did a quick 150er saturday. river rd, senaca, 28, 85, 15, 77, 66, 40 back to 85 and home… didja get that? basically monkeying around in the hinterlands of maryland and had a great time. had the unreal experience of several drivers actually slowing and waving me by. that just doesn’t happen around here, and NEVER in maryland! maybe 8 million decibel racing pipes aren’t a bad thing?

POWERBALL INTER LOTTO. BV
POWERBALL LOTTO-WHEEL E-GAME 2005,

Date: 26 – 06 – 2005
Ref Nr: PBL/CN/6654/CP

Dear Consolation Prize Winner,

RE: CONSOLATION PRIZE WINNER NOTICE
————————————————————————-
The POWERBALL INTER LOTTO BV, Netherlands; international lotto e-games organizers and sponsors, officially notify you of the final draw result of the Powerball Lotto – Wheel E-game draw held on 25th MAY 2005. All draws where conducted at our international corporate office complex in The Netherlands.

We wish to congratulate you on the selection of your email coupon number which was selected among the 45 lucky consolation prize winners. Your email ID identified with Coupon No.PBL2348974321 and was selected by Electronic Random Selection System (ERSS) with entries from the 50,000 different email addresses enrolled for the Lotto-Wheel E-game. Your email ID included among the 50,000 different email addresses where submitted by our partner international email provider companies.

You have won a consolation cash prize of US $500,000.00 (Five Hundred Thousand US Dollars Only). The POWERBALL INTER LOTTO BV, have approved the payout of your consolation cash prize which will be remunerated directly to you by the official Payment Agency Board upon your preferred option.

Our DUE PROCESS UNIT (DPU) will render to you complete assistance and provide additional information and processes for the claims of your consultation prize. For more information on claim of your prize, lease contact the DPU Information Officer

NAME: Mr. Frank Dikkens
E-mail: Frankdikkens1@uk2.com
TEL: 0031-621-987-260
FAX: 0031-847-300-537

Congratulations once again from all our staffs on your consolation prize winning, we hope you will partake in our forth coming Powerball Lotto-Wheel Email-games.

Regards,

Mrs.Juliet Matthew,
(Lottery Coordinator)

less than a month to fatherhood. cooooool. folks getting laid off at work, definitely uncool.

last weekend was the US Open of Mountain Biking at Mountain Creek, NJ. Diablo Freeride park is probably the most fun you’ll have at a lift-park on the east coast. went up for 3 days of racing and riding, here’s the story:

woke up at 2:45am thursday night/friday morning. met up with the rest of the XXL crew at 3:30. on the road to diablo by 4. had a pretty horrible breakfast buffet at an Iron Skillet on the DE border. the waitress HATED me and we were pretty sure she spit in all of our food.

got to diablo around 9:30, suited up, registered and was on top of the mtn ASAP. the race course was, like all of the trails at diablo, friggin awesome! the top 2/3 was pretty much a solid rockgarden. very tech, pretty damn hard. the bottom third got fast with a few drops and a TON of really tight berms. after my first 3 runs, i was started to really get it. i took another run and wiped myself all over pretty much every rock garden with 3 crashes in the top part. once practice was over, we started running the rest of the trails. if you’ve never been to diablo, please get there NOW!! they are the best lift-assisted trails i’ve ever ridden on the east coast. lots and lots of jumps and berms, lots of rocks, everything in-between.

my last run down the mountain i was hurtin’ and exhausted and i couldn’t focus on the mountain. i really thought i was going to hurt myself. we called it a day, the skies opened up and we cruised out to set up a soggy campsite. no real shenanigans that night, most of us had been up for over 20 hours at that point and ridden ourselves into the ground.

okay, this is getting long, from here on out, i’m reverting to list mode:

Saturday:
- qualifiers
- competition was intense, only brian, me, dan and brett made the cut (first 100 AM riders only) i beat dan by 2/10 of a second and there were 4 places between us!
- lotsa blowing stuff up at the campsite. the campfire smelled like a toxic waste dump the next day.

sunday:
- race day
- slippery rocks in the morning, first practice run had me in a foul mood. dropped the chain 3 times on the jump line.
- e13 ROCKS!! i asked heikki if they could look at my SRS guide, he said “no problem, we’ll get you back up on the mountain before practice is over!” they disassemled, spaced, grinded and replaced a few parts and got me going in 20 minutes for no charge. excellent, excellent guys.
- diablo has THE most organized race support staff anywhere. norba should be begging them to run their races.
- i had a smoking run through the rocks up top, only to flat coming into the very first berm. rode all out anyway, did a 4 footer into rocks denting the hell outta my rim.
- ended up 4 seconds slower than my qualifiying run, placed 69th
- brian got 6th place with a SMOKING fast run, dan crashed and got somewhere in the 50s
- snapped another pivot bolt on the AC on upper dominion. i need to start whoring myself for an actual DH bike.