Yesterday I put a few gallons of SUV juice in my mid sized car, and for the first time in a few years… I didn’t get a tear in my eye. Gas has now become so affordable that I even put an extra dollar in the machine just to squirt some gas all over the ground and the pump next to me.

You see, allow me to explain the past few years of my relationship with the gas station and it’s cash hoarding pumps. As I pumped, I would be alright as the gas dial cranked past 3, 4 and 5 gallons. As it neared 6, my butt would begin to pucker up… by 7 and 8 gallons it was as tight as a bugs ass… By 9, 10, and 11, I began to breath as if I were giving birth to some ferocious horned beast. By 12 I simply passed out.

Upon waking up, I passed out again as soon as I realized such a large slice of my monthly pay check pie was now liquified and in my gas tank.

This is an illustration of my thoughts on gas prices:

And then gas prices escalated more towards the vicinity of this:

Now, within the past few months gas prices have, for some unknown reason, dropped… and dropped… and dropped, and are now even cheaper than this:

At this rate, it’s possible to see gas prices in Phoenix under 2 bucks in the coming weeks.

All the while, the Arab world (Lords of the Petroleum) still think we’re the devil. So does Venezuela (also big time Petroleum Mongers) and to top it all off, some big, huge, important oil pipeline in Alaska is currently busted.

I’m not a political man or anything along those lines, but if you ask me something’s fishy…

You can draw your own conclusion.

Also, in other news… a Happy Belated Birthday to American number 300,000,000 born at 7:46 a.m. last Tuesday morning.

A new American is added every 11 seconds…

That’s a lot of cars on the road.

I think I’m going to go ride my mountain bike now… Because today, I’m not quite in the mood to share the road with my four wheeled counterparts. Last time I checked, there were no cars in the Phoenix Mountain Preserve… just cactus. Lots and lots of cactus.

37…… The Number of Years Until the United States Reaches 400 Million People.

Categories: Daily Jibber Jabber.
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First off…

A little Jon Parrish update for everyone. “Stephen” left a comment to my last post saying that Jon had also crashed earlier in the season and broke his scapula. I asked my dad, who is also Jon’s coach, and he confirmed this.

So here’s a run down of a pretty rough season…. 1st crash in June resulted in a cracked scapula. Jon didn’t know it was broken and pushed on and a few weeks later got 2nd in the U23 National Criterium Championships. 2nd crash happened in the end of season and Jon broke his collarbone, thorax, a few ribs and punctured a lung. Now, he got hit by a car last Sunday and broke his other collarbone and one vertebrae.

Jeez… I don’t want to hear anybody complain that their season sucked.

Alright, to brighten the mood back up I have a short video for you guys. Sorry to all those with a dial-up connection… These videos are probably pretty worthless to you unless you have tons of patience and time to let them load all the way.

But for those who do have the luxury of a high speed internet connection… Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be a 32 year old Homecoming King nominee? I have often found myself pondering what this must feel like.

But now I know. Click play and find out yourself.

“A tuxedo… all the time… tuxedo, for any occasion, tuxedo.”

Words to live by if you ask me.

Categories: Daily Jibber Jabber.
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Well, well, where to start…

Ok my faithful readers, here we go…

Last night I got word that a young local rider, Jonathon Parrish, got hit by a car while competing in Sunday mornings Tour of Scottsdale. The Tour of Scottsdale is a local benefit ride that’s turned into a bit of a competitive race. It gets a decent crop of the Arizona racers out there giving it a go in the early morning hours.

Apparently, Jon had punctured and after fixing it was in the process of cruising to the finish line. While heading west up Shea Boulevard through the town of Fountain Hills, he was hit. The story goes that the woman who hit him heard her cell phone ring and looked down…… and upon looking up she had hit Jon.

Damn… Just riding along… Not doing anything dumb… Not riding out in the middle of traffic… Just minding his own damn business.

I guess to the woman’s credit, she stopped, called for help, and admitted fault. That’s more than you can say for a lot of these incidents now a days where all they find is a 12-pack of Bud on the floor board, no skid marks and a dulley pick-up truck with it’s right side dulley sheared off.

As for Jon, he suffered a broken collarbone and a fractured lower vertebrae. He’ll be in a back brace for an estimated 12 weeks. The bigger bummer here is that Jon had just battled back from a awful racing crash where he really worked himself over… Ready for this? Here it is: (1) broken collarbone, (1) broken thorax (had to Google this one to even find out what the hell it was), a few broken ribs and (1) punctured lung. If I forgot anything, let me know.

Jeez… Hang in there little buddy, there’s greener pasture up around the bend.

Alright, I’m pulling a 180, and switching gears and topics here……

A local Arizona group has put together an Anti-Doping website: WWW.RIDECLEAN.NET

If you were at Interbike, you probably saw the t-shirts scattered about the place. I did.

Unlike most Anti-Doping websites that pop up, this one actually makes sense. I applaude the efforts and intentions set forth by all these sites, but somewhere between the good intentions of the heart and the computer’s keyboard, the message seems to get blurred and the delivery a bit off track. When this happens, the once positive message becomes more for entertainment purposes and far less effective. That’s just my oppinion, take it for what it’s worth.

Anyways, check out the RideClean website and make your own decision. Click on their online store link if you’re in the market for a new shirt and socks. They’ve got enough items in there to choke a full grown donkey.

Honest.

Alright, so this post got a bit more serious than I like to get, so in closing I’ll leave you with this to marinate on…

Don’t ask, becuase I have no clue…

Later.

Categories: Daily Jibber Jabber.
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Today I had my first college exam in 6 years… Allow me to explain it using three wonderful pictures I captured from the event.

So, this morning I woke up excited and put on Sunday’s best… complete with my neat and rather tough “POWER” bandana. I also grabbed my trusty stars and bars. I never leave home without it. I do however often leave home without my shirt and recommend that all young people reading this go to school shirt less at least once in their lifetime. It screams out “I’m all business!”… and people will scream things back to you. Sometimes they’re even nice things!

After oiling up, I gave a quick pose and a bit of the old flex-off in the mirror before I headed out the door. Man was I ready…

When I got to campus I made sure to strut around for awhile checking out the scene and letting the other kids know what’s up… I then headed for my class. Before entering the room, I quickly put a shirt on. Upon entering the room, I then found it necessary to rip that shirt right off in order to set the mood for the day… The mood of: “I’m all business!”… a definite re-occuring theme for today.

This was caught on a classmate’s camera phone as I entered the room. Man, I sure was amped!

After my little show, I sat down and patiently waited for the exam. Upon receiving the exam, I placed it on the carpet and gave it one of these jobs. You always have to let your test know who’s the boss… Tony Danza style. Write that down my faithful younger reader’s.

Jeez… my hairline’s looking a bit hagard these days… I knew it was bad, but not that bad.

So there you have it, a three photo synopsis of my first college exam in 6 years. If you ask me, I think it went pretty well and judging by the photos, rightfully so.

Alright, I gotta go and put a shirt on. I’m getting oil everywhere.

Categories: Daily Jibber Jabber.
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Well, in a few more hours we’ll know if the Soul Ride of a Thousand Undisputed Truths is to become a page on AKingsLife.com or not. I hope not too many other people get this same idea or my site is going to balloon up to somehwere between a “copious amount of pages” and a “plethora of pages”. Also, it looks as if my time in the spell check and grammar check cave will be going through the roof. I’m not claiming to have recently won the National Spelling Bee or anything like that, but I can spell circles around the Soul Ride of a Thousand blah blah blaher’s. I’ll need to think up an abbreviation as well…

As of now, their chances of becoming a page looks pretty good. Although there are very few “No” votes, there are a lot of “Who Cares”……(Scroll down to a previous post if you have no idea what I’m talking about) I think if this becomes a page, we’ll keep the polls up and have an on-going vote to see if they stay or not. Hopefully that keeps the content flowing. That’s how we like it around these parts…

As for me… well, I’ve been busy. Yes, I have been stop laughing. What? Just because I’m a cyclist and it’s the off season doesn’t mean I can’t be busy. Like I said a few weeks ago, it’s home improvement time. Suzanne’s moved into her new condo and I’ve been busy helping her move in and paint everything. It’s a 3rd floor condo… you should have seen the strain on the mover’s faces…

First box… not so bad. Second box… still not so bad. Coffee table… that one sucked. By the time they made it to the queen sized mattress and box springs I was starting to feel bad so I offered them a Gatorade. It’s weird when you’re paying someone to do a job for you and feel bad for doing so…

But honestly, good thing it was 3 of them and not me. These little arms of mine had no chance in hell of making it up three flights of tight stairs with a queen sized mattress. No way man.

Also, tomorrow I have my first “exam” in 6 years. More on that at a later date…like maybe tomorrow?

Ok, you guys have your little “fix” of the Gospel of AKingsLife for the day. I can’t believe you guys read this stuff anyways? But according to my page view counter you are. And now your friends are too… and your friends friends… and their neighbors. I’ve typed plenty for today and it’s time to get out on the bike and stretch my legs for a few hours.

Alright, break it up. Get back to work now so that Mr. Boss Man doesn’t walk by and catch you hanging around this joint. I’m guessing he’d be a tad unhappy. Unless he’s over there right now at his own desk reading along. You never know?

Crazier things have happened……

Take care.

Categories: Daily Jibber Jabber.
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On Thursday, October 5th, I sent my Australian teammate Trent Wilson an e-mail and ended it with this:

P.S. Win a stage of the Sun Tour for me. That’d be tight.

Today, I checked out Cyclingnews and saw this:

That’s what friends do for each other. Win races…

I’m going to work hard this winter at the skills needed to be a better friend in the future.

I also read this and got rather worried:

“For Wilson it was obviously the biggest win of his career and his teammates surrounded him as the crossed the line. “They’re all good mates of mine and they’re professional bike riders and they know how much it means to get a win like this. A few beers tonight I reckon, it’s a big weight of my shoulders. I can finish the year now a quite happy man. I will have a big celebration on Saturday night, especially if Gerro wins the tour.” -www.cyclingnews.com

Key phrases “A few beers tonight I reckon”……and, “I will have a big celebration on Saturday night, especially if Gerro wins the tour.”

I read an online news website that said right before North Korea tested their nukes a few days ago, Japan sent the United States an emergency warning messege.

Well, right now I’d like to send the people of Australia an emergency warning messege as well:

All the women and the children to the life rafts… and farmers, please put your sheep in tonight, and for that matter, probably for the rest of the week as well.

I feel better now.

Talk to you later.

Categories: Daily Jibber Jabber.
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