Chewieez's ramblings

Our trip to Philly last weekend turned out to be a really fun trip. We flew in on the 4th and go to town in time to hang and walk to the edge of our friend's township for some fireworks. The show was awesome as we were right up on the fireworks and they were going off right above our heads.

Saturday we headed into downtown Philly and checked out the outdoor Italian market and got an authentic Philly cheesesteak at Gino's. We bought a collection of fresh, homemade pastas and made a great dinner back at Amy and Dean's house.


We decided that we should hit up Six Flags Great Adventure Sunday. This turned out to be a great idea. I haven't had that much fun at an amusement park in years! We rode every coaster they had and rode a couple twice. We rode Superman, where you hand upside down, Batman and The Dark Knight which is a carnival style, indoor coaster. The high light rides were Nitro and Kingda Ka. Nitro was just a blast... pure fun. No loops or even corscrews, just a fun, fast roller coaster where you could ride with you hand up the entire time since there wasn't an over the shoulder restraint. Kingda Ka is the highest, fastest rollercoaster in the world. It launches you from 0-128 mph in 3.5 seconds and then sends you straight up 456 feet. With the overcast weather the top of the ride was almost in the clouds. This ride is just pure speed. That is the only sensation you really feel. You get jammed in the back of your seat and are stuck there for the 30 seconds until you arrive back in the station. You can barely keep your eyes open you are traveling so fast. Unfortunately we were only able to ride this once after waiting for a while once only to be told to get off the ride due to a weather delay. Apparently you don't want to be riding at 128 mph while it raining.... it kinda hurts they told us.

Back in Nashville things are slow this week. I had a tracking session tues and wed that was not the usual deal but ended up turning out well. I had a lot of stress going into it because we weren't able to get in the studio to setup until 5pm and the musicians were booked for 6pm. Setup's generally take 3-4 hours on the fast side of things so having an hour was just rediculous. We made it work but didn't start actually recording until around 8pm. It was a xmas record so once again it was Christmas in July. I think I've done at least 1 xmas record every year in July. They are fun and just a little strange with the temps in the high 90s. Thank fully the rest of the sessions went great the second day after the dust settled.
Last night was another team night at the tap room. We had a light turnout but still have fun. I was able to try a new-to-me Yazoo brew called Silky's Red which was yummy. I rode in from my house and really enjoyed the ride. I haven't been able to ride much these past couple months with all the Freshie and Zero traveling we've been doing so now every ride seems to mean more. I just took my time and enjoyed being outside. We rode to Red Door East after Yazoo and met up with Sharpie and Dunn and enjoyed some Yazoo ESB and sandwhiches. The Red Door East still won't let bikes on the patio, FYI. After pleading out case to the manager we surrended and locked the bikes by the street. We got a pretty cold greeting at first by the manager but there was word that Dan may be hooking him up with a bike rack in the future. Be careful when you're eating on the patio though... don't trip over any bikes and sue the place.

I just got off the phone with Scott Quiring of Quiring Cycles in Michigan. I gave him my credit card info for a new Ti frame. We ended up chatting for a while about all kinds of random stuff. Seems he is right in the middle of being screwed by Microsoft with some update-gone-bad. Apparently some recent Microsoft update has messed computer's internet connection up across the country. Poor Scott is knee deep in diagnosing computer issues and not able to use the torch on some frames. I'm hoping to get down to Harpeth Bikes soon and get a fit done and pass along all the info to Scott to start the frame building process. I'm really excited to have a custom frame done. I've never done anything like this and am anxious to learn all about the process. So far Scott seems like a great, down to earth guy. It's going to be a treat to work with him.

I finally got some of the organic super lube Thad's been raving about for months. I've been lazy and put off cleaning the chain on my SS and road bike to have good switch over of lubes. With Beth out of town for a few days on business, time I had, things to do I needed, so I go to it. I rushed the process and didn't completely clean the chain thoroughly but I thought it wouldn't be a big deal. I put the Ernesto Lube on the Soma and put it back in the stand, too wet to ride that bike anywhere. I decided to get it on the Crosscheck before the tap room ride so I could test it out and have it ready for our road ride this saturday morning. Between the chain lube and lowering the psi in my tires, this was the smoothest ride I'd had in forever. There is absolutely no drive train noise while pedaling. I'm coming from using Prolink which I've been happy with (I thought) but was used to hearing the chain some while pedaling I image it's just the noise of the chain bending around the front chainring with some grit but it was silent with this new corn-oil lube. I'm actually excited to see how it ride saturday and see how the SS ride next. So far I'm sold on the super lube.