. Why Cigarettes and Alcohol isn’t somehow a better known anthem I’ll never know. All I want for Christmas is an ES-355.

Superchunk Majesty Shredding
Superchunk was hot in Chapel Hill when I lived there, and they’re still making worthwhile indie music today. The whole album is great, but if all you want is a single with a killer hook, check out Crossed Wires.

Matt Mays & El Torpedo Matt Mays & El Torpedo
Huge in Canada, and recommended to me by father and son McDonald, Matt Mays evokes Neil Young and Crazy Horse. If you have a hankerin’ for some juiced up guitar riffs with a weighty lyric, he’s your man.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Mojo
I Should Have Known It is the single of the year.

Finally, the Pearl Jam station on Sirius/XM is giving me a whole new education on Eddie and the boys. Check out the song Down, available on the band’s Lost Dogs disc.

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Late in 2009 I decided to keep track of my rides in 2010 to see what the year would look like. So starting in January I saved every GPS track from every ride. This is their story.

I rode 2586 miles on 162 rides in 2010. 69% or 1782 miles were on a mountain bike, either the Blur LT or the Moto 29er. The rest were road miles on the Cervelo (road rides started in May when I got the skinny tires).

The longest was the Death Ride at 122 miles. The shortest was when I left work to ride home and got a flat tire after 4.5 miles.

Five mountain bike races. One broken collarbone.

St. Joseph’s Hill was the king of 2010. I rode it 65 times or about 40% of all the rides I did. St. Joe’s ate up 734 miles and 76k feet of ascent. You’d think a fella would get sick of so much St. Joe’s, but not me (apparently!). Coming in second with 15 rides is the fan favorite, Kennedy Tree.

Excluding some of the outliers and plotting by distance and ascent is kind of interesting. Looks like the MTB rides are generally steeper than the road rides. Who knew??

posted in Bikes [ 2 comments ]

Meilei made pork roast stuffed with chestnuts and dried fruit. It was superb!

posted in Family [ comments ? ]

Here’s to another successful season of our family consuming Apple products. Here are our Christmas pictures!

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On Wednesday and Thursday, Amelia, Katie and I went to Bear Valley for two days of skiing. It’s the first ski trip of the season for us, and the second time that either of the kids has been on skis. It took a little while to shake the rust out of their systems but by the end of the first day they were rocking. The snow was great, the weather was great, and we had a great time.

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posted in Family [ comments ? ]