Super Rookie’s World

As many of you know I quit working at Tucci Bennuch at the Mall of America on October 5th. I quit because it just wasn’t working out and I got more hours at the higher paying job I am currently at and the flexibility at Tucci wasn’t what it was cracked up to be. I found myself having to find coverage for days that I had asked for off days prior.

I still have yet to receive my last two paychecks. I have formally written to them and called them on three separate occasions. They assured me that the checks would go out next thing in the mail, but I have still yet to receive them. Therefore I took it into my own hands and called up the Minnesota Department of Labor and reported their ass.

Turns out the law is on my side on this one and now Tucci is going to have a nice file opened up with the state DOL and they are going to get fined heavily if my check isn’t in the mail by the end of the week. Did you know about resources such as the DOL? I didn’t until Jim R. told me about them the other night.

Here is some info directly from their site:

I was just fired (laid off, job ended); when does my employer have to pay me?
Your paycheck is to be issued within 24 hours of your demand for wages (see Minnesota Statutes 181.13). If you quit, your wages are due within the next pay period which is more than five days after quitting. However, wages must be paid within 20 days of separation (see Minnesota Statutes 181.14). In cases where the discharged or quitting employee was entrusted with money or property during employment, the employer shall have an additional 10 calendar days after the date of the employee ’s separation to audit the accounts of the employee before the employee’s wages are to be paid.

I expect my check.

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I used to love Halloween. When I was a kid I would get so much damn candy. One year I went out with a buddy with our paper grocery bags and we had scored a bunch. While, I (Davey Crockett) was out there scoring the sugar-loot it started to snow. By snow I mean feet of snow, but I didn’t give up on my quest. My feet were soaked, but my coonskin cap was keeping me warm. As I was a block from my house all of the snow had done it’s damage to my paper sack and the bottom came crashing out from under the weight of all the candy.

I was pissed. All of my hard work went down into a foot of snow on someone’s unshoveled sidewalk. I ran home grabbed a garbage bag and a shovel and went crazy putting a bunch of snow and candy into the bag and brining it home to the basement floor for the snow to melt. I was distraught, but rest assured all of the candy was eaten.

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Now that I am older and hate little kids knocking on my door when I am trying to watch “Flip That House” I will be out of the home tonight with Sarah as we shop for wedding bands. When I get home there better not be any kids still out there.

On Saturday night we celebrated Jim R’s birthday at Grumpy’s NE. There was quite the turnout and a good time was had by all. Throughout the night various pub crawls came through the door and 99% of the people were dressed in costume.

Near the end of the night and after Homme’s infamous bar fight (which you can hear more about on the next bikethrow.com podcast) a rather large crowd came through the door. Pat, the owner, was over at the table chatting with us before he took off for the night and then he suddenly stood mouth agape as he saw a dude dressed up as Flava Flay in blackface. I couldn’t believe it either, and Pat went straight up to the guy and pretty much told him to finish his drink and get the fuck out.

I was pretty stoked to know that our sponsor has no qualms about telling people that they aren’t welcome, or better yet, “Safe” at the bar. Amazingly, the dude in blackface was telling Pat to “fuck off” and “mind your own business.” Of course he also threw out the classic, “I have black friends and they said it was funny.” I love that defense. Jackass.

It isn’t okay to dress in blackface. I don’t care how “funny” it is.

*Deadspin is reporting a similar incident here of an individual dressed as Michael Vick.

**The Colorado College hockey team suspended 4 players including 2 Minnesotans for dressing in blackface at a golf tournament just this past month. Read about it here.

Who the hell are these people? Why do people think this is okay? There were people at Grumpy’s trying to defend the guy  in blackface. They felt it was okay for someone to do this. Do people understand the historical connotations of dressing in blackface? More people need to watch Bamboozled.

If this crap is happening in Minnesota, what must be happening in Dixie?

I had fun in Northfield today. I didn’t have fun racing. Matter of a fact, I am actually disappointed with how I did. I want to do better, and I know that I can. I don’t know what I have to do make the next step, but I hope to get there in the next season or so.

Maybe I am near the end of my line with the racing bug for the season. I doubt I will be doing anymore double weekends except for Jinglecross. I think I caught the Dan Swanson bug and just kind of want to throw in the towel for the season. I don’t know.

What I do know is that Noonan and Boyce know how to throw one hell of a race. Major props to them. The best part about the race was the Information Sheet at the registration table:

It was an awesome event. For a full recap check out the podcast next week on Bikethrow. We are going to discuss a lot of events that went down over the weekend including the officiating process, course complaints, and the small numbers in a women’s only race!

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Every so often you meet a few people that are really cool. You find yourself being able to hang out with them countless times and it never gets old. It sucks when these people realize that there might be bigger and better things in a different state. Dan and Jenny haven’t left yet, but we are running out of nights to hang out. So on Friday we went out…

We found quite a deal.

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Some people are intrigued about Homme’s bar fight. If you want a clarification you will just have to listen to the next Bikethrow.com podcast. Booya. I will tell you one thing. Don’t ever try to take Homme’s knife outside of the bar!

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I have mentioned the 3 Wheeled Scooter that was seen at the Giro d’Italia this past year. Here is a picture of the crazy device. I thought they were practical in a bike race due to their stability, but I am somewhat shocked by their availability here in the city at Scooterville:

Only $7,000 to look like a dork.

The CX race in Taylor’s Falls is one of my favorites. I hope there are pictures soon from it. I went as a muscleman. Amazingly my muscles that I purchased at Party City were still smaller than those beasts Hans and Frans from Loon State, er SpeedFix racing. They would have been proud of my costume had they seen it. The nipple ring and patches of body hair were fantastic, thanks to Sarah for helping me out with that.

I had a decent race and am proud of how I did. I was able to keep a decent pace and am getting closer to my goal of sticking with the 4-5 guys that are usually finishing in front of me at the races. It will be just a matter of time before I can pull this all off.

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Last night was Jim Redmond’s birthday party at Grumpy’s NE. It also happened to be “dress up” night for all the pub crawls and neighborhood idiots. Something called “Halloween.” To make a long story short, Darrin Homme got into a bar fight with the Bouncer and a dude dressed like a large Whoopie Cushion. I will let him tell you more about it.

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I also have sad news to report. Tenacious T has pulled the plug. This is a real shame as I like seeing pictures of his house and reliving bad rock-music memories from my days of working at Amling’s Cycle in Niles, Illinois. I wish him the best as he now goes and squats 800lbs and then proceeds to throw down a sub-11 flying 200m next year, much to the chagrin of an Anonymous Commenter that is to cowardly to post his/her real name.

Tonight is the opener of the MLS Playoffs. DC United is playing against the Chicago Fire in rainy Chicago. Over the past week Sarah has decided that she is a huge DC United fan. She has studied up on the team and has taken her newly found fandom to a whole new level.

That’s right. Sarah even went as far to make her own DC United jersey out of masking tape and a black shirt:

Not bad for a quick 5 minute craft project. Here is what the official kits look like:

I am proud of her.

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Sounds like The Hub Cycling League may be catching some flack for their recent cross race. I caught wind of some troubles the other day courtesy of the MCF message board. There have been a couple of complaints about the trails left in the grass after the big race. I think that we should all take a few seconds to send an email or letter to the Park Board about how awesome it is for them to allow us to race.

Points of stress for the letter:

Over 250 racers at Powderhorn Park.
Dozens of neighborhood kids cheering on the racers throughout the event.
Showcasing a beautiful city park to people from outside the city.

Please help keep urban racing alive by sending letters here:

Park Director
3400 15th Ave S
Minneapolis, MN 55407

and copy an email or letter to the board member representing the district which includes Powderhorn Park, Scott Vreeland.

Scott Vreeland
Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board
2117 West River Road
Minneapolis, MN 55411
612-721-7892
svreeland@minneapolisparks.org

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I am thinking of starting up a new website dedicated to crap in Northeast Minneapolis. There is so much out there and I think we should just start documenting everything that has a NE on their mailing address. There are all types of cool houses, neighborhoods, statues, shops and bars. I might just make it in a few days and see if others want to join in, but there is so much cool shit around here.

For instance, the fence that has been around Gluek Riverside Park for almost eternity due to asbestos poisoning has finally come down! Who would have known? A NE Minneapolis website could let the world know.

Oh well. That is the last thing I need right now is another project.

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Goldsprints aka Cold Sprints aka go to the bar and drink with friends while people race their bikes on rollers is coming along nicely. Of course there are some haters out there that want to talk trash about the use of fork mounts, but I really don’t give a rat’s ass. The truth is that not many people can race rollers and mixing drinks and rollers in which people probably can’t ride anyways is just stupid. People that choose not to come because there are fork mounts are going to be missing out.

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You may have heard by now that Hans and Franz are joining the new SpeedFit racing. There are a bunch of others joining the team, but the last time I mentioned who was joining the team I was yelled at and called names describing floppy appendages and/or random types of “weed.” Either way they have a bunch of the “top” riders from Blaine and Hans has even gone as far to say that they may win “every race” at Blaine next year.

Yeah. Okay.

The other day Morgan put out a nice link that had a ton of European Cross Videos available for streaming download. Naturally, I decided to check out last years world championship. As I was in the kitchen getting some breakfast ready I heard what I thought was “…the finger Fuck off…” I came back into the room and clicked back about 30 seconds and sure enough the announcers are describing what just had happened.

Basically some dude in Orange is getting booed by another riders supporter group and he flicks them off and then proceeds to show them all up. It is at exactly 7min into the race…

Go here to see the videos.

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Last weeks episode of Bikethrow.com had over 250 listens according to our webmaster Homme. This is quite a bit of hits, and with new dedicated hosting we were hoping to at least approach that number with our subsequent episodes. I was stoked to hear that over 100 listens have already occurred in less than 24 hours of our most recent episode.

Amazingly, Homme and I don’t sit at our own computers and keep clicking on it to boost our stats. We actually do the podcast because it is a lot of fun and we are just trying to bring something new to the local cycling scene. In my opinion the sport is already marginalized enough so we can no longer rely on getting outside media to care about what we have going on here. Instead we need to make our own community stronger and hopefully retain a few new ones every year. Bikethrow is an attempt to provide the riders of the area with the news they may not get elsewhere.

The original idea was to have an all encompassing website that would be the one stop shop for upper-midwest racing. Eventually we may get there, and judging by how popular the podcasts have become we are well on our way to making something happen. We just need to slowly build up the content and make it a legitimate regional site such as Luke’s highly successful Chicagobikeracing.com.

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The other day one of our great local officials said, “You guys have way to much time on your hands.” I promptly replied, “So, do our 100 listeners that tuned in last episode.” We all laughed, but I think this is very telling. There is a need out there to hear the latest gossip, rumors and news of a marginalized sport in a small area. We are just trying to fill that need and for the most part it seems to be getting there.

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If you have any suggestions on what can make bikethrow.com better make sure you let us know. We have a tip line that is dynamite and we are always willing to take content if it is well written and passes our editorial quality standards.

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Good luck to MasiGuy with the fires in SoCal.

I just got a cavity filled and it is hurting like hell…

So, what is up with every time I am looking for a trash can to throw something away all there happens to be is a recycling bin? I don’t get it.

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The Blackhawks are thinking about showing home games on television. This is big news as there hasn’t been televised home games in the Chicago area for over 20 years. This also means that eventually I am going to have to get DishNetwork so I can get NHL Center Ice to catch all the games.

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Bikethrow.com has a new podcast up. Those guys are geniuses.
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My tooth hurts so I am going to whine about it to Sarah.

Courtesy of Skinnyski.com where there are over 300 photos from todays racing.

Powderhorn was fun and I will write something up later.

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In the meantime my Chicago Blackhawks have had two amazing come from behind victories. The game against Colorado featured one of the best goals I have seen in the last 10 years of pro-hockey. The crazy thing about the goal is that it was scored by 19 year-old Jonathon Towes.

Do yourself a favor and watch this goal. It will make you smile. Simply Amazing Goal.

Let’s Go Hawks.

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I went over to Roughkat’s house with Sarah to catch the Rugby World Cup Final. It was an okay game between South Africa and England, but man crush #2 Johnny “Golden Boot” Wilkerson is a “dreamboat.”

South Africa came out on top and they are rioting in Capetown.

The great thing about being sponsored by a bar is that you get to go to said bar with friends and you can call it a “Team Meeting” and you don’t need to discuss anything about the team at all. Hell, you can go just to have a good time and have a beer. Since Hotpinkevil! is having her own private meeting in uptown at some fancy restaurant I will be rocking out at Grumpy’s NE, probably with Big Frank.

You should maybe come.

Maybe you shouldn’t come.

You would probably ask for a discount so stay home.

If you come with me the service will have a smile, but still have some panache.

Northeast Minneapolis is a fine place to live. Sarah and I have it nice, however we hate pubcrawls that tend to take over our bars every now and then. While we enjoy the concept of them, sometimes they are a little out of hand and the crowd on these pubcrawls are usually the college ‘dude’ type of individual. You know the type. The dudes that only come out for the chance to get “hammered” and maybe “laid” by the “hot chick” at the end of the bar playing Mega Touch 3000.

I don’t like those people. They should stay out of Northeast Minneapolis, or just reside at Gabby’s.

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I have made a huge decision. Well, it really isn’t all that big of a decision for those that don’t follow American soccer, but I have declared myself a New York Red Bulls fan. I am sure most of you now are all pissed off, but I don’t really care. I love my soccer and I just can’t get enough of Juan Pablo Angel (Mancrush #1). The RedBulls start the playoffs a week from Saturday. I will be watching.

My other favorite soccer team, Manchester City, is still sitting relatively well over in the Premier table. Word.

I love soccer. It is like hockey for the less talented.

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The Blackhawks are 3-3. This means that they are .500 for probably the only time this season.