finbarrio

Word - everyone I've met on this forum has been awesome. Except Potter. He's a pompous arse.

Interesting topic. My wife and I have had the moving pangs before, and Cali was on the list. We ended up taking a somewhat systematic approach to the question of moving, and that helped. We listed all the things we wanted in a location, and prioritized what was most important. Then we looked at different places and ranked them - and soon realized that where we live now meets more of our priorities than we expected. So we decided that instead of moving to a community that was more in line with what we wanted, we would try to change our community. I think we're slowly getting there. If the climate is your top priority, then perhaps you would come to a different conclusion, as that's not something you can easily change .

You look great, like you're in awesome shape. Good stuff!

Have fun, good luck!

Nice try, but I'm pretty sure a live human won't get through the airport screening process. Unless it was at O'Hare at 1:30AM after a 12 hr delay (as on the way back from V.V. last year), in which case I could have brought Richard Reid on the plane and nobody would have cared.

What do you mean the commercial side? I work for a charity as well (well, a non-profit).

Welcome! Wow - another cyclist. Cool! Seems like there's getting to be a lot of us.

Cool video. I love watching trials. You guys are awesome. The guy's name is Gee - like Gee Atherton (DHer)? That's funny. Maybe it's a more common name than I thought.

My wife Kristy (yogitachiquita) got me good on Sunday. I was away Sat night and got home Sunday and was very hungry. She was at work, but I noticed a pizza box in the fridge. Inside was eggplant pizza - WITH CHEESE. I texted her at work asking her about it and she said she had a "moment of weakness", but to leave the pizza as she was craving it and wanted it when she got home. I was and and . I texted her back "WTF?" A few minutes later she let me off the hook - seems that after a long day of painting our office on saturday, she was beat. So she shredded up some Veganrella, took it to the local pizza joint, and asked them to make her a pizza, substituting their cheese with her "cheese." How cool is that? Anyway, I immediately tore up the divorce papers I was drafting and ate the rest of the pizza, which was delicious.

Doing what you know is right, even if it's against society's view, shows the ultimate strength of character and leadership (i.e. "man-liness" in the societal definition that I think you're reflecting). When someone asks me why I'm vegan, I tell them the truth (ethical and health reasons). If they want to know more, which is usually the case, I'm happy to explain it, ad nauseum if necessary. If they want to be close-minded and ignorant, or to project their own insecuritities by trying to put me down, then I ignore them, refuse to feed into their negativity.

Hah - see my reply to Kate's intro thread - I didn't see this until after. Guess I really am a Masshole (and proud of it).

Welcome Kate!!! Me and yogitachiquita (we're married) are MAssholes. We live on the Cape (Yarmouth Port). We'd love to get together some time.

X2. Thanks for sharing xveganjoshx. I had questions about sxe, but you pretty much answered them.

Yogita Chiquita and I will be in/around Sydney from June 13 - 20. Sydneyvegan - maybe we can meet up? Anyone else from there???

what do you do for work, sydneyvegan? btw, my wife (yogitachiquita) and I are coming to sydney in a couple weeks - we should meet up!

neither - bring our own canvas bags. if I had to choose, I'd choose plastic - then I re-use the bags when I'm walking my dogs and they poop on the neighbor's lawn.

Hey Bart! Welcome!!! Where you from?

I agree with the others in terms of eating more and continuing with what you're eating etc.. I would only add that you've only been vegan for 3 weeks - so your body is still going through some pretty serious adapting. I remember feeling "off" for about a month after going vegan. But then it got better. But, even now I still am constantly tweaking my diet to increase my energy and sustain an active lifestyle. I think I'll probably continue the tweaking forever. It's good that you're listening to your body - now try to figure out what it's telling you and adjust accordingly.

How about something like Nirvana Massage, or just Nirvana and with a tag line explaining that it's a relaxing, healing, reinvigorating massage studio. Kristy's (yogita chiquita) yoga school is called The Sanctuary - that's a pretty cool name for a massage place. Some other ideas: Fresh Start Massage Studio. Revive Massage. "Ohhh yeah, right there" Massage studio. Ultimate Massage. Mutant Alien Massage (ok, I ran out of ideas right before this one).

It depends on what kind of bike and what you'd need. I just turned my wife's old mt bike into a commuter bike and put some road-friendly mt bike tires on there - I think they were $15 a piece. They have a little tread (no knobs) in case it rains, and they have very low rolling resistance. They make a HUGE difference in how fast the bike rolls. We bought her a mt bike last year that she uses just for off-road. It was a used demo at our LBS (local bike shop) and cost about $200, fully tuned up.

You might consider getting a 2nd bike and using both. Keep the norco for trail riding, maybe put some good rolling XC tires on there (like Panaracer Fire XC or Maxxis high rollers). Then use the other bike for road riding - I bet you could pick up a decent used road/hybrid bike for your price range. You could put some slick (ish) road type tires on there, if it didn't have them already.

(in a high pitched voice) SWEEET! Made me want to stomp around eating cookies. You actually put a really cool groove on that.

Good tune! I like the idea - and the recording gets the point across surprisingly well given the low-tech production . And it's funny that you say the word "melancholy" because I was thinking that if I were to describe the song, I might say it's "jolly melancholy". I think there is a pretty strong emotional thread running through most of the song, especially in the chorus ("sick of writing sad songs..."). Your voice is really affective and at its best when you have that emotion in it. Towards the end of the verses you go into a higher range and you lose that emotional edge a bit. I like those high notes and the way the melody builds towards them, but if I could offer one piece of constructive criticism, I'd suggest that you just try to inject a bit more feeling into those high notes - maybe just by having a bit more breath in them or putting a little bluesy twang on them like you do with a couple of the notes near the end of the chorus and in the break ("make it through the day/pain...go away"). I really do like the song. Neat and soulful at the same time. Keep 'em coming!

Sorry, I just saw this thread. I assume you've entered by now. Which photo did you pick? You are gorgeous in all the photos, but I can see how it was difficult to pick a photo that wasn't too "posey", or toooo sexy. I would've picked # 2.

Bummer, JW. You and Kelsey are in my thoughts.