Playing catch up...

Now that the Tour is over and I'm trying to distance myself from all the doping scandals (Mayo revealed to have doped too...), I can get back to being a regular blogger again... I hope.

In the past few weeks, with all the stuff that has been going on with the Tour and the tons of stuff going on with work, I've been a pretty lousy blogger (outside of the Tour reports, for the most part). Lots has been going on within the blogging community that I am actually proud to be a part of. I've been tagged a few times and haven't been playing along, like I normally would. SO now I have some catching up to do...

Both Giandrea (my friend in Italy) and Becky Carroll (my friend in San Diego) tagged me with the "8 Random Things" meme that was going around, so now I have to come up with 8 things you might not know about me; (I actually think a few other people might've hit me with this too...)

1) I can no longer scream after I was run over by a car almost 3 years ago. The impact with the car/ ground did something to my vocal chords or the muscles in my neck. Since that time, I have been unable to raise my voice to scream. Bummer.

2) My nickname when I was growing up and playing baseball as a kid was "Leggs". I was the tallest (and skinniest) kid on my tee ball team and when I ran, my legs were a wacky whirlwind. My coach called me "Legs" and it stuck... all my life growing up in Alabama. He asked me, "how you wanna spell that?" And I said, "l-e-g-g-s"... because my mom's pantyhose were Leggs brand pantyhose and I just assumed that was the right spelling. Does that explain things or what?

3) I worked all kinds of odd jobs growing up as a kid, trying to earn money for bike stuff usually. One of my favorites was working in a pecan orchard. I was super skinny as a kid (I was 6' tall in 9th grade and finally reached 100 pounds that same year) so I got to climb out on the limbs of the pecan trees with a wooden baseball bat and beat the hell out of the limbs to shake out the nuts. Yeah, you heard me...

4) My first car was given to me by one of my uncles (my middle name sake- Vance). It was a 1960's Chevy Apache 100... it was my uncles old surf truck and we went on lots of epic surf outings in that truck. I was happy to get it too, even though it took some work to get it running. The master brake cylinder was blown and it ran on 4.5 of 6 cylinders. But it ran! It also had a busted fuel gauge, so I had to do accurate math to keep track of the mileage on each tank of gas. Yes, I ran out several times, so I kept a tank for gas in the bed of the truck and a couple bucks stashed in the glove box. The passenger side door didn't stay locked and would fly open on hard or fast left hand turns on occasion... like the time I was driving with a girlfriend of mine and she nearly slid out the door; she never rode in the truck again. Oh, and the gas tank was behind the bench seat and had a slight leak, so I frequently smelled of gas and was sometimes high as a kite when I drove more than an hour. But it ran!

5) I have a serious weakness for certain foods. Two of the biggest being fried chicken and beef jerky. I'm already salivating...

6) In light of #5 above, my entire family was shocked and amazed by the fact that I was once a vegetarian for about 9 months several years ago. I decided that I wanted to have a cleaner diet and better fuel source for racing. It was awesome! Except that when I was off the bike, I was frequently dizzy and lightheaded and walked into a lot of walls or fell over for no reason. Weird, I know... but I felt fantastic ON the bike. I rode super well and had great results, but it was really hard for me to plan my meals and eat properly. One night, on my usual ride home from work, like I did nearly every night... I rode by the KFC near my house. I rode home and showered and then rode back to KFC and got an 8 piece bucket of chicken- all white meat, half original and half extra crispy. I was sick for days. But I haven't been a vegetarian since.

7) The very first time I ever shaved my legs (I think I was 12), I shaved them completely dry and without any water or soap. Nothing went wrong- no nicks, no razor burn, no nothing. Ever since then, whether I shave in the tub, in the shower, with an electric, with a razor... I always get razor burn to some degree. Where is the justice in that?

8) I have had several fish hooks embedded in me in one place or another in my life. I grew up fishing- my first deep sea fishing trip was when I was just a few months old. I had sea legs long before I could even stand up on dry land. One of the best was when I was fishing after school- when I wasn't supposed to be- and I somehow managed to snag myself in the back of my head while casting. The lure was a big MirrOLure that I had borrowed from my uncle. With no other options and the lure firmly embedded in my scalp, I had to call my mom from the house of some people who lived next to the creek I was fishing in. Mom was pissed! I wasn't supposed to be fishing and I certainly wasn't supposed to be going to the doctor's office after normal hours so the doc could pull a lure out of my head! I was actually more upset thinking that the lure would be ruined by cutting off the hook. The good doc was able to push the hook out of my head without destroying the hook or ripping my head off... though my mom was willing to let him try. I fished with the same lure a couple days later.

Cam Beck, a blog buddy of mine in Texas, tagged me with his own version of a tagging meme; 5 Taglines about other blogs you read. So now I have to put on my marketer's cap and try to come up with some good one-liners...

Fritz- All the bike news fit to print.
CK- Who says smart can't be sexy?
Anne Handley- Bringing the brightest minds in marketing and one dim bulb (that's me) to one place.
Donna Tocci- "Feel Free to Stop" (Ok, so I stole that...)
Phil Gomes- The cycling way of life/ living.

Are you happy now, Cam?

Ok... I think that fulfills my immediate obligations, but I'll be back with more stuff soon.

More Masi World Domination News and other announcements coming soon, I promise.

Tim